Contrastive Linguistics: Prospects and Problems 9783110824025, 9027932603, 9789027932600

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Contrastive Linguistics

Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 22 Editor

Werner Winter

Mouton Publishers Berlin · New York · Amsterdam

Contrastive Linguistics Prospects and Problems edited by

Jacek Fisiak

Mouton Publishers Berlin • New York · Amsterdam

Professor Jacek Fisiak Institute of English Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan, Poland

Papers prepared for the 4th International Conference of Contrastive Projects held at Charzykowy, Poland, 3 - 6 December 1980.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication

Data

Contrastive linguistics. (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs; 22) Based on papers presented at the 4th International Conference of Contrastive Projects held in Charzykowy, Poland, 3-6 Dec., 1980. Includes index. 1. Contrastive linguistics — Congresses. I. Fisiak, Jacek. II. International Conference of Contrastive Projects (4th. 1980 : Charzykowy, Poland) III. Series. Ρ 134.063 1984 410 83—19430 ISBN 90-279-3260-3

© Copyright 1984 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form - by photoprint, microfilm, or any other means - nor transmitted nor translated into a machine language without written permission from Mouton Publishers, Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. Typesetting: Mercedes-Druck, Berlin. - Printing: Druckerei Hildebrand, Berlin. Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer Buchgewerbe GmbH, Berlin. Printed in Germany

Preface

The present volume contains a selection of papers prepared for the 4th International Conference of Contrastive Projects held at Charzykowy (Poland) from 3 - 6 December 1980. (Two papers have been accepted for publication (i.e. Filipovic and Gussmann) although they were not presented at the conference). Unlike the previous conferences of contrastive projects in Zagreb (1970), Bucharest (1975) and Trier (1978), the one at Charzykowy had no papers summarizing the progress of particular contrastive projects. The organizers assumed that the ideas and trends developed within different projects can be most profitably presented by papers addressing themselves to substantive issues in the field of contrastive linguistics. Therefore it was considered that most interesting results would be achieved if some scholars were invited to speak on specific topics and others to discuss problems of special interest to them. It seemed to us that this would help to identify additional problems for further research and would point to further uses of contrastive research apart from the ones widely discussed over the last few years. Those who expect to find definite answers to numerous, often controversial questions posed by contrastive research will be disappointed. What the conference has demonstrated is firstly the value of contrastive research for finding solutions to theoretical linguistic issues, e.g. papers by Borsley, Grzegorek, Horn, Gussmann, Jaworska or Zabrocki. Secondly, the conference witnessed a very productive broadening of the scope of contrastive research by going beyond the more traditional sentence-bound orientation into the fields of contrastive pragmatics, text linguistics and discourse analysis (e.g. Enkvist, Fillmore, Faerch and Kasper, Oleksy and Szwedek). Thirdly, the conference has proved the necessity for further refinement of some fundamental concepts of contrastive linguistics (e.g. Krzeszowski and Filipovic). Fourthly, the conference has made it clear that in spite of scepticism voiced by some scholars as regards the application of contrastive research (cf. Kühlwein), the present research in the area of second language acquisition and psycholinguistics (e.g. Sajavaara and Sharwood Smith), reinvestigation of error analysis (e.g. Mukat-

vi

Preface

tash) and research in the field of translation leave no doubt that the uses of contrastive linguistics are quite numerous and of a different calibre than expected at the outset of pedagogically oriented contrastive work. In general it can be easily noticed that the volume contains more theoretically oriented linguistic works (for my distinction between theoretical and applied contrastive analysis made earlier in 1968, 1970, 1973, 1975 etc. see several references in this volume, e.g. papers by Kühlwein and Sajavaara) although the applied side has not been totally neglected. It seems that this reflects the situation in contrastive linguistics in general if one looks both at the history of the discipline and the amount of theoretical works produced in both hemispheres nowadays. The editor of this volume hopes, therefore, that the essays presented here will be of interest both to theoretical linguists as well as those readers who will look for some insight into the field of application of contrastive analysis. The 4th International Conference on Contrastive Projects was sponsored by Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan and organized by its Institute of English. On this occassion words of thanks are due here to Professor Stefan Kozarski, Pro-vice-Chancellor of Adam Mickiewicz University, for substantial financial support in the days of budgetary cuts and economic stringency. Our thanks also go to Ms. Barbara Piocinska, M.A., for a skillful and devoted handling of the administrative arrangements of the conference in all stages of its organization. Finally our gratitude is due to all the conference members whose active participation has greatly contributed to the final shape of the present volume.

Poznaii, May 1981

Jacek Fisiak

Contents

Preface

ν

List of conference participants

ix

ROBERT D. BORSLEY Free relatives in Polish and English

1

STEFAN DYtA A note on inversion/conjunct ascension constructions in Polish and English

19

NILS ERIK ENKVIST Contrastive linguistics and text linguistics

45

CLAUS F/ERCH and GABRIELE KASPER Ja und? - og hva sä? — a contrastive discourse analysis of gambits in German and Danish

69

RUDOLF FILIPOVIC What are the primary data for contrastive analysis?

107

CHARLES J. FILLMORE Remarks on contrastive pragmatics

119

MARIA GRZEGOREK English sentences with introductory there and their Polish counterparts

143

EDMUND GUSSMANN Abstract phonology and contrastive analysis

171

RAYMOND HICKEY Towards a contrastive syntax of Irish and English

187

GEORGE M. HORN Constraints on transformations: evidence from contrastive analysis .

205

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Contents

EWA JAWORSKA On the structure of adverbial subordinate constructions in English and Polish

251

ANDRZEJ KOPCZYNSKI Problems of quality in conference interpreting

283

TOMASZ P. KRZESZOWSKI Tertium comparationis

301

WOLFGANG KÜHLWEIN Pedagogical limitations of contrastive linguistics

313

LEWIS MUKATTASH Contrastive analysis, error analysis and learning difficulty

333

WIESLAW OLEKSY Towards pragmatic contrastive analysis

349

JERZY RUBACH Rule ordering in phonological interference

365

KARI SAJAVAARA Psycholinguistic models, second language acquisition, and contrastive analysis

379

MICHAEL SHARWOOD SMITH Learnability and second language acquisition

409

ALEKSANDER SZWEDEK Some problems of contrastive analysis and text linguistics

419

TADEUSZ ZABROCKI On the nature of movement rules in English and Polish

431

Index of names

445

List of conference participants

at the fourth International Conference of Contrastive Projects held at Charzykowy, Poland, December 3 - 6 , 1 9 8 0

Director Professor Jacek Fisiak

Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznaii

Participants Docent Wieslaw Awedyk Professor John L. Behling Dr. Robert Borsley Dr. Paul van Buren Dr. Donna Christian Docent Liudvika Drazdauskiene Dr. Stefan Dyta Dr. Emilia Dykczak Professor Nils Erik Enkvist Dr. Claus Faerch Professor Charles J. Fillmore Dr. Jadwiga Fisiakowa Professor Rosemarie Gläser Professor Claus Gnutzmann Ms. Elzbieta Gorska Dr. Maria Grzegorek Dr. Raymond Hickey Dr. Gabriele Hohenwart Dr. Helga Höhlein Professor George Horn Dr. Aleksandra Horn Mr. Gerhard Jakob

Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan University of Sofia University College, London University of Utrecht Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan Vilnius State University Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan Äbo Akademi University of Copenhagen University of California, Berkely Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan University of Leipzig University of Hannover Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznari University of Bonn University of Salzburg Technical University, Aachen University of Newcastle, Australia University of Newcastle, Australia University of Mannheim

X

List of conference participants

Docent Karol Janicki Ms. Ewa Jaworska Docent Roman Kalisz Dr. Gabriele Kasper Ms. Maria Kawinska Docent Andrzej Kopczydski Dr. Barbara Kryk Professor Tomasz P. Krzeszowski Professor Wolfgang Kühlwein Dr. Bogdan Lawendowski Dr. William R. Lee Dr. Barbara Lewandowska Professor Grace Mancill Dr. Bogus!aw Marek Ms. Bärbel Miemietz Professor Lewis Mukattash Professor Ruta Nagucka Dr. Nina Nowakowska Dr. Mirostaw Nowakowski Dr. Wieslaw Oleksy Ms. Janina Ozga Docent Olaf Paulsson Dr. Alicja Pisarska Dr. Andrzej Pisarski Ms. Barbara Ptocmska Dr. Wilfried Rathay Docent Jerzy Rubach Professor Kari Sajavaara Dr. Ewa Siarkiewicz-Bivand Dr. Laura Sergo Dr. Michael Sharwood Smith Dr. Marek Szatek Docent Aleksander Szwedek Dr. Tomasz Wachtel Ms. Elizabeth White Ms. Ewa Willim Professor Werner Winter Docent Tadeusz Zabrocki Professor Luis Zuck

Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznad Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan University of Gdadsk University of Aarhus Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznari University of Warsaw Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan University of Gdadsk University of Trier University of Warsaw IATEFL, London University of Lodz American University, Washington, D. C. M. Curie-Sktodowska University, Lublin University of Bonn University of Jordan, Amman Jagiellonian University, Cracow Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznari Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznad Pedagogical University, Bydgoszcz Jagiellonian University, Cracow University of Göteborg Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan University of Rostock University of Warsaw University of Jyväskylä Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznad University of Salzburg University of Utrecht Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznari Pedagogical University, Bydgoszcz University of Warsaw US Embassy, Warsaw Jagiellonian University, Cracow University of Kiel Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan Μ. Curie-Ski-odowska University, Lublin

ROBERT D. BORSLEY

Free relatives in Polish and English

Bresnan and Grimshaw (1978) reject the traditional assumption that English free relatives are headless. Instead, they argue that the wh-phrases are heads, and that they involve not w/i-movement but a rule of controlled-pro-deletion. They assume, for example, that the free relative in (1) has the underlying structure represented in (2). (1) I'll buy what you 're selling.

what

you are selling PRO

They also discuss free relatives in certain other languages. They appear to be suggesting that their analysis is universally applicable. They suggest, for example, that the form of free relatives in Tok Pisin, an English-based pidgin spoken in Papua New Guinea, "strikingly confirms our hypothesis" (1978: 377). It is hard to see how this could be relevant unless the analysis is assumed to be universal. (Woolford 1978, which Bresnan and Grimshaw draw on, explicitly assumes that free relatives are essentially similar in all languages.) They go on, however, to deny that the analysis is universally applicable by suggesting that free relatives are headless in Moroccan Arabic. In this paper, I will look in some detail at Polish free relatives. I will show that there is strong evidence that they are headless relatives involving w/z-movement and thus that Bresnan and Grimshaw's analysis is certainly not universally applicable. Then, I will argue that it is not at all obvious that their analysis is the correct one for English. An important weakness of Bresnan and Grimshaw's discussion is their failure to recognize that there are at least two distinct headless analyses that might be proposed for free relatives. (This point is clearly recognized in Woolford 1978.) On the one hand, there is an analysis in which they are isomorphic

2

Robert D. Borsley

with embedded questions. On the other, there is an analysis on which they are only superficially headless, involving a head that is deleted or that is phonologically empty. On the former analysis, the free relative in (1) will have the underlying structure in (3). On the latter, it will have that in (4). (3)

COMP

(that)

COMP you are selling what

As I will illustrate below, Bresnan and Grimshaw's arguments are directed primarily against an analysis of the former kind. It is an analysis of the latter kind that I will suggest is appropriate for Polish and perhaps for English. It is worth noting here that there is a second headed analysis that might be advanced. This is an analysis involving w/i-movement and a subsequent rule moving wft-phrases from COMP to head position. Such an analysis is proposed for French free relatives in Hirschbühler 1976. Some of the Polish facts that argue against a Bresnan-Grimshaw analysis are compatible with this analysis. There are facts, however, that show that it too is untenable. 2 Before I proceed, I must make two further points. Firstly, I want to stress that I will not be providing anything like a complete description of either Polish or English free relatives. Both Polish and English free relatives involve all sorts of complexities whose precise nature I have not investigated. Secondly, I must note that there is considerable variation in the judgements Polish speakers give in this area. I am sure some speakers will disagree with some of the judgements I give here. The most important judgements, however, seem to be fairly generally accepted. I assume, then, that the arguments I develop here are valid for most speakers. We can now survey the main types of free relatives that occur in Polish. Like English, Polish has free relatives introduced by a variety of w/i-words. The following illustrate this. (5) Kto umyt rgce, moze zaczqc jesc. who washed hands can begin eat 'The one who has washed his hands can begin eating.'

Free relatives in Polish and English

3

(6) Co powiesz, b$dzie uzyte przeciwko tobie. what (you) will say will be used against you 'What you say will be used against you.' (7) Gdzie Jan mieszka, jest bardzo ciepto. where John lives is very warm 'Where John lives is very warm.' (8) Kiedy Piotr jest ζ nami, jest nam bardzo przyjemnie. when Peter is with us is us very pleasant 'It's very pleasant to us when Peter is with us.' (9) Jak to zrobisz, na pewno b$dzie dobrze. how it (you) will do certainly will be good 'The way you do it will certainly be good.' There are also free relatives introduced by a w/i-word with the suffix -kolwiek. These correspond to English free relatives introduced by a ννΛ-word with the suffix -ever.3 (10) Ktokolwiek zaspiewa, dostanie nagrod§. whoever will sing will get prize 'Whoever sings will get a prize,' (11) Cokolwiek Jan chciat, by to nieosiqgalne. whatever John wanted was unobtainable 'Whatever John wanted was unobtainable.' (12) Gdziekolwiek Jerzy pracowal, na pewno duio zarabiat. wherever George worked certainly much (he) earned 'Wherever George worked, he certainly earned a lot.' (13) Kiedykolwiek spotkasz Μαης, pozdrow jq. whenever (you) will meet Mary (you) greet her 'Whenever you meet Mary, say "hallo" to her.' (14) Jakkolwiek to zrobisz, bgdzie dobrze, however it (you) will do will be good 'However you do it, it will be all right.' Finally, there are free relatives introduced by a wh-word and a following nominal. (15) Jakq prac$ Jan znalazi, zaraz musiat ζ niej zrezygnowac. which work John found immediately (he) had to from it resign

4

Robert D. Borsley

'Whichever work John found, he had to give it up immediately.' (16) Jakie pieniqdze miatem, dalem Marii. what money (I) had (I) gave Mary 'What money I had, I gave to Mary.' (17) Jakqkolwiek ksiqzke przeczytasz, b$dziesz musial mi jq opowiedziec. whichever book (you) will read (you) will be have to (to) me it tell 'Whichever book you read, you will have to tell me the story.' (18) Jakiekolwiek buty kupisz, rozlecq si§. whatever shoes (you) will buy (they) will fly themselves 'Whatever shoes you buy, they will fall apart.' The above data suggest that Polish free relatives are quite like English free relatives. In some respects, this is the case. There is strong evidence, however, against a Bresnan-Grimshaw analysis. I will consider this shortly. First, however, I want to argue that Polish free relatives are not isomorphic with embedded questions. The simplest argument against such an analysis involves number agreement. Bresnan and Grimshaw point out that when a free relative appears in subject position, the form of the verb depends on the number of the whphrase. If the w/z-phrase is plural, the plural form of the verb is necessary. (19) illustrates this. (19)

Whatever books she has

marked up with her notes.

This is not the case, however, with an embedded question in subject position, as (20) illustrates. (20)J What books she has f!sn t , 1 certain. • [*arentI The situation is just the same in Polish. We have data like the following: (21)

Jakiekolwiek szeroko czytane. whatever books Mary will write will be widely read 'Whatever books Mary writes will be widely read.'

Free relatives in Polish and English

5

f/esf (sg.)| , . (22) Jakie ksiqzki ma Maria j ^ I *sq (pi.) J Jemnicel' what books has Mary is/are secret 'What books Mary has

a secret.'

These contrasts are quite inexplicable if free relatives are isomorphic with embedded questions. They are quite natural on a Bresnan-Grimshaw analysis. They are also quite natural, however, on a superficially headless analysis. On such an analysis, the wh -phrase will agree in number with the deleted or phonologically empty head, and the latter will determine the form of the verb. We can turn now to the evidence against a Bresnan-Grimshaw analysis. Some initial evidence comes from the fact that for every free relative introduced by a simple ννΛ-word, there is an identical demonstrative-headed relative clause. Thus, parallel to (5) - (9), we have (23) - (27). (23) Ten, kto umyi r$ce, moze zaczqc jesc. he who washed hands (he) can begin eat 'The one who has washed his hands can begin eating.' (24) To, co powiesz, b^dzie uzyte przeciwko tobie. it what (you) will say will be used against you 'What you say will be used against you.' (25) Tam, gdzie Jan mieszka, jest bardzo cieplo. there where John lives is very warm 'Where John lives is very warm.' (26) Wtedy, kiedy Piotr jest ζ nami, jest nam bardzo przyjemnie. then when Peter is with us is (to) us very pleasant 'It's very pleasant to us when Peter is with us.' (27) Tak, jak to zrobisz, na pewno b§dzie dobrze. so how it (you) will do certainly will be good 'The way you do it will certainly be good.' If the w/z-words in Polish free relatives are heads, this fact will be quite accidental. If we assume a superficially headless analysis, however, it will be quite natural. Such an analysis will either involve a rule deleting a demonstrative head under certain circumstances or will allow a phonologically empty head under certain circumstances. In either case, it is only to be expected that there will be many cases where free relatives are identical to demonstrativeheaded relative clauses.

6

Robert D. Borsley

Some further evidence against Bresnan and Grimshaw comes from the fact that there is no independent evidence for a general rule of controlled-prodeletion. In English, relative clauses introduced by that provide independent motivation for such a rule. There is good evidence that that is a complementizer when it introduces a relative clause. (See, for example, Morgan 1972.) It is natural, therefore, to assume that relative clauses introduced by that involve deletion.4 In Polish, the situation is rather different. Relative clauses normally involve w/i-movement. There are, however, relative clauses that appear to involve deletion. Consider, for example, (28). (28) Jan widziai zlodzieja, co obrabowal bank. John saw thief what robbed bank 'John saw the thief that robbed the bank.' I have glossed co here as Vhat' because it occurs elsewhere as a neuter interrogative pronoun. There is evidence, however, that it is a complementizer here and hence that we have deletion of a subject pronoun. The evidence are data like the following. (29) Maria kocha mezczyzn§, co go podziwiasz. Mary loves man what him (you) admire 'Mary loves the man that you admire.' (30) Jan widziai tegofaceta, co ζ nim rozmawiales. John saw the guy what with him (you) talked 'John saw the guy that you talked to.' Like (28), these examples involve relative clauses introduced by co. In each case, however, the relative clause contains a separate pronoun of some kind. It seems clear, then, that co is not a ννΛ-word but a complementizer in these examples. It is natural, then, to assume that the same is true of examples like (28) and thus that they involve deletion. The fact that (31) is ungrammatical shows that this is an obligatory controlled deletion and not the ordinary context-conditioned deletion of a subject pronoun that is a characteristic feature of Polish: (31) *Jan widziai zlodzieja, co on obrabowal bank. The fact that the following are ungrammatical shows that this deletion is restricted to subjects. (32) *Maria kocha m$zczyzn$, co podziwiasz. (33) *Jan zna tego faceta, co ζ rozmawiales. Μι-movement is not restricted in this way, however, as the following illustrate:

Free relatives in Polish and English

7

(34) Maria kocha m$iczyzn$, ktorego ty podziwiasz. Mary loves man which you admire 'Mary loves the man who you admire.' (35) Jan widziai tego faceta, ζ ktorym rozmawiates. John saw the guy with which (you) talked 'John saw the guy who you talked to.' It is natural, then, to assume that free relatives involve wh-movement and not deletion] Further evidence that we have wft-movement and not deletion here comes from the ungrammaticality of the following examples. (36) *Kto Jan powiedziai, ze kocha Μαηφ, fest gtupcem. who John said that loves Mary is fool 'The one who John said loves Mary is a fool.' (37) *Ktokolwiek powiesz, ze zna francuski, dostanie pracf. whoever (you) will say that knows French (he) will get work 'Whoever you say knows French will get a job.' (38) *Jakie ksiqzki myslalei ze dostalem na urodziny, sprzedalem sqsiadowi. what books (you) thought that (I) got on birthday (I) sold neighbour 'Whatever books you thought I got on my birthday I sold to the neighbour.' If Polish free relatives involve ννΛ-movement, the ungrammaticality of these examples is not surprising. All will involve the movement of a w/i-word into a higher clause. This is generally impossible in Polish. The following illustrate. (39) *Kto Jan powiedziai, ze moze przyjsc na wyktad? who John said that may come on lecture 'Who did John say may come to the lecture?' (40) *Ktorq ksiqzk? Marek myslal, ze mial przeczytac? which book Mark thought that (he) had to read 'Which book did Mark think that he had to read?' Thus, if Polish free relatives involve vv/j-movement, it is only natural that (36) - (38) should be ungrammatical. If they involve deletion, however, the ungrammaticality of these examples is rather problematic. This is because Polish does have unbounded deletion. This is illustrated by sentences like the following:

8

Robert D. Borsley

(41) Jan jest inteligentniejszy, niz myslelismy, te jest. John is more intelligent than (we) thought that (he) is 'John is more intelligent than we thought he was.' (42) Maria jest tak pigkna, jak Jan mowil, ze jest.5 Mary is so beautiful how John said that (she) is 'Maiy is as beautiful as John said that she was.' Thus, there is no obvious reason why (36) — (38) should be ungrammatical if Polish free relatives involve deletion. Again, then, it is natural to assume that we have ννΛ-movement and not deletion in Polish free relatives. Some more complex evidence against a Bresnan-Grimshaw analysis comes from free relatives introduced by a w/j-word and a nominal. An important fact about such free relatives is that the nominal need not directly follow the whword. Thus parallel to (15) - (18), we have (43) - (46). (43) Jakq Jan znalazi prac$, zaraz musial ζ niej zrezygnowac. which John found work immediately (he) had to from it resign 'Whichever work John found, he had to give it up immediately.' (44) Jakie miatem pieniqdze, datem Marii. what (I) had money (I) gave Mary 'What money I had, I gave to Mary.' (45) Jakqkolwiek przeczytasz ksiqik§, bqdziesz musiat mi jq opowiedziec. whichever (you) will read book (you) will be have to (to) me it tell 'Whichever book you read, you will have to tell me the story.' (46) Jakiekolwiek kupisz buty, rozlecq si$. whatever (you) will buy shoes (they) will fly themselves 'Whatever shoes you buy, they will fall apart.' If we assume a Bresnan-Grimshaw analysis, the free relatives in (15) — (18) will have a wh-word and a nominal in head position, and the free relatives in (43) — (46) will involve the postposing of part of the head. It is generally impossible, however, to postpose part of the head of a relative clause. The following illustrate. (47) a. Te pieniqdze, ktore Jan znalazi wczoraj, datem Marii. the money which John found yesterday (I) gave Mary. Ί gave the money which John found yesterday to Mary.' b. *Te, ktore Jan znalazi wczoraj, pieniqdze dalem Marii.

