Syntactic Iconicity and Linguistic Freezes: The Human Dimension [9, 1 ed.] 9783110882926

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Syntactic Iconicity and Linguistic Freezes

W G DE

Studies in Anthropological Linguistics 9

Editors Florian Coulmas Jacob L. Mey

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Syntactic Iconicity and Linguistic Freezes The Human Dimension

edited by

Marge E. Landsberg

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

1995

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Syntactic iconicity and linguistic freezes : the human dimension / edited by Marge E. Landsberg. p. cm. - (Studies in anthropological linguistics ; 9) Includes papers presented at a symposium held within the 12th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, which was held July 14-31, 1988, Zagreb, Croatia. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-014227-9 (cloth) 1. Grammar, Comparative and general - Syntax - Congresses. 2. Generative grammar - Congresses. 3. Psycholinguistics - Congresses. I. Landsberg, Marge E., 1925II. International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (12th : 1988 : Zagreb, Croatia) III. Series. P291.S953 1995 415-dc20 95-4850 CIP

Deutsche Bibliothek - Cataloging-in-Publication

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Syntactic iconicity and linguistic freezes : the human dimension / ed. by Marge E. Landsberg. - Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1995 (Studies in anthropological linguistics ; 9) ISBN 3-11-014227-9 NE: Landsberg, Marge Ε. [Hrsg.]; G T

© Copyright 1995 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., 10785 Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Typesetting with T E X: Lewis + Leins G m b H , Berlin. - Printing: Gerike GmbH, Berlin. - Binding: Lüderitz + Bauer GmbH, Berlin. - Printed in Germany.

Acknowledgements

As organizer of the Symposium on Syntactic Iconicity and editor of this collection of papers my gratitude is due to the organizers of the Xllth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (July 24-31, 1988, Zagreb, Yugoslavia), at which ten of these papers were presented - the other fifteen having been invited - for their efficient organization and kind hospitality; to Pavao Rudan, President of the Scientific Committee for his exemplary handling of the administrative side; to my fellow Symposium participants, for having so generously contributed to the Symposium's success by their friendship and scholarly cooperation; to my other colleagues, for having so kindly contributed their best to make this tome what it is today; to Florian Coulmas for his unfailing patience and professional advice regarding this publication; and above all to my husband, Morris Landsberg, for his unflagging support, appreciated more than can be expressed in words. Marge E. Landsberg

Contents

Introduction

1

Part I Syntactic iconicity in language

11

Iconicity in the basic serialization rules of Modern German John O. Askedal

13

Iconicity, markedness, and processing constraints in frozen locutions David Birdsong

31

Nonarbitrariness and iconicity: Coding possibilities Franz Dotter

47

On language internal iconicity Joseph H. Greenberg

57

Semantic constraints on phonologically independent freezes Marge E. Landsberg

65

Categories of word order iconicity Willy van Langendonck

79

Homo loquens as "sender-receiver" (i.e., transceiver) and the raison d'etre of sememic, lexemic and morphemic prefabs in natural language structures and language use Adam Makkai 91 Deixis as an iconic element of syntax Leonard Rolfe

117

A binary approach to iconicity in word order Cornells H. van Schooneveld

131

viii

Contents

The iconicity of "dative shift" in English: Considerations from information flow in discourse Sandra A. Thompson

155

The iconicity of focus and existence in Modern Hebrew Yishai Tobin

177

Iconicity in the lexicon and its relevance for a theory of morphology Linda R. Waugh, Madeleine Newfield

189

Adjectives vs. verbs: The iconicity of part-of-speech membership Anna Wierzbicka

223

Part II Syntactic iconicity in literature

247

Triplicity and textual iconicity: Russian literature through a triangular prism Lee B. Croft

249

The iconicity of metaphor Marcel Danesi

265

Iconicity and expressive syntactic transformations Ivan Fonagy

285

Part III Syntactic iconicity in psychology

305

Motor theory of language in relation to syntax Robin Allott

307

The psychological basis of syntactic iconicity William E. Cooper, Gayle V. Klouda

331

Spatial structure as a syntactical or a cognitive operation: Evidence from signing and nonsigning children Filip Loncke, Sophie Quertinmont

343

Contents

ix

Relationships between language and motor action revisited David McNeill

351

Preservation of syntactic icons in Alzheimer's disease Jean Neils

365

Aphasia and syntactic iconicity Paul Schveiger

373

Part IV Syntactic iconicity in philosophy

391

Syntactic iconicity and connectionist models of language and cognition Paul Bouissac 393 Pragmatics and iconicity Asa Kasher

419

Index of subjects

433

Index of names

443

Introduction

To the best of our knowledge humans are the only animals with a nearly unquenchable thirst to understand themselves. A shortcut and easily available avenue towards getting to comprehend what is going on in their heads is to observe human language. We are at present in the process of beginning to understand how very compulsively humanity is in the grip of its tongue and vice versa. What w e will be investigating in the coming years is the extent of this compulsion and its implications for human behavior including language behavior. Humanity's fascination with the rules governing language is not a novel phenomenon. It is especially the realization that language is not as loosely and arbitrarily organized as was previously believed, but that there appears to exist a rigorously and irreversibly fixed or "frozen" word order, which is a challenge to researchers. Very early in the process of our growing self-awareness there were no doubt many serious efforts to look at language, know it, understand it, and categorize it. Though much has been lost forever, some work of value has survived, for us to marvel at today. Indeed, as Bloomfield (1935: 10) has pointed out, in far away India there had arisen a body of knowledge which was destined to revolutionize European ideas about language. The Brahmin religion guarded, as sacred texts, some very ancient collections of hymns; the oldest of these collections, the Rig-Veda, dates in part, at a conservative estimate, from about 1200 B.C. As the language of these texts grew antiquated, the proper way of pronouncing them, and their correct interpretation, became the task of a special class of learned men. The antiquarian interest in a language which arose in this way, was carried over into a more practical sphere. Among the Hindus, as among us, different classes of society differed in speech. Apparently there were forces at work which led upper-class speakers to adopt lower-class forms of speech. We find the Hindu grammarians extending their interest from the Scriptures to the upper-caste language, and making rules and lists of forms descriptive of the correct type of speech, which they called Sanskrit. In time they worked out a systematic arrangement of grammar and lexicon. Generations of such labor must have preceded the writing of the oldest treatise that has come down to us, the grammar of Pänini [1947], This grammar, which dates from somewhere around 350 to 250 B.C., is one of

2

Introduction

the greatest monuments of human intelligence. It describes, with the minutest detail, every inflection, derivation and composition, and every syntactic usage of its author's speech. No other language, to this day, has been so perfectly described. A m a z i n g l y , as w a s pointed out by C o o p e r and R o s s ( 1 9 7 5 : 80), after having s u m m e d up six phonological determinants of fixed word order, there exists a seventh phonological principle governing freezes of which we have no minimal pairs, but which appears to override most of the other phonological principles in strength. It is thus possible to observe the operation of this principle in a number of non-minimal pairs. The principle, P, was first developed by Pänini (circa 350 B.C. in the study of Dvandva compounds. The principle states that, other factors being nearly equal, place 1 elements contain fewer syllables than place 2 elements. The authors point out that "Pänini 's principle appears to be the most forceful o f our p h o n o l o g i c a l principles g o v e r n i n g freezes, . . . " (Cooper and R o s s 1975: 8 0 ) . During the entire twentieth century s o m e serious linguistic thought w a s d e v o t e d to this subject, and in addition to p h o n o l o g i c a l rules there emerged a grammar of semantic constraints on linear word order, w h i c h w a s found to function according to certain recurrent and predictable criteria. Thus, it w a s posited, for instance, that (a) animate precedes inanimate; (b) human precedes animate; (c) adult precedes adolescent; (d) m a l e precedes f e m a l e ; (e) positive precedes negative, etc. This was, o f course, but the tip of the iceberg, and n o w a d a y s infinitely more intricate work is being done. It is a perennial question in "how far the f o r m s implicit in the structure of language determine the thinking w h i c h takes place in the language" Hörmann 1971: 3 1 0 ) . A s Hörmann ( 1 9 7 1 : 3 1 0 ) s o j u d i c i o u s l y observes, If ... language determines how the members of the speech community view the world and think about it, the differences among various languages lead necessarily to the conclusion that members of different language communities see and think of the world in different ways or, in other words, that each language implies a particular world view. The foregoing sentence summarizes W h o r f ' s interpretation of the arguments of his "predecessors" (from Humboldt [1950] to Sapir). The first proposition contained in it ("Language determines thought") is frequently referred to as the principle of linguistic determinism, the second ("Every language embodies a definite world view") is known as the principle of linguistic relativity. The first is of primary importance because, if it is valid, the second is a necessary consequence.

Introduction

3

Hörmann (1971: 310) points out that In the last two decades, the Whorf hypothesis has been received by scholars with much interest and sympathy. What is its position within the whole field of psycholinguistics? The Whorf hypothesis is concerned with the relationship between linguistic data (e.g., the structural organization of word classes) on the one hand and non-linguistic data (e.g., processes of perception or thinking) on the other. But this relationship has been the major theme of psycholinguistics since its beginnings.

The five rules or generalizations presented above may - or may not - be universal. Some are probably both culture- and language-bound, such as, for instance, rule (d) which states that "male precedes female." This rule works well in a predominantly patriarchal society, where the position and role of the man is seen as more important than that of the woman (to the feminists' chagrin). In a predominantly matriarchal society, however, this rule would not work. It would probably be found to work in what Whorf called '"Standard Average European (SAE), interpreted by him as the undifferentiated communality of English, French, German, Italian and so on" (Hörmann, 1971: 311). However, as Hörmann (1971: 311) points out, for instance, "The structure of Indian languages is so radically different from SAE that culture-bound or language-bound differences between the corresponding speech communities can be particularly clearly and persuasively demonstrated." Such comparisons can be illustrated both by lexical examples and by grammatical items. The distinctions are mostly because of the fact that other speech communities, other cultures, may categorize on an entirely different level from our own. Hence, as Hörmann (1971: 311) observes, "... one cannot acquire the language of a community without at the same time adopting the perceptual distinctions which are normally - and perhaps inevitably - made in that society." The opposite is of course also true. Non-SAE speakers, who first of all may categorize on a different level, and hence, cognition following language, recognize differently, must acquaint themselves thoroughly with the perceptual distinctions made in S AE-societies in order to acquire the language of an SAE-community. It is therefore so particularly important to add the hencetofore missing chapter on "freezes" to English grammar books. Clearly it will add much overdue mutual understanding of different cultures, each with their own speech community and cognition matrix. Hörmann (1973: 313) cites as an apt, and by now well-known, example Whorf's (1956: 147) description of the Hopi [an Amerind tribe/language] microcosm, which " . . . seems to have analyzed reality largely in terms of events

4

Introduction

(or better 'eventing') . . . " Hörmann (1973: 313) continues "And since time for the Hopi is not a motion but a 'getting later' of all previous events, repetition is not wasted but accumulated. In contrast to this, SAE, corresponding to our quantified and spatial conception of time, expresses our interest in exact chronological localization, . . . " Indeed, this Standard Average European interest in and awareness of spatiotemporal phenomena finds its most salient expression in the various sorts of freezes I shall be discussing below. As we shall see, if possible even more than is the case with semantic phenomena, phonological phenomena occupy something of a place of honor in these researches, and we will therefore occasionally have to take leave of the narrow linguistic framework and look to psychology for comments and elucidations. As the papers brought together between these covers demonstrate, the claim of an "inner relationship" between the sign and the object signified has become infinitely more complex since Plato's [1973] Cratylus. Indeed, syntactic iconicity and linguistic freezes posit far more than the simple classic view that words are naturally (physei) related to things outside language, a view which implied (cf. Hörmann, 1971: 149) "a very simple structure of that relationship which can be called 'meaning': [where] linguistic and extralinguistic facts are naturally and necessarily linked without any intervening psychological mechanism." For, indeed, it is the claim of the principles underlying freezes that psychological mechanisms do intervene and that it is motivation which is their very essence. In Chapter 8 of Psycholinguistics Hörmann (1971: 214) asked: "What is the basis for claiming that language is actually the true expression of the world as it is?" (cf. Chapter 12). The author (1971: 214) observes: "The question is to what extent the meaning relationship between sign and object can contain an element of necessity or nonarbitrariness." Hörmann was referring here to the sounds of words, unaware of the fact that there existed another stream of thought and research, occupying itself with language as "the true expression of the world" on quite different levels (e.g., Abraham 1950; Behaghel 1909-1910, 1928, 1932; Cooper and Ross 1975; Haiman 1985: Huber 1974; Landsberg 1986: Makkai 1972; Malkiel 1959; Ross 1982). Still, it seems to me that both streams of thought and work can only benefit from pooling their insights, and achieving a better understanding of the relevance and importance of the one for the other. Yet, since the canonical principle is by now quite well known and understood (and hence semantic phenomena, such as constraints on linear word ordering), it seems the more urgent business to try to get to know and understand the other great constraining principle, the phonological one, better.

Introduction

5

It is interesting to reflect on the fact that we have detected, and do accept, such phonological rules or generalizations as, for instance: (a) high vowels precede low vowels; (b) short vowels precede long vowels; (c) front vowels precede back vowels; (d) spread vowels precede round vowels; (e) short monophthongs precede long vowels, (diphthongs, triphthongs, etc.), but have, so far, never asked (let alone answered) the question of why this should be so. Perhaps at least part of this mystery can be solved, for instance, say, in terms of "motivation," although that, too, is description rather than explanation. Linguistics would do well, therefore, to "look at this whole problem from a psychological point of view, and to attempt to analyze the very determinants themselves or even, perhaps more modestly, at least some contributing factors" (cf. Hörmann 1971: 217). Interestingly, Hörmann (1971: 218) notes that "In the Ewe language of Africa most words have a high-tone and a low-tone form; the former describes small things, and the latter large ones" (cf. Kainz 1943: 206). Is there a development from sound imitation to phonetic symbolism to phonological determinants? Could it be that our choice of real time succession (and hence linguistic linearity) depends not upon the "appearance" of the objects but the "perception" of the objects? The general tendency appears to be to proceed from the smaller to the larger object. In such a framework, even reduplication is seen "not only (to occur) to refer to repetitive noises, but to designate repetition in general" (Hörmann 1971: 218). Repetition in general may be conceived as "plurality in general" (Hörmann 1971: 219), and hence the "heavier" or "darker" tone of the second part of a reduplication. Hörmann (1971: 219) observes that there appears to be some "hard fact" evidence for the relation between word and thing, referring to certain "psychological experiments and theoretical approaches which are intended to explore how these less obvious determining factors operate." As observed by Hörmann (1971: 219-220), The most impressive of these experiments is one described by Köhler (e.g., 1947). Two nonsense line drawings as well as two nonsense words are presented to the subject who is asked to decide which word matches which drawing. Looked at purely rationally, it is completely immaterial whether "maluma" is used for the round or the angular figure. If the designation is arbitrary, one would expect a random distribution of matchings, and approximately 50 percent of the subjects should assign "maluma" to the rounded figure and 50 percent to the angular design. In fact the overwhelming majority of all subjects assign "maluma" to the round figure and "takete" to the angular one. This result has not only been found

6

Introduction

in Germany and [the] USA (Holland and Wertheimer 1964) but, for example, also in Tanganyika (Davis 1961). It is as if there was a strange parallel or similarity between the visual and auditory shapes. Werner [1932] calls such similarities, transcending different sense modalities, "physiognomic" reality; the theoretical conceptualization of this notion will be discussed in some detail below.

Figure 1. Maluma

and takete (from Köhler 1947: 225)

There follows, first, a discussion of literature dealing with the affinity between "small sounds" (e.g., /i/ and "small objects," and "large sounds" (e.g., /a/) and "large objects." Interestingly, this principle may be extended to canonical phenomena, both in space and time. Hörmann (1971: 220) comments: These arguments and investigations are all, implicitly or explicitly, based on the assumption that the causal relationship expressed by the term "sound symbolism" is naturally given. A general Gestalt principle of organization operates equally in things and in sounds, hence the "similarity" between thing and sound. The presence of such a Gestalt principle is a universal human characteristic and occurs in all humans alike. It is not the result of experience nor is it influenced to a varying degree by the acquisition of different languages. On the basis of this argument the psychologists who have studied phonetic symbolism have always attributed considerable importance to the proof of universality, i.e., the universal spread and applicability of sound symbolism, ... [and the wider one of symbol formation].

As was pointed out above, whole series of studies evolved, the general purpose of which was to provide tests and experiments generating successful results "with a certainty exceeding chance" (Hörmann 1971: 221). "What does that mean?" Hörmann (1971: 221) next inquired. "In Köhler's experiment the hitherto unknown nonsense words were matched with a non-

Introduction

7

sense drawing. It is argued that this was possible because of the isomorphism in auditory and visual organization." Unfortunately, sometimes the relevance and salience of earlier work is forgotten. I am referring here to Sapir (1929) as mentioned in Hörmann (1971: 222): It is known as a result of the experiments by Sapir and others that the vowels /o/ and /u/ appear physiognomically "bigger" than /i/ and /e/; the consonants Ibl and /d/ bigger than /p/ and /t/; polysyllabic groups appear bigger than monosyllabic ones. If it is assumed that experimental subjects possess this knowledge without obviously having consciously formulated it - the method of paired comparison between native and foreign language is the only one which enables the subjects to employ this "knowledge" for guessing the meaning of words in a foreign language. When the subject inspects the word pair in the mother tongue (e.g., "tall-short"), he knows that the lexical dimension is "size", and he can now make use of this knowledge according to which this dimension can be symbolized by vowel contrast or by the monosyllabic-polysyllabic contrast, and so forth.

The work done half a century ago, and since that time, has been repeated in many forms and ways, usually with similar results. In spite of so many serious efforts, as Hörmann (1971: 223) observes, "the question: 'What is phonetic symbolism and where does it come from?' is still open." To sum up in simple words: we know it is there, and we know roughly how it works, but we do not, as yet, know why. This is also the case for phonological constraints on constituent order in freezes. Hence the present work is a great challenge, to linguists and psychologists alike, and it can only be hoped that future generations of scholars will take it from here, and that it may be given us, in our time, to see at least a tip of the veil lifted.

References Abraham, R. D. 1950 Fixed order of coordinates. A study in lexicography. Modern Journal 34(4). 276-287.

Language

Behaghel, O. 1909-1910

Beziehungen zwischen Umfang und Reihenfolge von Satzgliedern. Indogermanische Forschungen 25. 110-142.

8

Introduction

1928 Deutsche Syntax. Eine geschichtliche Darstellung. Vol. 3. Heidelberg: Winter. 1932 Deutsche

Syntax. Vol. 4. Heidelberg: Winter.

Bloomfield, L. 1935 Language.

London: Unwin.

Cooper, W. E. and J. R. Ross 1975 World order. In R. E. Grossman, L. J. San and T. J. Vance (eds.), Papers from the parasession on functionalism in linguistics. 63-111. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Davis, R. 1961 The fitness of names to drawings. A cross cultural study in Tanganyika. The British Journal of Psychology 52(3). 259-268. Haiman, J. 1985 Natural Syntax: Iconicity Press.

in Language.

Cambridge: Cambridge University

Holland, Μ. K. and M. Wertheimer 1964 Some physiognomic aspects of naming, or, maluma and takete revisited. Perceptual and Motor Skills 19(1). 111-117. Hörmann, Η. 1971 Psycholinguistics.

An introduction

to research and theory. Berlin: Springer.

Huber, Τ. E. 1974 Law and order for binomials. Obun Ronsö. 61-74. Humboldt, W. von 1950 Uber das vergleichende Sprachstudium in Beziehung auf die verschiedenen Epochen der Sprachentwicklung. (Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 4) Berlin: Königlich-Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Kainz, F. 1943 Psychologie

der Sprache.

Vol. 2. Stuttgart: Enke.

Köhler, W. 1947 Gestalt psychology.

New York: Liveright.

Landsberg, Μ. E. 1986 Iconic aspects of language: The imitation of nonlinguistic reality. di Semantica 7(2). 321-331.

Quaderni

Makkai, A. 1972 Idiom structure

in English. The Hague: Mouton.

Malkiel, Y. 1959 Studies in irreversible binomials. Lingua 8. 113-160. Pänini, J. [1947] La Grammaire de Panini. Trad, du Sanskrit avec des Extraits des Commentaires Indigenes, par L. Renou. Paris: Klincksieck.

Introduction

9

Plato [1973] Cratylus. In E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (eds.), The Collected Dialogues of Plato. (Bollingen Series 71.) 421-474. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Ross, J. R. 1982 The sound of meaning. In The Linguistic Society of Korea (eds.), Linguistics in the morning calm. Selected papers from SICOL-1981. 275-290. Seoul, Korea: Hanshin. Sapir, E. 1929 A study in phonetic symbolism. Journal of Experimental Psychology 12(3). 225-239. Werner, H. 1932 Grundfragen der Sprachphysiognomik. Leipzig: Barth. Whorf, Β. L. 1956 Language, thought and reality. Edited by J. B. Carroll. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Further reading Campbell, M. A. and L. Anderson 1976 Hocus pocus nursery rhymes. In S. S. Mufwene, C. A. Walker and S. B. Steever (eds.), Papers from the Twelfth Regional Meeting Chicago Linguistic Society. 72-95. Chicago Linguistic Society. Fenk-Oczlon, G. 1989 Word frequency and word order in freezes. Linguistics 27. 517-556. Reinhart, Τ. 1984 Principles of gestalt perception in the temporal organization of narrative texts. Linguistics 22. 779-809.

Part I

Syntactic iconicity in language

Iconicity in the basic serialization rules of Modern German John O. Askedal

Abstract Within the general framework of a Saussurean bilaterality conception of language signs and the so-called "field analysis " of sentence topology, the present paper is concerned with iconic aspects of Modern Standard German word order at the clause level. The aim of the present paper is to investigate, in a preliminary fashion, to what extent certain Modern Standard German serialization rules, or rather the word order patterns they give rise to, are amenable to an interpretation as iconic language signs. For this purpose, the two key concepts of "language sign" and "iconicity" will first have to be defined (section 1). I shall then in broad outline sketch the so-called "field analysis" as an overall model for the description of German sentence topology, and from there proceed to explore iconic aspects of German word order within this framework (section 2). A brief summary concludes the exposition (section 3).

1. Language signs and iconicity With regard to language signs, we adopt as a suitable basis for a "form content" analysis (Kirsner 1985: 250) a Saussurean approach according to which a language sign is defined bilaterally as the combination of a content with its associated expression (in the terminology of Hjelmslev 1966: 45, et passim). Disregarding the difference between a unilateral and a bilateral definition of signs, this general approach may be mapped onto the terminology of Peirce (1960: 2.228 et passim) and Ogden and Richards (1972: 11) in the manner of Figure 1. Furthermore, I submit, in accordance with what is generally assumed in the esthetic sciences (cf. Morris 1939/40: 131), that language signs, or more precisely the expression side of language signs, are either simple or syntagmatically complex (cf. Eco 1977: 34 ff., et passim), linguistic examples being

14

John Ο. Askedal

language sign (Saussure)

l'image acoustique

concept

(Hjelmslev)

expression

content

(Peirce)

representamen

interpretant

object

(Ogden and

symbol

thought or reference

referent

la chose

Richards) Figure 1. Sign terminology

simple lexemes and morphemes on the one hand, and composite words, word forms and syntactic constructions on various levels, on the other hand. Within the basic trichotomization of signs into indices, icons, and symbols (Peirce 1960: 2.247-249), icons are further subdivided into "imagic" icons, which, according to Peirce (1960: 2.277), represent "simple qualities," and "diagrammatic" icons, which are said to represent "relations ... by analogous relations". On the basis of these originary definitions of Peirce's, we shall in what follows assume the distinction between imagic iconicity (I-iconicity) and diagrammatic iconicity (D-iconicity) to be in essence based upon an ontologically or at least perceptually important difference between material and relational resemblance; cf. in particular Bühler (1934: 189): "Die Sprache ... legt ihrer ganzen Struktur nach den Akzent auf eine bestimmte Art und Weise nicht der materialtreuen (oder: erscheinungstreuen), wohl aber ... der relationstreuen Wiedergabe." With reference to the bilaterality conception of language signs, one may consider those signs whose expression side is perceivable as an approximative reproduction of material properties of the "object" (Peirce) or "referent" (Ogden and Richards 1972) as I-icons of a linguistic nature. As is well known, the most readily accepted cases in point are onomatopoetic words as expressions of acoustic resemblance. Although they are more often than not subject to the phonotactic rules of the language in question, they are certainly less arbitrary (in the sense of de Saussure 1964: 100) than the rest of the vocabulary, which is, in this respect, in general straightforwardly symbolic (in the Peircean sense). In the perspective of the bilaterality conception of language signs, Diconicity in the linguistic domain arguably does not pertain directly to the nonlinguistic object (referent), but must rather be assumed to consist in some kind of more abstract relational correspondence between the expression side and the content side (possibly in some extended sense) of the language sign. This general viewpoint is given succinct expression in Haiman's (1985/?: 1)

Iconicity in the basic serialization rules of Modern German

15

programmatic statement that "linguistic forms are frequently the way they are because, like diagrams, they resemble the conceptual structures they are used to convey: ..." (cf. also Haiman 1985a: 3, 8, 9). Similar opinions are voiced by a number of other authors, including, for instance, Gamkrelidze (1974: 106) and Dotter (1987/1988: 58). Likewise, Kirsner (1985: 250) speaks of "the reflection in linguistic structure of some aspect of the content of the message" (Kirsner's emphasis). In other words, the content side of a simple or complex language sign is assumed to represent a structured conceptualization of reality (the object/referent), with which an expression side is associated. In linguistic terms, the question of D-iconicity is then primarily a question of structural resemblance (or "iso-/homomorphism"; cf. Dotter 1987/1988: 62;) Givon 1985: 188; Haiman 1980: 515;) between the expression side and the content side of the sign. This of course means that any D-iconicity between the expression side of the sign and the object/referent is a secondary, mediated one. A further important point about D-icons is their selective character; compare, e.g., Mayerthaler (1980: 20): " . . . es werden ja keineswegs alle, sondern nur spezifische Eigenschaften des Objekts bzw. der Objektklasse abgebildet." (Cf. also Eco 1972: 1; Haiman 1985a: 10-11: Morris 1939/1940: 136.) However, since "Arbitrariness creeps into languages as it does into diagrams in general" (Haiman 1985a: 8), it even follows that linguistic (D-)iconicity may be a gradual matter; i.e., the expression side of a sign may display both iconic and symbolic aspects in the Peircean sense (cf. Krampen, Espe and Schreiber 1980: 101; Zeman 1977: 38). As far as simple linguistic expressions (lexemes, morphemes) are concerned, these appear to be D-iconic in the sense of being associated with properties or clusters of properties that are conceptualized as in some way coherent or unitary phenomena (cf. Dotter 1987/1988: 56). 1 With syntagmatically complex sign expressions, the question of Diconicity evidently has to be studied on two different levels, i.e. with respect to what I propose to call the constellational and the configurational properties of the expression side in question. As an instance of nonlinear constellational D-iconicity on the word level, one may refer to Haiman's (1980: 528) observation that "increased morphological complexity is an icon of increased semantic complexity." Similarly, the syntactic clustering of adjective(s) and noun to produce a composite sign for, philosophically speaking, a substance and its attributes, is an example of nonlinear constellational D-iconicity on the syntactic phrase level. In like manner, Wittgenstein's so-called "picture theory" of propositions may, according to one plausible interpretation, be con-

16

John Ο. Askedal

sidered a statement of the same kind of iconicity on the sentence or clause level (cf. Eco 1977: 136-137). In this view, configurations are, on the other hand, linearly ordered constellations. Linearity manifests itself as temporal or spatial sequentiality, and it may be considered either from the perspective of linear proximity, or with a view to serialization in terms of so-called "left-towards-right" (or "righttowards-left") ordering. From a syntactic viewpoint, proximity is probably the more basic parameter, as it plays a fundamental role in a great many syntactic constructions, the serialization of whose constituents shows great interlingual variation (cf. Hawkins 1983). The proximity principle is aptly formulated thus by Givon (1985: 202): "The closer together two concepts are semantically or functionally, the more likely they are to be put adjacent to each other lexically, morpho-tactically or syntactically." Instances of its relevance are provided, e.g., by the studies of Bybee (1985) on the morphological constitution of word forms, and Posner (1980) on the order of attributive adjectival modifiers with respect to the head constituent of complex noun phrases in German. Traditional examples of the iconic character of left-towards-right serialization above the level of syntactic phrases in a narrow sense are the position of conditional protases, which usually precede the corresponding apodoses (Haiman 1985a), and the "isomorphism between the temporal order of events/experiences and the temporal order they assume in sentences and discourse" (Givon 1985: 211). In the remainder of this paper, I shall primarily be concerned with certain German serialization rules which have as their operational domain simple nonembedded or embedded clauses and the extent to which the linear configurations they give rise to are amenable to an interpretation as D-icons. Throughout the exposition it should be kept in mind that word order, being part of the grammar as an overall formal system of a partly arbitrary nature, in German, as in other languages, is likely to display predominantly symbolic traits as well.

2. Iconic features of German clause topology The following discussion of iconic features of German clause topology is to a large extent based on the conception of "topological fields" (German: "Stellungsfelder"), according to which there is a syntactically relevant level of "fields" between the lower level of sentence constituents and the higher level of the clause (cf. Askedal 1986a, b\ Reis 1980. 2 The overall field structure of German is shown in Figure 2: 3

Iconicity in the basic serialization rules of Modern German (1)

(2)

Initial field

First bracketing field

Middle field

17

Second bracketing (final verb) field

Extrapositional field

Diesmal hätte man ihm die Papiere ins Büro schicken können,

obwohl...

Figure 2. Topological fields

2.1. Field structure

and sentence

types

On the basis of the fields present in (1) in Figure 2, the field configurations in Figure 3 are definable as the "sentence types" of German. ST I

ST II ST III

Initial field

First bracketing field: finite verb

Middle field

(1

II

If

II

IT

II

II

. . . : subjunctional element

II

ST IV

Second bracketing (final verb) field

It

Extrapositional field

II

Figure 3. Field compositions of sentence types Compare the following examples: (3)

Sentence Type I: [Cf. also (2) in Figure 2.] a. Wem hätte man diesmal die Papiere ins Büro schicken können? b. (Es wurde behauptet,) man hätte ihm diesmal die Papiere ins Büro schicken können.

(4)

Sentence Type II: a. Hätte man ihm diesmal die Papiere ins Büro schicken können? b. Hätte man ihm diesmal die Papiere ins Büro schicken können, (dann ...).

(5)

Sentence Type III: a. (Man fragte,) wem man diesmal die Papiere ins Büro hätte schicken können. b. (die Papiere,) die man ihm diesmal ins Büro hätte schicken können.

18

John Ο. Askedal

c. Wenn man ihm diesmal die Papiere können, (dann ...). (6)

ins Büro hätte

schicken

Sentence Type IV: (Man meint,) ihm diesmal die Papiere ins Büro haben schicken zu können.

The primary distinction to be made is one between sentence types I and II on the one hand, and sentence types III and IV, on the other hand. In sentence types I and II, the finite verb in second or first position plays the role of a topological marker of syntactic main clause function and, concomitantly, independent illocutionary force. Position of the finite verb in the final verb field in sentence type III, and of the maximally governing infinite verb in the final verb field of sentence type IV, is on the other hand a marker of syntactically dependent, subordinate clause function and, correspondingly, lack of independent illocutionary force. 4 It should be noted that there is a kind of topological parallelism between sentence types I and III on the one hand, and sentence types II and IV on the other hand. In the domain of main clauses, sentence type II is, when compared with sentence type I, characterized by the lack of an initial field. There is also a clear semantico-pragmatic difference between sentence type I as the type of assertive or word question sentences, and sentence type II as the type of sentence questions whose predicational value is neither asserted nor presupposed. In this perspective, the relative topological "openness" of sentence type II may be considered as a D-icon of the sematic "openess" that manifests itself pragmatically as a request for a truth value (cf. also Wescott 1971: 42, and in particular Dotter 1984: 36). Similarly, sentence type IV, which comprises infinite clauses and constructions, is also topologically "open" in a way in which sentence type III with its first bracketing field is not. A description of the similarities and differences between the two frontally "closed" sentence types I and III requires a more detailed characterization of the initial field of sentence type I and the first bracketing field of sentence type III. I will now turn to this question.

Iconicity in the basic serialization rules of Modern German

2.2. The initial and first bracketing

19

fields

The initial field of main clauses and the first bracketing field of subordinate clauses have in common that they in general contain only one sentence element (syntactic phrase on some level). 5 In main clauses of sentence type I, the initial field serves two functions that at first glance may appear to be contradictory (cf. Dotter 1987/1988: 80, η. 33). First, one finds here sentence elements showing a high degree of thematicity, in particular elements having a discourse-connecting function (cf. Engel 1988: 340ff.; Hoberg 1981: 164ff.). Second, the initial field may also be occupied by rhematic elements (Hoberg 1981: 164ff.; Zemb 1984a: 17), which often have some contrastive or emphatic function. In addition, word questions also belong to sentence type I and have the question word in sentence initial position. In this case, the main semantic category of the element "in question" is known or presupposed (cf. wer, was, wo, wann, wie, ...). However, there is a lexical gap to be filled in. In the first of these cases, the thematic, discourse-connecting element in the initial field is part of the background information at a given stage of the discourse. In the second, rhematic case, the initial element is so to speak accorded informational primacy by positional fiat. And in the last, interrogative case, the question word, in addition to belonging to some known or presupposed semantic category, functions as a sentence initial indicator of interrogative sentence intention. In all these cases, the initial element in some way functions as an informational or pragmatic point of departure, and this communicative or psychological primacy is given D-iconic linguistic expression by means of linear precedence. Subordinate clauses of sentence type III are subdivided into two main groups according to whether the subjunctional element in the first bracketing field bears a grammatical relation to the predicate as a complement or adjunct or not. The subjunctional elements in relative clauses (5b) and embedded word questions (5a) bear a grammatical relation to the predicate. Relative clauses are naturally regarded as a grammaticalized species of the thematic, discourseconnecting function of the sentence initial position (cf. Schoenthal 1976: 115), as instantiated also in the initial field of sentence type I. 6 Hence, discourse-connecting elements in the initial field of sentence type I and relative pronouns in the first bracketing field of sentence type III display basically the same D-iconicity in the form of textual proximity (we disregard for the moment the possibility of extraposing relative clauses).

20

John Ο. Askedal

As far as embedded question clauses are concerned, the positional similarity between the introductory element of direct and indirect questions is evident and, correspondingly, there is also D-iconicity of basically the same kind here. In the second main group of subordinate clauses, the subjunctional element is a mere "subordinating conjunction" not relationally integrated in the propositional content of the clause (cf. [5c]), and it functions as a preposed semantically more general indicator of clause function or intention. Its position is on the syntactic level of subordinate clauses parallel to the linear order in the formulas adduced by philosophers like Searle (1970: 31) to illustrate the composite semantic nature of sentences. To the extent that the clause intention may be considered to possess pragmatic primacy over the lexical specification of propositional content, the preposing of the subordinating conjunctions in question may be deemed D-iconic.

2.3. The middle field In contradistinction to the initial and first bracketing fields, the middle field and the second bracketing field are not subject to narrow quantitative restrictions (cf. Askedal 1969«: 213ff.). Some main serialization rules pertaining to the middle field are summarized in the formula in (7): 7 (7)

a. Pronominal subjects and objects (n-a-d) b. adverbial adjuncts c. (definite) nonpronominal subjects and objects (N - A/D//D/A N///N - D - A/N - A - D) d. negation particle nicht e. adverbial complements/prepositional objects/predicatives/genitive objects.

It goes without saying that the scope of the present paper does not allow for a detailed exposition of the distribution of sentence elements in the middle field. In what follows, I shall concentrate on some main points. According to (7), adverbial adjuncts precede nonpronominal complements, as in (8): (8)

... obwohl vor vierzehn Tagen in Paris das Stück sehr vielen Zuschauern gut gefallen hatte.

Iconicity in the basic serialization rules of Modern German

21

When in German XV-order is taken to be systematically basic, the adjunctcomplement order in (8) is D-iconic in the sense that semantico-syntactical dependence on the main lexical verb is reflected by closer linear proximity (cf. Bierwisch 1966: 35-36). This rule must, however, be modified by another important rule that allows nonpronominal subjects to occupy the first position in the middle field independently of other distributional rules and tendencies, see examples (9) and (10). (9)

... obwohl das Stück vor vierzehn Tagen in Paris sehr vielen Zuschauern gut gefallen hatte.

(10)

a. ... als vor vierzehn Tagen der kleine Peter seiner Freundin den roten Ball geschenkt hatte. b. ... als der kleine Peter vor vierzehn Tagen seiner Freundin den roten Ball geschenkt hatte. c. ... als der kleine Peter ihn ihr vor vierzehn Tagen geschenkt hatte.

This special distributional property of syntactic subjects is evidently due to their being the prototypical syntactic product of the grammaticalization of thematic elements (cf. Li and Thompson 1976: 484; Sasse 1978: 240). Pronominal subjects and objects precede all other elements in the middle field, nonpronominal subjects being the only - optional - exception, compare (10c) and (11). (11)

... weil er ihn ihr vor vierzehn Tagen aus tiefer Zuneigung hatte.

geschenkt

In this connection, it should be noted that personal pronouns are prototypically thematic. Adverbial complements, so-called prepositional objects, predicatives, and genitive objects are usually placed at the end of the middle field, as in (12). (12)

a. ... weil die Sekretärin ihm erst nach vierzehn Tagen das Paket ins Hotel nachschickte. b. ... weil die Sekretärin die ganze Zeit den Chef an die vielen Sitzungen erinnern mußte. c. ... weil Peter zeit seines Lebens ein fleißiger Mensch geblieben ist.

22

John Ο. Askedal

d. ... weil ihn der Staatsanwalt erst nach langwierigen Gerichtsverhandlungen der Hinterziehung öffentlicher Mittel überführen konnte. The distribution of the elements in question is presumably an iconic reflex of the close semantico-syntactic relationship between them and the governing lexical verb (cf. Bierwisch 1966: 34ff.). However, it should be noted that the iconicity to be assumed here is language specific; cf. the contrast between the German cases in (13) and their English counterparts in (14): (13) (14)

a. b. a. b.

... weil er den Wagen in die Garage gefahren hatte. *... weil er in die Garage den Wagen gefahren hatte. ... because he had driven the car into the garage. *... because he had driven into the garage the car.

Whereas the English word order in this case may be explained with reference to a linguistic adjacency principle due to case assignment rules (cf. Chomsky 1981: 94-95), this evidently does not explain the German facts. It is, however, possible that the difference at hand is due to German being to a lesser extent than English a configurational language. The basic rules in the above examples are occasionally counteracted by other iconically motivated serialization rules. As in (10a) and (10b), indirect objects usually precede direct objects. This is in fact in conformity with a strong universal tendency (cf. Mallinson and Blake 1981: 16Iff.), and it is probably due to the high degree of empathy (Kuno 1976: 43Iff.) to be expected in connection with a category that predominantly denotes humans. However, a direct object may also precede an indirect object, when the latter is rhematic or higher on the scale of information value than the direct object, as in (15). (15)

... als der kleine Peter vor vierzehn Tagen den Ball seiner din/einer Freundin geschenkt hatte.

Freun-

As was stated in connection with (12), nominal complements usually precede adverbial complements. However, as has been pointed out in an interesting article by Lötscher (1981), adverbial complements that denote source (material) are regularly placed before nominal complements that designate result (product), as in (16) (from Lötscher 1981: 51):

Iconicity in the basic serialization rules of Modern German

(16)

23

a. Hans verdient sein Geld damit, daß er aus Plastik Wildlederschuhe herstellt. b. Gestern hörte ich von einem Hausierer eine unglaubliche Geschichte. c. Der Bettler bekam von einem Touristen einen 100-Mark-Schein. d. Gefährlich wäre es, von Politikern Uneigennützigkeit zu erwarten.

The normal order of nonpronominal subject or object and adverbial complement is inverted when the adverbial complement is thematic and the nominal subject or object is rhematic, as in (17) and (18). a. b. c. a. b. c.

... ... ... ... ... ...

weil weil weil weil weil weil

die Bücher nicht auf dem Tisch lagen. auf dem Tisch einige Bücher lagen. auf dem Tisch keine Bücher lagen. er das interessante Buch nicht im Regal fand. er im Regal ein interessantes Buch fand. er im Regal kein interessantes Buch fand.

These sentences provide particularly clear examples of how the serialization rules are sensitive to a D-iconic theme-rheme ordering where what is known (or presupposed) takes linear precedence over what is new (or not presupposed). Of particular interest is the position of the sentence negation nicht in German. As has been forcefully argued in several works by Zemb (e.g., Zemb 1972: 18ff., 1979, 1984b: 295-296), and also shown by Lindgren (1974: 126), nicht may in fact be considered to serve as a semantico-syntactic point of demarcation between the thematic and the rhematic part of German sentences as illustrated in, for instance, (17a, c) and (18a, c). Correspondingly, indefinite rhematic subjects and objects are in general placed behind the sentence negation nicht, thus yielding the typical incorporation products of negation and indefinite elements like kein in (17c) and (18c), or nichts, niemand, nie, etc. (cf. Bech 1955: 76ff.). This intermediate position of nicht, etc., is naturally conceived of as a D-icon of its functional role as a semantic mediator between the thematic part of the middle field on the one hand, and the rhematic parts of the middle field and the final verb field on the other.

24

John Ο. Askedal

2.4. The second bracketing (final verb) field The German verb complex in the second bracketing (final verb) field is basically a left-branching hierarchical operator-operand structure, as in (19): (19)

a. die Annahme, daß gewisse Stämme zu den Ingwäonen gezählt4 worden3 sein2 könnten b. ... daß der Mann sich sogar die höfliche Phrase einer Einladung ersparen* zu können3 geglaubt2 hatte1.

Here, the semantico-syntactic dependence is reflected by linear adjacency in approximately the same fashion as in (11). In certain constructions comprising three or more verb forms, however, a special right-branching subfield is activated at the forefront of the final verb field (cf. Bech 1955: 62ff.), as in (20): (20)

gewisse Verben, die früher regieren4 können3.

den reinen Infinitiv

würden1

haben2

This field internal preposing is in the standard language obligatory with haben in the perfect tense of modals with a so-called infinitive of substitution (21a) and werden with a dependent modal (21b), and it is common in constructions with two modals (21c): (21)

a. ... weil er nicht hat1 arbeiten3 wollen2/ *arbeiten3 wollen2 hat^. b. ... weil er nicht wird] arbeiten3 wollen2/^arbeiten3 wollen2 wirdK c. ... weil er diese Probleme soll1 unterscheiden3 können2/unterscheiden^ können2 soll].

Although clearly subject to specific quantitative and morphosyntactic constraints, the deviations from the basic left-branching construction in cases like (20) and (21) occur in connection with temporal and modal operands, where a syntactically dependent modal operator is in the scope of a superordinate temporal or modal operand. Insofar as left-towards-right ordering may be assumed to reflect such scope relations, the ordering in examples (20) and (21) is reminiscent of the standard notations for scope relations in current modal and temporal logic (cf., e.g., Allwood, Anderson and Dahl 1977: 108ff.), and hence they would appear to be D-iconic in a similar fashion. Even more interestingly, what from a syntactical viewpoint appears to

Iconicity in the basic serialization rules of Modern German

25

be an exception or even an aberration in German, does in fact in part correspond to Bickerton's (1975) general formula for the ordering of Creole verbal auxiliaries as shown in (22): (22)

(Perfect) (Modal) (Durative)

Verb

to which Givon (1985: 208) refers as a particularly clear instance of D-iconic serialization motivated by scope relations.

3. Summary The middle field and the second bracketing (final verb) field in Figures 2 and 3 together form an XV (or so-called "SOV") configuration in the sense of modern word order typology. 8 This is now generally assumed to be the basic word order of German in modern generative and/or transformational descriptions (cf., e.g., Bierwisch 1966: 34ff.; Lenerz 1984: 128), and it is also consonant with the fact that German is a morphematically case-marking language (cf. "Universal 41" of Greenberg 1966: 96). In this general perspective, the main characteristics of Modern Standard German word order may be summed up as follows: i There is a basic X n - Χ] V (Aux„ - A u x j ) order ii in which the ordering of complements and adjuncts to the verb (or, more generally, predicate) is sensitive to theme-rheme organization or similar semantic principles of conceptual or perceptual primacy, but iii on whose anterior domain is superimposed a secondary field formation as a means of marking clause or sentence intention (function), or illocutionary force. It is the main contention of the present paper that this overall patterning rather than being so many morphosyntactic whims - displays a considerable amount of diagrammatic iconicity in the sense that "linear" - temporal or, derivatively, spatial - ordering in complex linguistic signs on the clause level is to a certain recognizable extent analogous to or homomorphic with perceptual or even cognitive strategies of information processing and structuring. Furthermore, the facts presented in section 2 seem to support the general viewpoint that D-iconicity on this level is a multifarious matter, to which such - at least at first glace diverse - phenomena as discourse structuring, theme-rheme ordering, perceptual or ontological primacy, empathy, and semantico-syntactic linguistic adjacency requirements all have their specific

26

John Ο. Askedal

contributions to make. It is of course possible, and even likely, that there is some kind of unifying principle behind these different aspects or sources of D-iconicity. However, at present it seems doubtful whether the precise formulation of such a general unifying principle is a matter for linguistics only.

Notes 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

Cf. also Givon's (1985: 198) observation that the usual difference in phonological bulk between lexemes and pronouns is D-iconic of the corresponding difference with regard to semantic specification. From a theoretical viewpoint, this is in fact a debatable position; cf. the discussion between Zemb (1986) and Höhle (1986). In what follows, I shall primarily use the topological field framework as a means of expository convenience, but its conduciveness to semiological interpretation may be taken as at least a heuristic indication of theoretical respectability also. The extrapositional field in Figures 2 and 3 has in fact its own internal field structuring (cf. Askedal 1986a: 217). As it is not directly relevant to the issues raised in this article, it is omitted from the following discussion. There are a few exceptions to this general rule (compare examples [3b], [4b] and sentences like Daß du sofort weggehst!, or Ob er das Buch trotzdem geliehen hat?). However, these cases are clearly marked, and on the whole rather infrequent when compared with the usual state of affairs represented by (3a), (4a), etc. This is the canonical view as espoused by, e.g., Dal (1966: 172). Recently, certain modifications have been proposed; cf. van de Velde (1978) and Hoberg (1981: 155-156, 177ff.) for discussion. This supposition is substantiated by the diachronic fact that the relative pronouns of German predominantly originated with demonstrative pronouns (cf. Dal 1966: 182, 198ff.). The following exposition relies on the more detailed descriptions in Engel (1988: 320ff.), Hoberg (1981: 40ff.), J0rgensen (1964: 174ff.) and Zeman (1979: 59ff.). Abraham and Scherpenisse (1983), Hawkins (1983), Mallinson and Blake (1981: 121 ff.).

Iconicity in the basic serialization rules of Modern German

27

References Abraham, W. and W. Scherpenisse 1983 Zur Brauchbarkeit von Worstellungstypologien mit Universalanspruch. Sprachwissenschaft 8. 291-355. Allwood, J.,L. G. Andersson and Ö. Dahl 1977 Logic in linguistics. (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Askedal, J. O. 1986a Über 'Stellungsfelder' und 'Satztypen' im Deutschen. Deutsche Sprache 14. 193-223. 1986b Zur vergleichenden Stellungsfelderanalyse von Verbalsätzen und nichtverbalen Satzgliedern im Deutschen. (Parts 1 and 2.) Deutsch als Fremdsprache 23. 269-273, 342-348. Bech, G. 1955 Studien über das deutsche verbum infinitum. Vol. 1. (Det Konglige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser, 35, no. 2.) Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Bickerton, D. 1975 Creolization, linguistic universale, natural semantax and the brain. Manuscript. (University of Hawaii Working Papers in Linguistics.) Honolulu: University of Hawaii. Bierwisch, Μ. 1966 Grammatik des deutschen Verbs. (4th edition.) (Studia Grammatica, 4.) Berlin (DDR): Akademie Verlag. Bühler, K. 1934 Sprachtheorie. Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache. Jena: Fischer. Bybee, J. L. 1985 Diagrammatic iconicity in stem-inflection relations. In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity in syntax. 11—47. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Chomsky, Ν. A. 1981 Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Dal, I. 1966 Kurze deutsche Syntax auf historischer Grundlage. (3rd edition.) Tübingen: Niemeyer. Dotter, F. 1984 Ikonizität in der Syntax. Papiere zur Linguistik 31(2). 15-42. 1987/88 Kognition und nichtarbiträre syntaktische Kodierung. Klagenfurter Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 13/14. 55-82. Eco, M. 1972 Introduction to a semiotics of iconic signs. Versus 2(1). 1-15. 1977 Zeichen. Einführung in einen Begriff und seine Geschichte. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

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Engel, Ο. 1988 Deutsche

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Heidelberg: Groos.

Gamkrelidze, Τ. V. 1974 The problem of 'l'arbitraire du signe.' Language

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Givon, T. 1985 Iconicity, isomorphism and non-arbiträry coding in syntax. In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity in syntax. 187-219. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Greenberg, J. H. 1966 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In J. H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of language. 7 3 - 1 1 3 . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Haiman, J. 1980 The iconicity of grammar: Isomorphism and motivation. Language, 515-540.

56.

1985a Natural Syntax. Iconicity and erosion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985b Introduction. In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity Benjamins.

in syntax.

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Hawkins, J. A. 1983 Word order universals.

New York: Academic.

Hjelmslev, L. 1966 Omkring Sprogteoriens Grundlcegelse. (2nd edition) Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. (First edition 1943. Cf. English translation by F.J. Whitfield: Prolegomena to a theory of language. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1953.) Hoberg, U. 1981 Die Wortstellung in der geschriebenen Munich: Hueber.

deutschen

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Höhle, Τ. Ν. 1986 Der Begriff "Mittelfeld". Anmerkungen über die Theorie der topologischen Felder. In W. Weiss, Η. E. Wiegand and M. Reis (eds.), Kontroversen, alte und neue. Akten des VII. Internationalen GermanistenKongresses Göttingen 1985. Vol. 3. 329-340. Tübingen: Niemeyer. J0rgensen, P. 1964 Tysk Grammatik

[German grammar]. Vol 3. Copenhagen: Gad.

Kirsner, R. S. 1985 Iconicity and grammatical meaning. In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity in syntax. 249-270. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Krampen, Μ., Η. Espe and Κ. Schreiber 1980 Zur Mehrdimensionalität ikonischer Zeichen. Varianzanalytische suchungen. Zeitschrift für Semiotik 2. 95-103.

Unter-

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Kuno, S. 1978 Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy - A reexamination of relativization phenomena. In C. N. Li (ed.), Subject and topic. 417^-44. New York: Academic. Lenerz, J. 1984 Syntaktischer Wandel und Grammatiktheorie. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Li, C. N. and S. A. Thompson 1976 Subject and topic: A new typology of language. In C. N. Li (ed.), Subject and topic. 457^489. New York: Academic. Lindgren, Κ. B. 1974 Die deutsche Negation im Vergleich zur schwedischen und finnischen. In G. Mellbourn (ed.), Germanistische Streifzüge. Festschrift für Gustav Korien. 110-117. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell. Lötscher, A. 1981 Abfolgeregeln für Ergänzungen im Mittelfeld. Deutsche Sprache 9. 4 4 60. Mallinson, G. and B. J. Blake 1981 Language typology. Cross-linguistic studies in syntax. Amsterdam: North Holland. Mayerthaler, W. 1980 Ikonismus in der Morphologie. Zeitschrift für Semiotik. 2. 19-37. Morris, C.W. 1939/40, Esthetics and the theory of signs. The Journal of Unified Science 8. 131150. Ogden, C. K. and I. A. Richards 1972 The meaning of Meaning. (10th edition.) London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Peirce, C. S. 1960 Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vols. 1-2. Edited by C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press. Posner, R. 1980 Ikonismus in der Syntax. Zur natürlichen Stellung der Attribute. Zeitschrift für Semiotik 2. 57-82. Reis, M. 1980 On justifying topological frames: "Positional field" and the order of nonverbal constituents in German. DRLAV Revue de Linguistique 22/23. 5 9 85. Sasse, Η.-J. 1978 Subjekt und Ergativ: Zur pragmatischen Grundlage primärer syntaktischer Relationen. Folia Lingusitica 12. 219-252. Saussure, F. de 1964 Cours de linguistique generale. Paris: Payot.

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Schoenthal, G. 1976 Das Passiv in der deutschen Standardsprache. Munich: Hueber. Searle, J. R. 1970 Speech acts. An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Velde, Μ. van de 1978 Zur mehrfachen Vorfeldbesetzung im Deutschen. In Μ. E. Conte, A . G . Ramat and P. Ramat (eds.), Wortstellung und Bedeutung. Akten des 12. Linguistischen Kolloquiums Pavia 1977. Vol. 1 (Linguistische Arbeiten, 61.) 131-141. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Wescott, R. W. 1971 Linguistic iconism. Language 47. 416-^-28. Wittgenstein, L. 1961 Tractatus logico-philosophicus. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Zeman, J. 1979 Untersuchungen zur Satzgliedstellung im Nebensatz der deutschen Sprache der Gegenwart. (Opera Universitatis Purkynianae Brunensis Fakultas Philosophica, 222.) Brno: Univerzita J. E. Purkyfie ν Brne. Zeman, J. J. 1977 Peirce's theory of signs. In Τ. A. Sebeok (ed.), A perfusion of signs. 22-39. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Zemb, J. M. 1972 Satz - Wort - Rede. Semantische Strukturen des deutschen Satzes. Freiburg i. Br.: Herder. 1979 Zur Negation. Sprachwissenschaft 4. 159-189. 1984a Titres et travaux de Jean Marie Zemb 1984. Paris and Mannheim. 1984b Kasus und Status. Sprachwissenschaft 9. 271-313. 1986 Beschreibung und Erklärung: Oder - oder oder Oder und? Kontroverses zu Feldermodellen in deutschen Satzlehren. In W. Weiss, Η. E. Wiegand and M. Reis (eds.), Kontroversen, alte und neue. Akten des VII. Internationalen Germanisten-Kongresses Göttingen 1985. Vol. 3. 320-328. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Iconicity, markedness, and processing constraints in frozen locutions David Birdsong

Abstract The present paper suggests an interactive view of three determinants of linear order (processing constraints, iconicity, and markedness) in the linguistic domain of frozen locutions. On the basis of experimental secondlanguage learner data, naturalistic first-language learner data, and independent psycholinguistic evidence, it is argued that transient informationprocessing demands are ideally served by iconic representations of hierarchical relationships which, at the same time, instantiate semantically- and (morpho)phonologically-unmarked word order.

Linear form in natural languages is often attributed to three categories of determinants: markedness considerations, information-processing constraints, and iconic mechanisms. A simplistic example of the motivating roles of each is canonical word order. Rarely do languages exhibit ordering of major functional elements which places objects before subjects; statistically speaking, such an order is marked. Further, it has been argued that any such marked ordering entails processing demands on speakers and hearers that exceed those for subject-before-object orderings. Finally, the placement of agent (usually the grammatical subject) before patient (usually the grammatical object) mirrors the nature of action in the physical world, and thus fulfills iconic functions. 1 It is frequently the case that the respective roles of markedness, cognitive constraints, and iconicity are considered as independent or exclusive one of the other. Indeed, researchers' treatment of linguistic problems within one of the three domains typically betrays a certain disdain for the other two. In the present paper, it will be argued that the presumption of exclusivity is misguided and misleading. Instead, I will adduce various types of evidence which converge on the conclusion that the factors of iconicity, markedness, and processing constraints conspire to determine aspects of linear order in certain linguistic subsystems.

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The linguistic focus of this paper is deliberately narrow: phrasal conjuncts, such as up and down, kit and caboodle, and helter-skelter, whose constituents are frozen in a nonarbitrary order. These locutions have been referred to by a variety of names in the literature; here they will be called "freezes." By restricting the inquiry to a simple productive linguistic paradigm such as freezes, many confounding factors such as stylistics and linguistic variation can be eliminated. Naturally, this restriction reduces concomitantly the generalizability of the claims of this paper. The evidence to be examined includes naturalistic data from children's native language (LI) acquisition of freezes as well as second-language (L2) learners' intuitions for the linear well-formedness of nonsense expressions constructed according to putative universal and language-specific constraints which govern the order of constituents in freezes. These data, along with independent evidence from a variety of psycholinguistic sources, support the conspiracy claim alluded to above. The paper will proceed as follows. First, the L2 data will be examined and interpreted from the perspective of information processing. Next, the LI data will be presented and discussed as suggestive of iconic motivations in word ordering. Finally, each of the two sets of data will be shown to lend itself to other interpretations: the L2 data in terms of markedness and iconicity, and the LI data in terms of markedness and information processing. These various arguments sum to a tentative conclusion that transient informationprocessing demands are felicitously accommodated by iconic representations of hierarchical relationships between constituents of frozen locutions; at the same time, these representations are instantiations of semantically- and (morpho)phonologically-unmarked word order.

Second language learner (L2) experimental data: A processing interpretation Birdsong (1979) and Pinker and Birdsong (1979) investigated the possibility that learners of a second language are sensitive to phonologically-based constraints on the order of elements in freezes. While it is acknowledged that semantic factors are at play in constituent ordering for the majority of freezes (e.g., person, place, or thing; life or death; for further discussion, see below), some freezes are composed of elements that are either roughly equivalent sematically when disjoint (e.g., stuff and nonsense), or that make no sense separately (e.g., mumbo-jumbo), thus leading one to posit a role of phonological determinants in ordering the components of freezes.

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The study isolated five constraints on constituent order in freezes that had been posited by Cooper and Ross (1975). 1 Syllable number: First elements will have fewer syllables, relative to second elements (e.g., kit and caboodle)·, 2 Vowel quality: First conjuncts will contain shorter vowels, relative to those in second conjuncts (e.g., stress and strain)·, 3 Vowel length: First-ordered constituents will have more closed or more front vowels, while second constituents will have more open or more back vowels (e.g., flip-flop)·, 4 Initial consonant obstruency: First elements are characterized by less obstruent initial consonants, second elements by more obstruent ones (e.g., huff and puff)\ 5 Final consonant number: First terms will have more final consonants than second terms (e.g., betwixt and between). Cooper and Ross (1975) had argued that at least the first two of these constraints are universal or near-universal, while the last three are Englishspecific. In order to test speakers' sensitivity to these constraints (i.e., their psychological reality), nonsense exemplars constructed in conformity with the principles were judged for acceptability. Examples by principle included: Syllable number Vowel quality Vowel length Initial consonant obstruency Final consonant number

dack and badack flm-fum brets or braits haipo and daipo flard and flar

The subjects chosen for this study were sixteen native speakers of English, and sixteen each of intermediate and beginning students of English from varied native language backgrounds. Subjects were asked to indicate their preference for orderings consonant with or opposite those dictated by the constraints. A sample item follows: glagy and gligy. (A) The wet cereal was all gligy and glagy. (B) The answer which conforms to the putative constraints on vowel quality is (B). Naturally, appropriate counterbalancing and randomization measures were taken in the distribution of stimuli. Subjects listened to a recorded

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reading of test items (both (A) and (B) versions), while reading them silently and subvocalizing. Half of the items were given in isolation, half at the ends of plausible sentences such as the one above. For each item, subjects recorded their preferences on a scale like the one below, which allows for indications of strong preferences for (A) or (B) (capital letters), weak preferences (lower case letters), or indifference (?). (A) GLAGY and GLIGY [-] [-] [-] [-] [-] GLIGY and GLAGY (B) A a ? b Β The results of the experiment may be summarized as follows. Judgments for all groups of subjects were consistent with the predictions of the syllable number and vowel quality constraints. Non-natives and natives diverged on the vowel length and initial consonant quality items; natives rated in accordance with the rules, while non-natives' ratings were at the level of neutrality. For the remaining principle, number of final consonants, all groups of subjects preferred exemplars which were ordered contrary to the rule which places words with more final consonants in the first position. A similar experiment was performed with fourteen native speakers of French, and fourteen each of beginning and intermediate students of French. Test items included the following: Syllable number Vowel quality Vowel length Initial consonant obstruency Number of final consonants

en gissant et en egissant a bon peque, bon poque la lettre et la lete lurible et purible les stermes et les sterds

The main findings of Experiment One also obtained in Experiment Two. Once again, respondents favored orderings dictated by the syllable number and vowel quality constraints. Thus the results of the two experiments favor Cooper and Ross's (1975) proposal that these two rules may be universal. For putatively English-specific rules, namely vowel length and initial consonant obstruency, beginners and intermediates tended toward acceptance of exemplars, while French natives were indifferent. These results, like those in Experiment One, support the language-specificity arguments for these rules advanced by Cooper and Ross. Finally, as in Experiment One, all groups tended to reject exemplars of the number of final consonants constraint. Interestingly, a number of freezes from various languages stand as counterexemplars to this constraint. Moreover, the

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near-minimal pairing that had motivated the rule betwixt and between, also reflects the vowel length constraint. Based on the L2 data, this constraint is 'stronger' than those involving consonants, and may thus override them. Cooper and Ross (personal communication, 1979) have since reformulated the number of final consonants constraint, suggesting that it should be reversed. That is, words with more final consonants should occupy place two in freezes. The L2 data from both experiments would therefore conform to the reformulated constraint. In Birdsong (1979) the constraints from the perspective of phonetic content are reassessed. Regarding the vowel quality principle, it is suggested here that, since lower, backer vowels are phonetically (acoustically) longer, this constraint and the vowel length constraint could be collapsed. The principle would state that elements with acoustically shorter vocalic nuclei should occur first in freezes, while those that are longer should be ordered second. If such a principle is indeed valid, all constraints on English freezes could be subsumed under a single generalization, namely that phonetically shorter elements occur first in freezes. (To be able to subsume the initial consonant obstruency rule under this umbrella, the generalization would have to be stated somewhat metaphorically in terms of phonological "weight," such that longer or phonetically 'heavier' items occur in final position in freezes. For a discussion of durational data relative to consonantal segments, see Birdsong (1979)). An explanation in terms of language processing may be advanced to account for word order in frozen expressions. Cooper and Ross (1975) and Cutler and Cooper (1978) suggest that phonological constraints on freezes aid in speech perception. It may be argued that encoding and decoding items at the beginning of a phrase - at a point of confluence of new linguistic material - is more difficult than at the end of a phrase, which is typically followed by a pause (cf. Bever 1970; Cooper and Paccia-Cooper 1980). Cutler and Cooper have shown that reaction times to target phenomes are faster when the linguistic context is words presented in conformity with the syllable number constraint than when the context is the same words in the opposite order. As was argued above, the constraints studied all conform to a general principle which places linguistically "lighter" elements before "heavier" ones. Given a general principle whereby information processing is optimized when more complex material is placed phrase-finally and more simple material phrase-initially, these phonetic patternings would facilitate the production and reception of speech in real time. Words ordered in conformity to the constraints would thus be easier to process than reverse-ordered constituents.

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Children's native language (LI) acquisition data: An iconicity interpretation A study by Birdsong (1982) exmined children's acquisition of semantically determined words in freezes. The general ordering principle cited by Cooper and Ross (1975) is "Me First." That is, first members of conjoined expressions refer to those features which describe or pertain to the prototypical speaker. Lexical evidence for this ordering constraint includes the following freezes, whose first constituents are characterized by the underlined features of "Me":

Alive: life or death Adult: men, women, and children Male: brother and sister Animate: person, place or thing Spatially proximal: here and there Temporally proximal: now and then Agentive: cat and mouse Patriotic: Cowboys and Indians

It is argued that natural languages conventionalize and lexicalize such coordinate sequences for semantic effect. That is, the first elements of freezes iconically represent proximity to or identity with the speaker. Birdsong's (1982) study found considerable evidence for early acquisition of such ordering principles by Eve, one of Roger Brown's (1973) celebrated child subjects. Brown's colleagues, Colin Fraser and Richard Cromer, recorded a total of 187 coordinations in Eve's spontaneous speech, while the child was between the ages of eighteen and twenty-seven months (mean length of utterance = 1.39 to 4.22). Of these coordinations, 116 are of interest. 2 The relevant forms are displayed in Table 1. In the rightmost columns of Table 1, the numbers to the left of the slashes indicate the frequency of occurrence of the sequence in the order given in the column labeled "Token"; numbers to the right of the slashes are reversed order frequencies. A hyphen between constituents means that at least one occurrence of that coordination was not of the simple form X and Y (e.g., Fraser and Cromer), but rather occurred in a complex sequence of such as "Fraser come and Cromer come," where the constituents in question (Fraser and Cromer) are ordered within parallel NP-VP sequences.

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Table 1. Relevant coordinations in the Eve corpus. Coordination type

Token in corpus

(A) Lexical Forms

up and down bread and butter A and Ρ (store) shoes and socks black and blue round and around nice and quiet big - little this - that on - off better - not better

7/0 4/0 3/0 1/0 1/0 1/0 1/0 1/0 1/0 1/0 1/0

(B) Person Deixis

you [mother] and 3rd persons [proper names or common nouns] you - 1st person 1st person - 3rd person 3rd person proper and 3rd person common

9/0 3/3 5/4

(C) Parents

(D) Fraser

parent name - other name [always "Fraser"] parent - 1st person [name or pronoun] Fraser - 3rd person Fraser - 1 st person name Fraser and you

Attested Frequency

2/0 12/4 3/2 29/10 2/0 0/3

Note: Figures set to the left of the slash indicate the frequency of occurrences that follow the sequence shown in the center column; figures to the right indicate the frequency of reverse order occurrences. A cursory glance at the examples listed in cateogry A for Eve reveals no deviation from lexicalized sequences. While the straightforward explanation of this would be imitation of parental models, it is worthwhile to note the stability of the forms even in the absence of modeling. From the available contextual data, it appears that only four of Eve's coordinations in this cateogry (up and down [twice], nice and quiet, round and around) were immediate imitations of her mother's speech. The production data given under cateogry Β suggest invariance with respect to "second person - third person" sequences. Such a pattern is not

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observed in adult speech, where pragmatic considerations such as topic/focus motivate orders which may vary from speech situation to speech situation. The items in category C suggest a strong tendency to place the parent's name first. This pattern is broken only when the other term is first person or Fraser, Another striking pattern is observed in category D, where in most cases Fraser precedes other proper names. Thus several types of consistency emerge from the Eve data. First, in most cases Eve's production of coordinations is internally consistent or frozen. This uniformity is best seen in categories A and D and in the subcategories "you and third person" and "parent's name-other name." Secondly, with reference to category A, Eve's output coincides fairly strongly with adult models. Note that not all the Eve data lend themselves to an interpretation along the lines of iconicity. The data in category A are merely forms that have been lexicalized in a certain order. In producing them in conformity with the adult model, the child may have considered them as unanalyzed sequences, not representative of a hierarchical relationship between the first and second elements. 3 Of more interest are the data in other categories. Before arguing that they suggest operation of semantic ordering constraints, however, it is necessary to show that children are sensitive to the representational or expressive aspects of constituent order. McNeill (1979) suggests that ideas from the sensorimotor domain are given form and take on iconic or symbolic meanings through linguistic signs. He argues that English-speaking children's preferences for such word order sequences as verb-before-object (i.e., action-patient), possessor-before-possessed, and entity-before-location (roughly, figure-before-field) are productive iconic mappings of conceptual relations. More pertinently, MacWhinney (1977, 1982) notes an ordering predisposition among children, whereby they initialize elements with which they most closely identify. These elements, called "perspectives" by MacWhinney, are examined at the sentence level and are often agents in active voice construction. Finally, at the level of phrasal coordinations, Conley and Cooper (1981) find that color terms are ordered by children in preferred sequences. In this study, subjects aged six years and nine months to seven years and six months were asked to name the colors of pairs of intertwined shoelaces. The subjects tended to fix in immutable order just those pairs of colors which were highly contrastive in terms of brightness, whereas color pairs that were similar in shading were more flexibly ordered. Conley and Cooper also documented another pattern, whereby children placed the darker color before the lighter one in conjoined pairs. The strongest orderings that emerged were brown and white, brown and pink, yellow and white, and black and white.

