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English Grammars and English Grammar

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English Grammars and English Grammar

Robert L. Allen

A PAIDEIA BOOK

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS New York

Copyright © 1972 Robert L. Allen This book published simultaneously in the United States of America and in Canada—Copyright under the Berne Convention All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons.

A-3.72[V]

Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 74-182808 SBN 684-12720-2 College SBN 684-12829-2 Trade

1^47095 In grateful appreciation of the many, many hours devoted to Sector Analysis by EDWARD M. OUCHI, Student, Colleague, and Friend— first to debate the underlying theory with me, first to help prepare teaching materials based on the theory, first to use such materials in his own classes.

acknowledgements

Many persons have contributed to the contents of this book. Part I could not have been written if my eighth-grade English teacher had not drilled me so thoroughly in traditional grammar—and if stu¬ dents of mine both at Robert College in Istanbul, Turkey, and at the Teachers Training School in Kabul, Afghanistan, had not con¬ vinced me, by their challenging questions, that traditional gram¬ mar does not really describe the English language as it is today. I would like to express my special gratitude to the late Olive Greene, formerly President of The American College for Girls in Izmir, for supporting me in the use of my own rather unusual explanations of the ways in which the English language operates. These “strange” explanations I was finally able to bring together into a cohesive grammar that I now call “sector analysis.” I also owe a debt of gratitude to Aileen Traver Kitchin, formerly of the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Teachers College, Columbia University: it was from her that I first learned of the then-emerging discipline called “linguistics.” She had worked VI

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

closely with both Charles C. Fries and Kenneth L. Pike at the University of Michigan: my indebtedness to both Fries and Pike—especially to Fries’s concept of “layers of structure” and to Pike’s concept of “tagmemes”—will be evident to anyone who turns these pages. Needless to say, I have also been influenced by the ideas of many other linguists and grammarians; I have tried, whenever possible, to give them due credit at the appropriate places throughout the book. In writing Part II, “The History of English and English Gram¬ mars,” I have been guided by Fries’s The Teaching of English and American English Grammar and by H. A. Gleason’s Linguistics and English Grammar. Indeed, I have constantly relied on Glea¬ son’s meticulous scholarship to support my own research: when¬ ever I have discovered any disagreement among other scholars as to sources or dates or even developments in linguistics, I have always felt safe in accepting Gleason’s version as authoritative. I am deeply indebted to the late Elliott V. K. Dobbie of Columbia University for having read the manuscript of Part II, and to Owen Thomas for having read the section on transformational-generative grammar in Part III. Both scholars made valuable suggestions for changes, suggestions that have enabled me to avoid innacurate or at least misleading statements. I need hardly add, however, that neither scholar can be held responsible for what appears in this final version. I am indebted above all to those who have helped in the develop¬ ment of sector analysis, which is described in Part IV. Although the original formulation of the theory was my own, it has been shaped and re-shaped as a result of continuing—and often heated—dialogs with my colleague Edward M. Ouchi and my wife Doris A. Allen. They were the ones who prepared the experimental teaching mate¬ rials based on sector analysis (Exploration 1 and 2 and Discovery 1 and 2) and who guided the use of these materials in fourth-, seventh-, and ninth-grade classes around New York City in 19661967. I am also indebted to the many students in my classes at Teachers College and to the teachers in in-service courses that I have taught who suffered through earlier versions of sector anal¬ ysis; I have benefited from suggestions received from many of them, particularly Thomas K. Adeyanju, Andras Balint, Du’o’ng Thanh Binh, Ruth Crymes, Raleigh Hill, Francis C. Johnson, Donald S. Knapp, William G. Kroehler, Timothy Light, David H. Lindelof, Jessie B. Sackler, and Elizabeth Sunderlin. All of these people have contributed to specific details of the analysis of English ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Vll

here presented, as well as to the development of the theory on which it is based. And finally, I wish to thank Margaret Landis for invaluable editorial assistance in the organization and development of the contents of this book, and above all for her steadfast faith in the merits of sector analysis. To her—and to all those teachers, known and unknown, who have been bold enough to use sector analysis in their own classes even without adequate materials to teach from—I owe a special debt of gratitude. Robert L. Allen Leonia, N.J. 1971

Vlll

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

contents

Introduction PART ONE

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

1 Traditional Definitions That Do Not Fit The Facts 1.1 The Use and Misuse of “Meaning” 1.2 The Sentence 1.3 The Different Kinds of Sentences 1.4 The Subject of a Sentence 1.5 The Eight “Parts of Speech” 2 Different “Layers of Structure” 2.1 Nesting 2.2 Mixing Layers

PART TWO

3 The 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

1 1 3 4 5 7 15 15 17

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

History of the English Language The Indo-European Family of Languages Old English Middle English Modern English

23 23 25 26 28 CONTENTS

IX

3.5 The Mutability of English: Vocabulary 3.6 The Mutability of English: Pronunciation and Spelling 3.7 The Mutability of English: Grammar 4 The History of English Grammars 4.1 The Early School Grammars 4.2 The Scholarly Grammars 5 Standards of Correctness 5.1 The Dictionary 5.2 Prescriptive Versus Descriptive Grammars 5.3 Prescriptions in the Teaching of Grammar 5.4 Different Varieties of English

PART THREE

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

6 Linguistic Views of Language and Language Study 6.1 Descriptive Linguistics 6.2 The “Structure” of a Language 6.3 A Structural Definition of Language 6.4 A Revised Definition of Language 6.5 The Need for a Grammar of Written English 7 Structural Linguistics 7.1 Phonemes and Allophones 7.2 Phonologically Based Syntax 7.3 Expansive Versus Reductive Analyses 7.4 Substitution and Test Frames 7.5 Immediate-Constituent Analysis 7.6 Item and Arrangement 7.7 Structural Grammar and the Teaching of English 8 Transformational-Generative Grammar 8.1 A Theory of Language 8.2 The Syntactic Component of a TG Grammar 8.3 Basic Sentences and Derived Sentences 8.4 Some Limitations of Transformational-Generative Grammar 9 Tagmemic Grammar 9.1 The Tagmeme 9.2 Some Limitations of Tagmemic Grammars 9.3 Some Applications of Tagmemic Theory 9.4 Structural Ambiguity 10 Other Approaches to Grammatical Analysis 10.1 European Contributions to Linguistic Theory x

CONTENTS

29 32 43 48 48 53 54 54 56 59 62

67 67 69 72 77 80 84 84 89 94 96 101 105 106 109 109 111 114 118 123 123 127 130 134 138 138

10.2 Linguistic Analysis and Meaning 10.3 Stratificational Grammar

PART FOUR

146 149

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

11 Theoretical Foundations 11.1 Basic Assumptions 11.2 Function and Form 11.3 The Essential Structure of a Sentence 11.4 Tagmemes, Tagmas, and Specific Tagmas 12 The Most Important Positions in an English Sentence 12.1 The Positions on the Sentence Layer 12.2 Positions on the Augmented-Sentence-Unit Layer 12.3 Compound Units 12.4 The Sectors on the Sentence-Unit Layer 12.5 The Sectors on the Trunk Layer 12.6 The Q and PP Sectors 12.7 The Sectors on the Predicate Layer 12.8 The M Sector 13 The Most Important Construction-Types in English 13.1 Clusters 13.2 Possessives 13.3 Phrases 13.4 Predicatids 13.5 Consociates 13.6 Included Clauses 13.7 Clausids 14 Word-Classes 15 Inserts 15.1 The Sector Spectrum 15.2 “Roving” Linkers 15.3 “Writers’ Comments” 15.4 Parenthetical Expressions 15.5 “Non-Restrictive Clauses” 15.6 Appositives 16 Analysis Beyond Mere Syntactic Analysis

201 207 209 213 217 217 218 219 220 220 221 221

Bibliography

229

Index

247

CONTENTS

157 157

164 167 170 171 171 172 173 174 176 178 180 183 187 187 190 192 193

xi

introduction

OF THE writing of grammars, there is no end. Since the publication of William Bullokar’s Bref Grammar for English in 1586, a surpris¬ ingly large number of English grammars have appeared in print. There have been short grammars and complete grammars, practi¬ cal grammars and philosophical grammars, new grammars and improved grammars, descriptive grammars and structural gram¬ mars, grammars without tears and grammars for heretics, logical grammars and grammars on historical principles, and even a Grammar of English Grammars. New grammars or new editions of old grammars appear every few years. In the last twenty years there have also appeared several descriptions of the English lan¬ guage based on the new structural grammar. And, more recently still, there have been descriptions based on transformational, gen¬ erative, tagmemic, and stratificational grammar. Considering the many different kinds of grammars already avail¬ able, the reader may well ask why anyone should feel, as I do, the need for still another grammar of English. Let me begin, therefore, Introduction

xiii

by indicating where I feel traditional grammars have failed in giving our students adequate preparation. During the past several years there has been a growing concern over the appallingly large number of poor achievers among the students in our schools. There has also been a growing recognition of the fact that the inability to read English sentences intelligently lies at the heart of much of the difficulty that poor students have in keeping up in their classes, regardless of the specific subject matter. The evidence suggests that many of our schools are doing a far from satisfactory job in the teaching of reading and writing. The number of remedial reading classes throughout the country—and the great increase in the number of students relegated to such classes—is a cause for real concern. The percentage of semi¬ literates and even real illiterates among the young men drafted into the army is frightening in its implications. And now, with the advent of open-enrollment and the great increase in the number of junior colleges and community colleges, the problems facing the teachers of freshman English classes are staggering in their propor¬ tions. Study after study has shown that the kind of traditional English grammar taught in most schools has little or no effect upon stu¬ dents’ writing; as an antidote to this situation, some schools pre¬ scribe even more grammar teaching, while others have stopped teaching grammar altogether. I know from my own experience how inadequate traditional grammar can be for the teaching of English. I myself had a very rigorous training in traditional grammar when I was in junior high school. After graduating from college, I went to Istanbul, Turkey, and taught English there for a total of eight years. The kind of grammar that I taught was largely traditional; in fact, during the years 1947-1950, I wrote a three-volume grammar of English for Turkish students in which I made many statements that I now know are not true. Much of my grammar was merely a rewording, in simpler English, of definitions and rules that appeared in the handbooks I had studied or consulted. My book, like most traditional handbooks, consisted largely of rules stated as “do’s” and “don’t’s.” (I like to think, however, that I was a little more cautious in the wording of my rules than are the writers of most traditional handbooks.) At that time I believed that the rules of traditional grammar state undeniable facts about the English language. I did not realize then that much of traditional grammar falls far short of describing the actual facts of English grammar, that many rules xiv

Introduction

are misleading if not completely false. The nature of these rules will be explored in some detail in Part I of this book, along with several of the other shortcomings of traditional grammar. In order to understand why so many traditional handbooks de¬ scribe present-day English so inaccurately—to understand, for ex¬ ample, why they emphasize the “parts of speech” and the relatively small number of inflections remaining in our language, while almost completely ignoring the most important signaling device of present-day English—it is necessary to know something about the history of the English language and about the people who have been primarily responsible for giving it the form it now has. And in order to know where the rules of traditional grammar came from in the first place, it is necessary to trace the development of such gram¬ mars from the first grammars of English published in the seven¬ teenth and eighteenth centuries, through the school grammars of the nineteenth century, down to the traditional handbooks of our own time. These matters will be discussed in Part II. Once I had finally become convinced that traditional grammar could never lead to a true understanding of the facts of English syntax, I turned hopefully to the newer descriptions of English that were beginning to appear in print. It was then that I learned for the first time about linguistics—that is, about the scientific studies of various languages, and of language in general, that linguists were then conducting. I also learned that several linguists were even working on new analyses of the structure of English. As a teacher, I was primarily interested in the ways in which the new linguistically oriented grammars could be taught in the class¬ room. But when I began to investigate the teaching of English in high school classes, in both public and private schools, I discovered that the great majority of English teachers were totally unaware of the findings of linguistics. Linguistics had already had some in¬ fluence on the teaching of English as a foreign language and on the teaching of foreign languages, but practically none on the teaching of English to native-speaking children. For the last twenty years I have been studying the work of American and European linguists, especially in those areas that relate to the English language. For the last fifteen years I have been searching for ways in which to apply the findings of linguists to the teaching of English to native speakers along lines that experienced teachers of English can readily understand and accept. Several linguistically oriented grammars have been published since 1956; I have examined most of them, hoping to find at least one approach to Introduction

xv

the teaching of English that would guarantee results. After long and intensive study of such grammars, however, I finally came to the conclusion that most of the better-known approaches to linguis¬ tic analysis held little promise for the satisfactory teaching of English grammar, at least in the lower grades. These techniques, as well as other, lesser-known techniques advocated by various schools of American linguists, are discussed in Part III of this book. The existence of new linguistic grammars notwithstanding, therefore, the problem of how to teach English most effectively still remains. What is needed, I believe, is a grammar based upon a sound linguistic analysis of English structure rather than upon the mythology of traditional grammar; in addition, however, it must be a practical grammar, one that can be easily taught and learned even in the lower grades. Above all, such a grammar must not be a grammar that concentrates on words: it must be a grammar designed to give primary emphasis to the larger syntactic units that make up a sentence. If a student can recognize these large units and if he can grasp the syntactic relationships holding between them, he will have far less difficulty in understanding the compli¬ cated sentences he meets in his reading and in producing such sentences in his own writing. For the last thirteen years, with the assistance of colleagues and teachers who have been in my classes, I have been working on a new approach to English grammar, an approach that emphasizes the positions in which the units that make up a sentence occur. These positions I call sectors; I call this kind of grammatical analysis sector analysis. (A brief summary of sector analysis is presented in Part IV of this book. The reader will note that, in this kind of analysis, one does not identify the nouns, verbs, and adjectives in a given sentence until after one has first identified the various sectors and has examined the different kinds of units occurring in those sectors.) There is evidence to suggest that the ability to identify the sectors in an English sentence will, more than anything else, help a child to recognize the structure of that sentence and thus read the sentence intelligently. There is also good reason to believe that students can learn to write more effectively when they are given some insight into the different kinds of syntactic units to be found in English and the different positions those units may occupy. It has been claimed that the only way to teach students to write is to have them read and read and read. I do not believe, however, that

xvi

Introduction

reading alone will produce a good writer: it seems more likely that a reader can become an effective writer only when, either consciously or unconsciously, he somehow becomes aware of the resources of the written language; that is, of the devices employed by the writers whose works he reads. Some students seem to be able to develop this kind of awareness without special assistance, but the average student cannot. It is my hope and belief that sector analysis can alert even the average student to the different ways in which skillful writers make use of such devices and that it can help him make greater use of these devices himself, consciously rather than haphazardly.

Introduction

xvii

part one traditional grammar

1 Traditional Definitions That Do Not Fit The Facts 1.1 The Use and Misuse of “Meaning” I have often been asked whether it is true that the meaning of a word or sentence—that is, some concept or idea—always precedes the utterance of that word or sentence. It cannot be denied, of course, that a person does not usually say something unless he has some thought or idea or feeling that he wishes to communicate. In this sense—in point of time—the meaning of the communication does precede the form that the communication finally takes. But this does not mean that in analyzing a sentence, we should try to analyze its meaning first, before analyzing its form. Every lan¬ guage is a code; and when trying to “crack” a code (to determine what the messages transmitted in that code mean), we have to analyze the forms in the code first. These formal signals will then lead us to the meanings conveyed by them. An example may make this clearer. Let us imagine that the very TRADITIONAL DEFINITIONS THAT DO NOT FIT THE FACTS

1

first man ever to use sounds as a means of communication wanted to be able to express the ideas “Go!” and “Come!” For the former, he used one kind of grunt (Ugh!); for the latter, he used another (Anh!). Obviously, whenever he said “Ugh!” the idea “Go!” pre¬ ceded his utterance of the grunt. But before his wife could under¬ stand what her husband meant by “Ugh!” she first had to be able to analyze his formal signals: in this case, the sounds in Ugh! as opposed to the sounds in Anh! In other words, for the recipient of a message—for the person trying to analyze or decode a sentence in a given language—the formal signals must lead to the meaning of the message, not the meaning to the form. In traditional grammar the discussion of meaning generally precedes the discussion of form. Words and sentences are usually defined semantically, in terms of their meanings, rather than structurally, in terms of their forms. Specific examples of such semantic definitions will be discussed in detail in the following sections; there it will be seen that in traditional handbooks different types of sentences are distinguished by the different types of thoughts they are believed to express; even some of the eight “parts of speech” are defined in terms of the concepts they are believed to express. In traditional analyses of English, formal signals are referred to only secondarily, if they are referred to at all. An intrinsically semantic approach, like that found in most traditional handbooks,1 can only lead to misunderstanding and misstatement. Consequently, while some of the traditional defini¬ tions and rules are “true,” or at least partly true, most of them are misleading at best, and, at worst, are totally false. Perhaps the most misleading of such definitions and rules are those that express only half-truths: since they hold true for some sentences, we feel that they must be true for all, and so we work even more diligently to find ways of making them “fit.” Among the half-truths that one finds in most traditional hand¬ books are the definitions of the sentence, of the different kinds of sentences, of the subject, and of the parts of speech. These are definitions that most schoolchildren in this country (and in many other countries) are expected to learn at some stage in their education. Let us examine these definitions, as well as others that also appear in most traditional handbooks.

iFor a representative list of such handbooks, see the Bibliography under “Traditional Hand¬ books.”

2

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

1.2 The Sentence A sentence is traditionally defined as “a group of words which expresses a complete thought.” Many sentences, of course, do express complete thoughts. However, it does not follow from this that all word groups expressing complete thoughts are necessarily sentences. The following groups of words, for example, express complete thoughts, even though they would not be accepted as “complete sentences” by most composition teachers: 1. 2. 3. 4.

No taxation without representation. No parking from here to corner. This week only—two bottles of aspirin for the price of one. Will arrive on five o’clock train.

The following examples, on the other hand, meet the requirements of completeness as sentences but cannot really be said to express complete thoughts: 5. What shall we do now? 6. I don’t know. 7. But he never did. The thought expressed by that last sentence is hardly complete; the sentence says very little by itself. Any completeness of thought that it seems to express in a given passage will derive in large measure from the preceding sentence or sentences. In one context But he never did will mean one thing; in another context it will mean something else. For example: 8a. John’s parents often told him that he would burn himself some day if he continued to play with matches, b. But he never did. 9a. Paul’s parents hoped that he would become president of the United States some day. b. But he never did. If it is claimed that the sentence But he never did does indeed express a complete thought in each of these contexts, then it must also be admitted that the sentence Because I wanted to expresses a complete thought in the following context, even though it is not a complete sentence: 10a. Why did you break that window? b. Because I wanted to. In fact, one cannot even say, as some writers of handbooks have, TRADITIONAL DEFINITIONS THAT DO NOT FIT THE FACTS

3

that a complete sentence necessarily expresses a thought more clearly than an incomplete sentence does. For example, the sen¬ tence See you later, which is perfectly acceptable colloquial Eng¬ lish, is actually not a complete sentence in formal English. The thought is complete; it is only the expression of the thought that is incomplete. But it is hard to believe that the complete sentence I’ll see you later really expresses the thought more clearly than simply the expression See you later. Certainly the writers of commercial advertisements try as hard as any writers—probably harder than many—to express their thoughts “completely.” And yet advertising copy abounds with incomplete sentences like the one in example 3 above. These incomplete sentences are often even more direct and more expressive than complete sentences would be. To the semantic definition of a complete sentence given above, some handbooks add the statement that a complete sentence must also have a subject and a verb. However, each of the following groups of words has both a subject and a verb; yet only one of them would generally be considered a complete sentence in formal English: 11. The teacher writing on the chalkboard. 12. The teacher was writing on the chalkboard. 13. While the teacher was writing on the chalkboard. The significant difference between example 11 and example 12 seems to be that the verb phrase in example 12 is “finite”—that is, it is time-oriented—while the verb in example 11 is not. The definition of a complete sentence, then, should include a statement to the effect that the sentence must contain at least one finite (or timeoriented) verb or verb phrase. Again, although the verb phrase in example 13 is time-oriented, that sentence is considered to be incomplete because it begins with a “subordinating conjunction”: a complete sentence is not supposed to consist of a “subordinate clause” alone. Therefore, an accurate definition of a complete sentence for formal writing should also stipulate that a sentence may not be made up of only a subordinate clause.

1.3 The Different Kinds of Sentences Many handbooks define a declarative sentence as “a sentence that makes a statement or states a fact,” an interrogative sentence 4

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

as “a sentence that asks a question,” an imperative sentence as “a sentence that gives a command or makes a request,” and an exclam¬ atory sentence as “a sentence that expresses strong feeling.” It is undoubtedly true that many sentences can be classified as declarative, interrogative, or the like, on the basis of these semantic distinctions; but there are some sentences—some very common sentences—to which it is difficult, if not impossible, to apply these definitions. Is the following sentence, for example, declarative or interrogative? 14. It certainly is hot today, isn’t it? Or again, are example sentences 15 and 16 interrogative or impera¬ tive? 15. Won’t you please come in? 16. Will you please keep quiet while I’m trying to telephone? Sentence 17a is clearly marked as to type, but such is not the case with sentence 17b. Although that sentence seems to express sur¬ prise, it would probably be punctuated with a question mark, as here, rather than with an exclamation point. 17a. “Look! Isn’t that Percy walking across the lawn?” b. “Where in heaven’s name did he ever find those snowshoes?” According to the definition given above, sentence 17b should be called an exclamatory sentence rather than an interrogative sen¬ tence, especially if the speaker does not expect any response to his question. And yet, according to most traditional handbooks, an interrogative sentence should be followed by a question mark, while an exclamatory sentence should be followed by an exclamation mark. Again, the following sentence seems to express a command, but most traditional grammarians would probably not consider it to be an imperative sentence: 18. Percy, you must get off the grass immediately.

1.4 The Subject of a Sentence Traditionally the subject of a sentence is defined as “that part of the sentence about which something is being said.” This definition undoubtedly applies to example 19a, since that sentence seems to be saying something about Zeller. But the definition does not apply TRADITIONAL DEFINITIONS THAT DO NOT FIT THE FACTS

5

to example 19b; in that sentence, also, something is being said about Zeller, but in example 19b Zeller is not the subject—the subject is They: 19a. Zeller has just been expelled from Higgins Academy, b. They have just expelled Zeller from Higgins Academy. If we were to apply the definition to the next two examples, we would have to assume that each of the sentences says something about it: 20. It’s raining. 21. It’s just five o’clock. But such an assumption would require us to accept such farfetched explanations as the following: “The word it in a sentence like It’s raining refers to ‘the weather’”; “The word it in a sentence like It’s five o’clock stands for ‘the time.’ ” While it is true that one might say The time is just five o’clock, a native speaker of English would never say *The weather is raining.2 * * * 6 It is hard to believe that we actually identify the subjects in sentences like examples 20 and 21 by means of the traditional definition. Neither does the traditional definition give us much guidance in sentences like the following, which is quoted from an issue of Time Magazine that appeared several years ago: 22. “Directly behind King Saud reporters glimpsed four swarthy, husky men in short, blue, lace-trimmed jackets, each carry¬ ing a sword, dagger, and pistol in his belt.” Most people would agree that this sentence is about the “four swarthy, husky men,” not about the “reporters.” The traditional definition does not help us pick out the subject in such a sentence. In addition to the definition given above, or even instead of it, some traditional handbooks offer the following definition: “The subject of a sentence names the doer or performer of the action.” But we cannot identify the subject in a sentence like example 23 with the help of this definition since, on the contrary, the subject in this sentence names the receiver of the action: 23. My brother was bitten by a dog.

2The use of an asterisk before a sentence or other expression is a device employed by many linguists to indicate that the given sentence or expression does not normally occur (or has not been found to occur) in the language under discussion. Here, for example, the asterisk marks the sentence as one that would not occur in normal English.

6

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

1.5 The Eight “Parts of Speech" Probably one of the most widely held beliefs, accepted wherever English is spoken or studied, is that English has eight parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. But when we examine the parts of speech to which words like those italicized in the following exam¬ ples belong, there seems to be little justification for limiting the number of the parts of speech to only eight: 24. Whenever I hear a shout, I shout, too. 25. Percy will undoubtedly be very tired tomorrow. Although the two shout?s in example 24 are spelled in the same way, are pronounced in the same way, and have almost the same meaning, they are classified as belonging to two different parts of speech because of the fact that they function differently. The first shout is called a noun because it is used with the article a as the object of the verb hear, while the second shout is called a verb because it is used to make a predication about its subject, I. But in example 25, although the three italicized words bear no resem¬ blance to each other in spelling, in pronunciation, or in meaning, all three are called adverbs in spite of the fact that they function in entirely different ways. Very, for example, could not take the place of either undoubtedly or tomorrow, nor could tomorrow take the place of either undoubtedly or very, that is, a native speaker of English would not say sentences like the following: 26. 27. 28. 29.

*Percy *Percy *Percy *Percy

will will will will

very be undoubtedly tired tomorrow. undoubtedly be tomorrow tired very. tomorrow be very tired undoubtedly. very be tomorrow tired undoubtedly.

In other words, the traditional grammarians have been inconsistent in their method of classifying words. In some cases, a distinction is made because of a difference in function, while in other cases such a difference is ignored. If there is any justification for classifying shout and shout as belonging to different parts of speech, there is even more justification for classifying undoubtedly, very, and tomorrow as belonging to different parts of speech. It has been standard practice in teaching English, whether to native or to non-native speakers, to begin at a very early stage with the definitions of the parts of speech. These eight definitions are considered so basic to the learning of English that in some English classes abroad students are made to copy down these definitions TRADITIONAL DEFINITIONS THAT DO NOT FIT THE FACTS

7

even before they are taught such simple sentences as It’s a red book. The following list typifies the definitions that students all over the world are asked to memorize as an important step in “learning English”: A noun is the name of a person, place, or thing. A pronoun is a word that is used in place of a noun. An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun. A verb is a word that expresses an action or a state of being. An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. A preposition is a word that relates a noun or a pronoun to some other word in the sentence. A conjunction is a word that joins words or groups of words. An interjection is a word that expresses some emotion or feeling. It is highly unlikely that any class of beginners could comprehend a single one of the eight definitions; nonetheless, students are regu¬ larly asked to study and memorize the definitions even before they can really understand them. One difficulty with these definitions is that some of them make use of terms that most students probably do not understand. I doubt, for instance, whether I myself ever really understood the meaning of the term modify during all the time that I was in high school. (The use of the word qualify in place of the word modify does not seem much more helpful.) Webster’s New World Diction¬ ary of the American Language defines modify as “In grammar, to limit or restrict in meaning; qualify.” And certainly many people would agree that the word boring in the following example does limit or restrict the meaning of those men, and must therefore be an adjective: 30. Those men are boring. But it can be claimed, with equal justification, that the word bores in example 31 also limits or restricts those men fully as much as boring does in example 30: 31. Those men are bores. It is difficult to see why the word bores does not modify those men, if boring does. But if we were to admit that bores does indeed modify those men, then, by the definition given above, we would also have to call bores an adjective. Surely the kind of terminology

8

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

employed in this definition makes it harder, rather than easier, for students to learn the parts of speech.

1.5.1 The Noun It is not only the terminology used in traditional definitions that so often makes it difficult to understand them. Some of the definitions for the parts of speech simply do not work when we try to apply them. The traditional definition of a noun, for example, states that “a noun is the name of a person, place, or thing.” Even a poor student has little difficulty in applying this definition to the first red in example 32; red here is obviously the name of a color: 32. The red in those curtains goes well with that red lampshade. But the student is justifiably puzzled when he is told that the second red is not a noun. It must seem to him that red is still the name of a color even when it is used with the word lampshade. Again, most English teachers would probably agree that the word Saturday in example 33a is a noun; many would probably agree that the Saturday in example 33b is also a noun. But what part of speech is the Saturday in example 33c? or in 33d? 33a. b. c. d.

Saturday is the day we always go for a drive. We always go for a drive on Saturday. We are going for a drive this Saturday. We are going for a drive Saturday.

It is unlikely that the traditional definition would really help the average student to classify a word like arrival as a noun. Which shall we tell him that it is: the name of a person, the name of a place, or the name of a thing? The writers of some handbooks broaden the definition of a noun in order to include more than just “persons, places, or things”; they state, for example, that a noun may also name a quality or an idea. However, an “arrival” is neither a quality nor an idea; it is, if anything, the name of an act or of an occurrence. The extended definition still does not fit all the facts.

1.5.2 The Pronoun The traditional definition of a pronoun is inaccurate from both the semantic and the structural points of view. Semantically, if we

TRADITIONAL DEFINITIONS THAT DO NOT FIT THE FACTS

9

accept the definition of a pronoun as “a word that stands for (or takes the place of) a noun,” we would have to include words like the Mac in the following example in our list of pronouns: 34. His name is MacGregor, but everyone calls him Mac. Here Mac certainly seems to stand for or to take the place of MacGregor, and MacGregor is the name of a person and is thus a noun; by the traditional definition, therefore, Mac should qualify as a pronoun. (As a matter of fact, this definition would serve fairly well as the definition for nicknames.) Even though pronouns like he and she may also seem to take the place of nouns, not all of the pronouns do so. In the following examples, there are no nouns or semantic referents that the itali¬ cized pronouns could be taking the place of: 35a. “Who lives in that house?” b. “Nobody does. There hasn’t been anybody in that house for years.” Even in those cases where pronouns really do seem to take the place of nouns, words belonging structurally to some other part of speech may do the same. The pronouns that and zt in example 36b, for instance, seem to take the place of Thursday, but so does the word then in example 36c, although then is not a pronoun: 36a. “Your suit won’t be ready until Thursday.” b. “That's the day after tomorrow, isn’t it?” c. “Yes. It will be ready then." However, the most serious shortcoming of the traditional defini¬ tion of a pronoun is that most so-called pronouns really do not replace nouns at all, as can be seen by comparing examples 37a and 37b; most of the words traditionally called pronouns actually replace whole noun constructions, as can be seen from example 37c: 37a. The blue raincoat over there belongs to my wife. b. *The blue it over there belongs to my wife. c. It belongs to my wife. There are only two words commonly used in formal English to replace nouns alone: one and its plural form ones. These words really do substitute for single nouns rather than for whole noun constructions:

10

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

38a. The blue raincoat oxer here is someone else’s. b. The blue one over here is someone else’s.

1.5.3 The Adjective An adjective is traditionally defined as “a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun.” I have already expressed my doubts as to the value, at least for younger students, of a definition that makes use of a term as difficult to understand as the term modifies. But assuming, for the moment, that a student did know what modifies meant, he could claim with justification that the words there and upstairs in the following example must be adjectives since they modify the nouns package and people respectively: 39. That package there is for the people upstairs. Yet I doubt that most writers of traditional handbooks would be willing to classify there and upstairs as adjectives. Given the inadequacies of such definitions, it is no small wonder that the average student leaves school with no real understanding of English grammar. It must be admitted that there are a number of students, albeit a small number, who do learn “grammar.” These students, however, do not learn their grammar from the handbooks; they learn it almost in spite of the handbooks. In other words, such students teach themselves grammar—by observing the ways in which English works and then by forming their own conclusions. When they are in the classroom, they often pretend, in order to satisfy their teachers, that they have actually identified a given part of speech with the aid of the traditional “rule,” thus adding to the frustration already felt by the poorer students, who wonder why others seem to be able to apply the rules while they themselves cannot do so. Suppose, for instance, that a teacher were to use the following example in presenting the definition of an adjective: 40. An old man in a blue shirt was riding a dowf horse. The teacher might explain that the first adjective in that sentence is the word old and that old is an adjective because it modifies the noun man. On the basis of this definition, the students might then be asked to find the second adjective. Almost immediately some bright student would select the word blue, explaining that blue is an adjective since it modifies the noun shirt. Yet even though the bright student may himself believe this explanation, it is probably

TRADITIONAL DEFINITIONS THAT DO NOT FIT THE FACTS

11

not true that he has identified blue as an adjective because it “modifies” shirt. It is much more likely that he has given this explanation from a desire to satisfy his teacher rather than from the recognition of some restriction on—some modification of—the meaning of the noun imposed by the adjective preceding it. The reader can test this last statement for himself by trying to find the third adjective in that same sentence. He will probably have no difficulty in identifying the word dowf as an adjective; but, unless he happens to know the meaning of dowf, it is difficult to see how dowf can, for him, “limit or restrict” the meaning of horse. It is highly probable that the reader and the bright student—and even the teacher—identified the adjectives in the example sentence by their positions: each of the three adjectives occurs between an article and a noun. One may well ask whether it would not be more helpful (and perhaps even more honest) to teach our students definitions based on positions rather than definitions based on such abstract concepts as that of modification.

1.5.4 The Verb The traditional definition of a verb states that “a verb is a word that expresses an action or a state of being.” There are, however, many sentences in which the verbs do not express either actions or states of being; in the following example, for instance, the nouns attack and rout seem to express more action than the verb re¬ sulted: 41. Our sudden attack resulted in the complete rout of the enemy. And, surely, in the next example, the present state of being of our goose is expressed by the adjective dead rather than by the verb is: 42. Our old gray goose is dead. Indeed, there are many nouns and adjectives that seem to be used to express actions or states of being more than to name persons, places, or things; nouns like arrival and revolution, for example— and adjectives like boisterous, lively, and energetic—suggest quite as much action as do many verbs. To the traditional definition of a verb, some handbooks add the information that a verb “helps to make a statement.” Considering the fact that the verb tell appears in both the command in example

12

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

43a and also in the statement in example 43b, it would appear that either the subject I or the auxiliary ’ll is of more help in making a statement than is the verb: 43a. “Tell that to the judge.” b. “All right, I’ll tell that to the judge.” Some traditional handbooks define a verb phrase as being com¬ posed of a main verb and one or more auxiliaries, or helping verbs. Helping verbs are defined as “those words that help the main verb to express action or make a statement.” Such handbooks often give lists of the most commonly used helping verbs—but get and got are seldom included in such lists. And yet, in sentences like the follow¬ ing, got “helps” its verb just as much as was does: 44a. The Baxters’ little kitten got lost in the woods behind their house last Friday, b. It was lost for three days. If we are to call was an auxiliary in example 44b, then logic would seem to dictate that we call got an auxiliary in example 44a. What is got in that sentence if it is not an auxiliary? And is the sentence in example 44a in the passive voice or in the active voice? Most handbooks are of little or no help in answering such questions. Some writers even condemn the use of got in sentences like this (perhaps because of their inability to explain its function). But the use of got should not be condemned; this word is used to express the distinction in meaning that we find between getting lost on a certain day and being lost for several days. This distinction is expressed more precisely by the two sentences in example 44 above than it is by the following sentences: 45a. The Baxters’ little kitten was lost in the woods behind their house last Friday, b. It was lost for three days.

1.5.5 The Adverb Let us suppose for a moment that a student has been able to grasp the concept of modification but that he has not been taught the traditional definitions of the parts of speech—more specifically, that he does not know the traditional definition of an adverb. Is there any doubt as to what his answer would be to the question “What does the adverb especially modify in example 46?”

TRADITIONAL DEFINITIONS THAT DO NOT FIT THE FACTS

13

46. I like all kinds of fruit, especially peaches. This student—or anyone else who had not been taught traditional grammar—would undoubtedly answer that especially modifies the word peaches. But most of us who have been trained in traditional grammar cannot believe that especially could modify peaches since the former must be an adverb (because of the -ly ending) and the latter is a noun and, according to the traditional definition, “adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.” And so, since there are no adjectives or other adverbs in that sentence for espe¬ cially to modify, we assume, because of the rule, that it must modify the verb like. I have been amazed by the number of people who have told me that they really “feel” that the especially in example 46 modifies the verb. It is more difficult, however, to feel that especially modi¬ fies the verb in the following sentence: 47. All of the students in this class, especially the boys, will have to work much harder. It is even more difficult to feel that especially modifies the verb in its sentence in example 48, since there is no verb for it to modify: 48. Teacher (to class): Keep quiet, all of you. Student: Me, too? Teacher: Especially you. Yet many people schooled in traditional grammar have suggested various verbs—either keep or some “understood” verb—for the especially in example 48 to modify. According to the traditional rules, adjectives modify pronouns, but adverbs do not; since espe¬ cially is an adverb, it cannot modify the pronoun you, even though there may be nothing else in sight for it to modify.3 Thus do we twist the facts, even when they stare us in the face, in order to make them fit our preconceived rules.

3To set the record straight, it should be pointed out here that there are certain words like especially and only and just that regularly modify the so-called pronouns, that is, words like you and her. These same words may also modify prepositional phrases and subordinate clauses, as in the following examples: a. At your age, you shouldn’t run up steps, especially after a.big meal. i

-T

b. At your age, you shouldn’t run up steps, especially after you’ve just eaten a big meal.

