29.3339, Review: General Linguistics; Linguistic Theories; Typology: Dixon, Aikhenvald (2017)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-29-3339. Thu Aug 30 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.3339, Review: General Linguistics; Linguistic Theories; Typology: Dixon, Aikhenvald (2017)

Moderator: linguist at linguistlist.org (Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Helen Aristar-Dry, Robert Coté)
Homepage: https://linguistlist.org

Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
           https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Jeremy Coburn <jecoburn at linguistlist.org>
================================================================


Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 14:54:27
From: Nicolas Ruytenbeek [nruytenb at ulb.ac.be]
Subject: Commands

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36376657


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-3438.html

EDITOR: Alexandra Y Aikhenvald
EDITOR: R. M. W. Dixon
TITLE: Commands
SUBTITLE: A Cross-Linguistic Typology
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2017

REVIEWER: Nicolas Ruytenbeek, Université Libre de Bruxelles

SUMMARY

In Chapter 1, “Imperatives and commands: a cross-linguistic view”, Aikhenvald
and Dixon, the book editors, define the issues that are dealt with in the
volume. These include the theoretical distinction between imperatives and
directives, the notion of “command strategies”, the canonical vs.
non-canonical imperative distinction, the cross-cultural tendencies to develop
non-imperative forms instead of imperatives, the grammatical features of
imperatives (person, number, grammatical relations, verbal categories,
imperative specific categories) and their politeness overtones. Other
important issues concern negated imperatives and the restrictions applying to
imperatives, the variety of directive and non-directive speech acts that can
be performed using imperatives, diversified command strategies, imperatives in
language history and the formation of an imperative paradigm (archaic forms
vs. enrichment). Another central question relates to the cultural practices
reflected in the use and interpretation of imperatives.

This first chapter explains that the volume offers an overview of the
cross-cultural diversity of imperatives and other command strategies. The
common thread of the book is constituted by the issues listed in this chapter
and the parameters that make world languages different. The book covers 14
languages, most of them being spoken by minorities. These 14 individual
contributions are revised versions of conference papers, and their analyses
are cast in the cumulative typological framework of “basic linguistic theory”.

Chapters 2 to 4 are devoted to South American languages.

In Chapter 2, “Imperatives and commands in Quechua”, Willem Adelaar provides
general information concerning the grammar of Quechua (spoken in Western South
America), including word classes, grammatical categories and clause types. He
presents data from varieties of Quechua, consisting in fieldwork notes. The
chapter addresses how imperatives are expressed in Quechua, the use of future,
negative commands, copular constructions in the environment of an imperative,
and the grammatical category of the imperative. There is also a discussion of
politeness communicated by means of verbal derivational affixes, of
pre-imperatives and special imperatives typical of Quechua, and of post-verbal
clitics used to strengthen or attenuate directive illocutionary force. A
section concerns non-imperative strategies used to command (present potential
and deontic constructions).

Chapter 3, “The grammatical representation of commands and prohibitions in
Aguaruna”, is based on written data from fieldwork on this language spoken in
North Peru. First, an overview of Aguaruna grammar is provided, focusing on
verbal morphology (aspect and tense). Then, Simon Overall discusses directives
and negated directives in Aguaruna, the role of imperative markers and the
pragmatic effects of imperative directives.

Chapter 4, “Imperatives in Ashaninka Satipo (Kampa Arawak) of Peru”, is about
a language spoken in the Satipo province of Peru, and documented with data
from recent fieldwork (recorded/filmed naturally occurring spoken exchanges).
The author, Elena Mihas, offers a description of Ashaninka, focusing on verbal
morphology, verbal categories and clause intonation. The chapter contains a
discussion of restrictions on imperative formation, of prohibitives and
preventives. It includes an overview of the morphological specification of
action parameters, and of the enclitics used to attenuate or intensify
directive force. Command strategies, verbal responses to commands, mock-up
commands as disagreements, and commands specific for pets and spiritual
entities are discussed. The chapter ends with a discussion of the linguistic
modification of commands according to speaker and addressee status.

