givon logic pragmatics epistemology

8/15/2019 Givon Logic Pragmatics Epistemology

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Journal of Pragmetics 6 ( 1982) 8I=. 23

Narth~Hailand Publishing Company

The history of the treatment af bath semantics and pragmatics in Linguistics has been until

recently a captive of over-Iogiciaation, where the dcduc.i:vc, algorithmic, close-ended,

I:ontcxt-free

properties of the system were oa*er-cmphasiaed o the dc’rimeat 01’ more realistic view of facts of

natural language. A careful survey of even the traditional preoccupations of

hgicians and

philosophers of language, such as reference, definite description OPpresupposition, nz vcals hh\t the

Iogico-dedrxtive treatment of these subjects misrcprcsentcd


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foundations, however, are buried in a facile and superficial analysis of an

artificially-narrow

tanp of language faces, culled from a narrower yet range of

natural

lmguqes, ancil

orced into an analytic mould that has little regard for

the burden of empirical validation. This tradition has persisted in one guise or

another via the two er;trernist schools of Western eplsternology - P.ationalism

and Empiricism -

through the medieval Mc4istae and their Thor& and

Anselmic descendents, an through the

Part Rayd se’hd

and the Age &de

Raison, then onward through the first formal logicians OS he 19th century,

eventually coming into full bloom in the Logical Positivists of the early 20th

century and their anti4nguistic bias. Modern American Linguistics, while

the frey rr:latively late in the early 1960’s, fell squarely into ;an

hed formal Isgico-deductive tradition in its approach to the an

meaning, on both sides of the so-called Great Debate.

Challenges to the logico-deductive analysis of’ meaning begin with CS.

Peirce in the second half c the 19th century,, via a tradition that traces it&f

back to Kant. A simirar challenge was mounted later on by Wittgenstein,

roughly contemporaneous to the ascent of Logical Positivism. These early

challenges were quickly neutralized by the growing power and prestige of the

“more rigorous”

:formal logicians. Within Positivism itself, the early broader-

scoped Russell and Whitehead slowly gave way to narrower formalists such as

Carnap, Tarski and Montague. Iiy #ihenPeirce had been (effectively co-opted by

social philosophers and the impact of his pragmaitism on epistemology thus

largely obscured. The early Wittgenstein was admired as a brilliant

the late Wittgenstein yulasdismissed by the Positivists as impressio

Formal logicians had of course, b;y then, been en

,aged in a rear-guard battle

agains’t the encroaching shadow of context-depe

Idence in human Iaqua

aeducing

the open-ended complexity of reference and

defi

neatly-packaged deductive-logic formulae, while ruminatin

old-time favorites such as quantification and

predication.

language meaning and communicritive use was left largely

disturbed. Thus

when American linguistics was at last readly to

outgrow

strictures which relegated Semantics to either the natural sciences or to

Mathematics ( 10lloon~b~ield933: 154, 153), the seductive

was the only game in town. And so, elaborate deductive-lo

as the Katz and Fodor “model” soon spra

ing to represent meanin

as a closed syste

“rtiles”.

When Pragmiatics finally reared its

ly head in Amc

entle whimper. The

Sapir-

then a cxgent observation (2

121The original hypthesi:b was two-edged, allowing either that l~~gu~~g~WIS ~ultu~~~~~~nd~slt or

that culture was language-constrained (W’horf IWd),


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thus context dep ndency of Ian

e and meaning. Both early and late

structuralists were not impressed, and soon ma

the observations to “cultural vocabulary” and tl

sties at the very mar

same issues in his

ian nave , Of the post-

ed entities shn~h as

“bekief ‘,

“interlt”, “judge’“,

Peters (19759, inter alia).

very soul of PragmEiics may >e given initially as

the four properties in tab1

1,

c:ontrasted with tieductive logic.

The implications of Pr matics to the st\;dy of human language and human

nition are immense, b the Positivist tradition in Logic and its bobsie-twin,

Generative tradi on in Linguis1ics, seem to force all pragmiktic incursion

into one or two blin strangulation in irrelevant formalism, or

toward marginal exist

le ling-istic system. And

it seems that no am

Ie contrary, culled from

psycho

uistics, disburse studies, developmental psychology or perception.

has so

succeeded in dentin this doctrinaire delusion of modern linguistics

In this paper I propose to erform an epistemolo cal c-OURk grace upon

this stale and mis uided tradition. I will first tackle s e OS he more habitual

Table I


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preserves of the deductive logician, such as reference, definite description and

presupposition, showing how a deductive-logical analysis, while attractive and

on occasion self-consistent. has very little to do with the actual meaning system

used in natural language.

f

will then proceed to discuss more complex cases

which formal logicians have - for good reasons presumably - consistently

avoided. The main argument I hope to present, that the meaning system in

natural language is inherently of a pragmatic nature, will be made cumuMvely

and with an eye to one fundamenttal truth of science - and a fundamental

feature of pragmatics: that

cmnplete

proof is a deceptive mirage, and that

science is bound

‘to

accept lwi h grace the: pragmatically-tainted

prep~n~~~rff~~ce

of evidmce

[3].

On the face lof it, this old bastion of logic-bound analysis seems alto

context-free, depending in no way on entities outside the bounds of the atomic

proposition -.

__^_

or CVCII outside the bounds of tiie quantified argument (NP)

itself. Logicians could thus with impunity posit an “existential quantifier” that

would instantiate an. individlual argument into some “real world”, or so it

seems. One may of course rzise superficial arguments concerning pronouns

whose co-referents are non-referential, as in:

(1) I am looking for LJ

orse,

and

rt

better be white

But this can be “handled” via the modal ogic of “possible worlds”. And while

such a treatment involves the tacit assumption that existence and reference do

not i~~lve mapping into

the

real world, but rather into a unioer.se

o~dismurse,

the logician could still consi(der the “bulk” of reference to involve

this

real

world, and relegate modal areas to the margins of the system.

There are other cases, however, which make the predicament involved in

defining existence in logical terms more acute. The / involve the refer~n~~e-~~in