I_f 14

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

One further example may serve to underscore the danger of relying on definitions based on meaning. Some handbooks, in order to help their readers identify adverbial phrases, explain that such phrases answer the questions How? Where? When? or To what extent? Applying this test to example 49a, we are able to identify the words last summer as constituting an adverbial phrase since they answer the question When? 49a. Last summer Percy went to Canada with his family. But the words last summer in example 49b seem also to answer the question When? 49b. Last summer was unusually cool. It is easy to imagine the frustration of a student who, after learning that the words last summer in example 49a are adverbial since they answer the question When? is told that the same words are not adverbial in example 49b. To most students it must seem that last summer refers to the same period of time in both those sentences. It is little wonder that many adults say they “never understood gram¬ mar” when they were in school.

2

Different “Layers of Structure”1

2.1 Nesting A fundamental shortcoming of most traditional grammars is that they ignore one of the most distinctive features of the English language, namely, the embedding of constructions within other, larger constructions. These larger constructions are often embed¬ ded in still larger constructions, in a hierarchy of units-withinunits. A recognition of this nesting quality of English is essential to any true understanding of its structure, yet some English teachers seem not to be aware of it. For instance, the sentences in examples 1 and 2 below seem to many people to be identical syntactically; that is, when examined one word at a time, each seems to consist of a noun, a verb, an article, a second noun, a preposition, a second article, a third noun, a second preposition, a third article, and a fourth noun.

^he term “layers of structure” is borrowed from Charles C. Fries, The Structure of English (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1952), chap. XII.

DIFFERENT “LAYERS OF STRUCTURE”

15

1. Percy took the hat on the table in the hall. 2. Percy put the hat on the table in the hall. But a closer examination will reveal that these sentences differ, and differ significantly, in their internal structure. The sentence in example 1 contains only one functional unit after the verb took; namely, the hat on the table in the hall. This entire unit functions as the object of the verb. However, on a lower layer of structure, it can be seen that the construction the hat on the table in the hall includes an embedded phrase; that is, the phrase on the table in the hall modifies hat just as the does. Within this phrase, on a still lower layer of structure, the object of the preposition on is the whole noun construction the table in the hall. On an even lower layer of structure, that noun construction may be seen to include the em¬ bedded phrase in the hall; this phrase is included inside the noun construction the table in the hall because in the hall modifies table. In the sentence in example 2, on the other hand, there are two, not one, functional units after the verb put: the hat, which is the object of the verb, and on the table in the hall, which is a separate unit. These two units function independently on the same layer of structure. On the table in the hall, in this sentence, does not modify hat as it did in the first sentence. (On a lower layer of structure, however, the object of the preposition on is the whole construction the table in the hall, as it is in the other sentence, and on a still lower layer, there is a second prepositional phrase, in the hall, included inside the larger noun construction the table in the hall.) In other words, the structural makeup of the sentences in exam¬ ples 1 and 2 is in large part determined by the different ways in which the constructions are nested2 inside other constructions. These differences may be represented schematically layer by layer as in the following diagrams, where slashes separate the functional units, arrows indicate modifying units, and asterisks indicate the units modified:

2The nesting of constructions-within-constructions is admirably represented by the “Chinese boxes” in W. Nelson Francis’ Structure of American English (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1958). In Patterns of English (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1956), Paul Roberts also demonstrates the fact that an English sentence consists of constructions on different layers by rewriting the constructions on separate lines, but unfortunately the formulas in his exercises (which students are supposed to use as models for sentences of their own devising) consist of numbers and letters in linear sequence, each number or letter representing a word. His exercises thus tend to reinforce the mistaken idea that most students have of an English sentence as consisting of a string of words put together one after the other, like beads in a necklace.

16

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

3. Percy took the hat on the table in the hall. took/the hat on the table in the hall the/hat/on the table in the hall —> * -on/the table in the hall the/table/in the hall —» *

(verb and its object) (noun and its modifiers) (preposition and its object) (noun and its modifiers) (preposition and its object) (noun and its modifier)

*

4. Percy put the hat on the table in the hall. put/the hat/on the table in the hall on/the table in the hall the/hat

—*

*

(verb, its object, and a separate phrase) (preposition and its object)

the/table/in the hall (nouns and their modifiers) * «-

—>

in/the hall the/hall —>

*

(preposition and its object) (noun and its modifier)

2.2 Mixing Layers By not keeping in mind the way constructions function on differ¬ ent layers, most writers of traditional handbooks give their readers an inaccurate picture of English syntax. A typical instance of this mixing of layers is to be found in the traditional discussion of “simple” and “complete” subjects, where the simple subject is defined as “a word naming the person, place, thing, or idea about which something is being said.” In the following sentence, for example, traditional handbooks would identify the word truck as the simple subject: 5. A large green truck lurched around the bend. But the word truck does not really satisfy the definition given above for the simple subject since the word truck does not seem to name the thing about which something is being said in that sentence; that is, truck did not lurch around the bend; a large green truck did. I have never seen truck do anything, but I have seen a large green truck come around a bend. In other words, on the sentence layer it is the whole noun DIFFERENT “LAYERS OF STRUCTURE”

17

construction a large green truck that functions as the subject, not the word truck alone. (If the word truck alone could function as the subject, it would be possible to say *Truck lurched around the bend; but that is clearly an unnatural sentence.) Admittedly, on a lower layer of structure than the sentence layer, the word truck functions as the main word in the noun construction a large green truck, but this is not to say that it can be the subject. The predicate can only say something about the “complete” subject. On the sentence layer, therefore, the subject—the only subject—is a large green truck. Needless to say, a satisfactory grammar of English must enable us to analyze the way in which the word truck func¬ tions in that sentence; but it must show that truck functions on a different layer of structure than does a large green truck. There would be some justification for defining the simple subject in a sentence as the “nucleus, or main word, of the complete subject”; but there is no justification for saying that the simple subject names the person or thing about which something is being said. This is not a mere quibble over terms. When we offer suggestions to help students identify certain grammatical units, it is important that they be able to employ those suggestions as stated; they should not have to guess at what it is that we want to demonstrate. The following example may help to emphasize this point: 6. The Connecticut flows into Long Island Sound. In this sentence there is no single word naming the person, place, thing, or idea about which something is being said, since Connec¬ ticut does not flow into Long Island Sound—the Connecticut does. The same principle applies in the following sentence: 7. A glass is something to drink out of. Glass is not something to drink out of; glass is something that windowpanes are made of. A glass is something to drink out of. Glass is not the same as a glass, just as Connecticut is not the same as the Connecticut; to pretend that they are the same is to ignore two of the most important grammatical signals in English— namely, the articles a and the. Again, in their description of adverbial modifiers, writers of tradi¬ tional handbooks consistently confuse the layers of structure. In the following example, for instance, such writers would probably as¬ sume that the two prepositional phrases in a hotel and for six months both modify the verb lived; that is, that they both function on the same layer as lived: 18

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

8. Hugo lived in a hotel for six months. Nothing could be further from the truth. When an adverbial phrase of time like for six months modifies the verb lived directly, lived has the meaning “stayed alive,” as in the next example: 9. Hugo lived for six months. Only when lived is accompanied by some such expression as a phrase of place (like in a hotel) does it have the meaning “resided, dwelt,” as in example 8. In the sentence in example 8, therefore, the phrase for six months cannot modify lived; it must modify lived in a hotel (or, more probably, Hugo lived in a hotel since the phrase may be shifted to the beginning of the sentence, as in For six months, Hugo lived in a hotel). The phrases in the sentence in example 8 must be structured in some kind of hierarchy of different layers, which may be represented as follows: 10. [Hugo + [lived + in a hotel]]

for six months

Another example of the way in which traditional handbooks fail to keep the different layers of analysis separate is in their treatment of “main” and “subordinate” clauses. A clause is commonly defined as a “group of words containing a subject and a predicate and used is part of a sentence.” A main clause is then defined as a clause hat “expresses a complete thought and could be a sentence by itself.” A subordinate clause, on the other hand, “does not express a complete thought by itself and must always be attached to a main clause.” Aside from the inadequacy of the term “complete thought,” which has already been discussed, the traditional definition fails the student because it does not apply to sentences like the follow¬ ing: 11. What annoyed me was his attitude. If one assumes that the subordinate clause in this sentence consists of the words What annoyed me, then there will be left, as the main clause, the words was his attitude. But was his attitude cannot be a main clause since it lacks a subject and does not express a complete thought. Therefore, either there is no main clause in that sentence or else the subordinate clause is included in—is part of rather than an attachment to—the main clause. The fact that a subordinate clause is not linked to a main clause but is included in it may be seen more clearly from the following examples: DIFFERENT “LAYERS OF STRUCTURE”

19

12a. Hugo had not seen the other man before. b. Hugo had not seen the other man before the accident. c. Hugo had not seen the other man before the accident took place. Probably everyone would agree that in sentence 12a the main clause consists of the entire sentence, within which the adverb before functions as some kind of adverbial. Probably everyone would also agree that in sentence 12b the main clause again consists of the entire sentence, within which the prepositional phrase before the accident functions as some kind of adverbial. Now in sentence 12c the subordinate clause before the accident took place performs the same function that the adverb before and the prepositional phrase before the accident perform in their sen¬ tences; furthermore, the subordinate clause occupies exactly the same position in its own sentence that the other two units occupy in theirs; namely, the end position. It is difficult, therefore, to see why—if this end position is considered to be included within the main clause in the first two sentences—it should suddenly seem to have shifted outside the main clause in the third. On the contrary, it would seem that in the third sentence, as in the other two sen¬ tences, the main clause must consist of the entire sentence, with the subordinate clause functioning as some kind of adverbial unit within the main clause. In other words, on the sentence layer each of these three sentences comprises the same kind of construction, namely, a main clause. On this layer, all three sentences are similar. On a lower layer, all three sentences are again similar in that each is made up of three units: a subject, a predicate, and an adverbial. The subjects in all three sentences are identical, as are the predicates; but the sentences differ—on this layer—in that the adverbial in the first sentence is a single word, while the adverbial in the second is a phrase and the adverbial in the third is a clause. The distinction may become clearer if we examine the following analogy. In a train pulled by a locomotive powered by a diesel engine, it is not, strictly speaking, the diesel engine that pulls the other cars along; it is the locomotive that does so—although, of course, the locomotive can pull the cars only because it is driven by the diesel engine. The point is that the locomotive and the diesel engine function on different layers: The locomotive is an essential part of the whole train, while the diesel engine is an essential part of the locomotive. (The diesel fuel, in turn, is an essential element

20

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

in the functioning of the engine.) A lucid description of such a train should keep each of these layers distinct. Or, to make another comparison: in the fairly fixed order in which we eat meals in our culture, breakfast regularly precedes lunch; but certainly no one would be likely to say that a person who begins his breakfast with orange juice and ends his lunch with dessert “drinks his orange juice before he eats his dessert”—although actually, in point of time, the drinking of the orange juice does precede the eating of the dessert. The orange juice is not directly related to the dessert; only by virtue of being part of the breakfast can the orange juice be said to come before the different courses making up the lunch, of which the dessert is one. On the layer of meals, the breakfast precedes the lunch; on a lower layer the orange juice is merely one part of the breakfast (although, perhaps, an essential part of it), while—again on a lower layer—the dessert is merely one part of the lunch. In the same way, the word truck in example 5 above is only one element (although the most important one) in the subject a large green truck; what is related to the predicate lurched around the bend is the subject, that is, the entire group of words a large green truck, not the single word truck. It is important to recognize the fact that one of the reasons so many of our students are poor readers is that they read by words rather than by constructions; that is, the units in their reading are words, not constructions. Because of the convention (in writing) of separating each word from the next with a space, students can easily recognize the boundaries between words. When one adds to this the fact that much of their work in grammar study consists of identifying words, such as parts of speech and simple subjects, it is easy to see why many of them never learn to recognize the un¬ marked but very important boundaries between constructions larger than simple phrases or clauses. Most poor readers, for exam¬ ple, would probably not recognize that the boundaries between the subject and predicate are different in the following examples, and yet this difference is crucial to an understanding of the meanings of the two sentences: 13a. Is that man reading a book? b. Is that man reading a book your teacher? Students who would read these two sentences as if they were pretty much the same have never been taught a kind of grammar that shows them how to regroup words in different combinations of

DIFFERENT “LAYERS OF STRUCTURE”

21

constructions-within-constructions; only a grammar of this kind will enable them to recognize the structure of any sentence they meet in their reading. We desperately need such a grammar.

22

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

part two the history of english and english grammars

3 The History of the English Language1 3.1 The Indo-European Family of Languages On the basis of similarities existing between various languages, linguists have grouped different languages together into language families. All of the languages in any one “family” are assumed to be related as the result of having derived originally from some com¬ mon parent language, a language which is no longer spoken today except, perhaps, in a greatly changed form. We now know that the number of these language families runs into the hundreds. One of the most important of such language families—the one to

™1S tuC°uUn! °f tlJeudeivel°Pment of English is necessarily sketchy. For additional information bout the history of the language, the reader is referred to the excellent summaries to be found in die pamphlets by Francis and Laird and in Chapter I of Fries’ American English Grammar, as a®, ?.lhe mom detailed accounts to be found in the other books listed in the Bibliography

™T;

5

EugnSh ngUa^e’M Much of the ^formation presented here has been adapted from the books by Baugh and Robertson cited there.

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

23

£

£

THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY OF LANGUAGES

c/)

24

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

which English belongs—is called the Indo-European family. Al¬ though little is known about the parent Indo-European language (sometimes called Proto-Indo-European) or about the people who spoke it, linguists do know about the languages derived from it. Until the colonization of the Western Hemisphere, the derived languages were spoken primarily by the inhabitants of countries stretching from India on the East all the way across Europe to the British Isles on the West; hence the name “Indo-European.” It is customary to recognize eight or nine major branches of the IndoEuropean family; these branches are shown in the family tree on page 24, together with the most important “descendants” of the original parent language.

3.2 Old English An examination of any standard English dictionary will show that a large proportion of the vocabulary of present-day English has been borrowed from Latin, but this does not mean that English itself is descended from Latin. In fact, as the chart shows, English does not belong to the branch of the Indo-European family to which Latin belongs. English is a Germanic language, not an Italic or Romance language; English is not derived from Latin, as are Italian, French, and Spanish. There is no reason, therefore, to expect the rules of Latin syntax to apply to English. Yet, for various historical reasons, we have been trying for over two hundred years to force the rules of Latin grammar on English grammar. • As the chart shows, Modern English is derived from Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), a language comprised of several Germanic di¬ alects spoken by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who, at the time of the Roman Empire, lived along the northern coast of Europe. Britain was then inhabited by the Celts, although by a.d. 46 the tribes in the central and southeastern parts of the island had been subjugated by the Romans. Within the next forty years the Romans conquered most of what is now England, but they never penetrated very far into either Wales or Scotland. One result of the Roman conquest was that for a time Latin became the official language of that part of the island that the Romans controlled. Many upper-class Britons undoubtedly learned to speak Latin fluently or at least to employ it on occasion. Never¬ theless, its use was not very widespread, with the result that after a.d. 410, when the last of the Roman troops were finally called back to the Continent, the use of Latin in England began to decline. THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

25

Before long, Latin was no longer spoken on the island; the only remaining traces of it were to be found in a few words like ceaster, from the Latin word castra (“camp”), which still survives to this day in such place-names as Chester, Manchester, Lancaster, Glou¬ cester, Worcester, and the like. While under Roman domination, the Celts had lost some of thenwarlike ways, so that when they no longer had the protection of the Roman troops, they fell easy victims to invading Jutes, Angles, and Saxons. Many of the Celts were driven westward into Wales and Cornwall, although others undoubtedly remained behind and set¬ tled down beside their conquerors. By the middle of the sixth century, the Anglo-Saxons were firmly entrenched in England. The Anglo-Saxons called their language Englisc, from which we get the name English. The various dialects of English that the Anglo-Saxons spoke are called Anglo-Saxon, or more commonly, Old English. Like Modern German, Old English had full sets of inflections: its nouns and adjectives were inflected for number and case, and its verbs were inflected for person, number, tense, and mood. During the sixth century missionaries were sent to England from both Ireland and Rome; and by the middle of the next century, most of the inhabitants of the island had been converted to Christianity. It was during this period that English began to borrow extensively from Latin. The Anglo-Saxons established several kingdoms in England. As one or another of these kingdoms gained in influence, the dialect spoken by the people of that kingdom probably gained in prestige. In the seventh and eighth centuries the center of influence lay in Northumbria, between the Humber River and the Firth of Forth. The dominant literature of that period was written in Northumbri¬ an. In the ninth century, partly as a result of Danish invasions from the north, the center of influence shifted to Wessex, the home of the West Saxons south of the River Thames. The most famous West Saxon king was Alfred the Great (died a.d. 899?), who was a great patron of learning and himself translated—or had translated— many books from Latin into English.

3.3 Middle English English maintained its several full sets of inflections from a.d. 450 to 1100 or 1150. This period in the history of the language is known as the period of Old English. After 1100, however, under the 26

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

influence of French, which the Normans brought with them when they invaded England in 1066, the number of English inflections became greatly reduced. (Although it may seem at first that this must have resulted in a simplification of the language, such sim¬ plification was largely offset by a great increase in the use of prepositions and by a greater rigidity in the order of words in a sentence. In Old English, for example, the subject might either precede or follow the verb, but today the subject almost always precedes.) The period from 1100 or 1150 to 1500—that is, up to the introduction and spread of printing in England—is known as the period of Middle English. In spite of the fact that French was the language of the Norman conquerors, it did not replace English as the national language but remained instead the language of the rulers, that is, the language of the nobility and of the court. The common people continued to speak English. And since the common people greatly outnumbered their French-speaking rulers, the latter were forced to become bilingual. Although the French language was brought to the British Isles by the conquering Normans, not many French words were immediately borrowed into the English language. Conquered peo¬ ple do not commonly borrow words from the language of their conquerors unless they also acquire elements from the culture of their conquerors. The Norman invasion did not immediately affect the English language to any great extent, but it did open the way for increased cultural exchange between England and France. Between 1250 and 1650—that is to say, during the later Middle Ages and Renaissance—a very large number of French words came into the English language. These included words relating to govern¬ ment and administration, ecclesiastical words, legal and military terms, as well as words reflecting the dominant position of the French in matters of fashion and dress and the culinary arts.2 Since French, not English, was the language of the Norman conquerors, it was only natural that for the first century or two

2 For some of the words borrowed from French, equivalents already existed in English. Quite often both the English word and the French word survived, usually with a slight difference in meaning. Thus, beside the native English word cow, we find the borrowed word beef, from the French boef, cow ; beside the native word sheep, we find the borrowed word mutton (mouton), “ram” ; beside the native word pig, we find the borrowed word pork (pore), “pig.” Since the live animals were commonly cared for by English-speaking serfs, whereas the flesh of these animals was commonly eaten by French-speaking nobles, it is not surprising that we use the native English words for the animals themselves but the French words for their flesh or meat. At a later time English developed another way of indicating the difference between an animal and its flesh: once the use of the indefinite article had become obligatory before a singular, countable noun, as in a rabbit and a duck, the omission of the article could signal the flesh of the animal, as in rabbit and duck.

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

27

following the Norman invasion, French should enjoy greater pres¬ tige than English, even in England. Latin, as the language of the Church and as a language still spoken by learned men throughout much of Europe, had perhaps even greater prestige than French. Most of the legal documents of that period were written in either French or Latin, as were also many of the scholarly books and literary works familiar to upper-class families. Even those books that were written in English, such as religious tracts and historical accounts, were written in not one but several different dialects of English. There was no one dialect recognized as “standard” throughout England, although the largest number of books written in English at that time was written in the southern dialect, the dia¬ lect spoken south of the Thames. This situation began to change shortly after 1200. During the century and a half following the Norman Conquest, the English king and many English nobles held large possessions on both sides of the English Channel. In 1204, however, King John of England lost Normandy to King Philip of France, and by 1244 those nobles who held possessions in both England and France found them¬ selves forced to choose which master they were going to serve. In some cases brothers divided up their possessions between them¬ selves, one maintaining English allegiance, the other French; in other cases families merely lost their possessions in one country or the other. At the same time a feeling of rivalry developed between the two countries, which was accompanied by the growth of strong anti-foreign feeling in England. Thus by the end of the thirteenth century, the nobility in England looked upon itself as English nobility, and little justification remained for the use of French as an official language, although Latin continued to have great prestige because of the influence of the Church. The Bible was not trans¬ lated into English until toward the end of the fourteenth century, and even in the so-called Wycliffe translation a large number of new words were borrowed from Latin; many of these have since come into common use in English.

3.4 Modern English During the same period London, as the capital of England, became the political and commercial center of the Englishspeaking world. Just as the dialect of French spoken in Paris had become the standard form of French, so London English became in

28

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

time the standard form of English. More and more legal documents and other official papers were written in London English, and even writers whose native dialect was not that of London felt constrained to learn and use it. When Chaucer, who was born in London, wrote in this prestige dialect, he was using his own native form of English. But Gower, who was writing at the same time, did not use his native Kentish dialect; he used a form of English very similar to Chaucer’s. (He also wrote a long poem in Latin and still another long poem in French.) During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries great changes took place in the pronunciation of the spoken forms of English, primarily in the pronunciation of vowel sounds. These changes will be dis¬ cussed at length in Section 3.6.1 below. By the end of the fifteenth century, London English had become accepted in most parts of England as the prestige dialect, at least in writing. Its spread and the standardization of its spelling were greatly accelerated by the introduction of printing into England by William Caxton in 1476. During the sixteenth century the speech of London, Oxford, and Cambridge became established as the “spoken standard,” to which educated people all over England tended to conform. But by 1800 the speech of London had changed in several respects from the standard form of the seventeenth century (which was still used in the northern part of England and in America). In time this new London dialect became the prestige dialect spoken by most upper-class Englishmen, although American speakers con¬ tinued to pronounce their words much as they had in the seven¬ teenth century, when America was settled. The forms of standard English that have been spoken and written since the end of the fifteenth century are referred to as Modern English.

3.5 The Mutability of English: Vocabulary A comparison of three translations of the same familiar Old Testament passage in Old English, Middle English, and Modern English, will demonstrate that English has changed considerably from the tenth century to the present.3

3The examples given here are taken from John W. Clark’s Early English (New York: Norton 1957), pp. 16-17. All three are translations from Latin. The Old English version dates from about A D. 1000, the Middle English one from the 1380’s, and the Modern English one from an eighteenth century revision of the Reims (-Douai) translation of 1582.

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

29

OLD ENGLISH

Sofilice on t>am dagum waes geworden gebod fram ham Casere Augusto fiaet eall ymbehwyrft waere tomearcod. heos tomearcodnes waes aerest geworden fram ham deman Syrige, Cirino. And ealle hig eodon . . . and syndrie ferdon on hyra ceastre. MIDDLE ENGLISH

Forsothe it was don in tho dayes, a maundement went out fro Cesar August that al the world schulde be discryued. This first discryuyng was maad of Cyryne, iustice of Cirye. And alle men wenten, that thei schulde make profescioun, each by him self in to his cite. MODERN ENGLISH

And it came to pass that in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This enrolling was first made by Cyrinus, the governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, every one into his own city.

Note that the Middle English version is very different from Modern English, although the differences are not as great as those between Old English and Modern English. Modern English is, then, merely one stage in the development of the English language. What our language will be like six hundred years from now, no one can predict. On the basis of much empirical evidence gathered from a study ot

30

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

many different languages, linguists today believe that change is normal—and even inevitable—in the development of every lan¬ guage. No living language that we know anything about is the same today as it was a few hundred years ago—or even as it was one hundred years ago, although the changes that have taken place within the last century may be so imperceptible that most speakers of the language are not conscious of them. Every language seems to be in a constant state of change. A careful look at the etymology of a very common word will illustrate the complexity of the problem of determining the “cor¬ rect meaning of a word. The history of the word nice is fully described in the Oxford English Dictionary. Nice was first bor¬ rowed in Middle English from Old French, which in turn got it from the Latin word nescius, meaning “ignorant” (from the verb nescire, “not to know”). In Chaucer’s time nice was still used with a meaning that hinted at its Latin origin, the meaning “stupid, fool¬ ish,” but it was also used with the meaning “wanton, lascivious.” The Oxford English Dictionary records no instance of nice being used with either of these two meanings in English texts after the year 1606. For the ten years between that date and the date of Shakespeare’s death, the Oxford English Dictionary records instances of the use of nice in several different senses, such as “effeminate,” “delicate,” “coy,” “shy,” “fastidious, difficult to please, particular,” “precise,” “refined, cultivated,” “requiring or involving great precision or accuracy,” “not obvious or readily apprehended,” “minute, subtle,” “critical, doubtful,” “entering minutely into details, attentive,” “able to distinguish or dis¬ criminate in a high degree,” and “minutely or carefully accurate”; but it cites no instances of the use of nice with any of these meanings for Chaucer’s time. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, nice was first used with the meaning “dainty, appetiz¬ ing” (in reference to food) in 1712;4 it was first used with the meaning “agreeable” or “delightful” in 1769; it was first used in the expression to look nice, meaning “to have an attractive appear¬ ance,” in 1793; and it was first used with the meaning “kind, considerate, or pleasant (to others)” in 1830. Taking into account the history of this word, and its various meanings at various times,

4 It must be remembered that the quotations to be found in the Oxford English Dictionary were taken from written English. It is highly probable that the word was used in a given sense in speech for several years before the date of its first recorded use in writing.

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

31

we must recognize that we are not justified in specifying any particular usage as the “proper” one. There is no such thing as the “proper” meaning of a word for all time. There is no basis on which to judge which of all the historical meanings is somehow “better” or “more accurate” than the others. The task of the linguist is simply to record and examine the changes the word has undergone, not to evaluate and judge them.

3.6 The Mutability of English: Pronunciation and Spelling Perhaps even more striking than changes that have occurred in the meanings of words are changes that have occurred in their pronunciation. Between the seventeenth century and the end of the nineteenth century, for example, many changes took place in the speech of educated Londoners. In the seventeenth century Lon¬ doners pronounced the r in words wherever it appeared in the spelling; they pronounced the vowel in half and dance like the vowel in hat and Dan; they pronounced the vowel in hot and not like the first vowel in father; they pronounced the h in words like what and where and when; and they pronounced words like dic¬ tionary and secretary with a weak accent on the third syllable. Most Americans, it will be noted, still show these traits in their speech. But upper-class Londoners today do not pronounce the r in words except before vowels; they pronounce the vowel in half and dance like the first vowel in father; they pronounce the vowel in words like hot and not with more rounding of the lips than is to be found in the pronunciation of the first vowel in father; they pro¬ nounce what and when as if they were spelled wat and wen; and they no longer accent the third syllable in words like dictionary and secretary, with the result that they seem to pronounce these words as if they were spelled dictionry and secretry. Even more dramatic are the changes that have occurred in the pronunciation of certain vowel sounds from the period of Middle English down to the present. A comparison of five different words spelled with oo reveals the different stages through which the pronunciation of this “long o” has passed; it shows, furthermore, that the process is still going on, at least in a few words.5 The five words are tooth, foot, root, soot, and blood, all of which were

5The examples given here are taken from Stuart Robertson’s The Development of Modern English, rev. by Frederic G. Cassidy, 2nd ed. (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1954), p. 103.

32

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

pronounced in Middle English with a long o sound roughly equiva¬ lent to the sound of the oin rode. In Early Modern English the long o sound in all of these words changed to the sound of the oo in doom; the vowel sound in tooth stopped changing when it reached this stage, so that tooth is still pronounced with the same vowel sound as the sound in doom. This same sound has also been preserved in the pronunciation of soot in the speech of some Americans. But in the speech of most English speakers, this pronunciation of the ooin foot and blood gave way to a sound similar to that of the um put. The pronunciation of foot stopped changing at this stage, so that in the speech of most people, foot still rhymes with put. In the speech of many people, the pronunciation of the ooin root has reached this second stage, so that in their pronunciation root also rhymes with put; but in the speech of others, root still reflects the first stage in its development, so that in their speech it is still pronounced with the sound of the oo in doom. The pronunciation of blood (except in Scots) moved on to the second stage, in which the oo was pro¬ nounced like the u in put; at this stage, blood was pronounced so as to rhyme with good. Good seems to have stopped in this second stage of its development, but in the speech of most people, blood has moved on to a third stage, in which the oois pronounced like the u in bud, so that blood now rhymes with bud. Of all five words, soot is probably the least “settled”: in the speech of some Americans, its vowel sound has progressed to the third stage, so that the word rhymes with but; in the speech of perhaps most English speakers, the vowel sound of soot has progressed only to the second stage, so that soot rhymes with put; but, in the speech of some Americans, soot still reflects the first stage of its development and rhymes with

boot. Although these changes in pronunciation were both striking and far-reaching, the changes in pronunciation that occurred between the time of Chaucer (d. 1400) and the time of Shakespeare (d. 1616) have been even more pervasive in their effect. The speech of an upper-class Londoner of our own day may sound strange or even affected to the average American, but the American will probably understand most, if not all, of what the Englishman says. But if the same American were to hear an English sentence spoken with the pronunciation that Chaucer used, he would probably be unable to understand it. This is due, in large part, to what Otto Jespersen, referring to a series of changes that have taken place in the English vowel system since the fourteenth century, has called the great

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

33

vowel-shift.6 The great vowel-shift is responsible for much of the seeming chaos in present-day English spelling.

3.6.1 The Great Vowel-Shift It is common practice, even today, to speak of “long vowels” and “short vowels.” The sound of the a in made is often referred to as the long a sound, while the sound of the a in mad is referred to as the short a sound. Because of these labels, many people probably believe that the a in made is always longer than the a in mad. The labels suggest that in our pronunciation of the two sounds, we lengthen, or draw out, the a in made more than we do the a in mad. However, this is not always the case. When we read the following sentence aloud, for example, pronouncing it with a strong stress on the last word, the a sound in mad is perceptibly longer than the a sound in made: 1. It made me mad. The a in mad is longer than the a in made because we regularly lengthen the vowel sound in a stressed monosyllabic word occur¬ ring at the end of a sentence, especially if the vowel comes before a voiced consonant, such as b or d. Vowels before voiceless conso¬ nants, such as p and t, are regularly shortened. (To test this statement, read aloud the questions What is a card? and What is a cart? and compare the length of the vowel sounds in the last word in each question.) In Chaucer’s pronunciation there were real “long vowels” and “short vowels.” Chaucer pronounced both the a in name and the a in man, for example, with almost the same vowel sound (a sound similar to the modern pronunciation of the a in father), but with one significant difference: he lengthened the a in name. Thus in Chaucer’s speech the a in name actually was a long a sound, while the a in man actually was a short a sound. Although in 1400 these two a sounds were practically the same except in length, the one that was originally long has since changed to the sound that we now give to the name of the letter a, as in the modern pronunciation of name, while the a sound that was originally short has changed to the sound that we now pronounce in man. Today these two sounds 6Otto Jespersen, A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, Part I (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1909), section 8.11.

34

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

are so different that it is no longer necessary to distinguish between them by pronouncing one longer than the other; unfortunately, however, we still keep the old names for the sounds, even though the sounds themselves have changed. Better names for the two sounds in Modern English would be the name sound of a for the sound of a in name and the basic sound of a for the a sound in man. This description is necessarily somewhat oversimplified, but it gives in general terms some idea of what has happened to the pronunciation of the long and short a of Chaucer’s time. Similar statements can be made about the changes that have occurred in the pronunciation of long and short e, of long and short i, of long and short o, and of long and short u. It is in the pronunciation of the long vowel sounds that the greatest changes have occurred; short e, short i, and short o are today pronounced much as they were in Chaucer’s time. It will be noticed that Chaucer’s pronunciation of the long vowels was not very different from the pronunciation of the five vowel letters in modern French, Italian, Spanish, or even German. The “continental” pronunciation of these vowels has not changed as dramatically in the last six hundred years as has their pronuncia¬ tion in English.7 The table on page 36 gives a very rough approximation of the differences between Chaucer’s pronunciation of the long and short vowels and our own. (For a more detailed description, the reader is referred to Baugh’s A History of the English Language and Robertson’s The Development of Modern English, listed in the Bibliography.) This table does not show all the vowel sounds of Chaucer’s time, nor does it show all the vowel sounds of Modern English. Sounds like those represented by the oy of boy and the ow of now have not been included, since the purpose of this table is to show the development from Middle English of the name and basic sounds only. The words that appear in this table should be pronounced as they

_

lfc>47095

7 It is for this reason that the International Phonetic Alphabet, which uses such symbols as [a] for the sound of the a in father, [i] or [i:] (the colon indicates length) for the sound of the eein deem, and [uj or [u:J for the sound of the oo in doom, may be helpful in the teaching of English pronunciation to speakers of European languages, although its use when teaching English to speakers of other languages would seem to add an unnecessary complication of dubious peda¬ gogical value. The pronunciation keys used in such dictionaries as The American Colleqe Dictionary, Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, and the ThorndikeCentury and Thorndike-Barnhart Dictionaries, which employ a, e, I, o, u for the name sounds of the vowel letters and a,e,i,o,u, (or a,e,i,o,u) for the basic sounds of the vowels, at least have the virtue of being more directly related to the modern English spelling.

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

35

THE “LONG’’ VOWELS Modern English

Middle English Pron.

Spelling a: e:

i, y: 5:

u:

Dane dene, deem dine, dyne bone dune

a, aa e, ee

i, y o, oo u, eu, ew

father there, Dane deem dawn feud, few t

THE “SHORT” VOWELS Modern English

Middle English Spelling

w

a: w

e: T

w

l, y: 6: w

u:

Dan den din, dystrophy don putt, dun

a e i, y o u, o

Pron. father den din don +

PUt§

t Chaucer used the spellings eu and ew as well as u alone for what is today the name sound of u. The Modern English pronunciation of this sound does not differ much from Chaucer s pronuncia¬ tion, except that in words like dune many speakers do not pronounce a y sound before the u, that is, they pronounce dune to rhyme with noon, although other speakers pronounce dune to rhyme with hewn. „ Actually the Middle English sound represented here was not a long u sound with the quality ol the oo in doom, but rather a diphthong (like yu or iu). It was from this diphthong, however, that the name sound of u in Modern English was derived. The non-diphthongized long u of Middle English (pronounced like the oo in doom) was spelled ou or ow; it was derived from and pronounced like—the u of Old English. In Modern English this sound has changed to the diphthong in house (where it retains its Middle English spelling of ou). Thus the Old English hus (pronounced approximately to rhyme with modern loose) became, in Middle English, hous (although it still rhymed with modern loose); still later it became the Modern English house. tin Chaucer’s time the short o was probably pronounced more as the o in don is today pronounced by British speakers of English than by American speakers; that is, it was probably pronounced with a slight rounding of the lips. § Chaucer’s pronunciation of the short u lingers on today in the pronunciation of a few words like put and pull.

36

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

are pronounced in present-day English, not as they may have been pronounced in an earlier form of English. The modern pronuncia¬ tion of the underscored vowels in the columns headed “Pron.” suggest, approximately, the Middle English pronunciation of the vowels in the columns headed “Spelling.” (It should be remembered that in Middle English the long vowel sounds really were longer than the short vowel sounds.) No attempt has been made to select as examples words known to have been current in Chaucer’s time; rather, in order to focus attention on the vowel sounds, examples have been chosen that vary as little as possible in their consonant sounds.

3.6.2 Doubling Letters to Indicate Long Sounds

A glance at the Middle English spelling of the vowel sounds will show that writers in Chaucer’s day sometimes indicated the length of a long vowel by doubling the vowel letter.8 But English spelling was not as standardized in the fourteenth century as it is today; Chaucer, for example, used both the spellings maade and made for the preterit of the verb maken, “to make,” although the two spel¬ lings represented only one pronunciation. This Middle English de¬ vice of doubling a vowel letter to indicate length has given us the spellings ee and oo, which are found in so many English words today. Thus the Modern English words feet and sweet derive from Middle English words pronounced with a long vowel sound—a sound that was sometimes spelled with a double e, as in feet, and sometimes with a single e, as in swete. (This sound was roughly equivalent to the modern sound of the nin fate.) Similarly, the ooin the Modern English word foot derives from a Middle English word with a long vowel sound that was sometimes spelled with a double o, as in foot, and sometimes with a single o, as in fote. Both spellings appear in Chaucer. (This sound Was not the same as the long o sound listed in the table on page 36, which was also spelled sometimes with oo and sometimes with o; the vowel sound in foot and fote was roughly equivalent to the vowel sound heard in the Modern English rode.) The device of doubling a letter to indicate a long sound was not original with writers of Middle English. Old English seems to have 8In Old English, length was sometimes indicated by means of a macron placed over the vowel letter, as in swete, “sweet” and don, “do.”