Chapter 5, “Commands in Zenzontepec Chatino (Otomanguean)”, is about an
indigenous language spoken in Mexico. Eric Campbell illustrates this language
with a corpus of transcribed texts created by himself and the Zenzontepec
community. He provides an overview of the grammar of the language, addressing
in turn constituent order, the morphology of pronouns, and tonal melody.
Canonical imperatives are distinguished from non-canonical imperatives and
prohibitives. In that language, imperatives are used in a variety of speech
acts other than directives. Alternatives to imperatives in commands, such as
potential mood, and their socio-cultural and communicative motivations, are
also covered.

In Chapter 6, “What Dyirbal uses instead of commands”, Robert Dixon starts
with an overview of the grammar of Dyirbal, an Australian Aboriginal language
that is almost extinct. Focusing on potentiality and caution inflections, he
addresses the imperative as one aspect of the semantic category of
potentiality. Building on his extensive fieldwork on this language, he
underlines the difficulty of applying concepts such as positive/negative
imperatives to any culture or language.

An endangered language belonging to the Uto-Aztecan family is discussed in
Chapter 7, “On the heterogeneity of Northern Paiute directives”. Tim Thorns
describes the morphology, syntax, grammatical categories, verbal structures
and grammatical relations of the language. Alongside simple imperative forms,
other command strategies, such as a future and subjunctive, are mentioned. The
author also includes a section about the possible origin of the constructions
used in negative commands and the historical developments of directive
constructions.

Chapter 8 is entitled “Imperatives and commands in Japanese”. After
preliminary information about Japanese and Japanese verbs, Nerida Jarkey
discusses the socio-cultural constraints on the use of imperatives and the
performance of a variety of directive speech acts in Japanese. Then she turns
to polite imperative forms, semantic constraints on imperatives, and their
non-directive uses. Using authentic observation of workplace interactions, she
reviews the varieties of directive strategies in Japanese (addressee
oriented/speaker oriented).

Chapter 9, “Linguistic expressions of commands in Lao”, is about Lao, a tonal
language spoken in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. Nick Enfield illustrates this
chapter with fieldwork data consisting in direct observation, elicitation and
video recordings. A discussion of the grammatical expression of imperatives is
proposed. This includes sentence-types, forms of address, verb serialization,
imperative constructions and negative imperatives. The linguistic expression
of commands (sentence-final particles) is also addressed, and the author
compares the forms used as commands according to social status differences.

Chapters 10 to 13 are devoted to Papuan languages.

In Chapter 10, “Imperatives and commands strategies in Tayatuk”, Valérie
Guérin provides an overview of the verbal morphology, verb classes and
morphological structure of clauses in the Tayatuk language. She describes the
morphology of canonical, non-canonical and negative imperatives. Directive
strategies, which are numerous in Tayatuk, are ranked in terms of their
relative coercive strength. The chapter ends with a note on the prosodic
contours associated with the performance of commands in Tayatuk.

Chapter 11 concerns “Imperatives and commands in Nungon”. Building on
transcribed texts, Hannah Sarvazy addresses imperative forms and imperative
clauses, aspect in the imperative, and the morphology of prohibitives. An
analysis of responses to commands is also offered. The author highlights the
polite overtones of imperative forms and the use of imperatives in other
clause types and as discourse markers. She draws attention to the various
directive strategies, verbless directives, the origin of imperative forms,
their politeness effects, and the special case of commands addressed to dogs.

In Chapter 12, “The imperative paradigm of Korowai, a greater Awyu language of
West Papua”, Lourens de Vries describes the verbal system of Korowai, before
turning to the imperative paradigm, imperative adverbs, considerations of
tense and aspect, prohibitives and the connection between irrealis and
imperative zero-forms. The chapter also deals with semantic constraints on
imperatives and cultural aspects such as politeness.

Chapter 13 is entitled “Commands as a form of intimacy among the Karawari of
Papua New Guinea”. Borut Telban provides a brief overview of the language. She
then elaborates on the cultural significance of commands in Ambonwaki, and on
their specific falling intonation and increased intensity. She also addresses
non-verbal commands, verbal imperative/hortative constructions and the use of
potentiality in mild directives.

Chapter 14, “Commands in Wolaitta”, introduces an Omotic language spoken in
South West Ethiopia. After basic information about the Wolaitta language, Azeb
Amha illustrates Wolaitta sentence-types and offers a review of previous
studies on this language. The author addresses the specificity of person
distinctions, negative imperatives, the polite overtones of imperative forms,
and the pragmatic use of imperatives as directives, including a repertoire of
directive expressions used for pets.