properties of many languages, perhaps mo

a mapping into

the

world, nor into a 1

discourse. Rather. existence dependa upon

ctantrnuni c~tit~e ntent

of

uttering the discourse, specifically on whethe:, a particular individu

(NP) is going I\Obe

intportanr~

nou

its

specific identity

is important,

o

encric Q:P~

~~~~l~~~ h~~.

will

[3] While this work. deals primarily with epistemolo y i t i s on l y to be expected tha t wh a tever valid

conclusions emcrgtr at the end will bo equally applicable to the philosophy of science. Thus, to the

extent that a scientific, method aims at obtaining

crew

~s~owl~d~~, it must abide by the

c~~hsttsoints

suggestedy Peirce (1955) and Wittl5cnstein (1918).


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85

illustrate this behavior first with data from Israeli Hebrew, but identical

ted from ‘Lrkish, Mandarin, H

arian. Sherpa, Persian,

Creg,les

141. n w -zh

anguages,

numeral ‘one’ has just

le NP’s, so that in

ential interpretations, one

ani

r ~~~~~~

efera~~~?~ he-neevad li

-for book-one that-lost to-me

book that I lost’

bishvil ha-yeled shel-i

for the-boy of-me

book for my boy

further, cannot ark the object of a negative sentence,

consider:

i ther be NM-deferential OSreferential=Jefinite

[ 51.

Thus

lo karati et ha-sefer ha-ze

NIX3 read-1 ACC the-book the-this

‘I didn’t read this book’

ati (af) sefer ha-shavua

read-1 (any) book the-week

‘I didn’t read (any/a) book this week’

rati sefer-pxad (ha-shavua)

read-1 book-one (the-wee

ation or the modal

‘1

nce of their object.

ch verbs that the on1

or’,

most verbs in any

one would expect in

ssib%e ontrast would be

further, in Hebrew the

e referential-indefinite object in stlch a context, as

is indeed the ease in:

(4) (a)

karati sefer~~~~~ebmol,

ve-

.

[4] For ~~ ~~~ou~d and man) details, see Givbn (

19’73a, 1978, 198 1a).

(51 For discussion of the prq~~~tic motivation for this restriction, see Giv6n (1979a: ch. 3).


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So

fax, then, the: markin

system in Webrew seems r3th

the speaker refers to an

that NP is marked with ‘one’. While if the

speaker

particular indiwidual, but rather irr t&in

less sF specific identity,

then the NP is

seemingly clear and

1

could also find a &‘ogi

marked as a etcbn-referent

sider

:

(5) karati sefer letm01,

ve- . . .

read-Bbcxik yesterday stmd-

‘I read a bodk yesteday, and..

. ’

In 1ogicaI terms., both (4a) and (5) must re

since if one hlaisread it, thal individual book must 1

been identified. But in terms of discourse-pragma

radically different. In order* I:Omake this difference expli

little more ccntext into the narrative, and consider

th

below

:

(6) COG-REK

PRAG-RE’f :

. . . az axarley h a-avoda hi laxti Ia-sifriya ve-yashavti sham

. . . so

after the-work webn-1 to-the-library and-sat-I there

’ . . . So after work

I went to the

library

an

ve-karati defer-exam’,

and-read-l: book-one

and I read1a book,

ve-ze baya sefer metsuyan

. .

and-it was book excellent .

. .

and it was an excellent book..

. ’

(7) LOG;-.i?EF, PRA G-IVOIV-R

. . .

a2 axarey ha-avoda ha1

. . . so

after the-work wentA

to

‘.. . So after work I went to th

az karati sefer, ve-karati shney

itonim,

so rc:ad-I book and-read-1 tw

so

I

read a book, and a

coup1 n went home..

. *

[fi) I am deliberately expressing t heseconditkns hcrc in tern-1s f the 8

W’s; ntent 01’bdi’ ef

Logicianscould of course easily convert &an

imte

trutha-3atians b~tw~n propaitians, I supple

via modai logic and possible-worlds.


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87

6) and (7) to ctie

id~nti~~y s what

matteredp

text,

mast specifL

where referential-

aya ici- t a,bo

-want REF-bask

‘I warlt a spec@e bask’

i cd can&as

t

dws not exist, the pragmatic one manifests itself

us c6

~sid~r :

(IO)

(a)

-hook


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88

A similar situation may

the contrast of refer%7ntiality3n

e

reading is aHowed, by contrasti

inde pe nd ent NIPS (REP;).

‘Ibus

(11) (a)

REF:

(12) (a) REF:

(b) NON-REF:

But again where the

ILogicalcontrast is absent, the

pnagrrra~ic m

manifests

itself and is coded by

exact1

the

same

devicle

‘I want a book (be it an:y)’

kacb-n py’Qclwa+ (‘urti) pynikya-na

NEG-I bo&OBJ (that) s~~-N~~~PA~~

‘1 didn’t see the book’

kac6-n p#qva-pvnikyn-na

N EC&I book-see-N EC&PAST

‘I didn’t see a/ur~_)r ook‘

m;bt sr)’

The facts II am discrrssi thus, are nst limit

paradigm, but are ratha

English, except thi\t

En

vs. non-referential inde

consider:


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hat what we

have here

in

envi ~nrnll~n

ts

t, if it were ~~~~~~ted,hen the fact

ferantiality may appear t y

r a noun is logi6@y

rential. Thus, one looks for “(a

ok does not mztter

discourse c8n tex

.

s

where the issue is whether

a purgicuiur book), What we

/ semalwtic feature

contrast is uugm znred by a

ion, is not independent of

involve the components of

evancci within the dis-

either havrng in mind

The fact that

II

izcd only Ae extreme case

ion on tht methodological


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3. Coreference ad dtefinite descripthn

Logicia.ns have traditionally tried to interpret

the use

(and with it ana@ruric pronouns

problem of establishulg unique ~i ~~r~~~t t iu~

that didn’t quite masr:h the facts

concept of

premppo.v i m,

construed as 8

I

propositions or partip of them, arnd

son 1950). And various later refin

notion that definiteness is a matt

while skirting the intrusion of t

beliefi

(Donellan 1966). Logicians, and 1

classical examples such as:

( 16) The king of France is bald

*here the truth-value of th : sentence .n~y be Fafi-

WWUPSC~

i i)iii YVi_l,=iff~iUli

perspectrves. First, going along with the presupposition that “

Frxlee”, (16) may 13e udged either true of false in case the

or not bald, respectively. Alternatively, if one does not

s

presupposition,, thrrn ( 16) presumably “has no truth value”. In this

way,

logicians reduced dcfini tcness to the realm of presuppositionality 191. t wound

take a relatively small expansion of the data-base, however, to illustrate how

definiteness in human language is inherently a

pragmatic

~Il~n~$~

volving the speaker’s belief about what the hearer is

l ike tcr

know

in, and about ittowM~V t is going to be for the hearer to uniquely i

referent under consideratilon.

Logicians have never been forced to wrestle with the

eat diversity of

language devices all employed in making unique reference

These devices, or at least a commonly recognized sub-

raup

of them

f

lo), may

be hielparchized according to a continuous,

non-discr

termed as either:

(a) the degree of difficulty that

th

speaker assume the hearer will ex

in identifying the referent uni

[9] Logrcictns proceed 80 idcdfy two scparatc: interpretations of the

atian of 6161, .e. ‘The king

of F: arlcc

is not balcl’, an

in ternul one

which acmpts the pmuppositim but denies the arsmrtion,

and un

exrernd

lone which denies the ussertion knee qf failure of the ~~~~u~~~~iti~~nK

1969).‘The act

that anguage

users tend to admit only the intsrnnl i~~t~~~~~t~ti~n,f such a 11

.sentcnce

(Givbn 1979a: ch. 3) seldom bothers Io@ians.

[ 10) It

may

be shown (Giv6a 1979a: ch. 2, and 19801~:ch. 17) that other

~~~tr~~t~~n$,

uch as

passivkation, Y-movement, indefinite3 and focus-cons,truGtions, as well as the

VSfSV

variation observed in Spa&h QSilva4JorvalBn 1977) and Hebrew (Givbn 1976a, 1978

the same ;ontinuunx


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d~sco~~~nu~t~n the referent-tracking sub-system

~ctabiiity in discourse.

men t

erlirzhy is massive iind corn

e exampi;~ from En lish.

-- ^a

Consider fhi ik

uns (or verb agreement)

m,

saw Mafy, pulled a


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92

T. Giwti,~~L agic us. pragntatics

In ( l&Q, the topic is continuous and no interference from other topics,

exists. Therefore, except for the first introduction of the referent ‘he?, all other

references ;~e given as zero

ampho r a [ 121.

In (18b),

we:

start with the s

of maximal continuity. But then a break occurs where ‘Mary’ takes over as an

important to pic/subjeet. And again when the topi~/subj~t switche* b

‘he’. All three continuities are broken in these cases, and zero-

phortr cxnnat

be used

ar ly

more, Rather, the ~n~~~~~~@~p~~#~~~ust bt: u

[ 13]b ~~~~1~~~

the sequence: given in (18~) illusttrates the fact that the disc~ntinu~~ty

nlrst

have to be due to topic switch, as in (18b), nor to an

overtly- fest

discontinuity in the action sequence. It can be purely thematic, simply a way sf

or&an.idng t’be %ame’ sequence into different, more discontinuous cr;rent~~~~~~~.

Let us ne:xt illustrate the relative ranking of unstressed vs.

&-es p K=+

nOun5:

( 19) (a) JoJnn told Bill that he was sick,

W)

and that he couldn’t come

(1~) ohn to”:3 Bill that he was sick,

(d)

and that h3 couldn’t come

(e) .‘fohn told Bill that he was an idiot,

(f)

and that hu couldn’t come

(g) John told Bill that he was an idiot,

(h)

and that hh couldn’t come

(i) John hates Bill, and he hates Mary

(j) John hates Bill, and h6 hates Mary

In ( 19a) the first referent of ‘he’ could be either John or Bill, but the second

unstressed ‘he’, in (19b), must be coreferent to the ‘he’ in ( 19a). On the other

hand, the

stressed

‘he’ in ( 19d) cannot be coreferent to the unstress

( 1%).

Thus, unstressed pronouns are used when chins of to~?i~-id~nt~t~~re

broken/disrupted. In (19e), the mere se:-nantics of ‘telli

you/he is an idiot’ militates strongly

the object rather than with the subject. And

must be coreferentt with ‘he’ in ( 19e).

not

be coreferent with ‘he” in (1

with thri: subject ‘John’

[

141. But

stressed

‘he’ in (

B j)

[ 12) In Eaglish, zero anaphora covers a much narrower

ran

of the. continuity scats, and i@

customarily referred to as

phrasal conjwctiao,

eithe

Hinds, 1978), on the other hand,, zero anaphora c

functiowl range covered by unsttwed pronouns

in

the lattw, further, subject agreement covers the fun

is obligatory.

[

131 The I’unctisnal mnge of unstressed pronouns in English is covcrcd in Spa&~ by

obh

subject rlf;reemen\.

[

141The verbs ‘tell (to)’

and ‘hate’ have diffentnt topic-orientation r=haractenstics, since thle subject

of ‘tell (to)” is datiue-recipietit, but that of ‘hate’ may be inwt and ~ni~~~~ (ix, ‘patient”). This is


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‘tck-reference - vs.

nce -

is att{:sted in

iated with stress need

r

counter

expectationr.

draft, but Sohn told ill rtlkwasn’t so sure.

and unstressed pronouns, here

from expectations about

n other -

thematic - sources.

pr0r~0tir~1ss. DEWS

P’s and

P”s are used when not enough

le the hearer to identify the

e either the presence of ot

a major

thematrc

break.

tlia Prince aud the General.

H& thanked him profusely.. .

ed around and sat down. He was tired

in his chair and waited.

came into the room, looked around and sat down. The man in the

se to midclle

age but still young.

the pr~se~~~ of ‘prince’ and ‘general’ preclu c refering to ‘king’ as ‘he’,

so a pronoun may be

ssed pronoun. In both

evertheless, in (2 lc) two

to mark them. But the

re disruptive:, removing the

(tts in being tired or

insteacl

[

161. It is thus

yaidel~tifiable referent INith a DEF-NP

coxntn ), W e (Ciivbn 198Oa).

se continuity (see Ciivb 1877; Hopper

refstritq to the &jwt of ‘tell (to’)‘, Thus, it

ndntity of topic, but rather

the

property

of M@YJN~~whew datives out&c acmsativ~s (Giv6n

lW6b .


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94

The use of right-di .loc81ted DEF-NP”s

may be likened to an “afterthou

de vice 171whereby thle speaker first assumes that there is

eno

the: discourse to warrant using a pronoun, then ehan

adds the full DEF-NP as “insurance”. To illustra : this consider:

(212) (a) The

danced and sang. Later on

retired..

