From ksinnema at ling.helsinki.fi Wed Jun 14 08:07:57 2006 From: ksinnema at ling.helsinki.fi (ksinnema at ling.helsinki.fi) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:07:57 +0300 Subject: Structure and Context: First Circular Message-ID: (Apologies for cross-postings) STRUCTURE AND CONTEXT Symposium to be held in Turku, in August 21-22, 2006 **** First Circular, June 14, 2006 **** The Linguistic Association of Finland organizes the symposium "Structure and Context" August 21-22, 2006. The symposium will take place in Turku in the Humanities building "Arken" of the Åbo Akademi University (street address: Tehtaankatu 2). PROGRAM The preliminary program of the symposium as well as the abstracts for the section papers are now available at the Symposium web page http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/tapahtumat/context/context.shtml. In addition to plenary lectures and section papers, the program includes two workshops. Dr. Seppo Kittilä (University of Turku/Helsinki) and Dr. Leonid Kulikov (University of Leiden) will organize a workshop on "Diachronic typology of voice and valency-changing categories". The workshop will run as a separate parallel session for the duration of the symposium. Dr. Mila Dimitrova- Vulchanova (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and Dr. Emile van der Zee (University of Lincoln) will organize another workshop, on "Context Effects in Spatial Language". This workshop is integrated as a session in the main program. More information - including the workshop abstract and the list of participants - is available at the symposium web page. REGISTRATION The deadline for registration is July 31, 2006. If you want to participate in the symposium, we kindly ask you to register by e-mail to the address of the organizing committee: context-organizers (at) ling.helsinki.fi. Registration fees: * general: EUR 50 * members of the association: EUR 25 * undergraduate students free Participants from abroad are requested to pay in cash upon arrival. Participants from Finland may send the registration fee by giro account no 800013-1424850 to The Linguistic Association of Finland (SKY) / Symposium or pay in cash upon arrival. If you pay to the account of the association, please include the code CONTEXT, as well as your name, so that we will know exactly who has already paid. If you have paid the registration fee in advance, please take the receipt with you. If you plan to pay upon arrival, note that we are only able to accept payments in cash. ACCOMMODATION The symposium web page also contains a link to the City of Turku Tourist Office http://www.turkutouring.fi/), where you can find links to the web pages of several hotels/hostels in Turku. The symposium venue, the humanities building Arken, is situated approx. 1.5 kilometers (approx. 0.9 miles) from the Turku city centre. Looking forward to seeing you all in August, The organizers Chair: Urpo Nikanne (Åbo Akademi University) Joanna Anckar (Åbo Akademi University), Marja Etelämäki (University of Helsinki), Pentti Haddington (University of Oulu), Emmi Hynönen (University of Turku), Mikko Laitinen (University of Helsinki), Heidi Merimaa (University of Turku), Heli Paulasto (University of Joensuu), Geda Paulsen (Åbo Akademi University), Oksana Petrova (Åbo Akademi University), Helena Pirttisaari (University of Helsinki), and Kaius Sinnemäki (University of Helsinki). From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Wed Jun 14 15:53:41 2006 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:53:41 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... Message-ID: Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060613185239.htm Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose speakers view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA 'eye, front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, behind' is used for 'future'. The piece notes ambiguities in such metaphors in languages such as English, and the possibility that the evidential system may be a cause of the reversed mapping in Aymara. Comments: Yahgan, a couple of languages 'down' on the 'left' in Chile, may have cognate terms. For instance TELLA 'eye, face' may match Aymara NAYRA. USHPA 'back, behind' may match QHIPA. Yahgan evidentiality, from the manuscript sources I have, does not appear to be as obligate as in Aymara, but there are a good number of forms. Yahgan simple past morpheme is -de: (e: tense, relatable to TELLA?), simple future -u:a (u: tense, relatable to USHPA?). USHPA in Yahgan is also grammaticalized in the language to mean 'after X'. In the now extinct 19th century Yahgashaga dialect (the basis for the vast majority of writings on the language) it was a free or encliticized morpheme following the full or pronominal subject NP (SOV, SVO orders normal). Tense morphemes, on the other hand, are suffixed to the verb stem, after aspect, but before mood affixes. Bound evidentials are variably placed within TAM. While there is no OBVIOUS grammaticalized form of TELLA in this position, it is interesting that there is the form TU:LA, meaning 'if X'. I don't know enough about the grammaticalization chains in this area to be able to say with any authority that TU:LA is 'from' TELLA, but perhaps one of you can tell me? Yahgan has many lexical doublets where there is opposition of meaning carried by vowel alternants. Or TU:LA may relate to U:LA meaning 'don't' The suffixed evidentials include (but are not limited to) -MUSH 'hearsay' (from MVRA 'to hear, listen', V is schwa), -MIN 'visual evidence' (no simplex but is AMIN 'look, see!' with prefixed mild imperative A-), -TIKALVRA 'distant past visual evidential' where -VRA may be a form referring to 'contrariness to expectation'. The -TIKAL- component may have relatability to TELLA, as also may be the form -DVGA-, having a 'past' meaning. From the historical viewpoint, I have elsewhere (and here?) claimed possible relation to Salishan languages, also on the Pacific coast (but in northern North America) as well as to Chemakuan, and further south Chumashan families. The Chemakuan 'evidence' implies that the doubled -LLA in TELLA originated in -L- followed by a velar or uvular fricative (other forms support this). One sees similar things in the other families I include in the comparison. Thus, IF true, then perhaps the -K/G- elements seen in the above Yahgan forms are explained (with perhaps reordering in -TIKAL-). I do not know whether -MUSH (and source MVRA) is relatable to USHPA, either etymologically or by convergence. I had previously speculated that -VRA (also -ARA) 'contrary to expectation' or 'new information' WAS relatable to -MUSH/MVRA. And in terms of etymologies within Yahgan, there are MANY different lexical forms beginning with USH- referring to the lower back or rear, its functions on the body, or products of same. In Salishan the lexical suffix -APS/UPS has the same range of reference. The suffixal (extended) TAM system in Yahgan appears to be relatively young Most of the relevant morphemes still retain corresponding lexical entries Positionally the clitic-second (really a chain of slots) group also often has matching terms in the suffixal system. For instance -MUSH 'hearsay' as suffix is identical in form to (')MUSH in the clitic chain set. Further grammaticalization has pushed the latter MUSH towards simple modality, seen as well in the surviving dialect 130 years after the grammar was laid out for the extinct one by Thomas Bridges. The first time I'd ever heard of the reversed time metaphor in Aymara was during a talk given by Eve Sweetser (who not surprisingly is the coauthor of the study cited above) during the Santa Barbara LSA Linguistic Institute a few years 'back'. As I haven't read the source article yet I don't know whether other local South American languages were included in the study. Joseph Greenberg of course was famous (or infamous depending on one's vantage) for attempting to lump, er.. group many of the Pacific coast languages under the 'Andean' rubric. It would be interesting to see whether they (and perhaps other languages/families further afield) share this way of organizing their grammaticalization chains. Since the report on the article says that younger bilingual generations appear to be switching over to the dominant European time metaphor, it is possible that in the past the region was far more uniformly 'reversed', with viewpoints doing 'the 180' one by one after the Conquest. Such changes are probably completely lost now in the mists of history. Of more theoretical import, perhaps, would be the finding that directionality of time metaphor might depend in part on 'directionality' of grammaticalization? Where tense (if they actually ARE tense) morphemes come from may be determined in part by such a directionality, if there is one, implicit (perhaps hidden?) within the overall scheme of possible canalizations. So if any of you aren't having too much fun vacationing comments would be of use. Thanks. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From hopper at cmu.edu Wed Jun 14 21:30:55 2006 From: hopper at cmu.edu (Paul Hopper) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:30:55 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: <12804465.1150300422143.JavaMail.root@elwamui-milano.atl.sa.earthlink. net> Message-ID: Jess, Both 'push forward' and 'push back' can mean "postpone", as in the following examples (thanks to Google.com): 1. Pickup normally scheduled on observance day of the holiday will be pushed forward to the next regular work day with the remaining pickups that week also pushed forward one day. As an example: a Monday holiday will result in normal Tuesday pick-up being pushed forward to Wednesday of that week. 2. Several readers note that Apple has quietly pushed back the ship dates of its MacBook Pro laptops from February 15th to February 23rd with a delivery date of February 28th, 2006. Perhaps Aymara speakers aren't the only ones who are confused! Paul > Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060613185239.htm > > Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose speakers > view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA 'eye, > front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, > behind' is used for 'future'. > > The piece notes ambiguities in such metaphors in languages such as > English, and the possibility that the evidential system may be a cause of > the reversed mapping in Aymara. > > Comments: > > Yahgan, a couple of languages 'down' on the 'left' in Chile, may have > cognate terms. For instance TELLA 'eye, face' may match Aymara NAYRA. > USHPA 'back, behind' may match QHIPA. Yahgan evidentiality, from the > manuscript sources I have, does not appear to be as obligate as in > Aymara, but there are a good number of forms. Yahgan simple past morpheme > is -de: (e: tense, relatable to TELLA?), simple future -u:a (u: tense, > relatable to USHPA?). > > USHPA in Yahgan is also grammaticalized in the language to mean 'after > X'. In the now extinct 19th century Yahgashaga dialect (the basis for the > vast majority of writings on the language) it was a free or encliticized > morpheme following the full or pronominal subject NP (SOV, SVO orders > normal). Tense morphemes, on the other hand, are suffixed to the verb > stem, after aspect, but before mood affixes. Bound evidentials are > variably placed within TAM. > > While there is no OBVIOUS grammaticalized form of TELLA in this position, > it is interesting that there is the form TU:LA, meaning 'if X'. I don't > know enough about the grammaticalization chains in this area to be able > to say with any authority that TU:LA is 'from' TELLA, but perhaps one of > you can tell me? Yahgan has many lexical doublets where there is > opposition of meaning carried by vowel alternants. Or TU:LA may relate to > U:LA meaning 'don't' > > The suffixed evidentials include (but are not limited to) -MUSH 'hearsay' > (from MVRA 'to hear, listen', V is schwa), -MIN 'visual evidence' (no > simplex but is AMIN 'look, see!' with prefixed mild imperative A-), > -TIKALVRA 'distant past visual evidential' where -VRA may be a form > referring to 'contrariness to expectation'. > > The -TIKAL- component may have relatability to TELLA, as also may be the > form -DVGA-, having a 'past' meaning. From the historical viewpoint, I > have elsewhere (and here?) claimed possible relation to Salishan > languages, also on the Pacific coast (but in northern North America) as > well as to Chemakuan, and further south Chumashan families. > > The Chemakuan 'evidence' implies that the doubled -LLA in TELLA > originated in -L- followed by a velar or uvular fricative (other forms > support this). One sees similar things in the other families I include in > the comparison. Thus, IF true, then perhaps the -K/G- elements seen in > the above Yahgan forms are explained (with perhaps reordering in > -TIKAL-). > > I do not know whether -MUSH (and source MVRA) is relatable to USHPA, > either etymologically or by convergence. I had previously speculated that > -VRA (also -ARA) 'contrary to expectation' or 'new information' WAS > relatable to -MUSH/MVRA. And in terms of etymologies within Yahgan, there > are MANY different lexical forms beginning with USH- referring to the > lower back or rear, its functions on the body, or products of same. In > Salishan the lexical suffix -APS/UPS has the same range of reference. > > The suffixal (extended) TAM system in Yahgan appears to be relatively > young Most of the relevant morphemes still retain corresponding lexical > entries Positionally the clitic-second (really a chain of slots) group > also often has matching terms in the suffixal system. For instance -MUSH > 'hearsay' as suffix is identical in form to (')MUSH in the clitic chain > set. Further grammaticalization has pushed the latter MUSH towards simple > modality, seen as well in the surviving dialect 130 years after the > grammar was laid out for the extinct one by Thomas Bridges. > > The first time I'd ever heard of the reversed time metaphor in Aymara was > during a talk given by Eve Sweetser (who not surprisingly is the coauthor > of the study cited above) during the Santa Barbara LSA Linguistic > Institute a few years 'back'. As I haven't read the source article yet I > don't know whether other local South American languages were included in > the study. Joseph Greenberg of course was famous (or infamous depending > on one's vantage) for attempting to lump, er.. group many of the Pacific > coast languages under the 'Andean' rubric. It would be interesting to see > whether they (and perhaps other languages/families further afield) share > this way of organizing their grammaticalization chains. Since the report > on the article says that younger bilingual generations appear to be > switching over to the dominant European time metaphor, it is possible > that in the past the region was far more uniformly 'reversed', with > viewpoints doing 'the 180' one by one after the Conquest. Such changes > are probably completely lost now in the mists of history. > > Of more theoretical import, perhaps, would be the finding that > directionality of time metaphor might depend in part on 'directionality' > of grammaticalization? Where tense (if they actually ARE tense) morphemes > come from may be determined in part by such a directionality, if there is > one, implicit (perhaps hidden?) within the overall scheme of possible > canalizations. > > So if any of you aren't having too much fun vacationing comments would be > of use. Thanks. > > Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net > > > > From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Thu Jun 15 04:03:54 2006 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:03:54 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... Message-ID: A question arises for me about whether such oppositions as in 'push forward' and 'push back' depend on a larger framework against which they are interpreted. In Yahgan TAM terms are split up into as 'space/time' subset, and a 'mass/energy' subset. For the former the language appears to prefer movement or position on the vertical dimension for aspect (utilizing, for instance, a plethora of posture verbs much expanded beyond simple sit, stand, lie to include singular, dual, and plural forms, position in the water, on the land, and in the air, etc.). The closer contact one makes with the substratum the more time out of the total involved is spent in the activity. English is similar in some ways- we are 'up to our neck' in work, buried, deeply immersed etc., having made our bed we must lie in it, and so on. Less and less contact means more and more freedom to pursue other things. Jumping/flying is also cessation of the contact, and of the activity. As in many other languages tense in Yahgan often seems to be relatable to horizontal movement verbs, whose system is orthogonal to that of the vertically organized aspect system forms. The larger mood system appears partially based on notions of force dynamics, as in Len Talmy's work. But just as space and time seem to be intimately related in the tense and aspect systems (with grammaticalization pushing spatial towards more temporal senses), so too does mood intertwine energy and mass (as force IS dependent on both). In physics one also sees dependence on area of application (space) and for work we also include time. While it is obvious that the gravitational field supplies a force/work context for the vertical dimension encoding aspectual notions, the same isn't true in any obvious way for the horizontal one. But people usually have homes, and are familiar with the 'near fetched' and less so with the 'far fetched'- and I'd guess that one is likely to suffer increasing fictive force the further afield one goes (just as one does the further from firm footing below one goes in the vertical dimension). Insecurity or homesickness- call it what you will. It is still possibly real enough psychologically for most people for most of the time. One is also much more likely to encounter challenges in the territories of others. Flux/fuzziness thus increases with distance both up and away. How then can we fit evidentials in to the above systems? Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, let's first take a quick look on the other side of the the grammar/pragmatics divide- at ideophones. In languages where there are thousands of these forms, it is often true that each root has multiple applications across semantic and sensory domains. Motion patterns are the 'same' for sound, visual effects (whether plays of light, distributions of materials, etc.). One interesting major split seems to be 'actor moving through the world (gaits)' versus 'the world moving through the actor (masticatory/deglutitional motions). Thus wolfing down one's food without first chewing it can use the same ideophone root in meaning leaping forward in long bounds. In both cases the relative motion is fleshy actor forward, world backward, either around him or through him. The difference comes when we think of the actor as unmoving in some absolute reference frame. It may be that something similar is going on for grammaticalized terms. I've claimed elsewhere that ideophones are a sort of 'antigrammar' formally and functionally. Perhaps what one system does, the other does the opposite, which would be in keeping with this idea. If tense forms are coming from opposite directions in terms of their sources in grammaticalization (out of aspect or larger mood (as in evidentials), how does this possibly relate to ideophones? The movement verbs (vertical aspect versus horizontal tense) can be viewed against those ideophones which refer to gaits and other motions in the external world- the motor half of reality. The difference between the grams and antigrams is that the former seem to encode our imposition of control/tractability beyond what we usually can control by right of birth, while the latter are 'about' loss of control where we 'should' have it. The near fetched and familar encroaching on the unfamiliar external, and vice versa. Where movement is through us we have sensory appreciation- again control imposed on the external in the case of evidential grams, and control loss in the case of equivalent ideophones. Movement is not necessarily permanent, of course- one can have stoppage, or potential energy within the larger context. Force dynamic modality probably finds a better home here than with the movement forms. And there are more 'adjectival' ideophones which express unusual or unexpected properties of referents than 'adverbial' ones do, often variance/mismatch from 'fit' for a particular occasion or role needing playing, or from expectations based on other experience. It may be possible that NO gram (or antigram) lacks some tidbit of the other values in the space-time-energy-matter (STEM) system, though it puts most of its efforts into one or another (or more)- this might allow evolution from one part of the system to another as the focus changes with grammticalization. Equations such as used by physicists can have their bits and pieces moved about. A/B = C/D is also AD = BC. In doing so we flip our vantage point. Could something like this also be going on with grammaticalization of tense terms? If space, time, energy and mass are not merely convenient fictions utilized by our minds then how do they interrelate? How will each impose an order or hierarchicalization, and how may they be transformed? I'm not saying this IS what we see in the time metaphors and their origins, but could it POSSIBLY be so? Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From ellen at central.cis.upenn.edu Thu Jun 15 04:25:18 2006 From: ellen at central.cis.upenn.edu (Ellen F.Prince) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:25:18 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: <2493.71.253.45.43.1150320655.squirrel@71.253.45.43> Message-ID: And Catalan uses the verb for 'go' as its past tense auxiliary. Iconicity is in the eye of the beholder... Ellen Prince On 14 Jun, 2006, at 5:30 PM, Paul Hopper wrote: > Jess, > > Both 'push forward' and 'push back' can mean "postpone", as in the > following examples (thanks to Google.com): > > 1. Pickup normally scheduled on observance day of the holiday will be > pushed forward to the next regular work day with the remaining pickups > that week also pushed forward one day. As an example: a Monday holiday > will result in normal Tuesday pick-up being pushed forward to > Wednesday of that week. > > 2. Several readers note that Apple has quietly pushed back the ship > dates of its MacBook Pro laptops from February 15th to February 23rd > with a delivery date of February 28th, 2006. > > Perhaps Aymara speakers aren't the only ones who are confused! > > Paul > > > > >> Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060613185239.htm >> >> Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose >> speakers >> view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA >> 'eye, >> front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, >> behind' is used for 'future'. >> >> The piece notes ambiguities in such metaphors in languages such as >> English, and the possibility that the evidential system may be a >> cause of >> the reversed mapping in Aymara. >> >> Comments: >> >> Yahgan, a couple of languages 'down' on the 'left' in Chile, may have >> cognate terms. For instance TELLA 'eye, face' may match Aymara NAYRA. >> USHPA 'back, behind' may match QHIPA. Yahgan evidentiality, from the >> manuscript sources I have, does not appear to be as obligate as in >> Aymara, but there are a good number of forms. Yahgan simple past >> morpheme >> is -de: (e: tense, relatable to TELLA?), simple future -u:a (u: tense, >> relatable to USHPA?). >> >> USHPA in Yahgan is also grammaticalized in the language to mean 'after >> X'. In the now extinct 19th century Yahgashaga dialect (the basis for >> the >> vast majority of writings on the language) it was a free or >> encliticized >> morpheme following the full or pronominal subject NP (SOV, SVO orders >> normal). Tense morphemes, on the other hand, are suffixed to the verb >> stem, after aspect, but before mood affixes. Bound evidentials are >> variably placed within TAM. >> >> While there is no OBVIOUS grammaticalized form of TELLA in this >> position, >> it is interesting that there is the form TU:LA, meaning 'if X'. I >> don't >> know enough about the grammaticalization chains in this area to be >> able >> to say with any authority that TU:LA is 'from' TELLA, but perhaps one >> of >> you can tell me? Yahgan has many lexical doublets where there is >> opposition of meaning carried by vowel alternants. Or TU:LA may >> relate to >> U:LA meaning 'don't' >> >> The suffixed evidentials include (but are not limited to) -MUSH >> 'hearsay' >> (from MVRA 'to hear, listen', V is schwa), -MIN 'visual evidence' (no >> simplex but is AMIN 'look, see!' with prefixed mild imperative A-), >> -TIKALVRA 'distant past visual evidential' where -VRA may be a form >> referring to 'contrariness to expectation'. >> >> The -TIKAL- component may have relatability to TELLA, as also may be >> the >> form -DVGA-, having a 'past' meaning. From the historical viewpoint, I >> have elsewhere (and here?) claimed possible relation to Salishan >> languages, also on the Pacific coast (but in northern North America) >> as >> well as to Chemakuan, and further south Chumashan families. >> >> The Chemakuan 'evidence' implies that the doubled -LLA in TELLA >> originated in -L- followed by a velar or uvular fricative (other forms >> support this). One sees similar things in the other families I >> include in >> the comparison. Thus, IF true, then perhaps the -K/G- elements seen in >> the above Yahgan forms are explained (with perhaps reordering in >> -TIKAL-). >> >> I do not know whether -MUSH (and source MVRA) is relatable to USHPA, >> either etymologically or by convergence. I had previously speculated >> that >> -VRA (also -ARA) 'contrary to expectation' or 'new information' WAS >> relatable to -MUSH/MVRA. And in terms of etymologies within Yahgan, >> there >> are MANY different lexical forms beginning with USH- referring to the >> lower back or rear, its functions on the body, or products of same. In >> Salishan the lexical suffix -APS/UPS has the same range of reference. >> >> The suffixal (extended) TAM system in Yahgan appears to be relatively >> young Most of the relevant morphemes still retain corresponding >> lexical >> entries Positionally the clitic-second (really a chain of slots) group >> also often has matching terms in the suffixal system. For instance >> -MUSH >> 'hearsay' as suffix is identical in form to (')MUSH in the clitic >> chain >> set. Further grammaticalization has pushed the latter MUSH towards >> simple >> modality, seen as well in the surviving dialect 130 years after the >> grammar was laid out for the extinct one by Thomas Bridges. >> >> The first time I'd ever heard of the reversed time metaphor in Aymara >> was >> during a talk given by Eve Sweetser (who not surprisingly is the >> coauthor >> of the study cited above) during the Santa Barbara LSA Linguistic >> Institute a few years 'back'. As I haven't read the source article >> yet I >> don't know whether other local South American languages were included >> in >> the study. Joseph Greenberg of course was famous (or infamous >> depending >> on one's vantage) for attempting to lump, er.. group many of the >> Pacific >> coast languages under the 'Andean' rubric. It would be interesting to >> see >> whether they (and perhaps other languages/families further afield) >> share >> this way of organizing their grammaticalization chains. Since the >> report >> on the article says that younger bilingual generations appear to be >> switching over to the dominant European time metaphor, it is possible >> that in the past the region was far more uniformly 'reversed', with >> viewpoints doing 'the 180' one by one after the Conquest. Such changes >> are probably completely lost now in the mists of history. >> >> Of more theoretical import, perhaps, would be the finding that >> directionality of time metaphor might depend in part on >> 'directionality' >> of grammaticalization? Where tense (if they actually ARE tense) >> morphemes >> come from may be determined in part by such a directionality, if >> there is >> one, implicit (perhaps hidden?) within the overall scheme of possible >> canalizations. >> >> So if any of you aren't having too much fun vacationing comments >> would be >> of use. Thanks. >> >> Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net >> >> >> >> > From dan.everett at manchester.ac.uk Thu Jun 15 09:02:47 2006 From: dan.everett at manchester.ac.uk (D.L.Everett) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:02:47 +0200 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Very often when we theorize about the significance of this or that aspect of a given language, from time words to color words to phonological structure, etc. we ironically fail to address the problem linguistically, at least in the traditional sense of this term. Linguists look at components of languages and study their distribution within a given system, looking for contrast, complementation, and structure. They come to understand individual units of a given language by analyzing the components of those units (what they are or what they are composed of), what those units contrast with (that is, what they are not), and how those units interconnect with other units in the language or grammar to form the system as a whole, i.e. the entire grammar and cultural context of which they are a part. These latter three perspectives are what Pike called the 'particle, wave, and field' perspectives of language. Outside the context of 'thick' ethnographies and grammars, it becomes difficult to understand different meanings of items, much less to compare them or contrast them with their supposed counterparts in other languages. This is a rather well-known problem from, for example, color terms, where so-called 'color terms' in several languages are not in fact best understood as color, certainly not in the English sense. Years ago (about 1984 or 1985) I was interviewed in the NY Times about a story it was running on Aymara, where it had been claimed that Aymara was the first truly logical language and that computer programmers could actually use Aymara as an ideal programming language. (Anyone who subscribes to the web version of the NY Times, Times Select, can find that article in a couple of seconds.) I don't find claims that Aymara think backwards about time much different than the claim that their language is 'truly logical'. Ellen's comments below are right on, because the 'eye of the beholder' is really the eye of the native speaker whose system we are trying to understand. And we cannot understand these things without detailed ethnogrammatical studies that use, among other methods, standard distributional argumentation of traditional linguistics, the one thing linguistics is truly good at perhaps, to show the particle, wave, and field perspectives of the unit in question in the larger ethnocultural context of the language in question. Jess Tauber's remarks on Yaghan seem to recognize this as well, when he says "A question arises for me about whether such oppositions as in 'push forward' and 'push back' depend on a larger framework against which they are interpreted", but nothing in what follows that nice opening remark gives me an understanding of the ethnolinguistic distributional arguments used to establish this apart from 'force dynamics'. Dan On 15 Jun 2006, at 06:25, Ellen F.Prince wrote: > And Catalan uses the verb for 'go' as its past tense auxiliary. > > Iconicity is in the eye of the beholder... > > Ellen Prince > From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Thu Jun 15 10:11:27 2006 From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:11:27 +0200 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: <12804465.1150300422143.JavaMail.root@elwamui-milano.