Speech Acts and Clause Types: English in a Cross-Linguistic Context (Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics) 9780198718130, 9780198718147, 0198718136
This book is an introduction to the relationship between the morphosyntactic properties of sentences and their associate
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English Pages 464 [452] Year 2018
Cover
Speech Acts and Clause Types: English in a Cross-Linguistic Context
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of figures and tables
Figures
Tables
Abbreviations
1: Introduction
1.1 Speaking as doing
1.2 Sentence meaning and utterance meaning
1.3 Literal meaning and strategies for its enrichment
1.4 Clause types and speech acts
1.5 Cross-linguistic comparison
1.6 Cross-cultural pragmatics
1.7 Structure of the book, target audience, and goals
1.8 Summary
1.9 Topics for further research
1.10 Exercises
Basic level
Intermediate level
Advanced level
2: Illocutionary acts and illocutionary force
2.1 Meaning and force
2.2 Performative and constative utterances
2.3 Taxonomies of illocutionary acts
2.4 Direct and indirect speech acts
2.5 Politeness theory
2.6 Conversation analysis
2.7 Summary
2.8 Topics for further research
2.9 Exercises
Basic level
Intermediate level
Advanced level
3: Clauses and clause types
3.1 Clauses and sentences
3.2 Clause types
3.2.1 The function of clause types
3.2.2 Construction and composition
3.3 Formal exponents of clause types
3.4 Intonation
3.4.1 Intonation is independent of morphosyntactic clause typing
3.4.2 The intonation of questions and statements
3.5 Major and minor clause types
3.6 Clause type paradigms
3.7 Summary
3.8 Topics for further research
3.9 Exercises
Basic level
Intermediate level
Advanced level
4: Functional typology
4.1 Comparing languages
4.2 Properties languages may have
4.2.1 Tone systems
4.2.2 Uncommon consonants
4.2.3 Rare word orders
4.2.4 Highly complex case and gender systems
4.3 Properties languages may lack
4.3.1 Lateral consonants
4.3.2 Plural marking on personal pronouns
4.3.3 Distance contrasts in demonstratives
4.3.4 Ordinal numbers
4.4 Grammaticalization
4.5 Language universals
4.6 Explanations
4.7 Summary
4.8 Topics for further research
4.9 Exercises
Basic level
Intermediate level
Advanced level
5: Declaratives and assertions
5.1 The meaning and force of declaratives
5.1.1 Assertive uses
5.1.2 Epistemic uses
5.1.3 Explicit and implicit performatives
5.1.4 Are declarative clauses force-neutral?
5.2 English declarative clauses
5.2.1 Structural properties
5.2.2 The usage of English declarative clauses
5.2.3 Modal verbs
5.2.4 Declarative questions
5.2.5 Declarative commands
5.3 A cross-linguistic view on declarative clauses
5.3.1 Basic word order patterns and their distribution
5.3.2 Interaction with mood and modality
5.3.3 Evidentiality
5.4 Summary
5.5 Topics for further research
5.6 Exercises
Basic level
Intermediate level
Advanced level
6: Polar interrogatives and yes–no questions
6.1 The meaning and force of polar interrogatives
6.1.1 Direct and indirect speech acts
6.1.2 Constructional polysemy
6.1.3 Answers and responses
6.2 The form and function of polar interrogatives in English
6.2.1 Polar interrogative clauses
6.2.2 Interrogative tags (tag questions)
6.2.3 The usage of polar interrogatives in English
6.3 A cross-linguistic view on polar interrogatives
6.3.1 Major strategies to encode yes–no questions
6.3.2 Answer systems
6.3.3 The usage of polar interrogatives and questions
6.4 Summary
6.5 Topics for further research
6.6 Exercises
Basic level
Intermediate level
Advanced level
7: Constituent interrogatives and content questions
7.1 Questionhood and content questions
7.1.1 The meaning and force of constituent interrogatives
7.1.2 The social economics of questions
7.2 The form and function of constituent interrogatives in English
7.2.1 Types and functions of interrogative words
7.2.2 The position of interrogative words
7.2.3 Constructions based on constituent interrogatives
7.2.4 The usage of constituent interrogatives in English
7.3 A cross-linguistic view on constituent interrogatives
7.3.1 The marking of constituent interrogatives
7.3.2 The position of interrogative words
7.3.3 Meaning and form of interrogative words
7.3.4 The usage of constituent interrogatives
7.4 Summary
7.5 Topics for further research
7.6 Exercises
Basic level
Intermediate level
Advanced level
8: Imperatives and commands
8.1 The meaning and force of imperatives
8.1.1 Imperatives and illocutionary force
8.1.2 The meaning of imperatives
8.2 English imperatives
8.2.1 Structural properties
8.2.2 The usage of imperatives in English
8.3 A cross-linguistic view on imperatives and related categories
8.3.1 The encoding of imperatives
8.3.2 Negative imperatives: prohibitives
8.3.3 Related categories and strategies of encoding
8.4 Summary
8.5 Topics for further research
8.6 Exercises
Basic level
Intermediate level
Advanced level
9: Exclamatives and exclamations
9.1 The meaning and force of exclamations
9.1.1 Affective stance, scalar extent, and speaker viewpoint
9.1.2 Factivity and referential identifiability
9.2 Exclamative clauses in English
9.2.1 The encoding of exclamations
9.2.2 The usage of exclamative clauses in English
9.2.2.1 What-exclamatives
9.2.2.2 How-exclamatives
9.2.3 Explaining the usage of what/how-exclamatives
9.2.3.1 What-exclamatives
9.2.3.2 How-exclamatives
9.3 A cross-linguistic view on exclamatives and exclamations
9.3.1 Constructions encoding exclamations
9.3.2 Languages boasting an exclamative clause type
9.4 Summary
9.5 Topics for further research
9.6 Exercises
Basic level
Intermediate level
Advanced level
10: Minor clause types
10.1 Form types
10.1.1 Minor clause types introduced by wh-forms
10.1.2 Minor clause types introduced by modal verbs
10.1.3 Finite subordinate clauses
10.1.4 Non-finite subordinate clauses
10.1.5 Incredulity response constructions
10.1.6 Formulae
10.2 Functions of minor clause types
10.3 Insubordination
10.3.1 Between langue and parole
10.3.2 Degrammaticalization and reanalysis
10.3.3 Insubordination and ellipsis
10.4 A cross-linguistic view on minor clause types
10.4.1 Subordinate verb forms
10.4.2 Subordinating conjunctions and complementizers
10.4.3 Subordinating interrogative words
10.4.4 Subordinate word order
10.4.5 Functions of insubordination
10.5 Summary
10.6 Topics for further research
10.7 Exercises
Basic level
Intermediate level
Advanced level
11: Performative verbs and social actions
11.1 Social actions
11.2 Performative verbs: the lexical encoding of social actions
11.2.1 English assertives
11.2.2 English commissives
11.2.3 English directives
11.2.4 English declaratives (declarations)
11.2.5 English expressives
11.3 The performative hypothesis
11.4 A cross-linguistic view on performative verbs
11.4.1 Differences in form
11.4.2 Differences in meaning
11.4.3 Distributional differences
11.5 Summary
11.6 Topics for further research
11.7 Exercises
Basic level
Intermediate level
Advanced level
12: Summary and outlook
12.1 The morphosyntax of clause types
12.2 The meaning of clause types
12.3 The force of clause types
12.4 The distribution of clause types
12.5 A gradient model of clause types
12.6 Summary
12.7 Topics for further research
12.8 Exercises
Basic level
Intermediate level
Advanced level
References
Language index
Name index
Subject index
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/1/2018, SPi
Speech Acts and Clause Types
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/1/2018, SPi
O X F OR D T E X T B O O K S IN L I N G U I S T I C S
PUBLISHED
The Grammar of Words An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology by Geert Booij
Compositional Semantics An Introduction to the Syntax/Semantics Interface by Pauline Jacobson
A Practical Introduction to Phonetics by J. C. Catford
The History of Languages An Introduction by Tore Janson
An Introduction to Multilingualism Language in a Changing World by Florian Coulmas
The Lexicon An Introduction by Elisabetta Ježek
Meaning in Use An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics by Alan Cruse
A Functional Discourse Grammar for English by Evelien Keizer
Natural Language Syntax by Peter W. Culicover Principles and Parameters An Introduction to Syntactic Theory by Peter W. Culicover
Diachronic Syntax by Ian Roberts Speech Acts and Clause Types English in a Cross-Linguistic Context by Peter Siemund
A Semantic Approach to English Grammar by R. M. W. Dixon Semantic Analysis A Practical Introduction by Cliff Goddard
Linguistic Typology by Jae Jung Song Cognitive Grammar An Introduction by John R. Taylor Linguistic Categorization by John R. Taylor
Pragmatics by Yan Huang IN PREPARATION
Translation Theory and Practice by Kirsten Malmkjaer Grammaticalization by Heiko Narrog and Bernd Heine
Cognitive Grammar An Introduction by John R. Taylor
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/1/2018, SPi
Speech Acts and Clause Types English in a Cross-Linguistic Context
PETER SIEMUND
1
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3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, , United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Peter Siemund The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in Impression: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press Madison Avenue, New York, NY , United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: ISBN –––– (hbk.) –––– (pbk.) Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 17/1/2018, SPi
I dedicate this book to Ekkehard König, who raised my interest in this topic.
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/1/2018, SPi
Contents xiii xv xxi
Acknowledgements List of figures and tables Abbreviations
1.
2.
Introduction
1.1
Speaking as doing
1.2
Sentence meaning and utterance meaning
1.3
Literal meaning and strategies for its enrichment
1.4
Clause types and speech acts
1.5
Cross-linguistic comparison
1.6
Cross-cultural pragmatics
1.7
Structure of the book, target audience, and goals
1.8
Summary
1.9
Topics for further research
1.10 Exercises
Illocutionary acts and illocutionary force
2.1
Meaning and force
2.2
Performative and constative utterances
2.3
Taxonomies of illocutionary acts
2.4
Direct and indirect speech acts
2.5
Politeness theory
2.6
Conversation analysis
2.7
Summary
2.8
Topics for further research
2.9
Exercises
vii
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CONTENTS
3.
4.
Clauses and clause types
3.1 Clauses and sentences
3.2 Clause types 3.2.1 The function of clause types 3.2.2 Construction and composition
3.3 Formal exponents of clause types
3.4 Intonation 3.4.1 Intonation is independent of morphosyntactic clause typing 3.4.2 The intonation of questions and statements
3.5 Major and minor clause types
3.6 Clause type paradigms
3.7 Summary
3.8 Topics for further research
3.9 Exercises
Functional typology
4.1 Comparing languages
4.2 Properties languages may have 4.2.1 Tone systems 4.2.2 Uncommon consonants 4.2.3 Rare word orders 4.2.4 Highly complex case and gender systems
4.3 Properties languages may lack 4.3.1 Lateral consonants 4.3.2 Plural marking on personal pronouns 4.3.3 Distance contrasts in demonstratives 4.3.4 Ordinal numbers
4.4 Grammaticalization
4.5 Language universals
4.6 Explanations
4.7 Summary
4.8 Topics for further research
4.9 Exercises
viii
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CONTENTS
5.
6.
Declaratives and assertions
5.1 The meaning and force of declaratives 5.1.1 Assertive uses 5.1.2 Epistemic uses 5.1.3 Explicit and implicit performatives 5.1.4 Are declarative clauses force-neutral?
5.2 English declarative clauses 5.2.1 Structural properties 5.2.2 The usage of English declarative clauses 5.2.3 Modal verbs 5.2.4 Declarative questions 5.2.5 Declarative commands
5.3 A cross-linguistic view on declarative clauses 5.3.1 Basic word order patterns and their distribution 5.3.2 Interaction with mood and modality 5.3.3 Evidentiality
5.4 Summary
5.5 Topics for further research
5.6 Exercises
Polar interrogatives and yes–no questions
6.1 The meaning and force of polar interrogatives 6.1.1 Direct and indirect speech acts 6.1.2 Constructional polysemy 6.1.3 Answers and responses
6.2 The form and function of polar interrogatives in English 6.2.1 Polar interrogative clauses 6.2.2 Interrogative tags (tag questions) 6.2.3 The usage of polar interrogatives in English
6.3 A cross-linguistic view on polar interrogatives 6.3.1 Major strategies to encode yes–no questions 6.3.2 Answer systems 6.3.3 The usage of polar interrogatives and questions
6.4 Summary
6.5 Topics for further research
6.6 Exercises
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CONTENTS
7.
8.
Constituent interrogatives and content questions
7.1 Questionhood and content questions 7.1.1 The meaning and force of constituent interrogatives 7.1.2 The social economics of questions
7.2 The form and function of constituent interrogatives in English 7.2.1 Types and functions of interrogative words 7.2.2 The position of interrogative words 7.2.3 Constructions based on constituent interrogatives 7.2.4 The usage of constituent interrogatives in English
7.3 A cross-linguistic view on constituent interrogatives 7.3.1 The marking of constituent interrogatives 7.3.2 The position of interrogative words 7.3.3 Meaning and form of interrogative words 7.3.4 The usage of constituent interrogatives
7.4 Summary
7.5 Topics for further research
7.6 Exercises
Imperatives and commands
8.1 The meaning and force of imperatives 8.1.1 Imperatives and illocutionary force 8.1.2 The meaning of imperatives
8.2 English imperatives 8.2.1 Structural properties 8.2.2 The usage of imperatives in English
8.3 A cross-linguistic view on imperatives and related categories 8.3.1 The encoding of imperatives 8.3.2 Negative imperatives: prohibitives 8.3.3 Related categories and strategies of encoding
8.4 Summary
8.5 Topics for further research
8.6 Exercises
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CONTENTS
9.
Exclamatives and exclamations
9.1 The meaning and force of exclamations 9.1.1 Affective stance, scalar extent, and speaker viewpoint 9.1.2 Factivity and referential identifiability 9.2 Exclamative clauses in English 9.2.1 The encoding of exclamations 9.2.2 The usage of exclamative clauses in English 9.2.3 Explaining the usage of what/how-exclamatives
9.3 A cross-linguistic view on exclamatives and exclamations 9.3.1 Constructions encoding exclamations 9.3.2 Languages boasting an exclamative clause type
10.
9.4 Summary
9.5 Topics for further research
9.6 Exercises
Minor clause types
10.1 Form types 10.1.1 Minor clause types introduced by wh-forms 10.1.2 Minor clause types introduced by modal verbs 10.1.3 Finite subordinate clauses 10.1.4 Non-finite subordinate clauses 10.1.5 Incredulity response constructions 10.1.6 Formulae
10.2 Functions of minor clause types
10.3 Insubordination 10.3.1 Between langue and parole 10.3.2 Degrammaticalization and reanalysis 10.3.3 Insubordination and ellipsis
10.4 A cross-linguistic view on minor clause types 10.4.1 Subordinate verb forms 10.4.2 Subordinating conjunctions and complementizers 10.4.3 Subordinating interrogative words 10.4.4 Subordinate word order 10.4.5 Functions of insubordination
10.5 Summary
xi
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CONTENTS
11.
12.
10.6 Topics for further research
10.7 Exercises
Performative verbs and social actions
11.1 Social actions
11.2 Performative verbs: the lexical encoding of social actions 11.2.1 English assertives 11.2.2 English commissives 11.2.3 English directives 11.2.4 English declaratives (declarations) 11.2.5 English expressives
11.3 The performative hypothesis
11.4 A cross-linguistic view on performative verbs 11.4.1 Differences in form 11.4.2 Differences in meaning 11.4.3 Distributional differences
11.5 Summary
11.6 Topics for further research
11.7 Exercises
Summary and outlook
12.1 The morphosyntax of clause types
12.2 The meaning of clause types
12.3 The force of clause types
12.4 The distribution of clause types
12.5 A gradient model of clause types
12.6 Summary
12.7 Topics for further research
12.8 Exercises
References Language index Name index Subject index
xii
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Acknowledgements Many scholars and good friends have provided their expertise to improve the content of this book and extend its cross-linguistic base of examples. I am extremely grateful for valuable input and feedback from Bao Zhiming, Bernhard Brehmer, Julia Davydova, Hans-Olav Enger, Volker Gast, Daniel Hole, Ekkehard König, Lijun Li, Abir Medini, Anne Pape, Sharareh Rahbari, Yasemin Şahingöz, Vera Sparschuh, Jean-Christophe Verstraete, and Letizia Vezzosi. Florian Haas deserves special mention for reading the entire book meticulously and bringing errors and incomprehensible passages to my attention. I used prefinal versions of this book in several of my courses, exploiting my students as guinea pigs, so to speak. If the content is now digestible by students and the exercises can be tackled, it is primarily through their feedback. I hereby acknowledge my gratitude, hoping that their efforts serve future generations of students. Last, but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to two anonymous referees whose comments substantially helped to improve and sharpen the initial book proposal. Julia Steer and Victoria Sunter from Oxford University Press navigated me through the publishing process with great care and efficacy.
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List of figures and tables Figures . The Bulge, adapted from Wolfson et al. (: ) . Decomposing force and propositions . Politeness strategies according to Brown and Levinson (: ) . Continua of clause types (adapted from Croft : ) . Question–assertion continuum (adapted from Levinson a: ) . Four steps in the formation of insubordinated clauses (Evans : ) . Continuum of performative verbs (adapted from Verschueren : ) . The lexical field of assertives (based on Vanderveken : ) . The lexical field of commissives (based on Vanderveken : ) . The lexical field of directives (based on Vanderveken : ) . The lexical field of declaratives (based on Vanderveken : , ) . The lexical field of expressives (based on Vanderveken : ) . Indirect uses of polar and constituent interrogatives (Siemund b: ) . Morphosyntactic marking in relation to frequency of occurrence . Specificity of meaning in relation to illocutionary force potential . A gradient conception of clause types (Siemund a: ) xv
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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Tables . Major clause types . Clause types and associated illocutionary force . The decomposition of speech acts (Austin : –; Levinson : ) . Felicity conditions according to Austin (: –), as cited in Levinson (: ) . Performative paraphrases of major utterance types . Classes of illocutionary acts according to Austin (: ) . Searle’s () classification of illocutionary acts . Clause types in relation to Searle’s () classification of illocutionary acts . Four ways to threaten face . First parts and preferred or dispreferred second parts in adjacency pairs (Levinson : ) . Elective construal according to Clark (: ) . The interplay of intonation, clause type, and force (Bolinger : –) . Echo questions in relation to clause type (adapted from Huddleston : ) . The intonation of questions (Geluykens : , ) . The system of honorific clause type markers of Korean (Chang : ) . The synthesis index of selected languages according to Greenberg (: ) . Order of subject, object, and verb (Dryer d) . Order of adjective and noun (Dryer e) . Consonant and vowel quality inventories (Maddieson a) . Numeral bases (Comrie ) . Uncommon consonants (Maddieson c) . An illustration of Latin case suffixes xvi
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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
. Combined order of basic constituents and adpositions (based on Dryer d, g) . Logical types of universal statement (following Greenberg), taken from Evans and Levinson (: ) . Prefixing versus suffixing in inflectional morphology (adapted from Dryer f) . Types of epistemic judgements (based on Palmer : ) . Indirect uses of declarative clauses . Performative uses of declarative clauses . The distribution of clause types according to register in ICE-GB . Situational and epistemic meanings of English modal verbs (adapted from Quirk et al. : ) . Epistemic domains, clause types, and social actions (adapted from Heritage : ) . Order of subject, object, and verb (Dryer d) . Modal verbs in Chinese (Palmer : ) . The central modals in five Germanic languages (adapted from Mortelmans et al. : ) . Overlap between situational and epistemic modal marking (van der Auwera and Ammann c) . Evidential particles of Hidatsa (Matthews : –; Palmer : ) . Felicity conditions defining questions according to Searle (: ) . Responses to indirect requests in per cent (adapted from Clark : ) . Interrogative tags and intonation . Functions of polar interrogatives in ICE-GB (Siemund b: ) . The function of polar interrogatives in relation to register in ICE-GB (based on Siemund b: ) . Position of polar interrogative particles (Dryer a) xvii
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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
. Position of interrogative particles in relation to word order (based on Dryer b, d) . Strategies for encoding yes–no questions (Dryer a) . Distribution of three strategies expressing yes–no questions (based on Stivers et al. ) . Social actions expressed by polar interrogatives (based on Stivers et al. ) . Social actions expressed by declarative questions (based on Stivers et al. ) . Social actions expressed by tag questions (based on Stivers et al. ) . Properties of interrogative clauses in English . Interrogative words in English . An overview of the sentential functions of interrogative words . The number of polar and constituent interrogatives in ICE-GB (Siemund b: ) . The number of polar and constituent interrogatives in the spoken registers of ICE-GB (Siemund b: ) . The number of polar and constituent interrogatives in the written registers of ICE-GB (Siemund b: ) . The distribution of interrogative words in ICE-GB (Siemund b: ) . Functions of constituent interrogatives in ICE-GB (based on Siemund b: ) . Direct and indirect uses of polar and constituent interrogatives in ICE-GB (based on Siemund b: ) . Position of interrogative words in constituent interrogatives (Dryer c) . Position of interrogative words in relation to word order (based on Greenberg : ; Dryer and Haspelmath ) . Position of interrogative words in relation to the position of interrogative particles in polar interrogatives (based on Dryer and Haspelmath ) xviii
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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
. Distribution of question types (based on Stivers et al. ) . Distribution of interrogative words (based on Stivers et al. ) . Frequency of imperative subtypes in the spoken component of ICE-GB (based on van Olmen : ) . English positive and negative imperatives in relation to their functions (van Olmen : , ) . The encoding of imperatives (van der Auwera and Lejeune a) . Imperative formation in German . The imperative paradigm of Evenki (Nedjalkov : , , ) . The encoding of prohibitives (van der Auwera and Lejeune b) . Imperatives and hortatives . Clause types and syntactic structure . Syntactic analysis of what-exclamatives: reduced non-clausal types (Siemund a: ) . Syntactic analysis of what-exclamatives: clausal types (Siemund a: ) . Quantitative analysis of what-exclamatives: reduced non-clausal types (Siemund a: ) . Quantitative analysis of what-exclamatives: clausal types (Siemund a: ) . Syntactic analysis of how-exclamatives: reduced non-clausal types (Siemund a: ) . Syntactic analysis of how-exclamatives: clausal types (Siemund a: ) . Quantitative analysis of how-exclamatives: reduced non-clausal types (Siemund a: ) . Quantitative analysis of how-exclamatives: clausal types (Siemund a: ) . What-exclamatives and subject type (Siemund a: ) . How-exclamatives and subject type (Siemund a: ) xix
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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
. Contexts distinguishing exclamations, statements, and questions . Directive speech acts as expressed by minor clause types . Searle’s () classification of illocutionary acts . The distribution of thanking strategies (Brehmer ) . The distribution of apology strategies (Brehmer ) . Directive speech acts as expressed by minor clause types . Clause types in ICE-GB (Siemund a: ) . The number of polar and constituent interrogatives in relation to register in ICE-GB (Siemund b: ) . Direct (information) and indirect (other) uses of polar and constituent interrogatives in relation to register, adapted from Siemund (b: ) . English positive and negative imperatives in relation to their functions (van Olmen : , ) . What-exclamatives in ICE-GB (Siemund a: ) . Minor clause types in ICE-GB . Non-clausal units (NCLs) of different phrase types in ICE-GB (Siemund a: )
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Abbreviations A ABS ACC ACTIVE ADV ADVP ANT AOR AP ASP AUX BNC CAUSE CL COMP COND CONJ CP DAT DEC DEBIT DEM DET DIST DUAL ELATIVE EMPH ERG EXCL EXCLAM FEM FOC FUT GEN HORT ICE
adjective absolutive accusative active adverb adverb phrase anterior aorist adjective phrase aspect auxiliary British National Corpus causative classifier complementizer conditional conjunction complementizer phrase dative declarative debitive demonstrative determiner distal dual elative case emphatic ergative exclusive exclamative feminine focus future tense genitive hortative International Corpus of English
ILLATIVE INAN INCL IND IMP INF INST INT INTENS INTERJ LOC MASC MOT NEG NEUT NOM NOMIN NP O OBJ OED OPT PASS PAST PERF PL POSS PP PRES PRF PROG PROHIB PRT PTCP REFL S
xxi
illative case inanimate inclusive indicative imperative infinitive instrumental interrogative intensifier interjection locative masculine motion negative neuter nominative nominalizer noun phrase object object Oxford English Dictionary optative passive past tense perfective plural possessive prepositional phrase present tense perfect progressive prohibitive particle participle reflexive subject
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ABBREVIATIONS
SBJ SG SUBJ TOP UG V
subject singular subjunctive topic Universal Grammar verb
VN VP UTER
xxii
verbal noun verb phrase uter first person second person third person
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/1/2018, SPi
1 Introduction
.
Speaking as doing
.
Sentence meaning and utterance meaning
.
Literal meaning and strategies for its enrichment
.
Clause types and speech acts
.
Cross-linguistic comparison
.
Cross-cultural pragmatics
.
Structure of the book, target audience, and goals
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Summary
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Topics for further research
. Exercises
Language is a tool for social interaction. As human beings, we live in social groups, and not in isolation. Social groups can achieve things and carry out projects that individuals could never shoulder on their own. Language—in spoken and written form—is the main coordinating device that we rely on and that gives us a key advantage in comparison to other species. Language organizes our social structure and behaviour, representing a unique cognitive capacity and a fundamental cultural artefact. This book is about the things that we can do with language and how languages reflect and encode the things we typically do with them. Our key concern here lies on minimal interactional units such as the stating of facts (This is true), asking questions (Is this true?), making requests (Let me in), giving promises (I will do it), the expression of psychological states or attitudes (What a mess!), as well as various institutionalized uses of language with the purpose of changing or establishing
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social facts (naming, marrying, opening a conference, giving grades, etc. as in I hereby open this conference). These interactional units represent common social acts established through concomitant verbalization. A typology of such social acts offers fascinating insights into the structure of our societies, our human condition, and the ways language creates social order. Language reflects the requirements of its users. As language users, we shape our languages. Assuming a fundamental dichotomy between lexicon and grammar, with fluid boundaries of course, we expect lexical distinctions that are useful from the point of view of the language user, and grammatical categories for the expression of frequent and recurrent events. Looking at language from this perspective will reveal our common and important social activities. We may suspect, for example, that asking questions and making requests are particularly prominent social acts, since English—in tandem with many other languages— offers dedicated grammatical structures for bringing them about. In this introductory chapter, we will explore some fundamentals of language and language use, such as the relationship between form and function, literal meaning and non-literal meaning, semantics and pragmatics, as well as sentence meaning and utterance meaning. We will also introduce the concepts of ‘clause types’ and ‘speech acts’ that will accompany us throughout the book, including a brief history of these concepts as well as the most important theoretical approaches. As we here look at English from a cross-linguistic perspective using functional typology as the methodological backbone, I will briefly introduce this approach in this chapter, though a detailed introduction needs to be postponed to Chapter . Last but not least, this chapter familiarizes readers with the goals of the book, explains its structure, and describes and addresses its target audience. In a nutshell, it offers a bird’s-eye view of the entire book.
1.1 Speaking as doing Laypeople happen to maintain surprisingly simplistic models of communication and learning. For example, a culturally deeply enshrined model of communication is reflected in the so-called ‘conduit metaphor’ (Reddy ), according to which language is viewed as an envelope for thoughts, with speakers inserting their thoughts into
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such envelopes and sending them to the hearer or addressee. The hearer merely has to extract the thoughts from the envelope and will thus come into their possession. This illusion is heavily supported by everyday metaphors such as Try to get your thoughts across better or Try to pack more thoughts into fewer words (Reddy : ). In a similar way, the process of learning is (still) widely conceived as one of supplying educational content to the student like food, which they simply have to swallow. This mechanistic view of learning and teaching is nicely captured in the metaphor of the ‘Nuremberg Funnel’ (Kaiser ), the idea being that educational content can be funnelled into the brain of the student like syrup into a bottle. These conceptions of communication and learning are heavily flawed because they practically ignore the role of the addressee in the reconstruction and acquisition of knowledge and information. There is no way for the speaker to transmit information in the strict sense of the word. They can only offer it, and the addressee has to make an effort to recreate it, perhaps even improve on it. For all processes of communication and learning, the addressee is just as important as the speaker. These are projects, as it were, jointly carried out by speaker and addressee, and both parties need to cooperate to render them a success (see Clark ). Of course, these issues are well known in scientific circles, but usually fail to be acknowledged by the wider public. The speaker centrism described above is often accompanied by a view that highlights the descriptive function of language, especially of written language. What is more, written language tends to be seen as more prestigious and correct in comparison to spoken language. This entails a backgrounding of speaker and addressee, who are the actual agents in communication. The focus on the descriptive function of language and its ‘logical’ aspects is known as the ‘descriptive fallacy’ (Austin : ; Levinson : ), a view heavily attacked by language philosophers such as Wittgenstein, Austin, and Searle. Among the most important tenets held by descriptivists is the belief that unless an utterance can be judged as true or false, i.e. assigned an unambiguous truth value, it is strictly speaking meaningless (the sentence It is raining is only true if it is raining). Accordingly, all interactional functions of language such as greetings (Hello), apologies (Sorry), expressions of gratitude (Thank you), and many other so-called ‘performative’ uses of language are devoid of meaning. By contrast, sentences such as The cat sat on the mat are meaningful, since they can
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be judged as true or false. This view entails, inter alia, that important grammatical forms such as the imperative (Wash your hands before dinner) must be considered meaningless. After all, they express speaker preferences regarding unrealized future events that are outside truthvalue judgements. This cannot be correct. To be sure, extensive work in language philosophy, semantics, pragmatics including cross-cultural pragmatics, and sociolinguistics over the past fifty-odd years has substantially helped to correct this lopsided view of language introduced by logical positivism (i.e. the view that language can be reduced to matters of truth and falsity). As of today, there can be little doubt that we perform a host of meaningful social activities through speaking and that these performative aspects of language need to be adequately represented in theories of language and grammatical descriptions. This places linguistics at the intersection of sociology and psychology, as language use comes to be viewed as a consequence of our motives and intentions as well as our position in the social fabric. We will explore the performative character of language in detail in Chapter , since this forms an important backbone of the current book. Nevertheless, these interactional aspects of language will here not be considered an object of study in their own right—even though they easily could, but only in so far as they can be related to grammatical structure, especially sentential patterns. I will elaborate this point in the next section.
1.2 Sentence meaning and utterance meaning An important sentential pattern that we will investigate in detail in Chapters and is represented by the interrogative clauses illustrated in the examples below. These are typically associated with asking questions. () a. A: Can you eat with chopsticks?—B: Yes, I can. b. A: Where are you going?—B: To Calgary. The examples in () are neutral questions enquiring about specific pieces of information. The point of asking them is to obtain the information that they specify, i.e. an answer of either yes or no in example (a) and a location in (b). We may say that the meaning of
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a polar interrogative (a) consists in expressing an undecided proposition that is open with regard to its truth value, while that of a constituent interrogative (b) is an incomplete proposition. In the latter case, the interrogative word where says what kind of information is missing. Against this background, let us now consider the structurally equivalent examples in (). () a. A: Can you lock the door?—B: Of course. b. A: Why are you eating my cookies?—B: I’m sorry. The point of asking the question in (a) is to get the addressee to lock the door. The speaker does not intend a question, but a request (‘Lock the door’). Similarly, example (b) is understood as a reprimand (‘I don’t want you to eat my cookies’), and not as a question asking for a reason. How can we deal with the different uses of interrogative clauses illustrated above? A prominent answer to this question is to say that the uses of interrogatives shown in example () represent their basic or literal meaning, whereas those in example () convey a meaning that is the result of contextual reinterpretations. We could say that asking someone if they are able to lock a door is something rather obvious, and that for this reason, such examples get reinterpreted as requests. In a similar way, the reason why I am eating your cookies is because they are tasty, and this is quite obvious to you and me. Therefore, I am likely to understand your question differently, say, as a reprimand. If this interpretation is correct, we need to draw a distinction between the literal meaning of a sentence and the meaning it receives by virtue of contextual reinterpretations. The former is the result of combining the lexical meaning of the units assembled in a sentence, while the latter arises because the lexical meaning is contextually insufficient and in need of reinterpretation. Let us refer to the first type of meaning as ‘sentence meaning’ and the second type as ‘utterance meaning’. Once we recognize this distinction, it turns out that much of our communication proceeds on the level of non-literal meaning. Take a look at the examples in (), in which some factual observation is meant as a request (a), irony converts the meaning of (b) into its opposite, a negative adjective receives a positive interpretation (c), and a rhetorical question is given the opposite polarity to what is literally stated (d). This seems to be a pervasive feature of language.
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() a. It’s rather warm in here. ‘Open the window.’ b. A: I’ve found two euros in the street.—B: That really is a lot. ‘This isn’t much.’ c. She is terribly smart. ‘She is extremely smart.’ d. Who would ever do such a thing? ‘Nobody would do such a thing.’ The distinction between sentence meaning and utterance meaning can be taken as exemplary of the more general division between semantics and pragmatics. Given that linguistics is a branch of the more general field of semiotics (i.e. the study of signs and sign systems), we may follow Morris (/) in dividing the field into the following three components. i. syntax: the study of the formal relations of one sign to another; ii. semantics: the study of the relation between signs and what they denote; and iii. pragmatics: the study of the relation of signs and their users and interpreters.
Even though the reader may be aware of the broad differences between the terms ‘syntax’, ‘semantics’, and ‘pragmatics’, let us take a look at them from Morris’s perspective, as this offers a good basis for distinguishing them from one another. The term ‘syntax’, accordingly, relates to purely formal aspects of signs—the signifier as it were—and the ways they behave in relation to other signs (e.g. word order or the order of morphemes). By contrast, we use the term ‘semantics’ to capture the relationship between the signifier and the signified, i.e. the relationship between form and lexical or denotational meaning. We may break up the meaning of the noun boy into the more primitive components ‘male’ and ‘non-adult’, or capture the meaning of the English -ed suffix (walk-ed) as ‘happening before the moment of speaking’. These are the domains of classical structuralism, and in many ways, this turned out to be insufficient. The problem is that language contains many items that express or are sensitive to the communicative context and the point of view of the speaker. The innocent-looking -ed suffix just mentioned also takes part in this game, since the moment of speaking is a matter of the communicative context. The temporal period picked out by I called you two hours ago changes with the moment of speaking. In addition, there are several classes of lexical items that rely on the context for their interpretation (e.g. deictic expressions like I, you, here, and there), whose
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meaning encodes speaker attitudes (e.g. modal verbs like must or may) or contain instructions to the addressee on how to interpret the subsequent message (e.g. sentence adverbs like however, nevertheless, conversely, though). On top of that, we can identify various processes for enriching the information literally presented (presuppositions, entailments, implicatures), to be discussed in the next section. Evidently, the encoding of social acts explored within the confines of this book also belongs in this global domain. What these examples have in common is their interaction with and dependence on specific contexts and language users (interpreters), for which Morris (/) reserves the term ‘pragmatics’. To be sure, there is a certain tension between semantics and pragmatics, with semanticists trying to incorporate as much meaning as possible into the domain of semantics, and pragmaticists insisting that this cannot be done and that the relevant components of meaning need separate treatment. Notice, just in passing, that the English verb mean is systematically ambiguous in relating to semantics (What does this word mean?), on the one hand, and pragmatics (What do you mean by saying that this is so and so?), on the other. Although it is tempting to say that pragmatics is concerned with those components of meaning that semantics proper fails to account for, this does not do justice to the complexity of the underlying debate. As a matter of fact, throughout this book we will encounter examples in which the same segment of reality may be treated as a semantic or a pragmatic problem. For example, going back to the interrogative clauses with which we opened this section, we may wonder if these merely specify open propositions—open with respect to a truth value or some piece of missing information—with the addressee having to figure out contextually that they are meant as requests for information, or if such interrogative clauses literally encode the semantics of information requests. This is not a trivial problem and often quite difficult to decide. We will return to this issue in Chapters and , but it is quite representative of a much more general debate.
1.3 Literal meaning and strategies for its enrichment If it is true that the addressee occupies a role in the processes of communication that is just as important as that of the speaker, as we argued above, and if it is true that the utterances presented by the
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speaker need to be reconstructed by the addressee, the question arises which cognitive processes we rely on to construct and reconstruct meaning. This is a very long story, and we can here do no more than scratch the surface, as it were. The story is additionally complicated by the fact that language and communication are necessarily highly underspecified, since it is never possible to convey information exhaustively. If I ask you to call the elevator, I am presupposing (i.e. taking for granted) a host of crucial background assumptions. For example, I expect you to know what an elevator is, that calling means to press a button in this context, that pressing a button moves the elevator to our floor, and so on and so forth. Indeed, we can count ourselves lucky that this so-called ‘common ground’ can generally be relied on. Otherwise, communication would be quite difficult and cumbersome. As far as this book is concerned, the most important mechanism for constructing or enriching meaning is furnished by ‘conversational implicatures’ in the sense of Grice (). These essentially are hearer-based inferences that are not logically binding. They arise as a consequence of a set of rules that we take for granted in our communication. Conversational implicatures contrast with ‘entailments’ and ‘presuppositions’ in that the latter mechanisms can be handled in truth-conditional semantics, while implicatures are outside this kind of logical reasoning. For example, if you offer me the sentence in (), I am allowed to infer the logically binding conclusion that John committed some legal offence. Crucially, if I negate this sentence (John is not a criminal), the inference is no longer valid. This is a typical entailment. () John is a criminal. ➔ John committed some legal offence. Example () provides the case of a conclusion that remains intact even if the sentence triggering it is negated. Such inferences are generally known as presuppositions. Both entailments and presuppositions are based on deductive reasoning. () a. John managed to give up smoking. >> John tried to give up smoking. b. John did not manage to give up smoking. >> John tried to give up smoking. The concepts of entailment and presupposition can be easily defined using truth tables in which the truth or falsity of the triggering sentence is placed in relation to the truth or falsity of the relevant entailment or
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presupposition. Conversational implicatures are considerably more difficult to define, since they arise from inferences that are not truth conditionally related to the utterances causing them. Let us consider a few examples illustrating implicatures, taken from Grice (: ). () a. A: I am out of petrol.—B: There is a garage round the corner. b. A: Smith doesn’t seem to have a girlfriend these days.—B: He has been paying a lot of visits to New York lately. The response given by speaker B in example (a) can be sensibly related to speaker A’s utterance once the relationship between being out of petrol and the petrol supplying place is acknowledged. Speaker B implicates that speaker A can solve his problem by taking his car to the garage. In a similar way, speaker B in example (b) suggests a relationship between Smith’s visiting New York and his having a girlfriend. He implicates that Smith does have a girlfriend. None of these implicatures is logically binding and they can be easily cancelled by rejecting them. One may add to example (a) that the garage is not open and Smith’s visits to New York in (b) can be explained in a different way. Conversational implicatures represent cases of abductive reasoning (i.e. hypothesizing). Still, it is interesting to ask how such implicatures arise. According to Grice (: ), all communication is based on the principle of cooperation, with each speaker relying on the other’s desire to turn it into a successful enterprise. We always tacitly assume that something reasonable has been said, however far-fetched it may sound. Moreover, this cooperative principle is usually taken for granted and normally not explicated. The examples in () make sense precisely because the communicative partners try to find reasonable interpretations for what they are saying to one another. The cooperative principle may seem trivial, but without it, most communication would break down. Following Levinson (: ), we may argue that the cooperative principle is fundamental to all human interaction, even though it may be deactivated under certain conditions (say, during warfare). To explicate the cooperative principle further, Grice (: –) postulated four sub-principles—the maxims of quality (don’t say what you believe to be false), quantity (say as much as required), relation (be relevant), and manner (be clear and orderly)—lending additional explanatory power. These maxims are especially useful to explain cases of communication in which the cooperative principle is apparently breached or violated, which invariably leads to the generation of
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conversational implicatures. For example, if, in a letter of recommendation, I state about you that you attend classes well dressed and on a regular basis, the overall effect will be quite negative, since I am expected to list your exceptional academic qualifications. In writing this, I am stating less than necessary and provide irrelevant information, essentially violating or flouting the maxims of quantity and relation. Crucially, although the above maxims may be flouted triggering conversational implicatures, the fundamental principle of cooperation remains intact. We may say that implicatures arise precisely because we are looking for interpretations that help us to maintain the cooperative principle. Conversational implicatures represent a very powerful construct that can help us to explain the differentials between sentence meaning and utterance meaning observed in the previous section. We may say that indirect requests of the type Can you lock the door? are possible because interpreting such examples as literal questions violates the maxim of relation, triggering the request interpretation by means of a conversational implicature. Note that the implicature is easily defeasible in this example, since—when you start locking the door—I may say Sorry, I just wanted to know if you CAN do it. The assumption of conversational implicatures requires a rigid differentiation between literal and non-literal meaning. Moreover, it entails the implicit hypothesis that the addressee always goes through an unconscious or conscious reasoning process in the interpretation of all non-literal meaning. Since communication is full of non-literal meaning, massive reasoning processes on the part of the addressee are a necessary stipulation. In addition to the non-literal uses of language introduced so far, the interpretation of all metaphorical and metonymic specimens of language comes to demand foregoing thought processes. Given the speed and the efficiency of communication, it would appear odd to assume that these thought processes are conscious and reflective. They will mostly be unconscious relying on routinization and conventionalization (see Sperber and Wilson as well as Recanati for further discussion).
1.4 Clause types and speech acts The Western tradition of grammar writing offers a distinction between practically three basic clause types, namely ‘declaratives’, ‘interrogatives’,
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Table 1.1 Major clause types Clause type
Example
Declarative
The pilot steered the aircraft calmly through the sky.
Interrogative
How did the pilot steer the aircraft?
Imperative
Steer the aircraft calmly, pilot!
and ‘imperatives’. They are often referred to as the ‘major clause types’ (Sadock and Zwicky ; König and Siemund ). Even though the reader may be aware of these, let me provide an example of each, as shown in Table .. The labels ‘declarative’, ‘interrogative’, and ‘imperative’ refer to formal (i.e. morphosyntactic) aspects of clauses, and not their function. We will here understand clauses as grammatical units that comprise a subject and a predicate. The minimally limiting case is represented by intransitive clauses of the type shown in example (a) or predicative clauses as in (b). The latter involve the verb be or similar copulative verbs (seem, appear, etc.). We need to make special assumptions for imperatives, as these typically occur without subject. But since these are understood as being directed to a second person, we can say that the subject can be omitted in imperative clauses. The subject may be added under specific conditions, as we will see in Chapter . () a. John smokes. b. John is a smoker. / John is ill. There are no restrictions concerning the maximal length or complexity of clauses, apart from processing and memory limitations. Clauses may also be conjoined by coordination and subordination, as illustrated in example (). Conjoined or complex clauses are often called ‘sentences’, but this latter term is also widely used for simple clauses. Subordinate clauses are formally or functionally dependent on the main or matrix clause. In this book, we will primarily be concerned with main clauses, since subordinate clauses are generally assumed to lack illocutionary force (see Chapter ). () a. John smokes, but Mary does not smoke. (coordination) b. John smokes, although he knows about the associated risks. (subordination)
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It is difficult to tell what type of category a clause is and exactly which status it occupies in the grammar of English or other languages. We normally take it for granted, but it seems worthwhile reflecting about this for a moment. For example, the clause is a so-called ‘exocentric category’, meaning that it is a complex structure, which, however, cannot be reduced to smaller units of the same type. A clause cannot be divided into smaller clauses. Let us compare the clause with a noun phrase, as this will reveal the difference. If we break up a complex noun phrase—like the diligent flight attendant—into smaller units, we can reduce it to an article, an adjective, and two nouns. The status of the overall phrase (noun phrase) is reflected in the parts that make it up (noun). Noun phrases are therefore called ‘endocentric’ phrases, in contrast to the exocentric category of a clause that typically consists of a noun phrase and a verb phrase. On the level of meaning, clauses represent propositions, which we may loosely define as descriptions of events or situations. In this respect, they resemble verb phrases. In other words, clauses are subject–predicate structures denoting propositions. We may also ask if the clause is a language- or even culture-specific construct, or if it represents a universal category available in all languages. There is a long discussion in the linguistic literature regarding the extent of word class systems (parts of speech), and hence the number of phrasal categories that can be distinguished in a language. English has a fairly extensive system with there being twelve word classes distinguishable in principle (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, modal verbs, auxiliary verbs, numerals, interjections; see Quirk et al. : ). Frameworks such as ‘generative grammar’ or ‘principles and parameters theory’ assume four universal word classes and phrasal categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions; see Haegeman : ch. ), while more surface-oriented approaches such as functional typology report limiting cases of languages involving nouns and verbs, or perhaps even just verbs (Evans and Levinson : ). The formal approaches of grammar just mentioned also regard the clause as a minimal, universally available unit of grammar that is referred to as the ‘complementizer phrase’ or CP, for short. However, if we take the surface representations of language seriously, as typically done in approaches to grammar with a functional orientation, our definition of a clause given above runs into problems with languages in which subjects, and perhaps other constituents, are optional. For example,
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Chinese, in contrast to English, is a highly pragmatically organized language in which subject and object constituents may easily be omitted as long as their meaning can be recovered from the context. The second clause in example () consists only of verb and object. Leaving out the subject in English in a similar manner, as in (), leads to a syntactically ill-formed unit. English, we may say, imposes stronger syntactic demands. In a certain way and simplifying a little, what we can do with imperative clauses in English, namely leave out the subject, can be generally done in Chinese. () Mandarin Chinese (Bao Zhiming) 昨天 王 来 了。 吃 了 饭。 zuó tiān wáng lái le chī le fàn last night Wang come ASP eat ASP meal ‘Wang came yesterday. We had dinner.’ () John came yesterday. *Had dinner. We will explore these and related problems in Chapter . Suffice it to say, for the time being, that our definition of a clause will extend to languages like Chinese, primarily because even such subjectless units can be correlated with a specific communicative function. This brings us to the defining characteristics of ‘clause types’, i.e. clausal units for which we use terms like ‘declarative’, ‘interrogative’, and ‘imperative’. Clause types such as the ones just mentioned arise from associating specific clausal units with prototypical functions or forces. The latter concepts relate to the ways in which the speaker wants the utterance to be understood by the addressee. For instance, if I say Close the door, I want you to understand this as a request. If I ask you Who is the current prime minister of Britain, I expect you to give me a certain name. What we mean by ‘function’, ‘force’, or ‘illocutionary force’ boils down to an interactional concept defining the speaker’s intention or attitude behind the utterance. The verbalization of social acts is also known as ‘speech acts’. Function, force, and speech acts will be taken up for detailed discussion in Chapter , and their relation to clause types also in Chapter . We will nevertheless introduce some essential background information at this point. Even though speech acts rest on utterances and, thus, ultimately on clause types, the study of speech acts, on the one hand, and that of clause types, on the other, has by and large been undertaken by distinct
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disciplines. The study of speech acts originates in the philosophy of language pursued by scholars such as Austin () and Searle (), and more recently Recanati () and Vanderveken (). By contrast, the analysis of clause types represents a key element in the grammar of any language, even though such grammatical analysis does not typically entail a systematic correlation of clause types and illocutionary forces. The main rationale behind any grammatical analysis lies in the identification of morphosyntactic contrasts. In principle, one may pursue the study of speech acts and that of clause types quite independently of one another, but it is precisely the idea of this book to provide a unified analysis of these concepts. A major driving force behind philosophical investigations of speech acts has always been the number of distinguishable speech acts as well as the dimensions of their classification. Departing from a fundamental distinction between constative and performative utterances,1 Austin (: ) suggested a taxonomy of speech acts that comprises five major classes, namely ‘verdictives’ (making judgements), ‘exercitives’ (exerting influence, exercising power), ‘commissives’ (putting the speaker under an obligation), ‘behabitives’ (expressing feelings and attitudes), and ‘expositives’ (stating facts, giving reasons, asking questions). Austin’s taxonomy of speech acts remains an intuitively plausible scheme of classification that, however, lacks a principled basis. For him, the main diagnostic of a speech act is the existence of a so-called ‘performative verb’ (promise, apologize, bet, declare, etc.) that can be used to bring about the corresponding social act. Searle, being a student of Austin’s, proposed several refinements to Austin’s ideas, especially concerning the taxonomy of speech acts. A major advancement was the idea to base this taxonomy on a number of clearly defined dimensions referred to as ‘felicity conditions’, which define the adequacy conditions for the use of utterances. Assuming four such felicity conditions, namely prepositional content condition, preparatory condition, sincerity condition, and essential condition, Searle believed that these could yield an exhaustive basis for a taxonomy of speech acts (Searle : ; Levinson : ). In a subsequent study (Searle : –), he envisions the following five classes of speech acts: ‘representatives’, ‘directives’, ‘commissives’, ‘expressives’, 1
Constative utterances are descriptive (e.g. The lake was frozen over), whereas performative utterances are used for doing something (e.g. I hereby open this conference).
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and ‘declarations’. Representatives express truth-value propositions (asserting, concluding), directives put the addressee under an obligation (requesting, questioning), while commissives achieve such an obligation for the speaker (promising, threatening). Expressives reveal attitudes or psychological states (thanking, apologizing) and declarations effect a change in the world around us (christening, marrying). However, the idea of deriving an exhaustive set of speech acts or illocutionary forces (or at least classes of them) turned out to be a fiction. There seem to be obvious correlations between the clause types introduced above (declarative, interrogative, imperative) and the speech acts they typically express. On the assumption that the systematic pairing of sentence form and function is correct, we may associate declarative clauses with the expression of statements, interrogatives with questions, and imperatives with the expression of commands. Such a correlation of sentence form and function presupposes the existence of grammatical exponents that unambiguously characterize clauses as declarative, interrogative, or imperative. In this line of thought, problems arise, as the hypothesized association of one form with exactly one function, and vice versa, scarcely exists, if it exists at all. All major clause types can be found to express multiple functions, termed ‘indirect speech acts’. Moreover, the formal exponents characterizing clause types are typically drawn from several domains (e.g. prosody, word order, morphology), interact in intricate ways, and scarcely give rise to paradigmatic oppositions. Moreover, we frequently find exponents of clause types interacting with the mood system of a language. Besides the major clause types of declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives, it is possible to identify various minor types for which labels such as ‘exclamatives’, ‘optatives’, ‘hortatives’, ‘prohibitives’ as well as some others have been introduced. One of the problems that we need to address is whether these additional differentiations can be considered separate clause types placed alongside the three major types, or whether they merely represent subtypes of these. Exclamatives, for example, frequently piggyback on declaratives or interrogatives. Typological research has shown that while most languages formally distinguish between the three basic types introduced above, there appears to be great variation cross-linguistically with respect to the minor types, both in the size of the inventories and the means of their encoding.
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As a general rule, the major clause types possess a greater functional potential in comparison to the minor ones. Declarative clauses can be employed for virtually any speech act. Similarly, interrogatives and imperatives are by no means restricted to asking questions or issuing requests, but may also be used for other speech acts. The minor clause types, in comparison, typically correlate with one or a few more specific illocutionary forces. One hypothesis that we will pursue in the course of the book concerns the relationship between the illocutionary force potential of clause types and the formal means used for their encoding. We will try to show that the extent of formal marking inversely correlates with illocutionary force potential. In other words, the least marked clause type is assumed to possess the highest illocutionary force potential, while more extensively marked clause types are restricted to expressing very few forces only.
1.5 Cross-linguistic comparison Although this book is chiefly concerned with speech acts and clause types in English, the analysis of English will be flanked by crosslinguistic data and generalizations. Such an approach is useful for several reasons. First, it helps us to avoid cultural bias. Notwithstanding the fact that English is most widely used for global communication and one of the best-studied languages in the world, it is only one language besides six to seven thousand other languages that are equally interesting to study and that deserve being studied. Today’s prominent status of English has sociocultural and historical reasons, but there is nothing in the language itself that would justify this prominence. History provides many examples of other socially prominent languages (e.g. Latin, French, Spanish, Dutch), and if we consider today’s geopolitical situation, there are certainly several contenders competing for future global or regional prominence, as, for example, Arabic, Chinese, German, Hindi, Russian, Spanish, or Swahili. Another important reason is that conceptual differences are much easier to detect if there are concomitant formal differences. Languages may impose different expressive boundaries on the same or similar conceptual content, yielding different polysemy patterns and splitting up the pie in different ways, as it were. Let me illustrate this point with
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the help of some examples that are not related to clause types, but come from other domains of grammar. This is a very general and fundamental problem. For instance, in example () the reflexive pronoun herself occurs in two different functions, namely as a reflexive marker signalling identity of subject and object in (a), and as an intensifying element in (b). Some speakers of English find it quite difficult to see the difference. () a. Mary admires herself. (reflexive) b. Mary herself arrived last. (intensive) If we translate these sentences into Spanish, a clear contrast in form arises, as the reflexive meaning translates as se, and the intensive meaning as mismo. This is shown in example (), and speakers of Spanish would hardly fail to acknowledge the difference. () Spanish (personal knowledge) a. María se admira. (reflexive) María REFL admire ‘Mary admires herself.’ b. María misma llegó última. (intensive) María herself arrived last ‘Mary arrived last.’ Similarly, Chinese does not formally distinguish between the verb give and the preposition for, as made clear by example (). Arguably, Chinese lacks the word class of prepositions and expresses the relevant content on the basis of so-called ‘serial verb constructions’. Again, Chinese speakers will find it more difficult to see the underlying conceptual difference than speakers of English, and for the English speaker, Chinese gěi (给) shows an unfamiliar polysemy pattern. () Mandarin Chinese (Bao Zhiming) a. 请 给 我 这 个 qıˇng gěi woˇ zhè ge please give me this CL ‘Please, give me this one.’ b. 你 可以 给 我 买 这 个 吗？ nıˇ kěyıˇ gěi woˇ maˇ i zhè ge ma you can for me buy this CL INT ‘Can you buy this for me?’
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Adopting a cross-linguistic approach also reminds us of the fact that identical or similar means of expression can be used for divergent functions in different languages. What I have in mind here are not words or phrases (these are trivially different), but more abstract means of expression like the use of word order, particles, affixation, and intonation. Again, some examples may help to illustrate this point, this time clearly related to the topic of this book. Intonation in English primarily serves pragmatic functions, helping to distinguish, inter alia, between questions (often signalled by rising intonation) and statements (falling intonation). In Chinese, intonation has this function, too, but a more prominent function of Chinese intonation concerns the distinction of lexical meaning. These kinds of intonational contrasts are known as ‘tones’, as, for example, in xīng ‘star’ (星), xíng ‘go’ (行), xıˇng ‘wake up’ (醒), and xìng ‘last name’ (姓).2 The same means of expression serves very different functions. Similar observations can be made about word order. English word order has the primary function of distinguishing between the major constituents of a clause, i.e. subject, indirect, and direct object. The subject is placed before the finite verb, the objects come after the verb, with the indirect object appearing before the direct one, as shown in example (). Any other order of these constituents in this example is ungrammatical. gave me money. () John subject verb indirect object direct object In Russian, interestingly, word order can be used to signal definiteness and indefiniteness of a noun phrase. Since Russian lacks articles, a noun phrase internal mechanism to express definiteness is not available. Russian postverbal noun phrases are typically interpreted as indefinite, while those in preverbal position receive a definite interpretation. You can find this illustrated in example (). In the English translation, the noun book appears with an indefinite article in (a), though with a definite article in (b). Again, we can see that the same or similar expressive means (i.e. word order differences) are employed to signal very different functional contrasts.
The four tones of Chinese are ‘level tone’, ‘rising tone’, ‘falling–rising tone’, and ‘falling tone’, in the order given. 2
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() Russian (personal knowledge) a. Sasha kupil knigu. Sasha bought book ‘Sasha bought a book.’ b. Kniga byla interesnoy. book was interesting ‘The book was interesting.’ If we consider the above findings from the perspective of the function expressed, it turns out that across languages highly different means of expression may be employed to convey similar functions. In other words, languages resort to different expressive strategies. Let me illustrate this point on the basis of imperative clauses, which is a topic that we will investigate in detail in Chapter . The directive force of imperatives (requests, commands, etc.) can be found expressed by essentially three grammatical strategies. English, as in example (), illustrates the first of these strategies, where a subjectless and otherwise unmarked verb form is used. () Check your vaccination status. A second strategy consists in the use of imperative particles. This is shown in example () using the Khoesan language ǂĀkhoe Haiǁom (spoken in Northern Namibia). () ǂĀkhoe Haiǁom (Widlock : ) Ha re. come IMP ‘Come.’ And, third, languages may possess imperative morphology added to the verb. This strategy is quite common and here illustrated in example () for Persian (an Indo-European language spoken in Iran). The imperative marker is prefixed to the verb in this language. () Persian (Sharareh Rahbari) Be-khab! IMP-sleep ‘Sleep.’ What is interesting to note at this point is that these three major strategies practically exhaust cross-linguistic variation in this domain of grammar, even though the affixation strategy shows further variation.
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Put differently, looking at cross-linguistic variation from the point of view of grammatical strategies enormously reduces variation and reveals important commonalities between languages that are genetically unrelated and spoken in territories far apart from one another. We will explore such similarities and differences in greater detail in Chapter . The research paradigm interested in such cross-linguistic variation is known as ‘functional typology’ (Comrie ; Croft ; Velupillai ). Apart from documenting cross-linguistic variation—many languages still have no or only scanty documentation—and developing taxonomies for the classification and comparison of languages, a major concern of functional typology lies in the discovery of organizational principles pertaining to many, and in the ideal case, all languages. Such principles are known as ‘language universals’. The assumption of such universals immediately triggers all sorts of questions. For example: at which structural level or levels of language should we look for them? Aren’t languages too diverse to allow the postulation of such universals? Can there be properties that really all languages have in common? Why should there be such universals and how do we explain them? The main rationale for assuming that languages are built around similar principles is that human cognition—modulo cultural and individual differences—follows the same principles quite independently of the speaker’s ethnic background and their linguistic affiliation. Even if we speak different languages, our cognitive basis is similar, if not identical. After all, we also see, hear, and smell in similar ways. But if the cognitive basis of the human species is the same for all individuals, we would expect this to be reflected in the organization of languages, at least at some level of abstraction. We may hypothesize, for example, that general processing and memory limitations curtail the complexity of language, and that certain principles of linear ordering and specific polysemy patterns are preferred over others. Another reason for supporting the assumption of language universals is that humans are faced with similar communicative problems, despite their being embedded in different cultural contexts. Notwithstanding many rather obvious differences between and across cultures, we also find significant commonalities at the micro level. People need to exchange information, ask questions, give orders, and utter requests, ask favours, apologize, make promises and offers, negotiate prices, and so on and so forth. The basic inventory of social acts appears surprisingly similar wherever we go, even though some acts are clearly culture
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specific (see Levinson b: –). Basic social parameters like age, sex, power, seniority, hierarchical structure, family, or clan membership, as well as several others are crucial for the organization of all societies and quite frequently reflected in language in one way or another. For example, kinship systems, i.e. linguistic systems for naming family members, show fewer cognitive distinctions at the periphery, i.e. farther away from the ego’s point of reference (Dziebel ). We will explore such examples in more detail in Chapter . In sum, then, cognition and culture give rise to language-external factors that constrain and shape language. It has been the prime task of functional typology to integrate such language-external factors into a theory of language universals. The theoretical paradigm of Universal Grammar (UG) is equally interested in universal constraints on the architecture of language, but formulates these as system-internal principles without incorporating the language-external factors introduced above. Again, Chapter will offer more room to go into these differences.
1.6 Cross-cultural pragmatics Despite the fact that basic social acts such as asking questions, requesting, inviting, offering, promising, and giving directions can be found in practically all cultures, there may nevertheless be culture-specific differences in the contextual meanings associated with such acts, as offers, for example, in Anglo-Saxon culture may not be fully identical to offers in Chinese culture. Such an assumption makes sense, since we can view these basic acts as micro rituals that are continuously being reproduced. Rituals possess internal structure and contextual meanings that may be subject to cross-cultural variation and concomitant differences in verbalization. To give an example, in Chinese culture, offers tend to be refused before they can be accepted (Xiaming Fan, Bao Zhiming, personal communication). In other words, if you are Chinese and I offer you a cup of tea, you are likely to decline my offer—even if you are desperately longing for tea—and I need to offer it another time before you can accept it. In Anglo-Saxon culture, this ritualistic detour is not taken and you may accept my offer right away. We may say that the micromanagement of offers is different, and it is quite obvious how this can result in cross-cultural misunderstandings. Another example, again taken from the Chinese cultural context, is furnished by
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so-called ‘groundless apologies’ that are used even though there is no actual reason to apologize. In China, I may invite you to a dinner party and, while serving the dishes, apologize for my poor cooking and the simple dishes despite the fact that my cooking is excellent and the dishes are rather lavish. In the Anglo-Saxon context, this would be understood as fishing for compliments, while in the Chinese context, it signals humility and politeness. Given the number of different cultures, we can assume that the potential for such cross-cultural differences is rather high, providing ample room for cross-cultural misunderstandings. We have all experienced them in one way or another. The research field interested in these matters is known as ‘cross-cultural pragmatics’. Since it explores the verbalization and interpretation of basic social acts in different cultures, it is of imminent importance in the context of this book. Nevertheless, we will by and large have to circumnavigate it here, as the inclusion of cross-cultural differences simply exceeds what can be done within the confines of one book. I need to refer you to books dedicated to crosscultural pragmatics, such as Blum-Kulka et al. (a) and Wierzbicka (, ). Some cross-cultural information will be woven in, though, wherever appropriate. What I would like to do in this introductory chapter is to summarize some of the most important insights and results gained in this research field. Among the most prominent parameters influencing the realization and understanding of social acts are social distance and power (Brown and Levinson ; Blum-Kulka et al. b: ). These parameters are also highly relevant within specific cultural settings, but they play out even more forcefully when comparing different cultures. In situations of extreme social distance and power imbalance as, say, between a king and a peasant, requests and commands are easy to realize from king to peasant, but virtually impossible the other way around. Moreover, the resulting verbalizations would be quite different, namely extremely short in the first case and highly elaborate in the second case, if they are possible at all. Naturally, social distance and power also play a role when speakers from different cultural backgrounds interact, but the values associated with these parameters may be different. For instance, if one speaker comes from a highly hierarchically organized society, while the other speaker’s background is very egalitarian, cross-cultural misunderstandings are difficult to avoid. I have observed this frequently in communication with students from different countries,
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whose verbalization of requests and apologies systematically varies with their cultural background. Needless to say, other social parameters like age or sex also influence the relevant verbalizations, but these are not at issue here. Social distance has been shown to interact with the verbalization of requests, invitations, apologies, compliments, etc. in very interesting ways (Wolfson et al. ). If we think of social distance as a cline ranging from intimacy to detachment, i.e. from close to remote social interaction, the verbalizations encountered with the aforementioned social acts match at two extremes of this cline, but show very distinct patterns in the middle range. For example, if we are on friendly terms and know each other well, requests can be kept short as the risk of misunderstandings is low. Conversely, if we are strangers, the elaboration of requests can be equally low, since our social relations are too weak to be at risk. The middle ground, however, which includes various types of non-intimate relationships as between co-workers, acquaintances, business contacts, more distant relatives, and the like, is marked by higher degrees of verbalization (e.g. more elaborate requests), apparently because these relationships tend to be less stable and more vulnerable. Accordingly, we go to greater lengths to preserve and maintain them. Wolfson (, ) refers to this phenomenon as the ‘Bulge’, since the correlation of social distance and verbal elaboration yields a bulge-like curve. This is schematically shown in Figure .. Social distance and power affect the verbal elaboration of social acts and hence their levels of directness and indirectness, but these latter notions are further subject to cross-cultural variation, as societies, for instance, may differ in the degree of imposition that they allow.
Elaboration
High
Low
Social Distance
Figure 1.1 The Bulge, adapted from Wolfson et al. (: )
High
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INTRODUCTION
A higher tolerance of imposition entails a higher degree of directness, and vice versa. Cross-cultural differences in degree of imposition may inter alia play out in the use of imperative clauses, which are more widely used in some languages than in others. For example, Wierzbicka (: –) points out that in English, in comparison to languages like Polish or Russian, imperatives are not widely used for requests and typically substituted by more indirect means of expression (e.g. questions; to be explored in detail in Chapter ). Such usage differences may find an explanation in the stronger emphasis of Anglo-Saxon culture on individualism and personal autonomy (Wierzbicka : ). It is certainly plausible that the degree of individualism that a society permits or requires as well as the requisite degree of embedding of the individual in the social structures and hierarchies influences the way basic social acts are performed and verbalized. Cross-cultural differences may also arise due to varying assessments of specific communicative situations regarding the levels of formality and informality as well as the degree to which they are scripted (i.e. obeying fixed rules) or unscripted. Eating initiations and eating situations in general may help to illustrate this point, as these are subject to immense cross-cultural variation both in terms of their scriptedness and the concomitant verbalizations. For example, someone may say a word or two at the dinner table, before eating—bon appetit!—or raise their glass in a toast, or there may be a ritual of cleaning one’s hands before or after eating, or using specific containers or eating utensils for specific foods. It may also be the case that certain more serious topics may not be raised over eating and that the communication needs to be restricted to small talk. There may be strong—though hidden— harmony requirements. Last, but not least, the payment in restaurants can be subject to rather intricate negotiations as well as covert rules, assumptions, and obligations. It should have become clear from the preceding discussion and illustration that cross-cultural pragmatics is an immensely interesting, though rather extensive field of enquiry. My brief introduction here can be no more than an appetizer, but since this book offers many bordercrossing points into cross-cultural pragmatics, you are invited to follow these up accordingly. Before closing this section, I would like to point out that within cross-cultural pragmatics there is a whole selfcontained field known as ‘interlanguage pragmatics’, focusing on the ways that the pragmatics of different languages merge and develop in
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1. 7 S T R U C T U R E O F T H E B O O K , T A R G E T A U D I E N C E , G O A L S
learner varieties as, say, of learners of English as a second or additional language (see Gass and Neu ). Such learning typically proceeds on the cognitive substrate of previously learned languages, and hence, various problems of language contact arise. The focus of attention in this field rests on pragmatic errors, interference, and cross-cultural miscommunication. Much work has also been invested on issues of politeness (see Chapter ).
1.7 Structure of the book, target audience, and goals This book invites students on a journey through one of the fundamental areas of human communication, namely an analysis of our minimal interactional units (social acts) and the ways to encode them (speech acts, illocutionary forces). It offers an introduction written from both the perspective of philosophy of language and linguistics, the overarching objective being the development of a plausible synthesis of the two approaches. The book bases itself on the belief that a sound taxonomy of illocutionary forces should take into consideration the full cross-linguistic spectrum of grammatically encoded forces, paying proper attention to more and less prominent phenomena. For example, it appears a striking imbalance that directives in Searle’s () taxonomy of speech acts are typically conveyed through interrogative and imperative clauses, while all the other speech acts distinguished are expressed by the declarative clause type. For the purposes of this book, English will serve as the main language of linguistic analysis, though it will be flanked by data from many other languages. The overall methodological approach adopted here is that of functional typology. The book is sufficiently substantial to fill a typical university course of approximately twelve to sixteen weeks. Given its focus on English and various theoretical and typological issues, it will be of interest both to students of English and general linguistics. It targets students at the graduate and upper undergraduate levels, i.e. advanced BA and MA students. It is also suitable for courses in structured PhD programmes. The book comprises twelve chapters including introduction and summary. Chapters – introduce the necessary theoretical and methodological backbone covering speech act theory and alternative approaches to the analysis of social act verbalizations, fundamental
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issues pertaining to the identification of clause types, as well as an overview of functional typology. Chapters – offer in-depth discussions of specific clause types and related phenomena, including declaratives, polar interrogatives, constituent interrogatives, imperatives, exclamatives, minor clause types, and performative verbs. The summary in Chapter explores why certain social acts receive more prominent marking than others, and argues for a gradient conception of clause types. The book can be used with different course formats, depending on how much time there is per week as well as the level and previous experience of the students. For instance, one may simply try to cover one chapter in one session. In my experience, this will be quite challenging for students and presupposes much advance reading and preparation. Also, there will be little to no time to approach the exercises. Alternatively, chapter content and exercises can be studied in alternating weeks or sessions, but this approach requires a selection of the book’s content. If the course setup provides sufficient time per week, it will be possible to study one complete chapter (i.e. content plus exercises). The individual chapters all follow the same global style, namely an introduction, the main text body, a summary, topics for further research, and a set of exercises. The introductions are written in such a way that they anticipate the major problems and questions raised in the chapters. In a similar way, the summaries offer the main answers and solutions in a nutshell. Since each chapter necessarily accumulates a considerable number of loose ends, there are sections harnessing these as topics for further research, accompanied by the most important references. Chapters –, i.e. those relating to specific grammatical topics, contain an overview of the topic, an analysis of the situation in English, followed by a cross-linguistic comparison. Chapters –, introducing theory and methodology, each follow their own internal logic. The exercises at the end of each chapter are arranged at three levels, namely basic, intermediate, and advanced. They offer training ground for the repetition of the chapter content and its application to new data, but also suggest ideas for self-contained empirical projects and theoretical argumentation pieces. The exercises, thus, offer a basis for additional course work, though some of them can easily be developed into BA or MA theses, too.
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1. 8 S U M M A R Y
1.8 Summary The overarching aim of the preceding discussion was to prepare the ground for the coming chapters. We underlined the prominent role of the hearer in the construction of meaning, the objective being to counterbalance speaker centrism and views that see communication as the mere exchange of information. Following Austin (), we argued that speaking involves a strong component of doing, since speaker and hearer by virtue of their mutual intentions use language to get things done and to coordinate their activities. These ideas are in strong opposition to views that consider the descriptive function of language as central (descriptive fallacy). Another strand of research that we needed to introduce concerns the distinction between literal and non-literal meaning. By default, we use the expressive devices of a language in their descriptive meaning, as we find them encoded in dictionaries and grammar books. If I say The hammer is in the toolbox, the literal meaning of this sentence merely states the location of the hammer, although my non-literally expressed intention may be for you to hand me the hammer. Such examples can be used to motivate a general distinction between sentence meaning and utterance meaning, leading to the rather complicated problem of how hearers enrich the highly underspecified messages that they receive. We argued that entailments, presuppositions, and conversational implicatures can be analysed as strategies to enrich meaning. A third domain of interest concerns the categories of clauses and sentences as well as the forces (speech acts) or speaker intentions that they can express. We also introduced some of the prevalent taxonomies of speech acts, even though these need to be gone into in much greater detail. Evidently, the relationship between clausal form and associated force represents the central line of enquiry of this book. Since we here adopt a cross-linguistic approach to the analysis of clause types, we spent some time on exploring the merits of such an approach and introduced—in a very preliminary fashion—the requisite methodology. We also briefly looked at cross-cultural pragmatics, although an inclusion of this field is beyond the scope of this book.
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1.9 Topics for further research Each chapter of this book ends with suggestions for further research, though, of course, all the issues that we raised in this first introductory chapter will be taken up for scrutiny in the subsequent chapters. Therefore, I will here address a few points that will not figure prominently, either because they are too general or they are outside the main thrust of the book. A first point concerns the understanding of pragmatics adopted in the book, as there are many divergent ideas around of how to define this linguistic subfield. Following Levinson (), I here adopt a relatively narrow conception of pragmatics that views the main task of this field to explain the contextual enrichment of otherwise underspecified linguistic forms and largely eschews a host of issues that arise if the level of form is set aside. These include, inter alia, principles of human interaction, culture-specific differences in human interaction, the use of gestures and other non-verbal communication, but also persuasion, manipulation, and the use of language in politics. Mey () distinguishes between ‘micropragmatics’ and ‘macropragmatics’, and a good overview of what macropragmatics can include is provided by his book. Although this book is about social acts and their verbalization, whose realization and interpretation is highly context dependent, we here adopt the distinction between literal and non-literal meaning in tandem with the belief that a context-independent meaning of linguistic expressions can be found and specified. An alternative approach is offered by ‘contextualism’ (Recanati ), in which meaning entirely becomes a matter of contextual interpretation. Essentially, this means giving up the distinction between semantics and pragmatics. Steering clear of this highly interesting and fundamental debate, I here adopt the literal meaning approach for purely practical reasons, since the assumption of grammatical categories—clause types in our case—presupposes the existence of some form–function correlation. Moreover, the cross-linguistic comparisons offered in the chapters on specific clause types require the assumption of functional equivalence of certain form types across languages. Grice’s () ideas regarding the importance of inferential processes in communication (qua conversational implicatures) and their psychological basis (cooperative principle, maxims of quality, quantity,
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relation, and manner) have been further developed within a field known as ‘inferential pragmatics’, especially relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson ; Wilson and Sperber ). Relevance theory postulates two principles of relevance, namely a cognitive principle (‘Human cognition tends to be geared to the maximization of relevance’) and a communicative principle of relevance (‘Every ostensive stimulus conveys a presumption of its own optimal relevance’), that taken together explain the occurrence of inferential processes in communication (Wilson and Sperber : , ). Relevance theory has developed into a very successful and influential approach, which, however, lies outside the thematic core of the book. Inferential pragmatics has also developed fascinating ideas on how to analyse classical specimens of non-literal language such as irony and sarcasm. Another area of non-literal meaning is offered by metaphors and metonymies, as illustrated by examples like Time flies and The city is bankrupt. Metaphors and metonymies have been intensely investigated within cognitive linguistics (Lakoff and Johnson ; Radden and Dirven ). Some indirect speech acts (see Chapter ) have been reconstructed as metonymies (‘speech act metonymies’). We will briefly take up this issue in one of the later chapters, but you can find more information in Thornburg and Panther () as well as Stefanowitsch ().
1.10 Exercises Basic level 1. Explain in your own words why the conduit metaphor and the idea of the Nuremberg Funnel are inadequate models of communication and learning. Try to explain the relevant inadequacies to your fellow students using convincing exemplification. 2. For the following set of examples, try to specify the sentence meaning and the utterance meaning. i. Two times two is four. ii. Boys will be boys. iii. If he does it, he does it. iv. Could you close the door?
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v. A: This is a very nice dress.—B: It is quite expensive. vi. Wash your hands after using the toilet. vii. What a fantastic dinner we had! (meant ironically) 3. In your own words, explain the terms ‘semantics’ and ‘pragmatics’ as well as ‘literal meaning’ and ‘non-literal meaning’. Intermediate level 1. The pairs of sentences below illustrate the relationships of entailment, presupposition, and conversational implicature. Try to identify which is which and explain your choice. i. John regrets having insulted Sue. ii. John insulted Sue. i. The fridge is empty. ii. John was very hungry when he came. i. Someone broke in and stole the money. ii. The money is gone. 2. The examples below illustrate deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning. Find out about these modes of reasoning using the Internet. a. Decide which of the examples represents which mode of reasoning. Explain why. b. Two of these modes of reasoning produce hypotheses that may be wrong. Which ones are these? i. Mary is a student and all students are bright. ➔ Mary is bright. ii. The students at my university are bright. ➔ All students are bright. iii. Mary is a bright woman. ➔ Mary is a student. 3. In this mini project, you are invited to verify the bulge-like curve identified by Wolfson et al. () (see Figure .) for interactants manifesting different degrees of social distance. As shown in Section ., interactants resort to more elaborate means of encoding in situations of medium degrees of social distance. a. Make notes of your social interactions over a period of a fortnight and the ways you and your partners verbalize them. How often and with whom can you observe requests, apologies, invitations, and the like and which means of verbal encoding are used? b. Analyse your findings using a spreadsheet table. Do they correspond to Wolfson et al.’s findings?
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Advanced level 1. Explore the concepts of ‘metaphor’ and ‘metonymy’ using the Internet. For the examples below, decide whether these are cases of metaphor or metonymy. i. Life is too precious to be wasted. ii. West and East show important cultural differences. iii. The train crawled into the station. iv. They drank a glass of wine. v. Table wants the check. vi. We all need to earn our living. 2. The English pronouns they, their, and them display an interesting polysemy pattern. This is illustrated for their below. i. Every student needs to submit their term paper by midnight. ii. Each student needs to submit their term paper by midnight. iii. A student needs to submit their term paper by midnight. iv. Some student needs to submit their term paper by midnight. v. Has any student submitted their term paper by midnight? vi. The efficient student submits their term paper by midnight. vii. All students need to submit their term papers by midnight. a. Try to specify a meaning of their that can capture its uses in all of the above examples. b. Translate these examples into your native language (provided it is not English). Can you observe the same or a different polysemy pattern? 3. The observable differences between languages may lead to the hypothesis that some languages are more elaborate or complex in their means of encoding, while other languages are less complex or more simply organized. For example, a speaker of Spanish may consider Chinese a simple language, since it practically lacks inflectional morphology. Conversely, a speaker of Chinese may tend to think that Spanish lacks complexity, as it does not distinguish lexical tones. You are invited to embark on a theoretical opinion piece to explore these issues in detail. Naturally, there is a host of academic titles devoted to this problem. For a start, you may want to consult the contributions in Miestamo et al. (2008) and Sampson et al. (2009), as well as McWhorter (2011).
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2 Illocutionary acts and illocutionary force
. Meaning and force
. Performative and constative utterances
. Taxonomies of illocutionary acts
. Direct and indirect speech acts
. Politeness theory
. Conversation analysis
. Summary
. Topics for further research
. Exercises
As members of a social group, we use language to carry out verbally based social acts intended to display our beliefs, emotions, and intentions, influence the behaviour of others, create, and maintain social order and harmony, though also to induce conflict. Language being a tool for social interaction, each verbal exchange ipso facto represents a social act, and each such act may be analysed as one of a finite— perhaps infinite—set of possible social acts. We may refer to these as acts of ordering, questioning, stating, exclaiming, apologizing, advising, warning, thanking, promising, threatening, insulting, suggesting, naming, and so on. Social acts realized verbally are also known as ‘speech acts’ or ‘illocutionary acts’. The potential of a linguistic unit to express or bring about such a social act is referred to as its ‘illocutionary force’. For example, the adverb please expresses polite request force, and in using it, I am carrying out the respective social act.
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2. 1 M E A NI N G A ND F O R C E
These social and interactional components of language tend to be backgrounded in linguistic work focusing on the form side of language (syntax and morphology) and on descriptive or denotational meaning (much of semantics), though they clearly represent highly important parts of language and language use. As outlined in the previous chapter, this well-known descriptive fallacy was heavily attacked by language philosophers in the twentieth century, opening up fascinating research avenues in which the social and interactional aspects of language could be explored. Speech acts are the minimal interactional units explored in this line of research. The domain of inquiry is known as ‘speech act theory’. The central concern of this chapter consists in exploring these minimal interactional units, thereby introducing and sharpening the notions of ‘speech acts’, ‘illocutionary acts’, and ‘illocutionary force’. An important question is which types and how many speech acts can be distinguished. There is a considerable number of taxonomies around, based on partly overlapping sets of criteria. These will also be introduced and critically evaluated in the present chapter. Another important issue concerns the observation that certain linguistic units, which seem to be dedicated to realizing specific social acts, may be used for seemingly different acts. For example, in asking Could you switch off the lights?, the speaker performs the act of a request, even though the linguistic vehicle used for performing it is that of a question. This is the well-known problem of direct and indirect speech acts that we also need to investigate in some detail. In this chapter, we will also venture a glance beyond speech act theory proper, exploring the relevance of politeness and conversational structure for the verbal encoding of social acts.
2.1 Meaning and force If sentences and utterances can be used to perform social acts and if certain linguistic units possess the force to perform such acts, the question is how much illocutionary force is linguistically encoded and how much of it is supplied contextually and computed by the interlocutors. This is a fundamental problem in the analysis of meaning, there being constant tension in language between descriptive or encoded meaning and pragmatic or contextual meaning. I think that we can take it for granted that language is highly underspecified with only a tiny fraction of our world knowledge actually being encoded. It is
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then interesting to observe which components of meaning get encoded and which do not. Let us consider the simple example shown in ().1 Here, Jill’s intention is for Jack to pick up the key and open the door. This is communicated by Jill’s saying The key is under the doormat, the intended force, point, or purpose of the utterance being that of a request. Since Jack gets the key and opens the door, the force of the utterance is correctly understood. It is obvious, however, that Jill’s utterance The key is under the doormat does not encode request force, since it is merely a descriptive statement. It follows that Jack computed the intended force relying on contextually available information. Jack’s assumption of request force makes Jill’s utterance contextually relevant. Here, force is part of the utterance meaning, though not of sentence meaning. The speaker intends request force, but does not express it verbally. () Jack and Jill reach the locked front door. Jill says: ‘The key is under the doormat.’ Jack stoops to pick up the key and unlocks the door. Examples such as () demonstrate that it is not necessary for languages to encode illocutionary force, just as they may easily lack exponents of tense and aspect without communication breaking down. Although illocutionary force may be left entirely implicit, we find various devices that encode it more or less explicitly. It is as such an interesting observation that speaker intentions and attitudes get lexically and grammatically encoded. Some of the ways to encode the request force of example () are illustrated in the examples in (). In contrast to example (), force here must be considered as part of sentence meaning, as they explicitly express request force. () a. b. c. d. e.
Pick up the key and open the door! You now pick up the key and open the door! I hereby order you to pick up the key and open the door! You should pick up the key and open the door. It is necessary that you pick up the key and open the door!
The linguistic devices used to explicate illocutionary force in these examples are the imperative form (a), a time adverbial (b), a 1
I owe this example to some source I fail to recall. I apologize for this act of micro plagiarism, but the example is too nice to pass up.
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Sentence/utterance meaning
Force
Proposition
Figure 2.1 Decomposing force and propositions
performative verb (c), a modal verb (d), and an adjective (e). Following Searle (: ), we may refer to them as ‘illocutionary force indicators’, ‘illocutionary force indicating devices’, or ‘IFIDs’, for short. There are obvious differences regarding the extent and the precision to which they encode request force, but this shall not concern us here. We will explore this in Chapter , in our discussion of imperative constructions. What the above considerations suggest is that we can draw a clear distinction between descriptive meaning and illocutionary force. Moreover, the overall meaning of a sentence or an utterance can be decomposed into a propositional part and a part relating to its force. This decomposition may be conceived of as shown in Figure .. Here I do not distinguish between sentence meaning and utterance meaning, even though this is an oversimplification (see above discussion). The idea of separating descriptive or propositional meaning from illocutionary force goes back to Frege (–/: ) and was most prominently promoted by Searle in various publications (: , : ). The idea is that the meaning of sentences and utterances can be split up into a propositional component and an extra-propositional component. Let us take a look at example () for illustration. Here, we can dissect the sentence in (a) into a force component and a propositional component, as shown in (b). The propositional or content component obeys the rules of denotational semantics, which basically means that the overall meaning of the proposition can be computed from its parts and that it can be given a truth value (judged as true or false) in some world. The force component, in relating to the attitudes and intentions of the speaker, is not subject to denotational semantics, but part of pragmatics. () a. You should pick up the key and open the door. b. REQUEST(you pick up the key and open the door) To be sure, finding the exact boundary between descriptive meaning and force—or semantics and pragmatics for that matter—is not a trivial
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exercise. Neither is it straightforward to decide which linguistic units encode descriptive meaning and which encode illocutionary force. This is essentially the topic of the present book.2 Accepting the division between descriptive or propositional meaning and force, we can make the observation that the different clause types introduced in the previous chapter may encode one and the same proposition, though communicating it with different force. Consider the overview in Table .. This gives rise to the idea that clause types—viewed as abstract constructional schemata—are associated with specific illocutionary forces or force potentials (Recanati : ; Brandt et al. : ; Alston : ch. ). Even though the illocutionary act represents the focus of our discussion, we need to remind ourselves that it is only one part of an utterance act or speech act. Austin (: –) additionally distinguishes the ‘locutionary act’ (essentially the stating of the propositional content) and the ‘perlocutionary act’ (various psychological responses induced in the addressee). Together with the illocutionary act, they form a speech act, even though the term ‘speech act’ is typically used as a synonym of ‘illocutionary act’. Table . offers an overview of these distinctions. Table 2.1 Clause types and associated illocutionary force Clause type
Associated force
Example
Declarative
Stating, asserting
John exercises regularly.