.

(b) The

danced, then other people

rformed.

Then kle ~~~~~~~~he

b&g

did,.

(c)

The king danced, and the prince and the

retired,.

. . ,

Irl (Z&I), with full referential continuity, a pronoun is used. In (22b) t~hni~~lly

there is no referential confusion, but there is Rlready a one-clause

intrusion of other participants in the subject position. There

“ungrammatical” with using only a pronoun here, but still it is a typical

comr;xt for using rig’ht-dislocation in conversation

[

181. Finally, in (22~) there is

w reason to even nedge and use a pronoun first, since referential

cc,ntinuity/predicta’bility is- broken. So a DFF-NP is used.

Finally, left-dislocated DEF-NP’s are used primarily over Ion

absence, where a referent/topic is re-introduced into the d&course. To il-

lustrate this in contrast with normal DEF-NP’s, consider:

(X) (a) There once lived a king and a queen in an enchanted forest.

The k ing was fat and ugly.

. .

(b)

There onc,e Ifved a king in an enchanted fores

, He ~8s rllurriccf tc:, ;i

beautiful queen, and she was the real powl:r In the realm. Near the

forest lived a poor prince, and the queen used to visit him and have

lunch. NOW t he ki ng. he didn’t like the guy,.

. .

One must bear in mind, however, that in

ti

tly-plwrmed, written teXt the use

c f left-dislocatic;:1 is not common, though it

Ion

in informal speech

and conversatiosl (See Ochs (1979).

Duranti

and

(

( lY99). ~~~1~~~

and

Schieffelin

(

1977))

The prece&ing - albeit encapsulated

.-

survey of the major devises

us

tilefinite express;ons in human

langua

firmly establish that we are Indeed

oealing with Q sccrle, and that the scale is sensitive to either of the three major

factors of continuity:

(i) Topic/referent continuity and identifiability

(ii) Action continuity in a narrower, sequential sense

(iii) Thematic, Continuity in a larger sense

117)The explanarion couched in the term “ufterthought” is due to Mymw ( 1975).

[ 181Both right- irnd left-dislocation are used primarily in conwrsation and informal spertch (O&s

1979; Giv6n 197%; Duranti and Ochs 1939).


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nts near and lies

lity to f~I~~w that continuity;

of the hearer’s expectation

s-near to the actual

.

diSCourSe

and the

scour-se, and assess-

about themes and

rounded in either the speaker’s

of previous encounters

of the hearer’s

rsonality

and computa-

t of specific facts concerning the hearer‘s

r’s t~~~pat~~ ability and thus

“direct access” to the thought

recesses of the hearer

[ 191.

could of course an and an, but it is not rea ly necessary.

It

seems quite

Clear thtrt definite

sorption is a

t

tcr, involving

gradations,

~.~~~~a~~d~d~~~~s

nd I of the spealrer about the

m d

about

the

d~~~c~~~;~.~~”

na “cw I cI

of course

nt that when the

ted and ~~~i~~~t~

df the system may

rllth rcs1nflr.c.

~~ 11. . *.iU.aVLIS

buckn, whate

le who have access to each

other’s thoughts either

cptrrhy,

o meet ea.41

other after ,J year of absence,

‘) wtd

the other

replying: “HP is. Wonder who’s


16/53

41.Nonldiscrotenw of reference

P&ost

linguists folllow logicians in

assuming that an

ar

referential or generic/non

evidence from natural la13

indeed common, one may

also

find gr

like “semi-referentiality” that is bound

p&e,consider the following contrast:

(?4] (a) Did you see myth ing there?

(b) Did\ you see

something

there?

Officially, both expressions in (24) are non-referential, but (24b) is somehow “a

li .tle bit more referential”’ than (24a). The distinction be

ween

the two i~volv

n>ughly, the

degree

to which the speaker is willing to co

mit himself or

her

to a specif;c :individual they have in mind which they s~pcrct - but art’ not sure

- alay have in fact been involved. *When a speaker uses (24aj, he or she is iess

committed to having, an individual in mind, while the use of (24b) su

swcwger ommitment. But the gradation is even more extensive. Thus co

(Z 5) (a) Did you see

any

man there?

(b) Did you see

some

man there

(c) Did you see a man there?

(d) Did you see J man there wearing a blue tie with

rcen ~~~~~-~~ts an

twirling a silver batorl on his right-foot roe?

In

(25), (25cl)

is practically a u

ue referential description, at least as it is

likely to be used in natural

lang

One may also show the phe

enericity”‘, ~a ;r\ the

following example from Spanish [20]:

(26)

(a) Maria siemprle

hahl 3

con &u@s

‘Mary always talks to sorcerers’

(bj MaAa siempre habla con &-ubn&as

(i) ‘Mary always talks to (the) sorcerers

(ii) ‘Mary always talks to the sorcerers (t

Sentence (26b) has two readi

one (26b(~ii))fully d~~i~~it~.

(26b( i)> is “semigeneric”,

rou

, a ~~?~~~l l~ r~~?~~~~~~1

rom

any smallerqet group of “brujos” may be pulled out trl fit the d~s~ripti~~~

[20+]A similar dlistinction s observed in Mandark (Standra

Th~p~n prs.

camm.), wheta

the

contrast is between %e” and

“exist”


17/53

87

5 yews old, blue eyes, brown

and lives in a suburb of

tc..

. . ,

and he lives nextdoor

tian can thus be?: rmtkr of fiae

gradation,

approaching

in the s~~~all~stof i~~~e~~ents, each one of which

unique identifi-

Cre in W W-questions

non-referential


18/53

The answer to (29a) may be properly ‘.lohn’, ‘my teacher’, ‘the doctor’ etc., i.e.

bly some unicluely-referring DEF-NP. While the proper answer to (29b) may be

‘a. doctor”,

‘ia teacher’ ‘a horse’ et’c.,

i.e. by an attributive/non-referential

illdefinite expression. But the non-referenti;;? question - as i

S] IOWurther gradation, involving roughly the

degree af ~~~t~in

about the exact type-membership of the referent. Thus consider:

(ICI (a) Normal TYPE-identity:

‘in

i

‘ark-‘ay In a?

WH be-PROG t~so,4~~~-~~~J

‘What kind (of animate) is this one?’

(b)

Unwtain TYPE-identity:

‘in i-kwra ‘ar&‘ay “in&

W H-DO WBT be-PWOG

this-

SUBJ

‘What kind (of an aliiruate) could this one

possibly be?’

Thus, not only can human languages treat “definite identification’* an

ing unique

reference” as scalar properties, they can also treat “having unique

type-meinbership” as a scalar property. While it is true then that

languages tend to

code

major

extreme

ends of this system in a see

discrete fashion, there is inherently nothing pa-titularly discrete ab

cognitive space of definiteness, referentiality and gsneticity. Rather, it seems to

bc a continuous, flon-discrete space involvin certainties and probabilities.

5. Truth, fact and presupposition

The early history of the notion of “presupposition” in lingui4cs was io direct

and slavish outcrop of an earlier logico-deductive tradition 1223. Several

supposed “pragmatic” formulations still strive to represent the cystem as

closed. tight #anddeductive-looking (see Karttunen (1974),

rice (

).~~$/

197

1).

Glxdon and Lakoff (197 1) or Gaxdar (1979), inter alia), In this s~~ti~n I am

going to try and show, by citing langu

e-data from various sources,

that the

logicians once again have

misrepresent the

general

thrust of a

s

in essence

pragmatic, by

rigorously eliminating from their d

quantities of relevant evidence. I will attempt to show, then,

t

tion in language does not involve truth relations

rather probabilistic assumptions that the speaker makes about

{2i:] See eg. Keenan (1969, 1971), Horn (1972), ,imr dr~c. Kgartturren (1944) has su

may formultie i)resupposilion for human language in

prt~gntrr~ic erms,

kc. with reference to the

spcwkds be l ie f

ather han to

atomic propositions. But he still formulates presupposition in terms

of “truth relations** between various beliefs/propositions held by the speaker. This is a rear-guard

attempt o salvalseome

eductive properties for

the

system.


19/53

99

I

sub-domains cf the entire field does presupposition

at& sentences ii1

r~,~ra~rn~ti~s, so

or *‘be used apT:qrieitely”,

aff~~~~ative must have

e speaker must QSSUFPI~

at.&,

~?l~~~~l~do b& we

in it,

tly toward it, etc. As

(31) (a)

~~nl~~~t~

“Hi, how are ysu, what’s new?”

Well, my wife is pregnant”

Well, my wife is not pregnant”

y

CVb) ic vised

ropriately on the bac&%,

oround of (i) total lgnoralnce of

s~~lfi~,s, and in addi

n (ii) the culture-

ed assumption that women (at

blast nl~~~~d~ys~re more likely to be UL~-p

ant than pregnant. On the other

affirmative is “a

ng “pragmatic

logically presupposed”,

t “N EG-p

presq~posed

eahng here with two

and,

and disgourse-

hen severa, facts

example. many

s in syntax into two groups (see discus-

‘Thus, for

ivhn

1975) every assertion is

rn~~h~l~

e verb itself is included or

xcluded from the scogdr

?fnlc~~

asserted. But the following

constructions are ~utorn~t.~~~~~n~r~~~ for ~~~~~~~~ the verb from the:scope

of new information:


20/53

too

(33)

REL-clauses, VW -questions, CLIWT~asentences, NC

(including IF-clauses)

Most of these constructions are “logically p~suppositi~

sumably “have no truth value? (stx? further ~IQw~~ whit

course/pragmatic presuppositional or

are they grouped together9 A.gain, I s

is a jgc9ze&property hat

iis

inherent1

(34)

The speaker asswmes that a prclpcsition p is

~a~i~~a~ o

the

to be be/it~d by the hearer,

ac~essibie to the

hearer, withia

the hearer etc. OR

whatever grour rds.

