16.1588, Review: Ling Theories/Pragmatics: Contini-Morava et al.

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1588. Wed May 18 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.1588, Review: Ling Theories/Pragmatics: Contini-Morava et al.

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1)
Date: 18-May-2005
From: Asunción Villamil Touriño < asunvt at yahoo.es >
Subject: Cognitive and Communicative Approaches to Linguistic Analysis 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 21:33:38
From: Asunción Villamil Touriño < asunvt at yahoo.es >
Subject: Cognitive and Communicative Approaches to Linguistic Analysis 
 

EDITORS: Contini-Morava, Ellen; Kirsner, Robert S.; Rodríguez-Bachiller, Betsy 
TITLE: Cognitive and Communicative Approaches to Linguistic Analysis 
SERIES: Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics 51 
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins Publishing Company
YEAR: 2004 
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-134.html


Asunción Villamil Touriño, English Department, Escuela Oficial de Idiomas 
de Cuenca (Official Language School), Spain

SYNOPSIS

This volume is a collection of papers which are the product of the 
Columbia School Linguistics Conference held at Rutgers University in 
October 1999. The book's main motivation is to present the dialogue 
between two linguistic schools, Columbia School (CS) and Cognitive Grammar 
(CG). The relationships between both are first sketched in the thorough 
introduction by Robert S. Kirsner (pp.1-18), which plunges the reader into 
the book and raises interest on the contrasting and parallel views of CS 
and CG. 

The first part of the book is devoted to Cognitive Grammar and includes 
two articles developed on the light shed by this current of analysis. The 
first one is "Form, meaning, and behavior: The Cognitive Grammar analysis 
of double subject constructions" (pp. 21-60), by Ronald W. Langacker. The 
introductory sections of the article constitute a presentation of CG, with 
a concise sketching of its most important concepts (trajectory, landmark, 
profiling, etc.) and basic tenets (continuum of syntax, morphology and 
lexicon or inherent meaning of grammatical markers and construction, among 
the most salient). The advantages of this line of analysis are 
persuasively presented through the analysis of double subject 
constructions in a wide range of languages. Then Langacker moves on to a 
detailed comparison between CS and CG, providing convincing answers to 
several criticisms made by CS, such as its dependence on some concepts of 
traditional grammar and its ambitious and perhaps unfeasible target of 
applying knowledge about cognition to analysis. The basic difference 
between both schools is revealed in their general approach to the 
possibility of language analysis, since CG takes a broad and inclusive 
view and CS narrows the scope of analysis due to the difficulties of 
linguistic research. Apart from this difference in the starting point, 
Langacker accepts the analysis proposed by CS in essence and offers the 
challenging view of considering CS to be included within the wider shade 
of CG.

The second article that takes CG as it framework is Michael B. 
Smith's "Cataphoric pronouns as mental space designators: Their conceptual 
import and discourse function" (pp. 61-90). This article provides some 
insight into the somewhat neglected cataphoric pronouns appearing in 
constructions such as "I despise it that John voted for the governor" by 
appealing to the notion of mental spaces as described by Fauconnier and 
others. The study of examples from English, but also from German and 
Russian, leads the author to catalogue these pronouns as "mental space 
designators" inasmuch they designate and help the building up of mental 
spaces by anticipating the mental space that will be created by the 
subordinate clause following them. As CG maintains that grammatical 
markers are not arbitrary, but have a meaning, semantic motivations are 
searched for this use. The following are suggested: accentuation of 
conceptual distance, evocation of especial emphasis and accentuation of a 
space's physical boundaries. Compelling evidence from examples is given to 
support these claims. 