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

37

had long consonant sounds, and some writers evidently used double consonants to indicate these long sounds, as in sittan, sit, settle, remain” and sunne, “sun.”9 In the early thirteenth century some English writers first began to attempt a systematization of their own spelling. One of the first to make this attempt was a writer named Orm. In Orm’s dialect long vowel sounds were regularly followed by short consonant sounds, while short vowel sounds were regularly followed by long consonant sounds. As a result, by doubling the letters for the long consonant sounds in his spelling of his own dialect, Orm was able to indicate the short vowel sounds that preceded them. This method of indicat¬ ing a short vowel sound by doubling the consonant following it was also used by other writers; it was still used even in Chaucer s day, although with no great consistency. Chaucer himself sometimes spelled the preterit of haven, “to have,” with one d (hade), some¬ times with two cfs (hadde).

3.6.3 The Reduction of Vowel Sounds The pronunciation changes that have been described so far have been largely progressions from one vowel sound to another. But a change of an entirely different nature was also taking place around Chaucer’s time; this change was also to leave its mark on English spelling. One of the tendencies that can be traced throughout the develop¬ ment of English is the tendency to reduce—and finally, even to dr0p—vowel sounds in unaccented syllables. The sounds that a, e, o, or u had in unaccented syllables in Old English were changed by the beginning of the Middle English period; the original sounds of the vowels in Old English had been reduced to the schwa sound (that is, to the sound of the a in above). In most instances even the spelling a, e, o, or u had given way to the spelling e. Old English foda, “food,” for example, became Middle English fode; Old Eng¬ lish sunu, “son,” became Middle English sune. (But unaccented i in Old English tended to retain the i spelling in both Middle English and Modern English, as in the unaccented syllable of the word English.) During the late Middle English period unaccented e’s tended to lose even their reduced schwa sound and to become 9 A double consonant letter in Modern English usually represents only a single consonant sound; the mm and the tt in committee, for example, are pronounced like the single m and the single tin comity. In a few compounds, however, as in the word nighttime, a double consonant may represent a long or sustained consonant sound.

38

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

“silent e’s,” especially when they occurred at the ends of words. In Chaucer s poetry such final e’s were usually written, although not all of them were pronounced. Thus the e in a word like name might be silent in one passage, but pronounced with the schwa sound in another passage. By the end of the Middle English period, however, a final unaccented e was regularly silent, as it is in Modern English. The e's in the -ed endings of verb forms, as in hoped and rubbed, are also silent in Modern English, except after t or d sounds, as in wanted and ended.10

3.6.4 Doubling Consonants in Modern English As a result of the great vowel-shift, the long vowel sounds of Middle English changed to the name sounds of Modern English; at the same time the short vowel sounds remained—or changed to_ the modern basic sounds. Lengthening was no longer significant, therefore, as the only way of distinguishing between the vowels in one set and those in the other: the sound of the a in made was no longer similar to the sound of the a in mad. But there remained the problem of how to spell the new name sounds. By the end of the Middle English period, the final e in hadde had become silent; in time both the e and the second d were dropped from the spelling of the word, leaving the modern word had. But by the end of the Middle English period, the final ein made had also become silent. If this e were to be dropped, there would be no way of distinguishing in writing between the mad meaning “made” and the mad meaning “mad.” The problem was solved by using a silent final e as a spelling device to signal the fact that the preceding vowel letter was to be pronounced with its name sound, as in Dane, dene, dine, condone, and dune. This led to another problem. When the preterit ending -ed was added to a verb like hop, the resulting word would be hoped, which resembled the preterit of the verb hope. To avoid this, the practice formerly followed for indicating short vowels—namely, the dou¬ bling of the consonant immediately following the vowel_was rein¬ troduced as a way of signaling the fact that the preceding vowel was to be pronounced with its basic sound. Thus the preterit of hop was spelled hopped, with a double p, while the preterit of hope was spelled hoped, with a single p. A final single consonant was also

°But the e s in the -ed endings may be pronounced even after sounds other than t and d in certain contexts; compare he has learned to read and a learned man.

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

39

doubled before endings beginning with vowel letters other than e, as in regretting and regrettable. If, however, the vowel preceding a single final consonant did not have its basic sound (as, for exam¬ ple, in an unaccented syllable), the consonant following it was not doubled when an ending was added, since there was no basic sound to be so signaled, for example, happen, happened; gallop, gal-

loping.

3.6.5 Standardizing English Spelling English spelling had not been standardized by the time of Chau¬ cer. The dialect of London had not yet been accepted in all parts of England as the standard literary form; some writers used other dialects and their spelling frequently reflected their own pronun¬ ciation. Even in the work of a single writer, as in Chaucer s own poetry, for example, one commonly finds different spellings for the same word. Yet even if there had been a generally accepted way of spelling most words in Chaucer’s time, the many changes in English pro¬ nunciation that took place between his day and Shake¬ speare’s—primarily those resulting from the great vowel-shift and from the lost pronunciation of the final e—would have required the development of new spelling patterns. As we have seen, these two great changes, which roughly coincided in time, produced both a new set of pronunciations for the five vowel letters (that is, the name sounds) and a silent final e that could be used as a spelling device in the representation of these new sounds. Another event that took place at about this same time and that had far-reaching effects was the introduction of printing into Eng¬ land in 1476. It was the printers, even more than the writers, who finally succeeded in imposing on Modern English a fairly standard¬ ized system of spellings. This standardization has been greatly reinforced by the publication of a number of English dictionaries since 1616, the year in which John Bullokar’s English Expositour first appeared. Some of these dictionaries, such as Samuel John¬ son’s A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), Noah Web¬ ster’s Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806), and the various editions of Webster’s New International Diction¬ ary of the English Language, have achieved something of the status of supreme authorities in the matter of English spelling. Their great influence has helped to give the system of spellings

40

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

created in such large measure by the printers—an almost universal uniformity. It is all the more regrettable, therefore, that so few of the early printers were scholars, for it lay within their grasp to eliminate many of the anomalies in English spelling. Instead, they too often added to them. It was common practice among the printers, for example, to choose for a given word a spelling that would reflect what they thought to be its etymology. In many instances, of course, the spelling that came to be accepted was merely the inherited spelling that reflected an older pronunciation of the word, as in the case of daughter and laughter. Now it may be of historical interest to know that these words are related to the German words Tochter and Geldchter and that the gh in the Modern English words repre¬ sents an Old English sound that was pronounced like the ch in the German words. Nevertheless, the gh in these words only adds to the confused state of English spelling and compounds the difficulties facing all who are learning to read. Unfortunately, however, the early printers did not limit their etymological spellings to those based on historical facts; they respelled Chaucer’s dette and doute, for example, as debt and doubt in order to suggest a relationship with the Latin words debitum and dubitum, although the English words had come not from Latin words but from Old French words written without the b. Again, these printers inserted a gin the word sovereign (which was spelled sovereyn by Chaucer) in the mis¬ taken notion that this word was related to the verb reign, from Latin regnare, rule ; actually the English word comes from the Old French sovrain, which was derived from the Late Latin super¬ anus, from super, “above.” The principle of etymological spelling has become traditional in English writing. When we borrow a new word from some other language, like the word hhahi (from the Urdu word meaning “dust-colored”), we tend to spell it so as to suggest its original pronunciation, even though that may have included a sound (like the hh) that does not exist in Modern English, a sound for which we therefore substitute an English sound (in this case, k). The printers did make one great contribution, at least, to the standardization of English. Following the lead of William Caxton, the first English printer, they used the dialect of London as the standard English for their books. The wide dissemination of such books that printing made possible soon resulted in the adoption of London English as the standard form for writing in all parts of

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

41

England. In later centuries, as the British extended their influence around the globe, this standard form of English was accepted as the “best” form wherever English was spoken. More recently, as we have seen, certain changes in pronunciation developed in London English that were not adopted universally; the speech of most Americans, for example, sounds quite different today from the speech of an upper-class Londoner. But written English, especially formal written English, has remained fairly uniform throughout the English-speaking world; the grammar and spelling that one finds in books printed in England are, with only minor exceptions,11 the same as the grammar and spelling to be found in books printed in this country.

3.6.6 Spelling Patterns in Modern English

In spite of the apparent chaos in modern English spelling, there are certain regularities that every good reader must learn to recog¬ nize. A silent e, as we have seen, appears in a very large number of regularly spelled words to signal that the preceding vowel letter is to be pronounced with its name sound. This silent e together with the preceding vowel letter thus provides us with five spelling pat¬ terns_a—e, e—e or ee, i—e, o—e, and zi—e—which, once learned, enable us to pronounce any of these regularly spelled words, including words we may not have seen before. Even a small child who has learned to recognize—and pronounce—the consonant letters when they occur initially in monosyllables (as in cot, dot, got, etc.), should have little difficulty in reading the following words once he has been taught the pronunciation of cave: gave, pave, rave, save, wave. In other words, the recognition of a spelling pattern like -ave opens the door to the pronunciation of more than just one word; it immediately increases a child’s reading vocabulary by at least half a dozen words. But the ability to recognize and pronounce an irregularly spelled word like have leads nowhere (even though it is

11 For instance the British spell words like coloured labour with -our, where American spelling has o^y or Eniishmen still write cheque and racquet, where today Americans write check and racket. Again the American Do you have any children? would be Have you any children. in British English. The greatest differences between British English and American English are to be found in vocabulary items. An American, when describing his car, might speak of the trunk and the hood; but an Englishman, if referring to the same parts of his car, would speak of the boot and the bonnet. Again, if one walked into a clothing store in New York City and asked for a pair of suspenders, he would be given something with which to hold up his trousersCcaUed braces in England); but if one asked for a pair of suspenders in a clothing store m London he would be given something with which to hold up his socks (called garters in the United States).

42

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

admittedly an important goal in itself, since have is such a common word in present-day English). Reason would seem to dictate, there¬ fore, that a child should learn to read regularly spelled words like cave and gave first, and then, after he has seen still other words ending in the same three letters, be taught have as an “irregular word, an exception. To a child who learns to recognize the pronunciation and spelling of have first, all the regularly spelled words listed above must appear to be irregularly spelled, with the irregular items outnumbering the regular ones. Similarly, a child in whose primer both have and cave are presented together would be justified in thinking that there is no system or patterning at all in English spelling. Learning to pronounce a word like home or hope is not a matter of “pronouncing the letters.” English is not spelled phonetically. The final e in hope is not pronounced, for instance, and yet its presence is all that signals the difference between hop and hope. Learning to read the large number of irregularly spelled words in English involves memorization; these words have to be recognized as individual items. Nevertheless, learning to read the much larger number of regularly spelled words is not a matter of memorization, nor is it a matter of sounding out all the letters; it is a matter of recognizing spelling patterns. Four different types of perhaps the most important of such spelling patterns have been described above: these are the spelling patterns for the basic sounds of the five vowel letters, both with and without doubling of the following consonant; the patterns for the name sounds of the vowel letters; and the patterns for the reduced sounds of the vowel letters. There are also several other regular patterns involving the five vowel letters as well as y and w. Examples of these patterns are given in the table on pages 44-45.12 (The words appearing in boldface exempli¬ fy the most common patterns, which are symbolized in the first line in the table, where C represents a consonant, V a vowel.)

3.7 The Mutability of English: Grammar So far we have been concerned with changes that have taken place in the English language in the areas of vocabulary and of pronunciation and spelling. But it is not only in these areas that English has changed since the time of King Alfred: even the 12 Manufacturers frequently make use of these regular spelling patterns for the names of new products. When the spelling of such a trade name suggests, but is spelled differently from a Engllsh ,word or words, the unusual spelling (as in Copper Brite and Kleen-Stik) shows that the name is being used as a trademark.

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

43

grammar of Modern English differs considerably from that of Old English. In fact, the most important grammatical signal or device of present-day English, word order, was of relatively little im¬ portance in the English of King Alfred’s day. Old English was a language with many inflections and a fairly flexible word order. In these respects it was similar to Classical Latin. In a Latin sentence the subject and the object of the verb were signaled by different endings. Both adjectives and nouns were inflected in Latin; since a noun might be masculine, feminine, or neuter and since an adjective could be given a masculine, femi¬ nine, or neuter ending, it was the inflectional endings, not the order of the words, that showed which adjective modified which noun. In the following example, for instance, the a in the -am ending of tuam (“your”) shows that it modifies the feminine noun filiam (“daughter”), while the m’s on the ends of tuam and filiam show

SPELLING PATTERNS FOR THE VOWEL Name Sounds

Basic Sounds CVC

a:

Dan

cvcc dank

CVCCed

CVCC-

CVe

CVCe

Reduced Sounds CVCCVC

dammed

latter t

Mae §

Dane dene

warden

Jordan

(but wander,

e:

den

squander) dent

denned

letter

Dee

i:

din

dint

dinned

litter

dine

Aladdin

y:

myth

dysbond

—

Lytton lottery

die (but chief) dye doe

dyne

condone

Allyn cordon

(but wonder;

(but tossed)

both, most; long) dunk

dunned

clutter

due

dune

possum

o:

u:

dont dun

donned

deem

(but put,

push)

t Cf. jog/log; son/love + Cf. -er, -re: theater, theatre; -el, -le: libel, Bible § It should be noted that a, e, i, o, and u are regularly pronounced with their name sounds when they are written with a following e, even when no consonant intervenes. *Cf. carry (if it does not rhyme with marry in your dialect)

44

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

that these two words are functioning as the object of the verb (amat, “loves”): 2. Filius meus tuam filiam amat. (“My son loves your daughter.”) The u in the -us ending of meus (“my”) shows that meus is masculine and must therefore modify the masculine noun filius (“son”); the s’s on the ends of meus and filius show that these two words are functioning as the subject of the verb amat. If now we replace the s’s in filius meus with m’s and if we remove the m’s in

tuam filiam, the words meaning “my son” will replace tuam filiam as the object and the words meaning “your daughter” will replace filius meus as the subject: 3. Filium meum tua filia amat. (“Your daughter loves my son.”) Theoretically, one could change the sentence in example 2 to mean “Your son loves my daughter” without changing the order of the

SOUNDS OF PRESENT DAY ENGLISH WordFinal

SyllableFinal

CV ma

CV-

CVr

matrix

mar[k]

me hi-fi my go gnu

medium minor myosin motor mutiny

With a main may

daub dawn (caught)

Vowel + -r

(but war, quart) Merck smirk myrtle

Vowel + -rr

+ -ll

CVrrmarry *

CV11

CVld

small

bald

talk (but Al) smell mill beryllium moll (but roll) mull (but pull)

(but calm)

Vowel

morn

merry mirror pyrrhic tomorrow

(but word) murk

Murray

OTHER PATTERNS With e With i With o dean dead rein, reign (but seize) prey (but key)

Indian

road broad boil boy

Vowel -Id

4-

meld

mild _

mold cult

With u squad fruit buy

boot book, foot (blood) douse down (but grow[n]) bought (but dough)

feud few

sigh[t]

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

45

words, by interchanging the masculine ending of meus (-us) and the feminine ending of tuam (-am): 4. Filius meam tuus filiam amat. (“Your son loves my daughter.”) In Old English sentences, as in Latin sentences, the object of the verb was usually distinguishable from the subject by its ending. For this reason, the subject and the object could stand either before or after the verb; in fact, it was possible for the object to precede the verb and for the subject to follow it, as in example 5: 5. bone oxan fedde se mann. In spite of the word order, the accusative, or objective, case endings -one and -n on the words for “the” and “ox” signal the fact that in example 5 bone oxan is the object of the verb fedde, while the lack of any endings on se and mann signal that these words are functioning as the subject. The sentence above would thus be the equivalent of the following sentence in Modern English: 6. The man fed the ox. Many Old English inflections were gradually lost during the period of Middle English; most of them had disappeared by 1500. The grammatical relationships that they used to signal are today signaled by words like prepositions and by our fairly rigid word order. To a speaker of present-day English, especially one un¬ familiar with Old English inflections, the order of the words in example 5 would seem to suggest that the meaning of the sentence is “The ox fed the man” rather than “The man fed the ox.” In Old English, as in Classical Latin, the grammatical relation¬ ship of modification, as well as the even more important relation¬ ships of subject-to-verb and object-to-verb, were signaled primarily by inflections; in present-day English, however, these relationships are signaled, for the most part, by the positions that words and constructions occupy in larger constructions. Yet comparatively few modern handbooks emphasize the importance of word order in their descriptions of English syntax, for reasons that will become clear in the next section. The loss of inflections and the development of a fixed word order were the changes that have had the most far-reaching effects on the grammar of present-day English. But the grammar has also changed in other ways. In King Alfred’s time, for example, English speakers consistently used pronouns corresponding to thou, thine,

46

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

and thee when addressing only one person, and pronouns cor¬ responding to ye, your, and you when addressing more than one person. In the twelfth or thirteenth century, there developed among members of the upper class the ceremonious use of ye, your, and you with a singular reference when addressing a person superior in rank to oneself. This practice of employing plural pronouns when addressing a superior was extended to their use when addressing an equal as well as a superior; in time, as this usage became more common, it was employed with less and less discrimination. By Shakespeare’s day English speakers regularly used ye or you when addressing either one person or more than one person; thou and thee had come to be used much as the corresponding singular pronouns are used in French and German today—that is, as a form of address for an inferior or for someone with whom the speaker is on intimate terms. Since Shakespeare’s time even the subjective form ye has gradually been replaced by the objective form you, so that today we use one form, you, where Chaucer used four. Several other changes have occurred in English grammar since 1400. In Chaucer’s usage, for instance, many adjectives had both singular and plural forms: thus the adjective good had a plural form ending in e, goode, which was used before plural nouns. Again, although verbs still have several forms in Modern English, they had even more in Middle English: for example, the verb meaning “to rise ’ had, in addition to the plural form rise or risen, the present indicative singular forms rise, risest, riseth, and the preterit indicative singular forms roos, rise (or roos), and roos. English grammar has changed even since Shakespeare’s time. Some constructions that seem perfectly natural to us today were unknown to either Chaucer or Shakespeare. No recorded instance of a verb form like is being built, for example, is to be found in written English before the end of the eighteenth century. Today, however, sentences like the following appear frequently in both formal and informal writing: 7. A new school is being built on the corner of Pine and Cedar Streets. The first documented example of the use of such a construction is to be found in a letter by Robert Southey dated October 9, 1795, in which he refers to “a fellow whose upper grinder is being torn out by the roots by a mutton-fisted barber.” Before the time of Southey (and for a while afterwards), the sentence in example 7 would

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

47

probably have been written A new school is building (or even is

a-building) on the corner of Pine and Cedar Streets.13

4 The History of English Grammars 4.1 The Early School Grammars It is quite common, even among educated Americans, to find resistance to the idea that language changes and that new usages are not necessarily corruptions of the language. Indeed, many well-educated Americans admit as “wrong” expressions that they themselves use regularly. In order to understand the willingness of such Americans to repudiate their own usage, one must know something of the history of the “rules” by which they judge them¬ selves. It was during the eighteenth century that perhaps the greatest efforts were made to set up standards of correctness and to force all usage to conform to such standards. The spirit of adventure and the individualism of the Elizabethan Age had given way to a desire for regularity and conformity. This was a period of scientific rationalism. It was felt that in language, as well as in other areas, disputed points could be settled by reason and logic. Whenever possible, reason was supported by appeals to authority, especially the author¬ ity of classical examples. Latin, which had long had great prestige, was looked upon as a model, not only for English literature but also for the English language. Shakespeare had apparently relied on his own feeling for the English language when expressing even the most subtle thoughts; Dryden (d. 1700), on the contrary, admitted that in order to decide how to express his ideas correctly, he sometimes translated his sentences into Latin and then back into English again. In 1712 Jonathan Swift proposed the establishment of an English Academy similar to the French Academy, “for Correcting, Improv¬ ing, and Ascertaining [i.e., establishing standards for] the English Tongue.” And yet even Samuel Johnson, who had originally hoped that his dictionary would be “a dictionary by which the pronuncia-

13The use of is being with a past participle encountered much opposition at first; even until 1875, it was attacked by different writers—and even by some ministers from their Pipits as a strange and awkward neologism,” “uncouth English,” “a philological coxcombry, the deliber¬ ate production of some pedantic writer of the last generation,” “a monstrosity. It is interesting to note that of you instead of thou as a form of address for one person was simfiarly attacked at first; even as late as 1660 George Fox called it “false English, false Latme false Greek”—a form that would be used by only “a Novice and Unmannerly and an Ideot and a Fool.

48

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

|

. I

j

| j I

1

tion of our language may be fixed, and its attainment facilitated; by which its purity may be preserved, its use ascertained, and its duration lengthened,” wrote the following in the Preface to his Dictionary of the English Language (1755): Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design, will require that it should fix our language, and put a stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto been suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will confess that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin to fear that I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor experience can justify. . . . We laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who, being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language. . . . With this hope, however, academies have been instituted, to guard the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse in¬ truders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength. The French language has visibly changed under the inspection of the academy. . . .

Other writers of the eighteenth century, most notably certain grammarians, were less cautious in their statements. Some felt that the English language needed to be reduced to rules based on reason and then fixed permanently in this desired form; they believed that the usage of English-speaking people should be “corrected” and made to conform to these rules. Once they had written down their rules, no matter how arbitrarily chosen, they had little hesitation in attacking even the best writers of their day for not abiding by them. Thomas Sheridan, for example, in the Preface to his Dictionary (1780), claimed that “so little regard has been paid to [the English language] . . . that out of our numerous array of authors, very few can be selected who write with accuracy”; and James Buchanan, in the Preface to A Regular English Syntax (1767), asserted that “considering the many grammatical Im¬ proprieties to be found in our best Writers, such as Swift, Addison, Pope, &c. a Systematical English Syntax is not beneath the Notice of the Learned themselves.”1

'For a more detailed discussion of the early school grammars—and also of the European scholarly tradition—the reader is referred to pp. 67-79 of H. A. Gleason, Jr.’s excellent book Linguistics and English Grammar (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965).

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH GRAMMARS

49

As can be seen from these quotations, grammars of the type described here purported to be grammars of the English language, written for English speakers. Several such grammars appeared during the eighteenth century. Although other grammars had appeared during the preceding century, some of these had been intended as introductions to Latin, while others had been written (often in Latin or French) for foreigners wishing to learn English; understandably, they were for the most part modeled after gram¬ mars of classical Latin. But most of the eighteenth-century gram¬ mars were also modeled after these Latin grammars. These Latin grammars had themselves been modeled on older Latin grammars, which were in turn modeled after grammars of Classical Greek of the second and first centuries b.c. The predomi¬ nant school of Greek grammarians believed that one could explain grammatical rules on the basis of logic or “analogy ; these Analogists” did not admit of exceptions to their rules. In the grammars of the eighteenth century, the Greek and Latin models were much in evidence. The philosophy of the Analogists was incorporated in the new handbooks, and some of the rules of Latin grammar were borrowed almost without change, as was much of its terminology. Although an occasional grammarian like Joseph Priestley recognized the fact that there was no reason why the rules of Latin grammar should apply to English, there were others like Bishop Lowth who believed in a “universal grammar” underlying both Latin and English. Some grammarians believed that Latin rules could, at the very least, “direct” a person in his writing of English. James Buchanan, for example, when criticizing writers like Swift and Addison, as cited above, added his belief that “Should it be urged, that in the Time of those Writers, English was but very little subjected to Grammar, that they had scarcely a single Rule to direct them; a Question readily occurs; Had they not the Rules of Latin Syntax to direct them?” (This faith in the value of the study of Latin even for English speakers was reflected in the required Latin courses to be found in many American schools well into the present century.) Thus, since Latin was supposed to have eight parts of speech, these early grammarians described English as also having eight parts of speech. (Even the names for the parts of speech were taken from Latin.) Since in Latin the comparative form was used to compare two persons or things, but the superlative form was used to compare more than two, it was felt that in English the same should be done, in spite of the fact that writers like Shakespeare, Addison, 50

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

Johnson, and many others commonly used the superlative when referring to one of two. (We still put our best foot forward, not our better foot.) Since the rules of Latin grammar required the use of the objective form in a question beginning with an interrogative pronoun, the early grammarians insisted (as do some writers of handbooks even today) that the objective form should be used in English, too, in spite of the fact that a sentence like Whom do you want? has been unnatural in English since at least the fifteenth century.2 And, since Latin had six tenses in the indicative mood, English was described by the early grammarians as also having six tenses in the indicative—although there are at least two verb forms in English that are not normally included in the list of tenses but that have as much justification for inclusion as do the more usual six.3 One factor that undoubtedly contributed to the demand for these eighteenth-century school grammars—and to the high regard in which such grammars were held—was the rise to social prominence of the middle classes. As the result of the industrial revolution, middle-class families were at last able to provide their sons and daughters with the kind of education that would enable them to “move up” in the world, to be accepted by those in positions of importance. Some fathers engaged private tutors for their children; others sent their children to select schools. Becoming “educated” entailed not only mastering certain subjects, but also learning to dress “properly” and to act “properly.” (Moliere’s play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, written in 1670, was a satire aimed at the parvenu 2Noah Webster called the question Whom did you speak to? “hardly English at all ... a corruption . . and added that “all the grammars that can be found will not extend the use of the phrase beyond the walls of a college’ (quoted by Bergen and Cornelia Evans in their A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage [New York: Random House, 1957], p. 556). Support for Webster’s claim is to be found in American English Grammar (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1940), in which Fries reports that in his examination of nearly three thousand personal letters written by native Americans, he did not find a single example of the use of whom to introduce a question, although he did find instances of the use of who in sentences like Who did you apply to for enlistment?, even in the letters of educated writers. 3Tense is sometimes defined as “that property of a verb that makes clear the time of the action expressed by the. verb.” Applying this definition, one can understand why traditional grammari¬ ans have regularly included, among their six tenses, such forms as says, will come, will have finished, and said, which appear in the following examples. But there is no justification whatsoever for excluding forms like would come and would have finished since they perform functions very similar to those performed by will come and will have finished: a. Mr. Baxter says that he will come home at 4 o’clock because he will have finished his work by then. b. Mr. Baxter said that he would come home at 4 o’clock because he would have finished his work by then. It should be noted that the use of would come and would have finished in the second example is not the “conditional” use of the verbs come and finish.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH GRAMMARS

51

who tried to ape the dress and manners of the aristocracy. But, of course, it was common practice for middle-class families to adopt upper-class standards when they could afford to do so, though not always in so blatant a fashion.) If one wanted to get ahead—if one wanted to be accepted at court, for instance, or to get a responsible government position—it was not enough just to dress in an accept¬ able manner; it was also necessary to speak in an acceptable manner.4 And learning to speak in an acceptable manner meant learning to speak the prestiege dialect. The grammars of that period promised, as have many grammars since then, to teach their readers how to speak and write English “correctly.” One of the most influential of these grammars was Lindley Murray’s English Grammar Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners, which was published in 1795 and ran through more than two hundred editions during the nineteenth century. Millions of copies were printed in this country, where it was the standard textbook for many years. In 1797 Murray published an exercise book to accompany his grammar, which was advertised as being “Designed for the Benefit of Private Learners as well as for the Use of Schools.” In the section of his grammar in which he dealt with “Etymol¬ ogy,” Murray discussed each part of speech individually, although he listed nine parts of speech: the traditional eight, plus the articles. In his section on “Syntax,” he again discussed each part of speech and gave explicit rules for parsing sentences word by word. And yet throughout his whole book he said practically nothing about word order. The rules that appeared in Murray’s grammar were not original with him, however. As he admitted in his Introduction, his work was merely a compilation of the prominent grammars of his time. Still, the rules that he thus brought together in one book have since been taught, in much the same form, to generation after generation of school children. Many of them are still being taught today in classrooms all over the English-speaking—and even the nonEnglish-speaking—world.

4 A person’s speech has probably been used as a mark of his status from the days when the first languages began to differentiate into various dialects. It is interesting to note that the word shibboleth, which in present-day English means “a custom or usage employed as a criterion for distinguishing the members of a group from outsiders,” reflects this tendency to use a person’s speech as a way of determining whether he “belongs” or not. The word shibboleth, which in Hebrew meant “an ear of grain” or “a stream or flood,” was at one time used as a test word by the Gileadites to distinguish escaping Ephraimites, who did not have sh sound in their own dialect and therefore pronounced shibboleth as sibboleth.

52

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

4.2 The Scholarly Grammars Not all English grammars have been mere revisions or elabora¬ tions of those that appeared during the early eighteenth century. There have been a few remarkable exceptions, like Joseph Priest¬ ley’s The Rudiments of English Grammar (1761). During our own century particularly, several grammars have appeared that show quite a different orientation from those described above. Most of these may be classed in either of two categories: grammars that reflect the painstaking scholarship of the philologists of fifty or a hundred years ago, and grammars that reflect the more recent work of one or another school of linguists. The grammars of the second type represent such a radically different approach to the analysis of the English language that they will be dealt with separately in Part III of this book. But special mention should be made here of the grammars of the first type, the scholarly grammars, even though the framework within which they were written was largely tradi¬ tional. Like the school grammars, these scholarly grammars were or¬ ganized around the parts of speech. But they were written by men who had been trained as scholars—that is, by men who believed in observing and recording the facts as they found them, unbiased (as far as it was possible to be unbiased) by preconceptions. They based their descriptions of the English language on collections of thou¬ sands of actual examples that they or their predecessors had gleaned from books, periodicals, and even newspapers printed in English. Unfortunately, this resulted in grammars that, though they contained a wealth of material, failed to reveal the overall structure of English, offering instead mere catalogues of variant forms. The outstanding exception among such grammarians was Otto Jespersen, whose works offer many original insights into the way in which the English language functions.5 The writers of these scholarly grammars were well versed in European philology; they had studied the historical development of English and other Indo-European languages and were more recep¬ tive, therefore, to modern ideas. They recognized, for instance, that change is normal and that different ways of saying the same thing may be equally acceptable. But the long lists of variants to be found in their grammars tend to hide the fact that certain ways of saying things occur more frequently than others: there are in English, as in

5The chief weaknesses in Jespersen’s work stem from his great reliance on meaning as the basis for grammatical classification.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH GRAMMARS

53

all languages, “major” patterns that far outweigh, in frequency of use and therefore in importance, the less common “minor” pat¬ terns. Occasionally one finds examples in these grammars that even seem unnatural to a native speaker of English, at least when taken out of context; their use by one writer or another as evidence in support of some grammatical theory may have resulted from the fact that most of the scholarly grammarians were not themselves native speakers of English. Otto Jespersen, for example, was Danish; Etsko Kruisinga and Henrik Poutsma were both Dutch; Gustav Kruger and Eduard Maetzner were German. Another criticism that may be made of these scholarly grammars is that although they took language changes into account, the changes that have taken place in English over the last three hundred years—during the period of Modern English—were mini¬ mized: one finds examples from Shakespeare next to examples from nineteenth- and even twentieth-century writers, as if Eliza¬ bethan English and present-day English were the same.

5 Standards of Correctness 5.1 The Dictionary Although traditional grammars have regularly prescribed rules for “correct” usage, it would be no exaggeration to say that for most Americans the supreme authority in matters of usage is “the dic¬ tionary.” But which dictionary is the dictionary? The great Oxford English Dictionary gives [et] as the usual pronunciation for the word ate; the pronunciation that rhymes with eight is also given, but only after the label “occasionally.” Very few educated Ameri¬ cans pronounce ate to rhyme with get; for most of us, the pronunci¬ ation eight is not an occasional pronunciation, but rather the normal one. For us, at least, the dictionary should be an American dictionary. Again one may ask which dictionary—which American dictionary—is the dictionary. According to The American College Dictionary, the expression tinker’s damn is slang while fluke in the sense of “a lucky chance” seems to represent established usage; in Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, on the other hand, fluke (in the same sense) is labeled slang while tinker’s damn bears no such label. Which dictionary is right? Before the appearance in 1947 of the first edition of The Ameri¬ can College Dictionary, many English teachers in this country looked upon Webster’s Collegiate as the only reliable desk diction54

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

ary in matters of pronunciation and usage. If you did not pronounce a word as Webster’s said you should, your pronunciation was “wrong.” In contrast to this attitude, the following statement, which ap¬ pears in the Preface to the 1949 edition of Webster’s New Col¬ legiate Dictionary, is worth noting: When the essential facts are considered, “correctness of pronuncia¬ tion” must be a flexible term. It is perhaps as accurate a definition as can be made to say that a pronunciation is correct when it is in actual use by a sufficient number of cultivated speakers. This is obviously elastic. . . . The function of a pronouncing dictionary is to record as far as possible the pronunciations prevailing in the best present usage, rather than to attempt to dictate what that usage should be.

In other words, the editors of the New Collegiate disclaimed any special knowledge as to which pronunciations were “correct” and which were not, but admitted that the function of a dictionary is to describe “the best present usage,” without attempting to prescribe what that usage should be. What has been said about the pronunciation of words applies, of course, to the meanings of words as well. The New Collegiate gave as one of the meanings of the verb to scan, “to examine point by point; scrutinize.” It also added, after the label “colloq.” (i.e., “colloquial”), “to look over hastily.” One would assume from this definition that the meaning “to look over hastily” was a meaning that was used, at least in 1949, only in informal conversation, not in formal writing. And yet, if in that same year I had written, in a formal essay, Every morning, over his breakfast, Mr. Baxter scans the headlines of his daily newspaper, I doubt whether any reader would have thought that by scans the headlines I meant “scrutinizes the headlines point by point.” If I had used scan in such a sentence with that meaning, I am sure that no reader would have taken the sentence to mean what I intended. Pride in the knowledge that I was using the verb to scan “correctly” would hardly have compensated for my total lack of communication. (It is informative to note that Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictio¬ nary, published in 1963, attaches no such label as “colloquial” to the definition “to look through or over hastily.”) The editors of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1961), on which Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary is based, seem to have scrupulously avoided giving any appearance of STANDARDS OF CORRECTNESS

55

dictating or prescribing “correct” usage. For this they have been criticized—often severely—by quite a few writers in this country. Perhaps the harshest critics are people who feel let down by the publishers of the Merriam-Webster, which they have so long con¬ sidered the ultimate authority in matters of usage. It is a little ironic that so many educated Americans, who pride themselves on living in a land of rugged individualism, should have inherited the eighteenth-century, middle-class veneration of authority to so much greater an extent than their British contemporaries. Educat¬ ed Britons seem more willing than educated Americans to rely on their own usage in determining what is and what is not “correct.” More than one Englishman has commented with surprise on the American habit of turning to the dictionary whenever any dispute arises over some point of English.