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The experimenters speculate that these orderings may be explained in terms of natural salience: the darker, more salient colors take precedence over the lighter, less salient ones. From evidence available in the Brown data, word order in coordinations lends itself to iconization of several types of semantic distinctions. For example, Eve (as well as Adam, another Brown subject: three years to three years and seven months old, mean length of utterance = 3.32 to 4.49) invariably captured temporal and causal distinctions in coordinate structures such as We all go(ed) to the beach and saw, Jump and down, etc., where initial elements in coordinations occurred first in real time. Another example from Adam's sample encodes the notion of causality and temporality: I drink and I cough and cough and cough. The Eve data in categories B, C, and D suggest, along the lines of MacWhinney ( 1 9 7 7 , 1 9 8 2 ) , that coordinations can be used to signal more favored or more proximate referents. According to Brown (personal communication, 1 9 7 9 ) , the experimenter referred to as Fraser was much closer to all members of Eve's family than Cromer was. Fraser was the first experimenter to make Eve's acquaintance. He was always present at the taping sessions. Such was the attachment that Fraser's departure at the end of the taping sessions was as emotional as if a true family member had left. These facts lead one to hypothesize that Eve's language might somehow reflect her attachment to Fraser and his favored status vis a vis other acquaintances. Could it be, then, that such a hierarchical relation finds expression in the preponderance of coordinations with Fraser as first element (category D)? Favored referents seem also to hold first position in category C, where the "parent-before-other" pattern prevails. The same might be said of category B, where you refers to the mother, who was present during the taping. In this regard, note that the you in Fraser and you (category D) takes precedence over Fraser. The generalization that seems to account for such linguistic behavior is that the preferred or proximal human referent is mentioned first in coordination. From these types of evidence (meager though they may be) one is led to postulate that, at some early stage in linguistic development, children acquire a principle which states that for semantically-distinct constituents of phrasal coordinations, a preferred ordering obtains. It further appears that this ordering iconically encodes what may loosely be called the subjective primacy of one referent by placing it first in the coordination. This hypothesis is supported by independent evidence from Conley and Cooper ( 1 9 8 1 ) and MacWhinney ( 1 9 7 7 , 1 9 8 0 ) . The hypothesis is consonant with the spirit of

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Cooper and Ross's (1975) "Me First" principle, which dictates that semantically proximal constituents are ordered first in freezes. As the child grows older, of course, this powerful ordering principle may be subject to certain constraints. Politeness conventions, for example, dictate that 'you' precede Ί ' in coordinations. This constraint is typical of adult speech, but does not seem to apply yet in the Eve data. Moreover, there are discourse constraints on word order in coordination, whereby the pragmatics (emphasis, topic/focus, etc.) of a given communicative situation may override other possible determinants. 4

The conspiracy interpretation Both the naturalistic and LI data and the experimental L2 data cited above indicated that speakers are sensitive to proposed constraints on word order in conjoined expressions. Second language learners have an intuitive preference for nonsense words ordered according to phonological principles, and children learning their first language appear to create coordinate pairings which reflect semantic ordering principles. It is important to note that such behavior cannot be accounted for in traditional linguistic analyses, where it is taken for granted that word order of coordinated elements is arbitrary and nonhierarchical. Gray's (1977) example of the indifferent sequencing of Kangaroos and wallabies are bipeds, Wallabies and kangaroos are bipeds reflects the nature of coordination: elements are merely conjoined, "co"-ordered. In the context of freezes, however, word order appears not to be unmotivated. Moreover, speakers seem to have a sense of this motivation. The working assumption is that there is an asymmetry that obtains between first and second elements, and that something (or things) about that asymmetry is at the root of the ordering of one element before the other. Ross (1976a) proposes that the guiding principle overarching both semantically- and phonologically-constrained word order in freezes is "Myopia." The ego, ("Me") is at the center of the speaker's conceptual space. It is focused inward, it is shortsighted; thus, to the extent that elements represent proximity to "Me," they are likely to be ordered first in freezes. "Me" is unitary, giving singular and plural. "Me" is also basic, while "non-Me" is derived. In terms of morphology, then, first elements are likely to be base forms, while second elements will be affixed forms; thus, for example, person or persons unknown. In these ways, then, second elements are marked, inasmuch as they are characterized by the presence of more semantic distinctions

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(plurality implies both the nominal referent - which is assumed to be singular - and the notion of plurality) and morphological material (derivational or inflectional markers). Ross (1976a) goes on to claim that these and other contrasts between constituents in freezes are "sounded" phonologically. Derivativeness and distance from "Me" are signalled by extra phonetic material in place two terms, relative to that in place one terms. As we have seen, the phonological rules tested in Birdsong (1979) and Pinker and Birdsong (1979) effectively do just that. The semantics and phonetics of "Me" may be suggested in the diagram shown as Table 2. Table 2. The semantics and phonetics of "Me" Semantics Phonetics

Me

Not-Me

unmarked less sound

marked more sound

Ross (1976a: 3) asserts that, "for certain basic semantic oppositions the diagram ... illustrates a pattern of phonetic symbolism that was proposed by Jakobson (1971): the more semantic marking, the more phonetic material." Moreover, according to Ross (1976/?), the more central the semantic contrast is, the more clearly it will be "sounded," i.e., the better it will conform to phonological constraints. A salient example is the freeze here and there. It has been shown that the words for "here" and "there" in various languages across the world are three times more likely to conform to phonological constraints than to disobey them (see Tanz 1971). In English, of course, the proximal deictic begins with a less obstruent consonant than the distal deitic; the frozen expression here and there conforms to the initial consonant obstruency constraint. In principle, then, the phonological and semantic rules governing word order in freezes can be explained in terms of iconicity and markedness. What of processing constraints? In the discussion of the L2 data above, I proposed a possible motivation for phonetically lighter-before-heavier ordering in terms of ease of processing. Similar reasoning can be extended to semantic constraints on word ordering, as in freezes consistent with "Me First" and Eve's coordinations in categories B, C, and D. Unmarked, basic (not derivative), and proximal terms - relative to marked, derived, or distal terms - have fewer semantic features. For example, in pairs of adjectives with opposite m e a n i n g (e.g. high and low; rich and poor;

good and had), the second term

has been shown (Clark 1969, inter alia) to be marked both linguistically and psycholinguistically. The nature of linguistic markedness is suggested by the

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fact that only unmarked terms can be used in neutral questions such as "How X is Y?" One asks about the height of a building by saying "How high is that building?" This question refers to the scale of height, and to any point on the scale. However, "How low is that building?" not only refers to the vertical scale, but also presupposes that the answer will refer to some point below the midpoint of the scale. In information-processing terms, the latter is more difficult (or psychologically marked) because it entails an extra bit of information: not just the scale, but also points in the lower half of the scale. Further, it has been shown that transitive inference problems such as "If Fred is taller than Bob, and Bob is taller than Paul, who is the tallest?" are more difficult to solve when framed with marked adjectives ("If Fred is shorter than Bob, and Bob is shorter than Paul, who is the shortest?") than when framed with unmarked terms. In the case of freezes, an ordering which places psychologically unmarked (less semantically complex) terms before marked ones favors ease of processing, in the same sense that it is optimal to place phonetically less complex material phrase-initially. There appear to be other ways that information processing concerns might be implicated in frozen word order. According to Bock (1982: 39), the "freezing" or routinization of word order fulfills a facilitative function in language processing: "automatic deployment of a certain alternative from among a set of syntactic options may be used as a means of accommodating transient processing demands while simultaneously keeping the syntactic processing burden of working memory to a minimum." This observation holds, clearly, whether one is considering phonologically-determined or semantically-determined freezes. An aside is warranted here to suggest an additional motivation for the phonological determinants of frozen word order discussed above. Independent acoustical evidence (e.g., Cooper and Paccia-Cooper 1980; Klatt 1975) has shown that human speech involves phrase-final lengthening in real time. That is, vocalic nuclei in constituents at the ends of phrases are lengthened by as much as thirty percent relative to citation forms, whereas syllables which occur neither word-finally nor phrase-finally are shorter by some twelve percent. Since this speech pattern is linked to syntactic structure, all constituents (lexical and phrasal) that are plugged into the syntax are affected. Conspicuously, at least four of the phonetically-based constraints (syllable number, vowel length, vowel quality, and the reformulated final consonant number constraint) individually and collectively place shorter elements before longer ones. Thus a short-before-long vocalic sequence, such as in pitter-patter, is felicitous in that it does not clash with or "buck" the extant durational system. Indeed, as Birdsong (1979: 103) agues, such patternings appear to heighten or

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complement the acoustical dilating effects of phrase structure. Apparently, the role of these durational signals is to facilitate speech processing (Cooper and Paccia-Cooper 1980); thus, once again, phonetic constraints on constituent order appear to have a functional motivation. Language as a dynamic, evolving system is responsive to both systeminternal factors and factors of language use. In principle, to attribute word order in frozen or lexicalized phrases (or, for that matter, word order in novel expressions produced by learners) to a single determinant is to obscure the nature of linguistic change. Moreover, if one applies a Darwinian metaphor to diachronic aspects of natural language, the evolution of a linguistic subsystem such as pregrammatical frozen word order should be a question of survival of the fittest. That is, those expressions which meet the most linguistic criteria (e.g., phonological, semantic, and markedness constraints) and the most psychological criteria (e.g., iconicity and processing constraints) are, in principle, favored. It is these expressions which are most likely to be produced by speakers in naturalistic settings (see the LI data), accepted in experimental settings which tap speakers' intuitions (see the L2 data), and survive as lexicalized forms in the language. The evidence presented here suggests that a multiplicity of factors is simultaneously at work in the sequencing of terms whose order, if decided only by grammars of natural languages, should be arbitrary. It is not unreasonable to refer to the additive motivating roles of these factors as a conspiracy however out of fashion the term may be in linguistic circles. Evoking the etymology of conspiracy, "breathing together" emerges as an appropriate metaphor indeed for the intersection and interaction of markedness, iconicity and processing considerations.

Notes 1.

2.

Clearly, these are oversimplified illustrative arguments, and are not intended, together or separately, to "explain" canonical word order in natural languages or even to suggest that researchers are in unanimous agreement concerning marked vs. unmarked word order. For further discussion, especially with respect to language acquisition, see, e.g., Maratsos (1983) and Slobin (1985). The coordinations considered here are culled from unpublished complete corpora of the Adam, Eve, and Sarah utterances. See Birdsong (1982) for a discussion of irrelevant coordinations in the Eve corpus. In Table 1, some coordinations are included in more than one category: under the "Fraser-3rd person" subcategory, for example, are included tokens also listed under "parent name - other name."

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3.

4.

David Birdsong

Thus of the 132 coordinations listed in Table 1, sixteen are given twice, yielding the figure of 116 cited above. Below, we will consider an account given by Bock (1982), which addresses an information-processing motivation for frozen word order generally, that is, irrespective of possible phonetic or semantic determinants. For discussion of a greater range of word ordering principles in child language, including iconic aspects, see Slobin (1985).

References Bever, T. G. 1970 The cognitive basis for linguistic structures. In J. R. Hayes (ed.), and the development of language. 279-362. New York: Wiley. Birdsong, D.

Cognition

1979 Ρ sycholinguistic perspectives on the phonology of frozen word order. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University.] 1982 Semantics of word order in coordination. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 21. 25-32. Bock, J. K. 1982 Toward a cognitive psychology of syntax: Information processing contributions to sentence formulation. Psychological Review 89. 1 —4V. Brown, R. 1973 A first language: The early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Clark, Η. H. 1969 Linguistic processes in deductive reasoning. Psychological Review 76. 3 8 7 404. Conley, K. and W. E. Cooper 1981 Conjoined ordering of color terms by children and adults. Studies in Language 3. 305-322. Cooper, W. E. and J. Paccia-Cooper 1980 Syntax and speech. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cooper, W. E. and J. R. Ross 1975 World order. In R . E . Grossman, L.J. San and T . J . Vance (eds.), Papers from the parasession on functionalism. 63-111. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Culter, A. and W. E. Cooper 1978 Phoneme-monitoring in the context of different phonetic sequences. Journal of Phonetics 26. 221-225. Gray, B. The "second principle" of language. Language Sciences 45. 26-28.

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Jakobson, R. 1971 Quest for the essence of language. Selected Writings. Vol. 2. 345-359. The Hague: Mouton. Klatt, D. H. 1975 Vowel lengthening is syntactically determined in a connected discourse. Journal of Phonetics 3. 129-140. MacWhinney, B. 1977 Starting points. Language 53. 152-168. MacWhinney, B. 1982 Basic syntactic processes. In S. Kuczaj (ed), Language Development. Vol. 1. Syntax and Semantics. 73-136. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Maratsos, M. 1983 Some current issues in the study of the acquisition of grammar. In J . H . Flavell and Ε. M. Markman (eds.), Handbook of Child Psychology. Vol. 3. Cognitive Development. 707-786. New York: Wiley. McNeill, D. 1979 The conceptual basis of language. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Pinker, S. and D. Birdsong 1979 Speakers' sensitivity to rules of frozen word order. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 18. 497-508. Ross, J. R. 1976a Myopia. [Unpublished paper, MIT.] 1976b What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. [Unpublished paper, MIT.J Slobin, D.I. 1985 Crosslinguistic evidence for the language-making capacity. In D . I . Slobin (ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition. Vol. 2. 1157-1249. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Tanz, C. 1971 Sound symbolism in words relating to proximity and distance. Language and Speech 14. 266-276.

Nonarbitrariness and iconicity: Coding possibilities Franz Dotter

Abstract From a communicative-semiotic perspective on language there follows the attempt to model a relatively direct connection between cognition and language. Nonarbitrariness and iconicity are biotic principles which are necessary for linking cognition and language (which is one way of exchanging cognitive content intersubjectively). They intersect with other biotic principles as, e.g., those of economy and learning. The paper discusses some examples of coding strategies on several levels and their possible cognitive basis. A list of areas of syntactic nonarbitrariness/iconicity is proposed.

1. Basic assumptions' 1. Language is a semiotic system for communcating contents of the central nervous system, an application of coding strategies based on cognitive structures. 2. The basis for language development is a representation relation "cognition-coding", which is neither one-to-one bijective (see also Kasher [this volume]) nor surjective. 3. Cognitive categories, therefore also lingual categories, are organized prototypically, the lingual system being only locally optimized (vagueness on several levels yields a high adaptability of language). 4. Biotic necessity leads to "homomorphisms" between environment and areas of the organisms. Environmentally oriented systems of organisms are simpler and easier to process, if they are nonarbitrary/iconic in relation to the environment. 5. It is evolutionary progress that our species perceives reality in situations, "structured gestalts" (Lakoff 1977). 6. Lingual communication acts upon patterns of a relatively small set of everyday life situations.

48

7.

8.

9. 10.

Franz Dotter

Utterances in their real form are the only correlate to cognitive structures/content. The structure of the organism and necessities of learning and communicating, as well as economic principles (which overlap evolution, learning, and communication), lead to a structuring/systematization of the coding material. Lingual codings help to produce at least a partially structure-preserving connection between reality 2 and message. This provides a sorting of language material concerning cognition and operative use of language: a. language elements sorted in relation to cognitive classes (e.g., objectnoun, action-verb); b. cognitive elements sorted in relation to the class of their representations in language (a noun is normally interpreted as representing an object); c. language elements sorted in relation to communication, function, and language system. The tendency towards economic and uniform coding yields a relatively small set of lingual categories which are distinguished in coding. In scientific research on language, linguistic categories are the result of secondary analytical processes; because of basic inherent properties of language, we fail to define linguistic categories exhaustively. 3

For the sake of a better understanding of facts I propose the following definitions. Nonarbitrariness: consequences of principles of perception and information processing (e.g., constraints and "guiding lines" for language systems). Iconicity: similarity of form between (perceived) reality and elements/structures of language. In that perspective we have a relatively wide area of nonarbitrariness which covers a smaller one concerning iconic forms. 4

2. Nonarbitrary/iconic relations of cognition and coding 2.1. Reality, cognition, and coding The principle of the "structured gestalt" is productive in cognition and language from the level of the word up to that of the sentence and text. Areas from which the means of lingual coding are drawn are intonation, lexicon, morphology, and serialization. Some codings correspond relatively directly to phenomena in reality, for example:

Coding possibilities

49

1. Certain qualities of perceived reality (action, object/participant, location, property) produce corresponding lingual categories (cf. also Hopper and Thompson 1985; Mayerthaler 1982; Wierzbicka in this volume). 2. "Good objects" tend to receive independent coding. 3. (Natural) gender, number, and shape can be ascertained by perception; scanning of space and temporal and causal sequencing, etc., are similar, but cognitively more complex. Simultaneity is an example of a phenomenon which in syntax cannot be directly represented iconically because of the linear characteristic of speech (Haiman 1985b). Other facts correspond more to communciation and the language system than to reality, e.g., all focus-setting or unit-building strategies. Generally, we can formulate the relation: The more cognitively complex and/or communicatively important some content/message is, the more and/or more complex (respectively more "deviating'Vless predictable) coding material is used to formulate it (Dressler et al. 1987; Givon 1985). "Automatization" (via, e.g., high frequency) can have a "shortening" influence (Osgood 1980). We have to differentiate between coding techniques and their function. Juxtaposition is a coding technique which functions, e.g., in building units (parts of sentences). Perhaps we could say that juxtaposition is that technique for building units which is closest to cognition itself. However, because of its wide use in many functions it often becomes too unspecific to provide a completely valuable coding device for certain cognitions (cf. transposition). So it is plausible that for the building of units, other techniques (e.g., agreement, embedding, "boundary signals" or "construction markers") also have to be applied.

2.2. Means of coding When we look closer at the means of coding in morphosyntax, we find certain techniques, such as: 1. Incorporation. Here we have a "continuum'Mike sequence: "pure" action (e.g., to run) —> generally object-oriented action (e.g., meat-eating) —> action executed on a specific object (to eat the - concretely given meat), the object being partially or totally affected. Incorporation functions preponderantly as coding strategy for the concepts in the middle of this continuum. When we look at the coding results of incorporation, namely making an element less independent as concept, there are some similarities with other coding techniques providing the same result. This holds, for example, partially for infinite and subjunctive verbal forms in

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Franz Dotter

subordinative function. In all these cases the dependent element iconically loses morphosyntactic characteristics of the "full" wordclass member, i.e., of independency. 2. Transposition (change in serialization), functioning, for example, in the differentiation of predicative and attributive adjectives. Without regard to the original serialization, there are several coding strategies which can hold the mentioned difference in language. (In the list below, the following abbreviations are employed: N(omen), A(djective), Cop(ula), cm = connective morpheme, vbm = verbal morphology, tp = transposed.) Predicative

Attributive

Example language

N-Cop-A N-Cop-cm-A N-A+vbm N-A+vbm N-A N-A

N-A N-cm-A N-A N-cm-A A-cm-N (tp) A-N (tp)

Yoruba Hausa Guarani Mojave Chinese Maung

Transposition as one of the means of differentiation appears - whether alone or combined with other coding means - chiefly in languages with the serialization "attributive A-N" (e.g., Chinese, Finnish, German, Greek, Maung, Otomi, Quechua, Tamil; for a more detailed discussion see Dotter 1988). When we take predication as the simple, and modification as the more complex (in the sense of information-compressing) process, this fact confirms the connection between cognitive and coding complexity: "AN" is the less expectable serialization and therefore can turn the hearer's attention to the more complex construction of modification. The means of coding may tend towards either "constructivity" (e.g., lexemes denoting important concepts, with "constructional morphemes" denoting the holding together of the part of a complex unit), or "contrastivity" (e.g., contrastive accent, transposition). 5

2.3. Coding

strategies

The application of certain means of coding is preconditioned or accompanied by basic "decisions of the speaking community" concerning coding strategies (i.e., evolutionary development of coding systems), as in the following examples. 1. The assumption is that there is, e.g., a type of "configuration," the "property model," which unites a basic concept (person or object) and a property

Coding possibilities

51

of that concept. T h e underlying cognitive process is - normally - that w e observe a specific object ("tree") and then turn our attention to a certain property it has ("high"). The lingual codings show several forms (cf. Dixon 1977; Schachter 1985): (1) juxtaposition, corresponding to the described cognitive process; m o r e natural/iconic in the serialization "object-property": tree high; (2) coding by means of a copula, a "syntactisized" version of the f o r m e r (one realization of the rule "every sentence needs a verb"): tree is high; (3) application of the "intransitive m o d e l " ("agent-action"): the property appears as stative verb (the second realization of the above rule): tree high-si (4) application of a "possession m o d e l " ("possessor-possessed"): tree has/possesses height. 2. Grammaticalization/syntacticization works on different parameters which yield different typological patterns. So w e find, e.g., a complex cognitive connection between subject, grammaticalized topic, and ergative, as shown in Table 1: Table 1. level of communication/ information

"natural" semantic role of agent

"natural" pragmatic topic-comment-structure

/ / / / N.

level of grammaticalization (here grammaticalization of the referential anchoring of the speech act)

grammaticalized topic marked (carrying a coding characteristic)

/

v

^ -"Ν ^

subject

ergative

unmarked

marked

With reference to Table 1, the topic must be marked because there is the possibility of ascribing topic-status freely (independent of role), whereas the subject can remain unmarked, because ascribing is constrained by a hierarchy of salient roles; the ergative is marked because it is used contrastingly. Out of the decision in favor of one of these coding strategies there arise connected facts/coding possibilities. For example, when the topic-marker can move in the sentence, there is no necessity for transpositions (topicalization); when it deletes other markings, a necessity for focus-marking (e.g., on the verb, cf. Tagalog) may result. 6

2.4. General patterns

of coding

But there are even more general "decisions," at least partially based on realizing certain cognitive or cultural "options".

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Franz Dotter

1. Concerning basic order: more spontaneous/W hoc/ "pragmatic oriented" vs. more grammar- (in the sense of a system of coding elements) oriented. This leads to different degrees of rigidity with which certain languages apply a "basic order." The minimally expectable norm for basic order is: no language shows an ordering of sentence constituents by chance - with regard to a specific situation. One of the maximally grammar-oriented rules is: "always SVO." 2. Head vs. dependent marking (Nichols 1986); 3. Preference for more normal vs. more verbal morphology (Mithun 1988). Perhaps this fact is connected with action orientation (Vfirst/incorporation/more morphemes on verbs) vs. participant orientation (participant(s) first/more nominal morphology); possibly there are also decisions for topic-first, agent-first, or object-first. 7

3. Types of nonarbitrariness and iconicity 1. Nonarbitrariness arising from the principles of information flow a. Basic rule: information flow should remain as even "flat" as possible b. Coding means: serialization; elements with a higher degree of information tend to come after elements with a lower degree; more frequent elements tend to be shorter c. Example: topic-comment-structure 2. Nonarbitrariness/iconism of saliency a. Basic rule: elements with higher fixed saliency come before other less salient ones b. Coding means: serialization (basic order); salient elements partially unmarked (subject), partially marked (ergative). The consequences include accessibility for certain grammatical processes c. Example: hierarchies of animacy or agentivity 3. Nonarbitrariness/iconism of representation/experience a. Basic rule: sequence of elements as in reality b. Coding means: serialization, lexemes (conjunctions) c. Example: spatial scanning, temporal, causal sequencing etc; social sequencing (also possible: politeness convention) 4. Nonarbitrariness/iconism of function a. Basic rule: the scope of operators has to be ensured by coding means b. Coding means: juxtaposition, agreement c. Example: several types of negation, adposition 5. Nonarbitrariness/iconism of unit building

Coding possibilities

53

a. Basic rule: the coding must refer to the structure of complex units b. Coding means: juxtaposition, continuity of the whole unit, agreement, "boundary signals," construction markers, transposition in relation to independently used elements c. Example: all complex units beginning with the combination of one lexeme with one grammatical morpheme up to complex parts of the sentence. Unit building is a tool to condense information. The more information is condensed in this way, the more the structure must be in a canonical, fixed form, otherwise the unit cannot be economically processed due to its cognitive complexity 6. Nonarbitrariness/iconism of coherence of the text/discourse a. Basic rule: sufficient points of identical reference ensure textual coherence b. Coding means: pro-forms, systematized deletion c. Example: anaphora 7. Nonarbitrariness/iconism of independency and cognitive complexity a. Basic rule: the more an element is interpreted as being a figure/gestalt (i.e., the more communicatively important or cognitively complex it is), the more "independent" its coding is b. Coding means: assignment of morphosyntactic features, framing c. Example: stressed vs. unstressed forms (e.g., of pronouns), incorporation 8. Nonarbitrariness/iconism of contrast and prominence a. Basic rule: deviation from the normal elicits more attention b. Coding means: transposition, special markings c. Example: topicalization

Notes 1. I use the terms "lingual" and "biotic" rather than "linguistic" and "biological" to yield a distinction of the object sphere from that of scientific modeling reality. "Iconicity" is used to refer to the whole domain dealt with, "iconism" for special instances of the former. For a more detailed discussion of the whole topic, see Dotter (1990). 2. This is not to be understood as simple "reality," universal for all humans, but only the assumption that there is a cultural/lingual mediated "reality," comprising a universal, genetically-programmed core. 3. Some linguistic concepts like "subject," "transitivity," "head-modifier" ("operandoperator"), or Seller's (1985) "dimensions" look sometimes overgeneralized in

54

4.

5.

6.

7.

Franz Dotter

comparison to lingual codings. This seems to correspond to the human tendency towards "simple solutions." The borderline between these two areas cannot be sharply drawn, at least at the moment. Therefore the reader will find the nondifferentiating label "nonarbitrariness/iconism" in section 3. Many phenomena such as intonation differentiating sentence types show constructive factors as well as contrastive ones (rising vs. falling pitch is iconic, but can also be interpreted as perceptually contrasting). The same holds for morphemes which denote, e.g., "singular-plural-(dual)": If the codings are constructionally iconic (Mayerthaler 1982), they function as perceptually contrastive. On the other hand, they function constructively by denoting their content in connection with the specific lexeme. This illustration can only be very general because the facts listed under the terms "subject," "topic," and "ergative" are not always homogeneous (e.g., ergative is used when the agentivity is high, or when this is the case and the agent is less expectable; cf. also functions of topic in coherence of text, e.g., in Korean). The last being rare as a basic pattern, it is perhaps better understandable making the assumption that in object-initial languages there is a "normal," situation-dependent coding of participants by verbal morphemes or verb-clitics, the explicit, lexematic naming of subject and object being comparable not so much to normal declaratives of "Stand. Av. Eur.", but topicalized ones (Mithun 1988). So there are patterns like: V ( + S + 0 ) , SV, S V ( + 0 ) , O V ( + S ) , OSV (where V = verb, S = Subject, Ο = Object, and morphemes are in parentheses).

References Dixon, R . M . W. 1977 Where have all the adjectives gone? Studies in Language 1. 19-80, 4 4 2 452. Dotter, F. 1988 Kognitive Prinzipien und nichtarbiträre Syntax. In P. K. S. Stein, A. Weiss, G. Hayer et al. (eds.), Festschrift für Ingo Reiffenstein. 127-144. Göppingen: Kümmerle. 1990 Nichtarbitrarität und Ikonizität in der Syntax. Hamburg: Buske (— Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft) Dressler, W, U., W. Mayerthaler, O. Panagl and W. U. Wurzel 1987 Leitmotifs in natural morphology. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Givon, T. 1985 Iconicity, isomorphism and non-arbitrary coding in syntax. In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity in syntax. 187-219. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Haiman, J. (ed.) 1985b Natural syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Hopper, P.J. and S.A. Thompson 1985 The iconicity of the universal categories "noun" and "verb." In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity in Syntax. 151-183. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Kasher, A. 1994 Pragmatics and iconicity (this volume). Lakoff, G. 1977 Linguistic gestalts. In W. A. Beach, S.E. Fox and S. Philosoph (eds.), Papers from the Thirteenth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. 236-287. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Mayerthaler, W. 1982 Das hohe Lied des Ding- und Tunwortes bzw. Endstation 'Aktionsding'. Papiere zur Linguistik 27. 25-61. Mithun, M. 1988 System-defining structural properties in polysynthetic languages. Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung 41. 4 4 2 452. Nichols, J. 1986 Head-marking and dependent-marking grammar. Language 62. 56-119. Osgood, C. Ε. 1980 Lectures on language performance. New York: Springer. Schachter, P. 1985 Parts-of-speech systems. In T. Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, Vol. 1. 3-61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seiler, Η. and G. Brettschneider (eds.) 1985 Language invariants and mental operations. Tubingen: Narr. Wierzbicka, A. 1994 Adjectives vs. verbs: The iconicity of part-of-speech membership (this volume).

On language internal iconicity Joseph H. Greenberg

Abstract Haiman has in a number of important publications developed the notion of iconicity and economy as explanations for generalization about language. In all of the examples hitherto considered the external or conceptual world has been the model for which the linguistic phenomenon is the icon. In such mappings certain properties are lost while others are preserved (invariant). The two invariant relations have been either relative succession in time or conceptual proximity. In the present paper the notion of language internal iconicity is introduced and exemplified. In such instances the model is always the unmarked and the icon the marked. In a series of important publications, culminating in his book Natural Syntax (1985/?), Haiman has expanded and developed the notion of iconicity and has shown the explanatory power of economic motivation, as a kind of functional explanation of many important generalizations about language. As he puts it (1985α: 1) " . . . lingusitic forms are frequently the way they are because, like diagrams, they resemble the conceptual structures they are intended to convey." Haiman has also included economic motivation in his general structure of explanation and discussed the conditions under which they become competing forms of explanation. To these we may add pragmatic processing considerations. It will often turn out that what appear to be rival types of explanation, may be involved in what is superficially the same phenomenon, but on close inspection they will not so much be alternative explanations as distinct aspects of what appears on the surface to be a unitary fact. This is not an entirely novel idea and it will be illustrated in some of the examples that will be discussed here. Haiman (1985/?: 11), in discussing the correspondence of language with reality, distinguishes two aspects, the correspondence of parts and the correspondence of relations between parts. The former he calls "isomorphism" and it concerns the hypothesis of "one form, one meaning." It is unfortunate that Haiman uses the term isomorphism here since in mathematics isomorphism involves the correspondence of both elements and relations. The second of

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these, the correspondence of relations and parts he calls "motivation." It is this latter which falls much more obviously under the notion of iconicity as defined by Peirce (1932) and with which I will be concerned here. Peirce (1932: 2.278) distinguishes two kinds of icons: pictures and diagrams, the latter of which he illustrates with the example of an electrical wiring diagram in relation to the wiring itself. But the difference between a picture and a diagram, as Peirce himself notes, is relative. The picture always abstracts from some features of the object it portrays, e.g., threedimensionality in painting. The diagram is simply more abstract. The difference, then, is one of degree and not of kind. Further, the relation between the original, which we may call the model, and the picture or diagram is not a symmetrical one. The model is richer and the picture or diagram loses some of this richness in the process of abstraction. If we examine those instances of iconicity in this narrower or Peircean sense which have been adduced by Haiman and others as applied to language, the external or the conceptual world is always the model and the linguistic phenomenon is the icon. This is just as it should be; the external and mental world is richer than language, which merely abstracts from it. The relation of model to icon clearly has its mathematical analogue in the concept of isomorphism and, in fact, Haiman himself, as we have seen, uses the term isomorphism, though in regard to a different aspect of the relationship, that between form and meaning. The basic notion of isomorphism in mathematics is that it is a relation between sets, in which there is a one-to-one correspondence between the elements of the first and the second and which preserves certain relations among members of the first set when mapped into the second. Such relations are said to be invariant under the mapping as against those which are lost. We may illustrate this in the following way. Suppose we have a set "A" whose elements are all the positive integers and we map it into another set, "B", in such a way that to every integer in "A", there corresponds the square of the number in "B". This will clearly be a one-to-one mapping, for example, corresponding to + 4 in set "A" will be in its image +16 in set "B". Under this mapping the relation > (more than) is invariant. If one positive integer is larger than another, its square will be larger. However, the difference will not be preserved under this mapping. Thus 2 — 1 in set "A" is 1, but the corresponding difference between the images of 2 and 1, namely 4 — 1 = 3 will not be the same. Up to now there have been two main types of mapping between external or conceptual reality and linguisitic categories. One is the mapping of succession

On language internal iconicity

59

in language with succession in real time. Thus in the famous example of Caesar's veni, vidi, vici cited by Jakobson (1965: 27), the act of seeing follows the act of coming and the act of conquering follows the act of seeing. If we consider this mapping an isomorphism then, clearly, succession in time is preserved, but not duration, either relative or absolute. From the time that Caesar arrived in Gaul in 58 B.C. until its conquest, approximately nine years elapsed, but we do not wait nine years between the saying of veni and that of vici. Other examples of the iconic mappings which preserve succession are the universals that the protasis of a condition normally precedes the apodosis or conclusion, and in a rigid SOV-language always does so. Moreover in statements of volition and purpose the verbs of "wishing" precede those which state the accomplishment of the wish, as it occurs in real time. This once more excepts rigid SOV-languages, which require the main verb to be at the end of the sentence. The other major sentence type of iconic mapping which has been noted by typologists may be called the "proximity hierarchy." This is the type which has been most elaborately treated by Haiman, but it also appears in the work of others. The general principle is that linguistic distance corresponds to conceptual distance, but that order is not involved. Thus in Bybee (1985) the closeness between verb stems and inflection tends to reflect the closeness of the concept expressed by the inflection of the verb stem. Other examples include full versus reduced reflexives (e.g., Russian sebja vs. -sja ), inflected versus periphrastic causatives and inalienable versus alienable possession (cf. Haiman 1983). In all of the examples considered, and these reflect the literature up to now on iconic motivation, the physical or conceptal world is the model and some aspect of linguistic structure the icon. However, I believe it is possible to show that iconicity applies within language itself, taking the form of what is called here language internal iconicity. 1 I will first consider the example of the case system of Classical Sanskrit in relation to the category of number. In accordance with the criterion of neutralization in regard to the well suppported hierarchy of markedness in the category of number, we find certain case syncretizations in the plural as against the singular, and then further syncretizations in the dual, which is marked in relation to the plural. The basic facts are the following. In the singular there are distinct cases arranged by the Sanskrit grammarians in the following order: nominative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive and locative. These are designated by ordinal, numeral expressions, e.g., the nominative is prathama 'first'. The vocative is not considered a case, since it is itself the equivalent of a sentence and has no syntactic relations. 2

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The most unmarked case, the nominative, is put first. For the rest, a case is arranged adjacent to another case if the opposition is in any instance neutralized. The maximal number of distinctions is found in the singular of masculine α-stems. The neuter α-stems neutralize the nominative-accusative in the singular. Besides the α-stems the ablative and genitive have the same form in the singular. In all plurals there are neutralizations not found in the singular, for some of the nominative and accusative, for all the dative and ablative. In the dual there are still further neutralizations, so that for all nouns there are only three distinct forms: (1) nominative-accusative; (2) instrumental, dative, ablative; (3) genitive, locative. There are, therefore, the largest number of distinctions in the singular, the next largest in the plural and the fewest in the dual. All this is to be expected in accordance with marking theory. There is, however, the additional regularity that, with one exception, namely the merging of ablative and dative in the plural and dual, as against the merging of ablative and genitive in the singular, the neutralization of any case distinction in the singular implies its neutralization in the plural and its neutralization in the plural implies its neutralization in the dual. For the masculine and neuter α-stems, by far the most frequent class, there are no exceptions. This can be illustrated schematically for neuter α-stems as follows; using traditional Hindu numberings of the cases.

singular

plural

plural

1

1

1

2

2

2

3

3

I3

4

4

4

5

5

5

6

6

6

7

7

7

On language internal iconicity

61

If we consider this formally as a succession of mappings from the singular into the plural and then the plural into the dual, in terms of set theory we have a succession of homomorphisms. The difference between isomorphisms (mapping onto) and homomorphisms (mapping into) is that the relation between the model and the icon is many-to-one and not one-to-one. Once more the model is richer than the icon, although in a different way than with mapping from the external or conceptual world to language. There are two further aspects to this mapping, which are related to iconic motivation and economic motivation. One, which is likely to be taken for granted, is basically iconic, the congruity between case uses in the singular, plural and dual. We should be very surprised to find a language, for example, which has the case structure of Russian in the singular and that of Sanskrit in the plural. It is commonplace that, for example, saha 'with' in Sanskrit governs the instrumental in all numbers. There are only very rare instances of disparity in case languages between the same case in different number categories. A second iconic factor is that cases which syncretize have basic similarities in meaning and uses. This may be subsumed under the concept of prototype and is an example of proximity hierarchy as discussed earlier in this paper. Thus, the dative-ablative opposition neutralizes largely because the basic notion of motion is common to both cases, "towards" for the dative and "away from" for the ablative. There is also here an economic motivation, as is generally true for marking properties. It is economically more efficient to merge distinctions within marked categories such as the dual, since they have lower frequency. We have seen then that there is a connection between marking theory and iconicity. The unmarked is the model of which the marked is an icon. There may be consecutive mappings as we have seen for singular —> plural and plural —> dual, each of which is successively poorer in content. In homomorphisms identities are merged but relations are preserved. A second example of internal iconicity to be considered here has to do with number systems. In Greenberg (1978: 280-281) there is a complex universal (no. 38) which may be exemplified as follows. In every numeral system which has one or more bases (e.g., in English both ten and hundred are bases), there is a base for predictable expression. It is 100 in English or French, but ten in Chinese. In French up to 100, there is a very complex system, so that, for example, ninety-three is expressed as quatre vingt treize, which may be analyzed as (4 χ 20) + 13. Above 100 there are, so to speak, no surprises. If we wish to express 593, the analysis and actual expression for ninety-three (cinq centsquatre vingt treize) is exactly the same as for ninety-three. In Chinese there are no surprises above ten. Thus sixty-three is

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simply six, then, three, in which three is expressed in the same way as in its lowest occurrence in counting. We have in French an instance of competing motivations in which iconic motivation wins out over economic motivation. That the French system is more complex than the Chinese is intuitively obvious. To show this in a more rigorous fashion is a difficult task and not attempted here. One way of stating the above facts is that in French numbers one to ninety-nine are isomorphic in their structure to 101-199, 201-299, etc. There is a large body of evidence to show that lower numerals are unmarked in relation to higher ones. Therefore, once more the unmarked is a model for the marked. That the relation is isomorphic, not homomorphic, is because all the numbers up to the highest that can be expressed in the system must be namable. There can be no gaps and hence no many-one mappings. This is what I have called the "thesis of continuity" (Universal no. 2, Greenberg 1978: 254). There is probably one further kind of iconic mapping in language, which might also be called language-internal. This is the anaphoric use of demonstratives from present discourse to previous discourse or, more rarely, cataphoric to later mention (cf. Greenberg 1985). One may say that past and future discourse are icons of present spatial reference and that the icon is always less rich than the model in the sense of a homomorphism as discussed earlier. This line of development leads to the formation of articles (past discourse) and complementizers (future discourse). It is indeed a form of grammaticalization. In addition to the loss of distinctions there is a semantic and phonetic weakening, which is a further characteristic of icons in relation to models.

Notes 1. The closest approach to this is the notion of automorphism (e.g., Haiman 1985a: 4), which includes here the example of anaphoric uses of demonstratives mentioned at the end of this paper. Haiman apparently does not revert to this notion in his general book (1985ft). 2. If we disregard the pitch accent, the vocative in Sanskrit is distinct from the nominative only in the singular of certain declensional classes, e.g., sena 'army' (nom sing.) sene (voc. sing). The vocative has basic initial pitch accent, so that in some instances it is distinct in the dual and plural from the nominative solely in accent.

On language internal iconicity

63

References Bybee, J. L. 1985 Morphology. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Greenberg, J. H. 1978 Generalizations about numeral systems. In J. H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of human language. Vol. 3. 249-295. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1985 Some iconic relationships among place, time, and discourse deixis. In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity in syntax. 271-287. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Haiman, J. 1983 Iconic and economic motivation. Language 59. 781-819. 1985a Introduction. In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity in syntax. 1-7. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 1985/? Natural syntax: Iconicity in language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jakobson, R. 1965 Quest for the essence of language. Diogenes 51. 21-37. Peirce, C. S. 1932 Collected papers. Vol. 2. Edited by C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Semantic constraints on phonologically independent freezes* Marge E. Landsberg

Abstract This paper's main tenet is that in English syntax word order is not arbitrary but fixed or "frozen"; that is, governed by certain rigorous and recurrent rules, and hence predictable and generalizable. Such rigorously and irreversibly ordered series of lexical items, whether in idiomatic or in nonidiomatic constructions, have been enumerated and categorized, and the underlying principles ruling their sequence investigated. Attempting to explain rather than describe, arrive at typologies rather than taxonomies, this study examines the main criteria of semantic ordering rules which govern sequential choice. It is shown that the key to the latter is humanity's gestalt image of itself in the universe; that is, our "egocentric" or canonical perception of ourselves. The gestalt principle inevitably motivates the generation of the linguistic phenomena imitative of nonlinguistic reality discussed.

Humankind's fascination with the rules governing word-order is not a novel phenomenon. Indeed, according to Cooper and Ross (1975) it was the great Indian grammarian Pänini (ca. 500 B.C.), who appears to have already been aware of and commented upon the interest and importance of word order in language (i.e., Sanskrit), and who, more specifically, according to Ross (1982: 278) "first noted the effect of differences in the number of syllables in compounds." With regard to early writers, we may wish to add here Sack's (1984: 20) interesting observations. 1 In discussing the work of "Antonio de Nebrija, the founder of Spanish linguistics (1444-1522), escepially his Grammatica de la lengua castellana," published in the year Columbus set sail for the New World, Sacks points out that the work of this early researcher in his Chapter II titled: "De la orden de las partes de la oracion" calls for some comment, for it anticipates modern studies on the fixed order in set phrases (Abraham 1950: 276-287; Malkiel 1959: 113-160). This set order, according to Nebrija, is "casi natural i mui conforme a la razon." For this reason, the more important element precedes the less important. (Sacks 1984: 20).

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Nebrija offers the following examples of fixed order in phrases: "Je Oriente a occidente tierra

and not *de occidente

i el cielo:

el dia i la noche

α Oriente;

el cielo

a n d not Ha noche

i la tierra

and not la

i el dia; la luz i las

tinieblas and not Has tinieblas i la luz " (cf. Sacks 1984: 2). Sacks found Nebrija's explanation "hardly convincing" (1984: 20). doubtlessly, it he had read Cooper and Ross (1975) and Ross's (1982) work, he might have found sufficiently convincing explanations. Most of us are well acquainted with the pertaining literature of the last half-century, so I will not refer to this here. With one exception, however, since the work in question is unfortunately little known, though well worthy of mention. I refer to the brilliant pioneering work of Behaghel, only alluded to in Haiman (1985: 2) as Behaghel (1932: 4). Haiman devotes but a few lines to the phenomenon, while ignoring Behaghel's (1909-1910: 110-142) splendid earlier work, apparently unknown to him, where the problem of fixed word order was extensively discussed in thirty-two pages, full of pertinent examples, rules and statistics (see Abraham 1950: 282, footnote 8), 2 and Behaghel's (1928) Deutsche Syntax (Volume 3: Die Satzgebilde). Since these early researches, there have appeared a variety of studies investigating diverse aspects of the nature of the concept of syntactic iconicity. Their main tenet was that in English syntax, word order is not arbitrary but fixed or "frozen"; that is, governed by a certain set of rigorous and recurrent rules and hence predictable. So far for syntax, which Lado (1964: 221) describes as "The patterns of construction of morphemes and words into phrases and sentences in a language." But now we must ask, where is it that "iconicity" comes in? This too is fairly simple, since the term icon here has the semiotic meaning ascribed to it by Peirce (1931), which makes it a "non-arbitrary intentional sign, or a designation bearing an intrinsic resemblance to its referent (the object it designates); that is, an item imitative of non-linguistic reality" (cf. Landsberg 1987: 223). In this earlier paper I pointed out that "Such phenomena are sometimes also called 'linguistic freezes,' although of course not all freezes necessarily have to be iconic" (1987: 223). Still, as it cannot be denied that there is a "frozen" aspect to syntactic iconicity, this phenomenon can and should be more thoroughly investigated, and more rigorously defined. Therefore I will first of all point out here that as freezes are considered "conventionally ordered pairs" or "rigorously ordered series of lexical terms," in which the first element "tends to be the unmarked or prototypical element" (Edmondson 1985: 124). Thus, Edmondson (1985: 124) observes

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... in English we say day and night and not night and day, unless we wish to underline in a marked way the continued striving or persisting of something. ... In accounting for these, Mayerthaler (1981: 13) invokes the principle of perceptual accessibility. The first of these elements represents the prototype of a category, whereas the second represents the less prototypical, i.e. is more marked. ... In short, one can establish ordered pairs of values of semantic or cognitive categories. ... The perceptually more accessible, i.e. earlier perceived, pole in a category is on the left.

Indeed, it should be noted that this recurrent left-to-right hierarchy of saliencepattern is the most typical freeze characteristic. In considering the rules of frozen word order, Pinker and Birdsong (1979: 497) observe that The class of idiom-like expresisons known as "freezes" constitutes one of those lingusitic domains in which an apparently superficial phenomenon is found to be governed by surprisingly orderly and deeply rooted principles. Referred to by many names, and prevalent in most languages, freezes include irreversible conjoined phrases such as wear and tear, hook, line, and sinker, first and foremost; and fixed reduplicatives, which subdivide in vowel alternations, e.g. pitter-patter, ping-pong; and into rhyming terms such as super-duper, razzledazzle, and hocus-pocus. In all of these expressions the salient and defining characteristic - and the focus of our investigation - is the fixed or "frozen" linear order of their constituent terms.

So far, then, for the concepts of syntactic iconicity and freezes. We will now have a closer look at the concept of "semantic constraints," and attempt to provide some answers to the questions of why and how the ordering of certain conjoined elements is fixed. When Lyons wrote his well-known work on semantics in 1977, the word freezes did not appear in his "index of subjects." Iconicity did, several times, but syntactic iconicity did not, Yet, Cooper and Ross's (1975) brilliant pioneering study World order had appeared two years earlier, giving us both the newly coined term of freezes, (Cooper and Ross 1975: 63), 3 and, among others, the novel concept of syntactic iconicity.4 What Lyons did refer to here, for the first time, was the concept of the "canonical situation of utterance," pointing out as well that the canonical situation of utterance was "egocentric" (Lyons 1979: 638). However, interestingly, he did not go much beyond a definition, and a description, not seeing, and hence not deliberating upon, their poignant and far-reaching implications for linguistics, as Cooper and Ross had done. One may well ask

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here how it is possible that Cooper and Ross had published these very interesting and important ideas two years earlier, and that Lyons never knew the first thing about them. I cannot answer this question, and will instead offer a yet more amazing example of missed opportunities. I am referring here to the recently (1986) published BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English. A Guide to Word Combinations,5 which, though having been awarded a special certificate of merit from Buckingham Palace, sadly lacks all mention of the occurrence and nature of the phenomenon of freezes - let alone of the rules that govern them. This amazing oversight has already been discussed in a somewhat general manner by Iannucci (1987) (as pointed out to me by Abraham, personal commumication 1988). This is no small matter; for clearly, English syntax can never be again what it has been so far and neither can English grammar books - lacking such knowledge and insight and hence, in fact, lacking a chapter entitled "Freezes." Obviously there is still much work to be done. Let us, therefore, first of all have a closer look at, get a better understanding of, the basic principles underlying the phenomenon of freezes: "the canonical situation of utterance," and "egocentrism," especially since these concepts are an integral part of the "semantic constraints" I shall be referring to below. These terms describe humanity's concept of itself in the universe, where the person is, so to say, his or her own frozen dimension. Indeed, people perennially perceive of themselves from the vantage point of the canonical situation of utterance, that is, a face-to-face situation for sender and receiver, wherein, moreover, the sender perceives of him- or herself as always being at the center of the universe. Both humans and their tongue are in the relentless grip of this percept. And thus, as Lyons (1979: 690) so judiciously observes, " . . . in man's world the world as man sees it and describes it in everyday language - he is, in the most literal sense, the measure of all things." This perception of oneself as being "at the center of the universe," and as being the "measure of all things" pervades human language indelibly and inevitably; indeed - predictably in most cases, as we shall see below. In order to gain a thorough and in-depth knowledge and understanding of the resulting semantic ordering principles constraining phonologically neutral freezes, we must now refer to what is known in the literature as the "egocentric" (Lyons 1979: 638), or "me-first" (Cooper and Ross 1975: 67; Ross 1982: 282) principle, for ultimately it is this principle that rules the roost. It takes cognizance of humanity as always perceiving itself in the canonical situation of utterance. As Lyons (1979: 638) points out,

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69

the canonical situation-of-utterance is egocentric in the sense that the speaker, by virtue of being the speaker, casts himself in the role of ego and relates everything to his viewpoint. He is at the zero-point of the spatiotemporal coordinates of what we will refer to as the deictic context. ... Egocentricity is temporal as well as spatial, since the role of speaker is being transferred from one participant to the other as the conversation proceeds, and the participants may move around as they are conversing: the spatiotemporal zero-point (the here-and-now) is determined by the place of the speaker at the moment of utterance. ...

Humans perceive of themselves as upright beings moving over the surface of the earth. As Lyons (1979: 690) observes This gives is the means of identifyng one of the dimensions in a threedimensional space; it also gives us a fixed zero-point at the ground-level. Furthermore, directionality in the vertical dimension - i.e. the difference between upwards and downwards - is established by our experience of the effects of the force of gravity, by the fact that, normally, the sky is above us and the ground beneath us and by the asymmetry of the human body in the vertical dimension. For these, and other reasons, verticality is physically and psychologically the most salient of the spatial dimensions: lingusitically, as we shall see, it is the primary dimension ...

As I have pointed out in a previous paper (Landsberg 1987: 240) this perception of "head up first/feet down second" is apparently so strong in us that it rules our conjunct ordering with an iron fist. Thus we will always mention above before below, on before under, up before down, and are perennially prevented from using such serials as *below-above, *under-on, *down-up, etc. (and see also Landsberg 1982, 1984). In the same paper I observed that we are, of course, trapped in the horizontal dimension as well (1987b: 240). And that doubly so. For as Lyons (1979: 691) points out, man is asymmetrical in one of the two horizontal dimensions, and symmetrical in the other: i.e. he has a front and a back, and two symmetrical sides. He has his principal organs of perception directed twoards the region in front of him; he normally moves in the direction in which he is facing; and when he interacts with his fellows, he does so, in what has been felicitously described as the canonical encounter (cf. H. Clark 1973), by confronting them.

Therefore, our perception of directionality is somewhat weaker where it concerns our symmetrical sides, though there may be by dint of our dexterity

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some preference for "right" first. Much stronger is the perception of our asymmetricality, the front, as was pointed out above, being perceived as the most important, and hence we will always think - and speak - of "front first," using sequences like in front of-behind, before-after, to-from, front-back, and shunning such serials as *behind-in front of, *after-before, *from-to, *backfront, etc. As Lyons (1979: 691) has observed, "The asymmetrical front-back dimension is less salient than the vertical dimension, but more salient than the symmetrical right-left dimension. Linguistically, the front-back dimension, then, is the secondary dimension." That is to say, the vertical dimension is the primary one, the front-back dimension is the secondary one, and the right-left dimension is the third in linguistic salience. As I pointed out in my previous paper, there are some poignant implications of our physical and linguistic perception of our body in space (1987/?: 241). Thus, as Lyons (1979: 691) observes, In the up-down and front-back dimensions there is not only directionality, but polarity: what is above the ground and in front of us is, characteristically, visible to us and is available for interaction; what is beneath the ground or behind us, is not. Upwards and frontwards are positive, whereas downwards and backwards are negative, in an egocentric perceptual and interactional space based on the notions of visibility and confrontation. There are no such reasons, however, for recognizing a positive and negative polarity in the right-left dimension: dexterity provides, at best, a rather weak criterion for classifying the righthand side as positive and the left-hand side as negative. 6 It has been plausibly argued that polarity and markedness in pairs of direcitonal opposites derive, not only in the vocabulary of location and locomotion, but more generally, from the natural properties of the ego-centric perceptual space and the spatial orientation and physical asymmetries of the human body ...

What is important to remember here is that egocentricity is temporal as well as spatial. Both in time and space, we always start from where we are at, conceiving ourselves to be at zero point. Thus we will almost compulsively favor such serials as: in and out, up and down, here and there, now and then, this and that, etc., while the same rule will just as forcefully prevent us from using sequences like: *out and in, *down and up, *there and here, *then and now, *that and this, etc. We can now begin to see how very apt the term iconicity is, as our English syntax "must" always "imitate" our "natural" egocentric perceptual serialization. In other words, in such cases as discussed above, it is clearly semantic considerations which govern linearity in linguistic utterances. There

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are other rules as well, of course, for instance, phonological rules, but these are beyond the scope of the present paper. 7 Semantic constraints on phonologically-independent freezes, are particularly intricate and fascinating phenomena. As pointed out above their main characteristic can be summed up as being "egocentric" in nature; that is, according to the "me-first" principle, "me being an adult male human (hereand-now). This will always yield such rigorously ordered conjuncts as father and mother, papa and mama, pa and ma, father and son, brother and sister, man and boy, men, women and children, husband and wife, boys and girls, Adam and Eve, king and queen, Mr. and Mrs., and also such as here and now, up and down, right and left (see Landsberg 1987: 238-239). We may wish to note here that such items as mom and dad, bride and groom, aunts and uncles, ladies and gentlemen are interesting exceptions, whose seemingly contradictory order may be either due to what Cooper and Ross (1975: 105) term a "politeness convention," or simply victims to the stronger phonological laws stating that high vowels precede low vowels, less-syllabic items precede more-syllabic ones, and hence as freezes are no longer phonologically independent. In the latter case they would not, of course, "be contrary to natural tendencies," (cf. Cooper and Ross 1975: 105). In examples such as gin and tonic, wine and soda, beer and cola, although both Cooper and Ross (1975) and Ross (1982) fail to point this out, in addition to the semantic rule stipulating that the stronger beverage shall precede the weaker one, we have both a phonological rule stipulating that the monosyllabic item shall precede the bisyllabic one, and a dual phonological rule (i.e. both vocalic and consonantal), which stipulates that a high vowel shall precede a low vowel; a less obstruent single initial consonant shall precede a more obstruent single initial consonant (see Landsberg 1987: 245). In the modest space and time left I will attempt to enumerate some of the most ubiquitous and important semantic constraints on linear word order, which will usually be found to function according to the following criteria: a. b. c. d. e. f. g.

Animate precedes inanimate (man-machine) Human precedes animate (man or beast) Adult precedes adolescent (father and son) Male precedes female (Mr. and Mrs.) Positive precedes negative (pro and contra) Proximal precedes distal (here and there) Stronger precedes weaker (gin and tonic)(Some 1982: 282)

examples are fron Ross

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h. More important precedes less important (the President and the Secretary of State) (From Jakobson's Quest, 1965: 27) i. Prior occurrence precedes secondary occurrence (veni, vidi, vici) (From Jakobson's Quest, 1965: 27) j. Most important of all: egocentricity rules the roost - including preferential dexterity! (East and West) Finally, if we care to cast a parting glance at Nerbrija's work of five centuries ago, we will see that it was not as peculiar (or "hardly convincing") as Sacks (1984: 20) thought it to be. For though indeed as yet Nebrija lacked the tools, his linguistic intuition served him well. And so today, thanks to Cooper and Ross' eminent pioneering work, we can say: (1) de Oriente a occidente 'from East to West' Freeze 1: egocentricity principle. Rule (j): preferential dexterity. Sequence: right precedes left. (2) el cielo Freeze 2: Rule (j): Sequence:

i la tierra 'heaven and earth' egocentricity principle. preferential direction. up precedes down.

(3) el dia i la noche 'day and night' Freeze 3: temporal priority principle. Rule (1): prior occurrence precedes secondary occurrence. Sequence: day is perceived as preceding night. (4) la luz i Freeze 4: Rule (e): Sequence:

las tinieblas 'light and darkness' preferential judgment principle. positive precedes negative. light precedes darkness as the more agreeable experience.

As we can see, interestingly, the more we get to know and understand about language, the less "arbitrary" it appears to become. However, it goes without saying that a great deal of work still remains to be done, possibly computerized, to be able to decide without a shadow of a doubt that the phenomenon of freezes in general, and syntactic iconicity in particular, is here to stay, as well as to determine its boundaries. In conclusion, coming back to English, I would like to point out that counterexamples to semantic constraints are extremely rare. 8 Indeed, the only true counterexample I have been able to think of so far, in addition to the ones mentioned and explained above (i.e. mom and dad, bride and groom, aunts and uncles, ladies and gentlemen,)9 is: It was swinging back and forth and

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not *forth and back, as might be expected). Here it is possibly a conglomerate of stronger phonological laws that overrules the weaker semantic constraints, such as the consonantal (fewer final consonants precede more final consonants) and the vocalic (front vowels precede back vowels). In general it can probably be argued that some people are endowed with a lesser or greater sensitivity to language than others, and hence some may have a stronger or even more compulsive innate inner sense of "rightness," "rhythm," or "balance" or, in general, of the beauty flow10 of human language. However that may be, ultimately we are al equally in bondage to the principles underlying freezes: the inexorable and indestructable gestalt quality of our perceptions (cf. Koffka 1963: Köhler 1947; Wertheimer 1959). For humankind is caught up totally in this web of gestalt principles. Hence, we cannot make a triadic division: person-environment-language. It is an indivisible whole (gestalt). And hence, too, just as our entire psychology of perception is frozen within that principle, so, of necessity, are our language perception and our language behavior. Both are forever governed or frozen by a fixed set of rules.

Notes *

1. 2.

3. 4.

5.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to Professors Abraham and Bollinger for the constructive criticism with which they have read this paper, and which was appreciated more than words can say. For this information I am indebted to Abraham (personal communication 1988). In retrospect it may perhaps be said that it was Behaghel's singular most important merit to have pointed out that entire compound sentences may be frozen with regard to their internal ordering within the complete utterance, affording a far wider and more comprehensive definition of the concept of "freezes" than is usually alluded to today. Behaghel observed that in a compound sentence consisting of say three subordinate sentences, the first part will always be the shorter one, the second somewhat lengthier, and the third and last sentence the longest of all (Behaghel 1909-1910: 138, 1932: 6). Although Malkiel (1959: 116), i.e., sixteen years earlier, speaks of " ' f r o z e n ' sequences." It should be pointed out here that most interestingly one year prior to Cooper and Ross's (1975) study, their main tenets had already been summed up succinctly by Huber (1974: 61-74). Apparently, Cooper and Ross were not aware at the time of the existence of this work, since Huber's name does not appear in their references (cf. Birdsong 1979: 12). BBI ... for the intials of the compilers: Benson, Benson and Ilson.

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6.

7.

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In his chapter "Spatial expressions," Lyons (1979: 691) makes the following statement: "There are no such reasons, however, for recognizing a positive and negative polarity in the right-left dimension: dexterity provides, at best, a rather weak criterion for classifying the right-hand side as positive and the left-hand side as negative." To my mind the above statement can be very quickly, easily and thoroughly debunked by examining our linguistic reaction to and discussion of that simple instrument we all know, showing the magnetic North: the compass. For just as surely as we will say: North and South (North always preceding South), we will say: East and West (East always preceding West), hereby proving that "up precedes down" equals (in laws of frozen linearity) "right precedes left." We may wish to remind our reader here of Kipling's famous "East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet" (and not *West is West and East is East ...). Lyons' thesis of linguistic "evenhandedness" is unequivocally disposed of by many such well-known frozen expressions, whether they be idiomatic or not. For instance we say: borrow right and left (and never *borrow left and right); while the "negativity" of left as opposed to the "positivity" of right comes out very clearly in such idiomatic expressions as: a left-handed compliment ("one that is ambiguous; of doubtful sincerity": Hornby etal. 1973: 557); as contrasted with: be one's right hand ... ("be one's most reliable helper": Hornby et al. 1973: 850); or be right-minded ("having morally good or positive opinions or principles": Hornby et al. 1973: 849). Hornby et al. (1973: 850) mention further such non-idioms as: he looked neither right nor left; he owes money right and left; the crowd divided right and left. No counter-examples could be detected here either. Hence, the dexterity criterion mentioned by Lyons above (1979: 691) as "rather weak" appears, in fact, to be so strong, as to govern right-left linear choice ubiquitously and relentlessly and, indeed, more often than not to overrule forceful phonological considerations! Phonological constraints define linear word ordering as follows: a. Vocalic:

b. Consonantal:

high vowels precede low vowels (tittle tattle) short vowels precede long vowels (wax and wane) front vowels precede back vowels (gewgaw) spread vowels precede round vowels (seesaw) short monophthongs precede long vowels, dipthongs or tripthongs (trick or treat) fewer initial consonants precede more initial consonants (by hook or by crook) a less obstruent single initial consonant precedes a more obstruent single initial consonant (hanky-panky) fewer final consonants precede more final consonants (toss and turn)

Semantic constraints on phonologically independent freezes

c. Syllabic:

75

a more obstruent single final consonant precedes a less obstruent single final consonant (rip and tear) less-syllabic items precede more-syllabic ones (cash and carry).

(Some examples are from Ross 1982: 276). 8. Although we have examples of the opposite occurrence, in general the phonological rules appear to be weaker than the semantic ones, and their violation more ubiquitous and lenient, for a variety of reasons: narrative, prosodic, semantic, etc. Some such phonological counterexamples (see footnote 7) are: a. I had not realized how attractive and handsome a woman she still was. b. Trial and error. c. Lump it or leave it. d. He was eating his hamburger with a diligent grinding-ripping motion. (Culled from David Louison's article "Arrive derci aroma" in The Jerusalem Post of Friday, July 29, 1988, page 6). e. Ashes and Dust. (CBS records, Israeli song-writer Yaacov Gilad and singercomposer Yehuda Poliker. Title of new album of songs reflecting their experiences as children of Holocaust survivors. Mentioned in an article by Carl Schräg "Songs of survival" in The Jerusalem Post of Friday, July 22, 1988, page 13. As was pointed out to me by Abraham (personal communication, 19.1.1989), this is supposedly modeled upon the biblical (cf. Job 42: 6): 'allien' 'em'am wenihamity 'al-'äfär we'efer 'Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes'. Gilad apparently chose Ashes and Dust (instead of the original dust and ashes) for prosodic reasons. Incidentally, interestingly, to my mind, in Hebrew, too, 'efer-'äfär is the "stronger" version, but for reasons of his own, the scribe preferred the version we find. It is true that Ashes and Dust sounds very strong and final. There may, then, be prosodic rules so powerful that they will overrule other semantic and/or phonological rules (for "of course" monosyllabic dust really "ought to" precede dissyllabic ashes). Just so we have an even more interesting, much bandied about, example: in sickness and in health, with not one but two violations, as apparently stronger prosodic considerations overrule both the phonological rule stating that monosyllabic items precede dissyllabic ones, and the semantic rule stating that positive concepts precede negative ones. It goes without saying that prosodic choice may not be "entirely unmotivated;" that is to say, "physiological/psychological" principles may be underlying the choice (cf. Marchand 1957: 61). However, it would be beyond the scope of this paper to deliberate on that aspect here. 9. Horse and rider is a much bandied about 'counter example' here, and though it is true that semantic (6): "Human precedes animate" appears to be violated here, apparently a stronger phonological law (c): "Monosyllabic precedes polysyllabic" overrules the weaker semantic llaw (cf. footnote 6). 10. An interesting counter example!

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Ross, J. R. 1982 The sound of meaning. In The Linguistic Society of Korea (ed.), Linguistics in the Morning Calm. Selected papers from SICOL - 1981. 275-290. Seoul, Korea: Hanshin. Sacks, N.P. 1984 Antonio de Nebrija: Founder of Spanish linguistics. Hispanic Linguistics 1(1). 19-33. Schräg, C. 1988 Songs of survival, The Jerusalem Post, 22 July. Page 13 Wertheimer, Μ. 1959 Experimental studies on the seeing of motion, in T. Shipley (ed.), Classics in modern psychology. 1032-1089. New York: Philosophical Library.

Categories of word order iconicity Willy Van Langendonck

Abstract The unifying principle of closeness is set up to explain word order iconicities, whereby several subprinciples are distinguished: (1) closeness of events in a narrative sequence; (2) closeness to the speaker, in a literal or in a metaphorical sense; (3) closeness in content, where four subcategories are discussed: simple adjacency, relative adjacency, adjacency of similar elements and intermediate positioning of the relator. Some of these principles taken together may explain why the orderings SVO and SOV are so frequent crosslinguistically, while VSO is relatively rare, and other orderings are almost nonexistent, as far as basic word order is concerned. The general thesis of this paper is that word order can be explained in terms of iconicity to a greater extent than has been assumed hitherto. More specifically, it is claimed that an overall principle, viz. closeness, can be set up to describe various kinds of word order iconicity, although mostly, additional principles, iconic and other, are needed. As was established in the literature of the eighties, diagrammatic iconicity appears to play an important part in the constitution of grammar, crosslinguistically. A major area in grammar concerns word order, which I consider to be a separate component in syntax. This paper will exclusively deal with word order phenomena. Following Haiman (1983), I will make use of the principle of distance. Haiman applied it mainly in the domain of grammatical categories and constructions like causatives and coordination. It appears to me that in conjunction with some other iconic principles, the principle of distance, or its converse, closeness, puts constraints on the ordering of meaningful elements, as well as on categories and constructions. I will distinguish three types of closeness which are involved in word order iconicity: (1) closeness of events in a narrative sequence, (2) closeness to the speaker, in a literal or in a metaphorical sense, and (3) closeness in content, where four subcategories are discussed: simple adjacency, relative adjacency, adjacency of similar elements, and intermediate positioning of the relator.

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1. Narrative sequence One of the classical examples of order iconicity is narrative sequence. As Greenberg (1966a: 103) put it: "the order of elements in language parallels that in physical experience or the order of knowledge." In my opinion, there are several aspects to be discerned here. In the first place, we have two principles of closeness: the closer the events occur in time, the closer they are positioned in the discourse, at least when no other factors intervene. Moreover, the time span between the subsequent events will be relatively small. The classical asyndetic sequence: (1)

Veni, vidi, vici.

is a good example of these two closeness principles. The three events are not unrelated, follow one another as indicated in the linguistic order, and the time span between them is relatively small. However, closeness will not explain everything here. An additional iconic rule saying that the first real time event is mentioned first, is indispensable in order to avoid the reverse order *Vici, vidi, veni, where the aforementioned closeness principles obtain as well as in the intended order in (1).

2. Closeness to the speaker Another kind of iconic ordering involves the speaker himself. What is nearest to the speaker in a literal or in a metaphorical sense, is mentioned first, especially again in asyndetic or fixed coordinate structures, where few other factors can intervene.

2.7. Spatiotemporal

closeness

Literal closeness to the speaker is involved in spatiotemporal conjunctions like the English and French freezes: (2)

Here and there, this and that, now and then, sooner or later: ςά et lä, tot ou tard, etc.

We have to assume here that the initial motivation for putting here, now, sooner, etc. in first position derives from the speaker's viewpoint, witness sentences like:

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a. I will go to Brussels sooner or later.

From such speaker-oriented expressions, extrapolations have become possible where the speaker's viewpoint is only indirectly represented; compare sentences like: (3)

b. Sooner or later, such a thing was to happen in that town.

2.2. Closeness to the prototypical

speaker

The second category has to do with a metaphorical closeness to the so-called prototypical speaker, a notion introduced by Mayerthaler (1980). The fact that metaphor comes in here should not be too surprising, as we know that in Peirce's (1974: 157) Categorization, metaphor is also a kind of iconic process. The prototypical speaker is the speaker with his prototypical biological and psychological, especially perceptual, and also his cultural properties. For instance, the prototypical speaker sees himself as a definite human agent, acting in a three-dimensional space in the present, living on and not under a surface, having his eyes in front and not behind, etc. A number of such properties correspond to conceptually related linguistic features, which are then termed prototypical and, moreover, appear to coincide with unmarked feature-values. To determine the markedness status of a feature value, a number of traditional formal linguistic criteria have been adduced in the literature, e.g., zero-form, neutralization, dominance, defectivation, syncretization (Greenberg, 1966b). In addition, data from work on language acquisition have been made available as a third means to test the prototypicality of linguistic categories (cf. Van Langendonck 1986). I will now produce a few examples where the notion of prototypicality is relevant to order phenomena, mainly in more or less fixed coordinations. In such patterns, the prototypical element is put first, because it is the item which is nearest to the prototypical speaker in a metaphorical sense. To start with a more familiar example, we take the feature [ ± human] where it is obvious that the plus-value is prototypical, i.e. nearest to the prototypical speaker. Hence, we find such expressions as: (4)

A man or a mouse, but not: *a mouse or a man.

The prototypicality of [ + human] might also explain why in English and Dutch, the indirect object without a preposition precedes the direct object.

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This is because usually, the indirect object is [ + human] and the direct object [— human] or inanimate. Hence, we say: (5)

I gave John a book, but not: */ gave a book John.

Less known is the prototypicality (unmarkedness) of the concept [ + definite] vis-ä-vis [— definite] (Van Langendonck 1979). The prototypical speaker considers himself to be a specific individual, who is presupposed to exist and need not be introduced into the discourse as an indefinite being (Mayerthaler 1980). Therefore, we have coordinations like: (6)

Me or somebody else; that and something else, but not: *somebody or me; *something and that.

In subject-object-verb (SOV) patterns, the direct object may precede adverbials when it is definite, but not when it is indefinite; compare the Dutch subordinate clauses: (7)

a. Oat ik het boek gisteren kreeg 'that I got the book yesterday' b. Dat ik gisteren. een boek kreeg 'that I got a book yesterday' c. * Dat ik een boek gisteren kreeg

We can now still better understand why in ninety-nine percent of the languages investigated, the subject precedes the object in neutral order (Comrie 1983: 19-20). Indeed, the typical subject unites such prototypical concepts as human, definite, topic and agent or experiencer. A classical example of the marked-unmarked opposition is provided by adjectival pairs like: (8)

Big and small, tall and short, long and short, thick and thin, high and low, etc.

where the first conjunct represents the unmarked counterpart. Thereby, it is usually claimed that the unmarked adjective is to be regarded as positive, and the marked one as negative. Although it is plausible that positive is prototypical as against negative (since positive is "existing," just like the prototypical speaker (compare also yes or no, and not: *no or yes [Mayerthaler 1980]), it remains arbitrary to posit that big, tall, long, thick and high would constitute

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the more positive value (as is argued in Clark 1973: 38), since they could be defined as "not-small," "not-short," "not-thin" and "not-low," respectively. A better explanation, in my opinion, is to relate the meanings of these unmarked adjectives to properties of the prototypical speaker, and to the way the latter perceives the world: it lies in the nature of the prototypical speaker himself as also of other living creatures that they become big, tall, long, etc., i.e., that they grow and expand, not the reverse. If not etymologically, semantically we can relate the notion "great" to "grow." Indeed, "great" is a feature common to all the unmarked adjectives just cited: big, tall, long, thick, high.

2.3. Internal closeness

hierarchy

Instead of extending this list of protopyical concepts, we will now review the three principles of closeness to the speaker, and look at their internal hierarchy. It seems we are confronted with a hierarchy from least abstract to most abstract, whereby greater abstractness implies greater markedness (less prototypicality). More specifically, temporal closeness is more abstract than spatial nearness, while the closeness to the prototypical speaker is a still more abstract metaphorical nearness. The prediction is now that the more abstract nearness will have to yield to the less abstract one. This is borne out by the fact that in coordinations with a locative word and a temporal word, the former precedes: (9)

Here and now Latin: hie et nunc Dutch: waar en wanneer 'where and when' 1

Second, spatiotemporal closeness seems to take precedence over the metaphorical nearness to the prototypical speaker. When we look at the spatiotemporal conjunctions here and there, now and then, we in fact observe a paradox. Although it is generally agreed that the adverbs there and then are unmarked in relation to their respective counterparts here and now, they are not put first in the coordinate structure. According to my hypothesis, this could be explained by the assumption that the unmarkedness of there and then derives from a property of the prototypical speaker. As long as there is no opposition between one place and another or between one time span and another, we can say that the prototypical speaker simply perceives the world as being "there" and "then." Therefore the counterparts there and then appear to be the prototypical and unmarked ones. A parallel argument goes for the opposition this and that, where that comes last though it is unmarked.

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Another such dichotomy is I (me) and he/she. Although, obviously, the first person is nearest to the speaker because the two are identical, the third person is the unmarked one as long as there is no opposition: it is, as Benveniste (1966: 251-257) put it, the nonperson. Notice indeed that young children call themselves with their own proper name, which is a third person form, but a neutralization of the opposition in person. Thus, in the instances here and there, now and then, this and that, I (me) and he/she, the spatiotemporal closeness (here, now, this, I) overrides the more abstract closeness to the prototypical speaker (there, then, that, he/she).

3. Closeness in content The third category of closeness or distance has little to do with the speaker (prototypical or not), but pertains to semantic relationships: it is closeness in content, where closeness is again to be taken in a metaphorical sense. The assumption is that closeness in content is reflected in closeness in word order. We distinguish several subprinciples, which at times may be in conflict. Let us look at the way they could explain different cases of adjacency: simple adjacency, relative adjacency, adjacency of similar elements and the relator principle.

3.1. Simple

adjacency

Dependency theorists have long formulated the adjacency principle, of which more than one version exists (Hudson 1984: 98). In its simplest form, this principle says that a modifier should be put as close as possible to its head. The principle is iconic, since it wants to keep together in linear order what belongs together in content. Thus, for instance, objects tend to accompany the verb they depend on; adjectives and determiners the governing noun, etc. The adjacency principle leaves room for the well-known typological difference between the order "head-modifier" and the reverse order "modifierhead." As far as a language shows consistency in this respect, we can speak of isomorphic iconicity in the sense of Haiman (1980).

