Universality of grammar and grammatical universals
(1)
von August
Dauses
Inhaltsverzeichnis:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Isolating versus inflecting and
agglutinating languages
Chapter 2: Grammatical morphemes as
relative indicators and concomitant phenomena
Chapter 3: Grammatical
marking, classification and word formation
Chapter 4: Grammar and linguistic
history
Chapter 5: Schematic,
pleonastic and secondary usage
Chapter 6: New categories -
new redundancies
Conclusion
Introduction
In the following we will give a summary of the general
language theory we have developed during the last few years
(Dauses, A., Einführung in die allgemeine
Sprachwissenschaft 1997; Englisch und Französisch.
Zwei indogermanische Sprachen im Vergleich, 1998;
Ökonomie und Kybernetik natürlicher Sprachen,
2000; all published by Franz Steiner) together with a number of
further thoughts developed in the meantime and produced as a
consequence of our theory. This enables us to define grammar
universally and to delimit it from vocabulary and at the same
time we are in the position to explain where exactly in a
sentence grammatical markings and grammatical morphemes can occur
in the various languages of the world. In a first step, we will
examine what kinds of grammatical markings which we are more or
less familiar with from our Indo-European languages are missing
in other languages (or also in some of the Indo-European
languages).
If we imagine a fictitious
language, in which all kinds of grammatical markings are missing
or used to be missing, we come to the principles of an isolating
language, of a language then which can do with a minimum of
markings.
After that we will inquire into
the nature of grammar and into its delimitation from vocabulary
and word formation. If grammar cannot be determined
onomasiologically, then what use is the unity of grammatical
categories that are so different among themselves? Could it be
its merely relative character?
Finally, we will ask the
question to what extent grammatical morphemes can be
characterized as 'weak' linguistic signs with also many
analogous usages and secondary usages (respectively secondary
meaning) and why languages which have a lot of grammar never
cease to produce new morphemes and new categories that
nonetheless are still found in that framework we instinctively
consider to be grammar.
1. Isolating
versus inflecting and agglutinating languages
When talking about grammar, we first and foremost think of
morphology and morphosyntax, that is of indications of case and
number as far as the noun is concerned, the marking of person,
tense, mode and aspect regarding the verb; we think of the usage
of prepositions, articles, pronouns, of the formation of the
adverb from the adjective, of the usage of some conjunctions,
etc. So it seems to us quite natural that these grammatical
categories exist and also that the corresponding grammatical
morphemes have to be learnt alongside fixed rules concerning
their usage. These rules range from more or less force of habit
to the so-called 'obligatory' usage. Occasionally, these
grammatical morphemes are so closely linked with the lexeme that
the lexeme on its own does not occur any more (cf. Latin
canto) and in many cases the marking is such a force of
habit that an 'ellipsis' at least seems very
disconcerting, cf. the fictitious answer *Yes, see. to the
question Do you see the house? The answer without subject
and object pronouns, which appears strange to us, includes
however all relevant pieces of information, because it becomes
quite clear from the context who sees what, and in Japanese this
answer would be the only possible one. And when a Japanese says
(in imitation) *See house., this could mean I see a
house, the house, houses, the houses. Personal pronouns are
rarely used in the subjective case; there are no articles and
there is no marking of number. Therefore we cannot speak in terms
of number or article in the Japanese grammar, and the personal
pronouns are not integral parts of the verb either as it is the
case with Indo-European languages (English I see him) so
that it remains to be reflected upon whether in the Japanese
language they have to be regarded as grammar in the stricter
sense. Not every economical and economically used (!) linguistic
sign belongs to grammar, for grammar according to our
understanding also means usage according to set rules and
therefore not only in those cases when the relevant piece of
information is necessary for understanding! We will come back to
this point later.
Grammatical categories and
markings, which we take for granted, are therefore by no means
universal, and this is most evident when we compare different
languages, language stages and language types. The way this
becomes most explicit is to consider isolating languages (for
example Chinese, Vietnamese), which, in simplified terms, can be
called languages without morphology.
Such languages operate with
syntax in order to mark the relations in a sentence and otherwise
use only full words (with a few exceptions). As a consequence,
they have no grammatical rules in our sense either (or only very
few).
Yet, we do by no means have to
learn Chinese in order to understand the principles of an
isolating language, a language which therefore is poor in grammar
and economical (!). Instead, we construct a fictitious language
which can do without morphological markings and ask ourselves
what kinds of alternatives are needed to respect the necessary
distinctions in order not to put at risk communication. By doing
this, it will soon be clear what we intuitively understand by
grammar and morphology and by which means they differ from
vocabulary, but at the same time it will also be clear that many
phenomena of our Indo-European grammars are not necessary per se,
but that they are also due to a background of linguistic
history.
As a consequence, we do at
first without the constant marking of the person as far as the
verb is concerned (by means of the personal ending or subject
pronouns) and we use this kind of marking only in case the person
is newly introduced or a change takes place (*I went to town,
had breakfast, smoked a cigarette, went back. Met a friend.
