10.1268, Disc: Re:Universal Word Order

[LINGUIST Network]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-10-1268. Tue Aug 31 1999. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 10.1268, Disc: Re:Universal Word Order

Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Wayne State U.<aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org>
            Andrew Carnie: U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org>

Reviews: Andrew Carnie: U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org>

Associate Editors:  Martin Jacobsen <marty at linguistlist.org>
                    Ljuba Veselinova <ljuba at linguistlist.org>
		    Scott Fults <scott at linguistlist.org>
		    Jody Huellmantel <jody at linguistlist.org>
		    Karen Milligan <karen at linguistlist.org>

Assistant Editors:  Lydia Grebenyova <lydia at linguistlist.org>
		    Naomi Ogasawara <naomi at linguistlist.org>
		    James Yuells <james at linguistlist.org>

Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
                      Chris Brown <chris at linguistlist.org>
                      Qian Liao <qian at linguistlist.org>

Home Page:  http://linguistlist.org/


Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karen at linguistlist.org>

=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Mon, 30 Aug 1999 20:19:28 EDT
From:  JFThiels at aol.com
Subject:  Re: 10.1263, Disc: Universal Word Order

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Mon, 30 Aug 1999 20:19:28 EDT
From:  JFThiels at aol.com
Subject:  Re: 10.1263, Disc: Universal Word Order

	
	In a message dated 99-08-30 19:42:26 EDT, you write:
	
	<< Now, suppose the woman eats the apple and visits her boyfriend, who offers
	 to cook dinner for her. According to the SVO rationale and Sapir-Whorf, the
	 woman realizes that she has already eaten before she realizes that the apple
	 is what she ate. Thus, cognitive perception of the preterit, 'to eat',
	 precedes perception of the direct object, 'the apple'. SOV speakers,
	 therefore, must modify the order of cognitive perception to fit the word
	 order demands of their languages. >>
	
	I think it is important to clarify here what one can actually find out from
	the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and what it refers to; there are two versions, the
	strong version (which a careful reading of Sapir will dispel) and a weaker
	version which is not usually contested as such.  The following are from my
	class notes from linguistics with Dr. Judith Irvine, who has compiled many of
	Sapir's collected works and reconstructed his lectures on the Psychology of
	Culture.
	
	The strong version holds that language determines perception and therefore
	expression...this is not what Sapir ever wrote.  Whorf said some things which
	could be read that way, but even then, considering that his articles were
	written for engineers not acquainted with linguistics, it is important to
	read very carefully and consider what his inclusion of the diagrams meant.
	
	The hypothesis makes three propositions about language and thought:
	
	First, there is the issue of linguistic relativism:
	
	1) Ways of thought are intimately related to the structure of language
	(Questions:  what is meant by thinking?  What are the relevant linguistic
	structures?)
	
	2) Relative linguistic structures significantly differ between language
	
	3) There is a causative link between some structures of language and the
	thinking of its speakers.  Does that link influence only habitual,
	inattentive thinking (weak version) or does it absolutely determine or
	control or prevent alternatives (stronger version)
	
	The geneology of this idea is through Boas, Sapir and Whorf.  Boas, who was
	one of the first to argue against the randomness of sounds made by speakers
	of indigenous American languages (oh, how far we've come) spoke a lot about 1
	and 2, and very little about three...where he came close was in the
	obligatoriness of certain categories for speakers of particular languages.
	Jakobson took this up in his paper on Boas, pointing out for example, that
	languages that force the speaker to reveal the gender of a friend
	(amigo/amiga) do so...English, for example does not and if someone asks , "Is
	it a male or female friend", the English speaker can reply "It's none of your
	business."  English does not, however, prevent one from noticing the gender
	of one's friend.  (Neither does Portuguese, either)
	
	The strongest point Sapir himself made in this direction was in stating that
	language is an essential part of the determination of SOCIAL life, but he did
	not say the material world or the perception of it.  Whorf, who came closest
	to stating #3 in strong terms, was not writing for linguists, and was talking
	about what language forced you to notice about the material world and the
	strength of convention in habitual thinking and expression.  These are hardly
	earth-shaking propositions if, admittedly, difficult to test by today's
	standards.  Much of the testing that has been done has been with categories
	directly linked to lexical items and color terms that are as close as
	possible to hard-wired in.  These are probably the least interesting aspects
	of language to investigate and also very easily manipulated by consciousness.
	
	
	There is so much ink spilled in condemning  or misunderstanding Sapir for his
	supposed hypothesis, but actually testing it is difficult.  If people are
	actually interested, John Lucy has published two books on the hypothesis and
	his experiments with speakers of a Mayan language in classifying certain
	kinds of objects.  I have not read his books carefully but I have heard they
	are worth a look.
	There is also a collection of papers looking at S-W called "Rethinking
	Linguistic Relativity" (I have neither "bold" nor "underline" right now) that
	you can look at with a multiplicity of views...
	
	Michael Silverstein of the University of Chicago has published a couple of
	papers which might be interesting on this point.  One from 1984 is called
	"The Limits of Awareness" and another is "Shifters, Linguistic Categories and
	Cultural Description," republished in a book called Language, Culture and
	Society (Waveland Press).
	
	By the way, what about the VSO languages (such as Irish Gaelic) and OSV
	(Malagasy)... German also makes you wait for the main verb quite often,
	although its basic formula is SVO (Like this contribution, you have to wait
	until the end to get to another point...)
	
	All the best in your thinking
	
	John Thiels
	Ph.D. candidate
	Brandeis University
	

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-10-1268