3.2. Relative

adjacency

Things become more complicated when the head displays more than one modifier. In essence, there are three possibilities: either the modifiers all

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precede, or they all follow the head, or some of them precede, and some of them follow. When all modifiers precede or follow, we encounter another kind of order iconicity, viz. relative adjacency: it has been observed that what is closest in content to the head, is generally put closest to the head, at least in neutral order. Moreover, we can add to this that a second feature of iconicity, though logically independent of the first, is inherent to relative adjacency, i.e., similar elements, in this case modifiers, are put together. Compare the English nominal chain: (10)

The three nice little white wooden

dolls.

In such examples, it is not only the case that the modifiers are adjacent to each other, as far as linear order permits, but, in addition, the qualifying adjectives appear closer to the noun than the quantifying modifiers, a widely attested phenomenon in a variety of languages. On the other hand, it has been observed that in some languages, the deictic and quantificational elements are nearer to the noun than the true adjectives (Heine 1980). Two different iconic principles seem to conflict here: in the case of English and most other languages, it is the predicational content of the noun that dominates and attracts first those adjectives which fit in best with the predicational content of the noun. In the other case, the noun attracts first the deictic elements; this fits in with the referential function of the noun. This twofold possibility squares well with earlier logical analyses of the noun as a variable combined with a predicate, e.g., a doll = "an χ which is a doll" (Bach 1968). Thus, in the English prenominal order, the predicational element is focused on, while in the other case, the variable is the relevant element. It is plausible to assume that in the case of the verbal chain, there is but one possibility: since the verb is the predicate par excellence, the relative adjacency can only be carried out according to the principle of the closeness of predicational elements. Compare the English verbal chain (with postmodification) and its Durch counterpart (with premodification): (11)

a. He looked up a word in the dictionary in his room. b. (Dat) hij in zijn kamer in het woordenboek een woord

opzocht.

In both cases (11 a,b) the verb-participle up/op is nearest to the verb, followed by the direct object (a word/een woord). The circumstancials are farthest away from the verbal nucleus.

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3.3. Relator between re lata When we concentrate on the grammatical relations, we see that the Dutch subordinate clause displays SOV, while English has SVO. As is well-known, English has developed from SOV to SVO; Dutch shows SVO(V) in main clauses: (12)

a. Dat John Mary slaat 'that John hits Mary' b. John slaat Mary 'John hits Mary' c. John heeft Mary geslagen 'John has hit Mary'

Several explanations have been given for this drift, which can be observed in still other languages. Let us look at it from the viewpoint of iconicity. Even then, there may be more than one explanation. First, the relative adjacency may be abandoned for adjacency tout court. In the SVO order, the need for adjacency of both the subject and the object to the verb is satisfied, in contrast with the SOV order, which shows relative adjacency. This phenomenon can be observed in other constructions, e.g., the English verbal chain: (13)

a. He always looks awful.

or the French nominal chain b. Un bon ν in blanc 'a good white wine' where there are modifiers on either side of the head. However, there is an additional property displayed by the pattern SVO, but not by the above patterns in (13a,b). In the SVO construction, the verb creates a special relationship between the referents of subject and object, i.e., the referent of the object is affected by the referent of the subject in the way specified by the verb. When we say: (14)

a. John hit Mary

Mary is the patient affected by the agent John. The verb hit can be regarded as a relator linking two relata in a specific way. From an iconic viewpoint, it is reasonable, then, to put the relator in the middle, because of its special linking

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function. The notion of relator has been set up earlier for such function words as adpositions and conjunctions (Dik 1983). For instance, in the phrase: (14)

b. Tea for you

the preposition is a relator specifying a particular relation between the relata tea and you, paraphrasable as "tea which you will benefit from." The relatorconstruction he as president, to take another example, can be rephrased as "he being the president." Conjunctions are another instance. The meaning of the coordination this or that can be described in terms of a choice between two things, etc. On the other hand, there is no such specific relationship between the modifiers in patterns like (13a,b). In the latter cases, we cannot speak of a relator-construction. Although a relator is not necessarily a head (cf. coordinate structures, e.g., he and she ), head and relator often coincide, e.g., transitive verbs and adpositions are the head of their object. However, in addition, they produce a special relationship between their two relata, at least semantically, if not formally. We can now set up the hypothesis that the iconic tendency of language to have relators in the middle can lead fairly easily to a drift from SOV to SVO and from postpositional to prepositional structures. This, in turn, can trigger a development to overall postmodification in the language concerned. Apparently, this is what has happened in English (except for nominal phrases) and what it still going on in Modern Dutch.

4. SOV and SVO Finally, when we take all relevant iconic principles into account in dealing with word order typology, we can perhaps explain why an overwhelming majority of languages display either SOV or SVO as basic order. Both SOV and SVO are ideal in the sense that the subject not only comes before the object, but is simply clause-initial. This tendency relates, as we saw, to the principle of closeness to the prototypical speaker. As to the principle of closeness in content, SOV shows two more advantages: similar elements (S and Ο are NPs) are (or can be) put together, and second, relative adjacency applies in that the object is nearer to the verb than the subject. On the other hand, SVO has two different advantages: relator in the middle, in addition to simple adjacency of S and Ο to the verb. This renders SVO a worthy competitor for SOV. Indeed, the fact that VSO occurs in only ten percent of the languages

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investigated (Comrie 1983), is apparently due to its disadvantaged status as to iconicity: although the subject comes before the object, it is not clauseinitial. For the rest, there is just one weak iconic factor: similar elements (S and O) are adjacent; schematically: (15)

a. SOV: subject clause-initial similar elements (S and O) together relative adjacency (O next to V) b. SVO: subject clause-initial simple adjacency to the head (V) relator (V) in the middle c. VSO: subject before object similar elements (S and O) together

The three other possible orders (VOS, OSV, OVS) are grossly disadvantaged in having the subject after the object.

5. Conclusion In conclusion, we can say that word order iconicity appears to be constituted by one general principle of closeness, complemented by various subprinciples. Three kinds of closeness have been reviewed: closeness of events in narrative sequence, closeness to the prototypical speaker or to the speaker tout court and, finally, closeness in content, where we discern simple adjacency, relative adjacency, adjacency of similar elements, intermediate positioning of the relator. Taking some of these principles together contributes to an explanation of the crosslinguistic frequency of the orders SOV and SVO. Although such principles do not provide us with exact rules for word order in any language under investigation, I do think that setting up iconic principles of the sort described here can contribute to explaining the existence, frequency, or nonexistence of certain syntactic patterns, viz. coordination and the positioning of modifiers with regard to their head.

Notes 1. Contrary to this rule, English appears to prefer the order when and where, then and there (see Landsberg, this volume). In this case, our semantic principle is overridden by a phonological one, which reads: put the shorter vowel before the longer one, in this case: put [ / w e n ] (with a monophthong) before [/?wes] (with

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a diphthong), and put [δεη] before [δεο] for the same reason. In the Dutch counterpart, the semantic and the phonological principle cooperate: monosyllabic waar 'where' precedes disyllabic wanneer 'when'.

References Bach, E. 1968 Nouns and noun phrases. In E. Bach and R. Harms (eds.), Universals in linguistic theory. 90-122. New York: Holt. Benveniste, E. 1966 Problemes de linguistique generale (La nature des pronoms). 251-257. Paris: Gallimard Clark, H. 1973 Space, time, semantics and the child. In Τ. E. Moore (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. 2 7 - 6 3 . New York: Academic. Comrie, B. 1983 Language universals and lingusitic typology. Oxford: Blackwell. Dik, S.C. 1983 Two constraints on relators and what they can do for us. In S . C . Dik (ed.), Advances in functional grammar. 267-278. Dordrecht: Foris. Greenberg, J. H. 1966a Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In J . H . Greenberg (ed.), Universals of human language. 73-113. Cambridge, MA: MIT. 1966h Language universals, with special reference to feature hierarchies. The Hague: Mouton. Haiman, J. 1980 The iconicity of grammar. Language 56. 515-541. 1983 Iconic and economic motivation. Language 59. 781-819. Heine, B. 1980 Determination in some East African languages. In Wege zur Universalienforschung. G. Brettschneider and C. Lehmann (eds.), Sprachwissenschaftliche Beiträge zum 60. Geburtstag von H. Seiler. 180-186. Tübingen: Narr. Hudson, R. 1984 Word grammar. Oxford: Blackwell. Langendonck, W. Van 1979 Definiteness as an unmarked category. Linguistische Berichte 63. 33-55. Langendonck, W. Van 1986 Markedness, prototypes and language acquisition. In L. Beheydt (ed.), Langage enfantin = Cahiers de l'Institut de Linguistique de Louvain 13. 4 1 - 7 8 . Mayerthaler, W. 1980 Ikonismus in der Morphologie. Zeitschrift für Semiotik 2. 19-37.

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Peirce, CS. 1974 Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Edited by C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press.

Homo loquens as "sender-receiver" (i.e., transceiver) and the raison d'etre of sememic, lexemic and morphemic prefabs in natural language structures and language use Adam

Makkai

Abstract The paper enlarges the notion that syntax is full of "freezes " and "frames " (idioms, frozen phraseological units, etc.) by pointing out that natural languages show this feature of unpredictability on all levels. That phonetic material "coagulates" into α /Θ/ or /&/ is typical of English, but not of Russian; that Russian has rolled apical trills /R/ is phono-idiomatic for Russian. On the morphemic level frozen units abound: trans-late, trans-fer and transmigrate are recognized, but the equally logical *trans-mote does not; it was "made up" by Art Buchwald. Natural languages, thus, have unpredictable morpheme sequences frozen in word-frames. In syntax we find actually the "greatest freedom," but here, too, over and beyond bona fide idioms and phraseological units there are stereotypical forms, "stylistic freezes" that can be used to characterize a writer's style.

Introduction The paper takes a holistic view of human languages and linguistic structures in general, thereby espousing "catalysis" instead of the usual approach of "analysis." Analytical linguistics, no matter how gratifying to the mathematically and logically inclined mind, has a dangerous tendency to turn into reductionism. If one takes the philosophical implications of Transformational Generative Grammar to their logical conclusion, one must find a gigantic semantic feature depository and an equally complex phonetic feature depository somewhere in the human mind, to which one adds a set of rules. These rules, then, will "generate" all grammatical sentences of the given language and only the grammatical ones. No computer system can actually build a model for this by rules, whereas non-rule oriented parallel processing models

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that use holistic chunks in a large data base, are beginning to show success both in Europe and in the USA. Human languages are not assembled anew each time a speaker says something. Instead, humans use "frames" amd "freezes," that is, largely premanufactured phonetic, morphological, syntactic and semantic material, more or less unconsciously absorbed in childhood. The phoneme /p/ as in pin (as opposed to /b/ as in bin) is a "frozen unit in a frame," or, in other words, a holon, or a premanufactured phonetic idiom. English /p/ is further shown to be idiosyncratic, as it has an aspirated allophone [p h ] which occurs in word-initial position and, after heavy stress, in the middle of words, e.g., pete, and repeat. Thus, to call |p|, the grapheme the English/Latin letter ρ or the phoneme /p/ and describe it as "bilabial voiceless stop" is only a part of the truth: whereas everyone who can read the Latin alphabet ought to know what a /p/ sounds like, spoken English /p/ necessitates knowledge of [p h ] as well as the other allophones of /p/. Words built of Graeco-Latinate or Anglo-Saxon etymemes (or historic morphemes) show "frozenness and frames" in that unexpected holons emerge and perfectly natural-sounding combinations fail to occur. Modern theorizing has called this the "phenomenon of 'accidental gaps."' However, by calling attention to the "gaps" the problem is no nearer to any satisfactory solution. Once again linguistics must recognize that our logic is limited and must play an ancillary role to a discovery of the facts. *smrt, 'death' in Czech, is no word existing in English, but add an /a/ and we get smart; this fact alone renders smart a framable, unique sequence of English letters and phonemes; a premanufactured mini-idiom, as it were. The adjective smart 'intelligent, sharp, good looking' is much more common than the verb smart, 'to itch, to hurt, produce tears' as is in my eyes are smarting in this smoke-filled room. By discovering the verb smart next to the more common adjective smart, the learner-discoverer of English was forced to increase the previously invisible Hinterland of the semantics of the sequence s, m, a, r, t and this, in itself, is once again "mini-idiomatic," premanufactured, a frozen frame in space and time, although not tangible. It would be a mistake to try reifying s, m, a, r, t\ whether we talk about the adjective or the verb so spelled and pronounced, all we do is add a connection in our memory to the two-way bridge that spans the neurophysiological and cognitive gap between "concepts" and "sounds." In as much as one inherits from one's society first the adjective smart and then the verb smart, one has inherited a social convention. This social convention is not a thing or an object that can be dissembled and then again reassembled as if one could perform an autopsy on a dead body and then operate the organs and limbs back together again also adding to the corpse a breath of new life.

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However, it can be brought into focus of consciousness by use and defining. Once properly acquired and remembered, it looks like a "thing," especially in written form. It can be given a number in the dictionary under the letter s. Dictionary entries, then, are also "prefabs," "frames of consciousness freezable in space and time." This is particularly clearly seen in the case of longer idioms such as hammer and tongs meaning "violently" as in they were at it hammer and tongs ('fought, argued with great energy and noise'). The paper further argues that if phonemes, morphemes and lexemes can be assessed as "fixed," "frozen," "framed," "premanufactured" and "idiomatic," so can sentence patterns. The declarative sentence and its surface word order (John speaks French) as well as its interrogative and negative forms (Does John speak French? John doesn't speak French; Doesn't John speak French?) are entirely nonoriginal cliches in English. Society and the adult world brainwash children into conformity in using these. If a grammarian were to make up a supposed negative form *John speakn 't French, trying to explain why we are "constrained" not to do likewise, the error and fallacy of over-generating a restricted pattern would be being indulged in thereby giving us negative data. Argument by negative data is the reductionists' tool-kit for special private entertainment, with the exclusion of the tax-paying public. Doesn't speak is not superior in logic, yet it occurs; *speakn't is preeminently logical, yet it does not occur. One must agree that the old structuralist notion of privilege of occurrence ought to be resurrected and be seen as tied to "frozenness," "frameability," "idiosyncracy" and "idiomaticity," hence to the general phenomenon of being available ready-made, prefabricated or premanufactured. Beyond clauses and sentences, structuring of the written paragraph and the spoken discourse-block also shows arbitrariness, the same quality of being nonoriginal, but somehow socially inherited and copied. It is pointed out that true literary "originality" is as rare as true genius. To be someone's imitator or epigone is a human state much more often encountered than genuine "creativity" in the artistic-esthetic sense. In the upper realms of "frozenness-prefabricatedness" frameable as a "classical," "romantic," "realist" or "surrealist" style we approach the interface of linguistics and literary studies, especially explication de texte. The paper concludes with a diagram of language structure indicating the areas of greater or lesser freedom on the part of the individual writer or storyteller stating, by implication, that one of the major tasks of modern linguistics is to account for the composition process. The theme of the conference, which resulted in the present volume, is one with which every linguist must sooner or later come into direct confrontation

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on all four of the classical levels (or "strata") of every one of the Earth's natural languages: The SEMOLOGY (traditionally "semantics"), the LEXOLOGY (traditionally "syntax"), the MORPHOLOGY and the P H O N O L O G Y . For it so happens that on all four of these levels (German scholarship of the nineteenth century, to which we owe so much in linguistics, called these from sound "up" to meaning: Lautlehre, Formenlehre, Satzlehre, and Bedeutungslehre•), we must run into curiously unyielding configurations. Although we may pretend all we like that we "generate" these, in plain truth we merely reassemble them, after having picked them apart with our analytical tools. As a result, most linguists find what their analytical tools allow them to find; no more and no less. It is as if the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, bolstered by the more recent findings of Marshall Macluhan, had conspired to teach us a lesson for being so arrogant and presumptuous as to think that by mastering a grammar we have suddenly become "creative." This mistaken notion of "creativity," besides the equally fallacious insistance on the difference between "competence" and "performance," is one of the main reasons why Chomsky's Transformational Generative Grammar (T.G.G.) movement, which had come in with a bang, had to die a whimpering death on the barricades of Chomsky's ideological rhetoric, while being kept artificially alive by the political loyalty of those he had converted to his views over the past thirty-two years. A T.G.G.-trained analyst is bound to find what (s)he has been looking for: "formatives" arranging themselves on labeled nodes once in "deep," once in "infra," then in "shallow" and "surface" structures. Whether the semantics feeds the "deep structure" or "interprets" it, is one of the in-house theological debates that kept MIT in business over the years, in linguistics. Mutatis mutandis, a typical neo-Bloomfieldian (if there ever was such a person in reality) would be likely to find morpheme strings expressable in terms of classical phonemes. This view, insufficient though it is, is no worse than saying that a printed book consists of "words" and "letters," where a word may be defined as any sequence of letters bounded by two empty spaces and a letter as any uninterrupted black sign on white paper, with or without detached accent marks. That a book, inter alia, is this, too, is not worth debating. What I must point out is that having a "morpheme-and-phoneme-grammar" of a previously unknown exotic language is far better than not having any knowledge even of its very existence, and that TGG-linguists would not have been able to carry out their work if it had not been for the often self-effacing diligence of the maligned "structuralists." Pike and his fellow tagmemicists find "slots" and "fillers" in their work, and quite justifiably so, for lingual material is temporal and linear in its manifestation mode. Beyond that, tagmemicists look at the hierarchical levels of

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organization inherent in languages. That such an approach is not unrealistic is amply proven by the hundreds of successful translations provided by the Summer Institute of Linguistics and the invaluable amount of data professionally collected during the past half century. That Halliday and his Systemic-Functional Grammar should find "ideational," "interpersonal" and "textual" materials in language, which yield to the researcher in terms of network diagrams orchestrated with "entry conditions" and with choices, such as "if A, then Β or C," "if C, then Ε or F," is a direct consequence of the many realistic insights that Halliday and his school of linguistics have made their goal to find in a synchronic language description. Chacun a son gout 'each to his own taste' say the French, and this is how it happens that linguists who never abandoned the proposition that human languages are social goods, serving the needs of human communication, have never lost sight of "Reality in Linguistics." The difference-mindedness of Troubetzkoy and the Prague School has continued in the work of European functionalists such as Martinet and Coseriu; also in the works of Jakobson, until his not entirely appropriate expropriation as "Revered Ancestor" by the T.G.G.-linguists at MIT. Someone might object at this point, and say that all schools and scholars mentioned so far are very nice indeed, but lack mathematical exactness - that is what makes a theory serious. I would have to reply that this is not so. The Generative-Applicative Grammar of Shaumyan (1986) which flourished in the USSR until its transplantation to Yale for a full and very fertile decade, has all the desiderata in mathematical rigor, yet it remains a semioticallybased grammatical theory in which falsehoods need not be posited in order to derive actualities therefrom. And this is, I believe, the essence of the matter: all of the realistic theories of language are, in the last analysis, semiotically based. The most explicit and most formal theory of grammar which exists today, and which is based on semiotics, is Cognitive-Stratificational Grammar (C.S.G.). Developed mostly by Lamb (1966). C.S.G. was a relative latecomer on the scene. However, the theory has made major contributions to our understanding of semantics, syntax, lexicography, idiomaticity as well as phonology (see Makkai 1972; Makkai and Lockwood 1972). For a formal treatment of sociolinguistic material in a C.S.G. framework see Herrick (1984). In C.S.G. we approach natural languages as products of the highly complex ecology which ties us communicating human beings with our own selves; the "significant others" in our lives; our immediate and our larger social ties; friendships, jobs, parties, clubs, tribes or nation(s). This being the case, the stratificationalist recognizes that much of the recent debate in phonology

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is futile and inappropriate. One has to recognize that one simultaneously "generates" (read "utters") one's phonological output and "interprets" (read "hears and recognizes") one's own phonations and those of others. What makes the job of communication possible is that the phonations of the mouth and the receptions by the ear are, as they must be, coordinated by socialized human brains. I hear myself talk and say things, the distortions due to my own biological self-proximity notwithstanding, just as I hear others who, of course, hear and monitor themselves as they talk to me, just as I have been doing when I did the talking. The phoneme is, therefore, the most logical and most useful invention of linguistics ever since the early days of the nineteenth century. Without it there would be no possiblity to expect that one's interlocutor hears what I intended to say, and vice versa, whether in one's first (native) language or in an acquired one, later on in life. If the phoneme did not exist, it should be invented, if one dare paraphrase Voltaire, who, allegedly, did not think very highly at all of phonetics. 1 Whatever phoneme inventory a language or a major dialect of a language has in any given decade of any given century is an unconscious social product; the lingual secretion of many thousands, even millions, of communicating individuals. That American English in this decade fast approaching the end of the twentieth century should have a /w/ and a /y/ phoneme which contrast in wet: yet; bow: boy etc., along with Idl and ΙΘΙ which contrast in either / i y i W vs. either /iy#a7, etc., has something "premanufactured" or "idiomatic" about it, if one comes to speaking this language from the outside at age twenty-one or older, as I did. Since no one in linguistics today expects a phoneme to have any independent meaning of its own (the "softness" of /m/ and "hardness" of Iii, both in and outside of onomatopoeia is an altogether different matter), it is not possible to view phonemes as "idiomatic" - certainly not in the semantic sense or as idioms of decoding. (An idiom of decoding is one that suggests a literal meaning simultaneously with the idiomatic one as in don't count your chickens before they're hatched which can mean 'refrain from premature celebration' or be taken literally as if spoken to a poultry farmer who actually calculates the number of chickens he will have while they are still in the incubator.) Phonemes, however, do appear to have something in common with idioms of encoding. Idioms of encoding are not necessarily semantically opaque, yet they create surprise and bewilderment by forcing users to accept them as they are, i.e., premanufactured. In traditional foreign language learning this fact manifests itself when the teacher alerts his/her students by pointing out how certain combinations of Latin letters are to be pronounced in English; e.g., Ifl must be sounded by spelling e,n,o,u,g,h; silence or 101 when one spells debt and doubt where the letter [b] is con-

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cerned; surprise is registered when people learn that the family name Reagan can be pronounced with an /ey/ as in the past US President's name and as /iy/, as in the name if one of his cabinet members, not related. These idiosyncratic spelling-phonemicization correlations have something "idiomatic" about them, and one does not have to be a foreigner to come to appreciate this point. In medieval England the modern word church used to be spelled in a bewildering variety of ways, undoubtedly reflecting different dialects, but also a great deal of arbitrary variation; thus one had kirk, circ, circe, eure, curch, churc, and so on. 2 The main point I am trying to make here is that both phonemic systems and the alphabetizations they correspond to often contain amazing irregularities and unpredictable twists and turns removed from the ordinary state of affairs; so much so that to speak of "grapho-phonemic idiomaticity" is not at all unrealistic or farfetched. But let me turn to the next, more obvious level of prefabs and "idiomaticity." The English language, thanks to the influx of French and Latin words over the centuries, abounds in verbs and nouns which are constructed of a Latinate prefix and a Latinate stem. If we should take in-, per-, pro-, re-, and trans-, for the limited purpose of illustration, and try to match them with the verbal stems -duce, -duct, -mote, -late, -fer, -ceive, and -cept, one ought to be able to "generate" out of these (five times seven) thirty-five primary forms qua verbs with the stress on the second syllable; thirty-five nouns with the first syllable stressed; i.e., minimally seventy well-formed words, plus several noun/verb dichotomies with aberrent accent forms. Pro- + -duce does yield produce, the familiar verb, as in Michener produces a new book every year, but Michener's books are not his produce; produce is sold in supermarkets and refers to cultivated vegetables. Pro- -f- -duct add up to the well-known noun product, but there is no corresponding verb *to product, since to produce covers most if not all human productions, including produce. Con- + -duct offers different challenges. To conduct a symphony is the proper job of its conductor; and there are conductors, e.g. the ones working on trains. These people do not conduct either the orchestra or the train; they collect the tickets of passengers and make little holes in them. The behavior of an orchestra conductor and a train conductor both can be referred to as their conduct, but this refers more to their general behavior and manners as people in private life than with the style in which they discharge their respective duties. Naturally, one need not be a conductor in order to be criticized for poor conduct or praised for excellent conduct. Strangely, *conduce as a verb and *conduce as a noun do not occur, although the adjective conducive 'capable of, likely to, favorable for ...' does; it seems to be based on a verb *to conduce, as pointed out above.

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The possible but nonexistent form *transmote did not exist in English until Art Buchwald (1966), the noted newspaper columnist, introduced it during the L. B. Johnson administration, when the President of the United States fired Secretary of Defense Robert S. MacNamara by making him President of the World Bank: "Is this A Promotion? No. A Demotion? No. Well, what it is then?" - Buchwald was musing rhetorically. "But of course! It must be a Transmotion!" - he wrote. To transmote can now be defined by saying: 'a way of dismissing a dignitary by lateral removal and thereby allowing such a dignitary to save face.' The reader is invited to speculate away about the fate of our extremely limited corpus and what the existence and nonexistence of some of the forms generated entails. Suffice it to say that English abounds in morphological idioms, a fact I did not properly recognize at the time of the writing of Idiom Structure in English (Makkai 1972). I am now persuaded by Sullivan (1981) that English abounds in morphological idioms such as the ones mentioned above. This morphological idiomaticity in English need not be limited to Latinate or Greek-derived material. 3 Anglo-Saxon morphological material is also self-evidently arbitrary and preter-logical in its creative and frozen sets. The suffix -en 'endow with the properties of the preceding adjective' seems to be restricted to the color-words white, red and black. Whereas all three occur as the verbs whiten, redden and blacken, no other color words, to my knowledge, can be so treated. Thus we have no *brownen, *greenen, *pinken or *yellowen. The adjective golden does not mean 'paint gold colored' but 'gold colored' (by nature, itself, an unknown agent); -en occurs with stiff: stiffen, hard: harden, moist: moisten and so forth, but fails to occur with big: *biggen, large: *largen, small: *smallen. We do, however, have enlarge with an altogether differently placed though identically spelled en- prefix; but still no *ensmall or *enbig. The adjective fat teams up with -en yielding fatten, but none of its semantic opposites do; e.g., we have no *slimmen nor *to enslim, no *thinnen, and no *enthin. The beginnings of syntactic idiomaticity can be easily perceived in frozen combinations consisting of separate words. Take the semantic square of up which is to down as in is to out, and ask yourselves the question how much of this neat symmetry remains once you multiply these four adverbial prepositions with ten monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon verbs of high frequency, such as get, go, make, look, sit, put, run, give, take and bring? The combination put in is a literal one in put in your books and let's go — put your books in and lets go; but it is unpredictable as to its several meanings, as in the boat puts in around 4 PM; 'reaches harbor and berth'; the steamer put out early in the morning 'set sail, set out to sea'; that input and output are not nautical

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but computer terms is well known by everyone. I was put out by Max's behavior means 'disgusted'; thus restricted to the passive voice put out (by ...) is divorced from put out as in Michener puts out volume after volume, and from put out as in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar named Desire, where the heroine says "I don't get what I want ... because I don't put out" where put out means 'behave promiscuously'. Put out is perfectly innocuous and literal in Sam, please put the garbage out... put out the garbage; in the phrase the firemen put the fire out/put out the fire the meaning is obviously 'extinguish', and one can argue endlessly if this sense of put out is entirely or only partially surprising due to some metonymy here. The nominalization output has no semantic connection either to 'disgust' or to a literal-physical sense of 'placing something outside'; it does refer, however, both to 'productivity' as in Michener's output is truly amazing and to computer jargon where it even gets inflected as a regular verb: The programmers inputted the data into the new IBM downstairs. A put-down (also spelled without a hyphen) is a reprimand or a derogatory remark; an insult; yet no one says John put me down in the intended sense of 'John insulted me'. The secretary put down John's dictation clearly refers to recording words via writing (shorthand, most probably), but the resulting records are never referred to as the *put-down or the *downput. It is entirely a matter of course to speak of a down-payment which had to be put down, either for a car, a house, or some other object, yet the sum so paid into escrow is never referred to as either the *down-put or the *putdown but only as the down-payment. The examples multiply at an astonishing rate once one goes through all possible combinations. I have devoted the entire second part of Makkai (1972) to these and thus feel that it would be better simply to refer the reader to the stratificational treatment of phrasal verbs and phrasal verb idioms in Idiom Structure in English. The "frostbites" that English has had to sustain over the centuries are all over; from head to toe the body of this extremely rich and productive language is scattered full of the gaps and gouges of unexploited opportunities and unexpected duplications of meaning and/or expression. The question therefore arises: Why should syntax be an exception? Is syntax somehow an alien limb on the body of English possessing separate systems of blood circulation? The answer is very definitely that syntax follows along in the footsteps of the genius of English; a genius, I might add, which is not a fanciful daydream or will-o'-the wisp, but a set of trends and tendencies which draw a clearly recognizable contour of this ever-expanding Germanic language within the Indo-European family. Two of the most characteristic tendencies of English

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are the Contextual Adjustability Principle or C.A.P.; equal in importance is the more diachronic of the two major trends, and this more historical one is the Multiple Reinvestment Principle M.R.P. The contextual adjustment principle allows for the removal of the ubiquitous asterisks (*) in recent theorizing by asking the question: Has this utterance been observed in real life as made by a child or a foreigner? If the answer is "yes," sentence C.A.P.-ing can be carried out, whereby the listener, whose English is native, normalizes and then interprets the deviant utterance. If the asnwer is "no," we are obviously dealing with a negative datum or a whole series of negative data; in such cases the linguist sat in his well-padded and comfortably airconditioned office trying to think up a reason why (s)he does not say what (s)he actually does not say; the occurring nonoccurrences in such cases may be termed incurrences which are "debts" that one has to pay for in terms of contrived contexts. The popular radio show My Word produced by the BBC, but also broadcast in the USA, actually challenges the competing "story tellers," Frank Muir and Dennis Norton, to invent original stories, scripts, scenarios, in which some quotation can be said exaggeratedly and jokingly, of course, to have originated. Points are awarded by the BBC judge according to the length of the applause paid in recognition to the contestants by the audience. I heartily recommend My Word to all English-speaking colleagues, whether in the UK, some other part of the Commonwealth, the USA, or anywhere at all, where BBC broadcasts are available. I have devoted an entire paper to this topic (Makkai 1971). If we can accept the view as factual that English syntax is not behaving in an alien way, but in accordance with the rest of English, as an integral organ of the body linguistic, one might say, it seems to follow that syntactic structures, in spite of Chomsky (1957) by the same title and in a strange and paradoxical way, in agreement with it, should also be divisible into two major categories, (a) free constructions, and (b) syntactic prefabs, or syntactic idioms. In what follows, I should like to take a look at the major differences between free constructions and syntactic prefabs. The two interdepend in many ways. A free construction is one whose principles of construction are clearly statable and which enjoy relatively high percentages in terms of privileges of occurrence. Thus, to say that English has an unmarked surface word order of S V O is pointing out such a major free construction. To say that S — • N P + V P is also a highly privileged and frequent construction and may thus be termed free. This business of "freedom," however, is really illusory in the final analysis, since many frequent and, therefore, overlearned expressions in English fail to conform to the S V O order or to the most basic

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of all phrase structure rules, which states that S —> NP + VP. Consider the sentence I was born in Budapest. If we take T.G.G. seriously, this passive sentence which in a peculiar way has no agent (or has the agent deleted), must be the transformation of an underlying deep structure which states that someone (my mother, to be exact), bore me (or gave birth to me) in ... X, where the name of the village, town or city will be mentioned. I was bom in X, then, must be the result of the "Mother-Deletion-Transformation" or if that does not sound scientifically respectable and smacks of matricide, simply "Dematernalization"; should that still sound too aggressive, we might call it "De-agentivization," or, again, if that is not specific enough, "De-femaleparent-agentivization." Whatever you will call it, the mother was there in the beginning (after all, as the Romans said, mater semper certa est) and she may not show up in the passive sentence. What, then, in sociopsychological reality is the passive sentence I was born in X? An odd exception to general passivization rules? A warped and stunted transformation caught by a malfunctioning word processor in mid-printout? Nothing of the sort, of course. Grammar as we know it, simply has no answer. I wish to suggest that / was born in ... X is a syntactic idiom, a socially secreted, socially learned, socially-perfunctorily performed and socially accepted utterance, not too far removed from another primary passive, that isn't done [in polite company], issued to children by their parents as a warning about proper behavior. Winter recognized this problem as early as 1965 in his classic article 'Transforms Without Kernels?,' but his warning, alas, fell on deaf ears. It is, of course, possible to treat born in I was born in X as some kind of ad-hoc "adjective"; after all the sentence parses out similarly to I was happy in Hawaii, She was clever in London, etc. So doing, however, begs the question of what kind of adjective born really is, since one cannot normally say */ am born in X, whereas one can say I am happy in Hawaii; by the same token it is oddly possible to say / am being born in abject poverty for the seventh time on planet Earth; all you have to do to allow this is to imagine that some one is narrating their autobiography in a documentary film being shown; the person talking just read Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1930) and has come to accept the idea of reincarnation. */ am being happy in Hawaii will remain aberrant (happy is an adjective that describes a less continuous, enduring feeling or quality); I am being cured/tormented/made fun of/underappreciated/overappreciated/underpaid/overpaid, etc. will all work because the adjectives refer to the immediate present within which the action may be ongoing for an extended period. Born, then, as the comparisons above are meant to illustrate, is only partly like an adjective; it actually retains a great deal of its morphosemantics as past participle of the verb

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bear 'give birth to', the semantics of which survive in the past participial form. Syntactic idioms differ from semantic idioms in that their meanings are not too difficult to compute from the meanings of the components, but rather that they force native and foreign speakers alike to acquire them as holons and therefore store them in memory as units. This leads us to the neglected field of English phraseology. Phraseology, briefly defined, is the study of the syntactically frozen or semi-frozen expressions of a natural language which can be placed midway between free constructions and total idioms, where the latter are both semantically opaque and syntactically deviant. (For a definition of idiomaticity in general, and the difference between semantic and syntactic idiomaticity, i.e., lexemic idiomaticity, see Makkai 1972). Phraseology is well studied and understood in the Soviet Union (see the bibliography in Makkai (1972), as well as Kunin's (1984) impressive Frazeologiceskij Slovar' Sovremennogo Anglijskogo Yazyka (A Phraseological Dictionary of the Modern English Language). The ready-made phrases of a language reveal some of the social concerns of the speakers and can be classed into types of greetings upon encounter and departure; asking and providing information about the time of day; weather conditions; the interlocutor's health; the price of goods and services in daily commercial transactions; socioeconomical and political slogans; forms of political, commercial and/or personal persuasion, etc. The linguist must know what the functional tenor of the given piece of discourse is; What the field of discourse is; whether the personal tenor involved was formal or informal or somewhere in between on a pre-agreed gradient, and so forth. (These terms form an integral part of Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar; for an easy-to-grasp and well-illustrated explanation, see Benson and Greaves (1973), and the numerous reprintings of their book since that date.) Thus How do you do, sir? belongs in a different personal tenor than does whaddaya say, man? What they share beyond doubt is that nobody who utters them has to do any re-generating on the spot; the forms are "on tap," as it were, you can avoid them or avail yourself of them, as common sense and your personal taste dictate. Be o f f , buzz o f f , f... o f f , drop dead, go jump in the lake and go fly a kite are all to be cross-referenced in a good dictionary and brought to a common "semantic nest" in a thesaurus under the heading of "hurtful dismissal"; what future lexicography needs - and needs desperately is the adding of examples, frequency indicators, usage labels and dialect area indicators, somewhat as described in Makkai (1980).

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Just in case, just to be on the safe side, not to change the subject, to make a long story short, to be (perfectly) honest about it, to tell you the truth, listen with baited breath, to utter a sigh of relief, as a matter of fact, just in time (for ... to ...) (V something), last but not least, to make the most of... (something), and hundreds of other premanufactured expressions leading all the way to semi-proverbial utterances such as to steal from the rich and give to the poor, to get up on the wrong side of the bed, birds of a feather flock together and where there is muck there is money all have in common that they are not really alterable to any significant extent; that they are regarded as stylistically trite and hackneyed; that they must be learned by foreigners in chunks, gestalts or holons; that using them can get you into just as much trouble as can not using them. The list is rich, and only instinctively controlled by most native speakers. Foreigners either learn them subconsciously like native speakers, or must make a special effort to use these and similar phrases just often enough and just in the right place at the right time and in front of the right audience. Syntactic prefabs do not end with the phraseology, but extend upwards into areas of meaning and sideways (in our culture to the right) in longer and more complex sentence types, all of which are usable as models sponsoring a flock of paradigms. Thus the well-known relative embedded clause omitting that, which, etc., which goes like the man I saw ..., the woman I married ..., the students I taught ..., the car I bought ..., the letter I received ..., the decision I made ..., the jacket you chose ..., the story you told us ..., the job you want..., can be reduced to a common formula, i.e., [Definite Article + Ν (...) Personal pronoun + V + Tense]. Conversely, one may claim as, in fact, T.G.G. practitioners have claimed, that such a formula "generates" these forms. It seems futile, thirty-two years after the appearance of Chomsky's (1957) Syntactic Structures, to argue that formulae "generate" or that they "do not generate but enumerate exactly," or that "they usher in analogous forms." All such statements carry partial truths and none by itself cuts down the proverbial tree. Generativity and analogical forces are sociopsychologically kindred energies whose perception, explication, nature and kind of pedigree are directly related to the attendant grammarian's philosophical and psychological predispositions. For Chomsky, a formula "generates," because he wants it to do so. To the historical linguist Hermann Paul these would have been analogical moulds that process incoming material with systematic and predictable similarity. The most general and most powerful "Phrase Structure Rule" of English, and a host of other languages, is when #S# splits into an NP on the left and into a VP on the right when Chomsky's Magic Wand touches it. This is indeed almost always the case, when there is an overt subject and a following

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predicate of some sort in a sentence. The problem arises with the so-called "minor sentence types" that lack overt subjects. The exclamation Ouch! is almost impossible to analyze in T.G.G. terms, as there is no subject and no predicate in such a one-word exclamation. Indo-Europeanists throughout the nineteenth, and structuralists in the twentieth century did not worry too much about one-word exclamations: They simply added the category of EXCLAMATION to their often only partial grammars and that was that: the structure of Ouch! is Ouch!, period, full stop. Not so the Chomskyans. Ouch! lies but on the surface of a deep sentence which has a genuine NP and a genuine VP which, in its untransformed, pristine form looks like this:

The clever modern grammarian now has his NP as well as his VP; all he has to do is delete the part I say to you ... and realize the object suspended under the VP. It works beautifully with pencil and paper, the typewriter, or chalk and blackboard. Only in reality does it fail to work, for the simple reason that no one who has just stubbed his toe or sustained another fast pain has the time consciously to construct such a reasoned response. Nobody cares if there is another potential listener or not; the Ouch! follows automatically. Why then the serious, half-serious, contrived and over-sophisticated attempts at explication, forcing the exclamation into the S —> NP + VP mould? For one simple reason only, and it is this: T.G.G., too, has created moulds of analogical thinking and these moulds seduce the practitioners into neatly fitting paper-and-pencil solutions. S NP + VP has become an idiom in the dialect of MIT, an idiom which attracts and tries to eat up rebellious utterances that stubbornly cling to their former independence. Analogy and idiom-formation, therefore, can explain Chomsky and Chomskyan behavior, but Chomskyan theory cannot explain as simple a fact of human language as the one-word exclamation. Chomsky's style and manner of arguing has created epigones by the hundreds, but none of their rhetoric put together can explain the way we "regenerate by analogizing" which, however, remains the only psychologically credible and socially validatable form of speech production.

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Communicating humans, members of species Homo loquens, as the centuries and millennia rolled on from primitive Indo-European to the present, ran out of distinctive syllables in relation to the number of objects and ideas they needed to tag with the available syllables. People thus began to repeat already existing syllables in different orders and with slightly or even drastically modified meanings. That this must have been so can be proved with a simple experiment: tell one hundred students at your college or university to write a one-page autobiography using the same typewriter. Although the letters will look identical and entire phrases will be repeated as I was born in X, there will, nevertheless, be one hundred different autobiographies. The autobiographies will all resemble one another up to a certain point, and they will differ in the specifics. Imagine that there is a pair of identical twins in this test-group: their autobiographies will be even more similar than any other two randomly matched; yet they, too, will be different in the last analysis due to different given names, preference as to future occupation, etc. The same goes for language. All utterances are novel utterances - granted. But are they also strikingly original and dissimilar, unique utterances? "Yes" and "no," depending on whose utterance it is you are considering. Shakespeare, Dante, Balzac, Goethe and Dostoevsky have produced more remarkable utterances than Joe Dolittle and Johnny Sixpack, and I say this in full conviction of Dolittle's and Sixpack's democratic rights regarding suffrage. Prefabs, then, to use Bolinger's (1976) remarkably suitable term, can be found on every level. Thus: 1. The P H O N E T E M E which is below the phoneme in the world of articulatory anatomy and acoustic physics, has a —25 CI (Creativity Index). One does not go around changing one's voice, normally; colds, adolescents' mutation, etc., are nonlinguistic, with the ventriloquist a special performer, who comes by his trade through hard work and practice. 2. The PHONEME is a prefab of features or "phonons" such as voicing, bilabiality, nasality, lip-closure, alveolarity, etc. We have little creativity here (0 to 10), since ordinary people do not usually go around changing their phoneme structures. If a clever actor does a take off on the speech of Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer or the late President John F. Kennedy, actual phonemic contrasts are created; e.g., the comedy theater and the Carmody Theatre are mistakable for one another as reported by Leonard Bloomfield, who spoke US English to a London cab driver and was taken to the wrong theater as a result; comedy (US style) sounds like Carmody in British English.

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3. The MORPHEME is a prefab of MORPHOPHONEMES and MORPHONS; in some traditions they are known as grapho-morphons, such as ||a|| in the much discussed sane-sanity alternation where IJEI is a morphophoneme and ||a|| the grapho-morphon, i.e., "letter historically spelled". The CI (Creativity Index) here is + 1 0 to + 2 5 ; although it takes special skills by inventive writers (e.e. cummings 1972; James Joyce; Ezra Pound 1980-1984). 4. The LEXEME is a prefab of morpholexons. More creativity is shown here; companies advertising their products hire special people who work on naming things; a tan that works fast is named tanfastic; firms advertising fax talk of matters of fax, etc. Deliberate innovating also occurs (e.g., Art Buchwald's (1966) famous example transmote)\ professors may describe a tenured colleague who is neither promotable nor dismissible as immotible. The famous SVO surface order of English is a prefab; its alleged "transformation," Ο was V-ed by S, is also a prefab; the two connect at the sememic level. 5. The CLAUSE is a prefab of lexemes and the usual places they occupy in speech or writing. Higher degrees of "creativity" are found here as at this level speaking and writing styles in educated and literary-minded people begin to appear; also innovations as perpetrated by licentious poets, prose writers, children and foreigners, or rural dialects being transplanted into city talk. 6. The S E N T E N C E is a prefab of clauses and lexeme strings. This level offers the first serious chance for real creativity; here we get a glimpse of what later may become someone's style. 7. The PARAGRAPH, although admittedly requiring "assembly by customer," is also a prefab. Not everyone is equally skilled in creating normal paragraphs, not even as a secretary typing entirely routine business letters. Colleges thus offer courses in business letter writing; these are, by and large, premanufactured formulae which can be easily inter-edited from the memory of a word processor. Similarly, speech-making can also be taught; in the olden days this was one of the duties of rhetoric. A much higher degree of creativity may be seen here than elsewhere; the number of sentences in a written paragraph and the complexity of the groups in a spoken discourse block may give a serious clue to doctors regarding a patient's mental decline in Alzheimer's disease or in Diffuse Cerebral Atrophy patients; ESL (English as a Second Language) teachers can measure the expansion of a student's writing skills; stylists can start computing "style" via sentence length, number of adjective verbs and nouns used; active vs. passive constructions will have to be considered on the lexeme level, and can now enter into the higher considerations of paragraphing. Thus, for

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instance, Ernest Hemingway (1927, 1940, 1952, 1953) is relatively easy to identify, understand and translate because of the relative brevity of his sentences and the predominance of action verbs he uses. 8. The CHAPTER, altogether requiring explicit instruction in composition or unusual innate talent, really is a prefab of sorts; one's critics can easily point out whom the beginning would-be-writer is imitating or whose poetry and prose left the biggest impact on one's budding style. 9 . T h e POEM, t h e NOVEL, t h e SHORT STORY, t h e ESSAY, t h e SCREENPLAY, t h e

the COMEDY and also the OPERA are commonly thought of as new and different from a technical viewpoint (remember the 100 students and the 100 autobiographies written out on the same typewriter?), and they may very well be judged to be amateurish; indeed, an act of deliberate plagiarism on the part of the author, in which case the term "prefab" is actually a kind one. Which sin would you rather be guilty of: Using prefabs or being a plagiarist? I think the answer is obvious. TRAGEDY,

The question arises at this point: What price does one have to pay in order to insure that one is maximally creative and therefore minimally likely to have plagiarized on anyone? This question would be impossible to answer were it not for the fact that James Joyce [ 1976] in his Finnegans Wake, written for twenty years between the end of World War I and the outbreak of World War II, created the single most outstanding example of absolute originality. The originality of Finnegans Wake is so great indeed, that the work, this ultimate magnum opus of one of the world's most talented and most controversial writers, is hardly intelligible. There are not two critics who can even come close to agreeing what the whole book is about, and one needs to be reasonably well versed in the philosophy of the eighteenth century polymath and judicial expert, Giambattista Vico [1968], whose theory of the Great Ages of Man may be the foundation-plan of Joyce's ultimate rebellion against everyday words, everyday sentence structures, paragraphing and plot progression. 4 I hereby officially invite any linguistic theoretician of the T.G.G. bent of mind to offer a plausible hypothesis based on T.G.G. of just how and why Joyce wrote Finne gans Wake. I have reason to expect that anyone even remotely approaching anything like a reasonable explication de texte of this bewildering masterpiece will have to be drastically divorced from the favorite tenets of the "Extended Standard Theory" and its various successors, such as Montagu grammar or Binding and Government Theory. A computer-enhanced and joint Halliday-Lamb-Pike-style approach, on the other hand, might reveal many previously unsuspected delicacies in Joyce's special language created for the special purpose of setting up a separate uni-

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verse with separate modes of perceiving separate, individual realities. The only prefabs in Finnegans Wake worth mentioning are the occasional normal word such as i f , and, so, the, etc., and the keys of the typewriter with which one can write down the entire book. Of course there is a fairly normal sentence here and there, with a fairly normal sequence of events, but these are in the minority, and function mostly as backdrop against the immensely overwhelming amount of tongue twisters and semantic puzzles offered by the rest of the book. We all use prefabs because we want to do business along the usual lines in familiar social settings, and we innovate, each to his/her own desire and ability - chacun a son goüt 'each to his own taste' - since le style c'est I'homme 'style is the man', even if it is bad style for me to end this essay on prefabs with two French prefabs. To paraphrase Halliday (1961): Language is to society as anti-language is to anti-society. The plagiarist errs when (s)he tries to overplease society begging for acceptance; Joyce-epigones err when they work themselves into uniquely carved out little niches in the woodwork, for such niches tend to become abandoned foxholes, sad reminders of a futile war that nobody could ever win or lose. The foregoing thoughts brought forth in this paper could be envisaged, then, as a rudimentary theoretical outline for the process of composition. Figure 1 gives a picture of the levels (or "strata") of a natural language, and summarizes underneath what we typically find on these levels, (with an explanation below) providing tentative Creativity Indices (CI) for each of the levels from hypophonemic up to hypersememic. Much more work needs to be done, but the difficulties must not deter us. The term creativity has been as much confused as "performance" and "competence," and T.G.G., which is responsible for the terminological deluge, has yet to show that these distinctions are real and not just convenient excuses for obfuscation. They must also address the problem of composition and first and second language learning systematically and conscientiously. These areas of theory validation have been relegated to the area of "special performance" and largely left unanswered. Natural languages on planet Earth are communication systems with layers or "strata." The top is the semantic level; here is where we do our thinking sometimes in words, sometimes without. Musicians can "think" tunes; sculptors can "think" statues and painters can "think" pictures. The writer and the poet may also "think" love, hate, loneliness, irony, sarcasm, patriotism, etc., wordlessly; eventually, however, they must put their "thoughts" down in writing. Writing, as well as careful speech, implies "composition," a putting together, which entails a conscious choice of "words." Most "words" are lexemes, although lexemes can have more than one "word" in them (Examples

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include Hong Kong Baptist College; University of Illinois at Chicago; United Nations Educational Social and Cultural Organization, etc.) Lexemes are dictionary entries, whether in print, in a computer or in human memory. We then mobilize our lexemes and make CLAUSES and SENTENCES with them. The CLAUSES and SENTENCES must go into DISCOURSE BLOCKS when we talk: when we write they must go into PARAGRAPHS. (In other words, a discourse block is a spoken paragraph and a paragraph is a written discourse block.) Whether we talk or write, the units larger than the sentence must make some kind of sense; TEXTS must have cohesion. Incoherent speech and writing are characteristic of illness, mental imbalance, or lack of the language in question due to being a foreigner, a child, etc. Whether a text is "true" or "false" is not a linguistically answerable question; this belongs to the realm of law, philosophy and psychology. Fanciful story-telling is an art. Societies differ as to what kinds of tales people tell one another.

The story of the shortest text known Julius Caesar, during his wars in Gaul, had to go away from his camp one day. His lieutenant wanted to know whether to attack the enemy across a river, and so he wrote a long and detailed letter outlining the enemy's position, its strength, and the odds of victory. A horseman messenger took the letter to Caesar. Caesar read the letter and answered thus: i! You need to know a little Latin to appreciate this answer. The verb eo, ire, ivi, itus means 'to go' and the form i is the imperative second person singular form; it means 7 order you to go!' The question is how we could analyze this as a text. It is one paragraph, one sentence, one clause, one word, one syllable, one letter, and one phoneme.

Conclusions In this paper I have tried to show that natural languages on planet Earth are woven through-and-through with elements that are "frozen" in a "frame," or as Bolinger calls them "premanufactured." These "frames of frozenness," furthermore, happen to coincide with the freedom of composition of the form in question making it possible to assign these a certain creativity index (CI). It turns out, altogether not very surprisingly, that the lower the form in the hierarchy of language, the lower its CI,

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and the higher it is located in the language structure, the higher its f r e e d o m s measurable in CIs. P H O N O N S , or formatives of the p h o n e m e on the phonetic level are entirely bounded: people in general cannot change their voice quality, the degree of aperture in their larynx; the ones w h o nevertheless do so are usually singers engaged in voice training. O n e ' s allophones are also fixed: changing them amounts to working o n e ' s way out of a regional accent-pattern or another. on the next higher level are also fixed for the majority population of natural languages: difficulties in foreign language learning arise precisely because of the fact that we tend to substitute our closest available native phonemes for those of the target language. N e w phonemes are, nevertheless, acquireable at a sufficiently early age as can be seen in the bilingual or multilingual skills of mobile population segments the world over. PHONEMES

tend to be fixed, frozen and f r a m e d as are p h o n e m e s f o r the overwhelming majority of native language users: The creation of new morphemes such as the form Kodak, invented by Mr. Eastman, the c a m e r a inventor, is an isolated incident. T h e tactic allocation of m o r p h e m e s is highly arbitrary and irregular and defies logical attempts (see the examples of the suffixal m o r p h e m e -en in English as in blacken, redden and whiten.) MORPHEMES

WORDS show more f r e e d o m for creativity than the elements below it. Words of Latin or Greek etymological provenience are easier for native English speakers to manipulate than are words of A n g l o - S a x o n origin: T h e "foreignness" of Greek and Latin creates an aloofness that is not there when confronted with the more familiar and more frequent native English word stock. Thus the familiar f o r m s circumnavigate and circumambulate will allow one to make up a form such as *circumpedilevitate 'float around in the air as if walking', but native speakers of English do not like to meddle with f r o z e n morphemes of Anglo-Saxon etymological provenience. The noun-formative suffix -th as in warmth, length, width, etc., is rarely extended to such f o r m s as *slowth for 'slowness' and further possibilities such as *weakth, *fastth, *quickth for ' w e a k n e s s ' , 'fastness' and 'quickness' are altogether avoided, most likely for their phonological awkwardness.

are, by and large, the first level of syntax where one would expect greater mobility and f r e e d o m to recombine material, but where one also finds stubborn resistance. It turns out that most of the phrases we use are "on tap": they, too, are "premanufactured," " f r o z e n " and "in f r a m e s . " Thus o n e does not generate the f o r m s by the way, last but not least, sorry to say, if you don't mind and the rest; they are there in an appendix to the main lexicon of the language caught half-way between ordinary LEXIS and GRAMMAR; their collection could be appropriately called the PHRASICON. PHRASES

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considered free and re-assembled anew on each occasion by some syntacticians, while certainly freer than the forms before, are also, on closer inspection, classifiable into stereotypes. Since even the simplest syntactic schema or "frame" is tillable with a number of lexemes awkwardly large to count, the simplest skeleton of a sentenceoid such as the Adj-al N-s V-ed the Adj-al Ns can create hundreds of thousands of "different sentences." Consider: The hungry dogs devoured the tasty milkbones, the fat cats saw the skinny mice, the skinny mice chased the frightened cats, the frightened cats ate the valiant elephants, the valiant elephants sang the sentimental arias, and so on, ad nauseam. That some of these possible sentences will make less sense semantically than others, is to be expected. CLAUSES AND SENTENCES,

Both major and minor sentence types qua S E N T E N C E MODELS regardless of the lexemes that ride in them, must, in truth, be seen as "syntactic frames" suspended in "frames of time" within a significant period of the history of the language concerned. The do-interrogative, for instance, is a historical product having developed in post-Elizabethan and post-Jacobean English: Lovest thou me no more, Mylord? was current New English in the sixteenth century; today one has to say don't you love me any more? English also has PRIMARY PASSIVES which are not the results of any "transformation." The non-use ("deletion") of the relative clause markers that, which is also a matter of "syntactical frozenness": The pattern invites further wordings via the force of analogy. S E M A N T I C CLICHES have been well understood by teachers of rhetoric and stylistics for centuries. Many of them occur in culturally predictable contexts such as greetings: How do you do? is not a real question to be answered by any detailed accounting of one's health or one's finances, but a set formula to which one responds with the very same How do you do? A striking case in point is the commerically available greeting card, sympathy card, get-well card, birthday card, etc., or what is sometimes called the "written mode manifestations of 'Phatic Communion' " (Benson and Greaves 1973, Chapter on "Functional Tenor"). DISCOURSE BLOCKS (in speech), PARAGRAPHS (in writing), and NARRATIVE PLOTS in general can be seen as "frozen frames" or "stereotypes" in these higher levels of syntactic and semantic organization with ever-expanding possibilities of creativity and originality. Beginning story-tellers and writers are prone to imitation; indeed "apprenticeship" is a requirement in many cultures in order to become an independent writer. Deliberate imitation of another without acknowledgement amounts to plagiarism, with admission of intent to imitate for humorous effect is PARODY or a TAKE-OFF (the latter

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mostly in speech, as when actors imitate a Head of State or some other famous personality). * * *

The concluding remark of this conclusion to the foregoing paper is that true originality is very hard to come by and requires a considerable amount of talent. The linguistics profession is, unfortunately, not too well known for the literary talent and imagination of many of its practitioners. As a result linguistics as a field is wide open to unconscious imitation - often the mindless repetition of the various opinions and dictums of celebrated personalities. I claim that ..., I argue that ... are stylistic give-aways that the writer tends to ignore facts and data and is more given to following what he judges, most frequently in error, to be the "voice of logic." As I have said above: stylistics can explain Chomsky, but Chomsky cannot explain stylistics. "Frozen frames" extend well beyond individual languages and include entire MIND SETS. The followers of T.G.G. from the early days to the present, seem to belong to such a mind set. The harder one fights against the holistic view of language, the more obvious one's captivity to one's pidgeon-hole in the system of linguistic thought. If, on the other hand, we graciously accept the fact that most of language is given to us by nature, we will become familiar with the ways and means in which we may occasionally transcend the limitations imposed on our creative imaginations by these prefabricated units, the all-pervasive idiomaticity of human languages.

Notes 1. According to unconfirmed legend, now into its second century of existence, Voltaire is supposed to have said or written: "La phonetique est une science ou les consonnes content tres peu et les voyelles ne content rien du tout." If Voltaire actually did not say this, he most certainly ought to have; this would have made him the most desirable and most eligible Noble Ancestor Rationalist Rhetorician (NARR) for Chomsky and Halle's (1968) The Sound Pattern of English (see Bloch 1960). 2. I am indebted to Professor Angus Mcintosh of the University of Edinburgh, who once kindly gave me a map of medieval England exhibiting the rich array of ways of spelling (and obviously pronouncing) the word church. I regret that it cannot be included in this paper for purposes of visual illustration. 3. The Japanese linguist and language teacher, Bumpei Koro did an excellent piece of exploratory work in a privately mimeographed book presenting all the complexities of Latinate prefixed and stemmed English verbs and their derived nouns. I

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came by this still unpublished work through Professor Sydney M. Lamb, to whom Bumpel Koro presented it in the early sixties, when Lamb visited Japan. I have been unsuccessful in my numerous attempts to establish contact with the deceased scholar's heirs and copyright holders. 4. Virtually the only way to understand Finnegans Wake is to take a course in Joyce, preferably from someone who knows the work of Giambattista Vico [1968] and his New Science. An entire international symposium was organized in June of 1985 in Venice, cosponsored by the New Vico Studies (USA) and the Giorgio Cini Foundation of Venice, to explore the relationship between Joyce and Vico. It is now commonly agreed that the first sentence of Finnegans Wake mentioning "vicus commodius" and "recirculation" clearly refers to Vico and his theory of cyclicity of history, sculpted into fiction in the "river-novel."

References Benson, J. D. and W. Greaves 1973 The language people really use. Agincourt, Ontario: The Book Society of Canada. Bloch, Β. 1960 Yale University lecture notes on phonetics and phonemics. Yale University, Hall of Graduate Studies. [Unpublished], Bloomfield, L. 1933 Language. New York: Holt. Bolinger, D. L. 1976 Language and memory. Forum Linguisticum I (1). 2-17. Buchwald, A. 1966 Whatever happened to Robert S. MacNamara? Los Angeles Times, November 17, 71. Chomsky, N. A. 1957 Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton. 1965 Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT. 1980 Rules and Representations. New York: Columbia University Press. 1968 and Morris Halle, The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper and Rowe. cummings, e. e. 1972 Complete poems (1913-1962). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Halliday, M . A . K . 1961 Categories of the theory of grammar. Word 17. 241-292. Hemingway, E. 1927 The sun also rises. London: Pan. 1940 For whom the hell tolls. New York: Collier. 1952 The old man and the sea. London: Cape.

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1953 The short stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York: Scribner. Herrick, Ε. Μ. 1984 Sociolinguistic variation: a formal approach. Alabama: University of Alabama Press. Jakobson, R. 1956 Fundamentals of Language. The Hague: Mouton. Joyce, J. 1976 Finnegans wake. New York: Faber and Faber. Koro, Β. 1960 English verbs and nouns from Latin stems, prefixes and suffixes. Unpublished mimeographed manuscript. Tokyo, Japan. Kunin, I.V. 1984 Frazeologiceskij Slovar' Sovremennogo Anglijskogo Jazyka. [A phraseological dictionary of the modern English language]. Moscow: Izdat'elstvo Nauka. Lamb, S. M. 1966 Outline of stratificational grammar. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Makkai, A. 1971 Degrees of nonsense, or transformation, stratification and the contextual adjustability principle. In L. Anderson and C. Corum (eds.), Papers from the Seventh Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society. 472-492. Chicago: The University of Chicago Linguistic Society. 1972 Idiom structure in English. The Hague: Mouton. 1980 Theoretical and practical aspects of an associative lexicon for 20th century English. In L. Zgusta (ed.), Theory and method in lexicography: Western and non-western perspectives. 125-146. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam. Makkai, A. and D. G. Lockwood (eds.) 1972 Readings in stratificational linguistics. Alabama: University of Alabama Press. Makkai, V . B . 1972 Phonological theory, evolution and current practice. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Martinet, A. 1962 A functionalist view of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Montagu, R. 1979 Collected essays on philosophy and logic. (R. Thompson, ed.), New Haven: Yale University Press. Paul, H. 1890 Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. Halle: Universitätsverlag. Pike, Kenneth L. 1968 Language in Relation to a Univied Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior. The Hague: Mouton.

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Pound, Ε. 1980-1984 The cantos of Ezra Pound. Berkeley: University of California Press. Shaumyan, S. K. 1986 The semiotic foundations of language and linguistic theory. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Sullivan, W . J . 1981 The consequences of Makkai's theory of idioms as language universals. In J . E . Copeland and P. W. Davis (eds.), Papers in cognitive stratificational linguistics. Houston: Rice University. (Rice University Studies, Vol. 66, No. 2). 182-192. Troubetzkoy, N. S. 1935 Grundzüge der Phänologie. Prague: Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague. Vico, G. [1968] The New Science [La scienza nuova], (English translation by M. Fish and L. Baer.) Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Williams, T. 1947 A streetcar named desire. In Collected plays of Tennessee Williams. New York: New Directions. Winter, W. 1965 Transforms without kernels? Language 41. 484^489. Woolf, V. 1930 Orlando. London: Unwin.

Deixis as an iconic element of syntax Leonard Rolfe

Abstract One aspect of syntactic iconicity is that semantic representations are mapped onto a perceptive field, notionally a spatial one. Deixis serves to locate and orientate items within the field. In this function, deixis obeys the tendency for icons to be adapted as symbols. Its iconic origin is effective ostension, i.e., as indicating phenomena from a given standpoint, this being the speaker. Such indication may be concrete, as visual orientation, or may be extended by metaphor. The extensions provide spatial, temporal, person and directional deixis, as well as demonstratives and determiners. Deictic markers only contribute to iconic word order in English as deictic specifiers.

1. Syntactic iconicity and formal syntax A major field of study is the identification of the structural elements of sentences and of the logical relations holding between those elements. In this way, we can arrive at the coherent, context-free systems of formal syntax. A basic feature of such systems is their hierarchical organization, as is seen in the "tree" diagrams often resorted to (e.g., Diagram 1) to represent syntactic structures. Yet one current development in syntactic enquiry has begun to discern a psychological contribution to syntactic structures. This contribution comprises the field of pragmatics. Peirce (1960: 135) envisaged language as an autonomous code or system of representational signs that generate equivalent signs or "interpretants" for the addressee. More recently Carnap (1942: 9) regarded the pragmatic element as being provided by the "user" (i.e., the speaker) rather than by the addressee. In this way not only the semantic content of the message, but also its syntax is colored, or influenced, by the speaker. One aspect of that pragmatic influence is syntactic iconicity. Syntactic iconicity discerns (psychologically based) percepts as shaping, or control-

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S

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1. An illustration of a "tree" diagram

Note: S = sentence; NP = noun phrase; VP = verb phrase; Spec = specifier; PP = preposition phrase; Ν = noun. (Adapted from Lightfoot 1982: 62.)

ling, syntactic structures. A difference immediately arises between concepts, as being abstract cognitive realizations, and percepts, that are a psychological viewing of the world. (The syntactic categories represented by "noun phrase," etc., in Diagram 1 are abstract concepts. They require context-bound functions such as case roles to be applied before the semantic representation becomes clear.) Since percepts are how we immediately view the world, the representation and encoding of percepts will tend to be via icons, or faithful reflections of how things are seen. Moreover, we may visualize not merely the representations of percepts, but their interrelations, as an iconically-based diagram. Jakobson (1965) points out that it is in its status as an elaborate diagram that language is most iconic and least arbitrary. Diagram 2 shows a simple, rather than an elaborate format. In contrast to the hierarchic representations of formal syntax (Diagram 1), Diagram 2 offers a notionally spatial field in which the perceived salience of items, relative to one another, is indicated. Moreover, the "tree" diagram (Diagram 1) is inherently static, but we could supply temporal iconicity to Diagram 2 by providing a sequence of spatial diagrams that reflect ensuing changes of state. In Diagram 2, the items are arranged as being central or peripheral, thus giving orientation. In addition, the relative proximity of items is shown. The important notion of proximity is discussed by Van Langendonck (in this volume). Bolinger (1968: 218) states:

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(.) ( · )

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(.) Diagram 2. An iconic representational diagram Note: (.) least, (..) greater, (XX) greatest salience of items. The lowest common denominator of a [language iconic] diagram is simple togetherness. If two things react upon each other in our experience and we want to talk about them, whatever the device that is normally used for one (say, X) or for the other (say, Y), the result in what we say is going to be an XY or a YX. The words cat, bite, dog may be arbitrary, but if a dog bites a cat we can reasonably expect that these words will keep close company ... because the togetherness of words reflects the togetherness of things and events. ... If when a particular event occurs we can predict with some certainty what is going to be said about it - and our daily experience proves that we can, even with events that have never occurred before - then we know that the correspondence of the points of our diagram to the externals they stand for is anything but arbitrary.

Bolinger's remarks reveal an essential element of the iconicity of syntax: relative proximity, or "togetherness" in a (notionally spatial) field. In such an arrangement of syntactic iconicity we require not only a means of depicting proximities (in formal terms, phrase structure), or the salient features of items (largely the task of iconicity within the lexicon), but also a means of locating items within the spatiotemporal field. Further, we require some means of orienting the locations relative to field "centrality," as mentioned above for Diagram 2. Presumably this orientation is to be on the viewer (i.e., in language, the speaker). It is here that deixis, with its locatory and orientation powers, is relevant to syntactic iconicity. Deixis contributes to syntactic iconicity as a process in a number of ways; some instances of these will be offered in this chapter. One of these ways concerns the temporal relations of linguistic constituents. Moravcsik (1977: 1-2) observes that

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In all languages, if the temporal order of two clauses correlates at all with the temporal order of the two events referred to in the clause, the preceding clause will indicate the preceding event [such that] there is no language where a sentence such as Close the windows and call the fire department! is consistenly interpreted to mean that the fire department has to be called before the windows are closed.

Moravcsik's (1977) example combines temporal deixis (as being oriented on the speaker's "now") with, as a further dimension, iconicity in the presentation of narrative discourse, the notion of a "further dimension" suggests that there are various levels of iconic representation, or rather, that there is a cline from directly perceived representation towards abstract symbolism (one might on another occasion propose a hypothesis that it is the operation of this cline that is the source of the formal systems of syntax that have been mentioned above). Then our task is to discuss that cline as it affects deixis, starting with the direct perception basis of deixis as being ostension (or pointing at things), and noting the various developments that ensue.

2. An icon/symbol cline Human cognition has the propensity to establish icons for communicative purposes, but it also has a tendency to modify them. The representation or icon is initially as close a reflection of the item as we can get, whatever the medium of expression, pictorial, say, or vocal. But some representations can usefully be modified for communicative purposes until they become symbols; they stand for, not faithfully represent, the item. The process may be continued until the relation between the item and the symbols derived from it is quite lost. At that stage the symbols might be considered as being arbitrary, but their history belies this; they are to be distinguished from items in a code system that were arbitrarily devised in the first place. (It turns out that for the lexicon, few items can be claimed unimpeachably to be quite arbitrary; one may cite trade names such as Kodak). It is on these grounds that a good deal of grammar (according to Givon [1988], all of it), and, indeed, language in general, may be said to be nonarbitrary: it derives from and enshrines an iconic basis. Such a notion of nonarbitrariness, however, depends on the notion of a progression, as just suggested; one may think of a cline between the terminal icon to symbol, with the symbol having acquired the appearance of being arbitrary.

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The matter is straightforward where pictorial and visual items are concerned. In language, pictorial items may lead to alphabetic ones, and of course acoustic items may lead to sound symbolism. Language, however, deals largely with concepts arising via percepts (the terms percept/concept may themselves conceal an icon/symbol cline). It was suggested in section 1 above that as percepts are immediate apprehensions of the real world, they tend to be expressed iconically. They concern the visual field inasmuch as they concern the interrelations of items within that visual world. It is now proposed that percepts of spatial relations and of the identification of items in space are progressively modified for purposes of grammatical functions, the modifications ensuing via "conventionalizing" and "grammatizing." The relevant functions taken together provide deixis. In semiotic terms deixis may be thought of as a system of indexical sign-elements within the grammatical code.

3. The gestural basis of deixis The starting point for deixis is ostension, or the act of pointing at things. This seemingly simple gesture involves a number of semiotic features; two other gestures, (a) touching or holding up items for presentation or display and (b) utilizing the availability of two hands to indicate laterality, increase the range of features. These features are listed below: 1. Ostension is carried out by the speaker (i.e. signaller) and is for the hearer's (i.e. addressee's) benefit. This allows for communication. 2. Ostension focuses, it isolates phenomena, whether things or events. When we say Look at that.', that indicates either a thing or an event - or perhaps both, according to context. 3. The item is focused as being interesting or important or otherwise salient in some way to both speaker and hearer. The hearer, a fellow human, is aware of what is interesting or important in the visual field when it is pointed out. It is this joint awareness that makes ostension interpretative. Without it there is no interpretation, as when we point out a lone blue rose bush in a row of red rose bushes to a dog. Then ostension encodes perceptive salience. 4. The item indicated is located by the hearer as being far from the speaker, as being an item he cannot touch. In this way the location of the item is oriented by the hearer (and, of course, by the speaker) as being in relation to the speaker's "here," that is, where the speaker is. In this way there is

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canonical orientation, that is, the speaker's "here" is a locational datum point. 5. The pointing is in the appropriate direction for the item indicated. There is latent directionality. A similar result arises with compass bearings, but in that case there is no canonical orientation but rather the datum point is selected as magnetic north. Compass bearings locate only directions, but ostension locates items. If the items move, then there is kinetic location or deictic directionality in the sense of the remarks that will follow. 6. If, however, the hearer's attention is drawn to a touchable item by touching or holding it up for presentation or display, then the item is near the speaker, and in combination with feature (4) above, a perceptive opposition of near vs. far is arrived at. 7. Another opposition, left vs. right, is achieved by the use of two hands; whether or not for ostension. Since the right hand us the more important (due to neurological laterality), there is a further opposition of superior vs. subordinate. Four main aspects emerge from these features: communicability, due to shared knowledge/awareness; spatial location; orientation on the speaker; and oppositions, near/far and left/right. The features are inherent in the gestures that have been discussed. They become encoded into the vocal mode, as part of the language. This switch already modifies the icon. The selection of the phonemes that encode the gestures may be arbitrary, but the deictic iconicity embodied in the gestures is carried over into the vocal mode. For example, regardless of any iconicity of sound symbolism, nearly all languages have pairs of words that deal with the opposition near/far with respect to the first or second person (Weinreich 1966: 156 ff.).