Free relatives in Polish and English

9

(48) a. Ten student, ktory zdat wszystkie egzaminy, wyjezdza do Australii. the student which passed all exams is going to Australia 'The student who has passed all the exams is going to Australia.' b. *Ten, ktory zdat wszystkie egzaminy, student do Australii.

wyjezdza

Thus, the free relatives in (43) - (46) pose serious problems for a BresnanGrimshaw analysis. Such free relatives pose no problems, however, for a headless analysis. A central fact about wh-movement in Polish is that it can violate Ross's (1967) left branch condition. The following illustrate. (49) Ktore Jan namalowat obrazy? which John painted paintings 'Which paintings did John paint?' (50) Czyj chciatbys przeczytac artykul? whose (you) would like read article 'Whose article would you like to read?' Thus, if Polish free relatives are headless relatives involving w/z-movement, the free relatives in (43) - (46) are only to be expected. Although the facts surveyed so far provide evidence against a BresnanGrimshaw analysis, they are compatible with an analysis of the kind that Hirschbiihler proposes. There are facts, however, that argue against both kinds of analysis. Some important evidence comes from the fact that there are no cases elsewhere in Polish of embedded finite clauses not introduced by some element in COMP. Ordinary relative clauses are always introduced by some element in COMP (usually a wh-word). Thus, only the a. examples in the following are grammatical. (51) a. Ten cztowiek, ktorego Maria kocha, jest gtupi. the man who mary loves is foolish 'The man who Mary loves is a fool.' b. *Ten cztowiek, Maria kocha, jest gtupi. (52) a. Ksiqzki, ktore mi dates, sq bardzo ciekawe. books which me (you) gave are very intersting 'The books which you gave me are very interesting.' b. *Ksiqzki, mi dates, sq bardzo ciekawe.

10

Robert D. Borsley

Similarly, finite complements are always introduced by a complementizer. Again, only the a. examples in the following are grammatical. (53) a. Jan mowit, ze Maria wyjechata do Londynu. John said that Mary went to London 'John said that Mary had gone to London.' b. *Jan mowit, Maria wyjechata do Londynu. (54) a. Jan chcial, zeby Maria przyszla. John wanted that Mary came 'John wanted Mary to come.' b. *Jan chcial, Maria przyszla. It is natural in this situation to assume that all embedded finite clauses in Polish must be introduced by some element in COMP. Clearly, however, this is impossible if the w/z-words in free relatives are heads. It is natural, then, to assume that they are ordinary w/i-words in COMP and thus that free relatives are headless. Some further evidence for this position comes from what can be termed the mobile inflection phenomenon. This is the ability of the person and number inflections of certain verbs to appear separated from the verb stems with which they are normally associated and attached to certain other lexical items. The following illustrate this phenomenon. (55) a. Ty czytales t§ ksiqikf. you read this book 'You read this book.' b. Tys czytal t§ ksiqzkς. (56) a. Wykladu wysluchales. lecture (you) listened 'You listened to the lecture.' b. Wykiadus wysluchai. (57) a. Kiedy widziales ten film? when (you) saw this film 'When did you see this film?' b. Kiedys widzial ten film? (57) b. shows that mobile inflections can be attached to items in COMP. It seems, however, that they cannot appear outside the S in which the verb stem with which they are normally associated appears. In particular, when a verb stem with which a mobile inflection is normally associated appears in a relative clause, the inflection cannot be attached to the head of the clause. The following illustrate.

Free relatives in Polish and English

11

(58) a. M^zczyzna, ktorego widziaies, jest bratem Manx. man which (you) saw is brother Mary 'The man who you saw was Mary's brother.' b. *M§zczyznas, ktorego widziat, jest bratem Marii. Notice now that mobile inflections can be attached to the wh-words in free relatives. Consider, for example, the following. (59) a. Co powiedziates, zostato nagrane. what (you) said became recorded 'What you said was recorded.' (60) a. Cokolwiek tu slyszales, musisz ο tym zapomniec. whatever here (you) heard (you) must about it forget 'Whateveryou have heard here,you must forget about it.' b. Coskolwiek tu siyszai, musisz ο tym zapomniec. (61) a. Jakie piwo zamowiles, takie przyrtiosq. what beer (you) ordered such (they) will bring 'Whatever beer you ordered, they will bring.' b. Jakies piwo zamowil, takie przyniosq. Here, then, we have quite strong evidence that the ννΛ-words in free relatives are in COMP and are not heads. Some further evidence comes from the distribution of the possessive reflexive swoj. Like ordinary reflexives, swoj must be a clause mate of its antecedent. This means, among other things, that swoj cannot appear in COMP with an antecedent in a higher clause. (62) illustrates. (62) *Jarii zapytai, ktorq ze swoichj piosenek lubisz. John asked which from his songs (you) like 'John asked which of his songs you liked.' To make this sentence grammatical, it is necessary to replace swoich with the non-reflexive form jego 'his'. Swoj can appear, however, inside the head of a relative clause with an antecedent outside. (63) illustrates this. (63) J an ι zaspiewa kazdq ze swoichj piosenek, jakq wybierzesz. John will sing each from his songs which (you) will choose 'John will sing each of his songs that you choose.' Notice now that (64) is ungrammatical. (64) *Janj zaspiewa ktorqkolwiek ze swoichj piosenek wybierzesz. John will sing whichever from his songs (you) will choose 'John will sing whichever of his songs you choose.'

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Here, we have a free relative with swoj within the w/i-phrase and the main clause subject as the antecedent. The fact that such sentences are ungrammatical suggests strongly that the wh-phrases in free relatives are in COMP and are not heads. The distribution of swoj in fact provides another argument against a BresnanGrimshaw analysis. Both (62) and (64) are grammatical if the deleted complement subject is the antecedent of swoich. On either a Bresnan-Grimshaw analysis or a Hirschbühler analysis, (64) will on this interpretation involve a form of swoj with an antecedent in a lower clause. In general, this is impossible. (65) illustrates. (65) *Jan zaspiewa kazdq ze swoichf piosenek, jakq tyi wybierzesz. John will sing each from your songs which you will choose 'John will sing each of your songs that you choose.' This is no problem for a Hirschbühler analysis since on such an analysis swoich will be a clause mate of the deleted subject prior to the raising of the whphrase into head position. It provides an important argument,however, against a Bresnan-Grimshaw analysis. A final argument against both a Bresnan-Grimshaw analysis and a Hirschbühler analysis involves the phenomenon of pied piping. On either analysis, one would not expect pied piped prepositions before the w/z-words in free relatives. Free relatives with a pied piped preposition before the ννΛ-word are often ungrammatical. There are grammatical examples, however. The following illustrate. (66) Ζ kimkolwiek Jan rozmawia, Maria go lubi. with whoever John talks Mary him likes 'Whoever John talks to, Mary likes him.' (67) Ζ kimkolwiek porozmawiasz, zrozumie ciq. with whoever (you) will talk (he) will understand you 'Whoever you talk to will understand you.' Clearly, such examples provide evidence against both analyses. On a superficially headless analysis, however, they are only to be expected. I have now presented nine arguments against a Bresnan-Grimshaw analysis of Polish free relatives. With five of the arguments, the key facts are compatible with a headed analysis of the kind that Hirschbühler (1976) proposes. This is not the case, however, with the other four arguments. With all the arguments, the key facts are exactly what a superficially headless analysis leads one to expect. They are also compatible with an analysis in which free

Free relatives in Polish and English

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relatives are isomorphic with embedded questions. We saw earlier, however, that there is evidence against such an analysis. It seems clear, then, that a superficially headless analysis is appropriate for Polish free relatives. We can return now to English free relatives. I noted at the outset that Bresnan and Grimshaw's arguments are directed primarily against an analysis of free relatives in which they are isomorphic with embedded questions. I subsequently pointed out that the number agreement, facts to which they draw attention argue against such an analysis but are quite compatible with a superficially headless analysis. I want now to show that the same is true of certain other facts that Bresnan and Grimshaw discuss. An important feature of free relatives which Bresnan and Grimshaw point out is what they term the "matching effect", the fact that the wh-phrase in a free relative is of the same category as the whole free relative. In this, free relatives are quite unlike embedded questions where the category of the whphrase is completely independent of the category of the whole construction. Clearly, then, the matching effect argues against an analysis of free relatives in which they are isomorphic with embedded questions. For a Bresnan-Grimshaw analysis, the matching effect is no problem. As Bresnan and Grimshaw point out, it is an automatic consequence of the following, well motivated constraint. (68) A phrase and its head have the same categorial specification. There is no problem either, however, for a superficially headless analysis. In such an analysis, the matching effect follows from (68) and the following, rather natural constraint. (69) The head of a relative clause and the wA-phrase have the same categorial specification. Thus, the matching effect argues against an analysis of free relatives in which they are isomorphic with embedded questions but is quite compatible with a superficially headless analysis. The situation is similar with certain facts relating to what Bresnan and Grimshaw term the Internal NP-over-S Constraint. This constraint, which has its origins in the work of Ross (1967) and Kuno (1973), stipulates that sentences exhaustively dominated by NP cannot appear internal to phrases of which they are immediate constituents. It accounts for the dubious character of sentences like the following. (70) ?Can whether you are right or not matter? (71)

?I found what the consequences were unclear.

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These sentences contain embedded questions. Similar sentences containing free relatives are perfectly acceptable. The following illustrate. (72) Can what you want be on the table? (73) I found what she cooked delicious. Clearly, this contrast argues that free relatives are not isomorphic with embedded questions. It poses no real problems, however, for a superficially headless analysis. If the constraint is a surface filter, it will provide evidence against a superficially headless analysis involving a deleted head. It will pose no problems, however, for a superficially headless analysis involving a phonologically empty head. Again, then, the facts Bresnan and Grimshaw cite provide evidence against an analysis of free relatives in which they are isomorphic with embedded questions, but they are quite compatible with a superficially headless analysis. It is clear, then, that three of Bresnan and Grimshaw's arguments only provide evidence against an analysis of free relatives in which they are isomorphic with embedded questions. There are three other arguments that might seem to provide some evidence against a superficially headless analysis. I will show, however, that doubts can be raised about all of them. The first argument involves certain wh -constructions where it is fairly clear that the ννΛ-words are not ordinary wh-words in COMP. The following illustrate. (74) She wrote whenever possible. (75) Eat what you please. Bresnan and Grimshaw show that it is not plausible to derive the w/i-constructions here from ordinary free relatives and hence that the wh -words cannot be ordinary wh-words in COMP. They seem then to suggest that considerations of simplicity support the view that the wh -words in free relatives are not ordinary wh -words in COMP either. Polish provides an objection to this argument. In Polish, ννΛ-words with the suffix -kolwiek occur quite widely in contexts where they are clearly not ordinary ννΛ-words in COMP. Roughly, they occur in all the contexts in which English any forms occur except negative environments, where negated forms appear. The following illustrate. (76) Czy widziales tam kogokolwiek? Q (you) saw there anyone 'Did you see anyone there?'

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(77) Ktokolwiek moze tarn wejsc. anyone can there enter 'Anyone can go in there.' (78) Daj to komukolwiek. give it anyone 'Give it to anyone.' (79) Jezeli kiedykolwiek bgdziesz w Poznaniu, zadzwon do mnie. if any time (you) will be in Poznaii, ring to me 'If you are in Poznari any time, give me a ring.' It is clear, then, that the appearance of w/j-words in contexts where they cannot be ordinary w/i-words in COMP does not in any way necessitate the conclusion that they are not ordinary wft-words in COMP in free relatives. The second argument involves pied piping. Unlike Polish free relatives, English free relatives never involve pied piped prepositions. A superficially headless analysis leads one to expect pied piped prepositions in free relatives. It looks, then, as if we have a real argument against such an analysis here. It is not clear that this is the case, however. As we have seen, free relatives with pied piped prepositions are sometimes acceptable in Polish. Often, however, they are ungrammatical.None of the following,for example, are grammatical. 6 (80) *Z kimkolwiek Jan rozmawia, Maria lubi. with whoever John talks Mary likes 'Whoever John talks to, Mary likes.' (81)

*Jan spotkat ζ kim rozmawiales. John met with whom (you) talked 'John met the person you talked to.'

(82) *Maria rozmawiata ζ ο kim Jan ciqgle mowi. Mary talked with about whom John continuously talks. 'Mary talked to the person John talks about all the time.' It is clear, then, that a superficially headless analysis is quite compatible with the ungrammaticality of many free relatives with pied piped prepositions. It is not at all obvious, then, that such an analysis is incompatible with the ungrammaticality of all such free relatives. The final argument that might seem to provide some evidence against a superficially headless analysis is not fully spelled out. Its form, however, is reasonably clear. It involves pairs of sentences like the following:

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(83) I'll live in whatever town you live in. (84) I'll live in whatever town you live. For Bresnan and Grimshaw, (83) involves an NP-headed relative clause in a PP and deletion of a pro-NP, while (84) involves a PP-headed relative clause and deletion of a pro-PP. If one assumes a superficially headless analysis, examples like (83) are quite straightforward. Examples like (84), however, will presumably require a rule deleting a pied piped preposition under identity with a higher preposition. Such a rule seems rather ad hoc. Thus, the existence of sentences like (84) might seem to provide evidence against a superficially headless analysis. Again, however, Polish provides an objection. Sentences like (84) are quite common in Polish. The following illustrate. (85) Zamieszkam w jakimkolwiek kraju ty zamieszkasz. (I) will live in whatever country you will live Ί will live in whatever country you will live.' (86) Pojad§ do jakiegokolwiek miasta ty pojedziesz. (I) will go to whatever town you will go Ί will go to whatever town you go.' It is clear, then, that a superficially headless analysis is quite compatible with the existence of sentences like (84). I have now outlined the main arguments advanced by Bresnan and Grimshaw for their analysis of English free relatives. I have shown that three of their arguments only provide evidence against an analysis of free relatives in which they are isomorphic with embedded questions and that Polish facts cast doubt on their other three arguments which might seem to provide some evidence against a superficially headless analysis. I have not shown that their analysis is untenable. I think I have shown, however, that their arguments are much less compelling than they initially appear and thus that it is not clear that their analysis is preferable to a superficially headless analysis. We have seen, then, that there is strong evidence that Polish free relatives are headless relatives and thus that Bresnan and Grimshaw's analysis is not universally applicable. We have also seen that their arguments about English free relatives are rather weak and hence that it is not at all obvious that their analysis is the correct one for English.

Free relatives in Polish and English

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Notes 1. I am grateful to Ewa Jaworska for placing her Polish intuitions at my disposal and providing much other assistance, and to Frank Heny, George Horn, Dick Hudson and Neil Smith for a number of helpful comments. 2. A further headed analysis is advanced in Jackendoff 1977 (chapter 9). This involves a rule moving a wA-word from S directly to head position. The facts that argue against a Hirschbühler analysis also argue against an analysis of this kind. 3. Another interesting class of free relatives involve an idiomatic use of the negative particle nie. Free relatives of this kind seem to be similar to free relatives involving •kolwiek. The following illustrate. (i) Co nie zrobi$, zawsze jest tie. what not (I) do always is bad 'Whatever I do is always wrong.' (ii) Kogo nie zapytasz, wskaze ci drogq. who not (you) will ask (he) will show you way 'Whoever you ask will show you the way.' 4. Chomsky, of course, would assume that such relative clauses involve wA-movement and deletion in COMP. I would reject this view. For criticisms of Chomsky's views on wA-movement and deletion, see Bresnan (1976), Grimshaw (1974), Allen (1980) and Borsley (1981). 5. I have glossed jak here as 'how' because it appears elsewhere as an adverbial wA-word. There is strong evidence, however, that it is not a wA-word here and that such examples involve deletion. See Borsley (1981). 6. A plausible suggestion, I think, is that pied piped prepositions are only possible in free relatives that have an adverbial function. It seems reasonable to say that the free relative in (66) has an adverbial function. The free relative in (67) appears to be a subject. It is possible, however, that the sentence involves a deleted subject pronoun and thus that the free relative has the same role as in (66). It is interesting to note in this context that Old English had a distinctive class of free relatives used in an ad' verbial role. See Allen (1980).

References Allen, C. 1980 "Movement and deletion in Old English", Linguistic inquiry 11:261-323. Borsley, R. D. 1981 "WA-movement and unbounded deletion in Polish equatives", Journal of linguistics 17:270-288. Bresnan, J. W. 1976 "Evidence for a theory of unbounded transformations", Linguistic analysis 2:353-393. Bresnan, J. W. - J. Grimshaw 1978 "The syntax of free relatives in English", Linguistic inquiry 9:331-391. Farkas, D. - W. M. Jacobsen - K. W. Todrys (eds) 1978 Papers from the Fourteenth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago). Ford, A. - J. Reighard - R. Singh (eds) 1976 Papers from the Sixth Annual Meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society (Montreal: McGill University).

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Grimshaw, J. 1974 "Evidence for relativization by deletion in Chaucerian Middle English", in: Kaisse - Hankamer (eds) 1974:216-224. Hirschbiihler, P. 1976 "Two analyses of free relatives in French", in: Ford et al. (eds) 1976. Jackendoff, R. S. 1977 X syntax: A study of phrase structure (= Linguistic inquiry monograph, 2) Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T.Press). Kaisse, E. - J. Hankamer (eds) 1974 Papers from the Fifth Annual Meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University). Kuno, S. 1973 "Constraints on internal clauses and sentential subjects", Linguistic inquiry 4:363-385. Morgan, J. L. 1972 "Some aspects of relative clauses in English and Albanian", in: Peranteau et al. (eds) 1 9 7 2 : 6 3 - 7 2 . Peranteau, P. M. - J. Levi - G. Phares (eds) 1972 The Chicago which hunt (Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Linguistic Society). Ross, J. R. 1967 Constraints on variables in syntax (Ph. D. dissertation, M.I.T.). Woolford, E. 1978 "Free relatives and other base generated WH constructions", in: Farkas et al. (eds) 1978:482-490.

STEFAN DYLA

A note on inversion/conjunct ascension constructions in Polish and English1

1 Introduction In this paper, I will attempt to give a tentative account of the syntax of a number of complex inversion constructions in Polish and English within the theory of arc pair grammar (henceforth: APG) as advanced by Johnson and Postal (1980). More specifically, I will deal here with those types of inversion constructions which are also conjunct ascension (henceforth: CA) constructions. While doing so, I will assume the reader's familiarity with basic claims and hypotheses concerning the nature of language made in APG, like e.g. the claim that sentences of natural languages are reconstructible in terms of formal objects called pair networks (PNs). 1.1 Inversion and conjunct ascension in arc pair grammar Prior to any discussion, let me say a few words about inversion and conjunct ascension themselves. In relational grammar, these two terms have been used to refer to two relation-changing rules of universal grammar: Inversion was a demotion rule sanctioning the 3-hood of a former 1, while conjunct ascension was a raising-type rule sanctioning the termhood of a former conjunct. 2 In the theory of arc pair grammar, there is nothing like the notion of a universal rule. Rather, there are universal constructions, inversion constructions and CA constructions among them, whose well-formedness at the level of universal grammar is determined by the set of APG PN laws, which are interpreted as material implications (in the standard logical sense) checking for the co-occurrence or the non-co-occurrence of specified properties of PNs in all languages. A construction is well-formed at the level of a grammar of some particular language if the grammar does not contain a rule which would block such a construction. 3 Put into APG terms, inversion is a construction involving a cjth stratum 1 arc locally sponsoring a cj+ j th stratum 3 arc, whereas conjunct ascension is a

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construction involving an immigrant arc whose foreign predecessor is a Con arc and whose local sponsor is a Term arc which is a support of the Con arc. Diagrammatically,

(1) Figure 1

α

(2) Figure 2

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1.2 Evidence for inversion and conjunct ascension in Polish and English 1.2.1 Evidence for inversion in Polish To begin with, consider evidence for the well-formedness of inversion constructions in Polish. Polish exhibits a great number of constructions where nominals marked with the dative case, a typical flagging used to mark heads of final 3 arcs in Polish, behave like heads of 1 arcs with respect to some tests for 1-hood, viz. those tests which apply not only to heads of final 1 arcs but also to heads of non-final 1 arcs. Consider the following doublet: 4 (3) Przypomnialo mi sif, ze . . . (remembered/IMPERS me/DAT REFL that) Ί remembered (willy-nilly) t h a t . . . ' (4) Po przyjsciu do domu przypomniaio mi si?, ze . . . (after having-come to home/GEN remembered/IMPERS me/DAT REFL that) 'Having returned home, I remembered (willy-nilly) that.. The sentence in (4) involves what might be called equi into action nominalization functioning as a temporal adverbial. In APG, it is reconstructed as a PN of the form shown in Figure 3. In other words, (4) involves foreign erasure of a final 1 arc whose support is a Temporal arc by a 3 arc which is local successor of a 1 arc and a neighbor of the Temporal arc in question. Also note that final 1 arcs and Cho arc local successors of 1 arcs can unhook final 1 arcs in such constructions. (6) Po przyjsciu do domu przypomnialem sobie, ze . . . (after having-come to home/GEN I-remembered REFL that) 'Having returned home, I remembered t h a t . . . ' (7) Te klucze zostaiy znalezione przez Olg? podczas sprz^tania twojego pokojui (these keys/NOM got found by ACC while cleaning your room/GEN) 'These keys have been found by Olga when she was cleaning your room.' Surprisingly, 3 arcs which are not local successors of 1 arcs cannot do the unhooking, as is evidenced by the ill-formedness of the following sentence under a reading where it was me who returned home.