Polar interrogative
Questioning (yes–/no question) Does John exercise regularly?
Constituent interrogative Questioning (content question) Who exercises regularly? Imperative
Requesting
Exercise regularly, John.
Exclamative
Exclaiming
How regularly John exercises!
Table 2.2 The decomposition of speech acts (Austin : –; Levinson : ) Locutionary act
the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense and reference
Illocutionary act
the making of a statement, offer, promise, etc. in uttering a sentence, by virtue of the conventional force associated with it (or with its explicit performative paraphrase)
Perlocutionary act the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering a sentence, such effects being special to the circumstances of the utterance 2
For instance, one may try to handle the meaning of example () entirely in the realm of semantics.
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2. 2 P E R F O R M A TI V E A N D C O NS T AT I V E U T T E R A N CE S
By means of a simple illustration consider example () in which a content question is asked. The locutionary act contextually fixes the reference of the pronoun presenting the proposition that somebody opened the letter. On the illocutionary level, the sentence expresses a question asking the addressee to supply the missing information, while there may be perlocutionary effects relating to the fact that the letter had been opened without prior consent. Various alternative perlocutionary effects are imaginable. () Who opened it? a. Locutionary act: Somebody opened the letter. b. Illocutionary act: Tell me who opened the letter. c. Perlocutionary act: Inducing fear of consequences. Speech acts or illocutionary acts reveal a lot about the institutional basis of the societies we live in, and consequently about the institutional character of language. The term ‘institution’ is here not meant to be restricted to big organizational structures like schools, universities, judicial courts, police, army, enterprises, but also covers micro institutions like the family, friendship, workgroups, roped parties, soccer teams, and many more. All of these social institutions are based on specific social orders and rules with language typically mirroring these orders and rules. To a large extent, they also determine the kinds of speech acts that can be carried out or performed within them. For example, while the act of greeting is possible in all of them, the command Shoulder arms! is restricted to the military. Living in society and being part of different social institutions is like taking part in different games that follow their own distinct preset rules. Knowing these rules and the associated language games (Wittgenstein , ), which are typically not explicitly communicated, is vital for survival and social advancement. We will take a closer look at this performative character of language in the next section.
2.2 Performative and constative utterances When Austin (: ) set out to attack the aforementioned descriptive fallacy arguing in favour of the active and performative character of language, he began by hypothesizing that all utterances can in principle be assigned to one of two major types, namely either constative or
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performative utterances. The term ‘constative’ covers all descriptive utterances that used to be the main concern of language philosophers and whose truth conditions can be judged easily. In contrast, the term ‘performative’ describes those utterances with which the speaker is actively doing something. You can find this opposition illustrated in example (). () a. The Titanic sank in after hitting an iceberg. (constative) b. I hereby promise to clean the bathroom. (performative) The sentence in example (a) is true by virtue of its correspondence with world facts. Changing the year in this sentence or the object with which the Titanic collided would turn it into a false statement that could be easily judged false. Constative utterances, hence, are either true or false. Regarding performative utterances, the assignment of such a truth value is not possible, as such utterances bring about new facts as a consequence of being uttered. Example (b) establishes a promise, which we can view as an unwritten contract between speaker and hearer to the effect that the speaker performs the future act specified in the embedded clause (clean the bathroom). We cannot say whether this sentence is true or false at the moment of speaking. Only after the future act has been carried out can we judge whether the promise has been kept or not. Promises and similar performative utterances can be judged as successful, or ‘felicitous’ in Austin’s (: ) terms, if what they describe is brought about by their being stated. A promise like (b) is felicitous if I really mean it and eventually get down to cleaning the bathroom. Table . describes the so-called ‘felicity conditions’ associated with performative utterances in general terms. That they are in place can be easily tested. For example, if a soccer fan screams penalty during a running match, the effect will be nil, though if the referee says Table 2.3 Felicity conditions according to Austin (: –), as cited in Levinson (: ) A. (i) There must be a conventional procedure having a conventional effect. (ii) The circumstances and persons must be appropriate, as specified in the procedure. B.
The procedure must be executed (i) correctly and (ii) completely.
C.
Often, (i) the persons must have the requisite thoughts, feelings, and intentions, as specified in the procedure, and (ii) if consequent conduct is specified, then the relevant parties must so do.
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so, the match will be interrupted—even if there was no reason for giving a penalty.3 Austin (: –) introduced the distinction between constative and performative utterances knowing that it would not stand up to closer scrutiny. Still, it is an intuitively useful distinction that is worthwhile exploring in more detail. For instance, it appears as if performative utterances share a number of diagnostic morphosyntactic properties. Accepting example (b) as a typical performative utterance, we may hypothesize that these are active sentences with a first person subject, set in the present tense and non-progressive aspect, and containing a so-called ‘performative verb’ (i.e. promise). Performative verbs explicitly encode the social act that they bring about. Moreover, the adverb hereby can be added. And, indeed, changing these parameters demolishes the performative force of this sentence, partly rendering the resulting phrasings ungrammatical, partly unidiomatic. () a. b. c. d.
*I hereby promised to clean the bathroom. *You hereby promise to clean the bathroom. ?I am hereby promising to clean the bathroom. ?It is hereby promised by me that I clean the bathroom.
The difference between past and present tense is highly important. Consider the minimal pair shown in example (). Here, the present tense example in (a) is performative, while the past tense version in (b) is constative. () a. I promise to clean the bathroom. (performative) b. I promised to clean the bathroom. (constative) Unfortunately, all of the above-mentioned diagnostic features are open to debate. For a start, we may note with Recanati (: ) that prototypical performative utterances are systematically ambiguous between a performative and constative reading. Depending on whether we add the adverb hereby or the adverb often, the seemingly unambiguous performative utterances in example () can be toggled between the performative and the constative interpretation. But if this is the Austin (: ) says that violations against conditions A and B are different from violations against condition C. Austin calls the first type of violations ‘misfires’, since predetermined conventions are not followed adequately. The second type of violations is known as ‘abuses’, capturing insincere behaviour of the speaker. 3
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case, the performative–constative dichotomy must be basically pragmatic in nature. () a. I order you to come. b. I apologize for coming. c. I promise to come. In a similar vein, the restriction to first person subjects and active sentences fails to stand up to closer scrutiny, as the pair of examples in () makes clear, with (b) being as performative as (a). () a. I hereby fire you. b. You are hereby fired. To make matters even more complicated, it seems as if all utterances can be paraphrased using a performative verb and hence turned into performative utterances. For instance, all the utterance types conventionally expressed by the major clause types can be given a performative paraphrase using a performative verb. This is shown in Table .. Note that even declarative and exclamative clauses, whose content can clearly be judged as true or false, can receive such a performative paraphrase. It would appear, then, as if all utterances can be viewed as performative in one way or another, even statements (I hereby state that . . . ). Some utterances—clearly the majority—are implicitly performative, while others are explicitly performative by virtue of containing a performative verb. If, however, even statements (i.e. typical constative utterances) can be decomposed into a (performative) force component and a propositional component, this means that the distinction between performative and constative utterances can no longer be maintained and needs to be Table 2.4 Performative paraphrases of major utterance types Clause type
Implicit performative
Explicit performative
Declarative
John exercises regularly.
I hereby state that John exercises regularly.
Polar Does John exercise regularly? I hereby ask you if John exercises regularly. interrogative Constituent Who exercises regularly? interrogative
I hereby ask you who exercises regularly.
Imperative
Exercise regularly, John.
I hereby order you to exercise regularly, John.
Exclamative
How regularly John exercises!
I hereby express my amazement at how regularly John exercises.
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replaced by a more general theory of speech acts. Austin (: ch. ) tried to approximate such a theory of speech acts by classifying all observable performative verbs. This leads us to taxonomies of illocutionary acts, which we will investigate in the next section. It also supports the general validity of decomposing utterances into a force component and a propositional component (F(p)), as introduced in Section ..4
2.3 Taxonomies of illocutionary acts Performative verbs, as we showed above, can be found by testing whether the adverb hereby can be placed in front of such a verb in a first person, present tense, non-progressive, active context. This yields minimally contrastive contexts as shown in example (). To identify performative verbs, all we need to do is check each verb in a standard English dictionary in this context. The result will be a list of performative verbs. () a. I hereby declare/promise/apologize. b. *I hereby run/swim/write. Austin (: ) suggested this procedure to approximate a classification of illocutionary acts, the idea apparently being that at least the more important acts get lexicalized qua performative verbs. Even though he did not compile such a verb list, he proposed the following tentative classification of illocutionary acts (see Table .). Table 2.5 Classes of illocutionary acts according to Austin (: ) Illocutionary class Explanation
Examples
Verdictives
giving a verdict
acquit, convict, rule, grade
Exercitives
exercising power
appoint, command, order, warn
Commissives
committing the speaker to something bet, guarantee, promise, vow
Behabitives
expressing attitudes
apologize, thank, welcome
Expositives
making statements
answer, inform, report, state, tell
4 The observation that all utterances are performative in one way or another gave rise to the performative hypothesis—intensely explored in the s—according to which every sentence contains a performative formula of the type I hereby state/promise/ask/request/ apologize . . . in its syntactic and semantic specification (see ‘Topics for further research’ below and Chapter ).
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The classification shown in Table . represents an approximation and may easily be put into question. For example, the distinction between verdictives and exercitives is not particularly sharp, since both exert influence on the addressee. The class of behabitives is a ‘miscellaneous group’, as Austin (: ) himself remarks. The lack of a principled basis makes Austin’s classification vulnerable to attack. Still, his ideas formed the basis for all subsequent schemes of classification and have survived in one way or another. In contrast to Austin, Searle (: –) approached the classification of illocutionary acts in a more systematic way, proposing no fewer than twelve principles on which such a classification may be based. Not all of these principles have the same weight, some being more central to the classification than others. We will here focus on the first three dimensions, as these form the central pillars of Searle’s taxonomy. These are: i. the point or purpose of the act (illocutionary point); ii. direction of fit between words and the world; iii. the expressed psychological state.
The first dimension captures the intention of the speaker and is best understood as a superordinate category of illocutionary forces. For example, the point of making a promise is to oblige myself to carrying out some future act. A request counts as an attempt to get the hearer to do something. The point or purpose of a request is thus the same as that of a command, though their illocutionary forces are clearly different (Searle : ). Direction of fit distinguishes between acts in which the words correspond to the state of the world (word-to-world), and acts that are used to make the world agree with the words expressed (world-toword). All acts of stating and describing have a word-to-world direction of fit. Conversely, acts that are meant to change the world (requesting, promising, naming, etc.) belong into the latter category. The third dimension, psychological state, describes the speaker’s attitude towards the proposition expressed. To a large extent, these correlate with certain illocutionary classes. For example, the psychological state of ‘believing’ underlies statements, remarks, explanations, and similar acts; that of ‘intending’ is relevant for promises, vows, and threats; while ‘desiring’ is a precondition for requests, orders, and pleas (Searle : ). The relevance of this dimension can be made explicit
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by negating the speaker attitude underlying a specific illocutionary act, while performing this act. This is shown in example (), and you will certainly agree that these sentences are contradictory. () a. I hereby state that I love you, but I don’t believe it. b. I hereby promise to drink less alcohol, but I don’t intend to do so. c. I hereby order you to remove your car, but I don’t want you to do so. Searle (: –) uses these criteria to define and motivate five fundamental classes of illocutionary acts, namely ‘representatives’, ‘directives’, ‘commissives’, ‘expressives’, and ‘declarations’. Again, we can fall back on performative verbs to illustrate them, namely state (representative), request (directive), promise (commissive), apologize (expressive), and christen (declaration). The interaction of the three criteria in the formation of these classes can be gleaned from Table .. Direction of fit is indicated by upward and downward arrows. Expressives lack direction of fit, while declarations express no psychological state. Note once again that these labels stand for illocutionary classes, and not for specific acts. In this taxonomy, declarations occupy a special position, as they show a double direction of fit (word-to-world and world-to-word). This can be motivated as follows. A typical declaration such as proclaiming a couple husband and wife within, say, the Church of England, obviously has world-to-word direction of fit, as in uttering the performative formula I proclaim that they are husband and wife, the minister—addressing the congregation—changes the status of the couple from unmarried to married. In addition to that, however, the words must be uttered as required by the institution. No other formulation will do. The precise wording is shown in example (). The Table 2.6 Searle’s () classification of illocutionary acts Act
Point
Fit
State
Representatives
⊦ (assertion)
+
B (belief)
Directives
!
*
W (want)
Commissives
C
*
I (intent)
Expressives
E
∅
E (expression)
Declarations
D
⇕
∅
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words must be chosen according to world requirements and hence also show a word-to-world direction of fit. This double direction of fit makes declarations different from both representatives and directives or commissives. () In the presence of God, and before this congregation, N and N have given their consent and made their marriage vows to each other. They have declared their marriage by the joining of hands and by the giving and receiving of rings. I therefore proclaim that they are husband and wife. [www. churchofengland.org,] In Searle’s work, we find precursors to the taxonomy shown in Table .. For instance, in his monograph, he distinguished four principles or conditions, namely ‘propositional content condition’, ‘preparatory condition’, ‘essential condition’, and ‘sincerity condition’, widely known as ‘felicity conditions’. The latter two correspond to illocutionary point and psychological state in Table .. The propositional content condition appears as dimension number eight in Searle (: –), while the preparatory condition seems to have gone overboard. However, the idea of creating a multidimensional grid through which illocutionary classes could be identified was the same. Even though an improvement, Searle’s taxonomies are not beyond criticism either. We may note, for instance, that the point or purpose of an illocutionary act defines ad hoc classes without being based on an independent parameter. Psychological state depends on illocutionary point, not being independent either. The only robust dimension is direction of fit, the problem here being that two classes share the same direction of fit (directives, commissives). At the same time, the distinction between speaker and hearer, which is crucial for differentiating directives and commissives, has no basis in the classification. Some speech acts are difficult to subsume under any of Searle’s classes. Take wishes to a deity like If only she survived this illness!, often referred to as ‘optatives’. These should be commissives, but the speaker does not put him or herself under an obligation in uttering them, nor do they express speaker intention. We could try to subsume them under expressives, but they do more than just expressing some attitude. We need to bear in mind that Searle () intended and achieved a purely conceptual classification of illocutionary acts. The classification
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Table 2.7 Clause types in relation to Searle’s () classification of illocutionary acts Clause type
Illocutionary class
Declarative
Representatives / all classes
Polar interrogative
Directives
Constituent interrogative
Directives
Imperative
Directives
Exclamative
Expressives
bears only little relation to forms of expression and, hence, the illocutionary classes distinguished only show an extremely weak relationship to clause types. Consider the overview provided in Table .. We may view declarative clauses as geared towards expressing representative speech acts, though it may be more adequate to say that they are force-neutral, being able to convey all illocutionary classes, as we will see in Chapter . Interrogatives and imperatives are associated with directive force, while exclamative clauses transport expressives. In other words, while there are three clause types expressing directive acts, no such formal proliferation exists for the other illocutionary classes. There is no clause type associated with commissives, nor is there one for declarations. There are several alternative schemes of classification (see ‘Topics for further research’ below). All of these are open to criticism and debate. The ultimate objective of discussing and classifying illocutionary acts consists in a ‘specification of all the possible functions of language’ (Levinson : ), even though it is quite unclear whether such an exhaustive specification can ever be achieved.
2.4 Direct and indirect speech acts Our exposition has so far been based on the assumption that clause types—to a certain extent at least—determine the force expressed through them. Following Recanati (: ), we may call this their ‘illocutionary force potential’. According to an earlier, more radical proposal, illocutionary force is held to be directly associated with sentential form types and, hence, part of their constructional meaning. This is known as the ‘literal force hypothesis’ or ‘literal meaning
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hypothesis’ (Gazdar : ; Vanderveken : ), directly associating declarative clauses with representative speech acts, interrogatives, and imperatives with directive acts, and exclamative clauses with expressive acts (see Table .). The assumption of the literal force hypothesis, however convincing it may seem at first sight, runs into problems in those cases in which declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamative clauses are not used to express these associated forces. This happens more frequently than you may be aware of. Let us consider a few sentences that obviously violate the literal force hypothesis. () a. I will answer your email as soon as possible. b. Can you pass the salt? c. Sleep well. In the appropriate circumstances, the declarative clause in example (a) will be understood as a promise, the interrogative clause in (b) as a request to pass the salt, and the imperative in (c) as a wish. None of the expressed forces corresponds to the literal force hypothesis. How can we deal with these counterexamples? Even though the approach taken in this book will be to weaken, if not abandon, the literal force hypothesis, at least in the strong form stated above, for the time being, we may deal with the examples in () by saying that they are used in situations that enforce a reinterpretation of their literal meaning. Uttering a statement about your future activities as in (a) will signal to the addressee that you are intending a commissive act (I promise to answer your email). Similarly, asking the question in (b) in a situation in which it is obvious to everybody that you have the ability to pass the salt causes it to be understood as a request (Pass the salt). And given that we cannot control the sleeping process of others, the imperative in (c) cannot be interpreted as a command or request, but as a wish (I wish that you sleep well). Such contextual reinterpretations of the forces literally associated with the basic clause types are known as ‘indirect speech acts’, using their corresponding literal forces being referred to as ‘direct speech acts’. According to this idea, which was essentially put forward by Searle () following Grice’s () ideas about literal and nonliteral uses of language, sentences are first and foremost interpreted literally, i.e. based on the meaning of the elements contained in them, though they may be reinterpreted contextually following the
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conversational maxims that we introduced in Chapter . All basic clause types have an associated direct force that the hearer is required to reinterpret according to contextual requirements. Accepting the distinction between literal and non-literal meaning or direct and indirect speech acts has far-reaching consequences, since a very substantial number of utterances—especially those expressed by declarative clauses—now need to be analysed as indirect speech acts. This concerns any kind of stated hints for action (implicit performatives) (), many modalized declarative clauses (), and, crucially, all explicit performatives (i.e. declaratives containing a performative verb), as in example ().5 Similar observations can be made—mutatis mutandis—for the other clause types. () a. The fish smells terrible. (directive; request to open the window) b. You have not left? (directive; question) () a. You should drink less. (directive; order) b. You may leave now. (commissive; granting permission) () a. I hereby promise to be honest. (commissive) b. I hereby order you to stop. (directive) Another consequence of accepting the literal force hypothesis in this rigid form is that all speech acts that are not directly associated with a specific clause type need to be expressed indirectly (Recanati : ). This chiefly concerns commissives and declarations, which are typically expressed by declarative clauses (I will surely do it meaning ‘I promise to do it’ and You are free meaning ‘I hereby release you from prison’). As this rigid analysis produces a proliferation of indirect speech acts, which all need to be calculated on the part of the addressee, it is clearly untenable and will not be accepted here. Instead, we may try to work with a modified view according to which all indirect acts presuppose the existence of a corresponding direct act (following Recanati : ). Since only representatives, directives, and expressives have syntactic correlates qua clause types, only these could be the target of indirect acts. Accordingly, the commissive acts in the above examples would count as direct speech acts (as there is no commissive clause type), 5
More information on such indirect uses of declarative clauses will be presented in Chapter .
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though the other sentences would express indirect acts. Such a move clearly reduces the number of indirect speech acts expressed with declarative clauses, but the rationale for treating example (a) differently from (b) is not fully transparent. We may further restrict the number of indirect speech acts by saying that some of them are conventionally expressed by certain sentences, even though the underlying clause type may be associated with a different illocutionary class. Take a look at the examples in (), which all seem highly formulaic, although they represent specimens of the declarative, interrogative, and imperative type. Such examples suggest the existence of ‘speech act constructions’, meaning the association of certain sentential form types with specific illocutionary forces. We will come back to this idea in the subsequent chapters. () a. I could do with another glass of wine. (declarative; request) b. Can you pass the salt? (polar interrogative; request) c. Have another slice of meat. (imperative; offer) What we could also try to do is to allow certain clause types not to be associated with particular speech acts. A rigid interpretation of the literal force hypothesis would not allow this, but we may try to be more flexible. Since declarative clauses can in principle express all types of speech acts, we may propose that they have no associated direct act and are force-neutral. This is essentially the position adopted by Recanati (: –), which will be explored in more detail in Chapter . In a similar way, we may try to reduce the pragmatic forces expressed by imperatives to components of denotational meaning from which these can follow (see Chapter ). As a matter of fact, indirect speech acts phrased as questions may end up being the only instances for which the distinction between direct and indirect speech acts needs to be maintained, if it cannot be abandoned completely. In conclusion, we have seen that a rigid interpretation of the literal force hypothesis requires the assumption of indirect speech acts, of which there are then very many. Alternatively, we may postulate a weak association of clause types and illocutionary force that may be described using the term ‘illocutionary force potential’ (Recanati : ). This potential can be viewed as part of their constructional meaning or mood. This gives rise to notions like ‘declarative mood’, ‘interrogative mood’, or ‘imperative mood’, even though the term ‘mood’ also has uses more closely linked to issues of modality (see Chapters and ).
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2.5 Politeness theory The non-literal use of language qua indirect speech acts is an interesting observation per se, but as such does not explain why speakers resort to indirect language instead of expressing their message directly using literal language. As a rule, the use of indirect language is more elaborate and cumbersome. One could argue that it had better be avoided for the sake of communicative efficacy. This is made clear by example () where the direct request in (a) is much shorter than the indirect one in (b). () a. Open the window. b. Could you open the window? To be sure, we all prefer the indirect request over the direct one in unmarked situations due to its being more polite. The expression of politeness appears to be the main functional difference. The direct request would only be appropriate in situations that require immediate action, such as hazardous situations. But why is the indirect request felt to be more polite and why do we want to be polite in the first place? We may suspect that indirect and in this sense more elaborate language is more polite because it establishes distance between what is said and what is meant. This idea seems to be confirmed by examples like (), where a rather longish declarative clause followed by a tag hides a request (a), a polar interrogative conveys a polite suggestion (b), and a declarative offers a refusal by means of giving an explanation (c). () a. You don’t happen to pass by a coffee machine on your way to my office, do you? b. Couldn’t we just as well go to London first and to Southampton later? c. A: How about going for a drink tonight?—B: I’ve got an exam tomorrow. This idea is too simplistic, however, since explicit performative sentences, as in example (), are felt to be extremely polite. This kind of politeness cannot be subsumed under distancing. () a. I do apologize for telling you, but I simply forgot to because . . . b. I hereby wish to assure you that . . .
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Moreover, it is not the case that the point of using indirect speech acts is invariably that of expressing politeness. Rhetorical questions, as in example (a), want to be persuasive. Nor is it the case that direct acts are necessarily impolite. The offer in (b) is as polite as it possibly can be. () a. Who would ever go to Dubai for skiing? b. Take more fruit. There is plenty of it. A coherent framework for the analysis of the above phenomena and thus for capturing the politeness potential of indirect speech acts is offered by politeness theory (Brown and Levinson ). We will briefly discuss it here, since it convincingly explains why people want to express verbal politeness in certain situations and why indirect speech acts are a useful mechanism for conveying politeness. Having said that, this is not the place to examine the pros and cons of politeness theory in detail. Politeness theory departs from the assumption that all human beings are equipped with an inherent psychological concept called ‘face’. We may view it as denoting self-respect, self-esteem, or simply our selfimage, as explicated by metaphors such as lose face, save face, or give face. Face is not an acquired concept, but rather one that is tied to our species as such, even though there may be cultural variation with respect to how this concept plays out. Face is a widely accepted concept in psychology and sociology originating in Goffman’s () work. Brown and Levinson (: ) stipulate that there are two sides to this concept of face, namely ‘negative face’ and ‘positive face’, as defined below. This distinction is crucial for understanding how verbal politeness comes about. i. Negative face: the want of every ‘competent adult member’ that his actions be unimpeded by others. ii. Positive face: the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others.
Negative face, thus, captures our desire to be independent, while positive face relates to our need for social integration and acceptance. This is a balance that we constantly need to strike in our daily lives. The problem is that social interaction and all concomitant communication is inherently face-threatening in there being a potential to tread on the hearer’s ground and to give away one’s own territory. If I apologize to
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2. 5 P O L I T E N E S S T H E O R Y
Table 2.8 Four ways to threaten face Negative face
Positive face
Speaker
promising
apologizing
Hearer
requesting
criticizing
you, I humble myself, thus losing ground. My asking you a favour may corner you, leading to your losing ground. If I criticize you in public, your self-image weakens. And, if I have to make promises, I am effectively constraining my freedom. The distinction between negative and positive face gives rise to four basic ways to hurt each other’s face, assuming a minimal communicative situation involving speaker and hearer. These are summarized and exemplified in Table .. Even though social interaction is face-threatening, verbal communication offers a means to alleviate the pain, as it were. Let us consider the scenarios identified in Table . one after the other, illustrating the matter with examples of high and low face-threatening potential, respectively. Example (a) maximally damages the speaker’s negative face, while the alternative shown in (b) considerably reduces the face loss. In a similar way, example (a) risks the positive face of the speaker, with example (b) representing a much less painful alternative. Note that (b) and (b) would count as indirect speech acts. () a. I hereby promise to be more careful. b. More care will be taken in the future. () a. I hereby apologize for what I have done. b. This could have been avoided. We can go through the same scenarios on the side of the addressee. Example () shows requests, there being a clear face threat differential between (a) and (b). Requests threaten the negative face of the addressee. In example (), the speaker puts the hearer’s positive face at risk, but (b) is considerably less face-threatening than (a). Again, indirect acts are used to reduce face threat. () a. Return my book immediately. b. Could you return my book at your earliest convenience? () a. What you did was completely inadequate. b. I think we can improve on this.
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Without redressive action, baldly Positive politeness
On record Do the FTA
With redressive action Negative politeness
Off record Don’t do the FTA
Figure 2.2 Politeness strategies Source: Brown and Levinson (). Politeness: Some Universals in Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown and Levinson (: –) argue that politeness as a social construct arises as a consequence of avoiding face-threatening acts. We consider the b-sentences in the above examples as more polite because they are less face-threatening for the interlocutors. This assumes a choice mechanism on the part of the speaker—conscious or unconscious—to select more or less polite language, resulting in competing strategies to perform face-threatening acts. Even though face-threatening acts cannot be avoided per se, there are at least strategies available to mask them. These are summarized in Figure .. To begin with, speakers may decide to do or not do the facethreatening act (FTA). If it is done, it can be performed with overt (‘on record’) or covert (‘off record’) intentions. This contrast is illustrated in example (). Being off record essentially means giving hints, while you state your intentions explicitly in the on-record mode. () a. This sausage looks really tasty. (off record) b. Can I have this sausage? (on record) If you decide to go on record, you may further choose to communicate your intentions directly (‘without redressive action’) or indirectly (‘with redressive action’), the latter strategy adding politeness. () a. Give me this sausage. (on record, without redressive action) b. Can I have this sausage? (on record, with redressive action) Finally, the use of redressive action may either result in positive or negative politeness, depending on the kind of face threat avoided. If I want you to give me one of your sausages, I can either try to minimize my request, as in example (a), or to maximize your self-esteem by flattery (b).
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() a. Could I perhaps have this sausage? (on record, with redressive action, negative politeness) b. I’d really love to eat one of these fantastic sausages of yours. (on record, with redressive action, positive politeness) We need to bear in mind that Brown and Levinson’s () model is based on the psychological concept of face, and not on societal rules of etiquette and good demeanour. It cannot explain why, say, in one culture you need to invoke a verbal routine before eating (Bon appetit!), while in another culture you simply dig in—if this can be explained at all. Nor can it as such explain why the imperative is perceived as impolite in Anglo-Saxon cultures, though it is perfectly polite in Slavic cultures. The model is not concerned with such politeness phenomena. What it tries to factor in to account for observations of the latter kind, though, are three social variables that can calculate the ‘weightiness’ or seriousness of a face-threatening act. These variables are ‘distance’, ‘power’, and ‘ranking of impositions’, as defined below. i. the ‘social distance’ (D) of S and H (a symmetric relation); ii. the relative ‘power’ (P) of S and H (an asymmetric relation); iii. the absolute ranking (R) of impositions in the particular culture. (Brown and Levinson : )
I take it that the variables distance and power are largely selfexplanatory. The ranking of impositions is slightly more troublesome, as it assumes cultural consensus on the risks and costs associated with asking favours or uttering criticism. But it seems reasonable to assume that asking a stranger for the time is much less face-threating than asking for material goods. Similar considerations lead Brown and Levinson (: –) to the postulation of the formula shown in (). This means that the weightiness (Wx) of a face-threatening act is a function of the distance between speaker and hearer, their power relations, and the culture-specific ranking of impositions. () Wx = D(S, H) + P(H, S) + Rx Brown and Levinson’s () model of politeness has received a lot of praise—and it clearly is still the best model around, but there has also been some criticism. I will here restrict myself to mentioning two critical points. On the one hand, it has been argued that the concept
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of face is not culturally independent, effectively nagging at the roots of politeness theory. For example, Matsumoto () claims that face is a fundamentally Western—even Anglo-Saxon—concept and that for Eastern cultures like that of Japan the more fundamental concept is the individual’s position in society and their acceptance in a group. Japanese people, so the argument goes, do not see themselves as independent individuals, but rather as parts of a larger whole, so that the face wants introduced above may become a side issue. Hence, politeness cannot be based on face wants, but needs to be modelled around position in society. On the other hand, politeness theory has been criticized for saying nothing about impoliteness or rude language. Since we also use language to attack and confront other people, it would seem that a theory of polite language use should also address these reverse issues. Culpeper () offers an extension to Brown and Levinson’s () model that allows the integration of impolite language use.
2.6 Conversation analysis Some indirect speech acts are conventionalized to such an extent that there can be little doubt about the intention behind them. If I say Could you lend me some money?, you will understand this as a request, and not as a suggestion or an offer. This does not generalize, though. Rather, many utterances conveying indirect acts allow several interpretations, and only the specific contextual setting will decide which of the possible interpretations is the intended one. Let us consider some examples. The indirect act expressed by the polar interrogative in example () is at least ambiguous between an offer and a request, with the preceding utterance practically deciding which act is intended. () a. S: Can I talk to you about my seminar paper?—P: Yes, could you come to my office tomorrow? (offer) b. S: I hear you are looking for student assistants.—P: Yes, could you come to my office tomorrow? (request) Indirect speech acts expressed by declarative clauses are even less restricted in their interpretation and may be used to convey a host of intentions. This point is illustrated in example (), where the clause I’ve got an appointment receives a variety of interpretations.
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2. 6 C O N V E R S A TI O N A NA L Y S I S
() a. A: Could I talk to you?—B: I’ve got an appointment. (refusal) b. A: You do look very busy.—B: I’ve got an appointment. (explanation) c. A: You can’t talk to the boss now.—B: I’ve got an appointment. (request) d. A: I’m never allowed to talk to the boss.—B: I’ve got an appointment. (bragging) But, if this is the case, it becomes practically impossible to predict the indirect act from the direct one. Considering the statement I’ve got an appointment in isolation is not a suitable basis to explain its uses as refusals, explanations, requests, etc. What is even more troublesome is that the utterance preceding the indirect act largely appears to determine its interpretation. This, however, means that the study of indirect speech acts needs to be embedded within an analysis of its context.6 Such an approach is offered by conversation analysis, as expounded in Levinson (, b), Sacks (), Clark (), and Schegloff (). Here, the focus does not lie on isolated sentences and utterances, as is the typical approach adopted in much of linguistics, but on the conversational context. Conversation analysis is chiefly interested in the interactional problems raised by communicative partners and in the communicative strategies adopted to solve them. It clearly works bottom-up. For example, if I want to invite you for lunch, this represents an interactional problem and language offers a variety of strategies to solve it. In a similar way, medical examinations, exam situations, public debates, gossiping, telephone conversations, falling in love, splitting up again, playing with children are challenging interactional problems. You may not have looked at these situations as ‘problems’, but once you begin to understand how complex these situations are and in what a structured way we go about solving them, it becomes clear that this is a genuine field of research. The minimal interactional unit investigated in conversation analysis is called ‘turn’, giving rise to constructs such as ‘turn design’, ‘turn 6
On top of these main social actions, we may negotiate a host of secondary issues in conversation (Levinson b: ). For example, if I greet you, I may do so using such a tone of voice so that you understand my unhappiness about meeting you. Here, the greeting would count as the main business and the expression of aversion as a side issue. Even though these side issues are an interesting problem in themselves, we need to focus on the main business here.
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allocation’, ‘turn-taking’, and ‘transition relevance place’. It is indeed remarkable how seamlessly conversation flows with there being surprisingly little overlap between turns and no significant gaps between them (Levinson : –; Clark : –; Schegloff : ). It is as if communicative partners work in synchrony managing conversation together, trying to anticipate what the other is going to say. Levinson (b: ) points out that next turns need to be planned long before current turns terminate. Otherwise the short gaps between turns could not be explained. But such a system can only work if all communicative partners constantly generate hypotheses about the most likely or most adequate next turn. In other words, we project our mutual behaviour. Correctly projecting the next turn seems like a challenging task, given the available options, but conversational structure—in tandem with our social behaviour—offers important clues to facilitate this process. For example, if I ask you a question, your likely next turn is an answer. If I make a request, the next expected turn is either compliance or denial. If I invite you to my party, you will continue by accepting or refusing. And so on and so forth. Such observations have given rise to the notion of ‘adjacency pairs’, i.e. sequences of turns in which the first turn functions as a very good predictor of the second turn. In Schegloff and Sacks (: –), Levinson (: –), and Schegloff (: ), adjacency pairs are defined by the properties listed below. i. they consist of two adjacent turns; ii. they are produced by different speakers; iii. they are ordered into first part and second part with no reversal possible; iv. first part and second part need to be of specific types.
To be sure, even though adjacency pairs are ordered and typed, there are always options available for the second parts, of which some are more likely to occur than others. If I ask you a favour, the preferred second turn is acceptance, refusal being dispreferred. Adjacency pairs are thus additionally constrained by what is known as ‘preference organization’ (see Schegloff : ch. ). Table . correlates some common first parts with their preferred or dispreferred second parts. As such, these observations do not help us to explain why requests, offers, and invitations are often performed as indirect speech acts.
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Table 2.9 First parts and preferred or dispreferred second parts in adjacency pairs (Levinson : ) First parts
Request
Offer/invite Assessment
Question
Blame
Expected answer
Denial
Second parts Preferred
Acceptance Acceptance Agreement
Dispreferred Refusal
Refusal
Disagreement Unexpected answer Admission or non-answer
However, there is more to conversational structure than just adjacency pairs. Levinson (: –) proposes that indirect speech acts play a crucial role in so-called ‘pre-sequences’, i.e. conversational turns used to check whether a subsequent turn can be successful or not. This is illustrated in example (), where the first turn can be considered a prerequest making sure that the real request in the second turn can be successful. As Schegloff (: ) puts it, ‘pre-sequences . . . are measures undertaken by the speaker . . . of a base first pair part to maximize the occurrence of a sequence with a preferred second pair part’. () A. B. A. B.
Do you happen to have money on you? Yes. I need euros, left my money at home. Sure, here you go.
Levinson (: , –; see also Gordon and Lakoff ) argues that indirect requests—as in ()—frequently come to be used as prerequests precisely because they question one of the preconditions of the request. These may be existential preconditions, but also those relating to the addressee’s ability or willingness, or the speaker’s desires. Hence, conversation analysis makes correct predictions concerning the occurrence of indirect speech acts. Moreover, indirect speech acts seem to arise because the two intermediate turns in examples like () are often omitted, thus being an artefact of analysing them in isolation. A similar point is made by Clark (: –; : –), who views indirect speech acts as ‘elective construals’ involving speaker and hearer. Consider the three cases of talk exchange shown in Table .. In this study, a woman called Susan phoned fifty restaurants asking whether they accepted credit cards. She used a question that could be understood directly or indirectly as a request to name the accepted
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Table 2.10 Elective construal according to Clark (: ) Case
Participants
Exchange
Case
Susan:
Do you accept credit cards?
Manager:
Yes, we do.
Susan:
Do you accept credit cards?
Manager:
Yes, we accept Mastercard and Visa.
Susan:
Do you accept credit cards?
Manager:
We accept Mastercard and Visa.
Case Case
Manager’s construal
question
question + request
request
credit cards. The managers responded in three different ways, namely by answering the question, by answering the question and responding to the request, and just by responding to the request. The way the question is understood depends on the manager and ultimately it is the addressee who decides which action to ascribe to the speaker’s utterance (Levinson’s b: ‘action ascription’). You should not misunderstand the preceding paragraphs as a comprehensive summary of conversation analysis. All I wanted to do here is look at the ways in which this analytical framework can help us to understand indirect speech acts. It should have become clear, though, that there are many other issues worthy of investigation (see also Chapter ).
2.7 Summary With this chapter, I wanted to persuade you that using language means doing things, arguing against the widely held view that language is merely a tool for describing and remembering events. Needless to say, the descriptive function of language is highly important, especially in our script-based cultures, but this should not preclude us from recognizing that there is a host of other social activities that can be performed using language. Verbally realized social actions such as christening, promising, apologizing, requesting, pleading guilty are about doing something, rather than describing. We also learned that social actions and their verbal encoding are two distinct pairs of shoes, with there being more social actions than there are grammatical
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2. 8 T O P I C S F O R F U R T H E R R E S E A R C H
mechanisms of encoding. I leave it open whether all social actions can in principle be verbally encoded or not (see Searle : – on the ‘principle of expressibility’). We will come back to this problem in Chapter . The view of language as doing something leads to the separation of utterances into a force component (i.e. the part specifying the doing) and a propositional component (i.e. the descriptive part). Force may be lexically and grammatically encoded, though it may also be left completely implicit. Moreover, it turned out that even descriptive utterances can be conceived of as doing something qua presenting speaker beliefs to the hearer (I hereby state that . . . ). We tried to motivate the replacement of Austin’s () original dichotomy of performative and constative utterances by a more general theory of speech acts (Austin ; Searle ), the latter being based on independently motivated dimensions. We need to bear in mind, though, that speech act theory is about verbal acts, not social acts in general. Interestingly, speech act theory suggests a heavy bias of languages towards the encoding of directives, as there are two widely attested clause types available for their realization (interrogatives and imperatives). The assumption that certain social acts are wired into specific sentential patterns (via clause types) generates the problem of indirect speech acts, as declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives can be used for functions other than stating, asking questions, and uttering requests. These represent a serious problem, raising the question of how addressees can recognize them properly and how they can calculate the indirect act from the underlying direct one. We observed that the problem is facilitated by processes of conventionalization, the systematic asserting or questioning of the relevant direct acts, politeness functions, as well as the fact that a sharp distinction between direct and indirect act may simply be irrelevant in certain situations.
2.8 Topics for further research Austin () and Searle () have given us taxonomies of speech acts that are still widely discussed today. As I mentioned above, there have also been proposals for alternative taxonomies, but these attracted less attention and typically use Austin and Searle’s taxonomies as a reference point. Ideas for extensions and modifications can
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inter alia be found in Hancher (), who proposes subclasses of commissives and declarations, and Alston (), who basically seems to fuse Austin’s and Searle’s schemes of classification. Searle and Vanderveken () as well as Vanderveken () claim that Searle’s original taxonomy practically exhausts all possible speech acts. Vanderveken (: ) explicitly states that these are ‘the five basic universal ways to use language’. This may be open to debate. Further refinements and extensions of speech act theory can be found in the volume edited by Tsohatzidis (). For further discussion and references see Sadock (: ). In the analysis of language, there always arises the question of how much meaning to assign to expressions, constructions, and abstract (i.e. mental) syntactic structures. How much meaning is in language itself, and how much is reconstructed from the context? Linguists disagree strongly on this point, with there being tension between minimalistic and maximalistic assumptions. The performative hypothesis mentioned in this chapter can be viewed as an especially maximalistic theory in the above sense, since it holds that each sentence comes with a specification for the illocutionary act it is used to carry out. We can view it as an attempt to reduce illocutionary acts to ordinary syntax and semantics. Following extensive debate, it became clear that the performative hypothesis is untenable. As we could not discuss this hypothesis here, I suggest consulting Levinson (: –) for an accessible overview (see also Chapter ). Indirect speech acts could not exist without the literal force hypothesis, and more generally the assumption that meaning arises in the addressee as a consequence of various irrelevancies associated with the literal meaning of a sentence. If I say to you This one is moving in a crowded parking lot, you will understand this to mean that there may be parking space available soon, even though I did not say this. On hearing my utterance, you begin to generate contextual inferences that make my utterance relevant. Grice () called these meanings ‘implicatures’, as introduced in Chapter . Now, it is a matter of some debate how conscious or subconscious these inferential processes are, and it is even debated whether it is justified to assume them in the first place. The main problem is that implicatures are too pervasive a phenomenon to be calculated all the time. This is not meant to deny their existence, but we also seem to rely extensively on interactional and verbal routines in combination with immense background knowledge. You can follow up
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this discussion inter alia by consulting Sperber and Wilson (), Recanati (), as well as Wilson and Sperber (). In this chapter, we looked at politeness theory and conversation analysis from the perspective of what these frameworks have to say on indirect speech acts. Needless to say, they offer a lot more and there are also competing views on the underlying issues. Different approaches to politeness are discussed in Fraser () and Eelen (). Accessible introductions to conversation analysis are offered by Levinson (), Sacks (), Clark (), and Schegloff ().
2.9 Exercises Basic level 1. In this chapter, we argued that utterances can be dissected into a propositional component and a force component. Take a look at the following examples and identify these components. i. John went to Canada. ii. Did John go to Canada? iii. Where did John go? iv. Go to Canada, John. 2. Explain and illustrate the terms ‘locutionary act’, ‘illocutionary act’, and ‘perlocutionary act’. 3. The examples below show a number of constative and performative utterances. Modify them in such a way that they become members of the opposite class. i. I often apologize to you. (constative) ii. I hereby promise to drink less beer. (performative) iii. You are hereby relieved of your duties. (performative) iv. You promised to clean the carpet. (constative) v. The floor is open for discussion. (performative) a. Name the lexical and grammatical units that are typically associated with performative utterances. b. Do you think that any of these units makes an utterance necessarily performative? Discuss. c. Can utterances be performative without there being any overt lexical and grammatical units marking them as such? Discuss.
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Intermediate level 1. Consider the examples of indirect speech acts listed below. We argued in this chapter that they arise because the direct acts question or assert a precondition of the indirect acts. a. Name the direct and indirect act performed by the sentences below. b. Identify the preconditions questioned or asserted. i. I am hungry. ii. Can I use this pen? iii. Will you be quiet? iv. I would like to have more tea. v. I will be there. 2. Consider the following passage taken from Searle (: ). Which important contrast is it meant to illustrate? Suppose a man goes to the supermarket with a shopping list given him by his wife on which are written the words ‘beans, butter, bacon, and bread’. Suppose, as he goes around with his shopping cart selecting these items, he is followed by a detective who writes down everything he takes. As they emerge from the store both shopper and detective will have identical lists. But the function of the two lists will be quite different. In the case of the shopper’s list, the purpose of the list is, so to speak, to __________; the man is supposed to make his actions fit the list. In the case of the detective, the purpose of the list is to __________; the man is supposed to make the list fit the actions of the shopper.
3. Take a look at the following exchange and try to analyse it in terms of direct and indirect speech acts. A: I’m so hungry. B: There’s food in the fridge. A: I’m on a slimming diet. B: Interesting. Why did you start that? a. There is a misunderstanding in the above exchange. Can you identify it? b. Where do indirect speech acts arise? In the speaker, in the hearer, or in both? c. Look at the above exchange in terms of elective construal (Clark : ) or action ascription (Levinson b: ). Which consequences does that have for the distinction between direct and indirect speech acts?
Advanced level 1. Explicit performatives of the type I hereby name this ship the Mare Frisium are troublesome beasts, as we have seen. In a short research paper, discuss
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whether the performative prefix I hereby name belongs to the locutionary or the illocutionary act in the sense of Austin (). 2. Clark (: –) considers indirect speech acts as ‘elective construals’ and tried to prove this point by conducting an experiment in which restaurants where phoned to enquire about possible payment options (Clark ). The relevant questions could be understood directly, indirectly, or both directly and indirectly (see the above discussion around Table .). Chose any kind of store or restaurant where it would be suitable to ask about the acceptance of credit cards. After calling at least twenty different establishments, what are your findings? Do they match Clark’s (1996) results? 3. Linguists, philosophers, and conversation analysts try to deal with the phenomenon of ‘indirect speech acts’ in different ways. a. Explore the different positions on indirect speech acts using the literature cited in this chapter. b. In a research paper of maximally , words, summarize and compare these positions and try to develop your own perspective.
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3 Clauses and clause types
. Clauses and sentences
. Clause types
. Formal exponents of clause types
. Intonation
. Major and minor clause types
. Clause type paradigms
. Summary
. Topics for further research
. Exercises
This chapter continues the introduction and definition of a range of fundamental notions, concepts, and assumptions that we started in the previous chapter. While Chapter concerned itself with the pragmatic domain of illocutionary force or speaker intentions, we will here introduce the machinery necessary to talk about clauses and clause types— including the terms ‘clause’ and ‘clause type’ themselves. Accordingly, we will mainly focus on issues of syntax and semantics, strongly backgrounding illocutionary force. Moreover, we will address various methodological problems in the identification of clause types as well as the major theoretical approaches that have been proposed for their analysis. A fundamental problem in the discussion of clause types concerns the number of distinguishable types and their properties. For this, we need to explicate and motivate the parameters used for their identification. This is not a trivial issue, as we will see. The number of clause types distinguishable in a language is not merely an empirical problem, since the parameters involved are highly theory dependent, and perhaps
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also language dependent. As languages have different architectures (e.g. more analytically versus more synthetically oriented), the assumption of the same (formal) parameters for all languages invariably leads to incompatible clause type systems. We also need to explore the formal inventory available for the encoding of clause types. This concerns, inter alia, intonation, constituent order, missing elements, particles, interrogative words, various verbal affixes, and sentential tags. The main problem here is which and how many such formal properties define a clause type and in which ways they interact. Clause types may interact with the mood system of a language and sometimes the two concepts are equated. Intonation presents us with a special problem to be dealt with in a separate section. Theories of clause types typically differentiate between ‘major’ and ‘minor’ clause types. The former includes the familiar categories of declarative, interrogative, and imperative, while the latter is a cover term for a wide variety of less prominent types such as hortative, optative, rogative. The evidence gathered in this book will be used to argue for a gradient conception of clause types, but the details of this idea need to wait until Chapter . Since clause types involve syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, theories thereof differ in the weight they assign to these levels of linguistic analysis. Some theories define clause types independently of pragmatics, while others insist that this level needs to be taken into consideration and forms a definitional criterion. In addition, we find modular and non-modular—or compositional and construction-based—approaches, but these distinctions reflect very general differences in the conception of grammar. 3.1 Clauses and sentences Identifying clauses and sentences is not an easy matter. For one thing, we may argue that spoken language, especially natural conversation, by and large represents a juxtaposition of phrases (noun phrases, verb phrases, prepositional phrases, etc.), i.e. units of language below the clausal or sentential level (Miller : ). An attested example taken from a corpus is shown in (). This conversation contains several nonclausal utterances: when, in second, of what, English, in the common room. If we consider such utterances as the primary units of verbal interaction, it would appear that clauses and especially sentences are
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artefacts of written language and our Western tradition of grammar writing—and to some extent they certainly are. () A: B: A: B: A: B: A: B: A: B: A:
How long did you do English for Uh I did it for about half a term When In s second Yeah but you weren’t doing you weren’t you weren’t really doing English though were you really you were doing In the second year I was I was doing a unit officially I was doing a unit of English Of what English Uh d’you mean of what kind of English Yes what do they call it Uh I can’t remember we had a lecture by that guy Rene Weis over there he’s uhm he was a really nice guy Lovely in the common room that’s a lovely place to have it [ICE-GB, SA-]
At the same time, most conversations contain connected linguistic units that supersede the phrase level as such. In example (), this concerns units like I did it and I was doing a unit of English. These are juxtapositions of noun phrases and verb phrases (or just nouns and verbs), which we will refer to as ‘clauses’ relying on a common convention. We can identify such clauses for basically three reasons. First, they occur frequently enough to arise as cognitive abstractions from empirical data. In other words, as grammarians we can identify patterns in the data. Second, certain items used on their own are perceived as incomplete or ungrammatical (John devoured the duck versus *John devoured), i.e. these items depend on others. And thirdly, clausal units have semantic correlates that we perceive as coherent wholes, often called ‘propositions’ or ‘situations’. Clauses describe minimal actional or relational frames. Following Tesnière (/), we may say that clauses represent complete mini-dramas specifying the requisite actors and activities. Once we define clauses in the way provided above, many linguistic units come to qualify as such. Example () illustrates some typical cases, namely an intransitive clause (a), a transitive clause (b) including topicalization of object and passivization, a ditransitive clause (c), as well as these clauses in combination with different adverbial
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modifications (d–f). Looking at these clauses from the perspective of the verb, we may say that the verb determines the number and type of phrases around it and that the adverbial modifiers add precision to the situations described. () a. John slept. b. John ate the pizza. / The pizza, John ate. / The pizza was eaten by John. c. John bought me a pizza. d. John slept the whole day. e. Yesterday, John ate the pizza. f. John bought me a pizza from the pizza shop around the corner with his pocket money. The clause represents the highest level of grammatical abstraction, towering constructs like phoneme, syllable, morpheme, word, and phrase. As pointed out in Chapter , it is an exocentric structure, since it arises out of the combination of two or more phrases of different types (noun phrase + verb phrase = clause), thus contrasting with the endocentric character of phrases and the word classes that underlie them (noun + noun = noun phrase).1 Clauses may be combined yielding complex units called ‘sentences’, even though the term ‘sentence’ frequently comes to be used in the sense of ‘clause’. Example () shows the combination of two simple clauses into one complex clause or sentence. Being located at the same structural level, they are coordinated by the conjunction and. () John ate the pizza and Mary ate the sushi. Clauses may also be combined in asymmetric relationships in which one clause can be analysed as dominating the other. We may say that one clause depends on the other. The dominating clause is called the ‘main’ or ‘matrix’ clause, while the dependent clause is known as the ‘subordinate’ clause. Example () provides some illustration using a range of subordinators and types of subordinate clauses, namely temporal, causal, adversative, and concessive—collapsed in (a), conditional (b), complementizer or complement clause (c), and relative marker or relative clause (d). 1
In Tesnière’s (/) dependency grammar, verbs are the highest elements in syntactic structure and, hence, verb phrases are coextensive with minimal clauses.
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() a. John ate the pizza after/because/whereas/although Mary ate the sushi. b. John would eat the pizza, if he could get some of the sushi. c. John said that he wanted to eat the sushi. d. John ate the pizza that Mary did not want to eat. Since the subordinate clauses in () contain a finite (i.e. tense-marked) verb, we will call them ‘finite clauses’. These contrast with ‘non-finite’ clauses, as shown in (). Non-finite clauses can be infinitival (introduced by to) and participial, there being cases with and without subject. () a. Mary persuaded John to eat the pizza. b. Eating the pizza, John dreamt of eating sushi. In this book, we will primarily be concerned with independent main clauses, as subordinate clauses generally do not carry illocutionary force. For example, the if-clause in (a) is a declarative clause in terms of its structure, but it does not make a truth-value assertion. Similarly, the embedded interrogative clause in (b) does not express a request for information, though the main clause version clearly does. Imperatives cannot be embedded at all, as shown in (c). () a. If John comes, I will be happy. b. I already knew who John had married. / Who has John married? c. *I recommend that leave the room. / Leave the room. There are, however, various uses of embedded clauses as independent main clauses, and in such uses the relevant embedded clauses do express illocutionary force. Consider the examples in (). () a. If only John came. b. That such a thing could ever happen. c. To forget our wedding anniversary. In terms of their syntactic structure, example (a) is a conditional clause, (b) is a complement clause, and (c) is an infinitival clause. When used as main clauses, they come to express wishes, surprise, and admonishment. Such minor clause types will be investigated in Chapter .
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3.2 Clause types Let us now turn to clause types, which we will first of all define as structural abstractions from specific clausal tokens. In addition, the resulting clause types are required to correlate with speech acts or classes thereof on the functional side. The exact place and scope of this correlation needs to be specified and is a matter of great concern. Let me illustrate this idea using the set of simple examples in (). () a. b. c. d.
John sent the parcel to Mary. To Mary, John sent the parcel. The parcel was sent to Mary by John. He sent the parcel to Mary, John.
These four examples show different, albeit related syntactic structures (in the order given, prepositional object clause, topicalization, passive, right-dislocation). They all express the same proposition, namely that John transmitted a container to Mary by post. They differ in their structuring of information, though. This functional difference will not be considered definitional for clause types, since it has no bearing on the realization of speech acts. All the examples in () can be used to inform the addressee about a certain state of affairs. We may initially say, then, that clausal tokens expressing the same proposition—or having the same meaning—belong to the same clause type. The common function of the clausal tokens in () lies in the expression of a proposition, and their shared structural element is the order of subject, verb, and object(s)—modulo the differences resulting from the changes in information structure. This approach immediately raises two fundamental problems, creeping up in all clause type analyses that I am aware of. On the one hand, we need to ask ourselves how much structural diversity we are prepared to accept in the definition of a clause type. To illustrate this point, does the cleft sentence in () belong to the same type as the examples in (), or to a different type? Even though it expresses the same proposition, it spreads the information across two clauses. The answer to this question depends on our syntactic theory, namely whether it allows us to relate () to the examples in () in a systematic way. () It was John who sent the parcel to Mary.
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On the other hand, there is the problem of function. The expression of a proposition is a very general function, shared by clauses that structurally belong to different types, as shown in (). These clauses also say that there is a postal transmission event between John and Mary, albeit with additional components of meaning. Traditionally, these would be called ‘interrogative’ and ‘imperative’, and considered different clause types, for good reason. () a. Did John send the parcel to Mary? b. Send the parcel to Mary, John. 3.2.1 The function of clause types Let us try to make the relationship between clause types and their ‘function’ more precise, which can be done in different ways. First, we may explicitly link certain structural types to specific illocutionary forces, or social acts for that matter, equating clause type function with these interactional concepts. Accordingly, the clause type arising from the examples in () may be linked to the force of making assertions or statements, i.e. this clause type comes to be restricted to speech acts like describing, narrating, claiming, and the like (the class of ‘representatives’ according to Searle ). Such a move incurs substantial costs, as structurally identical types occur with forces other than statements. This is shown by the examples in (), which belong to the specimens given in () in terms of their structure, i.e. they represent the same clause type. () a. I will send the parcel to Mary. (promise, i.e. commissive speech act) b. I would send the parcel to Mary. (suggestion, i.e. directive speech act) Pursuing this way further forces us to either assume multiply polysemous clause types,2 or distinguish between direct and indirect uses of a clause type (see Chapter , and also Chapter ). The latter approach is quite common (forcefully argued for by Searle ), but requires an independent mechanism linking direct and indirect uses. Whichever This assumption underlies the so-called ‘performative hypothesis’, briefly discussed in Chapter . 2
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approach is chosen, it is clear that linking clause types directly to illocutionary force or social acts heavily overdetermines our theory. Second, we may try to capture the function of clause types at some more abstract level. Since the illocutionary force that a clause expresses reflects the intentions of the speaker behind it, we may try to interpret clause type function in terms of speaker intentions. For instance, in saying John sent the parcel to Mary, I am communicating my belief that the proposition expressed is the case (i.e. is true). Accordingly, clause types come to be associated with psychological states or propositional attitudes, i.e. some aspect of meaning above the propositional layer. We could encode these propositional attitudes as invisible operators in the syntactic structures of clause types. The function of the familiar clause types declarative, interrogative, and imperative could then be paraphrased as in example (). () a. I believe that: John sent the parcel to Mary. (declarative) b. I want to know: Who sent the parcel to Mary? (interrogative) c. I want: Send the parcel to Mary, John. (imperative) The assumption of such hidden operators encoding propositional attitudes is quite common (Bierwisch ; Altmann ; Allan ) and also implicitly assumed in standard reference grammars like Quirk et al. () and Huddleston and Pullum (). It is certainly to be preferred to a direct association of clause types with illocutionary force. Operators of propositional attitude are also called ‘mood operators’, but the term ‘mood’ is used in other meanings as well (see Section .). In the literature (Recanati : ; Brandt et al. : ; Alston : ch. ), we also find the wording ‘illocutionary force potential’, which tries to capture this more abstract relationship between clause types and illocutionary force. Although propositional attitude operators do not preclude the assumption of indirect speech acts, they can render some such cases redundant. For instance, the examples shown in () may now be viewed as expressing beliefs with different degrees of strength that are contextually interpreted as promise and suggestion respectively (see Chapter ). Third, clause types may be defined as clausal abstractions correlating with specific meanings in the strict semantic sense, without taking recourse to propositional attitudes, illocutionary force, or social acts. This approach results in their most narrow definition, leaving all interactional aspects of clause usage to pragmatics, thus giving them the status of contextual meanings. Accordingly, clause types are merely
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required to be compatible with the speech acts for which they are used. This line of attack is pursued in Brandt et al. () as well as Reis (). For example, the semantic difference between declarative and interrogative clauses may be seen in the fact that the former express complete propositions, while the latter express incomplete or open proposition.3 This is illustrated in (), abstracting away from differences between polar and constituent interrogatives.4 () a. declarative: p b. interrogative: open(p) In combination with known syntactic differences (subject–verb inversion with interrogatives in English), this yields two distinct clause types. An immediate consequence of this approach is that the interpretation of interrogative clauses as requests for information needs to be relegated to the domain of pragmatics. We will come back to this problem in Chapters and . Moreover, trying to define the meaning of imperatives without taking recourse to propositional attitudes (speaker intentions) is not easy. Reis (: ) states that the imperative ‘sets a norm related to the addressee’, but since the speaker sets this norm, this statement basically defines an attitude. As a matter of fact, at least some of the current and recent work on imperatives can be viewed as an attempt to identify a non-attitudinal semantic component of imperatives (e.g. Portner ; Kaufmann ), and thus make them amenable to a treatment within truth-conditional semantics (see Chapter ). 3.2.2 Construction and composition The relationship between clause types and their communicative function may also be made more precise by taking into consideration additional structural elements. We have so far implicitly relied on word order as the formal criterion distinguishing clauses and clause types, but there are also morphological markers contributing to their identification as well as intonation and specific lexical elements. We 3 More precisely, Brandt et al. (: –) define clause type as correlations of syntactic structure (deep structure) and wh-features, resulting in a purely syntactic definition of clause type. 4 In a similar vein, Akmajian (: –)—investigating the status of ‘clause type’ in formal grammar—argues that clause types are not related to pragmatic notions of force.
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cannot use English to illustrate morphological markers, but such exponents are inter alia found in German to signal the imperative clause type, as shown in example (). () German (personal knowledge) Fahr-e langsam. drive-IMP slowly ‘Drive slowly.’ In a similar way, we can use intonation to distinguish between the uses of example () as statement or question, falling intonation inducing an interpretation in terms of statements and rising intonation in terms of questions. Since statements and questions represent distinct illocutionary forces, we could use intonation to motivate the assumption of distinct clause types, even though both employ the same word order pattern. () John sent the parcel to Mary? Lexical—or lexicogrammatical—elements that may be considered relevant for clause typing include modal verbs, modal particles, interrogative words, and degree adverbs, among others. Taking all these formal elements into consideration yields—at least in principle—a substantial number of clause types in English, a selection of which is shown in (). To be sure, there are many more. ()
a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k.
The monkey ate the banana. (declarative) The monkey should eat the banana. (obligation declarative) The monkey ate the banana? (rising declarative) Did the monkey eat the banana? (polar interrogative) What did the monkey eat? (constituent interrogative) Eat the banana, monkey. (imperative) Someone eat the banana. (third person imperative) Don’t you eat the banana, monkey. (negative imperative) What a banana the monkey ate! (what-exclamative) How the monkey ate the banana! (how-exclamative) The monkey ate such a banana! (such-exclamative)
The combination of morphosyntactic, intonational, and lexical properties ensures a high degree of correspondence between sentential forms and their associated illocutionary forces. Put differently, clause types come to be regarded as complex grammatical signs composed of
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bundles of properties associated with specific illocutionary forces. This can be developed into a construction-based approach of clause types. A proposal along these lines for German can be found in Altmann (), and for English in Allan (). The disadvantage of viewing clause types as constructions is that it leads to a certain proliferation of form types and fails to take into account the systematic relationships between them (see Reis for some criticism). For example, the three declarative clauses in (a–c) can be reduced to one underlying type that appears in various modified structures. In a similar way, the other examples can be reduced to more basic types. This reductionist approach assumes derivational processes turning the basic clause types into more specific tokens assuming a compositional (i.e. nonidiosyncratic) form–function relationship. Representatives of this line of research are Bierwisch (), Akmajian (), Brandt et al. (), and Reis (). In this book, we will primarily adopt a reductionist (compositional) approach to clause types that, however, leaves room for the assumption of clause type constructions, i.e. we acknowledge compositional structures side by side with complex signs. In addition, the set of contributing formal elements will be restricted to morphology, syntax, and a few lexical elements (primarily interrogative words), leaving aside intonation. The reason is that intonation can practically override the force of all morphosyntactic form types yielding a largely independent expressive layer. We will discuss the status of intonation in detail in Section .. Furthermore, we will assume clause types to be associated with illocutionary force potential rather than specific forces, even though such an assumption may be justified in some cases. This basically means that we will assume propositional attitudes as a property of clause types, even though their assumption seems more plausible for some clause types than for others. It should be clear from the above statements that I do not advocate any particular theory or model here. This is for two reasons. On the one hand, I believe that a textbook like this should provide an adequate overview of competing approaches including their merits and shortcomings. On the other hand, theories and models—at least to some extent—depend on languages and their subsystems, with some linguistic systems being more amenable to a compositional approach, while others are more adequately captured by constructions. In view of the great range of cross-linguistic data discussed in the book, we need some
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flexibility in the handling of the data. On the whole, the approach taken here is similar in spirit to that adopted in Sadock and Zwicky (), Croft (), and König and Siemund (, ).
3.3 Formal exponents of clause types Typological studies of clause type systems have revealed a number of recurring encoding strategies that we will briefly review in what follows. This summary is primarily based on Ultan (), Sadock and Zwicky (), Croft (), Siemund (), König and Siemund (, ), and Dryer (a). Croft (: –) provides the following listing of dominant strategies comprising five items, which, of course, are not mutually exclusive, but occur in varying combinations. i. a difference in intonation contour; ii. a change of the word order of immediate constituents of a sentence; iii. the positioning of an element in one of the salient positions of a sentence: first, last, second position; iv. deletion or insertion of an immediate constituent; v. major alteration of the head of the sentence, namely the main verb.
In addition, cross-linguistic work shows that some of these strategies correlate with specific clause types as well as certain areas of the world and language families. Let us explore these strategies in some detail, starting with intonation, although—as already mentioned—this strategy will here be treated as complementary to the morphosyntactic strategies. For ease of exposition, we will start by looking at these strategies in isolation and later present examples of their combined use. The use of intonation is best illustrated in the context of question formation and especially salient in those languages in which it is the primary or even sole strategy of marking questions. Note that our decision to focus on morphosyntactic encoding strategies practically renders these languages void of an interrogative clause type (see Huddleston : for a similar point of view). This situation is shown for Spanish in example (). Here, falling intonation signals statements, and rising intonation questions (see also Chapter ). Apart from this prosodic difference, the two sentences in () are syntactically identical.
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() Spanish (personal knowledge) a. Hago deporte cada día. do..SG sport every day ‘I exercise every day.’ b. ¿Haces deporte cada día? do..SG sports every day ‘Do you exercise every day?’ Changes in the order of immediate constituents can be easily illustrated on the basis of Swedish, as this encoding strategy differentiates between declarative and interrogative clauses in this language—just as in English. Consider the examples in (), in which the interrogative clause in (b) shows the reverse positioning of subject and finite verb in relation to the declarative clause in (a). () Swedish (personal knowledge) a. Jag kan hjälpa dig. (declarative) I can help you ‘I can help you.’ b. Kan du hjälpa mig? (interrogative) can you help me ‘Can you help me?’ The most salient positions in a clause are the initial and the final position (Croft : ). In these positions, we frequently find expressions signalling question force, with some languages opting for the initial position, while others go for the final position (see Chapter ). Two examples illustrating these options are shown in () and (). Apart from the interrogative particles, these examples have declarative word order. In Chapter , you will also be introduced to languages that place such interrogative particles in the second position of a clause. () French (personal knowledge) Est-ce qu’ il y a des problèmes? INT there are DET problems ‘Are there any problems?’ () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 你 会 说 英 语 吗？ nıˇ huì shuō yīng yuˇ ma you can speak English language INT ‘Can you speak English?’
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The examples in () and () show polar interrogatives asking for yes–no questions. The other major type of interrogatives, namely constituent interrogatives encoding content questions, can be used to illustrate the insertion of constituents. This happens through interrogative words (who, what, when, etc.) that may either replace one of the major constituents (subject, objects), or one of the various adverbial constituents. You can find some examples in (). () a. What did he do? b. When did it happen? The deletion or omission of constituents is a prominent encoding strategy for imperative clauses. We can observe it in English where imperative clauses typically occur without subject. It is also definitional of imperative clauses in many other languages, though we need to be aware of the fact that there are languages that—unlike English—do not require the presences of subject or object constituents. For instance, subject constituents are omitted in Japanese imperatives, as in example (), but since the overt realization of subjects is not obligatory in this language, subject deletion is not a clear diagnostic of the imperative clause type. () Japanese (Anne Pape) Tabe-ro! eat-IMP ‘Eat.’ Example () also illustrates the fifth strategy of clause typing introduced above, namely in terms of an alteration of the verbal head. Imperatives in Japanese are marked by adding the suffix -ro to the verb stem, the infinitival form being taberu ‘eat’ in this case.5 Moreover, various agreement suffixes appearing on finite verbs in declarative clauses are typically dropped in imperatives. This is shown in example () for German, where the -st suffix indicating second person singular does not surface in the imperative, even though the understood subject is second person singular. Similarly, imperative verb forms are usually devoid of tense/aspect morphology.
5
The morphological imperative in Japanese is perceived as rather impolite and tends to be avoided in favour of the so-called te-form of the verb: Tabete kudasai ‘Please eat’.
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() German (personal knowledge) a. Du nimm-st eine Tablette. (declarative) you take-.SG a pill ‘You take a pill.’ b. Nimm eine Tablette! (imperative) take a pill ‘Take a pill.’ Cross-linguistically, the morphosyntactic marking options show different areal and genetic distributions, and appear to be associated with different functions, at least in a prototypical way. For example, zero marking is typically associated with declarative clauses, while particles frequently mark clauses as questions. Verbal morphology is widely associated with the imperative clause type. The use of a change in constituent order to signal differences in clause type is comparatively rare cross-linguistically and practically restricted to Indo-European languages. By contrast, particles, clausal tags, and verbal affixes represent widespread strategies to indicate differences in clause type. We will explore these differences in more detail in Chapters –. It is obvious that the availability of the strategies introduced above is influenced, if not determined, by the general architecture of a language. If a language lacks inflectional morphology, the marking of clause types by means of it is not possible. Similarly, word order differences can only be exploited if the underlying word order of a language is relatively fixed (Croft : ). Languages with free word order need to resort to different strategies. The use of particles presupposes the existence of particles, even though particles seem widely available in the languages of the world. Finally, prosodic marking only works for spoken language. We may also ask in which combinations the above strategies occur and whether there are combinatorial restrictions. Put differently, which strategies are mutually exclusive? Obviously, prosodic marking is compatible with all other marking strategies, which is one of the reasons why we treat it separately here. The morphosyntactic strategies should be freely combinable, at least in principle, but empirical observations point to various combinatorial restrictions. For example, interrogatives are not typically marked by word order differences and particles at the same time. Similarly, imperative morphology seems to preclude the use of imperative particles. Such observations point to a general resistance to double marking. Again, more specific information regarding such restrictions will be provided in Chapters –.
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3.4 Intonation Let us now turn to the troublesome issue of intonation. The term is used to capture differences in pitch contours, such as rising or falling contours, or more complicated contours involving various juxtapositions of falls and rises (e.g. rise–fall–rise). Together with rhythm and stress, intonation gives rise to the field of ‘prosody’. Intonation serves a host of functions, the marking of speech act distinctions being only one among several others, as, for example, the expression of different emotional states, attitudes, irony, sarcasm, focus, or contrast. Intonation is typically conceived of as a property of utterances, but intonational differences can also be exploited at the lexical level, yielding another dimension to differentiate the meaning of otherwise identical lexemes. This kind of intonation is known as ‘lexical tone’. In this section, we will primarily be concerned with two problems. On the one hand, I will argue that intonation is independent of clause type systems and thus motivate the decision taken in this book to focus on morphosyntactic properties in the identification of clause types. This is not to say that intonation cannot be used to convey speech act distinctions, rather it forms a separate channel of communication that can reinforce, modify, or even override the illocutionary force associated with morphosyntactic forms. On the other hand, we will explore the intonation of questions and statements to see to what extent specific intonation contours correlate with declarative and interrogative clauses. 3.4.1 Intonation is independent of morphosyntactic clause typing The idea that intonation is logically independent of morphosyntactic clause typing can be traced back at least to Bolinger (). Discussing examples like those in Table ., he observes that intonation, morphosyntactic clause type, and force do not show any obvious correspondence. Table 3.1
The interplay of intonation, clause type, and force (Bolinger : –)
Intonation
Clause type
Force
Example
falling
declarative
statement
They eat there.
rising
declarative
question
They eat there?
falling
interrogative
question
What do they eat there?
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Falling intonation can signal both questions and statements, and there is no correlation between morphosyntactic clause type and intonation either. Neither is there a correlation between clause type and force, given these examples. Moreover, Bolinger (: ) observes that intonation can mark any type of utterance as a question, completely independently of its syntactic structure. This is shown in example (). () a. b. c. d. e.
They have the money? Smell that soup? Tomorrow? Yours? After they get there?
In a later monograph, Bolinger equally argues for the independence of intonation and grammar, citing numerous examples in support of this view. His general contention is aptly summarized by the following quotation: Intonation and grammar are pragmatically but not linguistically interdependent. Neither can be used to define the other in any strict sense, but both cooperate in giving communicators a fix on their meaning. The relative independence of the two streams . . . is now accepted doctrine among most intonologists, after a long period in which linguists who came to intonation from grammar tried to fit it to grammatical structure. (Bolinger : )
This practically boils down to saying that morphosyntax and intonation represent two different channels of communication. In a similar way, Brandt et al. (: ) conclude that intonation has purely pragmatic functions and is not relevant for the distinction of clause types. Huddleston (: ) adds subtle observations underlining this point. In example (), for instance, the scope of question intonation is not coextensive with clause boundaries. Intonation scopes over two clauses, as is made clear by the answer given. ()
A: So Kim went to the meeting but you stayed at home? B: Yes, that’s right. ‘Kim went to the meeting but I stayed at home.’
In addition, the scope of question intonation may be confined to embedded clauses to the exclusion of the corresponding main clause, as shown in example (). This is quite different from subject–verb inversion marking questions, whose scope is restricted to single independent main clauses.
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Table 3.2 Echo questions in relation to clause type (adapted from Huddleston : ) Clause type
Unmarked
Yes–no question
Content question
Declarative
She’s a genius.
She’s a genius?
She’s a what?
Polar Interrogative
Did Kim answer the phone?
Did Kim answer the phone?
Did who answer the phone?
Constituent Interrogative
Where did she put the jug?
Where did she put the jug?
Where did she put what?
Imperative
Give the key to Anne. Give the key to Anne?
Give the what to Anne?
Exclamative
How well she dealt with Tom’s questions.
How well she dealt with Tom’s questions?
How well she dealt with whose questions?
() A: I don’t suppose there’s any milk left? B: No, I’m afraid not. ‘There isn’t any milk left.’ Huddleston (: ) observed further that echo questions, which are primarily marked by intonation, can be superimposed on any clause type. Table . shows this for the familiar clause types. What is interesting about echoically used constituent interrogatives is that the interrogative words do not appear in clause-initial position, furnishing a syntactic difference to those used non-echoically. We will discuss the placement of interrogative words in more detail in Chapter . In a similar way, exclamative intonation can be superimposed on several distinct clause types, turning these into exclamations. Consider the examples in (), where intonation overrides the force conventionally associated with the relevant clause types. Although they arguably show similar intonation patterns that may be viewed as exclamative intonation, Bolinger (: ) points out that exclamations cannot be pinned down to a single intonation pattern, but ‘draw impartially on the full repertory of up-down patterns.’ Moreover, it seems safe to say that any utterance can be used as an exclamation, given the appropriate intonation pattern. () a. This book IS interesting! (declarative) b. Is SHE lucky! (polar interrogative) c. WHAT did she do to make her kids happy! (constituent interrogative)
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In sum, there are good reasons for decoupling intonation and morphosyntax in the investigation of clause types.6 Generally put, intonation may be in harmony with morphosyntactic clause typing or work against it. Focusing on morphosyntax, as does the present book, however, should not be taken to mean that the study of speech act distinctions drawn through intonation would not be a valuable objective in its own right. Quite to the contrary, but this would furnish more than sufficient material for a separate book. 3.4.2 The intonation of questions and statements If it is correct to say that intonation is largely independent of clause type (defined morphosyntactically), we may still suspect there to be correlations between intonation and specific speech acts, like, for example, making statements or asking questions. Let us consider the distinction between statements and questions in an exemplary fashion. According to a widely held view, falling intonation signals completion, while rising intonation indicates incompletion (Ladd : ). This difference has been claimed to be universal or near universal.7 Incompletion can be interpreted in different ways, namely that the speaker has not finished the current turn (non-finality), or that the utterance needs to be completed by the addressee (question). Completion is tantamount to turn-finality. Given these observations, we can expect statements to be signalled by falling intonation and questions by rising intonation.8 It turns out, though, that the situation is considerably more complex. First, one needs to distinguish between yes–no questions and content questions, with the latter typically showing falling intonation. This can be considered a well-established empirical fact. Quirk at al. (: ) state that ‘[i]n a collection of wh-questions from the files of the Survey of English Usage, chiefly in surreptitiously recorded spoken Note that the construction-based approaches introduced in Section .. do couple intonation and morphosyntax in the identification of clause types. 7 Ladd (: ) discusses several functional explanations in relation to falling and rising intonation. For example, completion can be seen as associated with falling intonation, since subglottal air pressure naturally sinks in the course of an utterance, leading to lower frequencies towards the end. Using high frequencies in utterance-final position thus comes to be interpreted as incompletion. 8 This generalization is also supported by cross-linguistics facts. According to Ultan (: ), rising intonation is the most frequent contour used to signal questions (see also Siemund : –). 6
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3. 4 I N T O N A T I O N
unscripted material, had falling intonation’. The situation is less clear for yes–no questions. Although the assumption of rising intonation conforms to our lay-model of yes–no questions, it is challenged in at least two publications. Quirk et al. (: ) state that Rising intonation is the norm for yes–no questions, but falling intonation occurs quite frequently. In a collection of yes–no questions taken from the files of the Survey of English Usage, chiefly in surreptitiously recorded unscripted spoken material, questions ended in a rise and in a fall. Further analysis showed that yes–no questions with the modal operators can, could, may, might, and would tended to have almost as many falling tones as rising tones.
Similarly, Geluykens ()—using the same corpus, i.e. the Survey of English Usage—reports an even slightly stronger deviation from our default expectation that yes–no questions have rising intonation. The results of his study are shown in Table .. In view of these findings, Geluykens () concludes that rising intonation is only marginally used to signal questions. The more important function of rising intonation consists in the marking of the nonfinality of the current turn. These findings are challenged in Hedberg et al. (: ) who question Geluykens’s methodology for identifying rising intonation. Hedberg et al. (: ) present completely different results, showing that nearly per cent (.%) of polar interrogatives have a rising intonation contour ( out of specimens). Falling intonation contours occur in . per cent of the cases analysed ( out of ). The meaning generally associated with rising intonation is that the proposition is open regarding its truth value. Falling intonation signals non-information seeking questions, such as indirect requests, or questions with a strong answer expectation. These findings are in line with general assumptions and intuitions. We may note, though, that Quirk et al. () and Geluykens () worked on the basis of British English data, while Hedberg et al. () used data from American English. Concerning the interdependence of intonation and morphosyntactic clause typing, Hedberg et al. (: ) conclude that ‘It is illocutionary Table 3.3 The intonation of questions (Geluykens : , ) Questions
Non-rising
Rising
total
Polar interrogatives
Declaratives
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force, then, rather than syntactic form that determines the final intonation contour in all of these cases.’ Again, this supports our decision to decouple intonation from the analysis of clause types.
3.5 Major and minor clause types In the literature on clause types, we find a widely accepted distinction between major and minor clause types. Such a distinction is explicitly or implicitly assumed in Akmajian (: –), Quirk et al. (: ), Sadock and Zwicky (: –), Rosengren (/), Reis (), Allan (: ), Huddleston and Pullum (: ), König and Siemund (, ), and Meibauer et al. (). The major clause types comprise declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives, whereas clause types such as optatives, hortatives, debitives are considered minor. Exclamative clauses are—depending on language and analyst—grouped with either major or minor types. In English, they are typically viewed as representing a major type (Quirk et al. : ; Huddleston and Pullum : ), whereas they are given minor type status in German (see Reis : ). Even though intuitively plausible, the distinction between major and minor clause types is in need of explication. Croft (: ), building on Sadock and Zwicky (), uses the grammatical strategies introduced in Section . (intonation, word order, elements in salient clause position, deletion or insertion of constituents, alterations of the verb) to identify major clause types. They are ‘major’, because they can be identified by ‘salient structural characteristics’ that ‘characterize the sentence as a whole rather than just one of its parts’ (Croft : –). Accordingly, minor clause types show less salient characteristics. For instance, Sadock and Zwicky (: ) give us the specimens listed in () as examples of minor clause types. They are considered minor, because they contain forms (how, what, why, about, let) that ‘have a variety of uses in other sentence types’. We will explore such minor types in detail in Chapter . ()
a. b. c. d. e.
How about getting me a beer? What about buying a new lamp for the living room table? Why spend your money on such trash? Why not resign? Let’s tour the island.
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3. 5 M A J O R A N D M I N O R C L A U S E T Y P E S
Declarative
Epistemic/evidential—Biased question—Interrogative
(Knowledge)
Deontic modals—Optative—Hortative—Imperative
(Action)
Emphatic/evaluative markers—Exclamative
(Emotion)
Figure 3.1 Continua of clause types (adapted from Croft : )
Even though Croft () accepts the distinction between major and minor clause types, he views this more as a continuum than a strictly bipartite division. For instance, the modalized declarative clauses in example (a–b) are clearly semantically related to the imperative in (c), although their morphosyntax is quite different. () a. You should go and see a doctor. (modalized declarative) b. You must go and see a doctor. (modalized declarative) c. Go and see a doctor. (imperative) In a similar way, Croft (: ) sees a cognitive cline from declaratives to interrogatives and exclamatives. On this conception, the major clause types form the outer poles on a cognitive continuum from assertions to questions, requests, and exclamations. This is shown in Figure .. We need to bear in mind, though, that this is not a continuum of clause types, but a cognitive map whose intermediate values arise from modifying the major clause types. Another way to reconstruct minor clause types in opposition to major types lies in the reducibility of the former to the latter (Sadock and Zwicky ; König and Siemund , ). Reducibility may be conceived both in terms of form and meaning. For instance, English exclamative clauses such as in () may be viewed as derived from declarative clauses with which they share the word order—apart from the constituent in clause initial position—and the meaning of presenting something as a fact. Since the clause-initial constituent contains an interrogative word, exclamatives may further be viewed as hybrids of declaratives and interrogatives (see Sadock and Zwicky : ).9
9
Alternatively, they can be analysed as expansions of interrogative degree modification (What a nice watch!/How nice!). This idea is followed up in Siemund (a).
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() a. What a nice watch you’ve got there. b. How nice your watch is. In a similar way, all clause types encoding specific directive speech acts, such as prohibitions, suggestions, pleas, wishes, and exhortations, may in principle be reducible to the imperative type. Again, we can use data from English to illustrate this point. Regarding their force, the examples in () are clearly related, as they encode instructions to the addressee. Negative imperatives (prohibitions) are marked by negation in clauseinitial and—crucially—pre-subject position. This is in marked contrast to the position of negation in declarative clauses. Even though exhortations (first and third person directives) are encoded by an altogether different construction (based on let), the position of negation is the same as in negative imperatives. ()
a. b. c. d.
Cut down this old tree. (request) Don’t you cut down this old tree. (prohibition) Let’s cut down this old tree. (exhortation) Don’t let us cut down this old tree. (prohibitive exhortation)
The above parameters defining major and minor clause types are based on grammatical properties as well as structural and functional resemblance. Harnish (: ) provides some additional, largely usagebased parameters for identifying major clause types, without discussing them in detail, though. You can find them listed below. Harnish talks about ‘moods’, but it is clear from his exposition that this conforms to our understanding of clause types. i. ii. iii. iv.
highly unrestricted in their productivity; central to communication; high in relative frequency of occurrence; common to most languages.
Again, these parameters are intuitively plausible, although they seem to apply most prominently to declarative and interrogative clauses. These are very frequent, productive, and in this sense central to communication. Imperatives and exclamatives are quite restricted in their productivity and rather infrequent in comparison to the other types. We will explore these issues in more detail in Chapter , where I will also argue for a gradient conception of clause types.
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3. 6 C L A U S E T Y P E P A R A D I G M S
3.6 Clause type paradigms If clause types form systems, it appears useful to view them as paradigms, much like morphological paradigms, though on a morphosyntactic level. This position is adopted in Sadock and Zwicky (: –, , ) and König and Siemund (: –). It can be motivated by sets of examples like () in which the major clause types arise as a consequence of various morphosyntactic modifications. ()
a. b. c. d. e.
Kathy took an aspirin. Did Kathy take an aspirin? What did Kathy take? Take an aspirin, Kathy. What an aspirin Kathy took.