He said…). The Japanese or also
isolating languages show us that this is perfectly possible. We
would only have to pay attention to avoid confusion between a
noun and a homonymous verb (fish – I fish; fire – I
fire etc.). This can most easily be achieved by avoiding to
use the same root of a noun and a verb that are homonymous but
that have a completely different meaning. Instead of taking this
verb, we take a completely different word or use a periphrastic
construction (for example *to catch fish for to
fish); at least this is the way the Japanese and the Chinese
languages work. This kind of economy (the elimination of the
personal marking) is detrimental to the equally economical
possibility of word formation. However, we would also like to
qualify that by saying that this kind of word formation in the
Indo-European languages has from the first day onwards by no
means been used systematically (that is as far as all nouns are
concerned) and that it is also economical in a restricted sense,
because the verb just includes one of thousands of possibilities
of dealing with an object (you cannot only catch fish; you can
also kill, fry, eat, sell, cut, feed it, etc.). This means that
we always have to rely on further lexematic means respectively
'periphrastic constructions'.
Consequently, the obligatory
marking of the person as far as the verb in the Indo-European
languages is concerned goes back to word formation. The personal
sign becomes an intrinsic part of the verb and remains that way,
also in cases where the noun and the verb have grown apart from
each other to such an extent that it is impossible to confound
them any longer. (cf. German Gang – gehen; Wille –
wollen; Gesang – singen, etc.). This results in a marked
redundancy, which has a further consequence: languages that
normally mark the subject with the verb by means of a personal
ending or by a personal pronoun, analogously make use of an
object pronoun with clockwork regularity (Ich sehe ihn; er
sieht mich; wir sehen es, etc.). In this case the Japanese is
much more economical and more sensitive as far as the context is
concerned, as well as the Chinese as an isolating language, which
does not know the obligatory usage of object pronouns; it is only
more frequent there, because otherwise the verb would be
understood in a passive sense (Ich sehe = ich sehe/ ich werde
gesehen).
In a next step, we also
eliminate the tenses, which help us in the Indo-European
languages to recognize the verbs, and use instead time adverbs
and a neutral verb form (present tense): *Yesterday I go to
London, meet my friend.
For less specific indications
we use for example once or some time ago in order
to make a positioning in the past possible (it works similarly in
the Vietnamese language), and naturally we use these indications
just once at the beginning of the text and not in every single
sentence. We would not repeat the adverb yesterday
continuously either.
We can also do without further
past tenses: it is by no means necessary to distinguish the
‘aorist’ from the perfect and it is by no means that
all languages have this distinction either (cf. Latin, spoken
French, Japanese, etc.). We even less need a pluperfect: the
sequence of events usually results from the context or can be
expressed by an adverb or a conjunction (after he
came…). Sequence versus simultaneity can finally also be
distinguished by marking the progress expressing simultaneity
(consequently: He had breakfast. I came. – He was having
breakfast. I came.).
The future tense is unknown to
many languages or only rarely used, too (Old English, vulgar
Latin, spoken German, Japanese). Adverbs together with the
present tense are sufficient, all the more the future event often
expresses a wish, a hope or an obligation so that you can also
use the corresponding verbs.
Later on, such verbs developed
a morphological future in some Indo-European languages, too (I
will go; French j'irai < ire
habeo).
We do not need a morphological
category of aspect that would be necessary to express that a
verbal action is in progress either. To express that,
theoretically also adverbs (for example English just,
German gerade) or periphrastic constructions (French
être en train de…), consequently lexematic
means are sufficient, which we only use when the emphasis of the
progress seems especially important to us. This makes it possible
to avoid the redundant marking of the aspect, which is used in
English.
The morphological category of
mode respectively subjunctive is even less needed: we express
desire, hope or doubt with verbs or modal adverbs (to want, to
hope, to doubt respectively probably, perhaps, etc.).
We just need a particle for the imperative as a sentence mode,
possibly also for the question in case intonation is not
sufficient.
Sentences in the passive voice
on the other hand can frequently be substituted by sentences in
the active voice (Der Hund wird vom Vater geschlagen = Der
Vater schlägt den Hund), or they can be
substituted in a sentence consisting of a subject and a verb
simply by omitting the object in the sentence (consequently:
*we love = we are loved); as it is the case in Chinese;
cf. also English the office opens at 5 o'clock = 'the
office is/ will be opened at 5 o'clock'). The Chinese
language, however, is more sensitive as far as the context is
concerned and more flexible than Indo-European languages with
their binary decisions (on whether to use the active or passive
voice). Consequently, a fictitious *Lange nicht sehen (for
example after a greeting) can in theory be interpreted as we
have not been seen for a long time or simply as we have
not seen each other for a long time. On the whole, isolating
languages are by far more flexible than those having
morphological markings.
However, we can not only
eliminate markings concerning the verb, but also those concerning
the noun. We take it for granted that most nouns are marked as
far as the number is concerned. But instead of this schematic and
less specific marking (singular = 'at least one object',
plural = 'more than one object') we could also use
flexible indications of quantity ('some', 'more',
'many' etc.) and otherwise leave it to the context how
the noun should be interpreted (fictitious: *I see the house =
the house/the houses; cf. English I bought the
fish!).
By comparison, if we use our
plural, we leave it open, too, whether it is a question of two,
three or more objects. Isolating languages, but also the Japanese
language perfectly show that this system functions as
well.
We can also do without the
marking of the case functions by using morphemes as modern
English and French show, simply by marking syntactically the
distinction between a subject and an object or the one between a
direct or an indirect object.
The genitive as well could be
substituted by a syntactic means: father's love = *father
love; this is the way the genitive is marked in Chinese (also
without the attributive particle de), and likewise even
further attributes (to our understanding the adjective, the
relative clause, the adverb as an attribute of the verb) can be
marked by the position on the left of the word it refers
to.