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(8) *Po przyjsciu do domu mama data mi kolacjf. (after having-come to home/GEN mother/NOM gave me/DAT supper/ACC) 'Having returned home, Mother fed me supper.' Summing up, the ability of the dative-marked nominals in question to control this variety of equi can be accounted for only if these nominals are heads of final 3 arcs which are local successors of 1 arcs.

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1.2.2 Evidence for inversion in English Consider the following sentence: (9) That book is too difficult for John. When embedded in a super-equi context, it may take the form of either (10) or (11). (10) John, admitted that that book turned out to be too difficult for hinij. (11) John admitted that that book turned out to be too difficult. Of the two forms, the one which will concern us here is that in (11). What seems to happen in (11) is that a final 3 arc is foreign erased by a final 1 arc which is its remote support. Interestingly, final 3 arcs which are not local predecessors of 1 arcs cannot be erased, as is shown in (12). (12) a. John { said that it was quite clear that the letter had been sent to hinii by Fritz. b* John said that it was quite clear that the letter had been sent by Fritz. Note that this type of foreign erasure can be encountered in sentences like the following one: (13) Making a fool of herself in public amused Rita. Again, the eraser is a remote support of the erased arc, which is a final 1 arc. Given the ability of the for-phrase in (9) to be a super-equi victim and the fact that heads of final 3 arcs which are not local successors of 1 arcs cannot be victims of super-equi, one has to conclude that the/or-phrase in (9) is the head of a final 3 arc which has a 1 arc local predecessor. 1.2.3 Evidence for conjunct ascension in Polish Consider the following pair of sentences: (14) Marek i Jola poszli do kina. (NOM and NOM went/Pi to cinema/GEN) 'Marek and Jola went to the movies.' (15) Marek poszedl ζ J0I3 do kina. (NOM went/Sg. with INSTR to cinema/GEN) 'Marek went to the movies with Jola.'

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One might claim that (15) involves conjunct ascension because it is truthconditionally equivalent to (14), in which the conjunction Marek iJola is the head of a 1 arc at both the initial and final stratum. This, however, is a very weak argument. A much more telling one is provided by the fact that the following sentence, which is also truth-conditionally equivalent to (14), is perfectly well-formed. (16) Marek ζ J0I3 poszli do kina. (NOM with INSTR went/Pi. to cinema/GEN) 'Marek and Jola went to the movies.' Despite the fact that it is Marek and not Marek ζ Jolq which is the head of a final 1 arc, the verb appears in plural. This means that what we have to do here is an instance of agreement triggered by an initial 1 arc. If Marek ζ Jolq were not a conjunction at any stratum, then the plural agreement on the verb in (16) would be unaccountable. The conclusion follows that sentences like (15) and (16) involve an immigrant 1 arc whose foreign predecessor is a Con arc and whose 1 arc local sponsor is overrun.

1.2.4 Evidence for conjunct ascension in English Evidence for the well-formedness of CA constructions in English is harder to come by. The existence of contrasting doublets like those in (17-18) by itself is a weak argument for conjunct ascension in English. (17) John and Mary went to the movies. (18) John went to the movies with Mary. Nonetheless, there seems to exist a slightly stronger piece of evidence to this effect. In relational grammar, it has been assumed that central grammatical relations are predicatable from semantic relations which nominals bear in their clauses. This assumption has been taken over, though inexplicitly, by arc pair grammar. And so, for instance, Agents are assumed to be always heads of initial 1 arcs. Note that the phrase with Mary in (18) is in the same semantic relation to the clause as the nominal John Given the above assumption, both with Mary and John should be heads of initial 1 arcs. Since the Stratal Uniqueness Theorem does not allow, inter alia, two distinct 1 arcs at the same stratum, it follows then that with Mary and John are heads of Con arcs which are branches of the initial 1 arc of the clause.

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2.0 Other constructions involved In what follows, the following additional types of constructions will also be referenced: 2—1 advancement, 3—2 advancement, beheading, genitive ascension, and antipassive. All of these types of constructions are well-formed in Polish, whereas English exhibits all but antipassive. Subnetworks corresponding to each of these constructions are shown in figures 4 through 8. α

(19) Figure 4

α

(20) Figure 5

Stefan Dyia α

(22) Figure 7

Inversion/conjunct ascension in Polish and English

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α

(23) Figure 8 Below, I will attempt to provide evidence for the well-formedness of each of the above types of constructions in Polish and English. The existence or nonexistence of antipassive constructions in English need not concern us here as no type of English inversion-conjunct ascension construction involves antipassivization. 2.1 Evidence for 2—1 advancement Evidence for the well-formedness of this type of construction hinges upon the assumption, made in relational grammar and adopted in arc pair grammar, that intransitive strata can "contain" either a 1 arc not contrasting with a 2 arc or a 2 arc not contrasting with a 1 arc. The former type of stratum is referred to as an unergative stratum, the latter as an unaccusative stratum. The Final 1 Arc Law predicts that only non-final strata can be unaccusative. Moreover, there cannot be two successive unaccusative strata, which is insured by the Unaccusative Instability Law and the Unaccusative Law. Underlying the distinction between unergative and unaccusative strata is the fact that certain intransitive clauses are ambiguous with respect to the volitional vs. non-volitional character of the action expressed. Consider the following pairs of sentences: (24) a. John slid (on ice), (volitional) b. John slid (while going downstairs and broke a leg), (nonvolitional)

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(25) a. Janek slizgal sif (na zamarzniftym stawie). (NOM was-sliding REFL on frozen pond/LOC) 'Janek was sliding on a frozen pond.' (volitional) b. Janek slizgai sif (id^c po oblodzonej drodze). (NOM was-sliding REFL going on ice-covered road/ LOC) 'Janek was sliding while walking an ice-covered road.' (non-volitional) In APG, the (a)-forms of (24—25) are analyzed as involving unergative initial strata, while the (b)-forms as involving unaccusative initial strata. This analysis correlates nicely with the fact that John in(24.a.) and Janek in(25.a.) are both agents, while John in (24.b.) and Janek in (25.b.) are both patients. Given that patients are invariably heads of initial 2 arcs, the fact that John in (24.b.) and Janek in (25.b.) are both heads of final 1 arcs can be accounted for only if the initial 2 arcs in (24.b.) and (25.b.) local sponsor 1 arcs, which happen to be final arcs. 2.2 Evidence for 3 - 2 advancement Consider the following sentences: (26) Jack gave Mary a bracelet. (27) Jack showed Mary a picture of Rembrandt. (28) Ten facet okradi Tomka ζ pienifdzy i zegarka. (this guy/NOM stole ACC of money/GEN PI. and watch/GEN) 'This guy stole Tomek his money and wrist watch.' (29) Ten facet obrabowat Tomka ζ pienifdzy. (this guy/NOM robbed ACC of money/GEN PI.) 'This guy robbed Tomek of his money.' Note that the nominale Mary in (26-27) and Tomka in (28-29) have the same semantic roles as to Mary and Tomkowi in (30—31) and (32—33), respectively. (30) Jack gave a bracelet to Mary. (31) Jack has shown this picture to Mary. (32) Ten facet skradi Tomkowi pieni^dze. (this guy/NOM stole DAT money/ACC PI.) 'This guy has stolen Tomek his money.'

Inversion/conjunct ascension in Polish and English

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(33) Ten facet zrabowat Tomkowi pieni^dze. (this guy/NOM robbed DAT money/ACC PI.) "This guy has robbed Tomek of his money.' More specifically, Mary in ( 2 6 - 2 7 ) and to Mary in (30—31) are both recipients, while Tomka in ( 2 8 - 2 9 ) and Tomkowi in ( 3 2 - 3 3 ) are both sources. If one assumes that recipients and sources are always heads of initial 3 arcs, then the 2-hood of the final arcs headed by Mary in ( 2 6 - 2 7 ) and Tomka in (28—29) follows from the fact that these arcs have 3 arc local predecessors. 2.3 Evidence for beheading 5 Beheading constructions are characterized as involving foreign erasure of an arc whose neighbor is a Gen arc by an arc whose neighbor is another Gen arc, where the first two neighbors are branches of an arc which is a neighbor of an arc whose branches are the other two neighbors. This type of foreign erasure is to be found in, e.g., comparatives. (34) John's apartment is bigger than Tom's. (35) Samochöd Janka jest szybszy niz Tomka. (car/NOM GEN is faster than GEN) 'Janek's car is faster than Tomek's.' That the above examples are instances of beheading constructions can be seen in the fact that the standard of comparison in the above sentences is not a full-fledged nominal but a genitive modifier, which is the head of a Gen arc at both the initial and final stratum. Compare (34—35) with the following sentences where the standard of comparison takes the form of a full-fledged nominal. (36) John's apartment is bigger than Tom's apartment. (37) Samochöd Janka jest szybszy niz samochöd Tomka. (car/NOM GEN is faster than car/NOM Gen) 'Janek's car is faster than Tomek's car.' Note also that the head of a Gen arc in (34—35) is semantically possessor. Since possessors are semantically paired with possessions, it will not be counterintuitive to claim that every self-sponsoring Gen arc must have a neighbor at the initial stratum which is not a Gen arc. Thus, one may conclude that the Gen arcs headed by Tom's and Tomka in (34) and (35), respectively, have neighbors at the initial stratum which are foreign erased by final arcs headed by apartment and samochod, respectively.

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2.4 Evidence for genitive ascension 6 Consider the following pairs of sentences: (38) a. John's arrogance irritates me. b. John irritates me with his arrogance. (39) a. Zachowanie Janka bawi mnie. (behavior/NOM GEN amuses me/ACC) 'Janek's behavior amuses me.' b. Janek bawi mnie swym zachowaniem. (NOM amuses me/ACC REFL behavior/INSTR) 'Janek amuses me with his behavior.' Note that the relation between John and arrogance in (38.b.) and Janek and zachowaniem in (39.b.) is exactly the same as that between John's and arrogance in (38.a.) and Janka and zachowanie in (39.a.). This is a possessorpossessed relation. Support for this claim comes from the ill-formedness of (40—41). (40)* John irritates me with Sally's arrogance. (41)* Janek bawi mnie zachowaniem Tomka. The ill-formedness of (40—41) follows from the fact that John in (38.b.) and Janek in (39.b.) are not heads of 1 arcs at the initial stratum but rather heads of Gen arcs. In order to account for the 1-hood of the final arcs headed by these nominals, one must assume that both sentences involve 1 arc immigrants whose foreign predecessors are Gen arcs and whose local sponsors are 1 arcs which are supports of these Gen arcs. Thus, genitive ascension constructions are well-formed in both English and Polish. 2.5 Evidence for antipassive in Polish Evidence for the well-formedness of antipassive constructions in Polish is very similar to that of Postal 1977 for French. 7 To begin with, let us consider the following examples of action nominalizations in Polish: (42) bieganie Janka (running GEN) 'Janek's running' (43) czytanie ksi^zki (reading book/GEN) 'the reading of a book'

Inversion/conjunct ascension in Polish and English

31

(44) istnienie Boga (existence God/GEN) 'the existence of God' It follows from the above data that the genitive case marking is assigned to heads of final absolutive arcs in action nominalizations. Surprisingly, what seems to be the head of a final ergative arc in the examples below is likewise marked with the genitive case. (45) ogolenie sif Tomka (having-shaved REFL GEN) 'Tomek's having shaved himself (46) palenie Marka (smoking GEN) 'Marek's smoking' (47) poslizgni?cie si? Ewy (having-slid REFL GEN) 'Ewa's having slid' The fact that the final 1 arcs of (45—47) have their heads marked with the genitive strongly suggests that these arcs are absolutive rather than ergative. To be able to give any systematic account of this fact, one must assume that (45—47) are instances of antipassive constructions and that therefore they all involve a 1 arc locally sponsoring a 2 arc which overruns an initial 2 arc and locally sponsors a 1 arc, which turns out to be a final arc. 3.0 Review of inversion/CA constructions in Polish and English This section is devoted to a presentation of a number of inversion constructions which are also conjunct ascension constructions. Each of these constructions will be illustrated with an example and accompanied with a partial list of predicates which can occur in a given construction. 3.1 Type I Consider the following sentences: (48) Sue is similar to Pat. (49) Rysiek jest podobny do Leszka. (NOM is similar to GEN) 'Rysiek is similar to Leszek.'

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This type of construction is a combination of 2—1 advancement, inversion and conjunct ascension. What happens in (48—49) is that the initial 2 arc locally sponsors a 1 arc which, in turn, is a local sponsor of the final 3 arc and the final 1 arc, which is an immigrant arc whose foreign predecessor is a Con arc. Diagrammatically, α

(50) Figure 9 Other predicates which can occur in this type of construction: a. English: equal, equivalent, identical, related, square, perpendicular, parallel, distinct, different, to differ, etc., b. Polish: rowny 'equal', prostopadty 'square, perpendicular', rownolegly 'parallel', zbiezny 'converging', skosny 'oblique', zblizony 'approximate', etc. 3.2 Type II Consider the following English sentence: (51) The street parallels the railway. It appears that this type of construction is almost identical to Type I except that it additionally involves a 2 arc local successor of a 3 arc, which defines it as a 3—2 advancement construction. Thus, it is reconstructive in terms of APG PNs as a PN of the form shown in Figure 10.

Inversion/conjunct ascension in Polish and English

33

α

(52) Figure 10.

Other predicates which can occur in this type of construction: a. English: to equal b. Polish: the construction is unattested.

3.3 Type III Consider the following sentences:8 (53) Harry's weight is equal to Sam's. (54) Waga Janka jest rowna Tomkowej. (weight/NOM GEN is equal DAT) 'Janek's weight is equal to Tomek's.' Comparison of the above examples with (48—49) shows that this type of construction differs from Type I only by virtue of involving foreign erasure of a neighbor of a Gen arc by a neighbor of another Gen arc, i. e. by virtue of being a beheading construction. In terms of APG PNs, the structure of such sentences looks like that shown in Figure 11. Other predicates which can occur in this type of construction: a. English: the same as in Type I. b. Polish: the same as in Type I.

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α

3.4 Type IV Another type of the inversion/CA construction can be best illustrated by the following example: (56) Harry's weight equals Sam's. The fact that Sam's immediately follows the verb indicates that the nominal it modifies is the head of a final 2 arc in (56). Therefore, it is quite safe to claim that this type of construction differs from the previous one only in that it is also a 3 - 2 advancement construction. In other words, sentences like (56) involve 2 arc local successors of 3 arcs. In APG, such sentences are analyzed as involving PNs of the form presented in Figure 12. Other predicates which can occur in this type of construction: a. English: to parallel b. Polish: the construction is unattested. 3.5 Type V A more complex type of construction is shown by the following examples: (58) Harry is equal to Sam in weight.

Inversion/conjunct ascension in Polish and English

35

α

(57) Figurel2.

(59) Janek jest rowny Tomkowi wag^. (NOM is equal DAT weight/INSTR) 'Janek is equal to Tomek in weight.' (60) Ten towar jest podobny do tamtego towaru pod wzgl? dem jakosci. (this merchandise/NOM is similar to that merchandise/GEN with regard quality/GEN) 'This merchandise is similar to that merchandise as far as quality is concerned.' (61) Ten towar jest jakosciowo podobny do tamtego towaru. (this merchandise is qualitywise similar to that merchandise/ GEN) "This merchandise is similar to that merchandise qualitywise.' It appears that this type of construction differs from Type I only in that it also involves a pair of immigrant Con arcs whose foreign predecessors are Gen arcs and whose local sponsors are Con arcs which are supports of their foreign predecessors. Diagrammatically,

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Stefan Dyta α

(62) Figure 13.

Other predicates which can occur in this type of construction: a. English: similar, identical, different, to differ, etc., b. Polish: podobny 'similar', zblizony 'approximate', rozny 'different', etc. 3.6 Type VI Consider the following example: (63) He equals you in strength. Like the previous type, this type of construction involves a pair of immigrant Con arcs whose foreign predecessors are Gen arcs and whose local sponsors are Con arcs which are supports of their foreign predecessors. But it also involves a 2 arc locally sponsored by a 3 arc. Thus, in terms of PNs, the structure of sentences like (63) is reconstructed as a PN of the form shown in Figure 14. Other predicates which can occur in this type of construction: a. English: parallel b. Polish: the construction is unattested.

Inversion/conjunct ascension in Polish and English

37

3.7 Type VII Consider the following example: (65) Waga Janka rowna si? wadze Tomka. (weight/NOM GEN equals REFL weight/DAT GEN) 'Janek's weight is equal to Tomek's weight.' This type of construction is similar to Type I except that it additionally involves a dummy pronoun si§. This pronoun is the head of a copy arc which is cosponsored by an initial 2 arc and its 1 arc local successor, its R-sign being 2. However, since s/'f is totally immune to any test for final 2-hood, which is not the case with its full-fledged counterpart siebie, it seems reasonable to assume that any type of construction involving is an antipassive construction. In the light of the evidence for the well-formedness of antipassive constructions in Polish, this solution has some initial plausibility. The problem is whether the copy 2 arc is overrun by a 2 arc which is a remote local predecessor of the final 3 arc or by a 2 arc which is a local predecessor of the final 1 arc. Thus, sentences like (65) can be reconstructed either in the way shown in Figure 15 or in the way shown in Figure 16.

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Stefan D y i a

(66)

Figure 15.

1/c5

iL·

L/c 3

3lc3

o f

(67)

Figure 16.

1\C2

2\C,

2VZcHrtc3c4c5

Inversion/conjunct ascension in Polish and English

39

Other predicates which can occur in this type of construction: a. English: the construction is unattested b, Polish: unknown. 3.8 Type VIII Sentences like (68) constitute another type of the inversion/CA construction, which differs from the previous type only by virtue of being a beheading construction. (68) Waga Janka rowna sif Tomkowej. (weight/NOM GEN equals REFL DAT) 'Janek's weight is equal to Tomek's.' Diagrammatically,

(69) Figure 17.

Other predicates which can occur in this type of construction: a. English: the construction is unattested b. Polish: unknown. Of course, sentences like (68) can also be analyzed in the way shown in Figure 18.

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Stefan Dyta

C3C4C5

(70) Figure 18. 3.9 Type IX Consider the following sentence from Polish: (71) Maria rozni si? od Ewy zachowaniem. (NOM differs REFL from GEN behavior/INSTR) 'Maria differs from Ewa in the way she behaves.' Sentences like the above have something in common with Type V, as they are genitive ascension constructions too, and with Type VII, as they involve antipassivization. Like Types VII and VIII, they can be analyzed in two ways: either in the way shown in Figure 19 or in the way shown in Figure 20. Other predicates which can occur in this type of construction: a. English: the construction is unattested b. Polish: unknown. 3.10 TypeX Hitherto, I have been dealing with inversion/CA constructions in which an immigrant, 1 arc whose foreign predecessor is a Con arc and a 3 arc have the

Inversion/conjunct ascension in Polish and English

41

CH(AC 3 C 4 C5

\t Slf

(72)

Figure 1 9 .

C 2 C3C4C5 Yes

« f

C»

(73)

Figure 2 0 .

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Stefan Dyta

same 1 arc local sponsor. The number of predicates which can occur in such constructions is rather limited, in some cases, I could list only one such predicate. In this section, I will present a construction in which a 3 arc is locally sponsored by an immigrant 1 arc foreign sponsored by a Con arc. Moreover, as will become clearer later, this type of construction is fully productive, as any predicate which can take a conjunction as a head of the final 1 arc can occur in this type of construction. This type of construction is illustrated by the following pair of examples: (74) Markowi dobrze sif ζ Krzysztofem pracuje. (DAT well REFL with INSTR work/IMPERS) 'Marek feels that his joint work with Krzysztof goes well.' (75) Marii nie mieszka sif ζ EWQ zbyt wygodnie. (DAT NEG live/IMPERS REFL with INSTR too comfortably) 'Maria does not feel comfortable sharing a room with Ewa.' Characteristically, sentences like the above obligatorily take Manner arcs. Their structure can be reconstructed as a PN of the form shown in Figure 21.