And

only within a limited subsct of ountext do the

or belief by the hearer involve something resembli

obviously still couched - in natural language - in te

about the hearer’s belief.

X?. Restr ictivtp relative clauses

2estrictive relative clauses are one of the

stro

est bastions 0f lo

presupposition in language. On the surface they se quite solid,

sic that

the eulbedded sentence in (3%) below, the full sentence iu (3%) must be

“presupposed”:

(35) (a)

The man I saw

yesterdqy

left

(b) I saw a/the man yesterday

Things begin to blur when one realizes that restrictive relati

modify non-referential head nouns. Thus eonside r:

(36)

(a) I didn’t see anybody wha WCW~blue sb

+t

(b) ?Somebody wore a blue shirt

Logically, there is no way in wh,ich (%a) ~~~~~ ~r~su~)~~s~ 3~b~ u the ~ff~~~

sense as (35a) presupposed (3%).

N(orret

(36b) must hate been the

~is~~u~s~-~~ und

for 98 ~r~~~r use

perhaps a question such as:

(37) Did you see anybody weari ng a bhe shi rt1

This property of backgrounded~ness is thus sha*tbd betw n (35a) and @$a>,


21/53

only to (35a). Consider

s, its status i snot the

3ameas

ay and nobody came i

ve clauses does not

” information, nor

s to unify srflcases

nformation that is

is an extreme case

11

other subordinate-

with the “bi@W’


22/53

102

presuppositional clauses. But certainly an IF-clause cannot

tionail, logically it even doesn’t have truth value. If some “presupposition” is

invo’lved here, it c:ould not be logical, but must be discourse-pragmatic. To

il us t.ra,te his, consider first:

(41) (3) Context: What will you do if .I @tie you lke rntme~?

(b) Reply: If you give me the money, I’ll buy this houEle,

(c)

Context:

Under what coadition.s wifi you buy this h.~~e~

(,d) Rep/y: I’ll buy this house if you

ve me the money.

The repties in (41b,d) are appropriate in their context, but they are noI

interchafigenble. Logically, the I F-clause is presupposed in neither. But

pra

matically it is established as

backgrtmod

in (41a), while the ma:co clause IS

established as background in (41~).

Such

variation is pos(r:ble in En

acivcrbial clauses may either precede or follow their main claus

impossible in some languages, where ADV-clauses - as well as

c;rlly-background clauses -

can only p,rcxede asserted/main

clau

languages pre-pose all “topic/background clauses”, includin

REL-clairses,V-complements (of ‘knolv’ or ‘think’) and other “topic” clauses.

In other languages, ADV-clauses in text are overwhelming& pre-posed (241.

Unlike IF-clauses, BECAUSE-claua es are “logically presuppositional”. But

t.hey tou eshibit the same discourse-pragmatic variation as IF-clauses. Thus

+zonsider :

C~mt xt

What did she do bee.ause he instrlled her?

Reply: Because he insulted her, she slapped him.

Context: Why did she s/tip him?

RepI): She slapped him because he insulted her.

Mere lo@x~Hy the BECALJSE-clause is presuppositional tn both (4

(42d). Pragmatica ly, however, it is backgrounded in (42b) but

for

(42d). Logical presupposition, involving, ‘“truth values”, is thus a

phenomenon, often corresponding to - but never id~l~ti~al wi

cases of pragmatic backgrounded-ncss.

[23] For an exmplc from C hunve, a clausa.chaining Papwer-Naw

( 198Ob).

[24] Greenberg ( 1966) ha:, crbscrved that in the languages in his survey,

s

type,

he dominant tendency was roughly &I pm~~t of A~V~l~u~ in

20% post-possd.


23/53

103

The semrmticsf

co

tion verbs such as ‘know’ or ‘think’ was an early

in linguistics. where ohe

een ‘“factive” (presuppolsi-

“non-factive” (non

c,

(see e.g. Kiparsky

Given (1973a), inter alia).

ns to break down when one

being an “exotic”

is in fact ~~~~n~~rvas~,ve,lthough its surface coding

and Nichols in prep.).

nya Rwanda (see Giv6n and

hink’ are the same

resupposed from

ment ~la~s~. In addition however, Rwanda has an

evidentiality

in the

w something from

it via

hem-say

or

in~~~~n~~. you use

another. This is, inherently, a sc&r, non-discrete space

of .rMbJecticle

erbnty qf the speaker

concerning

An, logical presupposition

extreme edge

of a much

licated.

Superficially, one would expect a

“dir

her certainty” and “fact/truth”.

tain.

For example, in Sherpa

e Life of the Buddha, is

er that the story-teller

true i-:h he most absoi

sense of the word [ZS].