We do not need case or
prepositions for indications of place either, but we can use
nominal concepts alternatively (cf. for example an der Seite,
am Rande, im Inneren), consequently that which we have
understood by lexemes so far, which we only use in case they are
necessary for understanding, but not according to set rules and
which therefore are redundant once again (especially as governed
cases or prepositions). In Japanese, Turkish or Chinese we are
not allowed to count such nominal concepts (instead of
prepositions) as grammar either, but we have to consider them as
a part of vocabulary. A grammatical luxury is furthermore the
continuous use of the definite and indefinite article in the
Romance and the Germanic languages. They are missing in many
languages of the world (Japanese, Turkish, Chinese) and they had
to be developed in the Romance and Germanic languages. The
indication that something has already been mentioned is rarely
useful. As a consequence, we just need an auxiliary sign enabling
us to point out that it is not about an already mentioned, but a
completely new object, for which the Latin language uses the
pronoun quidam 'any', which is only used very
rarely as well.
Other functions on the other
hand (the existence of alternatives/ the non-existence of
alternatives: er ging zum Schrank und holte eine Socke/ das
Gewehr), are only weakly marked in so far as the
context and our knowledge of the world (more often than not you
have several socks, but rarely several guns in a normal cupboard)
are normally sufficient in order to understand the meaning so
that a classification becomes necessary in only very special
situations.
And you will not use the
possessive pronoun analogously and redundantly either in
languages in which it is not marked continuously that there is no
alternative to the object already mentioned (definite article)
(cf. English I wash my hair; he nodded his head; cf. also
the German 'dativus commodi' of the personal pronoun:
ich wasche mir die Haare). This pronoun only becomes
useful when it refers to an unknown person.
The adverbial function does not
have to be marked morphologically, if adjective and adverb can be
distinguished syntactically (English the honest father works
honestly; French le père honnête travaille
honnêtement) and in English we also have
morphologically unmarked adverbs (think
different).
We do not need a copula that is
free of redundancies in our language either (my father is a
teacher/ tired), because we do not use a tense there either,
but time adverbs and a neutral form of the verb. If the Chinese
language uses an old demonstrative pronoun instead of a copula
between two nouns (in imitation: *father, that teacher,
'my father, that is a teacher') then only because in
Chinese the juxtaposition of two nouns can also be understood as
a genitive syntactic construction ('father's
teacher'). Sometimes economical (isolating) languages
reach their limits, too and have to use auxiliary signs in order
to avoid ambiguities!
We can also do without further
'copulative' elements; we especially think of certain
conjunctions like 'und' or 'that'. A sequence of
events is mostly understandable due to the context (cf. Er kam
am Morgen und ging am Nachmittag; er kam und erklärte
mir…), cf. therefore also Latin veni, vidi, vici.
Even the simultaneity of two events or states of mind does not
have to be marked by an (actually ambiguous or polysemous)
conjunction, cf. er schrie und weinte. Similarly we do not
need a conjunction 'daß' that can be missing in
English (He said he was tired) either. Such a conjunction
does by no means exist in all languages and can be explained
historically by the redundant usage of a neutral object pronoun
(He is tired. I see that. > I see that: he is tired. > I
see that he is tired). The redundant pronoun could be
explained as the redundant marking of the object pronoun.
Consequently, redundancy generates new redundancy, and finally
the conjunction goes back to the Indo-European splitting of a
word stem into a noun and a verb, which made personal endings
necessary and which led to the fact that analogously to the
marking of the subject (by means of the verb ending) also the
object became more frequent. The conjunction 'to'
introducing the objective infinitive (He asked me to come)
is dispensable as well and it would be possible to simplify the
whole construction: *He ask (without ending or tense) I
come. It is this way we are more and more approaching the
isolating language structure. 'Copulative' prepositions
like English to start to, French commencer
à…etc. would be dispensable,
too.
Now we can understand better
that grammatical morphemes or what we consider them to be are
mainly characterised by being used highly schematically. In fact,
the speaker does not always subtly distinguish whether the
morpheme in the context is more or less useful or whether it
would also be dispensable there so that you can also speak of a
redundant usage. We only have to think of the continuous use of
the tenses or of the continuous use of personal ending or
pronouns together with the verb etc. Consequently, grammatical
morphemes are by their nature characterised by being used
redundantly - may it also be to a varying extent. This is also
meant implicitly whenever you are speaking of rules applied to
the usage of grammatical morphemes whenever you are speaking of
the obligatory usage of grammatical morphemes. The term
'obligatory' however has to be slightly qualified, for it
first and foremost derives from the normative or didactic
grammar: nothing is completely obligatory. Therefore it is
perhaps more adequate to speak of habits being fixed to a varying
extent, according to which grammatical morphemes are used in a
specific context. In fact, we generally prefer to speak of
pleonastics instead of redundancy because of various
reasons:
-
There is only redundancy in the
sense of the definition if the relevant piece of information is
given several times in a sentence or syntactic construction
(drei Häuser; nous chantons); in this sense many
grammatical morphemes are not redundant, but only hyper-explicit
and thereby pleonastic, in so far as they provide the kind of
information the listener can deduce from the context without
them; we only have to think of anaphoric pronouns or anaphoric
tenses (gestern kam Hans; er ging in die Stadt. Dort kaufte er
ein Buch...; the subject pronoun and the past tense do not
provide new pieces of information).
-
Some grammatical morphemes are
to be expected with high probability in a certain context, but
they are not obligatory or redundant in so far as there are also
alternative formations or markings so that among other things
also stylistic and connotative considerations can play a role
when they are selected by the speaker.