(76) Figure 21.

Inversion/conjunct ascension in Polish and English

43

The reason why I argue here that in sentences like ( 7 4 - 7 5 ) the final 3 arc is locally sponsored by the immigrant 1 arc and not vice versa is that neither Polish nor English CA constructions allow immigrants whose foreign predecessors are Con arcs to be locally sponsored by 3 arcs. That this is true can be seen in the fact that sentences like ( 7 7 ) and ( 7 8 ) can only be interpreted in the way suggested in ( 7 9 ) and (80), respectively. (77) ? I gave those books to John with Mary. ( 7 8 ) ? Datem te ksi^zki Jankowi ζ Mari^. (I-gave these books/ACC DAT with INSTR) ( 7 9 ) Mary and I gave these books t o John. (80) Maria i ja dalismy te ksi^zki Jankowi. (NOM and I/NOM gave these books/ACC DAT) 'Maria and I gave these books to Janek.' Other predicates which can occur in this type of construction: a. English: the construction is unattested b. Polish: wspotpracowac 'to cooperate', rozmawiac 'to talk', spiewac s i n g \ d y s k u t o w a c 'to debate', podrozowac 'to travel', etc.,

'to

Notes 1. I would like to express here my gratitude to Dr. Robert Borsley for insightful comments. 2. For a discussion of Inversion in as diverse languages as Russian and Kannada, cf. Perlmutter (to appear). For a discussion of conjunct ascension, cf. Pullum 1975, 1977. 3. This approach rules out the distinction between a syntactic rule and a lexical redundancy rule, as a grammar of a particular language does not contain rules like inversion or conjunct ascension. Of course, restrictions on particular lexical items which can or cannot occur in a given type of construction are idiosyncratic and should be handled in the lexicon. 4. In the glosses, the following abbreviations will be used: NOM = nominative, ACC = accusative, GEN = genitive, INSTR = instrumental, LOC = locative, NEG = negation, IMPERS = the impersonal form of the verb, PI. = plural, REFL = reflexive, Sg. = singular. 5. Beheading should not be confused with uncontrolled beheading discussed by Borkin (1972). 6. In TG, the relation between sentences like the (a)-forms and the (b)-forms of ( 3 8 39) was handled by a rule called Promotion (Ross 1973). The following predicates can occur in this type of the genitive ascension construction: a. English: to annoy, to amuse, to astonish, to amaze, to bother, to horrify, to irritate, to scare, to frighten, to terrify, to worry, etc. b. Polish: denerwowac 'to make nervous', dziwic 'to amaze', rmrtwic 'to worry', bawic 'to amuse', irytowac 'to irritate', przerazic 'to scare', rozimieszac 'to make laugh', etc.

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Stefan Dyta

7. Postal (1977) noted that Reflexive, Reciprocal and Unspecified Object (UO) Clauses behave as if they were finally intransitive with respect to Clause Union, and to account for this strange fact he postulated that French has a rule of antipassive. 8. Note that the following Polish sentences is ill-formed: i. *Waga Janka jest rowna Tomka. weight/NOM GEN is equal GEN 'Janek's weight is equal to Tomek's.' One might claim that the genitive case marking is not sufficient to code the 3-hood of the final arc headed by the beheaded nominal, but how to explain then the wellformedness of sentences like (35) above?

References Borkin, A. 1972 "Conference and beheaded NP's", PIL 5:28-45. Johnson, D. Ε. - P. M. Postal 1980 Arc pair grammar (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Perlmutter, D. M. to appear "Evidence for inversion in Russian and Kannada", Studies in relational grammar, edited by D. M. Perlmutter. Postal, P. M. 1977 "Antipassive in French",NELS 7:273-313. Pullum, G. K. 1975 "Squibs on relational grammar", unpublished papers nos. 1 - 6 , University College, London. 1977 "Word order universals and grammatical relations", SynS 8:107-111. Ross, J. R. 1973 "Nouniness", Three dimensions of linguistic theory, edited by Osamu Fujimura (Tokyo: TEC corp.), 137-257.

NILS ERIK ENKVIST

Contrastive linguistics and text linguistics

0 The overall title of the volume harbouring my paper is Contrastive linguistics: prospects and problems. The broad range of this title is a hint for me to contribute a general overview of a very comprehensive set of problems, rather than to bore deep into some specific detail. I shall try to map some areas in which contrastive and text linguistics overlap, and discuss a few of the concrete questions that have come to the fore in the past several years. My paper will fall into four parts. In the first section I shall attempt a nutshell survey of the state of the art in text linguistics, in terms of four types of text models that are in current use. In the second section I shall very briefly list some types of contrastive problems that can be investigated with the aid of these different models. In the third part I shall once again raise the complex question of models and parameters in contrastive word-order studies. And in the fourth section I shall, again briefly, make some programmatic remarks about views of language as structure and language as process, insofar as this distinction seems to bear on contrastive linguistics. 1 It is by now a truism that all contrastive linguistics must be based on some theory and model of linguistic description. Without such a foundation we simply cannot compare and contrast languages in a systematic way. It is another matter that in applied contrastive work the approach may well be eclectic; picking and choosing among different theories and models and perhaps, if so desired, even using different theories for different areas of work. Those to whom applied linguistics is an eclectic discipline will hardly be shocked when linguists change models, like horses, in mid-stream. To get started, from a considerable height let me give a bird's-eye view of some major types of text models that have been offered in text and discourse linguistics1 over the past decades. One could certainly write a history of text and discourse linguistics in terms of the four model types I shall mention. Text linguistics began with efforts at explaining intersentential cohesion with the aid of traditional grammatical concepts, and then enlarged its sphere to

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encompass various aspects of cognition and interaction. But here I shall only describe current models, without filling in the full bibliographical data or viewing the material in a historical perspective. Nor shall I try to relate my descriptive classification to any linguistic or syntactic theory. Allowing for some overlap, then, text models can be descriptively grouped into four major categories: (a) Sentence-based text models. These models regard texts as strings of sentences which are given as an input for analysis and description. Sentencebased models add textual features to the traditional concepts of sentence grammars. They can explain many phenomena of intersentential co-reference, for instance in terms of pronominal reference across sentence borders, and cross-reference (a good example is Halliday — Hasan 1976). They can also show how sentences are given their textual fit with the aid of lexical and syntactic devices, theme-rheme-focus (or topic-comment-focus) structures, and overall theme-dynamic patterns of the kind described in DaneS 1974, Enkvist 1974, and a number of other papers. Sentence-based models are thus capable of describing intersentential cohesion such as it appears in the given sentences of a given text. But sentence-based models must accept the original sentence division of the text, which itself is part of the input and cannot be manipulated. If we want to show how such an input might be related to other texts involving a different sentence division of a similar text, we must go on to devise (b) Predication-based text models. These models start out, not from a text consisting of ready-made sentences but from a set of predications and interpredicational semantic relations (temporal, causal, etc.). These predications must be given in some canonical form based on logic or semantics, or directly in some natural language (cf. Chomsky's kernel sentences of 1957). The model then shows how these predications can be textualized with the aid of grouping which involves conjunction and embedding. Such operations are governed by a text strategy. Thus different strategies will result in different textualizations of the same input predications, as illustrated for instance in Sigurd 1977 and Källgren 1979. One might compare a predication to the physicist's atom and call it a text atom. Just as the same set of atoms can combine into different molecules, the same set of text atoms (predications) can be combined into different texts, each of which reflects a text strategy of its own. Predication-based models can thus explain relations between different textualizations of the same input predications. The model can of course also be used analytically: we then take a text and split it up into its underlying predications. If we want to compare the given text with other potential textualizations of the same predications we can go on to retextualize them with the aid of different strategies. This makes possible a comparison of a given text

Contrastive linguistics and text linguistics

47

with the other potential texts that can be built out of the same predications - an operation that is of particular interest to students of style. A pioneering experiment along these lines was Ohmann 1964. What a predication-based model cannot do, however, is to explain the origin of predications, or the reasons why a given speaker or writer has, in a given situation, chosen to textualize a certain set of predications instead of another such set. Meeting this challenge takes us on to (c) Cognitive text models. In a cognitive text model we do not start out from ready-made predications. We start out from a body of experience and knowledge out of which predications can be drawn. The usual way of modelling this predication-producing process is based on associative networks (Findler 1979). The concepts themselves are usually placed in nodes of the network, their relations appearing as paths between the nodes. A text strategy then becomes definable in terms of a set of points of entry into, and paths chosen through, the network. It may be easy enough to model certain limited areas of knowledge, and perhaps cognition, in terms of networks. Trying to capture the full range of generic and episodic experience and knowledge of a normal adult is a daunting and probably hopeless task. Today different investigators discuss cognitive models with various degrees of optimism and pessimism; one way of resolving such debates is to view a given network in terms of a definite task: what can the network do, and where does it fail? Even if a cognitive model can show how predications arise and how they are connected, it cannot explain a speaker's or writer's motives and intentions. It cannot explain why a given speaker in a given situation has chosen to extract a particular set of predications out of storage. To do this we shall need text models of a fourth type, namely (d) Interactional text models. Interactional models are concerned with the interactional behaviour patterns of the people communicating. They reckon with a speaker/writer's intentions, for instance to distinguish between direct and indirect speech acts or between literal meanings and irony. They are also concerned with felicity conditions, conversational maxims, face, and the ways in which turn-taking affects discourses and texts. Under various labels, including 'pragmatics', these questions have been discussed in a flood of publications over the past several years. Samples of interactional approaches, often linked with cognitive ones, can be consulted for instance in Clark — Clark 1977, Duncan - Fiske 1977, Freedle 1977-80, Givon 1979, Goody 1978, Just Carpenter 1977, Osgood - Bock 1977, Rosenberg 1977, Schank - Abelson 1977, Schenkein 1978, and a host of other recent publications in psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and cognitive science.

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In a wider context we might note that what compels us to enlarge our field of vision from sentence-based models to predication-based, cognitive, and interactional ones is usually the question why? rather than the question what?. Any proper grammar ought to be able to tell us what the sentences of a text look like in grammatical terms. But if we go on to ask, why does this text make use of this particular sentence structure?, we shall have to go from sentence-based models at least to predication-based ones. If we ask, why has the speaker/writer chosen these particular predications?, we get involved with cognitive and interactional considerations. But once we start worrying about causal explanations, we shall find no convenient place to stop until we have reached the ultimate problems of human cognition and interaction. To this expansionist challenge, different linguists have responded in different ways. Some want to circumscribe their discipline and stay in their own walled garden. Others follow their problems boldly into strange and alien territories. The debate between scholars of the two temperaments, the restrictionists and the expansionists, goes on and is perhaps at the heart of a great deal of the disagreement that prevails in today's linguistics. And in this disagreement, text linguistics and discourse studies provide a lot of ground for experiments and also for contention. Even the restrictionists have been compelled to recognize the need for admitting certain types of discourse rules into their grammars. Their usual method is to bring in textual features into the description of single sentences under various devices such as performative superstructures, presuppositions, old and new information, and the like. The expansionists want to face cognitive and interactional problems more directly (and, as they themselves would say, more frankly). Some of them, particularly those approaching language from outside traditional linguistics, are even prepared to subordinate linguistic concepts to cognitive and interactional ones. In the models of Schank, for instance, syntactic parsing is an aid to cognitive operations. This is an outlook fundamentally different from that of the syntactician who brings in semantic and pragmatic contexts only when he must, for instance to disambiguate structurally ambiguous sentences in context. 2 After this presentation of four model types in text linguistics we can ask ourselves what types of contrastive problems can be studied with the aid of each type of model. Sentence-based types are adequate for the study of those text-linguistic problems that can be defined within the single sentence. Prominent among these problems is the interplay between the syntactic structure and the information structure of the clause and sentence, that is, the way in which the syntactic structure is brought into harmony with the desired distribution of

Contrastive linguistics and text linguistics

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old and new information in the sentence and the text. Here we have an area where textual macrostructures govern, and interact with, syntactic microstructures. As the syntactic microstructures of different languages differ, and often differ more than textual macrostructures, the syntactic exponence of information structure offers very central topics for contrastive study. Predication-based models must be brought in as soon as our contrastive studies compel us to manipulate borders between clauses and sentences. In translations for instance a translator is often compelled to change the clause and sentence division of the source text. When this happens we should no longer compare a sentence of the source text with a sentence of the translation. We should rather regard the translation as a re-textualization of the text atoms in the source text. Thus in contrastive studies involving translation we are likely to profit from predication-based models. Cognitive models will be needed when we suspect that cognition is structured differently by speakers of the languages we wish to contrast. Among other things, cognition involves the structural categorization of the world. If Benjamin Lee Whorf was right in postulating that speakers of different languages may live in cognitively different worlds, we can no longer compare cognitive units as if they meant the same. We must reckon with differences in the meanings of lexemes, which means that the nodal structures of the cognitive networks illustrating different languages need not necessarily be isomorphic. The associative links between the concepts, illustrated by the paths that join the nodes in a network, will also be different, as are the culturally determined schemata or frames or scripts which they reflect. To deal with such contrasts we need cognitive models. To what extent we may wish to formalize them, into networks for instance, is another matter. The choice of degrees and levels of formalization depends on what we are trying to do. Finally, as soon as linguistic contrasts correlate with contrasts in interactional patterns, we shall need interactional models of some kind. Interactional considerations must be brought in when we get involved with dialogue, turn-taking, speech acts, style, registers of politeness, considerations of face, and so on. Experience, particularly in anthropological linguistics, tells us that interactional considerations increase in importance when the languages we are contrasting are distant in culture, which often implies distance in space or in time. But even in closely related languages and in different styles and sociolects within the same language, interactional patterns may vary greatly. A good example are conventions of politeness: literal translations of texts from one sociolect or language into another may lead to absolutely disastrous results unless the translator modifies the text according to complex rules of decorum. In a wider sense, then, interactional considerations include all social traditions in language such as matters of politeness, appropriateness and ling-

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Nils Erik Enkvist

uistic manners. They also include conformity to social, narrative and literary traditions where such conformity is indicated. In this sense all of literary theory and history enters into the interactional study of textual macrostructures. And the other way round: some grasp of the interactional effects of textual macrostructures is necessary for all translators who aim, not only at cognitive equivalence but also at equivalent effect. 3 In the past several years we have learned that the discussion of word order must be based on an analysis of textual parameters, and perhaps situational ones as well. But word-order patterns have also been studied from other points of view. Today we need an approach integrating a number of theories and models of word order which have often been dealt with one by one. Important among these theories — to list them merely in the form of brief reminders — are: first, syntactic word-order typology; secondly, information structure and information dynamics in terms of the distribution of old and new information; thirdly, those aspects of linearity that fall under what I have called experiential iconicity, as well as the related concept of salience; and, in the fourth place, the stylistic variation of word-order patterns. Each of these problems would of course be a subject for a volume of its own. What I shall say is in the nature of brief reminders and references to principles well known to us all. I shall, however, use some space to discuss some conceptual, methodological and terminological problems which often play havoc with meaningful discussion. I shall indicate such asides and digressions by using small type. Like all descriptions of language, those of word order too must be filtered through descriptive models. And all such models lend their own colour to the description, the colour springing from the theoretical base with its descriptive limitations. The models of word order that grammarians have used fall into three major categories. First c o m e the word-order descriptions of traditional grammarians which w e might label as relative. Relative word-order descriptions state the relative positions o f constituents: the subject goes before or after the verb, the modifier goes in front of or behind its head, and so forth. The ordinary, unmarked order is usually defined as basic, and departures from such a basic order are called inversions. Secondly, structuralist grammarians of the behaviourist persuasion were fond of slot-and-filler models. They defined positions in terms of fields or slots and then explained what types of elements could fill the slots. Finally, generative grammarians arrived at certain word-order patterns as a result of their phrase-structure rules and those transformations whose primary aim was other than the adjustment o f linear patterning of constituents. If the basic order was not the same as the desired surface order, special movement transformations had to be added to the generative system.

All three models have advantages as well as shortcomings. The relative model is simple and easy to handle, but fails to give us a picture of the complete pattern. The slot-and-filler model becomes highly delicate given a large

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number of slots. But it can also be over-delicate: in simple sentence types, many slots merge or disappear, and such neutralization makes it difficult to compare slots in different types of sentences. The generative model compels the grammarian to deal with word order together with a lot of other things, including morphemes. This is all for the good as a memento that word order is part of syntax. But the theory of word order itself has been somewhat of a stepchild in generative-transformational grammars: it is discussed only when it intrudes beyond ignoring, but not dealt with gladly in its own right. First, word-order typology. Since Greenberg's epoch-making book on linguistic universale there has been a prominent line of thought classifying languages by word-order pattern into SVO, VSO and SOV languages. Two of the most prominent figures in this movement are W.P. Lehmann and Theo Vennemann (survey and bibliography in Kohonen 1979). The trend has been to view the order of the main constituents, subject, verb and object, as related to other structural features of a language such as its use of pre- or postpositions and its tendency to place modifiers before or after the noun. These typologies have also been used in diachronic studies. Changes from one word-order pattern to another have been regarded as instances of typological change, and typological change has been referred to as explaining, perhaps even giving the reasons for, linguistic changes involving word order. Certain sets of word-order patterns thus become something like syntactic universals. But as many critics have pointed out, word-order typologies also raise a host of problems. To begin with, no well-documented natural language seems to represent a type in pure form. All natural languages seem to be typological mixes. The mixture of typological features is explained as a result of typological shift: the language is about to move from one type to another so that some of its features come from the old pattern and others already conform to the new one. Of course such explanations greatly complicate the issue, perhaps even to the point of weakening the explanatory powers of the model. Instead of well-defined types what we actually have is, at best, trends. But there have been interesting attempts at explaining differences between languages in terms of their being in different stages of typological change (Jacobson 1979). Another question has to do with the choice of an optimal level of depth for the description of word-order patterns. Once we allow a situation where an underlying structure has an order of elements different from that of the surface structure we must make up our minds as to which of these different structures is the typologically important one. When studying German, for instance, which of the patterns, the SVO of the main or the SOV of the subordinate clause, is the one we should use for typological classification? The answer of course depends on what criteria we choose. Are these criteria mere-

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ly reflections of our own grammatical theories and models and of our own principles of descriptive economy? Or are they based on diachronic principles supported by historical data? Or do they reflect some kind of psychological reality or psychological markedness, or are they founded on statistical counts which identifies 'basic' with 'most frequent'? A fundamental query about word-order typologies relates to variation. If a language always arranges its elements in the same order, well and good. But in fact languages use numerous alternative word-order patterns. To begin with, even languages whose word-order mechanisms serve largely syntactic ends ('analytic' languages such as Modern English) allow more variation than we often realize. Such variation occurs for instance in impromptu dialogue which is rich in what syntacticians like to call 'deviance' (and which is nevertheless a wholly normal phenomenon). And there is a lot of variation that might be labelled as stylistic, whatever that ultimately means. The question is, once there is variation in word-order patterns, how can such variation be accommodated into a word-order typology which by definition implies the dominance of one pattern over the others? The only road to a satisfactory answer involves a study of the factors motivating the variation. We must identify the forces that cause modifications in the basic pattern. We must thus make statements such as "language X is SVO except when forces p, q and ζ are strong enough to motivate the use of other patterns such as OVS". As such discussions are often expressed in terms of markedness, another terminological note may be in order. One way of speaking about 'markedness* involves a contrast between a form which has a marker and another form that has not: b is marked and ρ unmarked because b has a marker, namely voice, which ρ does not have. (Markers can be manipulated, however: we might also say that ρ is marked and b unmarked because ρ has aspiration and b has not: some principle of naturalness would be necessary to constrain such manipulation.) A second way is to look at distribution: -s is the unmarked plural in English and -n as in oxen one of the marked ones because -s has a wider distribution and is applied to a larger number of substantives. A third approach is statistical frequency: the most common forms in a corpus are unmarked, rarer forms marked. A fourth possible approach is based on informant responses. What native speakers regard as natural, common, ordinary and 'unremarkable' is therefore unmarked, and what they regard as strange or strained is marked. Yet another difficulty is that markedness may be both paradigmatic and syntagmatic. A form such as The apple John ate is marked when seen out of context (at least marked in some of the senses given above). But in a context such as The apple John ate but the oranges he only sniffed at, and when pronounced with proper focussing, it may be entirely natural. Thus such a sentence may be paradigmatically marked but syntagmatically (textually, contextually) unmarked (and there are parallels to this in phonology and lexis as well). Thus 'markedness' can mean a number of different things. In discussions we ought to make clear which type of markedness we are talking about - or, alternatively, use different terms for what I have here called different types of markedness.