Finishing with CG articles, the volume includes a second part dealing with 
theoretical issues in classical sign-based linguistics. One of the 
traditional assumptions of CS is the non-existence of polysemy, which is 
explored the article "Monosemy, homonymy and polysemy" (pp. 93-129) by 
Wallis Reid. The prepositions at, in and on are chosen for an 
exemplification of the reduction of traditionally polysemous signs to one 
single-meaning items. Each of them is postulated to have one single 
abstract meaning (similar to the schematic meanings suggested by CG) based 
on the number of dimensions that they conceptualize: in encompasses three 
dimensions in location, on more than zero and less than three, and at 
involves zero dimensions. Through the application of metaphor as described 
by cognitive grammarians, these meanings are transferred to the temporal 
sphere and to abstract domains. The abundant examples and discussions 
clarify the suitability of the meanings sketched and how they can account 
for the description of the three prepositions without resorting to 
polysemy. This article also illustrates some bridges of cooperation 
between CG and CS, such as the adoption of CG's view of metaphor.

The next chapter is devoted to the relationship between grammatical forms 
and their meanings (Mark J. Elson: "On the relationship between form and 
grammatical meaning in the linguistic sign", pp. 131-154). A detailed 
analysis of verb paradigms in some Slavic and Romance languages 
(Macedonian, Spanish, Polish, Romanian and Serbian) is the key to question 
the requirement of full grammatical representation in linguistics signs, 
by which all grammatical meanings are required to be represented even if 
there is just one desinence (portmanteau representation). After the 
compelling evidence from the analysis (although some of it is not clear 
enough, as for example the source for dialectal Spanish - what kind of 
dialectal Spanish is that? Mexican? Colombian? Peninsular?), some verbal 
desinences in the languages under observation are shown to convey less 
than the total grammatical meaning associated with the words in which they 
occur. Three paradigms are recognized for analytic purposes: a formation 
paradigm, a sub-paradigm and a minimal sub-paradigm. Verbal forms are 
assumed to have internal paradigmatic structure and the contrast with the 
rest of the paradigm appears as a strong motivation for the choice of the 
grammatical meaning which will be represented. Priorities for different 
meanings are suggested for each kind of paradigm level. Lastly, all these 
data support the view of the morpheme as a linguistic unit and open the 
room for the possibility of full grammatical representation not to be the 
necessary case, but probably the optimal (prototypical?) kind of 
representation. As the previous article, this chapter also displays some 
links with CG, as the use of the concept of iconicity or the assumption 
that language is formed by form-meaning pairings.

The article by Joseph Davis "Revisiting the gap between meaning and 
message" (pp.155-174) focuses on a traditional issue within CS, the 
difference between the (limited) linguistic meanings encoded in signs and 
the rich communicative messages inferred from these meanings. The relation 
between both was bridged by the term "strategy", but this appears 
unsatisfying at the light of the evidence listed by Davis. This evidence 
concerns four aspects: compatible meanings, categorical strategies, 
correlation and causation, and independence of textual elements. In the 
first place, CS assumes that logically incompatible meanings do not occur 
or at least do so very rarely, which is not the case, as in "a (singular) 
crossroads (plural)". As to the second aspect, evidence from studies in 
Italian, French and Spanish clitics suggests that strategies are not 
categorical, in the sense that they are not psychological realities, but 
only theoretical conveniences. Thirdly, some CS studies have simplified 
matters accepting that correlation implies causation; again, evidence from 
pronouns le / la / lo in Spanish leads us to the contrary conclusion. This 
is related to the last criticism presented: explanatory factors are not 
independent and the interconnections between them could advisably be taken 
into account. The enriching arguments against the misuse of the 
term "strategy" conclude with the sound advice of carrying out deeper 
analyses and a constant re-evaluation of hypotheses and results.