To be sure, we need to adopt a somewhat wider definition of a paradigm to subsume clause type distinctions as shown in () under this concept. In the ideal case, clause type markers should be of the same formal type, encode comparable functions, appear in the same structural position, and form a system of mutually exclusive oppositions. These properties define a traditional paradigm. One language in which this is arguably the case is Greenlandic Eskimo, as shown in example (). Here, we find suffixes distinguishing the basic clause types, even though these are fusional affixes additionally encoding person and number. () Greenlandic Eskimo (Sadock : ; Sadock and Zwicky : , ) a. Iga-voq cook-DEC..SG ‘He cooks.’ b. Iga-va cook-INT..SG ‘Does he cook?’ c. Iga-git / -guk cook-IMP..SG / -IMP./.SG ‘Cook (something) / it!’ This type of system, however, is quite different from the one in English in which several morphosyntactic strategies interact to produce the familiar clause type distinctions. With Nama Hottentot (a Khoisan language
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spoken in South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana), König and Siemund (: ) mention another language that possesses a coherent paradigm of clause type markers, although these have the status of particles rather than affixes. This is shown in example (). What is remarkable about Nama is that only the declarative particle is obligatory. Questions and commands may be signalled by intonation alone. () Nama Hottentot (Hagman : , , ) a. Declarative: NP + DEC + PredP (DEC = ke, km) b. Interrogative: NPà + (INT) + PredP (INT = kxa) c. Imperative: NPà + PredP + (IMP) (IMP = ré) Another kind of clause type paradigm is furnished by Korean (König and Siemund (: ), where clause type markers also signal speech style distinctions (or speech style markers signal clause type distinctions). Consider the paradigms in Table .. Here, we find four clause type distinctions (declarative, interrogative, imperative, adhortative) criss-crossing six levels of formality (formal, polite, blunt, familiar, intimate, plain). It is obvious that there is substantial syncretism in these paradigms, with clause types not being distinguished on certain speech style levels (high polite, mid blunt, low intimate). The clause type paradigms discussed so far (except for English) possess dedicated markers for declarative clauses, but this does not seem to be the typical situation cross-linguistically. What appears to be considerably more common is that declarative clauses are unmarked, with there being dedicated markers only for interrogatives and imperatives, as well as perhaps some minor clause types. English can be considered a typical case, with interrogatives, imperatives, Table 3.4 The system of honorific clause type markers of Korean (Chang : ) Speech level
High
Mid
Low
Clause type Declarative
Interrogative
Imperative
Adhortative
Formal
(su)pnita
(su)pnikka
(u)psio
(u)psita
Polite
(e)yo
(e)yo
(e)yo
(e)yo
Blunt
so
so
so
so
Familiar
ney
na
key
sey
Intimate
e
e
e
e
Plain
ta
(nu)nya
la
ca
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3. 7 S U M M A R Y
and exclamatives representing systematic variations of an otherwise unmarked declarative type. An interesting complication is offered by the Japanese clause type system in that declarative and interrogative markers apparently occur together. Consider the examples in (), especially (c). () Japanese (Anne Pape) a. Sakana-o tabe-ro/-te (kudasai)! fish-ACC eat-IMP ‘Eat the fish!’ b. Sakana-o tabe-ru. fish-ACC eat-PRES.DEC ‘I eat fish.’ c. Sakana-o tabe-ru-ka? fish-ACC eat-PRES.DEC-INT ‘Do you eat fish?’ This is unexpected, but can be explained as a consequence of two interacting paradigms. The Japanese declarative marker could also be termed ‘indicative’, and hence considered a classical mood marker. The grammatical notion of ‘mood’ captures verbal inflections that express propositional attitudes or illocutionary force. The function of verbal moods is very similar to our conception of clause type functions, with the latter notion encompassing a greater array of morphosyntactic marking options. In the Japanese example above, the indicative mood marker -ru stands in paradigmatic opposition to the imperative marker -ro, whereas the interrogative clause type marker -ka appears in verb-final position behind the indicative mood marker. Here, clause type marking and mood marking heavily interact, being nearly indistinguishable. Apart from indicative and imperatives, there are several other verbal moods—notably the subjunctive—that we will explore in more detail in Chapter .
3.7 Summary In this chapter, we argued for a morphosyntactic definition of clause types that excludes intonation as a definitional parameter. Intonation is best viewed as a separate channel of information that works orthogonally to the information supplied by morphosyntactic clause typing. Viewed
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this way, clause types come to be analysed as abstractions over clausal tokens that can be related to one another in morphosyntactic terms. In addition, clause types need to be paired with illocutionary force, though only on a relatively abstract level. Clause types form paradigms. Cross-linguistically, clause typing is characterized by a few dominant and recurrent marking strategies, there being correlations between marking strategies and specific clause types as well as languages and language families. Clause typing heavily interacts with verbal mood systems, due to overlapping functions. We may even say that verbal mood is constitutive of clause typing. Morphosyntactic strategies of clause typing are by and large mutually exclusive. We can distinguish major and minor clause types. Apart from being intuitively plausible, the distinction between major and minor types can be motivated by an array of formal, functional, as well as usage parameters. Some minor types can be considered as such, because they can be systematically related to some major type. There being a substantial set of parameters for defining clause types, it appears plausible to recast the major–minor dichotomy in terms of a gradient concept.
3.8 Topics for further research Although we here decided to exclude intonation from our discussion of clause types, the relationship between clause types, speech acts, and intonation remains a highly challenging and controversial topic. Moreover, there appears to be only little systematic cross-linguistic work on this topic. You can explore these issues further by consulting the following publications including the works cited therein: Gussenhoven (), Selkirk (), Ladd (), and Jun (, ). For some reason, most theoretical work on clause types has been carried out in the context of German. If you are interested in the more theoretical issues of clause types, especially various syntactic problems, it is indispensable to consult this body of research. Unfortunately, most of it can only be accessed in German, though some of the relevant research literature is available in English. Important titles include Bierwisch (), Brandt et al. (), Rosengren (/), Reis () as well as the contributions in Meibauer et al. (). General typological aspects of clause types and clause type system are dealt with in Sadock and Zwicky () as well as König and
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3. 9 E X E R C I S E S
Siemund (, ). Typologies of the imperative and related categories can be found in van der Auwera and Lejeune (a, b) and van der Auwera et al. (). Cross-linguistic information on the marking of questions is offered in Ultan (), Siemund (), and Dryer (a, b, c). Typological aspects of exclamative constructions are discussed in Michaelis (). On the whole, this is an area where much more work is necessary, especially work that clearly distinguishes intonational, morphosyntactic, semantic, and pragmatic issues. There is practically no typological work on minor clause types. Clause type systems interact with mood systems and also with modality, opening up a vast area of related issues—especially since modality can be encoded in different ways (modal verbs, modal particles, etc.). The contributions to Nuyts and van der Auwera () offer some first and easy access to the field. Palmer () is a classic title that is very difficult to circumnavigate. Some typological issues of modality are addressed in van der Auwera and Ammann (a, b, c). Issues concerning the interdependence of mood, modality, and clause types will be taken up in Chapters and .
3.9 Exercises Basic level 1. Example () introduced at the beginning of this chapter contains an extract of spoken discourse. Try to identify all clauses in this extract and explain why they are clauses. 2. Take a look at the examples below and decide for each case whether it is a simple clause or a complex clause. i. John talked to Mary about the new project. ii. Paul has to leave, but Sarah may stay. iii. Mary persuaded John to marry her. iv. I don’t mind eating raw fish. v. Walking down the alley, I met an old friend of mine. 3. In this chapter, we introduced the terms ‘construction’ and ‘composition’. Using the Internet as a resource, try to define and explain these terms.
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Intermediate level 1. Carefully read the contribution by van der Auwera and Zamorano Aguilar () on clause types, mood systems, and modality. a. What do the authors say on the history of the term mood? In which uses can it be found? b. The notions of mood and modality are strongly interrelated. Discuss this relationship in a short essay of about words. 2. In the examples below, you can find several tokens representing different clause types. a. For each of these tokens decide to which clause type it belongs. i. You should eat more vegetables! ii. Let there be rain. iii. Why not go to the movies tonight? iv. Can’t you be more careful? v. When did she call? vi. This has been so kind of you! vii. What a wonderful journey! b. Which problems did you encounter during your classification? 3. As we have seen, Geluykens () and Hedberg et al. () come to completely different conclusions concerning the intonation patterns of yes–no questions. Let us explore the reasons for these differences. a. Give a close reading to these two papers. b. In a research paper of about , words, summarize and comment on the methodologies used in these papers and the analyses offered. Try to identify possible reasons for the different outcomes.
Advanced level 1. Croft () observes that there are five major strategies to mark clause types. We discussed these in Section .. a. Look for fellow students speaking different languages and explore the clause type systems of their languages. b. Categorize the clause type marking strategies using the typology offered in Croft (). c. Which of these strategies can be combined and which are mutually exclusive, according to your observations?
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3. 9 E X E R C I S E S
2. It is certainly reasonable to assume that declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamative clauses do not show the same distributions in running texts of spoken or written language. a. Try to come up with informed guesses concerning the share of declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamative clauses in spoken and written discourse. Try to motivate your guesses. b. Find a copy of the International Corpus of English, British Component, for example, in your library. c. Count the tokens of declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamative clauses in this corpus and compare these results with your guesses. Were your guesses correct? 3. We argued in this chapter that languages show a general tendency to use falling intonation for statements and rising intonation for questions. Try to corroborate this claim with the help of fellow students who speak languages different than English. a. Ask your fellow students to translate the below sentences into their languages and to read them out aloud. Listen carefully to the intonation contour that they are using and classify it as either falling or rising. i. Do you like ice cream? ii. I don’t like ice cream. b. Alternatively, record your fellow students reading these sentences and analyse them acoustically using Praat (www.praat.org).
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4 Functional typology
. Comparing languages
. Properties languages may have
. Properties languages may lack
. Grammaticalization
. Language universals
. Explanations
. Summary
. Topics for further research
. Exercises
Although this book has a clear focus on English, it also includes a substantial amount of cross-linguistic data, trying to offer a perspective that goes beyond the study of a single language. I have mentioned this a couple of times without introducing the methodology necessary for carrying out cross-linguistic comparisons, nor have I made clear what the advantages of this approach are—except for some brief remarks in Chapter . We will address this in the current chapter. The linguistic field concerned with cross-linguistic comparisons is known as ‘language typology’ or ‘functional typology’, and we will here draw on it for theoretical and methodological inspiration. Accordingly, this chapter will familiarize the reader with that framework’s most important aims, theoretical tenets, generalizations, and data types. It also addresses the notion of linguistic universals and their relevance for the study of clause types. Language typology aims at a systematic comparison of the structural properties of languages. It is inherently taxonomic, but it does not aim at producing genealogical classifications—even though it can help to
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decide unclear family relationships of languages. In the ideal case, typological comparisons are based on genetically unrelated languages, since closely related languages like, say, English and German, Spanish and Italian, Malay and Indonesian, or Mandarin and Cantonese, possess a great number of structural similarities that pre-empt generalizations across structurally distinct language types. As of today, the world counts approximately seven thousand languages. Nobody can know exactly how many languages there are, since ‘language’ is not a clearly defined construct. Intuitively, we use the term ‘language’ to describe the verbal (and also non-verbal) communication systems used by certain speaker populations, but it is very difficult to tell where one language ends and another one begins, since the boundaries of population groups are fluid, people typically control more than one communication system, populations merge and separate, and—last but not least—the systems often overlap structurally. In linguistics, we use terms like ‘dialect’ or ‘variety’ to capture these complexities, but their very existence underlines the problems associated with counting languages. Looking for the precise number of language families, i.e. groups of genetically related languages, poses similar problems and there are many unresolved issues. An estimate of language families represents a good approximation. In any event, the world of languages offers great structural variation on all levels of linguistic analysis (phonology, morphology, syntax). Anyone who has tried to learn a language far away from home, or even a closely related language, can bear witness to this. Language typology is very much interested in identifying the principles that languages have in common and in charting the possible scope of variation, always presupposing that there are common principles and that the logically possible space of variation is heavily constrained. In this sense, typology explores the patterns and limits of variation. Crucially, it seeks to uncover universals of language, i.e. generalizations applying to all languages, even though such universals have come to be perceived of primarily as tendencies, since truly absolute universals are rare.
4.1 Comparing languages Languages are often treated as species, especially in evolutionary terms. In the same way as biologists try to reconstruct the origin of humankind or other species by postulating evolutionary family trees in which new
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FUNCTIONAL TYPOLOGY
species ‘branch off ’ from existing ones by various kinds of mutations, languages are equally assumed to split and diversify over time leading to complex evolutionary tree structures (as, say, in the family tree of IndoEuropean languages). Using this tree metaphor has a number of consequences. First, it implicitly assumes that all languages can be traced back to a single proto-language serving as their ancestor. This may be true, but it is also possible that humans developed languages in different places and at different times. Second, it assumes that languages do not influence one another, even though they may change just like a species may change due to random mutation. This latter assumption is at best a romantic idealization that has little to do with reality. After all, language is a social phenomenon with social groups speaking different languages frequently interacting with one another. This results in language contact, mutual influence, and concomitant language change. Populations may change their language within only a few generations, as, for example, in Ireland and Singapore. There are no ‘pure’ languages, with pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages being more common than we usually deem to be the case. English itself is the best example of an ‘impure’ language, since it is composed of lower North Sea Germanic, Scandinavian, French, Latin, and Greek—ignoring many additional minor influences. English could easily be considered a Romance or Scandinavian language. Although the language capacity as such resides in the individual speaker and is robustly passed on from generation to generation, its social manifestations in terms of what we call ‘languages’ are prone to influence and change. Third, the majority of humans in the world commands more than one language, being bilingual or even multilingual. Again, the idea of the monolingual native speaker is largely an invention of the nation state, which is itself a relatively recent invention, that postulates the territorial coextension of state and language. In historical terms, the multilingual individual can be assumed to be much closer to societal reality, with people speaking a home language, a lingua franca, as well as a few neighbouring clan languages. But in such situations, it becomes nearly impossible to say where one language begins and another one ends, since speakers frequently draw on more than one language at the same time (code-switching, code-mixing, translanguaging). For the reasons detailed above, language trees will always be open to debate. In comparing languages on a structural level, and not the above described genealogical level, language typology offers a completely
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different view on languages that allows the comparison of languages that have little or nothing in common in terms of their history or genetic relationship. For example, we may compare English with Chinese, or German with Chinese, and need to be prepared to find fascinating similarities in the midst of a cloud of impenetrable differences. Let me introduce two simple examples. English and Chinese, irrespective of their many differences, possess the same basic word order type in which the subject precedes the verb and the object follows the verb (SVO). This is shown in example (), suggesting a straightforward correspondence of transitive and intransitive declarative clauses in the two languages. Interestingly enough, the basic word order of German is quite different, even though it is a close relative of English. () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 王 先生 买 了 一 本 书 wáng xiān sheng maˇ i le yī běn shū Wang Mr buy ASP one CL book ‘Mr Wang bought a book.’ Considering another syntactic parameter across these three languages, we can observe that German patterns with Chinese, while English illustrates a different structure. In German and Chinese, it is possible to position relative clauses before the noun that they modify—in sharp contrast to English where such relative clauses invariably follow the head noun. This parallel strategy of encoding is shown in examples () and (), although there are differences in the syntactic details. This results in a cross-linguistic parameter that is able to capture the ordering relation of the head of a relative clause and the modifying clause. More generally, it suggests a crosslinguistically valid head-modifier parameter, which, of course, has been intensely explored (see Moravcsik : for an overview). () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 王 先生 买 了 的 一 本 书 wáng xiān sheng maˇ i le de yī běn shū Wang Mr buy ASP PRT one CL book ‘The book that Mr Wang bought.’ () German (personal knowledge) das von Herrn Wang gekaufte Buch the by Mr Wang buy.PTCP book ‘The book that Mr Wang bought.’
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Language typology, thus, offers a completely different view on the relationship between languages, frequently cross-cutting genetic relations. Genetically unrelated languages may resort to similar strategies of encoding, while closely related languages may diverge on certain parameters. To be sure, once we move beyond looking at isolated strategies of encoding and start bundling substantial numbers of them, clustering effects begin to arise between bundles of features, genetically determined language families, and also the areas where the languages are spoken. For example, such bundles of features (e.g. articles, tense–aspect marking, word order, headmodifier order, number of word classes) characterize Europe as a linguistic area, leading to concepts such as Standard Average European (Haspelmath ). An important tenet held among typologists is that structural variation is constrained, meaning that the observable variation across languages forms patterns and that variation is not completely random and unlimited. To be sure, if cross-linguistic variation were completely chaotic, we could not investigate it. Hence, it is even necessary to assume that languages do not differ from one another in completely unpredictable ways. This is a very old idea, but over time researchers have seen and focused on different aspects of language through which systematic variation manifests itself. For example, in the nineteenth century scholars were primarily concerned with the morphology of language and with placing the various languages into distinct morphological types. This gave rise to classificatory labels such as ‘synthetic’, ‘analytic’, ‘agglutinating’, and ‘polysynthetic’ that are still in widespread use today (Schlegel ; von Humboldt ; Siemund : –). For example, Latin belongs into the group of synthetic languages, since words can be segmented into several morphs. Moreover, grammatical exponents may encode several morphemes concurrently (number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, etc.), as shown in (). This latter parameter is known as ‘fusion’ (Comrie : ). () Latin (Vergil Aeneid ; vergil.classics.upenn.edu) Arma vir- umque weapon NEUT.ACC.PL man MASC.ACC.SG and cano sing .SG.PRES.IND ‘I sing of arms and the man . . . ’
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In an agglutinating language like Turkish, by contrast, each morpheme is encoded by exactly one morphological exponent, i.e. there is a oneto-one correspondence of form and function. This is illustrated in example (). () Turkish (Yasemin Şahingöz) Baba- m kardeş- im- e bir mektup yaz- dırdı. father my brother my DAT a letter write CAUSE PAST ‘My father had my brother write a letter.’ In analytic or isolating languages, words are invariable and may even be coextensive with single syllables. They take no inflections or other affixes. Grammatical functions are indicated syntagmatically. Chinese, as shown in (), is a representative example. Incidentally, English shows a strong tendency towards the isolated word and has become considerably more analytic over the past , years.1 () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 你 们 的 话 我 不 懂 nıˇ men de huà woˇ bù doˇng you PL PRT language I not understand ‘I do not understand your language.’ A frequently cited example of a polysynthetic or incorporating language is Eskimo, as in (), where it is practically impossible to identify word boundaries and words are typically coextensive with (complex) sentences. This is not just a matter of using different orthographic conventions, but, as shown in (), the identifiable segments typically express complete clauses. () West Greenlandic, Eskimo-Aleut (Boas : ) takusar-iartor-uma-galuar-ner-paˆ ? he.looks.after.it-he.goes.to-he.intends.to-he.does.so.but-do.you. think.he-.INT ‘Do you think he really intends to go to look after it?’ Although the languages just surveyed are good exemplars of the respective morphological types, subsequent research has shown that such holistic characterizations of languages represent only very crude 1
Haselow () shows that the general drift of English towards more analytic means of encoding also finds parallels in the domain of derivational morphology.
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Table 4.1 The synthesis index of selected languages according to Greenberg (: ) Sanskrit
Old English
Persian
English
Yakut
Swahili
Vietnamese
Eskimo
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Table 4.2 Order of subject, object, and verb (Dryer d) Word order
SOV
SVO
VSO
VOS
OVS
OSV
n.d.o.
Total
Languages
,
Note: n.d.o. = no dominant order
approximations, since the majority of languages cannot be clearly assigned to one of the major types, but typically fall in between these types, showing characteristics of several types. For example, English tends towards the isolating word, but does have a few inflectional affixes in combination with extremely complicated derivational morphology and morphophonology. Greenberg (), consequently, proposed to conceive of synthesis as a gradient concept, defined in terms of the number of morphemes in relation to the number of words, measured across a representative text segment. This gives rise to a synthesis index that can be used to compare languages. The synthesis index of a selection of languages is given in Table .. Our claim made above, namely that English has gained in analyticity over the past , years, is nicely confirmed by the data.2 It is obvious that this gradient conception of synthesis is much closer to reality, even though many problems remain, especially regarding the definition of words. Over the past fifty-odd years, language typology has branched out investigating a host of other morphological parameters, but also many syntactic and phonological parameters. Let me illustrate this widened interest using a simple example from the typology of word order. Assuming that all languages allow the identification of subject (S), object (O), and verb (V), we arrive at six logically possible word order permutations. You can find them in Table ., alongside their distributions in a sample of , languages. We can see very clearly that languages are not evenly distributed across the logically possible types, but that languages placing the subject before the 2
For a more recent approach to measuring synthesis, see Bickel and Nichols ().
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Table 4.3 Order of adjective and noun (Dryer e) Noun–adjective order
Adjective precedes noun
Adjective follows noun
n.d.o
No adjective modification
Total
,
Languages Note: n.d.o. = no dominant order
Table 4.4 Consonant and vowel quality inventories (Maddieson a) V\C
small
mod. small
average
mod. large
large
small
average
large
object vastly outnumber those in which the object precedes the subject. Apparently, some permutations are preferred over others. Such imbalances in the data are in need of explanation, a point to which we will return in Sections . and .. To illustrate the typological approach using another parameter, consider the relative order of adjective and noun, as shown in Table ., in relation to the respective frequencies of occurrence. We can view this order as another instantiation of a more general headmodifier parameter, complementing the relative order of head noun and relative clause introduced above. Here, too, we find striking imbalances in the distribution of the data, which are in need of explanation. Moreover, the order of adjective and noun strongly correlates with certain geographical areas, with most of Europe and Asia showing a strong preference for adjective–noun order, i.e. the cross-linguistically less prominent type. Using this methodology, we may also investigate phonological aspects of languages, as, for example, the number of consonants and vowels distinguished in a language. Regarding these two parameters, we can observe massive differences across languages, with there being languages that have low numbers of consonants and vowels, high numbers of consonants and vowels, small numbers of consonants and high numbers of vowels, and vice versa, and various intermediate types. Table . provides an overview of these distributions based on an overall sample of languages.
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In Table ., a small number of consonants means to consonants, moderately small to consonants, average includes plus minus consonants, moderately large covers to consonants, and large or more consonants. Concerning vowel system size, Table . distinguishes small systems ( to vowels), average systems ( to vowels), and large systems ( to vowels). Maddieson (a) mentions Abkhaz (a Northwest Caucasian language spoken in Georgia) as a language with a very large consonant inventory ( consonants) that distinguishes only vowel qualities. In contrast, Andoke (an isolate language spoken in Colombia) possesses consonants and vowel qualities, and hence shows a very balanced system. The approach sketched above also works for selected lexical items, though primarily for those that are based on salient cognitive parameters. Evidently, it would not be very illuminating to investigate the word for ‘water’ in a sample of , languages. What has been investigated successfully are, inter alia, lexical items denoting basic colour terms (black, white, red, green, etc.) and numbering systems. Information on basic colour terms can be found in Berlin and Kay () as well as Kay and Maffi (). Let us here focus on numbering systems, especially the numeral bases that underlie them. Every numbering system contains a certain number of basic digits (one, two, three, etc.), the numeral base specifying the number of digits after which one begins to count anew. The numeral base of English is ten (a decimal system), although the numbers eleven and twelve need to be treated as exceptions. The numeral base ten is the result of counting with one’s fingers. Including one’s toes on top of one’s fingers yields base twenty systems (vigesimal systems). Some counting systems are hybrid vigesimal-decimal (e.g. Basque). Table . shows the distribution of different numeral bases across languages. Quite obviously, the decimal base is vastly preferred over the other options.3 Typological comparisons of the type discussed in the preceding paragraphs have tremendously increased our knowledge of what is out there in the linguistic world in terms of encoding strategies, grammatical distinctions, and possible grammars. They also inform us about what is typical, what is rare, and what apparently does not exist. A host of grammatical domains has been investigated in great detail, yielding information on attested and prevailing phoneme inventories, word order patterns, word class systems, systems of encoding grammatical 3
For the numeral bases not discussed here, see Comrie ().
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Table 4.5 Numeral bases (Comrie ) Numeral base
Languages
Decimal Hybrid vigesimal-decimal
Pure vigesimal
Other base
Extended body-part system
Restricted
Total
relations, case systems, as well as many others. Underlying this typological work is the belief that structural variation is limited and that languages even from different phyla are built around similar principles. This concerns the problem of ‘linguistic universals’, which we will take up for discussion in Section .. Before discussing universal properties of languages, though, let us take a look at some examples of uncommon structural properties, and, in a second step, at rather common properties that some languages lack.4
4.2 Properties languages may have The rationale behind surveying some of the more exotic properties of languages is that they provide us with some idea of the structural limits of linguistic encoding, although we need to bear in mind that the rare occurrence of some structural feature may also have sociocultural reasons. What is commonly encountered across languages may simply be the result of social and political success. In what follows, I will discuss tone systems, uncommon consonants, rare word orders, and examples of highly complex case and gender systems, drawing on currently available typological databases. There is no parallel research on clause type systems, but examples of less common or rare clause types are furnished by ‘debitives’ (expressing obligation) and ‘rogatives’ (expressing pleas), as 4
I owe the exposition of the following two sections to a lecture series given by Ekkehard König that I followed when I was a student.
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well as ‘promisives’ (expressing promises) and ‘remorsives’ (expressing regret), with the latter two types to my knowledge being unattested. 4.2.1 Tone systems Some languages employ word level intonation to draw semantic distinctions. This is known as tone (lexical tone), as, for example, in Mandarin Chinese. We discussed some examples in Chapter , here repeated for convenience: xīng (level tone) ‘star’ (星), xíng (rising tone) ‘go’ (行), xıˇng (falling–rising tone) ‘wake up’ (醒), and xìng (falling tone) ‘last name’ (姓). The number of tones varies greatly. In Mandarin Chinese, we find the aforementioned four tones, though in Cantonese (a closely related Sino-Tibetan language), we can distinguish six to nine tones, depending on the analysis (Matthews and Yip : –). Languages with tone systems are not particularly common. Maddieson (b), using a sample of languages, reports of them as having no tone system, as having a simple tone system, and with complex tone systems. The languages categorized as possessing simple tone systems are partially controversial, since tone in these languages is of limited productivity and perhaps better analysed as a different phenomenon (e.g. word stress). Given this proviso, tone languages do not represent the prototypical state, since the majority of the world’s languages are non-tonal. What is more, languages with complex tone system cluster in restricted geographical areas, namely in East and South East Asia (Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai), on the one hand, and in sub-Saharan Africa to the North of the equator (e.g. Senadi, Niger-Congo; Yoruba, Niger-Congo; Dinka, Nilo-Saharan; Harar Oromo, Afro-Asiatic), on the other. 4.2.2 Uncommon consonants In a similar way, some consonantal sounds show remarkably restricted distributions. This concerns clicks, labial–velar consonants, pharyngeals, and the th-sound (Maddieson c). Click sounds arise as the result of forming small enclosures of air in the oral cavity—using the tongue— that are opened suddenly by pulling away the tongue. Such sounds are extremely rare; Maddieson (c) reports nine languages in a sample of languages (see Table .), and these are restricted to southern and eastern Africa. Another unusual sound is furnished by so-called
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Table 4.6 Uncommon consonants (Maddieson c) None
Clicks
Labial–velars
Pharyngeals
th-sound
Total
Note: included in the total are two languages possessing pharyngeals and the th-sound, and one language possessing clicks, pharyngeals, and the th-sound.
‘labial–velar consonants’ that have two places of articulation, as, for example, in the concurrent pronunciation of /k/ and /p/. Such consonants (e.g. /kp/) can only be found in West and Central Africa. Pharyngeals— sounds produced by moving the root of the tongue backwards to the pharynx—are mainly restricted to Afro-Asiatic languages as well as languages of the Caucasus. Interestingly, also the well-known dental fricatives of English turn out to be rather uncommon from a wider perspective, as only forty languages in the aforementioned sample have it (Table .). Even a global language like English offers remarkably uncommon features. 4.2.3 Rare word orders As shown in Table ., there are only a handful of languages that place the object before the subject in their basic word order pattern. In the sample shown there, we find VOS languages, OVS languages, and a mere OSV languages. Since the overall sample contains nearly , languages, these word orders must be considered highly exceptional. Moreover, there are strong geographical clusterings. For example, OVS and OSV languages are practically restricted to South America. VOS languages enjoy a wider distribution, though most of them seem to reside in the southern hemisphere. The relative position of subject, object, and verb, however, offers only a very coarse-grained word order typology that passes over many rather tricky syntactic details. For example, German—like some other Germanic languages—has verb-second order in main clauses and verb-final order in subordinate clauses. Verb-second means that the finite verb consistently occurs in the second structural position of a clause. A pair of examples is shown in () and (). From a cross-linguistic perspective, this must be considered extremely rare. What is also remarkable is the split verb phrase with one nominal constituent being placed between finite verb and participle (‘verbal brace’).
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() German (personal knowledge) Georg hat viel Geld ausgegeben. George has much money spent ‘George has spent a lot of money.’ () German (personal knowledge) Viel Geld hat Georg ausgegeben. much money has George spent ‘George has spent a lot of money.’ Several additional details could be mentioned at this point. For instance, the position of pronouns and clitics is often different from that of full noun phrases in a clause (e.g. French, Spanish), offering a host of tricky syntactic problems and much scope for uncommon word orders. We will leave these unexplored here.
4.2.4 Highly complex case and gender systems Languages may not only exhibit rare structural properties, but also rather common properties to unusually extreme extents. This concerns, inter alia, case and gender systems showing a high degree of internal differentiation, meaning a high number of cases and genders. Let us explore these phenomena one by one. Case is a nominal category specifying the function of a noun phrase in a clause. In the ideal case, these are transparent semantic functions (or roles) such as the agent, the undergoer, the recipient, or the beneficiary in the situation described by a clause. Quite often, though, these semantic roles are more abstract and correlate with certain structural positions, giving rise to the more general functions of subject, object, complement, adverbial, and the like. In English, we identify the subject by its preverbal position. Case may be marked morphologically, as shown for Latin in Table ., or largely identified structurally, as in English. Table 4.7 An illustration of Latin case suffixes dominus
dominum
domin
us
master
NOM
domin
domini um
domin
ACC
domino i GEN
domin
o DAT
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Two examples illustrating the use of case marking are shown in () and (). The dative case in German is triggered by the preposition auf ‘on’, pointing to a more general function of the German dative than merely marking the recipient of an action. () Latin (personal knowledge) Poeta fabulas narravit. poet.NOM stories.ACC told ‘The poet told the stories.’ () German (personal knowledge) auf dem Tisch on the.DAT table ‘on the table’ As for English, two—perhaps three—cases are morphologically marked in the pronoun system (I/me, we/us, etc.; my, our, etc.). Assuming structural case, we can identify further distinctions. German has four clearly marked morphological cases, though substantial syncretism. In Russian, we find six morphological cases. Some languages possess much higher numbers, giving rise to the question what these cases actually express. For example, Finnish (a Finno-Ugric language) distinguishes no fewer than fifteen cases, but many of these cases encode adverbial functions whose functional load is expressed by prepositions in English. Besides the familiar cases of nominative, genitive, and accusative, we find a large number of locative cases encoding positions and trajectories (inessive, elative, illative, etc.), and instrumental cases (abessive, comitative, etc.). Some illustration can be found below. () Finnish (Karlsson : –) a. talo-sta house-ELATIVE ‘out of the house’ b. talo-on house-ILLATIVE ‘into the house’ To be sure, the high number of cases is the result of Finnish being a strongly suffixing language. The languages with the highest number of cases mentioned in Iggesen’s () typological study are Hungarian (Finno-Ugric) with productive cases, followed by cases in Kayardild
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(Tangkic; Queensland, Australia), and cases in Lak (NakhDaghestanian; eastern Caucasus). The other grammatical feature that I would like to discuss very briefly is gender, which is a classification system of the nominal domain (see Corbett ). By virtue of systematic agreement between a gender controlling noun (‘the controller’) and one or several agreement targets, nominal classes arise that are known by names such as ‘masculine’, ‘feminine’, ‘neuter’, as well as several others. The situation is here illustrated for Swedish in which a ‘common’ or ‘uter’ gender stands in paradigmatic opposition to a ‘neuter’ gender. Consider example (), where the nouns bil and hus trigger gender agreement on the relevant articles and adjectives. () Swedish (personal knowledge) a. en fin bil a.UTER nice.UTER car.UTER ‘a nice car‘ b. ett fint hus a.NEUT nice.NEUT house.NEUT ‘a nice house’ Such systems are widespread in European languages, there typically being two or three genders. Dutch, Italian, and Spanish have two genders, German and Russian have three. But what is the upper limit on attested gender contrasts? If we subsume the noun class systems of various African, especially Bantu languages under gender, such systems can become fairly large and quite complicated. Some of these languages (e.g. Shona, spoken in Zimbabwe) are analysed to have up to twenty noun classes, but on closer inspection these are more realistically classified as singular classes and corresponding plural classes. Noun class agreement is typically signalled on nearly all items in a clause, as illustrated in examples () and () using Swahili. () Swahili (Katamba : ) M-toto m-dogo a-mefika. CL-child CL-little CL-arrived ‘The little child arrived.’ () Swahili (Katamba : ) Ki-kapu ki-dogo ki-mefika. CL-basket CL-little CL-arrived ‘The little basket arrived.’
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In contrast to European languages, Bantu noun class systems often exhibit a fairly transparent semantic basis, even though there are many exceptions. For example, in Swahili classes / are for animates, classes / for trees and plants, classes / for augmentatives, and classes / for diminutives. More generally, noun class membership may be based on the following semantic distinctions: human, animate, kinship, animals, plants, trees, fruits, tools, wooden objects, liquids, masses, collective items, paired items, individuatives, abstract concepts, customs/manners, elongated objects, augmentative concepts, diminutive concepts, parts of the body and places (see Heine : –; Denny and Creider : ).
4.3 Properties languages may lack Besides showing strikingly uncommon properties, it also happens that languages can do without certain structural characteristics that one would expect to be rather obligatory in the sense that without them, the expressive power of the relevant languages would be lowered and the potential for misunderstandings would be significantly increased. Such ‘missing’ common properties are a reminder that languages can be organized quite differently and still be fully functional. As pointed out in Chapter , typological work can thus help to avoid cultural bias and prejudice. In terms of common properties that languages may lack, I will here address lateral consonants, plural marking on personal pronouns, distance contrasts in demonstratives, and ordinal numbers. Translating such common though partially absent properties into our topic of clause type systems, we are looking for languages that do not possess one or more of the major clause types, such as declarative, interrogative, or imperative. Discounting declarative clauses, which are present by definition, such languages indeed exist. 4.3.1 Lateral consonants What is known as lateral consonants concerns sounds like the English phoneme /l/. These are approximants, meaning that there is no real obstruction produced by two articulators, but only some narrowing of the air flow, which proceeds along the sides (laterals) of the tongue. The English lateral approximant is generally voiced, except for allophonic
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variation (e.g. place [pɬeɪs]). Lateral approximants are quite common across languages. We also find lateral fricatives and affricates (both voiced and voiceless), with some languages even having several of them (e.g. Zulu; see Maddieson d). Interestingly, some languages do not possess lateral approximants. In a sample of languages, Maddieson (d) detects languages without such sounds. This amounts to slightly above per cent (.%). Moreover, most of these languages reside in two fairly restricted geographical areas, namely the northern part of South America and New Guinea. 4.3.2 Plural marking on personal pronouns If lateral approximants are widely attested across languages, so is plural marking on personal pronouns. We can easily observe this in English, where the singular forms I and he, she, it contrast with plural forms in the pronominal paradigm, namely we and they. This distinction is very common indeed. Daniel (), based on a sample of languages, reports a mere languages with number indifferent pronouns. One example is Kiowa, a native American language now spoken in Oklahoma. Here, for pronouns like I and we the same morphological exponent is used. What is interesting is that English does not show a number distinction in the second person, with the same form (you) being used in singular and plural. Even though the origins of this formal identity of singular and plural form are known, namely an overuse of the polite form you in Early Modern English, the outcome is typologically significant in the sense that similar formal overlap is rare. In informal registers of English, we can observe the recreation of the number contrast through using analytic forms like you guys or you all (y’all). 4.3.3 Distance contrasts in demonstratives Another common property widely found cross-linguistically concerns distance contrasts in demonstrative pronouns. Again, we can use English for illustration, where demonstratives indicating locations close to or around the speaker (this, these) contrast with those picking out locations away from the speaker (that, those). This yields the familiar contrast between this book and that book. According to Diessel (), there are a mere seven languages in a sample of languages that do not show such a
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contrast and thus possess distance-neutral demonstratives. Four of these languages are found in West Africa, one in Mesoamerica, and two in Europe, namely German and French. This is not to say that these languages cannot express distance contrasts, but these need not be drawn obligatorily. In French and German, for example, distance neutral demonstratives can be modified by locative adverbials, yielding the complex forms ceci (‘this’) and cela (‘that’), as well as der hier (‘this’) and der da (‘that’). 4.3.4 Ordinal numbers As a final illustration of a cross-linguistically widely attested phenomenon that some languages do not possess, let us take a look at ordinal numbers (English first, second, third, fourth, etc.). In contrast to cardinal numbers, which specify quantities, ordinal numbers identify the position or rank in a set. If I say They got married on the third day, I mean ‘day number three’ after some point of orientation. In English, cardinal and ordinal numbers are clearly distinct, with the latter derived from the former by means of a regular morphological process (and suppletion for the first three numbers). Stolz and Veselinova () explore ordinal numbers in a sample of languages and report thirty-three languages in which ordinal numerals do not exist (i.e. the concept as such is unknown and expressed differently) and a further three languages in which no distinction between cardinal and ordinal numerals is drawn (i.e. one type of numeral occurs in both functions). Languages that distinguish cardinal and ordinal numbers come in different types, there typically being special solutions for very low numbers (as in English).
4.4 Grammaticalization If language typology explores the cross-linguistic patterns and limits of structural variation, grammaticalization—at least its typologically interested branches—offers a diachronic perspective on the relevant phenomena, asking for the historical origin of grammatical markers and syntactic structures as well as general paths of their development. Questions concerning the origin or the historical trajectory of linguistic units are usually very difficult to answer, since grammatical items and structures tend to be very old and typically take many generations to
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develop. Moreover, historical documentation of languages is sparse, with European languages like English, German, and Spanish, or Asian languages like Sanskrit and Chinese representing the exception rather than the rule. But even if there is extensive historical documentation, it can be quite challenging to describe and explain what was going on in historical terms. For example, the do-support and the inversion of subject and finite verb in today’s English polar interrogative clauses, as in example (), is very difficult to make sense of diachronically, even though the period of late Middle and Early Modern English, i.e. when it arose, is rather well documented. () Do you like travelling? The empirical facts have been reconstructed with a fair amount of precision (see Kroch ), but even with the major facts in place, linguists are still struggling to motivate the observable changes, especially so, as they also concern negation and constituent interrogatives. Similarly, the changes surrounding the emergence of English what/ how-exclamatives can certainly be reconstructed with a good chance of success, but this would not explain their emergence as such, nor would it point to more general mechanisms of language change. What can be investigated—and also motivated—with a greater chance of success, especially in cross-linguistic terms, is the origin of grammatical morphemes, on the general understanding that some lexical items over time may develop into grammatical markers. This is narrowly known as ‘grammaticalization’ or ‘grammaticization’, and is easily illustrated on the basis of the English go-future (a textbook example), as illustrated in (). () a. b. c. d. e.
John is going to London. (motion) John is going to go to London. (intention) John’s gonna go to London. (future time) John gonna go to London. (future time) *John gonna London.
If we view the examples in (a–d) in terms of a historical trajectory, the verb go develops from an expression describing motion into one describing future time reference. In addition, it undergoes formal changes, namely a reduction from be going to to gonna. We may further note that the resulting grammatical future marker cannot any longer be used to express motion events (e). What is more, this development of motion verbs to markers of future time reference is by no means
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restricted to English, but a path of grammaticalization that could be identified in many other languages (Heine and Kuteva : –), and also many non-standard varieties of English (Siemund : ch. ). Apparently, motion verbs are especially likely to give rise to future tense markers. This fact is in need of explanation. Similar instances of grammaticalization have been amply documented and analysed in great detail. I will here restrict myself to introducing two additional examples, namely reflexive markers and articles. As far as reflexive markers are concerned, these are expressions enforcing a coreferential interpretation of subject and object position in a clause, as shown in example (). Here, herself is the reflexive marker, signalling referential identity of the object with the subject Mary. Of course, the details are substantially more complex, but this information is sufficient to understand the grammaticalization issue. () Mary saw herself in the mirror. If we ask for the origin of English reflexive markers, we will learn that these complex expressions—consisting of a pronominal form (her) and a modifier (self)—arose in Middle English, supplanting a state of the English language in which dedicated reflexive markers did not exist and referential identity in a clause was expressed by simple personal pronouns (König and Siemund b). Consider the Old English example in (). () Old English (Genesis .) ða behydde Adam hine, and his wif eac swa dyde then hid Adam him and his wife also so did ‘Adam hid himself and so did his wife.’ Since reflexive markers are without doubt grammatical expressions, we can analyse the diachronic change producing them as a case of grammaticalization, but an important piece of information, namely the lexical meaning of self, remains in the dark. We may take a look at other languages for inspiration, leading to the observation that reflexive markers are frequently related to body-part nouns, especially head, body, and soul. I provide one example from Arabic in (), but it is clear that this is an extremely widespread pattern (Schladt ). () Arabic (Abir Medini) Ali garah-a nafs-a-hu. Ali hurt.PERF-.SG.MASC soul-ACC-POSS..SG ‘Ali hurt himself.’ (lit.: ‘Ali hurt his soul.’)
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The semantic process of change leading from body-part nouns to reflexive markers is one of metonymic reinterpretation (part for whole), usually accompanied by formal reductions similar to the future tense example discussed above. There has been some speculation that English self can be etymologically related to a body-part noun, and in view of the cross-linguistic findings, such speculation gains in plausibility (see Siemund : – for some discussion). Articles furnish another clear case of grammaticalization that, again, can be easily illustrated using English. In this case, the historical processes in English are fully transparent and in line with crosslinguistic tendencies. Regarding English, we can distinguish two articles, namely an indefinite article signalling contextually unidentifiable referents (a) and a definite article signalling contextually identifiable referents (b). () a. Please, pass me a hammer. b. Please, pass me the hammer. Consulting the historical facts, it emerges that the indefinite article can be traced back to the numeral an ‘one’ and the definite article to the demonstrative pronoun þone ‘this’. Again, the diachronic developments in English are consistent with observations from many other languages, pointing to a pervasive path of grammaticalization (Diessel ). The important point about grammaticalization is that semantic changes go hand in hand with formal changes, leading to new expressions that come to be restricted to specific syntactic or morphological positions. Lehmann (: ) introduces the following grammaticalization parameters, thereby capturing the observations made above. These are integrity, paradigmaticity, paradigmatic variability, structural scope, bondedness, and syntagmatic variability. Regarding the domain of clause types investigated here, there arise many interesting grammaticalization issues, although there will be no space to follow them up, unfortunately. These concern, inter alia, the lexical sources of interrogative words (who, what, etc.) and interrogative particles (e.g. Chinese ma 吗). Similar issues arise in the grammatical reconstruction of imperative morphology and particles—often in relation to modality. Since grammaticalization theory generally assumes unidirectional developments from less grammatical to more grammatical, all conventionalized main clause uses of formerly subordinate clauses, as illustrated in (), represent challenging processes.
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() That she would be so nasty. Evans () uses the term ‘insubordination’ to refer to them. We will explore this problem in detail in Chapter .
4.5 Language universals An important assumption held in language typology—and also in other linguistic branches—is that the logically possible space of variation is heavily constrained. This means that the architecture of language obeys certain general principles so that specific phonological, morphological, and also syntactic structures cannot occur together or are even ruled out completely. These principles are meant to constrain our language capacity as such, and not just individual languages. They are known as ‘language universals’. Consequently, languages or language structures violating these principles should not exist. This is a very strong claim that, as we will see later, needs to be conceptualized in terms of what is more or less likely to occur, rather than a strictly binary distinction. By means of illustration, consider the examples in () in which I reversed the sentence in (a) first, word by word (b) and second, letter by letter (c). () a. John ate the big red apple. b. *Apple red big the ate John. c. *elppa der gib eht eta nhoj. Reversing a sentence, i.e. reading it from its end, word by word or even letter by letter (phoneme by phoneme) is extremely hard and for most people far beyond their mental capacity. I can do this for very simple words (like Anna) and sentences (John loves Anna), and I have seen some exceptional people do this for rather complex words, but this seems to be a very special skill. The reason why I am mentioning this phenomenon is that these kinds of reversals could in principle be associated with some functional load. For instance, if (a) represents an active clause, either (b) or (c) could be the corresponding passive clause. The interesting observation is that—to the best of my knowledge—there is no language that would use such reversals and assign a function to them. Apparently, this is something that is beyond our cognitive capacity and, hence, it works as a constraint on the ways languages are organized. Of course, this is only a broad-brush
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illustration of the principles constraining our language capacity, but I hope that the general problem is clear.5 The phenomena discussed in terms of language universals can be considerably more subtle and I will now turn to a discussion of some examples that have been extensively discussed in the literature. An important reason why the above-mentioned reversals are not functionalized in language is that language tends to be organized in largely continuous chunks above the word level known as ‘constituents’ or ‘phrases’. This means that the words in a clause can be grouped together forming units such as noun phrases, verb phrases, or prepositional phrases. The organization of language in terms of constituents seems a plausible candidate of a language universal, and the assumption of constituent structure forms a broad consensus in the research community. To illustrate this point, we may note that syntactic operations such as passivization or clefting accept constituents as input, though not isolated words. For this reason, the examples in (c) and (c) are considered ungrammatical, while those in (b) and (b) are in line with our grammaticality judgements. () a. John ate the big red apple. b. The big red apple was eaten by John. c. *Apple was eaten the big red by John. () a. John ate the big red apple. b. It was the big red apple that John ate. c. *It was apple that John ate the big red. But even such a seemingly robust assumption as constituent structure has not been left unchallenged. For instance, Evans and Levinson (: –) discuss several languages that seem to violate constituency—among them Latin, Russian, and several Australian languages—arguing that dependency grammar, a syntactic representation that avoids the assumption of continuous constituents, can capture the syntactic relations found in these languages much better. For illustration, take a look at example () in which the subject John is modified by the adjective drunk, although the two words do not form a continuous constituent. This is known as ‘secondary predication’. 5
Notice that such reversals of sentences and words would be very easy to perform for computers.
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() John wrote the term paper drunk. ‘John wrote the term paper and John was drunk.’ Such examples show that even English allows discontinuous constituents, but in current syntactic theories they are typically taken care of in such a way that the discontinuity disappears on the more abstract levels of analysis. This, in turn, necessitates the assumption of mechanisms that can render constituents discontinuous on the surface, such as small clauses or scrambling. Obviously, the problem is how much weight we are willing to assign to the surface organization of language. As another example of language universals, let us take a look at parts of speech systems, i.e. the organization of the lexicon in larger word classes based on semantic, morphological, and syntactic parameters. For example, in English we can distinguish a class of determiners that share the property of immediately preceding a noun (the book vs *book the). In English, we can recognize ten or even more word classes (see Chapter ), depending on the criteria that we employ. Considering word class systems from the perspective of language universals, an interesting question that arises concerns the minimal number of word class distinctions that a language needs to draw to be functional. Common sense would perhaps suggest that languages at least need to distinguish between nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs, yielding a stipulated universal of four minimal categories, two of them nominal and two verbal. This minimal set of word classes is widely assumed in linguistics. However, Evans and Levinson (: ) cast doubt on its validity, pointing to languages without adjectives, on the one hand, and those without adverbs, on the other. Accordingly, the minimally required contrast would be that between noun and verbs, and it appears difficult to imagine how a language could possibly do without. But even the distinction between nouns and verbs does not appear without exception, as, for instance, Straits Salish (spoken in Western Canada) only has predicates and requires nominalizations to appear as relative clauses (Evans and Levinson : ). Such languages, however, seem quite exceptional. We may further hypothesize that all languages distinguish vowels and consonants. This basic contrast appears to be extremely robust, although there are substantial differences in the vowel and consonant inventories across languages. For example, in his cross-linguistic study of vowel and consonant systems based on a sample of languages, Maddieson (a) finds highly balanced systems in which the number of consonants
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is more or less equivalent to the number of vowels, contrasting with extremely imbalanced systems where vowels and consonants significantly outnumber the respective other class (see Table .). The language universals discussed so far define properties that languages are assumed to possess and they are meant to apply without exception, at least in principle. Such universals are known as ‘unrestricted absolute universals’ and they contrast with alternative conceptions of universals along two dimensions. On the one hand, universals may not apply to all, but only to most languages. They are thus not absolute, but represent tendencies. On the other hand, the defining properties may depend on other properties—or other properties may depend on them. Again, such dependencies may be absolute (i.e. exceptionless) or may be tendencies. They are known as ‘implicational universals’, as shown in (), and have been widely discussed in typology. () a. If a language has property X, it also has property Y. b. If a language has property X, it will tend to have property Y. For example, Greenberg (: ) suggested a dependency between word order and the order of adpositions, claiming that ‘Languages with dominant VSO order are always prepositional’, i.e. they have no postpositions. The World Atlas of Language Structures (Dryer and Haspelmath ; http://wals.info) makes it possible to test this universal against a large sample of languages. Table . confirms Greenberg’s hypothesis. Greenberg (: ) further proposed that SOV languages Table 4.8 Combined order of basic constituents and adpositions (based on Dryer d, g) No adpositions
Postpositions
Prepositions
Inpositions
n.d.o.
SOV ()
SVO ()
VSO ()
VOS () OVS ()
OSV ()
n.d.o. ()
Note: n.d.o. = no dominant order
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have postpositions, and this universal is equally confirmed by Table .. Since there are several exceptions, these implicational universals represent tendencies. The linguistic universals that you will encounter in the main chapters of this book will chiefly be of the implicational type. What you will also find is the stacking of conditional universals to so-called ‘implicational hierarchies’ (see Croft : ch. ). The general principle is shown in (). Such chains of implicational universals are typically represented as in (). () a. b. c. d.
If a language has property P, it also has property P. If a language has property P, it also has property P. If a language has property P, it also has property PM. If a language has property PM, it also has property PN.
() PN > PM > P > P > P Implicational hierarchies predict that if a language possesses a grammatical property at some point of the hierarchy, it will also possess all properties further to the left. For example, Hengeveld (: ) hypothesizes that word class distinctions follow the implicational hierarchy in (). It predicts, inter alia, that if a language has a distinct class of adverbs, it will also distinguish the classes of verbs, nouns, and adjectives. () verb > noun > adjective > adverb Table . provides a summary of the types of universals discussed in the foregoing paragraphs, the major dimensions being conditionality and absoluteness. Table 4.9 Logical types of universal statement (following Greenberg), taken from Evans and Levinson (: ) Absolute (exceptionless)
Statistical (tendencies)
Unconditional (unrestricted)
Type . ‘Unrestricted absolute universals’ All languages have property X
Type . ‘Unrestricted tendencies’ Most languages have property X
Conditional (restricted)
Type . ‘Exceptionless implicational universals’ If a language has property X, it also has property Y
Type . ‘Statistical implicational universals’ If a language has property X, it will tend to have property Y
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4.6 Explanations The language universals discussed in the previous section represent empirical generalizations. They tell us something about the way language is organized, but they do not as such offer explanations for the observable patterns. Scholars working in language typology typically seek to provide language-external explanations, meaning that language is assumed to be organized in the way it is due to functional pressure resulting from physical and cognitive constraints, processing and memory limitations, but also pressure exerted by the social organization of the societies in which the relevant languages are spoken. Accordingly, languages show similar principles of organization, since all human beings basically possess the same cognitive machinery (i.e. the brain or the wetware, as it were) and the same acoustic/articulatory apparatus. The logically conceivable space of variation, though, is heavily constrained. In what follows, I will illustrate the points made above using three examples, one taken from phonetics/phonology, one relating to processing constraints, and one to social structure and the mutual assumptions held in society. It goes without saying that the discussion of the functional principles and constraints underlying language universals could easily fill several volumes. The publications mentioned below (see ‘Topics for further research’) can be used to pursue this field. In a study on phonemic universals, Nartey (: ) proposed that ‘The presence of a voiced obstruent in a given language is most likely to imply the presence of its voiceless cognate.’ This means that if a language has the phoneme /b/, it also has /p/; if it has /d/, it also has /t/; and so on. This implicational universal is based on examining a sample of languages. How can it be explained? It would appear that an explanation first and foremost needs to be sought in articulatory constraints. For instance, Ohala (: ) argues that the universal is due to aerodynamic constraints governing the vibration of the vocal cords. These, so the argument goes, can only vibrate it the subglottal air pressure (below the vocal cords) is higher than the supraglottal air pressure (above the vocal cords). The production of obstruents, especially stops, however, leads to high supraglottal pressure and, hence, it becomes difficult to produce voicing. Therefore, voiced obstruents are more difficult to produce than their voiceless counterparts, giving rise to the universal introduced above. It is plain to see how language external parameters constrain the organization of language.
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Table 4.10 Prefixing versus suffixing in inflectional morphology (adapted from Dryer f) Suffixing
Prefixing
Neutral
No inflections
Total
Another type of universal can be given a cognitive or processing explanation. It is well known that across languages there is a vast preference for suffixation over prefixation. This is attested by the figures in Table . where suffixing languages vastly outnumber prefixing languages.6 Cutler et al. () offer a processing explanation for these differences arguing that units consisting of stem followed by an affix are easier to process than units of the opposing order. The explanation is based on the claim that lexical processing takes place before grammatical processing. Consequently, prefixing languages incur additional processing costs, since the prefix needs to wait and be put on hold until the stem has been processed. Therefore, prefixing is less likely to develop. A completely different type of explanation can be invoked to account for pervasive usage differences across languages of otherwise similar grammatical structures. The perhaps most widely discussed grammatical structure in this context is the imperative, since it is available in many languages as a distinct category that is, however, subject to unmistakable usage differences. For example, the use of the imperative in English tends to be strongly avoided in direct requests, with various interrogative structures being used instead (expressing indirect speech acts). In commands, the imperative can be used, though, and also in instructions of various kinds (e.g. recipes). Other languages in Europe, especially German, Polish, and Russian, easily allow or even expect the use of the imperative in requests. Wierzbicka (: –) offers a sociocultural explanation to account for these differences, arguing that Anglo-Saxon culture abhors interpersonal imposition, while other cultures are more tolerant in this respect or even expect it. Imposition may even be regarded as polite behaviour, which would be completely unimaginable in Anglo-Saxon society. It 6 Dryer (f) distinguishes between predominantly and moderately prefixing or suffixing. I have collapsed this distinction into one category in Table .. Neutral languages have more or less equal numbers of prefixes and suffixes.
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should be obvious that usage differences and sociocultural explanations have a status that is different from the grammatical restrictions and their physical and cognitive explanations discussed further above.
4.7 Summary In this chapter, I wanted to provide some background information on the methodology used in cross-linguistic comparison and some of the research questions that have been explored. We have also seen that languages can be compared along diverse structural dimensions, taken from phonology, morphology, and syntax, and that they can be classified into certain types, even though many languages possess traits of different types. The languages of the world show surprising structural variation, but there are nevertheless limits to the observable variation and certain phenomena and patterns occur with greater frequency than others. Such patterns and limits of variation beg an explanation, leading to the postulation of language universals and the problem of how to motivate them. Cross-linguistic comparisons carried out in language typology are surface oriented in the sense that generalizations are formulated on the basis of observable data, and not in relation to some hidden structural level (‘deep structure’), as in Universal Grammar. In the subsequent chapters, we will be dealing with a host of different— primarily morphosyntactic—phenomena in regard to clause types and clause type systems. As we saw in Chapter , clause types may be marked by word order differences, particles, affixes, as well as the omission of constituents, yielding complex cross-linguistic patterns. Moreover, we can observe certain correlations between the individual clause types and their preferred marking strategies. In keeping with the general objective of typological work, we will try to build a systematics for the observable variation and offer explanations that are based on the functions in which the clause types are used. Such explanations are grounded in the belief that functional pressure determines language structure.
4.8 Topics for further research There are many good introductory textbooks on language typology. I mention a few of them here without discussing them in detail: Comrie
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(), Whaley (), Croft (), Velupillai (), and Moravcsik (). They are all worth reading and will provide more information on the issues I introduced. If you want to go back to the roots, take a look at the classic volume edited by Greenberg in . Typologists have accumulated immense factual knowledge that is readily accessible through publications as well as electronic databases. Let me introduce the most important resources. You are hereby invited to explore them. Without doubt, the most comprehensive and the most widely used typological reference work is the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS; Dryer and Haspelmath ; http://wals.info). It contains chapters dedicated to a wide range of phenomena taken from different language levels. It offers maps showing the distribution of these phenomena as well as accompanying texts explaining them and the theoretical problems associates with them. Another online resource is the Konstanz Universals Archive (http:// typo.uni-konstanz.de/archive; edited by Frans Plank). Its main objective is to collect and portray all statements concerning language universals found in the literature. Just browsing through the archive is extremely informative, but one can also search for specific items. The Universals Archive is accompanied by an equally valuable Rara Archive listing attested, though highly exceptional properties of languages (http://typo.uni-konstanz.de/rara/intro). Even though there currently is no online source on grammaticalization, the World Lexicon of Grammaticalization (Heine and Kuteva ) provides a comprehensive and accessible overview of the attested paths of grammaticalization and the source lexemes involved. It offers a window into grammatical change and identifies the relationships between different grammatical meanings. Besides the major reference works that try to present pan-linguistic generalizations, there are also more special typological tools. On the one hand, we here need to mention The Atlas and Survey of Pidgin and Creole Languages (Michaelis et al. a), which is accompanied by an online version The Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online (APiCS; Michaelis et al. b). On the other hand, there is even an online database containing non-standard grammatical structures of varieties of English. This is known as the electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English (eWAVE; Kortmann and Lunkenheimer ).
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4.9 Exercises Basic level 1. Visit the Ethnologue website at http://www.ethnologue.com and consult the information offered on the following languages: English, Japanese, Lezgian, Nakoda, Ket, Kootenay, Krongo, Russian, Sami, Swahili, Zulu. a. Compare these languages regarding number of speakers, where they are spoken, to which family they belong, the documentation available, and whether they are official languages or not. b. Try to estimate how many languages in the world enjoy the status of official languages, i.e. languages recognized by a political body. 2. Consider the Japanese example below. Does Japanese represent the isolating type, the fusional type, the agglutinating type, or the polysynthetic type? Explain. Yoko-no hon-o atae-na-katta. i. Aki wa Miki-ni Aki TOP Miki-DAT Yoko-POSS book-ACC give-NEG-PAST ‘Aki did not give Miki Yoko’s book.’ 3. The story of the tower of Babel can be interpreted as an attempt to explain linguistic diversity. Try to think of alternative explanations and compare them in a short essay of approximately words.
Intermediate level 1. At the beginning of this chapter, I opposed the comparison of languages in terms of family (genetic) relations to the structural comparison carried out in language typology. Family relations can be represented in terms of language family trees, whereas structural comparisons can be portrayed as linguistic feature maps. a. Try to identify weaknesses of the family tree model. Which assumptions is it based on? b. Do you think that the comparison of languages along structural parameters is justified? Which problems does this approach encounter? Explain. 2. Spanish reflexive pronouns (se) can be used to signal the coreference of subject and object position of transitive verbs. This is to be expected, but the reflexive marker can also be found with verbs describing bodily motion and can even signal passives. Consider the following examples.
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i. Juan se miró en el John REFL saw in the ‘John saw himself in the mirror.’ ii. María se sentó. Mary REFL sat down ‘Mary sat down.’ iii. Se utiliza para formar oraciones REFL use for form sentences ‘It is used for forming passives sentences.’
espejo. mirror
pasivas. passive
a. The verbs in examples ii. and iii. are syntactically transitive, though semantically intransitive. Can you see why? b. The extension of se from context i. via context ii. to context iii. has been analysed as a common path of grammaticalization. Try to explain why se in example iii. has a higher degree of grammaticity than in example ii., and why se in example ii. has a higher degree of grammaticity than in example i. 3. Greenberg (: ) postulates the following implicational universal: ‘If a language has inflection, it always has derivation.’ Which types of language does this implicational universal permit, which are ruled out? Explain.
Advanced level 1. Greenberg () proposed a great number of implicational universals, though on the basis of a relatively small sample of languages. The World Atlas of Language Structures (http://wals.info) offers the opportunity to test these implicational universals against much larger samples. You are here invited to test two of Greenberg’s implicational universals making use of the Atlas. a. ‘Universal . When the descriptive adjective precedes the noun, the demonstrative and the numeral, with overwhelmingly more than chance frequency, do likewise.’ (p. ) b. ‘Universal . With well more than chance frequency, when question particles or affixes are specified in position by reference to the sentence as a whole, if initial, such elements are found in prepositional languages, and, if final, in postpositional.’ (p. ) 2. Select at least three languages of your choice and compare them in relation to Greenberg’s () synthesis index. Base your comparison on text samples of similar length (c., words) taken from equivalent registers. Discuss the problems encountered during your analysis in a short research paper.
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3. Evans and Levinson () question the pervasiveness of linguistic universals, arguing that linguistic diversity is significantly more extensive than traditionally assumed. Although they do not say that universals do not exist per se, more research efforts should be placed on exploring variation. a. Carefully read Evans and Levinson’s article making notes on important points. b. Which different conceptions of universals do they discuss? c. Which widely accepted universals do they question? What are their arguments? d. Which alternative conception of universals and variation do they offer? Try to represent their ideas in a research paper of maximally , words.
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5 Declaratives and assertions
. The meaning and force of declaratives
. English declarative clauses
. A cross-linguistic view on declarative clauses
. Summary
. Topics for further research
. Exercises
This chapter is dedicated to an analysis of declarative clauses. In language-specific systems of clause types, declaratives typically represent the unmarked member of the paradigm, forming the point of orientation against which the other clause types can be identified. Within the literal force paradigm introduced in Chapter , declarative clauses are held to be conventionally associated with representative speech acts (statements, assertions), using Searle’s () terminology. They are generally assumed to express statements about the way the world is or about one’s beliefs, preferences, and conjectures. The direction of fit is word-to-world, the verbalization being chosen in such a way that it delivers a representation of world facts. Having said that, our subsequent exploration of declaratives will also reveal that a functional restriction to making statements falls short of reality, as this clause type can be found used with practically all imaginable illocutionary forces. Declaratives can be used for asking questions, issuing commands, expressing requests, permissions, and wishes, making promises, giving instructions, and many more. They can be found in a diverse set of performative uses, also being the prototypical clause type for the speech act class referred to as ‘declarations’ in Searle’s taxonomy. Last but not least, performative verbs such as promise, apologize, warn,
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advise, and the like are typically plugged into declarative clauses. We need to discuss whether these non-statement uses should be analysed as indirect speech acts, or whether there are interpretations that can handle this complex reality more efficiently. König and Siemund (: ) identify six properties that constitute declarative clause types cross-linguistically, namely (i) they are the most frequent type in terms of token frequency, (ii) they represent the basic word order pattern of a language, (iii) they are least distributionally restricted in comparison to the other types, (iv) they show the full paradigm of tense/aspect and agreement marking available in a language, (v) they possess the highest illocutionary force potential, and (vi) they typically form the basis for deriving the other clause types by adding or subtracting linguistic material. Declarative clauses never contain interrogative words and they are clearly finite. We will explore these properties in detail in the subsequent sections.
5.1 The meaning and force of declaratives As a starting point in our discussion of declarative clauses, let us retract to the idea of separating the content of a clause from its mood or force. We introduced this idea in Chapter that in itself may at least be traced back to Searle (: ) and Frege (–/: ). Its formal representation is once again shown in example (), with ‘p’ standing for proposition and ‘F’ for illocutionary force. () F(p) Accordingly, force is viewed as a function modifying a proposition. A simple declarative clause used with the force of warning, as in example (a), may thus be represented as in (b). The question, of course, is whether we can motivate the assumption of an explicit force operator in the semantic or syntactic representation, since force could also be considered a purely contextual condition. () a. This cat is dangerous. b. WARNING(dangerous(cat)) Put in more general terms, we need to ask whether declarative clauses— though they undoubtedly encode propositions—also contain a specification for illocutionary force, meaning a conventionalized association
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with force. This is a difficult question. Declaratives are frequently associated with making statements or expressing assertions, but this is questionable, as we will see below. Ideally, there would be some formal exponent in addition to material carrying propositional content to which declarative mood or force could be attached, but declaratives typically being unmarked, this is not the case. Declarative clauses may contain additional formal devices indicating special information structure, though (Oppenrieder : ). In our subsequent discussion of the meaning and force of declarative clauses, it will be useful to be aware of three distinct layers on which communication can in principle proceed. These are often called ‘content layer’, ‘epistemic layer’, and ‘speech act layer’ (Sweetser ). Let me illustrate this point using the conditional sentences shown in example (). () a. If you drop the apple, it falls down. (content layer) b. If there is smoke, there is fire. (epistemic layer) c. If you are hungry, there is money in the drawer. (speech act layer) Example (a) describes a relationship between known and observable facts. This is quite different from (b), which is based on speaker inferences, as there could be smoke for many alternative reasons. Here, the conditional specifies the basis for the conclusions drawn. Example (c) is yet again different, since there is no ipso facto conditional relationship between ‘being hungry’ and ‘money in the drawer’. The conditional introduces the information necessary for rendering the subsequent offer contextually relevant. These layers need to be borne in mind in our discussion of the meaning and force of declarative clauses.
5.1.1 Assertive uses As far as the content layer is concerned, declarative clauses are usually assumed to encode propositions that can be given a truth value, i.e. judged as either true or false in relation to observable world facts. In other words, if I say Snow is white, then this is a true sentence in the sense that it is consistent with our world knowledge. This sentence is about general, timeless truths, even though many people have actually never seen snow around them. The truth value of past tense declaratives needs to be judged against the factual basis of a temporal period before the time of speaking. In a similar way, the truth value of future tense
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declaratives (Tomorrow will be cloudy) needs to be evaluated in a future world. They cannot be given a truth-value at the moment of speaking. Future tense declaratives are special in that they describe something not yet known (i.e. speculation). As mentioned above, there is some discussion as to whether the expression of a proposition via uttering a declarative clause justifies the assumption of an illocutionary force operator for declaratives (see Jary for an accessible overview). The question is whether declarative clauses should be represented as F(p) in their semantics or merely p. We can make several observations that point towards the assumption of declaratives being associated with what has been termed ‘assertive force’. To begin with, it should be clear that every statement that we make by default expresses our point of view and realizes a proposition that we believe to be the case. Even if I state something completely obvious like This table is round in front of a round table, this expresses my belief that the table is round, the term ‘belief ’ here referring to a specific mental state or attitude of mine. The truth of the proposition boils down to its being accepted by the speech community, i.e. speech communities share beliefs. That every statement is rooted in a belief system is more obvious in cases of value judgements, as shown in example (). You would probably agree that such sentences are understood to express a hidden introductory formula like I believe that or in my opinion. But arguably, this is also true for more eternal truths like The Earth circles around the Sun. () a. Laura is a clever girl. b. Linguistics is tough to study. Another point concerns the observation that statements can be made with varying degrees of informational strength. Consider the examples in (). Here, the speaker gives explicit information concerning the strength of his or her beliefs. In other words, the relevant propositions are portrayed as being more or less likely to be true. () a. Laura seems to be a clever girl. b. Linguistics is probably tough to study. c. Without any doubt, snow is white. We may conclude that declarative clauses contain some kind of belief operator such that making a statement with them boils down to introducing selected pieces of the speaker’s mental state into discourse.
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This is essentially what we mean when we say that we assert something. Asserting, i.e. the expression or exteriorization of beliefs, can be viewed as a primitive of human interaction, and declarative clauses can be considered the primary vehicle for bringing this about. If we now go back to our example about dangerous cats, repeated in example (a), the ASSERT operator in (b) marks it as an assertion, the ultimate speech act of a warning being contextually derived. () a. This cat is dangerous. b. ASSERT(dangerous(cat)) Depending on how we define warnings, the example in () now comes to be analysed as an indirect speech act (see Vanderveken : ). In using (a), I am presenting the relevant proposition to you, and you are likely to compute that asserting that a cat is dangerous is tantamount to giving a warning. Hence, you had better do something about it, which makes warning a directive act. If this line of reasoning is correct, we can expect declarative clauses to be suitable vehicles to express all speech act classes, as the expression of a belief is open to manifold interpretations. We will come back to this issue below. Using declaratives, we can also attribute beliefs or assertions to other people or sources of information. This point is illustrated in examples () and (). The complex sentences (main clause plus subordinate clause) in (a) and (a) neatly separate source of information from the actual piece of information, but notice that this distinction is blurred in the non-finite constructions in (b) and (b). We will encounter such ‘evidential constructions’ again later in the present chapter. () a. John said that this cat is dangerous. b. This cat is said to be dangerous. () a. I have heard that this cat is dangerous. b. This cat has been heard to be dangerous. 5.1.2 Epistemic uses Declarative clauses are also widely encountered in the so-called ‘epistemic’ domain expressing conjectures, predictions, and inferences. They also express assertions in these uses, but the requisite beliefs or mental attitudes are the result of reasoning and not just, say, observation or
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Table 5.1 Types of epistemic judgements (based on Palmer : ) Category
Explanation
Example
Speculative
a possible conclusion
John may be in his office.
Assumptive
a reasonable conclusion
John will be in his office.
Deductive
the only possible conclusion
John must be in his office.
knowledge. Unless we analyse epistemic uses as indirect speech acts, describing these as assertions substantially widens this term, since conjectures, predictions, and inferences concern hypothetical or future events and thus cannot be judged as true or false at the moment of speaking. Epistemic uses of declarative clauses (epistemic statements) represent ‘judgments about the factual status of the proposition’ and can be of essentially three kinds, namely speculative, assumptive, and deductive (Palmer : ), capturing differences in relation to the strength and the basis of the judgements. The main category for expressing such inferences in English is the class of modal verbs. Consider the overview given in Table .. The strength of the inference increases from speculative to deductive, with assumptive ranging in between. Palmer (: ) argues that besides judgement strength, the categories in Table . encode an additional semantic distinction, namely between inferences based on observation (must) and inferences based on experience or general knowledge (will). Here, the epistemic system begins to overlap with the evidential system encoding the source of information, which is a well-known problem. Conceptually, the epistemic system is independent of the system of clause types, though there is substantial interaction. For example, imperatives may not generally be epistemically modified (see Chapter ). Interrogatives by and large seem compatible with epistemic modification, although questioning information based on inferences seems restricted to highly specific contexts (to different degrees), as the examples in () show. Exclamatives are very difficult to modify epistemically. The examples in () are nearly impossible to contextualize. Declarative clauses constitute the least restricted clause type with respect to epistemic modification and are therefore chiefly used to illustrate such contrasts.
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() What do you think . . . a. May John be in his office? / Who may be in his office? b. Will John be in his office? / Who will be in his office? c. Must John be in his office? / Who must be in his office? () a. What a fast car she may have bought! b. How fast this car may be! Most epistemic judgements are clearly located in the non-factual domain, especially all speculation. Some languages reflect this grammatically by encoding such situations in non-declarative mood (or non-indicative mood), as, for example, the use of the subjunctive or other irrealis forms. 5.1.3 Explicit and implicit performatives Let us now come to the speech act layer or performative uses of declarative clauses. This concerns non-assertive uses of declaratives (implicit performatives) and those containing a performative verb (explicit performatives). The label ‘performative’ is a bit of a misnomer, since assertions and statements are also speech acts, namely of the representative type. They are performative in the sense that making a statement amounts to carrying out the act of stating something. This problem harks back to the distinction between constative and performative utterances that Austin (: –) introduced in his lectures and in their course deconstructed (see our discussion in Chapter ). If declarative clauses are conventionally associated with assertive force, all other uses they can be found in must be analysed as indirect speech acts. Some examples of such indirect uses are given in Table .. As you can see, declarative clauses may occur with the force of all Table 5.2
Indirect uses of declarative clauses
Declaratives
Speech act
You now go to bed.
directive, command
You’ve eaten already?
directive, question
I’ll return the book next week.
commissive, promise
I’m really proud of your results.
expressive, praising
Your contract terminates today.
declaration, firing
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speech act classes distinguished by Searle (: –), there being no discernible restrictions. Later in our discussion we will see, however, that declarative questions and commands obey tight usage restrictions. Note also that adding modals like should and must in their obligation reading changes declaratives from expressing assertions to directives. In characterizing the examples in Table . as indirect speech acts, we still commit ourselves to analysing the respective declarative clauses as expressing assertions. Accepting Searle’s (: ) distinction between primary and secondary illocutionary acts, assertive force is here secondary, though it is clearly shining through all examples. Some of the examples in Table . can be responded to both on the primary and secondary level, as shown below, supporting this analysis. For the remaining examples, this appears less convincing, though. () a. A: I’ll return the book next week.—B: Thanks for informing me. I hope you can keep your promise. b. A: Your contract terminates today.—B: Thanks for informing me, but honestly I don’t give a damn. The illocutionary forces exemplified in Table . may also be expressed using declarative clauses containing performative verbs. As we discussed in Chapter , such verbs can be used to perform the social act that they describe. In saying I hereby apologize for being late, I am effectively expressing an apology. In Table ., I rephrased the declarative clauses in Table . making use of performative verbs. Again, if we conventionally associate declarative syntax with assertive force, the performative declaratives in Table . must be considered as expressing indirect speech acts. This analysis requires the hearer to go through a contextual reinterpretation of these examples. Intuitively, this Table 5.3
Performative uses of declarative clauses
Performative declaratives
Speech act
I hereby ask you to go to bed now.
directive, command
I hereby ask you if you have already eaten.
1
directive, question
I hereby promise to return the book next week.
commissive, promise
I hereby praise you for your results.
expressive, praising
I hereby declare that your contract terminates today.
declaration, firing
1
Notice the two meanings of ask in this and the previous sentence (‘question’ vs ‘order’).
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does not seem plausible and overstretches the idea of indirect speech acts driven by implicatures, even though these represent a reasonable construct in many other cases. 5.1.4 Are declarative clauses force-neutral? In view of the foregoing observations, Recanati (: –) proposes that declarative clauses are illocutionary neutral (unmarked), rather than being conventionally associated with representative speech acts.1 Even though they are frequently used for making assertions, assertive force is not part of their semantic description. Being force-neutral, the illocutionary acts expressed by declarative clauses are always a matter of contextual interpretation. Hence, the issue of direct and indirect speech acts does not arise. The reason why we expect declarative clauses to express assertions is that the other clause types are conventionally associated with non-assertive force. Therefore, they are the privileged vehicle to express assertions. Recanati (: ) introduces four strategies to handle the complex data introduced in the previous sections: i. consider the declarative mood to be semantically ambiguous, that is, semantically associated with several illocutionary forces, not reducible to one another; ii. assign declarative sentences a constative illocutionary potential, and handle the performative uses with the theory of indirect speech acts; iii. treat constative acts and the acts performed by using a declarative sentence performatively as belonging to a single family of illocutionary acts, associated with declarative mood; iv. treat the declarative mood as illocutionary neutral.
The first strategy boils down to assuming several coexisting declarative clause types. This is a costly and rather inelegant solution. The second strategy assumes direct and indirect speech acts, which has the negative consequence of multiplying the indirect uses. Strategy number three runs counter to speech act theory and necessitates a new classification of illocutionary acts. It could result in an extremely wide definition of 1
For a similar point of view, see Brandt et al. (: –).
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assertions. Hence, strategy four comes to be the favoured alternative, abandoning the idea of associating declarative syntax with assertive force. I generally sympathize with Recanati’s analysis, as it is the least costly solution. The only problem that I can see is that if declarative clauses are used as assertions in the majority of cases, would this not mean that they are conventionally associated with that force? But this is an empirical problem open to investigation.
5.2 English declarative clauses Having sketched the conceptual territory associated with declarative clauses, let us now turn to an analysis of this clause type in English. Apart from following a specific word order pattern, they are completely unmarked. Declarative clauses vastly outnumber the other types in terms of token frequency (König and Siemund : ; see below). Moreover, all other clause types of English (interrogative, imperative, exclamative) can be derived from declaratives in a systematic way. There are three usage domains that deserve special attention, namely declaratives modified by modal verbs, declaratives used as questions (declarative questions), and declaratives expressing commands and requests (declarative commands). Declarative clauses containing performative verbs will be examined in Chapter . 5.2.1 Structural properties English declarative clauses are difficult to define structurally. They do not possess dedicated markers and we chiefly identify them by saying that they are not interrogative, not imperative, and not exclamative. They rest on the basic word order pattern SVO, which also appears in subordinate clauses. Declaratives may appear in a variety of surface configurations, depending on whether there are objects and/or adverbials present. Some configurations are shown in example (). They express descriptions of past events and can—modulo our above provisos—be viewed as associated with assertive force. () a. The monkey ate the banana. b. The monkey threw me the banana. c. Yesterday the monkey hid the banana under a blanket.
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Declarative clauses possess further variants that can accommodate demands made by information structuring. We tend to organize discourse in such a way that given or old information precedes new information. Such information structuring can be achieved by clefting (), topicalization or fronting (), or passivization (), i.e. operations reordering the basic constituents of a clause. In the present context, it is important to note that these operations do not interfere with the assumed assertive force of declaratives, nor do they seem to curtail their illocutionary force potential. () a. The gator chased the snake. b. It was the snake that the gator chased. () a. The lioness defended her cubs. b. Her cubs, the lioness defended. () a. The penguin caught the fish. b. The fish was caught by the penguin. The basic word order of declarative clauses forms a good point of orientation against which we can identify other clause types, especially as these can be recognized by their specific word order patterns. Examples of the other major clause types of English are shown in (), these being associated with non-assertive forces. The observable word order patterns differ from the basic SVO type. () a. b. c. d.
Did the penguin catch a fish? (polar interrogative) What did the penguin catch? (constituent interrogative) Catch a fish, penguin! (imperative) What a fish the penguin caught. (exclamative)
As a final piece of observation, we may note that English declaratives have subject-verb agreement and that the verb is tense-marked, at least in the past tense. Comparing declaratives with interrogatives and exclamatives does not yield differences in this respect, but imperatives show no tense marking and no agreement. These contrasts are illustrated in examples () to (). () a. Somebody close the door. (imperative) b. Somebody closes the door. (declarative) () a. Don’t anybody touch my new book. (imperative) b. Doesn’t anybody touch my new book? (interrogative)
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() a. *Closed the door. (imperative) b. *Will close the door. (imperative) 5.2.2 The usage of English declarative clauses If declarative clauses are the least restricted clause type functionally, we would expect them to be the most frequent type measured in terms of observable sentence tokens. In other words, looking at what speakers produce, as, for example, through the examination of text corpora, should reveal a strong distributional prominence of declaratives in comparison to the other basic types. Table . provides a summary of clause type occurrence in the International Corpus of English, British Component (see Siemund a: ). The counts are restricted to main clauses, excluding all subordinate clauses. Since declaratives are not marked as such in the corpus, while the other clause types are, we need to identify them by subtracting the non-declarative types from the total number of main clauses in the corpus. The figures in Table . show that declaratives dramatically outnumber the other types, thus confirming our above hypothesis.2 Adding to the share of declarative clauses are questions couched in declarative form (declarative questions). In addition, Table . contains information regarding register variation, showing the distribution of clause types in spoken and written material. There are considerably more main clauses in the spoken part Table 5.4 The distribution of clause types according to register in ICE-GB MAIN %
DEC
%
INT
%
IMP %
EXCLAM %
SUBJ1 %
SP
, . , . , .
.
.
.
WR
, . , .
.
.
.
Total
, , , ,
%
.
.
. .
.
.
1 In ICE-GB, subjunctive clauses are considered a separate clause type. SP = spoken, WR = written
The figures in the table are based on the syntactic annotation used in the corpus (ICEGB). The table contains rounding errors. 2
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of the corpus, even though the corpus contains spoken and written material in similar proportions (about half a million words each). Apparently, clauses in the spoken part are much shorter. Moreover, interrogatives are substantially more frequent in the spoken part. Quite surprisingly, imperatives are stronger than declaratives in the written register. This is mainly due to their use as instructions in manuals, cookbooks, and on signs. 5.2.3 Modal verbs Adding modal verbs to a declarative clause can profoundly change its illocutionary force. In a way, this is not surprising, since grammatical modality represents a category with which various speaker attitudes in relation to a proposition can be expressed. Modifying a simple declarative clause like You often eat mango with modal verbs (must, should, will, may, etc.) immediately changes its force from being an assertion to something else. What is worrying about this observation is that we change force without actually changing the clause type. Let us therefore take a brief look at English modal verbs and their interaction with illocutionary force. In English, there is a closed class of central modal verbs (can, may, must, etc.) possessing highly specific properties. These modal verbs trigger the use of the bare infinitive, do not take the otherwise obligatory third person -s suffix, have no past tense forms, never occur together, do not trigger do-periphrasis—to mention just a few salient properties. In addition to these central modals, there are various so-called ‘semimodals’ or ‘half-modals’ (dare, need, ought to, used to, have to, be able to, etc.) that have properties of both modal verbs and main verbs. Modal verbs in English can be encountered in essentially two different interpretations referred to as ‘situational’ and ‘epistemic’.3 The difference is illustrated in examples () and (). The modal verbs must and can in () appear in their situational or root meaning expressing obligation and ability, respectively. In example (), in contrast, they appear in epistemic interpretations expressing necessity and possibility (a necessary conclusion and a possible conclusion). Alternative labels for ‘situational modality’ are ‘deontic’, ‘circumstantial’, or ‘root modality’. 3
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Table 5.5 Situational and epistemic meanings of English modal verbs (adapted from Quirk et al. : ) Situational meaning
Epistemic meaning
can
permission/ability
possibility
could
permission/ability
possibility
may
permission
possibility
might
permission
possibility
must
obligation
necessity
should
obligation
necessity
will
volition
prediction
would
volition
prediction
shall
obligation
prediction
() a. We must go home now. (obligation, situational) b. I can drive this car. (ability, situational) () a. Speaker hearing the doorbell ring: ‘This must be the postman.’ (necessity, epistemic) b. Such things can happen. (possibility, epistemic) Each modal verb is associated with a specific root meaning: obligation in the case of must, ability with can, volition with will, and so on. While the term ‘root modality’ captures the basic meaning of the verb, epistemic meanings arise through inferential processes and are thus more pragmatic in nature. Table . shows a summary of the situational and epistemic meanings found with English modal verbs. The following examples illustrate several instances of declarative clauses containing modal verbs. The examples depict diverse situations and contain subjects of different persons. None of them can be considered a simple assertion (i.e. expressing a belief), since they convey forces belonging to different classes in Searle’s () taxonomy. () a. You can/could/may/might eat another sandwich, if you like. (permission, offer) b. My brother can/could/may/might help you move the cupboard. (offer, advice) c. We can/could/may/might swim the Channel. (suggestion)
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() a. You must/should take your medication regularly. (request) b. John must/should submit this form on time; otherwise he will lose money. (advice) c. We must/should be more careful. (exhortation) () a. You will return the money immediately. (command) b. John will arrive soon. (prediction) c. I will submit my term paper tomorrow. (promise) Under the literal force hypothesis, we would need to analyse all these examples as expressing indirect speech acts. As already suggested, I am hesitant about this, since their non-assertive forces obviously result from adding the modal verbs. They belong to a set of expressions that have been called ‘illocutionary force indicating devices’ (IFIDs). If these are not indirect acts, however, the expressed forces are difficult to reconcile with the default assertive force of declaratives. Again, the least costly solution appears to be to give up a direct association of declarative syntax with a specific illocutionary force (see discussion above). On this view, the forces expressed by the above examples become a function of the meaning of the relevant modal verbs in combination with contextual determinants.