In this case we only have to
think for example of the choice between several forms of the past
or the future (What have you done? – What did you do? The
sun will shine – will be shining) of several facultative
usages of the Romance subjunctive or of the effects that can
result from the omission of special conjunctions
('und', 'daß'). Some markings are
also pleonastic and not only redundant in so far as they also
express additional meanings or connotations.
However, a decisive criterion
for grammatical morphemes remains that they are mostly used
according to certain norms so that their occurrence in the
context can be calculated with high probability, and furthermore
that they provide explicitly the kind of information that can
also be deduced from the context (consequently implicitly), which
is often closely linked with that.
It is true that also ‘full
words’ can be used pleonastically-redundantly (Did you
see the house? – Yes, I saw the house), but this is
entirely up to the speaker and is restricted to occasional cases.
Otherwise, we think of such redundancies as nuisances, cf. *I
saw the house. The house was cheap. I bought the house. Now, the
house is my property and I like the house; cf. for example
also the fictitious redundancy of a time adverb (vs. tense):
*Yesterday I went to town: I met a friend of mine yesterday.
He told me yesterday that… I answered
yesterday…
To summarise, we can now say
that isolating languages are characterised by the fact that they
mark syntactically the functions in the sentence and the
relations and that they use auxiliary signs or particles only to
a very limited extent. Grammar in these languages is first and
foremost syntax so that there is neither a redundant marking of
case, number, tense, nor a redundant usage of pronouns and
conjunctions either.
By contrast, the grammar of
inflecting languages is highly redundant. The functions and
relations in the sentence (you only have to think of case,
adverb, object clause, relative clause) are often marked by
grammatical morphemes additionally to the syntax, and furthermore
there are redundant usages of pronouns, articles, tenses,
aspectual markings as well as governments (governed cases,
governed modes) and congruencies (number) and much more. Closely
linked with that are also numerous additional usages and
sub-norms, which results from the schematic use of grammatical
morphemes and which makes the learning of grammar of an
inflecting language so difficult. We will come back to this point
later. We would also like to point out a possible
misunderstanding by saying that, whenever we talk of redundancy
or pleonastics in the context of grammar, this must not be
understood as a recommendation in order to abolish grammar or to
simplify it to such an extent that it becomes the grammar of an
isolating language. Isolating languages have norms as well, but
others than inflecting languages, and those who want to
'abolish' the past tenses in our languages would first
have to introduce alternative time adverbs (once, shortly
before…).
And those who should
‘abolish’ the subject pronouns in English would have to
see to it that there would not be any disturbing homophonies
between a verb and a noun (to go – a go; to house –
the house); furthermore they would have to introduce a new
morpheme distinguishing the imperative from indicative forms (cf.
*go = I go or 'go!' etc.). In highly
redundant languages the omission of a marking can also fulfil a
grammatical function. In a somewhat paradoxical way we could say
that it is just the complexity of our grammars which opposes a
simplification!
English has sometimes been
compared with Chinese and has been considered an isolating
language. This applies in the first place to the cases in which
the syntax adopts the functions in the sentence (subject –
object, possibly also adverb: think different). In other
cases you have to take care not to equate analytical formations
and an isolating language structure: consequently, it is true
that the subject and object pronouns are analytical signs
(consequently no bound flexives), but that they are also used
highly schematically and therefore also redundantly so that we
consider them as part of the verb (I go, you go…, I see
him, you see me…).
Consequently, such and further
analytical signs and formations remain in the tradition of the
inflecting languages, we only have to think of analytical tenses:
they are used far more than they are needed and therefore are
used redundantly as well as pleonastically. This is exactly why
we instinctively count them as grammar.
We have derived our (new)
understanding of grammar principally starting out from the
comparison of isolating languages with agglutinating and
inflecting languages. This has got a big advantage, but also its
limits, which we want to illustrate briefly: the advantage
consists in the fact that we avoid mistakes due to interference
when describing other languages and it consists in the fact that
we can graduate things in foreign as well as in our languages: a
subject pronoun that is used by far more rarely in Japanese or
Chinese than in English or French seems to us also to be less
grammatical or even seems to be considered as an integral part of
vocabulary. By comparison, we would probably not count dieser
Mann or Euer Ehren for 'er' respectively
'you' as grammatical morphemes either. Similarly, nominal
concepts of indications of place in Japanese or Chinese (or
Turkish) which, corresponding to our Indo-European cases and
prepositions, we would count as grammar, would have to be
considered as lexemes. In any case, these are not used
pleonastically-redundantly here, but only when they are necessary
(by contrast, cf. Latin in templo, with the juxtaposition
of case and preposition, or English on Monday, with the
pleonastic preposition for example in: He will come on
Monday or also He goes to London vs. He goes
home!) On the other hand, an (aspectual) marking of
the progressive form of the verbal action in Chinese
(corresponding more or less to the English to be about
to…), which is only used when necessary, would also be
less grammatical or simply a lexematic periphrastic construction
in contrast to the expanded form of the English language, which
is mainly used according to set rules and thereby in an
obligatory way, consequently also in case the context would be
sufficient for the understanding of meaning (I have no time
now; I’m going to school). Compare also the expanded
form of the English language with the lexematic periphrastic
construction in French (être en train de
faire…), which is only used in special
cases.
