Aymara's time metaphor reversed?

[Andrew LaVelle]

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
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>