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One force that affects word order is information structure. In context, every sentence has a contextual (textual as well as situational) fit. The sentence must be accommodated to fit into its contextual envelope; to use another metaphor it must be provided with devices that plug it into the preceding text and make possible a contact with what comes after. Textual fit is largely a matter of that information structure which signals what in the sentence is old and what is new information. The usual terms used in analyses of information structure are theme and rheme, topic and comment, and focus (as well as presupposition). As these terms have been used in many senses, and as many discussions have been bedevilled and even spoiled by terminological disagreements, a bit of conceptual and terminological analysis is once again indicated. As terms, theme/rheme have roots in Europe, topic/comment in America, with notable exceptions (Susumo Kuno speaks about theme and rheme, Osten Dahl and Petr Sgall about topic and comment). Some linguists (like the present writer) have use for both theme/rheme and topic/comment: to me, a topic is the kind of, or part of, theme which has been fronted through a movement operation called topicalization. Next a concise taxonomy of theme/rheme (or topic/comment) definitions: 1. Logic-based definitions a. Theme equals logical subject, rheme equals logical predicate. Such definitions presuppose canonical forms for predications specifying what is logical subject and what logical predicate. b. Definitions based on quantifier scope: the most scopeful element (= the element marked with a quantifier which has maximal scope) is the theme. Compare (Everybody in this room (speaks (two languages))) (Two languages (are spoken by (everybody in this room))) Such definitions can be used in instances such as the above, in which the relative scopes of the all-quantifier and the existential quantifier are verifiable through our semantic intuitions. But they are hard to apply to sentences of the type (Six girls (bought (three books))) / (Three books (were bought by (six girls))) where there is more ambiguity: did the girls buy three books each, or three books collectively? how do we know? which is more likely, and why? 2. Psychological definitions a. Intuition-based definitions: theme is what people think they are speaking or hearing about, rheme is what they think they are speaking or hearing about what they think they are speaking or hearing about. b. Definitions based on psycholinguistic models: themes are elements foregrounded in short-term memory, they are elements on top of a push-down store, etc. 3. Definitions based on information structure: themes express information that is 'old* in the sense that the speaker/writer thinks the receptor already knows it because of life under the same stars, a shared cultural or episodic experience, situational recoverability or previous mention in the text. a. Dichotomous definitions: sentences or clauses have two parts, old versus new information and thus theme versus rheme, and can be cleanly segmented into these informational constituents. b. Scalar definitions: the oldness and newness of information form a scale, and there can be different degrees of thematicity and rhematicity (or communicative dynamism to use the famous term used by the most prominent protagonist of this view, Jan Firbas of Brno).

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4. Definitions based on syntactic form. The theme/rheme contrast can be marked morphologically (by articles, special thematic markers etc.) and by word order (in some languages one could try defining themes as sentence- or clause-initial elements). These definitions need not necessarily be mutually exclusive. Indeed one might try the hypothesis that the 'least marked' thematization occurs when all definitions agree: in English a 'least marked' theme would then be a sentence-initial subject or adverbial expressing old information, intuitively understood to signal what the sentence is really about, having maximal scope (when measurable in spite of the fuzziness of natural languages), and functioning as logical subject in its canonical predication. This is a problem I cannot pursue here. As with 'markedness' we should always make clear in what sense we are using theme and rheme or topic and comment, or, alternatively, abandon these terms and speak about logical subjects and predicates, maximally and minimally scopeful elements, psychological subjects, old and new information, initial and non-initial constituents, etc. An extreme Occamist might even argue that theme and rheme are comparable to the ether of now-outdated physics: we can do without them if we know what we are really speaking about.

One of the interesting additions to linguistic typology is the classification of languages into topic-prominent, subject-prominent, both topic- and subjectprominent, and neither topic- nor subject-prominent, suggested by Li and Thompson (in Li 1976). In contrasting a wide variety of languages, including many from East Asia, Li and Thompson found that different languages rank the relative structural importance of topic and subject very differently. Some languages regard topic as primary, whereas others pay more attention to subjects than to topics. Li and Thompson also postulated that certain diachronic changes can be related to their typology. The reason why this typology is of interest to students of contrastive linguistics is that it re-systematizes an old and basic type of observation. In fact, all studies of theme and rheme originally started from linguistic comparison and contrast. Thus Henri Weil compared Greek and Latin word order with that of French, and Vilem Mathesius that of Czech and English. Granted, Li and Thompson label all Indo-European languages as subject-prominent (cf. the SAE of Whorf). But all the same we know that even closely related languages may have different ways of handling theme and rheme. Swedish for instance allows object-initial patterns such as (1) a Sin flicka älskade sjömannen. *'His girl loved the sailor.' b Läraren ansäg eleverna vara obegävad. *'The teacher regarded the pupils as untalented.' c Osten ät rät tan i gär. ""The cheese ate the rat yesterday.' which are disallowed in English. Delicacy could be added to the Li-Thompson typology to adapt it to the contrastive study of more closely related languages.

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In contrastive work we should of course bear in mind that syntax is not the only influence on word-order patterns that reflects on information structure. In English we have four types of devices regulating the information flow in the sentence. The first is lexical: compare A is B's teacher / Β is A's pupil, A is older than Β / Β is younger than A. The second involves changes in syntactic structure such as passivization or extraposition or dislocation. The third is topicalization or commentization, meaning front or end placement without further change in syntactic structure. And the fourth is the use of marked focus (see Enkvist 1980), either by clefting or by intonation. The function of marked focus is to mark new information chosen from among the items in a presuppositional set; often such marked new information occurs in a place where w e expect old information, i.e. at the beginning of the clause or sentence. These different devices are likely to have different markedness values. Lexical thematization by the use of converses often seems intuitively less obtrusive than, say, the use of marked focus or of topicalizations. This markedness scale would be a nice subject for contrastive investigation. As Swedish topicalizes more liberally than English, topicalizations in Swedish may well strike us as less marked (in the sense of 'less noticeable and strange') than the corresponding ones in English.

In this light, then, the basic word-order typology discussing the relative order of subject, verb and object (and sometimes the "X" which means 'other constituents') should be integrated with theme-rheme typology so that the thematically motivated modifications in basic word order could be made maximally clear. Those who set out to clarify these matters will find a number of interesting problems in their path. One fundamental principle which on the whole restricts and constrains thematic modification of basic word-order patterns is what I shall call the principle of valency: elements that are intimately bound to each other by strong valency bonds should also stay close to each other in the linear sequence. There have been many attempts at stating such movement restrictions: Ross's constraints, cross-over principles, anaphoric islands and other such devices have been presented in this very context. But many of these word-order phenomena in fact also have stylistic correlates. There are, in other words, styles in which certain word order patterns are permitted which would be awkward in other styles. Let me take just one example. Adverbials which are tied to their verbs by semantic specification are usually hard to move, for instance to topicalize. Thus the verb to put implies both object and place (you must put something somewhere). Hence examples such as (2) a *Put! b *Put it! *Put your hat! c Put it down! Put your hat under your chair! d ??Under the chair he put it. He put it under the chair.

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e f

?Into a drawer he put the book. Into the drawer he put a book. Into the drawer he put the book he had been reading all afternoon.

It is, however, possible to improve the acceptability of some such sentences by contextualization, a process in which we motivate paradigmatic markedness by syntagmatic naturalness and excuse syntax with textual fit. Compare g Into a drawer he put the book; the manuscripts had to be thrown away. h Into a drawer he put the book; into the wastepaper basket he threw a whole sheaf of manuscripts. In these instances there is a conflict, a tug-of-war, between different principles: the syntactic principle of valency which wants to keep related elements together and retain the adverbial after put, and some other principle or principles that want to move the adverbial away from put, for instance up front. And what are these other principles? I can at once think of three, all of them textual in that they involve parameters outside or beyond the sentence. One we have already seen. This is information structure which requires old information to come first and new information later. If the adverbial expresses old information and links the sentence to the previous text or the situation it merits front position and concomitant straining of the valency bonds. This is even more plausible if the sentence can end with a heavy constituent which contains a great deal of new information (principle of end weight). Another principle motivating fronting of valency-bound adverbials is textual iconicism which relates the pattern of one clause or sentence iconically to that of another neighbouring clause or sentence (as in (2h) and chiastically in (2g)). Such iconical motivation is of course most common in poetry and in artistic prose. A third principle is experiential iconicism, as I have called it. By experiential iconicism I mean an isomorphy between the text and our experience of the world. In other words, in instances of experiential iconicism symbols in the text are ordered in the same way as their referents in the world of things or the world of events. Thus if a text tells us about events in the same order in which they took place the text becomes experientially iconic, as in (3) a They got married and had a baby. b They had a baby and got married. Compare c They had a baby after they got married. d They got married after they had a baby.

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(c) and (d) are not experientially iconic because the order of predications in the text is not identical with the order of events. Generally, whenever we conjoin predications which can be interpreted as having a temporal or causal relationship, we understand them to be experientially iconic as in (3 a) and (3 b). 'If they are not, the departure from experiential iconicism must be marked, as in (3c) and (3d), in which after carries the onus of marking the departure. I have elsewhere (forthcoming in Text, volume 1 number 1) discussed experiential iconicity at some more length and pointed out that it can be of three major types: temporal (as in (3)), spatial, and social (as in ladies and gentlemen! rather than gentlemen and ladies!). What is of particular interest here is the fact that corpus studies show the importance of experiential iconicism in texts that have to order experience for the benefit of the receptor. Such texts are instructions, for instance guidebooks and cookery-books. In cookery-books we find examples in which strongly valency-bound adverbials are fronted, as in (4) Into a champagne glass put a lump of sugar, an eggspoonful of brandy, and . . . (LOB Corpus Ε 19 139) (5) Peel, core, and slice enough apples to make a dome in the pie tin, and set aside. In a saucepan put sufficient water to cover them . . . (Brown Corpus E l l 1640) The motivation for such fronting, which would seem very strongly 'marked' in the sense of 'rare' in isolation, is found in text strategy. The writer's aim is to indicate the order of operations: by (4) she is implying 'take a champagne glass and put into it a lump of sugar' and by (5) 'take a saucepan and put into it sufficient water. ..'. Here, then, the text strategy proves strong enough to override the syntactic inertia and to stretch the valency bonds between put and its adverbials. In textual corpora such fronting of place adverbials with put is rare. My pupil Ann Westerlund tells me that she has found some two examples out of some four hundred potential instances in the Brown Corpus (while adding that such counts always build on arguable principles of classification). The discussion of the connection between a certain genre or text type, such as a cookery-book, and sentence structure leads us into stylistics. In terms of what I have said so far, different styles can be said to offer different degrees of resistance to the use of different types of devices that regulate textual fit. In each style and substyle each thematic operation has a threshold of a certain definite height. In spoken, informal, impromptu dialogue, there is a low threshold for dislocations of the type John he is a nice chap and She is a doctor, Susie is. But they do not occur in laws or statutes or legal contracts:

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the threshold is too high to let them in. Similarly, the threshold against fronting place adverbials with put is very high, except in styles containing operating instructions, such as a cookery-book style. Here the threshold ist lowered by the need for experiential iconicity. This is of course only a metaphorical way of stating what is common and what is rare in different functional varieties of language. But the images of a tug-of-war, of a dualistic struggle between different forces, of the forces stretching valency bonds and of the syntactic inertia being overcome by requirements of textual fit, or of different styles having thresholds of different heights against different syntactic structures all have one thing in common. They link up with a view of language as a process rather than simply as a set of structures. In these terms, the ultimate syntactic form of a sentence, including its thematic arrangement, is the outcome of a process which is a resultant of different, often opposing, forces. In different situations these forces acquire different relative weights. One such force is the syntactic inertia of the sentence. The inertia helps to maintain a canonical, typologically fundamental, and in that sense least-marked word-order pattern. But another set of forces strives to adjust the sentence to its textual and situational surroundings and to give it an optimal textual fit. What is optimal in textual terms depends on the speaker/writer's intentions and motives, on the text type and on the text strategy. These are exposed through textual characteristics that have been studied, among other things, under the heading of 'style'. With these few examples and many metaphors I have tried to suggest an avenue towards resolving the tensions between canonical forms such as those of language typologies, and the variation that we actually find in texts. In brief: canonical forms are subjected to various textual and situational stresses and strains, and in different situations they offer different degrees of resistance. Many of the forces straining the syntax of the sentence by compelling it into more strongly marked patterns are textual and discoursal. They cannot be found and understood unless we operate with a textual apparatus. In some text types and styles the canonical forms tend to prevail more strongly, and in others they are more freely modified. To extract the maximum value out of linguistic typologies we should study and learn to define the forces that compel departures from typologically basic patterns. Once these departures are reduced to rule, our typologies can be set up with more confidence. At the same time the concept of a dualistic struggle between canonical forms and modifying forces helps us to understand what happens in impromptu speech and in syntactically deviant literary and poetic texts. The task of a text is not necessarily to present a receptor with a set of perfect syntactic and lexical patterns. What a text must do is to trigger off a process of interpretation. In principle any text which succeeds in triggering off a success-

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ful interpretive process is a success, irrespective of whether its linguistic form follows the patterns linguists choose to call 'grammatical'or not. In different situations interpretability requires different degrees of textual explicitness and elaboration. In some situations — for instance when two people work together on some familiar task such as pulling up a boat or pushing a car — simple exclamations such as now! or two more feet! or even a grunt may be perfectly interpretable. In other situations - for instance in statutes or laws — proper interpretability must be founded on a maximally complete and explicit verbalization. As little as possible should be left to the reader's arbitrary interpretation, and in the absence of clues that can be retrieved from the context and situation, the receptor must be given very full and detailed instructions as to how to interpret the text. Most situations fall somewhere on the scale between these extremes: laws and statutes that demand maximal explicitness, and familiar situations in which simple, perhaps syntactically deviant and linguistically unstructured signals will do the job. Syntactically deviant poetry seems to build its effects partly on its ambiguity which at best increases semantic pregnancy, and partly on the pleasure people seem to derive from extracting meanings out of deviant patterns. 4 If these views are correct, the form of a sentence and therefore also the form of a text can be seen as results of a set of text-productive processes. In discussing word order, for instance, one should not only describe structures as such, but also view them as an output of a set of processes which have been triggered off by certain definable forces. Similarly the interpretation of a text is a result of an interpretive process. Such arguments are becoming so prominent in today's linguistics that one is tempted to ask: are we in fact moving from a predominantly structural linguistics to a predominantly processual 2 linguistics? Like Humboldt, many linguists today like to see language as energeia and not only as ergon, as process and not only as structure. I do not want to insist that we have, overnight and through a dramatic paradigm shift, moved out of structuralism into processualism. Indeed the history of linguistics shows us many movements which have combined structure and process. Even in the more extreme variants of behaviorist-structural linguistics, units such as phonemes and morphemes could be defined processually: a phoneme or a morpheme was what one arrived at if one segmented a string according to certain closely defined processes. And in generative-transformational grammar too, re-writing operations and transformations are processes. They explain how one state (or, in linguistics, structure) changes into another state (or structure). And such a change is precisely what we mean by a process.

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Thus the difference between structural linguistics and process linguistics is not that the former deals exclusively with structures and the latter only with processes. Both can make use of both. The difference is rather that in process linguistics we no longer use processes in order to arrive at structures, as did the structuralists and transformationalists. We rather use structures to explicate the nature of processes. The difference, then, is one of emphasis and goal: structuralists use processes to arrive at structures, processualists use structures to arrive at processes. This distinction brings with it an important corollary. If processes are mere auxiliary constructions which we can set up at will to arrive at structures, they get their shape and justification from the structures. Any process that results in the desired structure is all right. To cite Andrew Chesterman (1980: 18), "in the product grammar processes are purely formal, such as those known as transformation, substitution, derivation, etc., and the motivation for postulating them is given by the internal requirements of the grammar." In process linguistics, on the contrary, the processes ought to be 'real' in the sense of reflecting phenomena beyond the internal requirements of the grammar. They ought to be anchored in processes outside the grammar itself. There are in fact two obvious places where we can look for processes on which we can base our descriptions of language. One is psychology. To go on citing Chesterman (1980: 18), In the psychological grammar [. . . ] processes are behavioural, genuinely dynamic, they take place in time, and they are thus claimed to have a definite objective existence external to the theory [ . . . ] a grammar would seek to describe actual psychological processes and capacities. As a branch of cognitive psychology it will be expected to formulate its claims in such a way that they can be empirically tested like any other hypothesis in the behavioural sciences [ . . . ] . We would expect such a grammar to be experimentally based, closely linked to the study of memory, neurolinguistics, cognition, perception, etc.

The other kind of reality, beside the psychological, to which we can appeal in the quest for real processes beyond natural language is the world of the computer. If we base process models of language on psychology we are patterning them on what we know about human intelligence; if we base them on computer science we are writing grammars patterned on artificial intelligence. In saying this I am of course begging the question, what precisely is the relation between human intelligence and computer processes? What can man do that computers cannot? And what can computers do that man cannot comfortably imitate? These are questions easy to put and hard to answer. A question more relevant to our present context is, what can process linguistics and processual thinking contribute to contrastive linguistics? Structural linguistics uses structural concepts which vary with different models. Typical examples of structural units are distinctive features, pho-

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nemes, morphemes, lexemes, phrases, clauses, sentences, and suprasentential text units. They are handled differently in different types of models. Process linguistics uses processual units such as strategies, plans, and processes. A strategy can be defined as a set of weighted principles for a goal-oriented, purposeful choice between alternative modes of action. When a strategy is made concrete and adapted to a certain specific situation it becomes a plan. And the modes of action themselves involve processes which change one state or structure into another. To describe a strategy we shall therefore need a description of the goal and purpose of the choices, an inventory of the available alternatives (which involve processes and their output), and an analysis of the various factors and parameters that affect the choice together with the relative weights of each parameter. We must state what constellation of parameters signals a strategic decision point, and thus define the situations in which strategically motivated choices become necessary. As so-called garden-path sentences such as The canoe floated down the river sank show, we may also need the concept 'confirmation point': a confirmation point is the point at which assumptions made at previous decision points are shown to be right or wrong. This terminology should of course not be taken to suggest that decisions in text processing must be made after conscious deliberation. On the contrary many of them are made on the basis of our linguistic and communicative experience and 'competence' without conscious attention. As decision theorists tell us, choices between alternatives can be modelled with the aid of different types of models and parameters. A deterministic model determines decisions fully by the relevant parameters: there are no real options and no real alternatives, and in that sense no strategies: the only strategic decisions consists of either entering or not entering the system. A statistical model determines choices by citing statistics of past experience; alternatives can be weighted depending on to what extent they favoured or prevented a relevant goal. A stochastic model is based on estimates of random choice, perhaps with subjective weightings in the absence of past experience. And a strategic model proper is founded on estimates of the relations of the choice to the purpose: a strategic model looks forward to a goal, rather than backwards to past experience like a statistical model. Different decision models can of course be combined within the same decision system: some decisions may combine strategic and statistical considerations, whereas others may remain stochastic. Making a strategic decision is in itself a process involving phases such as problem perception, problem definition, inventory of alternatives, inventory of relevant parameters, weighting of parameters, the choice itself, and the realization of the chosen alternative through the appropriate process or sequence of processes. The output of one process may itself be

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evaluated in terms of a new strategy, which in turn triggers off a new plan, leading to a new process. A process, as I said above, is the change of one state (in linguistics, structure) into another. To identify the trigger of a process we need a strategy. Both strategies and processes form hierarchies: communicative macrostrategies lead on to microstrategies, processes lead on to subprocesses. In describing strategies and processes we must decide what is the optimal delicacy level for our descriptions: we can either trace them in major outline, or we can try to work them out in delicate detail through a large number of intermediate stages. In practice, our descriptions of strategies and processes can be oriented either towards message production or towards message interpretation. But we should not forget that production strategies too are usually receptor-oriented. People speak and write to be understood, and text strategies are always founded on estimates of what the receptor already knows or does not know, and how much information the receptor can process (information density). The Gricean postulates, theme-rheme studies, discussions of implication and presupposition and entailment and the like are all concerned with the sender's estimates of the knowledge and of the message-processing capacity of the receptor. Such estimates are supremely important in determining the content and shape of a message. A concrete example may be in order to show what I mean by weighting of strategic parameters. Let us assume that we have a choice between three expressions: it's getting light, the blank day breaks on the bald street, and on the bald street breaks the blank day. Which should we prefer? If our goal is to produce ordinary informal conversation over morning coffee, it's getting light would presumably be the most appropriate alternative. The blank day breaks.. . would reveal the speaker's poetic vein but maintain the canonical SVO order. But when composing/« Memoriam Tennyson preferred the third alternative: (6) He is not here; but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly through the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day. Tennyson's purpose was to write a rhyming poem, and the requirements of rhyme become a weighted parameter in his text strategy. There are other reasons that conspire to bring about the same choice. By fronting on the bald street Tennyson makes us visualize the street first. Having seen the street we see the day breaking over it. At the same time the street is old information because it has been mentioned two stanzas earlier in the poem. Thus at least three text-strategic factors (rhyme, old information before new, experiential iconicity) conspire to motivate the process of inversion, and their combined

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strength suffices to overcome the syntactic inertia which tries to maintain the canonical and unmarked SVO pattern. We might add in passing that one category of people who have used an approach evaluating text-strategic parameters are the literary critics. When criticising a literary text a critic tacitly compares that text with other alternative texts which he, the critic, has either experienced or conjured forth out of his own imagination. It is such a comparison that provides the foundation of critical judgments. I have here dressed up my discussion of Tennyson in terms of production strategies, but of course analyses of strategies and processes can be focussed on reception as well. One of the areas of linguistics where one can profitably look for concrete examples of processual views of text reception is parsing, a process carried out by the receptor according to conventions and strategies anticipated by the sender. To add another small morsel of flesh to my programmatic skeleton I shall give an example of a processual approach to one detail in the contrastive study of English, Swedish and Finnish. In Swedish there is an optional element which has sometimes been called 'resumptive sä' which can be inserted between an adverbial clause and a following main clause and roughly rendered by English then, as in (7) Om Kalle kommer (sä) gär jag till farfar. 'If Charlie comes, (then) go I to grandfather.' In Finnish the corresponding element is optional resumptive niin, as in (8) Jos Kalle tulee (niin) minä menen kotiin. 'If Charlie comes, (then) I go home.' Resumptive sd and niin are both more frequent in spoken and in informal written styles than in formal writing (cf. Platzack 1973: 58ff.). A structural description would presumably simply note that sd and niin can occur in the juncture from adverbial to main clause, particularly in spoken and informal written styles. In the light of parsing strategies and processes, however, their function appears in a clearer light. One of the main problems of parsing is, of course, to know at what point a phrase or clause ends and another phrase or clause begins. This is a problem students of parsing have discussed in terms of a Principle of Early Closure (according to which the parser should close a phrase unless the following elements can be construed as parts of that phrase) or a Principle of Late Closure (whenever possible the parser should attach an element to the phrase or clause currently being construed) (e.g. Frazier 1979: 33 and 43). A speaker or writer who wants to maximize the clarity and ease of parsing of his message would obviously do well in marking closure points such as junctures between clauses. In English this strategy can be carried out largely through processes involving intonation

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and perhaps rhythm and pause patterning. In Swedish and in Finnish the strategy can be realized through the process of sa or niin insertion. These elements are parsing cues triggering off a certain type of segmentation and structuring process. In English too we can sometimes use then in a similar function; in Old English pa had a comparable function (particularly in pa . . . pa ...). The marking of such closure points is of course especially useful in speech, where the receptor cannot parse and re-parse the message at leisure. This explains why sä and niin are particularly frequent in spoken discourse and informal writing. That they seem more common than English then in this function may be connected with the fact that English generally makes more use of intonation than Finnish or Finland-Swedish (I am not sufficiently familiar with the Swedish of Sweden to venture an opinion at this point). Another way of illustrating the functions of resumptive sä and niin is to show how they avoid garden-path phenomena by marking junctures between clauses in instances such as (9) a När Kalle äter 'When Charlie b När Kalle äter 'When Charlie

fär (sä) föredrar han stekt potatis. eats mutton he prefers fried potatoes.' (sä) fär han inte se pä television. is eating he must not watch television.'