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: Dear Jess, on the Cogling List, we already had a lengthy discussion of this issue (at the end of Frebruary 2005). The many contributions to the corresponding thread ("How Time Files") are perphaps of some interest to Funknetters, too. Best wishes, Wolfgang ############################# Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze Institut für Allgemeine und Typologische Sprachwissenschaft (IATS) [General Linguistics and Language Typology] Department für Kommunikation und Sprachen / F 13.14 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 D-80539 München Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180 2486 (secretary) ++49-(0)89-2180 5343 (office) Fax: ++49-(0)89-2180 5345 E-mail: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Web: http://www.ats.lmu.de/index.php From lavelle at unm.edu Thu Jun 15 11:24:24 2006 From: lavelle at unm.edu (Andrew LaVelle) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 05:24:24 -0600 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? In-Reply-To: <2493.71.253.45.43.1150320655.squirrel@71.253.45.43> Message-ID: Greetings to all, Just a few thoughts on the current discussion. To state that the grammaticalized forms of "back/behind" in a language (or, in some cultures, the act of pointing backwards) is evidence that its speakers' conceptualization of time is the opposite of ours is, in my opinion, to assume that the underlying metaphor for this grammaticalization is the same as ours, but only in reverse order. Contrarily, I would argue that the diagrammatic (call it conceptual if you prefer) metaphor used by European languages and cultures, among others, namely that Time is a Spatial Linearization (with the future in front, the present wherever we find ourselves on this line, and the past behind), is not the underlying metaphor in the Aymara language and culture as concerns the "back/behind" example. Rather, what is quite likely going on here in its place is a very different kind of metaphor. In my reading of the evidence, it's a more imagic metaphor (as opposed to a diagrammatic one), which could be described as "future time/events are unknowable/unobservable things". Thus they are similar to that which is behind us, or on our backside, because we (normally) cannot see or know such things. The belief that Aymara speakers actually envision time as starting in front of them (the past) and then proceeding behind them (the future) is, once again, to make the assumption that they have the same basic temporal metaphor in mind that we do when using such linguistic expressions. Since time is neither three-, two-, nor one-dimensional, being in fact only an inference, as Aristotle fully understood, the equating of time with a linear projection in space (which itself, in many languages including English, is grounded on the sound iconicity of proximals and distals -- for example, verbal ablaut indicating past tense in English irregular verbs which pattern after proximal/distal phonological opposition, i.e., front vowels iconically representing present tense and back vowels past tense) is only one possible metaphor among many as a means of better cognizing the nature of time. As for the "confusion" between "push forward" and "push back", there is none. Native speakers of English who say "push back" to mean "postpone" (and I myself am one of them) surely don't conceptualize time as unfolding in an opposite direction, any more than a person who says on the phone "I'm coming over to your place tonight" (as opposed to "going over") envisions himself traveling backwards as he crosses town. (In this latter example, it's speaker empathy or projection that is happening.) The difference between "push forward" and "push back" can be found in how we would refer to the action of pushing a physical object in front of us in relation to our course of direction and the unfoldment of events. If I grab hold of the rear bumper of a stalled car and push it down the road toward its driver's intended destination, am I pushing it forward or back? I would say forward. By contrast, if I come upon an obstacle in the road, such a large, fallen tree, and I push it in the direction of my destination, am I pushing it forward or back? I would say back. This shows for starters that the use of the word "back" in such a context does not mean "back where it was or came from". Similarly, if I say to a person who is sitting across from me but who is too close to me, "please move back", it doesn't mean back where they originally where since they may never have been sitting further back. Thus "back" used in this way must mean something on the order of "away from" or "farther from". Returning, then, to "push forward" when meaning "postpone", I envision time on its linear projection moving forward and all actions/events unfolding in that same direction. I push a date forward because that was the direction that time was heading in or oriented toward anyhow. Whereas with "push back" to mean "postpone", I envision the flow of time as going forward just the same but I encounter a (projected) event that has been fixed in (anticipated) time and thus decide to move it away from me (push it back) so there is a greater temporal distance between us. The semiotic distinction, however, between these two expressions is even deeper than this, but I won't belabor the point. Suffice it to say that there is nothing confused or contradictory about them, both being logical expressions based on the same underlying metaphor of Time is a Spatial Linearization, with the future in front of us and the past behind. As for the Aymara example, on the other hand, it employs a very different kind of metaphoric image to characterize time, but one which nevertheless does not contradict the common human experience that as we move forward time is experienced; hence the elapse of time is associated with forward motion. And while it is equally true that time can also be experienced when we walk backwards, this is not the usual direction that humans walk in. Consequently, it is very hard indeed to conceive of the future as approaching from back to front. And I doubt very much that Aymara speakers are any exception to this universal rule. Best, Andrew Andrew LaVelle Department of Linguistics University of New Mexico lavelle at unm.edu on 6/14/06 3:30 PM, Paul Hopper at hopper at cmu.edu wrote: > Jess, > > Both 'push forward' and 'push back' can mean "postpone", as in the following > examples (thanks to Google.com): > > 1. Pickup normally scheduled on observance day of the holiday will be pushed > forward to the next regular work day with the remaining pickups that week also > pushed forward one day. As an example: a Monday holiday will result in normal > Tuesday pick-up being pushed forward to Wednesday of that week. > > 2. Several readers note that Apple has quietly pushed back the ship dates of > its MacBook Pro laptops from February 15th to February 23rd with a delivery > date of February 28th, 2006. > > Perhaps Aymara speakers aren't the only ones who are confused! > > Paul > > > > >> Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060613185239.htm >> >> Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose speakers >> view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA 'eye, >> front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, >> behind' is used for 'future'. >> >> The piece notes ambiguities in such metaphors in languages such as >> English, and the possibility that the evidential system may be a cause of >> the reversed mapping in Aymara. >> >> Comments: >> >> Yahgan, a couple of languages 'down' on the 'left' in Chile, may have >> cognate terms. For instance TELLA 'eye, face' may match Aymara NAYRA. >> USHPA 'back, behind' may match QHIPA. Yahgan evidentiality, from the >> manuscript sources I have, does not appear to be as obligate as in >> Aymara, but there are a good number of forms. Yahgan simple past morpheme >> is -de: (e: tense, relatable to TELLA?), simple future -u:a (u: tense, >> relatable to USHPA?). >> >> USHPA in Yahgan is also grammaticalized in the language to mean 'after >> X'. In the now extinct 19th century Yahgashaga dialect (the basis for the >> vast majority of writings on the language) it was a free or encliticized >> morpheme following the full or pronominal subject NP (SOV, SVO orders >> normal). Tense morphemes, on the other hand, are suffixed to the verb >> stem, after aspect, but before mood affixes. Bound evidentials are >> variably placed within TAM. >> >> While there is no OBVIOUS grammaticalized form of TELLA in this position, >> it is interesting that there is the form TU:LA, meaning 'if X'. I don't >> know enough about the grammaticalization chains in this area to be able >> to say with any authority that TU:LA is 'from' TELLA, but perhaps one of >> you can tell me? Yahgan has many lexical doublets where there is >> opposition of meaning carried by vowel alternants. Or TU:LA may relate to >> U:LA meaning 'don't' >> >> The suffixed evidentials include (but are not limited to) -MUSH 'hearsay' >> (from MVRA 'to hear, listen', V is schwa), -MIN 'visual evidence' (no >> simplex but is AMIN 'look, see!' with prefixed mild imperative A-), >> -TIKALVRA 'distant past visual evidential' where -VRA may be a form >> referring to 'contrariness to expectation'. >> >> The -TIKAL- component may have relatability to TELLA, as also may be the >> form -DVGA-, having a 'past' meaning. From the historical viewpoint, I >> have elsewhere (and here?) claimed possible relation to Salishan >> languages, also on the Pacific coast (but in northern North America) as >> well as to Chemakuan, and further south Chumashan families. >> >> The Chemakuan 'evidence' implies that the doubled -LLA in TELLA >> originated in -L- followed by a velar or uvular fricative (other forms >> support this). One sees similar things in the other families I include in >> the comparison. Thus, IF true, then perhaps the -K/G- elements seen in >> the above Yahgan forms are explained (with perhaps reordering in >> -TIKAL-). >> >> I do not know whether -MUSH (and source MVRA) is relatable to USHPA, >> either etymologically or by convergence. I had previously speculated that >> -VRA (also -ARA) 'contrary to expectation' or 'new information' WAS >> relatable to -MUSH/MVRA. And in terms of etymologies within Yahgan, there >> are MANY different lexical forms beginning with USH- referring to the >> lower back or rear, its functions on the body, or products of same. In >> Salishan the lexical suffix -APS/UPS has the same range of reference. >> >> The suffixal (extended) TAM system in Yahgan appears to be relatively >> young Most of the relevant morphemes still retain corresponding lexical >> entries Positionally the clitic-second (really a chain of slots) group >> also often has matching terms in the suffixal system. For instance -MUSH >> 'hearsay' as suffix is identical in form to (')MUSH in the clitic chain >> set. Further grammaticalization has pushed the latter MUSH towards simple >> modality, seen as well in the surviving dialect 130 years after the >> grammar was laid out for the extinct one by Thomas Bridges. >> >> The first time I'd ever heard of the reversed time metaphor in Aymara was >> during a talk given by Eve Sweetser (who not surprisingly is the coauthor >> of the study cited above) during the Santa Barbara LSA Linguistic >> Institute a few years 'back'. As I haven't read the source article yet I >> don't know whether other local South American languages were included in >> the study. Joseph Greenberg of course was famous (or infamous depending >> on one's vantage) for attempting to lump, er.. group many of the Pacific >> coast languages under the 'Andean' rubric. It would be interesting to see >> whether they (and perhaps other languages/families further afield) share >> this way of organizing their grammaticalization chains. Since the report >> on the article says that younger bilingual generations appear to be >> switching over to the dominant European time metaphor, it is possible >> that in the past the region was far more uniformly 'reversed', with >> viewpoints doing 'the 180' one by one after the Conquest. Such changes >> are probably completely lost now in the mists of history. >> >> Of more theoretical import, perhaps, would be the finding that >> directionality of time metaphor might depend in part on 'directionality' >> of grammaticalization? Where tense (if they actually ARE tense) morphemes >> come from may be determined in part by such a directionality, if there is >> one, implicit (perhaps hidden?) within the overall scheme of possible >> canalizations. >> >> So if any of you aren't having too much fun vacationing comments would be >> of use. Thanks. >> >> Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net >> >> >> >> > From lavelle at unm.edu Thu Jun 15 11:57:49 2006 From: lavelle at unm.edu (Andrew LaVelle) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 05:57:49 -0600 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I should add to my previous message (below) that one of the primary distinctions between 'push forward" and "push back" is that with "push forward" I'm emphasizing the relation between the projected/scheduled event and time itself (based on the underlying metaphor that time always unfolds in forward direction and thus that the future lies ahead; therefore to give an event greater futurity is to give it greater forwardness, and vice versa), whereas with "push back" I'm highlighting the relation between the event and myself: by pushing the event back I'm increasing the temporal distance between it and me. Both expressions are based on the same diagrammatic metaphor, but each foregrounds a different relation between speaker, event, and time. Best, Andrew Department of Linguistics University of New Mexico lavelle at unm.edu on 6/15/06 5:24 AM, Andrew LaVelle at lavelle at unm.edu wrote: > Greetings to all, > > Just a few thoughts on the current discussion. > > To state that the grammaticalized forms of "back/behind" in a language (or, > in some cultures, the act of pointing backwards) is evidence that its > speakers' conceptualization of time is the opposite of ours is, in my > opinion, to assume that the underlying metaphor for this grammaticalization > is the same as ours, but only in reverse order. Contrarily, I would argue > that the diagrammatic (call it conceptual if you prefer) metaphor used by > European languages and cultures, among others, namely that Time is a Spatial > Linearization (with the future in front, the present wherever we find > ourselves on this line, and the past behind), is not the underlying metaphor > in the Aymara language and culture as concerns the "back/behind" example. > Rather, what is quite likely going on here in its place is a very different > kind of metaphor. In my reading of the evidence, it's a more imagic metaphor > (as opposed to a diagrammatic one), which could be described as "future > time/events are unknowable/unobservable things". Thus they are similar to > that which is behind us, or on our backside, because we (normally) cannot > see or know such things. The belief that Aymara speakers actually envision > time as starting in front of them (the past) and then proceeding behind them > (the future) is, once again, to make the assumption that they have the same > basic temporal metaphor in mind that we do when using such linguistic > expressions. > > Since time is neither three-, two-, nor one-dimensional, being in fact only > an inference, as Aristotle fully understood, the equating of time with a > linear projection in space (which itself, in many languages including > English, is grounded on the sound iconicity of proximals and distals -- for > example, verbal ablaut indicating past tense in English irregular verbs > which pattern after proximal/distal phonological opposition, i.e., front > vowels iconically representing present tense and back vowels past tense) is > only one possible metaphor among many as a means of better cognizing the > nature of time. > > As for the "confusion" between "push forward" and "push back", there is > none. Native speakers of English who say "push back" to mean "postpone" (and > I myself am one of them) surely don't conceptualize time as unfolding in an > opposite direction, any more than a person who says on the phone "I'm coming > over to your place tonight" (as opposed to "going over") envisions himself > traveling backwards as he crosses town. (In this latter example, it's > speaker empathy or projection that is happening.) The difference between > "push forward" and "push back" can be found in how we would refer to the > action of pushing a physical object in front of us in relation to our course > of direction and the unfoldment of events. If I grab hold of the rear bumper > of a stalled car and push it down the road toward its driver's intended > destination, am I pushing it forward or back? I would say forward. By > contrast, if I come upon an obstacle in the road, such a large, fallen tree, > and I push it in the direction of my destination, am I pushing it forward or > back? I would say back. This shows for starters that the use of the word > "back" in such a context does not mean "back where it was or came from". > Similarly, if I say to a person who is sitting across from me but who is too > close to me, "please move back", it doesn't mean back where they originally > where since they may never have been sitting further back. Thus "back" used > in this way must mean something on the order of "away from" or "farther > from". Returning, then, to "push forward" when meaning "postpone", I > envision time on its linear projection moving forward and all actions/events > unfolding in that same direction. I push a date forward because that was the > direction that time was heading in or oriented toward anyhow. Whereas with > "push back" to mean "postpone", I envision the flow of time as going forward > just the same but I encounter a (projected) event that has been fixed in > (anticipated) time and thus decide to move it away from me (push it back) so > there is a greater temporal distance between us. > > The semiotic distinction, however, between these two expressions is even > deeper than this, but I won't belabor the point. Suffice it to say that > there is nothing confused or contradictory about them, both being logical > expressions based on the same underlying metaphor of Time is a Spatial > Linearization, with the future in front of us and the past behind. As for > the Aymara example, on the other hand, it employs a very different kind of > metaphoric image to characterize time, but one which nevertheless does not > contradict the common human experience that as we move forward time is > experienced; hence the elapse of time is associated with forward motion. And > while it is equally true that time can also be experienced when we walk > backwards, this is not the usual direction that humans walk in. > Consequently, it is very hard indeed to conceive of the future as > approaching from back to front. And I doubt very much that Aymara speakers > are any exception to this universal rule. > > Best, > Andrew > > > Andrew LaVelle > Department of Linguistics > University of New Mexico > lavelle at unm.edu > > > on 6/14/06 3:30 PM, Paul Hopper at hopper at cmu.edu wrote: > >> Jess, >> >> Both 'push forward' and 'push back' can mean "postpone", as in the following >> examples (thanks to Google.com): >> >> 1. Pickup normally scheduled on observance day of the holiday will be pushed >> forward to the next regular work day with the remaining pickups that week >> also >> pushed forward one day. As an example: a Monday holiday will result in normal >> Tuesday pick-up being pushed forward to Wednesday of that week. >> >> 2. Several readers note that Apple has quietly pushed back the ship dates of >> its MacBook Pro laptops from February 15th to February 23rd with a delivery >> date of February 28th, 2006. >> >> Perhaps Aymara speakers aren't the only ones who are confused! >> >> Paul >> >> >> >> >>> Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060613185239.htm >>> >>> Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose speakers >>> view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA 'eye, >>> front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, >>> behind' is used for 'future'. >>> >>> The piece notes ambiguities in such metaphors in languages such as >>> English, and the possibility that the evidential system may be a cause of >>> the reversed mapping in Aymara. >>> >>> Comments: >>> >>> Yahgan, a couple of languages 'down' on the 'left' in Chile, may have >>> cognate terms. For instance TELLA 'eye, face' may match Aymara NAYRA. >>> USHPA 'back, behind' may match QHIPA. Yahgan evidentiality, from the >>> manuscript sources I have, does not appear to be as obligate as in >>> Aymara, but there are a good number of forms. Yahgan simple past morpheme >>> is -de: (e: tense, relatable to TELLA?), simple future -u:a (u: tense, >>> relatable to USHPA?). >>> >>> USHPA in Yahgan is also grammaticalized in the language to mean 'after >>> X'. In the now extinct 19th century Yahgashaga dialect (the basis for the >>> vast majority of writings on the language) it was a free or encliticized >>> morpheme following the full or pronominal subject NP (SOV, SVO orders >>> normal). Tense morphemes, on the other hand, are suffixed to the verb >>> stem, after aspect, but before mood affixes. Bound evidentials are >>> variably placed within TAM. >>> >>> While there is no OBVIOUS grammaticalized form of TELLA in this position, >>> it is interesting that there is the form TU:LA, meaning 'if X'. I don't >>> know enough about the grammaticalization chains in this area to be able >>> to say with any authority that TU:LA is 'from' TELLA, but perhaps one of >>> you can tell me? Yahgan has many lexical doublets where there is >>> opposition of meaning carried by vowel alternants. Or TU:LA may relate to >>> U:LA meaning 'don't' >>> >>> The suffixed evidentials include (but are not limited to) -MUSH 'hearsay' >>> (from MVRA 'to hear, listen', V is schwa), -MIN 'visual evidence' (no >>> simplex but is AMIN 'look, see!' with prefixed mild imperative A-), >>> -TIKALVRA 'distant past visual evidential' where -VRA may be a form >>> referring to 'contrariness to expectation'. >>> >>> The -TIKAL- component may have relatability to TELLA, as also may be the >>> form -DVGA-, having a 'past' meaning. From the historical viewpoint, I >>> have elsewhere (and here?) claimed possible relation to Salishan >>> languages, also on the Pacific coast (but in northern North America) as >>> well as to Chemakuan, and further south Chumashan families. >>> >>> The Chemakuan 'evidence' implies that the doubled -LLA in TELLA >>> originated in -L- followed by a velar or uvular fricative (other forms >>> support this). One sees similar things in the other families I include in >>> the comparison. Thus, IF true, then perhaps the -K/G- elements seen in >>> the above Yahgan forms are explained (with perhaps reordering in >>> -TIKAL-). >>> >>> I do not know whether -MUSH (and source MVRA) is relatable to USHPA, >>> either etymologically or by convergence. I had previously speculated that >>> -VRA (also -ARA) 'contrary to expectation' or 'new information' WAS >>> relatable to -MUSH/MVRA. And in terms of etymologies within Yahgan, there >>> are MANY different lexical forms beginning with USH- referring to the >>> lower back or rear, its functions on the body, or products of same. In >>> Salishan the lexical suffix -APS/UPS has the same range of reference. >>> >>> The suffixal (extended) TAM system in Yahgan appears to be relatively >>> young Most of the relevant morphemes still retain corresponding lexical >>> entries Positionally the clitic-second (really a chain of slots) group >>> also often has matching terms in the suffixal system. For instance -MUSH >>> 'hearsay' as suffix is identical in form to (')MUSH in the clitic chain >>> set. Further grammaticalization has pushed the latter MUSH towards simple >>> modality, seen as well in the surviving dialect 130 years after the >>> grammar was laid out for the extinct one by Thomas Bridges. >>> >>> The first time I'd ever heard of the reversed time metaphor in Aymara was >>> during a talk given by Eve Sweetser (who not surprisingly is the coauthor >>> of the study cited above) during the Santa Barbara LSA Linguistic >>> Institute a few years 'back'. As I haven't read the source article yet I >>> don't know whether other local South American languages were included in >>> the study. Joseph Greenberg of course was famous (or infamous depending >>> on one's vantage) for attempting to lump, er.. group many of the Pacific >>> coast languages under the 'Andean' rubric. It would be interesting to see >>> whether they (and perhaps other languages/families further afield) share >>> this way of organizing their grammaticalization chains. Since the report >>> on the article says that younger bilingual generations appear to be >>> switching over to the dominant European time metaphor, it is possible >>> that in the past the region was far more uniformly 'reversed', with >>> viewpoints doing 'the 180' one by one after the Conquest. Such changes >>> are probably completely lost now in the mists of history. >>> >>> Of more theoretical import, perhaps, would be the finding that >>> directionality of time metaphor might depend in part on 'directionality' >>> of grammaticalization? Where tense (if they actually ARE tense) morphemes >>> come from may be determined in part by such a directionality, if there is >>> one, implicit (perhaps hidden?) within the overall scheme of possible >>> canalizations. >>> >>> So if any of you aren't having too much fun vacationing comments would be >>> of use. Thanks. >>> >>> Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net >>> >>> >>> >>> >> > From Salinas17 at aol.com Thu Jun 15 13:31:59 2006 From: Salinas17 at aol.com (Salinas17 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:31:59 EDT Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Message-ID: In a message dated 6/14/06 11:54:43 AM, phonosemantics at earthlink.net writes: << Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose speakers view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA 'eye, front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, behind' is used for 'future'. >> Of course, if this were to be taken literally, it would be a ridiculously impractical perceptual system, so we can be pretty sure we should not take it literally. It's a good rule of thumb that linguistic should not lose all touch with reality. If I asked an Aymaran when dinner would be ready, I don't think he would act as if it already happened. Such an approach would leave one very suceptible to starvation. The arrow of time is not subjective, no matter how we talk about it. Of course, metaphor, irony and