Whereas the articles so far have dealt with theoretical issues of both CS 
and CG, the subsequent chapters ("Part III. Analyses on the level of the 
classic linguistic sign") are devoted to practical analysis of grammatical 
structures that follow the guidelines set by CS. These papers share a 
common structure: (1) they present a problematic grammatical item that has 
been insufficiently studied; (2) a single meaning is postulated to account 
for all its uses; (3) the hypothesized meaning is checked with corpora. 
Although not explicitly stated, the pedagogical implications of the 
results of the analysis are indisputable. The first signs studied are the 
German conjunctions als and wenn ("The givenness of background: A semantic-
pragmatic study of two modern German subordinating conjunctions", by Zhuo 
Jing-Schmidt, pp. 177-203). These items are traditionally differentiated 
in terms of the temporal (past, present or future times) and modal 
(factual vs. non-factual) meanings of the subordinate clause they 
introduce. Jing-Schmidt shows the flaws of this approach and proposes that 
the speaker gives instructions to the hearer as to how he has to interpret 
the following information: while als suggests that the background is 
given, wenn tells the reader that the background is not given and the 
speaker provides an imaginary or hypothetical situation as background. The 
hypothesis is validated through examples and the explanatory power of 
these meanings is displayed against traditional and pedagogical approaches.

The next phenomenon under investigation is Spanish subjunctive (Bob de 
Jonge: "The relevance of relevance in linguistic analysis: Spanish 
subjunctive mood", pp. 205-218"). The search for a unitary account of the 
distribution of indicative and subjunctive mood is the target of the 
paper. Previous descriptions used a variety of explanatory factors, such 
as assertiveness vs. non-assertiveness. The hypothesis is that indicative 
mood expresses assertion of the occurrence expressed by the verb but 
subjunctive mood does not associate with non-assertion, but with the 
expression of an alternative. These meanings are applied to analyse 
quantitatively and qualitatively subordinate que-clauses from some of 
García Marquez's short stories. Although limited in its scope, the 
hypothesis seems to work here. As suggested by the author, future studies 
will have to test its validity for a wider variety of contexts.

The following chapter ("A sign-based analysis of English pronouns in 
conjoined expressions", by Nancy Stern, pp. 219-234) highlights the use of 
self-pronouns in conjoined expressions such as "According to John, the 
article was written by Ann and himself" (2004:219). Many native speakers 
feel insecure in the use of pronouns in these expressions owing to the 
confusion between object and subject pronouns. The use of self-pronouns to 
avoid the choice between them seems to add extra uncertainty. As well as 
the misapplication of prescriptive rules, the distribution of these 
pronouns seems to be anchored on the meaning of "insistence on an entity", 
added to the person, number and sex meanings. This meaning is taken as the 
key to illuminate examples taken from different contemporary best-sellers. 
Other factors linked to the description are the Control System among 
participants in the event or differentiation of reference. Together with 
prescriptivism, the article insists on the fact the distribution of these 
pronouns is determined by a combination of causes.

Noah Oron and Yishai Tobin's contribution is the first to leave 
Indoeuropean languages and targets at exploring the complexities of the 
Hebrew verbs ("Semantic oppositions in the Hebrew verb system", pp. 235-
260). The patterns that comprise the verb system have been previously 
accounted for by resorting to a somewhat random combination of syntactic, 
pragmatic and semantic functions, but a sign-oriented explanation results 
in a far more convincing description. Each of the eight / seven verbal 
inflectional and conjugational patterns is described according to a set of 
invariant meanings based on three domains (Objective vs. Subjective, 
Single vs. Multiple, and Autonomy). The paper applies these meanings to 
one of these verbal alternations (PAAL-HYTPAEL) showing how these general 
meanings, as well as the paradigmatic contrast between the different 
alternations, is the motivating force behind the different distributions. 
The generalizations previously made seem to success in the description of 
all 150 PAAL-HYPTAEL alternations and the application of these invariant 
meanings to different types of verbs classified according to semantic 
features.

A pair of morphemes from Hualapai, a language spoken in Arizona, is 
surveyed in Kumiko Ichihashi-Nakayama's article ("Grammaticization of 'to' 
and 'away': A unified account of -k and -m in Hualapai", pp. 261-273). 
Some formerly suggested functions are reviewed in the first place to move 
on to a unitary proposal for one single meaning for morphemes -k and -
m: 'inside/toward the "focal point"' and 'outside/away from the "focal 
point"', respectively. The different readings of these suffixes are argued 
not to be distinct meanings, but different manifestations of these root 
meanings adapted to the context where they appear, namely, as noun or verb 
suffixes, at the end of sentences or combining clauses. Furthermore, there 
are different hints of these morphemes' movement towards 
grammaticalization, although the lack of diachronic data prevents more 
conclusive statements.