By using our method to define
grammar, we also avoid mistakes resulting from an onomasiological
consideration: not everything expressing time, place, person,
etc. can therefore be regarded as grammar, neither in inflecting
nor in other languages; and only if we graduate things like this
by considering pleonastics as a measure for grammaticality, it is
possible for us to separate the tense from indications of time or
to make plausible why we prefer to count case as grammar rather
than prepositions, which we tend to count as nominal indications
(Inneres, Zentrum, Mitte, Vorderseite, etc.), cf. also the
following chapter. In contrast, another question to be reflected
upon is what a school grammar treats as grammar and by what
right. A Latin school grammar for example deals with the
different noun and verb classes (cantare, habere,
dormire…), so with the allomorphic forms of certain
morphemes (for example of the infinitive), which could perhaps
also be treated in the chapter about word formation; and a
Chinese grammar for Germans will possibly treat in the chapter
'prepositions' that which in Chinese comes close to our
prepositions, even if the relevant words (!) have a completely
different status there.
Moreover, our method makes it
possible to detach ourselves from a mechanical determination of
grammatical morphemes and to treat for example all flexives
schematically in the same way. The circumstance that a morpheme
is closely linked with a lexeme (it is synthesised) must not be a
reason to consider it already as a grammatical morpheme, except
when we equate grammar with flexion in general. But in this case
there would be, apart from flexives, no grammar any longer! The
school grammar treats the comparison (for example Latin
fortis- fortior) as grammar, perhaps also because you have
to learn certain forms. However, it is not pleonastic or
redundant per se yet. Similar considerations also apply to the
conditional Latin cantarem ('I would sing'): it is
used because it is necessary in order to express a condition, and
only such constructions as si tacuisses, philosophus
mansisses, with a triple marking of the condition are
pleonastic-redundant: conjunction + subjunctive. In an isolating
language the construction is the following: *si tacere,
philosophus manere, even without the marking of the time
level, which in this case must derive from the context (cf. also
Old French si j'eus = si j'avais or si
j'avais eu!).
These considerations should
only serve to show that our understanding of grammar is not only
identical with a traditional or orthodox concept of grammar, but
that it is in some ways more flexible and more adequate for
typological and comparative approaches. Not every flexive belongs
automatically to grammar, and with regard to the Latin comparison
fortis - fortior we would perhaps have to speak of an
incorporating morpheme or of a morpheme relative to word
formation.
2. Grammatical
morphemes as relative indicators and concomitant
phenomena
As we have seen, there are
languages with many grammatical categories and markings and such
with only very few markings (isolating languages). This raises
the question as to what the unity of this grammar consists of,
the unity of this grammar which despite all the differences
relative to the languages of the world also has a lot of
characteristics in common with other grammars so that we may
suppose a universal principle behind. It is noticeable that -
apart from several interference mistakes - we can distinguish
grammar from vocabulary in foreign languages quite easily, too,
even if this happens rather intuitively.
However, from a linguistic
point of view the difference between grammar and vocabulary is by
no means that easy and cannot be founded on an onomasiological
basis either: apart from abstract relations and functional
indications, grammatical categories and markings can at every
time be replaced by (more specific) lexemes, consequently a tense
by a time adverb, an aspectual marking by a corresponding adverb
or a periphrastic construction (for example French être
en train de...), the number by an independent indication of
quantity, the mode by a modal adverb, a 'weak'
conjunction by a more specific lexeme (dann, darauf for
and, folgendes for daß). As we can
see, there are also more specific lexemes for all grammatical
indications.
However, the different
grammatical categories among themselves do not form a unity from
an onomasiological point of view either, and therefore it is not
possible to find a generic term which includes what is common to
the different categories.
We could also ask the question
as to where the common field lies between the indication of
person (as far as the verb is concerned), tense, aspectual
marking, case, number, article, copula and certain conjunctions
(und, daß). The grammatical categories are far too
disparate to be treated as a kind of 'semantic field' or
'morphematic field'.
Consequently, there is no
barrier between vocabulary and grammar from an onomasiological
point of view and there is no unity of the different grammatical
categories from an onomasiological point of view either. So this
unity is based on a common behaviour rather than on common
contents: grammatical morphemes are used very schematically. They
are therefore also highly frequent and convey information that
could even without them be deduced from the context so that it is
possible to speak of pleonastics or redundancy.
This is also due to the
circumstance that grammar represents a system of rules: we do not
only learn what a grammatical morpheme means, but also where and
when it is used. The speaker of an agglutinating or an inflecting
language takes this for granted so that he, in turn, infers
grammar from the usage rules. These rules, however, can by no
means be taken for granted, but are, at first sight, even
paradoxical, because it seems as if the language was dictated to
the speaker so that the speaker would only be the executive organ
of this language. Such an idea would even have mentalistic
implications: in this case the speaker would be the slave of his
linguistic system and even of the sentences and texts produced by
himself!
As a consequence, we have
overlooked something that distinguishes grammatical morphemes
from lexematic signs or 'full words'. As far as these
'full words' are concerned, there are no rules dictating
to the speaker when he has to use them either.
Obviously, it is not possible
to dictate to the speaker about which objects he has to talk and
how specifically he has to describe these objects, also because
the speaker does perhaps not have this specific knowledge. He may
know that his neighbour owns a car, but he does not know whether
it is old or new, green or red, big or small or how fast it goes.
A rule applying to the usage of such classifications in certain
contexts would sooner or later inevitably lead to a nonsensical
usage.
Grammatical categories are
therefore by no means already to be considered as the basic
categories of our thinking and experiencing and cannot be such;
and this is the reason why there are for example no grammatical
morphemes for size, form, weight, age, speed, rhythm, etc.
either.