4. Demonstratives and near/far deixis In languages generally, the deictics that are perhaps nearest to the "icon" terminus of the icon/symbol cline (section 2 above) are the demonstratives. To take the English examples, that is based on feature (2), (section 3 above) and its opposite this is based on feature (6). This and that itemise, as in features (2) and (3). These items are communicative, as in feature (1). These deictics - conventionalized gestures - have many grammatical reanalyses. These reanalyses may be envisaged as moving the deictics along the icon/symbol cline. All noun phrases are in the third person, which represents an entity not being the speaker or the hearer. The pro-forms (e.g., it, she) for

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such third person entities derive from demonstrative deictics. As nominals, i.e., the grammatical realizations of such entities are all in the third person, a demonstrative deictic is in many languages reanalyzed as a definite determiner. More abstractly, "whereas nouns have denotation, nominals have (or may have) reference" (Lyons 1977: 425; cf. McCawley 1971 for the indexation of the arguments of propositions), and "definite referring noun-phrases ... always contain a deictic element (Lyons 1977: 657). Then such definite determination (e.g., emphasized in "the man) may be said to be partly deictic in nature. Furthermore, "reference is an utterance-dependent notion" (Lyons 1977: 176), "it is the speaker who refers (by using some appropriate expression): he invests the expression with reference by the act of referring" (Lyons 1977: 177). Thus, reference has a pragmatic basis, deriving from the speaker; and from our analysis so far, reference is a form of indexation which in turn derives from ostension. 1 Since the third person is for any item not the speaker or hearer, anaphora (i.e., reference back to a previously mentioned item) is available for such items. No anaphora is available, however, for the first and second person proforms. These indicate whoever is speaking or being addressed respectively, and the identity of the speaker and the hearer constantly changes in the course of the dialogue. In effect, the third person pro-forms are basically demonstratives, whereas the first and second person pro-forms are discourse deictics. Yet all three persons are iconic to the extent that they are based on the situation of dialogue. They have in common, that they are canonically oriented (feature [4], section 3). It may be envisaged that the first person is the datum-point (the "viewpoint" of Diagram 2), the second person being near, relative to the third person, which is far. The demonstrative pairings (this, that, etc.) imply the near/far distinction. But there are also pairings (e.g., here, there ) that overtly express that distinction. The pairs combine; many languages (as also colloquial English) pair these deictics as this here and that there, thus combining the item and its location. In addition there are discourse function pairings such as the former/the latter; and earlier English had an extensive panoply of deictic pairings, now largely lost, e.g., hither/thither, hence/thence, and whither/whence. Despite the many reanalyses that have been discussed, it ought to be mentioned that the ostensive basis for these deictics emerges when ostension and display are expressed as gestures. The gestures are then usually accompanied by their verbalized counterparts, the this here/that there deictics.

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5. Spatial and directional deixis Diagram 2 sketched out, in a simple format, a notionally spatial field. A field (e.g., music, syntax) may not necessarily be spatial. However, it is proposed here that for language not only is there the iconicity of direct percepts, but also that our cognition works as though grammatical relations were analogically spatial, and hence can ne expressed in spatial terms. The spatial analogies take deixis still further along the icon/symbol cline and the analogies are achieved, as grammatical functions, via conventionalizing and grammatizing, as suggested in section 2 above. These notions are pursued in considering spatial and directional deixis in language. To recapitulate, Diagram 2 illustrated one aspect of syntactic iconicity that is dealt with by deixis: the accurate location of items, for which iconic representations are available, within a field or domain. The field was oriented on a salient or central point, so that items could be located relative to it. To be accurate, however, the locational system must plot items relative to one another, as also the direction relative to a datum point where they lie. Further, three-dimensional locating is required to be available. In section 4 the basis for such a system was set out: there is a demonstration combined with a near/far distinction. But - bearing in mind the notion of laterality (feature [7], section 3) - this deixis can be expanded beyond near/far or even left/right to produce further binary oppositions such as in front of/behind. Thus we have statements such as John is standing behind me, or, where canonical orientation is transferred (as occasionally happens) to the hearer: John is in front of you. However, canonical orientation is sometimes reanalyzed as "absolute" orientation, such that items stand in a spatial relation to each other, regardless of the speaker's datum-point, as in: The wreck is at the bottom of the sea. The reanalysis of canonical as absolute orientation is an instance of the shift from iconicity to arbitrariness, which is here manifested as absoluteness of orientation. For example, if we ask: Where's little Johnny? and get the answer: He's behind me, we know precisely where to look for little Johnny. It the answer is: He's behind that tree, location is still accurately identified, because presumably there has been ostension, as implied by the demonstrative that. If the answer is: He's behind the tree then the orientation relies on previous discourse (the being deictic anaphora). But if the answer is: He's behind a tree then orientation towards the speaker is lost; we now have an existential statement that does not accurately locate; iconicity is lost and there is arbitrariness. Before/behind are linear; but two-dimensional location is aided by laterality (feature [7], section 3), e.g., the canonical orientation of on my right, on

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my left. As laterality lacks the focusing provided by ostension (feature [2]), it is always located from the speaker's (or hearer's) viewpoint, such that rightness/leftness changes as the viewpoint changes, and absolute orientation does not arise. Three-dimensional location is achieved with oppositions like up/down, etc. Such location is normally canonical; to achieve absolute orientation in all cases, we need to go beyond syntax to the iconicity of diagrams, with their fixed centrality. The spatial deixis so far sketched out relies on polar oppositions, e.g., before/behind, left/right, just as the basic near/far opposition does. Still relying on polar oppositions, however, and bearing in mind that ostension is directional pointing (feature [5], section 3), spatial deixis can be expanded by introducing kinetic notions: it is the polarity of whence and whither items move to and from. (The representations of these notions are iconic, in the sense that they represent a salient feature of some items, namely that they move about.) The result is directional deixis in grammar. Directionality is seen in oppositional pairs of verbs such as come/go in English, or venir/aller in French. These have two types of orientation. First, there is orientation towards the speaker, as in Come here!: to say *Come there! would not be valid. But speaker orientation is reanalyzed so that any datum point selected by the speaker - or writer - operates, as in Napoleon arrived at Grenoble, and then went on to Lyons. In such narrative, wherever the subjects are visualized as being, is the here, and where they go to is the there. A further reanalysis eliminates the proximal element of the proximal-distal pairing so that there is no starting-point (and hence no orientation) but only a going, or sequence of events in time, as when a demonstrator says: I place the Bunsen burner in position, and the pipette is inserted into the jar. At this stage iconicity is lost, or rather, suppressed: starting-points and datum points for spatial location are only inferred from the context.

6. Temporal deixis By analogy (perhaps, by cognitive metaphor?) elements of the spatial and directional deixis discussed in section 5 above are reanalyzed as temporal deixis. Traugott (1978: 371) states: "the whole temporal system, that is, tense, sequencing, aspect, and the time adverbials which form part of these categories or establish further, secondary reference points, must be generated as locatives in a semantic base" The iconic source of temporal deixis is perhaps most clearly seen where the deictics are canonically oriented, in the case of temporality towards the speaker's "now," as in Now I am a man but then I

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was but a child. Other temporal deictics such as tomorrow or last week are canonically oriented in the same way, as in Come any time after tomorrow, Did you see him last week? But canonical orientation can be suppressed and then there is absolute temporality, as in The week before World War II broke out or Napoleon was born in 1769. The link between spatial and temporal deixis may be seen in the Bantu language Shona as in Figure 1. category

item

function

meaning

stem verb infix

-no -no-

near demonstrative present indicative affirmative marker

'this/these here' punctuality: 'now'

stem verb prefix

-ya -ya

far demonstrative past tense subject concord (for all aspects and moods)

'that/those there' 'then'

Figure 1. Spatial and temporal deictics in Shona (Source: Hannan 1974)

An interesting example of deictic iconicity is seen for the other type of Shona far-demonstrative (see Figure 1), which merely has the concord prefix without the stem. Fortune (19647: 66) states: "This demonstrative is used to refer to things at some distance from the speaker. The further they are from him the higher is the pitch of voice with which they are pronounced." In languages commonly, spatial deictics, together with their latent directionality, are reanalyzed as temporal sequencing, e.g., in English, before, after, next (i.e., 'nearest' etymologically). It may be said that time is conceived as being linear (Bull 1963). A datum point is adopted, often the speaker's canonical "now," and there is an actual progress from far in one direction (the past) to near (the present) and a forecast progress to far in another direction (the future). But time is expressed as being not merely linear; it is quite spatial as having two dimensions, for there is the deixis of simultaneous events, e.g., While Tom was working, Sheila was having a good time. As soon as temporal deixis acquires such an extra dimension, then from being linear it becomes a field. Events are indicated as occurring side by side, as in the illustration just given; or, as in Moravcsik's (1977) example in section 1, they may virtually overlap, with one event "having the edge"; they may go off at a tangent from each other, as in The more he thought about it, the less he could remember. At this stage deixis in a strict sense merges into iconicity in the presentation of narrative discourse. However, in the former one may see the ultimate source of the latter.

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7. Some other uses of deictic items Deictic items may be used metaphorically, for instance as in That project is near to my heart, I found his attitude quite distant, His style is way out, Where did you get that idea from? and many others. What starts as purely iconic gestures is codified in speech as conventionalized items; and then, so useful are these icons, more and more modifications operate until ultimately the iconic basis is overlain and is only discernable on analysis. This is particularly so because nearly always the morphemic item, unchanged, has various degrees of abstraction according to context. In He came in after me, after may be a spatial or a temporal deictic. The same word in does duty canonically in in my mouth, noncanonically in In the drawer you'll find a bundle of documents, temporally in in the nineteenth century, and metaphorically in in my opinion. At one level of abstraction deictic items are employed syntactically, whether to incorporate noun phrases into the sentence structure, to provide clause connectives, to provide sentence connectives, or to provide discourse deixis. It is as though there were a spatiotemporal domain, such that X goes here and that Y goes there and X is near/now or far/then in relation to Y. In the following illustration the upper case examples are marked NI (noun phrase incorporator), CC (clause connective), SC (sentence connective) and DD (discourse deixis): Now (SC) I (DD) want to remind YOU (DD) ABOUT (NI) YOUR (DD) appointment. THAT (DD) is what YOU (DD) 've got to think ABOUT (NI). AND (SC) BESIDES (NI) THAT (DD), WHILE (CC) we (DD) 're ON (NI) the subject there is the question of what follows FROM (NI) the job. ON TOP OF (NI) ALL THAT (DD); THEN (SC), is the matter of what salary you would get.

This is a constructed illustration. However, its appropriateness may be judged from looking at the first section of this paper, from which the following decitic items, used with nonliteral senses, may be extracted: in, between, in this way, arrive at, resort to. In the illustration inset above there is a contrast between pragmatically based items such as besides that, on top of all that where the connective includes the speaker's attitude to the information, and the purely logical connective and. It is debatable whether this item is a deictic, the argument resting on etymological grounds (and = against, on the end etymologically). However, if the argument carries, then we might include connectives providing logical form such as X but [= by out] y, and the ..., because [—by that cause], and with lateral deixis, on the one hand ...on the other hand.

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According to Kuryiowicz (1964: 179-206) some of the cases in IndoEuropean derive from directional deixis (to/for vs. from) grammatized as the direct object, indirect object, and oblique object cases. Possibly, too, we might see the near/far opposition (section 3 above) at work in topic/comment structure, e.g., My husband [notion here in my mind] is a great guy [notion brought to it]. In that case, feature (3) (section 3) is involved as providing the comment; focusing, as "highlighting," selects salient aspects of an item or a phenomenon, as when we say: The moon has turned green. Comments are salient aspects that are indicated about an item already just indicated; that item, being already alluded to, becomes the topic (section 4 above).

8. Deixis and word order It has just been suggested that topics may be psychologically "near" items and their comments, "far" items. In English the normal order of presentation is (1) topic, (2) comment, giving a control of word order. This section discusses any evidence that may be discerned for deixis as affecting the iconicity of word order, for deixis concerns the contents of discourse as being identifiable, locatable, and oriented in some notionally spatiotemporal field, and it is a matter of arranging those contents. The arranging is done by means, mainly, of various deictic markers or, sometimes, deictically featured items. Yet such field mapping encounters the unavoidable linearity of the speech flow. Syntax tends to deal with this linearity by adopting rigid sequences for the presentation of the various semantic representations, such that we get in English the rigid SVO word order that basically conforms to an agent/actor - action - patient presentation. This strategy works well at a level below the phrase. However, the rigidity of word order is weakened by pragmatic considerations of focusing, topicalization and the like. It is usually possible to reshuffle the normative word order sequences as desired, provided markers (including intonation) are available to indicate the reshuffling (e.g. Bagels I like, It was yesterday he came). Deixis, offering markers and deictically featured items, operates with or without such reshuffling, so it is difficult to discern deixis as affecting rigid word order as an aspect of syntactic iconicity. For example the two clauses of the sentence (section 6) While Tom was working, Sheila was having a good time, can be reversed, but the temporal deictic while retains its notion of simultaneity. On the other hand, "simultaneity is an example of a phenomenon which in syntax cannot be represented directly iconically because of the linear characteristic

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of speech" (Dotter, in this volume), so that its deixis cannot be applied to rigid word order. Yet in English there is one quite rigid rule: the preposing of deictic determiners (the, those, etc.). Such preposing seems to reflect the operative principle in communication of pointing at something first, and then naming it. As an extension, the ordering of topic/comment first names the topic and then comments on it. But in English the reverse happens for (speaker-oriented) modality. Modals rigidly precede the main verb; it is scarcely possible to focus and hence reshuffle the position of modals. The main verb is uninflected but the modal is; for instance in the sentence He might go, might may count psychologically as the main verb, and go as an infinitive complement. Then the ordering is: topic (via ostension); attitude (back to the speaker); comment (reference to the information store). Such an ordering may perhaps be influenced by deixis.

Notes 1. Weinreich (1966: 156) points out: "Where only one category of [place] deixis exists, it seems to indicate 'obviousness to the first and second person' (this, thus)\ the reference may be made precise by a coordinated gesture." Since ostension, i.e., indication of distal items, assuredly it is a universal of human behavior, it may be said that in some few languages the "distal" demonstrative is not encoded verbally.

References Bolinger, D. 1968 Aspects of language. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Bull, W.E. 1963 Time, tense and the verb. Berkeley: University of California Press. Camap, R. 1942 Introduction to semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Dotter, F. Nonarbitrariness and iconicity: Coding possibilities. (This volume). Fortune, G. 1967 Elements of Shona. Salisbury: Longman Rhodesia. Givon, T. 1988 Mind, code and context: Essays in pragmatics. Hillside, NJ: Erlbaum. Hannan, M. 1974 Standard Shona dictionary. Salisbury: Rhodesia Literature Bureau.

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Jakobson, R. 1965 A la recherche de l'essence du langage. Diogene 51. 22-38. Kurylowicz, J. 1964 The inflectional categories of Indo-European. Heidelberg: Winter. Langendonck, W. van Categories of word-order iconicity. (This volume). Lightfoot, D. 1982 The language lottery: Toward a biology of grammars. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Lyons, J. 1977 Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCawley, J. D. 1971 Where do noun-phrases come from? In D. D. Steinberg and L. A. Jakobovitz (eds.), Semantics: An interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics and psychology. 217-231. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moravcsik, E. A. 1977 Necessary and possible universals about temporal constituent-relations in language. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Peirce, C. S. 1960 Charles Sanders Peirce: Collected works, (edited by W. W. Bartley). Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester. Traugott, Ε. C. 1978 On the expression of spatio-temporal relations in language. In J.H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of human language. Vol. 3. 369^-00. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Weinreich, U. 1966 On the semantic structure of language. In J.H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of language. 142-216. Cambridge, MA: MIT.

A binary approach to iconicity in word order Cornells H. van

Schooneveld

Abstract Semantically, all relations between two words can be reduced to one single type: one word (modifier) says something about the other word (modified). The modifier can precede or follow the modified. Dependent on the given language either order can be marked. The marked order sees the pair as an indissoluble whole, whereas the unmarked order assigns the modifier to the modified stepwise, both either in the narrated or the speech situation. Word order is iconic in that it utilizes the existence of two separate words, modifier and modified, to indicate their identificational merger or their identificational separation.

1. Introduction What I am presenting here is essentially an ad-interim report on the evolution of certain ideas on word order which I published about thirty years ago and on what I see emerging as precise semantic characterizations of the individual word order opposition in various languages. Such an interim statement is justified since the question I propose to raise in this note is to ask whether word order is in any way iconic. Is there any iconicity involved in word order? By iconicity I understand the similarity, to the perceiver, between the signans (signifier) and the referents corresponding to the signatum (signified) of a sign. The successful transmission of a linguistic sign implies two identifications: first, of the signans, that is, the way language is commonly used, of the sound waves, and second, the identification of the denotatum, the referent. To give an example of iconicity: some properties leading to the identification of the referent of the sign cuckoo are reflected in the acoustic properties of the signifier (the word) itself. In other words, some properties which one perceives when identifying a cuckoo are reflected in the way the word cuckoo sounds.

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2. Word order and the structure of language In order to answer the question whether word order is iconic, it is necessary to give a brief outline of word order as a structural element of language. Since word order of necessity involves syntax, a statement is required regarding the nature of syntactic relations. Syntactic relations, in turn go, I submit, primarily back to the paradigmatic structure of the parts of speech.

3. Semantic approaches to parts of speech Quite recently, there have been in the literature renewed proposals bearing upon semantic differences between parts of speech, particularly between verb and noun (Langacker 1987). If one looks at the category of part of speech from a Praguean point of view, which entails the assumption that a difference in form is paired to differences in meaning and, moreover, that phonological and semantic oppositions are recurrent, one is led to search not only for semantic invariants opposing the various parts of speech, but also for the recurrence of these oppositions.

4. The semantic structure of parts of speech I made a first attempt in this direction in 1952, in the inaugural address presented upon the occasion of my accession to the chair of Baltic and Slavic languages at the University of Leiden, in which I suggested that the four principal parts of speech in Russian form a regular structure constituted by markings (van Schooneveld 1953, 1960). The verb and the substantive suffice by themselves to evoke a segment of extralinguistic reality. They characterize segments of exogenous reality in their entirety. The semantic feature involved is demarcatedness (I originally called this feature "dimensionality")· It states that the referent is seen as distinct from its peers. It sets off the referent as a whole from its background. It indicates the fullness of the characterization of the referent. The characterization is self-sufficient. Substantive and adjective, in turn, characterize their referents infinitely. In other words, a given referent of a substantive or an adjective is identifiable at any time, and not just once, which may be the case with verb or adverb. Verb and adverb indicate segments of extralinguistic reality which are not necessarily infinitely identifiable; they are unmarked in this respect. Hence, they imply an evolution in time. Substantives and adjectives signalize referents that are infinitely

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identifiable. It was only considerably later that I identified the semantic feature conveying the meaning of infinity as it recurs in other categories of the Russian language (van Schooneveld 1983a: 324-326). It is the objectiveness feature. Objectiveness states that the referent is identifiable at any time, whether we think of a moment implied in the situational context (Jakobson's [1971: 133] narrative situation), or at a time other than this given moment.

5. The semantic structure of Russian in general This is not the place for an extended discussion of the semantic feature system which I think forms the foundation of the semantic structure of Russian. Suffice it to say that demarcatedness and objectiveness are the second and sixth members of a hierarchy of six semantic features which occur in Russian on at least four levels of deixis and which seem to generate all semantic units of the Russian language (van Schooneveld 1983b: 161, 1987: 135). In other words, these six features are recurrent in various categories, including the lexicon, of the Russian language. The six conceptual features constitute a hierarchy of inclusion relations since each succeeding feature incorporates the preceding feature. Thus, the extralinguistic range of reference of each succeeding feature is a subset of the preceding feature and, conversely, the information conveyed by each following feature constitutes the containing set of the information conveyed by the preceding feature. The semantic contents of each following feature incorporate the semantic contents of the preceding feature as the latter is applied in a once-occurring identification act. Since Saussurean (1955: 30, 322-323) parole can be considered a member of the non-finite set constituting Saussurean langue and an identification act a member of the non-finite set constituting a perceptional code, we can say that each following feature is the codification of the application of the preceding feature. Thus the acquisition of the system materializes through the operation of a given feature; this operation engenders the contextual presence of the next feature to be. This contextual property is in turn codified. The feature hierarchy can be said to generate itself through its own operation. Maturana and Varela (1980), who came to a similar conceptualization regarding the working of the perception mechanism of nervous systems in living beings, coined for this self-generation the term "autopoiesis". Figure 1 represents the conceptual feature hierarchy. The shaded modifiers (.mr) are identificationally deictic (see below). The abbreviation md represents

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Cornells Η. van Schooneveld signatum

Plurality (transitivity) Demarcatedness (dimensionality) Preidentity (identity, distinctness, duplication) Verification (extension)

Cancellation (restrictedness)

ref

ref

:::

signatum

:::

signatum

ref ref

:: · something happened to person X X felt something (F) because of that X was worrying/grieving/rejoicing X was thinking about something [because X wanted to think about it] X felt something because of that X wanted to do something because of that Thoughts can be voluntary or involuntary; they can be directed at a certain target or they can spring up spontaneously in a person's head (it occurred to me that ...). I suggest that the semiactive pattern of describing emotions (X

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was worrying/grieving/rejoicing ...) implies the presence of thoughts which are voluntarily directed at a certain subject. In English, emotions are more commonly expressed by means of adjectives or pseudo-participles rather than verbs: (4)

Mary was sad/pleased/afraid/angry/happy/disgusted/glad,

etc.

Adjectives and pseudo-participles of this kind designate passive states, not active emotions to which people "give themselves" more or less voluntarily. Active emotions are designated by verbs, not by adjectives. The fact that verbs of this kind occur readily in the progressive aspect, highlights the contrast between their active, semivoluntary character and the passive nature of states such as "being sad" or "being ashamed": (5)

a. She was rejoicing/grieving. b. *She was being sad/happy.

It should also be noted that emotions designated by verbs such as rejoice or grieve tend to be expressed in action. For example, a person who rejoices is probably doing something because of his or her feeling - dancing, singing, laughing, and so on. For this reason one might suggest that one further component should be added to the explication of such verbs: (X felt something) X was doing something because of that I hesitate, however, to add a component of this form, because it seems to overemphasize the agentive connotations of such verbs. When people worry, grieve or rejoice they are very likely to do something because of what they feel, but probably they do not always do so. It seems safer, therefore, to express the dynamic character of such verbs more cautiously: (X felt something) X wanted to do something because of that If X wanted to do something because of his/her feeling (sing, laugh, cry, talk and so on), this invites the inference that X probably did do something; but this inference is not spelled out as a certainty. It is interesting to note that English has only very few intransitive verbs of this kind: worry, grieve, rejoice, pine, and a few more, and the whole category

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seems to be losing ground in modern English (rejoice being somewhat archaic and elevated, pine being usually used ironically, and so on). I believe that this is not "accidental" but reflects an important feature of Anglo-Saxon culture - a culture which tends to view behavior described disapprovingly as "emotional" with suspicion and embarrassment. (It is worth noting in this connection that in English intransitive emotion verbs tend to develop negative disapproving tones, e.g., sulk, fret, fume, rave). It is uncharacteristic of Anglo-Saxons to "give themselves" to emotions. Their culture encourages them to be glad rather than to rejoice, to be sad rather than to pine, to be angry rather than to fume or rage, and so on.

Russian In contrast to English, Russian is extremely rich in active emotion verbs. I will adduce here a selection of characteristic examples - most of them thoroughly untranslatable: radovat'sja, toskovat', skucat', grustit', volnovat'sja, bespokoit'sja, ogorcat'sja, xandrit', unyvat', gordit'sja, uzasat'sja, stydit'sja, radovat'sja, ljubovat'sja, vosxiscat'sja, likovat', zlit'sja, gnevat'sja, trevoziti'sja, vozmuscat'sja, negodovat', tomit'sja, nervnicat', otcaivat'sja, and so on. In some cases English tries to make up for this lack of active emotion verbs with verbal phrases, such as take offense (cf. obidet'sja) or take fright (cf. ispugat'sja). But this is not a very productive device in English, and it often combines an aspectual difference with a difference in "volitionality." As was pointed out by Sapir (1949: 114), the verb take is sometimes used in English as a semiauxiliary, which derives a perfective meaning from an imperfective or unspecified base. The restricted nature of such phrases is reflected in the fact that they cannot be used in the progressive aspect or combined with adverbials of duration: (6)

* He was taking

offense/fright.

To take offense means, roughly speaking, to "decide to think something about someone's behavior, to take a certain view of it" and to start feeling offended as a result. The thought is voluntary, but it precedes the feeling. However, in the case of rejoicing or worrying, one goes on thinking certain thoughts, which go on feeding the feelings associated with them. Hence the possibility of using progressive aspect with rejoice or worry and not with take offense.

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It is also important to note that this difference between Russian and English affects not only the lexicon but also the grammar of the two languages. Russian has a syntactic contrast between "voluntary emotions" (designated by verbs with experiencers in the nominative), "involuntary emotions" (designated by an adverb-like category, the so-called kategorija sostojanija, 'category of state', with the experiencer in the dative case), and - in some cases - volitionally neutral Stative emotions (designated by an adjective, with the experiencer in the nominative). For example: (7)

a. Ivan styditsja. (V) 'Ivan is "giving himself" to shame (and is showing it).' b. Ivanu stydno. (Adv.) 'Ivan feels ashamed.'

(8)

a. Ivan skucaet. (V) 'Ivan is "giving himself" to boredom/melancholy (and is showing it)·' b. Ivanu skucno. (Adv.) 'Ivan feels bored/sad.'

(9)

a. Ivan grustit. (V) 'Ivan is "giving himself" to sadness (and is showing it).' b. Ivanu grustno. (Adv.) 'Ivan feels sad.'

(10)

a. Ivan raduetsja. (V) 'Ivan rejoices.' b. Ivan rad. (Adj.) 'Ivan is glad.'

Apresjan (1974: 87) suggested that Russian reflexive emotion verbs fall into two distinct groups: the verbs in one group have a purely stative meaning, whereas the verbs of the other group have either a stative or an inchoative meaning. The purely stative group includes, for example, besit'sja, 'be enraged,' bespokoit'sja 'be upset,' volnovat'sja 'be worried' or trevozit'sja 'be alarmed,' whereas the other group includes, for example, izumljat'sja 'be amazed,' obizat'sja 'be offended,' ogorcat'sja 'grieve' or udivljat'sja 'be astonished.' (Note again the lack of satisfactory English equivalents.) It seems to me, however, that it is somewhat misleading to call any of these verbs "stative," because this seems to equate them in meaning with

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"stative" adjectives such as rad 'glad' or grustnyj 'sad.' I am not saying that emotion verbs designate actions. However, neither do they designate states. The distinction between actions and states is simply not sufficient to capture the facts in question. Referring to expressions such as bojat'sja prostudy 'to be afraid (verb) of catching a cold,' radovat'sja priezdu syna, 'to rejoice over the arrival of one's son,' dosadovat' or serdit'sja na c'i-to slova 'to be angry (verb) over someone's remarks,' Apresjan (1974: 87) wrote: "In Russian, states of this kind are treated not as arising by themselves but as caused by the speaker's evaluation of the event (cf. Iordanskaja 1970)." I would propose a somewhat different account. In Russian, emotions can be treated in a number of different ways. When they are conceptualized in terms of reflexive verbs such as bojat'sja 'to be afraid,' radovat'sja 'to rejoice,' serdit'sja 'to be angry,' they are treated not as arising by themselves, but as caused by the speaker's conscious thoughts about the event. The speaker's evaluation of the event is relevant for the adjectives as well as for verbs. For example, both the adjective rad 'glad' and the verb radovat'sja 'rejoice' imply that the experiencer evaluates the event as good. But in addition, the verb radovat'sja implies that the experiencer is focusing on the event, turning it over in one's head, and in this way is causing and perpetrating the emotion within oneself. The reflexive suffix -sja reflects, I think, this self-induced character of the emotions in question. Mel'cuk (1976: 102) has suggested that transitive verbs such as udivit' 'to surprise' or ispugat' 'to frighten' are causatives of reflexive verbs such as udivit'sja 'to get surprised' or ispugat'sja 'to get frightened.' X ispugal Y-a = X kauziroval Y-α ispugat'sja. 'X frightened Υ' = X caused Y to be frightened (lit. 'to frighten himself'). Apresjan (1974: 271) has suggested, instead, (referring to Iordanskaja 1970), that transitive verbs of this kind are converses rather than causatives of the corresponding verbs, because causation is included in the meaning of reflexive verbs as well: X ispugal Y-a = Y ispugalsja X-a. 'X frightened Υ' = Y got frightened of X. It seems to me, however, that transitive verbs such as ispugat' 'to frighten' are neither causatives nor converses of reflexive verbs such as ispugat'sja

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'to get frightened'. Transitive verbs such as ispugat' suggest an external cause of the feeling whereas reflexive verbs such as ispugat 'sja suggest an internal cause. Reflexive verbs such as ispugat'sja differ in this respect from adjectives of emotion such as rad 'glad', which seem to be compatible with both external and internal causes, and which do not imply any inner (or outer) activity on the part of the experiencer. The active character of Russian emotion verbs with the suffix -sja manifests itself in the way they are used - often on a par with verbs of doing, as in the following examples from Tolstoy's diaries: (11)

a. Vcera nagresil, razdrazilsja ο socinenijax - pecatanii ix (1985: 203). 'Yesterday I sinned badly, I got myself all worked up (annoyed) about my works - their publication.' b. Mne ne gordit'sja nado i prosedsim, da i nastojascim, a smirit'sja, stydit'sja, sprjatat'sja - prosit' proscenie u ljudej (1985: 22). 'What I should do is not to pride myself on the past, or for that matter the present, but to humble myself, to "shame myself," to hide myself - to ask people's forgivenness.' c. Vnutrennjaja rabota idet, i potomu ne tol'ko ne roptat,' no radovat'sja nado (1985: 125). 'Inner work is going on, so what I should do is not to complain but to rejoice.'

The active, volitional, character of Russian verbs of emotion manifests itself (among other things) in the fact that (as pointed out by Iordanskaja and Mel'cuk 1981) many of them can be used to report speech. For example: (12)

a. "Masa - zdes'?" udivilsja Ivan. " 'Masa - here"? Ivan expressed his surprise.' b. "Ivan - zdes'!" obradovalas' Masa. ' " I v a n is here!" expressed her joy Masa.'

In English, too, there are some verbs which can be used to interpret human speech as a manifestation of emotions: for example, enthuse, exult, moan, thunder, or fume. (13)

"No prince has ever known the power that I have!" Nero exulted (Ruffin 1985: 44; cf. Wierzbicka 1987: 251).

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Typically, however, such verbs are somewhat negative, or ironic, in their connotations, and they focus on the manner of speech as much as on the emotion itself. In Russian, verbs of emotion such as udivit'sja 'to express surprise' or obradovat'sja 'to express joy' are used as 'pure' speech act verbs, not as manner-of-speech verbs. This, I think, is another manifestation of the cultural difference mentioned earlier: Anglo-Saxon culture tends to disapprove of uninhibited verbal outpourings of emotions, whereas Russian culture views them as one of the main functions of human speech. It should be noted that although in Russian self-induced emotions tend to be expressed by means of reflexive verbs, there are also some intransitive emotion verbs without -sja, for example toskovat' 'pine,' negodovat', 'give oneself to indignation,' or skucat' 'give oneself to boredom/nostalgia'. Whether or not they differ in some subtle way from the verbs with -sja, they seem to be similar to them in all the respects relevant to the present considerations. Finally, it should be added that the idea of "giving oneself" actively to an emotion is often spelled out in Russian quite explicitly, as in the following examples: (14)

a. Casta otdaes'sja unynij'u, negodovaniju ο torn, cto delaetsja ν mire (Tolstoy 1985: 294). O f t e n you give yourself to melancholy, to indignation over what is going on in the world.' b. Ne unyniju dolzny my predavat'sja pri vsjakoj vnezapnoj utrate ... (Gogol' 1873: 567). 'We shouldn't give ourselves to melancholy whenever we suddenly lose something ....'

In English, people normally do not talk about "giving oneself" to a certain feeling, (not in the sense of passively surrendering to it, but in the sense of actively wallowing in it), and both the idea and the practice seem alien to Anglo-Saxon culture. The marginality of verbs of emotion in the English language reflects, I think, this cultural difference.

Emotional relationships By emotional relationships I mean long-term emotional dispositions such as those designated by the verbs love and hate, or by the adjectives fond (of) and attached (to). The line between such dispositions and actual emotions is

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not always easy to draw, because many emotion terms can be used in both ways. For example, the sentences: (15)

a. John admired Mary. b. Mary was grateful to John.

could refer either to a temporary feeling of admiration or gratitude, or to a long-term emotional disposition. However, there are some verbs, and some adjectives, which have only the habitual sense. For example, the sentences: (16)

a. John respected Mary. b. Mary was fond of John.

could not be interpreted as referring to transient feelings. As for love, it can be used in a temporary sense if it has an inanimate object, for example: (17)

I just loved it!

but in combination with a human object it has only a habitual sense: (18)

John loved Mary (*when she said that).

Let us compare, then, a dispositional emotion verb such as love with its closest adjectival counterparts such as fond (of) or attached (to): (19)

a. John loves Mary. b. John is fond of/attached

to Mary.

In transformational literature, quasi-synonyms of this kind were often quoted in support of the claim that the contrast between verbs and adjectives is "superficial" and semantically irrelevant (see, for example, Bach 1968: 12; Lakoff 1970: 115-116). However, in fact, the opposite conclusion seems more justified. Love is more intense, more voluntary, more active than mere fondness or attachment·, and the contrast between the verb (love) and the adjectives (fond, attached) reflects this difference in the kind of meaning. Many other languages in the world - for example, Japanese - have a similar contrast between verbs and adjectives:

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(20)

John wa Mary ο aisuru. John Top. Mary Obj. loves [verb] 'John loves Mary.'

(21)

John wa Mary ga suki da. John Top. Mary "Subj." likable [Adj.] Copula 'John is fond of Mary.'

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(For a detailed discussion, see Bramley 1987.) At this point, I would venture to propose a universal: if a language has two words for a "positive emotional attitude," one verb and one adjective, and if one of these words designates a "stronger," "more intense," "more active" feeling than the other, then the stronger feeling will be expressed by the verb, and the "milder" one by the adjective, never the other way around. Of course, words such as strong, intense or active provide no more than vague and metaphorical hints. The distinction between feelings and attitudes provides a somewhat clearer hint; and so does the distinction between mere feelings and feelings linked with "thinking" and "wanting." For example, if person X loves person Y, this implies not only that at the thought of Y, or in contact with Υ, X tends to experience "good feelings" (of a certain kind), but also that X thinks about Y, wants to be with Y, and wants to do good things for Y (cf. Wierzbicka 1986a). But if X is merely fond of Y, or attached to Y, thinking and wanting directed at Y are not similarly implied. It may be useful at this point to recall Simone Weil's (cf. Heidsieck 1967: 116) words: "L'amour n'est pas un etat, c'est une orientation de l'äme" ['Love is not a state, it is an orientation of the soul']. If person X loves person Y, this does not mean that X "is in a certain state", rather, it means that X has a certain attitude - a certain "orientation" - towards Y. Adjectives such as fond or attached do not imply that. It is also interesting to compare the adjectives fond and attached with the verb like, which can also be said to be a "milder" counterpart of love, and which nonetheless is a verb. What seems to matter here is that, although "milder," like, like love, suggests a conscious attitude rather than a mere emotional response to a person or thing. For instance, the sentences:

(22)

a. John likes Mary. b. Mary likes Canberra.

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suggest that John thinks something good about Mary, and Mary, about Canberra. By contrast, the sentences: (23)

a. John is attached to his grandmother. b. Mary is attached to her home town.

do not suggest any such conscious thoughts. Furthermore, liking seems to suggest some degree of active preference (probably John wants to be with Mary from time to time; Mary wants to live or to be in Canberra from time to time); whereas fond and attached seem to suggest a more passive response to a person, thing, or place. Consequently, liking is more likely to involve an act of choice, wheres fondness and attachment are more likely to be directed at what is given to us (family, hometown, etc.) rather than at what we choose ourselves. It should be added that the ability of adjectives such as fond or attached to take complements does not make them identical, in this respect, to verbs, as has been claimed in the transformational literature. It is not an accident of English surface grammar that verbs such as love or like take (prepositionless) direct objects, whereas adjectives such as fond or attached can only take prepositional objects (fond of attached to) - as it is not an accident that verbs of limited or uncertain impact such as kick or strike can take prepositional objects, whereas change of state verbs such as kill or break cannot (cf. Hopper and Thompson 1980; Tsunoda 1981): (24)

a. He was kicking/striking at them. b. *He was killing/breaking at them.

If present participles can sometimes take (incorporated) direct objects, e.g., God-fearing or peace-loving, but adjectives normally cannot, it is, I suggest, because of semantic compatibility, and not for purely formal and arbitrary reasons. It goes without saying that the direction of the implied causal link is also relevant here - for both verbs and adjectives. For example, in the following pair: (25)

a. John hated Jim (for his nasty jokes). b. Jim irritated John (by his coughing).

we have two verbs of emotion, but only one which can be said to be active and more or less voluntary (hate). But the second verb, irritate, does not

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ascribe any emotion to the subject (Jim); rather, it presents that subject as the cause of the object person's (John's) emotion. The same applies to the pair: (26)

a. John is fond of Mary. b. John wa Mary suki da. 'Mary is pleasing to John.'

In (26a) John's fondness is presented as an emotional disposition rooted in John, and Mary as its object rather than cause; whereas in (26b) Mary is presented as a source (cause), as well as an object, of John's emotional disposition. One could say that an emotion can be presented as due either to the object (target) or to the subject (experiencer) (cf. Wierzbicka 1980: 41). If it is presented as due to the experiencer, the experiencer can be portrayed either as a passive cause (e.g., John was happy) or as an active one (e.g., John rejoiced). If the speaker wants to portray the experiencer as an active cause of the emotion (s)he will use a verb. If no suitable verbs are available, this suggests that the language in question does not encourage that kind of conceptualization.

Some minimal pairs At first sight, the contrast between adjectives and verbs of emotion often seems arbitrary. Consider, for example, the following contrasts: (27)

a. John envies Mary. b. John is jealous of Mary.

(28)

a. John fears that Mary may be offended. b. John is afraid that Mary may be offended.

Why should jealousy differ in its part-of-speech membership status from the closely related envy? And why should fear differ in this respect from its near synonym afraid? It is true that the semantic rationale for the difference in part-of-speech status between verbs such as envy or fear and adjectives such as jealous and afraid seems more tenuous and harder to capture than that between intransi-

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tive verbs such as rejoice, grieve or pine and related adjectives such as happy, homesick or sad. In the case of verbs such as rejoice the underlying semantic difference manifests itself in a tangible grammatical difference mentioned earlier: (29)

a. He was rejoicing. b. *He was being happy/pleased.

I have suggested that this grammatical difference has to do with an active component in the meaning of verbs such as rejoice or radovat'sja. One who rejoices is probably doing something to express one's feeling - singing, dancing, laughing, weeping and so on (whether in one's heart or outwardly). By contrast, verbs such as envy or fear do not seem to imply any manifestations of the emotions. Grammatically, too, they differ from active verbs such as rejoice or grieve in that they tend not to be used in the progressive aspect: (30)

a. X envied/feared Y. b. ?X was envying/fearing

Y.

This suggests that verbs of this kind do not contain in their meaning an active component "X wanted to do something because of that." Nonetheless, I believe that although emotion verbs such as envy and fear do not have a "doing" component, they do differ in meaning from closely related adjectives such as jealous and afraid, and that these differences in meaning are reflected in the differences in the part of speech membership. In essence, what I want to suggest is that verbs such as envy and fear present the emotions in question as fed by the experiencer's voluntary thoughts, whereas the corresponding adjectives do not do so. The fact that the adjective jealous (like envious) is inherently intransitive, whereas the verb to envy is inherently transitive, also points to a semantic difference: (31)

a. He is jealous b. ?He envies.

(envious).

The adjective does not need a complement because it is focused on the state, or the disposition, of the experiencer. The verb needs a complement because it is inherently relational: when X is thinking of Υ, X feels something. It is interesting to note that in many languages other than English, a feeling similar to jealousy has been lexicalized as a verb, not as an adjective, thus

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pointing to a different conceptualization. Russian is one case in point: the transitive verb revnovat' denotes an emotion of intense and active jealousy, fed by the experiencer's on-going thoughts. Another example is provided by the transitive verb to jealous commonly used in Aboriginal English in Central Australia (Elwell 1979). 1 Turning now to the pair (to) fear and (to be) afraid, it will be noted first of all that here, too, the adjective is inherently intransitive, whereas the verb is inherently transitive: (32)

a. I am afraid. b. ?I fear.

The difference in meaning between, for example, God-fearing men and men who are afraid of God points in the same direction: the first expression suggests a conscious (and morally commendable) attitude, and the second, a visceral feeling. One final pair of closely related emotion concepts that I want to consider is regret and sorry. Why should one of them be a verb and the other, an adjective? Once more, it will be noted that the adjective is essentially "intransitive," and the verb, transitive. While one can say both: (33)

a. / am sorry about it. b. I regret it.

one can also say: (33)

a. I am sorry.

but hardly (33)

b. *I regret.

This difference in syntactic patterning can be explained if we recognize that the adjective designates a certain emotional state, which can be viewed independently of the thought linked with it, whereas the verb focuses on the thought (about something), and therefore cannot be dissociated from the object of that thought.

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In this case, the active character of the verb is even more manifest than in the case of the other two verbs which we have just considered, because it lends itself more easily to the use in the progressive aspect. The sentence: (34)

a. I am now regretting it.

is infinitely more acceptable than its counterpart with the adjective sorry: (34)

b. *I am now being sorry about it.

To be regretting something means to keep saying in one's head, roughly speaking, (35)

I shouldn 't have done it.

The thought is voluntary, that is, it is not a thought which "occurs to us," and which we might dismiss, but a view, an opinion; that is, a thought voluntarily accepted. Of course, the verb regret implies that voluntary thought triggers a certain feeling, but the focus is on the thought, not on the feeling, or as much on the thought as on the feeling. But if one says, for example: (36)

/ am sorry. I am so sorry ...

the focus is on the feeling - so much so that the object of the thought can be dismissed from the speaker's thoughts and "demoted" out of the sentence, leaving it in an intransitive form. Furthermore, the thought causally linked with the feeling of being sorry does not have to have the character of a conscious view. For example, if one says: (37)

When I saw her, she looked so frightened sorry for her.

and so lost that I was

one is clearly describing one's reaction rather than one's view. The feeling of "sorriness" is no doubt associated with a thought, but this thought does not have to be conscious and voluntary. Consider also the following contrasts: (38)

a. / am beginning to regret it.

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b. ?I am beginning to be sorry. (39)

a. I have stopped regretting it. b. ?I have stopped being sorry about it.

Passive emotional states usually do not have clear emotional boundaries, and this is why adjectives such as sorry do not combine very easily with aspectual verbs such as begin or stop. Attitudinal verbs such as regret combine with such verbs much more easily, because a period when certain thoughts are consciously entertained can be seen as having well defined boundaries. As a first approximation, differences of this kind can be modeled along the following lines: I regret it —> when I think about it I think this: something bad happened it would be good if it didn 't happen I feel something because ofthat. I am sorry —»· I feel something bad of the kind people feel when they think this: something bad happened it would be good if it didn't happen.

Nouns of emotions In English, emotion predicates can take the form not only of adjectives or verbs but also of nouns. For example, one can say: (40)

a. He was in pain, in agony, in ecstasy.

though not (40)

b. *He was in pleasure/in joy/in

sadness.

Similarly, in Russian one can say (cf. Apresjan 1974: 339):

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(41)

a. On prisel ν

jarost'/besenstvo/uzas/vostorg/otcajanie.

'He came-to-be-in rage/fury/terror/ecstasy/despair.' but not (41)

b. *On prisel ν gnev/strax/udivlenie. 'He came-to-be-in anger/fear/surprise.'

As pointed out by Apresjan, contrasts of this kind cannot always be explained in terms of the first semantic dimension which comes to mind, such as emotions of great intensity vs. emotions of medium intensity, because in Russian one can say, for example: (42)

On prisel ν unynie/bespokojstvie/volnenie. 'He came-to-be-in dejection/anxiety/agitation.'

and the nouns in question (unynie, bespokojstvie and volnenie) do not imply emotions of great intensity. I think that Apresjan's observations are correct, and important, but I do not think that they demonstrate semantic arbitrariness of the part of speech status of different emotion predicates. Whether or not the nouns which can occur in the pattern in question have a semantic common core it can still be argued that the pattern itself: prijti ν NEm 'to come to be in N £ m ' has such a core, and that different emotion nouns may or may not occur in that pattern, depending on whether or not they are semantically compatible with it. "Great intensity" is not necessarily the key factor here. As I have suggested with respect to the English pattern "to be in NEm" (cf. Wierzbicka 1986«), loss of control may be the crucial factor. X is in ΝΕΠ\ = something happened to X X feels something because of that X cannot think of other things because of that Returning to the Russian pattern prijti ν Nem, it should be noted that there is definitely a difference in meaning between two sentences such as (43a) and (43b) (apart from the difference in aspect): (43)

a. On volnovalsja. [refl. verb of emotion] 'He was worrying/fretting.'

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b. On prisel ν volnenie. [noun of emotion] 'He came-to-be in a state of worry/agitation.' Sentence (43a) suggests a self-induced emotion, subject to one's control; sentence (43b) suggests an involuntary state not subject to one's control. Hence the following contrast in acceptability: (44)

a. Ne volnujsja! 'Don't worry/fret! b. ?Ne prixodi ν volnenie! 'Don't come to be in a state of agitation!'

Lakoff and Johnson (1978) have tried to explain the meaning of nominal emotion predicates such as in despair or in ecstasy in terms of "metaphorical containers." I confess that to me this does not make much sense. (For discussion, see Wierzbicka 1986b.) To be in pain or in ecstasy does not mean to be in a container, metaphorical or otherwise. But the form of the predicate preposition in (in Russian, v) with a noun - does offer a helpful hint. To be "in a feeling" suggests being overwhelmed by that feeling (as if surrounded by it from all sides). Hints of this kind can play a role in semantic analysis, because they can help us to isolate the relevant semantic components. However, it would be unwise to mistake them for semantic analysis itself. It might be added that the "total" implications of nouns of emotions link them with the "total" implications of nouns of human classification (cf. Wierzbicka 1986c). For example, in a pair such as (45a) and (45b): (45)

a. He is Jewish. b. He is a Jew.

(45b) has definite and "total" implications that (a) does not have; (b) categorizes, whereas (a) merely describes. This is why contrasts such as the following one do make sense (Levi 1982: 58): (46)

... lui era un russo ebreo, non un ebreo russo. '... he was a Jewish [adj.] Russian [noun], not a Russian [adj.] Jew [noun].'

Something similar can be said about the experiencer's condition in the pairs below:

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a. He was happy/sad/upset. b. He was in ecstasy/in pain/in

despair.

a. On serdilsja/bojalsja/ljubovalsja. [refl. verbs] 'He was angry/afraid/delighted.' b. On prisel ν besenstvo uzas/v vostorg. 'He came to be in a state of fury/terror/ecstasy.'

Conclusion If two words express a similar meaning and yet one of them is a verb and the other an adjective, this is often taken as evidence of arbitrariness of formal distinctions in grammar. In my view, a different conclusion is more justified: formal distinctions in grammar reflect differences in conceptualization, often very subtle differences. Far from being semantically arbitrary they are extraordinarily sensitive - so much so that when we come across two quasi-synonyms belonging to two different parts of speech, we can regard the formal difference as a clue suggesting some difference in meaning. If two languages exhibit in certain domains systematic differences in their part-of-speech alignment, this suggests significant differences between their semantic systems - and quite probably between the broader cultural systems associated with them. One interesting example of such systematic differences was provided by White (1985), who showed that while speakers of English tend to describe people as kind, domineering, and so on, the A'ara speakers of the Solomon Islands do not have similar adjectives, and talk about people in terms of verbs such as cheat, quarrel, begrudge, grumble or slander, not in terms of any adjectives. White (1985: 348-349) suggests that this absence of "adjective-like person descriptors" and the concomitant preponderance of verbal person descriptors, is culturally revealing. The conceptual dimensions that organize A'ara descriptors represent meanings that are essentially interactive in nature. ... the absence of interpsychic or other individualized constructs is suggestive of the essentially interpersonal orientation of A'ara v i e w s of the person and social reality. ... These differences suggest a greater degree of lexical "density" in the realm of interpersonal conflict, where the language encodes forms of interaction more readily than qualities of persons as social isolates. The greater lexicalization of interpersonal processes is consistent with the finding ... that A'ara person descriptors are primarily

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interactive in meaning and represent conceptions of the person and social reality which are defined less in terms of individual constructs than interpersonal processes. In the c a s e o f Russian, the greater lexical "density" in the realm of e m o t i o n descriptors in general, and verbal e m o t i o n descriptors in particular, is, I think, similarly revealing (cf. Wierzbicka 1988). But to be able to notice and to appreciate culturally revealing linguistic d i f f e r e n c e s of this kind, w e must o v e r c o m e the old d o g m a o f arbitrariness o f the linguistic sign, and w e must l e a v e behind us crude semantic analyses w h i c h s e e m to j u s t i f y it.

Notes 1. Editor's remark: Hebrew is another interesting case in point where "jealousy" has been lexicalized as a verb.

References Apresjan, J. D. 1974 Leksiceskaja Semantika |Lexical semantics]. Moscow: Nauka. Bach, E. 1968 Nouns and noun phrases. In E. Bach and R. Harms (eds.), Universals in linguistic theory. 91-124. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Bloomfield, L. 1933 Language. London: Allen and Unwin. Bramley, N. 1987 Love and hate and other emotion concepts in Japanese and in English. [B. A. Honours thesis, Australian National University.] Dixon, R. M. W. 1977 Where have all the adjectives gone? Studies in Language 1. 19-80. Elwell, V. 1979 English-as-a-second-language in Aboriginal Australia: A case study of Milingimbi. [M. A. thesis. Australian National University.] Gleason, H. A. 1969 An introduction to descriptive linguistics. London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Gogol', N. 1873 Polnoe Sobranie Socinenij [Completed collected works]. Vol. 4. Moscow: Mamontova and Leon'tev.

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Heidsieck, F. 1967 Simone Weil. Paris: Editions Seghers. Hopper, P. and S. Thompson 1980 Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language.

56(2). 251-299.

1985 The iconicity of the universal categories "noun" and "verb." In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity in syntax. 151-183. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Iordanskaja, L. 1970 Popytka leksikograficeskogo tolkovanija grupy russkix slov so znaceniem cuvstva [Tentative lexicographic definition for a group of Russian words denoting emotions]. Masinnyj Perevod i Prikladnaja Lingvistika 13. 3-34 Iordanskaja, L. and I. Mel'cuk 1981 On a class of Russian verbs which can introduce direct speech (Constructions of the type "Ostav'te menja!" - ispugalsja bufetcik: Lexical polysemy or semantic syntax?). In P. Jakobsen and H. L. Krag (eds.), The Slavic verb. (An anthology presented to H.Ch. S0rensen, 16th December 1981.) 51-66. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger. Lakoff, G. 1970 Irregularity

in syntax. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson 1978 Metaphors

people live by. Chicago University Press.

Levi, P. 1982 Se non ora, quando? Torino: Einaudi. Lyons, J. 1977 Semantics.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mel'cuk, I. 1976 The structure of linguistic signs and possible formal-semantic relations between them. In I.A. Mel'cuk, Das Wort. 119-188. Munich: Fink. Palmer, F. R. 1984 Grammar.

Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Ruffin, B. 1985 The days of the martyrs. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Inc. Sapir E. 1949 Selected writings of Edward Sapir in language, Berkeley: University of California Press.

culture, and

personality.

Tolstoy, L. 1985 Dnevniki. Sobranie Socinenij ν Dvadcati Dvux Tomax [Collected works in twenty-two volumes]. Vol. 22. [Diaries], In his Moscow: Xudozestvennaja Literatura. Tsunoda, T. 1981 Split case-marking patterns in verb types and tense/aspect/mood. tics 19(5/6). 389-438.

Linguis-

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White, G. 1985 "Bad ways" and "bad talk": Interpretations of conflict in a Melanesian society. In J. W. Dougherty (ed.), Directions in cognitive anthropology. 345-372. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Wierzbicka, A. 1980 Lingua mentalis: The semantics of natural language. Sydney: Academic. 1986a Human emotions: Universal or culture specific? American Anthropologist 88(3). 584-594. 1986£> Metaphors linguists live by: Lakoff and Johnson contra Aristotle. Papers in Linguistics 19(2). 287-313. 1986c What's in a noun (Or: how do nouns differ in meaning from adjectives?) Studies in Language 10(2). 353-389. 1987 English speech act verbs: A semantic dictionary. Sydney: Academic. 1988 The semantics of grammar. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Part II

Syntactic iconicity in literature

Triplicity and textual iconicity: Russian literature through a triangular prism1 Lee Β. Croft

Abstract A critical scanning of Russian literature reveals a pervasion of triplicity which transcends mere chance. This triplicity is shown to be "iconic" not only as to certain aspects of physical reality (three dimensions of perception, three states of matter, and so on) but also regarding certain aspects of the language code used to represent it (three persons, numbers, voices, tenses, and so on). A theory of narrative efficiency is propounded in order to explain the etiology of this triplicity in literature. It is also argued that the iconicity of this triplicity is only valid because of the trichotomous functioning of the human mind - a contention which expands the significance of this triplicity far beyond the realm of Russian literature. The human brain takes in outside information, analyzes it, and instructs the human musculature to make the appropriate response. Perception, analysis, response - this is the triad underlying all human action. An analogous triad underlies the phenomenon of iconicity. Real-world objects or relationships of objects are "reflected" by aspects of the communication code used to signify those objects or relationships of objects. But this "reflection" exists only in the minds of those privy to the communication code. Thus analysis, the processing of the human brain, joins as a tertiary factor into the consideration of the signans-signatum dichotomy just as it must enter into the consideration of stimulus-response. It is not, then, optimally desirable to study similarities which become apparent between the physical world and the code used to represent it. One must also include the study of that process by which these similarities are noticed - human thought. Triplicity can well be observed as an aspect of the real world and our perception of it. Triplicity can be seen in the functioning of our minds as we analyze the world around us. And triplicity is manifest in our representational codes, both primary (speech) and secondary (literature). Consider that our physical universe is generally perceived to have three dimensions (depth, height, width) and that it is widely presumed to consist in

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three states of matter (solid, liquid, gas). Trilaterality implies structural stability. This is the way in which we see the natural world - in trichotomous distinctions. Nobel laureate Richard P. Feynman, considering the basic interaction of light and matter, has written: "Is there a limited number of 'letters' in this language of quantum electrodynamics that can be combined to form 'words' and 'phrases' that describe nearly every phenomenon of nature? The answer is yes: the number is three" (Feynman 1985: 84). And the supernatural world is seen similarly. Several religious traditions have defined divinity to have three aspects: infinitude of expanse (a space property), infinitude of flow (a time property), and an infinite propensity for change (a life property) (cf. Segel 1967: 281). In the Christian tradition, the religious trinity includes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the soul has three possible realms: hell, earth, and heaven. Hopkins (1923), in his Origin and evolution of religion, distinguishes the religious triad from the religious trinity, tracing both from primitive pagan worship through Babylonia, the Classical World, India ("The Hindu Trinity") and China ("The Buddhistic Trinity") (Hopkins 1923: 291-350). When one considers the functioning of the human mind in relation to triplicity, it is easy to recall the Freudians' insistence that we are subject to three psychological forces (id, ego, and superego) which dominate our every action. It has been pointed out that these forces reside in three evolutionarily distinct areas of the brain ("old" brain or limbic system, midbrain, and cerebral cortex) and that the genetic code which forms the brain and indeed the rest of our substance is itself a microcosmic "triplet" code with distinct analogies to be made with the macrocosmic code of human language (cf. Jakobson 1971: 678-681, and Smith 1972: 64). In his oft-cited article, "The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information," Miller (1956) relates the results of several scientists' experiments designed to ascertain the limits of our ability to process information within several sensory parameters of short-term memory. For example, a sample of listeners was asked to distinguish the relative pitches of several sounds. These listeners had no difficulty placing two different sounds on a numerical scale of pitch. With three sounds, four sounds, or even five sounds, they had little trouble. But as the number of sounds increased to six, seven, or eight, inaccuracies began to enter the data with upsetting frequency. This experiment, which tests the information processing capacity on the auditory parameter, has also been replicated on other parameters - visual, tactile, and taste. In all instances, it might be said that the number of alternatives which our unaided memories can hold and process with reasonable accuracy is "seven, plus or minus

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two." but this is precisely the number of alternatives controlled by three "bits" of transmitted information, since three successive binary decisions will decide between eight (2 3 ) equally likely alternatives. And indeed three is the asymptotic value of the coefficient of binarity in each of the studies Miller (1956) cites. So that three "bits" of information is a measure of the "channel capacity" of a listener to process transmitted information - three levels of interdependent decision-making, resulting in the accurate discrimination of approximately seven variables in the message (eight, with the loss of one to "channel static") (Miller 1956: 85-90). So our evolutionary tripartite minds, subject to three psychological forces, and specified by a triplet genetic code, have only the capacity within shortterm memory to process accurately three interdependent "bits" of transmitted information. Surely these data have great significance to the speech situation, since all speech is processed through short-term memory. And it is a tenet of information theory that human encoding structure and human decoding structure must approximate each other if successful communication is to take place (cf. Hockett 1953). That is why we should not be too surprised to find a least as much triplicity in grammar, the human encoding structure, as we have found in the functioning of the human decoding apparatus. It is only natural that the encoding process take into account the capacity of the decoding process, especially since both functions are the province of the same organ - the human brain. Grammatical triplicity is, of course, rife, and very significant within the language-thought codeterminacy. If we accept Peirce's (1982: 134-173) model of the sign, there are only three ways a grammatical form can have meaning, as a "symbol," "index," or "icon" (or a combination of these cf. Shapiro 1969, 1983). Linguists perceive an articulosonic tripartition of vowel sounds as "high-mid-low," or "front-center-back." Categorization of the Russian language by grammarians may serve as an example of triadic dominance: there are (or were) three numbers (singular, dual, plural), tenses (past, present, future), voices (active, middle, passive), degrees of comparison (simple, comparative, superlative), moods (indicative, subjunctive, injunctive), aspects (durative, iterative, perfective), sentence types (declarative, interrogative, exhortative), genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), persons (first, second, third), types of verb (transitive, intransitive, ergative), declensional types (masculine/neuter, feminine I, feminine II), conjugational stress patterns (stem, desinence, switching) - (cf., e.g., the history of such categorizations in Vinogradov 1972). Surely such a dominance of triplicity in grammatical categorization is not merely fortuitous. It is a consequence of the way we think, and therefore it must be part of the explanation for such

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achievements of our thought as literature. And there is more. One of Jakobson's most influential contributions to linguistic theory was his insight that the eight morphological cases of Russian could be arranged into a schema formed by the binary application of only three semantic features (Jakobson 197Ια,fr; discussion by Chvany 1984, 1986). Another way to put this is to say that three successive levels of yes-no semantic distinctions are sufficient to account for all the expressed functions of the Russian substantival system. The congruence here noted between Jakobson's categorically reinforced model of the encoding structure - three levels of binary decisions underlying the grammar of Russian substantives - and Miller's explanation of the capacity of our decoding structure - three levels of binary decisions underlying our comprehension of the message sent - is too striking to be mere chance. The equivalence is simply the result of an evolutionary process in which the encoding structure is adapted to take the decoding capacity into account. It is not hard to imagine how encoding-decoding equivalence might work with respect to the narrative act. Person A desires to send a narrative message to Person Β - to tell a story for whatever purpose. If person A encodes the message with only binary structural aspects, binary arrays of characters, dual twists of plot, etc., then person A is not imparting as much message to person Β as person Β could absorb per unit time - and person B's feedback to person A is one of boredom or irritating anticipation of outcome. And if person A encodes a message of quaternary complexity - four narrative perspectives, four characters, etc. - then person B's ability to absorb the message is transcended, and the feedback to person A is one of bothersome requests for repetition and clarification. So, if person A desires the message to be maximally impactful and effective, this message will be structured in tertiary fashion - that is, message structure in approximation to perceptual processing ability. The dialogic feedback mechanism enforcing such an approximation is the very basis of narrative structure - the selective force in the evolution of triplicity into the narrative act. Literature is a cultural phenomenon which is, in an important sense, an artifactual realization of the narrative act. If the narrative act has an enforced triplicity of both its encoding and decoding structure as a consequence of the many triplicities cited here both existential and mental, then literature, which is its artifactual realization, should be inordinately pervaded with triplicity triplicity of theme, of narrative planes, of characters, of syntactic structure, and of detail. And, in the meta-sense, literature about literature, that is, literary criticism, should be similarly pervaded. If literature is to be considered an artifact of some spoken narrative act that is, the techniques of telling a story textually are learned, at least in part,

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both in the individual and in the culture historically, f r o m the techniques of telling a story orally - we must examine the very early, preliterate, oral genres of a sophisticated literary culture in order to find the genesis of its themes and techniques. So we look to the dawn of Russian literature as we examine the oral byliny, rhyming and rhythmic relations of the adventures of the bogatyri 'legendary demigods sometimes based on actual personages' by wandering skomorokhi 'minstrels'. These byliny are rife with triplicity. In the Kievan cycle of byliny, we hear how the mighty Ilya Muromets defeats three princes and three armies. He then encounters the "nightingale-robber," who for thirty years has been sitting in a forest on twenty-seven (3 2 ) oak trees. Phrases used to describe Ilya's thrice-repeated actions are also repeated, without change, three times. Sadko, the bogatyr from the Novgorod cycle of byliny, sets out to sea in thirty ships, and on the third attempt to appease the angry Sea-King, Sadko himself is set adrift to play his sycamore gusli 'zither' to the Sea-King for three days. For his fine playing, Sadko is given his choice of fair maidens to wed, but he is advised to let three groups of three hundred maidens pass before choosing one (cf. Obolensky 1962: 23-42). An examination of the Russian oral skazki, or folk tales, provides no relief from the onslaught of the threes. Propp (1970), the Russian formalist literary critic who gave us an extremely structured Morphology of the folktale, devotes an entire section of this seminal work to "trebling" and how it ... may occur among individual details of an attributive nature (the three heads of a dragon), as well as among individual functions, pairs of functions (pursuitrescue), groups of functions, and entire moves. Repetition may appear as a uniform distribution (three tasks, three years' service), as an accumulation (the third task is the most difficult, the third battle the worst), or may twice produce negative results before the third, successful outcome (Propp 1970: 74).

In The uses of enchantment: The meaning and importance of fairy tales, psychologist Bettelheim (1977: 102) writes that "the number three in fairy tales often seems to refer to what in psychoanalysis is viewed as the three aspects of the mind: id, ego, and superego." The tales, in Bettelheim's view, are designed to parallel the struggle of these three forces within the developing personality of the young listener. In the tale, the id's unconscious energy seeks release - a primary drive (old-brain or limbic system) must be satisfied. Human conflicts result. The tale then introduces elements which represent the ego's attempts to satisfy the id's demands within the requirements of conscious external reality (mid-brain). These attempts, of course, are doomed to failure without the role of the superego (cerebral cortex), which introduces a

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sense of moral right and wrong into the conflict. The fairytale protagonist, the hero, who eventually succeeds and triumphs in the conflict, is the one who acts on the level of the superego. This is the very purpose of the fairytale - to teach the young listener the value of an overriding morality, a sense of right and wrong. And the young listeners, who are to be edified by the tale, are particularly amenable to triplicity in the tale in any case, viewing themselves to be third in the triad of mother-father-child or of parents-siblings-self. Young Russian listeners have this identification with the number three intensified by the nature of their names, which consist of three parts: a family name; a patronymic, which both specifies their generation membership in the family and distinguishes them from their cousins within it, and a first name, identifying the self as distinct from siblings. Thus it is the third solution to the tale's conflict, the successful one embodying the personality force of the superego with which they identify themselves psychologically. Quite predictably, the earliest texts of Russian literacy show an apparently inordinate presence of triplicity. In the Primary chronicle we are told that: "After the flood, the three sons of Noah - Shem, Ham, and Japheth - divided the earth among them," the ancient Slavs deriving from the line of Japheth. Kiev, the first prominent city of Slavic civilization, was founded by three brothers, Kii, Seek, and Khoriv. And when the early Slavs issued the fabled "call to the Varangians" to come and rule them, three princes of Varangian Rus', as these particular Varangians (Vikings) were known, came in answer to the call. These princes were Rurik, the eldest for whom the subsequent ruling dynasty is named, Sineus and Truvor (Zenkovsky 1974: 46-52). In the epic Lay of Igor's campaign, the upstart Prince Igor and his three relative princes, Vsevolod, Oleg, and Sviatoslav, encounter and disregard a bad omen, an eclipse of the sun which occurs three days into their journey. Zenkovsky (1974: 168) analyzes this very complex early work by pointing out that three distinct structural planes can be discerned in the Lay. The first concerns the destiny of Prince Igor, his campaign, defeat, and escape from the Kumans. This plane, the narrative core of the work, is somewhat clouded by invocations to the late bard, Boyan, reminiscences of past glory, and the allusive atmosphere of foreboding. The second plane consists of portents and lamentations over the outcome of the campaign and Russia's fate, such as the dream of Prince Sviatoslav of Kiev and the lament of Yaroslavna, the wife of Igor. The final plane consists of the author's admonitions to the princes to unite, and his censure of their feuding.

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In The life of archpriest Avvakum by himself, an important early autobiographical text, Avvakum relates that he was almost overcome by lust at one point in his youthful ministry, but that he, "thrice accursed," lit three candles and, placing his right hand in the flame, burned out the evil passion. And later in the narrative of his travails, after being thrice scourged by the nobleman Pashkov, Avvakum miraculously survives three misfirings of Pashkov's musket. Then, in relating how the "heretics" cut out the tongue of the priest Lazar, Avvakum states that after three days the priest's mouth was empty and smooth, but then, after two years, the tongue grew back within three days (Zenkovsky 1974: 401-445). Secular tales of the Muscovite period often include triplicity. In the tale of Shemiaka 's judgement, for example, there are three main characters and three trials (Zenkovsky 1974: 449-452). And, in Afanasy Nikitin's Journey across three seas (Caspian, Black, and Indian), the earliest important travelogue, the merchant hero tells of meeting three Moslem Tatars who give him false information concerning the dangerous Khan Khasim and his three thousand warriors (Zenkovsky 1974: 335). In more modern periods, Russian literature has continued the triadic tradition. In line with the folktales which his Nanny told to him when he was a child, Alexander Pushkin began his own poetic folktale, the Tale of the golden cockerel, with the lines: "Somewhere in the thrice-ninth kingdom, in the thrice-tenth realm, lived the glorious Tsar Dadon, . . . " (cf. Fennell 1964: 223). Others of his works, both poetry and prose, are similarly imbued with triplicity. Much has been made, for example, of the numerology in his classic short story, "The queen of spades," in which the protagonist is instructed by an apparition to play three certain cards (the three, the seven, and the ace) on three successive days of gambling (cf. Rosen 1975: 255-276). Leighton (1977: 465-466) explains that the Cabala, a possible source for the number symbolism in Pushkin's "The queen of spades," is "based on three correspondences - numbers, letters and sounds." Pushkin's "The queen of spades" is, of course, a supernatural tale, and in a study of this genre, Phillips (1982) comments that a person's relation of an apprehension of the supernatural most often progresses through three sensory stages: auditory ("I heard it go bump in the night"),, visual ("I saw its horrible apparition"), and finally tactile ("It slimed me") (paraphrasing from Phillips 1982: 26; cf. also Columbia Pictures' film Ghostbusters, 1984). A look at other works of Pushkin, reveals a similar infusion of triplicity. Gypsies, for example, is a play in verse within the framework of a narrative poem. In total, there are three levels of narration: the level of Pushkin's persona; the level of the events related in the poetic play; and the level

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of the stories from the past related by the "Old man," one of the three main characters (with his daughter Zemfira, a gypsy maiden, and Aleko, civilization's outcast, whom she invites to stay as her lover in the gypsy camp). There are also three peripheral characters; the "Man from the south," whose legend is told by the Old man; the interloper (referred to in three ways as "Young gypsy," "Gypsy," and "Second voice"), who is murdered in jealousy along with Zemfira by Aleko; and "Marijula," the absent mother of Zemfira. Maryula is mentioned in three places in the text; once, mysteriously, in the epilogue by the persona of the poet, and we are told by the Old man that she had run off long ago, abandoning her baby, with a man from another group of gypsies who had spent only three nights in mutual encampment (cf. Fennel1 1964: 77-109). In Pushkin's two-scene poetic tragedy, Mozart and Salieri, there are three actors in the dramatis personae: Mozart, Salieri, and an old man with a violin. Three other kinds of characters are, however, mentioned: family members (Salieri's deceased wife, Izora, who gave him the poison with which he, mortally envious of Mozart's genius, kills the other composer; Mozart's wife, from whom he gains leave to eat with Salieri; and Mozart's once-mentioned son - three in all); mutual acquaintances (especially the composer Beaumarchais, whose previous alleged crime of murder by poison the men discuss); and the "Man dressed in black," who haunts Mozart as he, not suspecting its ironic appropriateness, composes his Requiem. This Requiem was ordered by the man dressed in black three days after his first unsuccessful inquiry about Mozart three weeks previous to the final conversation of Mozart and Salieri. And in this conversation, Mozart tells Salieri that this "Man dressed in black ... gives me no peace ... he chases me everywhere like a shadow. And even, now, it seems to me, he sits as a third with us here" (Fennell 1964: 222 [retranslated by the author from the original text]). In the preface to the first edition of his translation, Arndt writes about Pushkin's Eugene Onegin that the great "novel-in-verse" is ... concerned, as Nabokov has put it, with "the afflictions, affections and fortunes of three young men - Onegin, the bitter lean fop; Lensky, the temperamental minor poet; and Pushkin, their friend - and of three young ladies Tatyana, Olga, and Pushkin's muse" ... there are three settings (the country estates, Moscow, St. Petersburg) ... and the author plays a triple role - that of narrator, of an acquaintance of the hero, and of a character in the poem (Pushkin 1963: ix-xxi).