am other story-tellers.

~~~n~~~he ~ef of the hearsay mode.

ntcd the traditional notion of “subject”.

one-place predictations,

nce the predicate (7) is

t fsf the propositions bound by either an

referred to as ‘“subject”. Things


24/53

104

T. ihka/Li@c ws. riqm utics

become

more coqdicated, however,

when the predicate itself is nominal.

is generic, a logician may yet resort to some type-theory 8

to explain why one of the two nominals

in

the sentence ia

other the predicate, and thus explain the contrast in 126

(43)

(a) John is a farmer

(b) * A Farmer is John

But it is doubttul if logicali criteria alone could dcxidc w

ich ~o~nal is t

subject and which is the prediicate in cases where both are equally ref~r~nt~~l

and definite, as in:

(44) (a) The teacher is the cook

Ib) The cook is the teacher

To linguists and speakers, however, (44a: b) are not int

eablC2: ut they

depend on the rather nebulous (from the logician’s poin view) cri&rion of

“what one is talking about”, a notion that cannot be defined within the bounds

of isolated propositions, but is rather

discourse-cont,crxtensitiue.

In handling two-place predicates, the logician could

notions such as AGENT and PATIENT, then translat

KILL (John), (Bill),. Blurt his notation will 61ot d

active and its corresponding passive. The lo

“atomic” notion SUBJECT, then characterize the active as KILL (J~hn~~~

(Bill), and the passive as KILL (J~.)hn)~ Bill),. But as

lire

would know, “subject”

is

not an atomic notion, but ETJ:

pragmatic entity closely related to the notion “topic’*.

I have already discussed the use of both subject

dislocation in discourse, (see section 3 above), and

s

agreement is used to refer to the

amtinuing

clausal topic, v+ ile left-di$l~~ti~n

is used to mark the switching/disruptive clausal topic, Consider nail:

WV

. Now John, I saw

him leaving a while back..

.

-I- 1___1

TOP SIJBJ

In normal conversation context, a constructional such as

(4

when ‘John’ is :)eing rc-inhroduced into the discussion

while ‘I’ repreLents the continued topic. Clearly,

t

posiit an atomic, context-free notion “subject’” to d

that notion is tied together with many other devices along a scak? which we

(26) All other thing& eing,quaI, the referential

scope

f the subject must be nat~owr than that of

the predicate.See discussion in Giv$n ( 1973a) and Keenan ( 1976).


25/53

ic us,

105

dy shown to be discourse-pra

matic i,n nature. The f;ar;~ hat :%ome

c sub~sys~em ean be described in seemiq&-

but it ~erta~~Iy does not justify viewing the

ordinary-language

cd. Rather, the material

s”, ‘Lconve’:nional

nt the speech-act foundations

tie system (see @rice ( 196V/ 1975)

matic precipice to tvhich

s section li am going to

e discreteness of

ation of a clause is marked by vet% suffixes,

t-point

continuum between the tw,o extreme

alive,

as given in table 2. The difference

in terlns of the

see that we are

rmatory or corrective reapon se.

which by themselves make the traditional

atsve a hopeless

point on the

au (1973: JO), and was brought to my attenticm by Charlie Sato


26/53

The eight-point oontinuusn between the two extreme points of declaratitsc an’d interrog;;

-~~

Particle Traditional label Degree/type of SW

(I)

(2)

0

-yo

I%clarati ve

Ncu tral

Assertive

(3

(4)

-na

-kanaa.

-ne

Exclama ory

Confirmative

(5)

(6)

-desyoo

-daroo

-kadooka

Presumptive (polite)

Presumptive (plain)

Rhetorical

in

0 Informal

i i ; 3

-ka

Formal

Interrogative

certainty; not expectin

High certainty; cxpcotin

be&g emphatic m order

surprise (and thus less ~~rt~~nty~

Low certainty; inviting challsngc or

comment

More presupposed question; artswer is

expected as either yes or no

Rhetorical qtustion when rcpnti s fairly

sure of an answer

Lower corttinty in the answer, more

reliance on hcorer’s response

Lowest certainty: f~rtnai nnd deferent to

the hearer, au;1 thus by implication more”

dcpeeZcnt 011 response

exercises cklicate

pragmaf i c judgmeJr l f

concerni various probabilities, such 8s

his or her own certainty and validity of sou of infornx\tion, the hear&s

kmowledgc:, he hearer’s willingness to respond DenevolentlIy and the he~rec’s

disposition to attack or challenge. And in Japanese at least, subt.le computa-

tions of the

socia l grad ient

between the speaker and hearer must also

into account, and those are not fully independent of the more

considerations.

Of course, one does not have to stray far to find :;imilar

tag-questrcws

in English are clearly an intermediate grade bletween d

and interrogatives. Further, the normal yes-no question pattern in

not neutral, but rather is systematically

brasled

(Jward either

negative response (see Bolinger (1975) $‘ordetails and argun~~~,t~.So that only

the explicit construction below represents total ‘neutrality”:

(46) Given p and non-p, please tel. me which one is true

One could also show that the data of

inchw speda acts

points toward

another continuum between dwlarative and

imperativ

, where at least the

followin: graded dimensions must be involved:

(a) The degree of the speaker’s attempt to elicit action from the hearer


27/53

e information ~~~~~~~r~~~y the speaker is relevant

ssessed by the speaker)

~~t~~ly relevant on top of the

of the type mentioned

intruding. The entire

f non-discreteness and

e edges of the system

to logical-deductive

h topics “hat, in one .Nay or another, have

iogieians fo;la uite a while. But C~FT of

from the use of

human

language in

en touched by logicians. One of those is the

an NP CK phr,sse: or a larger chunk - as a

8 “comment” in a s sequent sentence. As a fairly

consider the followi left-dislocated example in ti

I like Reagan.

an, how do you like

the sky is blue,

uld say that. in principle anything could

that is within the cognitive network

within the network, and the only

is “‘b,y whaq

de e?“, “by how many

w, if the cognitive

ument holds for the paoblem of smunt ic rclatcdness in

nctwarrks and semantic change. Example

:%y, bl;4rsrd nd, ud is reminiscent of the

y childhood, such BD:“Thrxe were QIMXwo brothers, the first

one was tell and hmdwm, and the wad

one likaia heese oo”.


28/53

nety,+rorkwere a clased, deductive system, then in principle crne c&d specilt”y

the degree of connectedness in an sxnct way, pointing out to a discrete number

of

specific computational steps. B11t t is clear that the kind of ~o~~side~at~ons

undlerlying relevance judgment in the examples above are totally

they are sen: itive to anything the spc aker might suspat the hearer

to, including triviaI and accidental information that belies systematic fsrma&

zatiort. In principle, then, the problem of topic relevance, which plays a crucial

role: in the use of language in communication - including the more “syntactic

lo&ing” processes discussed in section 3 above - cannet be dealt with within b

lo&A-deductive sys,em, without trivializing it or ma$king its exp

cat’~ons 291.

9. The context-depedent, relativiftic nature of texical meaning

In the analysis of the “purely semantic” lexical meaning. the same Positivist

tradition of

radical reduct ion ism

observed by Quine ( 1953: 20-46) in philsso-

phy lhas largely prev;.Gled in linguistics. One is thus conditioned to talk about

%emantic features” as if they are atomic, absolute, primal units of meaning in

the grand tradition of Carnap (1947) and Katz and Fodor (1963). Everr.people

f#nr c:moved fr;;m this tradition,

such as the

Diverians (see, for example, Garcia

(

1975) or Kirsner ( 1979). inter alia), proceed upon the assurrpt ion that it is

possible to

segregattt the “core meaning” of words or morphemes, twhiuh is

invariant and context-free, from “contextual inferences” which are contingent

and context-sensitive:.

U’ittgenstein (1953) challenged this tradition of logical atomism from two

$#e:parateperspectives, and I would like to deal with his second clhallerl

III hills

Investigatiorrs,

Wittgenstein attacks logical atomism by citing

BOONS nd

fanlily-~~selnb~~anc~s,

nd in general vcwnbulary items that are more

CJbviously culturally-dependent.

The Positivists and their conscious or unconsci-

ous followers in inguisti,cs are forced to concede the for

iirgument, but confine its scope t,o what they consider tea

c:lf the semantic system, while continu

to int

in

terms of a closed deductive system

eman

“projection”,

“analyticity” and “contradiction” within such a s:fstem. What

I

would like to do in this section is demonstrate, with a few rather ~im~l~~mminded

cxamplcs, how the shoe is on the other foot, and how what Wit

ein

demonstrated to be the “less objective” margins of the semantic s

of

*natural language is in fact true

with u vengemce

for the entire systen~

Suppose you and I were taking a wallk in ~r~m~~~lurnbiax~lcur.hwestern

Colorado, and suppo,se we both saw the followin

(291G&e (1 8/75), for example, includes “relevance” in one of his maxims without further

6tmplification.


29/53

(48) A

man is slow y walking up a hiil; he reaches the

to

, then he kneels

down ir?r ront of a pile of stones and raises his ~krms o the sky.

And su

we had

ta d

asked us both: “What was that man doing?“, and

in

the event* with you claiming (49a) a,~d I claiming

1 endeavor to

show how both “p ng” and “mourning”

y meani

constructs. But how

ts of ~4g)~Ccynsider firs slowly”, and it is easy

is totally rel~~tivisti~~ clstcrrlt-determined, ft>unded upon

er, hot fixed but rather depends

n t/movernen

t

involved [301. Wow

e GriYeria iffctrcntiati tag“walking”

” from “running” ? Well, how about “up”? At

“physical” horizontal plane does

to move “upward”? And is that irbsolute horizental plane defined in

mference? In terms of our visu.31

of the horizon? Next, take “l~ill”, and wonder how it is to be

~liff~r~ntiat~d from “mound”, “heap”, “pile”. “peak” or “‘mountain”‘. Size has

obviously s#methin to do with it, but their there’s nothing absolute about si:ze

mouse is much I;maller than a smal elephant. Take

nder about the point where one reaches the top (of

especially something sue ich does not have a discrejre,

pex but rather curves

)roct:ed to “kneel” - how

eeling? And how elevated

nd need to bc:” And is kn:+contact neces-

knee to tht: yoint of con~~t/approach. is

? And - horror of horrors - what exactly is the

At this point the ~‘Qsitivistshoutd be unable to contain him- or herself and

the objective, sci :ntific nature of our

nd b,r:tween the femur and the tibia/fibula,

m what perspective are he femur and

e a b~n.c~i/j~int between them” Let us consider

(see fig.

1

b 1, and mac~*o (see fig.

abi;,ut optical trick:-; and the finesse of

Plrdee

1 wish to

defer the discussion1 of


30/53

whether scientific truth is in any sense subject to less-pragmatic imd more-ob-

jective criteria of meaning (see discussion in C3iv6n 19’7%: c6 8). But the

cognitive map represented in language clearly judges wheths:r objects are

A

‘;

Fig. 1. Three perspectives of the knee: (a) normal, (h) micro, and (c) macro.

strnight or bent in a ~h-m~e-dqw~~dm~ way given a

p

rticular per.,; 2

* tivc an

utilitarian context.

Let us &I;; in to invest ion of “in frant’“, and we

fine? that different cultures construe it di

ith

respect to

the position

of the observer/reporter, the physical ~hara~t~risti~s of t~hdt

w

vo’rved, and their relative position v:ls4+is each other [3

1).

And

thzse three dimensions is potentially a continuum, We ma

now, and face the same relativistic problems as with

“1

“stones”. and worrv how different they are from ‘kxks” or

*‘I

to “raksiqg’?,

where we must worry about what an

(3 11 Hill (1974) illustrates such differcncws between &q&h and Wausa ia their constrwtian of

spatial relation terms.


31/53

’ to hold, And on to ‘%rm” where similar problesns as seen above for

critlekl angks, visual field etc.

the

moment separate -

matterr is the envy

lllrfboth biologists and behav-

cur ~~~~~~~ -- become, the more and finer

dently of the inst~m~nt~ti~n. Thcrt reality may indeed exist, but v&; is the

in any sense “objective”? Obviously, clnlv from

at is in principle denkd to us (331 - C:CN& ne

support such a faith. The specifics certainly have not

is in principle a pragmatic matter, a,

mo;st concede the great areas in our

frames have: been establishe:J by

tk

that they etre forever

ty is rerr;.i.ve in two

tivistic areas in our cognitive map; and

and context-sensi+ %terwon

of re ative areas of

prkgmati:: map of

hi8

qwat fqt tke

Bhwal in *Mattltiiessen1978).

to stimulating axc:hmp with Tan Bikmn and


32/53

reality is a useful feature of su~~iu~zl, functional ~w&.s

operandi

of bi~~~~nti~nt

sys terns:

no rapid

dechion making, action schemata and c~t~~~~i~~ ~~/~~

& oices for survival are possible othefwise. The ~bj~:tiv~tio~

alization of reality is a prime SW a&linked feature slf such syi

manifesting itself repeatedly at

evels of percll:ption and

c

re-creating itself -

out of the inherently pragmatic,

discreteness, by re-framing or

re-adjustin

exisl~~;~frames

shaill see directly below, Fluch

re-ad.justme:

is a f~l~d~~e~~t

and language change.

IO. Pra;gmat~cs

Ever since Saussure:, linguists have tended to s~gregute dja~hr~~nic from syn-

chronic study, pretending that it was possib e to appreciatt: langu

. . .

any fpen porn :t was C* *Ab.w 3JJbWll .

f;v&q c.,,c*fim” jp.:lr, ;r :n 4am.P.tfi4 a-.-t :a

v ra.llc~1c 1.3LBUC; ciuac bUW1 IU

a

necessary methodol~~jcal-heuristic stelp (see discussion in Givbn 1979a:

ch. 6), it is still the fact that language - within the minds of speakers, rather

than as some abstract system of lartlpage

lexicon/meaning, syntax, morphology and

map is thus not only a system of codin

system of re-cuding, modifying and re-

integrating into it newly-acquired lcnow

tradition, such modification is often repre as a purely forma

permuting and re-combining a fixed inventory of atomic primitiv

the order of relati~~ely-fixed formal rulsec,

hus

totally trivializing

language change (see, for example,

1976b)), and also making diachronic ii

logico-deductive dogma.

There are three aspects of aiachronic ch t that would be incom

with a formal/deductive approach to meani

(i)

T/w system-parts dependmcy: III 11 10

primitives are fixed, and any “change

involving formal deductions from exi

1918). Further, the primitives in suclh

value and are thus

not

system~d~~~~nd~nt.

show ; rathe).* Aearly that in human

tan

subtritct&, split or merged, and that

further,

a

syste*m eqkes re-definition of the entire system.

(ii) Ohen-ende&Js; Aside from Goedel’s abservat ions r’n~~~~~~~~~~~

edueti

systems are closed and can absorb no new primitives,

tions that are not deducible from existing ones. The hum


33/53

9 clearly attests to the open-

ity to absorb new knuwledge without

e a number of typical examples of diachronic ~zhange

word-order and syntactic structure, In each close I

-deductive analysis of whilt goes on is in

matic characterization i$; im

of the argument will remain

as the system of knowledge represent ation

it could not possibly be a. deductive-based

e evolution will be

h “know’ and ‘can’

, WC

Anttils ( 1977) and An Jersen

vernaldcvdopments ts(>k place mostly based

an aorist-perfcxl stem

Ided Modern E

know. On tke

other hand,

(OHG km, Modem G kcran, inlinitive

which &a yieldccl Moden E WI. The

the 0 mm ‘lmtm’

and OE

cemm and

ccnmm.; this fbtnote


34/53

114

T.

Giorin/ l ogic OS.

pragma ics

SO) If one knows how tcl do something,

thea the probability is higher tlat one

cari do

it.

That the inference in (50) is probabilistic/inductive rather than deductive is

easy to see, since “ability to do” involves not only “‘knswin how to ~~~~~ut

also possibly “having the physical power to”, “having the ll-pawer to” or

“being physically/mentally un-restrained”. NOW, if the senzz “be aMe to”’ can

be pragmatically/contextually inferred, then presumably “know” at that his-

torical stage in English may be described as ~~A”~entotrs, oughly

alon

following lines:

(51) KNOW +

‘be able to’/‘know how to pIerform an act’

-+ ‘know’/elsewhere

In (51), then, ‘know’ is the “core rneanin~,“’ and ‘can’ a special case in a

narrower context, still pragmatically inferable as in (SO). Next what must have

occurred is a ~&?~J&?&~&,ogjf&yg?? Cg?,

gain,

pr~~mat,ic,/inAnlry;up in fia p,

a**UUY*1 Y

roughly on the line:

(52) If one

can

do something because one kmvs how to do it, perhaps one can

do it for other reasons as well, such a’s (i) physical/mental power, or (ii)

being unrestrained.

Deductively such an inference is absolutel,y unwarranted, but irtdz~ctive

t

proceeds along a “family resemblnnce” cline, noting the “similari iy” between

the three sense: of ‘ability’ (qinowledg,e

how,

power and litck of

outside

restraint). Once such an infererce has czcurred, however, the structure of the

lexical item KNOW as in (51) - with ‘ability’ defined as a contextual variant of

‘knowledge’ -

is now disrupted, since the (:ther senses of ability have nothing

to do with knowledge. At this stage spe&ers face

t, between the

semantic domain of ABILITY and that irlf KNOW bcth of which

overlap at one point, namely the sense “knowing how to”. The conflict, in this

particular case, was resolved by t&in advantage of the phone

kann,/catt, which (presumably by so inferential/inductive st

all its ‘know’ senses except “know how to do’ - and absorbed the other ‘can9

senses. of power and lack of rzsraint.

‘I’lhis

restructuring may be thus sum-

marized as:

(53) KNOW 4 ‘know’

CAN

-+ (i) ‘be able to because) of knowled

(ii) ‘be able to because of power’

(iii) ‘be He to for lack of restraint’

But the fortuitous appearance of an l~tymological v~related stem is not a

prerequisite for the restructuring, Rather, a senzantically-related stem cc&i do

just as well. This was presumably the c:Ebsen German, where 3Lhe

know

that’


35/53

t o wissen

with

k t in rw

ut wissep l ome :

d is attested irr the L. tIi&-re ‘see’,

at see was the original

le: the perfect-resultative

nd t&us know’. And this

tion’““

is again itself the

e original situat’.on may

tic i~du~ti~~~

nf

nee must have then proceeded:

The inference from physical. perception to mental cognition is of course lot

and musi be a human universal [36]. Nevertheless, it is noi. a

ut rather inductive-probabilistic. Presumably. the next

‘,ee’ to ‘know’ in *WI% involved a

general i zi ng i nferewe

(56) If one u~~der~~~~r~dsomethin

because of prior perception/seeing, ma rbe

then one u~d~~.stands it for other reasons as well, s&r as hearing,

explanation, inti-ospection, &ine inspiration etc.

once

in we hnve an overlap

betw

en

two semantic ofmains, of “cognition”

with the point of overlap

which cements the

fandy

“understanding due to seeiqg”.

al variant form, the perfective

form to carry the restructured

) the sti:nse of ‘see anc,l

loa

verb

War’ -wwfw~ms also used for

.

Ihit even mom concrete expressions

ding,/cognition. Tlhus in Amhanc ‘“it

I

get/got it” has a similar sense. In

upon @Othic

s van,

QE

s r,

etc., themsd’ves

via exactly the 881HB ype Of

p~@Tli?W

inference,

i.e. 3: QW follows with the eyes (pcial context of 6follow”) tOlenone sees”. Etc. Etc. Etc.


36/53

Consider the folJlo~ng gradual ejctension of the ~eanin

originally a physical-tastcrl- djst IVC:

(57) (a) sweet apple (physical-taste,

(b) sweet music ~a~l~io/abstr~~c

(c) sweet victory (abstract, be~efi~ial/re

At first glance, one may argue tha.t we have here a straight case of