Consequently, it would be
superficial to describe grammatical morphemes only in categories
of frequency and less specific meaning: on the one hand, there
are less frequent morphemes and on the other hand, there are
frequent lexemes being at the same time also less specific; we
only have to think of the adjectives for 'good' and
'bad'. Their use is exclusively up to the estimation of
the speaker and is not dependent on a rule that would also hardly
be possible because of the reasons we have just talked about: The
speaker cannot be forced to give a judgement of quality; and
similarly he cannot always know whether an object is good or bad
(or old or new, etc.). However, if an adjective with the meaning
'good' was ever to become a grammatical morpheme, it
would have to lose its original meaning first and would have to
fulfil a new (grammatical) function.
The Japanese prefix o
expressing politeness, which in o-genki ('esteemed
health' = 'your health') has become a pronoun used to
address somebody in a polite way, could, in a similar way, be
understood like that. Consequently, such a possessive pronoun can
again be used redundantly-pleonastically, like a subject pronoun
in English or German for example.
Grammar often means something
like a grammar of rules, and a grammar of rules necessarily means
pleonastics-redundancy. A rule cannot be the following: do not
use the morpheme X in the context Y, although it would be
necessary, but only the other way round: use the morpheme X even
where it would not be absolutely necessary. Such a rule can, as
we have shown before, neither refer to the characteristics of
concrete objects, nor to the description of the external
world.
In a further step, it can be
derived that such rules and usage norms can only refer to
phenomena that the speaker himself has to be aware of at any time
so that the (pleonastic) marking in certain contexts does not
cause him further efforts either. Consequently, he only expresses
explicitly that which he must already know or that which he can
know when planning his speech act (sentence, text), irrespective
of the question whether the listener needs this information or
whether he can also deduce it from the context.
This would then be the trite
reason why our grammatical markings seem so natural to us; in
fact, they seem so natural to us that we are no longer aware of
them so that not the marking but, on the other hand, the omission
of them becomes noticeable. We do not only produce grammatical
morphemes in order to convey a certain piece of information to
the listener, but we also produce them as an expression and a
mirror of these functions that we have to be aware of whenever we
plan a speech act or a text! Only this way it becomes
understandable that grammatical morphemes frequently represent
concomitant signs of certain categories (cf. case and number as
concomitant signs of the noun, person and tense as concomitant
signs of the verb, conjunctions as concomitant signs of the
subordinate clause, etc.).
To sum up, we can say:
grammatical morphemes do not refer to characteristics of the real
world, but in the first place to such functions inside the text
that the speaker has to be aware of whenever he plans a sentence
or a text so that he can also mark them at the 'surface
structure' at any time. Of course, this does not at all mean
that he has to mark them continuously (and for example in all
languages)! We will come back to the historical background of
languages rich in markings vs. those poor in markings
later.
In the following, we would like
to illustrate briefly our thoughts: we find a minimum of grammar
in isolating languages that mark syntactically the functions and
relations in a sentence. It may remain an open question whether
this fixed syntax is really always, that is in every context,
necessary, but it does not require from the speaker additional
considerations or decisions either, because when planning a
sentence he always has to know which elements figure as a
subject, object or predicate or which element represents an
attribute (genitive, adjective, relative clause, adverb referring
to a verb). If he is not aware of these basic relations, he
cannot plan a sensible sentence at all, at best only utter
incoherent words. This is exactly the place where other languages
can produce highly schematic grammatical morphemes, for example a
nominative, an accusative and a genitive, in addition to a more
or less fixed syntax (for example S-V-O), perhaps even a relative
pronoun introducing a relative clause, an adverbial suffix (even
if the adverb can perhaps be recognised additionally by the
syntax). In this case grammar refers to the relations of the
elements of the sentence among themselves and does not have
anything to do with the characteristics of the real
world.
In our inflecting languages we
use quite schematically (in an obligatory manner) a personal
ending or a subject pronoun with the predicative verb, whereas
isolating languages proceed far more economically. Naturally,
even the speakers of isolating languages (or also of the
Japanese) always have to know where the predicative word or the
predicative verb refers to, even if they do not mark it. Without
this knowledge the cohesion of the text would soon disappear. The
same applies to the object pronouns: the pronouns on their own
are by no means always necessary, but naturally the speaker
always has to know where the (transitive) verb refers to. The
explicit marking does not force the speaker himself into making a
new decision. We often speak of an anaphoric function, especially
of the personal pronouns of the third and of the sixth person,
but this simply means a redundant (pleonastic) use, if there are
no ambiguities.
In our inflecting languages we
use quite schematically tenses together with the predicative
verb. They indicate the kind of relationship between the event
and the time of the speaker and the relationship of the single
events among each other in terms of time. This knowledge is an
absolute condition for the understanding of a sentence or a text,
otherwise the timeless sentence is dangling in the air or the
text loses every cohesion and coherence. The speaker has to be
aware of these relations at the moment he is planning his speech
so that the varying frequent marking does not force himself into
making a new decision either. The continuous use of these tenses,
which are mostly anaphoric (!) again, leads to redundancies,
which are, however, not felt to be disturbing either, because the
speaker and the listener have to be aware of the temporal
relationships of every speech act. This is why these tenses are
so unspecified, too: the speaker and the listener must know
whether two events take place approximately at the same time or
whether they represent a sequence of time (in the past or in the
sense of a future event), but they do not need to know anything
about the distance that lies between the events (gestern, vor
drei Tagen, vor einem Monat; in zwei Wochen, in einem
Jahr).