the juggling of tense can rearrange elements so an outsider just doesn't get it. I have to look backward to look forward, because experience is my main guide to the future. If I use an icon to communicate this, I may leave out expressing why I am searching my memory, but that does not mean that the future IS a memory. If the Aymarans are evading the physical rules of time and cause and effect, I want one to go to the race track with me as soon as possible. I'll split my Trifecta winnings with any competent translator. However, unless the Aymarans are all employed as fortune tellers or quantum physicists, there's no reason to attribute this to anything but a not altogether unusual, random historical shift in the meaning of words. To a culture where "bad" can mean "good" and "cool" can mean "hot," this should be no surprise. Regards, Steve Long From faucon at cogsci.ucsd.edu Thu Jun 15 16:07:06 2006 From: faucon at cogsci.ucsd.edu (Gilles Fauconnier) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:07:06 -0700 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: <1A8C1412-44C4-4104-B28B-ACF813C31710@manchester.ac.uk> Message-ID: > > I don't find claims that Aymara think backwards about time much > different than the claim that their language is 'truly logical'. > It wouldn't hurt to take a look at the "Cognitive Science" article, co-authored, after all, by an eminent linguist and a distinguished cognitive scientist. -- Gilles Fauconnier University of California San Diego La Jolla CA 92093 E-mail gfauconnier at ucsd.edu http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/ From dan.everett at manchester.ac.uk Thu Jun 15 16:20:13 2006 From: dan.everett at manchester.ac.uk (D.L. Everett) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:20:13 +0200 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I did not intend to impugn the article or its authors. I was referring to popular interpretation of the article, not the article itself. So let me make that clear here. I assume that when I read the article I will see which of the authors did the fieldwork, or whether it was based only on secondary sources, and how the connections between culture and language were drawn. But let me repeat that I was only commenting on popular interpretations of the article. Not the professional conclusions of the eminent authors. Dan On 15 Jun 2006, at 18:07, Gilles Fauconnier wrote: > >> >> I don't find claims that Aymara think backwards about time much >> different than the claim that their language is 'truly logical'. >> > > It wouldn't hurt to take a look at the "Cognitive Science" article, > co-authored, after all, by an eminent linguist and a distinguished > cognitive scientist. > > -- > Gilles Fauconnier > University of California San Diego > La Jolla CA 92093 > > E-mail gfauconnier at ucsd.edu > http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/ > From mark at polymathix.com Thu Jun 15 16:47:41 2006 From: mark at polymathix.com (Mark P. Line) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:47:41 -0500 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: <1A8C1412-44C4-4104-B28B-ACF813C31710@manchester.ac.uk> Message-ID: D.L.Everett wrote: > Very often when we theorize about the significance of this or that > aspect of a given language, from time words to color words to > phonological structure, etc. we ironically fail to address the > problem linguistically, at least in the traditional sense of this > term. Linguists look at components of languages and study their > distribution within a given system, looking for contrast, > complementation, and structure. They come to understand individual > units of a given language by analyzing the components of those units > (what they are or what they are composed of), what those units > contrast with (that is, what they are not), and how those units > interconnect with other units in the language or grammar to form the > system as a whole, i.e. the entire grammar and cultural context of > which they are a part. These latter three perspectives are what Pike > called the 'particle, wave, and field' perspectives of language. Holy cow, Dan, you didn't get the memo! That's not how linguistics is done anymore. To see how it's _really_ done, google for 'maximum entropy' and 'latent semantic indexing'. I'm currently applying for a No Child Left Behind grant to write a series of textbooks for high-school German based on the new statistical paradigm. Schools will be able to demonstrate an enormous improvement in German grades by using my textbooks, since the kids will learn that 'Es ist uns wiederum gelungen, Bratkartoffeln in Spruehdosen herzustellen.' can be translated correctly into English as 'Fry spray to make it on the other succeeded hand it us potato we in cans.' as well as many other ways. Without the hypercritical assessment arising from antequated structuralist bean counting, kids are free to produce any translation that has the right statistical properties (p=0.35 for a passing grade). If you disagree, it's only because you're still thinking in that old Pikean particle-wave-field paradigm and you're expecting to find systematic, categorical relations in a language that can be used to justify a translation into another language. -- Mark Mark P. Line Polymathix San Antonio, TX From Salinas17 at aol.com Thu Jun 15 21:07:31 2006 From: Salinas17 at aol.com (Salinas17 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:07:31 EDT Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... Message-ID: In a message dated 6/15/06 12:48:51 PM, mark at polymathix.com writes: << Without the hypercritical assessment arising from antequated structuralist bean counting, kids are free to produce any translation that has the right statistical properties >> Just a small comment regarding terminology. Strictly speaking, translating or any other analysis based on 'statistical properties' would be just as much 'structural' as looking for 'contrast, complementation, and structure.' Statistical analysis simply creates a different picture of structure, not something other than structure. The factors that form either of those types of structurings, on the other hand, are where we get to the 'function' of language -- what ends it serves, specifically and universally -- which might be the main reason why it is even worth studying in the first place. Regards, Steve Long From pyoung at darkwing.uoregon.edu Thu Jun 15 21:17:27 2006 From: pyoung at darkwing.uoregon.edu (Phil Young) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 14:17:27 -0700 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... Message-ID: A friend on another list made the comment below and I thought it would be of interest to Funknetters. He gave his permission to forward it. "In a 1982 book by a medievalist named Paul C. Bauschatz titled The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture 8th-century Germanic concepts of time (and space) are metaphorically represented with individuals who face the past with the non-past (the future) behind them. Individuals stand close to and face the entrance to an unimaginably large container. Inside this container are stored all the past events. Events flow around the individuals. Some fall outside the container and disappear; others are momentarily becoming part of the structure within the container. There is no outside force that pushes events into the container; instead events are pulled in from a force within. And eventually individuals themselves are pulled in at the moment of death. Interestingly the past is the only component with structure. What we witness is always chaos. This situation presents difficulties for human beings as they attempt to understand their position in the scheme of things. They stand outside the past and have no direct perception of it or of its force. They can only occasionally glimpse its structure since most of it is hidden beyond the entrance. The pulling force does influence events outside the container but in ways usually not directly perceptible. Also, events rush around people as if from behind. Some of these events are insignificant, and as I pointed out, disappear; but some are important. Humans try to sort out these events, and the most important factor in sorting them out is the understanding of the power of the past as it reaches out and around them to structure activities. Time and space are intimately interwoven. Ancient German time, according to Bauschatz, is binary, not tripartite. It divides into past and non-past, not into past, present, and future. There are no explicit references in early Germanic materials to a concept like the future. He points out that future references in Old English are translations of explicitly Christian, Latin materials. The past, as collector of events, is clearly the most dominant of the two components of time. Human beings stand at the juncture of this past and the non-past, at the point that might be called the present--at least at the point where events are in the process of becoming "past." The past, then, is already experienced, accomplished, realized--for the most part, unfortunately, by those out of contact with living individuals. The present, to the contrary, is in constant flux, confused with both irrelevant and significant details. What we would call the "future" is, within the structure of this Germanic system, just more of the non-past, more flux, more confusion, and almost entirely unknowable. It may be somewhat knowable with a thorough knowledge of the past and by what criteria the past structures itself, that is, picks out events in the flux of the non-past to suck into its container. Once again, individuals face the past, not the "future." Within this binary time system the past is constantly increasing and pulling more and more time and events into itself. The past alone has assured strength and reality. Because this time is ever-changing, growing, and space oriented, it is dynamic and human oriented. The tripartite Christian time that we have come to accept is static, without space, and outside humanness. The concept of the container filling up leads to one final conclusion. The container will eventually become full. At that moment we would expect a cosmic close, an end to the universe implicit in the structure itself. We do, indeed, find such a case throughout Germanic mythical literature. 'Neath sea the land sinketh, the sun dimmeth, from the heavens fall the fair bright stars; gusheth forth steam and gutting fire, to very heaven soareth the hurtling flames. Not to fear, however, for the myths make clear that it is not the end of time but only of one of several temporal stages in the cosmos that mark beginnings. I see green again with growing things the earth arise from out of the sea; fell torrents flow, overflies them the eagle. It is as if the container of the past had overflowed itself and had begun to fill another, larger container, which somehow is structured so as to surround and enclose the earlier. The process apparently continues without end. Robert." Cheers, Phil Young pyoung at darkwing.uoregon.edu From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Thu Jun 15 21:27:53 2006 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:27:53 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... Message-ID: Dan Everett wrote: >Jess Tauber's remarks on Yaghan seem to recognize this as well, when he says "A question arises for me about whether such oppositions as in 'push forward' and 'push back' depend on a larger framework against which they are interpreted", but nothing in what follows that nice opening remark gives me an understanding of the ethnolinguistic distributional arguments used to establish this apart from 'force dynamics'.< My interest here is in how we conceptualize the physicomechanical and sociophysical realities we are forced to live with by being humans in the real world, with inherited and learned sensorimotor biases acting as mediators between us and that world, and how these then help shape language, and vice versa. This is the 'larger framework' I meant, and is thus a more universalist one. My comments about how we move through the world, versus how the world can move through us, are relevant here. If I say a date has been moved back, this relates to sensory information, that is, within the larger family of things that move through us, which will in many (most, all?) circumstances prototypically be coming FROM the front- all our major sense organs, and matter/energy input organs are in the front of our bodies, anticipating this. If a date is moved back, it is back in the direction from which it came, not OUR back. Time will pass whether or not we move forward literally. On the other hand, if I say pickup has been moved forward, this is action of our bodies, which is generally prototypically ahead, movement through the world versus the world through us. Moving the ACTION ahead means moving it in the same absolute direction as moving the TIME back on its own line. If we look at the way our vertebrate bodies are constructed some sense can be made of this. Our musculature and nervous systems reflect this organization- adductor versus abductor muscles dividing the body up, sensory versus motor pathways, and so on. Inputs in the front, outputs in the back. In quadrupeds we have information (which in lower animals deals more with space and time?) dorsally, and mass/energy ventrally. Modularization and modifications within modules sometimes mess up this nice neat scenario, but even then similar frames are evident within them. Organizational structuring of this sort is present at every level- all the way down to the molecular. Perhaps just the most efficient way to put things together while still leaving room for functional inversions. Which is where my equation came in. Temporal inflectional terms can come from bodily motion/position verbs or sensorily related evidential terms- which have opposite perspectives perhaps, among other sources. In a tense system with mixed sources, we may have to flip our perspectives if we wish to maintain a link back, or when the motivating connection has been lost to awareness we can reinterpret and coopt forms to fit one dominant perspective. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From Salinas17 at aol.com Fri Jun 16 04:14:54 2006 From: Salinas17 at aol.com (Salinas17 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:14:54 EDT Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Message-ID: In a message dated 6/15/06 5:12:32 PM, pyoung at uoregon.edu writes: << Ancient German time, according to Bauschatz, is binary, not tripartite. It divides into past and non-past, not into past, present, and future. There are no explicit references in early Germanic materials to a concept like the future. He points out that future references in Old English are translations of explicitly Christian, Latin materials. The past, as collector of events, is clearly the most dominant of the two components of time. >> Actually, the curiousity is that the basic b-root word (as in to be or not to be) -- reconstructed as IE*bheu-, *bhu- "grow, come into being, become" -- did not have a regular 'past' tense in Old English. But it was used to express both the present and the future, which sounds pretty forward-looking to me. At least with this verb, the attitude seems to have been the past is merely prologue. Of course, there still is no future tense, in the inflective sense, in English. But I don't think anyone anywhere has ever talked more about the future than American English-speakers. Maybe this goes back to the recent analytic-synthetic debate. Were those Old-English speakers expressing some kind of an anti-future world view by failing to have a future tense? Or were they just living with the amibiguoty until the contrast became necessary or convenient? Since they don't not appear to have been particularly poor planners or terribly phobic about hitting the road for parts unknown, I'd have to conclude that they had a pretty good concept of the future, even if they didn't have a word for it. <> Tripartite Christian time? Isn't that how they set their clocks at the NIST? Steve Long From gj.steen at let.vu.nl Fri Jun 16 09:52:38 2006 From: gj.steen at let.vu.nl (G.J. Steen) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 11:52:38 +0200 Subject: metaphor in discourse Message-ID: (Apologies for cross-postings) 2 PhD Positions in Metaphor and Discourse Analysis f/m For 1,0 fte each Vacancynumber 1.2006.00132 The Faculty of Arts at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is inviting applications for two PhD positions, beginning 1 September 2006 or as soon as possible thereafter, in the vici-programme ‘Metaphor in discourse: linguistic forms, conceptual structures, cognitive representations.’ This is a five-year research programme, awarded to Gerard Steen by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), which started 1 September 2005. It addresses the role of metaphor in discourse by examining its distribution, structure, function, and effect in four varieties of English. The hypothesis is that distinct linguistic forms and conceptual structures of metaphor display distributions and functions of their own, and that these interact with the domains of discourse in which language users employ them. The programme aims at describing and explaining these interactions on the basis of detailed corpus research on four samples from the British National Corpus, and at testing the cognitive effects of some of these interactions in their mental representation by language users. Metaphor in discourse is modelled by means of a discourse-analytical elaboration of the cognitive-linguistic approach to metaphor as a cross-domain mapping. Research involves corpus analysis of samples from the British National Corpus and psycholinguistic experiments on various aspects of metaphor processing. The vici-programme is part of one of the four research programmes of the Institute of Language, Culture, and History of the Faculty of Arts at the Vrije Universiteit, ‘The architecture of the human language faculty’. This research programme investigates the modular structure of human language and cognition, with participation from formal, functional, and cognitive grammarians, and psycholinguists as well as discourse analysts. The vici-programme is also connected to the Ster research programme of the Vrije Universiteit on ‘Text, cognition, and communication’, an interdisciplinary research programme between the faculties of Arts, Psychology, and Social Science, with the Faculty of Arts concentrating on ‘The conversationalization of public discourse’ in the usage of Dutch. Tasks The two PhD projects will complement two other PhD projects which started a year ago. The four PhD projects constitute the core of the programme. Each of the projects will eventually concentrate on the use of metaphor in one specific language variety: conversation, news texts, academic texts, and fiction. All projects are organized by an integrated timetable, and the research is characterized by a great deal of synchronized team work. During the first year, the researchers identify metaphors in samples from all four language varieties, after which each researcher will concentrate on one language variety for the rest of the programme. Each of the two PhD projects involves research training and aims at completing a dissertation within four years. As part of their training, PhD students take courses offered by the National Graduate School in Linguistics (LOT). They also present work at annual expert meetings and participate in international conferences. Candidates will also be requested to make a small contribution to the teaching programme of the School of Language and Communication at the Vrije Universiteit. Requirements Candidates should have native-speaker or near-native speaker command of (British) English. They should have an excellent MA thesis in English language and linguistics, or be able to show that such a thesis will be completed by August 31. Expertise in metaphor, discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics, and/or corpus linguistics will be regarded as an advantage. Particularities Appointment will initially be for one year, to be extended with a maximum of three more years upon positive evaluation. General conditions of employment can be found at www.vu.nl/vacatures. Non-native speakers of Dutch are expected to acquire a basic command of Dutch in the first two years of their appointment. Salary For all projects we offer a full-time four-year PhD position with gross monthly salary starting at € 1.933,- in the first year to € 2.472,- in the fourth year of appointment. Information A full description of the complete programme and additional information about the vacancy can be obtained from dr. G.J. Steen, phone 0031 (0)20 59 86433, e-mail address: Gj.Steen at let.vu.nl. Applications Your letter of application will have to be in by Saturday 1 July. Please send your application to Vrije Universiteit, Faculteit der Letteren, t.a.v. dr. B. Weltens, directeur bedrijfsvoering, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, or by e-mail to vacature at let.vu.nl. Applications (by regular mail or by e-mail) should include a curriculum vitae and the names and addresses of two referees. An MA thesis and a list of courses plus results should also be included. E-mail applications should be sent in pdf format and should specify your name and vacancy number in the message as well as in the topic, include a list of attachments in the message, and specify your name in every attachment. Interviews are planned between Monday 17 and Wednesday 19 July 2006. From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Fri Jun 16 10:05:04 2006 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 06:05:04 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Message-ID: With regard to comments about the etymology of English 'be'- it should be noted that in terms of the sound symbolism of initial obstruents in IE roots there is a distinct preference for labials here to correlate with notions of expansion, growth (literally or abstractly) from overfulness, unfinished potential, extra or easy resources, etc. My cup runneth over. This in opposition to initial velars, which are much more more often about exhaustion or difficult recovery/extraction of same- dryness, hollow lifeless shells, etc. The overall framework mentioned in previous posts is to a degree applicable here (from a number of angles)- but I wonder now about the religious context- the spiritual versus the material (with spirit filling to a large measure the folk definition of 'energy', power, motive drive, etc.). I already divided the movement realm into horizontal and vertical dimensions- how does one deal with the dead material versus the living spiritual ideal? Are they also orthogonal to each other? As for absolutes- some cultures put heaven up above, others down below. What is the basis? How might it affect language? Creator God versus Transformer Trickster? Organizer versus Chaos incarnated? We see in other areas division of labor without absolutes (for instance movement of the head and neck for agreement versus disagreement versus ambigous response). Do such things have a tendency to 'line up' as in morphosyntactic typological facts, or are we dealing merely with a big kluge of arbitrary facts? And when mismatch exists between otherwise expected correlatable dimensions, might it have a historical explanation as we often see in language typology? And just how much of this larger sociocultural frame influences language itself rather than the other way round? Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From lavelle at unm.edu Fri Jun 16 13:09:20 2006 From: lavelle at unm.edu (Andrew LaVelle) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 07:09:20 -0600 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? In-Reply-To: <4fd.9e1d7.31c38a3e@aol.com> Message-ID: It will be noticed on page 6 in Fig. 1a and b of the Nunez/Sweetser article on Aymara that the two illustrated metaphoric models of time (universally applicable to all cultures and languages, other than perhaps, in the authors' opinions, Aymara) are not sufficient to account for a number of temporal metaphors in English. Consider: 1. Time passed me by. 2. Time caught up with me. 3. I remained in the past. 4. I can't keep up with time. In order for any of these expressions to make sense, both time and the speaker must be conceptualized as moving forward together. If time is seen as moving against me, or I against it, or both, then how could this expression have any other rhetorical value than as a banal statement of perceived fact? When such an expression is used, the implication is that both viewer and object are moving in the same direction and that one eventually passes the other due to the other's slowing down or stopping. This is most especially captured in the metaphoric expression "time caught up with me". If time and I are going in opposite directions, how could it ever catch up with me? As concerns the last two examples, similar to (1), I can't remain in the past if time is flowing against me, for even if I stand motionless time would continue to unfold, thereby causing me to come out of the past and into the present. (This third example has additional meanings that include the notions of voluntary desire to stay in the past or the nostalgia for the past. My interpretation here emphasizes the purely temporal notion of being fixed in past time independent of causation.) And the same is true for the last example: I wouldn't have trouble keeping up with time if it was flowing against me. But is this in contradiction to the underlying metaphor that Time is a Spatial Linearization and that the past is behind me and the future in front of me? I would argue that it is not. My claim would be that in addition to this conceptual foundation represented metaphorically, there is the metaphoric image that time and ego move forward together and in doing so events come and go, receding deeper and deeper into the past, which is metaphorically conceived as behind in spatial orientation. With this richer metaphor, we live in time and are carried forward temporally by time. It is the events that are moving toward us, just as objects in a landscape approach me as I travel toward them. But temporal progression moves in my same direction. The past is behind me, not because time has traveled from front to back, but because the events that time allowed me to experience have unfolded/changed and thus moved behind me as I and time continue on our forward trajectory. (It is important to point out here that time and tense (past, present, and future) are two very different concepts in English.) And this more complex temporal metaphor is curiously enough closer to the laws of physics as evidenced in Einstein's space-time continuum, where time is relative to motion, being bound up with it, rather than as a separate entity moving in opposition to it. On a final note, speaking of languages that are particularly appropriate for verbalizing logic, if pressed on the issue I would tend to agree with the American logician and philosopher, Charles Peirce, that English is a prime example of one. For an instantiation of this, we need not look any further than our clear distinction linguistically between "time", "tense", and "weather", whereas in many languages these first two terms are not differentiated, and in some languages all three are the same (e.g., French: "le temps" = time, tense, weather). But since logic -- happily -- does not depend on language to be correctly understood and successfully employed, no logician, regardless of his nationality, is hindered in any way by his mother tongue. And as for a third logical operator between such binary oppositions as true/false and no/yes, there is no need to look to Aymara since Peirce proposed a triadic system in logic as long ago as the late 1800's, which in turn was followed up on and perfected by the Polish School of logicians (i.e., Lukasiewicz, Bochenski, Tarski, et al). Best, Andrew Andrew LaVelle Department of Linguistics University of New Mexico lavelle at unm.edu From faucon at cogsci.ucsd.edu Fri Jun 16 15:57:35 2006 From: faucon at cogsci.ucsd.edu (Gilles Fauconnier) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 08:57:35 -0700 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Andrew, You're quite right, there are more mappings available in English (and other languages). In the article below, we've looked at a wider range of data (including the case you point out). We argue, among other things, that the SPACE-TIME mapping is not primitive, but emergent in more elaborate integration networks. http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/RethinkingMetaphor19f06.pdf (also accessible from http://blending.stanford.edu ) Gilles ______ On Fri, 16 Jun 2006, Andrew LaVelle wrote: > It will be noticed on page 6 in Fig. 1a and b of the Nunez/Sweetser article > on Aymara that the two illustrated metaphoric models of time (universally > applicable to all cultures and languages, other than perhaps, in the > authors' opinions, Aymara) are not sufficient to account for a number of > temporal metaphors in English. Consider: > > 1. Time passed me by. > 2. Time caught up with me. > 3. I remained in the past. > 4. I can't keep up with time. > > In order for any of these expressions to make sense, both time and the > speaker must be conceptualized as moving