One might well point out here also that Nabokov's above-cited characterization of the "afflictions, affections, and fortunes" of a "bitter lean fop" and

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a "temperamental minor poet" is concomitantly rife with triplicity. A similar observation could easily be made concerning Zenkovsky's description of the Lay of Igor's campaign quoted earlier - triplicity pervades it ("campaign, defeat, escape ... invocations . . . , reminiscences ... atmosphere" [Zenkovsky 1974: 168]). It is more than merely curious that criticism often mirrors its object. Since the narrative goal of literature and the narrative goal of its criticism is the same - maximal message impact on the reader - it is not surprising that both should share triplicity as a structural aspect. And if triplicity is also inherent in the functioning of the human mind, then triplicity as an aspect of eisegesis in the interpretation of texts is considerably easier to explain. In the subdivision of his Selected writings, Volume 2, entitled "Toward a nomothetic science of language," Jakobson (1971c: 369) presents an ancient Russian treatise called The colloquy on teaching letters. This work is thoroughly infused with triplicity by an unknown author trying to make a correlation between the word's relationship with the human soul and human reason and the Sons's relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit a "polemic against the local anti-trinitarian sects of the fifteenth century." But Jakobson begins his "Acknowledgements and dedication" of this section with the following sentence, composed of three triads of differing (one successive, one elaborative, one specificative, including, like a skazka 'folk tale', two negative rejections before the final positive acceptance) trielemental increments: The Moscow Linguistic School, faithful to the precepts of its founder, Filipp Fedorovich Fortunatov, has been destined to elucidate, substantiate, and develop his view that language is not a mere "external cover in regard to the phenomena of thought" and not only a "means for the expression of ready-made ideas" but first and foremost it is "an implement for thinking" (Jakobson 1971c: 365).

Was Jakobson influenced to perceive this triplicity by his analysis of a textually proximate triadic work? Or was he, a supreme scholar with the narrative goal of edification, subject to the same forces governing the narrative techniques of the authors he studied? The answer is probably both. Returning to our survey of Russian literature, we recall that in Dead souls, Nikolai Gogol' likened Russia itself to a "troika, winged troika ... that none can overtake" (cf. Nabokov 1944: 112). Triplicity is evident in others of his works as well. Zhekulin (1983: 302) in his article "Rereading Gogol's 'Vii,' " describes Gogol's "favourite ... the fundamental device of triplication":

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Three students set out on their journey: Tiberii Gorobets, Khoma Brut, and Khaliava; for three nights Khoma reads in the church - these are the visible, obvious instances of triplication, but there are other, less noticeable instances: on his return to Kiev after his witch-ride, Khoma passed ... some three times through the market; the church in which the body of the pannochka-ved'ma was lying had three conical cupolas; the old witch approaches Khoma in the shed three times before she catches him; when Mikita's experiences with the witch are mentioned, three men want to tell the story; only three of the Sotnik's servants are known to us by their names, Evtukh, Dorosh, and Spirid; and, at the very end of the story, Khaliava, drinking his third tankard, pronounces a eulogy of Khoma: "He was a splendid man, was Khoma! A magnificent man! And he was ruined for nothing." Zhekulin (1983: 303) points out that this last eulogy shows that the syntax, too, often falls into patterns of three. Thus the young widow who gives shelter to Khoma on his return to Kiev used to sell "ribbons, rifle-shot and wheels"; the little church was "wooden, blackened, and carpeted with green moss." Further, Zhekulin points out, there are three successive permutations of the same sentence, paragraphs consisting of "three sentences of similar syntactical construction," and sentences composed of "three subordinate clauses." All in all, he clearly demonstrates that the thematic triplicity, evident in plot and in the opposition of the characters, is even expressed in triads of sentences, many of tertiary syntactical structure, and with triple strings of adjectives. Structure in support of content is nowhere more emphatic than when dealing with triplicity. Dostoevsky's novels are replete with triplicity, as shown by Rowe's (1974) article, "Crime and punishment and The brothers Karamazov: Some comparative observations." This article goes on for five pages of text, detailing the amazing "scope of triplicity" in both of these Dostoevsky novels. A brief citation will give the idea: Perhaps most fatefully of all, triplicity informs the descriptions of murder in both novels. At his "third meeting" with Ivan, Smerdyakov describes the murder in The brothers Karamazov. He hit Fyodor Pavlovich three times, he claims, with a paperweight weighing about three pounds. The third blow broke the latter's skull and he collapsed, whereupon Smerdyakov took the 3000 rubles from an envelope closed by "three large red wax seals."

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Raskolnikov, who has pawned with Alyona a ring "with three red stones" gains entrance in response to his "third" ring at his third visit to Alyona's, after which he hits her three times (hoping to steal 3000 rubles). As with Smerdyakov, his third and last blow breaks the skull. Dostoevsky seems intrigued by this "third-of-three death patterning": in The brothers Karamazov, Father Ferapont claims to have killed a devil by making the sign of the cross three times; in Crime and punishment, ... Svidrigailov kills himself with the third shot of a three-shot pistol (Rowe 1974: 338-339).

Leo Tolstoy once wrote a version of the "The three bears" in order to help in his project to educate his peasants (cf. Chvany 1985: 5-9). In his later years he wrote the didactic tale "The three hermits" to edify a society subject to a church hierarchy he found distasteful. In this story, Tolstoy's archbishop encounters three old men that he hears described by three different sources, one of whom is referred to in three different ways (little muzhik, peasant, and fisherman). The old men are island dwellers, extremely simple and pious, praying naively to God by saying: "Three are ye, three are we. Have Ye mercy upon us." The archbishop spends all day teaching the old men the Lord's Prayer, and leaves their remote island satisfied that he has well carried out God's will. But soon a light on the horizon appears, causing the archbishop to ask the helmsman in triple fashion what it might be - "a boat, or not a boat; a bird, or not a bird; a fish, or not a fish?" The light, of course, materializes as the three old men, who have soared out over the sea to catch the archbishop's ship so as to ask him for further instruction on how to pray. Thus Tolstoy's lesson is triply reinforced for mnemonic effect (cf. Croft 1986: 2357). More modern Russian literature is equally full of triplicity. Chekhov's Three Sisters and Olesha's "Three fat men" may serve as titular examples at least. The profundity of triplicity shown in the works of the symbolist poet, Zinaida Gippius, however, is truly extraordinary. According to Pachmuss (1971: 103), Gippius "saw various manifestations of the number 'three' in the composition of the world - the Holy Trinity, the unity of human personalitylove-society, or of the spiritual world-man-material world, and so forth." In her autobiography, Gippius explained that the essence of her Weltanschauung "can be presented as an all-embracing triangle in the structure of the world and as an uninterrupted merging of the three principles, indivisible and yet separate from one another". Pachmuss (1971: 103-105) has translated Gippius's poetic expression of this idea from the poem "Trojnoe" ['Threefold'].

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The world abounds in a threefold depth. A threefold depth is given to poets. And really don't poets speak Only of this? Only of This? A threefold truth - and a threefold beginning Poets, trust in this truth. God thinks only about this: About Man. Love. And Death. At this point one can only consider the pervasion of triplicity in Russian literature to be demonstrated beyond doubt. Indeed we have shown that this pervasiveness is the expected result of triplicity in physical reality and of triplicity in the human perception and processing of that reality into a communicative code for the purpose of narration - and that the structure of this narration finds its reflection in literature. We might say that the triplicity of the literary text is "iconic" to the triplicity in reality represented as it is processed through the triplicity-rife functions of the human mind. Many questions of significance, of course, spring forth to be answered. What other cultural aspects of Russian society are pervaded by triplicity? Suvorov (1982), for example, opined that the traditional depiction of the former Soviet governmental structure as a "Trojka" headed by the general-secretary, president, and prime minister was a mere front for the real ruling "Trojka" of party-military-KGB (cf. "The Bermuda Triangle": Suvorov 1982: 26-31). And even more significantly, we would want to know whether such triplicity as is patent in Russian cultural achievement has similar relevance to other cultures. If triplicity is a dominant cultural universal, from what human physiological or mass-consciousness historical fact does it spring?

Notes 1. Editor's remark: At first glance one may be struck by the seemingly stringent binary structural aspects of syntactic iconicity. However, well past that first glance, we will find that, in fact, syntactic iconicity's underlying principle, generated by the inexorable and indestructurable gestalt qualities of our perception, is relentlessly triadic: i.e., man-environment-language. So indeed, as the author (above) points

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out, "triplicity is also inherent in the functioning of the human mind" as manifest in his language.

References Bettelheim, B. 1977 The uses of enchantment: York: Vintage.

The meaning and importance of fairy tales. New

Chvany, C. V. 1984 From Jakobson's cube as "object d'art" to a new model of the grammatical sign. International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics 29. 43-70. 1986 Jakobson's fourth and fifth dimensions: On recording the cube model of case meanings with the two-dimensional matrices for case forms. In R. D. Brecht and J. S. Levine (eds.), Case in Slavic: Studies dedicated to the memory of Roman O. Jakobson. 107-130. Columbus, OH: Slavica. Croft, L. B. 1986 Tolstoy's The three hermits. Masterplots II: The Short Story. Pasadena, CA: Salem. Fennell, J. 1964 Pushkin: Selected verse. Baltimore, MD: Penguin. Feynman, R. P. 1985 QED: The strange theory fo light and matter. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Hockett, C. F. 1953 Review of Claude L. Shannon and Warren Weaver's A mathematical theory of communication. Language 29. 69-93. Hopkins, E. W. 1923 Origin and evolution of religion. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press. Jakobson, R. O. 1971fl Beitrag zur allgemeinen Kasuslehre (Gesamtbedeutungen des Russischen Kasus). In Selected writings II. Word and language. 23-71. The Hague: Mouton. 197Ιέ» Morphologicheskie nabljudenija nad slavjanskim skloneniem [Morphological inquiry into Slavic declension]. In Selected writings II: Word and language. 154-183. The Hague: Mouton. 1971c Toward a Nomothetic Science of Language. In Selected writings II: Word and language. 365-369. The Hague: Mouton. Leighton, L. 1977 Gematria in "The queen of spades": A Decembrist puzzle. Slavic and East European Journal 21. 455-470.

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Miller, G. 1956 The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. The Psychological Review 63. 81-97. Nabokov, V. 1944 Nikolai Gogol. New York: New Directions Books. Obolensky, D. 1962 The Penguin book of Russian verse. Baltimore, MD: Penguin. Pachmuss, Th. 1971 Zinaida Gippius: An intellectual profile. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Peirce, C. S. 1982 Collected papers. Vol. 2. Edited by C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Phillips, D. D. 1982 Spook or spoof? The structure of the supernatural in Russian romantic tales. Washington, DC: University Press of America. Propp, V. 1970 Morphology of the folktale. Translated by L. Scott and edited by L. Wagner. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Pushkin, A. 1963 Eugene Onegin. Edited and translated by W. Arndt. New York: Dutton. Rosen, N. 1975 The magic cards in "The queen of spades." Slavic and East European Journal 19. 255-276. Rowe, W. W. 1974 Crime and punishment and The Brothers Karamazov: Some comparative observations. Russian Literature Triquarterly 10. 331-342. Segel, Η. Β. 1967 The literature of eighteenth-century Russia: A history and anthology. Vol. II. New York: Dutton. Shapiro, M. 1969 Aspects of Russian morphology: A semiotic investigation. Cambridge, MA: Slavica. 1983 The sense of grammar: Language as semiotic. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Smith, C. U. M. 1972 The brain: Towards an understanding. New York: Capricorn. Suvorov, V. 1982 Inside the Soviet army. New York: Berkley. Vinogradov, V. V. 1972 Russkij Jazyk [The Russian language], Moscow: Izdatel'stvo vysshaja shkola.

Russian literature through a triangular prism Zhekulin, G. 1983 Rereading Gogol's "Vii." Canadian Slavonic Papers 25. 301-306. Zenkovsky, S. 1974 Medieval Russia's epics, chronicles, and tales. New York: Dutton.

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The iconicity of metaphor Marcel Danesi

Abstract The role of imagery in the processing of metaphor constitutes a point of contention in current cognitive approaches to metaphor. This paper will examine the question of imagery content in metaphor programming by first reviewing the main findings in the relevant literature and then by describing the results of a recent experiment involving the translation of metaphorical expressions in functional bilinguals. Both the linguistic search and the experiment provide ample evidence that imagery is a crucial mechanism in the production and comprehension of metaphor.

Introduction During the last few decades perhaps no other speech phenomenon has aroused the interest of so many cognitive scientists as has metaphor. This is probably due to the ever-growing awareness that it constitutes much more than a simple rhetorical ornament or frill; that it plays, on the contrary, a key role in shaping cognition. And, indeed, psychologically-oriented research on metaphor has started to shed some valuable light on how language and basic mental structures cooperate in everyday acts of cognition (e.g., Lakoff and Johnson 1980). The proliferation in this domain has been so extensive in recent years that it has become a virtual impossibility to keep abreast of even its major development. As Hoffmann (1983: 35) quips, "metaphors and discussions about metaphors are a part of the climate of our current age." Indeed, given the broad cross-disciplinary nature of the cognitive study of metaphor, even knowing where to look for the relevant information has become a source of frustration. One of the more intriguing questions that the psychological study of metaphor has raised is the relationship of figurative language to mental imagery. The purpose of the present study is, in fact, to stand back and take a global look at the ever-accumulating evidence that seems to support what

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might be called an iconic theory of metaphor programming, and at the implications that this line of research has for coordinating knowledge on how metaphor works in general. Specifically, the main theories and research findings on the interaction of metaphor with imagery-content will be reviewed; and then a recent study undertaken by the present writer on this topic will be described.

Defining metaphor in terms of iconicity Before looking at the relevant literature, it is necessary to define the two key terms employed in this paper: metaphor and iconicity. The term metaphor is used here in its broadest psychological sense, i.e., as any manifestation of figurative language. This use of an all-inclusive definition has become the modus operandi in psychological research, probably because of the recurrent finding that most forms of figurative discourse appear to function in cognitively similar ways (see also Shapiro and Shapiro 1988 on this point). The term iconicity is used here to refer both to the internal imagery content of a metaphor, and to the semiotic theory (e.g., Peirce 1985) that views metaphor as an external iconic (pictorial) sign that has been transformed into a linguistic one. According to this view, the particular content of a metaphor can be said to constitute an interpretation of reality in terms of mental icons that literally allows us to see what is being talked about. As Langer (1948: 14) has aptly phrased it, metaphor would seem to be "our most striking evidence of abstractive seeing." Psychologically, this view suggests that metaphorical language programming is intrinsically tied to the mental mechanisms that produce images and, therefore, that there is some kind of cognitive interaction between mental imagery and metaphor. It is important, at this point, to make a clear-cut distinction between an imagery theory of literal meaning and metaphorical iconicity. When any concrete referent (an object, a specific person, etc.) is named, it can, in theory, be easily visualized: e.g., if one were told to think of an equilateral triangle, an image of this referent is perhaps the first meaning response evoked. As Brown (1985: 84) puts it, the image is "the click of comprehension." But research has shown that many referents do not necessarily entail the elicitation of images. The experimental study of meaning images, in fact, presents ambiguous findings, revealing that suitable images even for concrete referents are hardly ever reported by most subjects. Metaphorical iconicity, on the other hand, posits that the programming of figurative language (both in its elicitation and comprehension) is imagistic in nature.

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In order to talk about metaphor in a systematic way, the topic-vehicleground structural schema proposed by Richards (1936), and elaborated by Black (1962) and Perrine (1971), will be adopted here. The topic refers to what is talked about in a metaphor; the vehicle is the part that makes a comment on the topic; and the ground is the semantic relation, or interaction in Black's model, that is established between the topic and the vehicle. In the metaphor John is a gorilla, for instance, the topic is John, the vehicle is gorilla and the meaning, or ground, is something like "John is fierce, violent, etc." In this metaphor the topic is clearly enunciated. In many other metaphors it is implied or inferred: e.g., She broke the ice with her kind words. An iconic model of metaphorical programming would posit a cognitive interaction between the topic and the vehicle to produce an open-ended meaning structure. This means that the iconic content of a metaphor is not equatable to the total meaning structure; it simply relates vehicular structures to topics in visually describable or representable ways. In John is a gorilla a little reflection will reveal that a kind of iconically portrayable metamorphosis, or physical osmosis, seems to unfold in our thought patterns: i.e., John seems to take on the physical traits of a ''gorilla.'" Similarly, in She broke the ice with her kind words, the action "ice-melting" provides an iconic scenario for the "establishment of social contact." Metaphorical iconicity, therefore, is a dynamic process that always involves visually representable changes in the semantic interaction between topic and vehicle. The degree to which a metaphor is iconic can, in fact, be said to constitute a measure of its novelty and overall effect: a novel metaphor evokes a high imagery content, whereas a constantly used, or conceptual metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) evokes a low imagery content. Conceptual metaphors underlie our coherent organization of concepts embedded in specific cultural models. The imagery content of such metaphors is probably low, because of the fact that they have become abstractions as a result of constant usage. Nevertheless, their iconic content can be re-elicited by simple reflection. Consider, for instance, the category of geometrical metaphors in English (Danesi 1979): Those are parallel theories. Your reasoning is circular. I do not see the point of your argument. That is a central issue. Our views are diametrically opposite.

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The geometrical vehicles in these metaphors create a ground that can be summarized in terms of a conceptual formula: Abstract thought is geometrical. The routinization of this specific cultural model gradually attenuates the original iconicity of the metaphors that express it. But this iconicity does not become extinct: if one were asked to explain and think about what these metaphors mean, then one would probably start to see that abstraction (theories, reasoning, etc.) has been explicated in terms of the icons of a particular geometrico-perceptual system (Euclidean geometry).

Overview of the relevant literature A convenient point of departure in this brief, selective review of the relevant literature is the thought of Nietzsche (1979 [1873]). Over a century ago, the German philosopher remarked that the internal "sketches" generated by metaphor constitute our primary means of gaining access to reality (see also Cantor 1982; Schrift 1985). According to Nietzsche, cognition is no more than a fabrication of our image-laden speech. The ontogenesis of metaphor is viewed as a transformation process that changes nerve impulses (i.e., perceptual inputs) into images. These are then converted into sound-words (i.e., audio-oral symbols) through some form of semiosis. The pairing of images and sound-words produces metaphors and their related concepts. The latter are subsequently stored into memory where they gradually lose their original imagery content. At this point, we no longer realize that they are the residues of an iconic process. The great eighteenth-century Neapolitan philosopher, Giambattista Vico (in Bergin and Fisch 1984: 116-169), put forward a similar analysis of metaphor. Vico claimed that figurative language was chronologically prior to literal/propositional modes of talking, and that such modes were no more than the concepts that have crystallized from a metaphorically structured cognitive substratum (e.g., Danesi 1986; Haskell 1987; Verene 1981). For Vico, the forging of common thought patterns from a metaphorical base is a fundamental psychological strategy: "when we give utterance to our understanding of spiritual [i.e., abstract] things, we must seek aid from our imagination to explain them and, like painters, form human images of them" (in Bergin and Fisch 1984: 402). Metaphor allows us systematically to organize sensorially acquired percepts through imagistic structuring. It is only at a later stage - both ontogenetic and phylogenetic - that metaphorically created concepts lose their iconic modality and take on an abstract quality. As Haskell (1987: 68) has appropriately remarked, for Vico, metaphor "is

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a primary psycho-somato-sensory process of cognition generating the entire edifice of language and thought." Propositional thinking, in Vico's paradigm, is a derivative of a more fundamental form of iconic cognition. In the remarkably similar view of the psychologist Jaynes (1976: 51), "language and its referents" can be said to have "climbed up from the concrete to the abstract on the steps of metaphors, even, we may say, created the abstract on the bases of metaphors." The Vico-Nietzschean perspective has only recently been given serious consideration by cognitive scientists, even though the scientific study of metaphor can actually be traced back to the first years of the present century in the work of Bühler (1951 [1908]) and his associates. Bühler claimed that imagery was not a factor in meaning comprehension. His basic procedure was to present subjects with proverbs which they were expected to paraphrase. This experimental method became a standard one in subsequent years. During the fifties, the topic of metaphor was taken up by a few psychologists like Asch (e.g., 1955), Brown (e.g., Brown, Leither and Hildum 1957), and Osgood (e.g., Osgood and Suci 1953), who started to look at the relationship between metaphor and the conceptual organization of various sensorial and affective modalities. Asch, for instance, found the presence of metaphors derived from the vocabulary of sensation (warm, cold, heavy, etc.) in phylogenetically unrelated languages. All the languages examined used the same modality reference system even though the specific referential domain may have been different: e.g., he found that hot stands for rage in Hebrew, enthusiasm in Chinese, sexual arousal in Thai, and energy in Hausa. But this disagreement, as Brown (1958: 146) points out, "does not suggest the operation of accidental factors since there is an undoubted kinship of meanings. All seems to involve heightened activity and emotional arousal." An iconicity approach to metaphor would posit that the sensory modalities evoked by such vehicular structures would likely be visualized in terms of the physical response mechanisms (e.g., a burning sensation) that something hot would elicit, or of the physical actions (e.g., increase in energy) that it would entail. It would certainly be interesting to find out experimentally how subjects would report the imagery content for such metaphors. In-depth research on the question of metaphorical iconicity really started in the seventies. Billow (1975), for instance, studied the effect of pictorial aids on metaphor comprehension in children. A metaphor such as The branch of the tree was her pony, for instance, was accompanied by a picture of a girl riding a tree branch. Billow found that these images did facilitate comprehension somewhat, but not to a significant extent. He concluded that metaphors were already high in imagery content and that accompanying pictures added

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little relevant imagery. Indeed, sometimes such pictures even contributed irrelevant detail that led to erroneous interpretations. Honeck, Reichmann and Hoffmann (1975), in what has become a classic experiment in the field, presented subjects with high- and low-imagery proverbs accompanied by appropriate and inappropriate interpretations as cues for recall. The researchers found that appropriate interpretations were the more effective cues, but only for the high-imagery proverbs. This result suggested to the researchers that imagery-content does not have a major role to play in metaphor comprehension - a view shared by a number of psychologists (e.g., Anderson and Ortony 1975; Brewer 1975). However, a series of experiments conducted a few years later by Verbrugge and McCarrell (1977) suggested indirectly that iconicity may have a role to play in metaphor comprehension, not as a conscious imaging strategy, but more as a perceptual one. The two researchers - who did not intend to provide any evidence for the role of imagery in metaphor - found that novel metaphors (e.g., Billboards are warts on the landscape) elicited a patterned meaning representation that could be prompted by the topic, vehicle, or ground. The fact that the ground was a reliable prompt, even though it contained no words that appeared in the metaphor, led Verbrugge and McCarrell to conclude that some abstract relation between topic and vehicle is perceived, and that this perceptual gestalt cannot be considered to be the sum of the attributes of each. This finding strongly suggests the presence of perceptual mechanisms related to the imagery system, which interact with other cognitive structures in constructing a global meaning representation. The images embedded in these perceptual gestalts are cooperative structures in metaphor comprehension, not its determinants. An alternative to this explanation is, of course, that imagery plays a role in some, but not all metaphors (e.g., Honeck, Voegtle, Dorfmueller and Hoffmann 1980). To examine this possibility, some researchers have differentiated between metaphors which can be seen to use highly concrete and imagistic vehicles (John is a gorilla), and those which have a low, or nonexistent, imagery content (Thoughts are whispers). In one recent experiment, Reichmann and Coste (1980) have shown that the experimental situation vis-ä-vis imagery is not as simple as might at first seem (i.e. whether imagery is or is not present in meaning determination). The two researchers presented subjects with either highly imageable proverbs {He who spits upon himself will have it all in his face) or highly abstract ones (Reputation is commonly measured by the acre). One group of subjects was told to think of the imagery content which all the proverbs may have suggested, and a second group was instructed to concentrate only on abstract meaning. Then all subjects were

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asked to recognize the interpretations given for each proverb. As it turned out, the imagery instructions seemed to interfere with meaning recognition. The interpretation normally given to this finding is that abstract concepts are the foundation for both iconic and verbal experience. While no one would dispute this, it is also clear that Reichmann and Coste's experimental procedure reveals a basic assumption in method that may influence the results, namely that imagery is a separable component of metaphor. Moreover, it is by far not clear what can, or cannot, be classified as a high-imagery or low-imagery metaphor. Salient images do not necessarily have to be of the concrete variety. As Hoffmann and Honeck (1980: 11) observe, metaphors invariably "result in the creation of a percept or image that need not be filled in with details yet has rich potential for details and symbolism." When looked at globally and cumulatively the research shows that the interpretation of metaphor is a perceptual strategy which has many of the characteristics of the human visual system (see Dorfmueller and Honeck 1981; Galda 1984; Harris, Lahey and Marsalek 1980; Honeck, Kibler and Sugar 1985; Johnson and Malgady 1980; Marschark, Katz and Paivio 1983; Paivio 1979; Paivio and Clark 1986). It also shows that the imagery content of metaphors is not separable from other cognitive structures involved in the programming of figurative language. Above all else, the research has made it abundantly clear that the imagery content of metaphors is not a static phenomenon. As Hoffmann and Honeck (1987: 136) put it, the "images are more tied to event perception and affordances than to the 'scanning' of image forms that posses static properties such as 'concreteness' and 'imagery v a l u e . ' " It therefore follows that the salience of metaphorical images is subject to the same variation parameters as are visual percepts: i.e., some images will have a high and distinct resolution (e.g. John is a gorilla), while others manifest themselves in fuzzier ways (e.g. Thoughts are whispers). It is also fascinating to note that even blind people have access to the imagery content of metaphor. The pioneering experimental work of Kennedy (e.g., Kennedy 1984; Kennedy and Domander 1986) has shown that blind people are capable of making appropriate line drawings of concepts such as the wind, pain, shouting, etc. through the utilization of suitable contexts and metaphoric devices. In effect, blind people invent pictorial metaphors without having to be trained. That metaphorical imagery is tied to the visual system is also borne out by neuropsychological research. In general, this research shows that the locus of metaphor cannot be assigned solely to the verbal functions of the left hemisphere, but that the participation of the right hemisphere in metaphor is of primary importance. A more appropriate neurological account of metaphor would have to take into account such right-hemisphere functions as the elic-

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itation of sensory modalities, the effect of context on novel metaphors, and the enlisting of associative and imagistic modalities (see Danesi 1989 for a discussion of the relevant literature). The research in neuropsychology has shown, in essence, that metaphorical language programming has a contentrelated locus in the right hemisphere and a form-related one in the left hemisphere (see also Foldi, Cicone and Gardner 1983; and Millar and Whitaker 1983). One of the first clinical studies in this domain was conducted by Weinstein (1964). Here it became obvious that patients with left-hemisphere damage had the anticipated difficulties in phonological and semantic processing, while right-hemisphere-damaged patients showed an inability to communicate in normal metaphorical ways. Winner and Gardner (1977) added significantly to the evidence in favor of a right-hemisphere role in metaphor, when they presented a series of metaphors to various subjects, asking them to select one of four response pictures which best conveyed the meaning of the metaphor. For example, for the metaphor A heavy heart can really make a difference the subjects were shown four pictures from which to choose: a person crying (i.e., metaphorical meaning); a person staggering under the weight of a huge red heart (i.e., literal meaning); a 500-pound weight (i.e., a representation emphasizing the noun phrase heavy heart). Normal subjects gave nearly five times as many metaphorical responses; subjects with left-hemisphere injuries gave over three times as many; but subjects with right-hemisphere injuries could respond only with equal frequency to the metaphorical and literal cues. This result clearly establishes a link between the right hemisphere and the content structure of a metaphor. Other neuropsychological studies have corroborated this pattern of findings (e.g., Hier and Kaplan 1980; Stachowiak, Huber, Poeck and Kerschensteiner 1977; Wapner, Hamby and Gardner 1981) which show that metaphorical language programming is embedded in the same neural substrat that is responsible for visual perception and spatial cognition. As this brief overview of the relevant literature has attempted to show, there is indeed some substance to the Vico-Nietzschean view of metaphor as a form of iconic cognition. This view is, of course, in complete opposition to strictly propositional accounts of metaphor. It could well be, as Johnson (1987: 79), has recently and persuasively argued, that metaphor transfers the external world of physical experience into an internal one of meaning through so-called image-schemata, which he defines as "those recurring structures of, or in, our perceptual interactions, bodily experiences and cognitive operations." Similarly, Lakoff (1987: 444-446) argues that the mental imagery of metaphors constitutes an "effortful activity" that is involved in portraying locations, movements, shapes, etc., in cognitive terms. As he goes on to show

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(1987: 449), this means that if someone were asked to explain an idiom such as spill the beans in terms of its associated imagery content - Where are the beans before they are spilled? How big is the container? Is the spilling on purpose or accidental? etc. - then even those speakers who claim not to have a conscious image of the metaphor can answer such questions in remarkably uniform ways: the beans are supposed to be kept in a container; the container is always about the size of the human head; etc.

Findings of a recent project A recent study undertaken by the present author will now be described, since it provides further evidence in favor of an imagery content in metaphorical language programming. The question that guided its design was the following one: If a functional bilingual were asked to translate difficult idioms from one language (LI) to the other (L2), would the translation process be (1) a literal equivalent (indicating a focus on abstract meaning), or (2) an equivalent in L2 that can be seen to be influenced by the associated imagery content of the LI metaphor? Clearly, if possibility (2) were to emerge as the dominant trend, then one could claim that the imagery content of the LI metaphor (whether conscious or not) "steered" the course of the translation process in the direction of an isomorphic imagery pattern: i.e., the LI imagery was "carried over" and embedded into the L2 equivalent. This would suggest, as a corollary, that imagery content plays a key role in meaning representation. The study will be described in terms of the following: method, results, discussion.

Method The research project was conducted over li/2 year period and involved ninety functional English-Italian bilinguals. The informants consisted mainly of university students enrolled in the present author's linguistics and semiotics courses given at the University of Toronto and at the University of Rome "La Sapienza" (as a visiting professor). To qualify as a "functional" bilingual the informant was required to have formal training in both languages, and to be able to read and write them both at acceptable levels of proficiency. A diagnostic Cloze test for both languages was administered as well to each subject, so as to determine the subject's global language competence in both languages: i.e., each subject was given an English and an Italian text which had every fifth word removed from it, and which the subject had to recover

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in grammatically and semantically appropriate ways. Those subjects who showed suitable levels of proficiency became candidates for a translation task consisting of ten idiomatic expressions in English (E) to be put into Italian (I): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

the tip of the iceberg to pull one's leg a close shave a wild-goose chase plain as the nose on your face beyond a shadow of a doubt cool as a cucumber to have a lot of nerve 9. to be in a rut 10. to lick one's wounds To avoid the possibility of literal interpretations each idiom was announced orally within a suitable syntactic context. The idioms can be seen to be virtually untranslatable in terms of idiomatic Italian equivalents. The subjects, therefore, had to convert the ground - or abstract meaning - of each metaphor into expressions that were not simple idiomatic substitutes (i.e., simple exchanges of isomorphic vehicles). The informants were told to write their translations within a five-minute time period. This time constraint aimed to avoid the possibility of the Italian translations being "edited" by the subjects. This would have obviously occurred in terms of Italian modes of thought and, therefore, might have eliminated evidence of any transfer of imagery content. At the end of the translation task, the subjects were asked to reflect upon their solutions and to explain them briefly, in writing, focusing on those aspects of the original idioms that might have influenced their thinking. At no time were they told the purpose of the entire procedure.

Results The Italian equivalents were classified in two ways: (1) as purely abstract renditions not influenced by the associated imagery of the corresponding English idioms, (i.e., abstract transfers); (2) as equivalents containing "traces" of the imagery characteristics of the corresponding English idioms (i.e., image transfers). Therefore, in the latter case they were perceived as containing lexical material that carried over the imagery content of the original idioms: e.g., in the tip of the iceberg, an image transfer would contain words such as punta

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'tip, point' and/or ghiaccio 'ice.' An abstract transfer would contain no such lexical material. After each Italian equivalent was classified in this way, it was then checked for semantic appropriateness. Table 1 summarizes the results. Table 1. Results of translation task English idiom

Number of image transfers

Number of abstract transfers

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

78 19 58 85 47 61 69 45 65 74

12 71 32 5 43 29 21 45 25 16

Overall percentage

= = = = = = = = =

86.67% 21.11% 64.44% 94.44% 52.22% 67.78% 76.67% 50.00% 72.22% 82.22% 66.78%

= = = = = = = = =

13.33% 78.89% 35.56% 5.56% 47.78% 32.22% 23.33% 50.00% 27.78% 17.78% 33.22%

The high standard deviation (64.12%) present in the above data does not allow for any real significance testing between the two mean (overall) percentages. Clearly, much more data must be collected, using many more idioms, in order to infer statistical significance from such an experiment. Nevertheless, as a pilot project it can be seen to point in the direction of an iconic substratum for metaphor. The overall percentage figures by themselves strongly suggest a tendency to retain some of the imagery characteristics of the original English idioms, even at the risk of semantic inappropriateness. Indeed, when the transfer results are checked against appropriateness, it can be seen that the image transfers produced the greatest amount of semantic inappropriateness as shown in Table 2 (86.69%). The abstract transfers, on the other hand, were more likely (75.93%) to be semantically acceptable.

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Table 2. Image transfer results English idiom

Image transfers

Abstract transfers

Number appropriate

Number inappropriate

Number appropriate

Number inappropriate

(1)

0

78 = 100% (e.g., La punta del ghiaccio)

6 = 50% (e.g., La storia e lunga)

6 = 50% (e.g., Ε l'inizio)

(2)

0

19 = 100% (e.g., Mifai un tiro)

68 = 95.77% (e.g., Scherzi)

3 = 4.23% (e.g., Che gioco)

(3)

8 = 13.79% (e.g., Per un pelo)

50 = 86.21% (e.g., Una rasata quasi perfetta)

18 = 56.25% (e.g., Cavarsela

14 = 43.75% (e.g., Per niente)

(4)

4 = 4.71% (e.g., Cercare correre dietro)

81 = 95.29% (e.g., Andare in giro)

3 = 60% (e.g., Ε inutile)

2 = 40% (e.g., Ε impossibile)

(5)

0

47 = 100% (e.g., Ovvio come il tuo naso)

40=93.02% (e.g., Ε ovvio)

3 = 6.98% (e.g., Ε facile)

(6)

0

61 = 100% (e.g., Al di la da ogni ombra)

29 = 100% (e.g., Non c'e dubbio)

0

(7)

0

69 = 100% (e.g., Ε fresco come un cetriolo)

21 = 100% (e.g., Ε calmo)

0

(8)

0

45 = 100% (e.g., Hai nervo)

45 = 100% (e.g., Hai la faccia tosta)

0

(9)

42 = 64.61% (e.g., Essere nel guai)

23 = 35.38% (e.g., Essere giu)

12 = 48% (e.g., Non mi va bene)

13 = 52% (e.g., Sto male)

(10)

37 = 50% (e.g., Leccarsi

37 = 50% (e.g., Leccarsi le ferite)

9 = 56.25% (e.g., Rassegnarsi)

1 = 43.75% (e.g., Stare male)

13.31%

86.69%

75.93%

24.07%

Overall percentage

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Discussion As limited in scope as this pilot project is, it nevertheless has made it obvious that the iconic content of metaphor cannot be denied. When it is elicited in a translation task, it manifests itself by influencing the individual's train of thought in making lexical choices in the target language. Indeed, when the subjects were shown their translations later, they could immediately detect anomalies, pointing out generally that the five-minute period within which they worked did not allow them sufficient time to come up with appropriate equivalents. This suggests, clearly, that the meaning of a metaphor is more than its imagery content. But the latter does play a cognitive role in the overall make-up of metaphor. Presumably, if the subjects had been given enough time, they would have been more able to extract an appropriate abstract meaning representation from all the idioms. They would have been able, in other words, to sift it out from its iconic substratum, and then transfer it to the target language free of its iconic characteristics. This did, in fact, occur in the case of some of the idioms which may have triggered a meaning representation more quickly than the others. From the introspective reports written by the subjects after the translation task, it has become obvious that most of them were not aware of the influence of the imagery content of the English idioms. Most said, predictably, that their main objective was to come up with expressions that conveyed the meaning of the idioms, avoiding "literal translations" whenever possible. The following report of one individual typifies most of the reports: "In attempting to translate the idiomatic expressions I did not really think of mental images. I thought of the meaning, and went from it to translation. I did not want to give literal translations." Despite this subject's assessment, eight out of his ten translations were image transfers, most of which were semantically inappropriate. In sum, this experiment has shown that imagery content plays a role in metaphorical language programming whether or not one is consciously aware of it. One astute subject pointed out that, upon reflection, the imagery content of the English idioms constituted an obstacle to translation: "My initial reaction was to translate the image into Italian. But I found that the meaning changed in Italian if I did this, and thus I became frustrated. The image in English was very strong in may mind, and became quite an obstacle."

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Concluding remarks It is obvious that the above pilot study will have to be followed up with a more broadly designed experiment that will include the translation of novel metaphors, proverbs, and other types of mental figuration. Nevertheless, its major finding - that the imagery content of idioms seems to influence the translation process - can be tentatively added to the ever-growing storehouse of documentary evidence supporting an iconic modality in metaphorical language programming. It is useful to conclude on a philosophical note by returning briefly to the Vico-Nietzschean paradigm because, above all else, the experimental investigation of iconicity has started to provide an empirical justification to their claim that metaphor is at the basis of language and thought, and that iconic thought is a more rudimentary form of cognition. It is interesting to note that children seem invariably to go through an initial metaphorical stage during which words suggest images. The great psycholinguist Vygotsky (1972: 298) has put it in the following words: "The primary word is not a straightforward symbol for a concept but rather an image, a picture, a mental sketch of a concept, a short tale about it - indeed a small work of art." It is remarkable, indeed, to find that Vico had anticipated this developmental feature long before the advent of psychological research on child development: "Children, by the ideas and names of the men, women and things they have seen first, afterwards apprehend and name all the men, women and things that bear any resemblance to the first" (in Bergin and Fisch 1984: 132). The child's first metaphors result from a lack of knowledge of the relevant linguistic and societal constraints. As such, therefore, they allow the child to go from a more basic iconic form of cognition to a more symbolic and abstract form: i.e., childhood metaphors facilitate the transition from sensory reflection to rational thinking. This ontogenetic script might be, as many scholars have suggested, a chronologically condensed reenactment of language phylogenesis. Once again, Vico observed that the first metaphors of human beings allowed them to "give names to things from the most particular and the most sensible ideas" (in Bergin and Fisch 1984: 130). It is only later in our history that symbolic thought became a dominant mode of thinking about the world. According to Vico, metaphor evolved directly from a protogestural language. It is a kind of verbalized gesture system that alludes to the strong possibility that the consciousness of our primitive ancestors must have been iconic. This is borne out by the earliest records of our hominid ancestry which are in the form of visual images - paintings of animals on the walls of caves. Wescott (1980: 70-

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71) has made the following very relevant observation: "our sapient ancestors transformed their linguistic skills from the visual channel to the auditory one becoming, for the first time, speakers rather than signers." This hypothetical scenario suggests that symbolic thought developed from the brain's perceptual function of interpreting sensory input in terms of external object situations. The scientific study of metaphor has started to provide rather convincing evidence that the brain's ability to manufacture images is a more basic function than its ability to produce language. The prevalence of metaphor in the development of language (both onto- and phylogenetic) suggests that human concepts start as hypotheses about the surrounding world, which are at first tied directly to its objects. It is only later that conceptual schemas become free of sensory control and take on an abstract quality.

References Anderson, R. C. and A. Ortony 1975 On putting apples into bottles. A problem in polysemy. Cognitive ogy 101. 301-306.

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Asch, S. 1955 On the use of metaphor in the description of persons. In H. Werner (ed.), On expressive language. 29-39. Worcester: Clark University Press. Bergin, T. G. and M. H. Fisch (translators) 1984 The new science of Giambattista

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Billow, R. M. 1975 A cognitive-developmental study of metaphor comprehension. tal Psychology 11. 415-423.

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Black, M. 1962 Models and metaphors.

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Bühler, K. 1951 [1908] On thought connection. In D. Rapaport (ed.), Organization and pathology of thought. 81-92. New York: Columbia University Press. Cantor, P. 1982 Friedrich Nietzsche: The use and abuse of metaphor. In D. S. Miall (ed.), Metaphor: Problems and perspectives. 71-88. Atlantic Heights: Humanities. Danesi, Μ. 1979 English words derived from geometrical terminology. In W. Wölck and P. Garvin (eds.), The fifth LAC US forum. 142-149. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam. 1986 Language and the origins of the human imagination: A Vichian perspective. New Vico Studies 4. 45-56. 1989 The neurological coordinates of metaphor. Communication and Cognition 22(1). 73-86. Dorfmueller, M. and R. Honeck 1981 Centrality and generativity within a linguistic family: Toward a conceptual base theory of groups. The Psychological Record 30. 95-109. Foldi, N. S., M. Cicone and H. Gardner 1983 Pragmatic aspects of communication in brain-damaged patients. In S. J. Segalowitz (ed.), Language functions and brain organization. 51-86. New York: Academic. Galda, L. 1984 The development of the comprehension of metaphor. Semiotica 50. 83-85. Harris, R., M. Lahey and F. Marsalek 1980 Metaphors and images: Rating, reporting, and remembering. In R. P. Honeck and R. R. Hoffmann (eds.), Cognition and figurative language. 201-238. Hillsdale: Erlbaum. Haskell, R. E. 1987 Giambattista Vico and the discovery of metaphoric cognition. In R. E. Haskell (ed.), Cognition and symbolic structures: The psychology of metaphoric transformation. 67-82. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Hier, D. B. and J. Kaplan 1980 Verbal comprehension deficits after right hemisphere damage. Applied Psycholinguistics 1. 270-294. Hoffmann, R. R. 1983 Recent research on metaphor. Semiotic Hoffmann, R. R. and R. P. Honeck

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1980 A peacock looks at its legs: Cognitive science and figurative language. In R. P. Honeck and R. R. Hoffmann (eds.), Cognition and figurative language. 3-24. Hillsdale: Erlbaum 1987 Proverbs, pragmatics, and the ecology of abstract categories. In R. E. Haskell (ed.), Cognition and symbolic structures: The psychology of metaphoric transformation. 129-140. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

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Honeck, R. P., P. Reichmann and R. R. Hoffmann 1975 Semantic memory for metaphor: The conceptual base hypothesis. Memory and Cognition 3. 409-415. Honeck, R. P., M. Voegtle, M. Dorfmueller and R. R. Hoffmann 1980 Proverbs, meaning, and group structure. In R. P. Honeck and R. R. Hoffmann (eds.), Cognition and figurative language. 156-182. Hillsdale: Erlbaum. Honeck, R. P., C. T. Kibler and J. Sugar 1985 The conceptual base view of categorization. Journal of Ρsycholinguistic search 14. 155-174.

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Kennedy, J. M. and R. Domander 1986 Blind people depicting states and events in metaphoric line drawings. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 1: 109-126. Lakoff, G. 1987 Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, M. and M. Johnson 1980 Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Langer, S. Κ. 1984 Philosophy in a new key. New York: Mentor. Marschark, M., A. Katz and A. Paivio 1983 Dimensions of metaphor. Journal of Psycholinguistic

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Millar, J. M. and H. A. Whitaker 1983 The right hemisphere's contribution to language: A review of the evidence from brain-damaged subjects. In S. J. Segalowitz (ed.), Language functions and brain organization. 87-113. New York: Academic.

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Paivio, A. 1979 Psychological processes in the comprehension of metaphor. In A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and thought. 150-171. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paivio, A. and J. M. Clark 1986 The role of topic and vehicle imagery in metaphor comprehension. Communication and Cognition 19. 367-388. Peirce, C. S. 1985 Logic as semiotic: The theory of signs. In R. E. Innis (ed.), Semiotics: An introductory anthology. 4-23. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Perrine, L. 1971 Four forms of metaphor. College English 33. 125-138. Reichmann, P. and E. Coste 1980 Mental imagery and the comprehension of figurative language. In R. P. Honeck and R. R. Hoffmann (eds.), Cognition and figurative language. 127-162. Hillsdale: Erlbaum. Richards, I. A. 1936 The philosophy of rhetoric. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schrift, A. D. 1985 Language, metaphor, rhetoric: Nietzsche's deconstruction of epistemology. Journal of the History of Philosophy 23. 371-395. Shapiro, M. and M. Shapiro 1988 Figuration in verbal art. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Stachowiak, F., W. Huber, K. Poeck and M. Kerschensteiner 1977 Text comprehension in aphasia. Brain and Language 4. 177-195. Verbrugge, R. R. and N. S. McCarrell 1977 Metaphoric comprehension: Studies in reminding and resembling. Cognitive Psychology 9. 494-533. Verene, D. P. 1981 Vico's science of the imagination. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. 1972 An experimental study of concept formation. In P. Adams (ed.), Language in thinking. 277-305. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

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Iconicity of expressive syntactic transformations Ivan

Fonagy

Abstract Concrete messages are the products of a dual encoding procedure. Syntactic rule transgressions can be interpreted in terms of expressive gesturing. The transformation rules are paralinguistic and based on symptomatical or symbolical relations. The conveyed messages are preconceptual. Figures of sentences and figures of thought (paraphrastic structures) are iconic in a broader sense of the term. Recurrent transformations, constituents of personal style, are meaningful. Recurrent iconic transformations are integrated into the grammar.

1. Dual encoding The analysis of expressive syntactic rule transgressions were in the past within the competence of linguistic stylistics. The iconicity (or motivation, according to de Saussure 1976: 181-182) of the expressive transformations of nonmarked grammatical structures was explicitly or implicitly admitted as a paralinguistic rule of secondary encoding (Bally 1905, 1909; Ettmayer 1936; Fonagy 1964; Havers 1931; Jordan 1944; Lerch 1934; Lindenfeld 1973; Lotman 1970; Marouzeau 1935; Reitz 1937; Richter 1933; Spitzer 1926, 1928; Ullmann 1964; Vossler 1913; Winkler 1929). Recent researches in the domain of syntactic iconicity (Cureton 1981; Dillon 1975; Epstein 1981, 1987; Freeman 1975; Kehl 1980; O'Neal 1982; Turner 1986; Zolkovskij 1979) join with a century old tradition. Rules governing syntactic structures may or may not be iconic (Haiman 1985; Landsberg 1982, 1987; Lyons 1977: 638; Mayerthaler 1981; Skoda 1982). Expressive transformations are necessarily motivated, otherwise the message could not be interpreted by the reader or listener. They rely on a paralinguistic (natural) code operating on all linguistic levels: phonetic, lexical, syntactic and paraphrastic, But in contradistinction to the grammar (langue), the rules governing expressive transformations are iconic, based on symp-

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tomatic or symbolic isomorphism. I attributed in a previous paper (Fonagy 1971), somewhat allegorically, the secondary processing of sentences to a distorter. The messages generated by the distorter are parasitical: they are grafted onto the primary message produced by the grammar. There are essentially two kinds of expressive transformations: syntagmatical transformations operating along the time-axis, and paradigmatical transformations, operating in semantic space (they will not be considered in this paper, see Fonagy 1971: 203ff.). Secondary messages may be conveyed either by means of rule transgression, or by playful and iconic licit rearrangements of the basic, nonmarked linguistic structure.

2. Syntactic gesturing 2.1. Expressive word order The most typical symptomatic, expressive transgression of syntagmatic rules consists of a left drift: the most informative element may be "shot forward" ahead of the sentence, occasionally transgressing the rules of grammatical word order. Such expressive syntactic deviances are not to be confounded with virtual movements, such as raising (fronting), inherent in the generation of (non-marked) syntactic constructions (Chomsky 1980, 1988, Haegeman 1991: 285-295, Postal 1974). Transgressions are supposed to reflect the speaker's excitement, in aiming at the decrease of mental tension (Reitz 1937; Richter 1933). Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide, wide sea! Coleridge, The rime of the ancient

mariner

A speech universal is raised at the level of poetic language. Dislocation occurs in Romance, Germanic, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, as well as in Finno-Ugric languages (Fonagy 1975: 170-171). Bally coined the term of "dislocation" referring to a specific form of oratio soluta (Lausberg 1960, Vol. 1: 456-457), characterizing contemporary French speech and prose (Bally 1941; Bruneau and Heuiluy 1937; Lerch 1934; Perrot and Louzoun 1974; Queneau 1965; Vendryes 1921). The subject, object or adverb are taken out of the sentence, and propelled to the head of the utterance. Their empty place in the sentence is generally filled in by a pronoun.

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287

Dis, maman, Denise, eile est de la famille? Marceau, Les elans du coeur. Les enfants, suffit de les comprendre. 'The children, just try to understand them.' Queneau, Zazie dans le metro. In fact, the "subject" or "object" preceding the sentence are global utterances, elliptic exclamative sentences. They are reminiscent of the monolithic utterances produced in an early phase of language acquisition. "tea Ododa 'tea:t Tea. Give tea [acc.]' [Peter, a l:8-year-old Hungarian boy.] (For more details, see my paper of 1972). The ontogenetic evolution is recapitulated during the speech act, in "acto-genesis," in the form of a gradual unfolding of mental content, as aptly reproduced in a poem of Victor Hugo: Un roi, sous l'empire, j'en ai tant vu de rois. Ά King, during the empire, I saw so many Kings.' Hugo, Reveries d'un passant. or in Moliere's comedy: Oui, mais pour ma femme, moi, je pretendais vous prendre. L'ecole des femmes. (Act V, scene 4).

2.2. Impressive word order The poet may give the illusion, through an appropriate though unusual word order, of reflecting the sequence of mental events elicited by an exterior stimulus, and he may in this way elicit in the reader percepts leading to a gradual recognition of a complex of visual and acoustic phenomena. Blanche, Venus emerge ... 'white, Venus emerges ...' Verlaine, L'heure du berger.

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and quite similarly in a poem of Housman quoted and analyzed by Epstein (1981: 169): white in the moon the long road lies. Housman, A Shropshire lad. The sequential character of perceptual analysis is particularly apparent in the case of more complex stimuli: Noirs, dans la neige et dans la brume, Au grand soupirail qui s'allume, Leurs culs en rond, A genoux, cinq petits - misere! Regardent le Boulanger faire Le lourd pain blond. Rimbaud, Les effares Here (a) something black, contrasting with the white snow, apppears through the mist; (b) before a cellar window lit up just now: (c) five round bottoms come in sight in the light; (d) kneeling, three little ones, (e) the image elicits a feeling of commiseration; (f) since the spectator realizes now that they stare at the baker; (g) who kneads heavy white bread.

2.3. Syntactic

portrayal

The gradual progression (the walk, "la marche") of the sentence reflects, according to Thibaudet (1922: 248) the walk of the poet's ideal body. Since the poet may identify with this character, the word order could reflect the character's way of walking. Thus, the sentence reflects with precision the doubts and hesitations of Aeneas who crosses again the threshold of the door, returning to Troy destroyed by fire, hoping his wife Creusa might have returned to their home: Inde domum, si forte pedem, si forte tulisset, ... 'Then I returned to our home, in case she set, she set her foot in the house.' Virgil, Aeneid (Book II, line 756).

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The sentence hesitates: si forte pedem ... 'in case she set...'. The verbal syntagme pedem tulisset remains uncompleted, reflecting an interrupted movement. Somebody who intended to cross the threshold, hesitates to take a step. Aeneas sees Creusa in the doorway, paralyzed by fear. She first steps back, and then she overcomes her fear, and finally crosses the threshold. In his narration, Aeneas identifies with his wife, and the narrator with his character, inducing at the same time the reader to reproduce himself the hesitating mental movement, by means of hyperbaton, the interruption of a sentence by the insertion of a phrase. This simple device may suggest different images. By the insertion of a phrase, eliciting a change, usually a raise of the melodic level, Verlaine (1962) depicts the indiscrete movement of the page, lifting the lady's luxurious tail, "more than necessary": Le negrillon parfois souleve, Plus haut qu'il ne faut, 1'algrefin, Son fardeau somptueux, afin De voir ce dont la nuit il reve. Cortege (Fetes galantes). The hyperbaton opens a breach in the sentence, corresponding in the given context, the drawing aside of the curtain, allowing the page to throw a glance into a secret domain. Spitzer (1928: 365-412) compares the frequent parenthetical hyperbatons in Proust's (1966) A la recherche du temps perdu, containing a personal comment, to windows opened by the author to communicate more directly and intimately with the reader. The insertion of an isolated word or short phrase is often associated with the idea of loneliness, separateness, estrangement: Qu'il va, stoi'que, oil tu l'envoies Et que desormais, endurci, N'ayant plus ici-bas de joies, II n'a plus de douleurs aussi. 'That he may go, stoical, wherever you send him. And that hence, indurated, Finding no more pleasure here below, Neither feels he more pain'. Victor Hugo, Trois ans apres.

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For thee, Ο now a silent soul, my brother, Take at my hands this garland, and fare-well. Swinburne, Ave atque vale. Hyperbatons are especially frequent in pages relating the narrator's separation of his mother and his fear to lose his mistress, Albertine. The hyperbaton consists, indeed, in the separation of verbal elements closely united by syntactical and semantic links, followed by reunification of separated parts. The pictorial power of word structures, objective iconicity (Davie 1955: 79; Epstein 1981: 178-185) relies on a playful poetic delusion which consists of taking words for building blocks, as they are often perceived by schizophrenics (Searles 1965: 395). Thus, a cube separated from other cubes stands alone: it is in fact a model of loneliness. Putting identical cubes side by side, the poet might depict spatial or chronological sequences. The omnipresence of death may be, naively, suggested by the repeated reappearance of the word itself: Death is here and death is there, Death is busy everywhere, All around, within, beneath, Above is death - and we are death. Shelley, Death. The classical figure of polysyndeton, the redundant use of the conjunction, allows for the reflection of the round dance of the elves, singing and dancing hand in hand: Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn, Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein, 'My daughters dance the nightly roundelay, And they dandel and dance and lull you to sleep.' Goethe, Erlkönig. Multiple disruption may suggest objects scattered all around: leaf of ghosts some few creep there here or on unerth Cummings, Nonsum mob.

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Cureton (1981: 197) in his brilliant "case study" in iconic syntax refers to a poem of Cummings where the syntactic order is scrambled "beyond any grammatical order to present the emotional and physical chaos initiated by the lovemaking." The stratification of the sentence may reflect that of a landscape. "Verbal art, disposing of articulate verbal units, cannot dispense with the representation of spatial stratification and with that of relief effect," states Spitzer (1926: 146-159) in a paper on the separation of syntactic units, on Spreizstellung 'straddle-stance' in twentieth-century French literature. Verlaine offers a number of examples illustrating what Spitzer calls "the system of the three wings" ("Drei-Kulissen-System"): Le chateau, tout blanc Avec, ä son-flanc, Le soleil couche. 'The castle, fully white, With, at its side, The sun going down.' Verlaine, L'allee est sans fin. The sentence suggests three fronts in the dimension of depth: Le chateau

Le soleil couche. ä son-flanc

tout blanc Avec

Insertion and dislocation may serve other purposes well. "Due to the syntax of the sentence, to the suspensions, inversions and insertions, the verse-line floats like the nymphs pursuing the Faun" comments Michaud (1953: 97ff.) on some verses of Mallarme's L'apres-midi d'unfaun. Spitzer (1928: 365497) in his above quoted classical analysis of Proust's (1966) verbal style associates the different kinds of syntactic desintegration, from simple hyperbaton to multiple insertions, with a series of different attitudes: hesitation, cogitation (1966: 422, 429), exploration (1966: 412, note 388), hiding embarrassing truth (1966: 416, 430), drawing parallels (1966: 412), connecting different chronologic layers (1966: 413-414), or opposed though related aspects, such as reality and phantasy (1966: 406-407).

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How to interpret an inverse form of transformation: as a grammatical lack of separation? In contradistinction to the grammatical rule, the prefix of aufstehen 'to get up' is not separated from the verb stem in the past tense {stand auf) in Rilke's (1961-1966) verse line:

Und nun aufstand er: steht: höher als die geatmete Luft unseres sonstigen Tages. 'And then he up stood: stands upright: higher than the inhaled air of everyday life.' Rilke, Fünf Gesänge. The prefix seems to offer a hard resistance. It refuses to comply with linguistic conventions. Likewise, the pronoun resists external pressure in another poem of Rilke's (1961-1966), where the syntactic behavior might reflect inflexibility or stiffness of the prophet: Oder er anschaute knieend ... O r he stared on his knees ....' Rilke, Wendung. In all these cases distructuring is expressive because it implies dual structuring, a linguistic and a paralinguistic encoding. Internal and external reality are reflected on the verbal level. This seems to imply that iconic syntax is necessarily redundant. In fact, the secondary message conveyed by transformation of the primary message, cannot be redundant, since it is essentially different, i.e., of a different essence. The conceptual message is paralleled by a preconceptual one, more closely and more directly related to real attitudes, objects, real actions. Iconicity could be defined as the illegal presence of the content or of the objects referred to at the level of verbal expression. The voluntary deep regression to an iconic mode of communication, which probably preceded and prepared verbal communication based on arbitrary signs, could be considered as the principal source of the pleasure derived from iconic syntactic structures. There is still another form of syntactic iconicity: imitation of other people's syntactic verbal behavior. In such cases the word order may be unusual without being emotive, impressive or pictorial. French classical poets, such as Corneille or Racine, frequently make use of inversions, putting in an unusual way in possessive constructions the possessor before the possessed:

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293

Tel est de mon amour l'aveuglement funeste. Racine, Andromaque (Act II, scene 2).

The inversion evocates the word order frequent in classical Latin poetic and literary texts. Such a syntactic "foreign accent" contains an implicit reference. On a deeper level, it is a partial verbal identification with another nation or another epoch. In the frame of poetic texts or literary prose the casual word order of everyday conversations become an expressive (since evocative) word order. It is a characteristic syntactic device of Verlaine or of Symons (O'Neal 1982). The two or three different messages are expressed by the same word sequence, interpreted on two different levels. This reminds us of jokes where the basic manifest message and the complementary latent message are conveyed by the same sentence, interpreted in two different ways. In both cases a certain amount of the yield of pleasure [Lustgewinn] corresponds to the psychical expenditure that is saved" (Freud 1940-1946, Vol. 6: 133; 1953-1966, Vol. 8: 118). Iconic syntactic gestures are paralinguistical, they can be interpreted by "general knowledge." At the same time, they are more elusive than arbitrary verbal messages, since their meaning is not fixed and not precisely delimited by conventions. Any of the previously proposed interpretations could be questioned, and I would be unable to prove their Tightness. The interpretation had always to be accompanied by hedges such as "if one assumes," "if one interprets," "it is perhaps" (see Cureton 1981: 194, 196, 207). The author or speaker are responsible for the primary message; one cannot, however, institute proceedings against them on the basis of secondary messages. Thus, Verlaine could cut into two halves the verbal image of the addressee of one of his invectives without risking a criminal procedure:

Autre que toi que je vais sac eager de si belle maniere ... Verlaine, Puisque ta photographie.

This equally holds for repeated ellipses "committed" in anger. Such acts of verbal aggression are harmless for both the aggressee and the aggressor. They are committed, moreover, usually without their knowledge. This gives free room for the verbal "acting out" of unconscious velleities (Dahl et al. 1978: 339-363).

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3. Figures of thought According to Epstein (1981: 172) there are two types of nonmimetic forms of expression. The first does not show any recognizable schemata of formal organization. In the second recognizable forms exist but do not reflect any principle of organization. The author includes in the second instance Davie's (1955) syntax like mathematics "to please in and for itself" (1955: 92, cit. Epstein 1981: 171). The figures of sentence (figurae sententiarum) of classical and modern rhetorics, such as gradatio, redditio, epanodos, represent a basic subset in the frame of "syntax like mathematics." Figures of sentence correspond at the level of syntax to metrical rules at the prosodic level. Figures of thought are deviant, but only as far as they are more regular, more redundant than nonmarked syntactic structures. Thus epizeuxis requires the iteration of a word at regular intervals: Light seeking light doth light of light beguile. Shakespeare, Love's labour lost (Act I, scene 1). The figure of redditio implies a word order corresponding to the formula: a b c d a. Rose elle a vaicu ce que vivent les roses. 'Rose, she lived what do live the roses.' Malherbe, Consolation ä Μ. Perier ... The epanodos creates a mirror-symmetry in reiterating the words in inverse order: a b ... nn ... b a. The gradatio or catena concatenates, as its name suggests, the word sequences according to the formula: abbe... m m n. Le maitre se mit ä bäiller, en bäillant il frappait de la main sa tabatiere, et en frappant sa tabatiere, il regardait au loin, et en regardant au loin, il dit ä Jacques ... 'The master gave a yawn: whilst he yawned he tapped on his tabacco-box, whilst he tapped on his tobacco-box, he looked far, looking far he said to Jacques ...' Diderot, Jacques le fataliste (Vol. I, ρ 72).

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The chiasmus, anti-metabole or commutatio in classical rhetoric, operates simultaneously at the syntactic and the semantic level. The reiterated two words, a and b must change their role (α, β) i.e., their form class or the role they play in the sentence: aa ba. Nowhere but here did ever meet Sweetness so sad, sadness so sweet. Crashaw, The weeper. A similar effect is obtained by maintaining the order of the functions and changing the order of words: aa bß bß aa. Thus, when St. Augustine wonders whether one should speak of ... deadly live or lively death? St. Augustine, Confessiones (Book I, chap. 6). I would be tempted to link the categories "syntax like music" and "syntax like mathematics." I think that figures of thought which apparently have "nothing to do with mimesis," and seem to please in and for themselves (Davie 1955: 92; Epstein 1981: 172) do not differ essentially from "syntax like music" which "follows a form of thought through the poet's mind without defining that thought" (Davie 1955: 86). In a previous publication (Fonagy 1982) I attempted to show that figures of sentence, as well as figures of thought (paraphrastic figures), are meaningful. Their meaning is, however, quite different from verbal meaning (lexical or grammatical): it is vague and only suggestive. Thus redditio suggests the idea of "Eternel retour": the end coincides with a new start. The gradatio represents an endless chain of events, a process of permanent generation. The chiasmus implies the negation of received ideas, it predicts a total reversal ("And behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last" [Luke 13: 30]). In this much broader sense even unexpressive, purely esthetic or "musical" reorganization of sentences and literary works might be meaningful. The general meaning inherent in these structures may lend a concrete meaning to the metaphoric term of "musical thought." Figures of thought underly musical sequences as well as verbal constructions (Etkind 1973; Fonagy 1941-1942; Haläsz 1965; Mann 1956, Vol. 12: 431446). Recently Epstein (1981: 190-191) drew an interesting and convincing parallel between the redditio governing the structure of Blake's Tyger and Beethoven's late sonatas and quartets.

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The general meaning suggested by figures of sentences or figures of thought interferes with the actual verbal meaning of sentences, poems, dramas or novels. It is iconic in a larger sense of the term.

4. Iconicity in verbal style The message conveyed by means of syntactic distortions may be obscured by its permanent presence. This is what happens when disruption of the regular syntactic structure becomes overwhelmingly frequent in the speech of an individual or in the writing of an author. If such disruptions and dislocations, accompanied by irregular speech pauses, glottal strokes, heavy stresses and particularly tense articulation, occur within isolated speech acts, we (preconsciously) interpret this feature as an expression of anger or an aggressive attitude. Similarly a scattered word order, in the phonetic context of frequent pauses, weak stresses, low overall intensity, monotonous melody, betrays hesitation or anguish. As soon as such features occur constantly in the utterances of an individual speaker, in diverse circumstances, they will be no more interpreted as the vocal and syntactical expressions of anger or anguish but directly associated with the speaker, or with the writer in case of written forms of syntactic idiosyncrasies. The message seems to be neutralized, invalidated, due to its permanence. In other cases, repetition intensifies the message. We would never think that the constant emission of a signal of distress could mean that the danger is over. Similarly, verbal idiosyncrasies, syntactic, lexical or vocal, may be conceived as permanent messages conveying the same meaning they express in isolated, situation-bound utterances. Permanent messages escape the attention of both speaker (writer) and hearer (reader): they are unconscious. And inversely, they are permanent, because they express unconscious mental contents. Freud insisted since his early publications (1940-1946, Vol 1: 456; Vol. 2: 558-559; 1953-1966, Vol. 3: 219; Vol. 5: 553 - originally published 1896 and 1900) on the timelessness of unconscious representations, subject to the repetition compulsion (1940-1946, Vol. 13: 17ff.; 1953-1966, Vol. 18: 19 - originally published 1920). With regard to Proust, the constant recurrence of hyperbaton, simple and multiple, had to be interpreted in the context of A la recherche du temps perdu 'Search for the time lost', and beyond the novel, in the context of the author's biographic data, as a permanent syntactic gesture, a verbal character trait. Separation anxiety is a basic complex underlying Proust's (1966) A la recherche du temps perdu. The unusually high frequency of hyperbatons in

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his novel as compared to other texts of French prose (see Table 1) may be an expression of this compulsive fear. It could be the expression of an unresolved basic conflict of separation and individuation (Bowlby 1980; Hermann 1937, 1943 [1972]: 154ff.). Table 1. Number of hyperbatons per 100 words Simple embedding Double embedding

Bossuet 17.1 0.5

Authors Victor Hugo Poetry Prose 18.8 1.9 0.1 0.9

Camus 9.8 -

Proust 32.6 4.5

Analyzed texts: Bossuet, Oraison funebre d'Henriette d'Angleterre; Victor Hugo, Les miserables (Vol. 1, chapter 1), Les contemplations (I, II, III), and Angelo (I, 1); Camus, La peste (Part 2, chapters 1 and 2); Proust (1966), Du cote de chez Swann (Part 1, chapter 1).

In a previous paper (Fonagy 1965: 243-274) I presented the results of statistic measurements on the poetic work of some Hungarian poets of the twentieth century. These results suggest, among other things, that the high frequency of sharp breaks in the poems of Lorinc Szabo (1977) is paralleled by the prevalence of words belonging to the semantic sphere of aggression. The unconscious messages conveyed by means of syntactic stereotypes offer a sound basis for character studies and assessments of neuroses and psychotic illnesses (see Fonagy 1988; Freedman and Grand 1977; Lindenfeld 1973; Lorenz 1955; Mahl and Schulze 1964).

5. Iconicity and linguistic change The recurrence of syntactic deviances and figures of thought may not be limited to idiolects. Repetition is a linguistic device in a number of related and unrelated languages (Skoda 1982). In contemporary French, conversational style dislocation became more frequent than the distorted unmarked basic structure. As a consequence, some constructions such as the "projection" (prejet) of the subject or object, or that of the adverb, have to be considered in the frame of everyday oral French as the unmarked form. This also holds for the "postposition" (rejet) of subject or object, anticipated by a pronoun in the main phrase. Est-ce que ton pere est la? is less likely to occur than II est la, ton pere?. The change in markedness is a part of a linguistic change in progress.

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The projected object is not necessarily represented by a pronoun. In such cases the dislocated utterance Object!, Subject + Verb + Pron Object (where "!" refers to the emphatic sentential character of the "object") - may coincide at the surface with the "homonymous" structure: Object + Subject + Verb In some cases, prosodic features might signal the trace (Chomsky 1980, chapter 4) left by the propelled object, subject or adverb; whether the utterance is the result of an expressive transformation in the speaker's mind or not. In fact, some authors consider such constructions no more as dislocated and elliptical, but as regular sentences generated by the grammar (Deulofeu 1977). The projection of an adverb was regularly marked by the comma following the projected adverb. The comma vanished, however, in recent French schoolbooks (Fonagy 1971: 213). This means that the construction is no more perceived as the result of a rule of transgression but as one of the possible (regular) word orders. The question arises: do iconic expressive transformations enhance the transparence, the iconicity of syntactic structures generated by the grammar? The question could be answered only on the basis of a thorough analysis of the results of syntactic changes in different languages. I would simply insist on the possibility of a seemingly paradoxical consequence: expressive syntactic rule transgressions which are necessarily iconic, might reduce the degree of iconicity of syntactic structures. In the examples quoted above, dislocation and disruption are iconic, as natural expressions of emotive attitudes or as reflections of nonverbal structures. As soon as they are disconnected from their natural basis and integrated as rules of general validity into the grammar, their iconicity, originally based on symptomatic or symbolic analogy may vanish. The word order Ο + S + V or the Adv + S + V order are by no means more iconic than the former S + V + Ο order. To answer such questions we will have to distinguish clearly between subjective and objective, psychological and logical iconicity.

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Notes 1. Five French female speakers (linguists) read the stanza aloud. Four speakers raised the pitch level at the beginning of the inserted phrase by a third or a major second. One of the speakers lowered her voice by a third.

