form without meaning
Edith A Moravcsik
edith at CSD.UWM.EDU
Fri Jan 17 23:50:16 UTC 1997
===> To LIZ BATES:
Liz, you suggested (Saturday, January 11) that the claim that
syntactic form could be described independently of meaning assumed that
syntactic classes were of the classical type, with strict category
membership. You further pointed out that syntactic categories were
not in fact of this sort and that their fuzzy nature was difficult
to explain without reference to their meanings.
I agree that, for EXPLAINING the existence of natural syntactic
categories, we may have to resort to studying their meanings.
This does not mean, however, that natural classes cannot be discovered
and described on strictly formal grounds; in this respect,
I agree with Dan Everett's (same-day) response to you.
I found your later message on the four problems in obtaining
grammaticality judgments very interesting and instructive!
===> to JON ASKE:
Jon, in your response to my response to your original posting
(Sunday, January 12), you wrote this:
"I just don't see why we would want to restrict our linguistic
analysis to the more formal aspects of constructions and ignore
their function/meaning pole, their history, and so on. .... To me,
studying the formal aspects of such constructions without looking at
what they are made for, how they are made, etc. *as a matter of
principle*, just does not make sense. I came to the early
realization that these constructions should not be studied as
merely formal operations. These constructions exist for a purpose,
and their form reflects the function that they arose for in the
first place, even if they have picked up additional bagage along
the way. And to me that is the most interesting part of analysing
language/grammar."
I agree with almost all of this. In particular, I agree that
a/ linguistic analysis should not be restricted to form,
with function ignored (in my contribution, I did not
mean to suggest the opposite)
b/ constructions exist for a purpose and figuring out
the extent and the ways they reflect function is the most
interesting part of analysing grammar.
Where I may not agree is that studying the form of constructions
without looking at their function makes no sense. It really depends
on what you mean by "studying". If you mean "giving a complete
account", then I fully agree: describing the functions of linguistic
form and how they correlate with form is part of a complete account.
But if by "studying" you mean "restricting momentary attention"
(where "momentary" may be taken on a grand sale, possibly extending
to the lifetime of a linguist), then I cannot agree. I see the
study of linguistic form as a logically necessary step in arriving
at a complete account of linguistic constructions since, as Talmy
Givo'n pointed out (Saturday, January 11), if a complete account
involves specifying a (cor)relation between form and function,
this presupposes that we have an independent characterization of
both form and function.
This point does not have to do with research schedule: I am
not proposing that all of form needs to have been discovered
before we can begin to look at function. The two lines of
research usually go in tandem I believe. Rather, the point has to do
with the logical priority of a description of form and a
description of meaning over an account of the relationship between
the two.
At the very real risk of battling a straw man or beating a dead
horse (and without attributing this extreme view to Jon Aske),
let me note that what the idea - when taken in a literal sense -
that the form of functional objects cannot be described unless
one knows the associated functions would amount to is that the
usual descriptive tools we use for characterizing the form of a
non-functional object would simply fail us in the case of
functional objects: we would have to hold off on their formal
description until we found out about their functions. This would mean,
for example, the following:
- One could describe the formal structure of a string of beads
a child would create with no purpose in mind but not the
shape of a rosary - unless one knew that the beads stood
for various prayers.
- One could describe the chemical composition of naturally
occurring materials but not that of synthetic drugs, unless
we knew what each component was supposed to contribute
to the intended healing effect.
- One could describe the form of a musical composition free of
containing designated motifs with explicit meanings but not
the form of a Wager opera - unless one knew what each motif
stood for.
- One could describe the random hand-flailings of an infant,
but not the hand gestures of body language or sign language,
unless one knew the meanings of the gestures.
- One could describe the form of a piece of rock naturally
shaped as a hammer but not the shape of a real hammer, unless
one recognized it for an instrument for pounding in nails.
- One could describe the form of the Easter Island statues
just in case they were meant to be non-functional; if they
were meant to be functional, no description would be possible
unless one learnt what the functions were.
- One could describe the form of non-symbolic carvings on a
rock surface but not if those carvings happened to be samples
of writing; in which case we would have to discover what
each symbol stood for before being able to characterize the
forms of the symbols.
Such descriptive impoasses caused by lack of knowledge about
the function of the object to be described clearly do not arise.
Where knowlefge about function comes in for the analysis of
form is on the explanatory, rather than descriptive, level:
in helping to explain why the form of a functional object is the
way it is.
Best - Edith
************************************************************************
Edith A. Moravcsik
Department of Linguistics
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413
USA
E-mail: edith at csd.uwm.edu
Telephone: (414) 229-6794 /office/
(414) 332-0141 /home/
Fax: (414) 229-6258
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