(10) a Kun isä otti pienet lapset (niin) äiti muutti pois. 'When father took the small children, mother moved away.' b Kun isä otti pienet (niin) lapset lähtivät karkuun. 'When father took a little drink, the children ran away.' c Kun isä otti (niin) pienet lapset lähtivät karkuun. 'When father took [a drink] the small children ran away.' To sum up: while marking closure of the adverbial clause, sä and niin simultaneously also mark the continuation of the sentence through the beginning of the main clause. Their use can be explicated with the aid of a predicationbased text model. Thus the full structural and contrastive significance of resumptive sä and niin best appears when we see them as cues to parsing and as processing signals. In this light they no longer seem redundant and in that sense marginally functional. On the contrary they are part of the receptor-oriented strategies of the person producing the text. It should now be clear what use observations of these kinds can be in contrastive linguistics. They enable us to compare parsing strategies and to teach our pupils to observe, and to use, parsing cues in a more systematic way. For Swedes and Finns who learn English the closure markers of their native lan-

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guages signal places where they should learn to use tone-unit boundaries and an intonational rise in English. And conversely those learning Swedish or Finnish will be helped in their parsing by the junction marking with sä or niin. Such junction markers at the same time increase the redundancy of the message and thus make comprehension easier. Further, once we start drawing attention to parsing cues such as sa and niin we get involved with all the other devices that Swedish and Finnish use to make clear where are the junctures between phrases and clauses. We are learning to pose new questions which unroll the entire field of parsing strategies and processes. And in so doing we are conforming to the basic principle of process linguistics: we are using structures and structural cues to illustrate a process, namely parsing. To translators too, processual thinking is useful. For instance those who wish to translate Tennyson's In Memoriam will have to analyze the original text strategy and decide how it should be adapted, and how its parameters ought to be weighted, and perhaps re-weighted, to produce an optimal rendering in the target language. It is, then, text linguistics, together with psycholinguistics and cognitive science, that has helped to bring process linguistics to the fore. Of course the basic concepts of strategies and processes are also immediately applicable to another area of applied linguistics, namely language learning. But that is another subject.

Notes 1. To some people the terms 'text linguistics* and 'discourse linguistics' are synonymous. To others, text linguistics is the linguistic study of texts as such, whereas discourse linguistics also reckons with the situational context: it is the situational envelope that turns a text into discourse. 2. The term 'procedural' is also in use. I prefer 'processual' or 'process' linguistics because so many other currents in linguistics have emphasized procedures and been in that sense 'procedural'. For example the behaviorist structuralists emphasized discovery procedures and adopted procedural definitions of linguistic units: a certain unit was what one got if one segmented a string according to a certain procedure.

References Beaugrande, Robert, de 1980 Text, discourse and process. Toward a multidisciplinary science of texts (Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex). Chesterman, Andrew 1980 "Contrastive generative grammar and the psycholinguistic fallacy", Papers and studies in contrastive linguistics 11:17-24.

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Clark, Herbert H. - Eve V. Clark 1977 Psychology and language (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). DaneS, FrantiSek 1974 "Functional sentence perspective and the organization of the t e x t " , Papers on functional sentence perspective, edited by F. Dane? (Prague: Akademia), 106-128. Dijk, Teun A. van, ed. 1980 "Story comprehension", Special issue of Poetics 9:1 - 3 . Duncan, Starkey - Donald W. Fiske 1977 Face-to-face interaction (Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum). Enkvist, Nils Erik 1974 "Theme dynamics and style", Studio Anglica Posnaniensia 5:127—136. 1980 "Marked focus: function and constraints", Studies in English linguistics for Randolph Quirk, edited by S. Greenbaum et al. (London: Longman), 1 3 4 152. 1983 "Chairman-rapporteur's summary", Papers from the Nobel Conference on text processing held at Stockholm in August, 1980, edited by S. Allen (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell), 6 1 7 - 6 3 6 . Findler, Nicholas V., ed. 1979 Associative networks (New York: Academic Press). Frazier, Lynn 1979 On comprehending sentences. Syntactic parsing strategies (Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club). Freedle, Roy O., ed. 1 9 7 7 - 8 0 New directions in discourse processing, I - I V (Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex). Givon, Talmy, ed. 1979 Discourse and syntax [Syntax and semantics 12 ] (New York: Academic Press). Goody, Esther N., ed. 1978 Questions and politeness. Strategies in social interaction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Greenbaum, Sidney - Geoffrey Leech - Jan Svartvik, eds. 1980 Studies in English linguistics for Randolph Quirk (London and New York: Longman). Greenberg, J. H. 1966 Language universals. With special reference to feature hierarchies (= Janua linguarum, series minor 59) (The Hague: Mouton). Grimes, Joseph 1975 The thread of discourse (The Hague and Paris: Mouton). Halliday, M.A.K. - Ruqaiya Hasan 1976 Cohesion in English (London: Longman). Hammarberg, Björn, ed. 1979 Kontrastiv lingvistik och sekundär spräkforskning (Stockholm: Institutionen för lingvistik vid Stockholms universitet). Hopper, P. J. - S. A. Thompson 1980 "Transitivity in grammar and discourse", Language 56:251 - 9 9 . Jacobson, Sven 1979 "The placement of adverbs in principal and subordinate clauses in English and Swedish", Kontrastiv lingvistik och sekundärspräkforskning, edited by B. Hammarberg (Stockholm: Institutionen för lingvistik vid Stockholms universitet), 3 1 - 3 9 . Just, Marcel Adam — Patricia A. Carpenter 1977 Cognitive processes in comprehension (Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum).

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Källgren, Gunnel 1979 Innehält i text (Lund: Studentlitteratur). Kohonen, Viljo 1978 On the development of English word order in religious prose around 1000 and 1200 A.D. (Abo: Publications of the Research Institute of the Abo Akademi Foundation, 38). Li, Charles N., ed. 1975 Word order and word order change (Austin: University of Texas Press). 1976 Subject and topic (New York: Academic Press). Longacre, Robert E. 1980 "Discourse typology in relation to language typology", Tentative publication draft in Preprints, Nobel Symposium on Text Processing, Stockholm. Ohmann, Richard 1964 "Generative grammars and the concept of literary style", Word 2 0 : 4 2 3 - 4 3 9 . Reprinted in various readers on stylistics. Osgood, Charles E. - J. Kathryn Bock 1977 "Salience and sentencing", Sentence production, edited by S. Rosenberg (Hillsdale, N.J.: L. Erlbaum), 8 0 - 1 4 0 . Platzack, Christer 1974 Spräket och läsbarheten (Lund: Gleerup). Rosenberg, Sheldon, ed. 1977 Sentence production (Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum). Schank, Roger - Robert Abelson 1977 Scripts plans goals and understanding (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum). Schenkein, Jim, ed. 1978 Studies in the organization of conversational interaction (New York: Academic Press). Sigurd, Bengt 1977 "Att presentera Buffalo Bill", Tre experiment med text, edited by B. Sigurd and G. Källgren (Stockholm: Akademilitteratur), 2 9 - 7 2 .

CLAUS F.ERCH AND GABRIELE KASPER

Ja und?- og hva sä ?-a contrastive discourse analysis of gambits in German and Danish*

1 Introduction In designing communicatively oriented syllabuses and teaching materials, one often lacks precise information about how certain discourse functions can be realized in L 2 , and what learners' problems are when trying to perform such functions in their interlanguage.1 We assume that in linguistic areas of this kind, the function of contrastive analysis (CA) can be twofold: (1) As CA presupposes descriptions of comparable categories and their means of realization in both L t and L 2 , it involves an analysis of the target variety, which is a prerequisite for determining specific features of the learner varieties (interlanguages). (2) In interlanguage areas which have not yet been described, CA can help to generate hypotheses about potential learner problems, which can subsequently be tested out in experimental interlanguage studies. The discourse functions we shall concentrate on in this paper relate to the maintenance and regulation of ongoing discourse. They are typically realized by linguistic devices which do not constitute speech acts in their own right, and which have consequently been termed "speech act augments" ("Sprechhandlungsaugmente") by Rehbein (1979). We shall follow Strevens (1972), Beneke (1975), Keller -Taba-Warner (1976; 1977; 1979) and Edmondson (1977a, b) in referring to them as gambits.2 However, as this term has not been used consistently by these authors, it will be necessary to describe in some detail what discourse functions and devices we have in mind when we talk about gambits.

2 Gambits defined We shall define as gambits linguistic items whose primary function is to maintain and regulate discourse. By maintaining discourse is meant the establish-

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ment of coherence either between turns of speech or within turns of speech. By regulating discourse is meant the distribution of turns of speech among the discourse participants in terms of uptaking, turntaking, tumkeeping, turngiving, and the marking of discourse boundaries. In other studies, devices which primarily function on an interpersonal level have also been classified as gambits (e.g. the "cajoler"inEdmondson 1977a, b, 1981; Edmondson - House 1981;House 1980; Kasper 1979,1981;the "softener" in Crystal — Davy 1975). However, interpersonal (expressive, appealing, attitudinal) functions can be realized by a great variety of linguistic means, some of which cannot or do not always carry a discourse maintaining or regulating function at the same time (cf. the 20 odd categories of "modality markers" found by House and Kasper 1981). Such devices are therefore not in agreement with our definition of gambits as suggested above (but see also below section 4). Both discourse maintenance and discourse regulation can be achieved by other means than gambits: coherence is also established through the occurrence of adjacency pairs; turngiving can be signalled paralinguistically, etc. This constitutes a (theoretical) problem for a contrastive analysis, as what is achieved in one language by means of a linguistic item (a gambit) may be achieved in another language by different means. However, in languages which are both linguistically and culturally closely related, like Danish and German, we assume that this is not the case and hypothesize that one can reasonably limitate the area of discourse functions by concentrating on gambits and ignoring alternative means of expressing identical functions. If one distinguishes various levels in discourse structure (e.g. following Sinclair - Coulthard 1975), one can say that gambits belong to the discourse level of acts. This means that gambits can be part of moves. However,gambits cannot in themselves constitute a move, as they cannot develop conversation (Edmondson 1981:6). As a turn contains at least one move, it follows that a turn can never consist of a gambit only. According to their level in discourse structure, gambits can thus be defined as the subclass of acts which do not contribute to the development of a conversation (see also section 5 below).

3 Coherence and discourse regulation In order to classify gambits according to their coherence creating and discourse regulating functions, these two discourse aspects have to be somewhat specified. Coherence should be kept distinct from cohesion:

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where we can establish a propositional relationship across sentences, without regard to what illocutionary acts are being performed, by reference to formal syntactic and semantic signals, then we recognize cohesion [ . . . ] where we recognize that there is a relationship between the illocutionary acts which propositions, not always overtly linked, are being used to perform, then we are perceiving the coherence of the discourse (Widdowson 1978: 2 8 - 2 9 ) .

Edmondson refers to cohesion as brought about by "devices by means of which texture is evidenced in a suprasentential stretch of language", whereas he refers by coherence to "a 'well-formed' text or discourse" (1981: 5). As expressed in the terminology adopted in the present paper, coherence is established between discourse moves, which may either belong to different (though contiguous) turns (speaker-hearer coherence: "SH coherence") or to the same turn (speaker coherence: "S coherence"). Among possible discourse regulating functions, we shall distinguish between the following: (a) uptaking - signals to present speaker that the channel is still open and that the message is being taken in ("I follow you", possibly accompanied by "I react to what you say in this way") (b) turntaking — signals that speaker wants to take a turn (and possibly serves the function of plugging a conversational gap) ("I want to say something, I'm thinking") (c) tumkeeping — signals that present speaker wants to keep the floor, this is of particular importance at a possible completion point ("I want to say more, please give me time") (d) turngiving — signals that present speaker wants other speaker to take a turn ("I've finished saying what I wanted to say, please continue") (e) marking - signals boundaries in discourse, e.g. between opening and core phase, between core phase and closing phase, between various discourse topics (for this distinction of discourse phases, see Edmondson — House 1981).

4 A typology of gambits In order to distinguish various gambit classes, we shall use a modified version of a gambit typology established by Edmondson (1977 b). It comprises the following types: Receipt·, a signal by which its user indicates that he has taken in what his interlocutor is or has been saying. It can either have the function of a neutral attention signal (mm, uhu), or it can express understanding of (I see what you mean) or even agreement to the interlocutor's speech act ((you're) right,

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I agree, that's true). The first two functions are sometimes realized by a represent, i.e. an utterance in which the speaker repeats to himself a part or the whole of what has just been communicated to him (SI: "these cuts in the university budget are a catastrophe"/S2: "catastrophe ... yes . . . yes I suppose that's an adequate way of putting it"). Go-on: A special case of a neutral receipt whereby the present hearer signals to the present speaker that he is listening and that he wants the present speaker to keep the turn (oh I see, tyes, tmm). Exclaim : a special case of a receipt which is marked for an expressive function, i.e. it indicates its user's reaction to his interlocutor's utterance or a part thereof. Although the discourse functions of an exclaim are identical to those of a neutral receipt (see below), we shall treat them as two categories because in both German and Danish they are realized by different classes of tokens, i.e. either by a receipt carrying an emphatic marker (\oh, \no), or by elements which function regularly as "interjections" (good grief, wow). Starter: as a preliminary to a following utterance, it indicates that its user is going to say something (well, oh, erm). Underscorer: serves to focus the interlocutor's attention to a point being made by the present speaker (the point/thing is). Aside: functions to inform the interlocutor about what the present speaker is doing while he is not addressing himself to the present hearer (SI: "can I see you about those references tomorrow"/S2: "tomorrow ... let me see . . . I've got appointments all morning . . . how about 2 o'clock"). Appealer : functions to elicit a response from the hearer to what the speaker has just said (tag questions, uh, okay). Marker: signals boundaries in discourse in either indicating the completion of an ongoing discourse topic or phase (okay, good) or the opening of a next discourse topic or phase (well now, by the way). We shall also include into the analysis a number of linguistic items whose primary function is not that of a gambit as defined above, but which serve as gambits in a given context, i.e. their 'derived' function is that of a gambit. Thus hesitators which occur at a possible completion point and have thereby a floor-holding function will be classified as gambits, whereas hesitation phenomena which occur at non-completion points within a turn will not be included. Similarly, cajolers (you know, you see, I mean) will only be classified as gambits if they are used as turn-keepers; if they function on an interpersonal level exclusively, they will not be included into the present analysis. Conjunctions obviously have the primary function of creating cohesion in texts by expressing how what follows the conjunction relates to what precedes it. However, by virtue of the fact that sentence conjunctions are nor-

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mally placed clause-initially, they may be used with a secondary discourseregulating function (e.g. with a turn-keeping function: "then she decided to stop trying and — you know — . . . " , cf. also Sacks' category of "utterance incompletor", referred to in Coulthard 1977: 57). In our analysis, we have only included conjunctions in those cases in which the discourse-regulating function overshadows the cohesion-creating function (in particular in cases where the 'conjunction' has lost its 'normal' semantic function, like Danish men ('but', see further below)). The gambit types can now be classified on the basis of their primary discourse functions outlined above (cf. table 1). As can be seen, some gambits are monofunctional(e.g.go-ons and starters), others are multifunctional (e.g. receipts). Furthermore, some gambits can be used in a way which is derived from their primary use: thus starters may occur turn-internally between moves to initiate a new move, with a clear turnkeeping function. These derived uses of gambits are ignored in the classification, but they will be touched upon in the contrastive analysis itself.

Table 1: Classification of gambit types Regulating function

Type of gambit

Uptaking

go-on receipt exclaim

Turntaking

starter receipt exclaim (conjunction)

Type of coherence

•

SH

SH

underscorer aside (cajoler) (hesitator) (conjunction)

S

Turngiving

appealer

SH

Marking

marker

S/SH

Turnkeeping

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5 Some problems in the classification of gambits We should like to mention three problem areas which the analyst is faced with in setting up a gambit typology and applying it to data: (1) how many different gambit classes should be established (2) if and how the individual gambit classes should be subclassified (3) how to distinguish a gambit from a speech act. As for (1), our analysis of 'interruptors' may serve as an illustration. It would be possible to draw a distinction between the discourse function of 'interrupting' and the discourse function of 'turntaking', and consequently to establish one class of 'interrupting gambits' and one class of turntaking gambits. The reason why we have not done so are (1) that the two functions seem to be realized by the same types of gambit; (2) that the difference between the two functions is not so much a difference in the function itself as in the context in which the function is used: interruptors can be characterized as turntaking gambits placed 'inappropriately' at non-completion points in the interlocutor's turn, their turntaking function becomes particularly clear if the interlocutor yields the floor and the 'interruptor' is followed by a move. We would therefore say that turntaking gambits have the additional function of interrupting if placed at a non-completion point; and that turntaking gambits 'misfire' if the speaker does not succeed in winning a turn. Problem area (2), the subclassification of gambit classes (cf. the general discussion of "diminishing returns" in Lyofis 1968:152f), will be illustrated by the way in which we have classified the gambit classes receipt and exclaim (cf. section 4). If one chooses as a subclassifying criterion the aspect of the present speaker's utterance which the present hearer focusses on, one can distinguish between at least four aspects, which can be paraphrased as "I'm listening" (mm, uhu) "I understand what you're saying" (/ see) "I agree to what you're saying" (that's right/true, sure, I agree) "I react with anger, surprise, joy, . . . to what you're saying" (really, oh no, how nice). The first aspect refers to the communicative channel being open, the second to the present speaker's message being taken in by the present hearer, and the third and the fourth to the hearer's attitude and reaction, and to the interlocutor's utterance, respectively. As can be seen from the typology of gambits which we have adopted for the present analysis, we have decided to treat the last-mentioned subtype as a class of gambits in its own right ('exclaims'), whereas the first three subtypes are all subsumed under the class of 'receipts'. From a functional point of view there are no compelling reasons for classifying in this particular way, our reasons for doing so are simply — as stated above —

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that in the languages we have been concerned with, it seems to be the case that the tokens used to express reactions to the interlocutor's utterance differ systematically from the tokens used to realize the other three aspects of 'receipts'. The third aspect of receipts mentioned above ("I agree to what you're saying") provides a link to problem area (3): On what theoretical and empirical grounds can gambits be distinguished from speech acts, i.e., acts which carry illocutionary force? For example, if acts which express agreement can be classified as gambits, doesn't this hold true for acts which express disagreement as well? The answer to this can be found in our definition of gambits are constituting a subclass of acts which do not develop the ongoing discourse. They are thereby functionally distinct from speech acts which, by virtue of their carrying illocutionary force, do contribute to the progression of the discourse, and can thus function as moves. Expressing unelicited agreement to the interlocutor's utterance clearly does not develop the discourse, as the present speaker can simply ignore it without violating conversational rules. The expression of disagreement, on the other hand, is likely to elicit a reaction from the interlocutor and can potentially steer the discourse in a new direction. In the empirical analysis, the distinction between, e.g., a receipt and the speech act agree is often not clear-cut, in particular if the same token can be used for the realization of both functions (e.g. yes/yah/yeah). One criterion for interpreting such a token one or the other way is whether or not it has been elicited: if it has, it is likely to function as a speech act, if it has not, it probably functions as a gambit.