Classical sign-based studies give way now to the fourth section of the 
volume which moves away from the sign level ("Part IV. Below and above the 
level of the sign"). The focus now shifts from grammar to the application 
of CS theory to phonology, lexicon and discourse. Shabana Hameed addresses 
the issue of phonology in her article "Interaction of physiology and 
communication in the make-up and distribution of stops in Lucknow Urdu" 
(pp. 277-288). CS framework is used in this case to explain the inventory 
of stop phonemes in Urdu and their distribution in words in terms of 
physiology and communication. Five native informants were chosen to 
collect a collection of monosyllabic words to serve as corpus. The first 
step is to present the consonants of the language in several tables 
according to a categorization based on the organs of articulation and 
demonstrated through minimal pairs. The classification contrasts with 
traditional taxonomies based on passive points of articulation in that it 
is physiologically based on the articulators that play a significant role 
in shaping and exciting the vocal cavity for the production of speech 
sounds. The result is the selection five articulators: labium, apex, 
medium, front dorsum and post dorsum. 

The aim of the next section is to establish a hierarchy of adroitness of 
the articulators, since it is postulated that they are not uniform in 
terms of their adroitness. This hierarchy stems from the relationship of 
articulators and the inventory and distribution of stop consonants; that 
is, the most adroit articulator will be most productively used in the 
production of consonants. Quantitative frequency measurements support this 
claim. The following step is to compare the sounds in initial and final 
position. Taking as a starting point that the beginning of a word carries 
a greater communicative load, it is expected that there will be an 
increase of frequency of more favoured stops at the beginning of the word 
and, conversely, less favoured articulators will appear at the end of the 
word. These contrasts demonstrate the interaction of physiology and 
communication. 

The interconnection between phonology and lexicon is the target of Yishai 
Tobin's "Between phonology and lexicon: The Hebrew triconsonantal (CCC) 
root system revolving around /r/ (C-r-C)" (pp. 289-323). The paper 
postulates a general meaning ("a change in structure") for the roots 
containing /r/ in Hebrew. This general meaning is shown to be present in 
other phonologically related roots, which express semantic subfields that 
can be considered to be included within this general meaning (either 
through literal or metaphoric connections). Cognitive limitations and the 
principle of "economy of effort" are interestingly used to explain the 
motivation of this phenomenon. An exhaustive list of all the roots 
containing /r/ is presented to back up the hypothesis. It is remarkable 
that this article is a first step on the part of the author to search for 
other connections between phonology and semantic fields in Hebrew.

Now is the turn of discourse and word order is the next level under 
investigation. Ricardo Otheguy, Betsy Rodríguez-Bachiller and Eulalia 
Canals ("Length of the extra-information phrase as a predictor of word 
order: A cross-language comparison", pp. 325-340) draw from CS tenets to 
account for some word order variations exclusively in terms of signs and 
meanings, without resort to other syntactic constructs. They focus on the 
orders of the Event, extra information about the Event and the second 
Participant and their interaction with the length of the expression. Their 
predictions (shorter elements will come out earlier) are put to the 
statistical test of a corpus of English and Spanish texts, including 
translations. Some of the initial hypotheses succeed: English shows a 
tendency to place extra information and lower Participants at the end of 
the sentence and the longer element at the end, while Spanish situates 
extra information more freely. But surprisingly, differences between 
English and Spanish seem to be a matter of degree, in that similar word 
order effects were discovered in both languages, although they showed a 
different magnitude in each language (Spanish exhibits more tolerance to 
intervening extra information).