5.2.4 Declarative questions Declarative clauses can also be used for asking question. We discuss these so-called ‘declarative questions’ here in a separate section, since they possess a high degree of conventionalization. They typically occur with a rising intonation contour and carry heavy answer bias, practically asserting the proposition that they express (like declaratives followed by tag questions; see Chapter ). They also impose tight contextual conditions, as we will see below. You can find some illustration of declarative questions in examples () and (). In both examples, the speaker has clear visible evidence that the situation she is describing is the case. In example (), the addressee is visibly present, and in (), the addressee obviously did not find the object looked for. Both examples express surprise and expect an answer of the same polarity as the question. In the contexts illustrated below, declarative questions cannot be exchanged for either polar interrogatives or tag questions.
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() A meeting B, though arriving slightly early: A: You are already here? () A had in vain been looking for his credit card all day long; B observed this and remarks: B: You (really) didn’t find it? Since declarative questions are assertive, they are often found in interviews in which the interrogator already knows what the interviewee is going to answer, as, for example, in doctor-patient-interviews. Example () provides such an interview context. Here, the physician previously received the major facts through their nurse or a questionnaire and is merely checking that what they find on their list is correct. ()
D: So, you drink two bottles of whisky per day? P: Yes. D: And you try to compensate for the resulting nausea with large quantities of coffee? P: Yes. D: And you’ve got a severe pain here on the right-hand side? P: Yes. D: That’s your liver complaining about the alcohol.
We may refer to such contexts as ‘induced confessions’. Another example is furnished by police interrogations, as in (). In these contexts, too, there often is evidence of what happened, which merely needs to be confirmed. ()
P: So, you opened the safe with a spanner? C: Well, yes. P: And you took the money and spent it on chewing gum? C: Yes. P: You spent , dollars on chewing gum? C: Yes.
It is tempting to analyse declarative questions as declarative clauses on which question intonation (i.e. rising intonation) is superimposed. Regarding their illocutionary force, we would expect them to express statements whose content is placed under a veil of doubt, asking for confirmation. Even though such a compositional analysis basically seems to be correct, the intonational facts had better be checked. Question intonation is notoriously difficult to capture, as is well
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Table 5.6 Epistemic domains, clause types, and social actions (adapted from Heritage : ) Within speaker’s epistemic domain
Not within speaker’s epistemic domain
Declarative syntax
Informing
B-event question
Declarative syntax with final rising intonation
Continuing
Questioning
Tag questions
Mobilizing support for an assertion
Seeking confirmation
Negative interrogative syntax
Assertion
Request for information
Interrogative syntax
Preinforming question Known answer question Rhetorical question
Request for information
known, and in a great number of cases follows a falling intonation contour (Quirk et al. : ; Geluykens ; Bartels ). Labov and Fanshel (: ) argue that declarative questions arise as a consequence of making statements about what they call ‘B-event information’, i.e. information associated with the domain of the addressee. Here, the main diagnostic is the context, even though intonation may facilitate question interpretation. This idea captures the examples discussed so far rather well. Heritage (: ) offers a similar analysis distinguishing between epistemic domains related to the speaker and other discourse participants (see Table .). Similarly, Gunlogson (, ) argues that declaratives used as questions need to be viewed in opposition to declaratives used as statements. While declarative clauses with a falling intonation contour express statements and commit the speaker to the relevant proposition, rising declaratives shift the propositional commitment to the addressee. Intonation, according to Gunlogson (: , ), decides whether the speaker or the addressee commit themselves to the proposition expressed. It seems fair to interpret Gunlogson’s addressee commitment in the sense of the B-event information introduced above. Consider the minimal pair established by examples () and (). As you can see, the use of a rising declarative is only acceptable in the context of example (), but not in that of example (). The reason is that only in example () can the speaker know that the addressee must be aware of the rain.
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() Robin is sitting in a windowless computer room with no information about current weather conditions when another person enters. Robin says to the newcomer: a. Is it raining? b. #It’s raining? c. #It’s raining. (Gunlogson : ) () Robin is sitting in a windowless computer room when another person enters. The newcomer is wearing a wet raincoat and boots. Robin says: a. Is it raining? b. It’s raining? c. (I see that/So) It’s raining. (Gunlogson : ) Declarative questions appear to have a lot in common with echoic uses of questions. As a matter of fact, we may view them as the limiting case of an echo question used in a context where no co-textual material is echoed, but only contextual information. Declarative questions take up (echo) situational aspect of the discourse. Unlike echo questions, they do not refer to the discourse itself. I think that the parallels between example () and the preceding examples are clear to see. ()
A: You know, after his father’s untimely death, John completely lost his faith. B: I can’t believe it. John lost his faith? It meant so much to him. A: Yes.
5.2.5 Declarative commands The idea expounded in the preceding section, namely that declaratives expressing statements that relate to the conceptual domain of the addressee are interpreted as questions, requires additional qualification. This becomes obvious in view of examples like (), which clearly predicate something in the addressee domain, but are not understood as questions, but as rather fierce orders or commands. () a. Father to daughter: ‘You are going to marry him. And that’s it.’ b. Mother to child: ‘You will do your homework immediately.’ We may tentatively refer to such examples as ‘declarative commands’, since they exhibit declarative syntax and hence are declarative clauses,
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though they are not understood as descriptive statements. What makes them conceptually different from declarative questions is that they express future events or properties predicated of the addressee, and not something that can currently be observed. Apparently, statements about future events in the addressee domain are interpreted as directive speech acts. Regarding their form, declarative commands typically contain second person subjects and elements signalling immediacy or urgency. The latter include adverbials like now, right away, or immediately, or the going-to-future. Their intonation may be described as forcefully falling. Declarative commands are difficult to distinguish from imperatives with overt subjects. Example () is structurally ambiguous. () You leave this room immediately. (declarative or imperative) The difference can be discerned more clearly under negation. Example (a) must be analysed as a declarative command, whereas (b) belongs to the class of imperative clauses. () a. You don’t enter this room again. (declarative) b. Don’t you enter this room again. (imperative) Unless we assume force-neutrality of declarative clauses, declarative commands are probably best counted as indirect speech acts, since here declarative clauses express directive acts and there seems to be no sign of conventionalization. By comparison, other so-called indirect acts, such as polar interrogatives used as directives (Can you pass the salt?), are highly conventionalized. We will return to this problem in Chapter .
5.3 A cross-linguistic view on declarative clauses As declarative clauses are typically unmarked, the following crosslinguistic survey cannot be about a comparison of competing marking strategies. Such comparisons need to be postponed to later chapters where we will be discussing interrogatives, imperatives, and exclamatives. What we can do, however, is to explore those domains of grammar that define declarative clauses or closely interact with them. These domains are basic word order including the cross-linguistically observable word order patterns, the expression of mood and modality, and the signalling of information sources (evidentiality). We will discuss these areas one after the other.
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5.3.1 Basic word order patterns and their distribution Declarative clauses, as we pointed out earlier, represent the basic or unmarked word order of a language. Conversely, the basic word order of a language is a good diagnostic for identifying its declarative clause type, practically defining it. We will therefore take a brief look at the basic word order patterns that are attested cross-linguistically. The following observations are based on Dryer (d). It has become common practice in word order typologies to base these on the relative ordering of subject (S), object (O), and verb (V), since the relevant constituents can be identified with a good degree of certainty, thus offering themselves for cross-linguistic comparisons. This assumption gives rise to six logically possible permutations of subject, object, and verb, as illustrated in Table .. The corresponding attestations in a sample of , languages are shown in the table for each permutation. We can make at least two interesting observations in relation to Table .. On the one hand, subject–object orders significantly outnumber object-subject orders. This distributional skewing has been explained with pragmatic principles. Since subjects typically encode topical or discourseold information, and since there seems to be a universal preference for placing such information early in a clause, it is to be expected that subject– object order is more common than the opposite order (Tomlin ; Song : –). Moreover, animate noun phrases tend to be placed initially in a clause, typically coded as subjects. On the other hand, we can see that the orders SOV and SVO are preferred over VSO. This is more difficult to explain and may simply be an historical accident. As far as the geographic distributions of the patterns shown in Table . are concerned, we can note that SOV order is widely attested across the world with there being clusters in Asia (especially South Asia), equatorial Africa, Oceania, and North and South America. SVO order is common in Europe, South East Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. VSO languages occur in various parts of the world, there being smaller Table 5.7 Order of subject, object, and verb (Dryer d) Word order
SOV
SVO
VSO
VOS
OVS
OSV
n.d.o.
Total
Languages
,
Note: n.d.o. = no dominant order
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clusters in Eastern Africa, Western Europe, the Philippines, and some other areas. Languages placing the object before the subject in declarative clauses are generally rare. In spite of the interesting patterns that emerge from comparing the permutations of subject, object, and verb, such comparisons must be taken with a grain of salt. For some languages, it is difficult to decide what their basic word order is. For example, German has verb-second word order in main clauses, though verb-final order in subordinate clauses. Many scholars believe that the verb-final order is the basic word order of German (Bierwisch ). In addition, the comparison shown in Table . considers subjects and objects encoding full noun phrases, excluding pronouns. The latter, however, may appear in different positions relative to the verb. To illustrate this point, full object noun phrases in French are placed behind the verb, whereas pronouns appear in front of the verb to which they cliticize. Another complication is that some languages may be described as having free or flexible word order that obeys functional pressure from the organization of discourse (e.g. Russian). 5.3.2 Interaction with mood and modality Declarative clauses can be modified in essentially two different ways to express the attitude of the speaker with respect to the proposition. On the one hand, we find systems of modal verbs—as in English—that are used to modify the clause analytically, i.e. by syntactic expansion. These are typically discussed within the realms of the more encompassing notion of ‘modality’. On the other hand, speaker attitude may be added by morphological expansion of the verb, generally referred to as ‘mood marking’, the most important exponents of which being ‘indicative’, ‘subjunctive’, and ‘imperative’. The literature also knows a distinction between ‘realis’ and ‘irrealis’ mood that is largely, though not completely, identical to that between indicative and subjunctive.4 There is substantial functional overlap between mood and modality, and for that reason, one could easily collapse them in a more general category (see Palmer : , for further discussion). Quite often, languages either have a modality system or a mood system, but some languages In more recent work, the term ‘mood’ is also used with reference to clause types (declarative mood, interrogative mood, imperative mood; see also Chapter ). 4
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Table 5.8 Modal verbs in Chinese (Palmer : ) Modal meaning
Modal verb
obligation
děi (得), gāi (该), yīnggāi (应该), bìxū (必须)
ability
huì (会), néng (能), kěyıˇ (可以)
permission
kěyıˇ (可以)
volition
huì (会), kěn (肯)
draw on both options. In addition, languages may possess complicated systems of modal particles (e.g. German), but since these systems are only weakly grammaticalized, we will ignore them here. In any event, these mood and modality systems can be used to modify the illocutionary force of declarative clauses in various directions. Chinese, for example, has a system of modal verbs quite similar to that of English. Given that Chinese is a strongly analytic language, we certainly do not expect to find an inflectional mood system, but it is nevertheless noteworthy that Chinese modal verbs share certain formal characteristics that make them identifiable as a class. For instance, they cannot occur in isolation but require a lexical verb, they do not take aspect markers or intensifiers, they cannot be placed before the subject, and they do not take objects (Li and Thompson : –; Palmer : ). Table . shows the main modal meanings and their means of expression in Chinese. In Table ., you can find an overview of the central modal verbs in five Germanic languages. We can define them as preterite present verbs (i.e. past tense verb forms used with non-past time reference) that connect to a main verb using the bare infinitive (Mortelmans et al. : ). The modal verbs in parentheses are preterite presents, even though they do not trigger the bare infinitive. We can see that all Germanic languages have partially overlapping classes of modal verbs. In the domain of mood marking, i.e. verbal inflectional morphology, categories corresponding to the modal meanings in Table . may be called ‘obligative’ or ‘debitive’, ‘abilitive’, ‘permissive’, and ‘volitive’. In the ideal case, these labels stand for dedicated inflectional markers expressing the relevant modal meanings. In reality, however, languages may map several functions on one marker, and exponents whose main functional duty is in a different domain, may come to express modal meanings. For example, the main functions of the Spanish subjunctive
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Table 5.9 The central modals in five Germanic languages (adapted from Mortelmans et al. : ) English
Dutch
German
Danish
Icelandic
can
kunnen
können
kunne
(kunna)
shall
zullen
sollen
skulle
skulu
may
mogen
mögen
matte
mega
will
willen
wollen
ville
(vilja)
must
moeten
müssen (turde)
(ƿurfa)
dürfen
munu1 (ought)
(burde)
(eiga)
1 The Icelandic modal verb munu ‘will’ has no cognates (as modal verbs) in other Germanic languages except Old Swedish (Hans-Olav Enger, personal communication).
can be characterized as expressing doubt (), unrealized propositions (), and presupposed information (). These functions are typically marked on verbs in embedded clauses. () Spanish (Lunn : ; Palmer : ) Dudo que sea buena idea. doubt..SG.PRES.IND that be..SG.PRES.SUBJ good idea ‘I doubt that’s a good idea.’ () Spanish (Lunn : ; Palmer : ) Necesito que me devuelvas necessary..SG.PRES.IND that me return..SG.PRES.SUBJ ese libro. that book ‘I need you to return that book to me.’ () Spanish (Lunn : ; Palmer : ) Me alegra que sepas la me please..SG.PRES.IND that know..SG.PRES.SUBJ the verdad. truth ‘I’m glad that you know the truth.’ At the same time, these subjunctive forms also do duty for the expression of obligation (), permission (), and volition (). Arguably,
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these are main clause contexts. In being used in these contexts, the subjunctive begins to compete with the imperative, which is another category marked by verbal inflection in Spanish (see Chapter ).5 As requests expressed through the subjunctive, rather than the imperative, are perceived as more polite, Spanish verbal inflections give a very good indication of the complicated relationship between form and function in the domain at hand. () Spanish (Palmer : ) Tome su libro. take..SG.PRES.SUBJ your book ‘Take your book.’ () Spanish (Palmer : ) Que entre. that enter..SG.PRES.SUBJ ‘Let him come in.’ () Spanish (Palmer : ) Hablemos de otra cosa. talk..PL.PRES.SUBJ about other thing ‘Let’s talk about something else.’ Mood inflections may be complemented by modal verbs, adding further complications. Spanish, alongside other Romance languages, possesses several modal verbs (poder ‘can’, deber ‘must’, tener que ‘must’), though these do not form a nicely delineated class as in English or Chinese. German, in contrast, has a clearly identifiable paradigm of modal verbs complemented by more parsimonious verbal mood marking. It offers yet another distributional mix of mood and modality. German has two subjunctive paradigms, called ‘present subjunctive’ and ‘past subjunctive’, even though they are used in overlapping functional domains that are not related to time. For example, the subjunctive can be used for expressing requests or instructions (), suggestions (), and wishes () addressed to a third person, thus covering the functional domain of obligation. On top of that, it is used to characterize information as reported or indirect (see next section).
5
As a matter of fact, negative requests are generally expressed using the subjunctive form in Spanish, and not the imperative. Such prohibitives are also discussed in Chapter .
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() German (personal knowledge) Man schlag-e die Eier schaumig. one beat-.SG.SUBJ the eggs fluffy ‘Beat the eggs until fluffy.’ () German (personal knowledge) Man genieß-e den Kuchen in Maßen. one enjoy-.SG.SUBJ the cake in moderation ‘One had better enjoy the cake in moderation.’ () German (personal knowledge) Rief-e sie doch an. call.PAST-.SG.SUBJ she PRT up ‘If only she called.’ So far, we have merely considered the situational uses of mood and modality markers, excluding their various epistemic uses. We need to be aware of the fact, though, that modal verbs as well as mood inflections may also convey a wide range of epistemic meanings (see Table .). This is not the place to dig into this complex relationship, but note that it gives rise to substantial cross-linguistic variation. In Table ., for example, a sample of languages is divided into three groups depending on the overlap that they show regarding the encoding of situational and epistemic modality. There are clear areal patterns, with European languages strongly tending towards markers that can express both situational and epistemic modality. The Germanic modal verbs shown in Table . are a case in point. In other parts of the world, the situation can be quite different, with Asian languages and Native American languages typically not showing formal overlap of these semantic domains Table 5.10 Overlap between situational and epistemic modal marking (van der Auwera and Ammann c) The language has markers that can code both situational and epistemic modality, both for possibility and necessity
The language has markers that can code both situational and epistemic modality, but only for possibility or for necessity
The language has no markers that can code both situational and epistemic modality
Total:
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5.3.3 Evidentiality Another area that declarative clauses interact with concerns the grammatical encoding of information sources. This is known as ‘evidentiality’. By default, we assume that the information presented using a declarative clause originates in the beliefs of the speaker. Assertions, as we said earlier, can be viewed as the externalization of beliefs. In this case, the source of the information is taken to be the knowledge base of the speaker. The information presented, however, may also be attributed to various other sources with languages typically offering encoding devices that signal specific information sources. The examples below attribute the same proposition to different indirect sources. In none of the examples does the speaker take responsibility for what is said. () a. Mary is said to have won the race. (hearsay evidence) b. Mary is reported to have won the race. (visual or authoritative evidence) c. Mary is believed to have won the race. (general belief) d. Mary is known to have won the race. (shared knowledge) e. Mary is assumed to have won the race. (speculation) For instance, in uttering example (a), the speaker expresses that he or she got the information from someone else. This is second-hand information, as it were. Example (b) states that there is visual evidence or evidence provided by an authority. Examples (c) and (d) portray the information as a general belief and shared knowledge, respectively. Finally, the proposition is characterized as speculation in example (e). To be sure, the examples in () first and foremost illustrate lexical expressions for information source attribution, and not a grammatical paradigm. But if we can believe Noël (), there is a grammatical construction with evidential potential behind the examples in () that possesses several characteristic properties. We may note that the structural subject (Mary) is the logical subject of the infinitival clause (to have won the race), that the matrix verbs have properties of auxiliaries, and that the passive tokens of this construction by far outnumber the active tokens. In any event, however, the evidential system of English is only weakly grammaticalized.6 6 Other weakly grammaticalized marking of evidentiality in English can be gleaned from examples like I see/hear/understand you are leaving this country, in which non-past verb forms are used to express past perceptive events.
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Table 5.11 Evidential particles of Hidatsa (Matthews : –; Palmer : ) Evidential Marker
Label
Description
ski
emphatic
knowledge held true by the speaker
c
period
knowledge believed true by the speaker
wareac
quotative
general knowledge, something everyone knows
rahe
report
learned from hearsay, second-hand information
toak
indefinite
knowledge whose truth is unknown, speculation
Other languages possess evidential systems that are considerably more tightly integrated into the respective grammars, with evidential meanings typically being expressed by clausal particles or verbal affixes. Evidential systems are especially common in the native languages of North and South America, but they are also widely encountered across Eurasia (Aikhenvald : ). There are no reports of evidential systems from European languages, and only scattered attestations in Africa, Australia, and Oceania. For the sake of illustration, let us consider the evidential system of Hidatsa (a Northern Plains Siouan language spoken in North and South Dakota) in which five clause-final particles (ski, c, wareac, rahe, and toak) come to be used to express different information sources. You can find an overview of this system in Table ., using the labels and descriptions provided by Matthews (: –). These evidential particles may be considered as concomitant markers of the declarative clause type, as they cannot co-occur with the interrogative or imperative markers in this language. In a similar system reported from Tuyuca, a Tucanoan language spoken in Brazil and Colombia, there are formal distinctions for five different types of evidential meaning, namely (a) visual evidence, (b) non-visual (perceptual) evidence, (c) apparent/inferential, (d) secondhand/quotative, (e) assumed (Barnes : ; Palmer : ). The examples in () provide the necessary illustration. Each Tuyucan sentence in () means ‘he played soccer’ (díiga ‘soccer’; apé ‘play.. SG.PAST’), but is characterized as based on a different information source through the clause-final particle.
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() Tuyuca (Palmer : ) a. díiga apé-wi ‘I saw him play.’ b. díiga apé-ti ‘I heard the game and him, but I didn’t see it or him.’ c. díiga apé-yi ‘I have seen evidence that he played: his distinctive shoe print on the playing fields. But I didn’t see him play.’ d. díiga apé-yigɨ ‘I obtained the information from someone else.’ e. díiga apé-hĩyi ‘It is reasonable to assume that he played.’ Aikhenvald (: ch. ), in her typological survey of evidential systems, reports systems ranging from binary distinctions up to systems containing five or more evidential distinctions. These systems attest various selections and combinations of the distinctions introduced in the previous paragraphs. Generally speaking, evidential systems distinguish between direct evidence (visual, auditory, sensory) and indirect evidence (general knowledge, hearsay, reporting) (Palmer : ; Aikhenvald : –). In addition, some exponents of evidential systems characterize the clausal information as based on reasoning, judgements, and inferences, thus showing overlap with epistemic modality. Conversely, formal systems that belong into the domain of mood and modality may come to be used to express evidential contrasts. In German, for example, the modal verb sollen ‘shall’ and the subjunctive can be used to signal second-hand or reported information, as evidenced by the following examples. () German (personal knowledge) Karl soll mit dem Papst gesprochen haben. Charles shall with the Pope talked have ‘Charles is said to have talked to the Pope.’ () German (personal knowledge) Sie habe zu viel Arbeiten müssen. she have..SG.SUBJ too much work must ‘(She said that) she had to work too much.’ Evidentiality, as we have seen, concerns the grammatical marking of information sources. In those languages in which such markers are strongly grammaticalized, their use being obligatory, they also serve as exponents of declarative clauses. The signalling of clause type is achieved indirectly, however, as this is not their main function.
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5. 5 T O P I C S F O R F U R T H E R R E S E A R C H
5.4 Summary We embarked on this chapter by exploring the relationship between declarative clauses and illocutionary force. Departing from the idea that they are associated with specific forces, we had to relinquish this idea progressively, ultimately suggesting that they may not be linked to any force at all. In view of their performative uses, even associating them with statements or assertions would seem too strong an assumption. Declarative clauses just seem to present information, but the speaker attitude behind this information seems to be purely contextually determined. This is quite different from interrogatives and imperatives, as we will see in the subsequent chapters. Declarative clauses in English are completely unmarked and identified by the basic word order pattern SVO. In usage, they outnumber the other clause types by a wide margin. Declaratives can be modified by modal verbs whose addition influences and even determines their illocutionary force. Declarative questions and declarative commands are recognizable subtypes of declarative clauses. They rest on the basic word pattern, but are lexically and contextually modified in such a way that they express specific types of questions and commands. Cross-linguistically, declarative word order of English is the second most common word order type. The most common type is SOV. Declarative word order placing the object before the subject (VOS, OVS, OSV) is rare. Declaratives interact with mood and modality in complicated ways, yielding specific interpretations in terms of illocutionary force. Some languages express these attitudinal meanings by means of modal verbs (and also modal particles), other languages rely on verbal inflections, while yet others employ a mix of these marking options. The interaction of form and function in these domains is quite puzzling. Mood and modality markers may also come to signal information sources (evidentiality), but there are also languages with separate evidential systems.
5.5 Topics for further research Many important topics could only be touched upon here. For example, the relationship between declarative syntax and assertive force is a heavily discussed issue in the literature that you may want to explore further. In addition, there is the problem of assertive force itself. What
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exactly are assertions and how can we define them? If declarative clauses express assertions, how can we explain their performative uses? Such problems have figured prominently especially in the more philosophically oriented literature. If you are interested in these rather fundamental issues, further food for thought is to be found in Recanati (), Brandom (), Barker (), and Jary (). Declarative clauses, as we have seen in this chapter, are the primary vehicle for conveying mood and modality contrasts, the latter typically inducing modifications in their illocutionary force. Mood and modality is a vast area of research, since we find a host of functional distinctions in these domains (ability, volition, prediction, obligation, etc.) that can be expressed using a wide variety of formal exponents (modal verbs and particles, inflections). Modifying declarative clauses in this way equips them with functions that we typically associate with other clause types, such as interrogatives and imperatives. A by now classic introduction to mood and modality is Palmer (). Other works you can draw on include Hengeveld (), van der Auwera and Ammann (a, b, c), van der Auwera and Zamorano Aguilar (), and van Olmen and van der Auwera (). Another area that we could not investigate in detail is evidentiality, i.e. the grammatical marking of information sources. A detailed typology of such systems is available through Aikhenvald (), but you can also find lots of useful information in Givón (), Chafe and Nichols (), Johanson and Utas (), Palmer (), and Aikhenvald and Dixon ().
5.6 Exercises Basic level 1. Go back to Chapter to refresh your memory on the distinction between performative and constative utterances. For each of the sentences below decide whether they are constative or performative. i. I hereby apologize. ii. I often apologize to you. iii. You should apologize to John. iv. Apologize! v. Mary apologized to me. 2. Look up the terms ‘clefting’, ‘topicalization’, and ‘passivization’ and explain them. Compare the sentences in ii.–iv. below to the unmarked version in example i.
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i. ii. iii. iv.
Mary did not call John. It was John who Mary did not call. John, Mary did not call. John was not called by Mary.
3. In your own words, explain and illustrate the difference between deontic and epistemic modality. In addition, explain the difference between modality and evidentiality.
Intermediate level 1. The basic word order of German, as we learned, is frequently assumed to be that of embedded clauses. This is shown in example i. below (dass ‘that’, gestern ‘yesterday’, die ‘the’, Banane ‘banana’, gegessen ‘eaten’, hat ‘has’). The main clause orders illustrated in ii.–v. are held to be derived from it. What these sentences have in common is verb second order. a. Can you see why it makes sense to view main clause order as derived from embedded clause order? b. Which derivations do we have to assume to yield main clause verb second order? i. . . . dass Paul gestern die Banane gegessen hat. ‘ . . . that Paul ate the banana yesterday.’ ii. Paul hat gestern die Banane gegessen. ‘Paul ate the banana yesterday.’ iii. Gestern hat Paul die Banane gegessen. ‘Yesterday Paul ate the banana.’ iv. Die Banane hat Paul gestern gegessen. ‘The banana, Paul ate it yesterday.’ v. Gegessen hat Paul gestern die Banane. ‘What Paul ate yesterday was the banana.’ 2. Although there are convincing arguments for saying that declarative clauses are force-neutral, we all seem to have strong intuitions about their being associated with assertive force. But if declaratives are unmarked with respect to force, the question is where this intuition comes from. One hypothesis could be that their constative uses substantially outnumber their performative uses, thereby suggesting an association with assertive force. Let us test this hypothesis using corpus data. a. Try to find a copy of the International Corpus of English, British Component (ICE-GB). Your library may hold one, but you may also ask your professor or search for it online. The corpus comes shipped with a software package called ICECUP that you can use to access the syntactic annotation of the corpus. b. Extract all tokens of declarative clauses with past time reference. Then, identify the present tense tokens and the tokens with future time reference.
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c. Try to assign the tokens to either constative uses or performative uses of declaratives. As there are many tokens, you will probably not be able to consider each token individually. Use a subset, if necessary. Count the tokens in each class and interpret your results. 3. According to Noël (), the passive constructions shown in i. below are substantially more common than the corresponding active constructions in ii. i. Mary is said to have won the race. ii. Somebody said that Mary won the race. a. Using the Corpus of Contemporary American English (http://corpus. byu.edu/coca), try to test the hypothesis that the passive construction is more common than the active one. b. Which are the most common matrix verbs found in the passive construction? c. Try to explain why the passive construction is a suitable vehicle for expressing evidential meaning. Advanced level 1. The relationship between declarative clauses and assertive force is a highly debated issue, as we have seen. Some researchers hold that declaratives are associated with assertive force, while others deny this. Procure the relevant literature and work through it. In a research paper of approximately 1,000 words, try to develop your own point of view. 2. There is very little information on declarative commands, this use of declarative clauses having hardly been explored. Consult a selection of grammar books and check under which headings these constructions are listed. Do the authors think that these are imperatives, declaratives, or something completely different? What do you notice? How and where do grammar books differ? Summarize your findings in an essay of no more than , words. 3. Declarative questions, as we have seen, are assumed to have rising intonation and to express information related to the addressee. Let us test these hypotheses empirically, making use of the International Corpus of English, British Component (ICE-GB). a. Procure a copy of ICE-GB (see exercise Intermediate Level above), including the relevant audio files. b. Extract all declarative main clauses terminating with a question mark and identify the declarative questions in this sample. c. Investigate the intonation contour of declarative questions in a manageable subsample. d. For each of the declarative questions decide whether they express addressee domain knowledge or not. e. Discuss your findings in relation to the above hypotheses.
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6 Polar interrogatives and yes–no questions
. The meaning and force of polar interrogatives
. The form and function of polar interrogatives in English
. A cross-linguistic view on polar interrogatives
. Summary
. Topics for further research
. Exercises
Seeking and providing information is widely regarded as a primitive of human interaction. All the languages that I am familiar with have special words describing questions and answers: Spanish pregunta and respuesta, Swedish fråga and svar, Russian vopros and otvet, Chinese wèntí (问题) and huídá (回答). Language users apparently recognize their importance, thus reserving special names for them. In addition, many languages—though clearly not all—offer dedicated grammatical constructions expressing questions and answers. In English, for instance, speaker A in example () uses a polar interrogative clause—marked by subject–auxiliary inversion—to elicit information to which speaker B responds using a familiar answer formula. () A: Do you like ice cream? B: Yes, I do. Lexical items meaning ‘question’ often overlap semantically with words like problem, concern, or doubt, suggesting that the seeking and providing of information has to be seen in a wider interactional context. An introductory phrase like The question is . . . is not meant to elicit
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information, but to draw attention to a problem. In a similar way, polar interrogatives may be used in many other functions above and beyond eliciting information. Some examples are shown in (). What they have in common is that the speaker wishes to draw attention to an interactional problem that requires some sort of reaction on the part of the addressee. () a. Shall I sing you a song? ‘I would like to sing you a song.’ (offer) b. Could you open the window? ‘Please, open the window.’ (request) In the present chapter, we will be exploring what is known as ‘yes–no questions’ and their formal encoding by means of so-called ‘polar interrogative clauses’, drawing a sharp distinction between the levels of function and form. For expository reasons, we will here be focusing on polar interrogatives, deferring a discussion of constituent interrogatives (content questions) to the next chapter. Needless to say, the two types of interrogative clauses have a lot in common as far as the more general interplay of questions and answers is concerned. Much of what can be said about the usage of yes–no questions applies mutatis mutandis to content questions as well. We will use the present chapter to introduce the fundamental problems surrounding questions and interrogative clauses, supplementing information relating to constituent interrogatives in Chapter .
6.1 The meaning and force of polar interrogatives In the discussion of the meaning of questions, a commonly assumed baseline is to say that they express requests for information. As for yes– no questions, we may say that the speaker tries to elicit information concerning the truth or falsity of the proposition expressed in the question, as shown in example (a). Similarly, using so-called ‘content questions’, ‘open questions’, or ‘wh-questions’, the speaker asks the addressee to provide the missing information specified by the question word. Example (b) shows this for temporal information. () a. A: Do you like going to the movies?—B: Yes, I do. / No, I don’t. ‘I would like to know if you like going to the movies.’ (request for information) b. A: When were you born?—B: In . ‘I would like to know the date of your birth.’ (request for information)
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Table 6.1 Felicity conditions defining questions according to Searle (: ) Condition
Question
Preparatory
. S does not know ‘the answer’, i.e. does not know if the proposition is true, or, in the case of the propositional function, does not know the information needed to complete the proposition truly. . It is not obvious to both S and H that H will provide the information at that time without being asked.
Sincerity
S wants this information.
Essential
Counts as an attempt to elicit this information from H.
Adopting this position is tantamount to associating the interrogative constructions in (), i.e. sentences with subject–auxiliary inversion, with the force or intention of eliciting information in a prototypical way. In the literature, this is known as the ‘literal force hypothesis’, since it directly associates question force with specific morphosyntactic structures (Gazdar : ; Levinson : –). We discussed this hypothesis in detail in Chapter , as it is also relevant for the other clause types. Searle (: ch. ), as we also saw in Chapter , proposed to capture illocutionary acts in terms of three (felicity) conditions, namely preparatory, sincerity, and essential condition. With respect to questions, he formulates these conditions as shown in Table .. This definition takes recourse to truth conditions, defining the answer to a yes–no question as a truth value (i.e. true or false) and that of a content question as substantial information delimited by the question word. Moreover, it defines questions as requests for information through the essential condition. Even though there is nothing wrong about defining questions in this way, it would appear to be somewhat premature to associate such question force directly with interrogative clauses, as these may occur in various functions other than that of eliciting information. Consider the examples in () showing polar interrogatives in various functions beyond that of simply enquiring if the proposition expressed is true or not. In Chapter , similar uses of constituent interrogatives will be examined. () a. b. c. d.
Shall I tell you something? (grabbing attention) A: John has left Mary.—B: Has he really? (confirmation) Do you fancy a beer? (invitation) Would you mind opening the window? (request)
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e. Shall I open the letter? (offer)1 f. So, has he finally managed to get her to marry him. (statement) g. Was your hairdresser drunk or something? (insult) h. Are you crazy? (reprimand) As a matter of fact, even the seemingly unambiguous examples in () are, on second thoughts, not completely without problems, as the overt requests for information may hide deeper intentions not revealed by the speaker. For instance, example (a) may just be a checking question (a so-called ‘pre-invitation’ in the sense of Clark : ), masquerading an intention of the speaker to propose going to the movies together. Similarly, the intention behind asking the question in (b) may be a request for identification, as various service providers use the date of birth to identify a customer properly over the telephone. Since such service providers already know the questioned date of birth, the relevant act cannot count as a request for information in the sense of Searle (). And even though Searle (: ) distinguishes between ‘real questions’ and ‘exam questions’, he offers no rationale to allow for the different intentions behind them. In view of these examples and observations, it would appear very difficult to maintain a direct association of polar interrogatives with question force. But if it is the case that the force of a yes–no question cannot be reduced to finding a truth value and is only loosely connected with the relevant form type, we need to explore alternative routes towards systematizing the relationship between form and function in this domain. 6.1.1 Direct and indirect speech acts Let us try to tackle the problems raised above in a more systematic way, clearly distinguishing the meaning or semantics of a sentence from its illocutionary force or force potential. Semantics concerns all contextfree meaning of linguistic expressions, while force relates to a highly contextual, interactive, and thus pragmatic concept. If polar interrogative clauses are used to establish whether some proposition is true or 1 Huddleston and Pullum (: –) regard such indirect offers as a special question type referred to as ‘direction question’, mainly because they allow the to-infinitive under embedding: She wondered whether to open the letter.
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not, we may capture their meaning simply in terms of a proposition whose truth value is not known by the speaker. Force would not be specified. On this minimal assumption, the polar interrogative example in (a) would come to mean something like (b), simply expressing the speaker’s ignorance about the truth of the proposition. The addressee would have to work out that it is meant as a request for information relying on contextual clues, reinterpreting the unresolved character of the proposition as a request to decide about its truth or falsity. If we adopt this position, we shift the burden of identifying the force of polar interrogatives entirely into the realm of pragmatics. () a. Do you have children? b. I do not know whether you have children or not. Even though this is in principle conceivable, a proposition like I do not know whether you have children does not seem to have the same force as the corresponding polar interrogative. The sentence in (b) is not primarily understood as a question, but a statement. It may trigger various additional implicatures, perhaps resulting in continuations like What do you mean? and showing that the addressee is looking for additional intentions behind the question. The above considerations make it clear that polar interrogatives need to be associated with question force. A semi-formal representation of the meaning of polar interrogatives could capture this by associating the proposition expressed with an abstract question morpheme or force operator QUEST that characterizes the proposition as undecided with respect to its truth or falsity while, at the same time, encoding request force (Krifka : ). You can find this idea schematically illustrated in example (). We may conceive of QUEST as expressing what subject–auxiliary inversion achieves in English. The force operator QUEST stands in opposition to the ASSERT operator that we introduced for declarative clauses in Chapter . () a. Is John married? ‘John is married QUEST.’ b. QUEST(married(John)) This approach works for all real questions. However, all the other, nonquestion uses of polar interrogatives remain unexplained. In principle, we could postulate a diverse set of structurally identical polar interrogatives, each associated with a different force operator. This would explain
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their uses as invitations, requests, offers, and the like, but it is intuitively clear that such an approach is cumbersome and not very elegant. As a plausible alternative, we could try to cope with the mismatches between form and function by saying that polar interrogatives are associated with a primary information-seeking function, while all the other functions that they can be found with arise through contextually determined inferential processes (implicatures) on the part of the addressee. The addressee receives a contextually inadequate request for information and begins to wonder what the speaker wishes to communicate. Adopting such a position results in a clear division of labour between semantics (encoded meaning) and pragmatics (contextually derived meanings). Consider example (). Here, the addressee interprets the question in example (a) as a request for action, since the assumption of a mere request for information would be contextually inadequate. The inferential processes may be based on Grice’s (: ) cooperative principle, specifically his maxim of relevance. Even though the examples in () may be responded to by saying Yes, I can and Yes, I have, respectively, and doing nothing, this reaction would run counter the addressee’s expectations. () a. Could you pass the salt? ‘Please, pass the salt.’ (request) b. Have you seen my glasses? ‘Please, help me find my glasses.’ (plea) The division of labour between semantics and pragmatics as outlined in the preceding paragraphs is widely known as the theory of direct and indirect (speech) acts (Searle : , –; Levinson : –). A polar interrogative used with prototypical question force, as in example (), would count as a direct act, while the inferentially derived acts in example () are referred to as ‘indirect’ in this theory (inference theory in Levinson’s terms : –). We introduced the details of this approach in Chapter . Does this theory make correct predictions in the domain of yes–no questions, and if not, where does it begin to fail? If the meaning of all polar interrogative clauses consists in expressing a request for information in the sense of Searle (), we would expect that all forces conveyed by them, no matter if they are direct or indirect, can in principle be understood as questions that may be answered on a semantic level. In other words, interrogative clauses conveying nonquestion force should be understandable both in terms of their literal meaning and the meaning derived by pragmatic principles. This indeed seems to be the case, as the request expressed in example () may be
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responded to on the direct question level and also the indirect request level. Here, yes answers the literal question meaning enquiring about the addressee’s ability, while take a seat responds to the request (Clark : –; Levinson : ). () A: Could you give me a lift?—B: Yes, take a seat. There seem to be at least two problems with the approach sketched above. First, for many of the polar interrogatives with non-question force, especially those conveying requests, the degree of conventionalization between interrogative structure and request force appears to be relatively strong, suggesting an analysis based on constructions (see next section). Second, not all polar interrogatives expressing non-question force permit answering with yes or no. Consider the examples in (). () a. A: Are you mad, or what? ‘You must be mad.’—B: Why? b. A: Can’t you talk properly? ‘Talk properly!’—B: Of course. Such non-question force interrogatives appear to expect a verbal response different from the truth-based answer routines yes and no. If the addressee accepts the illocutionary force conveyed, responses like of course, sure, go ahead, okay, or no problem appear suitable, while Why?, What?, or What’s the problem? seem more likely if the addressee rejects it. You may test these responses in the context of the examples discussed so far.
6.1.2 Constructional polysemy The analysis of questions in terms of direct and indirect speech acts assumes a narrowly defined core meaning of polar interrogatives, namely a request to supply the truth value to an otherwise indeterminate proposition, and views all other uses as derived through pragmatic inferences. Even though this is a perfectly reasonable approach, there remains the intuition that at least some of the indirect uses are highly conventionalized, rendering the assumption of hearer-based inferential processes unlikely. Indirect requests such as Can you pass the salt? or Could you close the window? simply occur too often to warrant the detour via inferences. Such reasoning is suggestive of the idea of constructional schemata that possess different, though related meanings. According to this view, the frequent or prominent uses of polar
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interrogatives come to be interpreted as a case of constructional polysemy (referred to as ‘idiom theory’ in Levinson : –). In keeping with widespread assumptions, we will here understand constructions as multi-word syntactic structures that are partially or completely associated with conventionalized meanings. As for the relation between form and meaning, a construction behaves like an isolated word (lexical entry). Typical examples of constructions are idioms whose meaning cannot be derived compositionally from its parts (spill the beans meaning ‘disclose’). But also for seemingly compositional syntactic structures, it has been convincingly argued that they involve constructional semantics, as, for example, in the so-called ‘caused motion construction’ illustrated by sentences such as Mina coaxed Mel into the room (Goldberg : –). Let us take a look at the examples in (). Even though answering such questions-cum-requests by yes or no may be possible, this is certainly not obligatory. In example (a), answering yes before providing the time may even be perceived as odd. It would appear as if they directly convey request force. () a. Could you tell me the time? ‘Please, tell me the time.’ (request) b. Could you close the door behind you? ‘Please, close the door behind you.’ (request) Provided this line of argumentation is correct, we could assume the existence of two constructions, with one conveying question force and the other expressing request force, quite similar to polysemous lexical items like the noun head, which may refer to a prominent body part in one context and a person of high rank in another. Polar interrogatives expressing requests are typically introduced by could you or can you followed by a verbal complex describing an activity that is beneficial to the speaker, as shown in example (). As evidenced by the pair of examples in (), however, the assumption of an otherwise unrestricted could_you-construction would be too narrow, since regular yes–no questions may also be introduced by this formula. Hence, the addressee would need to rely on the context to decide which construction has been used. () a. Could you send me a cheque covering my expenses? b. Could you copy this book for me? () a. Could you drink another ten beers? b. Could you write a BA dissertation in one week?
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Table 6.2 Responses to indirect requests in per cent (adapted from Clark : ) Request
Answer alone
Answer plus information
Information alone
Other
Can you please tell me . . .?
Can you tell me . . .?
Are you able to tell me . . .?
Another observation supporting the construction-based approach is that the modal verb cannot be replaced by a periphrastic construction, as in example () (Huddleston and Pullum : ). Moreover, it is much easier to add please to (a) than to (b). () a. Could you turn the light on? b. Would you be able to turn the light on? In conversation, we are clearly sensitive to these differences in conventionality and idiomaticity. For instance, Clark (: ) reports the differences in response behaviour to indirect requests summarized in Table .. Drawing a distinction between literal answer (yes/no) and intended response (here: providing information), he can show that the likelihood of providing the literal answer decreases with the degree of conventionality. The question arises by means of which mechanism the construction conveying polite requests can be related to that of expressing a proposition that is indeterminate with regard to its truth value. In the literature (Clark ; Stefanowitsch ; Panther and Thornburg ), we find proposals linking the two constructions by means of a metonymic relation (pars pro toto) such that request force interrogatives pragmatically focus on the end point of a metonymic chain connecting questions and requests. Semantically, such request interrogatives enquire about the preconditions for carrying out the relevant requests. For example, sentence (a) focuses on the addressee’s ability to carry out the request, while sentence (b) enquires about the chances of the event coming true (Levinson : –). () a. Could you close the door? b. Would you close the door?
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Obviously, this approach also relies on indirect speech acts via pragmatic inferencing, but views the indirect act as ultimately being read into specific instances of polar interrogatives, thus conventionally linking them with request force. Since not all tokens of an assumed could_you-construction express requests, it appears plausible to consider a cline of conventionality such that different construction types prefer the direct or indirect interpretation to different degrees. Moreover, even though the assumption of constructional polysemy is quite convincing for indirect requests, it seems less convincing for indirect invitations, offers, or insults.
6.1.3 Answers and responses It has often been observed that the illocutionary force of an utterance cannot be identified by looking at the utterance per se, but only by evaluating it in its discourse context (see Chapter ). Speaker intentions are too multifarious to be directly connected to sentences. Even worse, whatever the speaker intends to convey, it is the addressee who ultimately decides how to interpret an utterance. In successful communication, speaker intentions and addressee perceptions will converge, but they may also diverge, intentionally or unintentionally. Provided this line of reasoning is correct, the illocutionary force expressed by a polar interrogative can also be described as a function of the responses it evokes. Let us understand the term ‘response’ in terms of the observable verbal reactions to a question, with ‘answer’ being more narrowly defined as a response on the semantic level, i.e. yes or no in relation to a yes–no question. In example (), for instance, either of the responses characterizes the question as an offer. () A: Wanna go out to play? ‘I would like to play with you.’ (offer) B: I’ll be down in a sec. ‘Let’s play.’ (acceptance) B: No time. ‘I do not want to.’ (denial) In a similar way, the response in the brief exchange in () practically turns the yes–no question previously uttered into a content question asking for a direction (Where can I find Professor Vain?), quite independent of the real intentions of the speaker. Perhaps, the speaker merely wanted to drop a letter or enquire about Professor Vain’s office
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hours. Levinson (: ), based on work in conversation analysis, argues that such responses are the result of expectations maintained by the discourse participants (conditional relevance) resulting in efficient communication above the propositional layer. () A: Does Professor Vain work in this department? B: You can find him in room . Evidence for a complex set of expectations maintained and continually updated by speaker and addressee, in fact all participants in conversation, can be drawn from the analysis of connected discourse that has been shown to be highly structured and locally managed (Levinson : ch. ). For example, conversation is typically organized in socalled ‘adjacency pairs’ (Clark : –; Schegloff : ch. ; see also Chapter ) illustrated by sequences such as question–answer, offer–acceptance, request–compliance, blame–denial, assessment– agreement (Levinson : ). Moreover, the function of some questions consists in checking if the preconditions for performing a potentially face-threatening act apply, as shown in example (). () A: B: A: B:
Do you like Absurd Theatre? Great stuff. I’ve got two tickets for tomorrow. Would you like to join me? Yes, sure.
Adjacency pairs may be expanded in various ways, as discussed in Schegloff (: ch. ). For instance, question–answer pairs may contain additional question–answer pairs to check, inter alia, if a speaker has the right to ask a certain question. This is illustrated in example (), which is quite typical of service encounters (Merrit : ; Levinson : ; Schegloff : ). Here and in other examples, the first question is responded to by another question. ()
A: B: A: B:
May I have a bottle of Mich? Are you ? No. No.
In example (), the first question is countered by another question enquiring about its motivation. It is answered in the positive once speaker B is convinced of the seriousness of the problem.
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()
A: B: A: B:
Do you happen to be free tomorrow? Why are you asking? I need somebody to look after my child. Okay.
What these and many other examples show is that linguistic forms only encode a fraction of the complexities of our world. We need to distinguish carefully between the layer of propositional semantics and a seemingly unlimited space of contextual knowledge. However, it is also clear that this pragmatic space is heavily constrained by our mutual expectations.
6.2 The form and function of polar interrogatives in English English polar interrogatives are marked by a reversal of subject and finite verb and thus employ a cross-linguistically extremely rare encoding strategy. In addition, English possesses a sophisticated system of clause-final clausal tags that agree with the preceding main clause along several dimensions and can be analysed as another strategy of expressing yes–no questions. These, however, typically also introduce answer bias. Similarly, yes–no questions may be conveyed by declaratives with rising intonation, but these also raise heavy answer expectations and occur in restricted contexts. We will examine these constructions in the following sections, with the exception of declarative questions (rising declaratives), as we dealt with these in Chapter .
6.2.1 Polar interrogative clauses English possesses distinct polar interrogative clauses that can be identified by an inversion of subject and auxiliary in relation to the basic word order pattern of declarative clauses (Quirk et al. : ; Huddleston and Pullum : ). This is shown in example (). English polar interrogatives can thus be morphosyntactically defined without taking recourse to intonation. () a. Birds can be considered living descendants of dinosaurs. b. Can birds be considered living descendants of dinosaurs?
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The set of auxiliaries participating in the inversion pattern comprises modal verbs (must, may, etc.), be, and have. The verb do comes to be used if the corresponding declarative clause does not contain an auxiliary, as illustrated in example (). () a. Crocodiles possess sharp teeth. b. Do crocodiles possess sharp teeth? Main verb uses of be also participate in subject–auxiliary inversion (i.e. subject–verb inversion), as in example (). In British English, main verb uses of have can also be found in this construction (Has she the cold?). () a. Crocodiles are dangerous. b. Are crocodiles dangerous? Polar interrogative clauses of the type illustrated above are the most neutral means available in English for asking yes–no questions. By ‘neutral’ I mean that they can be used without expressing or raising expectations concerning an affirmative or negative answer. The polar interrogatives in () through () could be used by an ignorant person seriously enquiring about the validity of the propositions expressed. In reality, most yes–no questions are likely to be biased in one way or another, since speakers maintain and also try to improve on a host of hypotheses about the world around them. All communication is carried out on the basis of substantial background knowledge, often referred to as ‘common ground’. Polar interrogatives may be explicitly biased in several ways. For example, in the sentential doublets provided in (), the respective second sentence contains an element (someone, already, really) marking it as expecting a specific answer, while the sentences given first are neutral (Quirk et al. : ). () a. Did anyone call last night? versus Did someone call last night? b. Has the boat left yet? versus Has the boat left already? c. Do you want to leave now? versus Do you really want to leave now? Adding a negative element to a polar interrogative invariably leads to conducive questions. Consider the examples in () that are all heavily biased. As we may define conduciveness in terms of speaker expectations regarding the truth or falsity of the proposition, the hearer interprets biased questions as statements to which the speaker is committed to a certain extent, as suggested by the paraphrases in (). Huddleston and
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Pullum (: ) aptly call this ‘epistemic bias’, since the conduciveness is based on contextually determined inferential processes. () a. Has nobody called? ‘I expected someone to call.’ b. Hasn’t he told you what to do? ‘I would have thought that he had told you what to do.’ c. Don’t you like oysters? ‘Evidently, you don’t like oysters, do you?’ Another type of conduciveness identified by Huddleston and Pullum (: ) is what they refer to as ‘deontic bias’. In cases like (), the answer bias derives from what the speaker considers to be the appropriate answer. () a. Aren’t you joining us this evening? ‘You should join us this evening.’ b. Can’t you drive straight? ‘Drive straight.’ c. Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves.’ Since, on the illocutionary level, the polar interrogatives in () practically express statements, and those in () requests, we may analyse conducive questions as indirect speech acts. On the assumption of the literal force hypothesis, such a move would be inescapable. The cases of deontic bias are similar to the prototypical indirect speech acts of the type Could you pass the salt?, as discussed in Section ... There appear to be myriads of other forces that conducive questions may express, subsumed under ‘desiderative bias’ in Huddleston and Pullum (: ). Example () expresses a wish or polite request on the part of the speaker. What grammarians call ‘conduciveness’ or ‘answer bias’ seems largely coextensive with what philosophers refer to as ‘indirect speech acts’. () Can I have some more ice cream? ‘I would like to have some more ice cream.’ 6.2.2 Interrogative tags (tag questions) Another important strategy in English to encode yes–no questions consists in adding a so-called ‘interrogative tag’ to a declarative clause. These clause-final tags are full clausal units comprising subject and verb, with the verb mirroring the finiteness markers (tense, person,
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number) of the verb in the preceding declarative clause. Only three verbs may appear in the tags, namely be, have, and do. The main clause subject is taken up in pronominal form in the tag, though it appears behind the verb. In other words, interrogative tags show subject– auxiliary inversion in the same way as polar interrogative clauses do and may be analysed as systematically reduced forms of these. Some examples can be found in (). () a. The kids enjoy the winter, don’t they? b. The kids don’t enjoy the winter, do they? In the typical case, interrogative tags have the opposite polarity to that of the preceding main clause, i.e. negative tags appear together with affirmative main clauses and vice versa. Such tags are often referred to as ‘reversed polarity tags’ (Huddleston and Pullum : ). The tags in example () illustrate reversed polarity. There are also tags with matching polarity called ‘constant polarity tags’. On the whole, these are less common than reversed polarity tags, with constellations consisting of negative main clause and negative tag, as in (b), being perceived as ungrammatical by many speakers. () a. The kids enjoy the winter, do they? b. The kids do not enjoy the winter, don’t they? Interrogatives tags always express conduciveness and cannot be used as neutral questions. Since they are appended to declarative clauses, which typically express statements, we may analyse the force of the relevant units as statements followed by a question, primarily asking for verification or confirmation depending on the intonation pattern used (Quirk et al. : ). Rising intonation triggers verification, while falling intonation expresses confirmation. In either case, the statement expressed by the declarative is taken for granted, but whereas rising intonation allows for an element of doubt, falling intonation invites the hearer to acknowledge the point of view of the speaker. Combining rising or falling intonation to positive and negative tags yields the four possibilities shown in Table .. The interpretation of constant polarity tags yields a special case requiring separate discussion. According to Kimps (), constant polarity tags are used for essentially three functions, namely the expression of surprise (mirativity), seeking verification, and hedging. The most frequent function appears to be that of expressing surprise,
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Table 6.3 Interrogative tags and intonation Intonation
Positive tag
Negative tag
rising
She doesn’t like him, dóes she?
She likes him, dóesn’t she?
falling
She doesn’t like him, dòes she?
She likes him, dòesn’t she?
which may be associated with components of disbelief, disagreement, or disapproval. Examples are provided in (). In contrast to reverse polarity tags, constant polarity tags do not induce an intonational break between tag and preceding declarative clause. () a. So you have forgotten your homework again, have you? (Huddleston and Pullum : ) b. You’ve had an accident, have you? (Quirk et al. : )
6.2.3 The usage of polar interrogatives in English Having considered the structural properties of polar interrogatives in English, let us now also take a look at the usage of this clause type in actual discourse. This is quite instructive, especially with regard to the relationship between direct and indirect speech acts discussed in Section .. The functional distribution of English polar interrogatives is explored in Siemund (b). This study uses the International Corpus of English, British Component (ICE-GB), as its database, since this corpus permits direct access to interrogative clauses through the annotation of the corpus. Separating polar interrogatives from constituent interrogatives as well as their classification in terms of their discourse functions had to be carried out manually. Altogether, there are , polar interrogatives in the corpus, attested in various functions. An overview of these functions is provided in Table .. What we can gather from Table . is that the information-seeking function is by far the most dominant function with which polar interrogatives can be found. This means that all traditional accounts viewing this as their central function are perfectly correct. We can see that the underlying intuitions have a robust empirical basis and that the association of polar interrogatives with a primary information-seeking function is absolutely justified.
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Table 6.4 Functions of polar interrogatives in ICE-GB (Siemund b: ) Function
No.
%1
Example
Information
,
.
Did you have a good turnout?
.
Can you speak bit quieter Steve maybe?
Confirmation
.
Well isn’t that the name of his wife?
Rhetorical
.
Do we not all have one father?
Offer
.
Shall I move these away?
Permission
.
Can I turn off the lights?
Suggestion
.
Shall we go and buy things then?
Discourse initiating
.
Do you know this is all very odd.
Invitation
.
Reprimand
.
Well, do you want to come over and see me in Brown’s? Are you in a trance or what?
Backchannelling
.
Uh d’you mean of what kind of English?
Threat
.
Grabbing attention
.
Or do you want people to know how you behave towards me? Is anybody there?
,
.
Request
Total 1
The percentages contain rounding errors.
What Table . also shows is that polar interrogatives are used for a variety of indirect speech acts, namely requests, statements (rhetorical questions), offers, asking for permission, suggestions, invitations, and the like. Indirect requests are quite frequent, which explains why they surface prominently in all accounts of indirect uses of polar interrogatives. Invitations, reprimands, and threats are infrequent. Another dominant function of polar interrogatives consists in asking for confirmation of something previously uttered. Moreover, they may be used to initiate discourse and for backchannelling. The data in Table . make it clear that so-called indirect uses of polar interrogatives can be encountered in sizeable proportions. Obviously, these are systematic occurrences and not merely ad hoc formations. The prominence of indirect requests lends credence to proposals that view such uses as giving rise to a separate construction type (see Section ..). Incidentally, the most frequent indirect request in the corpus has the structure shown in example (a), and not that in (b), although the latter type is typically used in discussions of indirect requests (can vs could).
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Table 6.5 The function of polar interrogatives in relation to register in ICE-GB (based on Siemund b: ) Register
Information
Other
Total
Spoken
,
,
Written
() a. Can you pass the the sour cream please? (ICE-GB) b. Could you pass me the uh the diagnostic light there? (ICE-GB) Polar interrogatives are considerably more common in spoken than in written discourse. The figures in Table . nicely illustrate this claim. These are absolute numbers, but since ICE-GB contains spoken and written material in roughly equal proportions, the comparison is justified. Moreover, register variation relating to function appears negligible as long as we oppose the primary information-seeking function with all other functions.
6.3 A cross-linguistic view on polar interrogatives Yes–no questions are encoded by a limited number of grammatical strategies that keep recurring cross-linguistically. It is the aim of this section to provide an overview of these strategies, as such a bird’s-eye view will help us understand the situation in English much better. We will assume that a language sets aside polar interrogatives as a special clause type, if it possesses dedicated morphosyntactic material encoding yes–no questions. As far as morphosyntactic means of encoding are concerned, polar interrogatives are frequently marked by particles that typically occur in clause-final position, but that may also appear clause-initially or in the second syntactic slot of a clause (Wackernagel position). Interrogative particles contain less morphosyntactic material than so-called ‘tags’ and do not introduce answer bias, which is something tags typically do. Tags may even be clausal, as in English. Polar interrogatives may also be encoded by reordering the basic constituents of a clause relative to declarative word order, or by repeating the verb phrase in a negated form (so-called ‘disjunctive-negative structures’). Interrogative particles
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represent an extremely widespread strategy found in many languages of unrelated families, while the reordering of constituents encountered in some European languages is at best a marginal strategy of encoding. Some languages do not distinguish between declaratives and polar interrogatives morphosyntactically, but use intonation as the sole means of encoding yes–no questions. Such languages, arguably, do not possess a dedicated polar interrogative clause type. 6.3.1 Major strategies to encode yes–no questions As already mentioned, a cross-linguistically pervasive strategy to signal polar interrogatives consists in the addition of a particle to a declarative clause, typically in final position. The example in () shows this for Turkish, where the sentence without the particle mu represents a Turkish declarative clause and expresses the corresponding statement. The particle is subject to vowel harmony and can appear as mi, mı, mu, or mü. Clause-final interrogative particles are also found in Japanese (ka), Korean (e) (see also Chapter ), Chinese (ma 吗), and Zulu (na). Interestingly enough, the Turkish particle mu may also be appended to specific constituents, as in example (), thus focusing this constituent and restricting question force to it. In this case, the rest of the proposition is backgrounded and interpreted as a presupposition. The clausefinal position is the default position, and then the particle takes scope over the entire sentence. () Turkish (Yasemin Şahingöz) Hasan o kitab-ı oku-du mu? Hasan that book-ACC read-PAST INT ‘Did Hasan read that book?’ () Turkish (Yasemin Şahingöz) Hasan-mı o kitab-ı oku-du? Hasan-INT that book-ACC read-PAST ‘Was it Hasan who read that book?’ Such interrogative particles may also be placed in clause-initial position, but this position is considerably less frequent. In a cross-linguistic survey of languages, Dryer (a) finds languages with interrogative particles. These occur in the positions shown in Table ., indicating a strong preference for clause-final particles.
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Table 6.6
Position of polar interrogative particles (Dryer a)
Position
final
initial
second
other
number
Table 6.7 Position of interrogative particles in relation to word order (based on Dryer b, d) Position
VSO ()
SVO ()
SOV ()
Initial particle ()
Final particle ()
Example () illustrates the case of a language with a clause-initial interrogative particle. Such initial particles can also be found in Welsh (an), Indonesian (apa), Arabic (hal), and Hebrew (ha’im). () Polish (Bernhard Brehmer) Czy mówisz po polsku? INT speak..SG on Polish ‘Can you speak Polish?’ Russian provides the example of a language that uses interrogative particles in the second position of a clause. This is shown in example (). Such second-position particles are also known from Tagalog (ba), Warlpiri (japa), and Cree (cī), altogether languages from unrelated families. () Russian (Comrie : ) chital li ty ètu knigu? read INT you this book ‘Have you read this book?’ The position of interrogative particles has been related to the basic word order type of a language. For example, Ultan (: ) writes that ‘Most question particles occur in sentence-initial (or enclitic to the initial constituent) or in sentence-final position. Question particles almost always occur finally in SOV languages and show a greater tendency to occur initially in other types.’ We may test this hypothesis by combining Dryer (b) and Dryer (d), as summarized in Table ., by and large confirming it. The data is taken from the World Atlas of Language Structures (see Chapter ).
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In principle, we would also need to discuss interrogative tags at this point, but since these by definition add answer bias, we will disregard them here. Some cross-linguistic information concerning the form and function of tags can be found in Ultan (: –). We may just notice in passing that tags are typically clause-final, whereas interrogative particles can be clause-final, clause-initial, and may also occur in the second syntactic slot of a clause. Moreover, tags usually possess greater morphological substance than particles and are often (content) words, phrases, or complete clausal units, as in standard English. Morphological exponents signalling questions may also be bound to the verb, giving rise to another strategy involving verbal morphology. Example () shows this for Tunica, a by now extinct language spoken in the Mississippi Valley. This strategy seems to be fairly widespread. We need to bear in mind, though, that the distinction between a particle and an affix is not easy to draw. () Tunica (Haas : , cited in Dryer a) lɔ’ta wi-wa’nǎ-n run .SG-want-INT ‘Do you want to run?’ Interrogative affixes may also be of a fusional type encoding additional grammatical categories. Moreover, they may be tightly integrated into the mood system of a language, thus contrasting, for example, with imperative or declarative affixes. Such systems are attested in some Inuit languages (see Chapter ). Some languages—clearly a minority—express yes–no questions by means of a special word order pattern, typically placing the finite verb in clause-initial position. Consider the examples from German in (), where example (a) shows declarative word order and (b) interrogative word order. This is also the strategy adopted by English, even though English requires the finite verb to be an auxiliary in this construction. Forming polar interrogatives in German means changing verb-second order to verb-first order. () German (personal knowledge) a. Paul hat das Auto repariert. Paul has the car repaired ‘Paul has repaired the car.’
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Table 6.8
Strategies for encoding yes–no questions (Dryer a)
Strategy
Number of languages
Question particle
Interrogative verb morphology
Question particle and interrogative verb morphology
Interrogative word order
Absence of declarative morphemes
Interrogative intonation only No interrogative–declarative distinction
Total
b. Hat Paul das Auto repariert? Has Paul the car repaired ‘Has Paul repaired the car?’ A special word order pattern can also be attested for Chinese and Korean, where yes–no questions may be signalled by repeating the verb, more generally the predicate, in its negative form. You can find some illustration in example (). Elliott (: ) views them as a special type of alternative question2 (You drink tea or you don’t drink tea?).3 () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 你 喝 不 喝 绿 茶？ nıˇ hē bù hē lù chá you drink not drink green tee ‘Do you drink green tea?’ Based on Dryer (a), Table . offers a summary of the encoding strategies for polar interrogatives in a sample of languages alongside with the number of languages for which these strategies are attested. The dominance of the particle strategy is clearly visible, while the use of a 2 In English alternative questions, two phrases (NP/VP/AP/PP) are coordinated by the conjunction or: Is it on TV or a film? The same conjunction can also conjoin two complete clauses: Do you think we should prosecute her? Or should we rather leave her alone? Since such alternative questions use polar interrogatives as their syntactic carrier, there is no need to assume a separate clause type for them. 3 This strategy is also attested in Colloquial Singapore English (Singlish), plausibly analysed as transfer from Chinese. See Siemund (: ) for some discussion.
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6.3 C R O S S - L I N G U I S T I C V I E W O N P O L A R I N T E R R O G A T I V E S
special word order pattern, as in English, can be considered marginal at best. Interrogative word order has also been reported from the Scandinavian languages, Dutch, Frisian, and Czech. In addition to the strategies discussed so far, Table . lists two further strategies of signalling polar interrogatives that deserve separate discussion. On the one hand, a few languages mark yes–no questions subtractively by omitting a morpheme signalling declarative clauses. Example () illustrates this for the Khoisan language Haiǁom, spoken in Northern Namibia. Here, the declarative particle ge is omitted in the interrogative clause. () ǂĀkhoe Haiǁom (Hoymann : ) a. Vanesa-s ge ra tai. Vanesa-.SG.FEM DEC PROG suckle ‘Vanesa is suckling.’ b. Uri ra ǀgôa-e? jump PROG child-.SG.NEUT ‘Does the child jump?’ Moreover, a considerable number of languages do not possess dedicated morphosyntactic strategies to encode yes–no questions, though marking them by a special intonation contour. For example, in Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, yes–no questions are expressed using declarative word order in combination with a rising intonation contour. This is shown for Spanish in example (). () Spanish (personal knowledge) a. Hago deporte cada día. do..SG sport every day ‘I exercise every day.’ b. ¿Haces deporte cada día? do..SG sports every day ‘Do you exercise every day?’ Since the grammatical status of intonation is different from morphosyntactic means of encoding, as argued in Chapter , languages like Spanish strictly speaking lack a polar interrogative clause type.4 If we accept this view, languages in Dryer’s (a) sample leave yes–no 4
This position is adopted in Huddleston (: ) as well as Lyons (: ).
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questions unmarked, though they can express such questions, of course. The typical intonation contour employed to characterize yes– no questions seems to be a clause-final rise (Ultan : ; Siemund : –). Arguably, the indeterminacy of the proposition regarding its truth value is iconically motivated by the potentially unlimited rise in frequency, but this seems open to debate (see Chapter ). Moreover, as Rossano () shows for Italian, several competing intonation contours can be observed for yes–no questions, and there also appears to be substantial dialectal variation. 6.3.2 Answer systems No discussion of polar interrogatives is complete without taking a look at their answers. What we understand by ‘answer’ here concerns the truth-based concept to the exclusion of the more general notion of ‘response’. Typically, these are short non-sentential constructions confirming or disconfirming the proposition expressed by the polar interrogative clause. Despite their concise form, answer systems offer substantial crosslinguistic variability that we will briefly explore in what follows. The major cross-linguistic parameter dividing answer systems concerns their morphosyntactic form (Pope ; Holmberg ). On the one hand, there are languages that repeat or echo the finite verb of the preceding question, as shown for Mandarin Chinese in (). Similar ‘echo systems’ can be found in Finnish, Hindi, Malay, Portuguese, and Welsh. () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) A: 你 吃 北京 烤鸭 吗？ nĭ chī běijīng kaˇ oyā ma you eat Beijing roast duck INT ‘Do you eat Peking duck?’ B: 吃 Chī Eat ‘Yes, I do.’ B: 不 吃 bù chī not eat ‘No, I don’t.’
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6.3 C R O S S - L I N G U I S T I C V I E W O N P O L A R I N T E R R O G A T I V E S
On the other hand, languages may possess dedicated expressions confirming or disconfirming the question. These are typically particles like English yes and no. Many European languages have such particle systems, as evidenced by the example from Spanish below, but they are also attested in Hausa, Hebrew, Maori, and Vietnamese. () Spanish (personal knowledge) A: ¿Tienes hambre? have..SG hunger ‘Are you hungry?’ B: Sí. Yes ‘Yes, I am.’ B: No. No ‘No, I am not.’ Particle systems may further be subdivided with respect to their answering characteristics in negative clauses. Consider example (). In English, answering no in this context means ‘He will not marry her’, the negative answer confirming or agreeing with the negative polarity of the question. Surprisingly, simply answering yes in this context equally expresses confirmation, even though the positive answer strictly speaking contradicts the negative polarity of the question. Kramer and Rawlins (: ) call this effect ‘negative neutralization’. To signal that the proposition expressed in the question is true, the more elaborate answer Yes, he will must be used. () A: Will he not marry her? B: No. (‘He will not marry her.’) B: Yes. (‘He will not marry her.’) B: Yes, he will. (‘He will marry her.’) This system can be found in many European languages (e.g. German, Spanish, Swedish) with there often being special particles expressing non-confirmation in negative polarity contexts (e.g. German doch, Spanish que sí, and Swedish jo). In this system, the answering particle agrees in polarity with the question in the negative confirmatory case. In another type of answering system, the particles agree or disagree with the implicit request to confirm or disconfirm the proposition of the
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question (A: Is it true that he will not marry her?—B: Yes, this is true). These operate on the illocutionary level, and not on the propositional level. Such so-called agree/disagree systems may be illustrated with the example from Japanese in (). Other languages employing this type of answering system include Greek, Nigerian Pidgin, and Yoruba. () Japanese (Holmberg : ) Q: Kimi tukarete nai? you tired NEG ‘Are you not tired?’ A: Un, (tukarete nai). yes tired NEG (lit.) ‘Yes, I am not tired.’
6.3.3 The usage of polar interrogatives and questions Very little is known about the actual usage of questions. We discussed some observations in Section .., but these are restricted to English and are based on one corpus. Which types of questions are used in which contexts and with which functions can be considered a largely open research field, even for a well-studied language like English. In a similar way, little is known about the usage and distribution of the form types with which questions can be expressed, again, except perhaps for the data discussed in Section ... There are a number of problems associated with an exploration of the usage of questions and polar interrogatives, the most important of which perhaps being that it heavily depends on the type of discourse investigated. For example, specific types of discourse such as police interrogations, exam situations, classroom discourse, talk shows, and the like can be expected to contain a high share of questions, while this share will be comparatively low in narratives, novels, operating instructions, lectures, and public speeches. Collaborative activities may trigger many requests, possibly framed in polar interrogatives. Polite and stylized discourse may contain more indirect speech acts than neutral discourse. An important problem, thus, is which type of discourse to select for the analysis of the usage of questions. An impression of the usage of questions and its cross-linguistic variability can be gained through the contributions to Stivers et al.
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Table 6.9 Distribution of three strategies expressing yes–no questions (based on Stivers et al. ) Polar Q type
American English
Danish
Dutch
Japanese
Korean
Interrogative
%
%
%
%
%
Declarative
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
Tag
(), in which questions and their responses are examined across ten languages ( questions in each language). The languages are Tzeltal (a Mayan language spoken in Mexico), Lao (the official language of Laos; a Tai language), Dutch, Japanese, Danish, ǂĀkhoe Haiǁom, Yélî Dnye (spoken on Rossel Island of Papua New Guinea), Italian, American English, and Korean. The questions were ‘taken from ordinary conversation among a range of dyadic and multi-participant interactions’ (Stivers and Enfield : ). The authors looked both at the encoding of questions and their functions. For example, in the five languages of the sample shown in Table ., yes–no questions can be expressed by a special clause type, by declaratives, or by adding a tag. Notwithstanding various problems concerning the comparability of question encoding, we can observe interesting differences. Danish makes the highest of use of polar interrogatives, whereas the main functional load in Korean rests on declaratives. Closely related languages such as English, Danish, and Dutch show substantial usage differences. Dutch and Japanese, though completely unrelated, show a similar pattern. It remains a challenge, though, to interpret these usage differences. Table . offers a glimpse of the illocutionary forces—in Stivers and Enfield () called ‘social actions’—that polar interrogatives are used for in three of the languages introduced above. As it is very difficult to compare the figures in the relevant publications, I decided to restrict the comparison to three languages for which reasonably similar data points are available. We can detect striking differences in Table .. For example, Danish shows the highest number of polar interrogatives used for suggestions, offers, or requests. The information request function is substantially more dominant in American English in comparison to Danish or Dutch. There are also similarities, though, as the figures for repair initiation and confirmation requests in Danish and Dutch appear
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Table 6.10 Social actions expressed by polar interrogatives (based on Stivers et al. , percentages added) Social action
American English
Danish
Dutch
.%
.%
.%
Repair initiation
.%
.%
.%
Confirmation request
.%
.%
.%
Assessment
n.a.
n.a.
.%
.%
Suggestion/offer/request
n.a.
n.a.
.%
.%
Total
%
%
%
Information request
Table 6.11 Social actions expressed by declarative questions (based on Stivers et al. , percentages added) Social action
American English
Danish
.%
n.a.
n.a.
Repair initiation
.%
Confirmation request
.%
Assessment
n.a.
Suggestion/offer/request Total
Information request
Dutch
.%
%
.%
.%
.%
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
.%
n.a.
n.a.
.%
.%
%
%
%
comparable. Again, it is difficult to interpret these differences, but they point to important usage differences that warrant further investigation. In a similar fashion, Table . offers a comparison of the social actions carried out with declarative questions. Again, for the sake of comparability, I restricted the sample to English, Danish, and Dutch. We can here see important parallels in the data, in spite of language specific differences. All the languages shown in Table . use declarative questions primarily for the initiation of repair and for requesting confirmation. The other functions are rare or not attested in the data. As far as tag questions are concerned, here you can find the respective comparison in Table .. What we can see quite clearly is that all the languages sampled use these primarily for the expression of confirmation requests, modulo local differences. In Dutch and Danish, they are also employed for assessments, and, on the whole, they convey assertions, and not questions (i.e. requests for information).
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6. 4 S U M M A R Y
Table 6.12 Social actions expressed by tag questions (based on Stivers et al. , percentages added) Social action
American English
Danish
Dutch
Information request
%
%
.%
Repair initiation
.%
.%
.%
Confirmation request
.%
.%
.%
Assessment
n.a.
n.a.
.%
.%
Suggestion/offer/request
n.a.
n.a.
%
.%
Total
%
%
%
Notwithstanding the many problems in comparing similar form types in different languages with respect to their functions, the data presented above offer interesting points of comparison and maybe used as a starting point for future work. For any such endeavour, one would need to make sure that similar form types are compared, that the expressed social actions are clearly defined, and that a range of registers is investigated.
6.4 Summary This chapter set out to investigate the form–function relationship of polar interrogative clauses. Assuming a prototypical association of polar interrogatives with the function of seeking information, we also found various non-prototypical functions and discussed approaches to make sense of them. An analysis of their answers and responses showed that communication is not restricted to the propositional layer, but frequently works above it based on various implicatures induced by the literal meaning in specific contexts. English offers special word order patterns correlating with the function of asking questions. Yes–no questions receive distinct syntactic encoding making English a language for which the existence of a polar interrogative clause as a distinct morphosyntactic form type can be confirmed. However, polar interrogatives are not the only means available for asking yes–no questions in English, as we also find declarative clauses in combination with clause-final tags as well as declaratives with a rising intonation pattern (the latter being discussed in Chapter ).
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These alternative constructions straddle the line of questions and assertions in terms of their force and are associated with special usage conditions. Our cross-linguistic comparison revealed that the use of distinct word order patterns is not among the prominent marking strategies of polar interrogatives, particles being vastly more common. These mainly occur in clause-final or clause-initial position, though other positions in a clause are attested, too. To a certain extent, the position of polar interrogative particles in a clause correlates with the basic word order type of a language. Another strategy of marking polar interrogatives consists in the addition of verbal morphology. Some languages signal yes–no questions by intonation only, effectively lacking a dedicated polar interrogative clause type. Another area of cross-linguistic variability concerns answer systems, the English particle system being one of two major attested types. In our cross-linguistic survey, we also tried to assess the usage patterns of three common devices for the encoding of yes–no questions (polar interrogatives, tags, declaratives). This comparison revealed striking differences even between closely related languages that are definitely in need of further exploration.
6.5 Topics for further research The topics covered in the present chapter offer various opportunities for following things up in greater detail or for branching out into adjacent areas. For example, we could only briefly explore the relationship between direct and indirect speech acts and the conventionalized association of indirect speech acts with polar interrogative form types. This problem has sparked interesting discussion, and related proposals can be found in Gordon and Lakoff (), Searle (), Morgan (), Stefanowitsch (), and Panther and Thornburg (). Another area that we could only touch upon briefly concerns the organization of discourse (sequence organization) into locally managed structured chunks and the uses that polar interrogatives and questions are put to in such adjacency pairs. There is a wealth of research in conversation analysis dealing with these problems that you may access by consulting Levinson (), Clark (), and Schegloff (). Indirect speech acts, especially those conveyed by polar interrogatives, have been subject to much enquiry in politeness theory and cross-cultural
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6. 6 E X E R C I S E S
pragmatics. Whereas in this book the focus clearly lies on sentences as form types and what they can express, cross-cultural pragmatics departs from interactional primitives (requests, apologies, promises, etc.) investigating how they are expressed in different languages. This is a vast field of research that you can approach through the following publications: Blum-Kulka et al. (a), Brown and Levinson (), Fraser (), Scollon and Scollon (), Gass and Neu (), and Wierzbicka (). In the present chapter, I have here and there drawn attention to intonational properties of polar interrogatives and questions, without really exploring the matter seriously. For further research, see the following publications: Bolinger (), Geluykens (), Bartels (), Couper-Kuhlen (), Dehé and Braun (), and Hedberg et al. (). Evidently, simply associating polar interrogatives and questions with rising intonation falls short of empirical reality and needs to be replaced by a view that takes the context and their function into consideration. Little is known about these intonational issues from a cross-linguistic perspective. The usage of the various form types encoding or expressing questions (requests for information) is completely underexplored, as there is practically only the volume by Stivers et al. (). Here, you can find ample scope for work of your own. The complexities of answer systems are dealt with in detail in Holmberg (). Ultan () remains a fine cross-linguistic study of interrogative systems, even though it is only based on seventy languages and some of its information is outdated. Cross-linguistic information comprising more languages, though in less detail, can be found in Dryer and Haspelmath () as well as Collins and Kayne (ongoing).
6.6 Exercises Basic level 1. Take a look at the polar interrogatives used as indirect speech acts listed below. i. Could you give me more coffee? ii. May I have more coffee? iii. Is there more coffee?
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a. Which inferential steps does the addressee have to go through to interpret these examples? Try to be as precise as possible. b. Do the above examples differ in their degree of indirectness? Explain. 2. For each of the following examples decide if B’s statement has to be categorized as an answer or a response. Moreover, decide which answer the response implicates. i. A: Could you help me tonight?—B: I’ve got a meeting. ii. A: Did England win the match?—B: Yes, they did. iii. A: Did you really lose all that money?—B: True. iv. A: Shall I come later?—B: The earlier, the better. v. A: Do we need to cut this tree?—B: It’s dangerous. 3. In an essay of maximally , words, summarize the distributional and functional differences between English polar interrogatives, tag questions, and declarative questions. A comprehensive treatment of declarative questions can be found in Chapter . Intermediate level 1. Consider the following list of polar interrogatives that are not used for seeking information. The examples have been taken from the International Corpus of English, British Component (ICE-GB). Which illocutionary forces do they express? Justify your decisions. i. Sorry could you start again? ii. Would you like a drink from the fridge John? iii. Well I mean you just can’t you just ring the the company direct? iv. and d’you know what? v. Can we dance for a bit actually ? 2. Evidently, intonation crucially contributes to the interpretation of an utterance, but exactly how it influences the interpretation of speech acts is largely unknown. In this experimental exercise, I invite you to explore this issue. a. Create five example sentences of polar interrogatives expressing (i) a request for information, (ii) a request for doing something, (iii) a statement (rhetorical question), (iv) permission, and (v) a reprimand. b. Embed these polar interrogatives into suitable interactive context involving speaker and addressee. c. Try to find native speakers of English and ask them to perform these contexts verbally. Record what they are saying. d. Listen to the intonation contours that they produced, then analyse and compare them.
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6. 6 E X E R C I S E S
3. Polar interrogatives frequently surface in so-called ‘pre-invitations’, ‘preoffers’, and ‘pre-announcements’. Consider the following example, taken from Schegloff (: ): Nel: Whatcha doin’. Cla: Notmuch. Nel: Y'wannadrink? Cla: Yeah. Nel: Okay. a. Read chapter of Schegloff () and investigate the functions of these ‘pre-expansions’. b. Can you see a way to relate such pre-expansions to Brown and Levinson’s () face-saving view of politeness? Discuss.
Advanced level 1. In Section ., we discussed the question of whether indirect speech acts expressed by polar interrogatives receive their interpretation through pragmatic inferencing, or whether the indirect act is directly associated with the relevant constructional schema. We could try to explore this further by devising a psycholinguistic experiment. For example, we could hypothesize that pragmatic inferencing takes time and that addressees show a certain delay in responding to indirect acts that involve such inferencing. However, setting up a suitable psycholinguistic experiment is probably beyond what you can do. Let us take a simpler approach based on observational data. a. Observe your daily communication and try to identify situations where you and your communicative partners are likely to use polar interrogatives expressing indirect speech acts. b. Begin to experiment with these situations such that you consciously modify the degree of directness. For example, you could alternate between saying Pass the pen, Can I have your pen, and I don’t have a pen. c. Keep a diary and try to assess in which ways your communicative partners react to what you are saying. Note down all observable differences. Can you identify a delay in reaction times? 2. In Section .., we learned that constant polarity tags typically occur in positive form with many speakers rejecting constant negative polarity tags. Let us explore the use of constant negative polarity tags in this exercise based on corpus data. a. Since constant negative polarity tags are quite rare, you need to search for them in a big corpus. With more than million words, the Corpus of Contemporary American English represents a good choice (http://corpus.
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byu.edu/coca). Some ideas as to how to approach such a big corpus can be found in Tottie and Hoffmann (). b. Identify the constant negative polarity tags in this corpus and try to interpret their function. Compare your results with those suggested in Tottie and Hoffmann (). 3. In Section .., I introduced you to different answer systems, especially echo systems and particle systems. We also learned that answers to negative questions can receive radically different interpretations. a. Among your fellow students, look for speakers of at least ten different languages from diverse areas of the world. Try to make sure that the languages come from different areas and families. b. Assess which kind of answer system these languages employ. c. Examine how answers to negative questions are interpreted. d. Summarize your results in an essay of maximally , words.
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7 Constituent interrogatives and content questions
. Questionhood and content questions
. The form and function of constituent interrogatives in English
. A cross-linguistic view on constituent interrogatives
. Summary
. Topics for further research
. Exercises
Constituent interrogatives convey content or information questions querying, among other things, persons, objects, locations, times, and reasons. Semantically, and also structurally, they are quite different from polar interrogatives, which are used to enquire about the truth or falsity of a proposition, as we learned in the previous chapter. Their common denominator lies in the expression of directive question force. In addition to conveying question force, i.e. requests for information, constituent interrogatives may also appear with the force of statements (so-called ‘rhetorical questions’), suggestions, requests, exclamations, and perhaps others. The information-seeking function is widely assumed to be prototypically associated with constituent interrogatives, as illustrated in example (). () A: When did the British establish Singapore as a colony?—B: In . Interrogative words are used to signal the type of information queried. They replace the constituent that encodes the information sought and
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occur in clause-initial position in English, though they occupy the corresponding declarative clause position in various other languages. It is typically possible to query information in several syntactic functions (subject, object, etc.) and of different word classes and semantic types (nouns, adjectives, etc.; persons, things, manners, etc.). In this chapter, we will familiarize ourselves with the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of constituent interrogatives in English and several other languages. Following Levinson (a), we will furthermore discuss the social economics behind asking questions, arguing that questions are inherently face-threatening and tend to be avoided. Moreover, the use of constituent interrogatives turns out to be associated with higher social costs than that of polar interrogatives. Interestingly enough, these pragmatic principles of asking questions appear largely stable cross-culturally, leading to similar usage patterns of question encoding devices across different languages.
