analysis: unhappiness

Ad Foolen A.Foolen at let.ru.nl
Fri Sep 10 11:21:05 UTC 2010


When the historical dimension is taken into consideration, as Danielle Cyr 
proposes, it might be worthwhile to re-read Saussure's Cours, in particular 
his methodological reflections in the Appendices A, B, and C, following part 
3 (in my 1968 Payot edition page 251-260). Saussure  distinguishes between 
'analyse subjective' and 'analyse objective'. The first is made by the 
native speaker, the second one by the linguist ('le grammairien'). The 
subjective analysis is the one that plays a role in language change via 
'formations analogiques'. Analyses that come to the surface in 
psycholinguistic experiments as discussed in the present exchange did not 
play a role in Saussure's methodology.
Two examples from Appendix A (Cours, p. 251): "L'analyse objective voit 
quatre sous-unités dans amabas (am-a-ba-s); les Latins coupaient ama-ba-s; 
il est même probable qu'ils regardaient -bas comme un tout flexionell opposé 
au radical. Dans les mots français 'entier' (lat. in-teger 'intact'), 
'enfant' (lat. infans 'qui ne parle pas') 'enceinte' (lat. in-cincta 'sans 
ceinture'), l'historien dégagera un préfixe commun 'en-', identique au 
'in-'privatif du latin; l'analyse subjective des sujets parlants l'ignore 
totalement."
In Saussure's view, both perspectives have their value, but "en dernier 
resort celle [l'analyse] des sujets importe seule, car elle est fondé 
directement sur les faits de langue." (Cours, p. 252).

Ad Foolen



--------------------------------------------------
From: "Danielle E. Cyr" <dcyr at yorku.ca>
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2010 4:38 AM
To: "Edith A Moravcsik" <edith at uwm.edu>
Cc: "Lise Menn" <Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU>; "Richard Hudson" 
<dick at ling.ucl.ac.uk>; <dryer at buffalo.edu>; "Funknet" 
<funknet at mailman.rice.edu>
Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] analysis: unhappiness

> We might also want to take into account 1) the historical time span 
> extension of
> different people's grammatical knowledge and 2) the fact that 
> grammaticalization
> occurs progressively over generations so that not all people of a same
> generation have the same grammatical analysis in mind when they think 
> about
> morphological analysis.
>
> By 1) I mean that the more one knows about the history/evolution of a 
> language's
> morphology, spread over the longer a period of time, the finest 
> morphological
> analysis one will be able to make. For instance, when I present my 
> students
> with the French adverb MAINTENANT 'now' at first they can't parse it into
> separate morphemes. After some minutes and a little bit of coaxing they 
> come
> too see
> MAIN+TEMANT 'in hand' + 'holding', and finally MAIN+TEN+ANT 'in 
> hand'+'hold'+
> '-ing'. From that moment on, these students will integrate that precise
> morphological parsing. It will become part of their "internal historical
> grammar" and they will not really be able to go back to the "feeling" that
> MAINTENANT is only one morpheme.
>
> Now when I present them with the adverb AUJOURD'HUI 'today' and we go back 
> in
> time to AD+ILLU(M)+DIURN(UM)+DE+HO(C)+DIE(M), the evolution of which spans 
> over
> more than 2000 years, it totally transforms their inner historical 
> grammar. They
> become different speakers of French from who they were before.
>
> By 2) I mean what is made totally explicit in Hopper and Traugott
> Grammaticalization (1993) and Marchello-Nizia (2006) Grammaticalisation et
> changement linguistique, Bruxelles, De Boeck). Speakers of a same language
> community do not all have the exact same grammar in mind simply  because
> language change occurs constantly and progressively among different social
> groups, classes and generations. So it will always be impossible to get
> everyone to produce morphological parsing in the same exact way.
>
> Language, and grammar with it, are realities in constant flux. Conceiving 
> that
> there is a unique stable grammar "out there" is "une vue de l'esprit". It 
> helps
> us to think about the flux with a sensation of being on solid ground. 
> Perhaps
> just like believing there is a God out there helps some of us to cope with
> impermanence.
>
> Cordialement,
> Danielle Cyr
> 



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