In Chapter 15, “Veiled commands: anthropological perspectives on directives”,
Rosita Henry offers a critical discussion of the interpersonal dynamics of
directives with a focus on the type of speech acts performed in Papua New
Guinea. She discusses the concept of “veiling a command” in the context of
egalitarian societies, and emphasises the discrepancy between speakers’
intentions and the active role of addressees/listeners in the performance of
directives by the people of the Western Highlands.

EVALUATION

In addressing the pragmatic uses of the imperative and the variety of forms
used to perform directives in different languages, this book contributes to
research on the semantics and pragmatics of sentence-types from a typological
perspective. It achieves one of its main goals, providing a broad picture of
the complex connections between imperatives and directives in typologically
distinct languages. This is well explained by the editors in a substantial
introductory chapter, where they also inform the reader of the issues they
consider most important for the volume at hand.

The common theoretical framework adopted in the individual contributions makes
the volume coherent. Systematic attention is drawn to the following aspects:
imperative forms, canonical vs. non-canonical imperatives, the grammar of
imperatives, the semantic restrictions on imperatives, non-directive uses of
imperatives, non-imperative directive strategies, negative imperatives. Each
chapter includes a short description of the language studied and of the data
used to illustrate it.

Most contributions deal with endangered languages, which adds to the general
coherence of the book. Data description is rigorous in all the chapters, and
it is well-documented. In their data collection, the authors resort to
relevant combinations of methodologies, such as field notes, video/audio
recording of interactions, transcriptions of elicited written data.

A possible concern that has to do with coherence, however, is the presence of
a chapter devoted to Japanese. I agree that the grammar of Japanese and its
directive strategies is very interesting, but, unlike, the languages studied
in the other chapters, Japanese is not spoken by a minority of people and
there is already a considerable literature on the semantics and pragmatics of
Japanese imperatives and directives. By contrast, the other chapters cover
languages for which little documentation is available and/or on which few
studies have been carried out. Another issue relates to the considerable space
devoted to South American (Chapters 2 to 4) and Papuan (Chapters 11 to 15)
languages. With the exception of an Omotic language, African languages are
somewhat neglected, as are European languages; the volume would have
benefitted from comparisons between these languages and other geographically
distant languages.

The use of the terminology outlined is the first chapter is consistent
throughout the book, with minor exceptions, such as the confusion arising from
the term “imperative strategies” in Chapter 2 (on Page 58 the term either
misleadingly refers to “command/directive strategies” or to the pragmatic uses
of imperatives; a convenient and transparent terminology, i.e.,
“non-imperative directives” is only mentioned in a footnote on Page 25). In
addition, there is a mismatch between the title of the volume, i.e., “A
Cross-Linguistic Typology”, and its content, i.e., separate studies of
imperatives and directives in different languages. The volume does not exactly
provide a typology of imperatives or directive SAs across world languages.
Furthermore, it is not made explicit which speech act typology is assumed, and
it remains unclear whether “command” is a synonym for “directive” or actually
refers to a particular subtype of directives, distinct from e.g., requests.

I have no doubt that this original and easy-to-read volume will appeal not
only to typological linguists and sociolinguists, but also to many scholars in
the fields of semantics and pragmatics, in particular those interested in the
relationship between sentence-types and illocutionary forces. The individual
chapters do not directly answer the question of what are the general
cross-linguistic patterns in the use of imperatives as directive speech acts.
That being said, it opens further perspectives for research on the forms used
as directives in structurally different languages spoken in the same
geographical areas, such as in diglossic linguistic contexts.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Nicolas Ruytenbeek holds a PhD in Linguistics from the Université libre de
Bruxelles. He is interested in the study of utterance interpretation, both
from a theoretical and an experimental perspective, and specifically addresses
issues at the semantics-pragmatics interface.





------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:

              The IU Foundation Crowd Funding site:
       https://iufoundation.fundly.com/the-linguist-list

               The LINGUIST List FundDrive Page:
            https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/
 


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-29-3339	
----------------------------------------------------------