Similar considerations can also
apply to the grammatical marking of the aspect, in the first
place of the action in progress compared with another action or
with reference to a certain point in time (He was sleeping
when I came/ at nine o'clock.) The speaker, who himself
brings both verbal actions into play, also has to know about
their approximately temporal relationship among themselves
(simultaneity/ sequence).
As a consequence, the
corresponding marking does not demand a new decision or a more
specific knowledge of him. He must by no means know in detail
which phase the verbal action in progress is going through,
whether it has started just a moment ago or whether it is already
almost finished. A periphrastic construction like Spanish
estar + gerund (está trabajando) only
indicates the progress of action at a specific point in time, but
it does not say anything about which phase this action is going
through, whether it has started just a moment ago or whether it
is almost finished, etc.. By contrast, Spanish estar para
indicates that the relevant action is going to start in an
immediate future, and Spanish empezar a ('to start
doing something') indicates that an action starts,
consequently that it goes through an 'inceptive' phase.
In order to be able to evaluate this, we already need specific
knowledge about the relevant situation, knowledge that goes
beyond the basic temporal relationship. This is exactly that
which distinguishes lexematic periphrastic constructions from
real grammatical periphrastic constructions: the former demand
more specific knowledge, while the latter demand only the
knowledge of the temporal relationship of one action with
reference to another. And this is exactly why 'real'
grammatical periphrastic constructions can also become obligatory
(cf. in English the progressive form), but why they can never
become lexematic periphrastic constructions, because the speaker
does not at all always know which phase a specific action is
going through. A grammatical periphrastic construction of the
aspect only reflects the kind of minimal knowledge of the speaker
that is absolutely necessary, if it is about two actions or
events. This is the reason why a grammatical periphrastic
construction can also become pleonastic-redundant in contrast to
a lexematic one: this minimal knowledge about the temporal
relationship of two actions or of a state with reference to a
point in time can often be deduced from the context by the
listener so that he does not need the corresponding markings any
more (What are you doing? – I’m going to school;
but in French Je vais à l'école; German
Ich gehe zur Schule). Every language has to be in a
position to distinguish the progress of an action from the
beginning of an action, but not every language has a grammatical
(!) periphrastic construction at its disposal. By not accepting
our distinction between grammatical and lexematic periphrastic
construction, we soon get into the difficulty of letting
ourselves be guided by similarities as regards the form and the
content when defining grammatical periphrastic
constructions.
Furthermore, from an
onomasiological point of view there will soon be no limits any
longer, cf. he was about to…, he started to…, he
wanted to…, he began to…, at the beginning…,
etc. Grammaticality must neither be made dependent on form,
nor on content (onomasiologically). In the first place, Grammar
refers to basic relationships, in this case to relationships
between two temporal events.
This also applies to an
'aspectual' tense, for instance to a resultative perfect,
for example (I have bought the book/ discovered a new
isle). Such a perfect indicates in the first place that there
has not taken place anything new with reference to the described
so that the result is to be considered as valid up to now. Such
an indication does not demand a new decision of the speaker
because he himself knows best whether he wants to let the event
follow another one (*but I lost it an hour later/ and left it
a week later) or not. Consequently, the listener can deduce
the relevant meaning from the context respectively from the text
structure even without an explicit indication so that the
marking, which in many languages does not exist in this form
either, once again can be called pleonastic-redundant (cf.
languages with only one tense of the simple
past).
Grammar, in the first place,
indicates basic relations and does not refer to objective
characteristics of the external world. Now it would be possible
to raise the objection that, as far as the marking of the plural
is concerned, it refers to external characteristics, not only to
relations. This objection, however, has to be qualified: the
plural is not characteristic of an object, but only indicates
that it is about several objects disposing among themselves of
similarities so that we can treat them as one single category. As
a consequence, the plural is principally to be treated the same
way as the variety of different objects, and generally the
speaker also has to know whether he is talking about an apple or
about an apple, a pear or a plum so that even the marking of the
plural does not force him into making a new decision. Finally,
the decision between singular and plural is made easier also by
the fact that even the singular does not orientate itself towards
the real world but towards the foreknowledge of the speaker. If I
say Hans hat eine goldene Uhr, I do not exclude the fact
that he owns several such watches. It is just the existence of
one such specimen that is familiar to me. Consequently, the
singular does not simply exclude the plural in the real
world!
Consequently, the number is not
a relational element, but it is based on the basic knowledge of
the speaker: he has to know whether he is talking about a single
object or about more objects. Therefore the number has not to be
realised in all languages!
The definite article on the
other hand, indicating that the object X has already been
mentioned, can be used schematically in so far as the speaker
actually has always to know whether he has already mentioned an
object in the same text a moment ago or whether it is about a
newly introduced object (which he himself is going to introduce
newly!). So he has not to make a new decision, and the relevant
information does not refer to the external world either, but only
to the internal text structure the speaker himself is also
responsible for. In the sentence: He went to the baker's
and bought three rolls on the other hand, the article only
implies that the rolls were sold by the person in charge of this
action (at the baker's and not at the carpenter's) and it
can therefore be deduced from our general knowledge: everybody
knows that rolls are sold at the baker's. The decision, here
for the definite article, does not confront the speaker with any
problems.