References Bally, C. 1905 Precise de stylistique. Geneva: Eggiman. 1909 Traite de stylistique frangaise. Heidelberg: Winters. 1941 Intonation et syntax. Cahiers de Ferdinand de Saussure 1. 33-42. Blake, W. 1953 Selected poetry and prose. Edited by N. Frye. New York: Random. Bossuet, J. B. 1866 Oraisons funebres. Edited by F.-J. Dussault. Paris. Firmin Didot. Bowlby, J. 1969 Attachment and loss. Vol. 1. London: Hoggarth. 1973 Separation. Vol. 2. London: Hoggarth. 1980 Sadness and depression. Vol. 3. London: Hoggarth. Bruneau, C. and M. Heulluy 1937 Grammaire pratique de la langue frangaise. Paris: Delagrave. Camus, A. 1951 La peste. Paris: Gallimard. Chomsky, N. 1980 Rules and representations. New York: Columbia. 1988 Language and problems of knowledge. Cambridge MA: MIT. Coleridge, S. T. 1912 The complete poetical works. Edited by Ε. H. Coleridge. London: Clarendon. Corneille, P. 1864 Oeuvres completes. Vols. 1-7. Paris: Napoleon Chaix. cummings, e. e. 1972 Complete poems 1913-1962. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Cureton, R. D. 1981 A case study in iconic syntax. Language and Style 14. 183-215. Dahl, Η., et al. 1978 Countertransference examples of the syntactic expression of worded contents. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 47. 339-363. Davie, D. 1955 Articulate energy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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Deulofeu, J. 1978 Recherches en vue d'une etude de Γ evolution de l'ordre des constituants en fran^ais: La place des syntagmes prepositionnels en frangais oral contemporain. [Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Universite de Paris.] Diderot, D. 1929 Jacques le fataliste. Vols. 1 and 2. Paris: Flammarion. Dillon, G.L. 1975 Inversions and deletions in English poetry. Language and Style 8. 220-237. Epstein, E. L. 1981 The self-reflexive artifact: The function of mimesis in an approach to a theory of value for literature. In D. C. Freeman (ed.), Essays in modern stylistics. 166-199. London: Methuen. 1987 Purgation by form in the poetry of T. S. Eliot. In L. B. Gamache and Ian S. MacNiven (eds.), The modernist: Essays in honor of Harry T. Moore. 192-201. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Etkind, E. 1973 Poetry and music. [In Russian.] Moscow: Muzika. Ettmayer, K. von 1936 Analytische Syntax der Französischen Sprache. Vol. 2. Halle: Niemayer. Fonagy, I. 1941/42 A stilus Zeneje. Zenei adalekok Novalis "Ofterdingen"-jehez [Music in style. Musical aspects of Novalis's "Ofterdingen"]. Ergasterion (5-6). 17-33. 1964 Information du style verbal. Linguistics 4. 19-47. 1965 Der Ausdruck als Inhalt. In Η. Kreuzer and R. Gunzenhäuser (eds.), Mathematik und Dichtung. 243-274. Munich: Nymphenburger. 1971 Double coding in speech. Semiotica 3. 183-222. 1972 A propos de la genese de la phrase enfantine. Lingua 30. 31-71. 1975 Prelangage et regressions syntaxiques. Lingua 36. 163-208. 1982 La ripetizione creativa. Bari: Dedalo. 1988 Dire l'indicible. Revue Frangaise de Psychoanalyse 20. 421-432. Freedman, N. and S. Grand (eds.) 1977 Psychoanalytic interpretation of communication. New York: Plenum. Freeman, D. 1975 Iconic syntax in poetry: A note on Blake's "Ah Sunflower." In. J. Stillings (ed.), Massachusetts occasional papers in linguistics 2. 51-57. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Freud, S. 1940/46 Gesammelte Werke. 18 Vols. Edited by A. Freud et al. London: Imago. 1953/66 Standard edition. 24 Vols. Edited by J. Strachey. London: Hogarth. Goethe, J. W. 1840 Gesammelte Werke. 40 Vols. Stuttgart: Cotta. Haegeman, L. 1991 Introduction to government and binding theory. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Haiman, J. (ed.) 1985 Iconicity in syntax. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Haläsz, E. 1965 Α polgäri viläg välsäga es a modern regeny [The crisis of the bourgeois world and the modern novel], [Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Hungarian Academy of Sciences.] Havers, W. 1931 Handbuch der Erklärenden Syntax. Heidelberg: Winter. Hermann, I. 1936 Sich-Anklammern, Auf-Suche-Gehen. Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse 22. 349-370. 1943 Az ember ösi ösztönei [The primitive instincts of man]. Budapest: Pantheon. [1972] [L'instinct filial. Paris: Payot. (A French translation of the original Hungarian work.)] Housman, A.E. 1939 A Shropshire lad (XXXVI) New York: Holt. 1901/52 Oeuvre completes. Paris: Gallimard. Jordan, I. 1944 Stilistica Limbii Romane [Stylistics of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Academieci Republicii Populäre Romine. Kehl, D. G. 1980 Composition in the mimetic mode: Imitatio and exercitatio. Language and Style 13. 135-142. Landsberg, Μ. Ε. 1982 The formal structure of sense: A systemic analysis. Quaderni di Semantica 3(2). 293-301. 1987 Semantic aspects of syntactic iconicity. In R. Crespo, B.D. Smith and H. Schultink (eds.), Aspects of language. Studies in honour of Mario Alinei. Vol. 2. 233-247. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Lausberg, Η. 1960 Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik. Munich: Hueber. Lerch, E. 1934 Historische Französische Syntax. Vol. 3. Leipzig: Reisland. Lindenfeld, J. 1973 Affective states of speech. Semiotica 8. 368-376. Lorenz, Μ. 1955 Expressive behavior and language patterns. Psychiatry 18. 353-366. Lotman, J. M. 1970 Struktura literoro teksta [Structure of literary texts]. Moscow: Iskusstvo. Lyons, J. 1977 Semantics. 2 Vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Mahl, G. F. and G. Schulze 1964 Psychological research in the extralinguistic area. In T. A. Sebeok (ed.), Approaches to semiotics. 51-124. The Hague: Mouton. Malherbe, F. de 1862 Oeuvres. Vols. 1-5. Edited by M.L. Ch. Lalanne. Paris: Hachette. Mann, T. 1956 Gesammelte Werke. Berlin: Aufbau. Mallarme, S. 1956 Oeuvres completes. Paris: Gallimard. Marceau, F. 1955 Les elans du coeur. Paris: Gallimard. Marouzeau, J. 1935 Traite stylistique applique au latin. Paris: Belles Lettres. Mayerthaler, W. 1981 Morphologische Natürlichkeit. Wiesbaden: Athenaion. Michaud, G. 1953 Mallarme. L'homme et L'oeuvre. Paris: Hatier Boivin. Moliere, J.-B. 1853 Oeuvres. Vols. 1-3. Frankfort: Bechold. O'Neal, M.J. 1982 The syntactic style of Arthur Symons. Language and Style 15. 208-218. Perrot, J. and M. Louzoun 1974 Message et apport d'information: A la recherche des structures. Langue Frangaise 21. 122-135. Postal, P. M. 1974 On raising. Cambridge (Mas): The MIT Press. Proust, M. [1966] A la recherche du temps perdu [Search for the time lost]. Vols. 1-3. Edited by P. Clarac et A. Ferre. Paris: Gallimard-Pleiade. Queneau, R. 1959 Zazie dans le metro. Paris: Gallimard. 1965 Batons, chijfres et lettres. Paris: Gallimard. Racine, J. 1850 Theatre complet. Paris: Firmin Didot. Reitz, H. 1937 Impressionistische und expressionistische Stilmittel bei Rimbaud. Munich: Hohenhaus. Richter, E. 1933 Die Entwicklung des neuesten Französisch. Bielefeld: Velhagen und Klasing. Rilke, R. M. 1961/66 Gesammelte Werke. Vols. 1-6. Leipzig: Insel.

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Part III

Syntactic iconicity in psychology

Motor theory of language in relation to syntax Robin Allott

Abstract The semantic, syntactic and phonetic structures of language develop from a complex preexisting system, more specifically the preexisting motor system. Language thus emerged as an external physical expression of the neural basis for movement control. Features which made a wide range of skilled action possible - a set of elementary motor subprograms together with rules expressed in neural organization for combining subprograms into extended action sequences - were transferred to form a parallel set of programs and rules for speech and language. The already established integration of motor control with perceptual organization led directly to a systematic relation between language and the externally perceived world.

1. The theory outlined The motor theory is a theory both of the origin and of the continuing function of language. Section 1 gives a general outline and section 2 develops its application to syntax. There have been other motor theories of human function. In particular, there was Watson's (1925) motor theory of thought and there was also the much-discussed motor theory of speech perception (Libermann et al. 1967). The theory presented here is a more general one than either of these and is based on recent progress in research into the organization of action at the neural level. The theory is that language originated as a transfer from or translation of the elements and system of combination of elements of the neural motor system. The expression of motor programs which originally developed for the coordination of vertebrate movement was redirected from the skeletal muscles to the muscles of the mouth, throat, chest, etc. This new expression of the motor programs was accompanied by the sound produced by modulated streams of air which we recognize as speech sound. The theory is thus one of a change in the connectability of the neural system, the opening

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up of new channels for the external expression of motor programs. "In the brain, new functions, phylogenetically and ontogenetically, had to be grafted on to old ones in whatever manner proved to be feasible and consistent with the normal processes of evolution. At every stage, evolution had to improvise with the anatomical structures and inherent plasticities that happened to be available" (Sommerhoff 1974: 13). In so far as it is assumed that the redirection of the motor programs, the opening up of new channels, took place many hundreds of thousands of years ago (and could in any case never have been directly examined), the evidence for the motor theory cannot be direct but must be probabilistic or circumstantial. Language is taken to be the capacity of one individual to alter, through structured sound emission, the mental organization of another individual. In considering the origin of language, we should not look for a distinct, datable origin any more than we would look for a distinct, datable origin for the eye. Language is more than speech, just as perception is more than the structure and functioning of the eye. In both cases we have also to be concerned with the neural organization underlying the functions of speech and visual perception. The fundamental idea is that language was constructed on the basis of a previously existing complex system, the neural motor system. The programs and procedures which evolved for the construction and execution of simple and sequential motor movements formed the basis of the programs and procedures going to form language. At every level of language, from the elementary speech sounds, through the word forms, on to the syntactic rules and structures, language was isomorphic with the neural systems, which already existed for the control of movement. The second principal theme is the mosaic evolution of language, the fitting together of a whole array of elements, anatomical, neural and behavioral. Many of the elements necessary for mosaic evolution of the language capacity can be found in the anatomical and behavioral repertoires of other animals, and particularly of birds. The conclusion drawn is that if birds and other animals have, individually, behavioral elements required for the evolution of human language capacity, then they must have the neural structures required to produce these behaviors, and in particular the neural motor programs which are required to support them (Brown 1974; Milner 1970; Nottebohm 1976; Phillips and Peck 1975; Sutherland 1964; Thorpe 1967; Welker 1976). That other animals have these elements separately also shows that a mechanism for the development or acquisition of the elements, in evolutionary terms, must exist. Whether or not the individual elements going to form the language capacity each separately had survival value - the development

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of language might have been an example of evolution by accumulation of neutral mutations (Kimura 1983) - language as such clearly had a major survival value, not so much for the individual as for the group which possessed language. Language is essentially and unavoidably a group possession, a group behavioral attribute. As such, it serves to increase a group's competitiveness and to promote evolution by way of group selection. Any group of animals with an effective means of communication within the group, e.g., ants or bees as well as humans, are in a position to react to events external to the group with a group reaction, and so also to be subject to evolution by way of group selection rather than individual selection. Hence the evolution of diverse castes of ants, bees and termites. In the case of humans, "it seems necessary to invoke a selective process acting between group and group, with the groups persisting as semi-permanent units, giving time for the better-integrated ones to prosper and supplant those that are less vigorous," applying Wynne Edwards' comment (1986: 1) regarding the usefulness of language to competing human groups. Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1975: 509) refers in this connection to Bigelow's (1971) view that the origin of man's rapid evolution lies in intergroup warfare: "man's tendency to cluster into small groups (pseudospeciation) and to compete aggressively with others certainly provided a motive force for this evolutionary development. In a tragic way we are indebted to aggression for the rapid development of our intellect." One of the most powerful forces in pseudospeciation and in aggressive intergroup struggle must have been the development of language. Two important examples of mosaic elements required for language are imitation and the categorical perception of speech sound. We take the power of imitation in ourselves, in birds such as the parrot or mynah, and in animals such as the chimpanzee, very much for granted. However, imitation, of speech or other sound or bodily movement, is in reality a most surprising ability. It involves a remarkable and complex linking of perception and motor organization. Incidentally, the ability of some birds, mynah birds par excellence (Thorpe 1967), to imitate human speech sounds is not dependent on any narrowly specified articulatory apparatus, and suggests that one should not expect to trace the development of speech simply in terms of gross anatomical features (Nottebohm 1976; Wind 1976). The other important mosaic element is the capacity to discriminate categorically between human speech sounds in a way similar to that found in adult speech perception. This ability has been found in a variety of animals, notably in chinchillas (Burdick and Miller 1975; Kuhl and Miller 1975), monkeys - and indeed in extremely young human infants (Kuhl 1987; Kuhl and Meltzoff 1982; Morse 1976).

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In these two important elements of the mosaic, and in other behavioral requirements for language, the key observations are the intimate involvement in them of the motor control system and their dependence on crossmodal processes. The development of the language capacity has resulted from the progressive establishment of new cross-modal (Ettlinger 1967; Ettlinger and Blakemore 1967) or transfunctional neural linkages, cerebral reorganization in the sense that the interconnectedness of different brain regions concerned with what are usually considered distinct functions, has substantially increased. Evolution of language brought together in the human brain homologues or analogues of neural structures spread across a range of animals, and established neural connections between them. The other related significant feature of the mosaic elements going to form the language capacity is the involvement in each of them of the neural motor control system. This extensive relation between language and the motor system is what one might reasonably expect, given the central role of the motor system in all behavior and the essentially motor character of speech production, as the outcome of movements of the articulatory apparatus (Fowler et al. 1980; Kertesz and Hooper 1982; Kimura 1973, 1976; McNeill 1981; Ojemann and Mateer 1979; Penfield and Roberts 1959). For speech perception, the existence of a relation with the motor system has long been recognized, in the theory associated with the work of Liberman and the Haskins Laboratories (cf. Liberman et al. 1967; Liberman and Mattingly 1985). The prominence of the motor system in the mosaic elements which might have gone to form the language capacity suggested that it would be profitable to undertake a systematic examination of the relation between each aspect of language and corresponding features of motor activity and the motor system. In addition, because of the intimate relation between the use and content of language on the one hand and perception on the other, the examination should extend to the relation between the motor system and perception in all its forms (Turvey 1977). The motor system is seen as the indispensable mediator between different modalities, and particularly between language and perception. In a 1989 paper I suggested that new light could be thrown on this question by using the hypothesis that the motor system, prior to the development of language, was built up from a limited number of primitive elements - units of motor action - which could be formed into more extended motor programs. This would make it possible to look for a direct correspondence between the primitive motor elements and the fundamental elements of spoken language, the phonemic system, and the same time would allow one to derive the processes of word formation and syntactic rules for constructing word

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sequences from the neural rules governing the union of motor elements into simple and motor complex actions. Motor activity and speech activity would thus be shown to have similar and, in fact, systematically related structures and rules. Language would be one type, though an exceptionally special and valuable type, of skilled action. It follows from this that one must deal with the system of motor control and the nature of motor programming (Bernstein 1967; Brooks 1986; Evarts, Wise and Bousfield 1985; Hoyle 1983; Kelso and Clark 1982; Schmidt 1982). The effect of linking the system of motor control for bodily movement to the neural control of the mouth and other anatomical elements which became part of the articulatory system, was that new channels were opened up for the external expression of motor programs. The motor system already has externally expressive functions, most notably in facial expression. If language is derived from the motor system, one preliminary but important point is that language cannot be in any way arbitrary. This applies not only to the sound elements of language, the phonemic system, but also to the words formed from these elements and to the ordering rules which constitute the syntactic structure of language. There is strong empiric evidence that the phonemic system is not arbitrary (Kuhl 1987; Lindblom 1983; Macneilage 1983), suggestive evidence that word forms are not arbitrary but are expressive or appropriate to their meaning (Allott 1973; Brown 1958; Köhler 1964) and there is also considerable evidence for a fundamental relation between the syntax of language and physiological syntax, the syntaxes of action and perception (Kertesz and Hooper 1982; Kimura 1973, 1976; Lashley 1951; Lieberman 1984; Lindblom 1983; McNeill 1981; Ojemann and Mateer 1979). There is no evidence which compels one to accept that phonemes, words or syntax are arbitrary. What becomes apparent is that the motor theory presented is not only a theory of language origin and development but also a theory of current language function. The proposition that language is completely analogous to skilled motor action opens up a new direction of enquiry, the applicability to language of the extensive and surprisingly successful research into the neural bases of action, of motor control. Recent research (Bizzi 1983; Desmedt 1985; Evarts et al. 1985; Hollerbach 1985; Kelso and Clark 1982; McKay 1985; Marsden et al. 1985; Robertson and Pearson 1985; Selverston 1985; Taub et al. 1973) strongly supports the concept of motor programs and motor subprograms as real and not merely formal or theoretical bases for the organization of action. An important task in brain theory is to isolate the substructures of motor behavior, to identify what might be called the repertoire of detached motor programs and subprograms, and how these are used by central organizing programs.

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The elementary motor programs may well be innate, part of standard human (and even vertebrate) neural structure. They may form part of fixed action programs, or be formed by a central motor program into novel action sequences. Motor programs are not necessarily dependent for their functioning upon incoming sensory information. They may run without any afferent 1 information, as research on invertebrates has shown (cf. Hoyle 1983)). The similarities in motor programming between a wide range of animals, birds, insects, suggest that common general principles have evolved in neural control of movement. In humans, in the light of evidence bearing directly on the relation between arm and head movements and speech, one may reasonably look for parallel preprogramming of the comparable speech musculature movements. The relation between motor programming and speech programming can be examined at each level, the phonemic, the lexical and the syntactic. For phonemes, this leads to the idea of an invariant program for each phoneme, or "auditory targetting" (Lindblom 1983; Macneilage 1983) a motor alphabet underlying speech, related in some way to the elementary motor patterns underlying other forms of action. The surprising phenomenon of categorical speech perception has a direct bearing on this. A range of animals and very young infants have displayed, in repeated experiments, the ability to categorize speech sounds, natural or synthesized, in ways which match the category boundaries in adult speech; very young infants have been shown to discriminate categorically speech sounds not found in their mother language (Kuhl 1987). In the motor theory presented in this paper, the explanation for this must be that the categorization of speech sounds is derived from organization prior to language, and specifically from the categorization of motor programs used in constructing and executing all forms of bodily action. What the rhesus monkey, or the chinchilla, share with the young human infant is very similar skeletal and muscular organization, with very similar processes for the neural control of movement generally. The specificity of the phoneme is the accidental result of the application of the different elementary motor subprograms to the muscles which went to form the articulatory system. The hierarchical structure of the motor system is built on the basis of a limited set of motor elements, which are combined in an unlimited number of ways (motor words), just as phonemes can form an unlimited number of spoken words. Words are a readout of neural structures in much the same way as actions or facial expressions. Words, as a neural structure, can be formed from the coactivation of the motor subprograms for phonemes, which are then melded or shingled together to form a distinct neural program for the whole word.

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Experimental approaches with the creation of artificial words have suggested that there can be a lawful relation between speech sounds and auditory or visual percepts. Research into sound symbolism strongly suggests that there is an isomorphism at the motor level between speech and the contents of perception. The object seen produces a motor pattern which is readily transferable as a motor program to the articulatory system and so becomes the associated word for the thing. A similar process is involved to that by which we transfer into our own neural organization the motor program underlying the facial expression of others, smiling, yawning or frowning, and so may reproduce in our own expression the expression which we perceive in another. The neuromuscular sequences which are the immediate motor programs underlying words are derived from the integration of the neural structures underlying perception in all its forms (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.) and motor organization. The assumption that the last stage of the perceptual process and the first stage of the motor process are one and the same is attractive, because it solves the problem of imitation. The subparts of the perception and action systems are thought of as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that are made to fit each other (Turvey 1977). As regards syntactic systems, if phonemes and word forms are derived ultimately from the motor system (if necessary modulated by the perceptual system) it seems inevitable that there must be a close relation between the organization of motor activity, motor syntax, and the organization of language, speech syntax. Putting the bits together, beside speech elements (phonemes), speech element compounds (words) and speech sequences (syntax word strings), on this theory one can now set a motor alphabet (of elementary motor programs for bodily action), an array of motor words (actions formed from motor elements) and motor sentences (formed from sequences of motor words). The relation between the motor theory and syntax is discussed more fully in section 2. As already indicated, the motor theory of the origin and development of language in this paper is also in substance a motor theory of the current functioning of language. A theory of this kind fits well with the current trend of research into neural motor control and the neural basis of perception. It also has points in common with what Pribram (1971: 369) described as his central motor theory of the origins of human language, based on a close relation between the imaging of action, perception and speech. It is built fairly directly on Lashley's (1951) ideas on the underlying uniformity of the neural organization of action and language, though it inverts his approach; where he started from the then current analysis of the hierarchical structure of language,

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the present approach takes motor programming as primary and derives the structure of language, as a motor phenomenon, from the necessary processes in the organization of action, as demonstrated in research into neural control of behavior patterns in a range of experimental animals. Because the motor theory of the origin and development of language is at the same time a theory of the current functioning of language, it is also potentially a theory of the ontogenetic as well as phylogenetic development of language. It can be a useful instrument for illuminating and investigating both speech and motor organization, at the neural level and in extended speech and action sequences.

2. The relation to syntax Section 1 has outlined the motor theory both as a theory of the origin of language and indeed also as a theory of current function. This section explores the possible relation between the motor theory and syntax. It reflects thought in progress rather than a finished and complete account of syntax in motor terms. First, a comment on iconicity. Iconicity is interpreted essentially as mapping or isomorphism from one structure to another. I interpret iconicity as meaning that there is picturing in language (and particularly in syntax) of something that is extralinguistic; picturing is taken to mean not only a visual picturing but a systematic similarity between the structure of language (and particularly of syntax) and extralinguistic structure (which may be motor or perceptual organization). This approach to iconicity of syntax is accordingly substantially different from those quite recently developed by Haiman (1985) and Givon (1979) and has links with Osgood's (1971) ideas on "Where sentences come from." The second important introductory comment is that whilst an account has been given of the motor theory, there still remains a very large question mark over the definition or boundaries of syntax. There is no consensus on what is to be treated as syntactic as contrasted with what is to be thought of as lexical or semantic. There have been many competing definitions of syntax since the ancient Greeks first used the term (Householder 1972). There have been even more competing "grammars" which implicitly assert their own definition of syntax. I take the simplest, most obvious, definition of "syntax" (returning to the Greek origin of syntax), that is the system by which words are put together in any language to convey meaning (Dik 1980: 2). I do not then accept the currently more fashionable view that syntax is to be defined as the formulation of rules to generate "acceptable" (i.e., grammatically well-formed) sentences

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in any language - this undervalues the importance of meaning in language and overvalues grammatical form, detaching the study of syntax from the use of language in the real world and from any consideration of its psychological or biological base. One further clarification: the approach does not rely on the now rather outmoded Chomskyan distinction between formal deep and surface structure; syntax is treated as monostratal (to use Gazdar's term cf. Gazdar et al. 1985), which at the same time of course does not exclude consideration of the neural structures underlying the utterance. There are three major distinguishable components of syntax on the interpretation of "syntax" adopted in this paper: 1. The principal categories of words (nouns and verbs, with the dependent categories of adjectives and adverbs). These together form the open class of content words. 2. Ordering of words, including subordering, that is, the clustering of words within a larger order. 3. Function words (including subwords, e.g., morphemes such as terminations of abstract nouns, verb inflections, etc.). On the view I am adopting, the syntax of a language results from the cooperation and interaction of these three components. Some brief justification for identifying these three components is offered. Little justification is needed for treating the open classes of noun, verb, adjective and adverb as a major component. It would be difficult to find any modern syntactic theory which denies or dispenses with these categories (Chomsky 1988; Gazdar et al. 1985; Wasow 1987) - though of course there have been assertions that some languages lack one or more of the categories. There is equally little difficulty about the second main component, ordering and subordering. Transformational and phrase structure grammars (new and old variants) are concerned very largely with ordering. It is inescapable that spoken language is a serial activity, where position of words in the string makes the difference to what is communicated. The third major component (the function words and subwords) is of special importance for syntax. The justification for treating this class as a distinct major component takes several forms: 1. The class is closed. One can enumerate the function words and subwords in any language in a way that is not possible for nouns, verbs, etc. Even more strikingly the number of function words and subwords is quite small. 2. There is evidence of a neurological distinction between function words and other words. The evidence comes from clinical treatment of the aphasias over a long period; many aphasiologists have noted that in cer-

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tain types of aphasia, content and function words are differentially affected. In Luria's "efferent aphasias" 2 ... the selection of content words is unimpaired, but the combination of words and their serial order may be severely disturbed. Speech may degenerate to a succession of telegraph-style utterances. Grammatical words such as conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns and articles disappear, roots of words are preserved better than grammatical endings, tense or gender. The nominative may be the only case that survives (Sommerhoff 1974: 362).

One of the more remarkable observations reported by Marin (Marin et al. 1976: 878) was where patients were asked to read a list of homophone pairs where one member of the pair was a content word and the other a function word. Η. T. was able to read "four" but not "for;" V. S. read "sum" but not "some;" and J. D. read "for" and "some" but not "four" or "sum." The difficulty in specifying such features as number, tense and aspect is not found with irregular forms. Both irregular plural nouns and irregular past tense forms are read several orders of magnitude better than their regular counterparts (Marin et al. 1976: 880).

"There is evidence that patients who have difficulty reading function words also have difficulty with abstract nouns" (Marin et al. 1976: 882). Howard (1985: 1) in a paper on agrammatism says: In languages with well-developed inflectional systems, agrammatism is particularly striking. Nouns tend to appear only in the nominative case, verbs in the infinitive, auxiliary verbs and other words from closed class verbs in the infinitive, auxiliary verbs and other words from closed classes are omitted.

Zurif (1982: 313), after discussing cases of patients with Broca's aphasia, who cannot manage syntax with the open/closed word class distinction, comments It may be hypothesized that the closed class access route normally plays a special role in the assignment of structural analysis. The notion here is that this route serves as input to a parser, permitting the on-line construction of a structural representation.

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Zurif (1983: 190) points out that "there was one exception to this general finding [inability to use function words], however; this involved prepositions, and then only when they are clearly and non-redundantly 'functional' - containing, for example, important locative information clustered with the relevant nouns." The fact that there are many very different types of aphasia with patients showing different clusters of deficits in no way weakens the force of the observation that brain damage can produce specifically grammatical, function word, deficits. Equally, evidence of the neurological distinctiveness of function words comes from stimulation experiments, in the clinical treatment of epilepsy. Following the technique of direct stimulation of the exposed cortex used originally by Penfield and Roberts (1959), Ojemann and Mateer (1979) have reported, amongst many striking observations, on the relation between speech and motor function. So has Ojemann (19836: 207): "There are also sites where electrically induced changes are confined to closed class words." Ojemann (1983a: 71) "found the identification of [cortical sites] with changes in closed but not open class words that we have related to syntax. ... At a few sites, only conjunctions, prepositions and verb endings were altered during stimulation ... These sites are interpreted as specific to syntax." It is a remarkable finding that the brain appears to recognize traditional parts of speech as different classes (almost as remarkable as animals making categorical distinctions of speech sounds in a way similar to that used by humans in distinguishing phonemes). 3. There is also evidence of the distinctiveness of function words and subwords from a totally different direction: that is, procedures for parsing natural language by computer. In some well-established computer parsing systems, function words have a distinct structural role, e.g., in ATN systems. (See Arbib, Conklin and Hill 1987: 67). More specifically, it is possible to construct a computer parsing program relying solely on a context-free listing of function words to parse sentences of any length. A system of this kind requires no lexical or grammatical information other than operationally determined groupings of function words and subwords (not strictly in terms of traditional parts of speech classes). (See also Tomita's [1986] context-free parsing algorithm, parsing from left to right and handling unknown words without special mechanisms.) This and similar computer parsing programs avoid the defects of many other parsing systems, which mingle semantic and syntactic elements so heavily that it is difficult to see any basic distinction between grammar and total language interpretation. If a large enough semantic data base is provided for a parsing program, or a restricted enough field defined (expert systems), then

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successful computer parsing is not surprising or illuminating for language function). Given this very rapid account of the main components of syntax, one can return in a more specific way to the question of how the motor theory is related to syntax. The question now takes the form of how each of the main components of syntax should be considered in the light of the motor theory, and how then the total functioning of syntax, as a result of cooperation and interaction between the three components, should be related to the motor theory. The motor theory asserts that motor programs and the principles for combining motor programs underlie the structure of language. At the same time there is a close link between motor control (action organization) and perception (the organization of vision). For each of the three components in syntax, the relation to the motor theory may take the form of: 1. A relation directly with the organization of action (what might be appropriately called "the grammar of action"). 2. A relation directly with the organization of perception (referred to by Gregory (1974: 622-629) as "the grammar of vision." Vision of course is motor-based, the eye sees by the combination of saccades 3 and fixations plus a constant (structural) tremor which appears to play an essential role in maintaining vision.

3. The motor theory in relation to the open categories (noun, verb, adjective and adverb) Each of the open categories contains an unlimited number of words. The explanation of the particular forms which these words take in relation to their meaning is a matter of the organization of the lexicon, and not one specifically of syntax. What is necessary in this paper is to attempt to explain how these categories as such, that is, noun, verb, adjective and adverb, derive form the motor system. On the theory, the existence of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs as broad categories must be explicable in terms of the neuromuscular organization of vision or the neuromuscular organization of bodily action. In vision the eye scans the visual scene by a succession of rapid eye movements interspersed with longer periods when the eye is foveated on the endpoint of the movement (saccades and fixations) coupled with the rather slower movement for accommodation and vergence (Carpenter 1981; Fuchs 1976; Henn and Hepp 1986; Zingale and Kowler 1987). The experience of the

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eye, in motor terms, is the experience of the eye muscles; perception sorts out the visual scene in terms of persisting or static configurations (visual objects) such as trees, cows, houses, of the particular relations between the objects, and of changes in the relative positions of the objects or of parts of the objects themselves. The most primitive division of what is perceived is into the static and the changing, which equate reliably with nouns and verbs. Adjectives emerge as static subpatterns of static objects, and adverbs as subcategorizations of movement patterns. Words referring to static objects are generated initially by the motor program (composed of saccades and fixations) responsible for scanning the object. This motor program would be available for conversion into an articulatory pattern derived from the distinctive features of the visual motor pattern. This is discussed more fully in my paper on "Structure and development of the lexicon in relation to the origin of language" presented to the eleventh International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (ICAES) in Vancouver (Allott 1983). As that paper showed, the categories of noun and verb will also include articulatory patterns (words) derived from motor programs for bodily action, e.g., the word hit from the program involved in the action of hitting.

4. The motor theory in relation to ordering and subordering Scanning of a visual scene by the eye is a serial process (Aslin 1982: 3), just as spoken language is a serial process. The iconicity of syntax in terms of word order derives from this. In vision, there are particular aspects of salience and emphasis (in terms of fixation duration) similar to those involved in the expression of salience and emphasis in word order. There are also aspects of salience and emphasis (taking the form or relative force) in the motor programs underlying bodily action and related to the content of an ordered speech utterance. Bodily action is also serial; we stretch out our arm, before we pick up a glass, before we bring the glass towards us, and then drink from it. There is less freedom of ordering in utterances relating to action than in utterances relating to visual perception. I am going to get in the car, The man got in the car, as against There was a car outside the house, The car was outside the house, Outside the house there was a car. The serial ordering of vision and of action provides, in the motor theory, the primitive foundation for the patterns of ordering in speech utterances. Of course, as language has become more complex, there has been great elaboration of ordering in language. However, one can still see a sharp distinction

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between ordering in the class of utterances patterned on static perception and in the class of utterances involving the representation of action. As regards subordering, that is, for example, the order of words in a cluster, such as a noun phrase with a number of adjectives, this also can be analyzed in terms of the organization of visual perception initially. So in a phrase such as A large white Siamese cat, the ordering of the adjectives can be related to the ordering of perception, and the ordering of the analysis of perception. Different languages may have different practices as regards pre-position or post-position of adjectives, but this does not in any way nullify the original source of the ordering in the ordering of perception.

5. The motor theory in relation to the class of function words The relation of the motor theory to the third major component of syntax, the closed class of function words, is in some ways the most important, and at the same time requires the breaking of the most new ground. The function word component of syntax is where the most considerable differences are observed between one language and another in terms of how far they depend on separate function words (as largely in English) and how far they depend on function subwords (inflections, morphemes for forming, e.g., abstract word classes, etc.). One other fundamental point where there is divergence from fashionable current schools of syntax theory is as follows. Since what we should be concerned with is how meaning is conveyed by the word string or utterance and not with whether "sentences are grammatically well formed," account has to be taken of the extent to which meaning can be conveyed without much use of function words, e.g., in telegraphese, in Broca's aphasia speech and, most of all, in current colloquial speech and writing. A striking example of the possibility of dispensing with all or most function words and still succeeding in conveying meaning using only word order and the major word categories can be seen every day in newspaper headlines (examples can readily be provided). To relate the class of function words to the motor theory, the first step is to prepare a list of words considered to be function words. This cannot be based on any simple treatment of traditional parts of speech, prepositions, conjunctions, etc., as function words. A function word or function subword is a speech form which has no definable external references and which acts in association with other function words to determine the role of nonfunction words in the word string or utterance (in English often to

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decide whether open class words are acting as nouns, verbs or adjectives and whether the nonfunction words are operating as subject, object, complement, etc.). If, as the theory being presented proposes, the syntactic components are derived from the motor control system (either from the organization of action from the motor control organization of perception), then the next stage is to consider how in detail the closed class of function words and subwords has analogues in the motor control system, or could be derived from aspects of motor programming required for Gregory's (1974: 622) "grammar of vision" or, "the grammar of action." To do this will require a detailed account of what is known about the functioning of visual perception (reasonably well known in its earliest stages at the level of control of movements of the eye, the characteristics of the extraocular muscles, the functioning of accommodation and so on) and the motor programming of bodily action (less well understood). To present this material would require a paper much longer than is possible on this occasion. But some light can be thrown on what is needed in due course by looking at the characteristics of function words and function subwords, to see how far they might be related to action or vision motor programming. Features of function words which can be compared with operational aspects of "action grammar" or "vision grammar" are: Timing. Words such as: After, before, while, when, since, until, then, now, still, already. There must be equivalents to these in the organization of action and vision. Direction and relative position. Words such as: from, at, with, by, between, within, towards, up, out, among, here. The eye's saccade and fixation programs are very much concerned with direction of movement from one point of fixation to another and the relative positions of salient features in the visual scene. There belong also the deictic function words which are closely related to bodily gesture. Hesitation, choice, change of direction links. Words such as: but, whether, and, or, either, nor, perhaps, and the interrogative words. In programming of bodily action there are analogues of the functions performed by these words. A line of action can be halted temporarily or changed; a new partial action added to the first action. Salience, emphasis. Words such as: Very, quite, rather, somewhat. These might be correlated with aspects of relative force in the control of action and focus or duration of fixation in visual perception. Sequence. Words such as: for, as, that, than.

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This first very rough classification is meant only as an indication of the lines along which study of the relation between motor programming and the class of function words might proceed. What it might lead to is a clearer idea of how the segments of motor programs might be fitted together, using our knowledge of syntax (in the sense proposed in this paper), to throw light on motor control, just as much as using motor control and vision research to help us to tackle syntax in a new and biologically more relevant way.

6. Speculative conclusion It has been argued that by language there can be a transfer of neural patterning from one brain to another. It is also proposed that the syntax of language (as well as phonology and lexical organization) has been derived from and modeled on preexisting neural organization for action and perception. Clinical evidence from the treatment of aphasia and experimental evidence of the effects of direct electrical stimulation of the cortex suggest that, in neural terms, syntax and lexicon are separable components in language production and comprehension. In practical terms, there can be fairly effective communication by speech or in writing without much syntactic structure. How in the light of this ought one to envisage the role of syntax in the total process by which the individual translates his experience into words and uses them to transmit the content of his experience to another individual? Rather speculatively, one might formulate an account on the following lines. The starting point for any particular use of language, an utterance or a written sentence, the situation from which the word string derives, is a perception or an action of the individual. At its simplest the content of the perception, what is perceived, is the relationship of elements in the visual scene. The simplest perception consists of a number of elements in the perceived scene together with their relation to one another, e.g., a cow is standing near a tree. These meaningful elements constitute the minimum semantic elements which will be taken into the utterance (or sentence) which describes the scene. The relation existing between the elements in the scene is transferred to constitute the relation between the elements in the word string which describe the visual scene. In terms of neural patterning, the precursor of the utterance is a compact form of the semantic elements derived from the perceived scene; this compact nonsyntactic form (with some analogy to telegraphese or newspaper headlines) has to be converted from a simultaneous patterning into the serial form required for the normal use of language. Words normally cannot be uttered all together, in one burst. The compact semantic form has to be unrolled

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into a serial syntactic form. This is done by the addition of function words, inflections, punctuation (pauses) and grouping of the meaningful (semantic) elements. In this expanded syntactic form, the content of the perception can be transmitted by speech or writing. The hearer of the utterance, or the reader of the written sentence, has to perform a process which is the reverse of that performed by the originator of the word string. The expanded syntactic form has to be stripped of function words, inflections etc. However, as they disappear, these syntactic elements guide the manner in which the content words, the semantic elements, are to be related in neural patterning. The hearer recreates for himself the compact semantic (neural) form from which the speaker's utterance originally started. The compact form is then interpreted by the receiver who, if the transmission is successful, will have a structured neural patterning corresponding to, isomorphic with, the neural patterning from which the word string was constructed in the first place. The transmitted patterning is interpreted by the receiver in much the same way as would be a perception originating within the receiver himself. This view of the functioning of language seems to be related to the concept of "inner speech" developed by Vygotsky (1962), and discussed by Luria (1977: 102). It makes it possible to understand "newspaper speak," telegraphese, the speech of Broca's aphasics, which can all dispense to a great extent with syntax by relying simply on the conjunction of the semantically weighty content words.

Notes 1. Afferent/Efferent: Movement (of an axon potential) from the periphery to the center is 'afferent.' Movement in the opposite direction, from the center to the periphery is 'efferent.' Axon: Nerve fibre leading from a neuron (nerve-cell) which transmits the all-or-nothing electrical signal (axon potential) to another nerve-cell or to a muscle end-organ. 2. See note 1. 3. Saccades: Fast involuntary eye movements which are part of the process of visual perception.

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Marin, O. S. Μ., Ε. M. Saffran and M. F. Schwartz 1976 Dissociations of language in aphasia: Implications for normal function. In S. R. Harnad, H. D. Steklis and J. Lancaster (eds.), Origins and evolution of language and speech. (New York Academy of Sciences Annals, Volume 280). 868-884. New York: The New York Academy of Sciences. Marsden, C. D„ J. C. Rothwell and B. L. Ray 1985 The use of peripheral feedback in the control of movement. In Ε. V. Evarts, S. P. Wise and D. Bousfield (eds.), The motor system in neurobiology. 215222. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Milner, P. M. 1970 Physiological

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Morse, P. A. 1976 Speech perception in the human infant and rhesus monkey. In S. R. Harnad, H. D. Steklis and J. Lancaster (eds.), Origin and evolution of language and speech. (New York Academy of Sciences Annals, Volume 280.) 694-707. New York: The New York Academy of Sciences. Nottebohm, F. 1976 Vocal tract and brain: A search for evolutionary bottlenecks. In S. R. Harnad, H. D. Steklis and J. Lancaster (eds.), Origins and evolution of language and speech. (New York Academy of Sciences Annals, Volume 280) 643-649. New York: The New York Academy of Sciences. Ojemann, G. A. 1983a Localisation of common cortex for motor sequencing and phoneme identification. In M. Studdert-Kennedy (ed.), Psychobiology of language. 69-76. Cambridge, MA: MIT. 1983b Brain organization for language from the perspective of electrical stimulation mapping. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6. 189-230. Ojemann, G. A. and C. Mateer 1979 Human language cortex: Identification of common sites for sequencing motor activity and speech. In U. Creutzfeldt, Η. Schreich and C. Schreiner (eds.), Hearing mechanisms and speech. 192-220. Berlin: Springer. Osgood, C. E. 1971 Where do sentences come from? In D. D. Steinberg and L. A. Jakobovits (eds.), Semantics: An inter-disciplinary reader. 497-529. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Penfield, W. and L. Roberts 1959 Speech and brain-mechanisms.

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Phillips, R. Ε. and F. W. Peck 1975 Brain organisation and neuromuscular control of vocalisation in birds. In P. Wright, P. G. Caryl and D. M. Vowles (eds.), Neural and endocrine aspects of behaviour in birds. 243-271. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Pribram, Κ. H. 1971 Languages of the brain. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Robertson, R. M. and K. G. Pearson 1985 Neural networks controlling locomotion in locusts. In Α. I. Seiverston (ed.), Model networks and behavior. 21-45. New York: Plenum. Schmidt, R. A. 1982 Motor control and learning. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Selverston, A. I. (ed.) 1985 Model networks and behavior. New York: Plenum. Sommerhoff, G. 1974 Logic of the living brain. London: Wiley. Sutherland, N. S. 1964 Visual discrimination in animals. British Medical Bulletin 20. 54-59. Taub, Ε., P. Perella and G. Barro 1973 Behavioral development after forelimb deafferentiation. Science 181. 959960. Thorpe, W. H. 1967 Animal vocalisation and communication. In C. H. Millikan and F. L. Darley (eds.), Brain mechanisms underlying speech and language. 2-12. New York: Grune and Stratton. Tomita, M. 1986 Efficient parsing for natural language: A fast algorithm for practical systems. Boston: Kluwer. Turvey, Μ. T. 1977 Preliminaries to a theory of action with reference to vision. In R. Shaw and J. Bransford (eds.), Perceiving, acting and knowing. 211-265. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Vygotsky, L. 1962 Thought and language. Cambridge: MA: MIT. Wasow, T. 1987 Postscript. In P. Sells, Lectures on contemporary syntactic theories. 193-205. Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information. Watson, J. B. 1925 Behaviorism. London: Kegan Paul. Welker, W. 1976 Brain evolution in mammals. In R. B. Masterton, C. B. Campbell, Μ. E. Bitterman and H. Hotton (eds.), Evolution of brain and behavior in vertebrates. 251-344. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

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The psychological basis of syntactic iconicity William E. Cooper, Gayle V. Klouda

Abstract Earlier attempts to formulate rules for fixed, ordering of conjuncts included both phonological and semantic constraints. Here we discuss evidence from the psychological literature which suggests that frozen conjunct order may reflect a perceptual processing principle whereby conjuncts which are easier to process tend to occupy first position in a freeze, enabling the listener to handle the preliminary processing of this conjunct while new information is still being presented by the speaker. Experimental studies involving phoneme monitoring and associative learning suggest that frozen ordering provides an advantage in perception but not learning.

When two words are conjoined in English, their ordering is often free to vary with littler or no change in the meaning of the phrase. This freedom of variation is particularly applicable to words that share relatively few semantic attributes (e.g., oranges and saucers vs. saucers and oranges, but apples and oranges vs. *oranges and apples and cups and saucers vs. *saucers and cups). The ordering of terms, when fixed in a conjoined phrase, may be determined by semantic and/or phonological factors, as described in earlier work by Abraham (1950), Malkiel (1959) and Cooper and Ross (1975). When semantically determined, the first term of a fixed pair tends to refer to concepts like here (here and there), now (now and then), up (up and down), adult (man and boy), male (man and woman), singular (singular and plural), animate (people and things), solid (land and sea), front (front and back), and agent (agent and patient), among others. In some cases, the ordering is quite regular and extensive. Solid, for example, appears not only in the prototypical case solid and liquid, but also in conjoined pairs such as Army and Navy, field and stream, and surf and turf. One of the most extensive domains of fixed ordering involves the semantic attribute of verticality, whereby up precedes down in prototypical cases like (1), and in body parts like (2), for example:

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(1)

a .up and down b. peak and valley c. rise and fall d. over and under e. upstairs and downstairs f. hill and dale g. high and low h. above and below i. raise or lower j. top and bottom k. ascending and descending 1. upper and lower

(2)

a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k.

head and shoulders nose and throat hands and feet cerebral-spinal fingers and toes arms and legs heads or tails head over heels head to toe tooth and nail skull and bones

The priority of up vs. down extends to other linguistic domains, including affixation, where up occurs more prevalently than down, by an estimated thirty percent according to Cooper and Ross (1975), as in example (3): (3)

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

mountaintop / *mountaindown upstart / *downstart uproar / *downroar highlight / *lowlight uphold / *downhold upbraid / *downbraid Seven-Up / * Seven-Down

Phonological determinants of fixed ordering are most readily revealed in conjoined or hyphenated minimal pairs, sometimes involving nonsense syllables that convey meaning only within the context of pairing. Phonological pri-

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ority is generally given to words with fewer syllables (Pänini's Law), shorter resonant nuclei, fewer initial consonants, a less obstruent initial segment, a relatively high front vowel, more final consonants, and a more obstruent final segment, if both first and second terms end in a single consonant (see Cooper and Ross 1975). For example priority is given to relatively high front vowels as in example (4): a. b. c. d. e. f.

fiddle-faddle criss cross mishmash wigwag flim-flam pitter-patter g· chitchat h. zig zag i. tick tock j- flip flop k. singsong 1. ding dong m. ping pong The priority of a weaker initial obstruent is illustrated in (5): a. b. c. d. e. f. g· h. i. j· k. 1. m. n.

wear and tear walkie-talkie razzle-dazzle wingding wheel and deal wham bam roly-poly razzamatazz namby-pamby mumbo-jumbo hobnob willy-nilly rough and tough super-duper

In some cases of priority (e.g., surfand turf), semantic (land before sea) and phonological (relatively weak before strong initial obstruent) factors could

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each account for the fixed ordering. When one departs from the neatness of minimal pairs and enters the realm in which semantic and phonological factors are represented in multiple fashion, the tendency for fixed ordering declines. For present purposes, however, we will focus on those areas in which ordering is most clearly fixed, asking whether such ordering can be explained in terms of any psychological principles that govern language behavior. We will first discuss this possibility with respect to phonologically determined orderings and then with respect to semantically determined ones.

Phonological ordering Why, from the standpoint of the language user, should ordering ever be determined by phonological factors such as those cited above? Clearly, our vocal apparatus and our hearing apparatus are not organized to prevent us from speaking or hearing orderings that are opposite the ones fixed by phonological determinants, and yet there might be some relative advantage to speaking and/or hearing orderings that accord with these determinants. In addition, it is possible that, for the listener, there is some advantage beyond the earliest levels of perception that involve memory. And finally, it is possible that ordering by phonological determinants provides some advantage in language learning. A few experiments have been conducted during the past decade that begin to shed light on these questions. One of the experimental techniques that has been used most effectively to test ease of perceptual processing is the task of phoneme monitoring (Foss 1969). In this task, a listener is asked to press a button on each trial as soon as the listener hears a prespecified phoneme at the beginning of a syllable. The reaction time, measured from the onset of the phoneme to the listener's response, is sensitive to a variety of factors, including whether or not the target-bearing syllable is stressed and whether or not this syllable is contained in a word with high frequency of usage in the language (Cutler 1976). The reaction times are shorter for targets within stressed syllables and within words of high frequency usage. Applying the technique to the question of whether phonological determinants of fixed ordering serve as an aid to perceptual processing, Cutler and Cooper (1978) examined phoneme monitoring for strings of nonsense syllables bearing a phonological sequence that was consistent or inconsistent with one of two main ordering determinants. The two determinants tested were Pänini's rule, whereby a sequence of monosyllable-bisyllable is preferred

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over a sequence of bisyllable-monosyllable, and the rule of vowel height, whereby a sequence of /I/-/ae/ is preferred over a sequence of /ae/-/I/. The results indicated significantly shorter reaction time for target phonemes in the preferred sequence for Pänini's rule but not for vowel height. While the difference for the two phonological determinants could reflect a difference in their influence on perceptual processing, it could also reflect a difference in the manner in which the syllable sequences were presented in the two tests. For Pänini's rule, the syllables were presented in discrete pairs, with a longer interstimulus interval between pairs than within pairs, analogous to the presentation of a sequence of hyphenated expressions in ordinary language. For vowel height, however, the interstimulus interval was the same within and between pairs. The results for Pänini's rule indicate that one key phonological determinant of sequence order does facilitate early perceptual processing of speech. Whether or not these results imply that this phonological determinant exists as a consequence of processing ease, or, alternatively, as a cause of it, cannot be ascertained. Tests of listener's preference for nonsense sequences that are consistent or inconsistent with phonological determinants of fixed order provide further indication that the determinants influence psychological judgments (Pinker and Birdsong 1979). Preferences are revealed for Pänini's law, vowel height, and some of the other phonological determinants discussed earlier. These results suggest that new sequences entering the language are likely to be consistent with phonological determinants of ordering, but again they cannot shed light on the directionality of causality between linguistic and psychological concerns. It could be that the phonological determinants are obeyed in new preference judgments because of an underlying psychological advantage or because the existing language orderings have influenced their preference. The most general psychological explanation of the phonological determinants of fixed order involves the notion that relatively short phonological material appears prior to relatively long phonological material, because the processing system as a whole needs to be less burdened earlier in a sequence when additional information is still incoming (Cooper and Ross 1975). The results for Pänini's law in phoneme monitoring (Cutler and Cooper 1978) and results for a variety of phonological determinants in preference testing (Pinker and Birdsong 1979) are generally consistent with this explanation. Moreover, the explanation can itself be viewed as part of a more general principle of speech processing that appears to account for a variety of syntactic (Bever 1970) and pragmatic (e.g., Chafe 1970) constraints on sequencing in language. Be it new information, heavy noun phrases, or complex phonolog-

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ical material, language is sequenced in such a fashion that these relatively difficult-to-process elements are placed at the end of a string. Such placement is particularly advantageous when the speaker inserts a pause before the next string, since the listener can then utilize this extra time window to complete the processing of complex material without immediately being confronted with new incoming material.

Semantic ordering Cooper and Ross (1975) suggest that certain semantic as well as phonological determinants of fixed order may be successfully explained in terms of the ease of processing of the ordered elements. We will consider this possibility with respect to the domain of spatial relations. As noted at the outset of this paper, spatial relations represent one of the most extensive domains of semantic fixed ordering. In addition, an in depth study of space-axis referents offers an opportunity to compare order relations observed in language with a considerable body of psychological evidence concerning the processing of spatial information. In particular, we will consider psychological evidence for the semantic relations of up-down, right-left, and vertical-horizontal. Vertical vs. horizontal. Referents for the vertical dimension generally precede those for the horizontal in freezes (Cooper and Ross 1975), for example: (6)

a. b. c. d. e.

top right comer height and width downright row and column latitude and longitude

This same ordering relation is observed as well for geographical referents: (7)

a. north, south, east, and west b. northwest c. southeast d. north by northwest e. south by southeast

Cooper and Ross (1975) suggest that vertical referents may take precedence over horizontal referents because verticality information may be processed more easily than horizontal information by the human organism. Fol-

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lowing the reasoning presented for phonological constraints, placing vertical information earlier in a sentence should be advantageous to the listener. A series of recent studies provide direct evidence of the priority of the vertical dimension (Braine, Relyea and Davidman 1981; Corballis and Beale 1976; Farrell 1979; Fisher 1979; Fisher and Braine 1982; Maki and Braine 1985; Maki, Grandy and Hauge 1979; Maki, Maki, and Marsh 1977; Scholl and Egeth 1981). Farrell (1979) compared response times for the processing of direction for up and down arrows and for left and right arrows in visual displays. His results indicate that identification of the right-left orientation of shapes is more difficult than identification of the up-down orientation. Analogously, subjects take longer to judge the location of horizontal stimuli than to judge the location of vertical stimuli (e.g., Maki, Grandy and Hauge 1979). Finally, a processing advantage for the vertical dimension has also been found in the identification of map locations (Scholl and Egeth 1981). Response latencies were longer for east-west identifications than for northsouth identifications. These studies clearly indicate the asymmetry of the perceived vertical dimension. Thus, for vertical and horizontal spatial referents, those items which are most likely to occupy place one in a freeze are also processed more easily and more quickly by our perceptual systems, allowing the listener to be less burdened early in the sequence, when additional information is still incoming. It should be noted, however, that whether or not these spatial determinants for word order exist as a consequence of processing ease, or alternatively, as a cause of it, cannot be ascertained. Up vs. down. As noted earlier, within the vertical dimension, conjuncts which refer to up generally precede those which refer to down (e.g., up and down, over and under, above and below, top and bottom), and this updown order extends as well to geographical referents such as north and south (Cooper and Ross 1975). Cooper and Ross (1975) reviewed some evidence indicating that the processing of up also takes place more rapidly and with greater ease than the processing of down in visual perception and performance. For example, Seymour (1969) found that subjects judged whether words were presented above a reference square significantly faster than they judged whether words were presented below the square, and Chase and Clark (1971) found that subjects encoded the word above significantly faster than the word below. More recent studies provide additional support for the perceptual asymmetry between above and below (Farrell 1979; Just and Carpenter 1975; Maki, Maki and Marsh 1977). Just and Carpenter (1975) showed that sentences and pictures can be coded more quickly when they refer to relations such as

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above, high, and over as opposed to below, low, and under. Farrell (1979) found that the direction of up arrows was consistently processed faster than the direction of down arrows. Finally, Maki, Maki and Marsh (1977) asked subjects to decide whether a sentence correctly described either the location of two states or of two symbols presented above the sentences. For sentences containing spatial relations (above and below) and those containing compass relations (north and south), up was responded to faster than down. Taken together these studies indicate the asymmetry of the up-down dimension, indicating again that those items which are most likely to occupy place one in a freeze are also likely to be processed most easily. Right vs. left. The data for the horizontal dimension are somewhat less clear, both with respect to word order constraints and with respcct to psychological evidence. First, with respect to word order, the data for English do not reveal the presence of any highly systematic ordering relation between the basic referents for left and right (e.g., right or left hand, left or right hand). However right does occur more often than left in affixation. Also, there is a systematic ordering of east and west (Cooper and Ross 1975). For example: (8)

a. This highway runs east and west. b. Everyone went to the East-West game.

With respect to the psychological evidence, the picture is also somewhat confused. Some recent studies do indicate an asymmetry for horizontal data. For example, Maki, Maki and Marsh (1977) found that right and east were judged more quickly than left and west for some stimuli but not for others. However, Farrell (1979) found that spatial codes for left and right were much less asymmetrical than were codes for up and down. He also points out that while horizontal position can be described in a neutral fashion (e.g., A is beside B), this is not possible in the vertical dimension. Objects are either above or below, higher or lower than, on top of or underneath each other. It has been suggested that spatial codes for the vertical dimension may be more asymmetrical than codes for the horizontal dimension because the ground serves as a natural referent point for the vertical dimension (Clark 1973; Farrell 1979). Up is seen as a natural direction away from the referent, creating a polar asymmetry in which up and down are viewed as positive and negative poles. The horizontal dimension is viewed as less asymmetrical because of the absence of such a natural referent. Maki, Grandy and Hauge (1979) also point out that semantic concepts for left and right may be somewhat ambiguous since in face-to-face conversations these terms are interpreted relative to the orientation of the speaker's body. Finally, it has

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also been argued that the bilateral symmetry of the nervous system may result in right-left confusions (see Corballis and Beale 1976).

Conclusion In the case of both phonological and semantic determinants of fixed ordering, it appears that there is a strong tendency in English for material that is psychologically easier to process to be placed before material that involves relatively greater processing difficulty. As observed at the end of the section on phonological determinants, such placement is consistent with a balanced overall distribution of processing load, insofar as the speaker-hearer often enjoys a momentary but vital hiatus in the need to process new material at the ends of major constituents, allowing time to digest the relatively difficult material that appears near the ends of such units. In making the case for this general principle, we have focused on a narrow range of phonological and semantic determinants. To the extent that the principle represents at least one of the major principles underlying fixed ordering, we would expect it to be obeyed for a very large variety of phonological and semantic determinants in English and in other languages. It is immediately clear, however, that semantic determinants of fixed ordering in some other languages, such as Hindi and Yiddish (e.g., Cooper and Ross 1975), are themselves systematically at odds with the ordering found in English, suggesting that either additional, overriding principles are sometimes at work, or, contrary to the case made here, that the processing load principle does not underlie the regularities observed in English. The choice between these two very different possibilities awaits a more thorough examination of the linguistic and psychological factors associated with the speaker-hearer of such non-English languages.

References Abraham, R. M. 1950 Fixed order of coordinates: A study in lexicography. Modern Language Journal 34. 276-287. Bever, T. G. 1970 The cognitive basis for linguistic structures. Cognition and the development of language. New York: Wiley. Braine, L. G., L. Relyea and L. Davidman 1981 On how adults identify the orientation of a shape. Perception and Psychophysics 29. 138-144.

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Chafe, W. L. 1970 Meaning and the structure of language. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Chase, W. G. and Η. H. Clark 1971 Semantics in the perception of verticality. British Journal of Psychology 2. 311-326. Clark, Η. H. 1973 Space, time, semantics and the child. In Τ. E. Moore (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. 28-64. New York: Academic. Cooper, W. E. and J. R. Ross 1975 World order. In R. E. Grossmann, L. J. San and T. J. Vance (eds.), Papers from the parasession on functionalism in linguistics. 63-111. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Corballis, M. C. and I. L. Beale 1976 The psychology

of left and right. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Cutler, A. 1976 Phoneme-monitoring reaction time as a function of preceding intonation contour. Perception and Psychophysics 20. 55-60. Cutler, A. and W. E. Cooper 1978 Phoneme monitoring in the context of different phonetic sequences. Journal of Phonetics 6. 221-225. Farrell, W. S. 1979 Coding left and right. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 5, 42-51. Fisher, C. B. 1979 Children's memory for orientation in the absence of external cues. Child Development 50. 1088-1092. Fisher, C. B. and L. G. Braine 1982 Left-right coding in children: Implications for adult performance. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 20. 305-307. Foss, D. J. 1969 Decision processes during sentence comprehension: Effects of lexical item difficulty and position upon decision times. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 8. 457-462. Just, M. A. and P. A. Carpenter 1975 The semantics of locative information in pictures and mental images. British Journal of Psychology 66. 427-441. Maki, R. H. and L. G. Braine 1985 The role of verbal labels in the judgement of orientation and location. Perception 14. 67-80.

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Maki, R. H„ C. A. Grandy and G. Hauge 1979 Why is telling right from left more difficult than telling above from below. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 5. 52-67. Maki, R. H„ W. S. Maki and L. G. Marsh 1977 Processing locational and orientational information. Memory and Cognition 5. 602-612. Malkiel, Y. 1959 Studies in irreversible binominals. Lingua 8. 113-160. Pinker, S. and D. Birdsong 1979 Speaker's sensitivity to rules of frozen word order. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 18. 497-508. Scholl, Μ. J. and Η. E. Egeth 1981 Right-left confusion in the adult: A verbal labeling effect. Memory and Cognition 9. 339-350. Seymour, R. Η. K. 1969 Response latencies in judgements of spatial location. British Journal of Experimental Psychology 60. 31-39

Spatial structure as a syntactical or a cognitive operation: Evidence from signing and nonsigning children Filip Loncke, Sophie Quertinmont

Abstract One of the most striking aspects of sign language grammar is its use of space. Sign language syntax can be described as a syntax of marking loci, establishing syntactical relations between loci in space and referencing to a whole spatial framework. From a developmental point of view this phenomenon offers an interesting opportunity to disentangle cognitive and linguistic abilities. Hearing-speaking children can speak about spatial events without showing their grasp of the spatial referential coordinates. Signing children can appropriately use space in a grammatical way, but — in the same sentence neglect their direct-referential spatial value. In our former research we have been dealing with the issue of nativeness of sign language use (Loncke and Quertinmont 1987; Quertinmont et al. 1989). The main question we asked was if the difference between native and non-native users of sign language was rather a quantitative or a qualitative one. If nativeness is a quantitative phenomenon, then it should be possible to calculate the nativeness by making an addition of certain sign language mechanisms, by making the addition of morphemes and so on. If nativeness is a qualitative phenomenon, then it is not so much a question of more or less, but rather a matter of selective use of sign language mechanisms, accurate use of morphosyntactical rules and the combination of morphemes. Deaf children of deaf parents have been considered generally as being the native users of sign language: they are exposed to a sign language in nearly equivalent psycholinguistic conditions as normal hearing children acquiring a spoken language. On the other hand, deaf children of hearing parents acquire sign language under very differing and varying circumstances. It may be that the hearing parents learn to sign as a second language. However, in most of the cases this group of children is only seldom exposed to a consistent and rich form of signing at home. A major group among deaf children acquires

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sign language as a direct result of interactions with other deaf children, in contacts with some form of signing by hearing adults and sometimes in an occasional contact with signing adults. During the last three years we have been studying sign language use in deaf school children. Many of these children are deaf children of hearing parents and, therefore, lacked exposure to sign language from their infant years. A small group, however, were deaf children of deaf parents, using sign language at home in a normal acquisition pattern. The method we have been using was eliciting sign language utterances by asking the children to tell stories, to describe drawings or to retell cartoons. More specifically, we have been concentrating on what we have called "sign language mechanisms", like subject or object incorporation, localization, typical sign language order principles, directionality and - recently spatiality. These mechanisms are surely not the only ones in sign language, but they are interesting, because they are easy to elicit and because they can be described as a coordination of morphosyntactical operations. We came out with the hypothesis that deaf children indeed differ in nativeness, if nativeness is seen as a fluent and adequate mastery of the morphosyntactical system. Comparing deaf children of deaf parents with deaf children of hearing parents, we came to the following conclusions: 1. Several sign language mechanisms seem to be readily available to the non-native user as well as to the native users of sign language. Examples are: direct localization and subject or object incorporation. 2. Some sign language mechanisms are less available to non-native users. Examples are directionality and sign language order (Loncke and Quertinmont 1987; Quertinmont et al. 1989). The explanation of this finding seemed to be that the former mechanisms (direct localization and subject or object incorporation) are based on rather simple morphosyntactical operations. Direct localization is one morphosyntactical marking of a sign: signing a locus in the signing space. Moreover, object incorporation requires only a simple morphological operation: for example, substituting the hand configuration for the hand configuration of the implied object sign. On the other hand, directionality requires implicit localization and its integration into a sentence. In other words, directionality seems to be sign language use at a "higher" level. In this approach we felt that nativeness could be measured or described as the ability to use morphosyntactical rules.

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However, there might be a different explanation. It could be that mechanisms such as direct localization or object incorporation are not so much linguistic morphosyntactical operations in non-native deaf children, but rather that they are based on a pantomimic description. On the surface, direct localization based on morphosyntactical operations, or direct localization based on pantomimic description, might seem exactly the same. The pantomimic and the linguistic morphosyntactical strategy might be equally valuable for these simpler operations. However, for more complex operations, the pantomimic description strategy might be overruled by the linguistic strategy. In directionality, for example, one is supposed to work with a mental network of marked points in space, which keep their marked value throughout the sentence or throughout a series of sentences. We decided to try to investigate this problem with another sign language mechanism, where the possible conflict between two competing strategies might be even more pronounced: spatiality. Spatiality is known to be a very powerful syntactical mechanism in sign language. In general, spatiality in sign languages is used in two ways: 1. A syntactical-metaphorical spatiality: where the marked points in space do not represent exact localizations in real space. The loci serve primarily as referential points. 2. A descriptive spatiality: where space is used to represent relationships which refer to real spatial relationships. In adult sign language, the syntactical-metaphorical spatiality and the descriptive spatiality are established with the same morphosyntactical rules. In children, however, there might be a dissociation between these two types of spatiality. Syntactical metaphorical spatiality presupposes the fluent mastery of morphosyntactical operations. It is thus only a linguistic phenomenon. Descriptive spatiality can also be based on a cognitive mental representation of what is going on in space. It presupposes the mental capacity and the awareness of how things are localized in space, how they spatially relate to each other, and how changes of action movement result in changes in the spatial setup. This is a matter of cognitive development. It has been described within Piaget's work (e.g., Piaget and Inhelder 1956; Piaget, Inhelder and Szeminska 1960). Referring back to our initial problem between two possible competing strategies to produce sign language mechanisms - a linguistic and a pantomimic-cognitive strategy - we might suppose that spatiality can give interesting evidence.

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A comparison between the performances of deaf children of deaf parents on the one hand and those of deaf children of hearing parents on the other, can be helpful here. Deaf children of deaf parents are generally considered to be the "native users" of sign language, because its acquisition can occur under similar conditions as the acquisition of spoken language in hearing children. Deaf children of hearing parents, for their part, normally do not have adult sign language models in their direct environment, which makes their acquisition of sign language rather atypical (see Loncke et al. 1989; Quertinmont et al. 1989). If morphosyntactical and cognitive structuring are two independent phenomena, then we should find utterances in descriptive spatiality in deaf children of deaf parents with an inaccurate spatial representation and with an accurate morphosyntactical coreferential use. Before the ages of seven to eight, children should be able to master the morphosyntactical rules of sign language and they should be able to use spatial grammar to represent real spatial relationships, even if the marked loci do not correspond accurately with the real loci in the real spatial network. On the other hand, we should find in some deaf children of hearing parents an accurate spatial representation and a lack of morphosyntactical correspondence. Deaf children of hearing parents of seven to eight up to twelve years of age very often show an insufficient mastery of the morphosyntactical rules in order to be able to express in a grammatical-syntactical way a series of complex changing relationships. On the other hand, this is the age where they should be able to mentally fully grasp a system of spatial coordinates and to represent mentally a map of loci. Hearing children can serve as control subjects: they will certainly use pantomimic representation and they will try to establish real space as accurately as possible. Their performance will be a direct measure of their cognitive developmental level.

Pilot study We presented a series of small tests to hearing and deaf children. One test measured a general cognitive ability to analyze two-dimensional figures into spatial patterns (Raven 1956), while another was aimed at checking the child's ability to store and retrieve schematic-abstract two-dimensional patterns (Benton 1953). We also used a clinical Piagetian test (Fogelman 1970) to check the child's insight into spatiality as a way of organizing according to coordinates.

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All children watched a cartoon entitled "Aikido Kid," where a series of events takes places in space. The film shows a hand pushing the elevator button. The elevator doors open and - by suggesting an inward (into the elevator) movement of the camera - it is as if someone is entering the elevator. The figure remains unseen until the end of the film, which makes the observers concentrate more on the spatiality. The hand selects the fourth floor button. The elevator rises and the lights indicating the successive floors light up. At the fourth floor, the doors open and - again by the suggestion of a traveling camera - the figures enters a corridor, first to the left. After that, the figure turns to the right and then again to the right. At the end of the corridor the figure opens a door with a key. The figures is now shown as a young lady approaching a baby in a play-pen. The mother stretches out her hands, and reaches for the baby (Aikido Kid), who pulls the mother into the play-pen. The children watched the film carefully. The deaf children were then asked to retell the film in sign language. The hearing children told the story orally.

The children We were mainly interested in the effect of age and of nativeness on the way spatiality is structured. From a Piagetian point of view, the child should achieve the level of operational thinking, in order to be able to conceptualize space as being a three-dimensional entity, which can be defined in relation to three coordinates. In Piagetian theory the child struggles with this concept until the age of nine (Piaget and Inhelder 1956). From a linguistic point of view, spatiality should be conceived as a syntactical technique to mark points in space and to take these points into account for agreement between the verb signs and their arguments. Native users of sign language seem to master this system at an earlier stage in their acquisition than non-active signing children.

Results and discussion In general, we see a tendency for deaf children of deaf parents to have less problems in dealing with the linguistic aspects of spatiality, at an age where they are still struggling with the cognitive aspects of space. In other words, the children feel comfortable in organizing the signing space as a network of linguistic points, which are related to each other through syntactical oper-

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ations like agreement of verbs, even if the marked points in space and their spatial relations cannot serve as a direct cognitive mapping of points in space. On the other hand, deaf children of hearing parents tend to show the opposite pattern: while they continue to struggle with the linguistic principles of agreement after the age of eight, by that time they finally master the cognitive ability to localize points according to reality. Hearing children seem to feel much less the need for marking points in space, which retain their value after the point has been indicated. This seems to indicate that spatial conceptualization only serves a direct momentary structuring function. Finally, our data seem to present evidence for a specificity of linguistic spatial structuring in sign language. This specificity means that it is not directly built on a general cognitive spatial representational ability. Instead, it can be acquired as a separate morphosyntactical referential technique for locating points in space, without necessarily being a true representation of reality.

Conclusion Deaf children seem to ignore or to neglect the opportunities of direct access to the meaning of utterances, as would be the case if they had adopted an iconic strategy of understanding and production. Instead they rather tend to select those morphemic elements of their language, which are part of their inventory of significant forms: a finite and discontinuous set of hand configurations, movements, and gestures towards places at or around the body of the signing person. However, this does not imply that these sign language productions are totally devoid of the principles underlying syntactic iconicity. On the contrary, the most powerful descriptive models of sign language are those which emphasize the dual structure of this language. Thus, the language structures are based on general cognitive and perceptual organizing principles of visualsequential information. This becomes obvious from the way lexical elements are being ordered: first the nonmobile, inanimate elements, and afterwards the active agents, as if in preparing a scenario. This reliance upon and correspondence with a visual and iconic logic does not interfere in any way with the formal principles of language organization. Sign language functions simultaneously on perfectly formally defined morphophonologial and morphosyntactical levels.

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Interestingly e n o u g h , deaf sign language users s e e m to prefer production and reception strategies w h i c h rely almost entirely u p o n the more formal n o n i c o n i c structural e l e m e n t s o f the language. Indeed, our experiments h a v e s h o w n that e v e n in c a s e s where the iconic strategy s e e m s to be inviting (at least as an alternative c h o i c e or possibility to avoid the more difficult morphosyntactical m e c h a n i s m s ) , y o u n g deaf signers appear to prefer to rely upon an linguistic, noniconic, morphosyntactical oriented strategy.

References Benton, A. 1953 Test de retention visuelle. Paris: Centre de Psychologie Appliquee. Fogelman, K. R. 1970 Piagetian tests for the primary school. Windsor, Berkshire: National Foundation of Educational Research. Loncke, F. and S. Quertinmont 1987 The development of spatial grammar in deaf children. Paper presented at the Fourth International Symposium on Sign Language Research. Lappeenrante, Finland, July 15-19. Loncke, F., S. Quertinmont and P. Ferreyra 1989 Signeurs de naissance ou signeurs d'enfance? In S. Quertinment and F. Loncke (eds.), Etudes Europeennes en langues des signes. 141-186 Collection Surdite. Brussels: Edirsa. Piaget, J. and B. Inhelder 1956 The child's conception of space. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Piaget, J., B. Inhelder and A. Szeminska 1960 The child's conception of geometry. New York: Basic Books. Quertinmont, S., P. Ferreyra, A. F. Countet and F. Loncke 1989 Acquisition of grammatical aspects of sign language in deaf children. In International Sign Linguistics Association (ed.), Language development and sign language. (Monograph No. 1) 54-62. University of Bristol: Centre for Deaf Studies. Raven, J. C. 1956 The coloured progressive matrices: Revised order. London: Harrap.

Relationship between language and motor action revisited David McNeill

Abstract Speakers were set the task of describing actions in realtime, while they carried them out. Descriptions and actions spontaneously coalesced to form perfective and imperfective aspectual relations. Action and speech indexed each other, and one or the other would he modified in order to keep the proper temporal arrangement and create the perspective. Aspect was created this way even though the perfective-imperfective distinction is not marked consistently by English linguistic rules. To a speaker/actor, action and speech seem to reduce mentally to two single moments that can be coordinated even though, in fact, they are extended in time. More than a decade ago I reported the results of an experiment in which subjects performed actions and described their actions at the same time, as they were performing them (McNeill 1980). The task set before the subjects was to assemble a window type aquarium. As they picked up and manipulated the parts of the aquarium (tubing, filter, pump, etc.), they kept up a running description of their movements and the objects they were manipulating. Every subject spoke and moved concurrently. Movements and self-descriptions were videotaped and analyzed in terms of the synchronization of speech and action. One might suppose that what appears in this situation is simply the referential use of language: an action occurs - reaching out and closing the hand around something - and a verb is found to describe this action: I'm picking this up. However, this expectation does not take into account the temporal relationship of speech and action. Temporal evidence suggests that something else is also occurring that goes beyond reference. Not only is the action categorized as being of such and such a type (PICKING UP), the subjects were thinking of the movements and their speech together, as related components of a single system. The combination of speech and action in this system creates a unique situation whereby speech can affect action and action speech. Their relationship is meaningful and the temporal relationship between them helps to construct this meaning. My purpose in this paper is to revisit the description-and-action experiment and consider again what we glean of the

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relationship of language to action. Several significant differences from the original paper justify a second visit, not the least being the following change. Whereas, in 1980, I regarded language as the dependent variable of the experiment I now regard it as the independent variable. Inverting the conception of the experiment in this way resolves many ambiguities and exceptions that were left open in the earlier analysis. Working together, speech and action construct the dimension of aspect. Comrie (1976) describes aspect as a kind of temporal perspective on the action. The imperfective aspect is looking at the action from the inside, taking an expanded view of it, as if it were ongoing. Different varieties of the imperfect can be discerned (progressive, durative, inchoative, etc.), but only the progressive will be a factor in the present experiment. The perfective aspect is looking at the action from the outside, as if it were a completed whole. It is important to stress that these are not inherent qualities of actions themselves, but are optional viewpoints highlighted by the manner of using language to present the action and that, in general, a given action may be viewed either perfectively or imperfectively. I will show in this paper that a given action may actually be performed differently depending on the aspectual perspective taken toward it. The change in performance has the effect of materializing the aspectual vantage point. In English, as Comrie notes, perfective/imperfective is not a primary grammatical distinction. Nonetheless, aspect can be conveyed in English speech in various ways. The progressive species of the imperfective is marked with the "-ing" form. The perfective does not have its own morphological index, and periphrastic or lexical means for marking perfective aspect are used. Such contrasts as I'm picking them up (imperfective) and I picked them all up (perfective) are illustrations. Aspect marking generally refers to actions that are not simultaneous with speech. But what if the action is one's own and is described on-line, while the action is taking place? This change produces a fundamental shift in the conditions of speaking and acting. Under these new conditions action can be modified by its own description, just as the description can be shaped by the action. In this unusual situation we want to know what is modified - speech, action or both? How do the changes create an aspectual viewpoint? What are the effects of actions of different kinds? These are some of the questions addressed by the experiment I will describe.