forward together. If time is seen > as moving against me, or I against it, or both, then how could this > expression have any other rhetorical value than as a banal statement of > perceived fact? When such an expression is used, the implication is that > both viewer and object are moving in the same direction and that one > eventually passes the other due to the other's slowing down or stopping. > > This is most especially captured in the metaphoric expression "time caught > up with me". If time and I are going in opposite directions, how could it > ever catch up with me? > > As concerns the last two examples, similar to (1), I can't remain in the > past if time is flowing against me, for even if I stand motionless time > would continue to unfold, thereby causing me to come out of the past and > into the present. (This third example has additional meanings that include > the notions of voluntary desire to stay in the past or the nostalgia for the > past. My interpretation here emphasizes the purely temporal notion of being > fixed in past time independent of causation.) And the same is true for the > last example: I wouldn't have trouble keeping up with time if it was flowing > against me. > > But is this in contradiction to the underlying metaphor that Time is a > Spatial Linearization and that the past is behind me and the future in front > of me? I would argue that it is not. My claim would be that in addition to > this conceptual foundation represented metaphorically, there is the > metaphoric image that time and ego move forward together and in doing so > events come and go, receding deeper and deeper into the past, which is > metaphorically conceived as behind in spatial orientation. > > With this richer metaphor, we live in time and are carried forward > temporally by time. It is the events that are moving toward us, just as > objects in a landscape approach me as I travel toward them. But temporal > progression moves in my same direction. The past is behind me, not because > time has traveled from front to back, but because the events that time > allowed me to experience have unfolded/changed and thus moved behind me as I > and time continue on our forward trajectory. (It is important to point out > here that time and tense (past, present, and future) are two very different > concepts in English.) And this more complex temporal metaphor is curiously > enough closer to the laws of physics as evidenced in Einstein's space-time > continuum, where time is relative to motion, being bound up with it, rather > than as a separate entity moving in opposition to it. > > On a final note, speaking of languages that are particularly appropriate for > verbalizing logic, if pressed on the issue I would tend to agree with the > American logician and philosopher, Charles Peirce, that English is a prime > example of one. For an instantiation of this, we need not look any further > than our clear distinction linguistically between "time", "tense", and > "weather", whereas in many languages these first two terms are not > differentiated, and in some languages all three are the same (e.g., French: > "le temps" = time, tense, weather). But since logic -- happily -- does not > depend on language to be correctly understood and successfully employed, no > logician, regardless of his nationality, is hindered in any way by his > mother tongue. And as for a third logical operator between such binary > oppositions as true/false and no/yes, there is no need to look to Aymara > since Peirce proposed a triadic system in logic as long ago as the late > 1800's, which in turn was followed up on and perfected by the Polish School > of logicians (i.e., Lukasiewicz, Bochenski, Tarski, et al). > > > Best, > Andrew > > > Andrew LaVelle > Department of Linguistics > University of New Mexico > lavelle at unm.edu > > > -- Gilles Fauconnier Department of Cognitive Science University of California San Diego La Jolla CA 92093 E-mail gfauconnier at ucsd.edu http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/ From ascarel at gmail.com Fri Jun 16 16:37:09 2006 From: ascarel at gmail.com (Jeff Smith) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 12:37:09 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 6/16/06, Andrew LaVelle wrote: > and in some languages all three are the same (e.g., French: > "le temps" = time, tense, weather). Is this really meaningful? This is just a single lexical fact taken in isolation that doesn't speak for usage at all. We say "température" for weather at least as much, if not more. In new grammatical textbooks we specifically speak of tense as "temps verbal", because the ambiguity with "temps" is pedagogically bothersome and impractical, as the temporal value of these tenses does not always follow their labels. I believe that only tradition keeps us from using new terms here. I think it is irrelevant (and contingent) that, etymologically, French doesn't have three different roots for three concepts that we differenciate clearly by other means anyway. Regards, Jean-François Smith Québec, Canada From noonan at csd.uwm.edu Fri Jun 16 17:59:17 2006 From: noonan at csd.uwm.edu (Michael Noonan) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 12:59:17 -0500 Subject: UWM Symposium on Formulaic Language Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS: UWM LINGUISTICS SYMPOSIUM ON FORMULAIC LANGUAGE The linguistics community at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is planning to hold a symposium on the topic of 'formulaic language'. The symposium, which will be held on the campus of UWM April 18-21, 2007, will be the 25th in the series of the once-annual UWM Linguistics Symposia. By formulaic language we mean multi-word collocations which are stored and retrieved holistically rather than being generated de novo with each use. Examples of formulaic language include idioms, set expressions, rhymes, songs, prayers, and proverbs; they may also be taken to include recurrent turns of phrase within more ordinary sentence structures. These are notable in ordinary speech as well as in ritualized speech events such as sports broadcasts, weather reports, sermons, etc. In our symposium, we are aiming to explore the issue of formulaic language from a variety of perspectives. To this end, our keynote speakers are scholars whose specializations range over a large spectrum of language-based study, including specialists in corpus-based linguistics, psycholinguistics, phonology, phonetics, typology, and related fields. Our keynote speakers are: Joan Bybee, University of New Mexico Oesten Dahl, Stockholm University Britt Erman, Stockholm University Charles Fillmore, University of California, Berkeley Lily Wong Fillmore, Univesity of California, Berkeley Barbara Fox, University of Colorado Adele Goldberg, Princeton University John Haiman, Macalester College Paul Hopper, Carnegie Mellon University Susan Hunston, University of Birmingham Koenraad Kuiper, University of Canterbury Jill Morford, University of New Mexico Andrew Pawley, Australian National University Ann Peters, University of Hawai'i Joanne Scheibman, Old Dominion University Sandra Thompson, University of California, Santa Barbara Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Rena Torres-Cacoullos, University of New Mexico Diana van Lancker, New York University Thomas Wasow, Stanford University Alison Wray, Cardiff University In addition, there will be a general session, for which potential speakers are invited to submit a one-page abstract: due date November 1, 2006. Selected papers from the symposium will be published as an edited set of volumes in the Typological Studies in Language series published by John Benjamins. ONE PAGE ABSTRACTS DUE DATE: Wednesday, November 1, 2006 Abstracts may be submitted in hardcopy or in electronic form. Hardcopy abstracts should be sent to: Roberta Corrigan Dept. of Educational Psychology University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, WI 53201 USA Electronic submissions should be sent to: corrigan at uwm.edu Questions concerning the Symposium can be addressed to Michael Noonan: noonan at uwm.edu Announcements and symposium information will be posted at: www.uwm.edu/Dept/English/conferences/fsl/index.html From Diane.Lesley-neuman at colorado.edu Fri Jun 16 20:05:23 2006 From: Diane.Lesley-neuman at colorado.edu (Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 14:05:23 -0600 Subject: Fwd: 17.1810, Disc: New: Linguists and the Journals Nature, Science Message-ID: I am forwarding this message from the Linguist List regarding the participation of linguists in the journals of Nature and Science. From the discourse I have read on Funknet, it seems there is an unexploited avenue open for those making connections between evolutionary biology and linguistics. -- Diane Lesley-Neuman, M. Ed. Linguistics Department Institute for Cognitive Science University of Colorado at Boulder ----- Forwarded message from linguist at LINGUISTLIST.ORG ----- Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:22:07 -0400 From: linguist at LINGUISTLIST.ORG Reply-To: linguist at LINGUISTLIST.ORG Subject: 17.1810, Disc: New: Linguists and the Journals Nature, Science To: LINGUIST at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG -------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:20:39 From: Annie Zaenen < zaenen at parc.com > Subject: Linguists and the Journals Nature, Science A recent position by Geoff Pullum et al. (see LINGUIST List issue: http://linguistlist.org/issues/17/17-1528.html) about starlings contained the following passage: ''Within 18 hours, Nature declined to publish the letter. (In our experience, this is what usually happens when linguists write to general science journals like Nature and Science commenting on the content of papers with linguistic content that have been published by non-linguists.) '' This is a rather annoying issue and maybe one that linguists should pay more attention to. I ignore how Nature operates but the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, http://www.aaas.org/) has a section Z on ''Linguistics and Language Science''. Nevertheless linguists have very little presence in the AAAS world. Section Z has very few members compared to other sections (and most members are not 'straight' linguists but people that most likely have a subscription to Science for another reason and a subsidiary interest in linguistics.) The activities that Science organizes also tend to be expensive for linguists (given there is little that is of direct interest to them) but all this should not give Science (or Nature) a license to misrepresent linguistic issues. Does anybody see a way to get a better hearing from them given our low participation in their activities? I was for three years on the nominating board of section Z but I haven't figured out how the elected chair, the members at large and the Council delegates might influence what appears in the Journal. Also these officers rarely communicate with the linguistic community at large or, as far as my experience goes, with the members of section Z. But there seems to be a change in this pattern: the upcoming LSA Bulletin will contain a note from the current steering committee drawing attention to the existence of AAAS Z. The minimal thing we could do is bring up the publication issue with them. Annie Zaenen Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable ----------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-17-1810 ----- End forwarded message ----- From elc9j at cms.mail.virginia.edu Sat Jun 17 21:35:50 2006 From: elc9j at cms.mail.virginia.edu (Ellen L. Contini-Morava) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 17:35:50 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: <12804465.1150300422143.JavaMail.root@elwamui-milano.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: I seem to recall that Clifford Hill said something like this about Hausa back in the 1970's. His work was mainly on spatial orientation: an English speaker viewing two objects in a line, one closer and one farther away, will say the farther one is "behind" the nearer one, as if the intervening object were "facing" the viewer, whereas Hausa speakers say the farther one is "in front of" the nearer one, as if the viewer and the objects were standing in a queue all facing in the same direction. I think he also said that Hausa speakers describe the past as "in front" and the future as "behind", on the grounds that one can see/know the past whereas one doesn't see/know the future. Ellen C-M --On Wednesday, June 14, 2006 11:53 AM -0400 jess tauber wrote: > Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose speakers > view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA 'eye, > front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, > behind' is used for 'future'. From traugott at csli.stanford.edu Sat Jun 17 22:08:08 2006 From: traugott at csli.stanford.edu (Elizabeth Traugott) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 15:08:08 -0700 Subject: Aymara's time line Message-ID: Ellen Contini-Morava mentioned Clifford Hill's work. It is: Clifford Hill, 1978. Linguistic representation of spatial and temporal orientation, BLS 4: 524-538. I myself suggested in the same year that while deictic tense is typically back (past)-front (future) oriented, relative (sequential) tense is typically earlier (front)-later (back) oriented, i.e. they are oriented in opposite directions (If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?), see: 1978. On the expression of spatio-temporal relations in language. In Joseph Greenberg, Charles Ferguson and Edith Moravcsik, eds., Universals of Human Language, Vol III: 369-402. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press and 1985. "Conventional" and "dead" metaphors. In Wolf Paprotté and René Dirven, eds., The Ubiquity of Metaphor, 17-56. Amsterdam: Benjamins. It would not be too surprising if a relative system were grammaticalized into a deictic one, if indeed that is what the Aymara system is. But I don't think that is necessary--as Hill showed, there are two ways of orienting oneself: face to face, or in a line. Elizabeth Traugott From sweetser at berkeley.edu Mon Jun 19 18:02:41 2006 From: sweetser at berkeley.edu (SWEETSER, Eve E.) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:02:41 -0700 Subject: Aymara's time line In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear All, I just wanted to say that the Núñez and Sweetser paper does of course discuss the Hill work, among much else. And yes, it deals with the distinction between (for example) the Classical Greek and Maori systems and the Aymara one. For those of you who might like to see the paper rather than commenting on the newspaper coverage (!): (1) if you subscribe to Cognitive Science then you can read it online there, or (2) I am happy to send a pdf copy to anyone who asks me for it - I don't want to spam the whole list, of course. Cheers and best, Eve On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 15:08:08 -0700 Elizabeth Traugott wrote: > Ellen Contini-Morava mentioned Clifford Hill's work. It is: > > Clifford Hill, 1978. Linguistic representation of spatial and temporal > orientation, BLS 4: 524-538. > > I myself suggested in the same year that while deictic tense is typically > back (past)-front (future) oriented, relative (sequential) tense is > typically earlier (front)-later (back) oriented, i.e. they are > oriented in opposite directions (If winter comes, can Spring be > far behind?), see: > 1978. On the expression of spatio-temporal relations in language. In Joseph > Greenberg, Charles Ferguson and Edith Moravcsik, eds., Universals of Human > Language, Vol III: 369-402. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press > and > 1985. "Conventional" and "dead" metaphors. In Wolf Paprotté and René Dirven, eds., > The Ubiquity of Metaphor, 17-56. Amsterdam: Benjamins. > > It would not be too surprising if a relative system were grammaticalized into a deictic one, > if indeed that is what the Aymara system is. But I don't think that is necessary--as Hill > showed, there are two ways of orienting oneself: face to face, or in a line. > > Elizabeth Traugott > > > From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Tue Jun 20 02:09:55 2006 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 22:09:55 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time line Message-ID: Hi- I just spent a large part of the weekend looking up morpheme correspondences in languages along the west coast of the Americas that may have utilized the same or a similar grammaticalization chain, though of course this will not answer whether these ended up with any sort of reverse oriented time axis given cultural assimilations in the meantime. It would be interesting to see whether any other properties of these languages associate with similar sourcing of grams- for instance the many American west coast languages which had well-developed augmentative/diminutive shifting for existing lexemes, yet curiously very few 'classical' ideophones. Aymara and Yahgan are both like this. There may be some motivation to look for a 'back door' route to explain some of this- normally ideophone roots infuse the lexicon with fresh sound symbolic resources, but shifting does not seem to be part of the deal- rather such word-class change brings with it change FROM modification (as in ideophones) to relatively direct reference (as in lexical roots). It may be that augmentative/diminutive shift affects derivational morphology FIRST- there are for instance many languages with both diminutive shift AND a diminutive affix cooccurring, but fewer with just the shift. It has always bothered me- why develop an affix if shift is unambiguous? But of course if the development started with the affix and then worked its way into the modified root, the affix becomes redundant, and can be dropped. Interestingly, this would jibe with what is believed by historical linguists to be a possible track of development of glottalization on obstruents (when not borrowed as for instance in Quechua, from Aymara and other Jaqi languages). Phonological systems with glottalized obstruents are extremely more common westward than eastward in the Americas, as are those with more than minimal aug/dim shifting. There seems also to be, in these languages, a tendency to allow consonantal identity to historically vary much more than the vocalic melody- perhaps a consequence of aug/dim shifting and selection of different alternants in different daughter languages. And these vocalic melodies in turn have strong sound symbolic associations- almost as if they carried the major semantic 'theme' of the lexeme. Opposite of the usual situation as in Eurasian languages? On the face of it these and other language properties and processes might appear rather far removed from relevance. But then again stranger things have been discovered. If pragmatic information (such as affective/attitude notions in aug/dim shift) start to infect the lexicon through grams (rather than the reverse), this would imply a development in the direction opposite that expected. The actual morphemes involved in such shifts are already quite 'worn away' - down to individual free features in many cases, glottalic and other. They help to pump up a numerically impoverished lexical rootstock, one perhaps with eroded phonology (a less capable source of new grams?)- pointing to things that have been said about polysynthesis by various scholars. One may see similar things going on in certain analytical languages (such as Matisoff's Lahu). Pragmatics ends up informing the lexicon by phonological distinctive feature 'micromanagement' rather than the creation of entirely new lexical roots, as in the case of ideophones. Jess Tauber From mg246 at cornell.edu Tue Jun 20 04:40:43 2006 From: mg246 at cornell.edu (Monica Gonzalez-Marquez) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:40:43 -0400 Subject: CFP - EMCL 3: Developing an experiment: from conception to implementation Message-ID: EMCL 3: Developing an experiment: from conception to implementation Date: October 17-18 , 2006 Place: University of Murcia (Spain) To precede the conference of the Spanish Cognitive Linguistics Association (AELCO-SCOLA) as a satellite event. http://www.um.es/lincoing/aelco2006/ *******Application deadline extended to: July 15, 2006******* The last few years have yielded promising experimental evidence for an embodied view of language. The work of researchers such as Bergen, Boroditsky, Matlock, Santiago, Majid, and Feist, among others, has provided glimpses of the intricate cross-buttressing between language and other cognitive processes. In order for the promise of these findings to come to fruition, many more researchers will have to join the ranks of the field’s leaders. The interdisciplinary training required to advance Experimental Cognitive Linguistics remains, unfortunately, scarce at most universities. This makes the transition from one way of looking at language to another often overwhelming and intimidating. Most beginners never get started because they don't know who to ask for help, how to begin, what questions to ask, what to read. As such, the focus for ‘EMCL III’ will be ‘Developing an experiment: from conception to implementation.’ The goal will be to unite gifted cognitive linguists lacking experimental training, with experienced researchers who will guide them in the development and implementation of an experiment. The workshop will also serve to introduce new researchers to the community of active experimentalists, to whom they will be able to look to for guidance long after the workshop is over. Intended Audience: This workshop is aimed specifically at scholars with sound theoretical knowledge in their field though lacking in experimental training. Participants are not expected to have any background at all in experimentation. Candidate should at least have completed initial university training ( a B.A. in the US, be working on their Masters degree if training in Europe) in theoretical linguistics, or a similar program and be familiar with cognitive linguistics (this familiarity need not have occurred in a formal university setting. Graduate students (post-grads, pre-doctoral, etc.), as well as post-doctoral researchers and junior faculty are also invited to apply. The only real prerequisite is a background in cognitive linguistics, and no experimental experience. Please note: Unlike at previous EMCL workshops, attendance to this session will be strictly limited to the invited participants. No exceptions will be made so as to preserve the pedagogical integrity of the workshop. Format: A selected group of students (max.20) will be invited to participate. Students will be divided into four groups; each group will work with a researcher who will guide the group in selecting an idea, structuring and organizing an experiment, and carrying it out. The session will end with the presentation of findings and a general discussion. Topics to be covered include: - Deciding on a research topic - Transforming the research topic into a research question - Developing experimental hypotheses and designing an experiment - Data collection - Statistical analysis and interpretation - Presentation of findings to an audience Cost: 120 Euros (Some student grants may be possible. Details will be announced shortly.) Accommodation: (to be announced) Application: To apply, please send the following by July 15, 2006. All materials must be submitted electronically to Monica Gonzalez-Marquez at mg246 at cornell.edu. Accepted applicants will be notified by August 1, 2006. 1. A maximum of two (2) pages, (1000 words), describing - your background, - your reasons for wanting to participate, - the researcher you would like to work with and why - a description of at least one research question you want to explore. This is not expected to be a detailed research plan. All you need to do is tell us about what you would like to work on so that the researcher you will work with can be better prepared. For example, if you are interested in aspect in Euskera, describe what you find interesting along with the questions you would like to address. 2. A copy of your curriculum vitae. 3. One letter of recommendation from someone who knows your work, preferably your advisor. This person does not need to be someone who studies cognitive linguistics, but simply someone who can evaluate your potential. Have this person submit the letter directly to mg246 at cornell.edu Faculty: Benjamin Bergen (University of Manoa at Hawai) Asifa Majid (Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen, Holland) Julio Santiago (University of Barcelona) Michelle Feist (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) Faculty interests can be found at: http://www.um.es/lincoing/aelco2006/ Organizing committee: Monica Gonzalez-Marquez, Cornell University Javier Valenzuela, University of Murcia _________________________________________ So that the form takes as many risks as the content --   "Ava" by Carole Maso Mónica González-Márquez Psychology Department Cornell University B96b Uris Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 mg246 at cornell.edu (607) 255-6397 From bernd.heine at uni-koeln.de Wed Jun 21 07:13:24 2006 From: bernd.heine at uni-koeln.de (Bernd Heine) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:13:24 +0200 Subject: Limits of Language In-Reply-To: <42317DC6.5020802@ling.helsinki.fi> Message-ID: I know that this is not really a forum for commercials. Nevertheless, please allow me to draw your attention to a book that has just been published by a fairly little known publisher: Mikael Parkvall 2006. Limits of language. London: Battlebridge. This is an unusual book. First, it contains a wide range of information about language and linguistic behavior, some of it well known, much of it new (at least to me), and a good part of it unexpected and surprising. Second, it is the ideal book to attract a freshman who might still be hesitant on whether linguistics is really worth the effort. And third, it is a highly suitable source for introductory courses to linguistics; it answers many of the questions that students constantly confront you with but where you are not always quite sure whether you have the best answer at hand. (Finally, a warning: If you have little time to spend, do not open this book, because chances are high that once you have looked at it you will not stop before you have read it from cover to cover.) Bernd From andrea.schalley at une.edu.au Thu Jun 22 08:12:58 2006 From: andrea.schalley at une.edu.au (Andrea Schalley) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:12:58 +1000 Subject: Australian Linguistics Institute 2006 Message-ID: ** LAST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ** Dear FUNKNETlers, Below you'll find information about the Australian Linguistics Institute to be held in Brisbane in early July 2006. See the full course listing below - ALI has a focus on language and cognition, and there's a lot here to meet the wide range of interests that FUNKNET members have. We look forward to seeing you there Andrea Schalley ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Full Title: Australian Linguistics Institute 2006 Location: University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Date: 10-14 July 2006 URL: http://www.ali2006.une.edu.au/ Contact:    Andrea Schalley Email: andrea.schalley at une.edu.au ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ALI 2006 is a selection of 12 short intensive courses presented by world experts in their fields. It's a unique opportunity for graduate students, advanced undergraduates, professional linguists, and language professionals to upgrade their knowledge and skills in key areas of linguistics. Many courses in ALI 2006 are on the theme 'Language and Cognition', while others focus on language typology, acquisition, and aspects of linguistic theory. Each course consists of five 90 minute sessions, running Monday through Friday. Three sets of courses will be running in parallel, so participants can attend a maximum of four courses. Confirmed topics and presenters are as follows.     * Bilingualism: cognitive aspects       Istvan Kecskes (State University of New York, Albany)     * Cognitive linguistics       John Taylor (University of Otago)     * Combinatory grammar and natural cognition       Mark Steedman (University of Edinburgh)     * L2 syntax: Age dependent effects       Bonnie Schwartz (University of Hawai'i)     * Language and genetics       Brian Byrne (University of New England)     * Language and thought       Lera Boroditsky (Stanford University)     * Logic in child language acquisition       Stephen Crain (Macquarie University Centre for Cognitive Science)     * Morphology and lexical representations       Andrew Spencer (University of Essex)     * NonPamaNyungan languages of Northern Australia       Nicholas Evans (Melbourne University)     * Papuan languages       William Foley (University of Sydney)     * Semantics masterclass       Anna Wierzbicka (Australian National University)     * Understanding typological distribution       Balthasar Bickel (University of Leipzig) ALI 2006 is organised by the Language and Cognition Research Centre of the University of New England. For more information, contact Cliff Goddard cgoddard at une.edu.au, Andrea Schalley andrea.schalley at une.edu.au, or Nick Reid nreid at une.edu.au . From ksinnema at ling.helsinki.fi Wed Jun 14 08:07:57 2006 From: ksinnema at ling.helsinki.fi (ksinnema at ling.helsinki.fi) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:07:57 +0300 Subject: Structure and Context: First Circular Message-ID: (Apologies for cross-postings) STRUCTURE AND CONTEXT Symposium to be held in Turku, in August 21-22, 2006 **** First Circular, June 14, 2006 **** The Linguistic Association of Finland organizes the symposium "Structure and Context" August 21-22, 2006. The symposium will take place in Turku in the Humanities building "Arken" of the ?bo Akademi University (street address: Tehtaankatu 2). PROGRAM The preliminary program of the symposium as well as the abstracts for the section papers are now available at the Symposium web page http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/tapahtumat/context/context.shtml. In addition to plenary lectures and section papers, the program includes two workshops. Dr. Seppo Kittil? (University of Turku/Helsinki) and Dr. Leonid Kulikov (University of Leiden) will organize a workshop on "Diachronic typology of voice and valency-changing categories". The workshop will run as a separate parallel session for the duration of the symposium. Dr. Mila Dimitrova- Vulchanova (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and Dr. Emile van der Zee (University of Lincoln) will organize another workshop, on "Context Effects in Spatial Language". This workshop is integrated as a session in the main program. More information - including the workshop abstract and the list of participants - is available at the symposium web page. REGISTRATION The deadline for registration is July 31, 2006. If you want to participate in the symposium, we kindly ask you to register by e-mail to the address of the organizing committee: context-organizers (at) ling.helsinki.fi. Registration fees: * general: EUR 50 * members of the association: EUR 25 * undergraduate students free Participants from abroad are requested to pay in cash upon arrival. Participants from Finland may send the registration fee by giro account no 800013-1424850 to The Linguistic Association of Finland (SKY) / Symposium or pay in cash upon arrival. If you pay to the account of the association, please include the code CONTEXT, as well as your name, so that we will know exactly who has already paid. If you have paid the registration fee in advance, please take the receipt with you. If you plan to pay upon arrival, note that we are only able to accept payments in cash. ACCOMMODATION The symposium web page also contains a link to the City of Turku Tourist Office http://www.turkutouring.fi/), where you can find links to the web pages of several hotels/hostels in Turku. The symposium venue, the humanities building Arken, is situated approx. 1.5 kilometers (approx. 0.9 miles) from the Turku city centre. Looking forward to seeing you all in August, The organizers Chair: Urpo Nikanne (?bo Akademi University) Joanna Anckar (?bo Akademi University), Marja Etel?m?ki (University of Helsinki), Pentti Haddington (University of Oulu), Emmi Hyn?nen (University of Turku), Mikko Laitinen (University of Helsinki), Heidi Merimaa (University of Turku), Heli Paulasto (University of Joensuu), Geda Paulsen (?bo Akademi University), Oksana Petrova (?bo Akademi University), Helena Pirttisaari (University of Helsinki), and Kaius Sinnem?ki (University of Helsinki). From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Wed Jun 14 15:53:41 2006 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:53:41 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... Message-ID: Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060613185239.htm Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose speakers view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA 'eye, front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, behind' is used for 'future'. The piece notes ambiguities in such metaphors in languages such as English, and the possibility that the evidential system may be a cause of the reversed mapping in Aymara. Comments: Yahgan, a couple of languages 'down' on the 'left' in Chile, may have cognate terms. For instance TELLA 'eye, face' may match Aymara NAYRA. USHPA 'back, behind' may match QHIPA. Yahgan evidentiality, from the manuscript sources I have, does not appear to be as obligate as in Aymara, but there are a good number of forms. Yahgan simple past morpheme is -de: (e: tense, relatable to TELLA?), simple future -u:a (u: tense, relatable to USHPA?). USHPA in Yahgan is also grammaticalized in the language to mean 'after X'. In the now extinct 19th century Yahgashaga dialect (the basis for the vast majority of writings on the language) it was a free or encliticized morpheme following the full or pronominal subject NP (SOV, SVO orders normal). Tense morphemes, on the other hand, are suffixed to the verb stem, after aspect, but before mood affixes. Bound evidentials are variably placed within TAM. While there is no OBVIOUS grammaticalized form of TELLA in this position, it is interesting that there is the form TU:LA, meaning 'if X'. I don't know enough about the grammaticalization chains in this area to be able to say with any authority that TU:LA is 'from' TELLA, but perhaps one of you can tell me? Yahgan has many lexical doublets where there is opposition of meaning carried by vowel alternants. Or TU:LA may relate to U:LA meaning 'don't' The suffixed evidentials include (but are not limited to) -MUSH 'hearsay' (from MVRA 'to hear, listen', V is schwa), -MIN 'visual evidence' (no simplex but is AMIN 'look, see!' with prefixed mild imperative A-), -TIKALVRA 'distant past visual evidential' where -VRA may be a form referring to 'contrariness to expectation'. The -TIKAL- component may have relatability to TELLA, as also may be the form -DVGA-, having a 'past' meaning. From the historical viewpoint, I have elsewhere (and here?) claimed possible relation to Salishan languages, also on the Pacific coast (but in northern North America) as well as to Chemakuan, and further south Chumashan families. The Chemakuan 'evidence' implies that the doubled -LLA in TELLA originated in -L- followed by a velar or uvular fricative (other forms support this). One sees similar things in the other families I include in the comparison. Thus, IF true, then perhaps the -K/G- elements seen in the above Yahgan forms are explained (with perhaps reordering in -TIKAL-). I do not know whether -MUSH (and source MVRA) is relatable to USHPA, either etymologically or by convergence. I had previously speculated that -VRA (also -ARA) 'contrary to expectation' or 'new information' WAS relatable to -MUSH/MVRA. And in terms of etymologies within Yahgan, there are MANY different lexical forms beginning with USH- referring to the lower back or rear, its functions on the body, or products of same. In Salishan the lexical suffix -APS/UPS has the same range of reference. The suffixal (extended) TAM system in Yahgan appears to be relatively young Most of the relevant morphemes still retain corresponding lexical entries Positionally the clitic-second (really a chain of slots) group also often has matching terms in the suffixal system. For instance -MUSH 'hearsay' as suffix is identical in form to (')MUSH in the clitic chain set. Further grammaticalization has pushed the latter MUSH towards simple modality, seen as well in the surviving dialect 130 years after the grammar was laid out for the extinct one by Thomas Bridges. The first time I'd ever heard of the reversed time metaphor in Aymara was during a talk given by Eve Sweetser (who not surprisingly is the coauthor of the study cited above) during the Santa Barbara LSA Linguistic Institute a few years 'back'. As I haven't read the source article yet I don't know whether other local South American languages were included in the study. Joseph Greenberg of course was famous (or infamous depending on one's vantage) for attempting to lump, er.. group many of the Pacific coast languages under the 'Andean' rubric. It would be interesting to see whether they (and perhaps other languages/families further afield) share this way of organizing their grammaticalization chains. Since the report on the article says that younger bilingual generations appear to be switching over to the dominant European time metaphor, it is possible that in the past the region was far more uniformly 'reversed', with viewpoints doing 'the 180' one by one after the Conquest. Such changes are probably completely lost now in the mists of history. Of more theoretical import, perhaps, would be the finding that directionality of time metaphor might depend in part on 'directionality' of grammaticalization? Where tense (if they actually ARE tense) morphemes come from may be determined in part by such a directionality, if there is one, implicit (perhaps hidden?) within the overall scheme of possible canalizations. So if any of you aren't having too much fun vacationing comments would be of use. Thanks. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From hopper at cmu.edu Wed Jun 14 21:30:55 2006 From: hopper at cmu.edu (Paul Hopper) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:30:55 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: <12804465.1150300422143.JavaMail.root@elwamui-milano.atl.sa.earthlink. net> Message-ID: Jess, Both 'push forward' and 'push back' can mean "postpone", as in the following examples (thanks to Google.com): 1. Pickup normally scheduled on observance day of the holiday will be pushed forward to the next regular work day with the remaining pickups that week also pushed forward one day. As an example: a Monday holiday will result in normal Tuesday pick-up being pushed forward to Wednesday of that week. 2. Several readers note that Apple has quietly pushed back the ship dates of its MacBook Pro laptops from February 15th to February 23rd with a delivery date of February 28th, 2006. Perhaps Aymara speakers aren't the only ones who are confused! Paul > Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060613185239.htm > > Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose speakers > view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA 'eye, > front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, > behind' is used for 'future'. > > The piece notes ambiguities in such metaphors in languages such as > English, and the possibility that the evidential system may be a cause of > the reversed mapping in Aymara. > > Comments: > > Yahgan, a couple of languages 'down' on the 'left' in Chile, may have > cognate terms. For instance TELLA 'eye, face' may match Aymara NAYRA. > USHPA 'back, behind' may match QHIPA. Yahgan evidentiality, from the > manuscript sources I have, does not appear to be as obligate as in > Aymara, but there are a good number of forms. Yahgan simple past morpheme > is -de: (e: tense, relatable to TELLA?), simple future -u:a (u: tense, > relatable to USHPA?). > > USHPA in Yahgan is also grammaticalized in the language to mean 'after > X'. In the now extinct 19th century Yahgashaga dialect (the basis for the > vast majority of writings on the language) it was a free or encliticized > morpheme following the full or pronominal subject NP (SOV, SVO orders > normal). Tense morphemes, on the other hand, are suffixed to the verb > stem, after aspect, but before mood affixes. Bound evidentials are > variably placed within TAM. > > While there is no OBVIOUS grammaticalized form of TELLA in this position, > it is interesting that there is the form TU:LA, meaning 'if X'. I don't > know enough about the grammaticalization chains in this area to be able > to say with any authority that TU:LA is 'from' TELLA, but perhaps one of > you can tell me? Yahgan has many lexical doublets where there is > opposition of meaning carried by vowel alternants. Or TU:LA may relate to > U:LA meaning 'don't' > > The suffixed evidentials include (but are not limited to) -MUSH 'hearsay' > (from MVRA 'to hear, listen', V is schwa), -MIN 'visual evidence' (no > simplex but is AMIN 'look, see!' with prefixed mild imperative A-), > -TIKALVRA 'distant past visual evidential' where -VRA may be a form > referring to 'contrariness to expectation'. > > The -TIKAL- component may have relatability to TELLA, as also may be the > form -DVGA-, having a 'past' meaning. From the historical viewpoint, I > have elsewhere (and here?) claimed possible relation to Salishan > languages, also on the Pacific coast (but in northern North America) as > well as to Chemakuan, and further south Chumashan families. > > The Chemakuan 'evidence' implies that the doubled -LLA in TELLA > originated in -L- followed by a velar or uvular fricative (other forms > support this). One sees similar things in the other families I include in > the comparison. Thus, IF true, then perhaps the -K/G- elements seen in > the above Yahgan forms are explained (with perhaps reordering in > -TIKAL-). > > I do not know whether -MUSH (and source MVRA) is relatable to USHPA, > either etymologically or by convergence. I had previously speculated that > -VRA (also -ARA) 'contrary to expectation' or 'new information' WAS > relatable to -MUSH/MVRA. And in terms of etymologies within Yahgan, there > are MANY different lexical forms beginning with USH- referring to the > lower back or rear, its functions on the body, or products of same. In > Salishan the lexical suffix -APS/UPS has the same range of reference. > > The suffixal (extended) TAM system in Yahgan appears to be relatively > young Most of the relevant morphemes still retain corresponding lexical > entries Positionally the clitic-second (really a chain of slots) group > also often has matching terms in the suffixal system. For instance -MUSH > 'hearsay' as suffix is identical in form to (')MUSH in the clitic chain > set. Further grammaticalization has pushed the latter MUSH towards simple > modality, seen as well in the surviving dialect 130 years after the > grammar was laid out for the extinct one by Thomas Bridges. > > The first time I'd ever heard of the reversed time metaphor in Aymara was > during a talk given by Eve Sweetser (who not surprisingly is the coauthor > of the study cited above) during the Santa Barbara LSA Linguistic > Institute a few years 'back'. As I haven't read the source article yet I > don't know whether other local South American languages were included in > the study. Joseph Greenberg of course was famous (or infamous depending > on one's vantage) for attempting to lump, er.. group many of the Pacific > coast languages under the 'Andean' rubric. It would be interesting to see > whether they (and perhaps other languages/families further afield) share > this way of organizing their grammaticalization chains. Since the report > on the article says that younger bilingual generations appear to be > switching over to the dominant European time metaphor, it is possible > that in the past the region was far more uniformly 'reversed', with > viewpoints doing 'the 180' one by one after the Conquest. Such changes > are probably completely lost now in the mists of history. > > Of more theoretical import, perhaps, would be the finding that > directionality of time metaphor might depend in part on 'directionality' > of grammaticalization? Where tense (if they actually ARE tense) morphemes > come from may be determined in part by such a directionality, if there is > one, implicit (perhaps hidden?) within the overall scheme of possible > canalizations. > > So if any of you aren't having too much fun vacationing comments would be > of use. Thanks. > > Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net > > > > From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Thu Jun 15 04:03:54 2006 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:03:54 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... Message-ID: A question arises for me about whether such oppositions as in 'push forward' and 'push back' depend on a larger framework against which they are interpreted. In Yahgan TAM terms are split up into as 'space/time' subset, and a 'mass/energy' subset. For the former the language appears to prefer movement or position on the vertical dimension for aspect (utilizing, for instance, a plethora of posture verbs much expanded beyond simple sit, stand, lie to include singular, dual, and plural forms, position in the water, on the land, and in the air, etc.). The closer contact one makes with the substratum the more time out of the total involved is spent in the activity. English is similar in some ways- we are 'up to our neck' in work, buried, deeply immersed etc., having made our bed we must lie in it, and so on. Less and less contact means more and more freedom to pursue other things. Jumping/flying is also cessation of the contact, and of the activity. As in many other languages tense in Yahgan often seems to be relatable to horizontal movement verbs, whose system is orthogonal to that of the vertically organized aspect system forms. The larger mood system appears partially based on notions of force dynamics, as in Len Talmy's work. But just as space and time seem to be intimately related in the tense and aspect systems (with grammaticalization pushing spatial towards more temporal senses), so too does mood intertwine energy and mass (as force IS dependent on both). In physics one also sees dependence on area of application (space) and for work we also include time. While it is obvious that the gravitational field supplies a force/work context for the vertical dimension encoding aspectual notions, the same isn't true in any obvious way for the horizontal one. But people usually have homes, and are familiar with the 'near fetched' and less so with the 'far fetched'- and I'd guess that one is likely to suffer increasing fictive force the further afield one goes (just as one does the further from firm footing below one goes in the vertical dimension). Insecurity or homesickness- call it what you will. It is still possibly real enough psychologically for most people for most of the time. One is also much more likely to encounter challenges in the territories of others. Flux/fuzziness thus increases with distance both up and away. How then can we fit evidentials in to the above systems? Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, let's first take a quick look on the other side of the the grammar/pragmatics divide- at ideophones. In languages where there are thousands of these forms, it is often true that each root has multiple applications across semantic and sensory domains. Motion patterns are the 'same' for sound, visual effects (whether plays of light, distributions of materials, etc.). One interesting major split seems to be 'actor moving through the world (gaits)' versus 'the world moving through the actor (masticatory/deglutitional motions). Thus wolfing down one's food without first chewing it can use the same ideophone root in meaning leaping forward in long bounds. In both cases the relative motion is fleshy actor forward, world backward, either around him or through him. The difference comes when we think of the actor as unmoving in some absolute reference frame. It may be that something similar is going on for grammaticalized terms. I've claimed elsewhere that ideophones are a sort of 'antigrammar' formally and functionally. Perhaps what one system does, the other does the opposite, which would be in keeping with this idea. If tense forms are coming from opposite directions in terms of their sources in grammaticalization (out of aspect or larger mood (as in evidentials), how does this possibly relate to ideophones? The movement verbs (vertical aspect versus horizontal tense) can be viewed against those ideophones which refer to gaits and other motions in the external world- the motor half of reality. The difference between the grams and antigrams is that the former seem to encode our imposition of control/tractability beyond what we usually can control by right of birth, while the latter are 'about' loss of control where we 'should' have it. The near fetched and familar encroaching on the unfamiliar external, and vice versa. Where movement is through us we have sensory appreciation- again control imposed on the external in the case of evidential grams, and control loss in the case of equivalent ideophones. Movement is not necessarily permanent, of course- one can have stoppage, or potential energy within the larger context. Force dynamic modality probably finds a better home here than with the movement forms. And there are more 'adjectival' ideophones which express unusual or unexpected properties of referents than 'adverbial' ones do, often variance/mismatch from 'fit' for a particular occasion or role needing playing, or from expectations based on other experience. It may be possible that NO gram (or antigram) lacks some tidbit of the other values in the space-time-energy-matter (STEM) system, though it puts most of its efforts into one or another (or more)- this might allow evolution from one part of the system to another as the focus changes with grammticalization. Equations such as used by physicists can have their bits and pieces moved about. A/B = C/D is also AD = BC. In doing so we flip our vantage point. Could something like this also be going on with grammaticalization of tense terms? If space, time, energy and mass are not merely convenient fictions utilized by our minds then how do they interrelate? How will each impose an order or hierarchicalization, and how may they be transformed? I'm not saying this IS what we see in the time metaphors and their origins, but could it POSSIBLY be so? Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From ellen at central.cis.upenn.edu Thu Jun 15 04:25:18 2006 From: ellen at central.cis.upenn.edu (Ellen F.Prince) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:25:18 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: <2493.71.253.45.43.1150320655.squirrel@71.253.45.43> Message-ID: And Catalan uses the verb for 'go' as its past tense auxiliary. Iconicity is in the eye of the beholder... Ellen Prince On 14 Jun, 2006, at 5:30 PM, Paul Hopper wrote: > Jess, > > Both 'push forward' and 'push back' can mean "postpone", as in the > following examples (thanks to Google.com): > > 1. Pickup normally scheduled on observance day of the holiday will be > pushed forward to the next regular work day with the remaining pickups > that week also pushed forward one day. As an example: a Monday holiday > will result in normal Tuesday pick-up being pushed forward to > Wednesday of that week. > > 2. Several readers note that Apple has quietly pushed back the ship > dates of its MacBook Pro laptops from February 15th to February 23rd > with a delivery date of February 28th, 2006. > > Perhaps Aymara speakers aren't the only ones who are confused! > > Paul > > > > >> Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060613185239.htm >> >> Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose >> speakers >> view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA >> 'eye, >> front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, >> behind' is used for 'future'. >> >> The piece notes ambiguities in such metaphors in languages such as >> English, and the possibility that the evidential system may be a >> cause of >> the reversed mapping in Aymara. >> >> Comments: >> >> Yahgan, a couple of languages 'down' on the 'left' in Chile, may have >> cognate terms. For instance TELLA 'eye, face' may match Aymara NAYRA. >> USHPA 'back, behind' may match QHIPA. Yahgan evidentiality, from the >> manuscript sources I have, does not appear to be as obligate as in >> Aymara, but there are a good number of forms. Yahgan simple past >> morpheme >> is -de: (e: tense, relatable to TELLA?), simple future -u:a (u: tense, >> relatable to USHPA?). >> >> USHPA in Yahgan is also grammaticalized in the language to mean 'after >> X'. In the now extinct 19th century Yahgashaga dialect (the basis for >> the >> vast majority of writings on the language) it was a free or >> encliticized >> morpheme following the full or pronominal subject NP (SOV, SVO orders >> normal). Tense morphemes, on the other hand, are suffixed to the verb >> stem, after aspect, but before mood affixes. Bound evidentials are >> variably placed within TAM. >> >> While there is no OBVIOUS grammaticalized form of TELLA in this >> position, >> it is interesting that there is the form TU:LA, meaning 'if X'. I >> don't >> know enough about the grammaticalization chains in this area to be >> able >> to say with any authority that TU:LA is 'from' TELLA, but perhaps one >> of >> you can tell me? Yahgan has many lexical doublets where there is >> opposition of meaning carried by vowel alternants. Or TU:LA may >> relate to >> U:LA meaning 'don't' >> >> The suffixed evidentials include (but are not limited to) -MUSH >> 'hearsay' >> (from MVRA 'to hear, listen', V is schwa), -MIN 'visual evidence' (no >> simplex but is AMIN 'look, see!' with prefixed mild imperative A-), >> -TIKALVRA 'distant past visual evidential' where -VRA may be a form >> referring to 'contrariness to expectation'. >> >> The -TIKAL- component may have relatability to TELLA, as also may be >> the >> form -DVGA-, having a 'past' meaning. From the historical viewpoint, I >> have elsewhere (and here?) claimed possible relation to Salishan >> languages, also on the Pacific coast (but in northern North America) >> as >> well as to Chemakuan, and further south Chumashan families. >> >> The Chemakuan 'evidence' implies that the doubled -LLA in TELLA >> originated in -L- followed by a velar or uvular fricative (other forms >> support this). One sees similar things in the other families I >> include in >> the comparison. Thus, IF true, then perhaps the -K/G- elements seen in >> the above Yahgan forms are explained (with perhaps reordering in >> -TIKAL-). >> >> I do not know whether -MUSH (and source MVRA) is relatable to USHPA, >> either etymologically or by convergence. I had previously speculated >> that >> -VRA (also -ARA) 'contrary to expectation' or 'new information' WAS >> relatable to -MUSH/MVRA. And in terms of etymologies within Yahgan, >> there >> are MANY different lexical forms beginning with USH- referring to the >> lower back or rear, its functions on the body, or products of same. In >> Salishan the lexical suffix -APS/UPS has the same range of reference. >> >> The suffixal (extended) TAM system in Yahgan appears to be relatively >> young Most of the relevant morphemes still retain corresponding >> lexical >> entries Positionally the clitic-second (really a chain of slots) group >> also often has matching terms in the suffixal system. For instance >> -MUSH >> 'hearsay' as suffix is identical in form to (')MUSH in the clitic >> chain >> set. Further grammaticalization has pushed the latter MUSH towards >> simple >> modality, seen as well in the surviving dialect 130 years after the >> grammar was laid out for the extinct one by Thomas Bridges. >> >> The first time I'd ever heard of the reversed time metaphor in Aymara >> was >> during a talk given by Eve Sweetser (who not surprisingly is the >> coauthor >> of the study cited above) during the Santa Barbara LSA Linguistic >> Institute a few years 'back'. As I haven't read the source article >> yet I >> don't know whether other local South American languages were included >> in >> the study. Joseph Greenberg of course was famous (or infamous >> depending >> on one's vantage) for attempting to lump, er.. group many of the >> Pacific >> coast languages under the 'Andean' rubric. It would be interesting to >> see >> whether they (and perhaps other languages/families further afield) >> share >> this way of organizing their grammaticalization chains. Since the >> report >> on the article says that younger bilingual generations appear to be >> switching over to the dominant European time metaphor, it is possible >> that in the past the region was far more uniformly 'reversed', with >> viewpoints doing 'the 180' one by one after the Conquest. Such changes >> are probably completely lost now in the mists of history. >> >> Of more theoretical import, perhaps, would be the finding that >> directionality of time metaphor might depend in part on >> 'directionality' >> of grammaticalization? Where tense (if they actually ARE tense) >> morphemes >> come from may be determined in part by such a directionality, if >> there is >> one, implicit (perhaps hidden?) within the overall scheme of possible >> canalizations. >> >> So if any of you aren't having too much fun vacationing comments >> would be >> of use. Thanks. >> >> Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net >> >> >> >> > From dan.everett at manchester.ac.uk Thu Jun 15 09:02:47 2006 From: dan.everett at manchester.ac.uk (D.L.Everett) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:02:47 +0200 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Very often when we theorize about the significance of this or that aspect of a given language, from time words to color words to phonological structure, etc. we ironically fail to address the problem linguistically, at least in the traditional sense of this term. Linguists look at components of languages and study their distribution within a given system, looking for contrast, complementation, and structure. They come to understand individual units of a given language by analyzing the components of those units (what they are or what they are composed of), what those units contrast with (that is, what they are not), and how those units interconnect with other units in the language or grammar to form the system as a whole, i.e. the entire grammar and cultural context of which they are a part. These latter three perspectives are what Pike called the 'particle, wave, and field' perspectives of language. Outside the context of 'thick' ethnographies and grammars, it becomes difficult to understand different meanings of items, much less to compare them or contrast them with their supposed counterparts in other languages. This is a rather well-known problem from, for example, color terms, where so-called 'color terms' in several languages are not in fact best understood as color, certainly not in the English sense. Years ago (about 1984 or 1985) I was interviewed in the NY Times about a story it was running on Aymara, where it had been claimed that Aymara was the first truly logical language and that computer programmers could actually use Aymara as an ideal programming language. (Anyone who subscribes to the web version of the NY Times, Times Select, can find that article in a couple of seconds.) I don't find claims that Aymara think backwards about time much different than the claim that their language is 'truly logical'. Ellen's comments below are right on, because the 'eye of the beholder' is really the eye of the native speaker whose system we are trying to understand. And we cannot understand these things without detailed ethnogrammatical studies that use, among other methods, standard distributional argumentation of traditional linguistics, the one thing linguistics is truly good at perhaps, to show the particle, wave, and field perspectives of the unit in question in the larger ethnocultural context of the language in question. Jess Tauber's remarks on Yaghan seem to recognize this as well, when he says "A question arises for me about whether such oppositions as in 'push forward' and 'push back' depend on a larger framework against which they are interpreted", but nothing in what follows that nice opening remark gives me an understanding of the ethnolinguistic distributional arguments used to establish this apart from 'force dynamics'. Dan On 15 Jun 2006, at 06:25, Ellen F.Prince wrote: > And Catalan uses the verb for 'go' as its past tense auxiliary. > > Iconicity is in the eye of the beholder... > > Ellen Prince > From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Thu Jun 15 10:11:27 2006 From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:11:27 +0200 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: <12804465.1150300422143.JavaMail.root@elwamui-milano.