7.1 Questionhood and content questions Constituent interrogatives describe open propositions with the interrogative word—frequently referred to as the wh-word, especially in the English context, but not only—signalling both the type of open (i.e. missing) information as well as its syntagmatic position and function in a clause. In example (a), the wh-word what questions the object argument of the clause, whereas a temporal adverb is substituted by when in (b) and thereby questioned. We may note in passing that the wh-words occur in clause-initial position and that do-periphrasis is triggered. () a. A: What did the students read?—B: The students read a thriller. b. A: When did the students arrive?—B: The students arrived late. Semantically, constituent interrogatives denote incomplete (open) propositions. On the propositional layer, we may capture the meaning of interrogative words in terms of a variable, as indicated by x and y in example (). These variables stand for the missing information, to be filled by the answers to these questions. () a. the students read x b. the students arrived y
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7. 1 Q U E S T I O N H O O D A ND C O N T E N T Q U E S T I O N S
7.1.1 The meaning and force of constituent interrogatives According to a widely accepted proposal (Hamblin : ; Krifka : –), the meaning of a content question can be characterized as the set of its true answers, meaning the set of propositions in which the variable position is filled with a value that makes the proposition true. For instance, let us assume that the propositions in examples (a) and (b) form true answers to the content question shown in (), while (c) is not a true answer. In this situation, the meaning of Which linguistics books did John read? can be described as ‘John read Syntactic Structures and John read Language’.1 () Which linguistics books did John read? a. John read Syntactic Structures. b. John read Language. c. John read Meaning and Form. There are several alternatives to this view, discussed in an overview fashion in Krifka (). A very reasonable alternative to the proposition set approach sketched above would be to regard open questions as functions that take the value of the open variable as input and map it on the relevant proposition, as illustrated in (). Here, λ can be read as ‘function of’, returning a positive truth value if the entity described by the variable x is a book and John read x. () a. Which book did John read? b. λx(book(x) and read(John, x)) The other alternatives discussed by Krifka () are more complex and primarily meant to handle specific cases that cannot be captured by the two theories introduced so far. These more recent proposals (partitional approach, inquisitive semantics) are able to capture answers like John didn’t read anything, which, strictly speaking, do not answer the question in example (). On top of the propositional semantics of content questions, it is frequently assumed that constituent interrogatives contain a mood operator marking the relevant sentences as requests for information. 1 Groenendijk and Stokhof (: ), cited in Levinson (a: ), argue that content questions (Who came?) entail yes–no questions (Did Herb come?), as long as the proposition expressed by the yes–no question is in the answer set of the content question.
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Krifka (: ) introduces the illocutionary operator QUEST to achieve this, as shown in example (). () a. Who ate the cookies? b. ‘QUEST(eat(x, cookies))’ In Chapter , we introduced the general strategy to separate the proposition expressed by a sentence from its mood or force (F(p)). As with polar interrogatives, it is a matter of some debate whether constituent interrogatives encode question force, or whether the addressee contextually interprets the open proposition as a request for information (see our discussion in Chapter ). If constituent interrogatives merely encode open propositions lacking an illocutionary operator, a question like Who ate the cookies? should in principle be interpretable in the same way as the statements in example (), but even though they arguably mean more or less the same, their force does not seem identical. () a. I don’t know who ate the cookies. b. Somebody has eaten the cookies. Constituent interrogatives carry strong existential presuppositions in relation to the information encoded by the interrogative words. For example, asking a question like (a) permits the logically binding conclusion that somebody came. This conclusion survives the negation of the sentence, as shown in example (b), which is why we can analyse it as a presupposition in contrast to an entailment or an implicature (see Quirk et al. : – for an accessible overview). () a. Who came to your party? ➔ ‘Someone came to your party.’ b. Who did not come to your party? ➔ ‘Someone came to your party.’ The function of constituent interrogatives is typically described as a request to the addressee to supply the information missing in the open proposition described by them. Accordingly, their primary function is one of seeking information, which may be subsumed under Searle’s (: ch. ) felicity conditions on questions (as discussed in Chapter ). They are used in situations in which the speaker does not possess the information necessary to complete the open proposition (preparatory condition), and in asking them, the speaker tries to elicit the missing information from the addressee (essential condition). The latter condition motivates the assumption of the illocutionary operator QUEST introduced above.
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7. 1 Q U E S T I O N H O O D A ND C O N T E N T Q U E S T I O N S
It is usually taken for granted that constituent interrogatives are primarily used to ask questions (König and Siemund : )—and indeed, this appears to be their main function. This seems intuitively correct and all the examples discussed so far illustrate this function. Nevertheless, it is also well known that constituent interrogatives can be found in several functions that evade a characterization in terms of ‘seeking information’. For instance, none of the constituent interrogatives shown in example () is used with the primary intention of obtaining information (Levinson a: , ). () a. Well, what damn fool would trust a bank with their money? (statement) b. Why don’t we get a coffee? (suggestion) c. Who do you think you are? (reprimand) On the assumption that constituent interrogatives contain an illocutionary force operator marking them as questions, the examples in () need to be analysed as non-central, contextually derived uses. They are indirect speech acts, in contrast to the direct, information-seeking act. At this point we may start wondering how versatile constituent interrogatives are in the expression of indirect acts. Relying on Searle’s (: –) taxonomy of speech acts (‘representatives’, ‘directives’, ‘commissives’, ‘expressives’, and ‘declarations’), we can see that example (a) belongs to the class of representatives (a so-called ‘rhetorical question’), (b) to that of directives, while (c) illustrates expressives. Let us consider some additional cases. Example () yields further illustration of representatives (see Levinson a: , ). Apart from indirect uses as rhetorical questions, which are essentially statements, constituent interrogatives do not seem to be especially productive in this speech act class. () a. Who would not admire this boy? (statement) b. Well, what damn fool would trust a bank with their money? (statement) Quite frequently, constituent interrogatives seem to be used to express polite requests (directives), even though it is my impression that these uses are by and large confined to structures introduced by Why don’t you . . . ?, which appears amenable to an analysis in terms of a specific construction. Take a look at the examples in (). As far as their force is
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concerned, these interrogatives resemble examples like How about going for a coffee? or Why not go for a coffee?, but since the latter are non-finite structures, they do not belong here, but will be treated in Chapter . () a. Why don’t you come along to my party? (invitation) b. Why don’t you revise this paper? (counsel) c. Why don’t you get yourself a smartphone? (recommendation) Various indirect uses of constituent interrogatives belong to the class of expressives. These are essentially statements, but their illocutionary point, according to Searle (: ), is to express a psychological state. The expression of surprise, admiration, disagreement (reproaches), recognition (introductions, greetings), or apologies, as illustrated in example (), fit this definition. ()
a. What’s this elephant doing in my garden? (surprise) b. What a piece of work is a man! (admiration) [Shakespeare, Hamlet, . . ] c. Why did you throw a baseball through my window? (reproach) d. How do you do? (introduction) e. I’m sorry, what must you think of my manners? (apology; ICE-GB)
Arguably, constituent interrogatives also serve to express indirect offers, as shown in example (). These sentences could be used to commence service encounters, as such clearly violating an important preparatory condition of questions, namely that the speaker cannot expect the hearer to supply the information without being asked. If this interpretation is correct, the examples in () are commissives, as they put the speaker under the obligation of a future act. () a. What can I do for you? ‘I would like to help you.’ (offer) b. How can I help you? ‘I would like to help you.’ (offer) As far as I can tell, constituent interrogatives are not used as declarations. There do not seem to be examples of indirect uses effecting institutionally based changes in the way the world is. The indirect uses of constituent interrogatives may be explained in terms of inferential processes triggered by violations of preconditions relevant for expressing the act of a question. For example, many of the indirect uses discussed above violate Searle’s (: ) first preparatory
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condition of questions (the speaker lacks the information to complete the open proposition) and his sincerity condition on questions (the speaker wants to obtain information from the addressee). This is the case for rhetorical questions, but also for the expressive uses in example (). The commissive cases in example () contradict his second preparatory condition, as already stated. The polite directives shown in example () are inconsistent with Searle’s (: ) sincerity condition, as the speaker is not interested in the answer to these questions, but intends to change the psychological state of the addressee. These violations trigger implicatures in the addressee, making the interrogatives comprehensible. There remains the interesting question, though, of how we recognize these violations. 7.1.2 The social economics of questions In human society, asking questions is unavoidable, since all of us only possess a small segment of the information around and need to rely on others to improve their knowledge base. At the same time, asking questions is potentially face-threatening and even dangerous, as it portrays the speaker as less knowledgeable than the addressee, revealing weak spots, as it were. If, in a job interview, I ask the question in example (a), I disclose myself as ignorant about crucial aspects in the negotiations, with potentially adverse effects to myself. If, in contrast, I phrase this question as in example (b), I may be more successful in securing the mentioned sum. () a. How much does one normally earn in this position? b. I guess, one normally earns about , euros in this position, doesn’t one? Levinson (a: ), quite rightly to my mind, argues that asking questions may incur considerable social costs, providing the following list of ‘potential social costs of asking a question’. The problem is that by asking a question one confesses one’s ignorance. 1. He does not know the information requested, while the addressee presumably does. (Potential danger: face loss due to ignorance) 2. He wants the information, and cares about the matter questioned. (Potential danger: clues to speaker’s current interests and concerns) 3. He thinks he has a right to know the information, and the addressee the right to give it. (Potential danger: speaker can be mistaken, with loss of face all round)
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4. He judges that the addressee will give him at least some truthful information. (Potential danger: speaker may need to act as if he believes the information provided) 5. He will owe the addressee something for the information, to whom it can be attributed. (Potential danger: the addressee may want parallel information from the speaker)
If this is correct, we can be expected to avoid asking explicit questions as much as we can, resulting in a considerable information-gathering problem. After all, we are still in need of information. One way to approach this problem consists in confronting the addressee with informed guesses, as shown in example (b). This strategy avoids the formulation of explicit questions in favour of making statements using declarative clauses, while characterizing the informational status of these statements as unclear (e.g. by adding a tag question). Instead of asking questions, we are merely asking to confirm or disconfirm our hypotheses. We may even say that a substantial amount of bluffing goes on in everyday conversation with the—mostly unconscious—intention of avoiding explicit questions. Based on such considerations, Levinson (a: ) hypothesizes that constituent interrogatives are more costly than polar interrogatives, and that the use of declaratives with question force is the least costly option. This hypothesis makes the following predictions: 1. Questioners will never ask a wh-question where a polar question would do. 2. Speakers should ask for the smallest informational increment they think they need. Given an informational scale like wh-Qs > polar Qs > presumptive tag Qs, speakers will escalate to the left only when required. 3. If speakers can ask a question without being on record as doing so, they will do so. 4. The frequency of questions in corpora should vary inversely with their informational strength. Among the most frequent forms should be queclaratives (questions in declarative clothing), then polar interrogatives, then wh-questions. [adapted from Levinson a: ]
To be sure, the above reasoning can only apply to face-to-face conversation and is not able to capture the use of questions in specific situations
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7. 2 E N G L I S H C O N S T I T U E N T I N T E R R O G A T I V E S
Assertion
He came. Perhaps he came. I don’t know if he came. I’d like to know if he came. He did come (.) right? He came right? He came, did he? He came (.) didn’t he? He came didn’t he? Did he come? What, did he come? Who came? Question
Figure 7.1 Question–assertion continuum (adapted from Levinson a: )
that are practically defined by questions, such as exam situations, press conferences, police interrogations. It would even appear plausible to assume that in these situations, the hierarchy introduced in point above is exactly reversed, as, for example, the information economics in exam situations is quite opposite to that of face-to-face conversation. Building on Bolinger (), Levinson (a: ) conceptualizes the relationship between assertions and questions in terms of a semantic space populated by various intermediate types, i.e. near-questions, nearassertions, half-questions, half-assertions, and the like (see also Croft : ). The idea is that true questions and assertions represent extreme and perhaps marginal cases, as we are more likely to ascribe assertions to the addressee requesting confirmation or disconfirmation. This semantic space is graphically represented in Figure .. Speakers can choose from a wide array of formal marking options to locate their utterances on this continuum, thereby displaying and masquerading various degrees of ignorance. The shown morphosyntactic options may further be modified by different intonation contours, which, as argued in Chapter , are more adequately treated as a separate dimension in the analysis of clause types, cross-cutting the morphosyntactic marking strategies. 7.2 The form and function of constituent interrogatives in English English constituent interrogatives require subject–auxiliary inversion and do-support, as long as there is no other auxiliary verb in the clause, and place interrogative words in clause-initial position. Interrogative words in subject function do not trigger the inversion of subject and auxiliary. The examples in () illustrate these properties.
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() a. Who did you meet? / Who met you? b. What have you eaten? c. Who is your best friend? Interrogative clauses can occur as main clauses, or as embedded (subordinate) clauses. As you can gather from the examples in (), the embedded counterparts to the cases in () do not require subject–auxiliary inversion and do-support, but show the unmarked word order of declarative clauses. Embedded constituent interrogatives are nevertheless introduced by an interrogative word in clause-initial position. () a. I’m wondering who you met. b. I would like to know what you have eaten. c. I don’t know who your best friend is. Since we did not discuss this in the previous chapter, let me—for the sake of completeness—mention at this point that embedded polar interrogatives do not require subject–auxiliary inversion and do-support either, as is made clear by example (). () a. Is John the suspect? (main clause polar interrogative) b. I wonder if John is the suspect. (embedded polar interrogative) We can identify the type of an embedded clause by virtue of the subordinator that introduces it. For example, the embedded polar interrogative in (b) is introduced by the subordinator if (alternatively whether). Embedded constituent interrogatives are introduced by a wh-word. These properties are summarized in Table .. 7.2.1 Types and functions of interrogative words A prominent diagnostic of constituent interrogatives is the presence of an interrogative word (wh-word). In English, we find the interrogative words shown in Table .. Table 7.1 Properties of interrogative clauses in English Property
Polar interrogatives
Constituent interrogatives
subject–auxiliary inversion
yes
yes (non-subject)
wh-word(s)
no
yes
subordinators
whether, if
wh-word
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7. 2 E N G L I S H C O N S T I T U E N T I N T E R R O G A T I V E S
Table 7.2 Interrogative words in English wh-word
who
whom
what
where
when
why
how
meaning
person
person
thing
place
time
reason
manner
The wh-word for persons has both a subject (who) and an object (whom) form, although the object form is perceived as slightly archaic, historically being the dative form of who. In addition to the wh-words shown in Table ., there are the adjectival forms which and whose, the latter representing the genitive form of who in historical terms. The label ‘wh-word’ is slightly misleading, as it excludes how, even though it clearly belongs into the paradigm. Historically speaking, all the forms in Table . can be traced back to a common Germanic or Indo-European interrogative stem. What is the inanimate form of who, while where, when, and how are adverbial derivatives of this stem, why being the old instrumental case of what. If you are interested in these etymological issues, you may want to consult the Oxford English Dictionary (www.oed.com). The interrogative words available in English allow us to question persons, things, and various types of circumstantial information of situations, namely locations, times, reasons, and manners. Concerning their word class or part of speech, we can classify them either as nominal (who, whom, what) or adverbial (where, when, why, how). The main semantic split in the nominal domain is between animates and inanimates. In English, we do not find interrogative words questioning the content of verbs or prepositions. These are relational items describing various constellations between people and things. To question such relationships, we need to resort to (sometimes awkward) paraphrases, as those in example () (see also Quirk et al. : ). () a. A: What are you doing?—B: I’m writing a book. b. A: In which position is the apple in relation to the table?— B: It is on the table. Another view on interrogative words is furnished by their function in a clause. So far, we have merely looked at their word class and meaning, but they may also appear in various functions in a clause. For example, the nominal wh-words may surface in subject, object, and complement positions, as summarized in Table .. Whose and which function as nominal
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Table 7.3 An overview of the sentential functions of interrogative words Function
Example
Subject
Who has eaten my sushi?
Direct object
What have you eaten?
Indirect object Who did you send the sushi to? / Whom did you send the sushi? Complement
What did he become in the end?
Modifier
Whose sushi did you eat? / Which sushi did you eat? / How often do you eat sushi?
Adverbial
When/where/why/how did you eat your sushi?
modifiers. The adverbial wh-words exclusively assume adverbial functions, with the exception of how, which may also be used as a modifier. In addition to these well-known core functions, the interrogative words why and what may appear in pre-clausal position expressing surprise (Quirk et al. : ). Consider the examples in (). Since this is a special discourse function, it will not further concern us here. () a. Why, they won’t object. b. What, is the bus here already? 7.2.2 The position of interrogative words By default, English interrogative words appear in clause-initial position and hence occur in a structural position different from that in the corresponding declarative clause. Let us consider an example to illustrate this point: () a. John proposed to June on stage. b. Who did John propose to ___ on stage? Example (a) shows a simple transitive declarative clause. In the interrogative counterpart in (b), the wh-word questions the information described by the object constituent, even though it appears in a structural position that is normally prohibited for objects. We can conceive of the wh-word being linked to the object position by some invisible mechanism working in the background. This is interesting, as we process information in a position in which it does not belong, logically speaking. There are basically two different ways in which we can capture the relationship between declarative and interrogative clauses, widely
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discussed in the literature. On the one hand, we may say that interrogatives are derived from declaratives by means of a syntactic operation introducing subject–auxiliary inversion, including do-support, and placing the wh-word in clause-initial position. Let us call this the ‘derivational approach’, as pursued within government and binding, principles and parameters theory, and, more recently, minimalism (see Carnie for an overview). On the other hand, one may argue for a non-derivational, construction-based approach in which abstract, constructional schemata for declarative and interrogative clauses exist side by side, without being derivationally related (Goldberg , ). Constructional schemata are filled with specific lexical items in usage. A special interrogative construction could be motivated by the distinct word order pattern of wh-interrogatives and the presence of an illocutionary force operator, whose existence remains difficult to explain in the derivational approach. Even though derivational approaches may seem preferable due their inherent elegance, psycholinguistic reality points to widespread reliance on constructions (Tomasello ). Interrogative words may also appear in the position in which the relevant constituents occur in the corresponding declarative clause, as shown in example (). According to Quirk et al. (: ), such examples are likely to occur in interviews and interrogations. They are clearly not echoic in function, in contrast to the echoic uses of whinterrogatives in example (), and resemble the declarative questions explored in Chapter . Let us refer to the position of the wh-words in such examples as ‘in situ’, since they occur in the position that they would occupy in the corresponding declarative clauses. () a. A: So you boarded the train where?—B: At Los Angeles. b. A: And you got off at what station?—B: At San Diego. () a. My goodness! You did what? b. I can’t believe it. You met who? English constituent interrogatives typically contain only one wh-word, which is positioned clause-initially. However, we also find constituent interrogatives with more than one wh-word. In such cases, the additional wh-word occupies the syntactic position of the constituent that it replaces in the corresponding declarative clause. Consider example (): () a. Who showed what to whom? b. Paul showed the book to Mary.
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The wh-word in subject position is invariably placed in clause-initial position, while other wh-words may be shifted around, as illustrated in example (). () a. When did you post which letter? b. Which letter did you post when? 7.2.3 Constructions based on constituent interrogatives At this point, let us briefly return to some specific constructions based on constituent interrogatives, partly mentioned in the previous sections. You can find them illustrated in the following examples: () a. Why don’t you be quieter? (request) b. Why don’t we take the train? (suggestion) () a. What’s this fly doing in my soup? (complaint) b. Who do you think you are? (reprimand) c. What are you doing here? (surprise) The sentences in examples () and () represent indirect speech acts, expressing directive acts in () and drawing attention to an inconsistency between one’s expectations and the world in (). Most of the examples witness the presence or usage of elements that are inappropriate in real questions, meaning the direct act associated with constituent interrogatives. For instance, in example (a), the expected question form would run Why are you not quieter?, instead of the attested do-periphrasis. Interestingly, do-periphrasis in the context of the verb be can also be observed in negative imperatives (Don’t be so noisy), offering a striking point of comparison, as the negative imperative and the Why don’t you-interrogative convey similar forces. In a similar vein, the use of the verb do in (a) is highly peculiar, as the fly is not doing anything in the soup. In fact, example (a) could be uttered in view of a dead fly and may also be used in the context of inanimate things (What’s this mug doing on my desk?). Example (b) contains the insert do you think and manifests declarative word order. And in (c), the addressee may not be doing anything, literally speaking. Apparently, the examples in () and () yield cases of highly specific speech act constructions (Quirk et al. : ; Fillmore and Kay ). They must be the result of processes of conventionalization, but practically nothing is known about the diachrony of these constructions.
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7. 2 E N G L I S H C O N S T I T U E N T I N T E R R O G A T I V E S
7.2.4 The usage of constituent interrogatives in English The social economics of questions leads us to the expectation that polar interrogatives can be encountered more often in usage data than constituent interrogatives (Levinson a: ; see Section ..). This follows from the hypothesis that asking constituent interrogatives is perceived as socially more costly or face-threatening by speakers than asking polar interrogatives. Let us test this hypothesis in actual usage data, making use of the International Corpus of English, British Component (ICE-GB). You can find a summary of the distributions of interrogative clauses in this corpus in Table . (Siemund b). As we can see, polar interrogatives clearly outnumber constituent interrogatives. The observed difference of about per cent is statistically highly significant, judged against our null hypothesis that the chance distribution of each interrogative type should be per cent (X-squared = ., df = , p-value < .e-). We may interpret the observed differential as a face-saving avoidance strategy. If we restrict the comparison to the information-seeking function, polar interrogatives outnumber constituent interrogatives , (.%) to , (.%), which is still highly significant (X-squared = ., df = , p-value = .). Let us also take a brief look at the distribution of polar and constituent interrogatives in different registers. Table . provides a summary of the spoken registers, using the register distinctions found in ICE-GB. We can see that the predicted delta between polar and constituent interrogatives only holds in the dialogue sections of the corpus, but only these contain face-threatening conversation. Table . offers the corresponding summary for the written registers. Here, correspondence and creative writing manifest similar distributions to private and public dialogues, though constituent interrogatives outnumber polar interrogatives in some of the other written registers
Table 7.4 The number of polar and constituent interrogatives in ICE-GB (Siemund b: ) Polar
Constituent
Total
,
,
,
.%
.%
%
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Table 7.5 The number of polar and constituent interrogatives in the spoken registers of ICE-GB (Siemund b: ) Spoken registers
Polar
Constituent
Total
Private dialogues
, (.%)
(.%)
, (%)
= .e-
Public dialogues
(.%)
(.%)
, (%)
< .e-
Unscripted monologues
(.%)
(.%)
(%)
= .
Scripted monologues
(.%)
(.%)
(%)
= .
Total
,
,
p-value
,
Table 7.6 The number of polar and constituent interrogatives in the written registers of ICE-GB (Siemund b: ) Written registers
Polar
Constituent
Total
p-value
(.%)
(.%)
(%)
= .
Correspondence
(.%)
(.%)
(%)
= .
Academic writing
(.%)
(.%)
(%)
= .
Non-academic writing
(.%)
(.%)
(%)
= .
Reportage
(.%)
(.%)
(%)
= .
Instructional writing
(.%)
(.%)
(%)
= .
Persuasive writing
(.%)
(.%)
(%)
= .
(.%)
(.%)
(%)
= .
Non-professional writing
Creative writing Total
(e.g. academic and non-academic writing). This makes sense, as these latter registers do not give rise to face threats. Table . shows the distribution of interrogative words in the sample of interrogatives introduced above. The two most common interrogative words are what and how, followed by why, who, and where. The forms what and how are common in modifying function (what sort, what kind, what time, how much, how long, how old). Assuming an equal distribution of interrogative words ( / = .), we can see that what and how lie considerably above this baseline, while the remaining forms are well below it. Again, the differences are highly significant (X-squared = ., df = , p-value < .e-). We may try to attribute the relatively low incidence of who to an avoidance strategy that is used to eschew the
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7. 2 E N G L I S H C O N S T I T U E N T I N T E R R O G A T I V E S
Table 7.7 The distribution of interrogative words in ICE-GB (Siemund b: ) what
how
why
who
where
when
which
whose
Total
,
no. %
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Table 7.8 Functions of constituent interrogatives in ICE-GB (based on Siemund b: ) No.
%1
Example
,
.
How did it come about?
Rhetorical
.
Who cares?
Backchannelling
.
What do you mean by three bedroomed?
Reprimand
.
Why are you insulting my father?
Suggestion
.
Why don’t you talk to Laura?
Greeting
.
Well how how’s it going?
Offer
.
Who needs more of these?
Surprise
.
Wha wha what what what’s going on here?
Grabbing attention
.
What was it?
Request
.
Well why don’t you give up for five minutes?
Invitation
.
Why don’t you come in with us?
Apology
.
I’m sorry, what must you think of my manners.
,
.
Function Information
Total 1
The percentages contain rounding errors.
questioning of people directly. Perhaps, this is felt as face-threatening, but this must remain unresolved for the time being. A summary of the functions with which constituent interrogatives are attested in ICE-GB can be found in Table .. What is interesting about this distribution is that constituent interrogatives are not as frequently used with indirect force as polar interrogatives, with the exception of rhetorical questions (i.e. statements; see Chapter ). Many of the other indirect uses are rarely attested, in sharp opposition to polar interrogatives (see Chapter ). Table . provides a direct comparison of the distribution of direct and indirect speech acts in relation to polar and constituent interrogatives. Approximately per cent of indirect uses of polar interrogatives
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Table 7.9 Direct and indirect uses of polar and constituent interrogatives in ICE-GB (based on Siemund b: ) Type
Polar
%
Constituent
%
Total
Information
,
.
,
.
,
Other
.
.
Total
,
,
,
contrast with about per cent in the domain of constituent interrogatives. These differences are statistically highly significant (X-squared = ., df = , p-value < .e-). 7.3 A cross-linguistic view on constituent interrogatives Constituent interrogatives are often unmarked except for the occurrence of interrogative words, but they may be additionally signalled by interrogative particles (common) or a change in the order of constituents (rare). Intonational marking appears less widespread for constituent interrogatives than polar interrogatives, with constituent interrogatives typically adopting the intonational pattern of declaratives. The formal marking of constituent interrogatives forms the first point of interest in this cross-linguistic overview. A second major area of cross-linguistic variability concerns interrogative words. With respect to these, there are mainly two parameters of interest. On the one hand, languages differ regarding the clausal position which they require interrogative words to occur in. On the other hand, we find substantial variation in relation to their form and the semantic distinctions drawn by them. We will explore these parameters in the subsequent sections. 7.3.1 The marking of constituent interrogatives Constituent interrogatives are first and foremost marked by the presence of an interrogative word. This would seem to be the most important clue that addressees use to identify them as such. Since the presence of an interrogative word is a definitional criterion of constituent interrogatives, this marking strategy is universal in a trivial sense.
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7.3 C R O S S - LI N G U I S T I C V I E W O N C O N S TI T U E N T I N T E R R O G A T I V E S
In our discussion of polar interrogatives in Chapter , we encountered basically four morphosyntactic strategies to encode yes–no questions. These are the addition of particles, the use of tags, interrogative morphology, and a change in the basic order of constituents. One question that poses itself is whether constituent interrogatives may also be combined with these marking strategies, or maybe even demand them. Any morphosyntactic marking of content questions in addition to the use of interrogative words could be considered redundant, strictly speaking, but we may note in passing that redundancy is a pervasive property of human language (e.g. agreement, negative concord). A substantial portion of the languages marking yes–no questions by particles also allows or even requires the use of these particles in constituent interrogatives. Example () illustrates this for Japanese. Here, the particle ka is obligatory in constituent interrogatives. Approximately half of the languages examined in Ultan’s (: ) sample permit or demand the co-occurrence of constituent interrogatives with interrogative particles. By contrast, Mandarin Chinese does not allow the combination of constituent interrogatives with the clausefinal particle ma (吗) (Li and Thompson : –). Cheng (: ) observes that languages requiring an interrogative particle in constituent interrogatives, also require one in polar interrogatives. () Japanese (Kuno : ) a. Taroo wa sono okane o dare ni ka? Taroo TOP the money OBJ who to INT ‘Who did Taroo give the money to?’ b. Taroo wa kita ka? Taroo TOP come INT ‘Did Taroo come?’ I have seen no reports of tags being used in constituent interrogatives, which appears plausible, as these invariably introduce answer bias, bending the questions towards statements. Having said that, one could expect them in constituent interrogatives used as rhetorical questions. An example like () would seem grammatical, even though it strikes me as marginal. Similarly, in the dialectal example (), in which we find the tag wa used in the declarative (b) and the rhetorically used constituent interrogative. () Who would ever do such a thing, would one?
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() German dialect spoken in the City of Berlin (personal knowledge) a. Willste det? want..SG this ‘Do you want this?’ b. Det willste wa? this want..SG right ‘You want this, don’t you?’ c. Wer will ‘n det wa? who want PRT this right ‘Who would ever want this?’ The morphological marker signalling interrogative mood in West Greenlandic occurs in both polar and constituent interrogatives. It must remain unsettled for the time being, if this generalizes to all languages possessing interrogative verb morphology. () West Greenlandic (Sadock : ) a. neri-va-Ø eat-INT-.SG ‘Did he eat?’ b. su-mik neri-va-Ø what-INST eat-INT-.SG ‘What did he eat?’ In English, subject–auxiliary inversion and do-periphrasis can be found in both polar and constituent interrogatives, as shown in example (). In other words, a special interrogative word order is also used in constituent interrogatives (except if the constituent in subject position is questioned, as pointed out above). () a. Do you like John? b. Who do you like ___? Among the languages using interrogative word order, English seems to be quite special in this respect. For example, even though polar interrogatives in German are marked by subject–auxiliary inversion, constituent interrogatives show the typical verb second word order found in declaratives, with the wh-word fronted to the preverbal topic position. This is illustrated in example (). Other Germanic languages like Dutch, Norwegian, and Swedish are similar in this respect.
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() German (personal knowledge) a. Hast Du Paul gesehen? (polar interrogative) have you Paul seen ‘Have you seen Paul?’ b. Wen hast Du gesehen? (constituent interrogative) who have you seen ‘Who have you seen?’ c. Paul habe ich gesehen. (declarative, object topicalized) Paul have I seen ‘I have seen Paul. / It is Paul who I have seen.’ Example () makes clear that German offers a special word order pattern only for polar interrogatives. Apart from the presence of interrogative words, German constituent interrogatives are not differentiated from declarative clauses. Special marking strategies exclusively used for constituent interrogatives are not attested—except for interrogative words, of course. It appears that if constituent interrogatives are marked by particles, verbal morphology, or interrogative word order, this marking strategy is also used for polar interrogatives. Cheng’s (: ) observation, thus, seems to have a more general foundation. 7.3.2 The position of interrogative words In many languages, interrogative words remain in the position of the constituent they replace in the corresponding declarative clause. This is known as ‘wh-in situ’. In English, as we learned in Section .., interrogative words remain in situ in cases of multiple interrogative words (Who did what to whom?) and with echo questions (You did what?). The placement of interrogative words in clause-initial position is often referred to as ‘wh-movement’, thus conceptualizing the relationship between the fronted wh-word and its position according to basic declarative word order in terms of a spatial metaphor. The in situ position is clearly dominant cross-linguistically. Dryer (c) investigates this parameter in a sample of languages and only finds languages that place interrogative words obligatorily in clause-initial position, as in English. This is shown in Table .. These apparently contrast with in situ languages, even though the
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Table 7.10
Position of interrogative words in constituent interrogatives (Dryer c)
Interrogative phrases obligatorily initial
Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial
Mixed, some interrogative phrases obligatorily initial, some not
Total
equation of ‘not obligatorily initial’ with in situ may be too strong. Alternatively, one could ask which languages are obligatorily in situ. Some languages possess mixed systems in which only some interrogative words or phrases obligatorily occur clause-initially. The example in () shows such an in situ case from Lango, a Nilotic language spoken in Uganda. This language has SVO word order, just like English. In a similar way, we may refer to Mandarin Chinese as an in situ language, as illustrated in example (). Here, the interrogative word shénme (什么) assumes a modifying function in the noun phrase. () Lango (Noonan : , cited in Dryer c) òkélò ò-nɛ̀nò ŋà Okelo .SG-see.PERF who ‘Who did Okelo see?’ () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 你 喝 什么 茶？ nıˇ hē shénme chá .SG drink what tea ‘What kind of tea do you drink?’ In some cases, the clause-initial occurrence of interrogative words can be viewed as a consequence of using more general constructions for expressing content questions, as in the case of Malagasy shown in example (), where speakers rely on a focus construction primarily used to adjust the focus/background structure of a clause (comparable to English cleft constructions).2 In view of such examples, it has also been hypothesized that clause-initial interrogative words (wh-movement) can be analysed as a special kind of focusing construction (focus fronting) (Cheng : –). The term ‘clefting’ refers to the splitting up of a sentence into two clauses: Mary caught a big fish. ➔ It was a big fish that Mary caught. 2
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() Malagasy (Keenan : , , cited in Dryer c) a. amin=inona no manasa lamba Rasoa with=what FOC wash.ACTIVE clothes Rasoa ‘With what did Rasoa wash clothes?’ b. amin=ity savony ity no manasa lamba Rasoa with=this soap this FOC wash.ACTIVE clothes Rasoa ‘It is with this soap that Rasoa is washing clothes.’ In yet another type of language, fronting is optional. In the Swahili example shown in (), the interrogative word meaning ‘when’ occurs in post-verbal position, while that expressing ‘why’ appears clauseinitially. Such examples would fall into the rubric of ‘not obligatorily initial’ in Dryer’s (c) taxonomy. () Swahili (Haiman : ) a. A-li-fika lini? .SG-PAST-arrive when ‘When did s/he arrive?’ b. Kwa nini chakula ki-me-chelewa? why food .SG-PRF-late ‘Why is the food late?’ Some languages, apparently, employ mixed systems. According to Heath (: , , , cited in Dryer c), interrogative words in Koyra Chiini (a Songhay language spoken in Mali)—both argumental and adverbial ones—obligatorily occur in clause-initial position, while interrogative modifiers (like English which or how) need not be fronted. The classification of languages into in situ and non-in situ leads to clear areal patterns (Dryer c). For example, languages placing interrogative words in the initial position of a clause can be frequently encountered in Europe, North Africa, the western territories of Canada and the United States, Mesoamerica, South America, Australia, and the Philippines. By contrast, in situ languages predominantly occur in Asia, Africa, as well as New Guinea and the Pacific. The placement of interrogative words sparked a lively scientific debate, as it apparently interacts in a systematic way with the basic word order type of a language and may even be influenced (or influence) the positioning of interrogative particles. It has been tried to interpret the observable correlations in terms of linguistic universals.
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To begin with, it is indeed remarkable that if interrogative words are placed outside their in situ position, they appear in clause-initial, or at least in clause-early position, and never in clause-final position. Hawkins (: ) captures this observation by what he terms the ‘Question-word Movement Universal’ stating that ‘All languages that move a -question word to clause-peripheral position move it to the left, not the right.’ Hawkins views this universal as a consequence of a more general principle underlying human language processing, namely that so-called ‘fillers’ are preferred to be processed before their corresponding ‘gaps’ (Fodor : ). In our case, the filler is the wh-word and the gap the position where it belongs in the declarative clause. Interrogatives are considered to be derivationally related to declaratives in this line of argumentation. Furthermore, Greenberg proposed the following universal formulating a very strict dependency of wh-word positioning and basic word order type: If a language has dominant order VSO in declarative sentences, it always puts interrogative words or phrases first in interrogative word questions; if it has dominant order SOV in declarative sentences, there is never such an invariant rule. (: )
This universal was based on a relatively small sample used by Greenberg at that time (thirty languages), since the more extensive samples found today became available only more recently. Consider the figures summarized in Table .. Those given in square brackets relate to the original sample used by Greenberg (). The other figures are drawn from Dryer and Haspelmath () by combining the chapter on basic word order types (Dryer d) and the position of interrogative words (Dryer c). The figures in parentheses show the overall number of languages possessing the relevant feature. We can see that in Greenberg’s older sample, VSO languages invariably place wh-words in clause-initial position, and that they are placed noninitially in SOV languages. The more recent sample used in Dryer and Haspelmath () corrects the exclusivity of Greenberg’s statement, Table 7.11 Position of interrogative words in relation to word order (based on Greenberg : ; Dryer and Haspelmath ) Position /word order
VSO ()
SVO ()
SOV ()
Initial wh-word ()
[]
[]
[]
Non-initial wh-word ()
[]
[]
[]
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practically turning his categorical universal into a statistical rule. VSO languages clearly prefer initial wh-words, while SOV languages apparently do not. Again, Hawkins (: ) offers us an explanation for these correlations by combining the aforementioned filler first principle with an additional constraint minimizing the distance between filler and gap (filler–gap domain), i.e. between wh-word and its position in the declarative clause (see below extract). This produces a hierarchy of basic word order types (VSO > SVO > SOV) with the likelihood of wh-words being placed in clause-initial position monotonically increasing from right to left. Question-word Fronting and Basic Word Order: A fronted -question word will be preferred across languages in proportion to the distance between and the subcategorizing verb in its basic order: the smaller the FGD, the more the -word is fronted. (Hawkins : )
The positioning of interrogative words has also been discussed in relation to interrogative particles. For example, Baker (: ) hypothesizes that the position of interrogative particles can predict if a language is in situ or not, provided the language has such particles. Only languages with clause-initial particles are not in situ. Again, we can test this hypothesis relying on the database made available by Dryer and Haspelmath (). The results are shown in Table ., confirming a certain correlation of initial particles with initial wh-words, and final particles with non-initial (in situ) wh-words. To be sure, we are here talking about several correlating parameters. First, we observed that verb-initial or verb-early word order is a good predictor of clause-initial wh-words. Second, we noted in Chapter that the position of interrogative particles correlates with the basic word order type of a language, with SOV languages strongly tending towards final particles and VSO showing a slight preference for initial particles. In view of these observations, it is expectable that clause-initial
Table 7.12 Position of interrogative words in relation to the position of interrogative particles in polar interrogatives (based on Dryer and Haspelmath ) Position /position
Initial particle ()
Final particle ()
Initial wh-word ()
Non-initial wh-word ()
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particles tally with initial wh-words, while final particles go together with non-initial (in situ) wh-words. Before closing this section, let us briefly return to the occurrence of multiple interrogative words, for which special rules apply in English, as only one interrogative word can be fronted. As far as in situ languages are concerned, all interrogative words simply appear in their declarative clause position, as illustrated by the Mandarin example in (). () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 谁 给 了 谁 什么？ shéi gěi le shéi shénme who give ASP who what ‘Who gave what to whom?’ In other languages, interestingly, all interrogative words are fronted to clause-initial position. Slavic languages document this property most prominently, as evidenced by the examples from Russian and Bulgarian below. Moreover, there seem to be restrictions on the serial order of multiple interrogative words with those in the nominative placed before those in the dative or accusative, and accusative ranging before dative (NOM > ACC > DAT). () Russian (Julia Davydova) Kto kogo ljubit? who whom loves ‘Who loves whom?’ () Bulgarian (Cheng : ) Koj kogo e vidjal? who whom saw..SG ‘Who saw whom?’ In closing this section, we may note that morphosyntactically completely unmarked in situ constituent interrogatives suggest that the relevant language effectively lacks a special constituent interrogative type. 7.3.3 Meaning and form of interrogative words The interrogative words available vary across languages, with English displaying a fairly extensive set. As discussed in Section .., we find seven interrogative words (who, whom, what, where, when, why, how)
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complemented by the adjectival forms which and whose. In principle, all interrogative words may be replaced by analytic constructions in combination with a general, adjectival wh-word (which person ‘who’, which thing ‘what’, which time ‘when’, which place ‘where’, etc.), the interesting question being which concepts become lexicalized giving rise to independent interrogative words. A frequently encountered semantic distinction drawn in the domain of interrogative words is that between human and non-human referents, as in the standard English opposition of who and what. This appears to be very common. Even though animate third person pronouns (he, she) may easily be used for domestic animals, who seems to be restricted to humans. For that reason, example (b) sounds slightly odd, in comparison to (a). () a. Who in this class of students has not submitted their term paper? b. ?Who in this herd of cows has not given milk today? Some languages offer an animate–inanimate contrast in the domain of interrogative words, instead of the apparently more widespread human–non-human distinction, as in the example from Ute (a UtoAztecan language) in (). () Ute (Givón : ) a. ʼáa wú̧u̧ka-xˆ a? who.SG work-ANT ‘Who worked?’ / ‘Which one worked?’ b. ʼaĝá-ru̧ qorú̧c’a̧y-kya? what-INAN break-ANT ‘Which one/thing broke?’ A few languages, clearly a minority, do not draw a distinction between human and non-human (or animate and inanimate) interrogative words. Ultan (: ) reports Khasi (Mon-Khmer, India), Sango (Niger-Kongo, Central African Republic), and Lithuanian (IndoEuropean, Lithuania) from his sample illustrating this property. We may add Latvian to this list, as shown in example (). () Latvian (Google Translate) Kas tas ir? who this is ‘Who/what is that?’
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Frequently encountered interrogative words in the adverbial domain encode location, time, manner, and reason. Some languages offer more fine-grained distinctions, as, for instance, that between source and goal found in German, Lezgian, Georgian, and Finnish (woher/wohin, hinaj/ hiniz, saidan/sait, and mistä/mihin). We may note that in earlier stages of English this contrast was also available, as evidenced by example (). The adverbial form whither means ‘where to’, while whence means ‘from where’. () Early Modern English (Siemund : ) a. O whither shall we fly from this reproach? [Shakespeare, Henry VI, . . ] b. Now; whence come you? [Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, . . ] A number of scholars have tried to detect correlations between the concept encoded by interrogative words and their phonological and morphological properties. For example, Heine et al. (: –) report that interrogative words encoding persons, objects, and locations are typically less complex in their formal structure than those describing times, manners, reasons, and causes. In another study, Mackenzie (: ) argues that the concepts encoded by interrogative words can be ordered along the hierarchy of cognitive complexity shown in (), and that cognitive complexity correlates with formal complexity. In other words, the phonological and morphological complexity of interrogative words is expected to increase monotonically from left to right on this hierarchy. Clearly, English why (encoding reason) would run counter to this hypothesis. () INDIVIDUAL > LOCATION > TIME > MANNER > QUANTITY > REASON Languages also vary with respect to the word classes for which they offer interrogative words. For example, the standard varieties of English possess nominal interrogative words (who, what), adverbial ones (where, when, why, how), and those that are adjectival (which, whose). There are none for numerals (how many), verbs, or prepositions, though there is no principled reason why they should not exist. Hagège () reports examples of such less familiar interrogative words, mainly from the verbal domain, though. Example () provides an interesting case from Colloquial Mandarin with an occurrence of a
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transitively used interrogative verb. Hagège (: ) assumes an etymology of gànmá in terms of gànshénma (干什么 ‘do what’), with gànmá being a complex word, since má does not exist independently. () Colloquial Mandarin Chinese (Hagège : ) 你 在 干么？ nıˇ zài gànmá .SG PROG do.what ‘What are you doing?’ Despite examples like () and many similar cases discussed in Hagège (), interrogative verbs remain an extremely rare phenomenon. And, what is more, there simply seem to be none for prepositions. Even though a hypothetical prepositional wh-word as in example ()—to be answered by for, against, with, or like—would seem quite useful, they have never been observed in any language. For some reason, abstract relational items like prepositions do not produce wh-words. () He worked wh-preposition John? (Hagège : ) Zaefferer (: ) postulates the (implicational) hierarchy of interrogative words shown in (). For any language, it predicts the existence of interrogative words to the left of an attested point on it. () pro-noun > pro-adverb > pro-adjective > pro-numeral > pro-verb A similar though slightly extended version of this hierarchy can be found in König and Siemund (: –, : ), as shown in (). An illustration of the German interrogative word for ordinal numbers is provided in example (). () noun > adverb > adjective/determiner > numeral/cardinal > ordinal > verb > preposition () German (personal knowledge) Das wievielte trinkst Du gerade? the how.many.of.something drink you now ‘How many of these have you had?’ Interrogative words are frequently related to indefinite expressions (Haspelmath ). Let me illustrate this using data from German, bearing in mind that the phenomenon is more common in spoken
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language. As you can see in (), the interrogative word wen translates into English as who in (a), but as somebody/anybody in (b). Note that example (b) is a polar interrogative. () German (personal knowledge) a. Wen hast Du gesehen? who have you seen ‘Who have you seen?’ b. Hast Du wen gesehen? have you somebody seen ‘Have you seen anybody?’ In a sample of languages, Haspelmath () reports languages in which indefinite expressions are formally related to interrogative words. In other words, more than half of the languages in this sample show the formal overlap illustrated by the German example above. The Mandarin interrogative clause in example () containing multiple interrogative words, repeated in (), can also receive such an indefinite interpretation. () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 谁 给 了 谁 什么 shéi gěi le shéi shénme somebody give ASP somebody something ‘Somebody gave something to somebody.’ 7.3.4 The usage of constituent interrogatives In Chapter we noticed that the usage patterns of polar interrogatives are not particularly well explored and essentially the same can be said about constituent interrogatives, especially from a cross-linguistic perspective. Some information can be found in Stivers et al. (), which is a comparative study of questions in ten languages. Table . provides a summary of their findings for a selection of five out of these ten languages that appear by and large comparable regarding the encoding strategies available for asking questions. The functional category of yes–no questions mentioned in Table . covers three formal means of encoding, namely polar interrogatives, tag questions, and declarative questions. This means that the actual share of polar interrogatives in the set of all questions must be considerably lower.
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Table 7.13 Distribution of question types (based on Stivers et al. ) Question type American English Danish Dutch
Japanese Korean
Yes–no
%
%
.%
%
%
Content
%
%
.%
%
%
%
< %
.%
< %
%
Alternative
Table 7.14 Distribution of interrogative words (based on Stivers et al. ) Interrogative word
American English
Danish
Dutch
Japanese
What
%
%
%
%
How
%
%
%
%
Why
%
%
%
%
When
%
%
%
%
Where
%
%
%
%
Who
%
%
%
%
Bearing in mind that the yes–no question type in Table . is not coextensive with the form type of polar interrogatives, we can see that yes–no questions are consistently more frequent than content questions. Alternative questions are rare. Levinson (a: –), as already introduced in Section .., characterizes the social economics of questions in such a way that speakers consider asking yes–no questions less costly than asking content questions.3 The higher share of yes–no questions in Table . seems to confirm this hypothesis, quite independently of the language considered. Moreover, the overall proportion of declarative questions seems to be highest (not shown in Table .). A good grasp of the usage of constituent interrogatives can be obtained by establishing the ratios of the question words used. This is shown in Table ., though excluding Korean, as the necessary data could not be retrieved. Again, there are striking parallels across languages with ‘what’ (nearly) invariably being the most frequent interrogative word and ‘who’ being the least frequent one (compare the corpus findings reported in 3 Even though these data roughly tally with the corpus findings reported in Section .., they are strictly speaking not comparable, since the data in Table . are based on a functional definition of questions.
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Section ..). The figures in Table . say nothing about the functions of the respective constituent interrogatives, though, and we may suspect a considerable number of the ‘what’-occurrences to be the result of repair initiations and requests for confirmation. What I find especially remarkable is the high share of interrogative words asking for circumstantial information (‘how’, ‘why’, ‘when’, ‘where’), whereas ‘who’ occurs only marginally. These differences may hide additional dimensions of the aforementioned social economics of asking questions, since enquiring about people may be perceived as socially more costly than asking for circumstantial information (see Section ..).
7.4 Summary We commenced this chapter with an exploration of the meaning of content questions, arguing that it can be characterized in terms of their true answers. This logical meaning, of course, says nothing about the uses such questions can be put to, nor does it necessitate their pairing with illocutionary force. In practice, however, the structural counterparts of content questions, namely constituent interrogatives, are typically understood as requests for information, while also doing service with a wide range of other forces. We also discussed the social economics behind asking questions, leading to the interesting result that constituent interrogatives may be considered the least preferred information-seeking device that languages typically offer. English constituent interrogatives show subject–auxiliary inversion, including do-support, in the same way as polar interrogatives. Their most important diagnostic, however, is the presence of an interrogative word. These belong to different word classes, encode various kinds of information, and show up in core and peripheral functions of a clause. Moreover, English constituent interrogatives have given rise to constructions expressing highly specific forces. Concerning their usage, we could show that constituent interrogatives are used less frequently than polar interrogatives, not only in English. Moreover, they occur in fewer indirect uses. Cross-linguistically, constituent interrogatives are best identified by the presence of an interrogative word, even though some languages additionally mark this clause type by some other formal mechanism,
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7. 5 T O P I C S F O R F U R T H E R R E S E A R C H
notably particles. Interrogative words are frequently fronted to clauseinitial position, as in English, but quite often, they stay in their respective declarative clause position. This parameter of fronting versus wh-in situ strongly correlates with the basic word order type of a language, and also with the placement of interrogative particles in polar interrogatives. Languages show substantial diversity regarding the number and types of interrogative words. In addition, it has been hypothesized that the formal properties of interrogatives words bear a certain relationship to their meaning. Last but not least, it is noteworthy that interrogative words are often based on or related to indefinite expressions.
7.5 Topics for further research In this book, we are primarily exploring clause types and their associated illocutionary forces, our focus lying on contextual and interactional components of meaning. In other words, our discussion is primarily placed in the realm of pragmatics. Although we briefly addressed the semantics of questions, especially of content questions, this discussion could only scratch the surface. If you are further interested in these matters, including the complicated area of the presuppositions triggered by questions, see Hamblin (), Groenendijk and Stokhof (), Karttunen (), and Krifka (), as well as the references cited therein. These treatises are often quite technical. The social economics of questions seems to be a highly interesting area deserving further study, even though I am not aware of much work in this paradigm. The contributions to Stivers et al. () and Ruiter () offer interesting points of departure, but as far as I can see, this represents largely unchartered territory. If you are interested in grammatical aspects of English interrogative clauses, you can follow up the relationship between embedded and unembedded interrogatives in Grimshaw () and the specific constructions explored in Fillmore and Kay (). Some varieties of English show subject–auxiliary inversion in embedded interrogatives, though declarative word order in main clause interrogatives (see Siemund for an overview). Information on rhetorical questions can be found in Meibauer (), Frank (), Ilie (), and Han ().
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The relationship between interrogatives and focus constructions forms an important thread in Miestamo (), which also provides a good overview of interrogative constructions in Uralic languages. The problem of clausal typing including the question of whether clause types may be marked by more than one formal exponent are explored in Cheng () and Potsdam (). For further information on the form and meaning of interrogative words, see Muysken and Smith (). Indefinite pronouns and their relationship to interrogative words are made the topic of Bhat () and Gärtner ().
7.6 Exercises Basic level 1. In the present chapter, I carefully distinguished between ‘constituent interrogatives’ on the one hand and ‘content questions’ on the other. a. In a brief essay of approximately words, discuss why this distinction is necessary and useful. You may draw on Huddleston () for inspiration. b. In your essay, try to address the different functions that constituent interrogatives can be found with. 2. Embedded clauses following the matrix predicate know may either be introduced by the subordinator that or the subordinators whether/if. The choice of the subordinator depends on the polarity of the matrix clause, resulting in an embedded declarative and an embedded interrogative, respectively. This is shown by the following examples. i. I know that Mary likes dancing Tango. (embedded declarative) ii. I don’t know whether/if Mary likes dancing Tango. (embedded interrogative) Try to explain the restrictions illustrated by the pair of examples above. You should bear in mind that whether/if are disallowed in example (i), while that is not possible in example (ii). 3. English constituent interrogatives do not employ do-periphrasis when the constituent in subject position is questioned, as illustrated by the following examples. i. Who saw you? (subject constituent questioned) ii. Who did you see? (object constituent questioned) iii. When did you see him (adverbial constituent questioned) Try to explain this seemingly idiosyncratic behaviour of subject constituents taking recourse to word order regularities.
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7. 6 E X E R C I S E S
Intermediate level 1. According to Levinson (a), the use of constituent interrogatives is socially more costly than that of polar interrogatives, which, in turn, outrank tag questions and declarative questions in this respect. a. Try to find evidence for this hierarchy in your daily communication. In which situations do you tend to avoid interrogatives, resorting to rising declaratives or tagged declaratives? b. Can you also think of situations in which you would prefer polar interrogatives to constituent interrogatives, even though you are interested in content information rather than a truth value? Explain. c. Can you think of situations in which constituent interrogatives are not or cannot be avoided? Explain. 2. In Section .., I introduced two prominent theories capturing the meaning of questions, namely the proposition set approach on the one hand, and the functional approach, on the other. a. Explore these approaches in detail based on a close reading of Krifka () and the references cited therein. b. Which types of language data represent problems for these approaches? Which alternative theories have been proposed to harness these problems? 3. The difference between questions and assertions can be conceived of as a continuum, rather than a polar opposition, as we saw in Section ... Consider the examples of declarative questions shown below and read up on their grammatical properties in Chapter . i. To someone whose face is covered in chocolate: You like chocolate? ii. To someone who is sweating all over: You’ve been exercising? a. In which ways are declarative questions different from polar interrogatives? Think of their prominent contexts of use. b. Comment on the similarities and differences between declarative questions and declarative clauses followed by a tag question. c. Declarative questions are typically viewed as a special kind of yes–no question. Do you think that content questions can also function as declarative questions? Explain.
Advanced level 1. In English, there are constructions based on constituent interrogatives that are conventionally used for carrying out indirect speech acts. They possess special functions and obey special usage conditions. The examples below illustrate some of these constructions. Let us explore the usage of these constructions.
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i. What’s this scratch doing on my new smartphone? ii. Why don’t you stop smoking? iii. What are you doing in my office? iv. Who do you think you are? a. Making use of the online version of the Corpus of Contemporary American English (http://corpus.byu.edu/coca), try to find these constructions in the corpus. Don’t forget to make use of the pattern-matching facilities. b. Analyse your search results, manually identifying the direct and the indirect uses of the above patterns. c. Order the above constructions according to the degree of conventionality with which they are used for indirect speech acts. How can we explain the differences? 2. In Section .., we saw that there is great variation across languages concerning the form of interrogative words and the concepts that they encode. In this project, I would like you to explore cross-linguistic variation in the domain of interrogative words, based on available grammatical descriptions. a. As a starting point, take a look at the Ethnologue catalogue of the world’s languages (https://www.ethnologue.com). There, you can find approximately language families listed. Familiarize yourself with this catalogue. b. From the Ethnologue catalogue, pick twenty languages of your choice, each from a different family. Make sure that grammatical descriptions of these languages are available in your vicinity. Hint: Ethnologue provides references and many grammatical descriptions are publicly available on the Internet. c. Extract the information on interrogative words from these grammatical descriptions and organize it in a spreadsheet table. d. Analyse the information on interrogative words that you have gathered, searching for correlations between their form and function. e. Summarize your methodology and your results in an essay of approximately , words. 3. It has been claimed that Indian English has subject–auxiliary inversion in embedded interrogatives, though no subject–auxiliary inversion in main clause interrogatives (Mesthrie and Bhatt : ; Trudgill and Hannah : ). The grammatical rules of standard English seem to be exactly reversed. This is illustrated by the following examples. i. What this is made from? ii. I asked him where does he work. a. Try to corroborate these claims using the International Corpus of English (http://ice-corpora.net/ice), Indian Component (ICE-India). What does the data tell us? b. Does non-standard inversion in Indian English represent a categorical or a statistical phenomenon?
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8 Imperatives and commands
. The meaning and force of imperatives
. English imperatives
. A cross-linguistic view on imperatives and related categories
. Summary
. Topics for further research
. Exercises
Searle’s taxonomy of speech acts treats the forces conventionally expressed by imperatives as ‘directives’, thus lumping them together with those conveyed by interrogative sentences. Simplifying a little, we can view interrogatives as expressing requests for information and imperatives as requests for action. The direction of fit is world-toword in both cases. Searle (: ) writes that ‘Questions are a species of directives since they are attempts by S to get H to answer—i.e. to perform a speech act.’ Imperatives are typically associated with giving orders or commands, at least, this is what you often find stated. What they have in common with interrogatives is that they expect some reactive process on the part of the addressee. Their common denominator may be described as ‘addressee obligation’. Against this background, it is interesting to note that the great majority of languages draws a very clear formal distinction between interrogatives and imperatives. Even though both express directives, language users find it important to distinguish them. Imperatives frequently lack formal exponents found in the corresponding declarative clauses. Quite typically, imperatives show missing subjects, suppressed or reduced agreement of person, number, and
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gender, as well as missing markers of tense and aspect. Imperatives tend to be expressed by verbal exponents, if they are morphosyntactically marked. There can be no doubt that many languages possess a dedicated imperative clause type. Orders, commands, and related directive forces may also be expressed by a host of non-imperative syntactic structures. Even though the focus here will be on dedicated grammatical constructions expressing directive speech acts, as in example (), there are several alternative ways of expressing the same or similar forces. Some examples can be found in (). () Clean your shoes. (imperative) () a. b. c. d.
You had better clean your shoes. (declarative) You should clean your shoes. (declarative) Could you (please) clean your shoes? (interrogative) Why don’t you clean your shoes? (interrogative)
Such examples are interesting to consider, as they reveal important functional properties of imperatives. For example, imperatives involve second person addressees (you), express some sort of deontic modality or obligation (should), and the situation expressed is not the case at the moment of speaking (could you . . . ). We will investigate these properties in detail below. Within the literal force paradigm introduced in Chapter , we can analyse example () as a direct speech act, since the directive force seems to be conventionally associated with the syntactic form type. The specimens in () represent indirect acts, as request force is conveyed by declarative and interrogative form types respectively, though at least declaratives may alternatively be viewed as force neutral (see Chapter ). For this reason, we will here restrict our attention to specimens of the type shown in example (), bearing in mind that these allow indirect uses, too. The avoidance of imperatives for reasons of politeness is discussed in Chapter .
8.1 The meaning and force of imperatives It would appear as if, of all major clause types, imperatives have the smallest illocutionary force potential, as they are by and large restricted to expressing orders, requests, and related illocutionary forces. Imperatives
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cannot be used for making statements, asking questions (except echo questions), or exclamations. In other words, although declaratives and interrogatives easily protrude into the functional territory of imperatives, the reverse path seems to be blocked. The only exception that I can think of involves performative verbs, as an imperative like Tell me how old you are counts as a question. Still, the illocutionary force potential of imperatives is more extensive than one would initially assume. We will explore the forces expressible with imperatives in the next section, thereafter continuing with an analysis of their meaning. 8.1.1 Imperatives and illocutionary force In using an imperative, the speaker tries to influence the behaviour of the addressee in one way or another. If I tell you ‘Read this book carefully’, you will understand this as a request, an order, or a piece of advice to focus your attention on this book. I oblige you to do something. The exact interpretation of the speech act depends on several—mostly contextual—parameters. These include, inter alia, the verbal content, the degree of control that the speaker has over the addressee, if the imperative is in the interest of the speaker or the addressee, the degree of control that the addressee has over the situation, and the source of obligation. You may be able to find additional parameters. Let us now explore how these parameters interact considering some examples. These have been drawn from the literature (Davies : –; Wilson and Sperber : –; Huddleston and Pullum : –; Han : ; Condoravdi and Lauer : –; Wratil : ), but I also added a few examples of my own. For instance, if a parent directs the imperatives shown in example () to their child, the observable forces can be quite different, even though the power relations are the same, the situations are in the interest of both child and parent, and the source of obligation is the parent. Here, the verbal content mainly determines the interpretation. () Parent to child a. Go and repair you bicycle! (order) b. Have another slice of meat. (offer) c. Ch: Can I join the others?—P: Yes, darling, go out and play. (permission)
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In example (), you can find a command typical of military situations, in which the officer has control over the soldier. Interpreting imperatives as commands presupposes a power imbalance with compliance being expected. If, on the other hand, we reverse the power relationship of speaker and addressee, as in the military situation, the force of the imperative changes from a command into a joke or insult. () a. officer to private: Shoulder arms! (command) b. private to officer: Shoulder arms! (joke, insult) More equal power relations between speaker and addressee, as in example (), bring about a general request force, perhaps in combination with verbal content relating to insubstantial (‘free’) services. In addition, such examples are understood as beneficial for the speaker, not necessarily the addressee. If such imperative sentences are meant to express something beneficial for the addressee, a force relating to suggestions or advice is the result. This is shown in example (). Requests to refrain from an activity, as in (), are often called ‘prohibitions’. Such negative imperatives (‘prohibitives’) often possess special formal properties, as we will see later. () Request a. Please bring me some water. b. Open the window, please. c. Stop yelling at me. d. Go away from my window. Leave at your own chosen speed. (Johnny Cash) () Suggestion, advice a. A: Excuse me, I want to get to the station. B: Take a number bus. b. Get some rest. (to a friend who looks tired) c. Wait until the price is right. d. Go on, keep running! That’s the way. () Prohibition a. Don’t walk on the grass. b. Don’t be noisy during the exam. In situations in which the speaker has lost control, speaker-beneficial imperatives are interpreted as pleas. Situations in which the speaker is drowning, urgently needs money, or is detained, as in example (), may help to illustrate this point.
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() Pleas a. Help! I’m drowning. b. Please, lend me some money. I’m broke. c. Release me from prison, please. Imperatives may also convey warnings, as in example (). The point or purpose of such imperatives consists in causing the addressee to avoid an imminent action perceived to have negative consequences for the addressee or to be generally undesirable (see also the prohibitions above). Here, power relations between speaker and addressee may be balanced or unbalanced, and the source of obligation may be the speaker or some regulating body. () Warning a. Do not annoy him, or you’ll be sorry. b. Be quiet. I am warning you. c. Mind the gap. d. Don’t touch the live wire. Imperatives conveying permissions, consent, or invitations, as in example (), posit an interesting case, since the original intention for the action resides in the addressee, not the speaker (Han : –). If I knock on your door, my plan is to enter, to which you may give your consent using example (a). Similarly, (b–d) acknowledge an interest of the addressee perceived by the speaker. We may say that in these examples the source of obligation originates in the addressee. As Davies (: ) puts it, ‘the act of permitting seems in fact to consist in abdicating or declining to use one’s authority to forbid’. Van Olmen (: ) uses the term ‘commissive directive’, since the speaker signals binding agreement using such imperatives. () Permission, consent, invitations a. Come in. (as a reply to a knock on the door) b. A: Can I open the window? B: Oh, open it, then. c. Help yourself to any books you need. d. Bring your family, if you like. e. Go ahead if you feel you must, but I really don’t think you should. We may also use imperatives for situations that neither addressee nor speaker has control over. This allows them to function as wishes or
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curses, depending on whether the expectation is beneficial or harmful to the addressee. Imperatives used as wishes can be found in example (); those used as curses or imprecations in (). These may be called ‘expressive directives’ (van Olmen : ). () Wish a. Get well soon. b. Please don’t rain. c. (A is calling B, and mutters to himself:) Answer the phone. d. Enjoy the movie. () Imprecation a. Go to hell. b. Go to the devil! Instructional forces arise if the source of obligation (i.e. typically the speaker) is absent or strongly backgrounded. Consider the cases in (). These imperatives express explanations how to do something, though they do not oblige the addressee to carry out the mentioned activities. The ultimate interest resides in the addressee, although such instructions may also involve speaker interest (altruism, commercial interest). () Instruction a. Beat two eggs. Put salt and sugar into the beaten eggs. Mix them well. (cooking instructions) b. Loosen the screws and remove the lid. Then disconnect the cables of the fan. Take out the fan and clean it. (maintenance instructions) Let us finally take a look at some more special uses of imperatives not widely discussed in the literature. First, they may be used in contexts that Davies (: ) refers to as threats, dares, or challenges, as shown in example (). Crucially, in using such imperatives, the speaker does not want the addressee to carry out the action that they describe. () Threat, dare, challenge a. Go on. Throw the rock. I dare you. b. All right then, if you’re so clever, prove it to me. c. Catch me if you can! Second, imperatives may be understood as conditionals, as shown in example (), especially in syntactic environments of clause coordination.
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These represent interesting cases, as it is really difficult to detect any directive force in these examples. Rather, there is an implication that the condition is unlikely or undesirable (see also Jary and Kissine ; Siemund b). For instance, (a) effectively means ‘Don’t hit me’, suggesting parallels between the examples in () and (). () Conditionals a. Hit me and you’ll be sorry. ‘If you hit me, . . . ’ b. Pull this lever and the bomb will go off. ‘If you pull this lever, . . . ’ c. Persuade her to agree and I’ll be forever in your debt. ‘If you persuade her . . . ’ Third, imperatives can surface in examples like those in () whose function Davies (: ) describes as ‘grabbing attention’. With these examples, there seems to be a condition lurking in the background on which they depend. For instance, we may paraphrase example (b) by Pass GCE in any subject you like, if you buy into our teaching scheme. The directive force of the imperative seems to be transferred to this hidden conditional, the imperative expressing its desirable or promised consequence. () Grabbing attention a. Win up to £, in this week’s competition. b. Pass GCE in any subject you like. c. Speak a new language after as little as eight weeks. Having surveyed the illocutionary forces that imperatives can occur with, it appears worth stating that the communicative potential of this category is larger than one would initially assume. The widely encountered functional characterization in terms of requests and commands is clearly an oversimplification. In view of this diverse set of communicative functions—and there may be undiscovered functions—the question is which assumptions concerning the meaning of imperatives we have to make. These assumptions should be minimal and precise, to allow the attested functions, and only these. This will be the topic of the next section. 8.1.2 The meaning of imperatives The meaning of imperatives has been topic of lively scholarly exchange, with several issues still being ardently debated. One of the crucial
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questions addressed in this debate is whether imperatives encode specific illocutionary forces, or whether the forces that we observed in the preceding section are the result of pragmatic reasoning. If imperatives do not encode specific forces, its force potential needs to follow from other meaning components (e.g. their descriptive or denotational meaning). If they encode specific forces, the question is which of the above forces counts as direct and which as indirect. The same problems also manifested themselves in the analysis of the other clause types and crucially depend on our acceptance of the literal force hypothesis. The great majority of studies dedicated to the imperative does not ascribe a specific illocutionary force directly to this form type, but views force as the result of an interaction between meaning (force potential) and communicative principles. As far the meaning of the imperative is concerned, it has been described in terms of expressing hypothetical situations (Bolinger : ), potential situations (Davies : ), possible and desirable situations (Wilson and Sperber : ), and speaker preferences (Condoravdi and Lauer : ). The meaning of the imperative, hence, comes to be similar to that of modal verbs like may, must, or should, i.e. Close the window is semantically related to You must/may/should close the window. The following examples, taken from Portner (: ), illustrate these correspondences. () a. Sit down right now! (order) b. Noah should sit down right now, given that he’s been ordered to do so. (deontic) () a. Have a piece of fruit! (invitation) b. Noah should have a piece of fruit, given that it would make him happy. (bouletic) () a. Talk to your advisor more often! (suggestion) b. Noah should talk to his advisor more often, given that he wants to finish his degree. (teleological) The addressee needs to compute the precise directive force on pragmatic principles. These assumptions on the meaning of imperatives predict correctly that they cannot be used for assertive speech acts. Having said that, imperatives are not meant to be equivalent to modalized declarative clauses, since they cannot be assigned a truth value, i.e. judged as true or false (see Portner : ).
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8. 1 M E A N I N G A N D F O R C E O F I M P E R A T I V E S
With Portner (, ), we find a proposal that tries to derive the force of imperatives from their semantic type. This proposal presupposes some familiarity with general assumptions held in formal semantics, especially concerning the ontology of semantic types. Accepting a division between properties (the semantic correlates of nouns, verbs, and adjectives) and propositions (the semantic correlate of sentences), it is customary to conceptualize declarative clauses as statements of propositions. Interrogative clauses may be viewed as encoding indeterminate or open propositions or sets of propositions, as introduced in Chapters and . Portner (: ) proposes to analyse imperative clauses as expressing properties, with the additional requirement that these can only be true of the addressee. In other words, in using an imperative, I am stating a property of the addressee, which in turn triggers a certain illocutionary force depending on the context. Given the semantic characterizations introduced above, which pragmatic principles do we need to invoke the illocutionary forces that imperatives are found with? Davies (: ), for example, assumes a ‘convention of truthfulness’ such that potential situations are generally believed to come true. Portner (: ) and Han (: –) hypothesize that imperative utterances are added to the set of addressee intentions, referred to as ‘To-Do List’ and ‘Plan Set’ in these publications. However, these pragmatic principles need to be related to the imperative form in one way or another, bringing directive force in through the back door, as it were. For Han (, ), imperatives directly encode directive force, thus making forces such as commands, requests, pleas, suggestions, and prohibitions part of their meaning. In addition, she proposes that directive force operates on propositions of an irrealis type (they describe something unknown), since imperatives describe future events. Following the convention of dissociating force from propositional content introduced in Chapter , the gist of her proposal can be summarized in the formula shown in (). On top of that, she views imperatives as instructions to update the addressee’s ‘Plan Set’, as introduced above. () directive(irrealis(p)) (Han : , : ) This proposal embraces the distinction between direct and indirect speech acts also for imperatives. The clearly directive examples are thus easily taken care of, even though the semantic machinery
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necessary is quite substantial. Non-directive forces such as permissions, wishes, and threats are taken to be the result of pragmatic processes, as is customary in the interpretation of indirect speech acts. With permissions (Come in!), for example, the proposition expressed by the imperative is already part of the addressee intentions. Imperatives with the force of wishes are typically uttered in a context that is beyond the control of the addressee (Have a nice day) and reinterpreted accordingly. Threats or dares can be regarded as cases of sarcasm or irony, since they express the contrary of what is literally stated.
8.2 English imperatives English characterizes imperatives primarily via missing subjects (e.g. Leave!). It employs bare verb forms in the imperative, as opposed to adding inflectional morphology, and there are restrictions on the types of verbs permitted. Interestingly, the auxiliaries be and have lose their auxiliary properties in negative imperatives requiring do-support (Don’t be a fool!; Don’t have too much to eat!). Directives to the first and third person can be expressed by various periphrastic constructions. English imperatives are primarily used for giving advice and instructions, illocutionary forces like commands and requests figuring less prominently. These and related properties form the focus of attention of the present section. 8.2.1 Structural properties Even though it may seem obvious that the unexpressed subject of imperatives is of a second person type referring to the addressee, it is nevertheless worth the while considering the relevant subject properties in more detail. The point is that we should try to substantiate our analysis by grammatical argumentation and not merely by intuitions. It will turn out that the matter is more complicated than it initially seemed. There are several pieces of evidence to substantiate the assumption of a second person subject of imperatives (see Davies : –; Han : ). For example, considering the reflexive contexts in () and the special question tags in () yields clear support for such a view. Second person subjects may be singular or plural.
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8. 2 E NG LI S H I M P E R AT I VE S
() a. Behave yourself/yourselves. b. *Behave himself/myself/ourselves/themselves. () a. Be quiet. Will you? b. *Be quiet. Will he/I/they/we? Moreover, imperative subjects can be overt in emphatic or contrastive contexts, as shown in example (), and then second person pronouns come to be used. () a. You behave yourself. b. Don’t you move. At the same time, however, imperatives also permit third person subjects as long as these can receive an addressee interpretation (Potsdam : –; Rupp : ; Han : ). Such third person noun phrases may be quantifiers (a–b), indefinite expressions (c), collective nouns (d), definite NPs and proper names (e–f), and even third person pronouns (g). There is a problem, though, to delimit these cases properly from vocatives, i.e. address forms used to summon somebody that are positioned outside the clause (e.g. John, go home). At least the examples in (d–g) seem to require a slight intonational break between noun phrase and verb phrase, making an analysis in terms of vocatives plausible (see Davies : – for discussion). () a. Nobody move. b. Everybody get out as quick as he/you can. c. Somebody pay the bill. d. People interested in the project come and see me afterwards! e. The boy in the corner stand up. f. Chris stand by the door and Shirley watch the window! g. He who carries the machine gun step away from the car! As already mentioned, all third person subjects are interpreted as second person (addressee). This is revealed by the following examples involving coreference with pronouns in which only second person pronouns are permitted. () a. *The boy in the corner stand up, will he? b. The boy in the corner stand up, will you? () a. Nobodyi move. I am begging youi/*himi/*themi. b. Somebodyi pay the bill. I am begging youi/*himi/*themi.
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Since English imperatives are restricted to second person subjects in the way discussed above, commands and requests to the first or third person require a different construction type. The obvious candidate is the let-construction, as shown in example (). This construction permits first and third person pronouns, but disallows second person pronouns (Davies : ). There are also differences regarding the forces that are typically expressed. () Let me/him/us/them/*you be quite clear about this. A second property of imperatives frequently mentioned is that they are by and large restricted to dynamic verbs, to the exclusion of stative verbs. Verbs like those shown in example () are generally held to lead to inappropriate imperatives. () a. ?Need freedom! b. ?Know better. However, such a generalization in terms of verb types is too simplistic, as the examples in () through () show. Davies (: –) points out that the crucial criterion is control. Situations that the addressee has or can have control over may be encoded by imperatives, while situations that are outside one’s control lead to unacceptable or at least pragmatically odd imperatives. Some verbs, as shown in () and (), are perfectly acceptable in positive imperatives, though disallowed in negative ones, or vice versa. () a. Know that poem by Friday. b. Stop moaning and hope for the best. c. Just understand this—I never meant to hurt you. () a. ?Fall ill. b. ?Inherit a million. c. ?Go mad. () a. Don’t feel disappointed. b. ?Feel disappointed. () a. Know what’s going on around you. b. ?Don’t know what’s going on around you. Staying with restrictions on the imperative verb phrase, it has also been a matter of some debate if passives, progressives, and perfects are admissible.
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Although some imperatives may be considered ill formed when combined with these categories, Davies (: –) provides convincing evidence that there are no principled restrictions. The examples in ()–() illustrate passive imperatives, progressive, and perfect imperatives, respectively. () a. Don’t be misled by his flattery. b. Be checked over by a doctor, then you’ll be sure there is nothing wrong. () a. Be waiting on the corner at six. b. Don’t be messing about when the bell rings. () a. Have finished your homework by tomorrow. b. Don’t have eaten everything before the guests arrive. Another area that allows us to pinpoint special properties of imperatives concerns negation. English imperatives generally require do-periphrasis under negation. As such, this does not seem remarkable, since it conforms to the default strategy of negation formation in English, as illustrated below. () a. Paul doesn’t drink whisky. b. Don’t drink whisky, Paul. What is remarkable, though, is that this pattern obligatorily extends to be and have. These verbs have main verb uses and auxiliary uses, as is well known, and do not require do-support, except when used in imperatives. Consider the example in () and (), noticing that have, unlike be, also permits do-support. () a. b. c. d.
Paul isn’t a sinner. Don’t be a sinner, Paul. *Be not a sinner, Paul. *Paul doesn’t be a sinner.
() a. b. c. d.
Paul hasn’t many enemies. Don’t have many enemies, Paul. *Have not many enemies, Paul. Paul doesn’t have many enemies.
The special status of be and have in negative imperatives also nicely comes out in the following pair of examples, in which they can be
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combined with another auxiliary (do) in imperatives, but fail to show this option in non-imperative contexts (Davies : ). Apparently, be and have lose their auxiliary function in imperatives. () a. Do be ready on time. b. *He does be ready on time. () a. Don’t have eaten everything before I get there. b. *Don’t we have eaten everything already? Negative contexts give rise to further properties of imperatives worth discussing. For instance, as pointed out by Davies (: –), some negative imperatives are systematically ambiguous between two interpretations. Example () helps to illustrate this point. On the one hand, this sentence may be meant to prevent an incipient activity from starting, while, on the other hand, it may be used to halt an on-going activity. You can find the two interpretations explicated in (). The question is how to explain this ambiguity. () Don’t swim in this river! () a. Don’t start swimming in this river. b. Stop swimming in this river. Davies (: –) suggests that we can make sense of this ambiguity once we understand which expressions in the sentence are negated. This is a well-known problem referred to as ‘negative scope’. Especially modal verbs give rise to scope ambiguities under negation, triggering different interpretations. For example, if I tell you You may not leave class yet, the possibility of your leaving is negated. The sentence effectively means ‘It is not possible that you leave’. If, on the other hand, I tell you John may not have left yet, I draw your attention to the possibility of John’s not leaving. The meaning is ‘It is possible that John has not left’. In the first case, the modal is negated, while negation takes scope over the main verb in the second (internal vs external negation). The resulting contrast is known as ‘deontic’ vs ‘epistemic’ modality. On the—clearly simplifying—assumption that imperatives express speaker desire for the addressee to act in a certain way, we may paraphrase the above examples as in (). External negation leads to a negation of speaker preferences and thus a negative request, i.e. a request not to start. Internal negation expresses the preference of the speaker for a negative proposition, i.e. a request to stop.
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() a. NOT (PREFER swim) ‘I don’t prefer you to swim in this river.’ b. PREFER (NOT swim) ‘I prefer you not to swim in this river.’ In addition, Davies (: ) argues that negative imperatives expressing intentions other than commands, requests, orders, and similar forces deny the proposition as such, and not the force of the imperative. Example () shows an imperative used with permissive force, and it would indeed be odd to assume that the speaker desire is negated here. () A: I don’t think I’ll go to the party. B: All right, don’t go then, if you don’t want to. In sum, negation of imperatives offers several peculiarities. In this context, finally, we may also note that if imperatives contain overt subjects, these must be placed after don’t (Davies : ), as in example (). Moreover, third person subjects do not trigger agreement on don’t (b), suggesting that semantic—i.e. second person— agreement takes precedence over formal agreement here. () a. Don’t you eat that cake. b. Don’t anybody touch that wet paint. Besides imposing restrictions on subject and verb as well as showing peculiar properties in negative contexts, imperatives represent a distinct category due to the complete absence of inflectional endings. Neither do we find the third person -s marker with third person subjects, nor the occurrence of the past tense morpheme -ed (*Walked the line!). Imperatives possess an inherent future orientation and may not be combined with temporal adverbials of the past time sphere (*Go home yesterday!). Due to the bare verb form in imperatives, this category has been related to that of infinitives (Bolinger : –). Han (: ) argues, as discussed further above, that the directive force of an imperative is an instruction to the addressee to update their current set of intentions (‘Plan Set’). This accounts for the observed properties, especially second person subjects, future orientation, and the addressee’s control over the situation. Before closing this section, let me draw your attention to the embedding of imperatives under matrix predicates of insisting and demanding, which is often supposed to be impossible (*John demands that spend the money; Han : ). This is certainly correct, at least as long as we focus on imperatives without subjects. We may note,
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however, that embedded imperatives corresponding to embedded declaratives and interrogatives may be easily constructed, as in example (), and that the imperative verb and the subject fail to show agreement in the same way as in non-embedded examples. () a. John says that Mary does not eat sushi. b. John wonders who does not eat sushi. c. John demands that Mary don’t eat sushi. 8.2.2 The usage of imperatives in English Having explored the structural properties of English imperatives, let us now also take a look at how the relevant structures are used in discourse. We will here focus on the general frequencies of imperative constructions regardless of register variation, though functional distributions will be included. The following observations are based on van Olmen (), who provides a comparative corpus analysis of imperatives in English and Dutch. The main English corpus used by van Olmen is the spoken part of the International Corpus of English, British Component (ICE-GB). Table . offers a bird’s-eye view of imperative usage paying attention to four structural parameters, the presence of let (let-imperatives), the presence or absence of an overt subject, negation, and the presence of do in positive imperatives. These structural distinctions give rise to interesting quantitative differences. For example, positive imperatives vastly outnumber negative ones, both regarding main verb imperatives and let-imperatives. Speakers seem to avoid making negative requests, perhaps for reasons of politeness. We can also observe that main verb imperatives occur without subject in the great majority of cases, and that the use of do in positive imperatives is an option that speakers rarely make use of. There are only two cases of negative imperatives containing overt subjects. The distributional data summarized in Table . basically confirm widespread assumptions about what constitutes the prototypical English imperative. Van Olmen () also offers us interesting insights into the distribution of imperative functions. To facilitate such a comparison, van Olmen (: –) arranges the illocutionary functions that imperatives are known to occur with (see Section ..) into four major classes, namely ‘wilful directives’ (command, order, plea, request), ‘non-wilful
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Table 8.1 Frequency of imperative subtypes in the spoken component of ICE-GB (based on van Olmen : ) Imperative subtypes LET
SBJ
NEG
DO
No.
+ + +
+ +
+
+
+
+
+
.
.
.
+
%
+
.
+
.
.
.
,
.
+ +
Total
Table 8.2 English positive and negative imperatives in relation to their functions (van Olmen : , ) Wilful
Non-wilful
Commissive
Expressive
Positive
Negative
directives’ (advice, suggestion, instruction, warning), ‘commissive directives’ (offer, invitation, permission), and ‘expressive directives’ (wish, imprecation, challenge). It may be a matter of some debate how categorical these classes are and if the encountered forces can be assigned to these classes on a principled basis, but intuitively it seems clear what is meant. If we correlate English (main verb) imperatives— positive and negative without subject or do—with these broad functional classes, the pattern shown in Table . arises. Again, we can witness a sharp discrepancy between positive and negative imperatives, but what is really interesting is that the nonwilful examples outnumber the ones classified as wilful. This means that the major function of the English imperative does not consist in
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giving commands or orders, but rather in expressing instructions, advice, and suggestions.1
8.3 A cross-linguistic view on imperatives and related categories The typology of imperatives offers a host of interesting distinctions that may be taken as a point of comparison. For example, imperatives are often signalled by dedicated verbal affixes, bare verb forms, or special verb stems. The category is very clearly associated with the verb, though it may also be expressed by means of particles. Other verbal morphology such as tense and aspect marking is typically suppressed. Missing subjects are common, but I have seen no reports of specific imperative word orders. The formal inventory employed here is quite different from that found with the other clause types. The formal exponents of imperatives may depend on the polarity of a clause, leading to a formal distinction between positive and negative imperatives (so-called ‘prohibitives’). Quite often, dedicated imperative exponents are only found in positive imperatives, with negative imperatives piggybacking on subjunctive or infinitival structures. Moreover, there may be dedicated exponents for negative requests. It is quite remarkable that speakers have a strong tendency to separate positive and negative requests formally, on top of adding negation. The formal exponents of interrogative clauses, for example, are not subject to variation due to clause polarity. The term ‘imperative’ is often used in a restricted sense referring merely to second person directives (singular and plural), though its use may also be extended so as to cover first (let me/us . . . ) and third person (let him/them . . . ) directives. Some languages, as illustrated by Evenki further below, possess a full paradigm of imperative affixes for all combinations of person and number. First person imperatives are also known as ‘hortatives’; those in the third person are often called ‘optatives’. In the literature (van der Auwera et al. ), we find various proposals for implicational connections between the imperative and its subcategories. 1 Note that the totals of positive and negative imperatives in Tables . and . do not match, since Table . contains some ‘minor types’ not present in Table . (see van Olmen for details).