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Example of speech and action in close proximity The following illustrates one speaker's coordinated speech and action. The example occurred while the subject was placing part of the aquarium's water filter - a tube - inside another part - the container (the subjects were faculty and students at the University of Chicago in the mid-1970s and several have become prominent figures in psycholinguistics and developmental psychology - but not in the assembly of aquariums); this is subject WM (square brackets mark the boundaries of the movements in relation to the speech; the movements themselves are described in italics): [well] [...] I'm picking this up with my left hand [... and I] ['m] (J) (2) (3) (4) (1) Left hand rises. (2) Left hand grasps tube and lifts. (3) Right hand opens. (4) Right hand grasps container and lifts. grasping this with my right hand ... and holding it [...] [and then I'm plac] [ing] this. (5) (6) (7) (5) Left hand moves tubes over container. (6) Suspends tube vertically container. (7) Left hand drops tube down partially, an inch.

over

[...] I'm placing the ... tube ... the other thing which I'm holding steady with my right (8)

(8) Rotates tube back and forth.

hand [...] [and ] I'm [just] drop[]ping it in ... leaving [] go with my left hand (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (9) Left hand drops tube into container. (10) Lifts index finger to push down tube. (11) Pushes down. (12) Maximum extent of the push down. (13) Lifts left hand away from tube. The example illustrates a number of features. First, the logical type of action varies: some are "activities" (Vendler 1967), such as HOLDING IT, while others are "accomplishments," such as DROPPING IT (to designate actions as opposed to the verbs referring to them, I will write the description in small caps). Actions of the first kind are logically unbounded, while those of the second kind have, as part of their logical content, the attainment of an end-

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point (such as actually having dropped the object: these is no corresponding essential endpoint to holding the object). A second important distinction is the choice of linguistic form, and there are just two forms in these descriptions, verbs marked for the progressive vs. nonprogressive. This distinction gives us an opportunity to compare the timing of speech and action when different aspects are selected by the verb. Progressive marking, such as I'm picking it up, is one of the few formal devices in English for indicating imperfective aspect (I will use italics to designate linguistic forms, as opposed to the actions they refer to). Nonprogressive on verbs, on the other hand, does not necessarily indicate perfective aspect although it can be used in this way, usually with past perfect tense marking (I've picked the part up). As we will see, the nonprogressive was used by the subjects in the experiment for the perfective aspect. We see that the flow of movement and/or speech was often altered to maintain synchrony. This is shown at (3) and (4), where speech was interrupted while the hand opened and grasped the container. Conversely, at (8), downward movement was interrupted and replaced by a symbolic rocking during which the speaker groped for the appropriate word to refer to the tube and container. At other times action was laboriously elongated in order to line up in time with corresponding parts of the utterance, as in (10) through (13). Similarly, at (5) through (7), the action of dropping the tube into the container was performed in little bursts each timed with a linguistic segment; moreover, at (7), the action of dropping was suspended as the speaker sensed that (s)he would not be able to find a word to identify the container (as we see from the elaborate clausal reference to the container that follows, "I'm placing the ... tube ... the other thing which I'm holding steady with my right hand"). In all of these cases the speaker seemed driven to keep speech and gesture temporally together, and modified the action to do this. At other times, speech and movement alternated, and this was another form of action modification. An example is shown at (2): the subject picked up the tube in silence, then described what (s)he had done, "I'm picking this up with my left hand." As (s)he described this action his/her left hand froze in midair. Thus, where language and action were necessarily asynchronous, as here in reviewing, no other action occured. In all these cases, we should be impressed by the close linkage of speech and action. The two are kept together in an intricately coordinated flow and both speech and action are shaped to this end. It also is possible to observe symbolic extensions of actions. A symbolic extension is a nonfunctional addition of movement to action to extend it in time. Such extensions are a form of shaping action and occur when speech

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and action threaten to fall out of synchrony, particularly if the verb is in the progressive and the action is completed too soon. An example from a different part of the description is the following double extension: [...] [ O K I ' m . . . ] [ ] [picking ... this] ... [up] (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (1) Reaches for

container.

(2) Picks container

up. (3) Reaches

height. (4) Symbolic extension: rocks container back and forth. symbolic extension with particle:

maximum (5)

Second

lifts container a bit higher.

The action of picking up was completed at (2), long before the speech describing it had been reached. When the verb, picking, was at last uttered the hand, which had been steady, rocked the container back and forth, and when the particle was reached, at (5), there was a further extension of raising the container higher in the air. Neither movement served any practical purpose. They were indexes in action of accompanying relevant linguistic segments. Such extension with nonfunctional movement is an important clue to what is the nature of aspect, it is a symbolic form. The imperfective view of the picking action implies regarding it from its inside, and this is symbolized by qualities that can be taken as representations of the interior of an action, such as manner of movement (rocking), and contrasting the end of the action to its lead-in (which is one effect of the final hop).

Results of the experiment The above example is just a brief excerpt from a much longer record. Altogether four full descriptions were recorded and analyzed from different subjects. The average results for the duration and relative position of the movements and speech are summarized in Figure 1, reproduced from my 1980 paper. The symbols designate Vendlerian categories of the actions that occurred frequently enough to be averaged (six or more examples): "— for "activities," that is, actions with no logical endpoint (e.g., PUSH ACROSS); "—» I" for "accomplishments," actions with a "terminus which is logically necessary to their being what they are" (Vendler 1967: 101; e.g. PUT DOWN ON); and plain

for instantaneous accomplishment (e.g., RELEASE). These

three are the most frequent action categories in the experiment. We find them appearing in the patterns of speech-action temporal coordinations shown in Figure 1:

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Action type

—

>

Progressive verbs

Non-progressive verbs

Action

Action

PUSH ACROSS V

Ρ

I am pushing

V

across

I push

Action

1 RELEASE

1

1 V

I am releasing

1

I release

Action

PUT DOWN ON

Action

—1

—1 V +P I am putting down

across

Action

V

—

Ρ

Prep NP on

V +P

Prep

I put ΝΡ down on

Figure 1. Results

Figure 1 is read as follows: 1. The Vendlerian type of action and an example in small caps are given at the left of each row.

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2. Next and to the right, is a diagram of the action in the form of an arrow, a bar, or both. The arrow is meant to represent the temporal extent of the action itself, and the bar the temporal locus of the logical endpoint in the case of an accomplishment verb. 3. Beneath this diagram, the letters V and Ρ represent where, in relation to the action flow, verbs and particles were uttered during performance of the action. 4. Finally, underneath all this, is an example with correct spacing with respect for the flow of the action, insofar as a diagram can show this. Thus I am pushing across represents all activity verbs in the progressive. The spacing of V and Ρ shows that the action started just as the utterance of pushing was completed and the particle across was uttered while the action took place. On the other hand, push represents activity verbs in the nonprogressive, and the diagram shows that these verbs were uttered while the action was in progress and the across followed, uttered after the pushing had come to an end. The noninstantaneous accomplishment example is more complex since a preposition is also involved, but is read in the same way as the others. In every such case where a preposition was involved, the particle was produced along with the verb and the preposition was delayed - a crucial consideration, as I will describe. (The preposition is not considered to be syntactically a particle, but it is still part of the representation of the action.) When a preposition was not involved, as in I'm picking up, the particle was timed with the endpoint of the action.

Coordinated expressions of imperfectivity and perfectivity With actions included in the picture, we can see how speakers coordinate action and speech systematically. Consider first verbs marked with the progressive for imperfective aspect. The rule here seems to be that the verb or particle precedes the end of the action performance. The rule takes different forms depending on the logical form of the action: 1. In -> actions (PUSH ACROSS, etc.), which lack intrinsically defined endpoints, the action was described with a verb plus particle (I'm pushing this across). The particle occurred in the middle of the performance; said otherwise, the action was extended past the moment the particle was uttered.

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2. In I actions (RELEASE, etc.), where the accomplishment is instantaneous, the action was described with a verb such as release (there are no particles) that always just preceded the action endpoint; said otherwise, the instantaneous action was not performed until the verb had been uttered. 3. Finally, in —• | actions (PUT DOWN ON, etc.), the accomplishment occurred at the end of a temporally extended process that was also part of the action. Two different descriptions occurred with these actions. In one description, exemplified in I'm pushing this down on, the particle {down) was timed to occur in the middle of the action, just as in the case of —» actions, while the preposition (on) was synchronized with the accomplishment itself; again said otherwise, the action continued past the verb and particle and as the preposition was uttered the terminus of the action was also reached. In the other pattern, exemplified in I'm picking this up, there was no preposition, and here the particle was held back until the accomplishment. Thus, the preposition or particle was included in the action to mark the crucial endpoint that defines the action as an accomplishment. In all these cases the aspect is imperfective, marked as such morphologically, and the timing created actions such that the linguistic indexes themselves were temporally inside the action. It is significant that a verb particle or preposition controls the timing of the action and speech combination. According to Talmy (n.d.), English displays satellite, or particle, framing. In this it is unlike Spanish, for example, where verbs are the framing elements in his analysis. The distinction refers to the sentence component onto which the semantic focus of the sentence is mapped. In English, according to Talmy, this component is the particle, not the verb. That satellite framed structures appear to be central to English could explain their crucial role in forming the nexus of language and action in our experiment (the necessity of including the preposition to mark endpoints in some noninstantaneous accomplishments is a complicating factor for Talmy's analysis, however). Next consider the nonprogressive verbs in Figure 1. In general, nonprogressive verbs are mirror images of progressive verbs. This relationship of nonprogressive to progressive, being systematic, suggests that the nonprogressive forms were in fact conveying the perfective aspect, the outside view of the action. With —>· actions (PUSH ACROSS, etc.) the verb (I push) was uttered during the action but the particle (across) was withheld until the action had been completed.

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Similarly, with instantaneous accomplishments, |, the verb (/ release) was not uttered until the action had been performed. Finally, with | actions (PUT DOWN ON, etc.), the verb and particle (/ push down) were uttered well before the action which commenced only when the preposition (on) was uttered. In the nonprogressive case, therefore, no speech at all was uttered when the subject reached the logical endpoint of the action. The pattern was similar when there was no preposition (/ pick up)\ here it was the particle that was withheld until the start of the action. In every case of nonprogressive morphology, then, the outside view was taken by the particle, preposition or verb, which in every case was temporally outside the action (outside the endpoints in the accomplishment cases). Here too the particle emerges as the significant part of the verb in anchoring its temporal relationship to the action. To summarize, when actions of each logical type were viewed internally (the imperfective), particles, prepositions or verbs were timed to coincide with the action. This creates an inside "view" from the vantage point of the particle, verb or preposition in question. When actions were viewed externally (the perfective), the particles, prepositions or verbs were outside the action. This creates an outside "view" also from the point of view of the particle, verb or preposition. The morphological contrast of progressive vs. nonprogressive marking on the verbs combined with the logical type of the action, to create six aspect situations. What then is the form of perfective and imperfective aspect as created by the interaction of speech and action? An analysis leads to some surprises.

1. I actions The imperfective view of instantaneous actions with endpoints, such as releasing something, is that they are actions just about to take place. This is an not unnatural form of representation, since there is no actual "inside". But it is still interesting that intending to perform the action is an allowable substitute for an internal view, that intending an action is already to be inside it. The perfective view of the | is nonproblematic despite the instantaneous character, since the subjects waited until the action had just occurred, and this is a normal external view.

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2. —> I actions The puzzling fact here is that the imperfective of a —> | action, such as putting something down on a surface, is superficially the opposite of the imperfective of a | action, such as releasing something. While the imperfective of releasing, as we have seen, is to regard it as just starting, the imperfective of putting something down on a surface is seemingly viewed from its end, when the thing comes to rest on the surface. Why should the two forms of accomplishment be opposite? The puzzle is resolved if we assume that the continuous lead-in, the arrow part of the —• | action type, is irrelevant, and that the relevant component is the endpoint, the bar. Then the —» | action is the same as the | action, and in both cases the moment of this endpoint is when the verb or preposition occurs, and it is here that the intention to reach the endpoint would be felt. On the other hand, the perfective of the —> | action is truly surprising, because it involves a future view of the action. Being externally regarded in the future does not violate the concept of the perfective, but this is an unusual perspective nonetheless. There is again the implication that the speaker's intending to perform the action may be a factor, for here the intention is temporally separated from the action and this is the outside view.

3. —> actions These are the most straightforward cases. The imperfective view of sliding something across a surface is to utter the particle while the action is going on and before it has been completed. The perfective view is the symmetrical opposite, to utter the particle after the entire action has been completed.

Are these constructions aspects? The speech-action nexus faithfully mirrors the logic of each action type and its particular form of inside and outside view, and in this way serves as an iconic sign of aspect. The fact that the descriptions are self-descriptions of ongoing actions makes plausible a more constructive interpretation as well. The utterance and the practical action are occurring simultaneously and influence one another, as we have seen. It is plausible to regard the speechaction nexus, not as only a symbol of aspect, but as actually constructing a temporal vantage point toward the action that fits an aspect model. It does

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so by the mutual adjustment of speech and action. The distinction between an iconic sign and the creation of an actual aspectual perspective blurs. Consider a subject who was (as was typical) slowly putting the tube into the container. The subject's purpose was to fit the pieces together; this is the endpoint that logically is part of the action, for the action was of the continuous accomplishment —> | type. If the subject said, I'm placing this down on ..., marking the verb for the imperfective, action and speech were performed in such a manner that an inside view of the action could be constructed, centered on the preposition on as the anchor. The I'm placing this down part was uttered as the hand slowly moved down, and the preposition was withheld until the moment that the tube fit into the container and then the subject said on. From this description, we can see how the subject might have altered speech and action jointly to create an appropriate vantage point. A similar analysis of the other aspects is also possible. The aspect model is different in each case, as in Figure 1. The subject can create an action that fits each model by adjusting the timing of speech and action in the way we have seen.

The "center of language" This analysis assumes a further crucial proposition. The speech event is focused at a single moment in time. Such is the significance of the role of the particle, verb or preposition for defining the aspect. It is at this moment that the speaker stands inside or outside the practical action. The speaker's awareness of his or her own speech concentrates on this moment. To be aware of the flow of speech would confuse the aspect, there is not a comprehensive awareness of speech in its full extent. The problem is resolved by shrinking consciousness to one salient point. It is no coincidence that this point is the semantic focus, according to Talmy's analysis (this would imply that a Spanish language version of the experiment might not involve particles and prepositions in the way shown here). By the same token, the practical action also is reduced to a single point, which is the endpoint in the accomplishment cases (in —» actions the action is an unbounded span, but coordination here is less precise). Thus the creation of aspect reduces to the proper timing of two reference points, the speech event and the action event. With these points and their coordination to fit aspect models, it is possible to use speech to adjust both speech and action in such a way as to create aspectual perspectives.

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I will now consider evidence for the fundamentally symbolic character of this creation of aspect. What is being constructed is a symbolic representation of the idea of aspect.

Extension to gestures Gestures are not actions, but share with actions the kinesic domain and its features of space and timing. Gestures are symbols in their own right which function to present images of events and relationships. Gestures are not limited to concrete depictions, the content of "iconic" gestures, and are quite able to express images of abstract concepts and relationships. Such gestures of the abstract have been called "metaphoric" (McNeill 1992). Duncan (1992) has compared the gestures of English speakers to the gestures of Mandarin Chinese speakers. Chinese, in contrast to English, has a fully systematic set of morphological markers for aspect, and the gestures of Chinese speakers are qualitatively different depending on aspect. Perfective gestures have simple brief movements, while imperfective gestures are complex, often marking manner and often involving both hands performing distinct but coordinated movements. The manner marking is more likely with gestures accompanying use of progressive morphology, and two coordinated hands is likely with the durative morphology. One can see the semantic appropriateness of short simple gestures for perfective, prolonged manner-marked gestures for the progressive, and prolonged two-component gestures (one a landmark) for the durative, the gesture depicting both what endures and the reference point with respect to which duration is reckoned. Quite strikingly, Duncan also found that the English speaking subjects displayed the same gestural distinctions. As befits a level of thought, the differences in perspective that we describe as aspect appear despite the ad hoc character of the English way of indexing them. If we consider actions again, we find that actions described with progressive verbs also often had manner-like movements added to them. The rocking motion added to the description of PICKING U P is such a case. That is, the imperfective view of the action was accompanied by added complexity, and this addition appears to be similar to the complexity of imperfective gestures. Such similarity of action and gesture is not surprising if aspectual vantage points in both situations are representations of the idea, or model, of an aspect. The imperfective is an inside view symbolized by enhancing the inner details of the action, and this representation appears both in gesture and in action correlated with speech. The perfective gesture is a symbolic represen-

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tation of the idea of an outside view, and is the representational opposite of the imperfective, short, undetailed, simple. Similarly, perfectively viewed actions are the opposite of imperfective actions in the placement of the verb, particle or preposition, in each case performed in such a way that the focus is outside the action. In the experiment language was used to construct the world. The conditions called for by the various aspect models led to a particular shaping of action and speech, different for each kind of action, and these were the shapes needed to create the aspect. Somewhat Humpty Dumptyishly language was able to make what it said be true. With gestures, too, there is creation of aspects. In both action and gesture, the aspect is the subject's idea of an aspectual point of view, and this is symbolized in gesture, action, and relevant timing. In speech that is not concurrent with one's own action (that is, normal speech), the gesture is able to take over the constructive work of aspect representation.

Note 1. The original research on which this paper is based was supported by research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Spencer Foundation. Preparation of this new paper has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (Linguistics) and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communicative Disorders. The original data were collected and analyzed with Elena Levy.

References Comrie, B. 1976 Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duncan, S. D. 1992 The conceptual representation of temporal aspect in English and Mandarin Chinese: Gestural indices. Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the Belgian Linguistic Society, Antwerp, November. McNeill, D. 1980 Iconic relationships between language and motor action. In I. Rauch and G. F. Carr (eds.), The signifying animal. 240-251. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 1992 Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Talmy, L. n.d. Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. Unpublished paper, Department of Linguistics and Center for Cognitive Science, State University of New York, Buffalo. Vendler, Z. 1967 Linguistics in philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Preservation of syntactic icons in Alzheimer's disease Jean Neils

Abstract Data on the syntactic abilities of subjects with Alzheimer's disease have been reviewed. An analysis of preserved forms was undertaken. Highly constrained forms were retained despite loss of meaningful expression. The topic of my paper is preservation of syntactic icons in Alzheimer's disease. The structure of my paper will include (1) a description of Alzheimer's disease and the broader term "dementia"; (2) a summary of syntactic patterns in Alzheimer's disease and the theories about syntactic preservation this research has generated; (3) finally, I will apply notions of iconicity to the structure of language in Alzheimer's disease patients. There are many terms that are used to describe patients with Alzheimer's disease, such as dementia of the Alzheimer's type, presenile dementia, and senile dementia. Sometimes the broader term dementia is used. Currently used terminology defines dementia as a symptom complex that can occur as the result of sixty or more diseases. Alzheimer's disease accounts for about fifty to sixty percent of dementia cases (Katzman 1986). That Alzheimer's disease is one type of dementia, has only recently been established. Some of the research I will review deals with dementia and not purely Alzheimer's disease. In fact, in some detailed, linguistically-oriented papers, such as the one written by de Ajuriaguerra and Tissot (1975), it is not clear what patient population they base their findings on. Therefore, application of some of the literature specific to Alzheimer's disease is tenuous and in some cases this overgeneralization may result in erroneous conclusions. Guidelines for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease were published in the journal Neurology in 1984 by McKhann and colleagues. According to these guidelines, definite Alzheimer's disease can only be established after the affected individual dies and the brain substance can be studied. Therefore, the clinician or researcher in most cases must settle for the clinical diagnosis of probable Alzheimer's disease. Probable Alzheimer's disease is established by a clinical examination that includes a test of cognitive abilities and documentation of a gradual decline in the patient's daily functioning. It has been

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said that Alzheimer's disease is defined by exclusion of other causes; this is true, in that it must be established that the patient does not have a disease that could account for the patient's decline in mentation. A patient diagnosed with probable Alzheimer's disease will have deficits in memory, language and perception as confirmed by standardized tests of behavior. These impairments gradually worsen over several years, perhaps a mean of eight years, before the person dies, most often in a nursing home, from a fall or pneumonia. In the first description of Alzheimer's disease by Alois Alzheimer in 1907, language disturbance was included as part of the clinical findings. In 1985, Cummings, Benson, Hill and Reed stated that all Alzheimer's patients are aphasic, language impaired as a result of brain dysfunction. Even more recently, Faber-Langendoer et al. (1988) concluded that the prevalence of aphasia in Alzheimer's disease is dependent on severity of dementia and ranges from thirty-six percent in mild Alzheimer's disease to one hundred percent in severe Alzheimer's disease. As can be seen, it is impossible to make accurate statements about language deficits associated with Alzheimer's disease without specifying the severity of dementia. It is unfortunate that the majority of linguisticallybased studies have included a wide range of severity levels or have not dealt with the severity of dementia at all. Contributions to the literature on syntax in Alzheimer's disease have been made by psychologists, linguists, neurologists and speech pathologists. Linguistic analysis has not been employed in many of the published studies. Several researchers have employed psychological measures and have statistically analyzed test scores. There are two limitations, therefore, in the literature reviewed. One is that severity of dementia is not specified; the second is that only a few studies have employed lingusitic analysis. I will review four studies that have been conducted by linguists or psycholinguists to study the syntactic abilities of Alzheimer's disease subjects. Irigaray (1973), in her book Le langage des dements, includes a description of demented patients' performance on a sentence construction task. Patients were given a set of two to four words and were instructed to combine them into a simple sentence. The dementia patients retained the given order of the words and adapted the form to fit the order rather than changing the order to construct commonly used sentences. Given the words table 'table,' livre 'book,' and etre 'is,' the typical response was something like Sur la table le livre est reste 'On the table, the book is resting', instead of the simpler, more common response, Le livre est sur la table 'The book is on the table'. Overall, Irigaray noted that her subjects produced unnecessarily long and complex utterances.

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De Ajuriaguerra and Tissot (1975) looked at demented subjects' ability to comprehend sentences in which word order and real-world order of events were set at odds, so that reliance on morphological tense markers was required. Patients had difficulty with sentences such as, We shall invite the gardener who did our garden, because the word order contradicted the real-world order of events. The investigators reported that patients responded with answers such as, "Of course you don't invite him before he has done the work." Conversely, the same patients constructed sentences such as, When I have had dinner, I will go out, and accepted sentences, such as, It is raining for I cannot go out, as correct. In other cases, patients corrected the sentence to It is raining because I cannot go out or It is raining for I am going to leave. Thus, they were accepting or maintaining temporal word order, though misunderstanding or misusing logosyntactic functors. Obler (1983) suggests that syntactic items that are semantically loaded may be abused by Alzheimer's disease subjects. I would add that word order is not affected despite errors in specific syntactic items. Schwartz, Marin and Saffran (1979) employed a task in which they assembled thirty pairs of homophones differing in both semantic category and part of speech. Their demented subject (WLP) listened to each homophone in a group of three words (semantic triad), a phrase, or a sentence. The patient was then required to write the homophone after hearing it in one of the three contexts. Two examples of the semantic triad were priest, pope, /ηΛη/, and some, many, AWn. Two examples of the phrase condition were "a/noz/" and "he/noz/." Two examples of the sentence contexts were She wore a /blu/ skirt and white blouse, and She /blu/ out the candles on her cake. The demented subject in this study had the most difficulty choosing the correct word from the semantic triad. The investigators suggested that their subject's fractionated knowledge of word meaning precluded "conceptually mediated lexical selection" (1979: 300). This subject was able to derive clues from the sentence context. This seems to suggest that there is an expectation of what words should be contained in these sentences apart from a conscious interpretation. Nicholas et al. (1985) analyzed descriptive language abilities of nineteen patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at the mild to moderately severe stage. They also indued aphasics and normals in this study. However, for the purpose of this discussion I will only report the findings of the Alzheimer's subjects compared with normal elderly subjects. Although this study was not conducted to specifically examine syntactic abilities of Alzheimer's disease patients, I will include a discussion of it, because of the description of language characteristics associated with Alzheimer's disease it provides.

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It is helpful to understand that although the structure of language used by subjects with Alzheimer's disease is left intact, there are differences in the descriptive speech of Alzheimer's disease subjects that render it less meaningful. The following characteristics were more common in the speech of Alzheimer's disease subjects: (1) empty phrases or idioms; (2) deictic terms (such as this, that, there); (3) pronouns without antecedents; (4) semantic paraphasias (real words that are related to the target word, repeated words or phrases); and (5) conjunctions (such as but, or, so, because). In summary of these findings, it may be stated that Alzheimer's disease patients used many idiomatic phrases and repeated words or phrases. In addition, many lexical items referring to objects, people, and actions were replaced with nonspecific words such as "this, he, and thing" or, in some cases, related words. It was interesting that Alzheimer's disease patients used more conjunctions than normals. The investigators did not state whether these were used correctly or incorrectly. The fact that they were used, however, suggests that the structure of complex utterances was intact, although it is possible that they were used in an illogical manner. As we will see in the next study, Kempler, Curtiss and Jackson (1987) attempt to disentangle syntax from semantics. In 1987, Kempler and his colleagues published a study which utilized conversational speech samples of Alzheimer's disease subjects at the mild to severe stage, to compare numbers of morphosyntactical errors in lexical use. Secondly, the complexity of syntactical structure was compared to that found in normal speakers' conversational speech. Kempler and colleagues found that Alzheimer's disease subjects made more lexical errors than morphosyntactical errors. Moreover, Alzheimer's disease subjects and normals did not differ in their relative frequency of use of particular syntactic constructions. A third interesting finding was that the number of syntactic errors remained low despite increases in dementia severity. What conclusions can be drawn from these four studies? Syntactic form is generally well-preserved in the Alzheimer's disease subject. Bayles (1982) suggested that an internalized sentence production mechanism can produce sentences mechanically, when there is only the intention to talk, but not conceptualization of what is to be said. Such behavior may be analogous to computers mechanically printing garbage as a result of an error in the software system. Kempler, Curtis and Jackson (1987) state that syntax and morphology, once acquired, can be characterized as automatic and mandatory. As with syntax, the most frequent and most consistent motor patterns are maintained late in the disease, while integration of those patterns into novel situations is severely impaired.

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I will now integrate the findings, just summarized, with my own data and notions of syntactic iconicity generated by the study of normal language use. Haiman, in his 1985 book entitled Natural syntax, wrote that "linguistic structures are often similar to non-linguistic diagrams of our thoughts such that selection of a point along the linguistic dimension determines and signals a certain point along the nonlinguistic dimension" (1985: 8). Likewise, Wescott (1971) stated that "in most of the world's languages the normal declarative word order in sentences is subject-verb-object, and this word order represents better than any other, the actual order of transitive events" (1971: 424). Several investigators (e.g., Bayles 1982; Obler 1983) have reported the preservation of word order despite the presence of dementia. Kempler and colleagues (1987) explained that this may occur because the range of alternatives in syntactic structure is relatively constrained, at least with comparison to lexical choice. Haiman (1985) suggested that the smaller the lexicon of a language, the greater the iconicity. De Ajuriaguerra and Tissot (1975), Nicholas et al. (1985) and others have noted the impoverished vocabulary in senile dementia. I have collected several examples of the loss of specificity in sentences produced by moderately impaired Alzheimer's patients: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Touch the something else under it. Here they 've got stuff running around. This is a sandwich made up of various things. We can use this now, can't we, for that purpose ? Hi Captain, how do you like this or that or something It doesn't say what it's in.

else?

These sentences exemplify accurate and time-consistent word order, but they also contain a high proportion of empty terms, suggesting an impoverished vocabulary. Although much of what changes during the language demise of Alzheimer's disease patients is the loss of focus and specificity, one interesting change in focus occurs. The Alzheimer's disease patient becomes more egocentric as the disease progresses and this is reflected in language change. Obler (1983: 280) stated, "we are convinced that among other influences psychological perception of the real world does interact with language performance." In many of the studies reviewed as well as in my own work, picture description is employed to elicit language. Whereas most cognitively normal individuals describe the picture as a nonparticipant (third person), Alzheimer's disease subjects personalize their responses. For example, in

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describing a picture containing an outdoor scene, one subject tested by me said "there's animals that we set up, two of them." In another task, requiring the subject to describe what the examiner was doing with objects, the examiner asked "What am I touching?" The patient responded "Am I?" Finally, it has been noted that in conversation Alzheimer's disease subjects may delete elements in their speech because they assume the listener has the same knowledge they have. In a sense then, the inability to take the position of the listener is iconic of an increase in egocentricity in Alzheimer's disease. Both de Ajuriaguerra and Tissot (1975) and Obler (1983) also allude to this characteristic and draw a parallel with Piagetian theory and the regression theory by comparing the decline in the language of dementia to language in childhood. I was quite startled to read the following passage by Ginsberg and Opper (1969) about Piaget's theory of child language development: ... the experiment on communication showed that young children [six, seven and eight years of age] often use pronouns and demonstrative adjectives - like he, she, it, that, this - without indicating clearly to what they are referring. In the midst of an explanation ... the speaker might say "If you move it with that other thing, then it will go." [The] child fails to consider that the listener might not know what "it" and "that other thing" designate. (1969: 9 1 - 9 2 )

In conclusion, I have reviewed studies of Alzheimer's disease that address the syntactic abilities of this population. Syntactic structure is well-preserved particularly when structure reflects the order of real world events. This is one example of preservation of a syntactic icon. I then discussed the idea that language change in Alzheimer's disease is iconic of an increase in egocentricity. Future research applying linguistic analysis to the study of better defined and delineated Alzheimer's disease populations would help to verify or refute these hypotheses.

References Ajuriaguerra, J. de and R. Tissot 1975

Some aspects of language in various forms of senile dementia (comparisons with language in childhood). In Ε. H. Lenneberg and E. Lenneberg (Eds.), Foundations

of language

development:

A multidisciplinary

approach.

Vol.

1. 3 2 3 - 3 3 9 . N e w York: Academic. Alzheimer, A. 1907

Über eine eigenartige Erkrankung der Hirnrinde. Allgemeine Psychiatrie

und Psychisch-gerichtliche

Medizin

64. 146-148.

Zeitschrift

für

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[1969] [Translated by R. H. Wilkins and I.A. Brody. Archives of Neurology 21, 109.] Bayles, K. 1982 Language function in senile dementia. Brain and Language 16. 265-280. Cummings, J.L., D. F. Benson, M . A . Hill and S. Reed 1985 Aphasia in dementia of the Alzheimer type. Annals of Neurology 35. 3 9 4 397. Faber-Langendoen, K., J . C . Morris, J . W . Knesevitch, E. LaBarge, J. P. Miller, and L. Berg 1988 Aphasia in senile dementia of the Alzheimer type. Annals of Neurology 23, 365-370 Ginsburg, Η. and S. Opper 1969 Piaget's theory of intellectual development: An introduction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Haiman, J. 1985 Natural syntax: Iconicity and erosion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Irigaray, L. 1973 le langage des dements. The Hague: Mouton. Katzman, R. 1986 Alzheimer's disease. New England Journal of Medicine 314. 964-973. Kempler, D. S. Curtiss and C. Jackson 1987 Syntactic preservation in Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 30(3). 343-350. McKhann, G. D. Drachman, M. Folstein, R. Katzman, D. Price and Ε. M. Stadian 1984 Clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: report of the N I N C D S - A D R D A work group under the auspices of the Department of Health and the Human Services Task Force on Alzheimer's disease. Neurology 34. 939-944. Nicholas, M. L. K. Obler, M. L. Albert and N. Helm-Estabrook 1985 Empty speech in Alzheimer's disease and fluent aphasia. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 28. 405^-10. Obler, L. K. 1983 Language and brain dysfunction in dementia. In: S. Segalowitz (ed.), Language functions and brain organization. 267-283. New York: Academic. Piaget, J. 1926 The language and thought of the child. Translated by M. Gabain. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Schwartz, M . F . O. S . M : Marin and Ε. M. Saffran 1979 Dissociations of language function in dementia: A case study. Brain and Language 7. 277-306. Wescott, R. W. 1971 Lingusitic iconism. Language 47(2). 416-428.

Aphasia and syntactic iconicity Paul Schveiger

Abstract Iconicity in language is considered (here) only as it is reflected by word order. It is considered that SVO-type word order (probably the most frequent type) reflects an "agent-first principle, " which might be based on a (psychological) "least-effort principle," and that -VO (or -OV) are simply specific continuations of the mentioned principle. After a discussion of the topic in standard communication (i.e., research about it), an overview is presented of the actual situation in research of aphasic speech performance concerning word order. Aphasic speech performance, in most cases, demonstrates a good to very good preservation of the type of word order in the language earlier spoken by the patient.

1. The notion of iconicity entered modern linguistics with semiotic approaches to language. At the beginning it was meant to refer mainly to the nature of the relatively small class of signs including onomatopoetic words. With the evolution of linguistics and with the constitution of the new interdisciplinary domains and the corresponding (scientific) disciplines, the interest for iconicity grew even more. Another source of interest for iconic signs (not only at the lexical-semantic level) was the (earlier more-or-less neglected) chapter in linguistics of the "freezes." Yet a third source might be the interest manifested by the "Prague functionalistic school in linguistics," in communicative dynamism (the dynamism of the passing from the old information on to the new one). This last trend, it seems to me, was somehow neglected by a part of the modern research workers, although many interesting papers, and even books were published during the last fifteen to twenty years in this field.

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1.1 Explanations for and explorations of "iconicity" conceptions in syntax might be found in certain of the twentieth century psychological trends in linguistics. During the last decades - in connection with the notion of grammaticality (and agrammatism) - it became clear that this has to be analyzed distinctly in the two modalities of its functioning: production and reception of the messages (see, e.g., Buckingham 1981; Stachowiak et al. 1977). The following discussion is restricted mainly to agrammatic aphasics' communicative performance (both in their expressive and in their receptive aspects): (1)

agrammatic aphasics

with the relatively well-known differences between (la) and (lb), notwithstanding the recent discussions about the status of the two branches of agrammatic speech performance (but see, e.g., Ansell and Flowers 1982; Bates, Friederici and Wulfeck 1987; Bates et al. 1988; Grodzinsky 1984, 1986; Heeschen 1980; Lapointe 1985; McCarthy and Warrington 1985; Schveiger 1986). It ought to be mentioned here, although I will not elaborate upon it, that as a general rule - aphasics' speech performance us teleonomic in the sense of Sgall (1987: 169, note 1 [182]): "teleonomic" = "intentional" + "goaldirected"; i.e., when the patients are able to initiate an "exchange of messages," they do it purposefully, and when they are not able to initiate such an "exchange of messages," they want to convey real and truthful messages as an answer to the request of their partners in the discussion. 1.2

The notion of word order is - notwithstanding opposed views - a not particularly clear and easily understood one, because the main distinction:

Aphasia and syntactic iconicity

(2)

neutral (non marked) order

word order vs. non-neutral

(marked)

375

word

has many implications (determined by the opposition's non polar, fuzzy nature): 1. that neutral word order is also standard (i.e., it is qualitatively preferred over other types of word order) and typical (in the sense that it is statistically - the most frequently used in the given natural language); 2. that non-neutral word order adds to the discourse: i. special (contrastive) stress (emphasis), connected both to (ii) and/or (iii);' ii. new communicative content; iii. new stylistic information.

1.3 Very important aspects of non-neutral word order have been recently studied in sociolinguistics and other modern interdisciplinary approaches to communication. I will not discuss these questions here. However, in connection to the above mentioned notion of teleonomicity in the messages, it is to be stressed that word order must be considered in the context of the messages' functioning: (i) physical; (ii) socio-cognitive; (iii) linguistic (as with Mel'cuk 1986: 36, 81 (note 3), etc.: L], where this is introduced in the dichotomy linguistic c\ — "relating to language" versus linguistic C2 ="relating to linguistics"; see also, Schveiger (1984); and (iv) paralinguistic, kinesic and proxemic.

2. Word order is a surface structure (i.e., linear) representation of more profound structural (nonlinear) relationships. However, it is necessary to emphasize - at least when we discuss the situation in the oral production of messages - that the linear string is accompanied by important paralinguistic, kinesic and proxemic signs. In the following discussion a "markedness principle" will be considered as being at the basis of the distinction between two kinds of word orders. This principle "consists in recognizing the essential asymmetry of opposed linguistic items: one of any two opposed is normally distinguished by the lan-

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guage itself in that it receives a special mark, while the other is characterized only by the absence of such a mark". (Mel'cuk 1985: 186-187): (3)

a. A vs nA [nA vs nA] b. nA vs n(nA) [nA vs nA]

(the details are superfluous in this context).

2.1

2.1.1 Word order is supposed to reflect deep psychological laws of communicative behavior: e.g., a SVO word order renders on the message's plane the "psycholinguistic reality" of OBJECT (OF ACTION) (4)

ACTOR - ACTION - { G O A L ™ 1 ^ etc.

The situation in (4) is usually analyzed as

{

PATIENT PI ACF

^ΤΓλτ (jUAL etc. ( DIRECT OBJECT SUBJECT + PREDICATE + I INDIRECT OBJECT [ etc.

b. Grammatical

functions:

in which we might have the following functional b i - partition: (6)

AGENT/SUBJECT: OLD INFORMATION, ( PATIENT Λ ( DIRECT OBJECT ACTION/PREDICATE + GOAL > < INDIRECT OBJECT I etc. J I etc. NEW INFORMATION

(except for marked, emphatic messages), because the canonical (i.e. normal) situation of utterance is egocentric (see Landsberg, 1982, 1984, 1987, and

Aphasia and syntactic iconicity

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in this volume), i.e., the act of communicating starts with a spatio-temporal zero-point, determined by the utterer's (or in other words the actor's) place in the physical context of the utterance (action); see also 1.3. It is often thought that a "the small precedes the large" principle, which is extra grammatical, is a product of our "prosodic competence." It has also been thought that the type of word order belonging to (i.e., typical of) different natural languages, might reflect an advancement "on an evolutionary scale" (Gil 1986: 217). I suppose that the iconicity principle in word order (see (4)) can be taken into consideration only as reflecting a tendency in the evolution of languages. (It is interesting to note here Mel'cuk's (1985: 192) finding: "The languages with free force stress (Bulgarian and the East Slavic languages) stopped obeying Wackernagel's law (in accordance with this law, enclitics must occupy the second linear position in the sentence), and as a result, these languages lost enclitics.")

2.1.2 Essentially, the ideas developed in 2.1.1. are reflected by the analysis offered by Chernigovskaya and Deghin (1986: 144) of the active/passive constructions in Russian:

(7)

a. Active (A.I): Vanja pobil Petju, 'Vanja [Nom] beat [Past Tense] Petja [Acc].' b. Inverted active (A.2): Petju pobil Vanja. 'Petja [Acc] was beaten (by) Vanja [Nom].'

The authors do not mention that (7b) is an instance of marked (emphasized) word order.

(7)

c. Passive (A.3): Petja pobit Vanej. 'Petja [Nom] (was) beaten (by) Vanja [Instr.].' d. Inverted Passive (A.4): Vanej pobit Petja. 'by Vanja [Instr.] was beaten by Petja [Nom].'

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Here, again, the two authors do not mention the sentence's marked nature. Languages (structurally) very different will have patterns compatible with those shown in (7a-7d). Romanian, for example, will have: (8)

a. Vasile li-a bätut pe Petre. 'Vasile [Nom.] him [Acc.] beat Petre [Acc.].' b. Pe Petre li-a bätut Vasile. 'Petre [Acc.] him [Acc.] beat Vasile [Nom.].' c. Petre este bätut de Vasile. 'Petre [Nom.] is beaten by Vasile [Acc.].' d. De Vasile este bätut Petre. 'By Vasile [Acc.] is beaten Petre [Acc.].'

With (8d) having a low degree of acceptability, (9)

and Hungarian:

a. Jänos megverte Petert. 'Jänos [Nom.] beat [Past Tense] Peter [Acc.].' b. Petert verte meg Jänos. 'Peter [Acc.] (was) beat(en) (by) Jänos [Nom.].'

The perfective prefix meg- becomes in (9b) an independent suffix -meg, with the same meaning of " + perfectivity". (9)

c. 0

because there is no correspondent in Hungarian for Russian (7c) and Romanian (8c), (9)

d. Janos ältal lett megverve Peter. 'By Jänos [?Instr.] was beaten Peter [Nom.].'

It is interesting to note about (9d) that: (i) it is - to say the least - awkward; (ii) its object, Peter, formally, is in the nominative (this topic deserves an analysis in a relativistic framework). The three languages (Russian, Romanian and Hungarian), and English (in which the glosses were given) belong to different families and subfamilies of languages: Russian : Romanian : English : Hungarian:

Slavic Neo — Latin ^ IndoEuropean Germanic Finno-Ugric

Aphasia and syntactic iconicity

379

However - as a general rule - they convey the main (neutral) information through comparable word order structures.

2.2 In order to make the following discussion clearer, I consider it necessary to make a few comments about some lexical (lexicological) notions. Usually, when we speak about words, we distinguish "inside" them: prefixes, radicals (or radical morphemes), suffixes and flexions, the presence of the prefixes, suffixes, and even of the flexions, not being obligatory.

nm {

}

I Prefix \ — I 1 0 /

ra

d ' c a l \ _ / s u f f i x \ _ f flexion Ί 1 0 / 1 0 / 1 0 /

But to all these Mel'cuk (1986: 39) adds: (i) lex: 'an elementary autonomous linguistic sign, i.e., a minimal utterance not consisting of other utterances (roughly a word form) = w'; (ii) lexeme: 'the set of all lexes that can be described by one dictionary entry'; (iii) "all of the lexes of a lexeme have an identical lexicographic definition and an identical lexical co-occurrence."

3. Word order is relevant even in cases of nonsense "sentences," because, together with "cases," they determine the "sentence'V'nonsentence" nature of the respective sequences of words (or "words"); see also 2.2; e.g., the wellknown example given by Scerba (1957: 11) in "Russian":

(11)

Glokaja kuzdra stepo bodlanula bokrjonka, [Untranslatable nonsense words.] (The) G ( + A d j + Fem + Nom + Sg) Κ (+Noun + Fem + Nom + Sg) + S (ly + A d v + Indef) Β ( + V b + Perfective + Preterite + Fem + Sg) Β (+Noun + Masc + Gen/Acc + Sg).'

where we have the following derivational interpretation:

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Paul Schveiger

(12)

VP = COMMENT Det

glokaja AGENT

kuzdra

stepo bodlanula ACTION

0

bokrjonka PATIENT

in which the morphological "interpretation" is strongly motivated by the "iconic" word order. It is evident from (12) and similar cases, that where content information is not available, the only clue to be used for "interpretation" is the order of the words, which is "supposed" to reflect "the order in which things go in the real world." The differences between SVO and all the other types of languages might be explained by distinct interpretations of the principle of "iconicity," as well as the different places of stress (leading to changes in place between topic and comment) in the SVO sentence. This might be the expression of the same principle in different and specific ways. It is in general observed that "when we make inferences, we relate old, previously stored information to information we recognize as new, and take into account contextual cues, all of which facilitate comprehension" (Bayles and Kaszniak 1987: 66 my emphasis; but see also Smith and Bates 1987: 10). There are, however, languages which tolerate in nonemphasized situations (i.e., in neutral patterns) two or more types of word order: "SOV order [in Hungarian] is used when the object of the verb is indefinite, while SVO order is preferred when the object of the verb is definite. [...] New information [is] placed in preverbal position." (McWhinney and Osman-Nagy 1988: 117).

3.1 It ought to be mentioned here that word order is completed in each natural language by proper prosodic paradigms, specific both for marked and nonmarked variants of the word order. In usual (standard) communication sit-

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uations, word order and prosody go together (their discrimination is possible only on methodological grounds, for the sake of research).

4. Aphasie speech performance is considered to be a measure of what is, and or what is not "resistant in language" to outside (in this case pathological) influence. The last years have witnessed a certain interest of aphasiologists in the problems of word order, its perseverance in the aphasics' speech performance, and the possibilities to use the elements constituting the entire paradigm of word order during the process of verbal/communicative rehabilitation (see, e.g., Bates, Friederici and Wulfeck 1987, 1988; Grodzinsky 1984, 1986; Lapointe 1985; Scholles 1982; Schwartz, Saffran and Marin 1980; Smith and Mimica 1984).

4.1 An interesting discussion is under way about the distinction between "being able to emit (a certain language structure)," and "being able to understand (a certain language structure," because - in most cases - there is a strong connection between these two aspects of the communicative performance. It was successfully demonstrated that not only fluent, but also dysfluent aphasics had problems with understanding the messages they were supposed to receive and properly decode. The understanding and/or emitting of sequences of symbols, supposedly carrying a message implies not only the ability to operate with the lexical and grammatical units of the language involved, but also the ability to make inferences and deductions, and to use specific methods of problem solving (but see also Stachowiak et al., 1977: 177, etc.). What is important to stress here, is that aphasics (irrespective of the specificity of their illness) lose their feeling of "being at liberty with their principles of word order," and start using them mostly as "freezes" (as a general rule, the aphasics lose their capacity to choose among the different possibilities existing in the given language).

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5.

The freezes mentioned in 4.1 "reflect iconically order in the universe, as perceived by the members of a culture." (Landsberg 1982: 365, note 4, quoting Woolley 1976: 291). This explains the differences between freezes in the different natural languages and, perhaps, the similarities existing between languages which do belong to the same real entity (see, e.g., Schveiger 1984). However, there seem to exist in the structural organization of freezes some universal (or, at least, quasi-universal) rules, such as, e.g., "Pänini's compound rule, according to which, in frozen expressions, words with fewer syllables precede words with more" (Gil 1986: 121-122). An explanation of such a situation might be connected with the fact - discussed earlier - that usually, at the beginning of the message, the old (i.e., previously known) information is to be found, which may be expressed more shortly, while the new (until the communication of its unknown information, which has to be presented in more detail), follows later on. In most natural languages freezes receive an automatized treatment (as, e.g., in proverbs, etc.); see Nipold, Martin and Erskine (1988). As such, they remain at the disposal of most aphasics, who use them even instead of other expresions, which they have lost. There are well-known cases of aphasics who - losing their ability to use certain words (or categories of words) in free contexts - continued to make use of them often and without any difficulty in freezes. More or less identical is what happens with "dead metaphors": while unable to use and/or understand new, creative metaphors, some of the fluent aphasics used in their speech often enough dead metaphors (some specific problems of metaphoricity in aphasic communicative performance will be treated in another paper). The existence of the freezes in standard communication, and their persistence in aphasic communication, indicates their importance for communication (in general), even in the esthetically motivated one. This also shows the existence and strength of an "iconicity principle" at their logical and psychological foundations.

6. It is interesting, however, that, although children's communicative performance is strongly in the grips of the afore-mentioned "iconicity principle: actor first," they use very few, if any, freezes. Liles (1987: 186) observes that "children above 6 years reserve pronominalization in the initial slot of

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their utterances exclusively for the thematic subjects or main characters in the narrative." Moreover, as happens with most aphasics, children interpret, both in emission and reception, figures of speech in a strongly nonfigurative way (even during the Piagetian stage of concrete operations - seven/eight to eleven/twelve years - and the beginning of the stage of formal operations starting at about eleven/twelve years of age). With children's speech performance, "iconicity" might reflect (if we were to take into consideration the statistical preponderance of SVO [and/or SOV] word order) the effects of a "principle of least effort," meaning that A G E N T - ACTION order might be easier to master. However, this is a question which I have avoided all the way during the above discussion: perhaps my position is wrong, because it is simply determined by an Indo-European lingual mentality? But DuBois (1987: 824) says that "it is widely recognized that human protagonists tend to be central participants in most narrative discourse, and tend to be maintained as theme (roughly topic) in successive clauses" (while speaking about clearly non-Indo-European languages).

7. Jakobson (1942) has claimed - in his works witnessing the birth of linguists' legitimate interest in aphasiology - that aphasia mirrors the processes of children's language acquisition. Many aphasiologists (linguists included) feel that way. However, until now no adequate proof for this thesis was presented. This is probably so because, while acquisition of one's mother tongue proceeds in a more or less unitary trend, the aphasias (notwithstanding all the intensive attempt at classifying symptoms, localizations, etc.) manifest themselves - in the framework of certain large enough categories - as individual and specific performances of different patients. In those languages in which I had access to long enough sequences of aphasic speech performance (either recorded personally, or found in the literature: Indo-European languages: English, French, Italian, Romanian, Russian; Finno-Ugric languages: Finnish, Hungarian, Semitic languages: Hebrew), the overwhelming majority of "sentences" were of the SVO (SV-, or S-O) form, with being often enough in the position of S the pronoun / as - e.g. - in the following dialogue:

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a. / want [to buy] bread. b. I want [to give you] bread.

Often these patients need the presence of the first person pronoun-subject in the first place of their "sentence" as a "reinforcement" for what is supposed to follow in the message. Scholles (1982: 361) shows that from a sample of 240 sentences produced by aphasics, 230 were of the SVO form, and only ten followed SOV word order. As such, we may conclude, with Bates et al. (1988: 350) that "the preservation of word-order is a general phenomenon" even if the aphasics used, before their illness, a language with two distinct prototypical word orders (see also Ansell and Flowers [1982: 61]; McWhinney and Osman-Nagy [1988: 117], etc). 7.1 In some cases, in sentences where both S and Ο are animate, aphasics might have difficulties in ordering the elements of their message (see Smith and Mimica 1984: 275; but see also Schwartz, Saffran and Marin 1980: 249-262). However, these authors did not claim that their patients had lost entirely the functionality of their communicative performance, because of the relative losses in the word-order.

7.2 Besides the motor (expressive) aspects of word order with aphasics, there is also the problem of the receptive aspects (see also 4.1), i.e., of the understanding of the messages of others; it is not very easy to find out if an aphasic patient has understood the difference between S V O and OVS, in specific situations. One such situation was discussed by Goodglass and Kaplan (1983: 53), when a patient was given this sentence: (13)

a. John asked his father to mail the letter and he did it.

afterwards being asked: b. Who mailed the letter? (14)

a. Susan promised mother to bake some brownies and she did it.

and being asked:

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(14)

385

b. Who baked the brownies?

But the difficulties in understanding the relationships might have arisen also from the more complex structure of (13a) and (14a): (15)

((S, V, Ο, ( ( 0 ! — • S 2 ) V 2 0 2 ) ' and S 2 V 2 0 2 ) 2 ) where S 2 = personal pronoun.

However, in the perhaps less complicated situations, such as (16)

Touch the pen with the comb

with the structure (17)

(S) V O, 0 2

it is supposed that the patients could act based on the principle "use the first named object as the agent" (Albert et al. 1981: 37). In understanding, aphasic patients can make relatively good use of semantic information (see Heeschen 1980: 6; Grodzinsky 1986: 138, Grodzinsky and Marek 1988: 217; Zurif 1980: 307; etc), and/or actual knowledge of the situation Riedel 1981: 215).

7.3

We may wish to consider the fact that, as a general rule, with most aphasics the relatively good perseverence of word order strategies (both in emission and in reception) might reflect the patients' sensitivity "to the given-new manipulation in at least some aspects of their speech" (Bates, Friederici and Wulfeck 1987: 55). The taxonomy proposed by McCarthy and Warrington (1985: 709) might be acceptable as a working hypothesis for further research: (18)

agrammatic aphasia (i) syntactic: the patient loses the principles of word order, and preserves the morphological signs. (ii) morphological: the patient preserves the principles of word order and loses the morphological signs of his messages.

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Notwithstanding the scientific history of aphasiology, which now spans well over a century of scholarly research, all these questions continue to remain without an adequate and convincing answer.

8. It is worth mentioning here that the fact that many (more or less natural) auxiliary languages such as, e.g., American Sign Language, or the sign language of the Plains Indians, etc., are also characterized by a high degree of iconicity, which correponds to word order in the natural languages; and, what is even more important, is that in these "languages," aphasics also preserve (in a good enough degree to remain functional) the main features of iconicity.

9.

S o m e natural phenomena, such as, e.g., iconicity in natural languages require both internal and external procedures of analysis. A psychological analysis of word order in standard, pathologically, and esthetically modified speech performance in natural languages, and in pidgins, and Creoles would, probably, lead to extremely interesting sights. These languages should also be subjected to analysis within their sociocultural matrices, in order to complete the data obtained by the "inner" psychological and logical) analysis. Of course, all such researches presuppose the existence of adequate material and organizational f r a m e w o r k s (which, unfortunately, at present are lacking almost entirely).

Notes 1. Although this paper mainly reflects work done earlier, the author benefitted from a grant of the Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorption while writing it. The author wishes to extend his most sincere thanks to (previous) colleagues and mentors in Romania, whose opinions influenced in a way or another those of the author: Drs. Mircea Borcila, Alexandru Fradis, Solomon Marcus, Zoltän Szäbo, Emanuel Vasiliu, Ion Voinescu, and - probably - others. The author also benefitted from useful discussion in Israel with Itzhac Schechter, Prof. Reuben Tsur and others. It is certain that none of them is responsible for faults and inadequacies in this text. Special thanks are due to the editor of this volume for her encouragement while working on this paper.

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2. It is interesting to mention here that during the last decades the notion of "neutral word order" was further developed by introducing the specific notion of pragmatically neutral word order, which takes into consideration the message's teleonomic nature (see also Sgall 1987).

References Ansell, B.J. and C. R. Flowers 1982 Aphasics' use of heuristic and structural lingusitic cues for sentence analysis. Brain and Language 16. 1. Bailes, K. A. and A. W. Kaszniak 1987 Communication and cognition in normal aging and dementia. London: Taylor and Francis. Bates, E . A . A . D . Friederici and B . B Wulfeck 1987 Grammatical morphology in aphasia: Evidence from three lagnuages. Cortex 23. 4. Bates E . A . A . D . Friederici, B . B . Wulfeck and L . A . Juarez 1988 On the preservation of word-order in aphasia: Cross-linguistic evidence. Brain and Language 33. 2. Buckingham, H . W . , Jr. 1981 Lexical and semantic aspects of aphasia. In M. Taylor-Sarno (ed.), Acquired aphasia. New York: Academic. Chernigovskaya, Τ. V. and V. L. Deghin 1986 Brain function asymmetry and natural organization of lingusitic competence. Brain and Language 29. 1. DuBois, J. W. 1987 The discourse basis of ergativity. Language 63. 4. Gil, D. 1986 A prosodic typology of language. Folia Linguistica (Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaea) 20. 1-2. Goodglass, H. and E. Kaplan 1983 The assessment of aphasia and related disorders. Philadelphia: Lea and Rebiger. Grodzinsky, Y. 1984 The syntactic characterization of agrammatism. Cognition 16. 2. 1986 Language deficits and the theory of syntax. Brain and Language 27. 1. Grodzinsky, Y. and A. Marek 1988 Algorithmic and heuristic processes revised. Brain and Language 33.2. Heeschen, C. 1980 Strategies of decoding actor-object relations by aphasic patients. Cortex 16.1. Jakobson, R. 1942 Kinder spräche, Aphasie und Lautgesetze. Uppsala: Almquist and Wikseil.

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Landsberg, Μ. Ε. 1982 The formal structure of sense: A systemic analysis. Quaderni di Semantica 3(2). 293-301. 1984 Spatiotemporal oppositions in semantic analysis and multidimensional aspects of linguistic space and time. Quaderni di Semantica 5(1). 182-193. 1987 Semantic aspects of syntactic iconicity. In R. Crespo, Β. Dotson Smith and H. Schultink (eds.), Aspects of language. Studies in honour of Mario Alinei. Vol. 2. 233-247. Theoretical and applied semantics Amsterdam: Rodopi. 1994 Semantic constraints on phonologically independent freezes.(this volume) Lapointe, S.G. 1985 A theory of verb form use in the speech of agrammatic aphasics, Brain and Language 24.1. Liles, B . Z . 1987 Episode organization and cohesive conjunctives in narratives of children with and without language disorders. Jounral of Speech and Hearing Research 30.2. McCarthy, R. and Ε. K. Warrington 1985 Category specificity in an agrammatic patient: The relative impairment of verb retrieval and comprehension. Neuropsychologia 23.6. McWhinney, B. and J. Osman-Nagy 1988 Aphasia in Hungarian. Abstract of paper presented to the Academy of Aphasia at the 28th Annual Meeting, 1988 Montreal. Mel'cuk, I.A. 1985 Three main features, seven basic principles, and eleven most important results of Roman Jakobson's morphological research. In K. Pomorska and S. Rudy (eds.), Roman Jakobson: Verbal art, verbal signs, verbal time. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1986 Towards a definition of case. In R. Brecht and J.S. Levine (eds.), Case in Slavic. Columbus, OH: Slavica. Nippold, M . A . , S . A . Martin and B.J. Erskine 1988 Proverb comprehension in context: A developmental study with children and adolescents. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 31.1. Piaget, J. and B. Inhelder 1962 Les operations intellectuels et leur developement. In P. Fraisse and J. Piaget (eds.), Traite de Psychologie Experimentale. Vol. 7. 109-156. Riedel, Κ. 1981 Auditory comprehension in aphasia. In M. Taylor-Sarno (ed.), Acquired sia. New York: Academic. Scerba, L. V. 1957 Izbrannyje raboty po Russkomu jazyku guage], Moscow: Gupiz.

apha-

[Selected works about the Russian lan-

Scholles, R.J. 1982 The verb-right strategy in agrammatic aphasia. Neuropsychologia

20.3.

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Schveiger, P. 1984 Ο introducere in semioticä [An introduction to semiotics] (in Romanian). Bucharest: Editura Stiinfificä §i Enciclopedicä. 1986 Classification of texts. Aspects of pathological (aphasic) performance. In J . S . Petöfi (ed.), Text connectedness from a psychological point of view. Hamburg: Buske. Schwartz, M. F. Ε. M. Saffran and O . S . M . Marin 1980 The word-order problem in agrammatism. Brain and Language 10.2. Sgall, P. 1987 Prague functionalism and topic vs. focus. In R. Dirven and V. Fried (eds.), Linguistic and literary studies in Eastern Europe: Functionalism in lingusitics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Smith, S. and E. A. Bates 1987 Accessibility of case and gender contrasts for agent-object assignment in Broca's aphasics and fluent anomics. Brain and Language 30:1. Smith, S. D. and I. Mimica 1984 Agrammatism in a case-inflected language: Comprehension of agent-object relations. Brain and Language 21.2. Stachowiak, F.-J., R. Huber, K. Poeck and M. Kershensteiner 1977 Text comprehension in aphasia. Brain and Language 4.2. Woolley, D. E. 1976 Iconic aspects of language. In R . J . Di Pietro and E. L. Blansitt, Jr. (eds.), The third lacus forum 1976. 287-291. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam. Zurif, E . B . 1980 Language mechanisms: A neuropsychological perspective. American Scientist 68(3). 567.

Part IV

Syntactic iconicity in philosophy

Syntactic iconicity and connectionist models of language and cognition Paul

Bouissac

Abstract This paper proposes to take into consideration the current development of "connectionist" or "parallel distributed processing" models as well as data provided by the neurosciences, in order to recast the problem of linguistic iconicity in a theoretical framework different from the one which has dominated linguistic thought since de Saussure. Evolutionism and biologism provide the philosophical background for this approach by contrast with Platonist idealism, which exercises a pervasive influence in mainstream linguistic theories. From this latter point of view iconicity appears as an anomaly in a mental universe governed by the principle of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign, whereas this paper's perspective considers iconicity as the natural norm and construes signs' arbitrariness as a problem which requires to be explained. The debate on linguistic iconicity, which has continued for the last century or so, appears to be ultimately rooted in a conflict of worldviews or cosmological models (Antal 1984). If articulate language is a property of the mind based on universal ideal forms, the great variety of human languages must be accounted for in terms of phenomenal accidents (Chomsky 1968, 1986). This view will lead to a consideration of diagrams and schemata as approximate reflections of these Platonist "ideas," closer to their ultimate metaphysical reality than any actual sample of verbal expression. Any analogy or similarity between these phenomenal languages (e.g., Lieberman 1983), or between linguistic patterns and other aspects of the phenomenal world (e.g., Kimpel 1981) is a mere accident from which only very limited generalizations can be drawn, since it belongs to the realm of anomalies, curiosities, and fallacies. If, on the other hand, articulate languages are conceived as forms of adaptive behavior in the framework of a more general semiotic competence that has evolved over a great number of years, then no single aspect of those languages can be arbitrarily labeled accidental or inessential, with respect to would-be definitional features of ideal essences. On the contrary,

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the biological view of languages requires that they be apprehended within the evolutionary continuum as successive and successful steps whose cumulative results may convey an impression of ontological discontinuity, but which can actually be described and explained only be retracing their developmental process (Grolier 1983). Admittedly, linguists and semioticians do not usually make explicit the underlying philosophies of their approach to language and most often take for granted the tacit implications of their cosmologies. However, making those assumptions explicit helps clarify the debate on linguistic iconicity by showing how technical arguments relate to comprehensive worldviews. This paper will adopt an unambiguously biological and evolutionary perspective and will try to show how current connectionist models and neurological data may contribute to a better understanding of linguistic iconicity. However, it should be made clear at the outset that given the state of the art, notably in neurolinguistics, all attempts of this sort can only be tentative and hypothetical.

The bias of arbitrariness The linear, algorithmic conception of language undoubtedly is a productive modelization which has yielded many important advances in modern linguistics. Reductive radical abstractions such as the principle of arbitrariness applied to linguistic signs, binarism, or the formulation of logical and grammatical rules governing syntax and discourse have helped understand crucial aspects of articulate language. At the same time, and as a consequence of these epistemological strategies, other aspects of linguistic productions and verbal interactions have been downgraded as being secondary or even discarded as irrelevant, i.e. as not belonging to the domain of linguistics proper. From the vantage point of the final years of a century of intense speculations and empirical research on language, which has witnessed the emergence of linguistics as a discipline, it is possible to distance oneself from the often violent debates punctuating its development. The successive domination by de Saussure's (1916, 1959) and Chomsky's (1957, 1965) theoretical approaches over the field has focused scientific attention on the structural aspects (Anttila 1985) of human language, its calculus dimension, rather than on its model-· ing properties. Moreover, the philosophical backgrounds of these major intellectual enterprises have tended to privilege the systematic and ontogenetic perspectives and to neglect the analogical and phylogenetic ones. As a result, concerns for the iconic properties of articulate language were confined to the margins of several generations of mainstream linguistic schools. This is not

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to say that significant investigations of the "naturalness" of language and of its evolutionary dimensions have been totally absent from twentieth-century linguistic inquiry; there have been indeed constant undercurrents claiming a legitimate place for the study of these neglected aspects. However, researchers convinced that linguistic arbitrariness was misconstrued as a definitional feature of language had either to prove their case, when their approach was at odds with theories taken for granted, or to proceed in an apologetic way, trying to justify their research activities while acknowledging their noncentrality. Time and again the communicative function of articulate language and the functionalist views it entails have been questioned, as have been the notions of ideal native speakers and grammaticality (e.g., Paikeday 1985). It has been often pointed out that language might be primarily a modeling system (e.g., Sebeok 1985) and only secondarily a communicative tool by "exaptation" (Gould and Vrba 1982). Countless times it has also been emphasized that neither actual verbal interactions, nor literary uses of language exactly coincide with the sentences presented as the norm in Transformational Grammar grammatical examples upon which theoretical constructs were based, and that they form a mass of language productions characterized by some critics as "linguish" (Paikeday 1985). Nevertheless, no proponent of an alternative view relating to linguistic iconicity has succeeded in turning the attention of the linguistic community in their direction in a significant manner. Sporadic foci of "iconists" have remained relatively isolated and marginal. The reason has probably been the lack of a model which would have accommodated the data. The point made by this paper is that the situation may now have changed with the development of connectionist models, as well as some advances in the understanding of brain processes. If the sign is conceived as a univocal relation, and syntax as an activity under the control of law and order with the help of notions such as rules, constraints, government and binding, a considerable amount of language activity necessarily falls outside the "norm." Some utterances will be outlawed as ungrammatical, and homonyms will form a stigmatized class in the realm of abnormalities. For the vast majority of language productions which neither rigorously conform to the "norm" nor exhibit features which categorically deny this "norm," both de Saussure's (1916, 1959) and Chomsky's (1957, 1965) schools have devised stratagems destined to reduce linguistic deviance, the former through the concept of connotation (Hjelmslev 1968), the latter through the concept of transformation (Chomsky 1965). Both approaches are ways of reintegrating linguistic diversity into the universe of rules, identities and differences that their respective theories dreamed up. But if the proof of the analysis is indeed in the synthesis, the present difficulties encountered by

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artificial intelligence research to simulate articulate language in interactive, creative situations seem to indicate that the modeling performed by mainstream modern linguistics was too reductive in some respect. However, the lack of alternative theories has curtailed the efforts of those who were attempting to encompass all language productions in their purview, for they could not accept what were for them arbitrary decisions to exclude numerous linguistic data that did not fit a priori definitions of sign and grammar. Thus, most proponents of linguistic iconicity tended to accept their theoretical marginality, limiting their endeavors to correcting "excesses" and restoring a balance, but basically endorsing the linguistic doxa of the time. It should also be pointed out that all "iconists" do not ipso facto relate to the evolutionist worldview on language, and that some unambiguously embrace a Platonist approach by attempting to identify, in the diversity of linguistic manifestations, some universal (natural) geometrical forms drawing their meaning and value from some ultimate, ideal realities (Plato [1961]: 472-474 and 520-524). Linguistic structures are thus considered iconic in the sense that there exists a fundamental isomorphism between these material structures and the meaning they convey, hence the concepts of "natural morphology" (Dressier 1985: 51) and "natural order of attributes" (Posner 1982: 49). For some, iconism may even refer to "icons" in the religious rather than semiotic sense, or to the transcendental schemata of Kant ([1963]: 180-187) and subsequent Romantic German philosophy for which the necessity of determinability requires the power of imagination which is a faculty that wavers in the middle between determination and nondetermination, between finite and infinite (e.g., Fichte 1970: 194). Haiman (1985a) contains some examples of such approaches, e.g., the papers by Bybee (1985a: 11-47) and Slobin (1985a: 221-248) and others. By contrast, this paper takes an evolutionist, operational and, some would say, reductionist stand. Addressing the problem will require two steps: first to offer a theory according to which iconicity can be thought of as the norm; secondly, to propose an explanation accounting for the data which satisfies Saussurean (de Saussure, 1916) and Chomskyan (Chomsky, 1965) linguistic theories. The first step can make use of the connectionist models which were developed during the late seventies and eighties. The second one can bring into focus two natural sources combining to erode iconicity and cause arbitrariness to emerge, namely the economy of information (Haiman, 1985b) and the biological advantages procured by the compartmentalization of the semiotic space (Bouissac, to appear).

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Connectionist models and iconicity If signs are conceived as knowledge structures in a multidimensional space, rather than as univocal relations or triadic processes, they can be represented by multiple input-output systems and expressed by statistical models rather than metaphysical ones endowed with some sort of ontological identity. These knowledge structures can thus be conceived as being permeable to random inputs within the constraints evolved by organisms necessarily atuned to their environment through selective permeability. The "connectionist" or "Parallel Distributed Processing" (PDP) models of cognitive processes whose early principles were first developed during the 1950s and early 1960s {e.g. Lashley 1960; Morton 1969; Rosenblatt 1959, 1962; Selfridge and Neisser 1960), represent an attempt at accommodating a vast array of data begging for a comprehensive theoretical framework. The conceptual style of these models is markedly different from that of the standard symbol-processing models. Their "hardware mechanisms are networks consisting of large numbers of densely interconnected units, which correspond to concepts (Feldman and Ballard 1982) or to features (Hinton, McClelland and Rumelhart 1986). These units have activation levels and they transmit signals (graded or 1-0) to one another along weighted connections" (Pinker and Prince 1988: 75). The proponents of these models believe that they "may provide more accurate accounts of the details of human performance than models based on a set of rules representing human competence at least in some domains" (McClelland, Rumelhart and Hinton 1986: 24). What seems to make these models particularly interesting for handling the problem of linguistic iconicity is that they enable us to relate linguistic output to complex knowledge structures based on the coordination of a large number of different components through which the interactions of simultaneous pieces of information or constraints are computed. As McClelland, Rumelhart and Hinton (1986: 10) put it, These models assume that information processing takes place through the interactions of a large number of simple processing elements called units, each sending excitatory and inhibitory signals to other units. In some cases, the units stand for possible hypotheses about such things as the letters in a particular display or the syntactic roles of the words in a particular sentence. In these cases, the activations stand roughly for the strengths associated with the different possible hypotheses, and the interconnections among the units stand for the constraints the system knows to exist between the hypotheses.

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If units compute their output signals "through a process of weighting each of their input signals by the strength of the connection along which the signal is coming in, summing the weighted input signals, and feeding the results into a nonlinear output function, usually a threshold" (Pinker and Prince 1988: 75), then one could easily conceive that language processes systematically work out in their outputs some relevant perceptual inputs. The attractiveness of these models for the issue of linguistic iconicity is that basically the entire operation of the model ...would have to be characterized not in terms of interactions among entities possessing both semantic and physical properties (e.g., different subsets of neurons or states of neurons each of which represent a distinct chunk of knowledge) but in terms of entities that had only physical properties {e.g., "the energy landscape" defined by the activation levels of a large aggregate of interconnected neurons). (Pinker and Prince, 1988: 77)

Although Pinker and Prince's endeavor in their article is to demonstrate that PDP models fail to live up to the claim by their authors, the expository part of their essay, from which the above quotation is taken, captures important aspects of those models.