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: Dear Jess, on the Cogling List, we already had a lengthy discussion of this issue (at the end of Frebruary 2005). The many contributions to the corresponding thread ("How Time Files") are perphaps of some interest to Funknetters, too. Best wishes, Wolfgang ############################# Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze Institut f?r Allgemeine und Typologische Sprachwissenschaft (IATS) [General Linguistics and Language Typology] Department f?r Kommunikation und Sprachen / F 13.14 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t M?nchen Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 D-80539 M?nchen Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180 2486 (secretary) ++49-(0)89-2180 5343 (office) Fax: ++49-(0)89-2180 5345 E-mail: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Web: http://www.ats.lmu.de/index.php From lavelle at unm.edu Thu Jun 15 11:24:24 2006 From: lavelle at unm.edu (Andrew LaVelle) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 05:24:24 -0600 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? In-Reply-To: <2493.71.253.45.43.1150320655.squirrel@71.253.45.43> Message-ID: Greetings to all, Just a few thoughts on the current discussion. To state that the grammaticalized forms of "back/behind" in a language (or, in some cultures, the act of pointing backwards) is evidence that its speakers' conceptualization of time is the opposite of ours is, in my opinion, to assume that the underlying metaphor for this grammaticalization is the same as ours, but only in reverse order. Contrarily, I would argue that the diagrammatic (call it conceptual if you prefer) metaphor used by European languages and cultures, among others, namely that Time is a Spatial Linearization (with the future in front, the present wherever we find ourselves on this line, and the past behind), is not the underlying metaphor in the Aymara language and culture as concerns the "back/behind" example. Rather, what is quite likely going on here in its place is a very different kind of metaphor. In my reading of the evidence, it's a more imagic metaphor (as opposed to a diagrammatic one), which could be described as "future time/events are unknowable/unobservable things". Thus they are similar to that which is behind us, or on our backside, because we (normally) cannot see or know such things. The belief that Aymara speakers actually envision time as starting in front of them (the past) and then proceeding behind them (the future) is, once again, to make the assumption that they have the same basic temporal metaphor in mind that we do when using such linguistic expressions. Since time is neither three-, two-, nor one-dimensional, being in fact only an inference, as Aristotle fully understood, the equating of time with a linear projection in space (which itself, in many languages including English, is grounded on the sound iconicity of proximals and distals -- for example, verbal ablaut indicating past tense in English irregular verbs which pattern after proximal/distal phonological opposition, i.e., front vowels iconically representing present tense and back vowels past tense) is only one possible metaphor among many as a means of better cognizing the nature of time. As for the "confusion" between "push forward" and "push back", there is none. Native speakers of English who say "push back" to mean "postpone" (and I myself am one of them) surely don't conceptualize time as unfolding in an opposite direction, any more than a person who says on the phone "I'm coming over to your place tonight" (as opposed to "going over") envisions himself traveling backwards as he crosses town. (In this latter example, it's speaker empathy or projection that is happening.) The difference between "push forward" and "push back" can be found in how we would refer to the action of pushing a physical object in front of us in relation to our course of direction and the unfoldment of events. If I grab hold of the rear bumper of a stalled car and push it down the road toward its driver's intended destination, am I pushing it forward or back? I would say forward. By contrast, if I come upon an obstacle in the road, such a large, fallen tree, and I push it in the direction of my destination, am I pushing it forward or back? I would say back. This shows for starters that the use of the word "back" in such a context does not mean "back where it was or came from". Similarly, if I say to a person who is sitting across from me but who is too close to me, "please move back", it doesn't mean back where they originally where since they may never have been sitting further back. Thus "back" used in this way must mean something on the order of "away from" or "farther from". Returning, then, to "push forward" when meaning "postpone", I envision time on its linear projection moving forward and all actions/events unfolding in that same direction. I push a date forward because that was the direction that time was heading in or oriented toward anyhow. Whereas with "push back" to mean "postpone", I envision the flow of time as going forward just the same but I encounter a (projected) event that has been fixed in (anticipated) time and thus decide to move it away from me (push it back) so there is a greater temporal distance between us. The semiotic distinction, however, between these two expressions is even deeper than this, but I won't belabor the point. Suffice it to say that there is nothing confused or contradictory about them, both being logical expressions based on the same underlying metaphor of Time is a Spatial Linearization, with the future in front of us and the past behind. As for the Aymara example, on the other hand, it employs a very different kind of metaphoric image to characterize time, but one which nevertheless does not contradict the common human experience that as we move forward time is experienced; hence the elapse of time is associated with forward motion. And while it is equally true that time can also be experienced when we walk backwards, this is not the usual direction that humans walk in. Consequently, it is very hard indeed to conceive of the future as approaching from back to front. And I doubt very much that Aymara speakers are any exception to this universal rule. Best, Andrew Andrew LaVelle Department of Linguistics University of New Mexico lavelle at unm.edu on 6/14/06 3:30 PM, Paul Hopper at hopper at cmu.edu wrote: > Jess, > > Both 'push forward' and 'push back' can mean "postpone", as in the following > examples (thanks to Google.com): > > 1. Pickup normally scheduled on observance day of the holiday will be pushed > forward to the next regular work day with the remaining pickups that week also > pushed forward one day. As an example: a Monday holiday will result in normal > Tuesday pick-up being pushed forward to Wednesday of that week. > > 2. Several readers note that Apple has quietly pushed back the ship dates of > its MacBook Pro laptops from February 15th to February 23rd with a delivery > date of February 28th, 2006. > > Perhaps Aymara speakers aren't the only ones who are confused! > > Paul > > > > >> Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060613185239.htm >> >> Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose speakers >> view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA 'eye, >> front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, >> behind' is used for 'future'. >> >> The piece notes ambiguities in such metaphors in languages such as >> English, and the possibility that the evidential system may be a cause of >> the reversed mapping in Aymara. >> >> Comments: >> >> Yahgan, a couple of languages 'down' on the 'left' in Chile, may have >> cognate terms. For instance TELLA 'eye, face' may match Aymara NAYRA. >> USHPA 'back, behind' may match QHIPA. Yahgan evidentiality, from the >> manuscript sources I have, does not appear to be as obligate as in >> Aymara, but there are a good number of forms. Yahgan simple past morpheme >> is -de: (e: tense, relatable to TELLA?), simple future -u:a (u: tense, >> relatable to USHPA?). >> >> USHPA in Yahgan is also grammaticalized in the language to mean 'after >> X'. In the now extinct 19th century Yahgashaga dialect (the basis for the >> vast majority of writings on the language) it was a free or encliticized >> morpheme following the full or pronominal subject NP (SOV, SVO orders >> normal). Tense morphemes, on the other hand, are suffixed to the verb >> stem, after aspect, but before mood affixes. Bound evidentials are >> variably placed within TAM. >> >> While there is no OBVIOUS grammaticalized form of TELLA in this position, >> it is interesting that there is the form TU:LA, meaning 'if X'. I don't >> know enough about the grammaticalization chains in this area to be able >> to say with any authority that TU:LA is 'from' TELLA, but perhaps one of >> you can tell me? Yahgan has many lexical doublets where there is >> opposition of meaning carried by vowel alternants. Or TU:LA may relate to >> U:LA meaning 'don't' >> >> The suffixed evidentials include (but are not limited to) -MUSH 'hearsay' >> (from MVRA 'to hear, listen', V is schwa), -MIN 'visual evidence' (no >> simplex but is AMIN 'look, see!' with prefixed mild imperative A-), >> -TIKALVRA 'distant past visual evidential' where -VRA may be a form >> referring to 'contrariness to expectation'. >> >> The -TIKAL- component may have relatability to TELLA, as also may be the >> form -DVGA-, having a 'past' meaning. From the historical viewpoint, I >> have elsewhere (and here?) claimed possible relation to Salishan >> languages, also on the Pacific coast (but in northern North America) as >> well as to Chemakuan, and further south Chumashan families. >> >> The Chemakuan 'evidence' implies that the doubled -LLA in TELLA >> originated in -L- followed by a velar or uvular fricative (other forms >> support this). One sees similar things in the other families I include in >> the comparison. Thus, IF true, then perhaps the -K/G- elements seen in >> the above Yahgan forms are explained (with perhaps reordering in >> -TIKAL-). >> >> I do not know whether -MUSH (and source MVRA) is relatable to USHPA, >> either etymologically or by convergence. I had previously speculated that >> -VRA (also -ARA) 'contrary to expectation' or 'new information' WAS >> relatable to -MUSH/MVRA. And in terms of etymologies within Yahgan, there >> are MANY different lexical forms beginning with USH- referring to the >> lower back or rear, its functions on the body, or products of same. In >> Salishan the lexical suffix -APS/UPS has the same range of reference. >> >> The suffixal (extended) TAM system in Yahgan appears to be relatively >> young Most of the relevant morphemes still retain corresponding lexical >> entries Positionally the clitic-second (really a chain of slots) group >> also often has matching terms in the suffixal system. For instance -MUSH >> 'hearsay' as suffix is identical in form to (')MUSH in the clitic chain >> set. Further grammaticalization has pushed the latter MUSH towards simple >> modality, seen as well in the surviving dialect 130 years after the >> grammar was laid out for the extinct one by Thomas Bridges. >> >> The first time I'd ever heard of the reversed time metaphor in Aymara was >> during a talk given by Eve Sweetser (who not surprisingly is the coauthor >> of the study cited above) during the Santa Barbara LSA Linguistic >> Institute a few years 'back'. As I haven't read the source article yet I >> don't know whether other local South American languages were included in >> the study. Joseph Greenberg of course was famous (or infamous depending >> on one's vantage) for attempting to lump, er.. group many of the Pacific >> coast languages under the 'Andean' rubric. It would be interesting to see >> whether they (and perhaps other languages/families further afield) share >> this way of organizing their grammaticalization chains. Since the report >> on the article says that younger bilingual generations appear to be >> switching over to the dominant European time metaphor, it is possible >> that in the past the region was far more uniformly 'reversed', with >> viewpoints doing 'the 180' one by one after the Conquest. Such changes >> are probably completely lost now in the mists of history. >> >> Of more theoretical import, perhaps, would be the finding that >> directionality of time metaphor might depend in part on 'directionality' >> of grammaticalization? Where tense (if they actually ARE tense) morphemes >> come from may be determined in part by such a directionality, if there is >> one, implicit (perhaps hidden?) within the overall scheme of possible >> canalizations. >> >> So if any of you aren't having too much fun vacationing comments would be >> of use. Thanks. >> >> Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net >> >> >> >> > From lavelle at unm.edu Thu Jun 15 11:57:49 2006 From: lavelle at unm.edu (Andrew LaVelle) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 05:57:49 -0600 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I should add to my previous message (below) that one of the primary distinctions between 'push forward" and "push back" is that with "push forward" I'm emphasizing the relation between the projected/scheduled event and time itself (based on the underlying metaphor that time always unfolds in forward direction and thus that the future lies ahead; therefore to give an event greater futurity is to give it greater forwardness, and vice versa), whereas with "push back" I'm highlighting the relation between the event and myself: by pushing the event back I'm increasing the temporal distance between it and me. Both expressions are based on the same diagrammatic metaphor, but each foregrounds a different relation between speaker, event, and time. Best, Andrew Department of Linguistics University of New Mexico lavelle at unm.edu on 6/15/06 5:24 AM, Andrew LaVelle at lavelle at unm.edu wrote: > Greetings to all, > > Just a few thoughts on the current discussion. > > To state that the grammaticalized forms of "back/behind" in a language (or, > in some cultures, the act of pointing backwards) is evidence that its > speakers' conceptualization of time is the opposite of ours is, in my > opinion, to assume that the underlying metaphor for this grammaticalization > is the same as ours, but only in reverse order. Contrarily, I would argue > that the diagrammatic (call it conceptual if you prefer) metaphor used by > European languages and cultures, among others, namely that Time is a Spatial > Linearization (with the future in front, the present wherever we find > ourselves on this line, and the past behind), is not the underlying metaphor > in the Aymara language and culture as concerns the "back/behind" example. > Rather, what is quite likely going on here in its place is a very different > kind of metaphor. In my reading of the evidence, it's a more imagic metaphor > (as opposed to a diagrammatic one), which could be described as "future > time/events are unknowable/unobservable things". Thus they are similar to > that which is behind us, or on our backside, because we (normally) cannot > see or know such things. The belief that Aymara speakers actually envision > time as starting in front of them (the past) and then proceeding behind them > (the future) is, once again, to make the assumption that they have the same > basic temporal metaphor in mind that we do when using such linguistic > expressions. > > Since time is neither three-, two-, nor one-dimensional, being in fact only > an inference, as Aristotle fully understood, the equating of time with a > linear projection in space (which itself, in many languages including > English, is grounded on the sound iconicity of proximals and distals -- for > example, verbal ablaut indicating past tense in English irregular verbs > which pattern after proximal/distal phonological opposition, i.e., front > vowels iconically representing present tense and back vowels past tense) is > only one possible metaphor among many as a means of better cognizing the > nature of time. > > As for the "confusion" between "push forward" and "push back", there is > none. Native speakers of English who say "push back" to mean "postpone" (and > I myself am one of them) surely don't conceptualize time as unfolding in an > opposite direction, any more than a person who says on the phone "I'm coming > over to your place tonight" (as opposed to "going over") envisions himself > traveling backwards as he crosses town. (In this latter example, it's > speaker empathy or projection that is happening.) The difference between > "push forward" and "push back" can be found in how we would refer to the > action of pushing a physical object in front of us in relation to our course > of direction and the unfoldment of events. If I grab hold of the rear bumper > of a stalled car and push it down the road toward its driver's intended > destination, am I pushing it forward or back? I would say forward. By > contrast, if I come upon an obstacle in the road, such a large, fallen tree, > and I push it in the direction of my destination, am I pushing it forward or > back? I would say back. This shows for starters that the use of the word > "back" in such a context does not mean "back where it was or came from". > Similarly, if I say to a person who is sitting across from me but who is too > close to me, "please move back", it doesn't mean back where they originally > where since they may never have been sitting further back. Thus "back" used > in this way must mean something on the order of "away from" or "farther > from". Returning, then, to "push forward" when meaning "postpone", I > envision time on its linear projection moving forward and all actions/events > unfolding in that same direction. I push a date forward because that was the > direction that time was heading in or oriented toward anyhow. Whereas with > "push back" to mean "postpone", I envision the flow of time as going forward > just the same but I encounter a (projected) event that has been fixed in > (anticipated) time and thus decide to move it away from me (push it back) so > there is a greater temporal distance between us. > > The semiotic distinction, however, between these two expressions is even > deeper than this, but I won't belabor the point. Suffice it to say that > there is nothing confused or contradictory about them, both being logical > expressions based on the same underlying metaphor of Time is a Spatial > Linearization, with the future in front of us and the past behind. As for > the Aymara example, on the other hand, it employs a very different kind of > metaphoric image to characterize time, but one which nevertheless does not > contradict the common human experience that as we move forward time is > experienced; hence the elapse of time is associated with forward motion. And > while it is equally true that time can also be experienced when we walk > backwards, this is not the usual direction that humans walk in. > Consequently, it is very hard indeed to conceive of the future as > approaching from back to front. And I doubt very much that Aymara speakers > are any exception to this universal rule. > > Best, > Andrew > > > Andrew LaVelle > Department of Linguistics > University of New Mexico > lavelle at unm.edu > > > on 6/14/06 3:30 PM, Paul Hopper at hopper at cmu.edu wrote: > >> Jess, >> >> Both 'push forward' and 'push back' can mean "postpone", as in the following >> examples (thanks to Google.com): >> >> 1. Pickup normally scheduled on observance day of the holiday will be pushed >> forward to the next regular work day with the remaining pickups that week >> also >> pushed forward one day. As an example: a Monday holiday will result in normal >> Tuesday pick-up being pushed forward to Wednesday of that week. >> >> 2. Several readers note that Apple has quietly pushed back the ship dates of >> its MacBook Pro laptops from February 15th to February 23rd with a delivery >> date of February 28th, 2006. >> >> Perhaps Aymara speakers aren't the only ones who are confused! >> >> Paul >> >> >> >> >>> Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060613185239.htm >>> >>> Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose speakers >>> view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA 'eye, >>> front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, >>> behind' is used for 'future'. >>> >>> The piece notes ambiguities in such metaphors in languages such as >>> English, and the possibility that the evidential system may be a cause of >>> the reversed mapping in Aymara. >>> >>> Comments: >>> >>> Yahgan, a couple of languages 'down' on the 'left' in Chile, may have >>> cognate terms. For instance TELLA 'eye, face' may match Aymara NAYRA. >>> USHPA 'back, behind' may match QHIPA. Yahgan evidentiality, from the >>> manuscript sources I have, does not appear to be as obligate as in >>> Aymara, but there are a good number of forms. Yahgan simple past morpheme >>> is -de: (e: tense, relatable to TELLA?), simple future -u:a (u: tense, >>> relatable to USHPA?). >>> >>> USHPA in Yahgan is also grammaticalized in the language to mean 'after >>> X'. In the now extinct 19th century Yahgashaga dialect (the basis for the >>> vast majority of writings on the language) it was a free or encliticized >>> morpheme following the full or pronominal subject NP (SOV, SVO orders >>> normal). Tense morphemes, on the other hand, are suffixed to the verb >>> stem, after aspect, but before mood affixes. Bound evidentials are >>> variably placed within TAM. >>> >>> While there is no OBVIOUS grammaticalized form of TELLA in this position, >>> it is interesting that there is the form TU:LA, meaning 'if X'. I don't >>> know enough about the grammaticalization chains in this area to be able >>> to say with any authority that TU:LA is 'from' TELLA, but perhaps one of >>> you can tell me? Yahgan has many lexical doublets where there is >>> opposition of meaning carried by vowel alternants. Or TU:LA may relate to >>> U:LA meaning 'don't' >>> >>> The suffixed evidentials include (but are not limited to) -MUSH 'hearsay' >>> (from MVRA 'to hear, listen', V is schwa), -MIN 'visual evidence' (no >>> simplex but is AMIN 'look, see!' with prefixed mild imperative A-), >>> -TIKALVRA 'distant past visual evidential' where -VRA may be a form >>> referring to 'contrariness to expectation'. >>> >>> The -TIKAL- component may have relatability to TELLA, as also may be the >>> form -DVGA-, having a 'past' meaning. From the historical viewpoint, I >>> have elsewhere (and here?) claimed possible relation to Salishan >>> languages, also on the Pacific coast (but in northern North America) as >>> well as to Chemakuan, and further south Chumashan families. >>> >>> The Chemakuan 'evidence' implies that the doubled -LLA in TELLA >>> originated in -L- followed by a velar or uvular fricative (other forms >>> support this). One sees similar things in the other families I include in >>> the comparison. Thus, IF true, then perhaps the -K/G- elements seen in >>> the above Yahgan forms are explained (with perhaps reordering in >>> -TIKAL-). >>> >>> I do not know whether -MUSH (and source MVRA) is relatable to USHPA, >>> either etymologically or by convergence. I had previously speculated that >>> -VRA (also -ARA) 'contrary to expectation' or 'new information' WAS >>> relatable to -MUSH/MVRA. And in terms of etymologies within Yahgan, there >>> are MANY different lexical forms beginning with USH- referring to the >>> lower back or rear, its functions on the body, or products of same. In >>> Salishan the lexical suffix -APS/UPS has the same range of reference. >>> >>> The suffixal (extended) TAM system in Yahgan appears to be relatively >>> young Most of the relevant morphemes still retain corresponding lexical >>> entries Positionally the clitic-second (really a chain of slots) group >>> also often has matching terms in the suffixal system. For instance -MUSH >>> 'hearsay' as suffix is identical in form to (')MUSH in the clitic chain >>> set. Further grammaticalization has pushed the latter MUSH towards simple >>> modality, seen as well in the surviving dialect 130 years after the >>> grammar was laid out for the extinct one by Thomas Bridges. >>> >>> The first time I'd ever heard of the reversed time metaphor in Aymara was >>> during a talk given by Eve Sweetser (who not surprisingly is the coauthor >>> of the study cited above) during the Santa Barbara LSA Linguistic >>> Institute a few years 'back'. As I haven't read the source article yet I >>> don't know whether other local South American languages were included in >>> the study. Joseph Greenberg of course was famous (or infamous depending >>> on one's vantage) for attempting to lump, er.. group many of the Pacific >>> coast languages under the 'Andean' rubric. It would be interesting to see >>> whether they (and perhaps other languages/families further afield) share >>> this way of organizing their grammaticalization chains. Since the report >>> on the article says that younger bilingual generations appear to be >>> switching over to the dominant European time metaphor, it is possible >>> that in the past the region was far more uniformly 'reversed', with >>> viewpoints doing 'the 180' one by one after the Conquest. Such changes >>> are probably completely lost now in the mists of history. >>> >>> Of more theoretical import, perhaps, would be the finding that >>> directionality of time metaphor might depend in part on 'directionality' >>> of grammaticalization? Where tense (if they actually ARE tense) morphemes >>> come from may be determined in part by such a directionality, if there is >>> one, implicit (perhaps hidden?) within the overall scheme of possible >>> canalizations. >>> >>> So if any of you aren't having too much fun vacationing comments would be >>> of use. Thanks. >>> >>> Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net >>> >>> >>> >>> >> > From Salinas17 at aol.com Thu Jun 15 13:31:59 2006 From: Salinas17 at aol.com (Salinas17 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:31:59 EDT Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Message-ID: In a message dated 6/14/06 11:54:43 AM, phonosemantics at earthlink.net writes: << Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose speakers view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA 'eye, front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, behind' is used for 'future'. >> Of course, if this were to be taken literally, it would be a ridiculously impractical perceptual system, so we can be pretty sure we should not take it literally. It's a good rule of thumb that linguistic should not lose all touch with reality. If I asked an Aymaran when dinner would be ready, I don't think he would act as if it already happened. Such an approach would leave one very suceptible to starvation. The arrow of time is not subjective, no matter how we talk about it. Of course, metaphor, irony