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8.3.1 The encoding of imperatives Imperatives are prominently signalled on the verb so that it makes sense to begin our typological exploration by considering the attested verbal exponents. The predominance of verbal exponents in this domain renders the imperative a typical ‘mood’ category, commonly understood as verbal inflections signalling speaker attitudes such as ‘indicative’, ‘subjunctive’, ‘conditional’, among several others.2 Moods may broadly be classified into ‘realis moods’ (used for describing attested situations) and ‘irrealis moods’ (used for describing hypothetical situations), the imperative belonging to the irrealis moods, since it describes future events desired by the speaker. It can come as no surprise, then, that other irrealis moods may come to be used with imperative force, too, especially the subjunctive. Alternative strategies employed for conveying imperative force include particles and modal verbs, but due to their strong overlap with other functional domains, these can hardly qualify as dedicated imperatives. Van der Auwera and Lejeune (a) offer us the typology of morphological imperative formation strategies shown in Table ., which is the result of a survey of languages (see also the discussions in König and Siemund , ). They distinguish five strategies, of which four involve some mechanism of verbal inflection, while one covers languages without morphological imperative. With languages or . per cent of the total, the morphological strategy is clearly the dominant one in the sample. Those languages lacking a morphological imperative mainly come from Asia and often represent languages of the analytic or isolating type (Chinese, Vietnamese). In other words, there can be no morphological imperative, since these languages possess no inflectional (or derivational) morphology. English, as a rather exceptional European language with a strong tendency towards analytic structures (see Siemund ), also lacks a morphological imperative and thus falls into group five in Table .. Let us now consider these strategies one after the other, bearing in mind that the main criterion distinguishing strategies one through four is a contrast between singular and plural imperatives. The first strategy The term ‘mood’ is also used with reference to the meaning of clause types in general, as we explained in Chapter . 2
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Table 8.3 The encoding of imperatives (van der Auwera and Lejeune a) Imperative strategy
No.
.
The language has morphologically dedicated second singular as well as second plural imperatives.
.
The language has morphologically dedicated second singular imperatives but no morphologically dedicated second plural imperatives.
.
The language has morphologically dedicated second plural imperatives but no morphologically dedicated second singular imperatives.
.
The language has morphologically dedicated second person imperatives that do not distinguish between singular and plural.
.
The language has no morphologically dedicated second person imperatives at all.
Total
is here illustrated by Spanish and Acholi (a Western Nilotic language spoken in Uganda), as in examples () and (), where distinct imperative suffixes occur in singular and plural. This is the most common strategy. () Spanish (personal knowledge) a. ¡Cant-a! sing-.SG.IMP ‘Sing!’ b. ¡Cant-ad! sing-.PL.IMP ‘Sing (pl.)!’ () Acholi (Crazzolara : , cited in König and Siemund : ) a. lok-i turn-.SG.IMP ‘Turn!’ b. lok-wu turn-.PL.IMP ‘Turn (pl.)!’ A similar pattern is also found in Arabic, Finnish, Malayalam, Russian, and Zulu. Category one also covers cases like () in which imperative affix and number affix are clearly separated.
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() Limbu (van Driem : , cited in König and Siemund : , van der Auwera and Lejeune a) a. Ips-Ø-ɛʔ! sleep-.SG-IMP ‘Sleep!’ b. Ips-amm-ɛʔ! sleep-.PL-IMP ‘Sleep!’ (plural) c. Ips-ɛtch-ɛʔ! sleep-.DUAL-IMP ‘Sleep (you two)!’ Languages illustrating the second strategy possess dedicated imperative morphology in the singular, though not in the plural. Consider the case of Italian in (). Here, the form appearing in the second person plural is identical to that of the second person plural indicative: voi parlate ‘you talk’. Therefore, this does not count as special imperative morphology. Languages with a similar system include French and Persian. Forty-two languages in the above sample use this pattern, rendering it a relatively marginal type. () Italian (personal knowledge) a. Parl-a! Talk-.SG.IMP ‘Talk!’ b. Parl-ate! Talk-.PL ‘Talk (pl.)!’ The third strategy is hardly attested, there being only two languages in the sample, namely Latvian and Apurinã (an Arawakan language spoken in Brazil). You can find the case of Latvian exemplified in (). These languages contradict general assumptions regarding the availability of imperative marking in different persons and numbers. For example, van der Auwera et al. (: ) propose the implicational hierarchy shown in (), capturing and predicting the interaction of the imperative with the categories of person and number. Accordingly, second person plural imperatives presuppose the existence of second person singular imperatives, effectively ruling out the Latvian example. In view of the rare occurrence of such cases in the data, we may safely treat them as exceptions.
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() Latvian (Holst : , cited in van der Auwera and Lejeune a) a. Runā! speak.IND.PRES..SG ‘Speak!’ b. Runājāt! speak.IMP..PL ‘Speak!’ () SG > PL > or PL > SG (van der Auwera et al. : ) Strategy number four languages possess dedicated imperative morphology, though no concomitant distinction between singular and plural. The examples in () and () help to illustrate this scenario. The infinitive of the verb in the Swedish example is slut-ar, infinitive and imperative affix being distinct. Paiwan is an Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan. Languages of a similar type include Japanese, Malagasy, Norwegian, and Tahitian. () Swedish (personal knowledge) Slut-a! stop-IMP. ‘Stop!’ (singular or plural) () Paiwan (Egli : , cited in van der Auwera and Lejeune a) Kan-u! eat-IMP. ‘Eat!’ (singular or plural) English, Chinese, and Vietnamese, in tandem with other strongly analytic or isolating languages, are representatives of the fifth strategy, here exemplified for Mandarin in (). Verbs used as requests or with related directive forces are not marked morphologically, the bare verb form being used instead. The subject is missing, though for Chinese as a strongly pragmatically organized language largely doing without obligatory arguments, this is not a robust diagnostic to identify imperatives. Moreover, the second person pronoun nıˇ (你) may be placed in front of the sentence in (), rendering it indistinguishable from declarative clauses. Mandarin may easily be considered as lacking an imperative clause type.
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() Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) (你) 回 家！ (nıˇ) huí jā (you) return home ‘Go home!’ Request type sentences in Mandarin may be completed with the final particle ba (吧), although this particle fails to be analysed as a dedicated imperative marker. If at all, we may compare it to English question tags added to imperatives, as in example (). () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 快 点 吧！ kuài diaˇ n ba quick point PRT ‘Hurry up, won’t you?’ In spite of this neat typology, there remains a host of additional problems and distinctions and we should not be fooled into thinking that placing more than languages into five categories is an easy exercise. Let us consider the case of German to examine some of the difficulties. Here, we first of all find a distinction between polite and intimate forms of address, encoded by the pronouns du (.SG.INTIMATE) and sie (.POLITE). The polite form of the pronoun is identical to the third person plural form and triggers the agreement associated with this form. The polite form may occur in sentences with request force, as shown in example (), which, however, must be analysed as a polar interrogative clause in syntactic terms. Obviously, this would not be a convincing candidate for a plural imperative. () German (personal knowledge) Rufen Sie mich morgen an! call..PL you me tomorrow at ‘Give me a ring tomorrow!’ Turning to the intimate forms of address, as illustrated in example (), we can see that the verb form used with request force is identical to the form of the indicative occurring in declarative clauses. Consequently, we may analyse the verb form in (a) as indicative, though used with request force. We may note, nonetheless, that the subject is missing in this example.
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() German (personal knowledge) a. Arbeitet sorgfältig! (request) work.PL carefully ‘Work carefully!’ b. Ihr arbeitet sorgfältig. (declarative encoding statement) you.PL work.PL carefully ‘You work carefully.’ This means that German does not have a verbally marked plural imperative. How about the singular paradigms, then? Here, we are confronted with different imperative formation strategies, depending on the verb type. The general rule is to consider the form of the second person singular present tense indicative and delete the person suffix: gehen ‘go.INF’ -> du geh-st ‘you go-.SG’ -> geh ‘go.IMP’. The imperative form here happens to be identical to the verb stem. This strategy is found with strong verbs, but it is not the only strategy, as illustrated in Table .. Another strategy consists in adding the suffix -e to the verb stem, as shown in column of Table .. This strategy is chiefly used for weak verbs. The third strategy is based on a stem change and restricted to strong verbs. To add another complication, we may note that many strong verbs without stem change allow the optional addition of the suffix -e, especially in the more formal registers. In assigning German category two status in their classification, van der Auwera and Lejeune (a) place special emphasis on the imperative formation of weak verbs. This is undoubtedly justified, but it shows that any such typological classification is based on a specific interpretation of the data. It also shows that not all elements of a certain class (here verbs) behave uniformly. In offering a bird’s-eye view, typological classifications often need to pass over such low-level differences. Let us now also take a look at a couple of marking options in the imperative domain that go beyond van der Auwera and Lejeune’s Table 8.4 Imperative formation in German Strong verbs
Weak verbs
Strong verbs
Stem
Suffix
Stem change
komm ‘come’ öffn-e open-IMP ‘open’ lies ‘read’ (infinitive: lesen)
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Table 8.5 The imperative paradigm of Evenki (Nedjalkov : , , ) .SG
baka-kta
‘let me find’
.SG
baka-kal
‘find’
.SG
baka-gin
‘let him/her find’
.PL.EXCL
baka-kta-vun/baka vvun
‘let us find’
.PL.INCL
baka-gat
‘let us find’
.PL
baka-kallu
‘(you PL) find’
.PL
baka-ktyn
‘let them find’
Note: in the first person plural, Evenki possesses forms that include the addressee (inclusive we) or exclude it (exclusive we).
(a) typology. For example, in Evenki, a Tungus language spoken in Siberia, imperative morphology yields a complete paradigm distinguishing person and number. This is shown in Table .. Besides directives to the second person, there are forms expressing such force to the first and the third person. To be sure, first and third person imperatives receive a somewhat different interpretation from second person imperatives, and are therefore often treated separately. We will come back to this problem in Section ... In Gulf Arabic, imperative verbs distinguish gender in addition to number, so that—at least in the singular—imperatives directed to females are formally different from those directed to males. See the example in (). () Gulf Arabic (Holes : ) a. ʔi-ktib-Ø IMP-write-MASC b. ʔi-ktib-i IMP-write-FEM c. ʔi-ktib-u IMP-write-PL Returning to the case of Evenki introduced above, the complex paradigm in Table . is complemented by imperative affixes that allow the language users to distinguish between directives to be carried out immediately, and those whose execution is not urgent (near future vs remote future imperative). Take a look at the contrasting pair of examples in () and ().
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() Evenki (Nedjalkov : ) D’u-la-vi himat eme-kel! home-all-POSS quick(ly) come-.SG.IMP ‘Come quickly to my place!’ () Evenki (Nedjalkov : ) D’u-la-vi (gochin) eme-de:-vi! home-all-POSS (next year) come-IMP-POSS ‘Come to my place (next year)!’ As a final case, let us consider the pair of examples shown in () and (), taken from Macushi, an Amazonian language of the Carib family. In this language, imperative morphology can distinguish between motion towards or away from the speaker (a so-called ‘movational imperative’. () Macushi (Abbott : ) apo’ era’ma-ta, ta-‘pî-i-ya fire go-IMP.MOT say-PAST--ERG ‘“Go get firewood”, he said.’ () Macushi (Abbott : ) tuna era’ma-tane’kî, ta-‘pî i-san-ya water get-IMP.MOT say-PAST -mother-ERG ‘“Come get the water”, her mother said.’ 8.3.2 Negative imperatives: prohibitives Languages manifest a pervasive tendency to express positive and negative requests using distinct formal exponents. This is an interesting observation in itself, clearly in need of explanation, as other clause types do not exhibit a similar distinction of affirmative and negative specimens. By way of illustration, consider example () in which positive and negative requests are kept distinct formally. To be sure, in English we can simply negate the positive imperative so that this language would not count as having a formally distinct prohibitive, but the lexical strategy shown in (b) helps to illustrate the difference and also points to an important source of prohibitive markers (see below). () a. Eat this mango. b. Stop eating this mango. (Don’t eat this mango.)
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Table 8.6 The encoding of prohibitives (van der Auwera and Lejeune b) Prohibitive strategy
No.
.
The prohibitive uses the verbal construction of the second singular imperative and a sentential negative strategy found in (indicative) declaratives.
.
The prohibitive uses the verbal construction of the second singular imperative and a sentential negative strategy not found in (indicative) declaratives.
.
The prohibitive uses a verbal construction other than the second singular imperative and a sentential negative strategy found in (indicative) declaratives.
.
The prohibitive uses a verbal construction other than the second singular imperative and a sentential negative strategy not found in (indicative) declaratives.
Total
Table . provides an overview of four strategies to express negative requests based on a sample of languages investigated by van der Auwera and Lejeune (b). This approach cross-classifies the second person positive imperative with sentential negation. There is no category for negation-independent prohibitive markers, but I will add some remarks on these at the end of this section. Let us now consider the strategies shown in Table . one after the other. According to the first strategy, prohibitives are formed using the positive imperative in combination with declarative negation, as shown in the German example in (). English falls into the same category, and so do Swedish, Russian, Evenki, Persian, and Rapanui (a Polynesian language spoken on Easter Island). () German (personal knowledge) a. Paul antwortet nicht. (declarative) Paul answer not ‘Paul does not answer!’ b. Antwort-e nicht! (imperative) answer-IMP..SG not ‘Do not answer.’ Prohibitives of the second type trigger special sentential negation, albeit in combination with the verb form used in positive imperatives. This strategy is attested in Chinese, as demonstrated by the contrast between examples () and (), but can also be found in Irish, Finnish, Samoan, and Vietnamese. In Chinese, the negative particle used in
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declaratives is either bù (不) or méi yoˇu ‘not have’ (没有), while it is bié (别) in imperatives. () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) a. 王 不 答复 他 (declarative) wáng bù dáfù tā Wang not answer he ‘Wang does not answer him.’ b. 王 没 有 答复 他 (declarative) wáng méi yoˇu dáfù tā Wang not have answer he ‘Wang did not answer him.’ () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 别 答复 他！ (imperative) bié dáfù tā not answer he ‘Do not answer him.’ Languages of the third type attest verb forms in negative imperatives that are distinct from those used in positive imperatives. These are used in combination with declarative negation. Spanish nicely illustrates this case, with subjunctive verb forms appearing in negative requests, as in example (). Since the function of the subjunctive consists in the encoding of hypothetical events, it appears a plausible substitute for the imperative. In addition, Spanish negative imperatives may be introduced by the subordinator que (¡Que no cantes!), suggesting an analysis in terms of insubordination (Evans ), i.e. the promotion of embedded clauses to main clause status (see Chapter ). Similar type three languages include Arabic, Romanian, as well as some Australian languages. () Spanish (personal knowledge) a. canta cantad sing..SG.IMP sing..PL.IMP ‘Sing!’ ‘Sing (all of you)!’ b. no cantes no cantéis not sing..SG.SUBJ not sing..PL.SUBJ ‘Don’t (you all) sing!’ ‘Don’t sing!’ In Italian, we find the infinitive used for expressing negative requests, albeit only in the singular:
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() Italian (Letizia Vezzosi) a. canta cantate sing..SG.IMP sing..PL ‘Sing!’ ‘Sing (all of you)!’ b. non cantare non cantate not sing.INF not sing..PL ‘Don’t sing!’ ‘Don’t (you all) sing!’ Strategy four, finally, can be gleaned from the examples in () and (), taken from Malagasy and Kannada. Here, special non-declarative negation occurs in combination with a verb form different from that used in positive imperatives. In Malagasy, the negative element used in prohibitives is aza, while the element used in declaratives is tsy-. Indicative verb forms occur in prohibitives. In Kannada, the negative elements alla or illa appear in declarative clauses, contrasting with the negative element be:Da in example (). Additional type four languages are Maltese, Tamil, and Zulu. () Malagasy (Dez : , ) a. Tongav-a! come-IMP ‘Come!’ b. Aza mitomany! not cry.IND ‘Don’t cry!’ () Kannada (Sridhar : ) A: ka:De ho:g-a-be:Da! that side go-INF-NEG ‘Don’t go that way!’ Having surveyed four strategies of forming prohibitives based on the interaction of positive imperatives and negation, let us now also consider a few cases of dedicated prohibitive markers. These are shown in examples () through (). The first example comes from Lezgian, a Caucasian language spoken in Dagestan. Here, the prohibitive suffix -mir occurs without sentential negation. Etymologically, it appears to be decomposable into m- (prohibitive) and -ir (‘do’) (Martin Haspelmath, personal communication). The examples from Welsh and Klao (a Niger-Congo language spoken in Liberia) involve a prohibitive auxiliary historically relatable to a verb meaning ‘stop’, this meaning
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still being transparent. Example () from Mandarin shows a second way of forming prohibitives in this language—compare the use of bié (别) in example ()—in which the negated form of the verb ‘want’ comes to be used. The phrase bùyào (不要) here forms an inseparable unit, expressing prohibitive meaning. () Lezgian (Haspelmath : ) Wa-z kič’e že-mir. you-DAT afraid be-PROHIB ‘Don’t be afraid!’ () Welsh (William : , cited in Heine and Kuteva : ) Paid â mynd! stop.IMP..SG and go.VN ‘Don’t go!’ () Klao (Marchese : , cited in Heine and Kuteva : ) bɔ dɛ di-di-dɛ. stop thing eat-eat-NOMIN ‘Don’t eat anything.’ () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 不 要 答复 他！ (imperative) bù yào dáfù tā not want answer he ‘Do not answer him.’ What could be the reasons for the observed distinct encoding of negative requests? This is a largely open question. Since languages offer a wide range of alternative prohibitive strategies, and also imperative strategies for that matter, it may not be feasible to look for a uniform explanation. The frequency differentials between positive and negative imperatives observed in Section .. could be instrumental in answering this question. 8.3.3 Related categories and strategies of encoding The preceding typological comparison has shown that imperatives branch out into several related domains of grammar, rendering a definition of this category a rather difficult exercise. Departing from the idea that imperatives encode requests to the addressee, we had to
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Table 8.7 Imperatives and hortatives Person
No.
Example
SG
Let me sing.
Don’t let me sing.
SG
Sing.
Don’t sing.
SG
Let him sing. / May he sing.
Don’t let him sing.
PL
Let us sing.
Don’t let us sing.
PL
Sing.
Don’t sing.
PL
Let them sing. / May they sing.
Don’t let them sing.
broaden this concept both in the formal and functional dimension. Regarding the functional dimension, we may be wondering why the imperative should be restricted to the second person, as there are also requests to the first or the third person. Moreover, some languages encode requests to all persons in all numbers using similar morphosyntactic machinery. Consider the overview shown in Table .. Arguably, the term ‘imperative’ would be an adequate characterization for all the form types, especially, since the let-construction patterns with the second person imperative regarding negation and overt subjects (Don’t you let them sing; Don’t anyone let them sing; etc.). Here, however, we will adopt a widely used convention to reserve the term ‘imperative’ for the second person, and the term ‘hortative’ for the first and ‘optative’ for the third person. To be sure, this terminological clarification does not solve the problem if periphrastic constructions—like the English let-construction— should be included at all, but this is another issue well known from other domains of grammar. Hand in hand with the formal and functional expansion shown in Table . goes an increase in expressive power. Imperatives as such are by no means restricted to expressing requests, as we demonstrated in Section ., but including additional form types opens the door for all sorts of categories expressing related modalities (speaker perspectives) like ‘optatives’ (wishes), ‘debitives’ (obligations), ‘rogatives’ (petitions), ‘supplicatives’ (permissions), ‘admonitives’ (warnings), and perhaps others. In principle, a language may possess dedicated morphosyntactic machinery for all these modalities, though in reality only some of them reach grammatical sedimentation, as it were. For example, Lezgian possesses distinct verbal suffixes
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expressing requests to the first person (hortative) and wishes (optative). This is shown in examples () and (). () Lezgian (Haspelmath : ) Sifte wun wi buba.di-z q̃alur-in. first you.ABS you.GEN father-DAT show-HORT (=.SG.IMP) ‘First let me show you to your father!’ () Lezgian (Haspelmath : ) Quj wun či Cükwer.a-z wax xˆ u-raj. let you.ABS we.GEN Cükwer-DAT sister be-OPT ‘May you be a sister for our Cükwer.’ In Malayalam, a Dravidian language spoken in India, we find verbal suffixes signalling wishes (optative) and obligation (debitive). You can find two examples in () and (). () Mayalayam (Asher and Kumari : ) avar samsaarikk-aʈʈe they speak-OPT ‘Let them speak.’ () Mayalayam (Asher and Kumari : ) niŋŋaɭ naaɭe taṉṉe var-aɳam you tomorrow EMPH come-DEBIT ‘You must come precisely tomorrow.’ Can we predict which of these categories languages have? This is a matter of some debate, complicated by the thorny problem of how to identify them properly. There clearly can be no way to forecast whether any given language has an imperative or a hortative, but it appears to be the case that if a language possesses any of the aforementioned ‘sub-imperatives’, it is likely to possess a dedicated second person imperative. Proposals pointing into this direction can be found in van der Auwera et al. (: ), Hengeveld et al. (: ), König and Siemund (: ; : ), and Aikhenvald (: ). Given that these ‘sub-imperatives’ relate to various person–number combinations, we often find implicational hierarchies of the type shown in () (compare van der Auwera et al.’s proposal above). () SG > PL > PL.INCL > SG/PL > SG/PL.EXCL (Aikhenvald : )
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8. 3 C R O S S - L I N G U I S T I C V I E W O N I M P E R A T I V E S
Above and beyond these imperative subtypes, there are various indirect ways of expressing directive force such as using future tense, declarative clauses, interrogative clauses, subjunctive mood, infinitives and infinitival constructions, passives, and, of course, modal verbs. For some of these, an analysis in terms of indirect speech acts may be justified, for others, request force may be directly linked to their meaning. Some of the strategies may be combined. I provide some examples in what follows, but it should be clear that venturing into this heterogeneous domain opens a can of worms. Example () shows a common indirect way to express requests in Modern Hebrew, namely by using a declarative clause in the future tense. These requests are perceived as more casual and polite than the morphological imperative that also exists. () Modern Hebrew (Glinert : ) Tesader. FUT- tidy ‘Tidy!’ Another strategy is illustrated by the Rapanui example in (). This language lacks a morphological imperative and employs declarative clauses in combination with certain temporal adverbs (compare the declarative commands discussed in Chapter ). This option also exists in languages that possess a morphological imperative, but would be considered as triggering instances of indirect requests there. () Rapanui (du Feu, : ) Ka amo te ‘arinŋa! now clean DET face ‘Wipe your face!’ Maori, a Polynesian language spoken in New Zealand, furnishes the interesting case of using a passive construction for conveying requests. Again, it is easy to imagine the use of the passive in the context of example () in languages like English, German, or Spanish, though in Maori, the use of the passive could be considered the default—at least for transitive verbs. () Maori (Bauer : ) Patu-a te kurii raa! beat-PASS the dog DIST ‘Beat that dog!’
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The use of infinitives to express requests and prohibitions is quite common in German, as shown in example (), especially when they are meant to draw attention to general regulations. It is difficult to analyse these examples as indirect speech acts, since there does not seem to be a corresponding direct act. If at all, they are compatible with the meaning of infinitives as tense neutral, hypothetical forms. We will come back to this problem in Chapter in our discussion of minor clause types. () German (personal knowledge) Hier nicht schwimmen. here not swim ‘Don’t swim here.’ This list of examples could be easily extended. We will refrain from doing so, since I cannot think of a plausible formal criterion to delimit the expressive devices.
8.4 Summary We started this chapter by exploring the meaning and force of imperatives. It became clear that imperatives can be used with a wide range of illocutionary forces, by far more extensive than commonly assumed. The key problem in this discussion concerned the question of whether we can identify a core meaning of imperatives that is compatible with all the observable forces. Alternatively, one may try to relate a certain range of forces to the core meaning of imperatives, analysing other forces as indirect speech acts. The issue has not been resolved, though the idea that in using the imperative, the speakers express their desire or preference for something to be the case appears basically correct. Next, we looked at the structural properties of English imperatives, finding that they occur without subject, are not compatible with the past tense suffix -ed, cannot be combined with modal verbs, are directed to an understood second person addressee, have future time orientation, and that the speaker must be in control of the situation expressed. In view of these properties, we may say that imperatives are non-finite hypothetical verb forms.
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8. 5 T O P I C S F O R F U R T H E R R E S E A R C H
Our cross-linguistic comparison made us aware of several alternative, typically more explicit marking options of the imperative. It also showed that some languages conceptualize the imperative domain more broadly, including the first and the third person in both singular and plural. Cross-linguistically, negative requests are often encoded differently from positive ones, giving rise to the distinct category of prohibitives.
8.5 Topics for further research The semantics of the imperative is still a hotly debated issue. We could only touch upon some of the major issues here. There are several recent book-length studies and a host of research papers tackling this problem. The overarching goal is to find a semantics that can accommodate the diverse set of illocutionary functions that imperatives are found with. If you are interested in this problem, there is certainly no shortage of insightful studies: Bolinger (), Davies (), Hamblin (), Potsdam (), Han (), Rupp (), and Kaufmann (). A semantic analysis of imperatives also needs to explain their functioning in conditionals. This concerns both structures of the type Eat this cookie, and you’ll regret it and If you are hungry, eat this cookie. You can find information on this in Davies (), Han (), and Russell (), but as far as I can see, more work is required here. Another problem concerns the relationship between direct and indirect speech acts. Even though this is a useful distinction capable of explaining indirect uses of interrogatives like Could you open the window?, it is not clear to what extent this distinction carries over to imperatives. Are there indirect uses of imperatives? Do they follow the same criteria as indirect uses of interrogatives? Little is known about this, though some discussion can be found in Davies (: ) and Han (: ). The imperative has also been of central concern in cross-cultural pragmatics. The question here is whether cross-linguistically observable differences in the use of the imperative form type can be explained through cross-cultural differences in the use and the perception of commands, orders, and requests. An initial observation here is that the use of the imperative is more stigmatized in Anglo-Saxon cultures than in, say, Slavic cultures, the former relying more heavily on indirect requests or hints. There is the suggestion of a general East–West divide. Information on this and related issues can be found in Wierzbicka ().
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The frequently observable differential marking of positive and negative imperatives remains highly mysterious. Why do some languages possess a separate category of prohibitives? In which ways are positive and negative commands, orders, and requests different? This is a little explored area, but some ideas and initial explanations are offered in van der Auwera (). Similarly, the relationship between second person imperatives and related categories (hortatives, optatives, etc.) as well as that between mood and modality is not very well understood, especially since many different form types populate these functional domains (verbal affixes, particles, auxiliaries). Any cross-linguistic comparison of these categories presupposes robust definitional criteria, but, as far as I can see, finding these is a very difficult task. The overview article by van der Auwera and Zamorano Aguilar () provides a good basis for future explorations into these domains.
8.6 Exercises Basic level 1. On YouTube, you can find several video tutorials demonstrating the use of English imperatives (search term = ‘imperatives’). Look for tutorials that illustrate a range of communicative functions with which the imperative can be found. a. Watch one or more tutorials on YouTube and familiarize yourself with the communicative functions that imperatives may be used with. b. Try to group the observable directive speech acts into bigger classes and comment on the criteria that you have used. 2. The example sentences below illustrate important properties of English imperatives. Identify these properties and describe them briefly. i. Eat up your dinner. ii. Be more careful, won’t you. iii. Don’t be a fool. iv. Don’t you touch her. v. Nobody leave the boat. vi. Do come again.
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8. 6 E X E R C I S E S
3. In this chapter, especially in the cross-linguistic section, we encountered many different strategies encoding or expressing imperative force. a. Draw up a list of these strategies. b. Which clausal category is centrally involved in the encoding of imperative force? c. Compare the encoding of imperatives with that typically used for other clause types. Go back to Chapters – and read up on the encoding of declaratives and interrogatives. What can you find? Intermediate level 1. The International Corpus of English, British Component, is a fully tagged and fully parsed corpus. This means that each word is marked for its word class and that each sentence comes with a syntactic analysis. The accompanying software ICECUP allows you to access this information. a. Procure a copy of the corpus and the software. b. Try to build a search query that allows you to extract all imperative clauses. c. How many imperative clauses are there in the corpus? Compare the resulting figure to that of interrogative clauses. 2. It has often been claimed that the expression of requests and the use of the imperative are highly culture-specific. You should try to test these hypotheses carrying out your own experiment. a. Look for at least ten fellow students with different language backgrounds. Ideally, they should have grown up in their country of origin. b. Explore the structural properties of the imperative in the relevant languages and which alternative ways there are to express requests. c. With each student individually, discuss how they would express a request for passing the sugar in a coffee shop. Analyse your results. 3. In the cross-linguistic section of this chapter, we noticed that negative imperatives are quite often formally distinct from positive imperatives. For example, Spanish falls back on the subjunctive for the expression of negative requests. Why should this be so? Here are some helpful questions and observations. a. Which imperative type (positive or negative) is more frequent in discourse (see Section ..)? b. Negative imperatives are typically ambiguous between a stop-doing meaning and a don’t-start meaning. c. Can we perhaps say that negative requests are more face-threatening than positive requests? Try to develop some ideas in relation to this problem and summarize these in a short essay.
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Advanced level 1. The meaning and force of imperatives has triggered heated debates among scholars about how to capture these notions in the most efficient way. We touched upon these issues in Section ., but could not offer a detailed comparison of the existing approaches. a. Procure the books and articles dealing with the meaning and force of imperatives that I cited in this chapter. b. Read these scholarly works focusing on issues of meaning and force, disregarding the various related problems posed by imperatives. c. In a scholarly paper of maximally , words, provide a critical comparison and evaluation of the existing approaches. Try to identify areas where you see need for improvement. 2. As we learned in Chapter , many uses of interrogative clauses can be captured by a distinction between direct and indirect speech acts. Polar interrogatives like Could you help me? thus come to be analysed as indirect requests. Since the addressee may respond to both the direct and the indirect act (Yes, what can I do for you?), it is plausible to view the indirect act as being derived from the direct one (via implicature). The question is whether such an analysis carries over to imperatives, which may also occur in various uses. If we follow the rationale applied to indirect requests, the permission imperative and the wish imperative shown below should somehow be derivable from the request imperative. i. Leave the room. (request) ii. Come in. (permission) iii. Have a nice day. (wish) a. Discuss the pros and cons of analysing the permission and wish imperatives as indirect speech acts. b. Try to extend the indirect speech act analysis to other uses of the imperative that we discussed in this chapter. 3. The encoding of requests via imperatives and various indirect constructions has also attracted much attention in the field of cross-cultural pragmatics. The aim of this exercise is to examine one study in more detail, namely Blum-Kulka and House (). a. The study describes two experiments. Summarize the layout and goals of these experiments in your own words. b. Why did the authors carry out two experiments, and not just the first one? c. The authors investigate differences in the directness of language use. Which similarities and differences do they find across cultures? d. Is it possible to relate ‘indirectness’ to ‘politeness’, as frequently argued?
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9 Exclamatives and exclamations
. The meaning and force of exclamations
. Exclamative clauses in English
. A cross-linguistic view on exclamatives and exclamations
. Summary
. Topics for further research
. Exercises
In an informal way, we can understand exclamations as expressions of surprise uttered in view of unexpected situations. If you win one million dollars in the lottery, this may evoke a verbal response like How awesome!—a typical example of an exclamation. In what follows, we will use the term ‘exclamation’ for the conceptual side of the coin, reserving the grammatical category ‘exclamative’ to refer to the morphosyntactic encoding of exclamations. The term ‘exclamation’, thus, corresponds to notions like statement, question, or request—as employed in the preceding chapters—while the category ‘exclamative’ is of the same kind as ‘declarative’, interrogative’, or ‘imperative’. We may regard exclamations as a special speech act type. In writing, the verbal exponents of exclamations may be signalled by an exclamation mark (‘!’), just like imperatives. In speech, they are frequently associated with special intonation contours. Exclamations can be expressed by a host of form types, to be investigated below. Two of these stand out regarding their form, function, and distribution, namely what-exclamatives and how-exclamatives, as shown in example (). () a. What a great party we had. (what-exclamative) b. How clever she is. (how-exclamative)
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Such tokens may be considered exponents of an exclamative clause type in English. We will scrutinize their properties intensely in this chapter, trying to accumulate evidence for considering them as instances of an independent clause type, on a par with declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives. We will not succeed completely, though. Crosslinguistically, exclamatives do not seem to represent a stable form type, as some languages possess sentential structures dedicated to the expression of exclamations, while many others do not. Needless to say, all languages can express exclamations in one way or another, and the speech act of exclaiming does not seem restricted to specific cultures, even though it may be more prominent in some than in others.
9.1 The meaning and force of exclamations Exclamations, i.e. the semantic correlate of exclamatives, belong to the class of expressives in Searle’s () taxonomy of speech acts, since they communicate facts on which some affective response is transmitted. Exclamations presuppose the truth of the proposition that they express. Simplifying a little, this means that the proposition expressed is known or obvious to speaker and hearer. The affective response is typically, though not exclusively, one of surprise, with the presupposed proposition forming an extreme value on some contextually given scale. An exclamation like How difficult this is! means that something is difficult to an extreme degree. We will explore these properties in detail later on. Since exclamations can be expressed by an extremely heterogeneous array of formal devices, it is instructive to start by considering some illustrative examples. Let us take a look at the examples in (). ()
a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i.
What a man! She is such a nuisance! What a great scholar she is! How interesting! She is so clever! Wow, is linguistics interesting! How timely the proposal came! The things they eat here! Amazing! That she would betray us! Incredible!
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9. 1 M E A N I N G A N D F O R C E O F E X C L A M A T I O N S
This is a motley list, indeed, and further specimens could probably be added. In view of this structural heterogeneity, it should be immediately obvious that we need robust criteria to identify a dedicated exclamative clause type among them. What the examples in () have in common is the expression of surprise, in particular. Nevertheless, they also share several additional semantic and pragmatic properties that we will explore in the following. These have been described in various publications, inter alia Elliott (), Rosengren (), Huddleston (a, b), Michaelis and Lambrecht (), Michaelis (), d’Avis (), Zanuttini and Portner (), Collins (), and Siemund (a). We may note in passing that interjections like Ouch!, Oh my goodness!, or Wow! could also be regarded as exclamations since they express an affective response. Following Michaelis (: ), we will disregard them in our discussion of exclamations and exclamatives, since they lack propositional content.
9.1.1 Affective stance, scalar extent, and speaker viewpoint Exclamations express the speaker’s psychological response to a situation. We can view this as an emotional reaction referred to as ‘affective response’ in psychology. In the typical case, this affective response is one of surprise, i.e. a judgement by the speaker that a given situation is unexpected and non-canonical (Michaelis and Lambrecht : ; Michaelis : ). Unexpectedness or non-canonicity means that the situation would not have occurred assuming a normal course of events. Another property associated with exclamations is the expression of what has been described as ‘scalar extent’, meaning that exclamations portray a property as extreme on some scale (Michaelis and Lambrecht : ; Michaelis : ). For example, in uttering an exclamation like How windy it is near the coast!, one is saying that it is windy to an extreme degree or that the experienced wind is located at an extreme point of a scale of windiness. Similarly, in exclaiming What a mess!, I am saying that the current situation or the observed environment is messy to an extreme degree. The characterization of a property as extreme on some contextually given scale is the actual semantic contribution of an exclamation. It seems plausible to assume that the interpretation of unexpectedness or non-canonicity is the result of portraying something as extreme in this way.
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EXCLAMATIVES AND EXCLAMATIONS
Exclamations, by definition, express the point of view of the speaker, i.e. the affective response is located in the speaker, and not in any of the other speech participants or referents outside the actual speech event. All the examples introduced so far confirm this. Embedding exclamations under a suitable matrix clause can defer the point of view expressed to the addressee or a third party (Michaelis : ). This is illustrated in example (). In other words, explicit marking can override the default expression of speaker point of view. () a. You probably didn’t expect how much she spent. b. She couldn’t believe how few people came to help her. 9.1.2 Factivity and referential identifiability Further above, I said that exclamations are expressive speech acts and that they contain propositional content, unlike exclamation-like interjections. According to Searle (: ), the illocutionary point or purpose of expressive speech acts consists in the communication of a psychological state about ‘a state of affairs specified in the propositional content’. Searle’s paradigm cases include performative verbs like thank, congratulate, apologize, condole, deplore, and welcome, and not the kind of exclamations under scrutiny here. There are important similarities, though. For example, Searle (: ) notes that in uttering the sentences in example (), the speaker’s primary intention lies in the expressive act (i.e. apologizing, congratulating, thanking), and not in the communication of the propositional content (i.e. stepping on his or her toe, winning the race, paying the money). The propositional content is assumed to be known by the addressee and represents shared knowledge. If I apologize for stepping on your toe, you are certainly aware of my doing so. () a. I apologize for stepping on your toe. b. I congratulate you on winning the race. c. I thank you for paying me the money. The examples of exclamations introduced in () by and large share the properties of Searle’s expressive speech acts. Even though they provide information, their purpose does not consist in providing this information. Rather, they convey an affective response on this information. These properties are aptly summarized in the following quotation from
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9. 1 M E A N I N G A N D F O R C E O F E X C L A M A T I O N S
Sadock and Zwicky, in which the differences between declaratives and exclamations are targeted: exclamations are intended to be expressive whereas declaratives are intended to be informative. Both represent a proposition as being true, but in an exclamation, the speaker emphasizes his strong emotional reaction to what he takes to be a fact, whereas in a declarative, the speaker emphasizes his intellectual appraisal that the proposition is true. (Sadock and Zwicky : )
Informational content known by speaker and hearer, and thus belonging to the common ground, is referred to as ‘presupposition’. The propositions expressed by exclamations are presuppositional in this sense. This has various repercussions in their syntactic behaviour. For example, exclamations can only be embedded under matrix predicates that assert the truth of the embedded predication, as in example (). The sentence in (b) is ungrammatical since the presupposition triggered by the exclamative clause what a fool he is, namely that John is a fool, is inconsistent with the meaning of the matrix predicate wonder that portrays a state of affairs as unknown. Similarly, *John wonders that he is a fool is ungrammatical. () a. John knows what a fool he is. b. *John wonders what a fool he is. The matrix predicate know in example (a), by contrast, is consistent with the presupposition triggered by the embedded exclamative. Predicates like know, which presuppose the truth of their embedded complement, are widely referred to as ‘factive’. Predicates like wonder are non-factive, since they do not require their complements to be true. In a similar way, the expressive performative verbs in example () are factive, since they presuppose the embedded complements to be true. We can test this by negating them, as in example (), where the embedded complements are not affected by negation. Even if I do not apologize for stepping on your toe, example (a) says that I stepped on your toe. () a. I don’t apologize for stepping on your toe. b. I don’t congratulate you on winning the race. c. I don’t thank you for paying me the money. Following Grimshaw (: ), we may thus say that exclamations are ‘inherently factive’, as the truth of the proposition expressed is presupposed. The examples introduced in () could be used in discourse contexts in which speaker and hearer share the relevant propositions.
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Using them outside such a common ground would be decidedly odd. For this reason, exclamations cannot be embedded under non-factive predicates (unlike interrogatives), as illustrated in (). Examples () and () show additional cases. The verb know is factive in affirmative uses, but non-factive when negated. The verb believe, as in example (), shows the opposite behaviour. () a. I know how tall he is. (interrogative or exclamative) b. I don’t know how tall he is. (only interrogative) () a. I believe how tall he is. (interrogative) b. I can’t believe how tall he is. (interrogative or exclamative) For the same reason, exclamations cannot be used as answers to content questions, since these require new information as their answer, and not presupposed information in combination with an expressive value (see Collins : ). An exclamative like What a strong performance she gave! would not be appropriate as an answer to a question such as How was the concert? Moreover, indefinite noun phrases are by and large ruled out in exclamations (Michaelis : ), except perhaps for those understood generically: () a. *What a nice cake no one ate! b. ??I can’t believe how much a guy spent! c. What a hard life an unmarried mother has. In summary of the preceding discussion we may say that the semantic contribution of exclamations does not consist in a proposition, but in an affective response, the propositional content being presupposed. This affective response appears to be the result of a scalar implicature that exclamations typically convey. In saying How tall John is!, we introduce a scale of tallness expressing that John is tall to an extreme degree. Similarly, an exclamation like What a fool John is! says that John’s foolishness reaches an extreme value on a scale of foolishness. The scalar implicature gives rises to an affective response.
9.2 Exclamative clauses in English Exclamations—as we have seen by the examples introduced so far—can be expressed by various sentential and non-sentential structures so that
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9. 2 E N G LI S H E X C L A M A T I V E C L A U S E S
it is easier to give a semantic rather than a formal characterization. As for English, we can distinguish at least half a dozen structures, including what-exclamatives (What a nice campus this is!), how-exclamatives (How quickly she recovered!), interrogative clauses (Did he look annoyed!), declaratives (This is so awkward!), subordinate clauses (That she could say such a thing!), and even modified NPs (The speed they drive on the freeway!). Let us take a systematic look at these constructions in the following sections. 9.2.1 The encoding of exclamations If you take a look at authoritative handbooks of English, for example Quirk et al. (: , –) and Huddleston and Pullum (: –), they readily offer you the structures in examples () and () as prototypical encoding strategies of exclamations in English. We will refer to the specimens in example () as ‘what-exclamatives’, and to those in example () as ‘how-exclamatives’. () a. [I know] What a nice campus this is! b. [I can’t believe] What a great sum of money he lost. () a. [It’s amazing] How much noise they make! b. [It’s unbelievable] How rich they are! In these examples, I have preposed the exclamative clauses by a matrix predicate in square brackets to indicate that they can be analysed as embedded clauses, more precisely as embedded constituent interrogatives, even though such exclamatives are typically encountered as independent main clauses. As such, the above specimens of exclamative clauses are structurally identical to the embedded interrogatives shown in example (). These do not function as exclamations, but are simply used as embedded content questions. In contrast to main clause interrogatives, shown in parentheses in example (), embedded interrogatives have the word order of declarative clauses.1 () a. I know what he told you. (What did he tell you?) b. I know how old she is. (How old is she?) Accordingly, what/how-exclamatives come to be analysed as ‘insubordinations’ in the sense of Evans (). We will explore this concept in more detail in Chapter . 1
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Despite the formal overlap of the above exclamative clauses with embedded constituent interrogatives, there are good structural arguments for saying that they are something special, deserving the recognition of an independent exclamative clause type in English. These arguments only apply to what-exclamatives and how-exclamatives, and to none of the alternative constructions used for expressing exclamations. They are based on essentially two pieces of observation. First, there is the little-understood restriction of these exclamative clauses to the interrogative words what and how. This is a curious property, especially as it does not apply to embedded exclamative clauses, as demonstrated in example ().2 () It’s amazing . . . a. who they hired. b. where he took them to. c. when he has to get up. d. why she keeps inventing these silly excuses. To make this point perfectly clear, even though the embedded clauses in example () are constituent interrogatives in terms of their syntactic structure, they function as exclamations. This is unambiguously signalled by the matrix predicate amazing. Changing it to, say, wonder would trigger the question reading. If we try to use these embedded exclamatives as main clauses, as shown in example (), the result is a set of unacceptable sentences dismissed by many speakers as ungrammatical. () a. b. c. d.
*Who they hired! *Where he took them to! *When he has to get up! *Why she keeps inventing these silly excuses!
I can only speculate about the reasons for this curious restriction, but it clearly shows that main clause exclamatives have properties different from embedded exclamatives, offering a convincing argument for regarding what/how-exclamatives as instances of an independent clause type in English.
2
Huddleston (b) analyses these examples as embedded interrogatives expressing questions. On this view, exclamative clauses are restricted to what and how in both main and embedded clauses. The question then is why English exclamative clauses are generally restricted to what and how, while other languages also permit other interrogative words.
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9. 2 E N G LI S H E X C L A M A T I V E C L A U S E S
Table 9.1 Clause types and syntactic structure Clause type
Syntactic structure
Example
Declarative
SVO
John eats sushi.
Polar interrogative
AUX S V O
Does John eat sushi?
Constituent interrogative
what AUX S V / etc.
What does John eat?
Imperative
VO
Eat more sushi.
What-exclamative
what a O S V
What a tasty piece of sushi I had!
How-exclamative
how A S V
How tasty this sushi is!
Second, main clause uses of what/how-exclamatives exhibit word order patterns distinct from those of declaratives, interrogatives, and also imperatives. Consider the overview of sentential patterns in English shown in Table ., providing a selection of the possible patterns. We can see that all the clause types explored in the preceding chapters, including the specimens of what/how-exclamatives under consideration here, possess distinct word order patterns that can be used to identify them unambiguously. What/how-exclamatives are an interesting hybrid in this respect, as they contain clause-initial interrogative phrases typically associated with interrogative clauses in combination with declarative word order. In spite of the above arguments, there remains conspicuous formal overlap between what/how-exclamatives and constituent interrogatives that is in need of explanation. Michaelis (: ) writes that the reason for this formal overlap should be sought in the shared semantic basis of these constructions. And indeed, we find important similarities, especially concerning their shared presuppositions. Let us take a look at the examples in (), with (a) showing an interrogative clause and (b) a how-exclamative. () a. How much did John spend? ➔ John spent x. b. How much John spent! ➔ John spent x. The interrogative How much did John spend? presupposes that John spent a certain amount (John spent x). In asking such a question, the speaker assumes that John spent some money and that the addressee is aware of this. That this is a presupposition can be tested by negating example (a), as the negated sentence still expresses that John spent
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some money (see Chapter ). This is an existential presupposition, since some value for the variable is taken for granted. Interestingly, the corresponding exclamative in (b), i.e. How much John spent!, carries the same presupposition, additionally expressing that the variable is located at an extreme position of a contextually given scale. By contrast, the interrogative expresses that the variable be filled by the addressee. The variable is encoded by the interrogative word, and it is certainly no accident that both interrogative and exclamative contain such a word. In our typological survey in Section ., we will see that this formal overlap is quite widespread cross-linguistically. In view of the fact that what/how-exclamatives possess specific semantic and syntactic properties and stand in paradigmatic opposition with declarative, interrogative, and imperative clauses, it would appear justified to consider what/how-exclamatives as a clause type on a par with the other main types. This is the position adopted in authoritative grammars of English (Quirk et al. : , –; Huddleston and Pullum : –). Apart from the what/how-exclamatives discussed in the foregoing sections, there is an impressive array of constructions available in English that can be used to convey exclamations. We will briefly consider them in what follows, bearing in mind that the relevant syntactic structures are not dedicated to expressing exclamations. They rest parasitically on other clause types and constructions and need to be analysed as indirect speech acts in the literal force paradigm. A first set of clause types that can be used to express exclamations concerns interrogatives, both polar and constituent. This is illustrated in examples () and (), with the respective a-sentences showing the interrogatives and the b-sentences the corresponding what/howexclamatives that can be considered equivalent in terms of meaning and force. Polar interrogatives conveying exclamative force appear substantially more common than constituent interrogatives in this function. () a. Did he look annoyed! b. How annoyed he looked! () a. What a piece of work is a man! (Shakespeare, Hamlet, . . ) b. What a piece of work a man is! A second set of exclamations is based on declarative clauses, as shown in example (). In such examples, we typically find intonation as well
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as certain lexical expressions serving as illocutionary force indicating devices (Wow!, Boy!, so, such). Like what/how-exclamatives, the examples in () express that certain properties occupy extreme values on some scale, and presuppose that the proposition belongs to the common ground, i.e. is presupposed. In examples (b) and (c), extreme scalar degree is expressed by the modifiers so and such (anaphoric degree adverbs). () a. Wow! He can drive! / Boy! This is interesting! b. These flowers are so beautiful! c. She did such a foolish thing! Michaelis and Lambrecht (: ) also consider extrapositions of the type listed in example () as a special form type that may be used to express exclamations. Here, the structure in () is supposed to be derived from the clause in parentheses. () It’s amazing the difference! (( The difference is amazing.) In a similar way, the examples in () show exclamations that are parasitic on embedded declarative clauses, as these have declarative word order and are introduced by the subordinator that. () a. [I can’t believe] That she could behave like this! b. [I can’t believe] That they would leave without us! Exclamations may also be expressed by the internally modified noun phrases shown in (). Syntactically, we can analyse them as noun phrases postmodified by a relative clause. In English, these seem to be more than merely ad hoc formations and may be analysable as a separate construction type, since they are practically restricted to conveying exclamatory force. () a. b. c. d. e.
The people he invites! The books he reads! The places he travels to! The times he rings me! The reasons he invents for not coming!
What I have tried to argue for is that English what/how-exclamatives can be analysed as instantiating an exclamative clause type, since they possess formal and semantic properties that distinguish them from the other clause types. This follows from the observed distributional
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restrictions, the evidence drawn from paradigmatic oppositions as well as specific correlations between form and function. To recapitulate briefly, such exclamatives are restricted to being introduced by what or how, while other interrogative words are not permitted. Moreover, when embedded interrogatives are used as independent main clauses, a special word order pattern emerges that places what/how-exclamatives in paradigmatic opposition to the other clause types. The resulting pattern is associated with exclamative force conveying an affective response of the speaker. The remaining exclamative constructions discussed above can all be reduced to more basic clause types, illustrating the systematic use of main and subordinate clauses for the expression of exclamations. 9.2.2 The usage of exclamative clauses in English There are basically two publications dedicated to exploring the usage patterns of what/how-exclamatives, namely Collins () and Siemund (a). Both studies are based on corpora of spoken and written language. We will review their major findings in what follows. Collins’s () study is based on seven corpora comprising one million words each, namely the Brown University Corpus, the Lancaster– Oslo–Bergen Corpus, the Freiburg Brown Corpus, the Freiburg LOB Corpus, the Australian Corpus of English, the Wellington Corpus of New Zealand English, and the Kolhapur Corpus of Indian English. These corpora match in size, text number, and genre categories, the Brown corpus being the model on which all the other corpora are based. They contain written language. Siemund (a) used for his study the British National Corpus (BNC) and the British Component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-GB). The BNC contains million words of mainly written language, while ICE-GB is a onemillion-word corpus and part of a whole family of corpora of similar size and composition. These corpora contain both spoken and written language in roughly equal proportions. In addition to the written corpora mentioned above, Collins () included spoken material from the London Lund Corpus of Spoken British English, the Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language, the Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English, and the Australian Component of the International Corpus of English. Collins () collected , tokens
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of what/how-exclamatives in his corpora. Siemund (a) based his analysis on tokens of what-exclamatives and tokens of howexclamatives. Collins (: ) reports a general ‘tendency for exclamatives to occur more frequently in registers marked by personal involvement and informality’, as, for example, spoken language and fiction. 9.2.2.1 What-exclamatives We can find what-exclamatives with what being followed either by a singular count noun, a plural noun, or a non-count noun. This difference is illustrated in example (), taken from Collins (: –). On a functional level, what can be viewed as a modifier of the ensuing noun (see Siemund a on interrogative degree modification). () a. What a fuss the papers have made about me. [Australian Corpus of English] b. Oh, Grand-dad, what big words you use. [Wellington Corpus of New Zealand English] c. What determination it had aroused. [Kolhapur Corpus] The use of a singular count noun, as in example (a), triggers the occurrence of what a, while the other nouns trigger bare what without the intervening indefinite article. According to Collins (: ), singular count NPs are clearly dominant in what-exclamatives. They contribute per cent of the tokens in his database. The tokens of what-exclamatives investigated in Siemund (a) contain only singular count nouns (for methodological reasons). The data can broadly be categorized into reduced (What a blizzard!) and non-reduced full sentential (What a fool I was!) tokens. The main difference between the two sets is that reduced tokens lack a verb, while the non-reduced tokens contain a verb and can be analysed as complete sentences. Within each token set, we can distinguish various subtypes, as shown in Table . for reduced what-exclamatives. There, we find unmodified NPs, pre- and postmodified NPs. A classification of the non-reduced tokens can be found in Table .. Here, we can distinguish between a predicative type and a full clausal type. The NPs may be premodified, as in What a nice face she has!, but we will ignore this additional distinction in our usage analysis. The verb have is classified separately, as it possesses special properties (it does
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Table 9.2 Syntactic analysis of what-exclamatives: reduced non-clausal types (Siemund a: ) Analysis
Explanation
Example
NP
unmodified NP
What a blizzard!
APNP
NP premodified by AP
What a good idea!
NPINF
NP postmodified by infinitival clause
What a way to make money!
NPCP
NP postmodified by finite clause
What a good thing she wasn’t male!
Table 9.3 Syntactic analysis of what-exclamatives: clausal types (Siemund a: ) Analysis
Explanation
Example
BE
predicative
What a fool I was!
CLAUSE
full finite clause
What a trick you played on him!
HAVE
finite clause with have
What a nice face she has!
Table 9.4 Quantitative analysis of what-exclamatives: reduced non-clausal types (Siemund a: ) Construction
No.
Example
% of
cum %
NP
What a blizzard!
.
.
APNP
What a good idea!
.
NPINF
What a way to make money!
.
NPCP
What a good thing she wasn’t male!
.
not require do-periphrasis under negation and for forming interrogatives, at least in British English). Let us now explore the distributions of these types in the set of tokens of what-exclamatives. You can find the relevant absolute numbers and percentages in Tables . and .. The absolute numbers in column two represent the tokens found in the BNC. The percentages given in column four give these numbers as per cent of the total set. The final column labelled ‘cum’ adds these percentages into a cumulative value. Comparing the two tables, we can make a striking observation, as the reduced tokens by far outnumber the non-reduced tokens. Most
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Table 9.5 Quantitative analysis of what-exclamatives: clausal types (Siemund a: ) Construction
No.
Example
BE
What a fool I was!
% of
cum %
.
.
CLAUSE
What a trick you played on him!
.
HAVE
What a nice face she has!
.
Table 9.6 Syntactic analysis of how-exclamatives: reduced non-clausal types (Siemund a: ) Analysis
Explanation
Example
AP
unmodified AP
How awful!
APINF
AP postmodified by infinitival clause
How lovely to see you!
APCP
AP postmodified by finite clause
How unlucky that she had met the sons and not the father!
APNP
NP premodified by AP
How fresh and green the grass!
occurrences of what-exclamatives (nearly per cent) are elliptical, more precisely, without verb or verb phrase. In other words, the whatexclamative clause type hardly occurs in full sentential form. Moreover, predicative constructions are more common than clauses containing a main verb, especially if we reconstruct the reduced types in Table . as full clauses (see Collins : for similar observations). Before considering the theoretical implications of these observations, let us also take a look at the categories and distributions in the token set of how-exclamatives. 9.2.2.2 How-exclamatives The classification of the tokens of how-exclamatives follows similar principles to those used for what-exclamatives (Siemund a). Here too, we can broadly distinguish between reduced and non-reduced how-exclamatives. You can find the classification scheme for the reduced forms in Table .. There are unmodified adjective phrases (AP) as well as postmodified and premodified ones.
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Table 9.7 Syntactic analysis of how-exclamatives: clausal types (Siemund a: ) Analysis
Explanation
Example
BE
predicative
How kind you are!
BEINF
predicative postmodified by infinitival clause
How happy I was to hear words again!
CLAUSE
full finite clause
How he bled!
ADVCLAUSE
adverb modifying full finite clause
How bright those fires shine in the darkness!
APCLAUSE
predicative adjective
How old he looked!
NPCLAUSE
full finite clause
How little faith you have!
Table 9.8 Quantitative analysis of how-exclamatives: reduced non-clausal types (Siemund a: ) Construction
No.
Example
AP
How awful!
% of
cum %
.
.
APINF
How lovely to see you!
.
APCP
How unlucky that she had met the sons and not the father!
.
APNP
How fresh and green the grass!
.
The subcategories distinguished in the set of non-reduced howexclamatives are shown in Table .. There are two predicative types and four clausal types containing a full verb. Turning to the quantitative profiles of how-exclamatives in Tables . and ., we can see that the reduced types are also quite common, though not as common as with what-exclamatives. Collins (: ) also finds lower rates of reduced how-exclamatives in his corpora. In addition, reduced or elliptical forms are considerably more common in speech than in writing, as one would expect. The cumulative value of the non-reduced clausal types amounts to more than fifty per cent, thus outnumbering the reduced types. Moreover, the clausal types involving a full verb outnumber the predicative type. Collins (: ) also provides some quantitative information on the syntactic classes of how-phrases, though measured across reduced
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Table 9.9 Quantitative analysis of how-exclamatives: clausal types (Siemund a: ) Construction
No.
Example
% of
Cum. %
CLAUSE
How he bled!
.
.
BE
How kind you are!
.
ADVCLAUSE
How bright those fires shine in the darkness!
.
APCLAUSE
How old he looked!
.
BEINF
How happy I was to hear words again!
.
How little faith you have!
.
NPCLAUSE
and non-reduced tokens. According to him, adjectival how-phrases account for . per cent of the tokens in the corpora, adverbial howphrases for . per cent, and nominal ones for per cent. Of these, . per cent of the tokens from the written corpora and . per cent from the spoken corpora are subjective predicative complements. These figures are much higher than those reported by Siemund (a) from the BNC. 9.2.3 Explaining the usage of what/how-exclamatives Having observed that what/how-exclamatives are typically non-clausal and appear in a variety of reduced forms, we are now in need to find an explanation for these patterns. Besides the predominance of reduced over non-reduced forms, we also need to explain why whatexclamatives have a stronger preference to occur in reduced form than how-exclamatives. In what follows, I will try to explain the usage properties of exclamative clauses by taking recourse to their communicative function. This approach follows the paradigm of functional explanations that seek to motivate the form and distribution of expressions and utterances primarily via their meaning or function (see Chapter ). We can view this approach in opposition to more or exclusively formal modes of explanation. The latter are based on the belief that the structure of language represents a system in its own right and obeys a number of internal principles that are sufficient to explain its surface forms.
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As for their function and meaning, we argued further above that speakers do not use exclamatives with the primary aim of transmitting propositions. Rather, the proposition encoded by exclamatives is taken to be known by speaker and hearer and thus belongs to the common ground. The point or purpose of exclamative constructions is to convey an affective response to this shared proposition. We said that the propositional content of an exclamation is presupposed. Considering an example like (), we can see that the crucial semantic properties of what/how-exclamatives involve a scale, a property, and a referent of whom the scalar property is predicated. In the case at hand, the scale is introduced by the wh-word (via the alternative values evoked), the referent is encoded by the noun essay, and the property is specified by the adjective modifying the noun (impressive). It is expressed that the property occupies an extreme position on this scale. () What an impressive essay you have written. If the presuppositional account is correct, we would expect a predominance of pronominal subjects in exclamative clauses, as pronouns are not used to introduce new discourse referents, but encode discourseold (i.e. known) referents. Example () confirms this expectation, though it is more convincing to investigate this claim with quantitative data. In Table ., the figures for what-exclamatives measured across all non-reduced tokens (i.e. tokens containing a subject) are provided. Full noun phrases are clearly underrepresented, while pronominal subjects contribute to about per cent (average = .%). We can make similar observation in the set of how-exclamatives. Here, the share of pronominal subjects ranges between and per cent across categories, again clearly outnumbering nominal subjects (average = .%). You can find the figures summarized in Table ..
Table 9.10 What-exclamatives and subject type (Siemund a: ) Total
BE
CLAUSE
HAVE
P
.%
.%
.%
.%
N
.%
.%
.%
.%
Note: P = pronominal subject; N = nominal subject
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Table 9.11 How-exclamatives and subject type (Siemund a: ) Total
CLAUSE
BE
ADVCLAUSE APCLAUSE
P .% .% .%
.%
.% .% .%
.%
N
BEINF
NPCLAUSE
.% .%
.%
.%
.%
.%
Note: P = pronominal subject; N = nominal subject
9.2.3.1 What-exclamatives In view of the properties of exclamatives specified above (i.e. scale, property, referent), it becomes possible to explain the predominance of reduced what-exclamatives. This is so because these three elements encode all the requisite ingredients of exclamations. Functionally, providing this much information is sufficient to realize an exclamation. The mapping of functions onto forms is especially convincing in the case of what-exclamatives containing modified NPs (What a great relief!), though those with unmodified NPs (What a waste!) contribute the highest number of tokens. Unmodified NPs in what-exclamatives typically contain degree nouns (Bolinger : ) that allow scaling of the expressed concept (mess, pity, shame, surprise, waste, etc.). For example, the exclamative What a blizzard! describes a weather event as extreme in terms of intensity. For unmodified non-degree nouns, different contextual scales seem to be evoked. For example, the scale underlying what-exclamatives like What a ship! or What a house! may have to do with the size of these objects, perhaps also with their value. If I say What a man!, I evoke a scale of masculinity, although the noun man as such is a non-degree noun. I would like to point out that even though the functional explanation offered here can successfully deal with the observed reduced units, it is not meant to override syntactic constraints of English. In other words, a what-exclamative like What a ship! still conforms to English grammar, although it is not a full clause. Other conceivable reductions are not permitted (*What!; *What a!; *What a ship this!; *Ship!). Such considerations show that even reduced forms and omitted material obey certain grammatical rules, typically dealt with in theories of ellipsis (‘the grammar of silence’). As this cannot be the place to discuss theories of ellipsis, I would like to refer you to Merchant (), Ono (), Craenenbroeck and Merchant (), as well as the references found therein.
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9.2.3.2 How-exclamatives Since we explained the frequent reductions of what-exclamatives by taking recourse to the functional properties of exclamations, we would expect these same functional properties to determine the syntactic form of how-exclamatives, too. It would be quite unacceptable to evoke one type of functional explanation for what-exclamatives and a different functional explanation for how-exclamatives. Such a simple extension of the line of argumentation used above is, however, not possible, as we find approximately the same number of reduced and non-reduced tokens in the set of how-exclamatives (see Tables . and .). As far as I can see, there are three reasons why how-exclamatives show occurrence patterns different from what-exclamatives. They all concern syntactic constraints on the reducibility of how-exclamatives (see Siemund a: ). First, reduced how-exclamatives of the type How terrible! contain the scalar element (the wh-word) and an expression describing a property (the adjective), but they do not express the referent of which the property is predicated. The addressee is expected to recover the referent from the context. Reduced how-exclamatives would need to have the form shown in (a) to express the three semantic components of exclamations (scale, property, referent). The problem is that this structure does not conform to the grammar of English. Perhaps depending on how easily the referent can be recovered from the context, howexclamatives revert to either (b) or (c), as these are consistent with the rules of English grammar. Again, explaining why (a) is ungrammatical while (b) and (c) are well formed requires a theory of ellipsis, which, however, is beyond what we can tackle here. () a. *How terrible this! b. How terrible this is! c. How terrible! Second, about per cent of the tokens in the BNC data represent a full clausal type that is not reducible. This is a considerable proportion that includes examples like How he bled!, How I hate ignorance!, and How they listened!, among many others. These cases are interpreted against a scale of intensity or severity along which the verb manner is ranked and characterized as extreme (see Bolinger : –). This full clausal type contains all semantic properties constitutive of exclamations and
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cannot be reduced syntactically any further (*How he!; *How bled!), again due to restrictions that need to be explained by a theory of ellipsis. Third, the how-exclamatives shown in () do not allow reduction for syntactic reasons, as the resulting structures would be considered ungrammatical (*How nearly!; *How easily!; *How tenderly!). Apparently, reduction is possible with adjectives, but not with adverbs. () a. How nearly you promised to marry me! b. How easily she’d tricked him! c. How tenderly everybody spoke of it during the broadcast! The three syntactic constraints just discussed counterbalance the functional pressure to reduce how-exclamatives to expressing a scale, a property, and a referent, leading to a lower share of reduced howexclamatives in comparison to what-exclamatives. This example shows quite nicely how functional pressure may work against the grammatical rules of a language, and vice versa.
9.3 A cross-linguistic view on exclamatives and exclamations Even though it appears safe to state that all languages can express exclamations, the exclamative clause type remains an elusive category from a cross-linguistic point of view. In the preceding sections, we took great pains to motivate such a clause type for English—with mixed results. As far as I can see, a cross-linguistic comparison of exclamative constructions faces two problems. To start with, languages typically offer a range of constructions to express exclamations and it can be quite challenging to decide which of these represents a dedicated exclamative clause type. In addition, such a decision may require rather subtle structural and distributional argumentation, which for many languages is simply not available. Any cross-linguistic comparison presupposes a functional tertium comparationis, as introduced in Chapter . This means that we need to identify exclamations through their illocutionary force, before we can proceed to assessing the grammatical status of the constructions expressing them. Following d’Avis (: ), we can use the contexts specified in Table . to distinguish exclamations from statements and questions. As you can see, the examples permit different continuations, based on the notion of surprise typically associated with exclamations.
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Table 9.12 Contexts distinguishing exclamations, statements, and questions Force
Example
Context
Exclamation
How rich she is!
✓ I didn’t expect this. ✗ This is what I expected.
Statement
She is extremely rich.
✓ I didn’t expect this. ✓ This is what I expected.
Question
✗ I didn’t expect this.
How rich is she?
✗ This is what I expected.
In this section, we will first of all take a look at the attested constructions encoding exclamative force. In a second step, I will try to analyse exclamations in a few languages with the aim to identify an exclamative clause type. 9.3.1 Constructions encoding exclamations It is quite difficult to delimit the form types that may be used to express exclamations, as various sentential and non-sentential forms populate this functional domain. For this reason, Michaelis and Lambrecht () and Michaelis () postulate an abstract (i.e. completely mental) exclamative construction subsuming the various form types. A non-sentential class of expressions typically used for exclamations are interjections, as in example (). Here, the propositional content triggering the exclamation is completely drawn from the context. The interjection merely conveys exclamative force. () A visits B, who shows A her new villa. A utters: Wow! It is obvious that such interjections are no serious contenders for an exclamative clause type. In a similar way, free NPs—as in example ()—may convey exclamations, though these represent non-sentential forms, too. () Korean (Michaelis : ) Ah cheo sori! INTERJ the sound ‘The noise!’
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In English, German, and other Germanic languages, postmodified NPs of the type shown in () appear to be strongly associated with exclamative force, especially when used on their own and with exclamatory intonation. Michaelis (: –) reports similar examples from various other languages. Although such NPs seem to have a strong potential to express exclamations, they are not tied to exclamative contexts, as they also occur in non-exclamative contexts: I regret the noise we made; A: What would you like?—B: The cars he drives. () German (personal knowledge) Die Autos die der fährt! the cars that he drives ‘The cars he drives!’ Among the set of sentential forms, we may first and foremost list complementation structures involving factive epistemic matrix verbs. The examples in () and () provide some illustration. They are lexically marked as exclamations, though they do not represent a dedicated exclamative clause type. It appears safe to assume that such constructions exist in many languages, at least as long as they possess factive epistemic predicates and allow embedding. () Italian (Michaelis : ) È pazzesco quanto rumore fanno. is amazing how.much noise make ‘It’s amazing how much noise they make.’ () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 我 无法 相信 他们 在 北京 开 得 多快！ woˇ wúfaˇ xiāngxìn tāmen zài běijīng kāi dé duō kuài I cannot believe they in Beijing drive PRT how quick(ly) ‘I can’t believe how quickly they drive in Beijing.’ Another group of expressions identified by Michaelis (: –) to surface in exclamations are anaphoric degree adverbs like English so and such (König ). Examples from Russian and Chinese are shown in () and (). These expressions explicitly refer to some contextually salient scale. It is difficult to delimit these expressions from other degree adverbs (e.g. really, very, truly), as the latter may also appear in exclamations. An example of the latter is provided in () for Japanese.
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() Russian (Julia Davydova) Etot student tak umen! This student so clever ‘This student is so clever!’ () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 她 是 这样 一个 聪明 的 学生！ tā shì zhèyang yíge cōngmíng de xuésheng she is such one.CL clever PRT student ‘She is such a clever student!’ () Japanese (Tayo Takada) Kono gakusei wa totemo kashikoidesu! This student TOP really clever ‘This student is so clever!’ A cross-linguistically pervasive class of expressions surfacing in exclamations are interrogative words (how, what, etc.) that, functionally speaking, seem the perfect choice for expressing exclamations, since they encode variables whose values may be ordered along a scale. The question word ‘how’ seems especially appropriate, since it encodes a certain extent both in its manner reading (How can you open this box? ‘Which way do you have to take to open this box?’) and its scalar reading (How old are you? ‘What is your position on the age scale?’). In English, how and what are the only interrogative words that occur in exclamations. As attested by the following examples from Italian, Turkish, and German, other languages permit a wider range of interrogative words in exclamative contexts. () Italian (Michaelis : ) Dove si arrampicano, questi ragazzi! where they climb these boys ‘The places they climb, these boys!’ () Turkish (Michaelis : ) Kimleri gördük, (kim)! who.PL.OBJ saw.PAST..PL who ‘The people we saw!’ () German (personal knowledge) Wann die mich so anruft! when she me so calls ‘The times she calls me!’
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9.3 C R O S S - L I N G U I S T I C V I E W O N E X C L A M A T I V E S A ND E X C L A M A T I O N S
As far as the syntactic structure of the German example in () is concerned, we can analyse it as an embedded interrogative clause with verb-final word order. Here, an embedded clause is used as an independent main clause in an exclamative function. The exploitation of existing sentential structures for the expression of exclamations appears to be quite common, at least in Indo-European languages. For example, in German exclamations can be parasitic on embedded interrogatives, as in example (), embedded declaratives, verb-first declaratives, verb-second declaratives, and also verb-first polar interrogatives, as shown in (). D’Avis () offers a good overview of these constructions in German. As you can see in example (), English also permits the use of embedded declaratives to express exclamations. () German (Michaelis : ) Hast Du Glück gehabt! have you luck had ‘Did you luck out!’ () That she would betray me!
9.3.2 Languages boasting an exclamative clause type Let us now turn to a more in-depth analysis of a few languages regarding the existence of an exclamative clause type. I have chosen German, Turkish, and Chinese for this discussion, since they represent genetically unrelated language families. Interestingly enough, in spite of their genetic distance, all three languages offer exclamatives involving interrogative words as the preferred strategy to express exclamations. Given this situation, the main question is if these exclamative constructions are syntactically distinct from constituent interrogatives. Exclamative clauses in German represent an intensely researched topic, as is witnessed by a wide range of publications (e.g. Rosengren ; d’Avis , ). There is a great range of sentential form types available for expressing exclamations, as introduced above. We cannot investigate these in detail here, but will focus on embedded constituent interrogatives used as independent main clauses. We may start by observing that such clauses can be embedded under matrix predicates expressing uncertainty, as in example (), or those expressing surprise, as in (). Functionally, this gives rise to questions, on the one hand, and exclamations, on the other.
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() German (personal knowledge) Es ist unklar wie schnell der laufen kann. (question) it is unclear how fast he run can ‘It’s unclear how fast he can run!’ () German (personal knowledge) Es ist erstaunlich wie schnell der laufen kann. (exclamation) it is amazing how fast he run can ‘It’s amazing how fast he can run!’ When such embedded constituent interrogatives come to be used as independent main clauses, they preferably express exclamative force. This is shown in example (). If we consider this construction type to be in paradigmatic opposition to other main clause types (i.e. declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives), we can identify it as a distinct exclamative clause type syntactically, since it shows a word order pattern that is different from the other types. Crucially, the argument depends on accepting an embedded clause as an independent main clause. () German (personal knowledge) Wie schnell der laufen kann! (exclamation) how fast he run can ‘How fast he can run!’ So far, the situation in German is quite similar to that in English. There is an important difference, though, as practically all interrogative words are permitted in German (see d’Avis : – for a detailed discussion). In other words, such exclamative clauses do not exhibit the restriction to what and how known from English. () German (personal knowledge) Wo die gewesen ist! where she been is ‘The places she has been to!’ () German (personal knowledge) Wann die anruft! when she calls ‘The times she calls!’ Such observations show that these exclamative clauses fully behave like embedded interrogatives internally and have not acquired properties that would allow a categorization as an independent clause type. If we
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9.3 C R O S S - L I N G U I S T I C V I E W O N E X C L A M A T I V E S A ND E X C L A M A T I O N S
view this as a case of grammaticalization, we may tentatively conclude that the German exclamative clause type is less grammaticalized than its English counterpart.3 In Turkish, constituent interrogatives and exclamatives appear to be distinguished by intonation only. The examples in () and () can be understood as either question or exclamation, depending on the intonation pattern used and, of course, the context. Exclamations seem to be parasitic on constituent interrogatives, provided it is justified to assume such a clause type for Turkish. () Turkish (Yasemin Şahingöz) Bu öğrenci ne kadar zeki-ymiş!/? this.NOM student.NOM how clever-AOR (question/exclamation) ‘How clever is this student?’ / ‘How clever this student is!’ () Turkish (Yasemin Şahingöz) Ne kadar zeki-ymiş bu öğrenci!/? how clever.AOR this.NOM student.NOM (question/exclamation) ‘How clever is this student?’ / ‘How clever this student is!’ In addition, such exclamations based on constituent interrogatives do not appear to be restricted to specific interrogative words, including those used as placeholders for circumstantial information. There are two examples in () and (). Again, these exclamations may in principle also be understood as questions. () Turkish (Yasemin Şahingöz) Nerelere gitti bu! where.PL go.PAST..SG she.DEM.NOM ‘The places she’s been to!’ () Turkish (Yasemin Şahingöz) Ne saatlerde aryior (beni)! what time.PL.LOC call.PRES..SG (me.ACC) ‘The times she calls me!’
3 The use of the term ‘grammaticalization’ is complicated in this context, as the promotion of an embedded clause to a main clause may be seen as an example of ‘degrammaticalization’ (see the relevant discussion in Chapter ).
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EXCLAMATIVES AND EXCLAMATIONS
In Mandarin Chinese, we also find exclamative clauses that are completely identical to constituent interrogatives. The examples in () and () show syntactically identical sentences that may be used with either question force or exclamatory force. Of course, there remain intonational and contextual differences, but the word order pattern is exactly the same. Since syntactic subordination is not overtly marked in Chinese, the question does not arise if example () is an embedded clause used as an independent main clause. () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 她们 开 得 多 快 啊？ (question) tāmen kāi de duō kuài a they drive PRT how fast PRT ‘How fast do they drive?’ () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 她们 开 得 多 快 啊！ (exclamation) tāmen kāi de duō kuài a they drive PRT how fast PRT ‘How fast they drive!’ Nevertheless, to conclude from the above pair of examples that interrogatives and exclamatives are never syntactically distinguished in Chinese would be premature, as the predicative constructions shown in examples () and () do exhibit a syntactic contrast. The sentential pattern shown in () would not be used with question force, pointing to a distinct exclamative construction. () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 这 学生 有 多么 聪明？ (question) zhè xuéshēng yoˇu duōme cōngmíng this student have how.much clever? ‘How clever is this student?’ () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 啊！ (exclamation) 这个 学生 多么 聪明 zhège xuéshēng duōme cōngmíng a this student how clever PRT ‘How clever this student is!’ Regarding the problem of whether only selected interrogative words are permitted in Chinese exclamations, this indeed seems to be the case
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9. 4 S U M M A R Y
with ‘how’ being the only permissible specimen. Interrogative words corresponding to English who, when, and where are not used in exclamations. As evidenced by the example sentences in () and (), Chinese here reverts to a relative clause construction that is quite similar to its English translation. () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 她 去 过 的 地方 啊！ tā qù guò de dīfāng a she go ever PRT place PRT ‘The places she’s been to!’ () Mandarin Chinese (Lijun Li) 他 请 的 人 呐！ tā qıˇng de rén na he invite PRT people PRT ‘The people he invites!’ In sum, the foregoing analysis of German, Turkish, and Chinese reveals some of the difficulties that a cross-linguistic comparison faces in the domain of exclamations and exclamative clause types. The stable parameter is that exclamations can be related to constituent interrogatives in all three languages, and perhaps many more. What is less clear is whether there are syntactic correlates unique to exclamative force. For Turkish, this does not seem to be the case. German uses embedded constituent interrogatives as main clause exclamatives, leading to a paradigmatic contrast with main clause declaratives and interrogatives. In Chinese, finally, exclamatives and constituent interrogatives appear to be distinguished in predicative constructions, though not in other contexts. Moreover, the only permissible interrogative word seems to be that corresponding to English how.
9.4 Summary We started this chapter by observing that exclamations are expressive speech acts that convey the psychological response of the speaker vis-àvis a contextually given situation. Crucially, the point or purpose of an exclamation is not to state a proposition, but an affective response to a proposition or situation. The proposition belongs to the common
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ground and is known by speaker and hearer, as well as perhaps other participants of the communicative situation. The psychological response is typically one of surprise, characterizing the situation as non-canonical and extreme on a contextually given scale. In English and various other languages, a wide array of constructions is available to encode exclamations, though it remains quite challenging to single out a construction that is truly dedicated to expressing this speech act type. In the typical case, exclamations piggyback on other clause types, as, for example, declaratives and interrogatives in combination with special exclamatory intonation contours and lexical items encoding degree. Cross-linguistically, exclamative constructions frequently resemble or are indistinguishable from constituent interrogatives, especially those involving the interrogative word ‘how’. Apparently, language users consider it a cognitively plausible strategy to reinterpret an expression encoding a variable to one expressing high degree. As for English, it is plausible to assume a syntactically distinct exclamative clause type, namely the what/how-exclamatives discussed extensively in this chapter. Originally embedded constituent interrogatives, the relevant specimens are used as independent main clauses and show a word order pattern distinct from declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives. Moreover, they are confined to what and how to the exclusion of other interrogative words. This restriction remains in need of explanation. An important counterargument facing the assumption of an exclamative clause type in English is that this clause type primarily surfaces in reduced non-sentential form (i.e. interrogative degree modification). In this domain, the English language manifests a striking contrast between grammar and usage. Although I here analyse English what/how-exclamatives as a major clause type in the sense defined in Chapter , there remains some evidence pulling them towards the category of minor clause types.
9.5 Topics for further research This chapter amply documented an intimate relationship between exclamative constructions and constituent interrogatives that can be observed not only in closely related languages such as English and
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9. 5 T O P I C S F O R F U R T H E R R E S E A R C H
German, but also in genetically unrelated languages such as Turkish and Chinese. Of course, it appears justified to assume that this relationship is based on the presence of interrogative words, but exactly how the meaning of these expressions enables question force, on the one hand, and exclamatory force, on the other, we could not follow up in detail. If you are interested in this problem, you can find further food for thought in d’Avis () as well as Zanuttini and Portner (). Apart from this semantic problem, exclamative constructions really represent an under-researched area, and you need to devise your own projects to make progress. Let me just mention three topics that I deem challenging candidates for future research. First, there is practically no information available on the various alternative exclamative constructions that I introduced in this chapter, as the discussion here was restricted to what/how-exclamatives. Especially postmodified NPs of the type The things he eats! appear to be a worthy object of study in their own right. Which NPs can be postmodified in this way while being understood as exclamations? In which contexts are they used? Crucially, such examples seem to rely on a specific intonation pattern about which little is known. A second underexplored area concerns the quantitative characteristics of English exclamative clauses (what/how-exclamatives) in relation to other clauses types. We noticed in this chapter that what/howexclamatives are frequently realized in non-sentential form and tried to motivate these reduced occurrences in terms of the meaning of exclamations. What remained unresolved, inter alia, is whether the observed reduction rates are specific to what/how-exclamatives or whether frequent ellipsis is also a property of other clause types. You can find some discussion of this problem in Siemund (a), though we will also address this issue in Chapter . Third, you probably noticed that the cross-linguistic section of this chapter remained less detailed than in the other chapters. Crosslinguistic information on exclamatives and exclamations is sparse, opening avenues for further research. An important challenge facing any cross-linguistic comparison is the structural heterogeneity in this domain. One of the parameters open for further research concerns the formal overlap of exclamatives with constituent interrogatives as well as the range of interrogative words allowed in exclamatives.
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9.6 Exercises Basic level 1. In English, as we have seen, exclamations can piggyback on a diverse set of syntactic structures. The examples below again illustrate this diversity. i. Boy, this car is fast! ii. Wow, is this a fast car! iii. This is such a fast car! iv. What a fast car this is! v. This car is so fast! vi. How fast this car is! vii. That a car could be so fast! Analyse these examples syntactically. Which clause types do they represent? 2. Choose any other language than English and write down all exclamative clauses you can think of for the sentence ‘This car is fast’. What differences and similarities do you notice with respect to the sentences in exercise above? 3. In your own words, explain the concept of ‘factivity’ and name at least five factive and five non-factive verbs.
Intermediate level 1. Exclamations can be described as expressive speech acts in the typology developed in Searle (). a. Carry out a close reading of Searle () paying particular attention to the parameters discussed to distinguish classes of speech acts. b. Draw up a table on a landscape sheet of paper and try to correlate speech act classes (representatives etc.) with the parameters necessary to identify them (illocutionary point etc.). c. In which ways do expressives differ from the other speech act classes? Explain the resulting system to your fellow students. 2. Even though exclamations can be expressed by diverse syntactic structures and several clause types, imperatives are not among them. An exclamation like How often you clean your windows! cannot be expressed using an imperative structure: Clean your windows often. Can you explain why this is not possible?
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9. 6 E X E R C I S E S
3. We have seen that it is possible to motivate an exclamative clause type in English using structural arguments like word order and restrictions on the question words permitted. We have also seen that this clause type does not figure prominently in usage data, exclamatives typically occurring in reduced non-sentential form. We may say that English here offers a structural option that is little exploited in usage. In an essay of about 1,000 words, discuss the relationship between grammar and usage, also referred to as ‘langue’ vs ‘parole’. Is it at all plausible to draw this distinction? Try to identify additional domains of language that show discrepancies between grammar and usage. You may consult Newmeyer (2003) for inspiration. Advanced level 1. In our discussion of English exclamative constructions, we briefly considered specimens of the type listed below. In this project, I would like you to investigate these constructions using the online version of the BNC (http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc). i. The people he invites! ii. The books he reads! iii. The places he travels to! iv. The times he rings me! v. The reasons he invents for not coming! a. Take a look at the BNC online interface and familiarize yourself with it. b. Using the online search facilities, look for clause-initial plural NPs followed by a pronoun. You need to post-edit the results manually. c. Analyse the BNC examples according to the nouns, pronouns, and verbs that occur in it. d. Interpret your results. 2. Cross-linguistically, exclamative constructions can be regarded as an underexplored area. The aim of this task is to work towards a more complete typology of such constructions. a. Try to find fellow students with diverse language backgrounds representing about twenty languages. In the ideal case, these languages should come from different families. The Ethnologue website offers detailed information about the world’s languages and their genetic relationship (https://www. ethnologue.com). b. To keep things manageable, we will here concentrate on exclamative constructions that are formally related to constituent interrogatives. You should investigate the following questions: does language L offer exclamative constructions related to constituent interrogatives? If yes, are such
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exclamative constructions syntactically or morphologically differentiated from constituent interrogatives? Which interrogative words can appear in such exclamative constructions? 3. Reduced exclamative clauses or interrogative degree modification (What a shame!; How deplorable!) represent a special case of intensification (terribly complicated). In a research paper of approximately , words, explore the more general domain of intensification and the position of interrogative degree modification within it. You can commence your research by reading König () and Siemund (a).
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10 Minor clause types
. Form types
. Functions of minor clause types
. Insubordination
. A cross-linguistic view on minor clause types
. Summary
. Topics for further research
. Exercises
Above and beyond the clause types discussed so far, there is a great array of additional clauses or clause-like structures that need to be considered in our survey of clause types and speech acts. These are frequently referred to as ‘minor clause types’, thus distinguishing them from the major types of declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamative (see Chapter ). The distinction between major and minor clause types is by no means categorical, as the what/howexclamatives examined in the previous chapter form a type that straddles the line between the two—here treated in tandem with the major types. The category of ‘minor clause types’ serves as a cover term for a rather heterogeneous set of constructions that appear to comprise essentially four general types, perhaps more. First, there is a set of finite and non-finite types introduced by various wh-forms (how come . . . ; what if . . . ; why don’t you . . . ; how about . . . ; etc.). Second, we can identify a group of minor clause types involving a modal verb (may, would, let). Third, there is a substantial and highly interesting class of finite and non-finite subordinate clauses (e.g. if only . . . ). And, fourth, we also find some formulae and interjections that deserve being considered, too.