Arbitrariness in perspective What is true of modern political powers is bound also to be true of earlier human social groups: there is a crucial advantage in developing a communication code that keeps competitors out. The secret codes used in the context of international spying have their equivalent in the natural evolution of languages restricted to those groups within which the sharing of information is mutually advantageous. Hence, the more arbitrary the code is, the better protection it ensures. Natural selection is sufficient to explain the emergence of a high degree of arbitrariness, because those social groups whose language was transparent, so to speak, were more vulnerable to exploitation or opportunistic predation than those whose plans and strategies were protected from widespread information leakage and subsequent eavesdropping. It is a well known fact that even within the boundaries of a linguistic community, age groups, deviant associations and sometimes family units themselves spontaneously develop idiolects in order not only to differentially assert their identity but also to protect sensitive information. The less iconic, the less motivated such codes are, the better they fulfill their intended functions. Therefore it seems reasonable not to attribute the most often obvious arbitrariness of the linguistic signs to the mind considered as an ontological

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agency distinct from things natural, because this arbitrariness can be more economically explained by purely natural causes if it is placed in the context of evolutionary processes and human ethology. This hypothesis would have the marked advantage of explaining why there are clear cases of linguistic iconicity but also why there is an overwhelming tendency toward linguistic arbitrariness. This view would also nicely fit the contrast usually existing between, on the one hand, the language norm (administration, law, school, "grammatical examples") which is offered as evidence of the arbitrariness principle and, on the other hand, young children's language production, casual conversation (e.g., Kimpel 1981; Slobin 1985) and poetic expression (e.g., Gait 1973), all domains from which most examples of iconicity are drawn. As Givon (1985: 214) pointed out: ...it is very likely ...that all "arbitrary" symbols arise naturally - ontogenetically, phylogenetically and diachronically - from more concrete/natural/ isomorphic icons ...It is only when one considers symbolic/arbitrary representation the general case in human language and iconic representation an exotica, a relic of nonhuman communication, that one fails to see this possibility. But it seems to me that in order for us to understand the seeming "magic' of symbolic representation, we ought to consider iconicity the truly general case in the coding, representation and communication of experience and symbols a mere extreme case on the iconic scale.

Only in a worldview which not only considers language and sensations as belonging to different cosmological orders, but also categorizes the latter into five separate, and hierarchical kingdoms, can linguistic iconicity be construed as a philosophical problem rather than as a research program. It has been indeed taken for granted in iconicity research that each instance is monomodal and homogeneous whereas most, if not all perceptions of events and objects are multimodal and heterogeneous. As Stein et al. (1989: 12) put it "vertebrates possess an impressive array of highly specialized senses for which unique peripheral organs (e.g., eyes, ears, etc.) have evolved. Each sense appears to operate independently to transduce environmental energy into a singular perceptual experience, yet somehow the brain integrates the information derived from all of these systems into a comprehensive awareness of the external world. It is integration that allows stimulus complexes to have meaning that individual components would not have, and this response flexibility is one of the fundamental properties of higher nervous systems." The various perspectives on brain architectures and processes can lead to some form of modeling able to relate perception and language in a way

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markedly different from those directly or indirectly inspired by a Platonist cosmology (Plato [1961]: 847-919 and 1153-1211). Current understandings of brain architecture and processes (e.g., Getting 1989) suggest a greater plasticity of neuron connections than was previously hypothesized. New concepts are emerging from investigations of the micro structure and functions of the brain, such as the idea that "a neural network depends upon interactions among multiple nonlinear processes at the cellular, synaptic and network levels" (Getting 1989: 85), rather than on fixed, lineary circuitry. It appears that "knowledge of connectivity alone is not sufficient to account for the operation and capabilities of neural networks" (Getting 1989: 185). Some patterns of hard-wired synaptic connectivity may have been conserved through evolution (Bouissac 1986), but it seems necessary to introduce the concept of modulation to account for the fact that there is evidence that "an anatomical network may be configured into any one of several modes, depending upon the particular combination of currently active mechanisms" (Getting 1989: 194). "...input may not only activate a network but may also configure it into an appropriate mode to process that input" (Getting 1989: 198). On the other hand, a new line of research in sensory inputs to the brain has brought into focus the way in which individual sensory modalities are integrated and how such integrations condition behavior (Cohen and Henn 1988). This research interest is developing against the background of a long tradition of investigating individual sensory systems through the properties and functions of their unimodal cells. "Nevertheless, studies have shown that the convergence of different sensory modalities onto individual neurons is an extraordinarily widespread phenomenon. Multisensory convergence has been documented at many phyletic levels" (Stein et al. 1989: 13). If "a separate neural network is not needed for each behavior or for each modification thereof" (Getting 1989: 199), and if sensory inputs combine at some levels of integration, then it can be expected that the output may implement a more complex coding than would be the case if information were digitally coded along a unilinear process constrained by hard-wired circuitry (Horn 1983). Such a perspective would enable one to consider as normal the iconic features and the semantic variability of language outputs. This, incidentally, corresponds to the most salient features of connectionist models.

Crude network models based upon the interaction of nonlinear elements are revealing the underpinnings of cognitive function, including content, addressable memory and simple pattern recognition (Hopfield and Tank 1986; Rumelhart et al. 1986). In terms of the properties of the elements and the complexity of the

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networks, the models are still barren in comparison with biological systems. (Getting 1989: 200)

This word of caution echoes Crick's (1989: 129) assessment of "the recent excitement about neural networks," in which he questions the adequacy of these models while acknowledging that they constitute an important step toward the understanding of brain processes: what has to be stored in a net is the capacity to produce a particular pattern of activity in a group of units. By suitably adjusting the strengths of all the synapses, using a simple, local rule, a net can produce a pattern, given a suitable "clue." The clue can be any smallish part of the desired pattern. This can be done especially easily if the net feeds back on itself. (Crick 1989: 129)

In view of these various data and models, which are currently restructuring our understanding of brain processes (Maddox 1989) - and with all due caution in a domain of knowledge of such complexity - it seems that a blueprint for a theory of linguistic iconicity should include the following elements: (1) parallel processing of perceptual features; (2) various stages of successive integrations of these features into more complex ensembles endowed with some sort of dynamic stability; (3) relations of these elements with output processes including articulate language and other motor behavior, (4) evaluation of the degree to which input and output match each other and ways of control that may either decrease or increase isomorphism. Note that isomorphism applies to the relation between input and output, not necessarily to the processing of information from one to the other. However, it should be obvious that if at least some features of the input are successfully produced in the output, these features must be preserved in whatever information processes take place in between. It should also be obvious that because the output can be considerably delayed, these features and their potential configurations must also be stored and addressable. However, there is no need to assume analogical coding in the form of "mental imagery," because those features which account for isomorphism between input and output can be fairly abstract in the form of intermodal schemata (e.g., rhythmicity) or even algorithms. This is why isomorphism seems to be implemented always in the form of homological relations rather than in one-to-one correspondence. The important point that this model suggests is that linguistic production is not the implementation of an independent program whose algorithms generate an infinity of grammatical structures but, on the contrary, that knowledge structures, including those iconic features which pertain to their domain of reference, necessarily

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interact with syntactic algorithms or whatever production system accounts for all the perceptual characteristics of the output.

Sampling linguistic iconicity In examining examples taken from written language it should not be forgotten that auditory features rather than visual ones are pertinent in this aspect, since intonation is the only direct cue of syntactical organization, and since intonation is an abstract, schematic feature domain that can be coded either in a continuous, analogous manner (curves) or in a discontinuous, arbitrary one (punctuation marks), intonation may convey the feature of sequentiality, speed, parallelism, bifurcation, effort, and the like. The famous veni, vidi, vici does not so much represent a "natural" order of events as it has been often claimed, but rather the tempo and instantaneousness of the action, like the French sitöt dit, sitot fait, or pas vu, pas pris. The knowledge structures that are created or activated at various levels of excitation and motivation necessarily include transformed perceptual features, either directly related to their referent or indirectly tapping a metaphorical stock, for instance in the case of a direct reference to a maze, as opposed to the discursive modeling of thought or memory as a labyrinthine process. It goes without saying that this approach does not necessarily imply an acceptance of Gibson's view on perception (e.g., 1979) because, on the one hand, not only does it allow, but probably requires, the possibility of digital coding between the input and the output and, on the other hand, it takes into consideration the cultural construction, transformation and transmission of processed percepts as categories which prepackage the features, so to speak, in the context of particular ecosystems and social histories. As much as, if not more than, direct perception, these categories are the source of the norms in the evaluative process through which the output is matched with the input. This would explain why iconic features can be distributed in language productions in a manner which does not coincide univocally with the lexicological material, but rather organize the sentence or larger discursive segments. For instance, saturation or crowding of a reference space, tempo of the represented actions, density or scarcity of information of a modeled environment, symmetry of an artefact, interaction, situation or reasoning mediated by architecture metaphors. The following segment from les Memoires d'outre-tombe (Chateaubriand 1946) clearly shows how an iconic input as part of a knowledge structure can organize the syntactic output.

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The narrator sits leaning against the trunk of a tree and dozes off; when he wakes up he realizes that two young native women have come and sat down, one on each side and have themselves fallen asleep, their heads resting on his shoulders. The perceptual feature organizing the knowledge structure thus evoked includes two segments of equal length leaning on a central vertical line so as to form symmetrical angles with it. The schematic, geometrical organization is congruent with the topological structure of the male/female categories prevailing in the cultural context of this language production, namely the centrality of the male and the need for support which defines the female status. Let us also keep in mind that this knowledge structure through which male/female relationships are represented is, in this case, transferred to the register 'exotic' and 'primitive' as opposed to 'civilized' in the framework of eighteenth-century ideology (I am referring here to Rousseau's influence on Chateaubriand 1946: 306-307) and therefore its fundamental dissymmetry of compulsory monogamy is corrected by the features of native innocence and natural harmony which restore the balance that can be expected in a paradise regained. If this visual, tactile and conceptual configuration is considered one of the sets of elements of the input - in addition to the narrative structure and the memorized events that this discourse is purported to convey - it is interesting to see how they are modeled in the output given the other inputs, including the lexical and grammatical constraints. The text reads as follows: Je m'adossai contre le tronc d'un magnolia et je m'endormis, mon repos flottait sur un fond vague d'esperance. Quand je sortis de ce Lethe, je me trouvais entre deux femmes; les odalisques etaient revenues; elles n'avaient pas voulu me reveiller; elles s'etaient assises ä mes cötes; soit qu'elles feignissent le sommeil, soit qu'elles fussent reellement assoupies, leurs tetes etaient tombees sur mes epaules. Chateaubriand (1946: 264-265)

Although the second paragraph endeavors to account, retrospectively for a sequence of events which is assumed to have taken place while the narrator was asleep, the output displays iconic features on the level of the syntactic and prosodic organization of the text, which models a knowledge structure focused on a spatial representation. Syntax and prosody, in the first sentence (Quand je sortis de ce Lethe, je me trouvais entre deux femmes), implement two segments of equal length - according to the rules of French versification - with the voice raised to the highest point on the last phoneme of the

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first segment. This sentence is succeeded by two sentences of exactly equal length, comprised of ten syllables each (les odalisques etaient revenues; elles n'avaient pas voulu me reveiller). the following sentence may be orally implemented as a reiteration of the ten-syllable matrix, at the cost of skipping a redundant plural mark, a common occurrence in reading aloud, mainly if in this case it conflicts with a conjoined prosodic structure endowed with some degree of pregnancy. The syntactic device "either ...or ..." followed by segments of approximately equal length, requires that the voice implement two ascending curves each ending at the same point, whence the last segment descends to the resting point. This, of course, should not be seen as an intentional process in the sense that it would involve conscious planning, but rather as the statistical output of some form of neuronal turbulence - the end-result of interferences whose input in the productive process contributes to the linguistic modeling of some relevant iconic features. Because of the initial (biological) constraints on the perceptual systems, and because of their integration which presupposes some significant degree of abstraction in the neural coding of these perceptual features, it can be hypothesized that the iconic structures that are activated in the context of more inclusive knowledge structures form a finite, even relatively small repertory. But far from being merely decorative, or superfluous, this repertory is necessarily firmly rooted in the biological atunement of organisms to their environments. These iconic features - which would be more aptly designated by the term of crossmodal features, because of their relative abstractness pertain to survival values, since they can be considered the building blocks of modeling. As Shepard (1984: 431, note b) tentatively puts it, I conjecture that the elaborate, special apparatus of syntax has evolved in humans primarily for one purpose to furnish automatic rules for mapping between complex multidimensional structures in the representational system and onedimensional strings of discrete communicative gestures (vocal or manual). I have also argued, however, that these rules, which could not have sprung fullfledged from nowhere, may have been built upon already evolved rules of spatial representation and transformation. If so, syntactic rules may be to some extent traceable, after all, to abstract properties of the external world. (See also Shepard 1975, 1981, 1982.)

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Perception in context: knowledge structures and environmental constraints The debate on linguistic iconicity has almost exclusively focused on simplified visual and auditory perceptions. Ideograms and onomatopoeias are classical examples of lexical iconicity which have often been construed as primitive language productions, a claim which is relatively easy to debunk. But on the other hand, when Akmajian, Demers and Harnish (1984: 42), for instance, echoing de Saussure (1916: 100-101), write "The word dog does not resemble a dog," they implicitly refer to static visual perception, without consideration for the fact that other features than visual and static ones may be relevant parts of the knowledge structure associated with a particular kind of animal. Given a set of vocal and manual gestures as well as bodily postures and movements that can be combined in order to model pertinent aspects or agents of an environment, the output cannot not be constrained by the complex ecological situation which is an indissociable part of the knowledge structure considered (Johnson 1987). There is no reason why iconicity should apply solely to decontextualized lexical items or syntactic structures; on the contrary, it seems more appropriate to define language productions as situational outputs atuned to a broad range of sensory inputs and endowed with adaptive value. From the cosmological point of view of this paper it is inconceivable to exclude contextual ized perceptions - and their memory traces - from the computational processes underlying language productions and normalizations (Shepard 1984). For instance, it may be puzzling, at first, to discover that in Malayalam, a Dravidian language spoken in the southern Indian state of Kerala, the most imposing animal which shares the same ecosystem with humans, the elephant, is referred to by a remarkably diminutive word: aana. However, it becomes less surprising if one takes into account the fact that wild elephants which have roamed the forest from time immemorial are the most dangerous mammals that humans can encounter. Forests tribes such as the Jenukorubas of Karnataka have evolved a culture based upon a sophisticated knowledge of elephant ethology and upon skillful avoidance and control strategies. (K. Narayan, personal communication, 1989). It is of the utmost importance that the proximity of elephants which, incidentally, can be remarkably silent, be immediately signalled to the rest of the human group by the first to sight or smell them in a way that is congruent with the situation. In other words, a vital constraint operates in the framework of the knowledge structure relating to elephants: the necessity to warn the group of the proximity of elephants without attracting, at the same time, the animals'

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attention; this is all the more important as elephants have relatively poor eyesight, but highly perceptive hearing and olfaction. These considerations can help understand how language productions are motivated in a way which narrowly relates to evolution, and how knowledge structures might be a more appropriate concept than perception, when it comes to account for iconicity. It is indeed clear from this example that the word aana cannot be considered a simple arbitrary alarm signal or a case of mere deixis, but is a referential word, whose phonological structure is motivated by a configuration of situational inputs. 1 In cultures in which elephants are imported curiosities, or known only as domesticated animals, other constraints may operate, resulting in vastly different forms, when taxonomists devise nomenclatures, the constraints of descriptive explicitness and differential definition are rooted in a whole set of situational inputs, markedly distinct in their forms, but not of a different nature. Indeed, taxonomists also model their environment by selecting features which are relevant to a situation characterized by a considerable expansion of their geopolitical territory, and a competitive game structure which they form with their peers, viz. the current debate about cladistic taxonomy (Dawkins 1986: 255-284).

Syntax and kinetic iconicity Another aspect of knowledge structures which is often overlooked when theorizing about iconicity is the kinetic dimension of perceptual experience and the dynamic structure of interactive situations (McNeill 1985). Motricity and timing are, after all, essential aspects of human survival and their inputs must be taken into consideration when the issue of syntactic iconicity is raised. It is well known, for instance, that the mimicry of animals by humans always consists of abstracting some kinetic features of the gait, stride or head movements and of integrating these features into human motor behavior. The kinetic aspects of intonative syntax and prosody have received comparatively scant scientific attention. Frequency, duration, intensity, and rhythms of utterances - and their graphic coding - have been tentatively described in the framework of paralinguistics (e.g., Crystal 1974), but the kinetic dimension has been consistently lost in the reductive schematism of modern linguistics, whose formal homogeneity does not provide theoretical space to accommodate kinetic iconicity, except as decorative, extralinguistic surface effects. However, intonation and syntactic structures (Martin 1982) are intimately related to motricity as Jousse (1969) - a French Jesuit who was teaching at L'Ecole d'anthropologie in Paris - convincingly argued in a series of

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monographs published for the most part between the twenties and the fifties. Focusing on orality in the broader context of gestures and mimicry, Jousse developed a crosscultural and interdisciplinary approach whose limited influence beyond the circle of his French students and disciples is probably due, on the one hand, to the idiosyncrasies of his terminology and, on the other, to the theological framework of his research. Another problematic aspect of Jousse's idea is his reliance on research in a variety of disciplines, such as, for instance, neuropsychology and ethnology, which have experienced dramatic changes over the last fifty years. This, nevertheless, does not invalidate Jousse's insights regarding the relevance of kinetic mimicry for the understanding of syntax (e.g. Jousse 1969), although an important updating effort would be in order, should his views be found, upon close examination, sufficiently sophisticated to make it possible to derive from them interesting empirical inquiries. Given the centrality of timing and movement for most living organisms, it is surprising how little is currently known in the vast field of dynamic behavior both on the phenomenological and neurological levels (e.g. Massion et al. 1983; Nespoulous, Perron and Lecours 1986). And how the preoccupations of linguists in general are remote from this emerging body of knowledge, as they usually restrict their concern for motricity to the articulatory aspects of natural language. Investigations of the neurophysiology of time perception and of the temporal structures of language and other interactive productions are still in their infancy. 2 However, probing this domain of frontier research (e.g., Gibbon and Allan 1984; Mair 1978, 1986) provides interesting glimpses of the sort of knowledge that would be necessary to come fully to grips with syntactic iconicity, conceived as the linear modeling, under evolutionary constraints, of multisensorial and contextualized knowledge structures. In the meantime, attempts like those of Jousse (1969) or von Laban (1966) can help adumbrate a general hypothesis that connectionist models could eventually provide with operational or, at least, coherent formulation. The various kinetic categorizations of von Laban's analysis ("Labananalysis") (Davis 1979; Dell 1970), in spite of their metaphorical overtones - which, incidentally, are identical to those found in the stylistic characterization of literary texts, as well as individual speech profiles - could be expressed in terms of the phenomenon of temporal pattern configurations being themselves constitutive parts of knowledge structures. There is no need to hypothesize an indefinite number of such patterns, because the evolutionary perspective, which is at the root of this approach, would make it likely that humans have evolved a modeling capacity atuned to typical properties of their environment, i.e., under the double constraint of the relevant dynamic features of their mi-

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lieu and the temporal structures of their organisms (e.g., cycles, biological clocks, pulsions, time perception and evaluation, timing of mental acts, rhythmic competence, and the like). The argument boils down to pointing out that categories such as the eight effort variables used in Labananalysis: Strength, Lightness, Quickness, Sustainment, Bound or Controlled Flow, Free Flow, Directness and Indirectness (Katriel and Ness 1984) are relevant attributes of knowledge structures that are not only apt at being modeled linguistically, but cannot not be a determining input in the modeling process, as a necessary result of weighted neuronal connections. The opposition between the two parts comprising a Carelian magic incantation analyzed by Austerlitz (1987: 3) illustrates this point. Lines 1 and 2 refer to the quick timing involved in catching a prey (here in the context of fishing with a hook). This fishing technique requires a prompt reflex, a perfectly timed outburst of muscular energy as soon as a fish makes a sudden contact with the bait. Lines 3 and 4 evoke the duration of the enticing behavior (the baiting of the prey), a form of patient seduction, a time at which the predator moves in a slow flow or remains still, mimicking the unsuspecting prey: Ota onki, niele niekla, Koppoa kovera rauta! Miul on siimani silie, Miul on maimani makie. 'Take the hook, swallow the pin, bite the bent steel! My thread is smooth, my bait is sweet. The literal translation made here into English from Austerlitz's French cannot be expected to render the contrasting syntactic and intonative movements, which capture in the original the kinetic dimension of the knowledge structures involved. The fact that this short sample is a magic formula should not downgrade its linguistic relevance, because in all likelihood religious incantations are prime candidates when it comes to making hypotheses regarding the motivation and function of early linguistic modeling, in as much as actions and events are believed to be prompted by compelling mimicry, thus constituting a strong argument for syntactic iconicity. However, as in Chateaubriand's (1905) example, it seems obvious that the modeling process does not consist of a direct copy, as a photograph would be, but that

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perceptual inputs, through whatever transformations they undergo and under whatever form they are preserved in the neuronal network, carry over to the textual outputs some characteristic patterning, which may or may not exactly coincide with the referential material. Modeling implies the capacity of recombining. In the Carelian spell the evocation of the capture of the prey precedes the enticement through the bait, because it takes the form of an injunction, or a prayer, followed by an argument destined to trick the prey by means of a seductive gift.

Concluding remarks The sketchy and tentative hypothesis which has been developed in this paper both considers linguistic iconicity as the norm rather than the exception, and attempts to account for linguistic arbitrariness in a manner that is consistent with the underlying cosmology of this epistemological endeavor. However, the context in which this hypothesis is formulated should be kept in mind. The systematic reflection on language iconicity in the framework of modern linguistics is relatively recent (Brinton 1987). Those who define themselves with respect to this direction of thought usually quote Jakobson (e.g., 1965), Benveniste (e.g., 1966), Bolinger (e.g., 1952, 1965) and Greenberg (e.g., 1963, 1966) as their pioneers. It is therefore normal that this domain of inquiry is still grappling with problems of conceptual definition, object delimitation and method. In particular it seems that several distinct phenomena such as diagrammaticity, isomorphism, motivation and onomatopoeia have been lumped together for the single reason that each of them appears to deny to a lesser or greater extent the principle of arbitrariness of the linguistic sign. But this is not a sufficient ground for establishing a theory of iconicity, which would account for the diversity of language instances that are seemingly at odds with the currently dominant view in linguistics. Each of the phenomena listed above could be explained in terms that are compatible with the arbitrariness principle. Diagrams convey information through the relative position of geometrical elements (lines, arrows, squares, circles, etc.), but usually bear little similarity, if any at all, with the phenomena or systems to which they refer, and are no less arbitrary in their principle than linguistic signs may appear to be. There can be diagrammatical expressions of both creationism and evolutionism, of both Piaget's (1962) and Skinner's (1938) conceptions of psychological processes, of both astrological influences and chemical structures, and so on. Systems of diagrammatic expressions need to be learnt no less than

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any other codes. Written languages and diagrams are based on geometrical two-dimensional constructs, differing only to some extent by the way they are scanned. The iconic fallacy of diagrams probably comes from their superficial resemblance to maps, which plot relational features of the world onto a bi-dimensional plan, a process constrained by some explicit referential rules. It can also be argued that onomatopoeias and isomorphisms do not provide irrefutable evidence of direct "transparency" of the world through linguistic structure. Some words appear to reflect the natural sounds they denote, or to mimic the sounds produced by the organisms or objects to which they refer. However, languages exhibit notable discrepancies with respect to the same invariant sounds such as, for instance, the crowing of the rooster or the barking of the dog. This is exactly what can be expected if the point of departure of this imitative process is a given phonological system from which the speakers select the combination of phonemes which most closely matches the natural sounds they want to model, in a way compatible with the phonic material available in the language. Hence the difference in rendition of the rooster's crowing as coquerico (French) or cock-a-doodle-doo (English). Isomorphism from the morphological to the syntactic and discursive levels can be viewed, in a similar manner, as the capacity for a given system of symbols, linguistic or otherwise, to model some aspects of the world with the capacity of constraining perception rather than the reverse, as some linguists have contended. Finally, motivation can be accounted for as a purely systematic phenomenon whose occasional coincidences with world features does not permit generalizations. Motivation, as de Saussure (Godel 1957: 84) has shown, pertains to the internal functioning of a closed system. There various arguments are not without strength, as they suggest the possibility of accommodating apparent examples of iconicity within the arbitrariness framework and its cosmology. This is why the development of an alternative hypothesis cannot limit itself to case studies, but must explore the possibility of formulating a comprehensive theory within which apparent examples of absolute linguistic arbitrariness can be explained as the results of a derived effect in the context of another sort of cosmology. The aim of this paper has been to attempt a different approach by redefining iconicity in terms of evolutionary theory and in view of current neurological data and cognitive models. By insisting on the naturalness of contrived arbitrariness conceived as an adaptive behavior, the argument developed here does not pitch one thesis against the other, but tries to show that, in the absence of a comprehensive theory of iconicity, those who have erected linguistic arbitrariness as a quasi-metaphysical principle, have based their attitude upon a subset of empirical evidence extracted from the broader

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context in which they belong, and which frame then differently once the context is taken into consideration. Indeed, there seem to exist both compelling theoretical arguments and supporting empirical data for a major shift of attitude regarding language productions.

Notes 1. The following personal experience provides a contemporary illustration of this phenomenon: during a tour in the wildlife reserve of Nagarahole (Karnataka) in December 1987, a vehicle carrying about twenty persons, for the most part from Southern India, took us along narrow dirt roads through the light forest of the Deccan plateau. As we were approaching a clearing, the youngsters who were sitting in the front row suddenly uttered aana! in a low, insistent tone of voice and immediately everybody froze, slightly crouching, as the vehicle came to a halt, watching three wild elephants crossing our path about two hundred meters ahead of us. This is in striking contrast with an event vividly remembered by the Director of the Central Institute of Indian Languages (Mysore) who had invited to a similar tour an American scholar who was visiting the institute. She had expressed a keen interest in sighting wild elephants. As soon as the vehicle came in view of a herd, she started shouting Elephants! Elephants! while exuberantly gesticulating with excitement. This cause the herd to charge the intruders and the driver hastily to make a sharp U-turn which left vivid memories - as well as bruises - with all the party. 2. Miller and Johnson-Laird, in their Language and perception (1976), devote a long section to "temporal relations" but typically rely on the concept of time developed by logicians, more particularly on the formalism of Rescher and Urquhart (1971), in order "to explore how English time expressions can be defined - or at least clarified and interrelated - by such logical concepts" (Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976: 421). Rather than tapping the complex domain of research in the neurophysiology and neuropsychology of time description and temporal pattern production, they base their analysis upon formal concepts which, it could be argued, are the end-products of a secondary modeling process, itself derived from the primary modeling represented by modern English. It is symptomatic that Miller and Johnson-Laird conclude this section by references to developmental psychology, through which they purport to document the way in which this temporal system is acquired by children.

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1963 Some universale of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In J. H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of language. 73-113. Cambridge, MA: MIT. 1966 Language universals. The Hague: Mouton. Grolier, E. de (ed.) 1983 Glossogenetics. The origin and evolution of language. New York: Harwood Academic Press. Haiman, J. (ed.) 1985a Iconicity in syntax. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 1985ft Natural syntax. Iconicity and erosion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hinton, G. E„ J. J. McClelland and D. E. Rumelhart 1986 Distributed representations. In D. E. Rumelhart and J. L. McClelland et al. (eds.), Parallel distributed processing. Explorations in the microstructure of cognition. 77-109. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Hjelmslev, L. 1968 Prolegomenes ä une theorie du langage. Paris: Minuit. Hopfield, J. J. and D. W. Tank 1986 Neural circuits and collective computation. Science 233. 625-633. Horn, E. (ed.) 1983 Multicodal convergences in sensory systems. (Fortschr. Zool. 28.) Stuttgart: Fischer. Jakobson, R. 1965 Quest for the essence of language. Diogene 51. 21-37. Johnson, M. 1987 The body in the mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Jousse, M. 1969 L'anthropologie du geste. Paris: Resma. Kant, I. [1963J Critique of pure reason. Translated by Ν. K. Smith. London: Macmillan. Katriel, T. and S. A. Ness 1984 Movement and signification: Amusement park rides as cultural performances. Recherches Semiotiques/Semiotic Inquiry 4(2). 177-194. Kimpel, R. W. 1981 Sound symbolism, euphemism, hypocorism: Non-arbitrary linguistic signs in German. Recherches Semiotiques/Semiotic Inquiry 1(4). 328-342. Laban, R. von 1966 The language of movement. Boston: Plays.

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Pragmatics and iconicity Asa Kasher

Abstract Explanations of iconicity sometimes rest on the conception of language as tool. This conception will he presented, analyzed and criticized in detail. The limits of iconicity will he drawn.

1. Introduction: How clever language is The late philosopher Grice once said, when he and another philosopher, Warnock, had been looking at some parts of the vocabulary of perception, "How clever language is!": "We found that it made for us some remarkably ingenious distinctions and assimilations" (Warnock 1973: 39). Many students of language may find such an expression of sentiment towards language irresistible. However, some of us, philosophers in particular, are less prone to deference. Instead of indulging ourselves in the exclamatory answer, "How clever language is!," we would like to probe into the explanatory question "How clever is language?" This is not a transparent question. What is language, of which it is predicated that it is clever? What is it for language to be clever? Clearly, each answer to our main question "How clever is language?" takes for granted some answers to these preliminary questions, "What is language?" and "What is it for language to be clever?" Indeed, different answers to the latter, preliminary questions might lead us to different answers to the former, main question. Let us, then, make a brief attempt at clarifying the related notions of "language" and "cleverness," thereby rendering the main question somewhat more translucent. Roughly speaking, there are at least four distinct levels on which something called "language" could exhibit a quality called "cleverness." First, consider the following anecdote: "Dunsany Castle, the home of Lord Dunsany in County Meath, Ireland, was sacked by the Black and Tans (a British armed force sent to Ireland to combat the republican movement, Sinn

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Fein). As the soldiers departed, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake, Lord Dunsany's butler politely inquired, ' W h o shall I say called?' " (Fadiman 1985: 178). Under the circumstances of their utterance, the butler's words sound clever. Language provided Lord Dunsany's butler with a clever, particularly successful solution of the problem on hand, namely what should be conveyed and how, upon the soldiers' departure. This exemplifies the level of the single utterance, a level on which single linguistic acts can exhibit a quality of being clever. Secondly, recall principles which have been claimed to govern the interpretation of conjunctions such as Veni, vidi, vici. Cohen (1971: 55) proposed what he called "the Semantical Hypothesis": In addition to expressing the conjunction of two truths, [and] also indicates that the second truth to be mentioned is a further item of the same kind, or in the same sequence, ... or etc. etc. as the first truth to be mentioned. Hence an implication of temporal sequence arises in cases like \A republic has been declared and the old king has died of a heart attack] or [The old king has died of a heart attack and a republic has been declared], or of connectedness in cases like ... "Tom has a typewriter and he types all his own letters."

Similar principles have been put forward within the framework of iconicity studies. 1 On this level, what we have under consideration is not a single utterance, but rather a(n alleged) semantic property of a syntactic structure or, in other words, rules which govern some relationships between forms and meanings. Since a system of such rules constitutes a person's knowledge of his or her "internal" language, one may assume that on this level, what exhibits the quality of being clever, of being a successful solution of some problem, is a grammar, as acquired by a person, represented in o n e ' s mind and brain, and put to use in o n e ' s linguistic activity. 2 Thirdly, note an interesting feature of Hebrew. As is well known, during 1967 the Israeli Defense Forces occupied a certain territory, previously governed by the Kingdom of Jordan. The political future of these occupied territories is at the heart of a lasting internal debate, often sharp and bitter. Now, common parlance in Israel has facilitated identification of political affiliation: adherents of solutions which involve the withdrawal of Israel from these territories refer to them by the expression "the West Bank," while adherents of annexationist solutions of one type or another use for reference the Biblical names, the Hebrew counterparts of "Judea" and "Samaria." 3

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This seems to be a "clever" feature of current Hebrew. To be sure, it is not a feature of any person's grammar or "internal" language, in the abovementioned sense we used for positing the previous level. It is, rather, a feature of an "external" entity, of Hebrew as a cultural object, involving a certain multitude of idiolects, related to each other in various intricate ways. Note, however, that the description of this feature of current Hebrew is, actually, of a synchronic nature. On this, third level, the notion of "language" stands for a cultural object, depicted from a certain synchronic point of view. On the next, fourth level, we encounter a diachronic depiction of these cultural objects. Thus, fourthly, notice the following statements, which are typical of what one may often find in iconicity studies. Bybee (1985: 29) proposes ... that inflectional morphemes have their origins in full words that develop a high frequency of use. These frequent items are gradually reduced both phonologically and semantically, and are simultaneously gradually fused, again both phonologically and semantically, with lexical matter contiguous in the syntactic string. The relevance principle predicts that morphemes expressing meanings highly relevant to verbs will be more likely to fuse with verbs than morphemes whose meanings are less relevant.

Similarly, Haiman (1983: 800) claims that "true synonyms do not long endure; presented with a minimally contrasting pair of expressions, speakers will attempt to associate appropriately contrasting meanings with them. What seems 'appropriate' to speakers may often be what is iconically motivated." Those four different levels, each featuring its own "clever" characteristics, may and at least to a certain extent also should be considered separately. However, there appears to be a seemingly natural way of unifying these four levels and their striking features, forming a single, integrated conception. The leading intuition is apparently simple. Let us depict a certain ilanguage (a "grammar," a psychologically embodied system of rules, an idiolect) as a tool. On the second level we encounter such a tool and its "clever" features. Accordingly, on the first level (of single expressions) we encounter certain instances of putting to use this tool or some of its parts. On the next two levels we consider language as a cultural object, synchronically and then diachronically. Hence, on the third level we encounter a whole array of similar tools and regularities of their usage, whereas on the fourth level we view developments of these tools and regularities of their improvement. We turn, now, to a brief discussion of what is at the core of this conception, namely language as a tool. We are going to see why this conception should be rejected. 4

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2. Language as a tool All instruments have standard uses. Each of them is usually employed in order to obtain a standard end. A hammer is used in order to achieve the results of pounding; a pencil for marking inscriptions; traffic lights for a streamlining of traffic flow. Each instrument is usually employed in certain typical ways, namely those which facilitate achievement of its standard end. A hammer is used by appropriately moving its solid head on its handle; a pencil is used by appropriately moving its marking head; traffic lights are used by their running through a series of states, in each of which lights are flashed in appropriate hues to indicate directions. To specify a tool is, then, to specify (a) an object, (b) and end and (c) standard ways of employing this object in order to obtain this end. A closer inspection of the nature of tools would reveal that those standard ways of employment actually involve two different types of consideration. On the one hand, when a tool is being put to use, it is presumably meant to be used in a most effective way. On the other hand, when the same tool is being put to use, it is also presumably meant to be used in a least costly way. When your are using a computer for data retrieval or some physical calculation, you may be interested in the results being as accurate as possible, on the one hand, and in their being as rapidly accessible as possible, on the other hand. You are interested in maximizing accuracy, on the one hand, and minimizing time consumption, on the other hand. Rational use of every tool involves these two types of consideration: how to reach a maximum point on a scale of ends as well as how to reach a minimum point on a scale of costs. Thus, to specify a tool is to specify not only an object, an end and standard ways of employing this object, but also (d) standard ways of employing this object in attempting to obtain this end most effectively, according to (e) some scale of ends, and at least cost, according to (f) some scale of costs. Succinctly put, to specify a tool is to specify an object, standard ways of employing it and two standard measures of evaluation - ends and costs. If language is a tool, then it should be possible to present the related ends and costs. What, then, are the ends of language (in the sense of our second level: a "grammar")? 5 Many linguists, psychologists and philosophers would deem the answer to this question outright trivial, holding it self-evident that natural language is a system of communication. Jakobson, for example, in a (1970) paper entitled "Language in relation to other communication systems," considers the relation between natural language and communication so basic as to warrant a delimitation of linguistics:

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The science of language investigates the makeup of verbal messages and of their underlying code. The structural characteristics of language are interpreted in the light of the tasks which they fulfill in the various processes of communication, and thus linguistics may be briefly defined as an inquiry into the communication of verbal messages. (Jakobson 1970: 3)

This is a contentious view. Against it, we have argued (e.g., in Kasher 1989, 1991) that a pragmatic analysis of the speech act type of "making assertions" and also, which is less intuitive and requires an independent defense, of the speech act types of "posing questions" and "issuing imperatives," would show that these speech acts are basically addressee-free actions, though when they are appropriately performed in public they can be addressed to some particular audience. Communication is not the end of i-language. Consequently, language (in the present sense) is not a communication tool, though it is commonly put to such a use. Indeed, this is just a hint towards an argument, but nevertheless, we leave it at that and move to a different answer to the question about the ends of language. Literature on syntactic iconicity seems to emphasize problems of "motivation," that is to say, of how linguistic structures reflect aspects of the structure of reality or aspects of human conceptualization of reality. Both types of aspects are, indeed, assumed to be independent of "linguistic structure." If language is such a "motivated" tool, then its ends are linguistic reflections of conceptual relations. The scale of ends is the scale of such reflections, full iconicity and complete arbitrariness serving as the opposite polar points. Several authors have used the notion of "isomorphism" for describing the iconicity pole of this scale. For example, it has been claimed that the grammar of mass nouns reflects iconically the way in which different classes of things and "stuffs" are conceptualized. ... The relationship is iconic in the sense that the system of formal distinctions and the system of conceptual distinctions are mutually isomorphic. (Wierzbicka 1985: 334-335).

Notice that by positing such isomorphism as an end of language, one is not committed to what Givon calls "the iconicity meta-principle": "All other things being equal, a coded experience is easier to store, retrieve and communicate if the code is maximally isomorphic to the experience" (Givon 1985: 189). According to this "metaprinciple," isomorphism is not an end, but rather a successful means to the ends of storage, retrieval and communication. Clearly, there is no reason to assume that the ends of language are storage and retrieval and as we have just remarked, communication is not

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the end of language either. Hence, we take it for granted that isomorphism is meant to play the role of an end, not of a means. What is isomorphism? When Haiman (1980: 515-516) introduced his distinction between "isomorphism" and "motivation," the notion of "isomorphism" was portrayed in terms of a "tendency for there to be a one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning." One may assume that this resort to "tendency" reflects the practical need to have in mind a scale of ends, rather than a single one. The essential notion is, clearly, that of "one-to-one correspondence." Given the mathematical notion of "isomorphism," as a one-to-one correspondence which involves both elements and their relationships, Givon (1985: 188) is right in stressing, with respect to iconic representations, that "isomorphism" is similarity in form, where form "does not imply only agreement in a number of matching parts, but also in their relationships." A picture of my hand, a hyper-realistic painting of it or a clear shadow it is casting on the wall might be isomorphic to my hand, in the sense that both my fingers and their spatial order have counterparts in that picture, painting or shadow, such that the three-dimensional relationship between any two of my fingers corresponds to the two-dimensional pictorial relationship between the pictorial counterparts of these fingers. "Isomorphism" in this sense is a rather strong correspondence between two domains, and one may suspect that, seldom if ever, has any part of language been shown to be isomorphic, in this strict sense, to some part of reality or our conceptualization of it. 6 In his contribution to the Zagreb Symposium, Dotter (in this volume) spoke about "homomorphisms" between language and the environment. This is, of course, a weaker claim than the one about "isomorphism," but it is still much too strong. Recall that a homomorphism between language and reality is, strictly speaking, a homomorphism between language and a funct i o n / which is defined for all linguistic elements on some level and between reality, and a function g which is defined for all elements of reality, where those functions / and g are related in a certain way through the homomorphic correspondence between language and reality. As a reflection upon the nature of the required function g would show, there is no reason to assume that there is some linguistically, psychologically or biologically interesting pair of such functions. The family of linguistic phenomena which have been discussed in the literature on iconicity in general, or even on syntactic iconicity in particular, involves many different relations that referents of linguistic expressions bear to each other. (See, for example, Landsberg's contribution to this Symposium [in

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this volume].) One could, then, suggest that there is no single homomorphism between language and reality, but that different sentences would be related to elements of reality through different homomorphic relations. However, this would not be a successful move. If the family of the homomorphisms involved is not significantly restricted, the existence of some homomorphism between elements of language and elements of reality will be vacuously guaranteed. However, if it is restricted in some straightforward way, it is difficult to see how ideas about relations of new kinds can be expressed in a language. The notions of "isomorphism" and "homomorphism" having been found to be too strong for a valid delineation of iconicity, it would be interesting to examine some related, weaker notions of correspondence between language and reality, in order to find out whether they provide us with a better understanding of the ends of i-language when attempts are made to portray it as a tool. Givon (1985: 215) has suggested "that there is something natural, necessary, non-arbitrary" about our codes. "When confronted with seemingly arbitrary relations between code and coded, we strive to discover, construe and impose some measure of iconicity. We thus try to recall ... the magic of the non-arbitrary code, of isomorphism and of iconicity". The "nonarbitrary" is usually contrasted with the "conventional," which is supposedly arbitrary in some sense. However, philosophical analyses of convention (e.g., Lewis 1969) 7 have shown that a convention has nonarbitrary ingredients as well as arbitrary ones. Put in a nutshell, a convention, such as that of driving in the right lane, is a certain solution of a coordination problem which, in turn, has more than one solution. Its being a solution of a coordination problem shows it to have essential nonarbitrary elements. The adoption of one solution rather than another is, indeed, arbitrary, when the two are on a par with each other in all respects. Notice, that according to this analysis of convention, it would be a conceptual mistake to contrast the nonarbitrary with the conventional. 8 Having rejected the analysis of the nonarbitrary in terms of the conventional, one might try an alternative analysis, one which equates the nonarbitrary with what is intended to serve, to be satisfactory for a given purpose. We still lack an understanding of i-language as a tool, because so far we have not been able to identify the ends of i-language, when it is depicted as a tool. Will this analysis of the nonarbitrary, in terms of what is intended to be satisfactory for a given purpose, be of any help? As a matter of fact, speech act theories provide us with compelling reasons to believe that major ingredients of the pragmatic components of i-language are not analyzable in terms of such intentions to serve independently given purposes. Speech acts have been found to be governed by constitutive systems

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of rules, i.e., by rule systems which define rather than regulate the related activity. Such rules are on a par with rules of a game, which define the activity of playing it, rather than regulate a given activity which is meant to be satisfactory for some given purpose. Playing a game may well have a certain purpose, namely winning the game, but winning in such a game is not a given purpose. It is rather an end instituted by the rules of the games, together with all its other ingredients. Thus, speech acts do not have given purposes. Consequently, if an i-language is taken, on a pragmatic level, to be a family of systems of rules which govern basic speech acts, which in turn are performed by employing sentences of the i-language that have certain forms and meanings, then i-language as a whole cannot have any given end. Therefore, even if i-language is of a nonarbitrary nature, it is definitely not so in the sense of being able to render predetermined services. Consequently, language (in the sense of an i-language or "grammar") is not a tool, not even a tool box. This observation does not preclude language, on some other level, from rendering services. Single utterances may often well be intended to be satisfactory for some given purpose. Implicatures are derived in conversation, exactly because contributions to it are presumed to be attempts at obtaining some given end by employing appropriate linguistic means. 9 However, the inferential pregnancy of intentional actions does not turn them into tools, into objects which are essentially related to given scales, of ends and of costs. There is still another sense of the nonarbitrary that we would like to briefly consider. For Traugott (1985: 289), Chomsky's argument for the autonomy of language is ... an argument for the arbitrariness of language, not in the sense of arbitrary social convention, which was the focus of de Saussure's views of arbitrariness, but of arbitrary genetic specialization of the mind into a number of distinct sub-systems. 1 0

This is an interesting remark, because it suggests certain possible conceptions of language as a tool: if language is a tool, it is either a unique one or not a unique one. A "modular" theory of mind, according to which the mind consists of a variety of independent mental "modules," posits a variety of unique systems, each governed by a certain characteristic principle. A "holistic" theory of mind, positing a single system of principles for all the facets of cognition, will not accord language any unique cognitive role." Pragmatics, as has been studied by philosophers, adduces evidence for a modular view. Although several pragmatic phenomena, such as conversational implicatures and indirect speech acts, are adequately explained by principles of rational activity, within some general framework of inten-

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tional action theory, there is a pragmatic core which exhibits characteristic principles. 12 As we have argued elsewhere, 13 there are reasons to believe that there are several pragmatic modules, e.g. a separate cognitive (neuropsychologically based) system operating basic speech acts. The idea of a cognitive module as a part of the mind which is in several respects independent of the other parts of the mind should, indeed, not be confused with the idea of a cognitive module being a tool. The fact that a cognitive module embodies a set of abstract principles, the fact that a cognitive module has a unique set of "computing" operations, the fact that a cognitive module is informationally encapsulated, i.e., "has access, in the course of its computations, to less than all of the information at the disposal of the organism whose cognitive faculty it is" (Fodor 1987: 25), as well as the fact that a cognitive module has its own underlying neurological system, do not involve a major conceptual ingredient of a tool, viz. the required existence of a predetermined end to be served by standard employments of it. A modular approach to language is compatible with a rejection of the conception of language as a tool.

3. Conclusion: "Clever" In conclusion, I would like to raise a natural question: if the portrayal of i-language as a tool is admitted not to hold water, what effects does it have on attempted explanations of "clever" features of language, on any of the four levels I mentioned at the outset? In particular, does a rejection of some conception of language as a tool commit us to certain views with respect to explanations couched in terms of "iconicity" or some cognate notions? The impression that an object has a "clever" feature may well be produced by some tools, but it may also be produced by objects which, unlike tools, are not regularly put to use in certain ways, in performing certain operations. Contrivance may result in what has the quality of being clever without its necessarily being a tool. A contrived scheme to keep some rivals in ignorance of one's plans is not a tool - it will work at most once - but nevertheless it may well be rather clever. Roughly speaking, what seem to have "clever" features are solutions of given problems. Tools embody solutions, but not all solutions are implemented in tools. Reading a novel may well be one's solution to a problem, e.g., how to endure one's blue mood, but reading a novel is not a tool, nor can a novel itself be described as one. The existence of a certain type of tools is explained by the need to achieve some given goals. What counts as a solution of a problem does not have to exist as a

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result of the emergence of the problem. The activity of the type of reading novels has already been in existence before it was put to some new use. The conception of language as a tool may have misled some of us to look for one single problem, the solution of which is language, as considered on some high level. "Communication" and "isomorphism" seem to name two failing attempts at identifying such an overarching problem. However, if we replace the conception of language as a grand tool by a conception which is incompatible with the idea that language is a solution to one single global problem, ample room is still left for explanation of linguistic phenomena in terms of some "local" problems. To be sure, we may have recourse to problems and their solutions on any level of language and in each competence, component and module. Abstract structures, synchronically depicted practices and historical developments may all be described and explained by theories which posit "local" problems and solutions. When the notion of "iconicity" is rendered more restricted in scope, clearer in nature and more transparent in psychological assumptions made about conceptualization and philosophical assumptions about reality, it may well turn out to be at the core of typical solutions of a certain highly interesting cluster of various "local" problems. It remains to be seen whether this brand of language study is also as clever as language itself has seemed to be.

Notes 1. Cf., for example, Tai's (1985: 30) "principle of temporal sequence": "the relative word order between two syntactic units is determined by the temporal order of the states which they represent in the conceptual world" and Haiman's (1985: 92) claim: "in the absence of prosodic or other diacritic signs to the contrary, structures of the form SI and S2 are tense-iconic and in every other respect conceptually symmetrical." 2. On Chomsky's notion of "i-language," see Chomsky (1986). 3. The latter names are the current official ones, having been introduced by a previous government which preferred them over the former expression. 4. There are several major issues that a thorough discussion of iconicity should address, but I am going to discuss in the sequel just one of them. Most important among those which I am not going to discuss is that of explanatory adequacy which theories of iconicity seem to lack. 5. Discussion of costs would be beyond the scope of this paper. For a general discussion of the issues involved, see Kasher (1982, 1986). In a sense, they are related to Haiman's "economic motivation" as discussed in his (1983) paper. The tension I discussed in my (1982) article, is on a par with the tension de-

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7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

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scribed by Haiman (1983: 802) between what is iconically motivated and what is economically motivated. Some would, perhaps, like to argue that semantic components of a language form a conceptualization of reality or its parts, but then the related isomorphism is the trivial identity one. See also Davidson (1984) and Kasher (1984a). The apparently simple contrast between the nonarbitrary and the arbitrary is related to the deeper distinction between operation by reasons and operation by causes. However, a discussion of this point would take me beyond the scope of the present paper. See Grice (1975) and Kasher (1976, 1982). It is not clear why the genetically specialized should be deemed arbitrary, but since nothing in the sequel seems to hinge on this presupposition, I shall presently ignore it. For general discussions of modularity, see Chomsky (1980) and Fodor (1983, 1987); for further discussion and application to pragmatics, see Kasher (1984b, 1989, 1991). See Kasher (1976, 1982, 1991). Kasher (1991).

References Bybee, J. L. 1985 Diagrammatic iconicity in stem inflection relations. In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity in syntax. 11-47. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Chomsky, N. 1980 Rules and representations. 1986 Knowledge

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Cohen, L. J. 1971 Some remarks on Grice's views about the logical particles of natural language. In Y. Bar-Hillel (ed.), Pragmatics of natural languages. 50-68. Dordrecht: Reidel. Davidson, D. 1984 Communication and convention. Synthese 59. 3-17. Dotter, F. this volume Nonarbitrariness and iconicity: Coding possibilities. Fadiman, C. 1985 The little, brown book of anecdotes.

Boston: Little, Brown

Fodor, J. A. 1983 The modularity

of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT.

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1987 Modules, frames, fridgeons, sleeping dogs, and the music of the spheres. In J. L. Garfield (ed.), Modularity in knowledge representation and naturallanguage understanding. 25-36. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Givon, T. 1985 Iconicity, isomorphism and non-arbitrary coding in syntax. In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity in syntax. 187-219. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Grice, H. P. 1975 Logic and conversation. In D. Davidson and G. Harman (eds.), The logic of grammar. 64-75. Encino: Dickenson. Haiman, J. 1980 The iconicity of grammar: Isomorphism and motivation. Language 540. 1983 Iconic and economic motivation. Language 59. 781-819.

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1985 Symmetry. In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity in syntax. 73-95. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Jakobson, R. 1970 Language in relation to other communication systems. Linguaggi cieta e Nella Technica. 3-16. Milan: Communita Unita. Kasher, A.

Nella So-

1976 Conversational maxims and rationality. In A. Kasher (ed.), Language focus: Foundations, methods and systems. 197-216. Dordrecht: Reidel. 1982 Gricean inference revisited. Philosophica 29. 25-44. 1984a Are speech acts conventional? Journal of Pragmatics 8. 65-69.

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1984b On the psychological reality of pragmatics. Journal of Pragmatics 8. 539557. 1986 Politeness and rationality. In J. D. Johansen et al. (eds.), Pragmatics and linguistics, Festschrift for Jacob L. Mey. 103-114. Odense: Odense University Press. 1989 Dialogues: How basic are they? In. E. Weigand and F. Hundsnurscher (eds.), Dialog Analyse 2. Vol. 1. 71-86. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 1991 Pragmatics and Chomsky's research program. In A. Kasher (ed.), The Chomskyan turn. 127-149. Oxford: Blackwell. Landsberg, Μ. Ε. this volume Semantic constraints on phonologically-independent freezes. Lewis, D. 1969 Convention. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tai, J. H.-Y. 1985 Temporal sequence and Chinese word order. In J. Haiman (ed.), in syntax. 49-72. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Traugott, Ε. C. 1985 Conditional markers. In J. Haiman (ed.), Iconicity sterdam: Benjamins.

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in syntax. 289-307. Am-

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Index of subjects

Accidental gap 92 Accomplishment 353-355 Accountability, principle of total 211 Action 383 Activities 353-355 Addressee-free-actions 423 Adjacency 22, 24, 79 Adjectives 224-235 Adverbial complements 21 - genitive objects 21 - predicatives 21 - prepositional objects 21 Affixes, derivational 208 Agent 383 Agrammatism 374 Alliterative 201 Alzheimer's disease 106, 365 Analogy 207 Analyticity 208 Anaphoric 62 Anglo-Saxon 111 - culture 227, 231 Aphasia 316-321, 366 Apresjan 239 Arbitrariness 65, 72, 120, 191-221, 239-243, 394-398 - , nonarbitrariness 224 Articulation, double 193 Artifice 210 Aspect 352-362 - , imperfective 352 - , perfective 352 - , progressive 237 Association - , imputed 193 - , synesthetic 194 Asymmetry 69, 70, 212

Attitude 233 Autopoiesis 133 Automorphism 62 Avvakum 255 - The Life of Archpriest Avvakum by Himself 255 Basic order 51 BBC 100 RBI Combinatory Dictionary of English. A Guide to Word Combinations 68 Binding and Government Theory 107 Blending 207 Bogatyri 253 Brain 399 Brothers Karamazov, The 258 Bulgarian 377 Byliny 252, 253 Cabala 255 Cancellation 134 Canonical 65 - situation of utterance 67-69 Categories - , grammatical 190 - , open 318 - , unmarked 190 Causatives 229 Channel 250 - capacity 251 - static 251 Chapter 107 Child language 196-197 Chinese 62, 224, 269, 362 Chomsky's style 104 Clause 106

434

Index of subjects

- clauses and sentences 112 Clever language 419 Cleverness 419 Closeness 79 - in content 79 - to the speaker 79 Cloze test 273 Code, non-arbitrary 425 Coding strategies 50 Cognition 265 Cognitive - categories 47 - styles 224 Cognitive-Stratificational Grammar (CSG) 95 Colloquy on Teaching Letters, The 257 Comedy 107 Communication 422 Communicative - behaviour 376 - dynamism 373 Composition 110 Compositionality 190 Composition process 93 Computer parsing 317 Conception 143 Conceptualization 236 Configurational 15, 189 Conjunct order, frozen 331 Connectionist 397 Consonantal 7 1 - 7 4 Constellational 15 Constitutive systems of rules 425 Constraints 65 - , phonological 74, 331 - , semantic 65, 331 Containers 240 Continua 189 Continuum 207 Convention 425 Conventional 209 Conventionalizing 121 Contrast 208

Correlation, figurative 192 Correspondence, parallelistic 299 Counterexamples 7 2 - 7 5 Creativity 93 - Indices (CI) 108 Crime and Punishment 258 Cue, anti-iconic 205 Czech 92 Dative-shift 156, 159 Dead Souls 257 Deaf 343-349 Deictic 117 demonstrative 123 - determiners 129 - d i s c o u r s e 123 - items 127 - markers 117 - specifiers 117 Deixis 37-41, 117, 128 directional 117, 124, 125, 128 - , discourse 127 - , gestural basis of 121 - , identificational 135 - , levels of 133 - near/far 122, 128 - , personal 117 - , singulative identificational 134-135 - , singulative transmissional 135 - , spatial 117-126 - , temporal 117-126 - , transmissional 135 Demarcatedness 132 Demonstratives 117, 122 Denotatum 131 Determiners 117 Dexterity 6 9 - 7 4 Diagrams 409 Diagrammatic 189 Dicent - sign 205 - indexial sign 206 Dictionary entries 93

Index of subjects Dimension 69 front-back 70 - , horizontal 69 - , primary 69 right-left 70, 74 - , secondary 69 - , vertical 69, 70 Dimensionality 132 Diminutives 195 Directionality 69-72, 122-125, 3 4 4 345 Discourse Blocks 112 Dispositions, emotional 231 Distinctness 134 Doublets 197 Duality of patterning 193 Duplication 134 Durative 362 Dutch 185 Economic motivation 57 Economy 208 Ecosystems 402 Ego 250, 253 Egocentric 6 5 - 7 2 - , spatial 70 - , temporal 70 Electrical stimulation of the cortex 322 Elephant 405 Emotion 226-227 - , active 226 - active emotion verbs 227 - , adjectives of 225 - concepts 237 - , involuntary 228 - , nouns of 240 - predicates 239 - reflexive emotion verbs 228 - , voluntary 228 Empathy 22 Encoding-decoding equivalence 252 England, medieval, 97 English 33, 2 2 5 - 2 3 8

435

- , aboriginal 237 - as a Second Language (ESL) 106 British 105 - grammar books 68 - learners 33 - native speakers 33 Ergative 51 Essay 107 Etymemes 92 Etymology 201 - , components of 204 - , folk 201 - , popular 201 - , synchronic 201 Eugene Onegin 256 Evolutionary process 399 Evolution, mosaic 308 Exaptation 395 Existence 177 Existential 177, 178 - locatives 177 - p a r a d i g m 179-184 - particles 181 - possessives 181 Experiencer 235 Exposed cortex, stimulation of the 317 Extended Standard Theory 107 Extension 134 Family resemblance 206 Features - , distinctive 193 - , redundant 210 Feelings 233 Field 19 - , extra-positional 17 first bracketing 17-19 - , initial 17-19 middle 17-23 - , morphosemantic 199 - , second bracketing 17, 23 toplogical 16 Fixed 6 5 - 7 3

436

Index of subjects

Flexions 379 Flow of movement 354 Focus 177 Formal determinism 212 Freezes 65-73, 382 French 34, 62, 97 - learners 34 - native speakers 34 Freudians 250 Frozen 6 5 - 7 3 - sets 98 Functional Tenor 112 Function words 3 1 5 - 3 2 0 Gaul 110 Generalizable 65 Generative-Applicative Grammar 95 Generativity 103 Germanic 99 Gestalt 65, 73 Gestures 362 - , imperfective 362 - , perfective 254 Govern 6 6 - 7 3 Gradations 189 Grammar 111 - of action 321 - of vision 318-321 Grammatical categories 190 Grammaticalization 2 1 , 5 1 , 190 Grammatizing 121 Ground 267 - level 69 Gypsies 255 Halliday-Lamp-Pike-style approach 107 Hausa 224, 269 Hebrew, modern 177-185, 269 Hemisphere, left/right 271 Hierarchial relations 39 Homomorphism 15, 61, 424 Homonymy 205

Human classification 240 Hungarian 194, 378 Icon 14, 120 Iconic actuality, degrees of 204 - , potentiality 189 Iconicization 208 - , de- 208 - , re- 208 Iconicity 13, 38, 47, 70, 131, 158, 169, 177-183, 189, 224, 266, 314, 373 - , disgrammatic 79 - , imagic 14 - , diagrammatic 14 - , kinetic 406 - , metaphorical 266 - of syntax 314-320 - , order 85 - , syntactic 67-72, 178-184, 208 Id 2 5 0 - 2 5 3 Ideational 95 Ideophones 196 Identification - , blockwise 138 stepwise 138 syntactic 67, 72, 178 Identity 134 Idiomaticity 113 Idioms 91 Idiosyncratic gaps 212 Image 189 - schemata 272 - , visual 278 Imagery 265 - content, low 2 6 6 - 2 7 0 - theory of literal meaning 266 Imperfective 355-360 Imperfectivity 357 Implicatures 426 Incorporation 49, 344 Index 198 Indices 14

Index of subjects Indo-European 99 Information 42 - flow 156-171 - processing 35—41, 250 - theory 251 Inner speech 323 Intending to perform the action 359 Interpersonal 95 Intonation 402 Irreversible 65 Isomorphism 15, 57, 197, 401-410, 423 Japanese 232 Journey Across Three Seas 255 Judgement 72 Juxtaposition 49 Kinetic 375 - iconicity 406 - mimicry 407 Knowledge structures 402^105 Language - as a tool 422 - , figurative 265 internal 420-421 motor theory of 307 origin of 308 - play 201 - processing 3 5 - 4 2 Language signs, bilaterality conception of 13 Laterality 125 Latin 97 Latinate - prefix 97 - stem 97 Lay of Igor's Campaign 254-256 Lexeme 106, 109 Lexical - networks 200 - particles 182

437

- relations 200 Lexicalization 207 Lexicalized sequences 3 6 - 3 7 Lexicon 189 Lexis 111 Linearity 16, 70 Literature, transformational 2 3 2 - 2 3 4 Localization 3 4 4 - 3 4 5 Markedness 41, 70, 81 Marking 60 Me first-principle 36, 6 0 - 7 0 Metaphor 127, 191, 2 6 5 - 2 6 6 - comprehension in children 2 6 9 - 2 7 0 - conceptual 267 - , right-hemisphere role in 272 - scientific study of 269 Metaphorical 240 - iconicity 269 MIT 9 5 - 1 0 4 Modified 137 Modifier 137 Modulation 400 Modules 426 Morpheme 106, 111, 189 - , empty 204 - isomorph 15, 57, 197 - , null 204 pseudo 204 - psychomorph 199 - submorphemes 189 - , virtual 204 Morphology 189 - alternation 197 - , inflectional 189 Morphons 106 Morphophonemes 106 Morphosymbolism 209 Motivation 65 - , relative 192 Motor - programs 310 - syntax 313

438

Index of subjects

- theory of language 307 - theory of speech perception 307 Mozart 256 Mozart and Salieri 256 Myopia 40 My Word (radio show) 100

- , absolute 124 canonical 124 speaker 125 Originality 93 Orlando 101 Ostension 117-121

Name is destiny 211 Narrative - plot 112 - sequence 79 Native language acquistion (LI) 36 Nativeness 343-347 Native user 346 Negative 7 0 - 7 5 - data 93 Neo-Bloomfieldian 94 Neuropsychological research 271 Neologism 195 Networks of associations 189 Nominalization 99 Non-arbitrary code 425 Nonarbitrariness 47 Nonhierarchical 40 Nonprogressive 354 Nouns 240 Novel 107 Number 177

Pänini's rule 334 Pantomimic 345 Paradigmatic distribution 183 Paradigms, existential 177 Paragraph 106, 112 Paralinguistic 375 Paronomasic 201

Object 22, 344, 383 - , direct 22 - incorporation 345 - , indirect 22 - , prepositional 234 Objectivness 133 Onomatopoeia 192-194 Open class of content words 315 Opera 107 Operator-operand structure 23 Order 344 - , linear 67 Ordering and subordering 315-310 Orientation 117-121

Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) 397 Parody 112 Particle 361 Patient 156-157, 383 Patterns of combination 207 Perception 69, 118, 184, 318-322 - perceptual accessibility 67 Perfective 360 Perfectivity 357 Person 177 Perspective 177 - , sign-oriented 177 - , temporal 352 Phatic Communion 112 Phoneme 105, 111, 193 - monitoring 334 Phonesthemes 189-199 Phoneteme 105 Phonetic 96 Phonological 32 - constraints 32 - determinants 32 - laws 71 - ordering 334 - phonologically independent 65 - rules 71 Phonons 111 Phonosymbolism 209

Index of subjects Phraseology 102 Phrases 67, 111 irreversible conjoined 67 Phrasicon 111 Plasticity 400 Plurality 134 Poem 107 Poetry 201 Polarity 70 - negative 70-74 - positive 70-74 Politeness conventions 40, 71 Polysemy 205 Postposition 139 Positive 70-75 Potential 190 Pragmatics 117, 418 Prague functionalistic school in linguistics 373 Precedence 139 Predictable 65-68 Prefabs 93, 106 Prefix 383 Preidentity 134 Preposition 358-361 Primary - Chronicle 254 - passives 112 Principle 73 Prague School 95 Privilege of occurrence 93 Process, nonlinear 400 Processing principle, perceptual 331 Progressive 352-362 aspect 237 Property model 50 Prosodic 75 Prototype 61, 206-207 Proverbs 269-270 Proxemic 375 Proximity 16-21 - hierarchy 59 Pseudo-participles 226

Psychological forces (id, ego, superego) 250-253 Queen of Spades, The 255 Rational use 422 Recipient 156-157 Recurrence 198 Reduplicative 201 Reference points 361 Referent 131 Relatedness, degree of 206 Relation 24 - , direct 193 - factual/imputed 210 - imitative 192 - , indirect 193 - , scope 24 - similarity/contiguity 210 - , spatial 121 - , temporal 119 - , word-affinity 202 Relator 79 Religious trinity 250 Restrictedness 134 Rheme 205-207 Rhetoric 201-202 Rhyming 201 Rhythmic 201 Rightness 73 Romanian 377 Rules 13, 68-73 - , recurrent 66 - , serialisation 13 Russian 59, 224-243, 377 Salieri 256 Sandi-segments 204 Sanskrit 59 Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 94 Schema 207 - , intermodal 401 Schematicization 191

439

440

Index of subjects

Scope-relations 24 Screenplay 107 Second language 32 - learners 32 Segmentability 202 Semantic 32, 199 - cliches 112 - constraints 6 5 - 7 2 - factors 32 - ordering 336 - ordering principles 68 Semantical Hypothesis 420 Sensation 399 Sense determinative 200 Sentence 23, 106 - models 112 - negation 23 Sentence topology 13 - field analysis 13 Sequences 70 Sequential choice 65 Serialization 70 Serials 6 9 - 7 0 Shemiaka 's Judgement 255 Shona 126 - far demonstrative 126 Short story 107 Sign language 343-349 American 386 Sign-oriented 185 - perspective 177 - studies 185 Signans (signifier) 131 Signatum (signified) 131 Similarity 189 Skazka 253-257 Skomorokhi 253 Sound symbolism 189 - ablaut 196 SOV 79 Space 343 Spanish 185 Spatial 69

- conceptualization 348 - expressions 74 - grammar 346 - location 122 - relation 336 Spatiality 345-347 Spatiotemporal 69 Speaker, prototypical 81 Speech 35 - act 423 - categorical S. perception 312 parts of 135 - perception 35 - processing 43 Statistics 66 Strata 93, 108 Style 201 Subject 21-23, 51, 344 Submorphemes 189 - , differential 199 Subordering 315 Suffix 379 Superego 2 5 0 - 2 5 3 Surface structure 375 SVO 79 Syllabic, 75 - , mono- 7 1 - 7 5 - , bi- 7 1 - 7 5 Syllables, number of 65 Symbol 14, 120, 191 consonantal 196 iconic 191 - , sound 189-193 Symbolic extensions of actions 354 Syncretization 59 Synonym 197 Syntactic iconicity 67-72, 178-184, 208, 348 - , psychological basis of 331 - structures 117 Syntacticization 51 Syntactic prefabs 103 Syntagm 183-184

Index of subjects Syntax 117, 199, 307, 366 - , definition of 314 - , formal 117 - , iconicity of 314 - , inflectional 189 Synthesia 189 System 192 - , cultural 241 - , semantic 241 - , visual 271 Systemic-Functional-Grammar 95, 102 Take-Off 112 Tale of the Golden Cockerel 255 Temporal 69-72 - structures 407 Textual 95 Thematicity 19 Theme-rheme ordering 23-25 Theory of mind 426 holistic 426 - , modular 426 Three Bears, The 258 Threefold 259 Three Hermits, The 259 Three Sisters 259 Time perception 407 Timing 407 Tonal icons 196 Topic 51, 267 - vehicle-ground 267 -worthiness 156-171 Tragedy 107 Transitivity 134 Transformational Generative Grammar (TGG) 91-108 Transparency 192 Transposition 50 Triplicity 249 - , grammatical 251 Typology 203

Underlying principles 65 Unit 202 - , agglutinative 202 - , paradigmatic 203 Universal 194 USSR 95 Vehicles 267 - , high concrete and imagistic 270 Verbs 23, 224-232 - , aspectual 238 - , attitudinal 238 - , emotional 230 - , final 17-23 - , nonprogressive 358 - of emotion 230-235 - plus particle 357 - , reflexive 229 - , transitive 229 Verification 134 Vico 277 Vico-Nietzschean paradigm 277 Verticality 69 Violation 75 Vocalic 71-74 Vowel height, rule of 335 Wackernagel's law 377 Word 108, 111, 203-211 - affinities 189 - constellation 189 - formation 206 Word order 67-78, 128, 190, 375 - , linear 71 - patterns 13 rigid 128 - typology 25 Yale 95 Zero-point 69 Zero expression 190

441

Index of names

Agnon, S. Y., 185 Andrews, E., 151 Aphek, E., 185 Arndt, W„ 256 Balzac, H. de, 105 Benson, J. D„ 102 Berman, R. Α., 185 Bloomfield, L„ 135 Bolinger, D. L„ 105, 110, 147-150, 190 Borer, Η., 185 Boyer, C., 105 Buchwald, Α., 98, 106 Bybee, J. L„ 59 Caesar, J., 110 Chastaing, M., 196 Chekov, A. P., 259 Chevalier, M„ 105 Chomsky, N„ 9 4 - 1 0 3 , 426 Clark, Ε. V., 185 Coseriu, E., 95 Comrie, B„ 352 Doron, E„ 185 Dostoevsky, F. M„ 105, 258 Dotter, F., 15 Duncan, S. D., 362 Fonagy, I., 194 Florimon, C., 185 Fortunatov, F. F., 258 Gamkrelidze, G. 15 Garcea, E. C., 185 Gippius, Ζ. N., 259

Givon, T., 185 Goethe, J. W. von, 105 Gogol, Ν. V., 257 Greaves, W „ 102 Greenberg, J. H. 25, 137 Grice, H. P., 419 Grolier, E. de, 394 Haiman, J. 14, 57 Halliday, Μ. A. K„ 95, 102 Hayon, Y„ 185 Hemingway, E., 107 Hjelmslev, L., 13 Jakobson, R„ 95, 133, 152, 190, 2 5 1 257 Jespersen, O., 195 Johnson, L. B„ 98 Joyce, J., 106, 107 Junger, J., 185 Kennedy, J. F., 105 Kirsner, R. S„ 15 Kunin, 102 Lamb, S. M „ 95 Langacker, R. W „ 132 Levi-Strauss, C., 195 Lockwood, D. G., 95 Lyons, J., 185 Macluhan, M„ 94 MacNamara, R. S., 98 Makkai, Α., 9 5 - 1 0 2 Martinet, Α., 95 Maturana, Η. R„ 133

444

Index of names

Mayerthaler, W., 15 McNeill, D„ 351-362 Miller, G. Α., 250-252 Morgan, M., 136 Muir, F., 100 Nabokov, V., 256 Nietzsche, D„ 268 Norton, F., 100 Ogden, C. K„ 13 Olesha, Yuk., 259 Paul, H„ 103 Peirce, Ch. S„ 13, 58, 191, 251 Pound, E„ 106 Pushkin, A. S„ 255-256 Putte, Μ. van, 185 Richards, I. Α., 13 Rosen, H„ 179, 185 Sangster, R., 139-150 Saussure, F. de, 13, 133-137, 179-192 Saxmatov, Α. Α., 139 Schooneveld, C. Η. van, 132-146 Schwarzwald, Ο. R„ 178-185

Searle, J. R„ 20 Shaumyan, S. K., 95 Suvorov, V., 260 Talmy L„ 358-361 Tobin, Y., 135, 178-185 Tolstoy, L. N„ 258-259 Traugott, E. C., 185 Troubetzkoy, N. S., 95 Varela, F. J„ 133 Vendler, Z„ 355 Vico, G., 268 Vinogradov, V. V., 144 Voltaire 96 Waugh, L. R„ 139 Wierzbicka, Α., 185 Williams, T„ 99 Winter, W., 101 Wittgenstein, L., 15 Woolf, V., 101 Zemb, J. M., 23 Zenkovsky, S. Α., 256 Ziv, Y„ 178-185