Word order is again an issue in "Word-order variation in spoken Spanish in 
constructions with a verb, a direct object, and an adverb: The interaction 
of syntactic, cognitive, pragmatic, and prosodic features" by Francisco 
Ocampo (Pp. 341-360). However, this time only Spanish is the object of 
analysis and the scope is narrowed to objects and adverbs. A corpus of 
informal conversations is examined according to factors such as 
topicality, status of the referent and adverb type among others. The 
article highlights the interactions of these factors and word order when 
the pragmatic function of the sentence is to convey information and when 
it has an additional pragmatic function. The results, which are 
schematized in a table and clearly exemplified, demonstrate the 
correlation between word order and the cognitive and syntactic factors 
mentioned when only information is conveyed; in this case unmarked orders 
are used, but alterations make way when additional pragmatic functions 
come into play. 

The last article by Anita Martinez ("Estrategias discursivas como 
parámetros para el análisis lingüístico", pp. 361-379) concentrates on the 
alternation of the accusative pronouns le / lo in the northwest of 
Argentina. In contrast to standard Argentinian or the peninsular variety 
of Spanish, this variability is not to be due to "leísmo", but to the 
substrate of Guaraní and Quechua. The transfer and identification between 
a Quechua suffix and le condition the strategies for its use. It is argued 
that in narratives the use of le correlates with a heightening of 
suspense, since the use of le, with a more active meaning than lo, alerts 
the listener that the second participant will play a more powerful role 
than expected. This device is skillfully exploited in oral narratives, as 
the analysis of the corpora and control experiments reveal.

EVALUATION

Having summarized the main points of the papers of which the volume 
consists, let us now turn to some concluding evaluative remarks. Firstly, 
the significance of this compilation is undeniable for analysts within the 
linguistic schools represented in the papers; the book displays with 
precision that it does not exist such a great distance between them. CS 
makes use of some of CG tenets, and CG, as Langacker says, can profit from 
CS analysis (2004: 56). CS papers make constant use of CG terms, such as 
iconicity, metaphor, etc. and more basically, they share the assumption 
that grammar has a meaning. 

Not only does this volume cater for such a limited audience, but it will 
also prove to be of great interest for any scholar with an interest in 
grammatical analysis, even if not directly interested in CS or CG. The 
relevant empirical data alongside the exhaustive qualitative and 
quantitative analysis carried out in the papers, especially in part three 
and four, provide solid ground for the hypotheses postulated, which are 
nevertheless open to future extensions and modifications, as generally 
stated on the papers themselves. This need for constant reevaluation is 
addressed by accurate criticisms to other currents or authors or even to 
the school to which the author belongs (cf. Davis 2004:155-174) and 
consequently answering of criticisms from others (cf. Langacker 2004: 21-
60). The new revealing argumentations are perhaps the most enriching 
contribution of the book. Even if it does not provide all the answers, it 
raises many enlightening questions as to the status of linguistics as a 
science and the insights of linguistic analysis. The clear structure of 
the volume in general and all the papers in particular, as well as the 
study of a great variety of languages (English, German, Guarani, Hebrew, 
Hualapai, Macedonian, Spanish, Urdu, etc.) also contribute to the merits 
of the book. 

On possible drawback is the lack of balance between papers from CG and CS; 
of course it should be born in mind that these papers are the product of a 
CS conference. In spite of that, after the introduction and Langacker's 
article, in which the most relevant contact lines between the schools are 
articulated, the reader might miss more information with reference to a 
further dialogue between both currents.

All things considered, this work represents a valuable and up-to-date 
contribution to linguistic analysis, especially grammatical, and 
constitutes a thought-provoking basis for further studies on the field. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Asunción Villamil is currently working a full-time teacher of English as a 
foreign language in an Escuela Oficial de Idiomas (Spanish state language 
school), and combines her teaching activities with academic research. She 
is a PhD student at the English Philology Department of the Complutense 
University of Madrid and her doctoral research focuses on comparative 
syntax from a cognitive point of view. She has published articles on 
verbal complementation, metaphor and teaching English as a foreign 
language.





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