~~~~nti~~

bleaching, whereby ‘sweet’ has the CXW~~,aniq

the extensions are

contextual injeremxs

from that core

bleaching the more physical/concrete aspects of meani

linguist would argue rather strenuously that no semanti

at all between (57a), (57b) and (57c), bat only a widenmg o

contextual inferrences (see e.g. arguments in Garcia (197S) and Kirsner (2979)

inter alia). But the concept of “‘core me,aning” becomes nebulous when one

considers the fact that the very same h:xical item may mutate in different

diirections, using glifferent components af its total meani

cluster as the

so-calleld “core m.eaning”. IYI his connection, see the discu n of the muta-

tions o.f the verb ‘sit’, further t>elow. In other words,

II

ing withiln the

semantic field,‘dlomain of a \,xicaJ item can be consider*ed either “core” or

“‘contextually in1eiSeS” meaning, given particular

co?mJ:ts.

But the role of

context in this casc~ s lo &ffincl

what is rdmant

lwithia the domain, what will be

held cons tan

t

anfd thus considered “lzorc:”

as against what will be mutated and

thus considered “*contextual inference”. This determinrhtion is

in pnnciplt~

nom-deductive,

bult

rather involves the pragmatic ju

me:at of ‘relevana:’ and

“similarity’. Further, much like the c‘ascs discussed

10.1

&tave - ujQc:h a,,t”cz

*after ah metaphoric in very much tl te

sam

resemblance

rather than with objectiflre/core

I would like to claim here that all semanti

kind as metaphoric extension, and

that

“semantically related words” simply

co

eyes of some scholars. Thus, consider

extension of the

Hebrew root

Vb,

‘sit’:

(58) (a)

Early stqpB: ib

‘sit’

(b)

Late4p tqgtr: y-.fb

‘sit’

Jb-t

‘rest” -) rest from work’ -+‘st; ike’

The split between “sit” and ‘rest’ is obviously a cent

xtual i~f~ren~~ from ‘sit”,

as are the later extensions of ‘res#t’ oward ‘rest rotn work”

“strike’. The added

~v~~t~~ly

phonolo cal differentiation most likely

:

horn the

Gnperfeci third-lpelrson ms. sg. prefix y- for ‘sit’

d the

~~~~~~~~g suffix ..t


37/53

essiveuqxct. The

matit: inference” is

, where an erstwhile ltm tive-directional

rzes next the dative/ben+b:factivc marker

~~~Q~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~arker, as in lhe case of the

initia~l~~, proixcds by bleachmg, along a well-

and the rncw$: Tro

locative to da t,ive-benefactive

I ~~~~ati~ steps of’ in~er~~~e involved in ( Sa-d)

may be

bjcct

moves that person

n, the Arabic guatr’ sit’ has become the

of Iocatic~ned o temporal

cxprcs-

or Givh (I 9’73b). inter dia. The

,n widely documented

(sc:c summary in Givbn,

b). Similar chanp, up to at least the

10, Baatu

ku-,

Ht:brew Ie-, Sherpa Jr,


38/53

118

T. Givcin/Logz’c es. prugnwt ics

(ii)

If a

person can be a conscious-recipient o

conc:r~ti objects, that

person could aIso ble a conscious/recipient of aEst~aet ideas.