6 Analysis As data for our analysis of gambits in German and Danish we have used role plays, recorded at Ruhr-Universität Bochum within the "Projekt Kommunikative Kompetenz als realisierbares Lernziel" (cf. Edmondson — House — Kasper - Stemmer 1982) and at the University of Copenhagen in connection with a seminar on discourse analysis.3 The German subjects were university students at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, coming from the Ruhr district. The Danish subjects were university students at the University of Copenhagen, coming from various areas in Denmark. The analysis is based on the German and the Danish data in the sense that the phenomena described are those contained in the data. However, as is wellknown to everybody working with linguistic corpora, these can rarely provide all the information needed in order to produce a linguistic description. We have relied on our native speaker competence in German and Danish, respec-

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tively, whenever this was necessary in order to fill in a 'gap' in the data or in order to establish more precise rules for the occurrence of specific gambit tokens. The data quoted in the following is authentic unless expressly marked as 'fabricated data'. 6.1 Uptaking gambits The following gambit types can be used with an uptaking discourse function: go-ons, receipts, exclaims. Uptaking gambits can be elicited by the present speaker (cf. ex. 1), or they are non- elicited, occurring normally at non- completion points (cf. ex. 2).4 (1) x: Is ne 'schöne "Fächerkombina\tion würde ich "\sagen tnä [y: und das hat dir immer gut ge"letgen (2) x: und wir 'hatten dann 'vorher noch 'zwei 'Jahre [y: \ja] Fran"zösisch gethabt5 6.1.1 German data6 Tokens: receipts:

ja, nein, hmm, na ja, ach ja, aha, ach so ; phrases expressing agreement like genau, gut, klar; represents (cf. (1), (2) above and (3) below) go-ons: tja, thmm (cf. (4)) exclaims: ach, och, oh, ah; oh + represent; Gottseidank, Mensch, ach du liebe Güte (cf. (5)) (3) x: wann "isn die \Fete y: die is heute "\abend - ich "weiß \nich [x: ah heute "\abend] das fängt so um "10 oder so \an das fängt ganz "spät \an (4) x: \ja das is ja weißte eigentlich "weniger - ich meine welche wolltste denn "ha\ben y: ja "irgendwelche "guten "Pla\tten - wir wollten zu 'ner Fite gehen und da "brauchen wir \welche [x: /hmm] da wollten wir welche "aus\leihen (5) x: wahrscheinlich ist der der "\Hahn irgendwie - der der "Gashahn irgend\wie nicht ganz dicht da muß das "Gas ausgeströmt sein [y: hach du "lieber \Gott] ich meine ich hab auch nich allzu "große Ahnung da\von aber äh - es "muß eben daran \liegen

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We shall postpone our tentative formulation of the rules governing the distribution of the receipts ja and nein to section 6.2.1, as our data provide more instances of these receipts in a turntaking than in an uptaking function. The lexicalized uptaking receipts are typically realized with a falling intonation, whereas the non-lexicalized receiving noise hmm is most often used with a neutral intonation contour. Uptaking receipts with a rise always function as go-ons, as the rise in combination with the present hearer's non-claim of the turn produces an inherently eliciting effect, encouraging the present speaker to continue his speech activity. Uptakers can combine in various ways: — the same token is repeated, which sometimes conveys exasperation, compare the repeated go-on in (6): (6) x: äh darf ich dann mal um Ihren "Namen bifiten oder beziehungsweise um Ihren Ρer so' 'nalaus fweis y: \ja \klar \hier mein Name is Wilfried "Steinfberg steht ja auf meiner Ent"leihkarfte liegt da bei [Ihnen "tvor] [x: /ja /ja] und die A"dresse steht tdrauf — different tokens belonging to the same gambit type combine; compare the two receipts in (7): (7) x: ja ich meine wenn du nun mal - so'n - guten Sound "haben willst tnä und - ah da is ne Platte - vonm ziemlich durchschnittlichen Schallplattenspieler "abgespielt tworden dann "kriste den eben nich mehr so \hin das is [y: Vja ja "siVcher] das hängt immer mit der "Nadel zu\sammen — different classes of uptakers combine; compare the sequence receipt - goon in (8): (8) x: tjah tweißte das is'n bißchen "schwie\rig - ja ich meine äh ich fahr die immer "naß \ab tnä und die müssen dann auch naß "abgefahren \werden und [y: hah \so /ja] das is nich so - ganz "einfach 6.1.2 Danish data Tokens: receipts: go-ons:

nä, ja, jo, nej, hm, ok, ah; phrases expressing agreement like det' godt \ represents (cf. (9)) hm, jaja(ja), ah, aha, na\ represents; phrases like nä for fanden, äh for pokker (cf. (10), (11))

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(9) x : . . . det [x: . . . had

og de gik og snakkede om hvor interessant de syntes havde vceret og sädan [y: \ j a ] noget jeg toenkte . . . and they were talking about how interesting they found it and so [y: yes] on I thought . . . ]

(10) x: ... jeg sä mit snit bade for at det kunne vaere meget interessant nok [y: / m m ] ogsä ogsä ... [χ: . . . I thought both that it could be very interesting probably [y: mm] also and then . . . ] (11) x: . . . [y: [x: . . . [y:

sä er det sgu da ogsä din egen fejl om du afleverer min egen fejl] den syv dage for sent eller. . . then it's damned well your own fault that you hand my own fault] it in seven days too late o r . . . ]

As is the case with the German uptakers ja and nein, the Danish up takers ja, jo, nej and nä are best discussed in connection with a description of their turntaking function. Some of the tokens which can be used as receipts can also have the function of a go-on, and as in German, the difference between the two types of gambits is expressed by their intonation: receipts are marked by a level or falling intonation, go-ons by a rising intonation. The same types of combinations of uptakers as in German are found in Danish: combinations of the same tokens, combinations of different tokens belonging to the same gambit type, and combinations of tokens belonging to different gambit types (cf. (12)—(14». (12) χ: hvor kommer du egentlig fra ellers y: fra Odense - nä Ärhus universitet ja [χ: nä nä nä] jeg laeserfransk [x: where do you come from actually y: from Odense — well Ärhus university yes [χ: I see] I study French] (13) x: . . . selvom du visker den ren sä blir den altsä ik'helt sä poen som den var iforvejen [y: ok-jaja] det vil jeg be'dig huske.. . [x: . . . even if you rub out everything it still won't be quite as clean as it was before [y: yes - ok] IH ask you to remember . . . ] (14) x: . . . og sä smed han mig lige ud i sneen [y: nä for fanden - og hva' sä] og räbte til mig at.. .

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[χ: . . . and then he kicked me right out into the snow [y: oh no and what then] and shouted to me that . . . ] (fabricated data) 6.1.3 Contrastive analysis of uptaking gambits The relevant contrasts between various receipt tokens will be discussed in connection with the turntaking receipts in 6.2.3. On the basis of our corpus, we do not find any evidence for further contrasts between uptaking gambits. However, a minor contrast in the category go-on should be mentioned. In German, the conjunction und, when used with rising intonation, can function as a go-on, sometimes combined with a preceding/a and/or a following dann or weiter, as in (15) x: also gestern abend bin ich spät nach "Hause ge\kommen und will die "Tür ausschließen und merk ich hab den "Schlüssel \nich - erst dacht ich ich hätt'en im "Handschuhfach - war aber nicht [y: ja /und] ja und da mußt ich durchs "Fen\ster was sollt ich "ma\chen (fabricated data) While Danish can have og hvad /sä [and what then] as a go-on, the conjunction og cannot on its own be used in this function. A tentative explanation for this might be that in contradistinction to German und, whose phonological structure (vowel+nasal+dental) provides the necessary basis for carrying rising intonation, Danish og [o] lacks such phonological conditions, being composed of a single vowel. The supplementation of og by elements such as hvad sä is thus obligatory in Danish, whereas the supplementation of German und by e.g. (was) dann is optional.

6.2 Turntaking gambits The relevant gambit types to consider are: starters, receipts, exclaims, in addition to conjunctions, which are potentially relevant as mentioned above. 6.2.1 German data Tokens: starters: receipts and exclaims:

ja, also, na (cf. (16)) same tokens as used for uptaking, see above, section 6.1.1, and cf. (17) - (20) for receipts, (21) for exclaims

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(16) x: oh \je wer ist das denn heute \abend (opens door) y: ja guten Abend Frau Bergmann (17) x: es ist ja nicht /"so daß du die [Schallplatten] jetzt diesem Typ da \gibst den du überhaupt nicht "kennst oder \so y: Yja das "stimmt \schon \aber... (18) x: . . . nee \du ich "/•glaub dat "klappt nich mehr mit meinem '\Bruder [y: ooh] dat wird 'nich mehr "lau\fen y: Vnee da müßten wir ja noch nach "Essen \fahren (19) x: ich schaff das so meistens zwischen vier und fünf "Stunden y: ah \so - wie raffst du das denn mit Lingu "fistik also mir fällt das unheimlich "\schwer (20) x: Gott ja das kommt eben "\vor - wiege'sagt "Calf dum y: kommt vor kommt vor - und wenn Patienten sich das nicht "durchlesen... (21) x: ich mein ich hob da volles Verständnis für deine Situation ich wär da wahrscheinlich - war da wahrscheinlich "auch ganz froh wenn ich 'n Referat am andern Morgen zu "schreiben hätte wenn ich dann meine "Ruhe hätte also y: \Mensch wie "soll ich das nur scha\ffen In both their uptaking (cf. 6.1.1 above) and their turn taking functions, the two receipts ja und nein (or nee), cf. (17), (18), seem to be distributed in the following way in German. After a turn which contains no negation, only ja can be used as a receipt; if nein is used, it is not a receipt but an exclaim (i. e. it is emotionally marked). After a turn which contains a negation both ja and nein can be used, as illustrated by (17) and (18). Even in the latter case, there may be a tendency to use ja rather than nein, but this cannot be confirmed on the basis of our corpus, as the occurrence of these items is too limited to allow for quantitative analyses. Various combinations of these tokens are possible, both within the same class (ja also) and across the classes (Gott ja). One frequently occurring combination is receipt + starter, cf. the following example: (22) x: . . . wenn das bei Ihnen nicht "\klappt dann können Sie mich ja mal "an\rufen dann würd ich die "fra\gen y: /ja - Vja ich müßte mal "\schauen ...

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6.2.2 Danish data Tokens: starters: receipts and exclaims: conjunctions:

ja, jamen, altsä, nä (cf. (23), (24)) same tokens as used for uptaking, see above, section 6.1.2, and cf. (25), (26) for receipts, (27) for exclaims (cf. (28))

(23) x: tror du du du kan finde ud afdet y: ja det skal jeg nok finde ud af χ: ja for jeg vil jo gerne ikk' [x: do you think you can manage y: oh sure I can manage x: because I do want to babysit you know] (24) x: y: x: [χ: y: x:

det er da bed(f>vende ligegyldigt min egen fejl alt det vi har haft her pä - eeer jam hvadfik du at vide dengang du ... it doesn't matter at all my own fault! all the things we've had to . . . but what were you told when . . . ]

(25) x: y: [χ: y:

vi kan snakke lidt sammen ja jeg har altsä fäet et problem let's talk together a bit yes - I've got a bit of a problem]

(26) x: y: x: [x: y: x:

det viser jo bate at jeg har brugt den ikk' altsä jo men bibliotekets bger ererm aldeles ikk' til at skrive i nej det ve 'jeg godt ik' og. .. it only shows that I've used it doesn't it yes but library books are not for writing in no of course not]

(27) x: jeg er bare altsä jeg er bare skuffet over det y: skuffet jam det er jo - det er jo... [x: it's just that you see it's just that I'm disappointed y: disappointed - but that's - t h a t ' s . . . ] (28) x: . . . det er simpelthen bare for därligt synes jeg og det bliver jeg bare ked af y: men jeg kan godt se at du er ked afdet men eer... [x: it simply is too bad I think and it makes me feel unhappy y: well I do understand that it makes you feel unhappy b u t . . .]

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The tokens nä, ja, jo, nej are all used as receipts, both with an uptaking and with a turn taking function. Of these, the occurrence of ja, jo, and nej is restricted by the proposition^ content of both the preceding turn and - in the case of the receipts being used with a turntaking function - the move they initiate, whereas nä is neutral and signals "I've heard what you say". This accounts for the fact that nä, when used in a situation in which the interlocutor expects agreement, can be felt as less polite than ja, jo, nej (cf. (29)). 7 (29) x: jeg kommer pä naeste fredag y: nä jamen det ergodt [x: 111 be coming next Friday y: yeah well that's fine] Nä can also be used as a turntaker before a move expressing disagreement, in order to downtone the disagreement. In this case, nä is obviously a more polite way of initiating the move than by using an element that expresses the speech act directly (cf. (30)). (30) x: y: [x: y:

. . . du kan da altidgä derover altsä det'da ikke nä ja men vi har arbejdet. .. you can always go over there, can't you, it's not yes but we worked . . . ]

As can be seen from this example, nä can combine with the receipts ja, jo, nej, in which way a following disagreement is more strongly downtoned. Such combinations of nä with another receipt are very frequent in the data. That AW is a more neutral receipt than ja, jo, nej does not mean that there is more or less a free choice between nä and ja, jo, nej: there are situations in which nä, and not ja, jo, nej can be used, and vice versa. Before we can describe these restrictions, however, we have to introduce the distinction between l X-propositions', Ύ-propositions', and 'X-Y-propositions': 'X-propositions' are propositions which X (i.e. the speaker of the first turn) only can have knowledge about, Ύ-propositions' are propositions which Y (i.e. the addressee of X and the speaker of the second turn) only can have knowledge about, and 'X-Y-propositions' are propositions which both X and Y can have knowledge about (cf. the "speaker knows best principle", Foreman 1974). It is possible to formulate the rule for Danish receipts that ja, jo and nej can only be used if either the preceding turn or the subsequent move contains a Y or an X-Y-proposition: if both turns contain X-propositions, only nä can be used (cf. (31)):

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(31) χ: jeg er traet y: | nä J du er troet

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(X-proposition) (X-proposition)

n » l

[x: I'm tired y: uhum you're tired] (fabricated data) If the first turn contains an X-proposition and the following move contains a Y-proposition, both nä and jaljo/nej can be used (cf. (32)). 8 (32) x . jeg er troet y: (nä) deter jeg ogsä

(X-proposition) (Y-proposition)

UaJ [x: I'm tired y: uhum so am I] (fabricated data) If the first turn contains a Y-proposition, only ja, jo, nej can be used as turntaking receipts in the subsequent turn (cf. (33)). This may be explained by the implicitly eliciting function of the first turn, which means that ja/jo/nej are here borderline cases between gambits proper and speech act realizations (and nä cannot function as a speech act realization). (33) x: du er trait (Y-proposition) y: ( *nä) jeg er traet (Y-proposition) ja or f *ηέ I det er du ogsä (X-proposition)

ja I [χ: you're tired y: yes I'm tired or yes so are you] (fabricated data) With X-Y-propositions, both nä and ja/jojnej can be used, but with the difference that nä marks that the hearer does not know, jajjo/nej that the hearer does know the propositional content of the preceding turn (cf. (34)). (34) x: Peter hadergule certer (X-Y-proposition) y: J nä 1 gr han det (X-proposition) *ja or *nä| det gr han (Y-proposition) ja J [x: Peter hates pea soup y: uhum does he or yes he does] In the preceding we have referred to ja/jo/nej as constituting one group of receipts. Let us now consider the restrictions holding for the choice of each

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of these. The choice between ja and nej is considerably determined by the propositional content of the preceding utterance, ja primarily following a positive proposition and nej necessarily following a negative proposition (unless nej is used as an exclaim, cf. what is said about nein above). Jo can be used as a receipt if the preceding turn contains a negative appealer (usually ikke, cf. (26)), but ja can also be used (in which case the receipt ties up with the (positive) proposition, not with the (negative) appealer). The ways the three receipts can be used in Danish are presented in table 2. Table 2: Occurrence of μ, jo, nej as receipts χ turn

y turn

positive proposition

ja

negative proposition

nej (ja)

positive proposition + negative appealer

. ,. .

negative proposition + positive appealer

Finally a few words about the conjunction men 'but'. As can be seen from example (28), it can function as a completely neutral 'starter' without any adversative semantic meaning. Examples of this in the data are rare, however — what one finds more often is men used with some of its original semantic meaning preserved, and used in combination with gambits proper: men altsä, ja men, na men. Particularly common is the combination receipt + men, which often has the pragmatic function of downtoning disagreement, contrast, opposition or the like: "I don't think I can do it!" - "no but don't you think you could at least try?". Of these combinations, ja + men is frequently used as a single gambit {jamen/jam), which we have classified as a starter proper (cf. (24) above). 6.2.3 Contrastive analysis of turntaking gambits As can be seen from the descriptions, there are strong similarities between the German and the Danish data, not only with respect to the types of gambit used with a turntaking function, but also with respect to the tokens used as

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realizations of the individual gambit classes. However, significant contrasts can be found within the class of receipts. First, while German operates with a subsystem of two semantically opposite elemens, ja and nein, the corresponding Danish subsystem comprises three elements, ja, jo and nej. German nein seems to be more restricted in usage than the equivalent Danish nej. Danish jo, which is used both as a proper act with an illocutionary force of its own ('disagree') and as a gambit ('receipt') corresponds to German doch in its speech act function only: as a receipt, the equivalent German gambit is ja. These contrasts can be illustrated as in table 3 (for comparison's sake, we also include the responding acts agree/disagree in the table): Table 3: Contrastive analysis of ja, jo, nej/ja, doch, nein Responding act: agree/disagree

Gambit: receipt Danish: ia

German:

-

nej

nein

Danish:

German:

ja

ja

. nej

nein

(agree) } (disagree) J v '

The second area of contrast is the relationship between the multifunctional Danish receipt nä and its German equivalents. There seem to be three German tokens which correspond to three different functions of nä respectively, ja, ah/ach so, naja. (1) German ja can be used as a receipt both if it follows or precedes a Y-proposition or an X-Y-proposition, and if it follows an X-proposition, thereby merely signalling 'understanding', but not 'knowing' of X's preceding utterance. In the former case, it corresponds to Danish ja or nä only, compare (35)—(38). (35)

x: man das war spannend y: ja fand ich auch

(36) χ: det var spoendende y: ja det synes jeg ogsä (37) x: man das war spannend y: ja fandst du auch (38) x: det var spoendende y: nä det synes du ogsä (all fabricated data)

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(2) Unlike ja, the token ah/ach so is not ambiguous between 'knowing' and 'understanding', but expresses the latter exclusively: it is used as a receipt following X-propositions only and thus clearly corresponds to nä in this function, cf. (39). (39) x: aber ich kenn mich hier 'η bißchen besser "/aus da - ich hier "wohfne [y: ah \so] und äh auch jetzt wohn ich hier bei meinen "Eltern und fahr dann täglich "hier\hin The distribution of Danish ja and nä vs German ja and ah/ach so can be schematized as in table 4. Table 4: Contrastive analysis of nä, ja/ ja, ach so

Danish

German

X-proposition

X-Y-proposition

Y-proposition

nä

nä ja

nä ja

ja

ja

ja ah/ach so

(3) The German equivalent for nä as expressing tentative acceptance or as preceding indirect disagreement (cf. (30) above) is naja, as in (40): (40) x: ich mein wenn das wenn de mir das Versprechen "nicht ge/geben hättest hätt ich mich darum "selber be\miiht tnä "tdann wär die Sache er"le\digt gewesen - aber "Ho ich mein ich hab mich fest drauf ver"la\ssen y: na Vja also - könn wer nichts "ma\chen tut mir "\leid Contrarily to Danish nä, which can precede and thus downtone the 'force' of the elements ja, jo and nej, German na can precede ja only (*nanein). Apart from the receipts, which constitute the main area of contrast, it should be mentioned that the Danish conjunction men as a semantically neutral starter has no formal equivalent in German, as after always retains its primary meaning as an adversative conjunction. In most cases, the functional equivalent for men will be ja or another token by which starters can be realized in German. 6.3 Tumkeeping gambits Whereas the turn-initial position is central to the occurrence of turntaking gambits, it is obviously marginal to the turnkeeping gambits, as their primary

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function is to signal to the hearer that the speaker intends to continue past a possible completion point. Turnkeepers typically occur turn-internally;however, they are occasionally also used turn-initially, following a turntaker (cf. (44) below). The relevant gambit classes are: underscores, asides, cajolers and hesitators, the latter two classes having a derived turnkeeping function (see section 4 above).

6.3.1 German data Tokens: underscorers:

asides: cajolers: hesitators:

phrases like hör mal/hörnse mal, sieh mal/sehnse mal, guck mal, warte mal, weißt du was, Augenblick, Moment (mal), halt (cf. (41)) cf. (42) ich mein(e), weißt du, verstehst du, komm, ehrlich (cf. (43), (44)) cf. (45)

(41) x: aber "trotzdem hör mal ich hab das "früher \mal - da war ich noch "nich \so da hab ich "auch immer meine Platten aus\geliehen und von fiinfen hab ich dann meistens nur drei zu"rückge\kriegt (42) x: (filling in a French form for y): und du hast immer sehr ordentliche "Leistungen getzeigt und ich glaub das das kannst du "auch \schaffen \ja so dann wollen we mal das heutige "Datum auch ein/tragen signature "/date heute ham we den "/Via den wievielten "ham we denn \heute y: zweiter Au'%gust (43) x: ja Gott der "E\ggert der war heute schlechter als "\sonst aber ich "meine - der Lippens is "\gut der Lippens "is \gut und wenn man den nur "foulen kann dann "foult man den \eben — ich meine der Eggert hat getan was er "konn\te (44) x: . . . das ist dann "schö\ner als wenn man vom Anfang gleich so iso "liert und da rum\geht ich y: \ja also ich mein - ich hab da'n bißchen "mehrErfahrung . ..