5.2 Prescriptive Versus Descriptive Grammars It may be helpful to distinguish between two different types of grammar rules: those that are primarily definitions or statements of grammatical “facts,” and those that call attention to certain usages that we are supposed to avoid or that label certain forms of expressions as “wrong” or “bad” English, as opposed to contrasting forms of the same expressions that may be accepted as “correct” or “good” English. It is an exceptional grammar that keeps these two types of rules separate; usually they are intermixed and presented together as if both types were equally valid and equally justifiable. On closer examination it will appear that this is not the case since rules of the first type, descriptive rules, can be tested empirically, while rules of the second type, prescriptive rules, are often merely value judgments. When we are told, for example, that “the subject of a sentence names the person who performs the action,” we can test this definition by examining the subjects of various sentences. When we come across passive sentences and find that the rule does not apply since the subjects do not perform the action in passive sentences (as was explained in section 1.4 above), we have suf¬ ficient evidence to justify abandoning the rule. Some traditional definitions, then, are easily verifiable by empiri¬ cal testing. But prescriptive rules do not lend themselves to such verification. For instance, how can we check the rule that states that it is wrong to say It’s me? Both It’s I and It’s me seem to say the same thing; neither seems to be less precise in meaning than the other. Yet the question of whether It’s me is really “acceptable” or 56

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

not is one that has long plagued many English teachers, myself included. Our acceptance or rejection of It’s me will, in the last analysis, be based on a value judgment; but before condemning such a usage, we should at least learn as many facts about its historical development as we can. The various stages in the development of the use of personal pronouns after the verb to be are described in Fries’s American English Grammar: The history [of this construction] reveals a series of changes con¬ nected with the pressures of word order. In Old English the construc¬ tion as it appears in Matthew 14:27 “HabbaS geleafan, ic hyt eom”is normal. In this the ic (I) is the subject which determines the form of the verb eom (am), and hyt (it) also precedes the verb. In Middle English of the time of Chaucer the pronoun I (thou, he, we, etc.) normally appears after the verb1 and it before the verb as in “Wostow nought wel that it am I”(Chaucer, ed. Skeat, 214, 588). Here again the I still dominates the verb am as subject. By the latter part of the fifteenth century, however, the pressure of word order is such that the it which stands in “subject” territory is so much felt as the subject that the verb form is made to agree with it, as in “It is /that am here in your syth” (Coventry Mysteries, 291). By the time of Shakspere the pro¬ noun that stands in “object” territory begins to show the pressure of word order in such examples as the following: “Sir Andrew. That’s me. I warrant you.” (Twelfth Night, II, 5, 87); “Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise.” (Shakspere, Sonnet LXII.) From the sixteenth century to the present there has been considerable diversity of usage in the matter of the inflectional forms of these pronouns in predicative positions with unconscious colloquial practice yielding to the pressure of word order.2

Neither logic nor Latin grammar seems to be of much help in explaining the use of It’s / versus It’s me. The explanation so often given that me is in the “objective” case and that the verb is cannot take an object may help us to understand why many people do not say It's me; but why, then, are the same people likely to say That’s us they’re calling rather than That’s we they’re calling? I have yet to hear a single speaker of English use the form That’s we,

'This subject-after-verb pattern still lingers on today in such formula-like sentences as Here comes the teacher and There go the Joneses. Even the form of the verb in such sentences reflects an older stage of English: in Shakespeare’s day and earlier an action going on at a given moment was regularly expressed by the simple form of the verb, as in “What is it she does now?” (Macbeth, V,i,29) and “How does your patient, doctor?” (ibid., V,iii,37), whereas in present-day English an action in progress is normally expressed by the “progressive” form of the verb: The teacher is coming. 2 American English Grammar (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1940), p. 91.

STANDARDS OF CORRECTNESS

57

although I have heard many people—even well-educated people— say That's us. As a matter of fact, an objective examination of the evidence strongly suggests that the drift of the language is in the direction of the use of the forms me, him, her, us, and them after all verbs, including the verb to be. As long ago as 1921, Edward Sapir asked: May it not be . . . that he and him, we and us, are not so much subjective and objective forms as pre-verbal and post-verbal forms, very much as my and mine are now pre-nominal and post-nominal forms of the possessive (my father but father mine; it is my book but the book is mine)? That this interpretation corresponds to the actual drift of the English language is again indicated by the language of the folk.3 The folk says it is me, not it is I. . . .4

It is perhaps unnecessary to state that there are many educated speakers of English who regularly use the form It’s I. Some of them may have learned to use It’s I as small children; to them, the use of It’s me would seem unnatural. But others—perhaps the majority— of those who say It’s /probably learned to use It’s me first and only later trained themselves to use It’s /because they were taught that that is the more acceptable form. The speakers in this second group, naturally, also believe that It’s I is correct. (Human nature being what it is, probably those who spent the greatest effort in mastering the use of It’s I are the ones who believe most strongly that It’s I is the only correct form.) Since so many educated speakers of English say It’s I, there can be no denying the fact that this form is correct. But this is not the same as saying that the form It’s me is therefore wrong. It would be much easier, of course, if there were always one and only one correct form. Unfortunately, language matters are seldom that simple. All languages change; but they change gradually, not abruptly. This means that during the course of the development of any language, there must be periods of transition when two

An interesting point made by Fries in his American English Grammar (p. 288) is that nonstandard English “uses many forms that were common in the older stages of the language and that Standard English has given up.” The uneducated seem to be, “in practically all instances,” more conservative than the educated. Expressions like We wish for to talk to you or He don’t know English or I didn’t say nothing do not represent “careless” deviations from the usage of educated speakers; they reflect, rather, the standard usage of earlier stages of the language. Although such forms are unacceptable in educated circles today, they were perfectly acceptable at one time or another in the past. Even a pronunciation like aks for ask reflects one stage in the development of this verb; for instance, Caxton, the first English printer, even wrote 3

axed and axyd for asked. 4 Edward Sapir, Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1921), p. 167.

58

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

forms—a newer form and an older one—exist concurrently: Some speakers of the language will use one, some will use the other, and still others will use both. At such times, who can honestly judge one form or the other as being the only correct form? And if the older form was once the correct one, then at just what moment in history did the newer form become correct? At what moment in the history of the English language did the use of you (as opposed to thou) become the correct way of addressing a single person? The only answer is that during the transitional period, or at least when both forms are used by a substantial number of educated speakers, both forms represent acceptable usage. No other conclu¬ sion seems warranted, even though some writers may condemn the form they themselves do not use as “wrong” or “vulgar.” The only valid justification for regarding a certain usage as unacceptable is that the great majority of educated speakers avoid it. As we have seen, every language changes constantly in spite of attempts to “fix” it in some permanent form. No description of a language at one stage in its history can be an accurate description of that language at another stage. An accurate grammar of a given language must therefore be a description of the way in which the people who use that language actually speak it and write it at that particular stage in its development.

5.3 Prescriptions in the Teaching of Grammar Most of us would agree that it is the business of the schools to teach their students standard English—that is, the kind of English that educated adults use. In this context it is important to be sure that what is taught as standard English really is the kind of English educated adults use and not merely the kind of English that handbook writers or other self-appointed authorities claim we should use. There is much truth in L. M. Myers’ statement that “it can at least be argued that the chief trouble with our traditional grammars was not that they were prescriptive, but that they too often made the wrong prescriptions and made them far too insis¬ tently.”5 A teacher cannot avoid making prescriptions, but he should make the right prescriptions. Before training his students to avoid certain forms of expression, the teacher must be sure that the great majority of educated people really do avoid such expressions. For example, none of the educated people of my acquaintance ever 5L. M. Myers, “Linguistics—But Not Quite So Fast,” College English XXIII (October 1961), 26.

STANDARDS OF CORRECTNESS

59

use a double negative, as in Joe won’t come here no more; only one or two use don’t after a third person singular subject, as in He don’t like it here; only one or two use ain’t I in tag questions, as in I’m here, ain’t I? (Even those who sometimes say he don’t or ain’t I always substitute he doesn’t and am I not in their writing.) A person who uses ain’t or a double negative will be branded as uneducated by most educated people. For this reason, an English teacher, whose task it is to teach the usage of educated Americans, would be remiss if he did not teach his students to avoid forms like ain’t and the double negative.6 But it must also be remembered that there is often more than just one “correct” way of saying something in standard English. If the students already use a form that many educated people use, it would be a waste of valuable time—and would probably confuse the students, to boot—if the teacher tried to make them substitute a different form for the one they already use. A typical example of such an unnecessary prescription is the warning found in most handbooks not to use split infinitives but to rearrange the words in a sentence so that the to and the infinitive may come together. Such a rule is misleading since split infinitives occur in the writings of many educated people, among them such writers as Donne, Defoe, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Macaulay, Carlyle, Browning, Ruskin, Hardy, Galsworthy, Kipling, and Shaw. It must also be noted that in many English sentences the very best place for an adverb would seem to be between the to and the rest of its infinitive: the sentence in example la, for instance, would be either less natural or less precise in meaning if the adverb frequently were moved to some other position: la. Mr. Crump told the watchman to frequently check the fastenings of the windows that opened on the back courtyard. In example lb the position of the adverb might suggest that Mr. Crump had to repeat his order frequently, whereas the position of the adverb in example lc might imply that the windows opened frequently: lb. Mr. Crump told the watchman frequently to check the fastenings of the windows that opened on the back courtyard.

6In Shakespeare’s day, however, it was standard practice to use two negatives in the same sentence to reinforce each other, as in I cannot go no further (As You Like It, II, iv, 9).

60

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

lc. Mr. Crump told the watchman to check the fastenings of the windows that opened on the back courtyard frequently. Another possible position for the adverb is between the verb check and what follows it; but the pressure of word order in present-day English works against separating a verb from its object, although many of us have trained ourselves to accept this form in preference to the splitting of an infinitive: ld. Mr. Crump told the watchman to check frequently the fastenings of the windows that opened on the back courtyard. The rule against splitting infinitives is taken from Latin grammar where the infinitive is always a single word as in venire, “to come.” In Latin it would be impossible to split an infinitive; in English it is not only possible, but often preferable to do so. As a matter of fact, in English the to appears to be more closely tied to the preceding verb than to the verb that follows. In sentences such as examples 2-4, for instance, the verbal part of the infinitive is regularly omitted, but the to is not: 2. Percy wants to go home, but Lydia doesn’t want to. 3. I’ll try to keep an open mind, but you must try to, too. 4. We all have to do things we don’t like to. In some instances, the to has become so fused with the preceding verb that the two together are now treated as a single indivisible unit: such is the case with have to, used to, and ought to. Where there is more than one acceptable usage, as in the above examples, the teacher may in all conscience accept the disputed usage from his students. However, the students should always be forewarned that many educated people consider such an expression incorrect and that it is often better to avoid using split infinitives and expressions like It’s me, at least in writing, when one’s audi¬ ence may notice the expression and misjudge the author for having used it. In writing for, or speaking to, people who are likely to be distracted by the way in which we say something, so that they fail to pay full attention to what we say, our attempt to communicate with them may suffer as a result. Prescriptions, therefore, do have a value, but they should be accurate and informed. This has not usually been the case in traditional handbooks. Modern linguists have often been accused of “letting down the barriers” in the use of language and of asserting

STANDARDS OF CORRECTNESS

61

that “anything goes,” but such accusations are false. I know of no responsible linguist who has ever suggested that English teachers should ignore the use of nonstandard English, or uneducated English, by their students. As Fries himself says, A linguist records and studies all the actual forms and uses of the language that occur, but that recording and that study, of Vulgar English [i.e., nonstandard English] as well as of Standard English, should certainly not be taken as evidence that he therefore recom¬ mends or believes that the forms of Vulgar English can or should be substituted for the forms of Standard English. If he is a good linguist he is very careful to note the precise areas of use in which the language forms are recorded, and he understands the problems of trying to learn to substitute the forms of one “dialect” for another. He understands, perhaps more completely than others, the nature of the task that the schools have undertaken when they assume the burden of teaching every child to use Standard English and, accordingly, he sometimes urges the limitation of that teaching to the actual forms of Standard English, as a scientific description reveals them, and the abandoning of attempts to teach forms that do not occur in the actual speech of native speakers of Standard English, forms that have become shib¬ boleths of the classroom.7

5.4 Different Varieties of English It is not enough to acknowledge the differences between non¬ standard English and standard English; it is also necessary to distinguish between the different varieties of standard English. It is important to recognize the fact that all varieties of standard Eng¬ lish are equally acceptable—but each in its own context. The conventions of formal written English (such as the avoidance of contracted forms) would be as out of place in a conversation as would the conventions of informal “colloquial” English in a formal essay. Many English teachers tend to overrate the importance of the conventions of written usage and to underrate the importance of those of spoken usage. However, neither set of conventions is secondary; each has its own proper context. Despite the fact that, in the teaching of English, the conventions of written English often take precedence over those of spoken English, we are not justified in intimating that colloquial usage is less acceptable than some more formal usage, except in writing. (In this connection, see also

7 The Structure of English (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1952), p. 5.

62

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

sections 6.3 and 6.4 on the differences between written and spoken English.) As a matter of fact, we should distinguish not only between written English and spoken English, but also between the different varieties of written English, such as the elliptical English one finds in recorded conversations as well as in headlines and telegrams, the informal kind of English appropriate to letters to friends, the slightly more formal kind of English appropriate to articles of a general nature, the rather stylized English one finds in books and articles on technical subjects (often of a style peculiar to the particular field), the “polished” English of well-written novels and stories, the intricate English of philosophical treatises, and—with its own varieties—the English of poetry. We should also make a distinction between one dialect of English and another. Thanks to the movies, most people are probably already aware of the fact that the British pronounce English differently from the way in which Americans do. Until recently, many Americans thought that the British pronunciation was some¬ how “better” or at least more elegant than ours, an opinion in which many Englishmen heartily concurred (and probably still do). Today we know that there are no objective, purely linguistic criteria by which one language, or one dialect of a language, can be judged as being superior to, or better than, or more beautiful than, any other. More than one “vulgar” dialect that originally shocked the ears of “purists” later became accepted as a prestige language, even as a beautiful language. Modern Italian, for instance, grew out of the Vulgar Latin of the common people, not out of the Classical Latin we study today; Urdu, today the official and literary language of Pakistan, was once, as its name implies, the “camp” language of uneducated soldiers. We should also be aware that there are dialectal differences between the English spoken in one region of the United States and that spoken in another, just as there are between the English spoken in the United States and that spoken in England—and that again there are no objective criteria by which we can determine which dialect is better. A pronunciation that lacks prestige in one region may be acceptable—or even preferred—in another. To be fully informed about these different dialects, we can turn to the information that has already been accumulated by the linguists now working on The Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada. Undoubtedly, some data may be disconcerting, like the fact that the great majority of Americans, even educated AmeriSTANDARDS OF CORRECTNESS

63

cans, pronounce the word catch as if it were written ketch or kech. (The pronunciation with the basic sound of a is the normal pronun¬ ciation only for southern New England, the Hudson Valley, Penn¬ sylvania, the city of Charleston, and for many educated speakers in Virginia and, to a lesser extent, in North Carolina.) It is not for us to state that one pronunciation is correct and the other not. All that we can say is that the pronunciation with the basic sound of a seems to have more prestige at present, even though fewer educated Ameri¬ cans use it than the pronunciation /kech/. We know that pronuncia¬ tions change; a hundred years from now the pronunciation /kech/ may be the only one used by educated speakers, or it may have become extremely rare. In describing a language, a linguist may describe any dialect that he chooses, even a nonstandard dialect. The dialect described by most linguists, however, will usually be the “prestige” dialect—that is, the form of the language used by those people who are con¬ sidered to be well educated or “cultivated.” This is the form that people who do not already speak it as their native dialect try to learn. (It is unusual for a person to want to learn to speak a nonstandard dialect.) If, in any given instance, many educated speakers of a language follow one usage while other educated speakers follow another, a linguist who wishes to be objective should record both usages, although he may give greater weight to the usage that he considers more common—or even to the usage that he himself prefers if he is careful to indicate that this is only one of two or more acceptable usages. He should try at all costs to avoid giving the impression that any usage commonly followed by a large number of educated speakers is wrong. On the other hand, a linguist should not imply that all pronuncia¬ tions or grammatical usages that occur are acceptable. He should point out those usages that are nonstandard, and he should also point out those forms of expression that educated people today may use in their speech but that they always replace with other forms in their writing. In order to evaluate any usage objectively, it is important to keep informed about the recent discoveries in the field of linguistics. Teachers of English have a special responsibility to keep up with the latest studies of present-day usage as they appear in articles in the professional periodicals; they should also be thoroughly ac¬ quainted with the best of the dictionaries. For a reading list of this type, see the Bibliography under “Studies of Usage.”

64

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH GRAMMARS

We mislead our students if we teach them to believe that English grammar is as simple and straightforward as most traditional handbooks make it appear to be. I sincerely believe that our students will become better writers if they can learn to take advantage of the many resources that the English language places at their disposal; I also believe that we can teach them to recognize those resources and to use them for the purposes of better com¬ munication. But we cannot teach our students to understand English grammar by misrepresenting the facts. Learning rules that seem unrelated to the language one hears and reads results all too often in rejection, suspicion, or frustration. Unfortunately, what S. I. Hayakawa wrote in 1950 is still largely true today: The most common result of the teaching of English and composition is not the creation of good writers and speakers, but the creation, in most of the public, of a lifelong fear of grammatical errors. ... To be sure, we help some of our students to speak and write better. But the majority of fair-to-middling students leave the English class feeling that “correct English,” like moral perfection, is something that they cannot hope to attain. Burdened, as the result of our castigations, by a sense of linguistic Original Sin, they depart from school feeling, like those Puritans who felt that whatever was fun must be sinful, that whatever sounds natural must be wrong. It is tragic that most Ameri¬ cans suffer, with respect to the use of their own language, especially in formal or semi-formal situations, a discomfort or malaise that can only be described as a mild form of anxiety neurosis.8

It has often been pointed out that although large numbers of students study “grammar” for several years, it does not seem to help them to improve in their writing. Yet the conclusion that the teaching of grammar can therefore be of no value is unwarranted; there is no real reason why the study of Latin grammar should improve a student’s writing of English. In the last two decades, however, several grammars have appeared that are based on the work of modern linguists; it was in the hope of finding at last an accurate description of the syntax of present-day English that I, like many others, turned to these “structural” grammars. The bestknown of the structural grammars—as well as other linguisticallyoriented grammars—will be discussed in Part III.

8S. I. Hayakawa, “Linguistic Science and the Teaching of Composition,” ETC.: A Review of General Semantics VII (Winter 1950), 97.

STANDARDS OF CORRECTNESS

65

Dart three . inguistically oriented grammars

6 Linguistic Views of Language and Language Study

6.1 Descriptive Linguistics Traditional grammar, as I pointed out in Part I, is in large measure based on rules of Latin grammar, rules that may “fit” Latin and even the Romance languages fairly well but that can be applied to English only if we ignore some facts of the language and twist or stretch other facts until they seem to “follow the rules.” Traditional grammar, furthermore, tends to be prescriptive: its “do’s” and “don’t’s” assume the existence of some absolute standard of correctness, any deviation from which is “wrong”—even when the person “breaking” one or more of the rules may happen to be a well-known writer. Such an absolute standard of correctness sug¬ gests an underlying belief in—or at least acceptance of—language universals; indeed, may traditional grammarians have tried to justify the validity of certain rules by appealing to reason or logic,

LINGUISTIC VIEWS OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE STUDY

67

which should, one would presume, apply to other languages as well as to English. The research of historical linguists has provided us with ample evidence to show conclusively that change in language is normal: all living languages have changed constantly down through the years, and are still changing. Only dead languages do not change. Changes in pronunciation, vocabulary, or even grammar are not signs of “deterioration”; on the contrary, they show that the lan¬ guage in which they appear is still robust and living it is still being used by human beings for social communication. We may be able to guess at the causes of some changes, but all we can say about others, like the great vowel-shift or the disuse of the double nega¬ tive in English, is merely that they “happened”—for reasons un¬ known. Such far-reaching changes, of course, did not come about all at once; they were the result of many little changes, on the part of many different speakers over a period of many, many years— changes which eventually became “established” as a new way of pronouncing English vowel sounds, or a new way of making negative statements. To quote Dwight Bolinger,1 “Traditional grammar had been static in a dual sense ; it had been static not only in dealing with the state of a language and nothing more, but in its unawareness of the forces that work to overthrow the state. How speakers react to the little potential subversions that surround them is part of their linguistic behavior. Their moments of hesitancy, which reflect the language in flux, are as real and as much a part of the language now as their moments of certainty, which reflect the lan¬ guage in repose.

This distinction between “a language in flux” and “a language in repose” was first emphasized by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, in a course of lectures delivered in 1911. (These were published after his death by a group of his students under the title Cours de linguistique generate [1916].) Language in repose (i.e., language as a system) de Saussure called la langue , language in flux (i.e., language as speech, language as it is actually spoken) he called “la parole. ” (These terms have become established as tech¬ nical terms and appear, in their French form, in many English publications on linguistics.) De Saussure, although he had himself been trained as a historical linguist, insisted that linguists should

1 Aspects of Language (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968), p. 190.

68

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

devote less attention to diachronic studies (that is, to the study of a language across time) and should concentrate their efforts on synchronic studies (that is, the study of a language during the same limited period of time). In other words, linguists should turn from historical studies to descriptive studies, from tracing the develop¬ ment of a language over a period of time to describing the language as it was at a given stage in its development. It was the American linguist Leonard Bloomfield who wrote what was to become the standard handbook for descriptive linguistics in this country: Language, published in 1933. In this book Bloomfield summarized the fields of historical, comparative, and geographical linguistics as they had developed to that time; he outlined tech¬ niques and procedures for analyzing languages, as he himself had applied them in his analyses of Tagalog and of Menomini (an American Indian language); and he also made several brilliant proposals for the future course of descriptive linguistics (and made up new terms that he felt the discipline needed). Bloomfield’s book was the basic text for the training of young linguists until well into the 1950’s. Because of his profound insights into the nature of language, his book still merits careful study by serious students of linguistics.

6.2 The “Structure” of a Language Dissatisfaction with traditional grammars of English eventually led to various attempts at finding techniques for the analysis and description of English that would produce new, more objective and less debatable grammars. In most cases those who have made such attempts have either been linguists themselves or else have turned to linguists like Bloomfield for guidance. To differentiate these new grammars, grammars based upon objective, scientific procedures, from the old traditional grammars, such writers often use the term “structure” instead of “grammar” and talk about “the structure of English” instead of “the grammar of English.” In practice, how¬ ever, the two expressions are not really synonymous. Basically, a grammar is a set of statements about some language, a description of the different kinds of units occurring in that language and of the different ways in which those units are combined to form sentences and other constructions. The term “structure,” on the other hand, is generally more inclusive than the term “grammar.” A description of the structure of a language commonly includes not only a classification of the different kinds of words and constructions, with LINGUISTIC VIEWS OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE STUDY

69

statements about the various ways in which they are combined, but also a classification of the smallest significant units of sound—the phonemes2—with statements about the ways in which the phonemes are combined. Most traditional grammars of English say little or nothing about its sound system (although some of the scholarly grammars discussed in Part II do incorporate detailed descriptions of English phonology). Several such structural descriptions of English have appeared within the last thirty years. Perhaps the most important of these are American English Grammar (1940) and The Structure of English (1952), both by Charles C. Fries, and An Outline of English Structure (1951) by George L. Trager and Henry Lee Smith, Jr. Almost every structural grammar of English written since 1952 shows the influence of one or another of these books. (See the Bibliography under “Structural Grammars” for other notable ex¬ amples.) Fries’s American English Grammar was a report on a study that he had been commissioned to make by the National Council of Teachers of English to determine the kind of grammar that should be taught in the schools. This book was so different from the average teacher’s conception of a grammar that it attracted little attention when it was first published. Between 1940 and 1950, however, more and more teachers had come to hear about linguis¬ tics, especially in connection with the teaching of foreign lan¬ guages and of English as a foreign language. As a result, both Fries’s The Structure of English and Trager and Smith’s grammar made much more of an impact than had Fries’s earlier book. In the eyes of several college professors and a few secondary school teachers, these two books heralded the approach of a new era in the teaching of English. Much was expected of the new linguistics, “structural linguistics,” described in them. In 1954 W. Nelson Francis, who was later to write one of the best of the new structural grammars, wrote: A long overdue revolution is at present taking place in the study of English grammar—a revolution as sweeping in its consequences as the Darwinian revolution in biology. ... To anyone at all interested in language, it is challenging; to those concerned with the teaching of 2Pronounced “fdneemz.” This -erne suffix is regularly used in linguistic terminology in such words as grapheme, morpheme, and tagmeme, which will be discussed below. A full definition of the term phoneme appears in section 7.1 below.

70

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

English (including parents), it presents the necessity of radically revising both the substance and the methods of their teaching.

Speculating on the value of this new system, Francis continued: ... it seems probable that a realistic, scientific grammar should vastly facilitate the teaching of English, especially as a foreign language. . . . The new grammar can also be of use in improving the native speaker’s proficiency in handling the structural devices of his own language.3

To understand fully the significance of this “revolution in gram¬ mar,” it is necessary to know something about its beginnings and development. The name “structural linguistics” is here used as a cover term for the type of linguistics that was dominant in this country during the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s. Among the leaders in this field were Edward Sapir, Leonard Bloomfield, Bernard Bloch, George L. Trager and Henry Lee Smith, Jr., and Charles C. Fries (although Fries’s approach to linguistic analysis differs to some extent from that of other structural linguists). The basic tenets of structural linguistics were largely shaped by the experiences of anthropologists in the United States during the early part of this century. Franz Boas, the first professor of anthro¬ pology at Columbia University, dominated the field of anthropology in this country for many years. From the beginning he was inter¬ ested in the cultures of American Indian tribes; and since the language of a people is an integral part of its culture, he inspired many of his students to make detailed studies of American Indian languages. Since the great majority of American Indian languages have no written form, early linguists like Boas had to develop new techni¬ ques for analyzing languages; it was inevitable that these should be techniques for analyzing the spoken form of a language rather than its written form. Again, since American Indian languages differ greatly from each other—and even more from Indo-European lan¬ guages—it is not surprising that these linguists came to reject any kind of grammatical description that seemed to suggest the exis¬ tence of grammatical “universals.” They insisted that every lan¬ guage must be described entirely in its own terms. This resulted, of

3“Revolution in Grammar,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, XL (October 1954), 299-312. Reprinted in Readings in Applied English Linguistics, 2nd ed., Harold B. Allen, ed. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1964), pp. 69-85.

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71

course, in the rejection of most if not not all traditional grammar; and since much of traditional grammar relies heavily on the use of meaning, which cannot be tested objectively, several structural linguists even proposed that all use of meaning be excluded from linguistic analysis. Trager and Smith, for instance, state that “when we are confronted . . . with a language that we know little about in terms of the relation of the linguistic behavior of the speakers to the rest of their cultural behavior, it becomes clear that meaning can be of little help as a guide.”4 To its origins in anthropological study, then, structural linguistics owes several of its most publicized tenets: the dogma that “writing is not language”5—and that language is “exclusively ... a system in which the symbols are vocal sounds”;6 the insistence that every language must be described strictly in its own terms; and the rejection of the use of meaning in linguistic analysis.

6.3 A Structural Definition of Language One of the best-known structural definitions of language is to be found in Bloch and Trager’s Outline of Linguistic Analysis, where they define a language as “a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates.”7 It is undoubtedly true that every language is indeed systematic; it is our grasp of the systematic structure of our own language that enables us to utter new sentences which we may never have heard or read before. And a grammar of any given language, if it is an accurate grammar, is basically a description of part of the structure or system of that language.8

4 An Outline of English Structure (Norman, Okla.: Battenburg Press, 1951), p. 54. 5Leonard Bloomfield, Language (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1933), p. 21. 6Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager, Outline of Linguistic Analysis (Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America, 1942), p. 6. 7Ibid., p. 5. 8This is only one of several different meanings of the word grammar (or a grammar). To some people, for instance, the term “grammar” suggests a set of rules that tell a student what he should or should not do when speaking or writing a language if he wants to use the language “correctly”; for such people, presumably, “a grammar” would be a textbook or handbook setting forth such rules. To other people the term “grammar” may suggest not a set of “do’s and don’t’s,” nor even a description of the total structure of a language, but rather a description of only its syntax; that is, of the ways in which inflections, words, and constructions are put together in that language to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. Again, the term “a grammar” may refer not so much to a description of the structure of a language as to the structure or system itself. The different ways in which this structure or system might be described would then be merely different models representing the system of the language conceptually, to make it more easily comprehensible to the student or learner. Or, to quote Noam Chomsky, “a grammar can be regarded as a theory of a language; it is descriptively adeguate to the extent that it correctly describes the intrinsic competence of the idealized native speaker.” (Aspects of the Theory of Syntax [Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1965], p. 24. See also section 8 below.)

72

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

The systematic nature of language is evident even in non¬ standard dialects. It is not true, as some people believe, that the speakers of some nonstandard dialect of English merely speak a standard form of English interspersed with “careless mistakes”; on the contrary, each nonstandard dialect, like each standard dialect, has its own “rules,” which its speakers regularly follow. (Some linguists have actually written grammars of just such nonstandard dialects.) In fact, no speaker of a standard dialect can speak a nonstandard dialect merely by being careless or by trying to make mistakes. The speakers of the nonstandard dialect can quickly tell whether he actually knows their dialect or not. With regard to the symbols in every language, Bloch and Trager are undoubtedly right in claiming that they are arbitrary. It is the result of historical accident, for instance, not because of any necessary relationship, that a dog is called a dog in English, but ein Hund in German, un chien in French, un perro in Spanish, (bir) kopek in Turkish, and /(yeik) saeg/ in Persian. The fact that a dog is usually called by the same name by all the speakers of the same language is, as it were, a convention of that language that all the speakers of the language follow in order to be understood by each other. Proof of this is to be found in the fact that again and again certain conventions of naming develop among the members of a smaller group, as, for example, among the members of a family; for the members of these smaller groups, these new—but still arbi¬ trary—symbols then replace words used by other speakers of the language. (Such substitute symbols are commonly employed as the names for places like the bathroom or the toilet, or as words for bodily functions.) It makes no difference what combination of sounds is thus used for some object or place or concept, as long as all the members of the group recognize the convention. Needless to say, all such conventions are binding upon the members of the group if the members wish to be understood by each other, but these conventions are nonetheless arbitrary. The use of one word rather than another as the name of some object is neither preordained nor necessarily logical.9

9Taboo words provide an interesting example of the power of social conventions. Most taboo words in English are words that “polite” people don’t use, at least in the presence of others. The conventions of certain prestige groups in our society determine the words that most of us try to avoid using in the presence of others. It is commonly supposed that we avoid the use of such words because of their meanings, but a moment’s reflection will show that taboo words are really among the most meaningless words in the language. Many of us, especially those of us who are prone to use such words, are often only too conscious of them, especially when we are trying hard to avoid using them. (This is particularly true of young people who have just learned such words.)

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73

The “rules” that describe the grammar of a language are also arbitrary conventions. The educated speakers of Chaucer’s time emphasized a negative statement by adding a second negative, whereas educated speakers today do not do so. Neither of the two usages is more logical or more natural, except to the speakers who follow that usage; each is merely the conventional usage of one or the other group of speakers. Again, it is certainly not logical to use a plural pronoun, you, when addressing a single person; it is prob¬ able, however, that most English speakers do not think of you as being plural in form, but rather as being a word, like sheep, that may have either a singular or plural referent. Indeed, the whole concept of grammatical number is a matter not of logic but of conventions that differ from language to language. In English, for instance, we regularly distinguish between one and more than one of something: when referring to one baby, we use the singular form a baby, but when referring to more than one baby, we use the plural form babies. In the present tense we even use different verb forms after the singular a baby and the plural babies: la. A baby cries. b. Babies cry. In the past tense, however, we make no such differentiation: 2a. A baby cried. b. Babies cried. But in English we have no special noun forms or verb forms that we can use when speaking of only two persons or things, like the dual forms in Classical Greek, which a writer could use when he wished to refer to only two persons or things as opposed to more or less than two. Certain modern languages, such as Eskimo and Tunica, still make use of dual forms in addition to singular forms and plural forms; some languages even have trial forms for refer¬ ence to three persons or things. At the other end of the scale, there are languages that employ the very same noun forms and verb

But we are conscious of such words not because of their meanings, but rather because they have been tabooed by society. Even if we should happen to use some such word in an unguarded moment, it is improbable that we would use the word with the meaning it is supposed to have. Some taboo words actually have synonyms which are perfectly respectable. Since many taboo words refer to bodily functions, and since we have to talk about such functions at certain times (as when responding to a doctor’s questions), we may then use those other words, words that are supposed to mean the same thing but are not tabooed.

74

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

forms for one, two, three, or more than three. Turkish has plural endings for nouns (-ler, -lar) corresponding to the -s or -es in English, but these endings are not added to nouns if the nouns are preceded by numerals like iki, “two”, or yedi, “seven.” One might argue that the plural ending is redundant when the number of persons or things is specified, nevertheless we cannot leave off plural endings in English: Turkish

English

3a. erkekler ve kizlar boys and girls b. iki erkek ve yedi kiz two boys and seven girls Who is to say which of all these different types of number classification is the most logical? Indeed, strict logic would seem to demand that English speakers use a special verb form (or no verb form at all!) when referring to none of something: 4a. Two of the houses in that block are white. b. One of the houses in that block is red. c. * None of the houses in that block gray. But we have no special verb form for none of something in English. We have to use one of the two verb forms that we do have; that is, either the singular or the plural. (Some writers seem to consider the singular form more correct, but it is probable that most English speakers today tend to use the plural form.) Even grammatical gender is not really a matter of logic. There is no logical reason, for example, why the German word for “girl,” Madchen, should be a neuter noun rather than a feminine noun, or why the French word for “thing,” chose, should be feminine. Even in English, which seems to be more logical than German or French in its handling of gender, we regularly use the neuter pronoun it when asking Who is it? in response to a knock on the door, in spite of the fact that it is hardly likely that a thing would have knocked on the door. Again, in English we often use the feminine pronouns she and her when referring to a ship or to the moon; handbooks call this usage “personification” and explain that in such cases the lifeless object is regarded as a person. Logic would demand that in a sentence in which the writer uses she or her to refer to a ship, he should also use who or whom rather than which; and yet the following sentence, which a foreign student of mine once wrote on a composition, would not seem natural to a native speaker:

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75

5.* The Queen Elizabeth, on whom I went to England, is the largest ship in the world. Bloch and Trager are undeniably right, then, when they claim that language is systematic and that it is made up of arbitrary symbols. It is more difficult to agree with them when they assert that language is made up only of vocal symbols: The symbols which constitute a language are VOCAL symbols. Other kinds of symbols are possible, and play parts of varying importance in human activities. Gestures, more or less conventionalized pictures, signal flags, and traffic lights are common visual signals. . . . None of these, even when they make up a fairly complicated system, are language; we reserve this term exclusively for a system in which the symbols are vocal sounds. . . .10

I cannot agree with Bloch and Trager that language is made up of only vocal symbols. If this were true, no deaf mutes could ever learn a language, since they can neither hear nor speak. Yet deaf mutes can learn to read and write. Nevertheless Bloch and Trager insist that language is the link between otherwise unconnected nervous systems, and thus the means by which a stimulus acting on one man may produce an effective response in another, or in all the members of the group. Other means of communication—gestures, pictures, flag signals, and above all writing—are either inadequate to the demands of the social organism, or else derive entirely from spoken language and are effective only in so far as they reflect this.11

Bloch and Trager ignore the fact that one of the most important links between the nervous systems of great writers and thinkers of the past and the nervous systems of people who are living today is through writing, especially the writing to be found in great works of literature. It can be argued that great works of literature do not “derive entirely from spoken language” and that, indeed, they are frequently most effective when they do not reflect spoken language. The statement by Bloch and Trager that “WRITING is a second¬ ary visual representation of speech”12 is certainly not true of all languages, although it may apply to some. As L. M. Myers has pointed out:

10 Op.

cit., p. 6. nIbid., p. 5. 12Ibid., p. 6.

76

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

In Popocatapetiese the only writing is the investigator’s phonetic or phonemic transcript. This may accurately be described as a mere secondary representation of the language; and since it is completely unintelligible to the natives it exerts no influence on their language, which is indeed “speech and speech alone.” But written English, especially since the invention of the printing press, has been exerting an absolutely inescapable influence on the spoken form. Writing may be secondary, but it is not merely a passive reflection of speech, and it cannot be effectively treated as if it were.13

Both written English and spoken English are of prime importance in many parts of the world today; one is secondary to the other only in specific contexts. For example, it may well be that in newly independent countries the need for gaining new knowledge from books written in English may be more urgent than any need for speaking the language. In such situations it would seem that spoken English is secondary to written. And certainly for those scholars in northern China and southern China who, we are told, could communicate with each other through their writing but not through their speech (since their pronunciation differed so greatly), written Chinese was the primary means of communication.

6.4 A Revised Definition of Language A more accurate point of view than Bloch and Trager’s would regard a language as being comprised of more than just its vocal system. In a language with a fully developed writing system, the vocal system is only a single subsystem, although an important one, of the total language system; the writing system is another. In other words, both writing and speech are complete systems, each in its own right; each is primary in its own context within the total, overall language system. That writing is as much a system of language as is speech is borne out by the structuralists’ own definition of language: writing, like speech, is a system composed of arbitrary symbols, a system that follows arbitrary conventions. For example, the indentation for a paragraph is a convention of written English for which there is no corresponding convention in spoken English. Similarly, the use of capital letters in written English is an arbitrary convention (in German all nouns are capitalized, but in Arabic none are); further13“Linguistics—But

Not Quite So Fast,” College English XXIII (October 1961), 27.

