LL-L "Morphology" 2005.09.27 (07) [E]
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Wed Sep 28 04:47:47 UTC 2005
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: "Morphology" [E]
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Morphology
> In Low Saxon, for instance, there is the measure word _göpsch_ denoting
> the
> amount of something (e.g., water or berries) that fits into two cupped
> hands
> held together. That would be an example of a special measure. I have
> never
> come across an equivalent in another language.
You have now!
This is a "gowpen" in Scots. Are they ny any chance related? :)
It's often used in the plural, eg "gowpens o siller" (loads of money).
The phrase "head of cattle" is the only thing I can think of in English that
seems like the Chinese usage of classifiers. It does seem to related to how
things are counted (we don't count the hooves and divide by four!) and you
could well imagine the phrase "one head of cattle" being used. It's the
phrase I always thought of to help me get a grip on Malay.
> Here's a brief explanation of what our Ben is talking about. (I did an
> honors thesis on the Chinese case.) Numerous East and Southeast Asian
This discussion tends to come up whenever I use the term "classifier" with
respect to sign languages. As I've said before on the list, however, early
sign linguists were Chomskyists and therefore tried to force oral language
terminology on sign languages on the assumption that Chomsky's discredited
"deep structure" theory would apply to all languages.
Thus they re-used the term classifier for what they saw as a phenomenon that
classified signs according to certain properties.
Classifiers in sign languages are channel configurations (usually sign
linguists talk as if they were just handshapes but there seems to me to be
more to them than this) that are used in large groups of signs.
Some examples:
Legs classifier: the "V" hand (index and middle fingers extended) is used
such that the two fingers represent legs. Thus you can make signs like
"walk", "stand", "kneel", "drunk" and after a bit of observation and
experience you can natuarally start using them to construct any number of
signs: "wander", "walk upstairs/downstairs", "walk upstairs and then fall
all the way back down again".
Eyebeam classifier: the "V" hand as before is used but with the eyegaze
usually following the line of the fingers to indicate eyebeams (typical
signs: look, look after him, look after me, look after yourself, eye up,
stare, read, swot up; the classifier can be extended to use all eight
fingers to indicate the eyebeams of a group of people: they're looking at
us, everybody turned to look at me).
Crowd classifier: all eight fingers as before can be used to represent a
crowd, each finger representing an imaginary line of people (typical signs:
lots of people turned up, audience, war, carnival procession, people milling
around).
You may see why I say "channel configurations" - several classifiers may use
the same handshape but you need to use the correct orientation, eyegaze and
suchlike to indicate a specific classifier.
A few simpler ones: the point of a straight index finger can be used to draw
smooth lines (signs: square, triangle, circle, room, heart, diamond); the
point of a bent finger can be used to draw jagged lines (signs: crack in
window pane, cracks in pavement, lightening, hard drive reading head on
undefragmented disk).
Now, I think that classifiers in oral languages are so called because they
group a set of words into different classes. You have these words in their
own right, but classifiers have come to be applied to them according to
their classification.
So in sign languages linguists have tried to say that you have signs that
get classified according to certain channel configurations that are used in
them, but I don't think this is right. Rather, you have a stock of channel
configurations that can be used to generate signs.
For example, you may come across a zig-zag staircase, you've never even
thought of that before but you can immediately use the legs classifier to
make the sign for it. This isn't to say that the sign existed before and you
applied a classifier to classify it. The sign has been generated through
your knowledge of channel configurations in BSL.
So I would say that what linguists call "classifiers" in sign languages
should really be called "generators". As I've said before, attempting to
describe sign langauges in terms of their similarities with oral languages
leads to all kinds of restrictions and misconceptions.
So, BSL classifiers are like Chinese classifiers? No, they're not even
classifiers!
Classifiers in BSL use a channel configuration to represent something
physical (a point, line, shape or way of holding) and then the configuration
is moved to represent some action (though if the action is small and
stressed or otherwise abstracted this would mean a noun rather than an
action). I think this corresponds to qualification in oral languages. Eg in
the English phrase "walk upstairs", "walk" corresponds to the legs
classifier in BSL and "upstairs" corresponds to the diagonally upward moving
direction of the classifier in the sign. A simple verb like "walk" in BSL
uses the classifier but it's considerably modified and abstracted to divorce
it from any simultaneous action.