Other grammatical phenomena can
be considered as relational indications or simply as concomitant
phenomena of the text structure, where the external world does
not play a role either. Here we think of the conjunctions
'and' and 'that' that only indicate that two
sentences belong together, in the sense of a sequence of
sentences or in the sense of a verb with an object clause (Er
schrie und brüllte; er sagte, daß…). These
conjunctions do not per se convey any new information either; it
is at best possible to achieve various stylistic effects by their
different usage or their omission. (German Er aß und
aß und aß…, Latin veni, vedi, vici;
German Er sagt, daß er nicht will – er sagt, er
will nicht). On the whole, such conjunctions represent
however redundancies, in contrast to by far more specific
conjunctions like 'because', 'though',
'thereby' etc. For their usage the speaker needs specific
knowledge referring to the external world (and not only to the
text structure). Therefore such conjunctions can only be rarely
redundant. They are at best redundant as conjunctions themselves,
indicating that there is a connection between both clauses. This
connection could also be expressed by using two main clauses (cf.
Er machte es, obwohl es verboten war - er machte es. Es war
aber verboten).
Even the copula 'to
be', which itself does not convey any new information, has a
concomitant function as far as nominal predicates are concerned
(N ist müde/ Lehrer) so that the speaker himself does
not need to make a new decision at all. However, even the verb
'to be' in the sense of an indication of place (er ist
im Wald) often has just a concomitant function, especially if
the indication of place with a preposition still follows. That
which is characteristic of most Indo-European languages is the
fact that these 'empty' verbs are at the same time the
most frequent ones: frequency, redundancy and grammar are very
closely linked with each other!
Finally, so-called governed
phenomena are mere concomitant signs; we only have to think of
such cases that are dependent on prepositions (ex urbe, in
silva) or of the governed subjunctive of the Romance
languages (French je veux que tu viennes). Apart from some
variations in the usage and apart from the possibilities of
choice, they are mere redundancies produced only highly
schematically by the speaker so that he himself does not have to
make a decision referring to the characteristics of the object
world. In this sense, the governed mode could also be interpreted
as an allomorphic form of the indicative after certain verbs or
conjunctions.
In principle, we could examine
like this all grammatical phenomena of all the different
languages of the world with the intention of finding out to what
extent they represent attributions and functions (in a sentence
or in a complex sentence), to what extent they express temporal
or aspectual relationships, and to what extent they refer
anaphorically to the text itself or to what extent they only
represent concomitant phenomena; but they will always have one
thing in common: they do not refer to the characteristics of the
external world or just in so far as these (tense) are once again
to be seen in relation to the speaker (or in relation to
themselves). And even the number is not a characteristic of an
object either; the plural only indicates that it is about
different objects: mere concomitant phenomena on the other hand
have nothing to do at all with the real world
(governments).
Only a schematic or an
obligatory marking is possible, which the speaker has to
be aware of at every point in time when creating a sentence or a
text, which corresponds in the first place to the internal
relationships or functions in the sentence or
text.
By contrast, the knowledge of
the external world and of the characteristics of the objects
differs from one speaker to another, and their linguistic
realisation depends decisively on the communicative intentions of
the speaker himself, consequently on his interests and aims. It
follows that such characteristics cannot be used in an obligatory
way nor highly schematically either.
In this new sense it is now
possible to speak of the universality of grammar so that we can
establish definitely for all the languages of the world that
which can be grammar and that which is always going to be left to
vocabulary, even if we were not be in the position to enumerate
in an exhaustive list all potentially grammatical phenomena and
sub-categories of all languages of the world. The sum of all
usages and sub-usages is gigantic and yet the most different
grammars of the world always resemble each other and there
continue to come into existence also new categories and usages,
which are very similar to the old phenomena or which even
substitute them.
Furthermore, with our flexible
method we especially avoid mistakes or weaknesses that derive
from a one-sided definition on formal conditions (for example
flexives) or the other way round from an onomasiological
consideration (for example tense and indications of time; the
locative and further indications of place) and we do not have to
attribute certain phenomena or even paradigms (for example of the
prepositions) at a flat rate to vocabulary or grammar either.
Certain phenomena are more or less grammatical in so far as they
are more or less used schematically-pleonastically and in so far
as they thereby orientate themselves more or less towards the
internal text structure or towards the external world.
Consequently, from our point of view the prepositions of the
Indo-European languages would have to be treated in a subtly
differentiated manner, whereas they are treated at a flat rate in
a school grammar. Prepositions can fulfil relational functions
(case functions): they can be used pleonastically (cf. I'm
going to London, he comes on Monday), but they can also be
used as specific indications of place (he is under the
tree). Moreover there are further usages, which could also be
considered to be part of the word formation (to think of, to
look at, cf. also the following chapter).
In any case our model resulting
from a comparison of isolating with inflecting languages allows
us to treat the question of the grammatical status and the degree
of grammaticality flexibly, which we want to illustrate briefly
with the example of the sentence modes.
Of course, the speaker always
has to know whether he makes a statement, whether he asks a
question or whether he wants to formulate an invitation, and he
can mark these intentions highly schematically with the aid of a
particle for a question or for an imperative.
Such basic intentions are not
characteristic of the external world, but they do not concern
functions and attributions inside the sentence or mere
relationships (like the tenses) either, and the decision for the
sentence mode is completely up to the speaker himself. In
principle, he has the same freedom here as when choosing a lexeme
(cf. Komm! vs. Ich wünsche, dass du kommst; Kommst
du? vs. Ich will wissen, ob Du kommst.). We can speak
of redundancy if apart from the intonation morphological means
are used, too: we only have to think of the pleonastic question
in English and French (Do you go home? – Est-ce que vous
retournez?).
One thing, however, should have
become quite clear now: in a scientific debate we have to ask the
question of grammaticality of a phenomenon in a far more subtle
way than in a school grammar, which only wants to give rules for
learning a language.
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