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77

more, the use of capitals is a convention of writing, not of speech. In spoken English, for instance, we cannot distinguish between the Lamb that refers to a person and the lamb that refers to the flesh of an animal, as we can in written English: 6a. Do you like Lamb? b. Do you like lamb? Another of the conventions of written English—the the apostrophe—makes it possible, in sentences like and 7b, to distinguish between books belonging to books belonging to more than one son; in spoken sentences would sound exactly the same:

placement of examples 7a one son and English both

7a. Have you seen my son's books? b. Have you seen my sons' books? Still another convention of written English, that of spelling, pre¬ cludes any ambiguity in a question like the following: 8. What do you think of Lydia’s new beau? If this question were asked orally, the hearer might take the last word as referring to something that Lydia is wearing. Spoken English does not distinguish between these two words, but written English does. In fact, if the hearer should misinterpret the question, the speaker might well resolve the ambiguity by means of a convention of written English—spelling out the ambiguous word— rather than by the use of any of the conventions of spoken English. Such conventions as paragraphing, punctuation, and spelling are just as truly conventions of the English language as are different degrees of stress or different levels of pitch. Like the conventions of the spoken form of a language, the conventions of its written form are admittedly arbitrary. There is no logical reason, for example, why the same spelling—ough—should have a different pronunciation in each of these words: bough, bought, cough, dough, rough, through. Punctuation marks are also arbitrary. Many languages lack any punctuation mark cor¬ responding to the comma in English; some languages are written without any punctuation marks at all. In some languages, such as Burmese and Classical Arabic, writers do not indicate the end of a question by means of a special question mark, although writers of English regularly do so; writers of Spanish go even further—they place one question mark at the end of a question, and another inverted question mark before the question. Even the order in 78

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

which written symbols appear on a page is not the same for all languages: in English we write from left to right, but writers of Arabic write from right to left, while writers of Chinese write in columns, from top to bottom. Our own way of writing seems the most natural to us, of course; but no way of writing is more logical than any other, any more than driving on the right side of a road, as we do in the United States, is more logical than driving on the left side of a road, as they do in England. Both our manner of writing and our manner of driving are the result of historical accidents. Even though the conventions of written English are arbitrary, they are nonetheless systematic. There is, for example, less varia¬ tion in the spelling of English words than in their pronunciation. And except for an occasional writer like e.e. cummings, all edu¬ cated users of written English begin their sentences with capi¬ tal letters and end them with appropriate punctuation marks. Although the conventions of written English differ in many important respects from those of spoken English, most spoken sentences can easily be “translated” into written sentences, and most written sentences can be read aloud as spoken sentences. Thus a language like English comprises at least two overlapping systems: a system of vocal symbols and a system of written symbols. As a matter of fact, both of these systems have their own subsystems, each with its own conventions. It is a convention of formal written English, for instance, to avoid the use of contrac¬ tions like he'll and I’ve and aren't; in informal written English, however, the use of only uncontracted forms would seem stilted and unnatural. Again, it is a convention of formal written English to write out numbers up to one hundred (for example, thirteen, twenty-six), although most writers would probably use the numer¬ als instead in informal letters to friends. Spoken English also has its own subsystems. For example, in conversational English elliptical sentences commonly predominate: as an answer to the spoken question Who discovered America?, the full sentence Christopher Columbus discovered America would sound much less natural than the elliptical sentence Christopher Columbus. In conversa¬ tional English necessary grammatical signals are regularly omitted from answers if they have been supplied by the preceding ques¬ tions. But in narrative spoken English, which we use when giving a talk or a report, we regularly use non-elliptical, full sentences, since our sentences do not follow questions and must therefore include all essential grammatical signals. A language, then, is not merely one system of arbitrary symbols; LINGUISTIC VIEWS OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE STUDY

79

it is a set of overlapping systems and subsystems. And just as each system has its own conventions, so each system also has its own grammar; each should be described in terms of its own structure. As H. A. Gleason, Jr., says: We must have a thorough description of the phonology of English in its own terms. That means we must describe how English is spoken on the basis of the phonemes and their patterns, not of letters. And we must have a description of the writing system of English in its own terms, that is, of the basic units of the writing system, not of the phonemes. Separate descriptions of the two, however, are not enough. To these must be added a statement of the interrelations between the two. . . . The need for such a description results from the very im¬ portant connections that exist between the two. First, the phonology and the writing system are parts of a single language. Each interacts with the grammatical system, and hence is subject to some of the same forces from this direction. No apparatus as highly integrated as a language can be fully comprehended until the relations are understood between each main component and all the rest. Second, the users of the language constantly relate the two in various ways. They write down “what they hear.” . . . When we read we reverse the process. . . . Translation is part of the normal process of reading, and not infrequently of writing. We sit at the typewriter pecking mutely, but continually asking ourselves, “How will that sound?” When two language systems are constantly linked by transla¬ tion, they are inevitably affected—mutually.14

6.5 The Need for a Grammar of Written English Most English-speaking children learn their “native” system of spoken English from their parents and from their playmates. By the time they enter first grade or even kindergarten, they have learned to use—and to respond to—the stresses and pitches of English; that is, by the age of about five and a half, most children have already mastered a large part of the system of spoken English. But at this age they have not yet learned such things as paragraphing, spell¬ ing, or even punctuation: one of the first things that a child learning to write English has to be taught, for example, is to begin each sentence with a capital letter and to end it with a period, question mark, or exclamation mark. These are conventions of writ¬ ten English, not of spoken English. (Some children, of course,

14Linguistics

and English

Grammar (New

York:

Holt, Rinehart and Winston,

pp. 109-111.

80

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

1965),

never fully master these conventions.) It may be true, as some linguists have claimed, that teachers can do little about changing the speech habits of their students; but it is not true that teachers have little influence on their students’ writing habits. Most of what any student knows about the conventions of writing he has learned from his teachers. If there were no other difference between spoken English and written English, this in itself would make the difference between the two significant. Since the vast majority of children who learn to write English learn the conven¬ tions of written English from their teachers rather than from their peers, there is much more uniformity in the English written in different parts of the United States—and even all over the Englishreading world—than in the English spoken in those same places. There is ample justification, therefore, for basing a “grammar of English” on an analysis of written English. As Ralph B. Long has stated: the usual written forms . . . are established ways of using the lan¬ guage, precisely as the spoken forms are, and so require attention in themselves. . . . Recorders and television notwithstanding, it seems safe to predict that in the foreseeable future complex thought will still be communicated most satisfactorily by the written language. In everyday life also, the ordinary written forms are holding their own: indeed, they are put to more and more uses in supermarkets, for example, where the storekeeper of the past is no longer always at hand, and on superhighways, where increasingly complex directions must be given silently to all who drive by. The usual written forms are easily read; precise phonetic or phonemic transcriptions are much harder to read. The usual written forms do not call attention to matters of regional or personal pronunciation that are irrelevant to grammatical analysis: the ordinary written language is a broadly unifying instru¬ ment with a minimum of involvement in the local and individual. The usual written forms both represent and shape the native speaker’s view of the structure of his language at many points. Thus the used of I used to like him is indistinguishable in speech from the wseof I didn’t use to like him, but the difference in spelling is jealously maintained for grammatical reasons.15

Since the system of spoken English and that of written English overlap, it is not surprising that students tend to carry over patterns of the spoken system they already know to the written system they

15 The Sentence and Its Parts: A Grammar of Contemporary English (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), pp. 6-7.

LINGUISTIC VIEWS OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE STUDY

81

are trying to learn, just as someone learning a foreign language is likely to impose the word order of his own language on the words of the new language.16 When students who are learning the system of written English are already speakers of some nonstandard dialect of English, it is very probable that they will transfer some of the conventions of their nonstandard English to the English they write. But it is not so much the conventions of nonstandard English that plague students’ writing as it is the conventions—or at least, the accepted patterns—of spoken English. As we have seen, elliptical sentences are normal in conversational English, but full or com¬ plete sentences are preferred in formal written English. Again, “sentence fragments” and “run-on” sentences are common in the speech of even the best-educated of us, but we try to avoid them in our writing. And as a recorded transcription of almost any free oral discussion will show, we tolerate false starts, repetitions, pauses, extraneous words, sentence fragments, and even lack of agreement between subject and verb or between pronoun and antecedent in each other’s speech, although the conventions of formal written English do not allow such phenomena.17 (A label that I often use with my students for “formal written English” is “edited English” : that is, English that one has written down and has then had time to go over again and to change or edit, to make sure that it does satisfy the conventions of formal written English.) However, the fact that students already know the structure of spoken English when they come to school gives English teachers a great advantage that teachers of foreign languages lack. English teachers do not have to start teaching the structure of written English from scratch. They can start with those features of English

16This point is emphasized in my paper “Written English Is a ‘Second Language,’” which appeared in the September 1966 issue of the English Journal and was reprinted in Teaching High School Composition, Gary Tate and Edward P. J. Corbett, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 348-357. 17The following passage, for example, was transcribed from a tape recording made during a conference held at the University of Illinois in 1955. It is taken from a longer passage that appears in Howard Maclay and Charles E. Osgood, “Hesitation Phenomena in Spontaneous English Speech,” Word, XV (April 1959), 25. (Slashes in Maclay and Osgood’s transcription have been replaced by dashes, and each occurrence of “/a/is here represented by “[uh].” As far as I know, no one yet has done the—in a way obvious now and interesting problem of—doing a—in a sense a structural frequency study of the alternative—syntactical—[uh] in a given language, say, like English, the alternative [uh] possible structures, and how—what their hierarchical—probability of occur¬ rence structure is. Now, it seems to me you w-w-will need that kind of data as base line from which to judge or study deviations—in particular style in the clinical situation and so on. If we get this—now in other words, if you find that in the clinic, say in the [uh] protocol of a patient, that the distribution of these [uh] alternative structures are precisely what they are in ordinary [uh] communications, then there’s no evidence that this, at least I-is a—relevant variable for the clinical situation. ... If [uh] you find that [uh] at each point, say, in English structure you have an alt-several alternatives, some of which are highly probable—in ordinary English sentences, syntactical sequences of, for example, [uh] adjective, noun, verb [uh] vs. a a de-dependent phrase inserted, and so on. But these have—differing probabilities of occurrence in ordinary English. . . .

82

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

that are identical in both the written system and the spoken system, and can build their teaching around them. They can make use of the fact that students already know—even if unconsciously—those grammatical devices of English that are the same in both systems. (One of the big weaknesses of most traditional handbooks is that their writers seem to assume that the students who will be using their books know no grammar at all.) But it is essential, before teaching written English, to know which features of English are the same in both the written system and the spoken system, and which are different. Unfortunately the two systems have been so constantly confused that many labels used for features of one system are also used for features of the other system, even when the features themselves are not identical. A “syllable” in written English, for example, is not the same as a “syllable” in spoken English. It is a convention of written English that when we divide a word containing a double consonant into syllables, we separate the two consonants: the two syllables of a word like minnow are (in writing) ram-and -now. But in the spoken form of minnow, there is only one Ini sound; in spoken English, therefore, the two syllables of this word are /min/ and /o/. Again, “words,” as we commonly use the term, are primarily units of written English rather than of spoken English: it is probably only when we see an expression like have to or used to or a lot or all right written down with a space in the middle, that most of us first realize that the expression is made up of two words. Many com¬ pound words present the same kind of problem: hat tree is com¬ monly written as two words, but suppertime and lunchtime are written as one word. Pronunciation does not help us here; most of us would probably not be sure we knew the right form until we had consulted the dictionary. Clearly, a mastery of the system of spoken English will be of little help to a student when he wants to know how to divide a word at the end of a line, or whether to write a compound as one solid word, a hyphenated word, or two words. Nor will his knowledge of spoken English enable him to determine whether a group of words he has written with sentence punctuation really constitutes a complete sentence. But here even his dictionary cannot guide him. Only a knowledge of the structure of written English will be of help. For this, he needs an accurate description of the structure of written English. Because most of the structural grammars reflect a general preoc¬ cupation with the system of spoken English, they hold little promise for any satisfactory analysis of written English. However, this is not LINGUISTIC VIEWS OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE STUDY

83

to belittle all the contributions of structural linguists. In certain aspects of linguistic theory and in certain areas of analytic tech¬ niques, the contributions of structural linguists have indeed been valuable. In the following sections we will examine some of these important contributions.

7 Structural Linguistics 7.1 Phonemes and Allophones Among the most important contributions of the structural lin¬ guists are the techniques that they developed for analyzing the phonemic systems—that is, the sound systems—of different lan¬ guages. Fries, in fact, dates the breakthrough of American struc¬ tural linguistics to the publication of one of the first articles describing such phonemic systems.1 This article was Edward Sapir’s “Sound Patterns in Language,” published in 1925 in the first volume of Language, the official journal of the Linguistic Society of America. In his article Sapir speaks repeatedly of the phonetic “pattern,” or “system,” of a language, and of “points in the pattern.” These points in the phonetic pattern of a language are the phonemes, which were defined above as the smallest significant units of sound. This definition, although useful as an introductory generalization, is too vague for our purposes here; it does not mention some of the most important features of a phonemic system. Since the concept of the phoneme is central to much linguistic analysis, anyone who has any interest in language needs to understand the difference be¬ tween phonemes and mere sounds. It is necessary, first, to know what is meant by the expression “a significant unit of sound.” A significant unit of sound is significant only with regard to the particular language to which it belongs. Such a unit is a functional unit that might change one word into another if it were substituted for some sound in the word. If the /d/ sound, for instance, were to be substituted for the /1/ sound in tin or in not, the words tin and not would change to din and nod, words that to a native speaker of English are recognizably different from tin and not (although the speaker of some other language might not hear them as different). The sound of the t and the sound of the d are significantly different in English, therefore, since the difference 1 Charles C. Fries, Linguistics and Reading (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962, 1963), p. 60.

84

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

between them is all that maintains the contrast between the two words in each of these pairs. Again, the difference between the sound of the i in ship and the sound of the eein sheep is significant in English since this is all that distinguishes the first word from the second and since the two words are recognized as different words by native speakers of English. There are many sounds that are acoustically different from each other but that the speakers of one language or another do not hear as different sounds. Native speakers of English, for example, hear the sound of the t in too and the sound of the t in tee as the same sound. But if the reader will look at himself in a mirror as he pronounces the words too and tee, he will see that his lips assume very different positions for the pronunciation of the two t sounds. Since differences in sounds are produced by differences in the positions of one or more speech organs, these two sounds must be different; and yet to native speakers of English, they sound the same. They are different sounds—but they are not significantly different sounds in English since the difference between them is never used in English to distinguish between different words. This emphasis on significant differences is crucial to an under¬ standing of the concept of the phoneme. A phoneme in a given language is not a single sound; it is a group, or class, of similar sounds. Although acoustically the sounds that make up a given phoneme differ slightly from each other, native speakers hear them all as the same sound. There is no significant difference—for a given language—between the sounds belonging to the same pho¬ neme in that language. Thus, since English speakers hear no difference between the sound of the tin too and that of the tin tee, these two sounds are not significantly different and belong to the same /t/ phoneme in English. (Symbols that represent phonemes are regularly enclosed between slashes:/ /.) And, conversely, since in English the sound of the t in tin is significantly different from that of the d in din, these two sounds belong to two different English phonemes. A phoneme, therefore, is not an actual physical sound; it is, rather, a class of such sounds. Different sounds that belong to the same phonemes are called allophones of that phoneme. (Symbols that represent allophones are regularly enclosed between brack¬ ets: [ ].) Phonemes and allophones vary from language to language; that is, sounds that are significantly different in one language are not necessarily so in another. For instance, in English the [i] in ship and STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

85

the [ee] in sheep belong to different phonemes. But a speaker of some other language may not hear any significant difference between these two sounds; to him the words ship and sheep would literally sound like the same word. In his language, then, [i] and [ee] would be allophones of the same phoneme. Again, in English, the difference between the [t] in too and the [t] in tee is not significant. But in some languages the difference between these two sounds is significant; in certain pairs of words, this difference may be the only thing that distinguishes one word from the other. In such languages, therefore, these two [t] sounds belong to different phonemes, and native speakers of those lan¬ guages can recognize the difference between them as easily as English speakers can recognize the difference between /1/ and /d/. Thus two sounds belong to two different phonemes in a given language only if they contrast with each other, that is, if the substitution of one sound for the other in some word (or syllable) would produce a word that would be recognized as a different word by a native speaker of the language in question. Since English speakers always pronounce a [t] before the vowel sound of tee with the sound of the t in tee, and a [t] before the vowel sound of too with the sound of the t in too, these two [t] sounds do not contrast with each other in English. Even if someone were to pronounce the word tee with extended lips—that is, with the [t] sound English speakers normally use when pronouncing the word too—this tee, although it would sound unnatural, would probably not be taken to be some other English word by a native speaker of the language. But the substitution of [d] for the [t] in tee would produce a word (or nonsense syllable) that would be recognized by any native speaker of English as a different word (or syllable), since /1/ and /d/ are different phonemes in English. Linguists call such a contrasting pair of words or syllables a minimal pair; that is, a pair of items that contrast with each other because of a single (minimal) significant difference between them. In modern English /s/ and /z/ are also different phonemes: an English speaker hearing the two “words” sone and zone would assume that they were two different words (even though he might not be sure whether sone were actually an English word or not). But /s/ and /z/ were not always two different phonemes in English. In Old English these two sounds were different allophones of the same phoneme: whenever this phoneme occurred at the beginning or at the end of a word, it was pronounced [s]; whenever it occurred between two vowels, it was pronounced [z]. Since speakers of Old 86

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

English probably heard no difference between [s] and [z], they naturally used the same letter—the letter s—to represent both sounds. Thus the word Moyses (for the modern word Moses) was spelled with two s’s, although the first s was pronounced [z] while the second s was pronounced [s], as in the pronunciation of Moses by many English speakers today. (Similarly, the two s’s in Jesus are almost always pronounced [z] and [s] respectively.) The fact that [s] and [z] were merely allophones of the same phoneme in Old English is responsible, of course, for many of the irregularities in modern spelling. We write both this and his with s, although we pronounce the first s as /s/ and the second as /z/; and we spell the plurals of both backs and bags, bets and beds, taps and tabs with the same letter, s, in spite of the fact that in the first plural in each pair, the s is pronounced /s/, while in the second it is pronounced /z/. A phoneme is a phoneme in a given language, then, by virtue of the fact that it contrasts with all the other phonemes in that language. To use Sapir’s phrase, it is a “point in the pattern” of its own language, a point that differs from all the other points in the phonemic pattern of that same language. (The word point, how¬ ever, is likely to be misleading since a phoneme in a given language is not a single sound but rather a set of sounds.) An analogy from writing may help to make this clearer. Most literate Americans would consider the following symbols to be merely different forms of the same letter, even though the three are not identical: i, i,x. If any one of these three symbols were to appear between t and p as part of a three-letter word, we would all recognize the word as being the English word “tip,” even though we might think that the printer had made a mistake if we were to see “tip” instead of “tip.” These three forms of the letter (or grapheme) i do not contrast with each other, although they normally appear in different contexts, that is, in different kinds of printing or writing. We might therefore call them different allographs of the same grapheme. Even if we were to see “tip” written with an i with no dot over it, as in “tip,” it is probable that we would still read the word as “tip.” (We would probably think that the dot was supposed to be there, but that for some reason or other it had failed to appear on the printed page.) In other words, this dotless “1” would still appear to us to be an allograph of the grapheme i, albeit a misformed one. Yet, to a literate Turk, the words “tip” and “tip” would represent words with quite different pronunciations and different meanings: the first would be his word for “type,” and the second would be his word for “(the profession of) medicine.” The difference between these two STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

87

symbols would be as significant in the eyes of a Turkish reader as any difference between two distinct letters; but this same differ¬ ence would appear insignificant to an American reader, who would probably read both as merely different forms of the same letter. Since the phonemes of a given language contrast only with the other phonemes of the same language, it becomes evident that we cannot speak of “the /t/ phoneme,” for instance, but must speak of “the HI phoneme in English,” “the /t/ phoneme in Spanish,” “the /t/ phoneme in Turkish,” and so on. In other words, a phoneme is only a point in the pattern or system of its own language, and it must be described in terms of the ways in which it contrasts with the other phonemes of its own language. No phoneme in language A can be identical to a phoneme in language B, although a phoneme in one language may seem similar in certain respects to a phoneme in the other language. It seems that part of the price that children pay for perfect mastery of the phonemes of their own language is loss of the ability to hear the subtle differences between the allophones of phonemes, even though these differences may be distinctive enough to be heard easily by the speakers of some other language. Constant practice with the phonemic system of one language conditions the native speakers of that language so that by the time they are adults, they find it difficult to distinguish between sounds that are not significantly different in their own tongue. The phonemic system of their own language also conditions them so that they find it difficult to pronounce, in words, sounds that do not occur in their own phonemic system, even though they may have no difficulty in pronouncing such sounds separately, as sounds. Many speakers of English, for example, frequently make the Persian sound repre¬ sented by the kh in khaki when gargling or when clearing thenthroats. But they would find it difficult to pronounce the same sound as part of the word khaki, with the result that the kh in that word is normally pronounced by English speakers with its nearest equiva¬ lent in English, namely /k/. It follows that the phonemic systems of different languages condition the speakers of those languages in different ways, so that the speakers of two different languages may hear a sound foreign to both their languages differently. The phoneme represented by the th in the English word the, for example, does not occur in the phonemic system of either Turkish or French; but Turkish students learning English tend to replace the [th] with [d] and to say de apple instead of the apple, while

88

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

French students tend to replace the [th] with [z] and to say ze apple instead of the apple. Both groups, of course, are substituting for the English sound the sound in their own phonemic systems that seems to them to be most similar to the English sound. Adult speakers are conditioned not only by the specific phonemes in the phonemic system of their own language; they are also conditioned by the ways in which their own language structures combinations of its phonemes. In English, for instance, the conso¬ nant combination /sk/ is a “permissible” combination; many Eng¬ lish words begin with these two sounds. But these two consonant sounds do not occur initially in any Persian words or in any Turkish words; both Iranians and Turks, therefore, have difficulty in pro¬ nouncing such English words as skin, scoop, and school. Iranians learning English tend to insert a vowel sound between the /s/ and the /k/, so that they often pronounce school as if it were spelled “sukool”; Turks learning English, on the other hand, tend to insert a vowel sound before the /s/ and to pronounce this vowel with the /s/ as a separate syllable, so that they often pronounce school as if it were spelled “is-kool.”2 Again, English speakers have no difficulty in pronouncing the sound represented by the letters ng when such a sound occurs at the end of a word, as in sing, or even when such a sound occurs in the middle of a word, as in singer. But we do not find it nearly so easy to pronounce this sound at the beginning of a word; most English speakers would probably have difficulty in pronouncing nger, for example, since no English word starts with the /ng/ sound. Manufacturers of breakfast cereals are not likely to give any new cereal a name beginning with the letters Ng for a long time to come—not, that is, until after the patterning of the phone¬ mic structure of English has so changed as to permit the occurrence of the /ng/ sound at the beginning of words. (In many languages, of course, there is no such “prohibition” against starting words with the /ng/ sound: names like Nguyen and Ngo, for example, are common in Vietnam.)

7.2 Phonologically Based Syntax Some structural linguists insist that the analysis of the grammar of a language must be based on a phonological analysis of that

2The Turkish name Uskiidar, for example, comes from the Greek name Scutari; similarly, the Turkish name Istanbul comes from the Greek name Stamboul.

STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

89

language. This follows logically from their claim that all language consists of speech. W. Nelson Francis, for example, gives the following as the definition of a sentence: A sentence is as much of the uninterrupted utterance of a single

speaker as is included either between the beginning of the utterance and the pause which ends a sentence-final [intonation] contour or between two such pauses.3 4

By this definition, no group of words could be called a sentence until it was actually spoken aloud by someone (with proper intonation). And conversely, a group of words that constitutes a sentence in written English, like the words Come here a minute in example 1, would not be called a sentence if it was not spoken with a pause following minute: l.Come here a minute. I want to show you something. In spoken English Come here a minute, might not be a sentence; but in written English it is. Francis’ definition further implies that no foreign student can learn to identify or to write acceptable sentences in English until after he has mastered the sentence-final intonation contours of spoken English. But teachers of foreign students can testify, on the basis of their own experience, that even students whose spoken sentences do not sound like English sentences to native speakers can learn to distinguish complete, grammatical sentences from incomplete, ungrammatical sentences—in written English. As Ralph B. Long points out, “Our sentences can be whispered, chanted, or sung without change in their grammar. They can be written and read by people who lack both hearing and speech. As a matter of fact, Francis’ definition of a sentence is not even satisfactory for spoken English since it ignores one of the most common features of spoken English—namely, ellipsis. An elliptical sentence is a sentence—and it differs from a non-sentence even when both are made up of the same word or words. An example may help to make this clearer. Let us assume that the wife of a man named Bill, who also has a son named Bill, discovers a broken window and wants to know who broke it. She turns to her husband for information:

3 The Structure of American English (New York: The Ronald Press, 1958), p. 372. 4 The Sentence and Its Parts: A Grammar of Contemporary English (Chicago: University ol Chicago Press, 1961), p. 2.

90

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

2a. b. c. d.

Wife: Husband: Wife: Husband:

Bill. Yes. Who broke the window? Bill.

Any adult speaker of English wouldrecognize the Bill in example 2d as being grammatically different from the Bill in example 2a, even if the two were pronounced with exactly the same intonation. And most adult speakers of English, if asked whether either of the two Bill's was a sentence, would probably admit that the second Bill could be called a sentence (although an incomplete one), but would not consider the first Bill to be a sentence. It should be pointed out that this reaction on the part of native speakers would not be the result of their acquaintance with the traditional definition of a sentence but would stem from their own intuitive feeling for the language: the first Bill is not the same as the second Bill. The second one “says something”; the first one does not.5 Any accurate description of spoken English—and even of written English—must make allowance for this kind of difference. In order to explain in terms of intonation contours and other phonological cues how it is that a reader can recognize sentences on a printed page without reading them aloud, it is necessary to assume that even during the act of reading, certain movements take place somewhere in our bodies that correspond to those movements of our speech organs by which we produce or recognize intonational signals. Some behaviorist psychologists seem to have made just such an assumption; Bloomfield states it as a fact: A symbol “represents” a linguistic form in the sense that people write the symbol in situations where they utter the linguistic form, and respond to the symbol as they respond to the hearing of the linguistic form. Actually, the writer utters the speech-form before or during the act of writing and the hearer utters it in the act of reading; only after considerable practice do we succeed in making these speech move¬ ments inaudible and inconspicuous.6 However, to the best of my knowledge, there is no conclusive evidence to support such an assumption. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that readers who can read at the rate of one, two, or even three thousand words a minute could possibly utter all the speech-

51 do not mean to imply, however, that every word or group of words that “says something” is therefore necessarily a sentence. 6Language (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1933), p. 285.

STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

91

forms on the page before them, either audibly or inaudibly, while reading at such a speed. (The reference here is to real reading, not just to the act of skimming. I myself have heard a person who had just finished reading a passage at very high speed repeat several sentences from the passage with almost perfect accuracy.) But there is one fact that, it seems to me, proves conclusively that a good reader does not base his syntactic analysis of written sentences on phonological cues. I have never seen this mentioned in any structural grammar or even in any discussion of reading written by a structural linguist; yet it is so basic to all good reading that it cannot be ignored. The important fact is this: every good reader assumes that the sentences he is reading will fit into the normal “molds” or patterns of English sentences with no words left over. For instance, if a good reader were to see a group of words like those in example 3a, he would probably analyze them as comprising a sentence ending with the word building and would read the sentence aloud in such a way as to suggest that the words that building were the object of the verb and that building was a noun preceded by the demonstrative that: 3a. The contractor has already pointed out that building The reader would probably fail to notice the absence of a period after building, especially if this group of words appeared at the very bottom of a printed page. If, however, he were then to turn over the page and find the words in example 3b printed without a capital letter to indicate the beginning of a new sentence, he would assume that his first analysis must have been wrong; the writer would not have written a sentence with words left over: 3b. houses costs a lot of money nowadays. The reader would probably reread the entire sentence from the beginning and would then make a very different analysis of the words that building: 3c. The contractor has already pointed houses costs a lot of money nowadays.

out

that

building

But no phonological signals of any kind would have been respon¬ sible for the reader’s re-analysis of the sentence. Indeed, the intonation with which he had originally read the first part of the sentence aloud would indicate that the sentence must end with the word building. Only visual signals—the sight of additional words starting off with a small letter instead of a capital letter—would 92

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

have suggested that the sentence did not end with building but had to be re-analyzed in such a way as to account for all the words from The up to the final period. And the manner in which the reader then read the complete sentence aloud would not determine his analysis of the sentence but would instead reveal the new analysis he had just made. In other words, the intonation that he superimposed on the sentence as he read it aloud would reveal the syntactic analysis he had already made of the sentence in its written form. He must have analyzed the sentence through his eyes before he could have analyzed it through his ears. Every good reader surely does the same whenever he reads consecutive sentences aloud without hesitating or pausing. This is not to intimate that phonological signals are unimportant. They are of primary importance—in speech. Our ability to under¬ stand spoken sentences depends upon our ability to recognize phonological signals. But I do not believe that the ability to under¬ stand written sentences depends upon a mastery of the spoken system of any given language, and there is, as far as I know, no convincing evidence to support Fries’s claim that “it is extremely doubtful whether one can really read [a] language without first mastering it orally.”7 As a matter of fact, I used to know a code clerk in an American legation who was able to translate messages transmitted in code into normal English even though it was impos¬ sible to pronounce the coded words. And there are scholars who can translate hieroglyphics into English even though they do not know how to pronounce the Egyptian language that the hieroglyphics represented. While there is undoubtedly much important informa¬ tion to be gained from phonological studies, phonology alone pro¬ vides an insufficient foundation on which to base a description of the total grammatical system. Long has even gone so far as to say that “no single syntactic function and no single part of speech can be defined in terms of anything phonemic.”8 Although this state¬ ment may be too sweeping, Long is certainly right when he states that “attempts to base syntax in phonemics have not been success¬ ful.”9 The use of phonology in language studies is of course invaluable in studies like those that Boas made of previously unknown lan¬ guages. But the problem is somewhat different in the application of 7 Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1946), p. 6. 8 Op. cit., p. 2. 9Ibid., p. 2.

STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

93

phonology to descriptions of languages that are already known. As Katharine Aston says, This approach to language description through sounds is based upon a discovery technique. It has been used in exploring unrecorded lan¬ guages; but starting from this surface level of a language which is already known in depth to the researcher is unnecessary, even un¬ sound. It reverses the real process or operation of language which leads from syntax to the physical expression of it in speech or writing.10

7.3 Expansive Versus Reductive Analyses11 Some linguists lay great stress on the necessity for maintaining a rigid separation between the three “levels” of phonology, morpholo¬ gy (defined below), and syntax. A few linguists, like Bloch and Trager, insist that in describing the structure of a language, the level of “phonemic analysis must come first.”12 Trager and Smith are perhaps the most outspoken exponents of this kind of expansive procedure. They believe that in analyzing a language, a linguist should begin with an analysis of the phonemes, and then work upwards to an analysis of the morphemes. (The morphemes of a language are its smallest significant units of meaning, such as its roots, prefixes, and suffixes. The word joys, for example, contains two morphemes: the root joy and the plural suffix -s. The word joyfully contains three morphemes: the root joy and the suffixes -ful and -ly.) According to Trager and Smith, the linguist should turn to the still higher level of syntax only after making the morphemic analysis, which “should be based on the fullest possible phonological statement in order to be complete”; all analyses based on inadequate phonological data, they claim, “are defective in direct proportion to the amount of phonological analysis omitted.”13 They summarize their procedure as follows: “With the phonology completely established, and the morphological analysis completed, the syntax of a language like English can be constructed objective¬ ly, without the intervention of translation meaning or any resort to metalinguistic phenomena.”14 This is the procedure followed by 10Katharine O. Aston, “Grammar—the Proteus of the English Curriculum,” Illinois English Bulletin LV, No. 2 (November 1967), 20. "These terms are taken from W. Haas, “Linguistic Structures,” Word XVI (August 1960), 251-276. 12Bernard Block and George L. Trager, Outline of Linguistic Analysis (Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America, 1942), p. 53. 13 George L. Trager and Henry Lee Smith, Jr., An Outline of English Structure (Norman, Okla.: Battenburg Press, 1951), pp. 53-54. 14 Ibid., p. 68.

94

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

Archibald A. Hill in his Introduction to Linguistic Structures (1958) and reflected in the subtitle of his book, “From Sound to Sentence in English.” Not all writers—not even all linguists—accept this order of proce¬ dure as essential or preferable. Pike, for example, has stated repeatedly that many phonological facts are inextricably in¬ terwoven with grammatical facts; he believes that “the treatment of phonology without reference to grammar is a concealment of part of a most important set of structural facts pertinent to phonolo¬ gy.”15 The British linguist W. Haas is also opposed to an expansive procedure. Indeed, he makes a strong case for reductive analysis —that is, an analysis that begins with sentences (or even larger linguistic units) and that works from them downwards to the morphological level and then to the phonological level. In reviewing Hill’s expansive procedure, Haas makes the following analogy: ... if we tried to keep strictly to Professor Hill’s programme— ascending from sound to sentence, and never looking at any higher level before we have reached it—then, we might travel but surely could never arrive. Reductive analysis has arrived from the start; it looks back at familiar country—total meaningful utterances—and reduces it to a linguistic map. By the expansive procedure on the other hand, we are supposed to reach lands unknown—and this without a map, even without being allowed to look ahead. It would only be by keeping our eyes turned backward that we could claim to be advancing to higher levels of analysis. This is the paradox of trying to analyse language while building it up.16

Haas likens expansive analysis to “a number of pyramids, all inverted, the smallest on ground-level, and ever larger ones rising above it. . . . Surely a precarious structure; the slightest flaw any¬ where brings it down in ruins.”17 After making several unsuccessful attempts to work with expan¬ sive analyses, I have finally become convinced that only a reductive analysis offers promise of yielding a satisfactory description of English syntax. In fact, I feel that many of the shortcomings to be found in most structural grammars can be traced to their author’s expansive approach, as I will try to show in the following sections. (Traditional grammars, of course, commonly err in this direction:

15Kenneth L. Pike, “Grammatical Prerequisites to Phonemic Analysis,” Word III (December 1947), 155. 16 Op. cit., p. 260. 17Ibid., p. 267.

STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

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their authors regularly discuss the parts of speech before taking up such larger constructions as phrases and clauses.)

7.4 Substitution and Test Frames In analyzing a language, structural linguists often distinguish between lexical meaning and grammatical meaning—that is, they seek to differentiate vocabulary items from items whose primary function is grammatical. For instance, if we take the English words listen, girl, red, hair, we do not have a sentence; we have a string of words, each with lexical content or a “dictionary definition” but without any relation to each other. We could rearrange the words in any way we liked, but they would still not form a grammatical sentence. In order to convert this string of words into a sentence, we would have to add signals to indicate such structural elements as the actor, the action, and the time of the action, that is, the subject, the predicate, and the tense. To indicate these structural relation¬ ships, we would use different kinds of grammatical devices. Depending upon our choice of such devices, we could produce, among others, any of the following sentences: 4a. The red-haired girl listens. b. The red-haired girls listen. c. The red-haired girl is listening. d. A red-haired girl is listening. e. The red-haired girls are listening. f. The girls with red hair are listening. g. Listen to the girls with red hair. h. Listen to the red-haired girl. i. The red-haired girl has been listened to. j. The girl listened to is red-haired. k. The girl listening is red-haired. l. The hair of the girl listened to is red. m. The hair of the listening girl is red. The original string of words has been converted into these different sentences with the aid of certain structural devices: the use of words like the articles, auxiliaries, and prepositions; the addition of word endings to indicate plurals and verb tenses; and the imposi¬ tion of word order on the original string of words. To produce any meaningful sentence, we must combine both the appropriate lexi¬ cal and the appropriate grammatical elements. Applying this distinction to the analysis of the words in a lan96

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

guage, Fries distinguishes two different kinds of words: those whose primary function is to express lexical meanings, which he calls the “parts of speech” and classifies into four large formclasses, and those whose primary function is to signal structural meanings, which he calls function words.18 His four form-classes correspond, in general, to the parts of speech known traditionally as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. These four form-classes together contain most of the vocabulary of English; new words are continually being added to each of the four classes. Each class contains so many members that it would not be possible to list them all individually. For this reason I prefer to call them the non-listable

word-classes. The function words are words like prepositions, articles, aux¬ iliaries, personal pronouns, and conjunctions. Such words are relatively few in number, but they occur very frequently in English sentences. New members are seldom added to any group of the function words, and each group is so small that it is possible to list most if not all of its members individually. For this reason I prefer to call the groups of function words the listable word-classes. The words belonging to the non-listable classes are commonly marked by the endings or formal characteristics common to each word-class. Most nouns, for example, take plural endings; many end with such suffixes as -ness or -tion. Most adjectives can be compared by adding the endings -er and -est{or the function words more and most); many adjectives end in suffixes like -y and -ful. All verbs take the ending -s (or -es) in the third person singular present; all verbs also take the ending -ing, while all regular verbs also take the ending -ed (or -d); some verbs end in such suffixes as -fy and -ize. Most adverbs end in the suffix -ly. These formal markings are characteristic of only the non-listable word-classes; function words are not usually so inflected or derived. The technique Fries uses in his analysis of the different kinds of words is that of substitution in what he calls test frames or sentence frames.19 With their aid, Fries classifies English words into the four large form-classes described above (which he numbers from 1 to 4) and into fifteen smaller groups of functions words (which he letters 18 The Structure of English (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1952), passim. See also American English Grammar (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1940). 19 Valuable use has been made of such frames in the teaching of foreign languages, especially in the teaching of English as a foreign language, a field in which Fries was long recognized as a leader, both in this country and abroad. The idea of using substitution frames for different kinds of words was not original with Fries, however; Harold E. Palmer advocated the use of just such “substitution tables" in his book The Scientific Study and Teaching of Languages as long ago as 1917 (London: Harrap & Co.).

STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

97

from A to O). Fries bases his use of this method on the assumption that . . . the signals of structural meaning in English consisted primarily of patterns of arrangement of classes of words which we have called form-classes, or parts of speech. We have assumed here that all words that could occupy the same “set of positions” in the patterns of English single free utterances must belong to the same part of speech.20

Fries sets up one or more test frames for each form-class. For example, the members of his Class 1 are, by definition, all the words that fit into the blank positions in these three test frames: 5. Frame A: (The)_is/was good _s are/were good 6. Frame B: (The)_remembered (the)7. Frame C: (The)_went there21 A serious shortcoming in Fries’s analysis of English structure derives from the fact that he limits his test frames to frames for words, rather than to frames for constructions. For example, Fries uses the frames in example 8 to identify all the determiners, that is, all the words that can occur in the position in which the word the occurs. As a result he classifies such dissimilar items as all, the, and five as determiners since they can all precede concerts: 8a. b.

(The) (The)

concert is/was good concerts are/were good22

But if one were to carry this kind of analysis still further, one could claim that the words impromptu and jazz must be determiners, too, since they can also precede concert(s)in that frame. But all the words that seem to fit into the blank in that frame do not function in the same way. In positing this kind of test frame, Fries overlooks the possibility of unfilled positions—in this case, the several poten¬ tial positions that precede a noun like concerts but that may happen not to be filled in a given utterance. Only a test frame with blanks for a larger number of words, such as the one in the next example, will reveal the fact that the words all, the, and five belong to different lists just as truly as do impromptu and jazz:

20 The Structure of English, p. 74. But as Walter A. Cook points out in his Introduction to Tagmemic Analysis (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), p. 6, “the results of the slot and filler technique employed by Fries are really function, not form, classes.” See the discussion of “The Tagmeme” in Section 9.1 of this book. 21 Fries, op. cit., pp. 78-79. 22 Ibid., p. 89.

98

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

9. (All)

(the)

(five)

(impromptu) (jazz) concerts were good

If we choose to call words that fill the position of the determiners, then we should not also call words like all and five determiners. Omitting the determiner the from the sentence in example 9 would not automatically shift all into the determiner position and thus make a determiner of it, any more than the omission of the verb go from the sentence I hope to go tomorrow, leaving only I hope to tomorrow, would thereby convert tomorrow into a verb. All that would happen in either case is that a certain position would be left vacant. Indeed, the fact that the “adverbs” only and just can substitute for all in the sentence in example 9, suggests that all may be such an adverb, too; this seems to be corroborated by the fact that, unlike determiners and adjectives, the word all can often shift its position in a sentence: 10a. All the five impromptu jazz concerts were good, b. The five impromptu jazz concerts were all good. Fries’s analysis of English syntax, it seems to me, betrays his own early training in traditional grammar, at least to the extent that he pays greater attention to the different kinds of words that may occur in a sentence than to the different kinds of constructions that make up the sentence. I would go as far as to say that no sentence is made up of words; a sentence is made up of constructions and it is the constructions that are made up of words, not the sentence. To treat a sentence as a string of words—even words belonging to different form-classes—is to overlook the most significant feature of the structure of the sentence.23 The unreliability of attempts to identify different kinds of words by means of substitution tests can be seen from some of the definitions in Paul Roberts’ Patterns of English. Roberts defines an adverb as “a word that patterns like in, beautifully, often:

23 However, in criticizing Fries for his preoccupation with words as against constructions, I do not mean to imply that his approach to syntactic analysis is word-centered in the sense that he deals with words as individual items rather than as members of form-classes contrasting with other form-classes. Indeed, Fries himself makes the point that our “structural” approach requires a basic shift in the usual thinking about language. For most people, that thinking is word-centered. . . . [But] structuralism not only requires us to abandon our word-centered thinking about language; it demands that in every aspect of language we must shift from an item-centered view to one that is structure-centered.

Such items as the sounds of a language, the individual words, and the parts of sentences, Fries says, “have no linguistic significance by themselves. Only as such items contrast with other items in the patterns of an arbitrary system do they have linguistic significance. In other words, all the significant matters of language are linguistic features in contrast.” (Linguistics and Reading [New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963], pp. 63-64.)

STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

99

11a. b. c. d.

She She She She

walked in. walked beautifully. walked often. walked-.”24

According to Roberts, other words that fit this pattern are up, over, by, slowly, happily, purposefully, then, sometimes, seldom. But, as Roberts points out, “apple, beauty, beautify, beautiful, until do not occur in this pattern. We do not say ‘She walked apple,’ ‘She walked beauty,’ etc. These words are therefore not adverbs.” If we accept this definition of an adverb as providing a sufficient criterion for distinguishing adverbs from other words, then we must include the words erect and alone among adverbs, since we can also say sentences like examples 12a and 12b: 12a. She walked erect. b. She walked alone. As a matter of fact, it is not at all clear from the definitions in Patterns of English just what form-class (or form-classes) words like alone and alive and asleep belong to. They can be substituted in two of Roberts’ frames for adjectives (She was-; The girl seemed-))but not in the third (A very-girl came in).25 Again, we must assume, on the basis of Roberts’ definitions, that never is not an adverb because, although we say She walked sometimes, we do not say *She walked never. Furthermore, if we change Roberts’ test frame slightly, it appears that even the words he lists as adverbs do not all pattern in the same way: we can say She walked across the room beautifully and She walked across the room often, but not *She walked across the room in. Another linguist who makes extensive use of substitution as an analytic technique is Zellig S. Harris.26 Unlike Fries, Harris ex-

24 Patterns of English (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1956), p. 17. 25 It should be explained that words like alone, alive, and asleep belong to a group of words that function differently from all other words: they are neither adjectives nor adverbs, yet they sometimes occur in positions in a sentence where adjectives or adverbs might also occur. Because of their special way of functioning, these words should be classified separately from other types of listable words; a good name for such words is a-words, which suggests both their origin and their function. (The prefix a- in most of these words derived originally from an Old English preposition and/or prefix with some such meaning as “on, in, at.” In a way, therefore, these words resemble contracted phrases; this would explain why, even in present-day English, they usually occur in positions in which phrases also occur, such as immediately after a noun, as in every man alive—not * every alive man.) 26See, for example, his article “From Morpheme to Utterance,” Language XX.ll (1946), 161-183, reprinted in Readings in Linguistics, Martin Joos, ed. (Washington, D.C.: American Council of Learned Societies, 1957) pp. 142-153.

100

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

amines sentence frames for units larger than single words; as a result he notices certain facts about English that Fries misses, such as that the “pronouns” substitute for whole noun constructions, not just for single nouns (see section 1.5.2). Harris proposes methods for identifying the phonemes, morphemes, and constructions of a language without ever resorting to meaning. However, some of the procedures that he describes involve too many steps to be practi¬ cable, nor has it ever been proved that by means of such procedures a linguist really would be able to analyze a language he did not already know.

7.5 Immediate-Constituent Analysis In linguistic terminology the grammatical units into which a construction can be broken down are referred to as its constituents. Two or more constituents that operate together on the same layer of structure as parts of the next larger unit are called the immediate constituents of the larger unit. The smallest grammatical units into which a sentence can be broken down—the prefixes, roots, and suffixes—are its ultimate constituents. The sentence Young Percy seemed sad, for instance, can be “cut” into its immediate con¬ stituents as shown in example 13a: 13a. Young Percy / seemed sad. Each of these constituents can in turn be cut into its own immediate constituents, as shown in examples 13b and 13c: 13b. Young / Percy c. seemed / sad The verb seemed can be further cut between its root and suffix: 13d. seem / ed The ultimate constituents of the sentence Young Percy seemed sad are, then, Young, Percy, seem, -ed, and sad. Some structural linguists use slashes to indicate the cuts between constituents. This method, however, is unsatisfactory since it does not show the relationship of one constituent to another. In Young Percy/seemed sad, for example, the relationship of seemed sad to Young Percy is that of predicate to subject; in the nominal Young/ Percy, the relationship of Young to Percy is that of modifier to word

STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

101

modified.27 In his discussion of immediate constituents, Fries states that “descriptions of processes—the recipe for a cake, for exam¬ ple-must indicate not simply the constituents, the ingredients, and the operations, but also the ‘layers’ of the operations, the ‘im¬ mediate’ constituents of each operation.”28 (In this connection, see also sections 2.1 and 2.2.) Fries proceeds to describe the game of baseball “for those who know nothing about the game,” first as a sequence of details and events presented in the order in which a spectator might observe them as he watched his first game, and then as an analysis of the game presented in terms of the different layers of its structure, an analysis that “attempts to keep the matters of each structural area of baseball together and distinctly separate from those of another structural area.”29 As Fries points out: Most of the failures of communication seem to be tied up, in one way or another, with the problems of immediate constituents. In the matter of grasping the whole arrangement of the structural patterns in each of our sentences as complete units, it is essential that we keep each layer of structure separate and that we grasp the immediate constituents of each layer.30

Immediate-constituent analysis, for instance, can often be used to pinpoint the causes of different kinds of ambiguity, as in example 14a: 14a. The man who visited my sister regularly begged her to marry him. This sentence is ambiguous because it is not clear which immediate constituent of the sentence the word regularly belongs to. Both of the following analyses would be possible:

27Two methods of marking immediate eonstitutents that avoid this difficulty are to be found in Eugene A. Nida’s A Synopsis of English Syntax (reissued in 1960 by the Summer Institute of Linguistics of the University of Oklahoma at Norman) and in Charles F. Hockett’s A Course in Modern Linguistics (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958). Still another method of showing the relationships between immediate constituents—one that has certain advantages over both Nida’s and Hockett’s—is to be found in Francis’ Structure of American English. To show the relationships, Francis uses such symbols as an arrow (for “modification”), the letter P (for “predication”), and the letter C (for “complementation”). The constituents themselves he encloses in boxes. Around these in turn he draws larger and larger boxes to show the constituents that go together in “each of the increasingly complex structures into which they combine. The result is something like those famous ‘Chinese boxes’ that fit one within another” (pp. 293-294). 28 The Structure of English, p. 258. 29Ibid., p. 261. 30Ibid., p. 262.

102

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

14b. The man who visited my sister/regularly begged her to marry him. c. The man who visited my sister regularly/begged her to marry him. Many structural linguists and many of the writers of structural grammars seem to regard immediate-constituent analysis as a basic technique for analyzing English syntax. Most of these lin¬ guists and grammarians also seem to accept, almost as an act of faith, the requirement that virtually all divisions into immediate constituents be binary—that is, they assume that, in all but a few isolated cases, each layer of structure in an English sentence will consist of only two members or constituents. Francis, for instance, says that this kind of two-fold or binary structure is one of the most striking things about the grammatical organization of English. Because of it, virtually any English structure may be divided into two immediate constituents, each of which may in turn be divided into two, until the ultimate grammatical units, the words, are reached.31

I have seen no convincing evidence to support the assumption that almost all English constructions are binary in their structure. I feel that many structural linguists have first assumed the binary nature of English structure and have then proceeded to develop appropriate “rules” for cutting that appear to support their assump¬ tion. In any case, many of these rules seem just as arbitrary as the rules in traditional grammar; they do not, therefore, provide any real evidence for the assumed binary nature of constructions. For instance, one such rule states that the cuttings separating the various modifiers of a noun “can proceed mechanically in accord with the use of word order in present-day English,”32 that is, the adjectives in a noun phrase should always be cut off one by one in the order in which they occur. But why should this be so? Although it is true that the order of words in English is fairly rigid, this does not mean that all modificational patterns are necessarily the same. If we have been talking about young men and then wish to refer to five such men (that is, to five young men), the modificational pattern, or the hierarchy of modification, would probably be as suggested in example 15a:

31 Op. cit., p. 312. 32Fries, The Structure of English, pp. 267-268.

STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

103

15a. five^(young->(men)). Admittedly, the division here is binary, on each layer: five modifies young men, and on the next lower layer young modifies men. But if we have been talking about all kinds of men and wish to refer to five of them who happen also to be young, the modificational pattern in our expression will not be binary, even though English word order still forces us to say the three words in the same sequence as before: 15b.

(men), youngs

Several writers have questioned the validity of immediateconstituent analysis as a theory with general applicability to all English constructions. James Sledd, for example, has made a very cogent criticism of this kind of analysis in pointing out that “its adherents disagree noticeably in their application of the theory.”33 Sledd’s criticism is well founded. The “rules” given by different writers for the division of a nominal into its constituent parts, for example, all seem equally arbitrary. Presumably Fries, Roberts, and Francis would divide the nominal the King of England be¬ tween the first noun and the preposition: 16a. the King / of England Rulon S. Wells accepts the possibility of dividing the nominal after King, as above, but settles on a cut between the and King as the best analysis: 16b. the / King of England Such linguists as H. S. S0rensen and Robert B. Lees seem to feel that in such nominals the definite article and the prepositional phrase together form one constituent. This may be represented in either of the following ways: 16c. the ... of England / King d. the / King / of England None of the arguments offered by the advocates of any of these three analyses is entirely convincing; there seems to be some justification for each. It could be argued, for example, that this

33“A Plea for Pluralism,” College English XXIII (October 1961), 18.

104

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

same nominal should be analyzed differently in each of the follow¬ ing sentences: 17a. She said the / King of England, not the / President of France. b. She said the King / of England, not the King / of Greece. c. She said the / King / of England, not the / Queen / of England. I feel that any series of steps proposed a priori for the division of such constructions into their immediate constituents will inevitably be arbitrary, at least in some details.

7.6 Item and Arrangement There is one other type of linguistic description that at one time enjoyed great favor among structural linguists. Item and arrange¬ ment. In this type of description, the analyst avoids all references to processes: instead of suggesting that a sentence like Percy is ready “changes” to Is Percy ready?to form a question, the analyst merely records the different kinds of items that occur and the order or arrangement of those items in each sentence. But the use of item-and-arrangement analysis fails to show the relationship that obviously exists between two such sentences; nor does it offer any explanation of the relationships existing between different con¬ structions in the same sentence, or of the meanings of such constructions, or of the situations in which such constructions would be used. The mistaken notion held by some linguists that meaning must in no wise be taken into account when making any kind of linguistic analysis has been responsible for many barren studies—studies that have actually offered less insight into the inner functioning of our language than have some of the more traditional descriptions of English written by such “old-fashioned” linguists as Otto Jespersen. Two classic examples of item-and-arrangement analysis are both descriptions of the English verb: one is by Charles F. Hockett, the other by Bernard Bloch.34 Hockett states in his study that his pur¬ pose is to describe and classify the various types of verbal phras¬ es in English. However, the only clues he gives as to the use of one 34Charles F. Hockett, “English Verb Inflection,” Studies in Linguistics I (May 1942), 1.2.11.2.8. Bernard Bloch, “English Verb Inflection,” Language XXIII (October-December 1947), 399-418; reprinted in Readings in Linguistics, Martin Joos, ed. (Washington, D.C.: American Council of Learned Societies, 1957), pp. 243-254.

STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

105

form or another are to be found in the labels that he assigns to the forms: among the verb phrases, for example, he lists the “passive,” the “intensive,” the “simple progressive,” the “passive progres¬ sive,” and so on. In spite of the fact that Hockett’s study was originally prepared for the teaching of English to Latin Americans, no attempt is made to explain the uses of the different forms that he lists. Bloch, on the other hand, specifically disclaims any pedagogi¬ cal intent for his paper. His description of the English verb, like Hockett’s, is largely a listing of different forms: for example, he lists all the irregular “bases” with their alternants and then classifies all the irregular verbs into twenty “conjugation types” on the basis of their inflection classes and their base groups. Although Bloch’s paper has drawn criticism from several quar¬ ters, one cannot but admire the rigor with which he develops his analysis on the basis of the set of axioms that he adopts from the start. A thorough classification of the items of a language is an extremely important contribution to any linguistic study. However, such a description is, by itself, insufficient; an adequate grammar needs not only classification per se, but also explanations of the functions and grammatical meanings of the units that have been classified. Structural descriptions like those referred to above have earned for their authors such epithets as “linguistic taxonomists,”35 sur¬ veying languages from “their bloodless, nerveless, and meatless point of view.”36 These scholars are preoccupied with compiling long lists of categories that are not of any real value until their use and meaning are made clear. For it is, after all, the purpose of a grammar not only to classify the forms of a language but also to explain the uses of those forms and the ways in which they function together to convey meanings.

7.7 Structural Grammar and the Teaching of English The structural revolution in grammar has not spread as rapidly or as widely as many had hoped it would. In the last few years several writers have questioned whether the study of linguistically based grammar—of any kind—can indeed teach students to write more effectively. Admittedly there has been no conclusive evidence of

35William E. Bull, Time, Tense, and the Verb, University of California Publications in Linguis¬ tics, vol. XIX (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960), p. 110. 36Allen Walker Read, “An Account of the Word ‘Semantics,’” Word IV (August 1948), 82.

106

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

any spectacular improvement in the writing of high school students who have studied such books as Roberts’ Patterns of English. Even Roberts himself finally abandoned his faith in the value of linguis¬ tics for improving students’ writing. In a paper that he read at the 1962 convention of the National Council of Teachers of English in Miami Beach, he stated that “it is not to be expected that study of the grammar, no matter how good a grammar it is or how carefully it is taught, will effect any enormous improvement in writing. Probably the improvement will be small and hard to demon¬ strate. . . .” He added, however, that it is valuable for students to learn the grammar because “grammar is the heart of the humani¬ ties, and like other humane studies its ultimate justification is that it informs the mind and teaches its own uses.”37 Certainly there is as much justification for teaching students the facts about their language as there is for teaching them facts about any part of their universe. Furthermore, experiments like the one conducted by Donald R. Bateman with a group of eighth-grade students at the University School, Ohio State University, seem to support Bateman’s contention that the development of a description of the structure of English through modern linguistic procedures would seem to make it possible for students to learn to manage the structures of their language with greater facility. At the same time it seems likely that as their familiari¬ ty with the structures of the language grows they may be able to express more complex relationships of thought in their writing.38 As reported by Bateman, the writing of students who had studied structural grammar “differs structurally in two significant ways: it is much more heavily modified . . . but in addition to this many of the modifiers appear in more complex environments. . . .”39 The contribution of linguistically oriented textbooks is perhaps best summed up in the following quotation from Gleason’s Linguis¬ tics and English Grammar: These new materials are not yet widely known, but their use is spreading. It is not yet possible to claim that results establish their value. Success has been various. Some schools have been well pleased and expect to continue using linguistically oriented materials; others

37Paul Roberts, “Linguistics and the Teaching of Composition,” The English Journal LII (May 1963), 335. 38Donald R. Bateman, “More Mature Writing Through a Better Understanding of Language Structure,” The English Journal L (October 1961), 457. 39Ibid., 459.

STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

107

have been dissatisfied and have returned to the old. The causes, of course, are complex. One important factor is certainly the teachers’ understanding of the books and their underlying viewpoint. They cannot be taught effectively with only the weak background in school grammar that is normal among English teachers. Nevertheless, many have demonstrated that teachers who are willing to make the effort can attain a working familiarity with the “new grammar” by selfeducation. Training in linguistics is still not widely available, but is becoming more accessible. At least as important a factor as knowledge has been attitudes. Lack of commitment has often been contributory to failure, and high enthusiasm to success. All such factors, however, would have similar effects with any new approach, good or bad. It cannot, therefore, be proved that the new materials are superior, but many competent teachers who had better-than-average success with the old have been very favorably impressed with the new and find their satisfaction growing with each reuse. The “new grammar” certainly gives every indication of being a decided improvement.40

The situation has not changed much since Gleason wrote those words in 1965. In pointing to the lack of any great success in the use of structural grammars in the schools, I do not wish to minimize the achieve¬ ments of structural linguists. As James Sledd has said, “The proper study of mankind is man, and there is nothing so basic to our humanity as our language.”41 Any facts about our language that anyone can teach us are worth knowing for their own sake, if for no other reason. I consider Kenneth L. Pike’s analysis of intonation within the framework of phonemic theory42 a contribution of the highest order, for example, as is also Trager and Smith’s description of the terminal “junctures” or “contours” of English. And anyone who reads these pages must recognize my very great indebtedness to Fries. But it seems to me that the conclusions voiced by several writers concerning the relative ineffectiveness of linguistically oriented materials in helping students to improve their writing, may relate only to the type of “grammar” that has been tried. I feel that one reason why the study of one or another of the structural grammars now available has not resulted in more noticeable improvement in students’ writing may be that none of these grammars have em40 Linguistics and English Grammar (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), pp. 21-22. 41 James Sledd, “Grammar or Gramarye?” The English Journal XLIX (May 1960), 297. 42Described in his book The Intonation of American English (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1945).

108

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

phasized the conventions of written English as opposed to those of spoken English: most of the available structural grammars seem to be based on the assumption that “language is speech.”43 There is no reason why a grammar of spoken English should be particu¬ larly helpful in teaching a mastery of written English. But a real understanding of the structure of written English can, I believe, help students both to write more effectively and also to read more effectively.

8 Transformational-Generative Grammar 8.1 A Theory of Language Too often a theory gains widespread acceptance in spite of the lack of any real evidence to substantiate it, or simply because nobody challenges it. The search for knowledge is always benefited when such theories are subjected to constructive criticism or, preferably, are actually tested empirically. One linguistic theorist has attracted much attention in recent years by openly challenging some of the dogmas and widely held “truths” of structural linguis¬ tics. Noam Chomsky, who is generally regarded to be the leader of the school of linguistics known as transformational-generative grammar, first set forth the principles of transformational analysis in Syntactic Structures* 1 and later elaborated and made certain revisions in the theory in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.2 Because of the current popularity of transformational grammar, and because of its widespread use in textbooks, it is necessary to describe this kind of grammar in some detail. The presentation here will be considerably simplified, but it should serve to illustrate the methods and principles used in many transformationally oriented texts—particularly those written for elementary and secondary school classes. (See particularly those school texts listed in the Bibliography under the heading “Linguistically oriented school textbooks.”) At the same time it should be noted that, while school textbooks are still using transformational grammar as it appeared

43 One notable exception is David A. Conlin’s Grammar for Written English (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1961). Conlin’s description of English is “for the writer” and is therefore “focused on the sentence.” He recognizes the fact that “since written communication is not reinforced by rhythms of sound, punctuation serves instead to provide the reader with clues to syntactical relationships” (p. 6). Conlin co-authored one of the best language arts series now available, the American Book Company’s Our Language Today (for grades 1-8); he also co-authored the American Book Company’s high school English series, Modern Grammar and

Composition. 1Syntactic Structures (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1957). 2 Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1965).

TRANSFORMATIONAL-GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

109

in the mid-1960’s, there are currently emerging theoretical posi¬ tions which are quite different from those proposed by Chomsky in what is now considered to be the “standard theory.”3 Although the work of the various splinter groups is of considerable theoretical interest, it is, for the most part, far too abstruse to be pedagogically interesting. It is for this reason that I have chosen (whether wisely or not) to limit the discussion on these pages to an earlier version of transformational grammar instead of discussing the latest avail¬ able versions. Transformational-generative grammar as proposed by Chomsky is significantly different from both traditional prescriptive gram¬ mars and descriptive linguistic grammars since it begins from an entirely different vantage point and has goals that, in many respects, are unrelated to those of other linguistic grammars.4 While generative grammar and transformational grammar are theoretically separate and distinct, I will follow the common prac¬ tice of collapsing the two and use the popular term “transforma¬ tional grammar,” or “TG grammar” (that is, “transformationalgenerative grammar”), for both. The theory of transformational grammar begins with the notion that a grammar of a given language is a theory of that language. The theorist posits an idealized speaker-hearer who, in learning his native language, must internalize a system of rules that relate meaning to sound (or sound to meaning) in certain specified and specifiable ways. That is, in order to explain how a native speaker is able to produce or understand new sentences, including sentences he may never have heard before, it is necessary to assume that he has internalized the grammar rules of his language. The theorist of transformational-generative grammar refers to this internalized knowledge as the speaker’s competence. (Competence is contrasted with performance—the speaker’s actual use of language in a com¬ munication situation.) A man-made grammar, Chomsky says, should duplicate the native speaker’s competence. Thus Chomsky defines a grammar as “a device that generates all of the grammati¬ cal sequences of [a language] and none of the ungrammatical ones.”5 It is important to note that “generate” here does not mean 3See, for example, essays in the collections edited by Bach and Harms, Fillmore and Langendoen, and Jacobs and Rosenbaum listed in the Bibliography. 4It is also quite different from the first form of transformational grammar proposed by Zellig Harris as early as 1952 in a paper entitled “Discourse Analysis” (Language. XXVIII, 1-30). In that paper, Harris discussed the possibility of a method that would facilitate analysis of units larger than the sentence and presented a suggested list of possible transformations needed for such analysis.

5Syntactic Structures, p. 13.

110

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

“to produce” as has been mistakenly assumed in some interpreta¬ tions of TG theory.6 The grammar of a language, then, is a specification of the system of that language. According to the formulation in Chomsky’s Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, the grammar has “a syntactic component, a semantic component, and a phonological component. The latter two are purely interpretive; they play no part in the recursive generation of sentence structures.”7 Because the role of the semantic and the phonological components are not consistently assumed to be part of the “generative mechanism,” I will treat only the syntactic component in the following discussion.

8.2 The Syntactic Component of a TG Grammar Within the syntactic component of the grammar there are two very important sub-components: the base component and the trans¬ formational component. The base component further divides into two major parts: (1) the categorial component, which contains the abstract symbols underlying all sentences and the phrase structure rules that operate on these symbols; and (2) the lexicon for a given language—that is, the total set of words and morphemes. The most important function of the phrase structure rules (the “PS rules”), as originally formulated by Chomsky, was that of defining the rela¬ tionships of the constituents in the base component—that is, of describing the deep structure of a sentence. In more recent gram¬ mars, one finds “tree diagrams” giving phrase structure descrip¬ tions of surface structures as well. The meaning of a sentence, according to this view, is to be found in the deep structure, while the form of that sentence is given in the surface representation. One moves from the abstract symbols of the deep structure to the surface structure, where the abstract symbols are “clothed” with words according to highly specific selectional restrictions.8 This very complex notion can perhaps best be understood by looking at a specific sentence as it is generated by the rules. The first rule in most transformational grammars is the rule that

6Owen Thomas (in press) has suggested that “generate” can best be paraphrased as “enumerate all permissible occurrences,” “define the range of all possibilities,” and “specify what can—and cannot—occur.” 7p. 141. 8See Roderick A. Jacobs and Peter S. Rosenbaum, English Transformational Grammar (Waltham, Mass.: Ginn and Co., 1968), for a further discussion of the kinds of features that restrict lexical entry into the rewriting of the underlying structures.

TRANSFORMATIONAL-GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

111

defines the two major constituents in the deep structure of a sentence: Rule 1. S->NP + VP (Adv) (The arrow in a phrase structure rule is to be read “rewrite . . . as.”) This rule means that we may rewrite a sentence (S) as a noun phrase (NP) plus a verb phrase (VP), both of which are obligatory, and optionally an adverb as well. (Optionality is signified by the surrounding parentheses.) But note that as yet NP and VP are undefined terms; this rewrite rule simply states the relationship between the subject noun phrase and the predicate verb phrase in a sentence. (“Subject of sentence” and “predicate of sentence” are implicit rather than explicitly stated, that is, the first NP in S is considered to be the subject of S, and the VP the predicate.) In other words, the goal here is not to define a structure as such; it is to specify the grammatical relationships within a structure. The next step is to show how to rewrite the VP: Rule 2. VP^ V (NP) This rule says that the verb phrase consists of an obligatory verb and an optional noun phrase. (Some grammars designate this second NP as NP2, which clearly establishes its position in the verb phrase.) Rule 3. NP—> Det + N A noun phrase is rewritten as determiner plus noun. Rule 4. Det—>the, a This rule means that the two determiners usable in this particular sentence are the and a. The complete lexicon of English would contain all of the determiners, including an, that, those, my, etc. Rule 5. N —»boy, window Rule 6. V —» broke Rule 7. Adv —> yesterday Again, only the nouns, verb, and adverb to appear in the generated sentence are given. If we were to put all of the PS rules together, it would be possible to trace the derivational history of the sentence. The usual proce¬ dure is to apply the PS rules in the order stated above, with only one substitution in each rewrite line. In sentences in which there are more than one of any given symbol, the rule must be applied until 112

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

all instances of the symbol are encoded. For example, in the derivation given below, there are two noun phrases in the sentence. For that reason, phrase structure rules 3, 4, and 5 must be repeated to account for the expansion of both noun phrases. The derivation of the sentence A boy broke the window yesterday, then, would look like the following:9 Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule

1. 2. 3. 3. 4. 4. 5. 5.

NP NP Det Det a + a 4a 4-

4- VP + Adv

+ V + NP 4- Adv 4- N + V + NP 4- Adv 4- N + V 4- Det + N 4- Adv N 4- V 4- Det + N 4- Adv N 4- V 4- the + N 4- Adv boy 4- V 4- the + N 4- Adv a 4- boy + V 4- the ■I- window 4- Adv 6. a 4- boy 4- broke 4- the 4- window 4- Adv 7. a 4- boy 4- broke 4- the 4- window 4- yesterday

Each element on either side of the “+” signs above is called a “constituent,” and the constituents added together on any one line constitute what is called a “string.” The final string (see Rule 7 above), which represents the sentence as it is finally generated in the base component, is called the “terminal string.” There is another more graphic way that TG grammarians have of showing the constituent structure of a sentence. The diagram below is an example of what is generally called a “branching tree” or a “derivational tree.” It should be noted that the tree diagram does not give as much of the derivational history of the sentence as s

a

boy

broke

the

window

yesterday

9For an excellent introduction to the writing of transformational grammars, see A. Koutsoudas, Writing Transformational Grammars (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1966). I have followed the procedures suggested by Koutsoudas for introducing lexical items through rewrite rules, even though some TG grammarians introduce such items in other ways.

TRANSFORMATIONAL-GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

113

the derivational rules do. However, most transformational gram¬ marians use the tree diagram because it very quickly demonstrates the constituents and their relationships.10

8.3 Basic Sentences and Derived Sentences The kind of sentences discussed in 8.2 above were originally called “kernel sentences.” While some texts still use this term, others now often refer to such untransformed sentences as “basic sentences.” It is obvious that most sentences in English are much more complicated than the one diagrammed above; it is necessary to operate on the underlying structures of basic sentences in order to generate more complex structures. The means for changing the underlying or deep structures into more complex “derived” surface structures is to be found in the transformational component—the second of the two sub-components within the syntactic component of a grammar. Within the transformational sub-component are a number of transformational rules, most of which either add, delete, or re-order elements. In generating the example basic sentence A boy broke the window yesterday, no mention was made of the obligatory trans¬ formation that must have been performed in order to obtain the past tense broke rather than the base form break. Since most TG grammarians assume tense to be a part of the auxiliary portion of the predicate, it would be necessary to add phrase structure rules 2a and 2b after rule 2: Rule 2a. V —> Aux + Vb Rule 2b. Aux—> tense 4- (modal) + (have + part.) + (be + ing) Then an obligatory transformation would apply to incorporate the tense into the verb. (It is perhaps easier to see the obligatory transformation at work in the affixation transformation. This is stated as Af + Vb => Vb + Af, which says that affix + verb is transformed to verb + affix.* 11 This is a reordering transformation that must be applied before using the morphophonemic rules, which attach the ending to the verb form.) It is possible to formu¬ late several different combinations of Aux + Vb (Rule 2a above), as in examples la through lh below.

10This diagram follows the procedures suggested by Koutsoudas, op. cit., p. 17. 11 The double arrow (^>) is used in transformational rules to distinguish them from the phrase structure rules.

114

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

la. Past 4- break (broke) b. past + may 4 break (might break)

c. past 4- have 4- part. + break (had broken) d. past 4- be + ing 4- break (was breaking) e. past 4- may 4- have + part. 4 break (might have broken)

f. past 4 may 4- be 4 ing + break (might be breaking) g. past 4- have 4 part. 4 be 4 ing 4- break (had been breaking)

h. past 4- may 4- have 4- part. 4 be 4 ing 4 break (might have been breaking)

After a string like example lh has been generated, the affixation transformation is applied to “flip-flop” the elements so that they are in the proper order, as in example 2a below: 2a. part. 4 be=>be 4- part. When the lexical items are inserted, the string becomes: 2b. en 4- be=)>be 4- en Now it is possible to apply the morphophonemic rule that combines the be and the en into been. The same transformational procedure is used in forming breaking where ing 4 break is reordered as break 4 ing and is then combined to form breaking. A derived sentence is one in which an optional transformation (rather than an obligatory one) operates on the underlying phrase marker, which then undergoes structural change. For example, we can derive a passive sentence by performing the (optional) passive transformation on the elements of the underlying structure of a kernel sentence. The discussion of this passive transformation will be easier to follow if we begin by comparing the active sentence with its passive counterpart: 3a. The students will give several reports today. (Active) b. Several reports will be given by the students today. (Passive) To generate a passive sentence, the second noun phrase is shifted from its position in the verb phrase of the active sentence (several reports) to the subject position in the passive; the first noun phrase (the students) is preceded by the preposition by, and the whole phrase is shifted toward the end of the sentence; the original auxiliary (wilt) is retained, but to it is added an appropriate form of be after the auxiliary; this form, in turn, is followed by the en (past participle) form of the verb (given). These operations can be expressed as follows:12 12This is a much simplified version of Chomsky’s rule.

TRANSFORMATIONAL-GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

115

Rule 8. NPx + Aux + V + NP2 + Adv => NP2 + Aux + be + en + V(+ by + NPi) 4- Adv (The parentheses indicate that the by phrase is optional.) Applying this transformation in example 4, we derive the following: 4. the students + will 4- give 4- several reports 4- today =^> several reports 4- will + be 4- en 4- give (+ by 4- the stu¬ dents) + today Then the obligatory transformation Af + v=^v 4- af will “flip” the en affix and the verb, as in example 5, so that further rules can be applied which remove the plus signs and add the proper capitaliza¬ tion and punctuation for a written sentence (or the proper intona¬ tion for a spoken sentence). 5. several reports -I- will 4 be 4 en 4 give (4- by 4- the students) + today several reports 4- will + be 4- give + en (4- by 4- the students) 4- today several reports will be given by the students today =)> Several reports will be given by the students today. Although on the surface the active and passive sentences seem to be quite different, there is at the same time a distinct similarity between the two. Aside from a resemblance in meaning, there is a close grammatical relationship between the active sentence and its passive correlate. This is because both have the same underlying structure, although they differ greatly in their outward written or spoken forms. In other words, the deep structure—the underlying structure—of these active and passive sentences is the same, while the surface structure—the final derived forms—are not. It is also possible to have two sentences whose surface structures are identi¬ cal but that have very different underlying structures. Look, for instance, at example 6a below: 6a. John found the boy studying in the library. The sentence is ambiguous on the surface; two different meanings can be shown by breaking it into different constituents: 6b. John - found - the boy - studying in the library, c. John - found - the boy studying in the library. Example 6b can be roughly paraphrased as “John found the boy and (when he found him) the boy was studying in the library” (as 116

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

opposed to riding his bicycle, for example). This example could also be phrased “The boy was found studying in the library.” Example 6c, however, would be paraphrased as “John found the boy who was studying in the library” (as opposed to some other boy). Chomsky, in discussing the sentences 6b and 6c says: . . . [the] ambiguity of representation could not be demonstrated with¬ out bringing transformational criteria to bear. . . . Hence this is an interesting case of a sentence whose ambiguity is the result of alterna¬ tive transformational developments from the same kernel strings. This is quite a complicated example, however, requiring a fairly detailed study of the way in which transformations assign constituent struc¬ ture, and simpler examples of ambiguity with a transformational origin are not hard to find.13

While it is true that there are “simpler examples of ambiguity” to be found, it is equally true that there are more complex structures to be explained. In addition to the relatively simple rules discussed here, there are many, many rules of varying complexity in a transforma¬ tional grammar of English. According to Chomsky, transforma¬ tional rules for combining sentences must be used to generate any sentences more complex than the traditional “simple sentence”— that is, “compound,” “complex,” or “compound-complex” sen¬ tences. The rules for adding sentences together (as in compounds) are called “conjoining rules,” while the rules for inserting one sentence inside another are referred to as “embedding rules.” Often it is necessary to apply a “deletion rule” when either conjoining or embedding is to be done. In this kind of deletion, some constituent or constituents are removed to facilitate the adding or embedding of the two sentences. Because of problems with earlier descriptions of optional as opposed to obligatory transformations, TG theorists have consider¬ ably altered the description of the base component of the grammar. In recent and currently evolving transformational grammars, such transformations as those for interrogative and negative sentences, formerly regarded as optional, are now regarded as obligatory if the element Q or Neg is selected in the phrase structure. Thus, the first rule for generating a question would be S—» Q + NP + VP (Adv) Once Q is selected, the question transformation is obligatory. To provide for recursiveness, most recent transformational grammars

13 Syntactic Structures, p. 88.

TRANSFORMATIONAL-GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

117

call for the addition of an element labeled S (Sentence) to the other elements in the basic phrase structure. It is possible to choose S at any place where one has the option of choosing either NP or N. In this way, it is possible to insert additional “sentences” into the string without using transformations. While these changes have solved many problems, there are still a number of unanswered questions, some of which will be discussed in section 8.4 below.