(iii) If a person is the recipient of anything, chances are he/she is the

possesmr

of that thing.

(iv) Whoever

possesses

an object most likely also ~~~~e~~~rom that

object.

The probzini istic nature of these inferences, and the family-r~~sembiance char-

acter 0% the verb-continuum along which

hey progress, need no further

elaboration. But how did the inference psogress further

dative/ benef ac-

tive to human-accusative? Three facts ab(Dut dative/hen

tives are involved

here:

(a i They are in text overwhelmingly

human (see

discussion in Given 1976b,

1979a: ch. 2):

(c4) They nre in text overwhelmingly definite (see discussion in Oivon 1976b,

i 979a ch. 2);

(c) They have a high probability in discourse/text of undergoing a “dativc-

shift” and thus being promoted to

direct

o@ect/accusatiloe (see discussion

in Giv6n 1979a: ch. 4).

Now, in Engfish dative-shifting involves the loss of the

tposition *to/

for’,

but in Spanish it does not. Thus compare the two co

variant and In& -**wcbc,-u*bject variant,

in table 3. The an;

resemblance” nature of this inflerential space next gave rise in Spanish to the

following inferences:

(6 1) (a) ‘If an object is

dative, 1

has a high probability of also bein

*and

def ine e.

(b’j If an object is

dat”ue-humarL -deji ’ ,tite,

t has a hi

h probability 01’also

being

direct object.

This purely probabilistic re,itsoning i

s

responsible for re-a

others, a.

human-ac.wat;ve

marker. But the very same i

lead 1.0#another resolution. In Swahili, I:‘orexample, (s

1076b) l;he object agreement/proniun first marked dative objects,

tlhen

was

extended to definite direct objects. ,tnd finally was further ~xt~~d~d

.- within

one gender only -

to be the mnrlier of

htrmm direct ok$wts,

indefinite alike. The more general e;utenr;ion in Swahili, then, went from dative

to dqfirrife-direct object, rather than from dative to )runlcrrr+=Clirectbject.


39/53

Direct-objeez vwial?a

Indirect-object variant

hat the functional domain of

ins that overlap in the passive

(62) (a) th? topic-

ntiwnt

domain:

here a non-agent gets ‘promoted’ to the

/topic position. Other members of this domain are, e.g.

ronouns, definitization, right and left dislocation, etc.;

atisn

domain: here the iderltity of the agent is sup-

p~esse~i in various ways. Other members of this domain are various

rson~)./neut~~l constructions;

(c)

the

stcrtive)l/dc7t~~rasitiveomain:

here

an event is construed as a

st.ate, its “active” p

erties thus suppressed. Other members

omain

are stative-a

ctivals,

ref exives, reciprocals, perfec-

tive-resultatives, etc.

Now, in ~~iachr~~nic~l~nge giving rise to passive corn>tructions of the “classical”

ts properties of all three functional domains of

where the passive arises from constructions

wit~n eiach d,~m~n that are

not

er se passive

constructions, but rather

one of the $three domains. Undergoing

&ly

acquire some of the properties characteristic of the

irtvolve the folLowin

inductive/probabilis-

t is to bat suppress~rd, he next most likely

will be likely to become the

topic of the

nduc, aqxxt 0% the

action is to be focused upon,

the

staous/identity

q f

he agent Is lefss

important.

(c) If the clatlse-tcapic is u noti-agent,

then it is most likely that the


40/53

12 3

T. xbr/ Lo gic s. pragmatics

patient-related properties of the event, such as

state, are /focused upon.

iits being a uesu&ng

InEcrence

(63a)

leads from the agent-identity-suppression

1

domain to

the topic-

identification domain. Inference (63h) leads from the st~,tive~iIlt~~ns~~ve o-

m;lin to the agent-identity-suppression domain. And inferewe (63~) leads from

t

hit topic-identification don,ain to the stative-detransitive doma,in. Each is in

Ijrinciple pragmatic, and each is supported by a wet&h of cross4in

A’ .5. Word-order change

lin Old Biblical Hebrew (OBH, see Givoa 1977) the “unmarked” word order

TNasVSO and a special marked order -

either an “‘anterior” break in

-the

action sequence or a topic-switch - was SVO. In

rew

(LBH), the two orders changed their valuation, wit

the

unmarked word order -

in context of both action and topi@ continuity _I_ nd

VSO assuming specialized, oft-semi-frozen, values (though not the original

perfect/anterior/topic-switch value of the QBH SVO). This re-analysis also

inl~~olves crucial change in

the tense-aspect system, from a perfect-aspect

system to a past-tense system, whereby the OBH “perfect’” than

Gon from “anterior” to “past”, while the OBH “imperfect”’

valuation from “preterit” to “future/non-punctual”. Both UK

tense-aspect change ; niay be characterized 1s “over-use” prc>8essesof de-mark-

(b)

Over-use of the mere marked left-dislocated SW word-order to

identify subjects that are easier to identify and represent h&$er

pvdictability/continuity

than those normally marked by

left-disl

tion (see section 3 above). This de-marked the SVO wordmorder:

Over-use of the anterior “prior to” value that firs/: involved a

specific

look-back function

of “perfect” 8r

“pluperfect”,

maki

mlore general “in the past” :narker. This de-marked t

and made it a past tense.

Both changes are well attested elseINhere, mostly il~d~~~~~~l~~,tf each

other

[40].Both represent

an “over-kill” communicative strategy, whereby the speak-e1

decides

i

ha t

- just for satefy’s sake - he will use a

more m(arked

insure beyond ;a shred ,sf doubt tillat thr: hearer

da-marking or

deualtrativg

that device. A

similar

de-marking the right-dislocated VS word-order and

ev

[M) See Givh

(I

911Ob) or the perfect-to-pm change, and Givbn ( 1976b) flor the clc-mwking af

1~ t-dislocate4 constructions.


41/53

T. Gi vbnJLo\gic vs. prapnutics

121

e from SV to VS “neutral” word-o

-r(see discussion in Slobin 1.1977)

input into such a decision by the

riety of probabilities, cone erning

i sepal-interactive factors all per-

the message without inordinate

irich a decision procedure could be

s;rstem. It is inherently a context-

the child’s acquisi-

e same kind as the

in ( 1977) and Givirn

and enlargement of

d and of his/her

necessarily open-

a Iogico-deductive descriljtion.

discussion in Givbn 1979a: ch. 7),

f human language

and ontogenetic

only is a deductive-base j account incapable of characteriz-

age is undergoing at all times, but

way language has evolved. In this

sense, thus, ~hornsky’~, profoundly anti-evolutionary view of human language

is certainly compatible with his view of

rammar as a closed aigorithmic

system f4

11.

systems,

ein and

iucc

Bert rmd F~uss~ll, n his f Dreword to Wi it

enstein’s Tractatus, acknowledges

eductive syste.ms, yet

noting; that for someone who argued that

anaged

to say quite

nent was of course

ndamentally misdirected, since

though Russell’s

worthy model of

g been made some

[4\] TO wit: “,.t It is quite senseless to s&se the prciblem of erplaining the evolution of human

language ftcrtn more pnmitiw sysre+ns of wmmunication that appeared It lower levels of

intellectwl crap&y.. . *’ (Chomsky 1968: 59).


42/53

decades earlier by Peirce (see Peirce ( 1455) and discussion in Anrtila (1977)).

Both saw c;learly that a deductive, axiomatic system cannot express new

information, but only

tau3Qlugies

totally familiar knowledge) or

c~~ntrud~cti~n~

(totally

strange and un-integrable knowledge). Peirce

went on to win the tam

“abduction” to characterize the kind (Dfnon-de

uctive inference, inductian or

intu iti ve I eap

that must

un

quisitioa of new in~o~~tion~ Still,

Wittgenstein, perhaps inadv

down tile foundlations for

neral

theory of injbrmation

within any

c

municativc* system - ~ert~nly within

natusmal language - w3ere

‘“new information” alwa ys operates ~me~vhere

between the two extrr:mes of tautology and contradiction: it cannot be

t~tul~

new and thus incompatible with all previous knowledge (Le. ‘~~ontr~~dicto~~‘~.

And it cannot be

totally

old and thus redundant and of no interest (i.e.

“:autological’“). Wi&in such extreme bounds, one

coulld

conceive of the

seemingly

logical

impropriety of tautologies and contradicuons such 8s;

(65) (a) Joe is a teacher;

he is tl teacher

(tautology)

(b) Joe is a teacher;

he’ s not a teacher

(contradictlion)

as being merely the extreme margins of the system. But the bulk of the system

of linguistic communications operates somewhere bex~~n these two extremes,

where “degree of redundancy” and “degree of newness/surprise*’ cannot be

ruled upon by deductive means, but TL*Iuste inferred

prqmatico& .

There ore

three empirically-based argunlrenlis that militate for such conclusions:

(; ) The cuntext-dependency argument:

The logician would consider (ir9a. b)

”

above, closed systems, and thus pretend that the contradketory or tauto-

logical second proposition in each is that way becztuse of the first

proposition. But the use of language in communicative context is r&e

open

in two distinct senses: First,

generica& ,

any itelm of shared knowl-

edge within the culture/lexicon can potentially be an

im@cit part

of the

context for

any

prop0

Second, any span of the “specific/

context the speaker

s to be

within reach

of the rhea

legitimate context for a proposition. Decisions on both

principle

probabilastic and pragmatic, given the total

spa

“context” [42].