and the juggling of tense can rearrange elements so an outsider just doesn't get it. I have to look backward to look forward, because experience is my main guide to the future. If I use an icon to communicate this, I may leave out expressing why I am searching my memory, but that does not mean that the future IS a memory. If the Aymarans are evading the physical rules of time and cause and effect, I want one to go to the race track with me as soon as possible. I'll split my Trifecta winnings with any competent translator. However, unless the Aymarans are all employed as fortune tellers or quantum physicists, there's no reason to attribute this to anything but a not altogether unusual, random historical shift in the meaning of words. To a culture where "bad" can mean "good" and "cool" can mean "hot," this should be no surprise. Regards, Steve Long From faucon at cogsci.ucsd.edu Thu Jun 15 16:07:06 2006 From: faucon at cogsci.ucsd.edu (Gilles Fauconnier) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:07:06 -0700 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: <1A8C1412-44C4-4104-B28B-ACF813C31710@manchester.ac.uk> Message-ID: > > I don't find claims that Aymara think backwards about time much > different than the claim that their language is 'truly logical'. > It wouldn't hurt to take a look at the "Cognitive Science" article, co-authored, after all, by an eminent linguist and a distinguished cognitive scientist. -- Gilles Fauconnier University of California San Diego La Jolla CA 92093 E-mail gfauconnier at ucsd.edu http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/ From dan.everett at manchester.ac.uk Thu Jun 15 16:20:13 2006 From: dan.everett at manchester.ac.uk (D.L. Everett) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:20:13 +0200 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I did not intend to impugn the article or its authors. I was referring to popular interpretation of the article, not the article itself. So let me make that clear here. I assume that when I read the article I will see which of the authors did the fieldwork, or whether it was based only on secondary sources, and how the connections between culture and language were drawn. But let me repeat that I was only commenting on popular interpretations of the article. Not the professional conclusions of the eminent authors. Dan On 15 Jun 2006, at 18:07, Gilles Fauconnier wrote: > >> >> I don't find claims that Aymara think backwards about time much >> different than the claim that their language is 'truly logical'. >> > > It wouldn't hurt to take a look at the "Cognitive Science" article, > co-authored, after all, by an eminent linguist and a distinguished > cognitive scientist. > > -- > Gilles Fauconnier > University of California San Diego > La Jolla CA 92093 > > E-mail gfauconnier at ucsd.edu > http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/ > From mark at polymathix.com Thu Jun 15 16:47:41 2006 From: mark at polymathix.com (Mark P. Line) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:47:41 -0500 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: <1A8C1412-44C4-4104-B28B-ACF813C31710@manchester.ac.uk> Message-ID: D.L.Everett wrote: > Very often when we theorize about the significance of this or that > aspect of a given language, from time words to color words to > phonological structure, etc. we ironically fail to address the > problem linguistically, at least in the traditional sense of this > term. Linguists look at components of languages and study their > distribution within a given system, looking for contrast, > complementation, and structure. They come to understand individual > units of a given language by analyzing the components of those units > (what they are or what they are composed of), what those units > contrast with (that is, what they are not), and how those units > interconnect with other units in the language or grammar to form the > system as a whole, i.e. the entire grammar and cultural context of > which they are a part. These latter three perspectives are what Pike > called the 'particle, wave, and field' perspectives of language. Holy cow, Dan, you didn't get the memo! That's not how linguistics is done anymore. To see how it's _really_ done, google for 'maximum entropy' and 'latent semantic indexing'. I'm currently applying for a No Child Left Behind grant to write a series of textbooks for high-school German based on the new statistical paradigm. Schools will be able to demonstrate an enormous improvement in German grades by using my textbooks, since the kids will learn that 'Es ist uns wiederum gelungen, Bratkartoffeln in Spruehdosen herzustellen.' can be translated correctly into English as 'Fry spray to make it on the other succeeded hand it us potato we in cans.' as well as many other ways. Without the hypercritical assessment arising from antequated structuralist bean counting, kids are free to produce any translation that has the right statistical properties (p=0.35 for a passing grade). If you disagree, it's only because you're still thinking in that old Pikean particle-wave-field paradigm and you're expecting to find systematic, categorical relations in a language that can be used to justify a translation into another language. -- Mark Mark P. Line Polymathix San Antonio, TX From Salinas17 at aol.com Thu Jun 15 21:07:31 2006 From: Salinas17 at aol.com (Salinas17 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:07:31 EDT Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... Message-ID: In a message dated 6/15/06 12:48:51 PM, mark at polymathix.com writes: << Without the hypercritical assessment arising from antequated structuralist bean counting, kids are free to produce any translation that has the right statistical properties >> Just a small comment regarding terminology. Strictly speaking, translating or any other analysis based on 'statistical properties' would be just as much 'structural' as looking for 'contrast, complementation, and structure.' Statistical analysis simply creates a different picture of structure, not something other than structure. The factors that form either of those types of structurings, on the other hand, are where we get to the 'function' of language -- what ends it serves, specifically and universally -- which might be the main reason why it is even worth studying in the first place. Regards, Steve Long From pyoung at darkwing.uoregon.edu Thu Jun 15 21:17:27 2006 From: pyoung at darkwing.uoregon.edu (Phil Young) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 14:17:27 -0700 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... Message-ID: A friend on another list made the comment below and I thought it would be of interest to Funknetters. He gave his permission to forward it. "In a 1982 book by a medievalist named Paul C. Bauschatz titled The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture 8th-century Germanic concepts of time (and space) are metaphorically represented with individuals who face the past with the non-past (the future) behind them. Individuals stand close to and face the entrance to an unimaginably large container. Inside this container are stored all the past events. Events flow around the individuals. Some fall outside the container and disappear; others are momentarily becoming part of the structure within the container. There is no outside force that pushes events into the container; instead events are pulled in from a force within. And eventually individuals themselves are pulled in at the moment of death. Interestingly the past is the only component with structure. What we witness is always chaos. This situation presents difficulties for human beings as they attempt to understand their position in the scheme of things. They stand outside the past and have no direct perception of it or of its force. They can only occasionally glimpse its structure since most of it is hidden beyond the entrance. The pulling force does influence events outside the container but in ways usually not directly perceptible. Also, events rush around people as if from behind. Some of these events are insignificant, and as I pointed out, disappear; but some are important. Humans try to sort out these events, and the most important factor in sorting them out is the understanding of the power of the past as it reaches out and around them to structure activities. Time and space are intimately interwoven. Ancient German time, according to Bauschatz, is binary, not tripartite. It divides into past and non-past, not into past, present, and future. There are no explicit references in early Germanic materials to a concept like the future. He points out that future references in Old English are translations of explicitly Christian, Latin materials. The past, as collector of events, is clearly the most dominant of the two components of time. Human beings stand at the juncture of this past and the non-past, at the point that might be called the present--at least at the point where events are in the process of becoming "past." The past, then, is already experienced, accomplished, realized--for the most part, unfortunately, by those out of contact with living individuals. The present, to the contrary, is in constant flux, confused with both irrelevant and significant details. What we would call the "future" is, within the structure of this Germanic system, just more of the non-past, more flux, more confusion, and almost entirely unknowable. It may be somewhat knowable with a thorough knowledge of the past and by what criteria the past structures itself, that is, picks out events in the flux of the non-past to suck into its container. Once again, individuals face the past, not the "future." Within this binary time system the past is constantly increasing and pulling more and more time and events into itself. The past alone has assured strength and reality. Because this time is ever-changing, growing, and space oriented, it is dynamic and human oriented. The tripartite Christian time that we have come to accept is static, without space, and outside humanness. The concept of the container filling up leads to one final conclusion. The container will eventually become full. At that moment we would expect a cosmic close, an end to the universe implicit in the structure itself. We do, indeed, find such a case throughout Germanic mythical literature. 'Neath sea the land sinketh, the sun dimmeth, from the heavens fall the fair bright stars; gusheth forth steam and gutting fire, to very heaven soareth the hurtling flames. Not to fear, however, for the myths make clear that it is not the end of time but only of one of several temporal stages in the cosmos that mark beginnings. I see green again with growing things the earth arise from out of the sea; fell torrents flow, overflies them the eagle. It is as if the container of the past had overflowed itself and had begun to fill another, larger container, which somehow is structured so as to surround and enclose the earlier. The process apparently continues without end. Robert." Cheers, Phil Young pyoung at darkwing.uoregon.edu From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Thu Jun 15 21:27:53 2006 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:27:53 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... Message-ID: Dan Everett wrote: >Jess Tauber's remarks on Yaghan seem to recognize this as well, when he says "A question arises for me about whether such oppositions as in 'push forward' and 'push back' depend on a larger framework against which they are interpreted", but nothing in what follows that nice opening remark gives me an understanding of the ethnolinguistic distributional arguments used to establish this apart from 'force dynamics'.< My interest here is in how we conceptualize the physicomechanical and sociophysical realities we are forced to live with by being humans in the real world, with inherited and learned sensorimotor biases acting as mediators between us and that world, and how these then help shape language, and vice versa. This is the 'larger framework' I meant, and is thus a more universalist one. My comments about how we move through the world, versus how the world can move through us, are relevant here. If I say a date has been moved back, this relates to sensory information, that is, within the larger family of things that move through us, which will in many (most, all?) circumstances prototypically be coming FROM the front- all our major sense organs, and matter/energy input organs are in the front of our bodies, anticipating this. If a date is moved back, it is back in the direction from which it came, not OUR back. Time will pass whether or not we move forward literally. On the other hand, if I say pickup has been moved forward, this is action of our bodies, which is generally prototypically ahead, movement through the world versus the world through us. Moving the ACTION ahead means moving it in the same absolute direction as moving the TIME back on its own line. If we look at the way our vertebrate bodies are constructed some sense can be made of this. Our musculature and nervous systems reflect this organization- adductor versus abductor muscles dividing the body up, sensory versus motor pathways, and so on. Inputs in the front, outputs in the back. In quadrupeds we have information (which in lower animals deals more with space and time?) dorsally, and mass/energy ventrally. Modularization and modifications within modules sometimes mess up this nice neat scenario, but even then similar frames are evident within them. Organizational structuring of this sort is present at every level- all the way down to the molecular. Perhaps just the most efficient way to put things together while still leaving room for functional inversions. Which is where my equation came in. Temporal inflectional terms can come from bodily motion/position verbs or sensorily related evidential terms- which have opposite perspectives perhaps, among other sources. In a tense system with mixed sources, we may have to flip our perspectives if we wish to maintain a link back, or when the motivating connection has been lost to awareness we can reinterpret and coopt forms to fit one dominant perspective. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From Salinas17 at aol.com Fri Jun 16 04:14:54 2006 From: Salinas17 at aol.com (Salinas17 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:14:54 EDT Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Message-ID: In a message dated 6/15/06 5:12:32 PM, pyoung at uoregon.edu writes: << Ancient German time, according to Bauschatz, is binary, not tripartite. It divides into past and non-past, not into past, present, and future. There are no explicit references in early Germanic materials to a concept like the future. He points out that future references in Old English are translations of explicitly Christian, Latin materials. The past, as collector of events, is clearly the most dominant of the two components of time. >> Actually, the curiousity is that the basic b-root word (as in to be or not to be) -- reconstructed as IE*bheu-, *bhu- "grow, come into being, become" -- did not have a regular 'past' tense in Old English. But it was used to express both the present and the future, which sounds pretty forward-looking to me. At least with this verb, the attitude seems to have been the past is merely prologue. Of course, there still is no future tense, in the inflective sense, in English. But I don't think anyone anywhere has ever talked more about the future than American English-speakers. Maybe this goes back to the recent analytic-synthetic debate. Were those Old-English speakers expressing some kind of an anti-future world view by failing to have a future tense? Or were they just living with the amibiguoty until the contrast became necessary or convenient? Since they don't not appear to have been particularly poor planners or terribly phobic about hitting the road for parts unknown, I'd have to conclude that they had a pretty good concept of the future, even if they didn't have a word for it. <> Tripartite Christian time? Isn't that how they set their clocks at the NIST? Steve Long From gj.steen at let.vu.nl Fri Jun 16 09:52:38 2006 From: gj.steen at let.vu.nl (G.J. Steen) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 11:52:38 +0200 Subject: metaphor in discourse Message-ID: (Apologies for cross-postings) 2 PhD Positions in Metaphor and Discourse Analysis f/m For 1,0 fte each Vacancynumber 1.2006.00132 The Faculty of Arts at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is inviting applications for two PhD positions, beginning 1 September 2006 or as soon as possible thereafter, in the vici-programme ?Metaphor in discourse: linguistic forms, conceptual structures, cognitive representations.? This is a five-year research programme, awarded to Gerard Steen by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), which started 1 September 2005. It addresses the role of metaphor in discourse by examining its distribution, structure, function, and effect in four varieties of English. The hypothesis is that distinct linguistic forms and conceptual structures of metaphor display distributions and functions of their own, and that these interact with the domains of discourse in which language users employ them. The programme aims at describing and explaining these interactions on the basis of detailed corpus research on four samples from the British National Corpus, and at testing the cognitive effects of some of these interactions in their mental representation by language users. Metaphor in discourse is modelled by means of a discourse-analytical elaboration of the cognitive-linguistic approach to metaphor as a cross-domain mapping. Research involves corpus analysis of samples from the British National Corpus and psycholinguistic experiments on various aspects of metaphor processing. The vici-programme is part of one of the four research programmes of the Institute of Language, Culture, and History of the Faculty of Arts at the Vrije Universiteit, ?The architecture of the human language faculty?. This research programme investigates the modular structure of human language and cognition, with participation from formal, functional, and cognitive grammarians, and psycholinguists as well as discourse analysts. The vici-programme is also connected to the Ster research programme of the Vrije Universiteit on ?Text, cognition, and communication?, an interdisciplinary research programme between the faculties of Arts, Psychology, and Social Science, with the Faculty of Arts concentrating on ?The conversationalization of public discourse? in the usage of Dutch. Tasks The two PhD projects will complement two other PhD projects which started a year ago. The four PhD projects constitute the core of the programme. Each of the projects will eventually concentrate on the use of metaphor in one specific language variety: conversation, news texts, academic texts, and fiction. All projects are organized by an integrated timetable, and the research is characterized by a great deal of synchronized team work. During the first year, the researchers identify metaphors in samples from all four language varieties, after which each researcher will concentrate on one language variety for the rest of the programme. Each of the two PhD projects involves research training and aims at completing a dissertation within four years. As part of their training, PhD students take courses offered by the National Graduate School in Linguistics (LOT). They also present work at annual expert meetings and participate in international conferences. Candidates will also be requested to make a small contribution to the teaching programme of the School of Language and Communication at the Vrije Universiteit. Requirements Candidates should have native-speaker or near-native speaker command of (British) English. They should have an excellent MA thesis in English language and linguistics, or be able to show that such a thesis will be completed by August 31. Expertise in metaphor, discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics, and/or corpus linguistics will be regarded as an advantage. Particularities Appointment will initially be for one year, to be extended with a maximum of three more years upon positive evaluation. General conditions of employment can be found at www.vu.nl/vacatures. Non-native speakers of Dutch are expected to acquire a basic command of Dutch in the first two years of their appointment. Salary For all projects we offer a full-time four-year PhD position with gross monthly salary starting at ? 1.933,- in the first year to ? 2.472,- in the fourth year of appointment. Information A full description of the complete programme and additional information about the vacancy can be obtained from dr. G.J. Steen, phone 0031 (0)20 59 86433, e-mail address: Gj.Steen at let.vu.nl. Applications Your letter of application will have to be in by Saturday 1 July. Please send your application to Vrije Universiteit, Faculteit der Letteren, t.a.v. dr. B. Weltens, directeur bedrijfsvoering, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, or by e-mail to vacature at let.vu.nl. Applications (by regular mail or by e-mail) should include a curriculum vitae and the names and addresses of two referees. An MA thesis and a list of courses plus results should also be included. E-mail applications should be sent in pdf format and should specify your name and vacancy number in the message as well as in the topic, include a list of attachments in the message, and specify your name in every attachment. Interviews are planned between Monday 17 and Wednesday 19 July 2006. From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Fri Jun 16 10:05:04 2006 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 06:05:04 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Message-ID: With regard to comments about the etymology of English 'be'- it should be noted that in terms of the sound symbolism of initial obstruents in IE roots there is a distinct preference for labials here to correlate with notions of expansion, growth (literally or abstractly) from overfulness, unfinished potential, extra or easy resources, etc. My cup runneth over. This in opposition to initial velars, which are much more more often about exhaustion or difficult recovery/extraction of same- dryness, hollow lifeless shells, etc. The overall framework mentioned in previous posts is to a degree applicable here (from a number of angles)- but I wonder now about the religious context- the spiritual versus the material (with spirit filling to a large measure the folk definition of 'energy', power, motive drive, etc.). I already divided the movement realm into horizontal and vertical dimensions- how does one deal with the dead material versus the living spiritual ideal? Are they also orthogonal to each other? As for absolutes- some cultures put heaven up above, others down below. What is the basis? How might it affect language? Creator God versus Transformer Trickster? Organizer versus Chaos incarnated? We see in other areas division of labor without absolutes (for instance movement of the head and neck for agreement versus disagreement versus ambigous response). Do such things have a tendency to 'line up' as in morphosyntactic typological facts, or are we dealing merely with a big kluge of arbitrary facts? And when mismatch exists between otherwise expected correlatable dimensions, might it have a historical explanation as we often see in language typology? And just how much of this larger sociocultural frame influences language itself rather than the other way round? Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From lavelle at unm.edu Fri Jun 16 13:09:20 2006 From: lavelle at unm.edu (Andrew LaVelle) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 07:09:20 -0600 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? In-Reply-To: <4fd.9e1d7.31c38a3e@aol.com> Message-ID: It will be noticed on page 6 in Fig. 1a and b of the Nunez/Sweetser article on Aymara that the two illustrated metaphoric models of time (universally applicable to all cultures and languages, other than perhaps, in the authors' opinions, Aymara) are not sufficient to account for a number of temporal metaphors in English. Consider: 1. Time passed me by. 2. Time caught up with me. 3. I remained in the past. 4. I can't keep up with time. In order for any of these expressions to make sense, both time and the speaker must be conceptualized as moving forward together. If time is seen as moving against me, or I against it, or both, then how could this expression have any other rhetorical value than as a banal statement of perceived fact? When such an expression is used, the implication is that both viewer and object are moving in the same direction and that one eventually passes the other due to the other's slowing down or stopping. This is most especially captured in the metaphoric expression "time caught up with me". If time and I are going in opposite directions, how could it ever catch up with me? As concerns the last two examples, similar to (1), I can't remain in the past if time is flowing against me, for even if I stand motionless time would continue to unfold, thereby causing me to come out of the past and into the present. (This third example has additional meanings that include the notions of voluntary desire to stay in the past or the nostalgia for the past. My interpretation here emphasizes the purely temporal notion of being fixed in past time independent of causation.) And the same is true for the last example: I wouldn't have trouble keeping up with time if it was flowing against me. But is this in contradiction to the underlying metaphor that Time is a Spatial Linearization and that the past is behind me and the future in front of me? I would argue that it is not. My claim would be that in addition to this conceptual foundation represented metaphorically, there is the metaphoric image that time and ego move forward together and in doing so events come and go, receding deeper and deeper into the past, which is metaphorically conceived as behind in spatial orientation. With this richer metaphor, we live in time and are carried forward temporally by time. It is the events that are moving toward us, just as objects in a landscape approach me as I travel toward them. But temporal progression moves in my same direction. The past is behind me, not because time has traveled from front to back, but because the events that time allowed me to experience have unfolded/changed and thus moved behind me as I and time continue on our forward trajectory. (It is important to point out here that time and tense (past, present, and future) are two very different concepts in English.) And this more complex temporal metaphor is curiously enough closer to the laws of physics as evidenced in Einstein's space-time continuum, where time is relative to motion, being bound up with it, rather than as a separate entity moving in opposition to it. On a final note, speaking of languages that are particularly appropriate for verbalizing logic, if pressed on the issue I would tend to agree with the American logician and philosopher, Charles Peirce, that English is a prime example of one. For an instantiation of this, we need not look any further than our clear distinction linguistically between "time", "tense", and "weather", whereas in many languages these first two terms are not differentiated, and in some languages all three are the same (e.g., French: "le temps" = time, tense, weather). But since logic -- happily -- does not depend on language to be correctly understood and successfully employed, no logician, regardless of his nationality, is hindered in any way by his mother tongue. And as for a third logical operator between such binary oppositions as true/false and no/yes, there is no need to look to Aymara since Peirce proposed a triadic system in logic as long ago as the late 1800's, which in turn was followed up on and perfected by the Polish School of logicians (i.e., Lukasiewicz, Bochenski, Tarski, et al). Best, Andrew Andrew LaVelle Department of Linguistics University of New Mexico lavelle at unm.edu From faucon at cogsci.ucsd.edu Fri Jun 16 15:57:35 2006 From: faucon at cogsci.ucsd.edu (Gilles Fauconnier) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 08:57:35 -0700 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Andrew, You're quite right, there are more mappings available in English (and other languages). In the article below, we've looked at a wider range of data (including the case you point out). We argue, among other things, that the SPACE-TIME mapping is not primitive, but emergent in more elaborate integration networks. http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/RethinkingMetaphor19f06.pdf (also accessible from http://blending.stanford.edu ) Gilles ______ On Fri, 16 Jun 2006, Andrew LaVelle wrote: > It will be noticed on page 6 in Fig. 1a and b of the Nunez/Sweetser article > on Aymara that the two illustrated metaphoric models of time (universally > applicable to all cultures and languages, other than perhaps, in the > authors' opinions, Aymara) are not sufficient to account for a number of > temporal metaphors in English. Consider: > > 1. Time passed me by. > 2. Time caught up with me. > 3. I remained in the past. > 4. I can't keep up with time. > > In order for any of these expressions to make sense, both time and the > speaker must be conceptualized as