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MINOR CLAUSE TYPES
The reason why this mixed bag of constructions merits scrutiny here is that the relevant form types are clauses—or at least clause-like structures—that are associated with rather specific illocutionary forces. In view of the great range of form types, we would also expect a highly diverse set of functions, but curiously enough, this is not the case. Rather, these minor clause types mainly convey directive and expressive speech acts, albeit of very specific kinds. A sizeable portion—though clearly not all—of the minor clause types discussed here can be analysed as what Evans () refers to as ‘insubordination’, namely the conventionalized use as main clauses of what structurally, and perhaps also historically, needs to be considered subordinate clauses. This is a process of reanalysis—or perhaps degrammaticalization— that clearly has relevance beyond the analysis of English. We will here discuss many similar cases taken from other languages, encountering striking structural and functional similarities on our way. Another path to minor clause types appears to lie in the conventionalization of specific exemplars of the major types, as, for instance, the association of certain constituent interrogatives with highly specific forces (e.g. why don’t you . . . ). These are more difficult to pin down, since they only possess very few structural properties that distinguish them from the major clause types.
10.1 Form types Minor clause types surface at different places in the literature, but there is no coherent article or monograph dedicated to their analysis in English, not to mention other languages. I will here try to develop a taxonomy of the clause types that can be considered minor in English, largely based on information culled from reference grammars (Quirk et al. ; Huddleston and Pullum ) and general surveys of clause types (Sadock and Zwicky ; König and Siemund , ). 10.1.1 Minor clause types introduced by wh-forms The first set of minor clause types identified here is introduced by an interrogative word followed by either declarative or interrogative syntax. What makes them ‘minor’ is that some examples contain rather
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10 . 1 F O R M T Y P E S
special interrogative words and that they express highly specific illocutionary forces. For example, the how come-clauses in () request the addressee to provide an explanation, but unlike why-interrogatives they also express surprise about the proposition stated.1 The word order is that of declarative clauses, not interrogatives. We could regard how come-clauses as another type of special declarative question besides the rising declaratives discussed in Chapter . In historical terms, such examples seem to be analysable as cases of ellipsis (How did it come about . . . ; How does it come about . . . ). The construction is relatively young, dating back to the nineteenth century. The first attestation cited in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) stems from . () a. How come you are late? b. How come there’s no money left? A similar case of ellipsis is reconstructable for the what if-clauses shown in example (), apparently traceable to what happens if . . . , first attested in according to the OED. Syntactically, these are declarative clauses. They request an explanation regarding the consequences of a conditional hypothesis. Since they are fully conventionalized, they are here considered as a minor clause type. ()
a. What if my vehicle is stolen? b. What if she sees us?
The why don’t you-clauses shown in example (), by contrast, are syntactically interrogative. Nevertheless, they represent a distinct clause type, since they portray a negation pattern that is different from normal interrogative clauses. Negation involves do-periphrasis even in the context of the verb be, as shown in (c)—much as in imperatives. Moreover, this pattern is only grammatical with second person pronouns, as evidenced by the less grammatical cases in (). As for their function, why don’t you-clauses express suggestions, instructions, or critical advice.2 1 Fillmore and Kay (: ) say that the proposition expressed by how come-questions is portrayed as ‘incongruous’ with certain background assumptions, thereby triggering surprise. 2 Used with non-second person pronouns, this minor clause type expresses information questions and no suggestions: Why don’t they see a doctor? Hence, it shows strong formal overlap with ordinary constituent interrogatives. Notice that the use of a past tense verb changes their force from advice to reproach: Why didn’t you revise this paper?
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MINOR CLAUSE TYPES
()
a. Why don’t you revise this paper? b. Why don’t you see a doctor? c. Why don’t you be more careful? (vs Why aren’t you more careful?)
()
a. ??Why don’t we be more careful? b. *Why doesn’t she be more careful? (vs Why isn’t she more careful?) c. *Why don’t they be more careful? (vs Why aren’t they more careful?)
The above examples are indicative of processes of conventionalization. Similar considerations apply to the cases shown in (), already briefly touched upon in Chapter . Here, too, we can witness an increased bonding of lexicogrammatical patterns (constructions) with specific illocutionary forces, even though the underlying syntax is clearly interrogative. ()
a. What’s my smartphone doing in your pocket? (complaint) b. Who do you think you are? (reprimand) c. What are you doing here? (surprise)
Another class of minor wh-clauses is illustrated in example (). These serve as instructions, typically found in headlines and on billboards. We may view these as covertly introduced by a phrase like This explains . . . , followed by the respective minor clause. Such wh-clauses appear restricted to second person pronouns, and if they are used with nonsecond person pronouns, they still address the hearer. This is how I understand the examples in (). ()
a. How you can make a fortune. b. When you should see a doctor. c. Why you should eat more fish.
() a. When she should see a doctor. (meaning ‘you as a woman’) b. When they should see a doctor. (meaning ‘your children’) The finite clauses seen in () also have non-finite counterparts (toinfinitives), as shown in example (). We can also view them as elliptical clauses introduced by some covert main clause containing an explain-type verb. They are likely to serve as instructions. The implied subject is of the second person or generic one. By contrast,
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the examples in () are more likely to be construed with first person subjects, requesting an explanation. ()
a. Who to phone after office hours. b. What to do after midnight.
()
a. But what to say to Andrew after the show? b. But what to eat in this shabby place?
Staying with non-finite minor wh-clauses, there are also structures conventionally associated with the force of suggestions (Quirk et al. : ; Sadock and Zwicky : ; Davies : ). These include cases introduced by how about or what about followed by a deverbal noun (gerund). This is shown in example (). In addition, such minor wh-clauses may involve bare infinitives, as in example (). ()
a. How about getting me a beer? b. What about buying a new lamp for the living room table?
()
a. Why spend your money on such trash? b. Why not resign? c. Why make so much fuss?
Finally, we also find verbless cases, as in (). Again, these may be analysed as conventionalized cases of ellipsis. In the present chapter, I will mainly focus on the subordinate specimens given in examples (), (), and (), largely ignoring the other minor wh-clause types. This restriction finds an explanation in the fact that the main explanatory concept discussed here is insubordination in the sense of Evans (). ()
a. How about another kiss? b. What about sushi?
10.1.2 Minor clause types introduced by modal verbs There are at least three minor clause types in English that involve a modal verb, especially would, may, and let. The first two of these are central modals, whereas let needs to be considered a marginal modal. Example () presents minor clause types with would. These express wishes and are dealt with in some in degree in Allan (: –). Sentences like those in () clearly sound somewhat archaic, the original desire meaning (‘want’) of will/would being fully transparent.
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MINOR CLAUSE TYPES
Example () illustrates this use with a quote from Early Modern English, preserved in phrases like I would rather/sooner. The past tense form of will is used in modal function in Present-day English. () a. Would that I were rich. b. Would that it had never happened. () I am not mad, I would to heauen I were. (Shakespeare, King John, . . ) The modal verb may is used in highly formulaic constructions expressing wishes and blessings. Consider the examples in (). In terms of their synchronic syntax, these look like interrogative clauses (inversion of subject and verb), though they are clearly not used as questions. The OED relates these optatives to subordinate clauses in historical terms, as illustrated in example (). ()
a. May the best man win! b. May you always be happy! c. May she be blessed with many children.
() I hope that the book may be of service to many students. ➔ May the book be of service to many students. We already explored the let-construction provided in example () in Chapter on imperatives, there discussing whether it should be included in the category of the imperative. We decided to treat it as a category different from, though related to the imperative, since we restricted the use of the term ‘imperative’ to second person directives. Like imperatives, the let-construction has verb-initial syntax, no overt subject by default, and shows a similar distribution under negation (Don’t let us tour the island) and in the presence of overt subjects (Don’t anyone let them sing). However, it is incompatible with second person pronouns (*Don’t you let them sing) and expresses exhortations, which are directives different from the requests and commands typically associated with imperatives. Therefore, it may be included in the group of minor clause types.3 () a. Let’s tour the island. b. Let me call the airline to enquire about delays. 3
Notice that the examples in () do not seek permission from the addressee, as in Let me leave.
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10.1.3 Finite subordinate clauses The next class of minor clause types considered here concerns finite subordinate clauses, especially those not introduced by interrogative words, but by subordinators like that and if. Example () provides some cases with that in combination with the modal verbs should and could. These express disapproval and regret, respectively. Notice that these formally marked subordinate clauses are used as independent main clauses. The elided main clause can often be contextually recovered (It is unbelievable . . . ). ()
a. That he should have left without asking me! b. That you could ever want to marry such a man!
Similar observations can be made with the subordinators if, if only, and supposing, as in example (). Such conditional clauses are regularly followed or preceded by a main clause, but here they are used on their own, like independent main clauses. They convey exclamatory wishes (a), directives (b), or are used to ask for clarification (c). ()
a. If only I’d listened to my parents. b. If you’d like to move your head a little. c. Supposing something unexpected happens.
For the following examples in (), it appears more difficult to reconstruct the elided main clauses.4 These look like fixed constructions, conventionally used to express surprise. They seem to occur in negative form only. Since the if-clauses are formally subordinate, such examples furnish another case of subordinate clauses used as independent main clauses. We will also regard them as minor clause types. () a. Well, if this isn’t the manager himself. b. If this isn’t cute. We may also place optative subjunctives of the type shown in example (a) in the current group. Here, the verb does not agree with the subject. They express wishes and can be viewed as originating in sentences like (b). 4
I could imagine some nonsense main clauses, as in: If this isn’t cute, I don’t want to be called Peter any longer.
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() a. God save the Queen! b. I wish that God save the Queen. 10.1.4 Non-finite subordinate clauses There are also non-finite subordinate clauses used as independent main clauses. Some examples of to-infinitives used in this way are provided in (). They generally express disapproval and surprise. Again, the elided main clause can usually be contextually recovered (e.g. It is impossible . . . ). () a. To think that she should be so mean! b. You fool, to forget your wedding anniversary! c. That brother of yours, to be so uncouth! 10.1.5 Incredulity response constructions Some ostensible minor clause types cannot be assigned to any of the previously identified types and need to be considered as something sui generis. Consider the examples in () and (), discussed in Davies (: , –) and widely referred to as ‘Mad Magazine sentences’. () a. Sarah do a thing like that? Never! b. Bring down the government—that’s what they are trying to do. () a. Me do a thing like that? Never! b. John be rude to a friend? That’s certainly not like him. c. John know a girl like that? I can’t believe it. They contain a base form of the verb and require some kind of adversative context, introducing a proposition that is rejected in a second step. Bolinger (: ) sees important parallels between such structures and imperatives, an analysis further pursued in Akmajian ()—though rejected by Lambrecht (: ), who argues that the clauses in () and () quote a proposition from the previous context, marking it as incredulous. I here follow Lambrecht’s argumentation and consider such syntactic objects as constructions in their own right. It may be a bit too far-fetched to subsume them under clause types, even minor ones. The problem is that they can occur without predicate and its constituent elements can be shifted around (as
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observed by Lambrecht : , )—here shown in example (). Hence, they are best viewed as based on a construction sui generis. () a. Larry a doctor?! What a laugh. / Mary in the army?! It can’t be. b. What, worry, me?! / What, me worry?! 10.1.6 Formulae Some fixed phrases are couched in clausal structures and may thus be subsumed under minor clause types. Take a look at the examples in (). Since such fixed phrases are completely unproductive, however, we will exclude them from our discussion. () a. b. c. d. e.
How do you do? Pleased to meet you. Wish you were here. See you later. Have a good one.
10.2 Functions of minor clause types Given the great range of syntactic structures populating the domain of minor clause types, one would expect an equally great range of functional differentiation. This is conspicuously not the case, with essentially two speech act classes being conveyed by the minor clause types surveyed in the previous section. These comprise specific types of directives and expressives, using Searle’s () terminology. By comparison, minor clause types—at least in English—do not seem to encode representative speech acts, commissives, or declarations, unless we want to subsume highly formulaic uses of declarative clauses, as in example (), under minor clause types. But this would certainly overstretch the idea of minor clause types. () I hereby pronounce you husband and wife. Let us consider directive speech acts first. Table . provides a summary of the directive speech acts expressed by the minor clause types seen in the preceding section. As you can see, these are subtypes of directives, namely suggestions, requests for explanations, instructions, and wishes. The latter also contain an expressive component qua
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Table 10.1 Directive speech acts as expressed by minor clause types Making suggestions Requesting explanations
Giving instructions Wishes
why don’t you . . .
how come . . .
why you should . . .
may . . .
how about . . .
what if . . .
when to . . .
would that . . .
why not . . .
God save the Queen.
revealing some psychological state, but we here view them first and foremost as requests to some (abstract) third person (e.g. God). By and large, the minor clause types expressing directive speech acts are those introduced by interrogative words. Since directives are inherently face-threatening, it appears to make sense to find additional formal differentiation in this domain. Suggestions are polite requests intended to influence the behaviour and the actions of the addressee in one way or another. I find it plausible to consider these constructions as resulting from functional pressure to soften request force. Requests to provide explanations equally possess considerable face-threatening potential, even though it is here less obvious how the minor types help to mitigate face threat. For example, what distinguishes how come-questions from why-questions is their expressive component, and nothing that could be related to politeness. The rationale behind the minor clause types giving instructions seems to be that they are typically used in contexts in which the main clause expressing the instruction can be dropped, such as, for example, headlines in brochures and on billboards (This explains how to behave properly ➔ How to behave properly). The wishes in Table . rest on highly formulaic patterns and are probably best viewed as historical relics passed on through specific conditions of use. The other class of speech acts conveyed by minor clause types are expressives in the terminology of Searle (), used for the manifestation of psychological states of the speaker. The most common examples appear to be expressions of surprise and disbelief, coloured with notions of regret, disapproval, dissatisfaction, and the like. Most of the examples discussed in the literature illustrate negative connotations, but it is possible to construct examples expressing admiration, esteem, or generally positive surprise, as in (). On the whole,
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however, negatively coloured examples seem to outnumber positive ones, but this claim needs empirical testing. () a. That he should be so bright. Amazing! b. To climb this mountain. What a deed. We can summarize that English minor clause types provide more evidence of formal rather than functional differentiation. Adopting a functionalist perspective, formal differentiation is driven by a demand for more expressive power in the domains of directive and expressive speech acts. To a certain extent, this increased demand for expressive power can be motivated by a desire to reduce face threats, but this explanatory model does not go much beyond the speech acts of suggestions as expressed by various minor clause types introduced by interrogative words. I am currently not aware of any model that would help to motivate the relative abundance of expressively used minor clause types.
10.3 Insubordination It is quite obvious from the preceding overview that many, if not most, of the so-called minor clause types represent subordinate clauses in structural terms that, however, are employed as independent main clause. This is an interesting phenomenon—referred to as ‘insubordination’ by Evans (), since a specific form type (i.e. subordinate clauses) comes to be used in an atypical function (i.e. as superordinate clauses). Apparently, speakers coerce an existing form type into a new functional domain.5 Taken as such, this is nothing unusual and can be observed in other grammatical domains as well. For example, the adverb then in (a) and the preposition up in (b) are used as adjective and verb, respectively. () a. Yesterday we met the then president. b. The government decided to up the prices. But even though these category shifts are quite widespread in language and clearly say something important about our cognitive flexibility and creativity, they also pose important challenges, especially for theories of This is also known as ‘exaptation’ (see Lass ), which is a term borrowed from biology that contrasts with ‘adaptation’. 5
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language that by virtue of being theories need and want to postulate certain restrictions on the logically conceivable universe. For these, as we will see below, conventionalized main clause uses of subordinate clauses—or insubordinated clauses for short—present rather challenging empirical observations. 10.3.1 Between langue and parole Evans (: ) states that insubordination lies at the ‘uncomfortable boundary between langue and parole, where it is not always clear when grammar has emerged from discourse’. It is often quite unclear if the insubordinated clauses represent conventionalized main clauses in their own right or merely subordinate clauses whose corresponding main clause was elided as a consequence of some discourse strategic move. This uncertainty motivates their categorization as minor clause types. It has also sparked an extensive theoretical debate (Mithun ; Verstraete et al. ; D’Hertefeld and Verstraete ; Van linden and Van de Velde ; Sansiñena et al. ). If insubordination comes full circle, the result would be a new independent main clause. The main steps in this diachronic development from subordinate to main clauses are shown in Figure .. The crucial step in this trajectory is the conventionalization of the elliptical uses of the subordinate clauses. Conventionalization here means that certain conditions of use become obligatorily associated with the independent (i.e. main clause) use of a subordinate clause. Let us consider an illustrative example. The sentence in () is a classical juxtaposition of superordinate and subordinate clause, the latter being introduced by the subordinator that. Example () shows the subordinate clause in independent main clause usage, as introduced in Section ... () I am amazed that she would say such things. () That she would say such things! Interestingly enough, the insubordinated clause obeys special conditions of use, as it is typically used to express surprise or disbelief. This is illustrated in example (), where the continuation verbalizing the Subordination
Ellipsis
Conventionalized ellipsis
Reanalysis as main clause
Figure 10.1 Four steps in the formation of insubordinated clauses (Evans : )
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disbelief is contextually fully appropriate. If we turn this continuation from expressing disbelief to expressing anticipation, it becomes less appropriate. Example () highlights this fact. But what this effectively means is that the meaning component of surprise has been read into the insubordinated clause. () That she would say such things! I did not expect this at all. () That she would say such things!?? This is exactly what I expected. Accordingly, the newly established minor clause type is associated with the expression of surprise, i.e. the expression of a particular psychological state of the speaker. The step of conventionalization is crucial to distinguish insubordination from regular cases of ellipsis. For instance, speaker B in example () answers by using an isolated subordinate clause, but there is no constructional meaning associated with this subordinate clause above and beyond its compositional meaning. () A: Why don’t you want to come to my party?—B: Because I will be out of town. 10.3.2 Degrammaticalization and reanalysis If insubordination is a diachronic process producing new main clause types from subordinate clauses, it represents a rather troublesome phenomenon for grammaticalization theory (see Evans : –). We introduced and briefly discussed this framework in Chapter . In a nutshell, it attempts to model diachronic processes leading from less grammatical to more grammatical phenomena, the textbook case being certain lexical items (like the verb go) grammaticalizing into exponents of grammatical categories (e.g. go as a future tense marker). An important assumption widely held in grammaticalization theory is that the process as such is unidirectional and irreversible (Heine et al. : –). In other words, it is ruled out that grammatical exponents develop into lexical items (e.g. future tense markers into motion verbs) or that some structure possessing a high degree of grammaticity—meaning that the relationship between form and function is highly opaque and intransparent—loses grammaticity and becomes more transparent. For example, in grammaticalization theory we do not expect fusional morphology to develop into agglutinating morphology, whereas the opposite process would be predicted.
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There are good reasons to believe that subordinate clauses possess a higher degree of grammaticity than superordinate clauses. After all, they are syntactically dependent on a superordinate clause and cannot occur on their own (modulo insubordination). Subordination or hypotaxis ranks higher on a scale of grammaticity than coordination or parataxis. Moreover, the elements introducing subordinate clauses, i.e. the subordinators, possess a highly abstract function—namely to mark subordination—and are typically recruited from less grammaticalized items. For example, in the West African language Ewe, the form bé does double duty as verb of saying and subordinator. Apparently, the verb ‘say’ grammaticalized into a subordinator. Consider the contrast between () and (). As a concomitant development, the second clause becomes overtly marked as being dependent on the first clause. () Ewe (Hopper and Traugott : , from Lord ) Me-bé me-wɔ-e. I-say I-do-it ‘I said I did it.’ or ‘I said that I did it.’ () Ewe (Hopper and Traugott : , from Lord ) Me-gblɔ bé me-wɔ-e. I-say say I-do-it ‘I said that I did it.’ English subordinate clauses are introduced by the subordinator that, which itself can be traced back to a demonstrative pronoun in diachronic terms. As a matter of fact, the subordinator is still formally identical with the demonstrative pronoun that, even though its function is quite different. The crucial historical step in this grammaticalization process is assumed to be that from example (a) to (b), here illustrated on the basis of Present-day English. In (a), the demonstrative pronoun functions as the direct object of the verb tell pointing forward to the proposition encoded by the subsequent clause, whereas in (b) the entire clause that he cannot come must be analysed as the direct object. Here, that functions as a subordinator. () a. He told me that: He cannot come. b. He told me that he cannot come. In historical records of English, there is clear evidence for the validity of this reconstruction. Consider the Old English example in (). The first
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occurrence of þæt can be analysed as an object pronoun pointing forward to the following subordinate clause, whereas its second occurrence has the subordinating function. The third þæt is a regular prenominal demonstrative. Hopper and Traugott (: –) argue that the subordinating uses of þæt first simply copied the preceding object pronoun before adopting the true subordinating function. () Old English, Orosius .. (Hopper and Traugott : ) Þæt gefremede Diulius hiora consul, that arranged Diuius their consul þæt þæt angina wearð tidlice þurhtogen. that that beginning was in.time achieved ‘Their consul arranged (it) that it was started on time.’ The development from demonstrative pronoun to subordinator is even more transparent in the example from Middle High German in () that is completely parallel to the constructed English example in (). () Middle High German (Harris and Campbell : , cited in Diessel : ) joh gizalta in sâr thaȝ, thiu sâlida untar and told them immediately that the luck among in uuas them was ‘And he told them immediately that good fortune was among them.’ As a final piece of evidence, take note of example (), again drawn from Old English. Here, the verb and the subordinator þæt are not juxtaposed but there is a conditional clause intervening between the two. This shows that the bonding between verb and subordinating þæt in Old English was less tight than in Present-day English where such insertions would be disfavoured and the conditional would be placed inside the subordinate clause. () Old English, ÆCHomI . (Hopper and Traugott : ) . . . þohte gif he hi ealle ofsloge, þæt se thought if he them all slew.SUBJ that that an ne aetburste þe he sohte. one not escape.SUBJ that he sought ‘ . . . thought that if he slew them all, the one he sought would not escape’.
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The above brief excursion into the history of English should have convinced you that subordinate clauses possess a higher degree of grammaticity than superordinate clauses and that the latter can plausibly be analysed as the result of a grammaticalization process. Besides grammaticalization, there is a step of structural reanalysis involved when the demonstrative pronoun in object function comes to be interpreted as introducing the subordinate clause. I mention this for the sake of completeness, since there is some discussion in the literature about the interrelationship between grammaticalization and reanalysis (see Haspelmath for details). Now, going back to the assumption about the unidirectionality and irreversibility of grammaticalization processes introduced at the beginning of this section, it should be obvious why insubordination presents a great challenge. If subordinate clauses (i.e. highly grammaticalized entities) develop into main clauses (i.e. less grammaticalized entities), the alleged unidirectional path of grammaticalization is reversed. It is very important to bear in mind at this point that insubordination does not merely represent the elliptical use of subordinate clauses. Such phenomena, which undoubtedly exist, are completely irrelevant for the issues of grammaticalization and degrammaticalization introduced above. The crucial observation is that some elliptical uses of subordinate clause become conventionalized and associated with distinct illocutionary forces. What seems to be happening is that (part of) the meaning of the elided matrix predicate is read into the subordinate clause and over time becomes associated with it. Put differently, the overall meaning of examples like (a) gets condensed in (b). () a. It is unbelievable that she would react so emotionally. b. That she would react so emotionally. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the subordinator that in example (b) now bears no relation to its original demonstrative function any longer. Whereas the demonstrative function is still reconstructable in (a), the connection is completely lost in (b). The subordinator is practically meaningless after insubordination. If at all, it serves the function of signalling a minor clause type.6 6 The discussion in this section was based on finite subordinate clauses introduced by that. It remains to be seen whether and how this can be generalized to the other attested cases of insubordination.
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10.3.3 Insubordination and ellipsis On the whole, then, it seems quite plausible to analyse independently used subordinate clauses as conventionalized cases of main clause ellipsis. As explained in the previous section, this analysis implies some kind of diachronic development whereby the meaning—or part of the meaning—of the matrix predicates over time become associated with (‘read into’) the independently used subordinate clauses. If this reconstruction is correct, we would expect lower levels of main clause ellipsis at the beginning of this process and higher levels thereof at its end, i.e. there should be diachronic change regarding the observable usage patterns—in the ideal case following the S-curve well known from other instances of diachronic change (Labov : –). We would also expect a concomitant semantic change such that the meaning of the elided matrix clause becomes more strongly associated with the insubordinated specimens during the later stages of this development. Unfortunately, there are no studies documenting this hypothesized diachronic development, neither for English nor for other languages. Their presence would lend substantial credibility to the very existence of insubordination as a diachronic process. If such evidence cannot be procured, we would have to conclude that insubordinations represent ad hoc formations spontaneously arising in discourse, but this conclusion would be in conflict with the synchronic observation that at least some cases of insubordination possess constructional meanings that cannot be compositionally related to their constituent parts. Sansiñena et al. () try to approach this problem by investigating cases of ellipsis in synchronic discourse, while probing to what extent spontaneously occurring insubordinations can be related to the attested conventionalized cases. They do this on the basis of a corpus containing question–answer sequences taken from English, French, German, and Spanish. By means of illustration consider the question–answer pair in () in which speaker B uses a subordinate clause whose matrix clause is missing, though it can be easily reconstructed from speaker A’s question (It means that . . . ). No specific constructional meaning is associated with the subordinate clause used by speaker B in example (). Without any doubt, this is a regular case of ellipsis. () A: What does it mean if you’re getting white hair before ? B: That you are the next messiah. (Sansiñena et al. 2015: 5)
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The hypothesis pursued by Sansiñena et al. () is that these minimal question–answer sequences form the starting point for the development of conventionalized cases of insubordination. In order to test this hypothesis, Sansiñena et al. () analyse the functions in which the relevant answers occur that are couched in the form of subordinate clauses, conjecturing that the observable functions should strongly overlap, or even be identical, to those attested for conventionalized cases of insubordination. In other words, if question–answer sequences like () form the starting point for the grammaticalization of insubordinations, it should be precisely their functions that become associated with the grammaticalized specimens. Interestingly, their results only partially confirm their initial hypothesis. Whereas—in their question–answer pairs—they find examples of independently used subordinate clauses expressing directive speech acts, those conveying expressive speech acts are conspicuously absent. This concerns, inter alia, German and English examples of insubordination of the type shown in () and (). Sansiñena et al. () conclude that question–answer pairs are probably not the locus where such insubordinations arise. But these represent rather common types in the two languages. () German (personal knowledge) Dass die mich immer so anstarren muss. That she me always so stare.at must ‘Why does she always have to stare at me like that?’ () That their relationship should be over so quickly. There is of course the possibility that there are other contexts triggering main clause ellipsis, thus giving rise to insubordinations. In addition, we need to bear in mind that not every instance of independently used subordinate clauses represents a bona fide case of insubordination (i.e. independently used subordinate clauses with some conventionalized meaning). Consider example (). Here, the subordinate clause used in the second turn of speaker A has no conventionalized meaning attached to it, i.e. it cannot be used independently, and does not syntactically depend on a previously mentioned expression either. Rather, their dependency needs to be reconstructed from the preceding discourse. D’Hertefelt and Verstraete () call this ‘dependency shift’, meaning the relocation of dependency relations from the syntactic to the discourse level.
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() A: You can analyse such examples in different ways, namely . . . B: What do you mean? A: That you view them as insubordinations or as cases of dependency shift. The bottom line of this discussion, then, is that insubordination conceptualized in terms of conventionalized main clause ellipsis accounts for only part of the range of independently used subordinate clauses. We need to be aware of competing processes leading to structurally similar results (see Mithun for similar observations in the context of Athabaskan and Eskimoan languages). It is an open question as to what extent these are conventionalized and can be considered minor clause types.
10.4 A cross-linguistic view on minor clause types The diachronic reconstruction of insubordination remains a problem, as the previous sections have made clear. What can be taken as a fact, though, is that various subordinate clause types are conventionally used as main clauses expressing rather specific illocutionary forces. This observation even holds true from a cross-linguistic perspective, there being a fairly restricted set of devices to mark subordination. We will take a look at these devices in this section, primarily subordinate verb forms, subordinating conjunctions and complementizers, subordinating interrogative words, and subordinate word order (following Evans : –). Hence, insubordination can be identified with a good chance of success, even though it may not be fully clear what triggers it. 10.4.1 Subordinate verb forms An apt indicator of subordination are verb forms that only occur in subordinate clauses, as, for example, the subjunctive. If such verb forms are used in structurally non-embedded clauses, we can take this as a sign of insubordination. The Italian example in () illustrates this nicely. The subjunctive indicates hypothetical and mandative situations and is typically triggered by matrix verbs like ‘believe’, ‘suggest’, or ‘insist’.
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() Italian (Evans : ) Che venga domani. that come..SG.SUBJ tomorrow ‘I wish he came tomorrow.’ Although English does not possess a morphological subjunctive, we also find special verb forms used in insubordinations. Example () offers an interesting case, as a past tense verb form comes to be used for future time reference. () If only he came tomorrow. The English to-infinitive in () also represents a subordinate verb form that needs to be embedded under a matrix predicate, unless it is used as an insubordination. Possible matrix predicates include be unbelievable, be crazy, be outrageous, and the like. () To behave like that! In German, isolate infinitive constructions expressing deontic meanings (Deontische Infinitivkonstruktion; Deppermann ) of the type shown in example () can be analysed as insubordinations, resulting from the ellipsis of a superordinate deontic modal verb. Accordingly, they typically receive deontic interpretations and are functionally similar to imperatives, frequently expressing social norms. () German (personal knowledge) (Sie dürfen) Den Rasen nicht betreten. you must the lawn not walk ‘Don’t walk on the lawn.’ A similar analysis suggests itself for Italian negative imperatives of the second person singular, in which a negated form of the infinitive is regularly used: () Italian (personal knowledge) Non dormire. not sleep.INF ‘Don’t sleep.’ The above examples illustrate nicely how semantic components of the matrix predicates get read into the insubordinate constructions, thus giving rise to new (minor) clause types. They support the grammaticalization
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scenario proposed in Evans (: –), which Deppermann () also suggests for the German deontic infinitives.
10.4.2 Subordinating conjunctions and complementizers Another prominent way to identify insubordinations is the use of subordinating conjunctions (like English if) or complementizers (English that) without the requisite matrix clause on which they normally depend. Since such expressions are relatively easy to identify crosslinguistically, they form a good diagnostic of insubordination. Four examples of insubordinations introduced by ‘if ’ are provided in ()– (). They express directives, specifically suggestions and requests. () French (Evans : ) Si on allait se promen-er? if one went REFL walk-INF ‘What if we went for a walk?’ () Spanish (Schwenter : , cited in Evans : ) Context: sisters Q and R are looking at clothes in a shop window. Q: Ah, ¡mira qué chaqueta más chula! ah look what jacket INTENS great ‘Hey, look what a great jacket!’ R: Si es horrible if is horrible ‘But it’s horrible.’ () If you could be quiet, please. () Dutch (Evans : ) Hans, of je even naar Edith zou lopen. Hans, whether you just to Edith will go ‘Hans, would you just go to Edith?’ Complementizers connect subordinate clauses to the argument structure of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, saturating structural positions made available by these expressions. Some examples are provided in (). Clearly, this is a different type of subordination than the use of subordinating conjunctions, with clauses introduced by the latter expressions showing no interaction with argument structure.
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() a. The fact [that Calgary is a very sunny place]. b. John claimed [that Calgary is a very sunny place]. c. I am amazed [that Calgary is a very sunny place]. Insubordinate uses of such complement clauses—referred to as ‘complement insubordination’ in Sansiñena et al. ()—are widespread, not only in English. They are widely attested in all Germanic languages, as the following examples demonstrate. () German (personal knowledge) Dass es hier so warm werden würde. that it here so warm become would ‘That it could be so warm here.’ () Swedisch (Hans-Olav Enger) Att det här skulle vara så varmt. that it here should be so warm ‘That it could be so warm here.’ () Norwegian (Hans-Olav Enger) At jeg kunne være så dum! that I could be so stupid ‘That I could be so stupid.’ () Dutch (Jean-Christophe Verstraete) Dat het hier zo warm kan zijn. that it here so warm can be ‘That it can be so warm here.’ Similar complement insubordinations can be observed in Slavic languages, as illustrated by examples () and (). () Russian (Bernhard Brehmer) Chto kto-to mozhet byt’ nastol’ko glup. that someone could be so stupid ‘That someone could be so stupid.’ () Polish (Bernhard Brehmer) Że ktoś może być tak głupi. that someone could be so stupid ‘That someone could be so stupid.’ Finally, Spanish and French—examples () and ()—also allow the use of complement clauses as independent main clauses, making
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insubordination a pan-European phenomenon. There are important functional differences, though, as we will see in Section ... () Spanish (Sansiñena et al. : ) Ana, que va a llover. Mira el mal día Ana COMP go to rain look DET bad day que hace. COMP make ‘Ana, it’s going to rain. Look what an awful day it is.’ () French (Sansiñena et al. : ) Que Dieu nous aide! COMP God us help ‘May God help us!’ What I find interesting is that it is apparently mainly—if not exclusively—the subordinate clauses introduced by conditional conjunctions and complementizers that yield instances of insubordination. Subordinate clauses introduced by adverbial conjunctions, like the causal conjunctions because, as, and since, the concessive conjunctions although and even though, or the temporal conjunctions after and before (including their equivalents in other languages), do not seem to give rise to insubordinations. In principle, it would seem plausible for subordinate clauses introduced by causal conjunctions to be used as insubordinated main clauses expressing refusals. They could result from discourse contexts like those shown in example (). However, using the causal subordinate clause on its own for expressing refusals is ungrammatical, as is made clear by example (). In other words, here insubordination is not available, since it is apparently impossible to read the refusal expressed in the matrix clause into the subordinate clause.7 () A. Would you like to come to my birthday party? B. I’m sorry, but I cannot come because my pet python is ill. () A. Would you like to come to my birthday party? B. *Because my pet python is ill. The temporal conjunctions after and before offer a more tricky case, since they can be found in what structurally looks like an insubordination. 7 Oppenrieder (: –) argues that adverbial conjunctions require two clausal arguments. Therefore, the expression of the matrix clause is indispensable. This explanation, however, would also rule out insubordinated if-clauses.
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Compare the minimal turns in examples () and (). Here, speaker B utters a promise and the isolated subordinate clause in () can be understood in precisely this way. However, as soon as it is taken out of this particular context, the commissive reading disappears, meaning that this is not a case of conventionalized insubordination. () A. Could you please tidy up your room? B. I will do so after I’ve had breakfast. () A. Could you please tidy up your room? B. After I’ve had breakfast. These facts are difficult to explain, as there seems to be no ipso facto reason why causal, concessive, and temporal conjunctions cannot give rise to insubordinations. Since I cannot offer an explanation at this point, let us now proceed to interrogative words in our discussion. 10.4.3 Subordinating interrogative words The subordinate clauses introduced by conditional subordinating conjunctions can be analysed as declarative clauses in syntactic terms. We can refer to them as ‘embedded declaratives’. In English, embedded declarative clauses have the same word order as main clauses of the same type. Other languages can be quite different in this respect (see Section ..). Another type of subordinate clause featuring in insubordinations concerns embedded interrogatives. These are introduced by interrogative words and can be finite or non-finite, as shown in example (). () a. Who to contact in case of emergency. (non-finite) b. Why you should eat more fish. (finite) Again, such insubordinated uses of embedded interrogatives are widely attested in European languages, as the examples in ()–() illustrate. They can probably also be found in non-European languages, but the current data situation is such that I cannot offer convincing examples demonstrating this. Moreover, there seem to be subtle usage differences, even in closely related languages. While the Swedish non-finite insubordinations in () are perfectly natural, the corresponding formulations in Norwegian are judged as somewhat unacceptable (Hans-Olav Enger, personal communication). On a similar note, Letizia Vezzosi judges the non-finite subordinate clause in (a) as
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perfectly acceptable, but takes issue with the finite example in (b), even though other speakers accept it. () Swedish (Hans-Olav Enger) a. Vad göra? ‘What (to) do?’ (non-finite) b. Vem kontakta? ‘Who to contact?’ (non-finite) () Norwegian (Bokmål, Hans-Olav Enger) Hvorfor du b r spise mer fisk. (finite) why you should eat more fish ‘Why you should eat more fish.’ () Italian (Letizia Vezzosi) a. Chi contattare in caso di emergenza. (non-finite) who contact.INF in case of emergency ‘Who to contact in case of emergency.’ b. Perché dovresti mangiare più pesce. (finite) why shall..SG.PRES.COND eat.INF more fish ‘Why you should eat more fish.’ English exclamative clauses, as discussed in detail in Chapter , can be subsumed under insubordinations introduced by interrogative words, too (see König and Siemund : –).8 They are found with only two interrogative words, namely what and how, as exemplified again in (). () a. What beautiful books she has. b. How sunny this place is. In principle, we can analyse such exclamative clauses as insubordinations from either embedded exclamatives or embedded interrogatives, since these are structurally identical (see Chapter ). Consider the pairs of examples in () and (). The set in () is introduced by a matrix predicate expressing surprise, thus triggering the exclamative interpretation. By contrast, the embedded clauses in () are subordinate to a non-factive predicate that inhibits the exclamative reading and induces an interrogative interpretation. () a. [It’s amazing] What beautiful books she has. b. [It’s amazing] How sunny this place is. 8 Ekkehard König proposed an analysis of what/how-exclamatives in terms of Evan’s () concept of ‘insubordination’ at the conference Sentence Types, Sentence Moods, and Illocutionary Forces (ZAS Berlin, – November ).
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() a. [I don’t know] What beautiful books she has. b. [I don’t know] How sunny this place is. 10.4.4 Subordinate word order A few languages manifest a word order pattern in subordinate clauses that is distinct from that found in main clauses. In such languages, specimens of insubordination become easily identifiable by virtue of their word order, as in the German example in (). () German (personal knowledge) Ob Du bitte mal herkommen könntest? if you please PRT come.here could ‘Could you please come over?’ German has verb second order in main clauses with finite verb forms appearing in the second structural position of a clause and non-finite verb forms being placed at its right periphery. In German subordinate clauses, both non-finite and finite verb forms occur at the right edge of the clause, the finite verb form positioned last—as in example (). This syntactic constellation is distinctly different from the main clause pattern in (). () German (personal knowledge) Du kannst herkommen. you can come.here ‘You can come here.’ Verb-final order in subordinate clauses—as well as verb-second order in main clauses—is also found in Dutch, but this rather specific word order pattern is highly marginal cross-linguistically. 10.4.5 Functions of insubordination In principle, insubordinations could be expected to be found expressing all speech act classes in the sense of Searle (), but in reality—as already mentioned above—they mainly express directive and expressive speech acts, especially suggestions and mild requests in the class of directives and exclamations in the class of expressives. Hence, insubordination—viewed as a prominent process producing minor
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clause types—connects to the same functions as minor clause types in general. They are apparently not used to convey representatives, commissives, or declarations. I say ‘apparently’, because ongoing research on insubordination may lead to the discovery of new functions. The prominence of directives and exclamations in the functional range of insubordinations was already noted by Evans (: ), who identifies the expression of ‘interpersonal coercion’ and ‘modal framing’ as among the main functions of insubordination. As far as English is concerned, the coercive or directive function is best visible with insubordinated interrogatives and conditionals, as in example (). () a. When you should definitely stop smoking. b. If students could now please return to their seats. By contrast, the expressive function, which is subsumed under ‘modal framing’ in Evans (: ), is chiefly conveyed by complement insubordination. Example () provides some more illustration of this. () That there would be so many students around in summer! What is noteworthy is that these two functional domains or speech act classes also figure prominently with insubordinations in other languages. In other words, there seem to be cognitive principles working behind insubordination—and perhaps minor clause types in general— that restrict it (them) to these speech act classes to the exclusion of others. For example, in Latin, as shown in (), subjunctive verbs can be used without a subordinating matrix clause expressing directive speech acts, among others (‘Latin independent subjunctive’). () Latin (Evans : ) a. Imper-o / vol-o ut ven-ias. order-.SG want..SG that come-SUBJ..SG ‘I order/I want you to come.’ b. Ven-ias. come-SUBJ..SG ‘Come!/May you come!’ We discussed several examples of expressively used cases of complement insubordination in Section ... The relevant specimens came from diverse languages. Again, the example from German in () may help to contextualize the phenomenon.
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() German (personal knowledge) Dass die überhaupt keine Interessen hat! that she at.all none interest has ‘That she should have no interests at all!’ Interestingly, independently used complement clauses also occur in functions that go beyond the directive and expressive functions discussed so far, although the latter apparently are the more prominent ones. These comprise various discourse functions such as, for instance, clarifying the relationship between different utterances. Example () illustrates this for English, even though this seems to be a highly marginal function of such clauses in English. Here, the function of the independent complement clause in the final turn consists in specifying the parents’ rights, i.e. it explicates something previously said. In the literature (Verstraete et al. ; Sansiñena et al. ), such uses of complement clauses have been analysed as insubordinations in the sense of Evans (), though it is not fully clear whether the observable discourse functions are conventionally associated with them. D’Hertefel and Verstraete () offer an alternative interpretation in terms of dependency shift, as outlined in Section ... () A: The governor’s thing is coming about quite useful tonight because we’ve been talking about the law as regards governors and parents’ rights and what you’re supposed to ask parents B: Parents’ what? (pause) A: Parents’ rights, yeah. B: Not such a thing as parents’ rights is there? A: That the parents are allowed to, to actually opt their children out of certain things. But they can only do that if they’re actually away that they, they are aw—(pause) that they can actually do it. (British National Corpus; Sansiñena et al. 2015: 16) Dutch (and German) allow similar discourse uses of independent complement clauses, as example () demonstrates. Again, the speaker clarifies and comments on his previous turn. These discourse uses convey neither directive nor expressive speech acts, but I hesitate to classify them as representative speech acts, since they relate to something previously said and do not assert a fact or a belief of the speaker (see Chapters and ).
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() Dutch (Verstraete et al. : ) A: En in één keer gaat dat vliegtuig een vaart maken om de lucht in te komen. Nou ik denk wat gebeurt hier. Net een hele snelle lift he. B: ggg. Ja. A: Dat je zo omhoog gaat. CONJ you DEM up go.PRES ‘A: And all at once the plane speeds up to get into the air. I thought, what’s going on here. Just like a very fast elevator isn’t it. B: Yes. A: When you go up like that.’ Practically nothing is known about the availability of insubordination in different languages, their functions, as well as their distributions. Since grammar books typically do not recognize insubordination as a distinct grammatical phenomenon, we mainly have to make do with cursory observations, as provided in the current chapter. More systematic data are urgently required. Some brief comments concerning the usage of complement insubordination in some European languages are offered in Sansiñena et al. (: –). Apparently, it is quite frequent in Spanish, including its occurrence in various discourse functions, but rather marginal in French. Moreover, it is widely attested in German, Dutch, and Swedish (D’Hertefelt and Verstraete ; Van linden and Van de Velde ). English complement insubordination seems by and large restricted to expressive uses. And, of course, the problem remains whether everything that looks like an insubordination strictly speaking is an insubordination, or whether certain independently used subordinate clauses masquerade different phenomena.
10.5 Summary We embarked on our survey of minor clause types by developing a taxonomy of clauses and clause-like constructions that can be considered ‘minor’ in the sense that their structural characteristics involve features other than those identifying the major clause types and that often can be structurally related to one of the major types (see Chapter ). We essentially distinguished three groups of minor clause types, namely those introduced by an interrogative word, those obligatorily containing a modal verb, and a host of clauses that need to be
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analysed as subordinate syntactically. The modalized form types by and large represent historical relics now mainly used as frozen formulae. The minor clause types introduced by interrogative words either involve special form types of interrogative words (e.g. how come) or conventionalized specimens of what otherwise look like regular interrogative clauses. The by far most interesting and challenging group of minor clause types is that involving subordinate clauses, since these can be viewed as syntactically dependent structures promoted to independent main clause use. Moreover, this so-called process of ‘insubordination’ is a phenomenon found across many languages and not just English. Insubordination, as we argued, presents tricky theoretical challenges for grammaticalization theory, as more deeply rooted grammatical structures (i.e. subordinate clauses) come to be used as less integrated grammatical structures (i.e. independent main clauses) with some conventionalized illocutionary force associated with them. This suggests some historical process from more to less grammaticalized, which is at odds with the unidirectionality claim held in grammaticalization theory, yielding more grammaticalized units from less grammaticalized ones. Apparently, insubordination involves the ellipsis of the matrix clause, while retaining (part of) the meaning of the matrix predicate in the independently used subordinate clause. It is, however, currently unclear whether everything that looks like an insubordination structurally really can be analysed as the conventionalized main clause use of what was formerly a subordinate clause, or if different processes need to be invoked to explain them. Minor clause types are also puzzling in functional terms, since they seem bound to conveying directive and expressive speech acts, showing extensive functional overlap. We asked why language offers so many alternative syntactic structures for practically doing the same thing. The availability of competing structures for conveying directive speech acts can perhaps be motivated in terms of politeness, but this needs further investigation.
10.6 Topics for further research Given their heterogeneous structures and their ambiguous grammatical status, it can come as no surprise that minor clause types generate a host of loose ends. One of the hottest issues currently debated concerns the scope of insubordination as an explanatory concept, as it is unclear how many of the observable occurrences of independently used
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subordinate clauses can be subsumed under it. The following publications offer partly contradictory answers to this question: Verstraete et al. (), D’Hertefelt and Verstraete (), Van linden and Van de Velde (), Sansiñena et al. (), and Evans and Watanabe (). Another highly under-researched area concerns the form types and functions of insubordination across languages. Here you can find ample scope for genuinely new research, as grammatical descriptions typically do not provide the relevant information. A good starting point is the volume edited by Evans and Watanabe (). As we learned in this chapter, insubordination is conceptualized as a grammaticalization process and hence as an instance of diachronic language change. The snag is that this historical reconstruction currently has the status of a hypothesis that requires empirical testing. No empirical studies are available supporting the grammaticalization scenario, which, again offers huge opportunity for genuinely novel research. We also saw that various superficially ordinary constituent interrogatives qualify as minor clause types, since they obey special usage conditions (e.g. Why don’t you . . . ?). Little is known about their usage conditions, especially as far as robust empirical generalizations are concerned. Such minor clause types offer great potential for novel corpus-based empirical work. In a similar way, the so-called ‘Mad Magazine sentences’ are not especially well researched empirically.
10.7 Exercises Basic level 1. In the following examples of complex sentences, identify the subordinate and the superordinate clause. Explicate your decisions and describe the form and function of the subordinate clauses in detail. i. Because my daughter is still asleep, I cannot leave the apartment. ii. I was quite amazed that John did not win the marathon. iii. Reading the book, I fell asleep. iv. I will not disclose my secret, even if you urge me. v. John did not know who to invite to his party. vi. I cannot work, with you making so much noise. vii. After John had left, Mary took out the cookies.
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2. Evans (: ) writes that insubordination lies at the ‘uncomfortable boundary between langue and parole’. Look up the terms ‘langue’ and ‘parole’ and try to explain why the boundary between the two categories is ‘uncomfortable’. Moreover, give reasons why insubordination is a borderline phenomenon sitting between the two. 3. Below you can find a collection of minor clause types, as we discussed them in the present chapter. For each of the examples, decide if it can be analysed as a case of insubordination or not. Motivate your decisions. i. That linguistics would be so interesting. Amazing! ii. If you could please be quiet. Thank you. iii. What’s my pen doing in your pocket? iv. To behave like that. Incredible. v. Why don’t you try a different topic? vi. How come you don’t like her? vii. Mary date John? Incredible! Intermediate level 1. What is informally known as ‘Mad Magazine sentences’ in English also finds an equivalent in German, even though the relevant syntactic structures are slightly different. The following examples provides illustration from German: fahren? Niemals! i. Ich und an den Nordpol I and to the North Pole travel never ‘Me go to the North Pole? Never!’ Lambrecht (1990) more aptly refers to these minor clauses as ‘Incredulity Response Constructions’ (IRCs), thus proposing a constructional analysis. a. Carefully read Lambrecht’s paper. b. Analyse the German and English IRCs in relation to their differences and similarities. c. What are the reasons put forward by Lambrecht that motivate a construction-based analysis of IRCs? 2. We argued that insubordination presents a potential counterexample to the unidirectionality claim assumed in grammaticalization theory. In a short essay of maximally , words, explain what the unidirectionality claim is about and why insubordination could be viewed as a case of degrammaticalization.
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3. In historical terms (Old and Middle English), the meaning of the verb will is equivalent to that of want, expressing desire. The historical past tense form of will is would, thus referring to desires that existed before the moment of speaking. In Present-day English, these forms mainly express temporal and modal meanings. As we saw in Section 10.1.2, the originally past tense form would can be used to express wishes. These, however, concern future events. In other words, a past tense form of a verb comes to be used for picking out future events. You can find two additional examples below. i. Would that I could! ii. Would that he came! a. Try to think of additional examples in English and other languages where verbal past tense forms refer to future events (preterite-present verbs), encoding wishes or other hypothetical events. b. Why do you think past tense forms are an apt means of expression for such situations? Advanced level 1. In this book, I draw a distinction between ‘major’ and ‘minor’ clause types. In a research paper of maximally , words, discuss the attested specimens of major and minor clause types and try to explain in which senses some are major while others are minor. Do not forget to consult Chapter again. 2. Fillmore and Kay () analyse sentences such as those shown below as ‘constructions’ (what’s X doing Y construction). Our classification of them as minor clause types is perfectly compatible with a construction analysis. i. Waiter, what’s this fly doing in my soup? ii. What is this scratch doing on the table? a. Read Fillmore and Kay () and explain what the authors understand by ‘construction’. b. In what sense is the what’s X doing Y construction a construction? Which properties make it a construction? c. Do you think it would be possible to extend such a construction analysis to the examples below? Explain. iii. How come this bird cannot fly? iv. What if she begins to ditch school? v. Why don’t you be silent for a moment?
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3. The occurrence of independently used subordinate clauses has aroused widespread interest in the scholarly community. Evan’s () influential insubordination account has been complemented by competing alternative analyses, such as dependency shift (D’Hertefelt and Verstraete ), hypoanalysis (Van linden and Van de Velde ), or extension (Mithun ). Apparently, there are several different types of independently used subordinate clauses that simply cannot be measured by the same yardstick. Carefully read the above papers. Discuss and summarize their findings and analyses in a research paper of approximately 3,000 words. You should pay particular attention to the different types of independently used subordinate clauses and how they can be made sense of.
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11 Performative verbs and social actions
. Social actions
. Performative verbs: the lexical encoding of social actions
. The performative hypothesis
. A cross-linguistic view on performative verbs
. Summary
. Topics for further research
. Exercises
The label ‘performative verbs’ describes a class of verbs that lexicalize specific illocutionary forces. They are often used with an intention to change the world. Performative verbs in English form an impressive class comprising many members, as, for example, name, baptize, promise, apologize, as well as many others. Giving someone a name may not strike you as changing the world, but for the individuals concerned such actions can be quite important. Equally, making promises and giving apologies can have far-reaching consequences. I introduced performative verbs and some of their fundamental properties in Chapter . As we learned there, performative verbs are typically used in the first person, present tense, active, and may be modified by the adverbial hereby (I hereby bless this child). They occur in declarative clauses and can be used to realize declarative speech acts (declarations) in the sense of Searle (). Using these verbs amounts to performing the social actions encoded by them. The class of performative verbs is as difficult to define as that of performative utterances and is best conceived
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of as a heuristic approximation. In this chapter, we will explore them in more detail working towards a basis for their classification. We will also investigate the social constructs underlying performative verbs, namely the corresponding social actions carried out. This will necessitate a look at action theory as conceived of in sociology. Since performative verbs were primarily investigated in philosophy, the current chapter offers a perspective on the subject from different fields, namely linguistics, philosophy, and sociology. Any theory and typology of social actions needs to capture the ways in which we interact with one another as well as the basic ingredients that constitute social actions. Performative verbs are linguistic devices to describe and bring about minimal social interactional units. We will commence this chapter by investigating social actions from a sociological point of view. In linguistics, above and beyond these essential questions pursued in sociology, we will also ask which of the identifiable social actions have verbal correlates (qua performative verbs) and which do not. We may also ask which social actions require verbal correlates to be carried out successfully and which social actions solely arise by verbal means. There is also the problem of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural differences. Languages vary in their inventories of performative verbs and their expression of social actions. Needless to say, there are also cross-cultural differences in the inventories of social actions, though there probably is a basic set of universal actions common to all societies.
11.1 Social actions Building theories of social actions in a way formed the starting point of modern sociology. Founding fathers like Max Weber (–) defined social actions as human activities minimally involving two participants, thus excluding solitary activities like contemplation, prayers, or self-discussions. In addition, Weber () pointed out that social actions are goal-oriented, purposeful, and meaningful. Sitting together in a movie theatre watching the latest blockbuster does not count as social action, since the viewers do not interact with one another and are not working towards a common goal. Social actions must be oriented towards others to count as such. The above definition entails that all goal-oriented verbal interaction counts as social action, since it requires at least two participants. This
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goal orientation is obvious in academic discussions, exams, verbal disputes, games, and negotiations. It is perhaps less obvious in gossip and small talk (so-called ‘phatic communication’), where goal orientation has to be understood in a broader social sense. By contrast, singing together in a choir is verbally based, though not interactive, and hence cannot be considered a social action (in the current technical sense). Highly scripted ceremonies like church services or funerals are probably best treated as borderline cases, as these involve verbal action, proceed towards a goal, but are only little interactive. The regular repetition of social actions can give rise to habits, customs, conventions, traditions, laws, and institutions. Sitting together during family dinner, for example, discussing the daily events is a means to reinstall and reinvigorate the institution of the family. It is hardly noticeable, but fundamental for keeping this institution alive. Many social actions need to be regulated to avoid harm and injustice (economic transactions, working relationships), thus giving rise to laws, regulations, and the need for arbitration. For Weber (: –; original emphasis), social actions can be grouped into essentially four types, as given in the listing below, even though it will be difficult to find actions that can be solely assigned to just one of these four idealized types. Weber must be credited for putting forth the first typology of social actions. 1. instrumentally rational (zweckrational), that is, determined by expectations as to the behaviour of objects in the environment and of other human beings; these expectations are used as ‘conditions’ or ‘means’ for the attainment of the actor’s own rationally pursued and calculated ends; 2. value rational (wertrational), that is, determined by a conscious belief in the value for its own sake of some ethical, aesthetic, religious, or other form of behaviour, independently of its prospects of success; 3. affectual (especially emotional), that is, determined by the actor’s specific affects and feeling states; 4. traditional, that is, determined by ingrained habituation.
Let us take a look at these types in slightly more detail. The opposition between ‘instrumentally rational’ and ‘value rational’ can be motivated by the strong economic interest out of which Weber developed his
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theory of social actions. Instrumentally rational in such a context refers to actions that are associated with clearly identifiable objective goals that can be attained on the basis of rational thinking and behaviour, as, for example, material goods. Value rational, by contrast, identifies social actions that are governed by immaterial values. If, for example, the society to which I belong believes that the dead have to be buried with substantial material goods accompanying them (gold, weapons, etc.), then this behaviour is irrational economically speaking, since it is tantamount to material loss for the relatives concerned. In reality, I think, most social actions will find a place in between instrumentally rational and value rational. For example, negotiating the purchase of a new smartphone or car is determined by both rational considerations (technical specifications) and irrational values associated with certain brands (attachment, conventions). Affective behaviour is by and large to be understood as reactive behaviour towards certain stimuli. If you threaten me, I may attack you or run away. If I lose something precious, I may burst into tears in front of you, thus provoking your empathy. If we win the lottery, we will probably be very happy and share our happiness. Finally, traditional actions are based on conventions and rituals. Examples include greetings, eating together, playing games, regular festivities like Christmas and Easter. Affective and traditional actions may easily lose the orientation towards others and the meaningfulness required by the definition of social actions. They hence represent borderline phenomena (see above). Let us now try to set Weber’s () typology of social actions in relation to Searle’s () classification of illocutionary acts (or speech acts, for short). We surmise that all performances of speech acts can be analysed as social actions, since speech acts by definition involve a speaker and an addressee (even wishes and curses addressed to a deity). The reverse entailment does not hold, as social actions do not necessarily have to be accompanied by verbal action. Table . provides a summary of Searle’s scheme of classification (see Chapter for details). We can see that Weber’s affectual actions correlate with expressive speech acts, so they are accompanied by verbal action. Declarations show some overlap with traditional actions, since they tend to be used in institutional contexts while such institutions, in turn, usually arise out of certain traditions. The remaining three classes of speech acts, i.e.
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Table 11.1 Searle’s () classification of illocutionary acts Act
Point
Fit
State
Representatives
⊦ (assertion)
+
B (belief)
Directives
!
*
W (want)
Commissives
C
*
I (intent)
Expressives
E
∅
E (expression)
Declarations
D
⇕
∅
representatives, directives, and commissives may be related to instrumentally rational and value rational actions bearing in mind the caveat that such actions can be accompanied by speech acts, though they do not have to. Let us consider some examples. (a) shows an exclamative clause encoding an expressive speech act that is tantamount to an affectual social action. (b) encodes a declaration that may be subsumed under traditional actions. The commissive example in (c) can be analysed as instrumentally rational or value rational, depending on the context. The same holds for the directive example in (d), though I could also imagine it being used in affectual situations. The representative case in (e) is most likely to occur in instrumentally rational actions, such as a scientific debate. ()
a. b. c. d. e.
What a painful situation! I hereby declare this fantastic conference open. I will not go away, I promise. Go away, please! We tend to confuse plausibility with probability. Therefore, we should avoid jumping to conclusions.
It goes without saying, however, that there is no obvious correlation between Searle’s speech act classes and Weber’s social actions. One important reason why such a straightforward correlation fails is the understood level of granularity. Speech acts represent relatively sharply delineated interactional units between speaker and hearer. They can be formally defined: individual speech acts hardly surpass the clause level (see Huddleston : – for some interesting exceptions). Even though
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isolated words may express full speech acts (e.g. Leave! = command), each new clause will normally be associated with a new speech act. This generalization remains intact even if several turns form a complex interactional unit. Consider the service encounter in () consisting of a request preceded by a pre-request. The latter is phrased as a yes–no question, but it really serves to prepare the ground for the subsequent request. ()
Customer: Server: Customer: Server:
Hi. Do you have uh size C flashlight batteries? Yes, sir. I’ll have four please. [turns to get] (Merritt : cited in Clark : )
Such examples show that interactional units are not necessarily coextensive with speech acts. Interactional units may be identical with individual speech acts, but they are often much bigger. However, interactional units represent a concept that is closely related to Weber’s () social action (see also Clark’s notion of ‘joint projects’). What we can see is that the level of granularity, i.e. the degree of internal structuring, of social actions may be much higher than that of speech acts. Social actions may consist of several subactions (and usually do), but we do not consider speech acts as consisting of subspeech acts. For example, if I define for myself the goal of obtaining a professorship, this represents a highly complex social action (both instrumentally and value rational) involving many participants that needs to be pursued over an extended period of time. Instead of offering an alternative flat typology of social actions in the spirit of Weber, Parsons ()—who is another prominent sociologist working on the theory of social actions—pursued a different line of attack. Parsons (: ) postulates an idealized and highly abstract concept of social actions that he refers to as the ‘unit act’. These have a scientific status similar to that of our basic units in the material universe, i.e. atoms, electrons, particles, and the like, though clearly, what really is the smallest unit in the universe has been debated for a long a time and represents a question that is bound to stay. The basic units found in the material world can be defined by parameters such as mass, location, velocity, energy, acceleration, among others, and in a similar way Parsons conceptualizes basic social actions as determined by a finite set of parameters. In other words, Parsons gives us a parametrized concept of social actions.
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According to Parsons (: ), essentially four parameters define social actions and these, not surprisingly, show some overlap with Weber’s classification. First, there must be an agent or actor. Second, there has to be a goal or an end. Third, the natural development of events is influenced by social actions, there being elements that the actor has control over (‘means’) and those that they cannot control (‘conditions’). And, fourth, the available means are subject to ‘normative orientation’, meaning that they cannot be employed at random but need to be selected in accordance with a certain value system. The last point tries to cater for the tension introduced by Weber’s distinction between instrumentally rational and value-rational social actions. The scientific development here is similar to that of speech act theory, where Austin () first proposed an intuitive list of speech act classes that Searle (, ) subsequently based on a set of parameters (see Chapter ). While Weber and Parsons offer us theoretical models of social actions, we also find approaches in sociology that work bottom-up, as it were, analysing authentic and natural interaction between people, trying to identify common patterns of social interaction and perhaps also systematic gaps in the logically conceivable space of social interaction. The most prominent and successful strand of research in this rigidly empirical paradigm is Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology that also branched out into linguistics with an approach called conversation analysis.1 I introduced conversation analysis in Chapter where the focus, of course, is on verbal social interaction. Both ethnomethodology and conversation analysis try to approach social situations in a mostly theory-neutral way, taking a great range of social situations from different social domains into consideration. For example, Garfinkel () looked at how jurors arrive at their verdicts, the rationales that hospitals employ for accepting patients, as well as the criteria underlying rational behaviour. Recent work in conversation analysis substantially occupies itself with interaction in medical contexts, news interviews, and other interactional settings (see e.g. Clayman and Heritage ; Stivers ). 1 Garfinkel () is most famous for his breaching experiments. The idea is to make social order visible by momentarily infringing on it. For example, if you ask me Could you pass the tea? and I answer Yes, I could without responding to your request, I am effectively violating the expected course of our interaction, thereby revealing that there is such an expected course of interaction.
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To be sure, such empirical work on social actions including the verbal encoding of social actions is much more compatible with the topic of the current chapter, namely performative verbs. This is mainly due to the high level of granularity and the strong focus on minute details of turn design. On the assumption that individual turns are coextensive with unique speech acts, they may in principle be paraphrased by performative verbs. Such verbs lexicalize only a subset of the possible and attested social actions and often pick out specific points of more complex social actions. For instance, if you are acquitted of certain charges, this is just one point in a complex process of making accusations, finding evidence, and counterevidence, and so on.
11.2 Performative verbs: the lexical encoding of social actions Using performative verbs, as we said, is tantamount to carrying out the social actions described by them. If I say I hereby order you to leave my office, I am effectively performing the directive speech act of ordering and you will be under an obligation to leave. English—in tandem with many other European languages—possesses a great number of performative verbs (or speech act verbs).2 In this section, we will explore English speech act verbs. The analysis will be based on Vanderveken (), since this is essentially the only publication that offers a systematic and in-depth survey of such verbs in English.3 Vanderveken (: ) analysed about speech act verbs, which can be found by browsing English dictionaries. Performative verbs lexicalize illocutionary force, contrary to grammatical markers of illocutionary force. To illustrate this difference, consider again the set of examples in () that we already introduced in Chapter .
2 Verschueren (: ) draws a distinction between ‘performative verbs’ proper and ‘speech act verbs’ in general. Performative verbs are defined as a subgroup of speech act verbs that occur with a first person subject and in the present tense active (I hereby promise to leave you alone). Non-performative speech act verbs can be used in the passive and with non-first person subjects (You are hereby fired; The agreement is hereby annulled). I here use the two terms interchangeably. 3 Another author worth consulting is Wierzbicka () who identifies and discusses more than performative verbs (speech act verbs), proposing succinct descriptions for each of them. This is essentially a dictionary of performative verbs.
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()
a. b. c. d. e.
Pick up the key and open the door! You now pick up the key and open the door! I hereby order you to pick up the key and open the door! You should pick up the key and open the door. It is necessary that you pick up the key and open the door!
All of these examples convey request force, but only the examples in (a) and (d) employ grammatical markers. We consider the imperative verb form in (a) and the modal verb should in (d) as grammatical means of expression, since they show highly regular behaviour. For example, most English verbs have imperative forms (though completely unmarked) and modal verbs in English represent a closed class with highly specific properties that can be combined with most other verbs. The performative verb order in example (c) lexicalizes request force, but so does the adjective necessary in (e).4 The temporal adverb now in (b) does not encode request force, though triggering it indirectly through the expression of immediacy. It appears reasonable to assume that the set of performative verbs in any given language—as long as the language has performative verbs—is reflective of various social institutions in the relevant culture and also of frequent and fundamental interactional patterns. For instance, the performative verbs in example () encode various declarative speech acts (declarations) and presuppose important cultural institutions.5 () a. I hereby sentence you to one year of prison. b. I do hereby baptize this child in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. c. I hereby excommunicate you. d. I hereby abdicate the throne in favour of my brother. e. I hereby bequeath you all my belongings. Let us consider these examples in more detail. Example (a) presupposes the existence of a judicial system and can only be used felicitously in it by the relevant people in charge (i.e. a judge). Examples (b) and (c) require the institution of the Church and the actions have to be performed by a priest or someone higher in the institutional hierarchy. 4
In principle, we could also investigate the lexicalization of illocutionary force in adjectives, but the range of forces found here seems heavily constrained. 5 Some performative verbs occur in what Verschueren (: ) refers to as ‘speech act formulae’, as e.g. in I hereby pronounce X and Y man and wife.
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They are used to accept new members and terminate/suspend membership, respectively. In our university setting, the corresponding performative verbs are enrol and disenrol. Acts of abdication, as in (d), are confined to the institutional setting of the monarchy and represent (social) self-executions by the ruling monarch. Finally, bequeathing (e) is a complicated legal process that presupposes a legal system, though it also needs to respect the family as an institution and certain forms of blood relationship. It is quite obvious, I think, that the relevant performative verbs would be completely meaningless in societies lacking the aforementioned institutions. The requirement of extralinguistic institutions also shows up in Searle’s (: ) classification of illocutionary acts. In a similar way, several performative verbs expressing commissive acts presuppose certain institutional settings. The examples in () provide some illustration, with (a) and the verb subscribe in this particular meaning demanding a certain business environment, whereas certify in (b) evokes a legal setting, and the verb avow in (c) some public space in which the confession can be made. () a. I hereby subscribe to your new online edition. b. I hereby certify that the contract is fully correct. c. I hereby avow my change of faith. Not surprisingly, certain directive performative verbs also presume some form of institutional setting, or at least some kind of belief system or common frame of reference, as shown in the examples in (). The use of the verb pray in (a) presupposes a deity to which a wish can be directed. The verb petition in (b) requires an authority as the receiver of the directive speech act, and a verb like exorcise in (c) can only be used in a community that believes in ghosts. () a. I hereby pray to God that our father comes back. b. I hereby petition the court for payment of my debts. c. I hereby exorcise this university of evil spirits. We can make similar observations in the domains of assertives and expressives, though I will just touch upon these here in passing. For instance, performative verbs expressing assertive speech acts like recant, confess, castigate, aver, and testify all need appropriate institutional settings to be used felicitously. Examples from the group of expressive verbs include mourn and acclaim. As a kind of bottom line, we may note
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down that legal and religious institutions have given rise to many performative verbs. The bulk of performative verbs, however, arises from non-institutional contexts, as will be shown below. Given that societies and cultures—especially traditional ones—differ in the number and kinds of their institutions, we may hypothesize that the sets of performative verbs offered by the respective languages differ in size and internal organization. In addition, we may hypothesize that even those performative verbs that do not seem to be tied to specific societies (e.g. promise, apologize, congratulate, complain, threaten) manifest differences in meaning. I could imagine that the social act of promising may be associated with different degrees of commitment or that the degree of sincerity related to apologies varies widely. Greeting sequences are known to differ greatly across cultures (Duranti ; Levinson b: ), although we here leave the domain of performative verbs proper. Levinson (b: ) mentions father-in-law jokes in Yélî Dnye (a language spoken on Rossel Island) as a very particular kind of verbalized social action apparently only found in this culture. There is no performative verb describing it, though. On the whole, very little is known about these differences. Apart from these more general problems in the analysis of performative verbs, Vanderveken (: –) also mentions some more specific points. To begin with, since there are only five illocutionary classes, but -odd performative verbs in English, we can expect problems in assigning these verbs to individual classes. As a matter of fact, several verbs seem to have uses that allow them to be placed in more than one class. For example, the verb swear can be found either with assertive force (I swear that I did not do it) or commissive force (I swear not to swear). Similarly, the verbs agree, assure, and certify have assertive and commissive uses. For this reason, Verschueren (: ) conceives of performative verbs in terms of a continuum rather than distinct classes. Consider Figure .. Here, the verbs warn and advise have both representative and directive uses, whereas the verb threaten can function as either a directive or commissive verb. Second, many performative verbs are largely synonymous, differing only in minor detail: state vs assert, assure vs certify, tell vs inform; pledge vs vow, accept vs consent; question vs interrogate, order vs command, warn vs caution, forgive vs absolve, terminate vs cancel, clear vs acquit; grieve vs lament, praise vs laud, disapprove vs blame. Searle (: –) points out that the difference between I suggest we go
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warn advise
threaten
Representatives
Directives
Commissives
advertise declare etc.
command request etc.
promise pledge etc.
Figure 11.1 Continuum of performative verbs (adapted from Verschueren : )
to the movies and I insist that we go to the movies lies in the strength with which the same illocutionary point is presented. In a similar way, the verbs announce and confide relate to assertive speech acts, but differ in the manner in which the information is presented. Third, and quite interestingly, a number of performative verbs encode more than one force at the same time. The verb alert, for instance, is assertive and directive concurrently, since it expresses danger and requests the addressee to be careful: I hereby alert you to the dangers of these animals. Similarly, the verb reprimand is used to assert certain facts, though at the same time it tags you as a wrongdoer thus adding a declarative component. As a matter of fact, all performative verbs expressing declarations—by their very definition—have double direction of fit taking up factual states of the world while effecting certain changes concurrently. Another point worth mentioning is that certain speech act verbs need to be performed in public to be effective. In other words, they require an audience. Many declarative verbs come with this condition (accuse, capitulate, abdicate, clear), but we also find them in the group of expressives (acclaim, welcome). Finally, we may also note that a number of performative verbs require a ‘mutual joint performance’ or ‘collective intentionality’ of two or more speakers. Such verbs include bet and contract, the point being that betting requires the uptake of the addressee (e.g. You’re on) to become effective (see Levinson : ).6 6 The exposition here primarily considers semantic and pragmatic properties of performative verbs, but there have also been attempts to classify them—and, by extension, speech acts in general—on the basis of their syntactic behaviour. For example, Sadock (: ) points out that verbs of promising and requesting typically require to-complements in English (I promise to retire early; I order you to desist), whereas verbs of requesting take wh-complements (I hereby ask you whether you own such a knife). Some performative verbs can readily be used in the passive, while others may only be used in the active (You are hereby advised to resign; *You are hereby apologized to). There are also combinatorial restrictions with modal verbs (Wierzbicka : ). For instance, we can say I would
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11.2.1 English assertives Assuming Searle’s () classification of illocutionary acts in representatives (assertives), directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations, we will now follow Vanderveken () in allocating English performative verbs to these five classes, bearing in the mind the problems identified above. The list of English assertive verbs reads as follows: assert, reassert, negate, deny, correct, claim, affirm, state, disclaim, declare, tell, suggest, guess, hypothesize, conjecture, postulate, predict, forecast, foretell, prophesy, vaticinate, report, retrodict, warn, forewarn, advise, alert, alarm, remind, describe, inform, reveal, divulge, divulgate, notify, insinuate, sustain, insist, maintain, assure, aver, avouch, certify, attest, swear, testify, agree, disagree, assent, dissent, acquiesce, object, recognize, acknowledge, admit, confess, concede, recant, criticize, praise, blame, accuse, calumniate, reprimand, castigate, denounce, boast, complain, lament. (Vanderveken : )
Vanderveken (: ) also proposes arranging these verbs in a hierarchy such that the verbs that are most general in terms of their meaning are located at the top of the hierarchy with more specific verbs being placed below. A subgroup of assertive verbs is shown in Figure .. In this hierarchy, the verb suggest has the most general meaning, whereas verbs like prophesy, castigate, and confess express highly specific assertions. The complete tree diagram can be found in Vanderveken (: ). suggest
warn
hypothesize
assert
predict
criticize
prophesy
castigate
guess tell
agree admit confess
Figure 11.2 The lexical field of assertives (based on Vanderveken : )
recommend eating more fish, though not *I would order you to eat more fish. Verschueren (: ) uses some of these syntactic parameters to motivate a distinction between a narrow class of ‘performative verbs’ and a more general class of ‘speech act verbs’ (see n. ).
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11.2.2 English commissives The list of English performative verbs expressing commissive acts is not as extensive as that of assertives, though we also find verbs with a rather general meaning (commit) and those that possess highly specific meanings (bid, bet, covenant, hypothecate). Interestingly, the verb promise is not the most general commissive verb, although it is widely treated as the paradigm case. Vanderveken points out that promise is always hearerdirected and describes obligations that are beneficial to the hearer. commit, pledge, undertake, engage, promise, hypothecate, guarantee, threaten, vow, avow, swear, assure, certify, accept, agree, consent, acquiesce, abide, reject, refuse, renounce, offer, counter-offer, bid, rebid, tender, dedicate, bet, wager, contract, covenant, subscribe. (Vanderveken : )
Figure . portrays a selection of commissive verbs in a hierarchical overview (see Vanderveken : for a more complete diagram). 11.2.3 English directives Performative verbs expressing directive speech acts comprise both questions and commands. This follows from their definition as addressee obligations that may materialize as either requests for information or requests for action. One of the primary directive verbs in English, namely ask, shows exactly this ambiguity, as it may be used in either context. Consider the examples in (). () a. I hereby ask you to answer. b. I hereby ask you to leave. Accordingly, the list of directive performative verbs is substantial (see below). It offers verbs conveying different ways of asking questions commit subscribe
vow
assure
swear
certify
pledge
promise
threaten
dedicate
accept
consent
Figure 11.3 The lexical field of commissives (based on Vanderveken : )
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direct instruct urge
request
ask
invite
question
convene
tell encourage beg solicit petition
command prescribe
interrogate
Figure 11.4 The lexical field of directives (based on Vanderveken : )
(ask, question, interrogate, inquire), though especially the group of verbs demanding addressee action is finely delineated semantically (beg, supplicate, beseech, implore, entreat, etc.). direct, request, ask, question, inquire, interrogate, urge, encourage, discourage, solicit, appeal, petition, invite, convene, convoke, beg, supplicate, beseech, implore, entreat, conjure, pray, insist, tell, instruct, demand, require, claim, order, command, dictate, prescribe, enjoin, adjure, exorcise, forbid, prohibit, interdict, proscribe, commission, charge, suggest, propose, warn, advise, caution, alert, alarm, recommend, permit, allow, authorize, consent, invoke, imprecate, and intercede. (Vanderveken : )
Some verbs in the above list can also be used as assertives, namely suggest, propose, warn, alert, and alarm. These are also found in the list of assertive performative verbs. Part of the lexical tree of English directive verbs can be found in Figure . (for a more comprehensive overview, see Vanderveken : ). 11.2.4 English declaratives (declarations) English also boasts a substantial list of declarative verbs, as shown below. Most of these require specific institutional contexts and can only be used felicitously by certain authorities in the relevant hierarchies. For example, verbs like resign, abdicate, capitulate, appoint, veto, legislate, adjudicate, sentence, excommunicate relate to various judicial, political, religious, and royal institutions. They can be used to create facts and to include in or exclude people from these institutions. declare, renounce, disclaim, disown, resign, repudiate, disavow, retract, abdicate, abjure, deny, disinherit, yield, surrender, capitulate, approve, confirm, sanction, ratify, homologate, bless, curse, dedicate, consecrate, disapprove, stipulate, name, call, define, abbreviate, nominate, authorize, licence, install, appoint, establish, institute, inaugurate, convene,
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declare vote
confer
veto
grant
bless
curse
renounce retract
clear
rule
condemn
acquit adjudicate damn
Figure 11.5 The lexical field of declaratives (based on Vanderveken : , ) express thank
Figure 11.6
apologize
complain
grieve
deplore
disapprove
mourn
protest
blame
approve
greet
praise
welcome
acclaim extol
The lexical field of expressives (based on Vanderveken : )
convoke, open, close, suspend, adjourn, terminate, dissolve, denounce, vote, veto, enact, legislate, promulgate, decree, confer, grant, bestow, accord, cede, rule, adjudge, adjudicate, condemn, sentence, damn, clear, acquit, disculpate, exonerate, pardon, forgive, absolve, cancel, annul, abolish, abrogate, revoke, repeal, rescind, retract, sustain, bequeath, baptize, and excommunicate. (Vanderveken : )
Figure . shows the tree diagram of a small selection of these verbs. More comprehensive hierarchies can be found in Vanderveken (: , ). 11.2.5 English expressives Expressive performative verbs can have various interpersonal functions (thank, greet, apologize) as well as encoding speaker approval (praise, applaud, etc.) or disapproval (blame, protest, etc.). Some expressive verbs simply encode various positive or negative psychological states of the speaker (grieve, cheer). The list of expressive verbs in English is rather short and comprises the following items. approve, compliment, praise, laud, extol, plaudit, applaud, acclaim, brag, boast, complain, disapprove, blame, reprove, deplore, protest, grieve, mourn, lament, rejoice, cheer, boo, condole, congratulate, thank, apologize, greet, and welcome. (Vanderveken : )
A selection of these verbs appears in a hierarchical organization in Figure .. Vanderveken (: ) contains a more complete hierarchy.
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11.3 The performative hypothesis At this point in our discussion, a brief excursion into the not so recent history of linguistics appears in order, as performative verbs used to be considered crucial for the semantic composition of sentences. Throughout the present book, we explicitly and implicitly adopted the position that the illocutionary force of a sentence may be completely unspecified and a matter of contextual interpretation, or formally specified to different degrees. If you look at the examples in (), you can see a monotonic increase in the specification of illocutionary force. While it is left totally implicit in (a), the performative verb order in (d) specifies it exhaustively. () a. b. c. d.
I could do with some coffee. Could you get me some coffee? Get me some coffee, please. I hereby order you to get me some coffee.
The examples in () introduce considerable tension between semantics (i.e. meaning specified by individual linguistic forms) and pragmatics (i.e. meaning supplied by the context and computed by the interlocutors), as there is often great difficulty in assigning meaning components to one domain or the other. In the s, it was believed that this tension between semantics and pragmatics could be reduced by treating as much meaning as possible in the realm of semantics, which was considered the ‘better’ part of meaning, since it could be dealt with in truth-conditional semantics. Accordingly, John Ross ()—in a widely cited paper—proposed to integrate illocutionary force into the syntactic representation of every sentence. The primary vehicle for that came to be performative verbs. This is known as the ‘performative hypothesis’. According to the performative hypothesis, the following pairs of sentences are synonymous. Note that the b-examples paraphrase the a-examples using a performative verb. Moreover, it is assumed that all sentences without performative verbs result from abstract representations containing a performative verb. ()
a. Today’s weather is nice. b. I state that today’s weather is nice.
() a. Is it raining? b. I ask you if it is raining.
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() a. Where did you put my glasses? b. I ask you where you put my glasses. () a. Give me this book. b. I order you to give me this book. () a. What a nice watch you have. b. I exclaim that you have a nice watch. How realistic is the (meanwhile completely abandoned) performative hypothesis? Even though there is a substantial array of arguments that speak in favour of it (see Levinson : – for an overview), the regular assumption of a performative matrix verb unfortunately runs into an equal number of severe problems. Since this cannot be the place to discuss the pros and cons in detail, I will here just focus on a small selection of the relevant discussion. For instance, one piece of evidence that Ross (: –) used to motivate a performative matrix verb comes from anaphoric relations, as shown in examples () and (). What we can see in () is that reflexive pronouns require a nominal antecedent. This is the case in (a), though not in (b).7 Therefore, the latter example is less acceptable. Interestingly enough, examples like (b) are fully grammatical with reflexive pronouns of the first person, as in (). This observation is taken to suggest that sentences like (a) possess a performative matrix verb in some underlying syntactic representation (deep structure).8 Accordingly, all sentences are believed to be introduced by the performative formula in (). () a. The president said that solar energy was invented by God and himself. b. ?Solar energy was invented by God and himself. () a. Solar energy was invented by God and myself. b. I say to you that solar energy was invented by God and myself. () I (hereby) VP you (that) S’. (Levinson : )
7
Example () represents a special case in which the antecedent of the reflexive marker can be located in a higher clause. 8 König and Siemund (a) discuss these examples from the perspective of selfintensifiers, i.e. cases like the president himself.
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In its most comprehensive version, the performative hypothesis is based on the principles specified below (Levinson : ). 1. Every sentence has a performative clause in deep or underlying structure. 2. The subject of this clause is first person singular, the indirect object second person singular, and the verb is drawn from a delimited set of performative verbs, and is conjugated in the indicative active simple present tense (or is associated with the underlying representation thereof). 3. This clause is always the highest clause in underlying structure, or at the very least always occurs in a determinable position in that structure. 4. There is only one such clause per sentence. 5. The performative clause is deletable, such deletion not changing the meaning of the sentence. 6. lllocutionary force is semantic (in the truth-conditional sense) and is fully specified by the meaning of the performative clause itself.
Let us now turn to a selection of the problems, which, however, are so forceful that they led to a quick demise of the performative hypothesis. Given that the original impetus of the performative hypothesis was to reduce illocutionary force to ordinary syntax and semantics, it is quite irritating to observe that sentences with and without performative verbs do not always have the same truth conditions. Consider the minimal pair in () where (a) can be assumed to be true just by uttering it, while (b) flatly contradicts our world view and would have to be classified as false (Levinson : –). This is a serious problem that is difficult to argue away. () a. I state to you that the world is flat. b. The world is flat. In a similar way, the performative hypothesis incurs syntactic problems, as performative verbs in the matrix clause can occur with nonfirst person subjects (Levinson : ). This is shown in example (a). Moreover, otherwise clearly performative utterances need not necessarily be directed to a second person addressee, but can be directed to a third party (b). Such examples flatly contradict the above principles.