I think simultaneity is the main casualty of the "comparative" approach to
sign language research: it doesn't much exist in spoken languages so that
sign linguists taking a comparative approach keep missing its importance -
indeed its prevalence - in sign languages.
Sandy
http://scotstext.org/
----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Morphology
Folks,
Something must have been going on with our server in the Netherlands today.
All of a sudden I got no more mail, not even junk. They did announce last
week that they were going to move us over to a new server. Lets hope this
inconvenience will be over soon.
Anyway, thanks a lot, Sandy.
> This is a "gowpen" in Scots. Are they ny any chance related? :)
Hmmm ... This sounds very encouraging. Indeed, indeed! This is what the
Oxford English Dictionary has to say about it (classifying it as "Sc. &
dial."):
<quote>
GOWPEN
[a. ON. gaupn (Norw. dial. gaupn, Sw. göpen, Da. gievn, giøvn, in the Dict.
of 1802) = OHG. coufana (MHG. goufen). Cf. YEPSEN.
The original sense of the Teut. word was prob. the single hand hollowed,
the sense of ‘double handful’ being expressed by the plural. The ON. word
seems to occur only as pl.; in mod.Scand. dialects the sing. is used, with
varying sense.]
</quote>
<quote>
YEPSEN
[ME. ƽespon, ƽyspon, yepsen, prob.: unrecorded OE. *ƽiepsen, *ƽiespen,
corresp. to MLG. gespe, gepse, (göpse), LG. gepse, geps, göpse, göps (G.
gäspe).
Various other formations are found in LG. dialects, e.g. göppsche,.
göpske, göppelsche, -ske; also early Flem. gaspe, gaps, Du. dial. gap(e, LG.
gâpske, gäppelsche, -ske.
Affinity of sense suggests derivation from the Teut. stem gaup- appearing
in OHG. *goufana (in dat. pl. coufanôm), MHG. goufen, later and dial. gauf,
ON. gaupn (whence GOWPEN). In the present state of the evidence it is
impossible to determine the relationship of these forms and of Lith.
źiùpsnis = as much as can be seized with two or three fingers, a small
handful or armful.]
The two hands placed together so as to form a bowl-shaped cavity; as
much as can be held in this; = GOWPEN
</quote>
How about that?! Bingo! Gold star and a half for Sandy! I wonder if it
has anything to do with "gap."
As for those "classifiers," Sandy, I'm getting the impression that those
sign classes are a bit like a blend of Chinese character radicals (basic
elements that indicate semantic category) and Bantu classifiers; e.g.,
Swahili:
root -- singular -- plural [class] {meaning}
-toto -- mtoto -- watoto [human] {child}
-moja -- mmoja -- == [human] {one}
-wili -- == -- wawili [human] {two}
-nasoma -- anasoma -- wanasoma [human] {read}
Mtoto mmoja anasoma. 'One child is reading'
Watoto wawili wanasoma. 'Two children are reading'
root -- singular -- plural [class] {meaning}
-chaka -- kichaka -- vichaka [plants, etc.] {clump of trees}
-moja -- kimoja -- == [plants, etc.] {one}
-wili -- == -- viwili [plants, etc.] {two}
-natosha -- kinatosha -- vinatosha [plants, etc.] {suffice}
Kichaka kimoja kinatosha. 'One clump of trees is enough.'
Vichaka viwili vinatosha. 'Two clumps of trees are enough.'
And then there is a fairly sophisticated system of modifying roots by means
of yet other prefixes; e.g.
root: -ti
singular -- plural {meaning}
mti -- miti {(part of) tree}
stem: -jiti (< -ti)
singular -- plural {meaning}
jiti -- majiti {large tree}
njiti -- njiti {small tree}
ujiti -- njiti {tall and slender tree}
Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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