The Whorf Hypothesis

[R. Rankin]

> ... If not, then I'm still left wondering why this
> attribute would be stated only in a verb form.  I realize one could say it's
> because they don't use adjectives, but why choose a verb form instead,
> unless an adjective has much in common with a verb (?).

> I agree that both of these polarized views are too extreme and the real
> answer lies somewhere in the middle in a big "grey" area.

I wish I knew.  :-)  I'm not sure any amount of experience can answer these questions.  As for adjectives, a couple of points.  (1) The Research Centre for Linguistic Typology in Melbourne held a workshop on adjectives (their universality, etc.) this past August and the proceedings should be published in a year or two.  A couple of friends of mine participated.  There are probably other good references.  I use Whaley's typology textbook in the functional grammar course I teach.  He takes the view that adjectives are not a universal category in languages, but, that in languages that have them, they are sometimes more like nouns (agreeing for number, gender, etc. as in IE languages) and sometimes more like verbs (inflecting for tense, aspect, mode, etc. as in Siouan).  Using the notion of "time-stable" and "time-non-stable" (which he didn't develop himself) he has a continuum between nouns and verbs, with adjectives somewhere along the continuum in given languages:

NOUNS----------------------(adjs.)-----------------------------------VERBS
time-stable                                                                                            time-mobile

So every language has ways of expressing the concept(s).  If adjectives are more like states, then there are ways of encoding inchoatives, etc. in the language (sick/get sick).  If they are more like actions, there are ways of encoding resultatives, etc (sit/be seated).  One way or another, the job gets done.

As for how "nouny-ness", "verby-ness", "stative-ness" or "active-ness", I have no idea if or how these affect speakers' perception of the world.  What I actually *teach* is that language does not hold speakers' thoughts in a "vice-like grip" (as some used to describe the Whorf Hypothesis), but linguistic categories may tend to *direct the speaker's attention* or *spotlight*, so to speak, certain features of reality and sort of loosely deemphasize others.  Whorf tended to think that this affected speakers a great deal.  I tend to think not so much.  But that's where the experimentation and proof is necessary.  Without it, we're still treading water.

Whorf talked about sensitivity to "time" in tense-marking languages (like European lgs.) and lack of such in "tenseless" languages.  Personally, I think he had adopted the stereotype of the Indian who does everything on "Indian Time".  I simply don't believe that that aspect of culture relates to language at all.  Those languages that don't mark tense DO mark "time" using temporal conjunctions and adverbs.  I would bet large sums that, if we could go back to Western Europe before timepieces became common, that we would find that the speakers of those IE languages did everything on "Indian Time" too.  Hell, I'm semi retired and seldom bother to wear a watch, and I find that *I* operate on a very loose notion of time.  It's my culture that had conditioned me otherwise, not my English with all its futures, pasts, perfects and progressives.

Bob