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() a. It is hereby announced that the performative hypothesis failed. b. Johnny is to come in now. These and several other problems are discussed in detail in Levinson (: –). From today’s perspective, I think, there can be no doubt that the performative hypothesis heavily overspecifies language, especially its mental representations. 11.4 A cross-linguistic view on performative verbs Very little is known about cross-linguistic differences in the encoding of performative verbs, though it appears reasonable to assume that there are substantial differences in the number of performative verbs, their means of encoding, as well as the social actions that are encoded. Since many performative verbs are bound to certain institutions, the presence or absence of the relevant institutions determines the very existence of these verbs. In the present section, I will be concerned with cross-linguistics differences in the formal encoding of performative verbs, differences related to their meaning, and distributional differences. The last point is especially interesting, as languages or cultures show widely diverging preferences in the use of performative verbs. 11.4.1 Differences in form Regarding their form, performative verbs can be encoded as monomorphemic units belonging to the word class of verbs, as most English performative verbs, or comprise several elements consisting of a light verb (a verb largely devoid of meaning) and a noun. Consider the Yiddish examples in (). () Yiddish (Verschueren : –) a. moyde zayn to acknowledge, admit b. moyde zayn zikh to admit, confess; zikh means ‘myself ’, yourself, himself, etc. hence it is apparently related to German sich, but it has spread its meaning from the rd person to the other persons as well c. moydie zayn to announce d. moykhl zayn to forgive
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e. soyser zayn f. maskim zayn g. mevatl zayn
to contradict, to deny to agree, assent, consent to annul
In these examples, the verb zayn (‘be’) occurs together with various nouns giving rise to performative verbs. The noun moykhl, for instance, means ‘forgiveness’, but in combination with zayn it can be used as a performative verb meaning ‘forgive’. Yiddish also has performative verbs formed with hobn ‘have’, as in hobn taynes ‘lit. have complaints’ meaning ‘reproach’. Similar observations can be made in Persian. For example, in Persian we find several light verb constructions using the verbs do, make, give, put, close, say, and eat, besides a few true performative verbs. Take a look at the examples in (). () Persian (Sharareh Rahbari) a. ozrkhahi kardan apology make ‘apologize’ b. farman dadan command give ‘command’ c. esm gozashtan name put ‘name’ d. shart bastan condition close ‘bet’ e. khoshamad goftan welcome say ‘welcome’ f. ta’asof khordan regret eat ‘lament’ g. feshar avardan urge bring ‘urge’ Similar constructions are also found in Turkish and Korean, as illustrated by the Turkish examples in (). Turkish also boasts various true performative verbs, as e.g. onaylamak ‘agree/consent’ or bildirmek ‘announce/notify’. () Turkish (Yasemin Şahingöz) a. özür dilemek apology beg ‘apologize’ b. emir vermek command give ‘command’ c. iddia etmek claim make ‘claim, assert’ d. söz vermek word give ‘promise’ e. itiraf etmek confession make ‘confess’ f. iptal etmek cancellation make ‘cancel, annul’ g. affetmek forgiveness make ‘forgive’ [af = forgiveness] h. ilân etmek announcement make ‘announce’ i. pișmanlık duymak regret sense ‘regret’ j. șart koymak condition lay/put ‘require, prescribe’
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At least in Persian, the above light verb constructions are not restricted to performative verbs, but represent a much more fundamental parameter in the organization of the lexicon. Lehmann () points out that socalled ‘dynamic relational concepts’ (i.e. processes and events typically encoded by verbs in European languages) are expressed by essentially two strategies cross-linguistically and represent a case of what he refers to as ‘converse categorization’, meaning the encoding of a certain conceptual domain by two alternative, largely mutually exclusive strategies. To be sure, light verb constructions also exist in English and many other European languages, as evidenced by the examples in (). () a. take leave b. make a claim c. do the cleaning d. cast votes e. give a cry
retire, withdraw claim clean vote cry
Nevertheless, there are striking distributional differences. Whereas English primarily encodes dynamic relational concepts by means of the word class of verbs, Persian and Yiddish (also Hebrew) heavily rely on light verb constructions. According to Lehmann (: ), Persian only possesses some simple verbs of which about twenty to thirty function as light verbs. In other words, the great majority of dynamic relational concepts are encoded by light verb constructions, including the performative concepts at issue here. To offer yet another perspective on the matter, we may say that a selection of English verbs may be rephrased by light verb constructions, while the majority of Persian light verb constructions lack counterparts in terms of basic verbs. 11.4.2 Differences in meaning It is perhaps not surprising that performative verbs across languages differ in their semantic range. In the same way as the German noun Schnecke corresponds to both English snail and slug, the English performative verb ask in example () can be translated as either (a) or (b). In other words, the verb ask (here illustrated in non-performative contexts) can be used to request the addressee to act or to supply information. () a. John asked Mary to help him. b. John asked Mary where she had been.
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() German (personal knowledge) a. Johann bat Maria ihm zu John requested Mary him to ‘John asked Mary to help him.’ b. Johann fragte Maria wo John interrogated Mary where ‘John asked Mary where she had been.’
helfen. help sie gewesen ist. she been is
Unfortunately, the research literature does not offer more than cursory observations regarding such differences, and it may well be that the cross-linguistically observable conflations and differentiations are completely unsystematic chance products. Verschueren (: ) notes that the English verbs thank and greet are identical in Hungarian (köszönni). Wierzbicka (: ) writes that there are two different verbs for promise in Polish. She also reports that the Aboriginal languages of Australia do not have verbs corresponding to English thank, apologize, book, or cancel, though they apparently have performative verbs for social actions that do not exist in Anglo-Saxon culture. There is certainly room for more systematic studies here, but it is also clear that such studies are very difficult to carry out. 11.4.3 Distributional differences Apart from the differences in form and meaning discussed above, there are also intriguing differences in the usage of performative verbs, with some language employing them substantially more often than others. For instance, in English we may express apologies using the performative verb in example (a), the routine formula in (b), and the indirect verbalization in (c). My gut feeling is that the routine formula is the most widely used strategy in English, but the choice clearly depends on the speaker–hearer relationship as well as the severity of the incident that requires an apology. () a. I hereby apologize. b. I’m sorry. c. This has been extremely unfortunate. The distributional differences in the usage of performative verbs could be turned into a very fruitful cross-linguistic endeavour that can inform us about the level of directness preferred in different languages.
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However, very little is known about such distributional differences. One of the few studies—perhaps the only one—is Brehmer () who compares the usage of performative verbs in relation to other means of encoding in Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech. The comparison is based on extensive corpora and samples the pragmatic domains of thanking, apologizing, requesting, and inviting. Let us here focus on thanking and apologizing, as the differences in these domains are especially striking. The examples in () and () illustrate competing thanking strategies in Russian and Polish. Whereas the a-examples employ performative verbs, some routine formula is found in the b-examples. Arguably, then, the a-examples express the social act of thanking in a more direct way. () Russian (Brehmer ) a. Blagodarju tebja za novogodnee pozdravlenie-poželanie. thank..SG you for New.Year greetings ‘[I] thank you for the New Year’s greeting and the best wishes.’ b. Spasibo vam za vse i prostite menja. thank you for all and forgive me ‘Thanks to you for everything and forgive me.’ () Polish (Brehmer ) a. Bardzo Pani dziękuję za fotografię. very.much lady thank..SG for photograph ‘[I] thank you very much for the photograph.’ b. Dzięki ci, że mnie spokojnie wysłuchałeś. thanks to.you that to.me quietly listen.PAST ‘Thanks to you for listening to me calmly.’ Table . provides a summary of the distributional differences relating to these strategies in the aforementioned languages. We can see quite clearly that Russian stands out as the language that heavily leans towards the use of routine formulae in this domain. Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech, by contrast, prefer the more direct means of expression using performative verbs (= explicit performatives). Let us now turn to apologies. These can be encoded by verbs either used performatively, i.e. in the first person singular indicative active, or by the same verbs morphologically marked as imperative. These competing strategies are shown in the a-examples (performative) and the b-examples (imperative) of () and (), here for Russian and Czech.
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11 . 4 C R O S S - L I N G U I S T I C V I E W O N P E R F O R M A T I V E V E R B S
Table 11.2 The distribution of thanking strategies (Brehmer ) Russian
abs. % /.w.
Ukrainian
EP
RF
EP
,
Polish
RF
EP ,
Czech RF
EP
RF
,
,
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Note: EP = explicit performative verb, RF = routine formulae.
() Russian (Brehmer ) a. Ja izvinjajus’ za rabočij besporjadok. I apologize..SG.REFL for work mess ‘I apologize for the mess at work.’ b. Izvinite, ne mogu obsuždat’ ėtot vopros. excuse.IMP not can discuss this question ‘Excuse [me], I can’t discuss this issue.’ () Czech (Brehmer ) a. Vážený pane, omlouvám se za pozdní odpověď dear sir apologize..SG REFL for late reply na Váš dopis. to your letter ‘Dear Sir, [I] apologize for my belated answer to your letter.’ b. Omluvte má hořká slova. excuse.IMP my bitter words ‘Excuse my bitter words.’ The distributions of these forms across the four languages can be found in Table .. We can see here that Russian and Ukrainian strongly prefer imperative verb forms in the domain of apologies, while Polish and Czech show a reverse preference for performative verbs. The differences are quite striking. In summary, the distributional comparison of performative verbs in Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech points to a continuum in the use of these verbs, with Russian scoring low regarding their use, while Polish makes ample use of them. Ukrainian and Czech range in between. Russian, thus, shows a strong preference for implicit strategies. Brehmer () interprets these findings in terms of cultural
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Table 11.3 The distribution of apology strategies (Brehmer ) Russian EP abs.
Ukrainian IMP ,
EP
IMP
Polish EP ,
Czech IMP
EP
IMP
%
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
/.w.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Note: EP = explicit performative verb, IMP = imperative form.
differences regarding the degree of speaker–hearer orientation. Foregrounding the speaker using performative verbs is socially more acceptable in Polish and Czech, whereas Russian and Ukrainian tend to demote the speaker. This interpretation is supported by evidence from other grammatical domains that involve speaker demotion, namely Russian impersonal construction for deontic modality. Alternatively, one can interpret the differences as revealing culturedependent conventions of politeness. Expressing one’s own intentions using performative verbs appears less imposing than intruding into the addressee’s territory through the use of imperative forms. Russians, apparently, are considerably happier to fall back on the latter strategy resulting in higher levels of imposition (see also Chapter ).
11.5 Summary Performative verbs, as we have seen, are highly condensed descriptions of social actions that may only describe part of a more complex action. If I use the verb promise to give some kind of guarantee, I am effectively defining the starting point of a social action that can only be evaluated as successful once the guarantee has been given and kept. This may involve extended periods of time. Similarly, saying I apologize usually serves as the starting point for some elaboration about what went wrong and what can be done to remedy the situation. This complex elaboration should be counted as the social action of an apology and not just saying the performative verb itself. Other performative verbs—especially those describing procedures in institutional settings—may be coextensive with the social action that they describe. This concerns verbs such as christen
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11 . 6 T O P I C S F O R F U R T H E R R E S E A R C H
or baptize, or performative formulae like I hereby pronounce you man and wife. Using these verbs is tantamount to performing the social actions described by them completely and successfully. Performative verbs, thus, can encode different social complexities, ranging from a description of the entire social action to just some part of it. Social actions are not necessarily coextensive with the speech acts bringing them about, though they may be. Sociological typologies and theories of social actions, as introduced at the beginning of this chapter, correlate only weakly with typologies of speech acts and performative verbs, primarily because they capture different dimensions of social actions (like value rationality or instrumental rationality). Such dimensions, however, may lie behind the use of all sorts of different performative verbs. In this chapter, we also looked at Vanderveken’s () classification of English performative verbs and ways to order them hierarchically. It turns out that there are performative verbs with fairly general (suggest, commit, direct, declare, express) as well as highly specific (castigate, certify, petition, adjudicate, mourn) meanings. Cross-linguistically, there seem to be rather pronounced differences in the inventories and meanings of performative verbs, though very little is known about these differences. Languages also manifest differences regarding their usage preferences of performative verbs, with some languages tending to avoid them, while others make ample use of them. As a brief historical excursion, I introduced the performative hypothesis, i.e. the idea that every sentence contains a performative matrix verb that may be deleted from the surface form of the sentence when it comes to be used. Even though there is suggestive evidence in support of the performative hypothesis, it incurs too many problems and did not manage to stand the test of time.
11.6 Topics for further research Performative verbs offer many opportunities to engage in further research. The problem is that most of them require substantial research and commitment on the part of the researcher, since there is not much literature on the topic, and what we find is dedicated to performative verbs in English. Let me nevertheless sketch some ideas. In the introduction to this chapter, I raised various points concerning the relationship between performative verbs and social actions that
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we could not really follow up here. For example, you may want to search for social actions that do not have verbal correlates in terms of performative verbs. Even though society is heavily based on economic transactions, there seem to be no performative verbs for buying and selling goods. In principle, a sentence like I hereby buy this new smartphone could be used to achieve the relevant transaction, but in actual practice this does not seem to happen. My impression is that such sentences are much more likely to occur in written rather than spoken registers. Similarly, English does not have separate performative verbs for ordering food in a restaurant and the use of the verb order would be highly unusual in this context (I hereby order the chef ’s dinner). Again, in writing such sentences appear feasible. Another topic concerns taxonomies of performative verbs in languages other than English. To the best of my knowledge, such taxonomies simply do not exist, though I figure that a systematic comparison of such taxonomies taken from different languages could be quite revealing. Again, this is something you would have to do for yourself. What it boils down to is to skim standard dictionaries from different languages for their performative verbs and to arrange them in suitable taxonomies, as Vanderveken () did for English. The aforementioned lists and taxonomies of performative verbs may then be used to explore differences in the form and meaning of performative verbs across languages. Methodological inspiration can be drawn from Verschueren () where you can also find some ideas of the differences that one should look for.
11.7 Exercises Basic level 1. Explain and illustrate the terms hyperonym and hyponym in relation to lexical taxonomies. 2. For the following set of performative verbs, decide whether they belong to the group of assertives (representatives), commissives, directives, expressives, or declarations. You need to take into consideration that some performative verbs can belong to more than one group.
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11 . 7 E X E R C I S E S
adjourn, assure, blame, capitulate, claim, consent, grieve, invite, legislate, object, recognize, refuse, rejoice, testify, wager.
3. Devise a modest ethnomethodological breaching experiment in the sense of Garfinkel () and try it out with your family or among your friends. Be careful not to hurt anybody’s feelings.
Intermediate level 1. We have seen in this chapter that many performative verbs are related semantically, offering different conceptions of the same illocutionary force. For example, pardon and condemn both encode declarations, but whereas the former lifts a ban, the latter enforces one. a. Take a look at the list of performative verbs below—all encoding declarations—and look up their meanings in a dictionary. abdicate, abjure, cancel, condemn, declare, denounce, disinherit, disown, establish, forgive, surrender, yield b. Order these performative verbs into a lexical taxonomy. c. Compare your results with the taxonomy proposed in Vanderveken (: ). 2. Although the performative hypothesis nowadays tends to be treated as no more than a historical curiosity, the observations behind it and especially the argumentation that it is based on are surprisingly sharp and insightful. It still represents a good exemplar of structuralist thinking. a. Read the original article by Ross () and its interpretation and criticism in Levinson (: –). b. Identify and discuss three arguments in favour and three arguments against the assumption of the performative hypothesis. c. Explain the original impetus of the performative hypothesis. What precisely did linguists hope to achieve with it? 3. The sentences below are all performative in the sense that they can be used to do something. However, some are more clearly marked as performative than others. a. Recall the syntactic properties of the sentences in which performative verbs typically occur. b. Test the sentences below for these properties and order them on a cline of performativeness. i. Your contract is hereby annulled. ii. I name this ship the Santa Maria. iii. Let me ask you what bothers you.
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iv. I’d like to announce that we are going to divorce. v. I hereby appoint you president of our society. vi. The schedule is cancelled.
Advanced level 1. As I showed in this chapter, there is very little cross-linguistic information on performative verbs. Let us remedy this situation by carrying out a small study of our own. a. Select five performative verbs each from the groups of representatives (assertives), commissives, directives, declarations, and expressives. Choose verbs that differ in their semantic specificity. b. Identify fellow students speaking languages other than English. You should try to find students speaking at least five different languages, preferably from distinct language families. c. Let your fellow students translate the English performative verbs into their languages. Note down differences in form, meaning, and perhaps usage. 2. A good diagnostic for identifying performative utterances is the adverb hereby. Let us investigate such performative utterances in a corpus of authentic speech. a. Consult the online edition of the British National Corpus (http://corpus.byu. edu/bnc) and extract all sentences containing hereby. This should yield a data set of tokens. b. Sort these tokens according to syntactic criteria like subject type, voice, and tense. c. In addition, sort these tokens according to register (spoken vs written language). d. Which observations can you make? Interpret your findings. 3. As we noted at several points during the discussion in this chapter, the relationship between social actions and performative verbs is difficult to describe. In an academic essay of maximally , words, try to approach this matter from different perspectives, including the linguistic, the philosophical, the sociological, as well as the conversation analytic perspective.
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12 Summary and outlook
. The morphosyntax of clause types
. The meaning of clause types
. The force of clause types
. The distribution of clause types
. A gradient model of clause types
. Summary
. Topics for further research
. Exercises
The aim of this concluding chapter is twofold. On the one hand, it provides a summary of the English speech act system and the major parameters of cross-linguistic variation, discussing the position of English within this grid of variation. There will also be a discussion of the major universals identified in this domain of grammar and the place of English vis-à-vis these universals. On the other hand, I will here argue for a gradient model of clause types in which these are regarded as forming a continuum based on several dimensions, including their morphosyntactic properties, their semantics, their illocutionary force potential, and their distribution. We will proceed as follows. In a first step, we will use these aforementioned dimensions as a background plane against which we can summarize and recapitulate the major properties of clause types and clause type systems. This will provide a concise summary of the major aspects of the book. In a second step, I will propose to replace the traditional dichotomy of major and minor clause types, as introduced in Chapter , by the above gradient model, which, in my view, is better able to handle the empirical facts. To cut a long story short, this
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gradient model ranges from the declarative type at the one pole to various of the so-called minor types at the other pole, with interrogatives, imperatives, and exclamatives falling in between. The idea of grammatical gradience contrasts with the assumption of clearly delineated categories. Instead of assuming mutually exclusive categories (either A or B), gradience allows for overlap between categories and higher or lower degrees of typicality regarding category membership. Grammatical categories can be identified by formal and functional properties, typical examples being person, number, tense, or aspect, to name just a few common ones. Throughout this book, we have been concerned with the category of clause types, discussing its members and their formal and functional range. Conceiving of them as gradient entities allows us to identify more or less central clause types as well as more or less typical clausal specimens in relation to a certain clause type. The approach taken here elaborates on earlier ideas expounded in Altmann () as well as Panther and Köpcke ().
12.1 The morphosyntax of clause types As far as their formal means of expression is concerned, clause types draw primarily on word order differences, particles, verbal inflection, and the non-realization of syntactic constituents. Intonation offers an additional channel of information which, however, we decided to circumnavigate for the reasons explicated in Chapter . An important challenge for the analysis of clause types and clause type systems is that the distinguishable clause types (declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives, exclamatives, etc.) typically exploit categorically different means of expression—sometimes even in combination—and that there is substantial cross-linguistic variation in their encoding. The idea of a fully symmetric clause type paradigm, in which mutually exclusive formal exponents in the same syntagmatic position identify the available clause types, can rarely be encountered across languages, if it can be found at all. In the typical case, declarative clauses are identified by means of their word order, which happens to be the unmarked or basic word order of a given language. Declarative word order in English is SVO, in Japanese it is SOV, and VSO in Irish, for example. The remaining three logically conceivable patterns (OVS, OSV, and VOS) are rarely attested in the world’s languages, as we learned in Chapter . Some languages boast
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12 . 1 M O R P H O S Y N T A X O F C L A U S E T Y P E S
evidential particles that indicate the source of the information expressed by the relevant clause. As these are practically restricted to declarative clauses, they can be analysed as formal exponents for their identification. Dedicated marking of declarative clauses by means of particles or affixes is extremely rare. It goes without saying that minimal declarative clauses of the English SV or SVO type can be modified or syntactically rearranged in various ways. For example, the addition of adverbial modifiers or clausal complements does not change the declarative type, nor do any modifications to the information structure (e.g. topicalization) effect such a change. By definition, all languages possess a declarative clause type. If declarative clauses represent the unmarked clause type, interrogatives are typically characterized by some additional formal modification. As for English, this includes a functionally more restricted word order pattern (verb first, subject–verb inversion), the (nearly) obligatory presence of an auxiliary (do-periphrasis), and one or more interrogative words in case of constituent interrogatives. The interrogative word order pattern of English strongly correlates with the function of seeking information (Siemund b) and is in this sense functionally more restricted than that of declarative clauses (see below). Distinct interrogative word order patterns are extremely rare in the world’s languages, the most common marking strategy of interrogative clauses being the addition of clause-final or clause-initial particles, as in Japanese and Turkish (both final), or French and Polish (both initial). The most widely used strategy is thus additive and clearly compositional. Some languages (e.g. Spanish) signal yes–no questions by means of intonation only and hence lack a dedicated morphosyntactic polar interrogative form type. The main parameters relevant for the classification of interrogative words are their conceptual type, the word classes that they belong to as well as their position in a clause. With no fewer than nine interrogative words, English boasts a relatively large system distinguishing persons, things, locations, times, causes, and manners encoded by nominal, adverbial, and adjectival expressions. In common with cross-linguistics preferences, we do not find verbal interrogatives words. English places interrogative words in clauseinitial position, unless the relevant clause contains more than one interrogative word. Thus, with the exception of interrogative words in subject position, these expressions do not occupy the syntactic position in the corresponding declarative clauses (i.e. the in situ position).
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SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK
Even though this is not visible in English due to its strong analytic architecture, the imperative is primarily a verbal category, being encoded by inflectional affixes on the verb in many languages. In the typical case, there are different affixes for singular and plural imperatives. English lacks corresponding affixes, employing the bare verb form instead. The main diagnostic here is the omission of the subject. If a language is highly analytic and generally allows the omission of subject constituents (such as Chinese), it becomes difficult to identify an imperative clause type. There is some controversy regarding the question whether exhortations to the first and third person (Let’s eat more fish!; May God help us all!) should be subsumed under the category of the imperative, or if the second person represents a definitional criterion. Here, we followed the latter approach and reserved labels such as ‘hortative’ and ‘optative’ for first and third person imperative-like constructions. One rather surprising empirical observation is that negative imperatives tend to be encoded differently from positive imperatives, the special term ‘prohibitive’ accordingly being used for negative imperatives. Moreover, certain languages resort to a different category to express negative commands or requests, such as the subjunctive or the infinitive. There is a host of categories that are semantically related to the imperative proper, including ‘optatives’ (wishes), ‘debitives’ (obligations), ‘rogatives’ (petitions), ‘supplicatives’ (permissions), ‘admonitives’ (warnings), to name just a few prominent ones. Needless to say, these categories—when conceived of in terms of dedicated morphosyntactic marking—are not as widely encountered as the imperative proper, but there are claims that these minor categories entail the existence of the imperative (see Chapter ). Exclamatives can be encountered in a great variety of form types and it may require rather sophisticated argumentation to decide if any of these represents an exlamative clause type. In combination with a rather typical exclamatory intonation pattern, exclamative force may be expressed using declarative or interrogative clauses, either as main or embedded clauses, but also modified noun phrases of the type The things she says. From a cross-linguistic perspective, constituent interrogatives seem to be a prominent carrier for exclamations and perhaps also a source for the development of dedicated exlamative clause types. We can witness this in English where what/how-exclamatives share important properties with embedded interrogative clauses, although they also exhibit special properties when used as independent main
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12 . 2 M E A N I N G O F C L A U S E T Y P E S
clauses. Due to the clause-initial interrogative phrases and their declarative word order, English what/how-exclamatives establish a paradigmatic contrast to declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives. Moreover, exclamative clauses in English are confined to exactly two interrogative words, namely what and how. In the course of this book, we also investigated several clause-like structures that cannot be subsumed under any of the established clause types, and that do not give rise to independently recognizable clause types either. This is for several reasons. First, such minor clause types may be formulaic and then tend to sound somewhat archaic (May the best man win; Would that she left). Second, the set of minor clause types contains several embedded finite and non-finite structures (Who to phone after office hours; That someone could be so greedy; How you can make a fortune). The familiar major clause types are main clauses, by contrast. And, third, minor clause types are typically confined to highly specific usage contexts. A substantial portion of the minor clause types, as we have seen, is amenable to an analysis in terms of insubordination (Evans ). In other words, the relevant examples represent the conventionalized use of embedded clauses as independent main clauses. The concept of insubordination offers an interesting theoretical conflict for grammaticalization theory, since embedded clauses—in that framework—possess a higher degree of grammaticity than main clauses. Accordingly, their use and conventionalization as independent main clauses runs counter to widely held assumptions about unidirectionality, i.e. the principle that linguistic units can only gain in grammaticity, but that they cannot degrammaticalize.
12.2 The meaning of clause types For the purposes of this book, I drew a basic distinction between sentence meaning on the one hand, and utterance meaning on the other, thus accommodating the empirical observation that one and the same clause type—and even one and the same clausal token—can be found used with different illocutionary forces. What is here referred to as ‘sentence meaning’ captures the denotational or truth-conditional meaning of clauses and sentences. The term ‘utterance meaning’ is reserved for the associated pragmatic or illocutionary meanings. This distinction is reflective of the broad linguistic fields of semantics and
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SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK
pragmatics, but it should be clear that the relevant demarcation lines are difficult to draw and that further internal differentiation (i.e. different levels of semantics or pragmatics) can in principle be assumed. This section concerns sentence meaning, while utterance meaning will be dealt with in the next section. As far as declarative clauses are concerned, their semantics is equivalent to the proposition expressed by them. In the ideal case, it can be computed from the meanings of the lexical expressions that constitute it. For example, a simple intransitive sentence like John snores at night can be decomposed into the lexical expressions John (referent), snore (event), at (relation), and night (time), and taken together in this particular order they give rise to the overall meaning of the sentence. To be sure, there are more complicated cases that challenge the principle of compositionality and in which some constructional meaning needs to be assumed, as in the widely discussed ‘caused-motion construction’ in which ordinary transitive verbs express the semantic component of causation (e.g. John talked her out of her contract meaning ‘John caused her to quit’). What is puzzling about declarative clauses is that there is nothing obvious in their semantic structure that can be taken to give rise to their illocutionary force potential. They are typically unmarked (see above). Their force potential may therefore be analysed as a purely contextual condition, which essentially means that they are force-neutral (unless we assume some hidden operator for assertions). Modal expressions indicating necessity, obligation, and related concepts interact with the propositional content of declarative clauses and substantially modify their force. Similarly, markers of evidentiality take the proposition expressed by declarative clauses in their scope, asserting the source and/or the strength of the information. The semantic analysis of interrogative clauses offers substantial room for controversies and competing analyses. According to a widely accepted proposal, the meaning of questions can be captured in terms of their true answers. As for yes–no questions, this simply boils down to the proposition expressed or its negation. In contrast, content questions may have more than one true answer and in this case their meaning can be characterized as the set of true answers. We may notice that this proposition set approach to the meaning of questions leaves question force completely unspecified, which may be conceived of in terms of a contextual condition or—more plausibly—resulting from some explicit
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12 . 2 M E A N I N G O F C L A U S E T Y P E S
illocutionary operator in their semantic specification. Several extensions and refinements have been proposed for modelling the semantics of questions that significantly go beyond the classical proposition set approach, notably the partitional approach and inquisitive semantics (see Chapter ). Especially the latter approach goes beyond viewing questions as isolated propositional objects, but considers their role in conversation and for the elaboration of discourse. If we compare the research output generated by studying the semantics of questions to that of assertions, we cannot but conclude that the former represents the more challenging object of research. Of all the clause types discussed in this book, the semantics of imperatives is perhaps the least well understood, currently attracting substantial research effort. If we strive for a clear distinction between semantics and pragmatics, it would seem to make sense to keep semantics free from specifications for illocutionary force as much as possible. In the ideal case, the relevant attitudinal facts, i.e. the illocutionary force potential of the different clause types, should be derivable from their semantic specification in a principled way. Since declarative clauses lack corresponding semantic specification, their force potential is extremely versatile. Interrogative clauses denote open propositions from which—at least in principle—it appears possible to derive question force, perhaps from a more fundamental desire to make incomplete propositions complete. Imperative clauses are most challenging in this respect, since their illocutionary force potential is rather small and it is difficult to identify plausible semantic primitives from which their directive force can be derived. Recent proposals operating with a source of obligation as well as addressee-based ‘to-do lists’ and ‘plan sets’ can be interpreted as efforts working towards a clearer distinction between semantics and pragmatics (see Chapter ). The assumption of a source of obligation, for example, can be motivated from the fact that we also need it to account for certain kinds of modality (necessity). Regarding the meaning of exclamative clauses, we established several semantic components that are necessary to specify their meaning, above and beyond the propositions expressed by the relevant clausal tokens. First, exclamative clauses characterize the proposition expressed as factive or presupposed, i.e. as part of the common ground. They do not introduce new information. Second, there is the semantic component of a scale that, however, needs to be contextually specified. The scalar component can be plausibly related to the presence of an interrogative
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word in what/how-exclamatives. And, third, the proposition expressed is related to an extreme point on the scale, producing the effect of surprise typically associated with the use of exclamative clauses. The meaning of English what/how-exclamatives is similar, if not equivalent, to that of interrogative degree modification (What a mess!; How awful!), here analysed as reduced exclamative clauses. Exclamations, thus, belong to the more encompassing domain of intensification (very messy, really awful, etc.) with which they share the scalar semantics. If it is difficult to tease apart the semantic and pragmatic aspects of the so-called ‘major clause types’ discussed so far, such a differentiation is practically impossible to achieve for what we referred to as ‘minor clause types’, as it is essentially a defining criterion of these minor types that certain attitudinal aspects of the communicative situation get read into the relevant syntactic structures. Such attitudinal semantic components include surprise, criticism, advice, suggestions, instructions, wishes, disapproval, to name the more common ones. They clearly straddle the line of semantics proper and pragmatics. Minor clause types represent an early stage in the process of conventionalizing morphosyntactic form and meaning. The semantics of minor clause types remains a challenging analytical task. The problem is similar to that posed by modal particles, where semantic and pragmatic components of meaning are very difficult to disentangle.
12.3 The force of clause types Considering the semantics of clause types, as summarized in the preceding section, we find greatly differing semantic specifications that can be related to illocutionary force in a systematic way. Whereas there is no such obvious semantic component in the semantic structure of declarative clauses (unless we assume some hidden operator related to assertions), interrogative clauses, by virtue of describing undecided/ incomplete propositions, contain a semantic element that can intuitively be related to their directive (question) force, even though the details of this relationship require further assumptions. If we conceive of the semantics of imperative clauses in terms of a source of obligation and an addressee-based plan set, as outlined above, their prototypical use to express directive (request) force becomes understandable. Similarly, the affective response conveyed by exclamative clauses can
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12 . 3 F O R C E O F C L A U S E T Y P E S
be more or less directly related to characterizing some property as extreme on a contextually given scale. In other words, their expressive force has a clear semantic basis. As for the various minor clause types, we argued that their force probably needs to be specified directly in their semantics, as it is highly specific. If we place the clause types distinguished above in a row next to one another, we can witness an increasing semantic specification of illocutionary force, ranging from practically unspecified in the case of declarative clauses (force-neutrality) to very highly specified as in the case of minor clause types. Hand in hand with this increasing semantic specification of illocutionary force goes a decreasing illocutionary force potential as well as a decreasing contextual versatility. Arguably, declarative clauses can be used in any context with practically any force. In contrast, minor clause types are restricted to highly specific forces and contexts. Let us look at these correlations once again in a more systematic way, by and large ignoring the distinction between direct and indirect speech acts. Searle’s () categorization of illocutionary classes offers a convenient grid against which we can assess the illocutionary potential of the different clause types (see also Chapter ). Recall that he distinguishes five broad classes labelled ‘representatives’, ‘directives’, ‘commissives’, ‘expressives’, and ‘declarations’. Declarative clauses populate all five classes, as can be gathered from the examples below. I here distinguish between question directives and request directives. If the declarative clauses contain a performative verb, as in the relevant bexamples, they can be rather trivially found in all five speech act classes. We may note, though, that the question in (a) is biased and requires specific context (see Chapter ). Clearly, declarative clauses are communicatively extremely versatile. () a. Two plus two equals four. (representative) b. I hereby state that two plus two equals four. (representative) () a. The train is late again? (directive; question) b. I hereby ask if the train is late again. (directive; question) () a. You should not lie. (directive; request) b. I hereby request you not to lie. (directive; request) () a. I will return your book as soon as possible. (commissive) b. I promise to return your book as soon as possible. (commissive)
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() a. This is such a foolish idea. (expressive) b. I hereby exclaim that this is a foolish idea. (expressive) () a. Your contract terminates by the end of the month. (declaration) b. I hereby declare that your contract terminates by the end of the month. (declaration) Interrogative clauses are more restricted in regard to the expressible forces, although they are still remarkably versatile. The examples in () through () illustrate them with representative, directive, commissive, and expressive forces, with question directives being their prototypical force and request directives representing their most important indirect use (at least of polar interrogatives; see Chapter ). Crucially, they cannot be used to perform declarations. Still, they feature in four out of five of the Searlean speech act classes. ()
a. Do we not all have certain fears? ‘We all have certain fears.’ (representative) b. Who would ever say such things? ‘Nobody would ever say such things.’ (representative)
()
a. Is the train late again? (directive; question) b. When will the train arrive? (directive; question)
()
a. Could you perhaps speak up a little? (directive; request) b. When will you stop bothering me? (directive; request)
() a. Would you like to join us for lunch? (commissive) b. Who would like another cup of coffee? (commissive) () a. Are you mad or what? (expressive) b. What the hell are you doing here? (expressive) In comparison, imperative clauses are even more restricted, as they are attested in only three of the five Searlean classes. Their typical use as a request directive is shown in example (). Its less typical commissive and expressive uses are illustrated in examples () and (). Imperatives are not used as representatives or for expressing declarations. They cannot be used as questions in the class of directives (except for echo questions). () Leave my room immediately and never come back. (directive; request)
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() Have some more fruit, if you like. (commissive) () Go to hell! (expressive) Evidently, then, there is a cline in the illocutionary force potential from declarative via interrogative to imperative, declarative clauses being least restricted and imperative clauses most restricted. How do exclamative clauses fit into this continuum? Our analysis in Chapter here revealed that exclamative clauses are practically restricted to conveying expressive speech acts, as in the examples in (), that communicate surprise or non-canonicity. To be sure, examples like (a) may additionally be understood as requests for, say, explaining the watch in more detail or perhaps even borrowing it, but the expressive act remains so dominant so that these can hardly qualify as indirect speech acts. If at all, they represent perlocutionary effects. () a. What a great watch you’ve got there, David. (expressive) b. How quickly she managed to convince me. (expressive) If exclamative clauses cover the domain of expressive speech acts, though certainly not comprehensively, the minor clause types explored in Chapter are tied to very specific speech acts. The bulk of minor clause types encode specific directive speech acts, more precisely suggestions, asking for explanations, and giving instructions, as illustrated in the examples in ()–(). Other minor clause types can be found for encoding wishes—another type of directive act. () Why don’t you go to southern Spain? (directive; suggestion) () How come you are vegetarian? (directive; explanation) () Why you should spend less money. (directive; instruction) Table . (reproduced from Chapter ) again offers a summary of the illocutionary forces encoded by minor clause types. There may also be Table 12.1 Directive speech acts as expressed by minor clause types Making suggestions Requesting explanations Giving instructions Wishes why don’t you . . .
how come . . .
why you should . . .
may . . .
how about . . .
what if . . .
when to . . .
would that . . .
why not . . .
God save the Queen.
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concomitant expressive components of meaning (surprise, disbelief, regret, disapproval, dissatisfaction, etc.). Sadock (: ) proposes a reinterpretation of the five speech act classes in Searle () based on three broad dimensions, as summarized in the listing below. He refers to these as ‘informational’, ‘effective’, and ‘affective’, practically redefining Searle’s propositional content condition, his essential condition, and his sincerity condition. These three dimensions taken together constitute speech acts, and, what is more, different acts emphasize these dimensions to differing degrees. 1. an informational, representational aspect (INF) in which conversational negotiations are conducted in terms of propositions that can be judged for accuracy against real or possible worlds; 2. an effective, social aspect (EF) by means of which conventional effects on societally determined features of the world are achieved; 3. an affective, emotive aspect (AF) that is used to give vent to and/ or display real or apparent feelings of the speaker.
As far as clause types are concerned, declaratives can communicate along all three dimensions, even though the informational dimension is usually considered primary. Notwithstanding this common association of declaratives with statements, all performative verbs occur in declarative clauses. Interrogatives and imperatives are strong along the effective dimension, obliging the addressee to some future action. They express directives in Searle’s typology. Lumping them together functionally, as we saw in Chapters –, does not do justice to the fact that interrogatives and imperatives are formally differentiated in the typical case. In addition, information questions are functionally different from yes–no questions, and this fact is typically formally encoded. While the former request information, the latter request an evaluation. Imperatives request addressee action or cessation. Even though all these acts may be called ‘requests’ or ‘directives’, they are quite different functionally. Language being a system for interaction, it would appear plausible that such systems offer fine-grained distinctions to handle requests. Exclamative clauses emphasize the affective dimension, even though they also convey (presupposed) information. Many of the minor clause types are effective (partly affective), differing in terms of politeness or the degree of obligation the addressee is put under.
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It would appear that of the three dimensions described by Sadock (), it is the effective one that receives the highest degree of differentiation across languages, both formally and functionally. The second highest degree of differentiation appears to be drawn in the affective domain. There seems to be less diversity along the informational dimension. It is worthwhile considering Searle’s taxonomy of speech acts in the light of the foregoing cross-linguistic facts. Grammatical encoding seems to be available for primarily three classes of speech acts, namely representatives (via declaratives), directives (via interrogatives, imperatives, and minor clause types), and expressives (via exclamatives and minor clause types). There appear to be very few dedicated grammatical constructions for commissives (perhaps qua hortatives) and, apparently, none for declarations. Evidently, grammars mainly offer expressiveness for information exchange, various kinds of addressee obligation, and emotional states of the speaker. The anthropocentric character of language is difficult to miss.
12.4 The distribution of clause types In the course of this book, we also collected a substantial body of empirical facts on the distribution of the various clause types. I will here recapitulate our main findings and enrich them with additional information. The main objective is to show that there is a distributional cline from declarative clauses to minor clause types. Declarative clauses, as we observed in Chapter , constitute the most widely used clause type in representative corpora of English. They outnumber the other clause types by a wide margin. Table . again provides the relevant figures from the International Corpus of English, British Component (ICE-GB). We can see that per cent of declarative clauses contrast with a share of . per cent of interrogative clauses, . per cent of imperative clauses, and a mere . per cent of exclamative clauses. The differences are indeed striking. The internal distribution of interrogative clauses is summarized in Table .. The delta between the totals given in Table . and Table . is due to the inclusion of tag questions as well as certain— in my view—controversial data points in Table . (see Siemund b: for details). As we learned in Chapter , polar interrogatives
Clause types in ICE-GB (Siemund a: )
ICE-GB1
Main clauses
Declaratives
Interrogatives
Imperatives
What-exclamatives
How-exclamatives
Subjunctives
number
,
,
,
,
per cent
.
.
.
.
.
.
1
Note that declarative clauses are not a category in ICE-GB. Their number needs to be computed by deducting all other clause types from the number of main clauses. Moreover, the compilers of ICE-GB distinguish subjunctives as a separate clausal category. Note also that the table contains rounding errors.
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Table 12.2
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Table 12.3 The number of polar and constituent interrogatives in relation to register in ICE-GB (Siemund b: ) Register
Polar
Constituent
Total
Spoken
, (.%)
, (.%)
, (%)
Written
(.%)
(.%)
(%)
,
Total
,
,
Table 12.4 Direct (information) and indirect (other) uses of polar and constituent interrogatives in relation to register, adapted from Siemund (b: ) Polar
Information Other Total
Constituent
Total
sp
wr
sp
wr
, (.%)
(.%)
, (.%)
(.%)
,
(.%)
(.%)
(.%)
(.%)
,
,
,
Note: sp = spoken, wr = written
tend to be more frequently used than constituent interrogatives. What Table . adds to this general finding is that this frequency difference is largely attributable to the spoken registers, the details again being discussed in Chapter . We argued that this frequency difference can be explained within Levinson’s (a) social economics of questions. Assuming a distinction between direct and indirect speech acts, as done throughout this book, polar interrogatives are considerably stronger than constituent interrogatives in the indirect domain, mainly attributable to their indirect requestive uses. The relevant figures are provided in Table .. Indirectly used constituent interrogatives are relatively strong in the written domain due to their occurrence as rhetorical questions. Figure . offers a contrastive comparison of polar and constituent interrogatives in their indirect uses, pointing to a clear division of labour between the two types of interrogative clauses. Polar interrogatives, in their indirect uses, are primarily used to ask for confirmation, initiate discourse, make offers, ask for permission, make requests and suggestions, and ask rhetorical questions. They are not employed—at
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nn
el c di onfi ling sc r ou ma tio gr rse n in ab it bi ng iatin g at te nt io n gr ee ti in ng vit at io n of fe pe rm r iss io re pr n im an d re qu es rh et t or ic su gg al es tio n su rp ris e th re at
ba c
kc
ha
ap ol
og y
12 10 8 6 4 2 0
Polar
Constituent
Figure 12.1 Indirect uses of polar and constituent interrogatives (Siemund b: ) Table 12.5 English positive and negative imperatives in relation to their functions (van Olmen : , ) Wilful
Non-wilful
Commissive
Expressive
Positive
Negative
least in the sample evaluated here—for apologies, grabbing attention, greetings, and the expression of surprise. The main indirect use of constituent interrogatives concerns rhetorical questions, as already mentioned. In addition, they are often used for backchannelling, greetings, reprimands, and suggestions. Constituent interrogatives do not appear in the domains of confirmation requests, discourse initiations, permissions, and threats. Let us now turn to imperatives, whose distributional facts are accessible through van Olmen’s () study. Like my study on interrogatives, it is based on ICE-GB, though it only makes use of the spoken part of this corpus (the , cases mentioned in Table . comprise both spoken and written data). Their distributions in relation to positive and negative imperatives as well as the expressed illocutionary forces are summarized in Table .. We can see here that positive imperatives outnumber negative imperatives by a wide margin. Apparently, we find it more important to say what others should do, rather than what they should not. Moreover, the subset of so-called ‘non-wilful directives’ (advice, suggestion, instruction,
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Table 12.6
What-exclamatives in ICE-GB (Siemund a: )
ICE-GB
Total
what + NP
what + NP + be
what + NP + full verb
Number
Per cent
.
.
.
Category sp wr
sp
wr
sp
wr
sp wr
Number
Note: sp = spoken, wr = written
warning) is strongest in English, while the usually more widely discussed subset of ‘wilful directives’ (command, order, plea, request) is less extensive. In comparison, ‘commissive directives’ (offer, invitation, permission) and ‘expressive directives’ (wish, imprecation, challenge) are less important distributionally. Imperatives with overt subjects are rare (see Chapter for the details). With twelve instances in ICE-GB, exclamative clauses are extremely rare and one needs bigger corpora to investigate their usage, as we did by using the British National Corpus (BNC) in Chapter . However, the twelve instances mentioned in Table . relate to full clausal exclamative clauses. If we include the reduced cases, the relevant figures are higher, as shown in Table . focusing on what-exclamatives.1 Table . also shows that exclamative clauses, especially the reduced tokens, occur more frequently in spoken data, which I find plausible. The minor clause types discussed in Chapter are difficult to quantify, since the relevant syntactic tokens are often non-clausal or fragmentary (e.g. How about another beer?; How come exactly you?). Moreover, insubordinated cases, i.e. embedded clauses used as independent main clauses, are difficult to identify in a corpus (e.g. That someone could be so vain!). Therefore, I did not even attempt to provide a usage-based account in Chapter . Nevertheless, since the claim here is that minor clause types occur less frequently than the other clause types discussed so far, I offer some tentative distributions in Table .. The figures there have been drawn from ICE-GB and can hence be compared to those found in the previous tables. Note that Table . mentions eleven what-exclamatives (full clauses, that is), whereas there are twelve full clausal cases mentioned in Table . (‘what + NP + be’ and ‘what + NP + full verb’). The difference is due to one misclassification in ICE-GB that I detected manually. 1
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Table 12.7 Minor clause types in ICE-GB Type
Example
No.
how come
How come you know this?
what if
What if I change my name and address?
why don’t
Why don’t you have some Guinness?
how about
How about your admin staff?
what about
But what about their distribution?
would that may
May the emperor’s reign embody the future.
let us
Let us be honest about one thing.
if only
If only she would admit it.
We can see that their rate of occurrence is generally below that of exclamative clauses, with the exception of what about. This latter construction, however, needs to be complemented with some nominal structure and does not give rise clausal units. On the whole, minor clause types are quite rare.
12.5 A gradient model of clause types The preceding sections have shown that clause types differ in terms of their morphosyntactic encoding, their meaning, their illocutionary force potential, and their distribution. Declarative clauses, as we have seen, do not have any specific formal exponents or a specific declarative meaning (apart from perhaps encoding assertions), but boast the broadest illocutionary force potential and the widest distribution. Interrogative clauses, in the typical case, receive morphosyntactic marking. They possess a specific interrogative meaning, as they encode indeterminate or open propositions. Their illocutionary force potential is high, though not as high as that of declarative clauses. They allow many indirect uses. Similarly, they enjoy a widespread distribution, but they are not nearly as frequently used as declarative clauses. Imperatives tend to be double marked by omitted subjects in combination with specific verbal morphology or verb forms. In terms of their meaning, they denote addressee obligation, futurity, second person, and tend to
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specify singular or plural addressees. In comparison to declaratives and interrogatives, their meaning is relatively specific. Their illocutionary force potential, however, is comparatively low and so is their frequency of occurrence. Exclamative clauses in English, and it is here difficult to generalize beyond English for the reasons discussed in Chapter , can be identified by the clause-initial interrogative words what and how in combination with their specific word order pattern. They are quite complex in terms of their meaning, involving factivity, a scale, as well as extremity. Conversely, they express highly specific illocutionary forces and are rarely used in comparison to the other clause types. The so-called ‘minor clause types’ draw on highly diverse morphosyntactic marking strategies and tend to piggyback on other clause types. Their semantic and pragmatic meaning components are difficult to disentangle. Typically, they express highly specific forces. Their frequency of occurrence is low, as we have seen. Broadly speaking, it would seem that an increase in morphosyntactic marking is tantamount to an increase in semantic specificity and a decrease in frequency of occurrence. A high degree of semantic specificity seems to correlate with a low illocutionary force potential, and vice versa. Figure . illustrates this relationship schematically for morphosyntactic marking and frequency of occurrence. Here, morphosyntactic marking increases from left to right, whereas frequency of occurrence decreases. Figure . represents the relationship between specificity of meaning and illocutionary force potential, with specificity of meaning increasing from left to right and illocutionary force potential decreasing. Note that Figure . needs to be viewed in relation to Figure ., as the formal parameters correlate with the semantic parameters, and vice versa.
–
+
Morphosyntactic marking
Frequency of occurrence
+
–
Figure 12.2 Morphosyntactic marking in relation to frequency of occurrence
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–
+
Semantic specificity
Force potential
+
–
Figure 12.3 Specificity of meaning in relation to illocutionary force potential
To be sure, these relationships represent broad tendencies, especially as morphosyntactic marking and meaning are difficult to quantify. It appears difficult, if not impossible, to add up verbal morphology, word order changes, and the omission of constituents. Similarly, components of meaning heavily depend on the framework of semantic analysis. I will therefore not attempt to make the relationships depicted in the above figures more precise, but hope that they can be grasped intuitively from the exposition in the previous sections. Despite these differences in terms of morphosyntactic marking, semantic specificity, illocutionary force potential, and frequency of use, current descriptive, typological, and theoretical studies on clause types and clause type systems merely offer us a binary distinction between ‘major’ and ‘minor’ clause types (see Akmajian : –; Sadock and Zwicky : –; Rosengren /; Croft ; Reis ; Allan : ; König and Siemund , ; Meibauer et al. ). We explored this distinction in some detail in Chapter . Let me recapitulate the main points motivating this distinction before moving on to introducing a gradient conception of clause types. Major clause types are taken to subsume declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives, whereas minor clause types cover hortatives, optatives, debitives, as well as other less frequent types. Exclamative clauses have been categorized as either major or minor, depending on language and analyst. For example, Sadock and Zwicky (: ) subsume English exclamatives under minor clause types, and so does Reis (: ) for German. In contrast, the two major authoritative grammars of English assign them major clause type status (Quirk et al. : ; Huddleston and Pullum : ).
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Let us explore a few of these studies in more detail. For Croft (: –), major clause types can be distinguished from minor ones since they possess ‘salient structural characteristics’ that ‘characterize the sentence as a whole rather than just one of its parts’ (see also Chapter ). Such salient structural characteristics involve the immediate constituents of a clause as well as its verbal head and can be conceived of as morphosyntactic alterations of them. These can be of different types, but mainly comprise the items listed in the following.2 Minor clause types, accordingly, can be defined by other, less salient morphosyntactic characteristics. Note that these characteristics exclusively take formal properties of clauses in consideration, ignoring issues of meaning, force, and distribution. 1. change of the word order of immediate constituents of a sentence; 2. the positioning of an element in one of the salient positions of a sentence: first, last, second position; 3. deletion or insertion of an immediate constituent; 4. major alteration of the head of the sentence, namely the main verb.
Sadock and Zwicky () as well as König and Siemund (, ) pursue a different approach to distinguish major from minor clause types. According to these authors, the defining property of minor clause types is that they are based on or can be derived from the major types in a systematic way. It follows that the major types are independent in that they cannot be reduced to other types. Let me illustrate this approach using exclamative clauses, which, as we observed in Chapter , share important structural and functional properties of declarative and/or interrogative clauses. Sadock and Zwicky (: ) comment that the ‘function of exclamatory sentences is much like that of declarative sentences, except that exclamations are intended to be expressive whereas declaratives are intended to be informative’. Moreover, exclamative clauses typically contain an interrogative word such as what or how, thus drawing on an expressive device that is constitutive of Croft (: –) also counts intonation among the salient structural characteristics defining a clause. I do not discuss it here, since we excluded it from the definitional criteria of clause types for the reasons discussed in Chapter . Nevertheless, intonation evidently characterizes clauses as a whole. 2
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constituent interrogatives (Elliott : –; Sadock and Zwicky : ; Michaelis : ; König and Siemund : ). Similarly, minor clause types such as hortatives and prohibitives can often be reduced to imperative clauses, which represent the more basic and in this sense major type. For example, certain types of prohibitives can be decomposed into imperatives that occur in combination with a special negative marker (see Chapter ). Evidently, minor clause types can be related to major ones on the basis of structural and functional criteria. The dichotomy between major and minor clause types may also be based on differences regarding their function and usage. Harnish (: , ), as we saw in Chapter , discusses productivity, centrality in communication, relative frequency of occurrence, and attestation across languages, though without really explicating these parameters. The major clause types or ‘moods’ in the terminology of Harnish () share the characteristics detailed below (adapted from Harnish : , ): 1. 2. 3. 4.
highly unrestricted in their productivity; central in their communicative importance; comparatively high in frequency of occurrence; common to most languages and do not vary widely from language to language.
These points may be interpreted in such a way that the major clause types show little context dependence, can be used in many communicative contexts (i.e. with a large set of different forces), enjoy a high text frequency, and are attested in many, if not all languages. Minor clause types, conversely, differ widely across languages, occur rarely in discourse, convey specific forces, and are highly context dependent. Evidently, declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives would count as major clause types within this grid of categorization. Conversely, the structures that we discussed in Chapter on minor clause types fully deserve to be categorized as ‘minor’. What remains difficult to assess, however, is where to place the cut-off point between major and minor types. For example, should we regard exclamative clauses as major or minor clause types? Panther and Köpcke () propose analysing clauses and clause types in terms of a prototype category that substantially goes beyond
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the classification of clause types into ‘major’ and ‘minor’. According to these authors, there are more or less prototypical exemplars of clauses and clause types, basing their prototype analysis on several morphosyntactic, semantic, and pragmatic attributes. I here condense these to what I consider the four most important attributes (see Panther and Köpcke : – for more extensive discussion). Prototypical clauses share the properties listed below: 1. few functional restrictions, i.e. a high illocutionary force potential; 2. context independence; 3. expression of propositional content, namely referential part and predicative part; 4. occurrence as full clause, consisting of subject and predicate.
Let us consider these one by one, starting with functional restrictions. This dimension captures the observation that some clause types have a higher illocutionary force potential than others. For example, declarative clauses can be used to paraphrase the meaning and force of all other clause types, but imperative or exclamative clauses cannot be used to ask questions (apart from echo questions; see Chapter ). Therefore, declaratives represent a more prototypical clause type in comparison to imperatives or exclamatives. This is similar to Harnish’s () productivity parameter. Context independence relates to the demand of a clause type to be used in adequate context. Whereas declaratives can be easily used to open discourse, this seems less likely or outright impossible for imperatives or exclamatives. Declaratives, hence, are more context independent. The two remaining dimensions, i.e. expression of propositional content and occurrence as full clause, are two sides of the same coin, saying that the prototypical clause expresses a full proposition consisting of subject and predicate. Declarative clauses typically fulfil these conditions, while many minor clause types (e.g. Why not just stay?) deviate from them. Testing the major and minor clause types that we have discussed so far against these dimensions leads to the conclusion that structurally complete declarative clauses represent the most prototypical clause type (following Panther and Köpcke : ). There are two corollaries, namely, on the one hand, that all other clause types are less prototypical, and that structurally incomplete (i.e. reduced) specimens of all clause types are less prototypical than their complete counterparts. Accordingly, the declarative in example (a) is
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a more prototypical clause type than the imperative in (b). Moreover, the complete specimen of a declarative clause in (a) is a more prototypical representative of this type than the telegram style version of it in (b) (see Panther and Köpcke : ). () a. Many professors drink too much coffee. (full declarative) b. Drink less coffee. (full imperative) () a. Most professors own a computer. (full declarative) b. Arrive tomorrow. (reduced declarative) It would appear, then, that besides looking at clause types in terms of an opposition between major and minor types, as traditionally done, the distinction may also be conceived of as a gradient concept. In such a gradient model, we can assume a continuum of clause types, as depicted in Figure .. Declarative clauses are located at one pole of the continuum, whereas the minor clause types can be found at the opposite pole. Interrogative, imperative, and exclamative clause types find their position between these extremes. It goes without saying that trying to establish some ordering within the group of minor clause types would require substantial additional work. Figure . collapses the various dimensions characterizing clause types, as discussed in the preceding passages, in one single dimension. It is therefore necessarily imprecise and oversimplifies the complex relationships between form, meaning, force, and distribution of clause types. Considering Figure ., it becomes clear why some studies analyse exclamatives as a major clause type, while others subsume them under minor clause types. This decision depends on the criteria employed and on the language whose exclamative constructions are considered. Accordingly, the cut-off point separating major and minor clause types is placed to the left or to the right of exclamatives. In Chapter on exclamative clauses, we observed that what/howexclamatives in English frequently occur in reduced, non-clausal form (What a mess!/How nice!). Reduction rates range from . per cent for how-exclamatives to as much as . per cent for what-exclamatives Declaratives
Interrogatives
Imperatives
Exclamatives
Other
Cline of clause types
Figure 12.4 A gradient conception of clause types (Siemund a: )
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Table 12.8 Non-clausal units (NCLs) of different phrase types in ICE-GB (Siemund a: ) NCL NP
NCL VP
NCL AP
NCL ADVP
Total
Total
,
,
,
Spoken
,
,
,
Written
,
,
(see also Siemund a). Regarding what-exclamatives, reduced or elliptical tokens thus outnumber the full clausal tokens by a wide margin. These observations on clause reduction nicely tie in with some of the dimensions of clause prototypicality introduced above, namely their occurrence as full clauses, consisting of subject and predicate, as well as their expression of propositional content. Exclamatives represent a less prototypical clause type, because they frequently do not occur as regular subject–predicate structures and hence do not express propositional content (referential part and predicative part). Rather, their propositional content is presupposed, as we argued in Chapter . Provided this reasoning is correct, we would expect the more prototypical clause types to show fewer clause reductions, i.e. fewer cases of ellipsis. Some tentative evidence that this could indeed be the case is offered in Siemund (a: –). For example, the average reduction rate found in ICE-GB as measured across major phrasal categories is . per cent. Consider Table ., listing the non-clausal tokens of different phrase types in this corpus. Assuming that the , reduced token could in principle be expressed by full clauses, we can compute an average reduction rate by placing them in relation to the , full main clauses contained in ICE-GB (compare Table .). This yields . per cent (, of a combined total of ,). Evidently, this figure is much lower than the average reduction rate found with exclamatives. Similarly, we find , constituent interrogative clauses in ICE-GB of which occur in reduced form (. per cent). This percentage value is similar to the average reduction rate. Imperatives do not appear in reduced form in this corpus. I would like to conclude this chapter with a word of caution. What I have argued for is that clause types form a continuum constrained by the dimensions of morphosyntactic marking, semantic specificity, illocutionary force potential, and distribution (frequency of occurrence).
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A further dimension concerns their occurrence as complete clauses, as there seem to be important differences between the individual clause types along this dimension. As I remarked earlier, though, these dimensions are difficult to quantify and in this sense the gradient clause type model argued for here represents a hypothesis.
12.6 Summary The current chapter concludes this book, and, accordingly, I have here tried to summarize its main points and generalizations as well as offering a perspective of where to go from here. The analysis of clause types, as I have tried to show, needs to take into consideration their morphosyntactic properties, their semantics, and pragmatics (qua illocutionary force potential), as well as their distributional properties. These properties appear to depend on one another, with more extensive morphosyntactic exponence being tantamount to greater semantic specificity, and, conversely, a lower illocutionary force potential and a lower frequency of occurrence. These dependencies represent broad, though pervasive tendencies, subject to further investigation. I have used the above observations to argue for a gradient conception of clause types, instead of the established dichotomy of ‘major’ and ‘minor’ clause types. Placing clause types on a continuum using the properties specified above allows for a better understanding of their similarities and differences, especially what it is that makes certain clause types ‘major’ and others ‘minor’. To be sure, such a gradient conception of clause types presupposes that the above properties can be quantified and perhaps weighted in a plausible way, and this is where problems evidently arise. You are hereby invited to work towards making this gradient model more precise.
12.7 Topics for further research Even though a good number of ideas for further research have been formulated in the previous chapters of this book, let me mention three issues at this point that deserve more attention. First, what I had to say about the distribution of clause types necessarily remains preliminary, since the information is based on
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only two corpora (BNC, ICE-GB) with all their limitations and internal weaknesses. This current state can be developed into various directions, as by using bigger and more recent corpora, historical corpora of English, and corpora sampling different varieties of English. Practically nothing is known about clause types and diachronic change. The challenge remains, though, how to identify clause types in a corpus. Second, I here tried to make a case for a gradient approach to clause types and clause type systems. In a way, you can read this book as moving from a categorical view of clause types to a more gradient conception thereof. To be sure, the idea of grammatical gradience is per se nothing new, even though its extension to clause type systems is. Accordingly, grammatical gradience needs to be researched more thoroughly to assess its value, though also its limitations, for the analysis of clause types. Third, we here practically ignored intonation as a definitional criterion of clause types, apart from a brief discussion in Chapter . I consider this a major limitation of the approach pursued here, but it can be defended on methodological grounds. Moreover, it leaves room for another monograph on clause type systems, exploring the matter from the perspective of suprasegmental phonology. Such a book, especially when based on extensive empirical material and using a crosslinguistic approach, would complement this book very nicely.
12.8 Exercises Basic level 1. If you could engineer your own language, which clause types would you include? Explain. 2. Panther and Köpcke (), as we have seen, argue for an interpretation of clause types within prototype theory. Familiarize yourself with this framework and try to delimit it from competing theories. You may use the Internet as a starting point. 3. In your own words, describe and illustrate the difference between a gradient and a categorical conception of grammar. Try to find three grammatical phenomena that support a categorical conception of grammar, and three that support a gradient one.
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SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK
Intermediate level 1. According to Zipf ’s law (Zipf ), the frequency of occurrence of a word in a corpus is inversely proportional to its frequency rank. If the most frequent word occurs n times, the second most frequent word occurs n/ times, the third most frequent word n/ times, and so on. a. Try to relate Zipf ’s law to the notion of ‘context dependence’, as used in this chapter. b. Does the distribution of clause types correspond to Zipf ’s law or not? Explain. 2. In Section ., I provided a brief summary of the distribution of minor clause types in ICE-GB. a. Extend this distributional analysis to a bigger corpus of English, such as the BNC. b. Assess the communicative function of the relevant tokens of minor clause types in their specific contexts of occurrence. c. Summarize your results in a short research paper. 3. Clause types, as we have seen, differ regarding their illocutionary force potential. In this chapter, I tried to demonstrate this using Searle’s () classification of illocutionary forces. a. Develop a more fine-grained systematics of illocutionary forces involving additional classes or subclasses. b. Explore which forces can be expressed by which clause types. c. Summarize your results in a short research paper (no more than , words).
Advanced level 1. Recall from Chapter on exclamatives that pronominal subjects outnumber full noun phrases in this clause type by a wide margin. Additional information concerning the distribution of noun phrases in exclamatives can be found in Siemund (a). a. Explain in your own words why pronominal subjects are more likely to occur in exclamatives than full noun phrases. b. Give Panther and Köpcke () a close reading. These authors argue that clauses with pronominal subjects are more context dependent than clauses with full noun phrase subjects. Can you see how these observations fit in with the idea of a clause type continuum, as argued for here? Explain.
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2. The term ‘productivity’ is widely used in morphology, especially word formation, to assess the vitality of affixes to form new lexemes. We here transferred it to the study of clause types. a. Thoroughly research the term ‘productivity’ and its different meanings and uses. b. In a research paper of maximally , words, explore and assess the usefulness and applicability of this term for the analysis of clause types. 3. In our discussion of exclamative clauses, we observed frequent clause reduction. Such elision phenomena are conventionally referred to as ‘ellipsis’. This term subsumes many additional phenomena, some of which are illustrated below (the elements in parentheses can be omitted): i. Should I pay you, or (should) you (pay) me? ii. When she comes back, I don’t know, but she definitely will (come back). iii. A: Has anybody called?—B: John has (called). a. Evidently, such ellipsis phenomena would not exist without the assumption of full clauses as a default. Discuss the plausibility of this assumption. b. Table . shows that ICE-GB contains many non-clausal units (fragments). Define a manageable subset of these and explore how these can be related to complete clauses. c. Summarize your findings in a research paper of approximately , words.
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Language index Abkhaz Acholi ǂĀkhoe Haiǁom , , American English , , –, , , Andoke Apurinã Arabic , , , , ,
, , –, , , , , –, –, –, , –, , –, , , –, –, , , –, , , –, Greek , Greenlandic Eskimo see Eskimo Gulf Arabic see Arabic
Basque Bulgarian Cantonese , Chinese , –, –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, –, , –, , –, , Colloquial Mandarin Chinese Cree Czech , – Danish , –, Dinka Dutch , , , , –, , , , , , , – Early Modern English , , , Eskimo , – Evenki , –, Ewe Finnish , , , , French , , , , , , , , , –, , Frisian Georgian German , , , –, , , , , –, , , , , , ,
Harar Oromo Hausa Hebrew , , , Hidatsa Hindi , Hungarian , Icelandic Indonesian , Irish , Italian , , , , , , –, , , –, Japanese , , , , , , , , , , –, , Kannada Kayardild Ket Khasi Kiowa Klao – Kootenay Korean , , , , , , Koyra Chiini Krongo Lak Lango Lao Latin , , , –, ,
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LANGUAGE INDEX
Latvian , – Lezgian , , –, – Limbu Lithuanian
Sango Sanskrit , Senadi Shona Spanish –, , –, , , , , , –, , , , , , , , , , –, , Straits Salish Swahili , , –, , Swedish , , , , , , , –,
Macushi Malagasy –, , Malay , Malayalam , Maltese Mandarin Chinese see Chinese Maori , Middle English , Middle High German Modern Hebrew see Hebrew
Tagalog Tahitian Tamil Thai Tunica Turkish , , , , , , , , Tuyuca – Tzeltal
Nakoda Nama Hottentot – Nigerian Pidgin Norwegian , , , – Old English , , –, Old Swedish
Ukrainian – Ute
Paiwan Persian , , , , – Polish , , , , , –, Portuguese , Present-day English , –,
Vietnamese , , , , ,
Rapanui , Romanian Russian , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , – Sami Samoan
Warlpiri Welsh , , – West Greenlandic , Yakut Yélî Dnye , Yiddish – Yoruba , Zulu , , , ,
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Name index Abbott, Miriam Aikhenvald, Alexandra , , , Akmajian, Adrian , , , , Allan, Keith , , , , Alston, William , , Altmann, Hans , , Ammann, Andreas , , Asher, R. E. Austin, John , , , , –, –, –, , , Baker, Carl Barker, Stephen Barnes, Janet Bartels, Christine , Bauer, Winifred Berlin, Brent Bhat, Darbhe Bhatt, Rakesh Bickel, Balthasar Bierwisch, Manfred , , , Blum-Kulka, Shoshana , , Boas, Franz Bolinger, Dwight –, , , , , , , , Boye, Kasper Brandom, Robert Brandt, Margareta , , , , , , Braun, Bettina Brehmer, Bernhard – Brown, Penelope , , –, , Campbell, Lyle Carnie, Andrew Chafe, Wallace Chang, Suk-Jin Cheng, Lisa , , , , Clark, Herbert , –, , , , , , , , ,
Claudi, Ulrike Clayman, Steven Collins, Chris Collins, Peter , , –, , Comrie, Bernard , , –, , Condoravdi, Cleo , Corbett, Greville Cornillie, Bert Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van Crazzolara, Pasquale Creider, Chet Croft, William , –, , –, , , , , , Culpeper, Jonathan Cutler, Anne d’Avis, Franz-Josef , , –, De Smet, Hendrik D’Hertefeld, Sarah Daniel, Michael Davies, Eirlys , –, , , Dehé, Nicole Denny, Peter Deppermann, Arnulf – Dez, Jacques Diessel, Holger , , Dirven, René Dixon, R. M. W. Dobrushina, Nina – Dryer, Matthew , , –, , , , , –, , – du Feu, Veronica Duranti, Alessandro Dziebel, German Eelen, Gino Egli, Hans Elliott, Dale , ,
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NAME INDEX
Enfield, Nick Evans, Nicholas , , –, , , , , , , –, , –, –, , ,
Harnish, Robert , – Harris, Alice Haselow, Alexander Haspelmath, Martin , , , , –, –, –, , Hawkins, John – Heath, Jeffrey Hedberg, Nancy , , Heine, Bernd , , , , , Hengeveld, Kees , , Heritage, John , Hoffmann, Sebastian Holes, Clive Holmberg, Anders , , Holst, Jan Henrik Hopper, Paul – House, Juliane Hoymann, Gertie Huber, Magnus Huddleston, Rodney , , –, , , , –, –, , , , , –, , , , Humboldt, Wilhelm von Hünnemeyer, Friederike
Fanshel, David Fillmore, Charles , , , Fodor, Janet Frank, Jane Fraser, Bruce , Frege, Gottlob , Garfinkel, Harold , Gärtner, Hans-Martin Gass, Susan , Gazdar Gerald , Geluykens, Ronald , , , Gill, David Gilligan, Gary Givón, Talmy , Glinert, Lewis Goffman, Erving Goldberg, Adele , Gordon, David , Goussev, Valentin – Görgülü, Emrah Greenbaum, Sidney Greenberg, Joseph , , , , , Grice, Paul –, , , , Grimshaw, Jane , Groenendijk, Jeroen , Gunlogson, Christine – Gussenhoven, Carlos
Iggesen, Oliver Ilie, Celia Jary, Mark , , Johanson, Lars Johnson, Mark Jones, Steve Jun, Sun-Ah
Haas, Mary Haegeman, Liliane Hagège, Claude – Hagman, Roy Haiman, John Hamblin, Charles , , Han, Chung-hye , , , , , , , Hancher, Michael Hannah, Jean
Kaiser, Franz Karlsson, Fred Karttunen, Lauri Kasper, Gabriele Katamba, Francis Kaufmann, Magdalena , Kay, Paul , , , , Kayne, Richard Keenan, Edward Kimps, Ditte Kissine, Mikhail
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NAME INDEX
König, Ekkehard , , –, –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , – Köpcke, Klaus-Michael , –, , Kortmann, Bernd Kramer, Ruth Krifka, Manfred , –, , Kroch, Anthony Kumari, T. C. Kuno, Susumu Kuteva, Tania , , Labov, William , Ladd, Robert , Lakoff, George , , Lambrecht, Knud , , , –, Lass, Roger Lauer, Sven , Leech, Geoffrey Lehmann, Christian , Lejeune, Ludo , –, , Levinson, Stephen , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , –, , , , –, , , , , , , , –, , , , , , –, , Li, Charles , Lord, Carol Lunkenheimer, Kerstin Lunn, Patricia Lyons, John Mackenzie, Lachlan McWhorter, John Maddieson, Ian –, –, , Maffi, Luisa Marchese, Lynell Marmor, Thomas Matsumoto, Yoko Matthews, Hubert Matthews, Stephen Maurer, Philippe Meibauer, Jörg , , ,
Merchant, Jason Merritt, Marylin Mesthrie, Rajend Mey, Jacob Michaelis, Laura , –, , , , –, Michaelis, Susanne Miestamo, Matti , Miller, Jim Mithun, Marianne , , Moravcsik, Edith , Morgan, Jerry Morris, Charles – Mortelmans, Tanja – Muysken, Pieter Nartey, Jonas Nedjalkov, Igor – Neu, Joyce , Newmeyer, Frederick Nichols, Johanna , Noël, Dirk , Noonan, Michael Nuyts, Jan Ohala, John Ono, Hajime Oppenrieder, Wilhelm , Palmer, Frank , , –, –, Panther, Klaus-Uwe , , , , –, , Parsons, Terence – Pope, Emily Portner, Paul , –, , Potsdam, Eric , , Pullum, Geoffrey , , , , , , –, , , , , Quirk, Randolph , , –, , , , , , –, , –, , , , , , , Radden, Günter Rawlins, Kyle
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NAME INDEX
Recanati, François , , , , , , –, , , –, Reddy, Michael – Reis, Marga , , , , Rosengren, Inger , , , , Ross, John –, Rossano, Federico Ruiter, Jan de Rupp, Laura , Russell, Benjamin Sacks, Harvey –, Sadock, Jerrold , , , –, , , , , , , , –, – Sampson, Geoffrey Sansiñena, María Sol , –, –, –, Schegloff, Emanuel –, , , , Schladt, Mathias Schlegel, August Wilhelm von Schwenter, Scott Scollon, Ron Scollon, Suzanne Searle, John , , , , –, –, , , , , , , –, , , –, , , , , –, , , –, , –, , –, –, Selkirk, Elisabeth Siemund, Peter , , , –, –, , , –, , , , –, , , , –, , , , , –, , , –, , , , , , , –, –, –, Sinnemäki, Kaius Smith, Norval Song, Jae Jung Sosa, Juan Sperber, Dan , , , , Sridhar, S. N. Stefanowitsch, Anatol , ,
Steinbach, Markus , , , , Stivers, Tanya –, , –, , Stokhof, Martin , Stolz, Thomas Svartvik, Jan Sweetser, Eve Tesnière, Lucien – Thompson, Sandra , Thornburg, Linda , , Tomasello, Michael Tomlin, Russell Tottie, Gunnel Traugott, Elizabeth Closs – Trudgill, Peter Tsohatzidis, Savas Ultan, Russell , , , –, , , , Utas, Bo Van der Auwera, Johan , , , , , –, , , , Van de Velde, Freek , , , Vanderveken, Daniel , , , , , , –, , , Van Driem, George Van linden, An , , , Van Olmen, Daniël , –, –, Velupillai, Viveka , Verschueren, Jeff , , –, , , Verstraete, Jean-Christophe , , , –, , Veselinova, Ljuba Watanabe, Honoré Weber, Max – Whaley, Lindsay Widlock, Thomas Wierzbicka, Anna , , , , , , ,
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William, Urien Wilson, Deirdre , , , , Wittgenstein, Ludwig , Wolfson, Nessa , Wratil, Melanie Yip, Virginia
Zaefferer, Dietmar Zamorano Aguilar, Alfonso , , Zanuttini, Raffaella , Zimmermann, Ilse Zipf, George Zwicky, Arnold , , –, , , , , , –
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Subject index abductive reasoning , absolute universals , –, see also implicational universals, language universals, statistical universals, universals action ascription , adjacency pairs –, , admonitive , affective – affective response –, , , , , , see also psychological response, response affectual social actions see social actions agglutinating –, , agree/disagree systems agreement , , , , , , –, analytic , –, , –, , , , anaphoric degree adverbs , , see also degree adverbs answer , –, , , , –, –, , , answer bias , , , , , , see also deontic bias, desiderative bias, epistemic bias answer systems –, –, articles see definite articles, indefinite articles assertions , , , , –, –, –, , , –, , , , , , , –, assumptive bare infinitive , , basic word order , , , , , –, , , , , , –, , , see also declarative word
order, interrogative word order, subordinate word order, word order behabitives , – bilingual body-part nouns – breaching experiment , case , –, central modals , –, , see also half-modals, modal verbs, semi-modals circumstantial modality , see also deontic modality, epistemic modality, modality, root modality, situational modality clause see complement clauses, conditional clauses, embedded clauses, finite clauses, infinitival clauses, main clauses, non-finite clauses, prepositional object clauses, relative clauses, small clauses, subordinate clauses clause types see major clause types, minor clause types clause typing , , , , , – clause-final , , , , , , , –, , clause-initial , , –, , , –, –, –, , , , , cleft construction clefting , , , clicks – code-mixing code-switching collective nouns combinatorial restrictions , commissive directives , ,
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SUBJECT INDEX
commissives –, , –, , , –, –, , , , , , , –, , , –, , – common ground , , –, , , communicative importance complement clauses , , , complement insubordination , , complementizer , , , , composition , , , , , , , , , , conditional –, , –, , , , , , , , conditional clauses , , conditional imperatives – conditional relevance conducive questions – conduciveness – conduit metaphor , conjecture , – conjunction , , , , , – consonants –, , – constant polarity tags –, constative , –, , , , , , , constative utterances , –, , constituent order , constituent structure constituents –, , –, , –, , , , –, , –, , , , – constructional schemata , , constructions , , , –, , , – content layer context dependence , continuum , , , –, , , , –, , control , –, , , , , conventionality –, conventionalization , , , , , , , , –,
conversational implicatures –, –, converse categorization cooperative principle –, , coordination , , debitive , , , –, , declarations , –, , , , –, –, , , , –, , , , –, , , , –, declarative questions , , , –, , , , , , , , –, , declarative word order , , , , , , , , , , , , see also basic word order, interrogative word order, subordinate word order, word order deductive reasoning , , definite articles , definite noun phrases definiteness degrammaticalization , , –, degree adverbs , , , see also anaphoric degree adverbs deletion , , , , dental fricatives deontic bias , see also answer bias, desiderative bias, epistemic bias deontic modality , , see also circumstantial modality, epistemic modality, modality, root modality, situational modality dependency grammar , derivational morphology , , descriptive fallacy , , , desiderative bias , see also answer bias, deontic bias, epistemic bias deverbal nouns dialect , , –, see also variety direction of fit –, , , directive force , , , –, , , ,
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directive speech acts , , , , , –, , , , , , , directives –, , –, , , , , , , , , , , –, , –, –, , –, , –, , , –, –, – directness –, , , distance –, , , , , see also social distance distance contrasts – ditransitive do-periphrasis , , , , , , , , do-support , –, , , , double marking dynamic verbs echo questions , , , , , effective – ellipsis –, , , , –, –, , , embedded clauses , , , , , , , , –, –, , , –, embedded interrogatives , , , , –, , , , –, encoding strategies –, , , , , endocentric , , see also exocentric entailments –, , , epistemic bias , see also answer bias, deontic bias, desiderative bias epistemic layer epistemic modality , , , , see also circumstantial modality, deontic modality, modality, root modality, situational modality ethnomethodology evidential constructions evidential particles , evidentiality , –, , , ,
exaptation exercitives , – exocentric , , see also endocentric expositives , expressive directives , , expressive speech acts , , , , , , , , , –, expressives –, –, , –, , , –, , , , , , , , , , external negation , see also internal negation, negation face –, face-threat –, , , , , , face-threatening acts –, face-to-face conversation – factive predicates –, , , factivity –, , family trees –, felicity conditions , , , , finite clauses , –, finiteness marker focus , focus fronting focus/background structure force neutrality , frequency of occurrence , , , , , , , fronting fronting of interrogative words , , , see also clause-initial fusion , , , , future tense , , –, , future time orientation , , , gender , , , , , genealogical classification , genetic classification , , , –, , , , gerund gradience , , , , , –, –,
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grammaticalization –, , , , –, , , , –, , grammaticalization theory , , , , granularity –, groundless apologies half-modals , see also central modals, modal verbs, semi-modals head , , –, , , see also verbal head head-modifier order head-modifier parameter , hierarchy , , , –, , –, , –, honorific hortative , , –, , , –, , , , , hyperonym hyponym hypotaxis hypothetical situations , , , , , hypothetical verb forms idiom theory idiomaticity illocutionary act , –, see also locutionary act, perlocutionary act illocutionary class –, , , illocutionary force indicating device , , illocutionary force potential , , , , , , , –, , –, , , –, , , , immediate constituents –, imperative morphology , , , –, – implicational connection implicational hierarchy , , , implicational universals –, , see also absolute universals, language universals, statistical universals, universals
imposition –, , , in situ , –, , incorporating language Incredulity Response Construction –, indefinite articles , , indefinite expressions –, , , indefinite noun phrases indicative , , , , , –, , , , indirectness , , inductive reasoning inference –, , , –, , inference theory infinitival clauses , , , , infinitive , , , , , , , , , –, , –, inflectional morphology , , , , , , , , information-seeking function , , , , , , information structure , , inquisitive semantics , insertion , , , , instrumentally rational social actions see social actions insubordination , , , , , –, intensive interjections , , , , interlanguage pragmatics internal negation , see also external negation, negation interrogative morphology –, , , – interrogative particles , , –, , –, , , interrogative tags –, , , –, , , interrogative word order –, –, , see also basic word order, declarative word order, subordinate word order, word order
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interrogative words , , , , , , , , , , –, –, –, –, , , , , –, , , , –, , –, , , , position of , –, – intonation , , –, –, –, , , , –, , , , –, , –, –, , , , , , , , –, –, –, , intransitive , , , , irrealis , , , isolating –, , , language families , , , , , , , language universals –, –, , –, see also absolute universals, implicational universals, statistical universals, universals langue , –, let-construction , , let-imperative lexical field – lexical tones , , , see also tone languages, tones lingua franca literal meaning , , –, –, , –, , , locutionary act –, , see also illocutionary act, perlocutionary act logical positivism main clauses , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , –, , , –, –, –, –, , , , , , major clause types , –, , –, , , , , , , , , –, matrix predicate , , , –, , –, , ,
minor clause types , , , , –, , –, , , –, , , , –, –, –, , modal particles , , , , modal verbs , , , , , , , –, –, , –, , , , , , , , , –, , , , , see also central modals, half-modals, semi-modals modality , , , , –, , –, –, –, , , , , , , see also circumstantial modality, deontic modality, epistemic modality, root modality, situational modality mood , , , , , –, , , –, , , , –, –, , –, , –, , , , , mood operator , morphosyntactic marking , , –, , –, –, , , –, , , , , , , , –, –, , multilingual multiple interrogative words , , negation , , , , –, , –, , , , , , , see also external negation, internal negation negative face – negative scope non-canonicity , non-factive predicates –, , , see also factive predicates, factivity non-finite clauses , see also finite clauses non-literal meaning , , , , –, , , , see also literal meaning numeral base – Nuremberg Funnel ,
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SUBJECT INDEX
obligation –, , , , , , , , –, , , –, –, –, , , , –, –, obstruents open propositions , , , , , , , , optative , , , –, , –, , –, , paradigm –, , –, , , , , , paradigmatic oppositions , , , , , parataxis parole , , particle systems , , particles –, , , , , , , , , , , , –, –, , , , –, , , –, , –, , , , , –, partitional approach , parts of speech , passive imperatives passivization , , , perfect imperatives performative hypothesis , , , –, , performative use of declaratives , –, –, – performative utterances , –, , , , , performative verbs , , , –, , , , –, , , –, –, , periphrastic constructions , , perlocutionary act –, , see also illocutionary act, locutionary act phatic communication point of view , , , , politeness , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , politeness theory –, ,
polysemy patterns –, , polysynthesis –, position of interrogative words see interrogative words positive face – power , –, , , – power relations , – pragmatics , , –, –, –, , , , –, –, , , , , , , –, predicative , –, –, , prediction –, –, prefixation prepositional object clauses pre-sequences presuppositions –, , , , , , , –, productivity , , –, progressive imperatives – prohibitives , , , , –, –, , proper names proposition set approach , , – propositional attitude operators prosodic marking prosody , proto-language prototypes –, prototype theory psychological response , , –, see also affective response, response quantifiers question–answer sequences – questions, social economics of see social economics of questions question words see interrogative words realis , reanalysis , – redundancy reflexive markers , –, , register variation , , relative clauses , , , , ,
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relative markers representatives –, –, , , , , , , , , , , –, response , , –, , , , , see also affective response, psychological response reversed polarity tags rhythm right-dislocation rogative root modality –, see also circumstantial modality, deontic modality, epistemic modality, modality, situational modality salient clause position scale , –, , –, –, –, , , –, scriptedness secondary predication second-hand information – second person subjects , , , semantic specificity , –, , semantics , , –, , , , –, , –, , , , , , , –, , , , , , , –, semi-modals , see also central modals, half-modals, modal verbs semiotics sentence meaning , –, , , , –, – serial verb constructions situational modality , , , see also circumstantial modality, deontic modality, epistemic modality, modality, root modality small clauses social actions , –, , –, – affectual – instrumentally rational –, traditional – value rational –,
social acts , , , , , , social distance –, , social economics of questions , –, , –, source of obligation , –, , speaker–hearer orientation speculative speech act layer , speech act verbs , – speech style speech style markers Standard Average European statistical universals , see also absolute universals, implicational universals, language universals, tendencies, universals stress , structural comparisons structuralism subject–auxiliary inversion , , , , , –, , , –, subjunctive , , , –, , –, , , , , –, , , subordinate clauses , –, , , , , , , , , , –, , –, –, , –, , –, subordinate word order , , see also basic word order, declarative word order, interrogative word order, word order subordinating conjunctions , – subordinating interrogative words , – subordination , , , , , subordinator , , , , , , , – suffixation supplicative , synthesis index , synthetic ,
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tags see interrogative tags taxonomy , , , , , –, –, , , , , , , , , , , , tendencies , –, see also statistical universals tone languages , see also lexical tones tones , , , see also lexical tones topicalization , , , , traditional social actions see social actions transition relevance place transitive , , –, , , truth-conditional semantics , , truth conditions , , , , turn –, –, , , turn allocation – turn design , turn taking unexpectedness unit act universals , –, , , –, , –, , , , , –, , , see also absolute universals, implicational universals, language universals, statistical universals utterance meaning , –, , , , –, – value rational social actions see social actions variation , –, , –, , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , – variety , , , , , , , see also dialect verbal brace verbal head, alteration of , verbal morphology , , , , , , verb-second order , , , , verdictives , – vocatives vowels –, – Wackernagel position wh-in situ see in situ word class , , , , , , , , , , , , , , word order , , , –, –, , –, –, , , , –, , , , –, –, , , , , –, –, , –, –, , , , , , –, –, , , , , , , , –, , –, see also basic word order, declarative word order, interrogative word order, subordinate word order zero marking