(ii)

The speaker-hearer argument:

For logicians, eontext is ‘~obj~tiv~~‘,

overtly-listed premises. They are never comfortable with “I

But in language and communication, it is the “I” thett ma

about what

-. generically and specifically -- can be taken us the ~~~~~~~

context for “you”,

and this horror of subjective, inductive inference would

(421 Logicians, of COUIBB~reate a sanitized notion of context by listing: a finite number

of

propose

ims as “premises”.


43/53

uctive system wide

open. In addition, sooner or later the

with the “‘I” create the classic infinite-

s paradox), and while a logician may

s done [43], that does not make the

section 8, above, even

diate, visible, proposi-

o get the logician off

the hook, This is so

visible, immed.~ate context is judged by the

:lance as context. And as we have seen

t is in prizrrciple crpen-ended and pragmatic.

ic may define the u pel: boundis of

systems (the l~~~t~ern~ases), the bulk of the actual

atic irr nature, where “new” and “o;ld” informa-

U@ct open ended generic nd specific contexts.

mv

context

m to take symqvmy for granted as d matter of

iat would find it extrt:mely hard to identify a bona fide case of

her lexicon or grammar. Marchand (1964) refers to the seeming

nymq in;l he lexicon 2~s the eccxxmy principle”, and that may

ect ~~p~~~ati~n, at letrst in part, since one would be hard put to

ex~~,~~nwhy speak rs should store two forms coding exactly the same meanrng

or function. Appa nt cases of synonymy tend to dissolve, on closer examina-

tion, into more subtle semantk, pralirnati:, socia

istic, dialectal variation.

On the ather harlkd

and grammatical ity in sentences olrt of

cantext -. is much

ier to document,

being indeed one of the most pervasive

s of 1exiCOR n

types of diachronic changes discussed in

this, so that in fact language change at all

Jly-dependent proliferation of senses and

e two extra @??. oles of the system of

cOai’n$j

is the extreme case 01

~l;ecoding, where the very same

one csei e

bnits. While polysemy is the

sage units - presumably along

domain -. are coded by only

seem to avoid the one extreme so con-

1’~p~r~dc~~

nd

its implications for epis emology and pragmatks in


44/53

fjjistently d indut sistently? The answer,

1

clearly abides by this dictum,

the polysemy/ambiguity end?

On

n it violates it so ~~~si~

If language were a closed, deductive system d~a~in

meaning, this question would indeed be bafflin

I believe, already established that lexical and

in language is

open-ended

and

context-smsitix. Thus t

can tolerate the seemingly hi incidence of p~ly~~erny

must be that they constarttly make use of the context ta disa

while a small core or “m;~rgins” of the semantic syst

they are absolute and context free”, the bulk is conte.~t-dependent, at least

--

when one considers the actuai facts of language use. Gtven su

?,nguage, it seems that it &GS indeed “strive to operate” by

one-to-one correlation between code and message, Either tota

an infinite number + f:ode-units expressing the same message) or total

ambiguity (i.e. an infinit c number of messa coded by a sin c~d~~u~~it)

would be a communicative nightmare. The

t

would impose enormou~q

and non-functional MVIKV~:~’ur&rr. While the ond would impose

t~~t~~

ciependenqv cm con ext. I

seems to me that Ila in fact 8 ~~~_~~~~~

c*ompror~t~~e

ystem, relying to some extent on m en - where items

and rules can be memorized in a relatively “atomic”, context-free

fmhion

while to some extent rel>ting on disambi tion via context, where items a&

rules shift their meaning /usage depend

That such a compromise should be root

anism seems too obvious to require further COI

When one considers the ont

struck by the fact that

carlie

polysemy/ambiguity and

t

And that from those earli

eny of human lan

more the extreme

umbiguotrs

and HIOIV

ich& coded. I t

is

communication and primates communica

in the extreme (see discussion in Givbn 16

here-and-now, visible topics and

I-and-you.

One may

thus

of language, both phylogenetically and

s:mtax out of discourse, “core meaning” out contextual rn6ani

out of pragmati:s, and thus - in very much the same s


45/53

c3f context-free,

n the human organism

le, .is their fundam~nt~~~ connection and constant interchange

nt ext-free automated routines and context-sensi-

First are uscd~ along established, routine path-

nrajor

ch.w’ficl;rtory

nodes of the system, where pre-

ulate about what \h analytic scannin

native device is on automatic pilot. One

tional level - at the

theme

the ht urcr - in order to


46/53

14.1. Lmgutqy, cw t tmunicati on nd prugmat ic:l ; s. ogrc

I think an txnpiricul study of language data, without idea

or abstracting use, context and eomm

points out clearly to the fact that 3,@

stripe can achieve little in eithelr de

cognition. This is not to say, howevtr, &at

col;itdstitig

them with pragmatic ones from

the

informatior./cornmunication theory, cannot

yield some in

about the parameters that bound cogGtion

differences betwlcen the two systems ma;y be su

The fact that a fundamentally prag

the human orglinism nevertheless gives rise, repeatedly and in various sub-

systems. to islands of relative firm~~ment/dedu~tabi~ity, is an important evolu-

tionary and epktemological fact. The hybrid system that is thus treated is

t-annhlFi fif aAnr9tino tr\ turfi rncaiplr nar-aml*t*rc fif banvirnnmant sank-4 ckrrwiuul*

YUps”.b V* U”UyCIa.@ Z” b”” “.‘UJ”.

puW1a.“bY.” Va V*a.*.Va.a.aYI*. w4‘U VU+. .* .U‘W

Flexi bi l i t y, change and i ndet ermi nacy:

this is a fundamental fact of reatity,

and only an organism capable of dealing with it could survive in a real

universe.

(ii)

Speed of decision making, planning and action:

this is a fundamel~ta~

Table 4

Pragmntic processing

.-

Ikductive processin

Spuce

Context relution

System bounds

WC& of inference

Mode of proof

Mode of data-

prwwsing

Functional distri-

bution

Spead of processing

hlemory/hardwart:

d cpendence

Pro~rerm/software

d~~pendence

Continuum

Con tcx dapcnden

t

Open-anded, chan~eablc

Inductive/abductive

Pwponderonca of cvidencc,

open

Analytic

certainty und high corn--

plcxi ty

‘L,ow p

Low dapcndcrrce

Low dependence

Catc~orial/discrcte

Context fr

Closed, fixwl

uc: ive

uctive proof, cslosed

Automatic, ~l~~rjthmic

certainty crud low corn-

plexi ty


47/53

in a potentially hostile universe,

action

is of the esseracec

do not reveal a measure of rnutinized

nis:m in its cognitive evolution has been

the syntacticized vs. the

h. 5). it seemed to me then

, one

reflective of general

r the last few years, it has been gratifying to

find out how that initial hunch indeed pans out. The psychological

with works on the auto~~at~~ation/rout~nizati~~n of percep-

ast literature exists concerning the routini-

neurolo#cal literature

f feedback-free circuits is

ard ~11 hese phenomena

suggest hkolds for the

t such compartmentalism is bound to be self-defeat-

rstanding of both what

ition is now as well as -

ow it evolved out of so-c

Q6. itn#tiC ~r~~~~~i~&n perccptkinelnd caglition, alcc

Kbin ( 1973),

Pssner

wd Snyder (19’14). Atkinson arld

rin (1947),

inter aNa. Fur

autsnlatizutiorr nJ rautinizuti0t7

t (1975,1930),

hapiro

nd Ghmidt (in press), Shapwj

in press), rrsf~dia.

For the ncurolagical basis f’or

Margain ( 1950) or Pkllard ( I 960), n, ter

cd

routines/reflexes, see Smith (

I 980) ,


48/53

128

T. Givh,/ Logic vs. prugntutics

ability to react to feedback and fast-changing feedback, the copin

indeterminacies and imponderables.

Ultimately, think, we must elaborate not only a theory of human co

as it is now, but aiso a theory ey;plaining the rise of h an cognition 8s m

~O/M~UMJ~,biological process. What I believe will em

as p=t of such a

theory is a hierarchic view of the evolution of organismic

functions, whereby

simple, “lower” functions get routinized via repetition and the eventual catee

gorization of tokens of both stimulus and behavior as

“be

a more

general typ8 X”.

This categorization makes routin~~~d of the

response/behavior possible, thus freeing the analytic, f~~back-dependent

capacity to seek, create and pursue higher levels of organization. But eventually

those higher levels get similarly categorized and eventually routinized, etc.,

perh,aps potentially ad infini~~r?l. Categorization into hieriuchic

tok~naty~e

syste.m:; may thus be viewed as the prerquisite for routinization,

parcel of the same

eneral process of systems creatioa And

routini

processing is what makes it possible, in turn, to keep increasing the

depth of

the

processing system, by freeing the analytic capacity to pursue the next

level.

14.3. TIie rise

of order out of chaos: C’ arnup and Wittgenstein revisited

To some extent, the rise of deductive, closed, well-ordered, discrete and

algorith,mic systems out of the non-discrete, chaotic mire of pragmatics must

remain a fundamental mystery of the sentient organism. Philosophical exm

tremists since time immemorial, be they Western epistcmolo

ts and

latter-day

logical a tomists or mushy mystics and late-Wit -outs of whs tevcr

stripe, have all striven to represent the roots o

gnition as one of the extreme

poles. Ia’epistemology is

givon logic pragmatics epistemology

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