8.4 Some Limitations of Transformational-Generative Grammar As was indicated above, perhaps the greatest contribution made by Chomsky to the field of linguistics has been the exploding of linguistic myths rampant in descriptive linguistics, in much the same way the work of the structural linguists provided for new ways of examining language in the 1940’s and 1950’s. As a result of the TG linguists’ focus on linguistic competence, most linguists are presently dealing with language as system rather than insisting, as did the structuralists, that “language is speech.” One of the strengths of transformational grammar has been a direct result of its assumption that, in linguistic analysis, syntax is primary.14 As long ago as 1947, Kenneth L. Pike pointed out that structural linguists who insisted on the primacy of phonological analysis could not analyze the morphology or the syntax of an utterance like /jinjoyt^/ (that is, Did you enjoy it?) without additional information. (The upward-slanting arrow indicates ris¬ ing intonation.) The analysis of the phonemes in that utterance would cut off l]l as one phoneme, but would never suggest that the /j/ could represent two separate words, did and you. As a matter of fact, structural linguists who tried to analyze the syntax of a language after having first analyzed its phonology and morphology separately, often found that they had to “normalize” sentences before they could analyze them syntactically. For example, /jinjoytwould first have to be normalized to something like /didyuwinjoyity'l before its syntax could be explained. Pike accepted the claim that phonemic analysis was primary, but frankly utilized grammatical facts (and even meaning) in his phonemic analyses. To a transformational grammarian, the utterance /jinjoyt/^/ would

14Recently, however, some transformationalists have hypothesized the primacy of semantic structure rather than syntax. There seems to be no indication that Chomsky himself has assumed this position, although his most recent formulations have given much more weight to lexical features than did his earlier works. See particularly, Chomsky’s “Remarks on Nominalization,” in Jacobs and Rosenbaum, op. cit., pp. 184-221.

118

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

present no problem since he would look upon it as only one possible way of pronouncing the string of words did you enjoy it. This in turn would be merely one possible realization of the underlying grammatical sentence Aux + NP 4- V + NP, which, in turn, would be transformed from the structure NP + Aux + V + NP, and so on. In other words, to a transformationalist, the underlying grammar of a sentence is primary; the specific words selected by the speaker, and the way in which he happens to pronounce those words, yield merely one out of the many different possible realizations of the underlying structure of that sentence. Despite Chomsky’s early goal of replacing “obscure reliance on intuition by some rigorous and objective approach”15 in writing grammars of English, and his constant insistence upon the “sim¬ plest” (that is, most efficient) formulations of phrase structure and transformational rules, not all transformational rules (often written as mathematical formulas) seem as “elegantly simple” as they are purported to be. As the underlying structures become “deeper and more abstract,” the complications increase, as can be seen in one example cited by Bach and Harms: The surface sentence Floyd broke the glass is composed of no less than eight sentences. The form of this underlying structure may be indicat¬ ed by a quasi-paraphrase: I declare to you that it past that it happen

that Floyd do cause it to come about that it BE the glass broken.16 While this example is extreme and would certainly never appear in pedagogical materials, the most conservative listing of transforma¬ tional procedures for generating a relatively simple sentence would be awe-inspiring to many students, and possibly to their teachers as well. Consider, for example, sentence 7a. 7a. A child and a chimp who live near me can speak the Russian language fluently. In order to generate sentence 7a, a TG grammarian would perform something like the following operations. (Remember that each sentence to be combined is assumed to have the underlying struc¬ ture described on p. 112, that is, S —»NP + VP [ + Adv].) 7b. A child can speak the language fluently, c. A chimp can speak the language fluently.

15Syntactic Structures, p. 94 16Emmon Bach and Robert T. Harms, Universals in Linguistic Theory (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968). Preface, p. viii.

TRANSFORMATIONAL-GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

119

Transformational Rule 1: Conjoin sentences 7b and 7c. d. A child can speak the' language fluently and a chimp can speak the language fluently. T Rule 2: Delete the predicate of conjoined segment from e. f.

g. h.

sentence 7b. A child and a chimp can speak the language fluently. The language is Russian. T Rule 3: Prepose adjective from predicate to position before noun in NP of sentence 7f. the Russian language A child and a chimp can speak the Russian language flu¬ ently.

i. A child lives near me. j. A chimp lives near me. T Rule 4: Conjoin sentences 7i and 7j. k. A child lives near me and a chimp lives near me. T Rule 5: Delete predicate of conjoined segment from sen¬ tence 7i. l. A child and a chimp live near me. T Rule 6: Relativize the conjoined noun phrases. m. who live near me T Rule 7: Embed sentence 7m after conjoined noun phrase in sentence 7h. n. A child and a chimp who live near me can speak the Rus¬ sian language fluently. In this derivation of example sentence 7a, much of the deep structure of that sentence is hidden. The underlying structure of a sentence is far more abstract than it appears to be here. It is important to keep in mind the three original kinds of rules defined by Chomsky: the phrase structure rules, which generate the deep and intermediate structures; the transformational rules, which reorder the elements of the deep structure and produce the surface representation; and the morphophonemic or morphographemic rules, which combine the morphemes in the surface structure and show how they may be pronounced or written as sentences. Of these three types of rules, both the morphophonemic/graphemic rules and the phrase structure rules use a methodology similar to that used by structural linguists in performing immediate constituent analysis, and, therefore, reveal some of the same shortcomings to be found in all immediate-constituent analysis. (See section 7.5 above.) The rationale for choosing constituent and word boundaries is seldom 120

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

given, and the main source of confirmation of choice seems to be governed by the intuition of the linguist. This problem would not be considered a limitation of TG grammar were it not for the fact that many TG grammarians severely criticize the “phrase structure grammars” of other linguistic schools for their inadequacy; one would expect, therefore, to find greater objectivity in a generative formulation. Even though the phrase structure part of a TG grammar gives few fresh insights useful in analyzing or in the teaching of a language, the notion of transformations (if not the formal trans¬ formational operations as discussed in theoretical works) is a useful one in dealing with the combining of two or more basic sentences. For example, as I have pointed out elsewhere, perhaps the simplest way of explaining example 8a is by showing the embed¬ ding of a sentence such as 8b into sentence 8c through the use of transformations. 8a. I heard John calling. b. John was calling. c. I heard ( ). This kind of embedding of one sentence in another is a salient feature of English, and one which is perhaps best explained as a transformation. Good writers make greater use of transformed sentences than do poor writers. Even poor writers probably use more transformed sentences in their writing than they do in their speech. A person who is telling a story can avoid monotony by changes in stress and intonation, but a good writer achieves variety largely by means of the skillful utilization of different kinds of transformations. The passage in example 9a, for instance, would probably be considered poorly written—or at least less well written than the sample in 9b, although the former might well hold our attention in a conversa¬ tion: 9a. Another car was parked next to Mr. Baxter’s car. Mr. Baxter had made a dent in the fender of the other car. Mr. Baxter saw the dent. He glanced around nervously, and then he moved his car to the opposite side of the parking lot. b. On seeing the dent he had made in the fender of the car parked next to his own, Mr. Baxter glanced around nervously, then moved his car to the opposite side of the parking lot. The use of transformations, one of the most important kinds of TRANSFORMATIONAL-GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

121

devices available to writers, is largely responsible for the greater variety in the second sample. What is questionable is whether the transformational rules as stated really reflect the actual operations used by speakers of a given language. Most questions arise as a direct result of the basic theoretical assumption that operations are always performed upon complete sentences. Thus such an expression as the tall boy is said to be derived from The boy is tall. It is difficult to understand why Chomsky states that “this transformation simplifies the grammar considerably,” since it has to be qualified by several other rules to prevent the generating of such a phrase as the main reason from * The reason is main. As a matter of fact, one example of a possible current trend toward derivation in the opposite direction can be seen in such statements as That person is key (to the operation), which undoubtedly comes into the language by way of the key person. Again, while there is no problem in generating Wilt Cham¬ berlain is taller than Goliath (was tall), it is difficult to believe that Mickey Rooney is shorter than Wilt Chamberlain could be derived from Mickey Rooney is shorter than Wilt Chamberlain is short: surely nobody would say Wilt Chamberlain is short. Many TG grammarians would plead that truth value has little to do with sentence derivation; at the same time they would reject as “unac¬ ceptable” the sentence My typewriter is unhappy on the grounds that unhappy requires a human subject. A similar problem arises in such phrases as in the dirty army boots, which could be found in a sentence like That kid in the dirty army boots is my son. The implication is that the sentences from which this sentence is derived would be something like That kid is my son; that kid is in army boots; boots are dirty; but also boots are army. Part of the problem inherent in the examples above stems from the fact that TG grammar does not provide for the generating of construction types apart from full sentences, so that all prepositional phrases or adjective phrases, as well as verb phrases and noun phrases, are conceived of as being initially parts of whole sentences. Structural ambiguities are all described in terms of the whole sentences they are derived from, and it is tacitly assumed by TG linguists that there is no other way of explaining embedding and disambiguation. It will be shown in Part IV of this text that there are, indeed, other ways of approaching grammar that are in some respects more elegant and in most respects simpler than those advocated here, particularly for the purpose of describing language in use. And so we come full circle from the major strength of TG grammar 122

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

mentioned at the beginning of this section and find that it also imposes the greatest limitations upon the usefulness of TG gram¬ mar in the classroom. In treating language as a system, Chomsky and his fellow theoreticians have not claimed applicability of the theory to actual language performance. In fact, quite to the contra¬ ry, Chomsky clearly states his position in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax: To avoid what has been a continuing misunderstanding, it is perhaps worth while to reiterate that a generative grammar is not a model for a speaker or a hearer. . . . When we say that a sentence has a certain derivation with respect to a particular generative grammar, we say nothing about how the speaker or hearer might proceed, in some practical or efficient way, to construct such a derivation.17

One possible reason for the “continuing misunderstanding," how¬ ever, is directly related to the fact that while the disclaimer for applicability to language performance is being made, textbooks by the dozens are being produced using TG theory for purposes of analyzing and correcting various aspects of performance. It seems strange that a theoretical system that claims—as TG theory does— that human beings have an innate knowledge of grammatical structure should have been so widely adopted by psychologists and educators for these purposes. Transformational-generative theory is vulnerable to attack on purely theoretical grounds, as can be seen in Charles F. Hockett’s State of the Art,18 but what is of greatest concern here is the possible misuse of a theory that, even with its limitations, provides invaluable insights into the nature of a grammar. There is little doubt that a transformational grammar is a more powerful gram¬ mar than a purely descriptive one, if only because the latter is generally concerned only with sentences that have already been written or spoken, whereas the former considers all possible sen¬ tences, including sentences that have not yet been uttered.

9 Tagmemic Grammar 9.1 The Tagmeme One of the most promising approaches to the study of grammar is to be found in tagmemic analysis, which has developed out of a

17 Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, p. 9. 18The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1968.

TAGMEMIC GRAMMAR

123

model originally introduced by Kenneth L. Pike in the 1950’s. Pike had been both a student and colleague of Fries’s at the University of Michigan and was familiar with Fries’s test-frame (or slot-andfiller) technique for identifying word classes.1 However, Pike ap¬ plied the technique to the analysis of “fillers” that included units larger than words (that is, constructions) on higher layers in the grammatical hierarchy of a sentence. But Pike eventually came to the conclusion that the basic units of grammar could neither be expressed in terms of function alone, in such strings as S + P + O, nor in terms of form alone, in such strings as N + V + N, but demanded that both function and form be expressed, in such strings as S: N + P: V + O: N which is read as “subject slot filled by a noun phrase, predicate slot filled by a verb phrase, and object slot filled by a noun phrase.”2

The basic unit of grammar, Pike reasoned, must be “a correlation of function and form, the correlation of a grammatical function or slot with the list of mutually substitutable fillers that fill that slot.”3 Look, for instance, at the following example: 1. That boy in the yellow shirt dislikes that boy in the blue shirt. The two italicized units in this example have the same form: they are both noun phrases. Yet they function in different ways; the first functions as the subject of its sentence, while the second functions as the object of the verb. It would be insufficient, therefore, to analyze either unit simply in terms of its form; to do so would be to overlook the correlation between the form and its particular func¬ tion in the given sentence. As a matter of fact, in Pike’s postulation, the grammatical units realized by the italicized noun phrases in the example above are not the same. The grammatical unit realized by the first noun phrase is the unit “S:N”; the grammatical unit realized by the second phrase is the unit uO:N.” To units like these, which Pike posited as the fundamental units in grammar (corresponding to phonemes in phonology and morphemes in morphology), Pike gave the name tagmemes, from the Greek word tagma meaning “arrangement.” (It should be noted that emphasis in Pike’s theory is “upon grammati-

'See section 7.4 above. 2Walter A. Cook, S. J., Introduction to Tagmemic Analysis (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), p. 7. 3 Ibid.

124

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

cal UNITS rather than upon grammatical RELATIONS.” In this theory, ascending levels of analysis “must be replaced by a hier¬ archical view in which there is an interlocking between the three hierarchies of lexical structure, phonological structure, and gram¬ matical structure.”4) Tagmemic grammar is thus able to offer a solution to a problem that has plagued many teachers of English: the problem of whether to call the word amusement, for example, in a construction like an amusement park, a noun or an adjective. In form amusement is a noun, and like most nouns it can take a plural ending: amuse¬ ments. But in function it is here adjectival (although we cannot say *a very amusement park). Many English teachers would claim that in this construction amusement is “a noun used as an adjec¬ tive,” in other words, they would unwittingly describe it in quasitagmemic terms. To a tagmemicist this would not be begging the issue; he would say that indeed in this construction amusement manifests the tagmeme “adjective slot filled by a noun.” And he would insist, furthermore, that such a tagmeme is more truly a basic grammatical unit than either the form-class or the position (or function) alone. The function of a unit in an English sentence is primarily determined by the position that unit occupies in the sentence. For instance, an English sentence contains positions for such func¬ tional units as adverbials, a subject, a verb, an object, and so on. These positions occur in a relatively fixed sequence: the subject position, for example, generally precedes the verb position, and the object position generally follows the verb position. When we identi¬ fy the position that a unit occupies in a sentence, therefore, we are, in effect, also describing the function of that unit. Thus, in tag¬ memic grammar, form-classes are defined in part as classes of items that can occur in (or fill) certain positions in the sentence. The verb class, for example, is defined by its occurrence in a grammati¬ cal slot, the predicate slot, not by its reference to “an action or state of being.”5 4Kenneth L. Pike, “On Tagmemes, Nee Gramemes,” International Journal of American Linguistics XXIV (October 1958), 278. 5Benjamin Elson and Velma Pickett, An Introduction to Morphology and Syntax (Santa Ana, Calif.: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1962), p. 68. In many languages, however, the sequence of positions for the functional units in a sentence is much less fixed than is the sequence of positions in an English sentence. In such languages, “functional positions” (or “slots”) may be marked not by the sequence in which they occur, but by such formal signals as following (or preceding) particles or function words, inflections (i.e., suffixes, prefixes, infixes, or other changes in form), or even changes in pitch (tones). It is for this reason that Robert E. Longacre, a leading exponent of tagmemic theory, has suggested the use of the term “function’ instead of “slot.” He has also suggested the use of the term “set” instead of “class (of fillers),” so that

TAGMEMIC GRAMMAR

125

As was pointed out above, two or more fillers of the same form filling different kinds of grammatical slots manifest different tagmemes. By the same token, different kinds of fillers occurring in the same grammatical slot also manifest different tagmemes. The italicized construction in example 2a, for instance, manifests a different tagmeme from the italicized construction in example 2b, even though each fills the subject slot in its own sentence: 2a. An ice-cold shower can be very invigorating, b. Taking an ice-cold shower can be very invigorating. These two subjects manifest different tagmemes because they belong to different construction-types: the subject an ice-cold shower is a noun phrase; the subject taking an ice-cold shower is a participle phrase, which manifests the tagmeme “Subject: par¬ ticiple phrase,” or “S:PP”.* * * 6 Similarly, the noun phrase last Sunday manifests different tag¬ memes in examples 3a and 3b since it fills a different grammatical slot in each sentence: 3a. Last Sunday was a nice, warm day. b. Last Sunday Percy went for a walk in the park. In example 3a last Sunday fills the subject slot and manifests the tagmeme “Subject: noun phrase,” while in example 3b last Sunday fills the pre-subject (or front adverbial) slot and manifests a tag¬ meme that may be expressed by the notation “Front adverbial: noun phrase” (or “FA:NP”). Although this description of tagmemic theory is admittedly over¬ simplified, it can be seen that tagmemicists consider a sentence (or any other construction) to consist not of a succession of words in linear sequence, like beads on a string, but rather of a succession— or string—of constituent tagmemes, each of which may in turn be made up of a string of lower-level tagmemes. The most common kinds of English sentences might be repre¬ sented in tagmemic notation by a formula like the following: ±FA:NP/PrP/PP/Cl + S:NP + NP/PrP/PP ± EA:NP/PrP/PP/Cl

V:VP

±

0:NP/PP/C1

±

Cs:

In this formula obligatory elements are preceded by a “+” sign, tagmemicists now often refer to “function-set correlation” instead of “slot-class correlation.” (See Longacre, “Some Fundamental Insights of Tagmemics,” Language XLI [January-March 1965], 65, especially fn. 3.) 6In traditional grammar, a phrase like taking an ice-cold shower would be called a gerund phrase instead of a participle phrase.

126

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

optional elements by a “±” sign. “PrP” stands for prepositional phrase, “Cl” for clause, “V” for verbal slot, “VP” for verb phrase, “O” for object slot, “Cs ” for slots for complements other than the object, and “EA” for the end adverbial slot. (The other symbols have the designations already given to them above.) Slashes are used to separate the symbols representing the different kinds of fillers that may fill a given slot: the formula states, for example, that the optional front adverbial slot may be filled by a noun phrase, a prepositional phrase, a participle phrase, or a clause. It should be noted that each of the elements represented in the formula—each of the units preceded by a “+” or “±” sign—is a tagmeme, that is, a slot-filler correlative. Some tagmemicists would simplify the formula by indicating only the slots, as follows: ±FA + S + V ± O ± CS±EA In most tagmemic analyses great emphasis is placed upon the concept of “levels” within grammar. In fact, Robert Longacre, who is credited with having developed this concept, considers “the emphasis on explicit, systemic hierarchy” to be one of the “four fundamental insights of tagmemics.”7 Elson and Pickett state that “it is convenient to recognize several levels in a grammatical hierarchy at which tagmemes and constructions may be identified and described. One may then focus his analysis on any of these levels. This allows for greater ease in analysis and more flexibility in description.”8 Although tagmemicists generally agree that the specific number of levels to be recognized cannot be set for lan¬ guage in general, they describe as illustrative of some languages the “sentence level,” the “clause level,” the “phrase level,” the “word level,” and the “morpheme level” (or “stem level”).

9.2 Some Limitations of Tagmemic Grammars9 It is understandable that tagmemic grammarians should want to keep the number of levels to be described for any language to a bare minimum in order to simplify their description. It is also under¬ standable that in the description of a given language they should prefer to have all the different kinds of clauses described together in 7 Op. cit., p. 65. 8 Op. cit., p. 59. 9I first pointed out several of these limitations in 1967 at the Eighteenth Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Studies at Georgetown University. See the Georgetown Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics, No. 20 (Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1967), pp. 160-162.

TAGMEMIC GRAMMAR

127

one place in the grammar, all the different kinds of phrases described together in another place, and so on. But it seems to me that Longacre, in his desire to identify those patterns that occur most frequently and in many different languages, has tried to compress the dozen or more different kinds of levels to be found in the grammatical hierarchy of English into the four or five levels that most tagmemic grammarians always seem to find in other languages. Although it is interesting to find similarities between English and other languages, over-simplification may result in the failure to note certain significant features. An example may help to make this point clearer. Longacre rightly makes much of the function of a given class. “The tagmeme concept,” he says, “restores function to its rightful place in gram¬ mar.” 10 But surely the function of a prepositional phrase is so very different from that of a noun construction that the two cannot really occur on the same level, at least in English. A prepositional phrase is marked by the preposition that introduces it and normally con¬ sists of a preposition plus a noun construction: a noun construction, then, belongs to a set that fills one of the two slots in a prepositional phrase and must occur on a different level from that of the phrase. And yet Longacre treats both noun constructions and prepositional phrases as being on “the phrase level.” In the sentence Hearing a low groan, Arthur Bates, the night watchman, turned on his flashlight, the noun clusters a low groan, the night watchman, and his flashlight all seem to be on lower levels than the subject Arthur Bates: they are all parts of predications that are being made about Arthur Bates. It is signifi¬ cant, I think, that Ruth Crymes, in her study Some Systems of Substitution Correlations in Modern American English,n found that she had to assume—as does sector analysis—the existence of at least one predicatival level between the phrase and clause levels, just as she had to distinguish between the cluster and phrase levels. She has shown that English has a well developed substitute system for the entire predicate (that is, for the verb plus its complements) quite distinct from the substitutes for the verb alone, or from those for noun constructions alone, and even from those for whole clauses. Indeed, in spite of Longacre’s claim that the tagmeme restores

10 Grammar Discovery Procedures (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1964), p. 16. n some Systems of Substitution Correlations in Modern American English (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1968).

128

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

function to its rightful place, most tagmemic analyses fail to show much more about the function of a given construction-type than the various kinds of slots it can fill. In analyzing specific sentences, tagmemic grammarians identify the various slots that are filled and the constructions that fill them, but they usually say little or nothing about the relationships between one tagmeme and another. For example, in spite of his claim that “the goal of tagmemic analysis is not simply to isolate constituents but to reveal relations,”12 Longacre segments the clause The slow, lumbering covered wagon pulled the pioneer’s family across the prairie just yesterday into “functional segments which manifest five clause-level tagmemes (probably actor, action, goal, locational-directional, and temporal).” However, he says no more about the relation of the predicate to the subject or of the object to the verb than can be inferred from the labels “actor,” “action,” and “goal.”13 And yet the relationship of one tagmeme to one or more other tagmemes is as much a part of its function as the position it occupies on a specific level. The five segments into which Longacre cuts his sentence about the covered wagon are the following: The slow lumbering covered wagon, pulled, the pioneer’s family, across the prairie, and just yesterday. Longacre admits that he argues “from EXPAN¬ SIONS”;14 his justification for cutting this particular clause into five segments is that “this sentence can be shown to be homologous to a shorter sentence with five similar unexpanded parts: John sold gum downtown yesterday, wherein John is analogous to the slow lumbering covered wagon; sold is analogous to pulled; and so on.”15 But the original clause can also be shown to be homologous to John ate downtown yesterday, which would suggest that the verb pulled plus its object the pioneer’s family should together be treated as only one constituent, analogous to ate. Or, to push the argument even further, the original clause can be shown to be homologous to John departed yesterday, which would suggest that the entire predication pulled the pioneer’s family across the prairie should be treated as a single constituent, analogous to departed. Mere similarity to some other sentence provides insuf¬ ficient justification for dividing a sentence in one way rather than another. The only safe kind of analysis is a reductive analysis proceeding from the highest layer of structure to lower and still 12“Some Fundamental Insights of Tagmemics,” p. 66. 13“String Constituent Analysis,” Language XXXVI (January-March 1960), 63-88. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid.

TAGMEMIC GRAMMAR

129

lower layers—an analysis in which each constituent of a structure is taken out of the larger construction and is examined by itself on a lower layer for its own internal form. Such a reductive analysis would have enabled Longacre to recognize the pioneer’s as consti¬ tuting a single unit within the noun construction the pioneer’s family and would have saved him from erroneously segmenting the pioneer’s family into the three segments the, pioneer’s, and family. Compare my sister’s cats, where the my very clearly belongs with sister’s, not with cats. (A fuller description of this possessive construction-type appears in section 13.2.2 below.) Another serious shortcoming in Longacre’s description, a short¬ coming to be found in most if not all descriptions based on expan¬ sive rather than reductive analysis, is that no allowance is made for positions that might happen to be unfilled in a given sentence. As has already been pointed out, no analysis of English can be truly satisfactory unless it allows for unfilled or vacant positions.

9.3 Some Applications of Tagmemic Theory Tagmemic theory has been largely ignored by most American linguists, in spite of the fact that a much larger number of the less well-known languages of South America, Africa, and Australia have been analyzed by the application of tagmemic techniques than by the techniques of any other school of linguistics. Recently, however, tagmemics has begun to attract more attention among linguists, both in this country and abroad. There is already some evidence to indicate that tagmemic-type grammars can be taught to beginning language students more easily and more effectively— and even at an earlier age—than any other equally sophisticated type of grammar. Tagmemic analysis has a distinct advantage over transforma¬ tional analysis in that the former is designed to provide the analyst with discovery procedures for identifying the grammatical units in previously unknown or unstudied languages. Transformational grammar makes no such claims. In fact Chomsky asserts that the ultimate aim of a transformational-generative grammar is not to provide a practical discovery procedure for grammars, but rather “to provide an objective, non-intuitive way to evaluate a grammar once presented, and to compare it with other proposed gram¬ mars.” 16 16 Syntactic Structures (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1957), p. 56.

130

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

Tagmemicists are among the very few grammarians who have addressed themselves to the analysis of units larger than the sentence.17 Pike himself has long been interested in the analysis of puns and short poems; Alton Becker has studied the different kinds of sentences that occur in various slots within a paragraph. Richard E. Young, Becker, and Pike have based a rhetoric for undergradu¬ ate students on some of the concepts of tagmemic theory.18 Tagmemic theory has relevance for much more than just the study of grammar, however, and even for more than just the study of language. In his monumental book on language,19 Pike applies tagmemic theory to the analysis of various facets of human behav¬ ior, especially communicative behavior. Taking the endings -emic and -etic from the terms phonemic and phonetic, Pike applies the label emic to items of behavior that are significant in the process of communication (that is, items that signal some kind of meaning) and the label etic to items of behavior that are not significant as communication. Just as the contrast between two sounds may be emic in one language but etic in another, so also the contrast between two items of behavior may be emic in one culture and etic in another. In the United States, for example, it makes no differ¬ ence whether you hail a bus by holding up your left hand or your right hand: the contrast between the use of the left hand and that of the right hand is etic. But in many Moslem countries it would be insulting, or at the least extremely rude, to hail a bus with your left hand: in such countries the contrast between the use of the left hand and that of the right hand is emic. For an act of behavior to be meaningful, or emic, it must be perceived in the context in which it occurs. For example, raising your left hand is not meaningful in and of itself: you might be raising it as part of the process of stretching. The act of raising your hand is merely potentially meaningful, for it is only when you raise your left hand as a communicative signal in a specific context, as

17See, for example, Tagmemics: The Study of Units Beyond the Sentence (reprinted from College Composition and Communication, May and October 1964; Champaign, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1964). 18Rhetoric: Discovery and Change (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970). 19 Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, 2nd rev. ed. (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1967). Pike believes that all the properties of language cannot be adequately described within the framework of a single narrow theory. Just as some of the properties of light can best be described within the framework of particle theory, while other properties can best be described within the framework of wave theory, and still others within the framework of field theory, so also the various properties of language can be described most completely partly in terms of particles, partly in terms of waves and partly in terms of fields. He works these three types of description into his own overall “trimodal” tagmemic theory.

TAGMEMIC GRAMMAR

131

when hailing a bus or a taxi, that the act takes on a specific meaning and becomes emic. This same distinction applies in tagmemic theory. Specific gram¬ matical meanings are a function of tagmemes, not of forms alone. A given form is not meaningful until it is perceived in correlation with the slot in which it occurs. For instance, a word like lighthas only potential meaning ( or meanings); the specific meaning that the word may have for any given occurrence depends upon the slot or context in which it occurs. In a noun slot it will have one meaning (or rather, one of two possible meanings, depending upon the kind of noun required by the slot); in a verb slot it will have another meaning; in an adjective slot it will have still another meaning. Compare, for example, the different meanings of light in example 4: 4. Needing some light to see by, the burglar crossed the room with a light step to light the light with the light green shade. The definitions in our dictionaries are basically tagmemic defini¬ tions. When a dictionary gives one definition for “light (n.)” and another definition for “light (adj.),” it is stating in effect that the word light in a noun slot has one meaning, while the word light in an adjective slot has a different meaning.20 Tagmemic theory also has implications for the teaching of begin¬ ning reading and the teaching of spelling. The letter g, for example, commonly has the pronunciation that it has in the words gave and go; however, when it occurs in a pre-e or a pre-i slot (as in gem and gin), it is regularly pronounced like the j in just. (But in certain specific words, such as get and give, it keeps its /g/ sound in spite of the following e or i.) In a pre-n slot g signals no sound at all, as in gnaw; in combination with h it may signal no sound, as in night, or it may signal the sound of f, as in rough. In each case it is not the letter g alone that signals one or another pronunciation, but rather the letter g in combination with the context in which it occurs. (The significant part of the context may be no more than the following letter, or it may be the whole word.) It is not true, as some phonics readers seem to suggest, that the sound of a heard in a word like bat is signaled by the letter a alone: in the word bated the letter a has

20From a tagmemic point of view, it makes little difference whether all the light’s in example 4 are the same word or different words: they all fill different kinds of slots and would therefore signal different meanings, even if they were the same word.

132

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

quite a different pronunciation. Nor is it only the letter a plus the following e that signal the name sound of a in bated: there are both an a and a following e in the word batter, but here the a has reverted to its basic sound. Again, the letter a regularly signals still another pronunciation when it occurs before r, as in bar, and still a fourth pronunciation when it occurs before double l, as in ball. After w, however, it signals still different pronunciations, as in wad and water and war. The significant part of the context in which a occurs may be stress or lack of stress: in haven, where the a is stressed, it has its name sound, but in avenge, where it is un¬ stressed, it has its reduced (schwa) sound. On the other hand, as in the case of g, it may be the whole word that functions as the significant context: compare anger with danger, or nation with national. Unlike the spelling (or pronunciation) systems of those languages in which each written symbol represents one and only one phoneme, the spelling and pronunciation of English are prob¬ ably best taught tagmemically. Tagmemic theory also has implications for arithmetic. The deci¬ mal system is based on the concept of tagmemes (although, of course, the term “tagmemes” had not been coined when the deci¬ mal system was invented). The same form—for example, the digit 2—signals different meanings depending upon the slot in which it occurs: in the numeral 312 the 2 signals two units; in 321 it signals two tens; in 231 it signals two hundreds; in 31.2 it signals two tenths. Tagmemic theory can even be used to explain certain sociological and psychological phenomena. For example, one might say that the protocol at formal social functions is based on tagmemic theory. Hostesses often pay great attention to the seating of their guests since the positions, or “slots,” to the right and left of the host and hostess—when viewed in relation to the persons seated in them— convey special social meanings. And the role-playing so often discussed in psychology texts is in a way merely an extension of tagmemic theory: the same man in different roles—as a son, as a father, as a bank manager, as a neighbor, as a Rotarian, as one of several guests at a party—is actually “manifesting” different “tag¬ memes,” and may be said to have different significations or mean¬ ings depending upon the different positions he fills, or the different contexts in which he performs. It is largely for this reason that persons who see him in different contexts may have such divergent opinions about him.

TAGMEMIC GRAMMAR

133

9.4 Structural Ambiguity Tagmemic grammar offers a very cogent way of explaining the structural ambiguity that commonly results when a given construc¬ tion could occur in either of two adjacent positions of which only one is filled. A tagmeme, as we have seen, is the correlation between a position and the construction filling that position; its meaning, therefore, is expressed by this correlation, not by the construction alone. It follows that the occurrence of the same construction in different positions will result in tagmemes of differ¬ ing meaning. This kind of structural ambiguity can best be illustrated by an example to be found outside of language. Structural ambiguity often occurs when there are several place settings on a dinner table, especially a round dinner table. These place settings form patterns, that is, designs made up of elements arranged in a certain way, and repeated again and again like those in a fabric or in certain kinds of wallpaper. Even if a person had never seen place settings like those pictured below and therefore did not know which items of table¬ ware marked the outer boundaries of one setting, he would be able to determine the number of settings by identifying the number of repeated patterns:

But in this illustration one item is missing from each setting that might very well appear on the table even before the guests were invited to sit down: the dish for the salad. The salad plate, it seems is a “shiftable” item; although it may have a favored place with respect to the rest of the setting, it sometimes turns up to the left of the setting and sometimes to the right. This means that the membership of a salad plate placed between two settings, as in the illustration below, is often in doubt: it might belong to either one of the two settings. The “meaning” of the salad plate is, as it were, ambiguous.