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(45) x: ich meine ich hab auch nicht allzu "große Ahnung \davon äh aber es muß eben daran \liegen - am besten wir rufen sofort "\an Sequences of turnkeeping gambits occur frequently in the German data, comprising both elements of the same (cf. (46)) and of different classes (cf. (47)). (46) x: ["stößt dann einer Mran und so] dann wird'n "Bierglas übern Apparat gekippt y: ja "\komm ich \mein es gibt ja die Appa " Träte wo man da 'n "Deckel drüber \macht tnä (47) x: ja "tnun aber ich /mein — ku\mmal Vähm ich mein wir "wohnen ja jetzt hier wohl doch falle zwar mehr oder weniger zu"\sammen aber "immer\hin tnä ich mein du kennst mich ja doch jetzt eigentlich schon etwas \länger tnä Moreover, receipts and starters are sometimes used turn-internally, thereby assuming a 'secondary' turnkeeping function (cf. (48)). A special case of a turn-internal receipt is the 'self-receipt' as illustrated in (49), whereby the present speaker 'takes up' her own preceding speech activity. Thus, discourse functions which are normally realized in a dialogue structure (interlocutor Β taking up the speech activity of interlocutor A) are transformed into a monologue, by means of which the present speaker makes sure that he keeps his turn. (48) x: na ja is \klar - na - ich möcht ja auch nich eure "Fite deswegen - aufn Hund kommen \lassen aber - nun na Yja — also hm - ganz alte könnt ich dir "mittgeben aber dann müßt ich wirklich auch selbst "mit\kommen tnä (49) x: . . . und "langweilt man sich zu \Tode dann geht man schon gar nicht mehr in die Vorlesung "\hin y: ja ja "\eben das ich "mei\ne das is mir schon zweimal pa"\ssiert aber bei dem wollte ichs "nicht grad \machen das isn bißchen "eigenartig mmh Vja - he ihr trinkt hier "\Bier kannste mir "auch 'n Bier tgeben

6.3.2 Danish data Tokens: underscores:

phrases like det vil jeg sige 'this is what I want to say', (men) hva' skal jeg sige '(but) what can I say', men hva' 'but

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what', ved du hvad *you know what', hr lige 'just listen' (cf. (50)). cf. (51) du ved you know', jeg mener Ί mean' (cf. (52), (53)) cf. (54) (50) x: det var nok mulig — men hva' er - - jeg syns der er sädan lidt - kedeligt her syns du ikke [y: jo] til festen... [χ: that was possible I suppose — but what er I find it a little bit — boring here don't you think [y: yes] at the party . . . ] (51) x: nä og sä er det fru Hansen - lad mig lige se [looks into her file] - ja De var her sidst. .. [x: well so now it's your turn Mrs. H. — let me just see [ . . . ] — ok you were here l a s t . . . ] (fabricated data) (52) x: . . . jeg har fäet ny ven sä — du ved jeg vil jo jeg vil jo osse gerne med ham ik' [x: . . . I've got a new friend so - you know I also want to go out with him of course] (53) x: hvad tror du for (frvrigt mine chancer er for at eer det overhovedet gär igennem altsä jeg mener det er jo for sent ik' — [x: by the way how good a chance do I stand do you think that er it will work at all well I mean it is too late isn't it-] (54) x: mm - har du snakket med nogen andre altsä — erm - og Ηφη hva'de havde syns om det [x: mm - did you talk to some of the others - erm — to hear how they like it ]

The Danish data happen not to contain sequences of either different tokens belonging to the same gambit class or tokens belonging to different gambit classes (cf. the description of sequences in the German data above, section 6.3.1). This is no doubt completely accidental, and the following (fabricated) example would be a perfectly possible turn in Danish: (55) x: . . . men erm altsä sädan en bog der altsä ved du hva' det vil jeg sige dig - den kan du altsä ikke aflevere [x: . . . but erm such a book - well you know what - I can assure you — you can't possibly return it] (fabricated data)

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(55) can also be used to illustrate the occurrence of a starter (altsa) turn-internally, with a secondary turnkeeping function (cf. also (53), (54)). Examples of 'self-receipts' (cf. section 6.3.1) are frequent in the Danish data: (56) x: . . . tror du ikke de har lukket her om aftenen ja det kan jeg godt sige dig de har. .. [x: . . . don't you think they are closed here at night yes I can assure you they are . . . ]

6.3.3 Contrastive analysis of turnkeeping gambits Most of the gambits used with a turnkeeping function are phrase-like tokens, and apart from the obvious lexical differences between underscores, asides and cajolers in German and Danish, no significant differences were found in the functions of formally comparable tokens. It is theoretically possible that contrasts of a quantitative type exist between the two languages, but the data have not been subjected to quantitative analyses.

6.4 Turngiving gambits The turngiving function in both German and Danish is realized by appealers exclusively. However, not every occurrence of an appealer is indicative of turngiving: speakers might use an appealer in order to elicit an uptake (irrespective of whether or not the elicitation is successful) during their turn, i.e. without inviting their interlocutor to take over. Appealers thus function as turngivers in turnfinal, but not in turn-internal position (cf. (57)). (57) x: so ne halbe Stunde "rumgegurkt da /ne der einzige der bei "euch wat gebracht hat dat war vielleicht der "Lip\pens /ne - aber der Eggert is halt im Moment - nich so "\stark /ne muß vielleicht viel studiern (laughs) - ich "weiß \nich Appealers are primarily used with declarative sentences, as these are not inherently turn-giving: the appealer adds an eliciting function to an utterance which does not in itself invite the interlocutor to react. With interrogative and imperative sentence types, the need for using appealers is obviously very limited as the utterance of these sentence types themselves has a direct eliciting function — if an appealer is added in such cases (which, incidentally, is found in neither the German nor the Danish data), the function is to reinforce the inherently eliciting element in the utterance ("kommst du mit - /ja").

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6.4.1 German data Appealers are realized by the following tokens: ne/m/nich, ja, oder, oder was, nich wahr, was, hmm, okay, cf (58) and (59): (58) x: ja wissense denn jemand ne "Freundin oder Τ so der jemand der jetzt einsteigen tkann so ßr Sie nur ein"tmal sonst würden Sie ja "\kommen /nä y: \ja sonst würd ich "\kommen aber das - hat sich gerade so er"ge\ben (59) x: ja ich werd mich drum be"\mühen "wirk\lich aber - das eine Mal können wir ja noch mal davon "ab\sehen / j a y: \gut Usually, a rising intonation contour is obligatory with appealers in German. This rule becomes optional, however, if the preceding speech act has in itself an eliciting effect. Thus: (60) x: du kommst doch "mit \oder (fabricated data) As concerns the distribution of ne/näjnich, ja and oder, our informants show a strong preference for the first group of tokens. This preference seems to be governed by the constellation of the following parameters: (a) what illocutionary function the appeal has, (b) whether the preceding proposition is positive or negative (c) the speaker's presuppositions vis-ä-vis the proposition and the hearer's reaction. As for the first parameter, we shall distinguish between three types of appeal: appeal for information, appeal for agreement, and appeal for acknowledgement: appeal for information ·, the speaker does not know Ρ (although he may have some assumption about P), and appeals to the hearer for information about Ρ ("Peter kommt nicht toder") appeal for agreement: The speaker infers P, wants the hearer to express agreement to Ρ ("das ist ein furchtbar blödes Buch ?ne") appeal for acknowledgement: The speakers knows P, wants the hearer to express acknowledgement (or understanding, appreciation,...) of this ("Ich hob nicht viel geschafft weil ich die ganze Woche krank gewesen bin \ne") According to these appeal functions, to whether the preceding utterance has a negative or a positive proposition, and to the speaker's presupposition,

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the rules for the distribution of ne/m/nich, ja and oder can roughly be stated as follows: ne/m/nich can be used in all three appealing functions, following both a positive or a negative proposition. Thus - appeal for information: "du hast den Film schon gesehen tne" "du hast den Film noch nicht gesehen tne''' - appeal for agreement: "das ist 'ne ziemlich langweilige Vorlesung hier tne''' "das ist keine besonders spannende Vorlesung hier tne" - appeal for acknowledgement: "derSearle verwechselt eben Sprechakte und illokutive Verben \ne" "der Searle unterscheidet eben nicht konsequent zwischen Sprechakten und illokutiven Verben \ne" In contradistinction to the 'universal' applicability of the negative appealers, the use of ja seems to be restricted to - appeals for information, following a positive proposition: "du hast den Film schon gesehen tja" - appeals for acknowledgement, following a positive proposition: "der Searle verwechselt eben Sprechakte und illokutive Verben \ja" Whereas in these cases the low acceptability of the sequence negative proposition + positive appealer might be due to grammtical co-occurrence restrictions holding in German, the restriction on the realization of an appeal for agreement by the token ja is pragmatically determined: the use of ja as an appealer carries a strong bias on the part of the speaker that the state of affairs he refers to in the proposition is true, and that his interlocutor's response wül be in accordance with this presupposition. If one appeals for agreement, however, such a bias is interactionally weird, as the speaker then expresses himself what he in fact had intended to elicit from his interlocutor. It seems to be precisely this bias or presupposition in the use of ja which makes our subjects prefer ne over ja where both tokens are possible, as ne is neutral in terms of the speaker's presuppositions. The token oder can be used interchangeably with ne in both positive and negative appeals for information and agreement. It cannot, however, be used as an appeal for acknowledgement, as it is open for a potential hearer's response which expresses disagreement. From what has been said above, one can tentatively suggest that there is a cline in terms of the speaker's presupposition holding for the proposition of his utterance, and the expected hearer response: oder has the lowest speaker bias and leaves most room for the hearer's disagreement, ne/m/nich is neutral

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in both these respects, and ja implies that the hearer shares the speaker's presuppositions and reacts accordingly. Finally, the restrictions holding for the use of okay should briefly be stated: okay presupposes that the speaker and hearer have reached a common decision, opinion or agreement on a state of affairs; cf. (61). (61) x: ja paß "Xauf ich geb dir dann die "drei vonn ΐBeatles und "eine vonn Stones \mit o/kay y: fgut herzlichen \Dank

6.4.2 Danish data Appealers are realized by the following tokens: ikkejvel, hva', okay, or by phrases like synes du ikke/vel 'don't you think', ikke ogsä (cf. (62)—(64)). (62) x: y: [χ: y:

du kommer ikke til festen i aften /vel jo mäske, det kommer an pä ... you're not coming to the party tonight are you well perhaps that depends...]

(63) x: y: [x: y:

du er ogsä blevet sulten /hva' ja - jeg skal jo have lidt her... so you also got hungry did you yes — I certainly need something here . . . ]

(64) x: . . . jeg har knoklet dagen lang - for at tjene ρ enge til resten of äret /ikke y: det gr jeg da ogsä χ: hm [χ: . . . I've been slaving all day - to save money for the rest of the year haven't I y: so have I x: hm] The appealers ikke/vel clearly belong to one and the same group, the only difference between them being that ikke follows a positive proposition, vel a negative proposition (as can be seen from examples (62), (64)). The distribution of ikke/vel and of hva' is only partially identical, there being situations in which either of the two subcategories is unacceptable. With appeals for information (cf. the discussion in section 6.4.1 above), ikke/vel only seem to be possible (cf. (62)):

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Peter kommer ikke

I tvel I Vthva] [Peter isn't coming is he]

Peter kommer alligevel

\ tikke I (*?hva j [Peter is coming after all isn't he]

That hva' is not possible in these examples should not be taken to mean that it cannot co-occur with the type of sentence exemplified above but that the reading of the preceding sentence is different if hva', and not ikke/vel is added. With ikke/vel added, the utterance is used in a situation in which the speaker is not sure whether Peter is coming and where he presupposes that the hearer will know — hence the appeal is an appeal for information. With hva' added, the utterance implies that the speaker has reasons to believe that Peter is coming and that he wants the hearer to agree to this. Hence hva' is used as an appeal for agreement, something which is clearly brought out by (64): the proposition contained in X's turn is a Y-proposition (cf. section 6.2.2 above), the speaker assumes that Y is hungry and requests Y to confirm this assumption. In such cases - in which the speaker could not have direct knowledge about the state of affairs which his utterance refers to - only hva' can be used as an appealer. If the appeal for agreement relates to a propositional content which could logically be a X-Y-proposition, both hva' and ikke/vel are possible (with the difference that hva' more clearly than ikke/vel expresses that the proposition is tentative, based on inferring from something else). The final type of appeal — appeal for acknowledgement — is inevitably expressed by ikke/vel in Danish, as shown in example (65). In this case the speaker states the proposition as something he knows/believes, and simply appeals for the interlocutor to communicate that he has taken in this information. One could perhaps very tentatively say that ikke/vel are primarily used in connection with factual information, either information which the speaker requests the hearer to provide (appeal for information) or information which the speaker already possesses and which he wants the hearer to agree to or to acknowledge the existence of (appeal for agreement and appeal for acknowledgement, respectively), whereas hva' is predominantly used in connection with non-factual information, in particular in situations in which the speaker can only make assumptions about the state of affairs and appeals to the interlocutor for confirmation (appeal for agreement). We can summarize this as presented in table 5.

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Table 5: Occurrence of appealers in Danish type of appeal

X-Y specification

appeal for information ikke/vel X does not know P, expects Y to know Ρ hva'

X assumes/believes/experiences Ρ, expects Y to confirm

appeal for agreement ikke/vel X believes/knows P, expects Y to agree to Ρ appeal for acknowledgement

ikke/vel X believes/knows P, requests Y to acknowledge that X believes/knows Ρ

6.4.3 Contrastive analysis of turngiving gambits There are major contrasts between the tokens by which appealers are realized in German and Danish, as can be seen from tables 6 and 7 below. Table 6: German appealers appeal for information positive proposition

ja

negative proposition speaker presupposition

+

appeal for agreement

appeal for acknowledgement

ne/nä/ nich

oder

ne/nä/ nich

oder ja

ne/nä/ nich

ne/nä/ nich

oder

ne/nä/ nich

oder

ne/nä/ nich

±

-

+

+

-

+

+

-

("+, ±, —" refer to the strength of the speaker presupposition as discussed in 6.4.1)

As indicated by tables 6 and 7, Danish has no direct equivalent to the 'universal' German appealer ne/nä/nich. The formal equivalent for these negative appealers, ikke, is more restricted in its range of applicability, as it can only be used after a positive proposition. Further, in the case of the appealers for information and for acknowledgement, Danish does not differentiate between

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Table 7: Danish appealers appeal for information

appeal for agreement

appeal for acknowledgement

positive proposition

ikke

ikke

hva'

ikke

negative proposition

vel

vel

hva'

vel

speaker presupposition

+

±

-

+

+

-

+

±

-

("+, ±, —" refer to the strength of the speaker presupposition as discussed in 6.4.1)

various speaker presuppositions. This distinction is only made in the case of appealers for agreement, where both German and Danish distinguish between a neutral speaker presupposition and one which has a low bias towards the speaker's own belief. 6.5

Markers

Markers have the discourse function of signalling boundaries in discourse between discourse units. They may occur both turn-initially, turn-medially, and turn-finally, as can be seen from examples (65), (67), and (72). Whereas many of the gambit types discussed so far functioned as coherence establishing devices (cf. table 1 above), markers serve to create cohesion between various phases of a discourse (cf. our distinction between coherence and cohesion in section 3 above). In referring back to a preceding discourse phase and marking its termination, they provide an anaphoric link, and in marking the opening of a new discourse phase, they function as cataphoric linking devices. 6.5.1 German data The following tokens are used as markers in an anaphoric function: gut, okay, naja, (alles) klar, schön, often preceded by ja, (cf. (65)—(67)). Cataphoric markers are realized by übrigens, so, and starters like ja, also, äh, usually carrying a stress marker (cf. (68)).

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97

(65) χ: na hört sich ja alles ganz schön und gut "\an ich mein "\gut - wenn ich Ihnen also so weit "glauben Marfwas machense denn film "Vorschlag wo kann man denn "hin\gehn (66) x: na \ja das wird in der Dunkelheit ja 'ne schöne Quäle"\rei sein 'n "Bauern\hof da - über den "FeldStweg zu finden aber es wird einem ja nichts andres "übrig \bleiben y: ja na"tür\lich s es 's is auch fir 'ne "\Frau 'ne Quälerei da äh "rumzuMiegen x: ja \ja immer diese "\Spitzen — ja o\kay dann hau ich jetzt ab (67) x: ja ich will diesmal noch drüber hin "weg\sehn wenn das in "Ordnunggebracht \wird tja y: das das "Bade\zimmer x: ja das "Bade\zimmer y: ja das Badezimmer soll nich mehr "vorkommen "\nein x: \gut dann is es in "Ord\nung y: \gut - dann ja - schön dann freu ich mich jetzt auf meinen "Ka\ffee (68) x: wir ham heute "a\bend wolln wir wohl auf so'ne "Fete \gehn von som Freund vom "\Hans - ich weiß "auch \nicht ich kenn den "auch nicht \unbedingt tnä [y: /hmm] soll wohl ganz "nett tsein soll ganz "gut Verden - ach "übVrigens Yja - fällt mir nämlich "auch \ein äh (.. .) du hast sollst doch auch irgendwie unheimlich klasse "Pla\tten so "weißt schon As can be seen from the examples, both co-occurrence of different tokens (cf. (67) and combination of markers with other gambits, e.g. starters (cf. (68)), are possible. There seem to be no selectional restrictions operating on the anaphoric markers: they can be used in order to terminate the opening phase of a discourse, various topics within the core phase or the core phase as a whole, i.e. before the opening of the closing phase. With cataphoric markers, the situation is slightly more complicated: starters in a marking function and the token so can be used as initiators to the core phase and new topics within the core phase as well as to the closing phase. Moreover, they can even be used at the beginning of the opening phase, thus marking the transition from a non-contact to a contact situation as in (69):

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(69) (x entering a room) χ: "so Frau Büdinger - ich bin "fertig hab meine "Sachen alle gepackt und jetzt wollt ich mich noch von Ihnen ver"abschieden Co-occurrence with opening signals (greetings) is also possible, cf. (70), (71): (70) x: tna - grüß \dich y: ha\llo wie "\gehts (71) χ: "Yja Tach "Wal\ter - na wie "gehts \dirdenn y: ach hallo "\Franz - "grüß \dich - och wie soils mir "\gehn The token übrigens, however, has a far more restricted range of applicability: it can only be used for marking the transition from the opening phase to the core phase (cf. (68)) or the introduction of a new discourse topic, but it can neither mark the beginning of the opening nor of the closing phase. 6.5.2 Danish data The following tokens are used as markers in an anaphoric function: godt, okay, fint (cf. (72)). As cataphoric markers are used/or resten, for vrigt, and starters like jamen, altsä (cf. (72), (73)). (72) x: ... sä kan vi ogsä sidde derhenne ifred og ro og y: ja og snakke og [x: ja] sä 'η lidt andet [χ: ja] — okay skal vi ikke g(f>re det χ: jo y: det er fint x: jamen det er moegtigt fint [y: ja] sä okay [χ: . . . and then we can also sit there peacefully and y: yes and talk and [x: yes] so [x: yes] — okay why don't we do that x: yes y: that's great x: okay that's really great [y: yes] so okay] (73) x: ja men ellers skal jeg nok gd op og fortoelle at at det er min skyld og jeg aldrig skal g• niedzwie[tp] 'bear'

The rule backing front vowels is responsible for the fact that in a number of words palatalized consonants appear before non-front vowels, which further opaquates the palatalization rule. In the examples below we have the [e — o] and [e - a] alternations after a palatalized consonant where only the phonetic shape of the first member of each pair conforms to the palatalization rule: (9) [e — o]pa[tpe]rz 'prayer' [fe]lnik 'herbary' [?e]lski'rural' gar[dfe]l 'throat'

- pa[tpo]rek (id. dim.) - [fo]lo "herb' - [ßo)lo Village' - gar[d?o]tko (id. dim.)

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Edmund Gussmann

[e - a] [fee]/e'body'(loc.sg.) ty[ee]c'grow bald' [ße]nnik 'hay mattress' [d?e]to 'work'

-

[tßa)to (nom. sg.) iy[ea}t 'he grew bald' [ρα]ηο'hay' [dfa]tac 'act'

In other word, forms exhibiting effects of the rule backing front vowels further diminish the similarity between the Polish and English processes of dental obstruent palatalization. Both the case of front vowel deletion and front vowel backing might be jointly contrasted with the Polish palatal glide deletion discussed directly above or with the English palatal glide deletion and lax vowel reduction, since they all result in the palatalized segment appearing in a phonetical context which contradicts that of the palatalization rule. Since, however, the respective rules perform very different operations and are differently integrated with the rest of the phonology, a contrastive statement such as this can have at best impressionistic significance. Finally the Polish rule of preconsonantal depalatalization affects dental non-continuants which underwent the palatalization process. This creates a situation which is paradigmatically important for Polish when, in the same context, spirants emerge phonetically palatalized while plosives as non-palatalized. Here it looks as if the plosives were never subjected to palatalization in the first place. However, we can speak about opacity both with spirants and plosives since the palatalized spirants are followed by a consonant due to the deletion of (front) vowels; with the plosives the rule of depalatalization seems to be doubly opaquated: once by the vowel deletion rule which removes the palatalizing segment and secondly by the depalatalization rule which removes the palatal quality from the consonants. Consider the examples where spirants emerge as palatalized before the adjective-forming suffix -ny [ni] (from /in+i) and before the noun-forming suffix nik [jiik] (from /Tnik+f/), while plosives as non-palatalized: (10) gto[s) Voice' las 'wood' przewo[z]u 'transport'(gen.sg.)

kotchoz 'collective farm'

lo[t] 'flight'

gto[