moving forward together. If time is seen > as moving against me, or I against it, or both, then how could this > expression have any other rhetorical value than as a banal statement of > perceived fact? When such an expression is used, the implication is that > both viewer and object are moving in the same direction and that one > eventually passes the other due to the other's slowing down or stopping. > > This is most especially captured in the metaphoric expression "time caught > up with me". If time and I are going in opposite directions, how could it > ever catch up with me? > > As concerns the last two examples, similar to (1), I can't remain in the > past if time is flowing against me, for even if I stand motionless time > would continue to unfold, thereby causing me to come out of the past and > into the present. (This third example has additional meanings that include > the notions of voluntary desire to stay in the past or the nostalgia for the > past. My interpretation here emphasizes the purely temporal notion of being > fixed in past time independent of causation.) And the same is true for the > last example: I wouldn't have trouble keeping up with time if it was flowing > against me. > > But is this in contradiction to the underlying metaphor that Time is a > Spatial Linearization and that the past is behind me and the future in front > of me? I would argue that it is not. My claim would be that in addition to > this conceptual foundation represented metaphorically, there is the > metaphoric image that time and ego move forward together and in doing so > events come and go, receding deeper and deeper into the past, which is > metaphorically conceived as behind in spatial orientation. > > With this richer metaphor, we live in time and are carried forward > temporally by time. It is the events that are moving toward us, just as > objects in a landscape approach me as I travel toward them. But temporal > progression moves in my same direction. The past is behind me, not because > time has traveled from front to back, but because the events that time > allowed me to experience have unfolded/changed and thus moved behind me as I > and time continue on our forward trajectory. (It is important to point out > here that time and tense (past, present, and future) are two very different > concepts in English.) And this more complex temporal metaphor is curiously > enough closer to the laws of physics as evidenced in Einstein's space-time > continuum, where time is relative to motion, being bound up with it, rather > than as a separate entity moving in opposition to it. > > On a final note, speaking of languages that are particularly appropriate for > verbalizing logic, if pressed on the issue I would tend to agree with the > American logician and philosopher, Charles Peirce, that English is a prime > example of one. For an instantiation of this, we need not look any further > than our clear distinction linguistically between "time", "tense", and > "weather", whereas in many languages these first two terms are not > differentiated, and in some languages all three are the same (e.g., French: > "le temps" = time, tense, weather). But since logic -- happily -- does not > depend on language to be correctly understood and successfully employed, no > logician, regardless of his nationality, is hindered in any way by his > mother tongue. And as for a third logical operator between such binary > oppositions as true/false and no/yes, there is no need to look to Aymara > since Peirce proposed a triadic system in logic as long ago as the late > 1800's, which in turn was followed up on and perfected by the Polish School > of logicians (i.e., Lukasiewicz, Bochenski, Tarski, et al). > > > Best, > Andrew > > > Andrew LaVelle > Department of Linguistics > University of New Mexico > lavelle at unm.edu > > > -- Gilles Fauconnier Department of Cognitive Science University of California San Diego La Jolla CA 92093 E-mail gfauconnier at ucsd.edu http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/ From ascarel at gmail.com Fri Jun 16 16:37:09 2006 From: ascarel at gmail.com (Jeff Smith) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 12:37:09 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 6/16/06, Andrew LaVelle wrote: > and in some languages all three are the same (e.g., French: > "le temps" = time, tense, weather). Is this really meaningful? This is just a single lexical fact taken in isolation that doesn't speak for usage at all. We say "temp?rature" for weather at least as much, if not more. In new grammatical textbooks we specifically speak of tense as "temps verbal", because the ambiguity with "temps" is pedagogically bothersome and impractical, as the temporal value of these tenses does not always follow their labels. I believe that only tradition keeps us from using new terms here. I think it is irrelevant (and contingent) that, etymologically, French doesn't have three different roots for three concepts that we differenciate clearly by other means anyway. Regards, Jean-Fran?ois Smith Qu?bec, Canada From noonan at csd.uwm.edu Fri Jun 16 17:59:17 2006 From: noonan at csd.uwm.edu (Michael Noonan) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 12:59:17 -0500 Subject: UWM Symposium on Formulaic Language Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS: UWM LINGUISTICS SYMPOSIUM ON FORMULAIC LANGUAGE The linguistics community at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is planning to hold a symposium on the topic of 'formulaic language'. The symposium, which will be held on the campus of UWM April 18-21, 2007, will be the 25th in the series of the once-annual UWM Linguistics Symposia. By formulaic language we mean multi-word collocations which are stored and retrieved holistically rather than being generated de novo with each use. Examples of formulaic language include idioms, set expressions, rhymes, songs, prayers, and proverbs; they may also be taken to include recurrent turns of phrase within more ordinary sentence structures. These are notable in ordinary speech as well as in ritualized speech events such as sports broadcasts, weather reports, sermons, etc. In our symposium, we are aiming to explore the issue of formulaic language from a variety of perspectives. To this end, our keynote speakers are scholars whose specializations range over a large spectrum of language-based study, including specialists in corpus-based linguistics, psycholinguistics, phonology, phonetics, typology, and related fields. Our keynote speakers are: Joan Bybee, University of New Mexico Oesten Dahl, Stockholm University Britt Erman, Stockholm University Charles Fillmore, University of California, Berkeley Lily Wong Fillmore, Univesity of California, Berkeley Barbara Fox, University of Colorado Adele Goldberg, Princeton University John Haiman, Macalester College Paul Hopper, Carnegie Mellon University Susan Hunston, University of Birmingham Koenraad Kuiper, University of Canterbury Jill Morford, University of New Mexico Andrew Pawley, Australian National University Ann Peters, University of Hawai'i Joanne Scheibman, Old Dominion University Sandra Thompson, University of California, Santa Barbara Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Rena Torres-Cacoullos, University of New Mexico Diana van Lancker, New York University Thomas Wasow, Stanford University Alison Wray, Cardiff University In addition, there will be a general session, for which potential speakers are invited to submit a one-page abstract: due date November 1, 2006. Selected papers from the symposium will be published as an edited set of volumes in the Typological Studies in Language series published by John Benjamins. ONE PAGE ABSTRACTS DUE DATE: Wednesday, November 1, 2006 Abstracts may be submitted in hardcopy or in electronic form. Hardcopy abstracts should be sent to: Roberta Corrigan Dept. of Educational Psychology University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, WI 53201 USA Electronic submissions should be sent to: corrigan at uwm.edu Questions concerning the Symposium can be addressed to Michael Noonan: noonan at uwm.edu Announcements and symposium information will be posted at: www.uwm.edu/Dept/English/conferences/fsl/index.html From Diane.Lesley-neuman at colorado.edu Fri Jun 16 20:05:23 2006 From: Diane.Lesley-neuman at colorado.edu (Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 14:05:23 -0600 Subject: Fwd: 17.1810, Disc: New: Linguists and the Journals Nature, Science Message-ID: I am forwarding this message from the Linguist List regarding the participation of linguists in the journals of Nature and Science. From the discourse I have read on Funknet, it seems there is an unexploited avenue open for those making connections between evolutionary biology and linguistics. -- Diane Lesley-Neuman, M. Ed. Linguistics Department Institute for Cognitive Science University of Colorado at Boulder ----- Forwarded message from linguist at LINGUISTLIST.ORG ----- Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:22:07 -0400 From: linguist at LINGUISTLIST.ORG Reply-To: linguist at LINGUISTLIST.ORG Subject: 17.1810, Disc: New: Linguists and the Journals Nature, Science To: LINGUIST at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG -------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:20:39 From: Annie Zaenen < zaenen at parc.com > Subject: Linguists and the Journals Nature, Science A recent position by Geoff Pullum et al. (see LINGUIST List issue: http://linguistlist.org/issues/17/17-1528.html) about starlings contained the following passage: ''Within 18 hours, Nature declined to publish the letter. (In our experience, this is what usually happens when linguists write to general science journals like Nature and Science commenting on the content of papers with linguistic content that have been published by non-linguists.) '' This is a rather annoying issue and maybe one that linguists should pay more attention to. I ignore how Nature operates but the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, http://www.aaas.org/) has a section Z on ''Linguistics and Language Science''. Nevertheless linguists have very little presence in the AAAS world. Section Z has very few members compared to other sections (and most members are not 'straight' linguists but people that most likely have a subscription to Science for another reason and a subsidiary interest in linguistics.) The activities that Science organizes also tend to be expensive for linguists (given there is little that is of direct interest to them) but all this should not give Science (or Nature) a license to misrepresent linguistic issues. Does anybody see a way to get a better hearing from them given our low participation in their activities? I was for three years on the nominating board of section Z but I haven't figured out how the elected chair, the members at large and the Council delegates might influence what appears in the Journal. Also these officers rarely communicate with the linguistic community at large or, as far as my experience goes, with the members of section Z. But there seems to be a change in this pattern: the upcoming LSA Bulletin will contain a note from the current steering committee drawing attention to the existence of AAAS Z. The minimal thing we could do is bring up the publication issue with them. Annie Zaenen Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable ----------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-17-1810 ----- End forwarded message ----- From elc9j at cms.mail.virginia.edu Sat Jun 17 21:35:50 2006 From: elc9j at cms.mail.virginia.edu (Ellen L. Contini-Morava) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 17:35:50 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time metaphor reversed? Yahgan says.... In-Reply-To: <12804465.1150300422143.JavaMail.root@elwamui-milano.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: I seem to recall that Clifford Hill said something like this about Hausa back in the 1970's. His work was mainly on spatial orientation: an English speaker viewing two objects in a line, one closer and one farther away, will say the farther one is "behind" the nearer one, as if the intervening object were "facing" the viewer, whereas Hausa speakers say the farther one is "in front of" the nearer one, as if the viewer and the objects were standing in a queue all facing in the same direction. I think he also said that Hausa speakers describe the past as "in front" and the future as "behind", on the grounds that one can see/know the past whereas one doesn't see/know the future. Ellen C-M --On Wednesday, June 14, 2006 11:53 AM -0400 jess tauber wrote: > Apparently Aymara is the only (so far) documented language whose speakers > view the past as being ahead and the future behind. The terms NAYRA 'eye, > front, sight' is grammaticalized to mean 'past', while QHIPA 'back, > behind' is used for 'future'. From traugott at csli.stanford.edu Sat Jun 17 22:08:08 2006 From: traugott at csli.stanford.edu (Elizabeth Traugott) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 15:08:08 -0700 Subject: Aymara's time line Message-ID: Ellen Contini-Morava mentioned Clifford Hill's work. It is: Clifford Hill, 1978. Linguistic representation of spatial and temporal orientation, BLS 4: 524-538. I myself suggested in the same year that while deictic tense is typically back (past)-front (future) oriented, relative (sequential) tense is typically earlier (front)-later (back) oriented, i.e. they are oriented in opposite directions (If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?), see: 1978. On the expression of spatio-temporal relations in language. In Joseph Greenberg, Charles Ferguson and Edith Moravcsik, eds., Universals of Human Language, Vol III: 369-402. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press and 1985. "Conventional" and "dead" metaphors. In Wolf Paprott? and Ren? Dirven, eds., The Ubiquity of Metaphor, 17-56. Amsterdam: Benjamins. It would not be too surprising if a relative system were grammaticalized into a deictic one, if indeed that is what the Aymara system is. But I don't think that is necessary--as Hill showed, there are two ways of orienting oneself: face to face, or in a line. Elizabeth Traugott From sweetser at berkeley.edu Mon Jun 19 18:02:41 2006 From: sweetser at berkeley.edu (SWEETSER, Eve E.) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:02:41 -0700 Subject: Aymara's time line In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear All, I just wanted to say that the N??ez and Sweetser paper does of course discuss the Hill work, among much else. And yes, it deals with the distinction between (for example) the Classical Greek and Maori systems and the Aymara one. For those of you who might like to see the paper rather than commenting on the newspaper coverage (!): (1) if you subscribe to Cognitive Science then you can read it online there, or (2) I am happy to send a pdf copy to anyone who asks me for it - I don't want to spam the whole list, of course. Cheers and best, Eve On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 15:08:08 -0700 Elizabeth Traugott wrote: > Ellen Contini-Morava mentioned Clifford Hill's work. It is: > > Clifford Hill, 1978. Linguistic representation of spatial and temporal > orientation, BLS 4: 524-538. > > I myself suggested in the same year that while deictic tense is typically > back (past)-front (future) oriented, relative (sequential) tense is > typically earlier (front)-later (back) oriented, i.e. they are > oriented in opposite directions (If winter comes, can Spring be > far behind?), see: > 1978. On the expression of spatio-temporal relations in language. In Joseph > Greenberg, Charles Ferguson and Edith Moravcsik, eds., Universals of Human > Language, Vol III: 369-402. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press > and > 1985. "Conventional" and "dead" metaphors. In Wolf Paprott? and Ren? Dirven, eds., > The Ubiquity of Metaphor, 17-56. Amsterdam: Benjamins. > > It would not be too surprising if a relative system were grammaticalized into a deictic one, > if indeed that is what the Aymara system is. But I don't think that is necessary--as Hill > showed, there are two ways of orienting oneself: face to face, or in a line. > > Elizabeth Traugott > > > From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Tue Jun 20 02:09:55 2006 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 22:09:55 -0400 Subject: Aymara's time line Message-ID: Hi- I just spent a large part of the weekend looking up morpheme correspondences in languages along the west coast of the Americas that may have utilized the same or a similar grammaticalization chain, though of course this will not answer whether these ended up with any sort of reverse oriented time axis given cultural assimilations in the meantime. It would be interesting to see whether any other properties of these languages associate with similar sourcing of grams- for instance the many American west coast languages which had well-developed augmentative/diminutive shifting for existing lexemes, yet curiously very few 'classical' ideophones. Aymara and Yahgan are both like this. There may be some motivation to look for a 'back door' route to explain some of this- normally ideophone roots infuse the lexicon with fresh sound symbolic resources, but shifting does not seem to be part of the deal- rather such word-class change brings with it change FROM modification (as in ideophones) to relatively direct reference (as in lexical roots). It may be that augmentative/diminutive shift affects derivational morphology FIRST- there are for instance many languages with both diminutive shift AND a diminutive affix cooccurring, but fewer with just the shift. It has always bothered me- why develop an affix if shift is unambiguous? But of course if the development started with the affix and then worked its way into the modified root, the affix becomes redundant, and can be dropped. Interestingly, this would jibe with what is believed by historical linguists to be a possible track of development of glottalization on obstruents (when not borrowed as for instance in Quechua, from Aymara and other Jaqi languages). Phonological systems with glottalized obstruents are extremely more common westward than eastward in the Americas, as are those with more than minimal aug/dim shifting. There seems also to be, in these languages, a tendency to allow consonantal identity to historically vary much more than the vocalic melody- perhaps a consequence of aug/dim shifting and selection of different alternants in different daughter languages. And these vocalic melodies in turn have strong sound symbolic associations- almost as if they carried the major semantic 'theme' of the lexeme. Opposite of the usual situation as in Eurasian languages? On the face of it these and other language properties and processes might appear rather far removed from relevance. But then again stranger things have been discovered. If pragmatic information (such as affective/attitude notions in aug/dim shift) start to infect the lexicon through grams (rather than the reverse), this would imply a development in the direction opposite that expected. The actual morphemes involved in such shifts are already quite 'worn away' - down to individual free features in many cases, glottalic and other. They help to pump up a numerically impoverished lexical rootstock, one perhaps with eroded phonology (a less capable source of new grams?)- pointing to things that have been said about polysynthesis by various scholars. One may see similar things going on in certain analytical languages (such as Matisoff's Lahu). Pragmatics ends up informing the lexicon by phonological distinctive feature 'micromanagement' rather than the creation of entirely new lexical roots, as in the case of ideophones. Jess Tauber From mg246 at cornell.edu Tue Jun 20 04:40:43 2006 From: mg246 at cornell.edu (Monica Gonzalez-Marquez) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:40:43 -0400 Subject: CFP - EMCL 3: Developing an experiment: from conception to implementation Message-ID: EMCL 3: Developing an experiment: from conception to implementation Date: October 17-18 , 2006 Place: University of Murcia (Spain) To precede the conference of the Spanish Cognitive Linguistics Association (AELCO-SCOLA) as a satellite event. http://www.um.es/lincoing/aelco2006/ *******Application deadline extended to: July 15, 2006******* The last few years have yielded promising experimental evidence for an embodied view of language. The work of researchers such as Bergen, Boroditsky, Matlock, Santiago, Majid, and Feist, among others, has provided glimpses of the intricate cross-buttressing between language and other cognitive processes. In order for the promise of these findings to come to fruition, many more researchers will have to join the ranks of the field?s leaders. The interdisciplinary training required to advance Experimental Cognitive Linguistics remains, unfortunately, scarce at most universities. This makes the transition from one way of looking at language to another often overwhelming and intimidating. Most beginners never get started because they don't know who to ask for help, how to begin, what questions to ask, what to read. As such, the focus for ?EMCL III? will be ?Developing an experiment: from conception to implementation.? The goal will be to unite gifted cognitive linguists lacking experimental training, with experienced researchers who will guide them in the development and implementation of an experiment. The workshop will also serve to introduce new researchers to the community of active experimentalists, to whom they will be able to look to for guidance long after the workshop is over. Intended Audience: This workshop is aimed specifically at scholars with sound theoretical knowledge in their field though lacking in experimental training. Participants are not expected to have any background at all in experimentation. Candidate should at least have completed initial university training ( a B.A. in the US, be working on their Masters degree if training in Europe) in theoretical linguistics, or a similar program and be familiar with cognitive linguistics (this familiarity need not have occurred in a formal university setting. Graduate students (post-grads, pre-doctoral, etc.), as well as post-doctoral researchers and junior faculty are also invited to apply. The only real prerequisite is a background in cognitive linguistics, and no experimental experience. Please note: Unlike at previous EMCL workshops, attendance to this session will be strictly limited to the invited participants. No exceptions will be made so as to preserve the pedagogical integrity of the workshop. Format: A selected group of students (max.20) will be invited to participate. Students will be divided into four groups; each group will work with a researcher who will guide the group in selecting an idea, structuring and organizing an experiment, and carrying it out. The session will end with the presentation of findings and a general discussion. Topics to be covered include: - Deciding on a research topic - Transforming the research topic into a research question - Developing experimental hypotheses and designing an experiment - Data collection - Statistical analysis and interpretation - Presentation of findings to an audience Cost: 120 Euros (Some student grants may be possible. Details will be announced shortly.) Accommodation: (to be announced) Application: To apply, please send the following by July 15, 2006. All materials must be submitted electronically to Monica Gonzalez-Marquez at mg246 at cornell.edu. Accepted applicants will be notified by August 1, 2006. 1. A maximum of two (2) pages, (1000 words), describing - your background, - your reasons for wanting to participate, - the researcher you would like to work with and why - a description of at least one research question you want to explore. This is not expected to be a detailed research plan. All you need to do is tell us about what you would like to work on so that the researcher you will work with can be better prepared. For example, if you are interested in aspect in Euskera, describe what you find interesting along with the questions you would like to address. 2. A copy of your curriculum vitae. 3. One letter of recommendation from someone who knows your work, preferably your advisor. This person does not need to be someone who studies cognitive linguistics, but simply someone who can evaluate your potential. Have this person submit the letter directly to mg246 at cornell.edu Faculty: Benjamin Bergen (University of Manoa at Hawai) Asifa Majid (Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen, Holland) Julio Santiago (University of Barcelona) Michelle Feist (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) Faculty interests can be found at: http://www.um.es/lincoing/aelco2006/ Organizing committee: Monica Gonzalez-Marquez, Cornell University Javier Valenzuela, University of Murcia _________________________________________ So that the form takes as many risks as the content -- ? "Ava" by Carole Maso M?nica Gonz?lez-M?rquez Psychology Department Cornell University B96b Uris Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 mg246 at cornell.edu (607) 255-6397 From bernd.heine at uni-koeln.de Wed Jun 21 07:13:24 2006 From: bernd.heine at uni-koeln.de (Bernd Heine) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:13:24 +0200 Subject: Limits of Language In-Reply-To: <42317DC6.5020802@ling.helsinki.fi> Message-ID: I know that this is not really a forum for commercials. Nevertheless, please allow me to draw your attention to a book that has just been published by a fairly little known publisher: Mikael Parkvall 2006. Limits of language. London: Battlebridge. This is an unusual book. First, it contains a wide range of information about language and linguistic behavior, some of it well known, much of it new (at least to me), and a good part of it unexpected and surprising. Second, it is the ideal book to attract a freshman who might still be hesitant on whether linguistics is really worth the effort. And third, it is a highly suitable source for introductory courses to linguistics; it answers many of the questions that students constantly confront you with but where you are not always quite sure whether you have the best answer at hand. (Finally, a warning: If you have little time to spend, do not open this book, because chances are high that once you have looked at it you will not stop before you have read it from cover to cover.) Bernd From andrea.schalley at une.edu.au Thu Jun 22 08:12:58 2006 From: andrea.schalley at une.edu.au (Andrea Schalley) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:12:58 +1000 Subject: Australian Linguistics Institute 2006 Message-ID: ** LAST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ** Dear FUNKNETlers, Below you'll find information about the Australian Linguistics Institute to be held in Brisbane in early July 2006. See the full course listing below - ALI has a focus on language and cognition, and there's a lot here to meet the wide range of interests that FUNKNET members have. We look forward to seeing you there Andrea Schalley ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Full Title: Australian Linguistics Institute 2006 Location: University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Date: 10-14 July 2006 URL: http://www.ali2006.une.edu.au/ Contact:????Andrea Schalley Email: andrea.schalley at une.edu.au ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ALI 2006 is a selection of 12 short intensive courses presented by world experts in their fields. It's a unique opportunity for graduate students, advanced undergraduates, professional linguists, and language professionals to upgrade their knowledge and skills in key areas of linguistics. Many courses in ALI 2006 are on the theme 'Language and Cognition', while others focus on language typology, acquisition, and aspects of linguistic theory. Each course consists of five 90 minute sessions, running Monday through Friday. Three sets of courses will be running in parallel, so participants can attend a maximum of four courses. Confirmed topics and presenters are as follows. ??? * Bilingualism: cognitive aspects ????? Istvan Kecskes (State University of New York, Albany) ??? * Cognitive linguistics ????? John Taylor (University of Otago) ??? * Combinatory grammar and natural cognition ????? Mark Steedman (University of Edinburgh) ??? * L2 syntax: Age dependent effects ????? Bonnie Schwartz (University of Hawai'i) ??? * Language and genetics ????? Brian Byrne (University of New England) ??? * Language and thought ????? Lera Boroditsky (Stanford University) ??? * Logic in child language acquisition ????? Stephen Crain (Macquarie University Centre for Cognitive Science) ??? * Morphology and lexical representations ????? Andrew Spencer (University of Essex) ??? * NonPamaNyungan languages of Northern Australia ????? Nicholas Evans (Melbourne University) ??? * Papuan languages ????? William Foley (University of Sydney) ??? * Semantics masterclass ????? Anna Wierzbicka (Australian National University) ??? * Understanding typological distribution ????? Balthasar Bickel (University of Leipzig) ALI 2006 is organised by the Language and Cognition Research Centre of the University of New England. For more information, contact Cliff Goddard cgoddard at une.edu.au, Andrea Schalley andrea.schalley at une.edu.au, or Nick Reid nreid at une.edu.au .