134

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

The big difference between language patterns and the patterns of place settings is that the latter are repeated arrangements of specific items, while language patterns are repeated arrangements of similar types of items (similar kinds of words or constructions). The shortest possible kind of prepositional phrase, for example, is made up of two words of which the first is a preposition and the second a noun or a pronoun, as in to Percy or to him. Prepositional phrases of this kind occur repeatedly in English sentences, but that is not the same as saying that these specific words occur repeatedly. It is the specific arrangement of these kinds of words that occurs repeatedly. (It is for this reason that it is so much more important, when learning a language, to learn to recognize the different kinds of words and the different kinds of constructions than it is merely to learn a large number of different words.) In English, ambiguity occurs more frequently in connection with constructions appearing in the second half of a sentence than with constructions appearing in the first half. This is primarily due to the fact that in the last half of a sentence several of the positions may be filled by constructions having the same form. A person hearing or reading a sentence usually has little difficulty in recognizing the boundary line between a subject and a following auxiliary or verb because of the change from nominal material to verbal material. In the part of a sentence following the verb, however, there are no such clear-cut lines of demarcation between one kind of material and another. A phrase, for example, may occur as part of an object, as in You should capitalize the J in January; or it may occur as the complement of a verb, as in Percy’s birthday falls in January; or it may occur as an adverbial, as in We have a week’s vacation in

January. Most if not all of the cases of structural ambiguity discussed by Fries in The Structure of English, as well as most of those discussed by Chomsky in Syntactic Structures, can probably be explained in terms of uncertainties about positions. Our un¬ certainty about the position in which a given construction belongs results from the fact that in a complete sentence almost any position except the subject position may remain unfilled. Thus when we see or hear a construction that may occur in either of two adjacent (or nearly adjacent) positions, and one of these positions is unfilled, we cannot always be sure which position the construction belongs in. Then, since we cannot determine what tagmeme is being manifested, we are at a loss as to the specific meaning of the

TAGMEMIC GRAMMAR

135

construction. The following is an example of just such an ambigu¬ ous sentence: 5. The union accepted Saturday morning. The pressure of English word order is such that at first glance we are likely to assume that the construction Saturday morning is the object of the verb accepted. But actually, two different analyses are possible: it may be that the union accepted Saturday morning as the time at which something was to happen, or it may be that the union accepted the terms offered by the company on Saturday morning. We can show the difference between these two analyses in this way: Object Adverbial 6a. The union finally accepted Saturday morning, b. The union finally accepted Saturday morning. Another common kind of ambiguity results from the confusion of what we may call sentence adverbials with predicate adverbials. A sentence adverbial makes a predication (or says something) about the rest of its sentence, as in On Saturday Percy finally made up his mind, where on Saturday makes a predication about Percy finally made up his mind. A sentence adverbial may either precede or follow the rest of its sentence: we may say either On Saturday Percy finally made up his mind or Percy finally made up his mind on Saturday. However, even when a sentence adverbial follows the predicate, it is not part of that predicate; it is outside of the predicate. A predicate adverbial, on the other hand, is part of the predicate, and it makes a predication only about the rest of the predicate, not about the whole sentence. For example, in the sentence Percy went for a walk in the snow, in the snow makes a predication only about went for a walk, not about Percy went for a walk. (We would not usually say, except for literary effect, In the snow Percy went for a walk. Such a phrase is not normally shiftable, since it is part of the predicate.) In a sentence in which only one adverbial occurs at the end of the predicate, the reader may be unable to tell whether the adverbial is part of the predicate or outside it. Example 7 illustrates this kind of ambiguity: 7. Percy finally decided to run away from home on Monday. This sentence may mean that Percy’s decision was to run away

136

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

from home on Monday, in which case on Monday would be part of the predicate. Or the sentence may mean that Percy reached his decision on Monday, in which case on Monday would be a sentence adverbial. The fact that there are really two separate adverbial positions may be demonstrated by placing a different adverbial in each: 8. Percy finally decided to run away from home on Monday on

Saturday. In this case there is no doubt that on Monday is a predicate adverbial (meaning that the running away would take place on Monday), and that on Saturday is a sentence adverbial (meaning that Percy reached his decision on Saturday). In spoken English the distinction between a predicate adverbial and a sentence adverbial is often signaled by a terminal contour (that is, by a slight dip in one’s voice), which can be inserted before a sentence adverbial but not before a predicate adverbial. However, a speaker does not usually insert this terminal contour before a sentence adverbial, especially in a short sentence, unless he is aware of the possibility of ambiguity, as in the next example. A person hearing the sentence in example 9a spoken with a terminal contour before happily would probably take the sentence to mean that it was a fortunate thing that the old man died; but if the sentence were spoken without a terminal contour before happily, as in example 9b, the hearer might take the meaning to be that the old man was happy when he died. Pred. Adverbial 9a. The old man died b. The old man died

Sent. Adverbial happily.

happily.

One way of resolving the ambiguity in any sentence is to consult the writer of that sentence. But, of course, this is rarely possible. Therefore, in the absence of such an authoritative source, only one solution seems possible: either—or both—of the two possible analy¬ ses must be accepted as correct. In other words, one interpreter may correctly take the sentence to mean one thing, while another may correctly take it to mean something else. As long as both interpreta¬ tions are justified by the linguistic evidence, and as long as no contextual clues have been provided for resolving the ambiguity,

TAGMEMIC GRAMMAR

137

both interpretations must be considered to be right.21 It follows, therefore, that any linguistic theory, to be valid, must allow for the possibility of different analyses by different interpreters of any but the simplest sentences. The fact that interpreters differ in thenanalyses does not reflect a weakness in the procedure; on the contrary, this disagreement reflects a subtle ambiguity inherent in the structure of English. And it should be pointed out that much of the power of the English language rests upon just this kind of flexibility and variability.

10 Other Approaches to Grammatical Analysis 10.1 European Contributions to Linguistic Theory A detailed description of the many contributions that have been made by European grammarians and linguists to the analysis of language would be beyond the scope of this volume. But a few concepts and analytical techniques proposed by European writers are significant enough to warrant discussion here.

10.1.1 Jespersen’s Three “Ranks” I have already mentioned the importance of Ferdinand de Saussure’s distinction between la langue (language as a system) and la parole (language as a specific act, i.e., speech). I have also referred to Otto Jespersen’s many original observations about the grammar of English. One such observation is to be found in his differentia¬ tion of three “ranks” of words according to their mutual relations as modified or modifying. To quote Jespersen: In the combination extremely hot weather the last word weather, which is evidently the chief idea, may be called primary; hot, which defines [i.e., qualifies or modifies] weather, secondary, and extremely, which defines hot, tertiary. Though a tertiary word may be further

21 Any one of several different factors may influence one or another interpreter to analyze a given sentence in a certain way. Even if there are certain contextual clues that suggest one interpretation rather than another, it may be that one of the interpreters will ignore such clues as being irrelevant. As a case in point, one interpreter may know that the person who wrote a given sentence is not a native speaker of the language in which the sentence is written, while another interpreter may not know this fact—or may ignore it. Yet the recognition of this fact may crucially affect the first interpreter’s analysis of the sentence. The acceptance by some inter¬ preters of the claim that certain modern poems have real significance implies the assumption that the writers of those poems were native (or near-native) speakers, not machines or chimpanzees pounding away at typewriters. The knowledge that a given “poem” had been “produced” by a chimpanzee would crucially affect the meaning that it conveyed to the interpreter.

138

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

defined by a (quaternary) word, ... it is needless to distinguish more than three ranks, as there are no formal or other traits that distinguish words of these lower orders from tertiary words. . . . If now we compare the combination a furiously barking dog (a dog barking furiously), in which dog is primary, barking secondary, and furiously tertiary, with the dog barks furiously, it is evident that the same subordination obtains in the latter as in the former combination.1

It should be noted, however, that nouns derived from verbs (such as arrival and death) may be secondary when used after possessives, as in his father's sudden arrival (or his father's sudden death), where father is primary, arrival (or death) is secondary, and sudden is tertiary.

10.1.2 Halliday’s “Transitivity, Mood and Theme"and “In¬ formational Units” Perhaps the leading exponent of the British “school” of linguis¬ tics is M. A. K. Halliday, who first gained widespread recognition among American linguists with the publication of his essay “Cat¬ egories of the Theory of Grammar” in the December 1961 issue of Word. A much longer—and even more important—essay by Hal¬ liday was published in three parts in the April 1967, October 1967, and October 1968 issues of the Journal of Linguistics under the title “Notes on Transitivity and Theme in English.” Halliday suggests that the English clause may be considered “the domain of three main areas of syntactic choice: transitivity, mood and theme.” He defines these terms as follows: Transitivity is the set of options relating to cognitive content, the linguistic representation of extralinguistic experience. . . . Mood rep¬ resents the organization of participants in speech situations, providing options in the form of speaker roles. . . . Theme is concerned with the

1 The Philosophy of Grammar (London: George AJlen & Unwin, 1924), pp. 96-97. Another Danish linguist who formulated a theory of the parts of speech similar in certain respects to that of Jespersen’s was Louis Hjelmslev, the founder of the linguistic theory he himself names “glossematics.” This theory was described in Hjelmslev’s Omkring sprogteoriens grundlaeggelse, published in Copenhagen in 1943. An English translation by Francis J. Whitfield appeared under the title Prolegomena to a Theory of Language in 1953 as Memoir 7 of the International Journal of American Linguistics (revised English edition published in 1961 by the University of Wisconsin Press). Hjelmselv’s theory is much too complicated to be dealt with here. It should be mentioned in passing, however, that Hjelmslev’s ideas have influenced the thinking of several American linguists: Sydney M. Lamb, for example, credits Hjelmslev’s glossematics with providing one of the theoretical bases on which his own stratificational grammar is built (see section 10.3 below); and Charles J. Fillmore refers repeatedly to Hjelmslev’s “La categorie des cas” (as well as to Jespersen’s Philosophy of Grammar) in his own paper “The Case for Case,” which appears in Emmon Bach and Robert T. Harms, eds., Universals in Linguistic Theory (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), pp. 1-88.

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information structure of the clause; with the status of the elements not as participants in extralinguistic processes but as components of a message; with the relation of what is being said to what has gone before in the discourse, and its internal organization into an act of communication. . . . Given the clause as domain, transitivity is the grammar of experience, mood is the grammar of speech function and theme is the grammar of discourse.2

Of particular importance for stylistic analysis is Halliday’s con¬ cept of “information units,” into which every text in spoken English is organized. “The distribution of the discourse into in¬ formation units is obligatory in the sense that the text must consist of a sequence of such units. But it is optional in the sense that the speaker is free to decide where each information unit begins and ends, and how it is organized internally.”3 Unfortunately, however, the identification of information units depends on phonological analysis: “one information unit is realized as one tone group.” This makes it difficult to incorporate the identification of Halliday’s information units into a grammar of written English. Different speakers may read the same passage aloud differently, dividing the sentences up into different “tone groups,” thus seeming to disagree as to the number of information units encoded in the text. Nor does punctuation always help. As Halliday himself points out: It is noticeable that in modern English there are two fairly distinct tendencies in punctuation: some writers tend to punctuate according to the information structure, others more according to the sentence structure. The distinction is sometimes referred to as “phonological” (or “phonetic”) versus “grammatical” punctuation.4

I have myself tried to make use of the concept of “information units” in the analysis of discourse (that is, of passages containing more than one sentence) and have found the concept helpful but not foolproof: even the same speaker may change his reading of a passage when he reads it aloud for the second or third time. Such clues as tone groups, intonation patterns, stress units, and phone¬ mic markers of phrases and clauses are so variable that no analyst can rely on them alone. I think it is significant that no linguist has been able to write a successful grammar of English based on purely phonological signals. (The nearest attempt—and a worthy failure,

2“Notes on Transitivity and Theme in English,” Part 2, Journal of Linguistics III, No. 2 (October 1967), 199. (Italics added.) 3Ibid., p. 200.

4 Ibid.

140

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

as I am sure the author would himself admit—is Archibald A. Hill’s

Introduction to Linguistic Structures: From Sound to Sentence in English.) But I have found Halliday’s concept of the two functions “given” and “new” extremely helpful. As he points out in the same essay: Information focus reflects the speaker’s decision as to where the main burden of the message lies. It ... is one kind of emphasis, that whereby the speaker marks out a part (which may be the whole) of a message block as that which he wishes to be interpreted as informa¬ tive. What is focal is “new” information; not in the sense that it cannot have been previously mentioned, although it is often the case that it has not been, but in the sense that the speaker presents it as not being recoverable from the preceding discourse.5

The concept of “new” information (as opposed to what is “given”) is particularly useful in the analysis of what I call mismatch: the mismatching of syntactic structure with semantic structure for special effect, as in the placing of “new” information in a part of a sentence where one would expect to find something “given.” An example of such “mismatch” is the following comment, which one woman might make to another at an official reception: 1. That’s a lovely dress that you’ve worn to the last five recep¬ tions. (Needless to say, the “new” information is to be found in the subordinate clause rather than in the main part of the sentence, where one might expect to find it.)

10.1.3 Jakobson’s Binary Oppositions” and “Marked Ver¬ sus Unmarked Categories” The analytical technique most favored by linguists of the Prague School is that of binarity, which is based on the assumption that “the whole of language should be reducible to sets of binary oppositions.”6 Analyses in terms of binary oppositions are common in discussions of phonology; even American structuralists regularly speak of the contrast between the two members of a minimal pair that differ from each other only in a single phoneme. But compara¬ tively few writers have made extensive use of binary oppositions in

5Ibid., p. 204. 6 Andre Martinet, “Structural Linguistics,” Anthropology Today, A. L. Kroeber, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 585.

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141

the analysis of syntax, possibly because of the difficulty of finding, in any body of material, two sentences that differ only in a single grammatical detail. There are a few exceptions: R. W. Zandvoort, for example, makes use of contrasting sentences in his A Handbook of English Grammar.7 But the exceptions are few and far between. Perhaps the best-known advocate of the use of binary oppositions in linguistic analysis is Roman Jakobson, who was one of the leaders of the Prague School in its early days. Jakobson has suggested that children learn the syntax of their language through binary contrasts.8 He was the first linguist to propose a comprehen¬ sive theory that would explain the relative chronology of the development of speech sounds in all children, a theory based upon oppositions between pairs of phonemes.9 In his own work he has applied the principle of binary oppositions both to the analysis of phonology and also to the analysis of syntax. Jakobson believes that every grammatical category displays a general meaning that provides a common denominator for all the variant forms of that category. All the past forms of English verbs, for example, display (in addition to their specific meanings) the general meaning of “past time.” Jakobson’s method is to determine the binary oppositions between one grammatical category (or set of categories) and another. Of two such contrasting categories, one is considered to be marked while the other is unmarked. Thus, if in the opposition “past tense”/“present tense” we accept “past tense” as being the marked category, “present tense” would be the unmarked category. According to Jakobson, “the general meaning of a marked cat¬ egory states the presence of a certain . . . property A; the general meaning of the corresponding unmarked category states nothing about the presence of A, and is used chiefly, but not exclusively, to indicate the absence of A.”10 Thus the general meaning of the marked category “past tense” (or simply “past”) would be some¬ thing like “reference to some (identified) past time”—but the gener¬ al meaning of the corresponding unmarked category “present tense” (or “present”) would not really be so much “reference to 7 A Handbook of English Grammar, unilingual ed., third impression, with minor corrections (London: Longmans Green and Company, 1960). See also the discussion on pp. 88-97 of Robert L. Allen, The Verb System of Present-Day American English (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1966). 8See, for example, his essay entitled “Boas’ View of Grammatical Meaning” American Anthro¬ pologist LXI (October 1959), 139-145. 9See the entries dealing with “le langage enfantin” and “Kindersprache” under Jakobson’s name in the Bibliography. 10 Shifters, Verbal Categories, and the Russian Verb (Cambridge, Mass.: Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University, 1957), p. 5.

142

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

present time” as merely “absence of reference to some (identified) past time.” This is borne out by the fact that the so-called “present tense” forms of most English verbs do not really refer to the present moment of speech but rather to such concepts as habitual or repeated actions, “eternal truths,” or actions or states continuing through “all time”: I teach English, for example, does not suggest that I am teaching English at this very moment in the present, but rather that I teach English regularly; that is my profession. The sun rises in the east does not mean that the sun is rising in the east at this moment but that it always rises in the east, regularly, eternally. Fish live in water does not mean that any particular fish are living in water at this moment (although they may be) but that it is the nature of fish to live in water—and always has been, and always will be. The same is true, mutatis mutandis, of the statement two plus two equals four. In some instances, of course, a present verb form may refer to the present moment, as in I feel tired; but such instances exemplify exceptions rather than the rule. For these reasons many linguists refer to “past verb forms” and “non-past verb forms”: “past verb forms” belong to a marked category with the general grammatical meaning of “reference to some (identi¬ fied) past time”; the so-called “non-past forms” are unmarked and lack this reference to some past time, but may refer to any one of several different kinds of non-past time.11 It is almost as if the so-called “present” (or non-past) forms of verbs were the only forms the English language had at one time— and were the forms used for every conceivable time or mood or aspect.12 Then as one or another special kind of verb form or verb-phrase form came into use to signal some special “marked” meaning (such as past forms to refer to some identified past time, or -ing forms used with some form of be to refer to an action going on at some identified time in the past or present or future), the non-past forms kept—as their “unmarked” meaning—all uses or meanings not signaled by one of the marked forms. In Shakespeare’s day, for example, one could say “My lady sleeps” where today we would use uOn pp. 141ff of her linguistically oriented grammar Modern English Structure (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1962), Barbara M. H. Strang uses, in addition to “non-past,” such terms as “non-interrogative” (for affirmative), “non-negative” (for positive), “non-passive” (for active), “non-durative,” “non-perfective,” “non-modal,” “non-emphatic,” and “non-mutative” to repre¬ sent the unmarked categories in “a small number of binary oppositions of meanings.” 12Many languages still have such verb systems. Indonesian verbs, for example, do not change in form to indicate changes in time-reference: makan “eat” can be used to refer to somebody’s eating of something in the past, or of his eating at this moment, or of his customary eating of some kind of food, or of his just having finished eating, or of his eating at some time in the future. These distinctions in meaning are signaled by time-expressions or by words signaling timerelationship, not by changes in the form of the verb.

OTHER APPROACHES TO GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS

143

the verb-phrase form is sleeping, so that now a non-past form like sleeps no longer refers to an event as going on at this moment except in such vestigial “fossilized” expressions as “Here comes the teacher.” Evidence of the fact that this sentence does not represent present-day English usage can be found in the fact that we cannot change Here comes the teacher into a yes-no question without changing the verb to its modern form is coming. It is possible, of course, for a marked category to become in turn the unmarked member in a new opposition. In the opposition slept/sleep, for example, the marked member is slept, with the marked meaning “at some time in the past”; but contrasting with slept there is the marked term was sleeping (in the opposition was sleeping/slept, which signals the marked meaning “going on, in progress” (at some time in the past). Another example of a marked/unmarked opposition in the English verb system is to be found in the opposition were/was, as in the clauses If Rask were here/If Rask was here. The use of were with the singular subject Rask shows definitely that Rask is not here, whereas the use of was is neutral—that is, the clause If Rask was here may refer to the fact that Rask is not here now, or it may suggest the possibility of his having been here at some time in the past. Similarly, the use of were with a present time-expression such as now is marked and has the grammatical meaning “contrary to fact,” as in If my parents were at home now (they aren’t); the use of were with a past time-expression, however, may refer to either a past condition that did materialize or to one that did not, as in If my parents were at home yesterday (they may have been—but then again, they may not have been). This kind of “breaking off” or “marking off” of a particular area of meaning from a more general unmarked area is to be found in the way small children learn individual words with more and more specific, marked meanings, in contrast to words with more general, unmarked meanings learned at an earlier stage in their develop¬ ment. A child may learn—and use—the word up when it wishes to be moved from one place to another, as from the floor up to its highchair, or to its father’s arms,, or even from the chair down to the floor, or from its father’s arms to its chair. Later, when the child learns the word down as a marked term in contrast to up, down will have a specific, marked meaning suggesting a downward direction. Up, will then retain all the different, unmarked meanings it used to have, except for the meaning now preempted by “down”: it may still be used when the child wishes to be moved from its father’s

144

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

arms into its highchair. Again, it is not necessarily true, as many people assume, that a word like tall means “the opposite of short”; tall is the unmarked member in the opposition short/tall, where short has a marked meaning indicating the presence of “short¬ ness.” Tall is unmarked and may or may not indicate the presence of “tallness.” It is for this reason that we ask, even when talking about a very short person, “How tall is he?”—not *“How short is he?”13 This same kind of marked/unmarked distinction can be found in the indication of gender. In gander/goose, for example, the marked term is gander because gander refers specifically to a male goose; the term goose is the unmarked member of the opposition. The term goose may, in some contexts, be used to indicate the absence of maleness, that is, “femaleness.” In other contexts it may be non¬ committal about the absence or presence of femaleness—in other words, it may be used to refer to either a female or a male goose. On the level of general meaning, then, the opposition gander/ goose may be interpreted as “statement of maleness” versus “no statement of maleness,” whereas on the level of narrowed mean¬ ing, the opposition gander/goose may be interpreted as “statement of maleness” versus “statement of non-maleness;” that is, “state¬ ment of femaleness.” Or, to put it another way, a speaker who uses the word goose in the absence of the word gander may be referring to either a male or a female bird. In such a context the word goose would be neutral in respect to the opposition male/female, and the contrast between male and female would be neutralized. Goose is the unmarked member of the opposition and as such signals the contrasting meaning inherent in the opposition only in the im¬ mediate presence of the other, marked member. For instance, if a speaker who has been asked whether a certain bird is a gander should reply, “No, it’s a goose,” then the word goose would signal the meaning “female” by virtue of its juxtaposition with gander. The principle of marked/unmarked oppositions seems also to apply to certain aspects of English punctuation, as for example to the use of commas with restrictive and non-restrictive elements. Many handbooks state that non-restrictive elements should always be set off with commas, but this rule does not seem to reflect the

13This same use of words meaning “tall,” “long,” “high,” and the like, in questions referring to short persons or short lines or low walls, seems to be fairly universal in languages spoken around the world. This phenomenon would be easy to explain if children “made up” language: to a small child, persons and objects appear to be “tall” or “long” or “high”, no matter how short or low they may really be.

OTHER APPROACHES TO GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS

145

regular usage of many writers. I doubt, for instance, whether even a very careful writer would write My uncle, John, instead of My uncle John if he happened to have only one uncle. A more accurate description of contemporary usage in the punctuating of nonrestrictive/restrictive elements would treat “presence of commas” versus “absence of commas” as the marked and unmarked mem¬ bers of a binary opposition. In this opposition the presence of commas regularly signals a non-restrictive element, whereas the absence of commas is merely neutral, that is, the absence of commas is noncommittal as to whether an element is restrictive or non-restrictive.

10.2 Linguistic Analysis and Meaning As I have already pointed out, many structural linguists categori¬ cally rejected the use of meaning in linguistic analysis. Bloch and Trager, for example, in their very influential handbook, Outline of Linguistic Analysis, insisted that “all our classifications must be based exclusively on FORM. ... In making our classifications there must be no appeal to meaning, to abstract logic, or to philosophy.”14 Because of Leonard Bloomfield’s profound influence on the study of language in this country, primarily through the publication of such works as his book Language, many critics assume that Bloomfield himself neglected meaning and even recommended that language be studied without reference to meaning. This assump¬ tion has been reinforced by statements that appear in his writings such as “I believe that mechanism is the necessary form of scien¬ tific discourse”15 and “the statement of meanings is . . . the weak point in language-study, and will remain so until human knowledge advances very far beyond its present state.”16 But as Fries demon¬ strates in his discussion of “The Bloomfield ‘School,’” Bloomfield “did discuss meaning and the problems of stating meanings, es¬ pecially linguistic meanings and insisted that ‘the mentalist in practice defines meanings exactly as does the mechanist, in terms of actual situations.’”17 Indeed, Bloomfield himself admits that

14Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager, Outline of Linguistic Analysis (Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America, 1942), p. 68. 15Language (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1933), Preface, p. vii. 16Ibid., p. 140. 17“The Bloomfield ‘School,’” Trends in European and American Linguistics 1930-1960, Chris¬ tine Mohrmann, Alf Sommerfelt, and Joshua Whatmough, eds. (Utrecht: Spectrum Publishers, 1961), p. 213.

146

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

“the study of speech-sounds without regard to meanings is an abstraction: in actual use, speech-sounds are uttered as signals.”18 Elsewhere he states that “in human speech, different sounds have different meanings. To study this co-ordination of certain sounds with certain meanings is to “study language.”19 Bloomfield defines “the meaning of a linguistic form as the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response which it calls forth in the hearer.”20 But he adds that “the speaker’s situa¬ tion . . . will usually present a simpler aspect than the hearer’s response; therefore we usually discuss and define meanings in terms of a speaker’s stimulus.”21 It is extremely difficult, however—as Bloomfield himself admit¬ ted—to know just what a speaker’s “situation” or “stimulus may be in a given instance. A child may say “I want a drink of water, for example, when what he really wants is merely to delay being sent off to bed. As Fries says in The Structure of English, “One cannot predict the particular speech sounds that A will utter in any situation or whether he will utter any sounds at all.”22 But Fries goes on to suggest another way of defining the “meaning” of a speech form or language pattern: if language is to fulfill its function of providing the means of precise social-co-operation, then individual A must be able to predict with considerable accuracy the practical response which particulai speech sounds will elicit in individual B. . . . In studying the materials of speech the student can give his attention solely to . . . the sounds as produced by a speaker. ... If, however, he intends to study a language as a functioning tool of human society then he gives his attention to either— 1. The speech sounds in correlation with the situations that usually call them forth, or 2. The speech sounds in correlation with the responses which they elicit.23

In his analysis of recorded telephone conversations which provided the basis for his description of English syntax, Fries adopted procedures that grew out of the second alternative. He grouped the utterances in the telephone conversations, for example, on the basis

18 Op. cit., p. 139. 19 Ibid., p. 27. 20 Ibid., p. 139. 21 Ibid. 22 The Structure of English (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1952) pp. 34-35. 23 Ibid., p. 35.

OTHER APPROACHES TO GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS

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of the kinds of responses that the utterances elicited (from the other speaker). As Fries says: In the study of living languages . . . we can observe directly the responses which particular language forms elicit in a speech com¬ munity. We can proceed on the assumption that if a particular response regularly occurs after a speech form or a language pattern then this pattern or form “means” this response.24

In the last two decades American linguists have come more and more to recognize that the study of meaning is an integral part of the study of language. Needless to say, they do not all agree as to just how or where meaning should be introduced in their analytical systems, but practically no linguists today would claim that one should attempt to base a grammar on form or distributional factors alone.25 It is interesting to note that Chomsky himself seems to have changed his mind about the relation of semantics to grammar since the publication of his Syntactic Structures,26 where one finds such statements as the following: It is undeniable that “intuition about linguistic form” is very useful to the investigator of linguistic form (i.e., grammar). It is also quite clear that the major goal of grammatical theory is to replace this obscure reliance on intuition by some rigorous and objective approach. There is, however, little evidence that “intuition about meaning” is at all useful in the actual investigation of linguistic form. (p. 94.) Grammar is best formulated as a self-contained study independent of semantics. In particular, the notion of grammaticalness cannot be identified with meaningfulness. . . . (p. 106.)

24 Ibid., p. 36. In the last section of his book (pp. 293-296) Fries discusses “total meaning”: “The total meaning of our utterances consists not only of the linguistic meaning—the lexical meaning and the structural [i.e., grammatical] meaning—but also of the ‘social’ meaning. To grasp only the linguistic meaning is ‘mere verbalism.”’ If, for example, I were to hear one woman say to another woman who was dressed in a brown mink coat, “My husband is buying me a black mink coat,” I would undoubtedly understand the lexical meanings signaled by the morphemes husband, buy, black, mink, and coat— and the grammatical or structural meanings signaled by my and is—ing and me and a and the word order, but I might totally miss the “social” meaning of the utterance unless I knew that black mink is much more expensive than any other kind of mink. 21 For the names of recent books and articles on meaning and semantics written by linguists, see the section in the Bibliography headed “Semantics.” It is worthy of note that the publisher’s blurb for Geoffrey N. Leech’s Towards a Semantic Description of English (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969) states that this book offers a synthesis “in a field fast becoming the major focus of interest in linguistics.” Of special interest in this connection is Wallace L. Chafe’s Meaning and the Structure of Language (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). The discussion of “new and old information” in Chafe’s Chapter 15— a chapter whose subject matter, to quote Chafe, “is of unusual importance to our understanding of how language works” (p. 210)—is similar in several respects to Halliday’s discussion of “information units” and the two functions “given” and “new.” 26Syntactic Structures (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1957).

148

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

But as a result of discussions of meaning appearing in such articles as “The Structure of a Semantic Theory” by Jerrold J. Katz and Jerry A. Fodor27 and in such books as Katz and Postal’s An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions,28 Chomsky was forced to change his mind: in his Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, for example, one finds the following paragraph: Thus the syntactic component consists of a base that generates deep structures and a transformational part that maps them into surface structures.29 The deep structure of a sentence is submitted to the semantic component for semantic interpretation, and its surface struc¬ ture enters the phonological component and undergoes phonetic inter¬ pretation. The final effect of a grammar, then, is to relate a semantic interpretation to a phonetic representation—that is, to state how a sentence is interpreted. This relation is mediated by the syntactic component of the grammar, which constitutes its sole “creative part.30

In a recent paper by Chomsky entitled “Remarks on Nominalization,” there appears the following statement, which is even more explicit: “The grammar . . . contains semantic rules that assign to each paired deep and surface structure generated by the syntax a semantic interpretation, presumably, in a universal semantics, concerning which little is known in any detail.”31

10.3 Stratificational Grammar One linguistically oriented “grammar” that explicitly recognizes the fact that at least one part of language must be related “to thought patterns and to the phenomena, events, and relationships about which people think and talk”32 is Sydney M. Lamb’s stratifi27“The Structure of a Semantic Theory,” Language XXXIX (April-June 1963), 170-210. 28Jerrold J. Katz and Paul M. Postal, An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1964). 29For definitions of the terms “base,” “deep structure,” and “surface structure,” see the section on transformational-generative grammar in this book (section 8). 30 Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1965), pp. 135-136. 31 “Remarks on Nominalization,” in Roderick A. Jacobs and Peter S. Rosenbaum, eds.. Readings in English Transformational Grammar (Waltham, Mass.: Ginn and Company, 1970), p. 185. Chomsky’s reference to “a universal semantics” is particularly relevant in the context of the growing interest in language universals, exemplified by such books as Universals of Language (1963) and Universals in Linguistic Theory (1968). Both of these books (see the Bibliography under “Language Universals”) contain papers read at conferences that were held specifically to discuss linguistic universals. One of the most interesting papers in the 1968 book is “The Case for Case” by Charles J. Fillmore, which established “case grammar” as one of the most promising of the new “modifications of transformational grammar” (and one which could be converted fairly easily to “tagmemic formulas”). 32Sydney M. Lamb, Outline of Stratificational Grammar (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1966), p. 2.

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cational grammar. Lamb calls his system stratificational “because one of its chief features is its treatment of linguistic structure as comprising several structural layers or strata.”33 Lamb considers a language to be “a system of relationships” that “may be analyzed into a series of subsystems, called STRATAL SYSTEMS, each of which has a syntax or tactics and certain other characteristic patterns of relationships.”34 English, in Lamb’s anal¬ ysis, is regarded as being made up of three major components, SEMOLOGY,35 GRAMMAR, and PHONOLOGY; each of these com¬ prises two stratal systems, yielding a six-stratum structure. These six strata may be diagrammed as follows: HYPERSEMEMICS SEMOLOGY

-

SEMEMICS LEXEMICS GRAMMAR

!

MORPHEMICS PHONEMICS PHONOLOGY HYPOPHONEMICS One of the most concise summaries of “the stratificational view of language” is to be found in an article on English prepositions by David C. Bennett, one of Lamb’s students: There are two ends to language: a meaning end (by convention the top) and a sound end (by convention the bottom). At either end is a set of discrete elements, components of meaning (hypersememes) and com¬ ponents of sound (hypophonemes). A language is the network of rela¬ tions that exist between the components of meaning and the com¬ ponents of sound. All discrepancies from a simple one-to-one relation¬ ship can be described in terms of the basic relations AND and OR, each of which can be either ordered or unordered, and upward or downward.

33 Ibid., p. 1. On page 2 Lamb states that the concept of stratification in language is not original with him: his system “is no more than the result of adding a few extensions and refinements to a synthesis of Hjelmslev’s glossematics [see footnote 1 in section 10 above] and one of the standard versions of American structural linguistics,” namely, that of Charles F. Hockett (see especially Hockett’s Course in Modern Linguistics [New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958], Chaps 29-31). 34Ibid., p. 8. 35Semology or “sememics,” according to Gleason, “has in many respects the same relationship to ‘semantics’ ... as does phonemics to phonetics.” (H. A. Gleason, “The Organization of Lan¬ guage: A Stratificational View,” in C. I. J. M. Stuart, ed., “Report of the Fifteenth Annual [First International] Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Studies,” Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics, No. 17 [Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1964], p. 81, fn. 17).

150

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

Certain recurrent configurations of these relations are known as pat¬ terns .... Certain recurrent configurations of patterns are known as stratal systems. In addition to the patterns in the vertical or realizational dimension, each stratal system has a tactic pattern which can be thought of as being in a horizontal plane and which specifies the permitted combinations of the elements at that particular level of the realization chain.36

“Upward” means “towards meaning”; “downward” means “to¬ wards sound (or expression).” An “OR” in stratificational gram¬ mar is always an exclusive “OR.” “Unordered” often means “simultaneous,” as in the coming together of the hypophonemes “Labial” and “Nasal” in the phoneme /m/. “Ordering” in an “AND” relationship is temporal ordering, while in an “OR” relationship, ordering is a matter of priority: that which comes first takes prece¬ dence over the second if both are possible. In stratificational diagrams, an “AND” is conventionally repre¬ sented by a triangle, or an “OR” by a square bracket lying on its side. Relationships are shown by lines which connect the triangles and brackets. (The square brackets are usually drawn with rounded corners.)37 Thus the phonemic “sign pattern” showing the realiza¬ tion of “Labial” and “Nasal” in the phoneme /m/ may be diagram¬ med as follows:38

(The other lines leading away from the “Lb” bracket [the “Lb” OR] would lead, in a more complete diagram, to other phonemes with components of labiality, such as /b/ and /v/; other lines leading 36“English prepositions: A stratificational approach,” Journal of Linguistics IV, No. 2 (October 1968), 154. Hypophonemes are distinctive features of sound, such as labiality, nasality, voicing, and the like. Hypersememes are less well-defined; presumably they include such items as entity, event, process, predication, modification, and “the features of meaning on which cognitive and connotative meaning depend” (p. 166). 37A stratificational diagram of even a fairly simple sentence bears a striking resemblance to the drawing of the circuitry in a transistor radio, a resemblance which is supported by Lamb s reference to “impulses” moving along the lines. 38The diagrams presented here are greatly simplified adaptations of diagrams appearing in Lamb, Outline of Stratificatonal Gramar, pp. 13, 17.

OTHER APPROACHES TO GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS

151

upward from the “Ns” OR would lead to other phonemes with components of nasality, such as /n/. The fact that the lines leading upward from the “Lb” OR run out of the bracket at the same point shows that labiality cannot simultaneously be a component of more than one phoneme: an impulse moving upward from “Lb” could move either along the line to “m” or along some other line, but not along more than one line at the same time.) Again, in the morphemics, the realization of d, e and nin den, Ed, Ned, and end could be diagrammed as follows (where the ANDs are

ordered):

A “downward ordered OR” is illustrated in the following diagram of a fragment of English morphemics:

152

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

(This diagram is similar to the one appearing on page 17 of Lamb’s Outline, except that here /far$ / and /far/ replace his /beT/ and /gud/. The following explanation of the diagram is quoted from page 18 of his book, but with changes to correspond to the changed examples. The term “lexon” may be defined roughly as the realization of a lexeme on the next lower stratum.) The tactic construction shown is that for the forms consisting of an adjective followed by the comparative suffix or the superlative suffix. The morphemeM/ farfy is shown as occurring only in this construction, whileM / far/ is shown as an ordinary adjective, entering into a class (cf. the downward OR which has a variety of morphotactic functions (cf. the upward OR). . . . When the lexonLN /far/ occurs withLN /-er/, the tactics would allow either farther or farer, but the downward OR for LN/far/ is ordered and thereforeM /farS/ takes precedence. When neither LN/-er/ norLN /-est/ is present, the realizationM /far3/ cannot occur, since the impulse fromLN /far/ toM /far/ cannot get past the upward AND unless the other line leading in to it also has a downward impulse. . . . Moreover, the analysis shown accounts for the English speaker’s abili¬ ty to recognize farer (and farest) when. . . said by a child. . . ,39

H. A. Gleason, Jr. recognizes only four strata or subcodes: the phonemics, the morphemics, the lexemics, and the sememics. Be¬ tween each two subcodes, he says, “there must be a process of recoding’’ 40 from one stratum or subcode to the next, in either direction. “Language,” according to Gleason, “is highly organized, all of the central components being related directly or indirectly to each other.” It is also “entirely quantized; it is a ‘digital’ apparatus, excluding the gradience prevailing in both sound and event.”41 He continues:

39It should be remembered throughout this discussion that Lamb considers a language to be merely a system of relationships, comprising different subsystems on different strata. All the different kinds of relationships existing on any one stratum can be explained by the dichotomies UPWARD/DOWNWARD, ORDERED/UNORDERED, AND/OR. And, like the wires or lines in a circuit, the relationships are always there: they do not “come and go,” or “occur” and “fade out.” The only “movement” or activity involved is the moving of impulses along the lines: “downward” for encoding a message, “upward” for decoding a message. Thus a stratificational grammarian would not say that “a morpheme is made up of—or consists of—phonemes,” but rather that a morpheme is “realized” in phonemes (on a different stratum). 40H. A. Gleason, “The Organization of Language: A Stratificational View,” p. 82. In the diagram that accompanies Gleason’s paper (p. 83), the four strata are presented horizontally, with Phonemics in a box at the far left and Sememics at the far right, and Morphemics and Lexemics in boxes placed between the other two. Between each two of these four boxes there appears a smaller box for the “Recoding Rules,” which are labeled “Morphophonic Rules,” “Lexomorphic Rules,” and “Semolexic Rules” respectively. Each large box representing a stratum contains two smaller boxes, one for the “Inventory” of the sets of units out of which structures in that stratum can be built, and one for the “Tactics” or “Tactic Rules,” which specify—for the particular stratum—the ways in which the units can be used to build structures. (See pp. 83-84). 41 Ibid., p. 76.

OTHER APPROACHES TO GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS

153

While cleanly delimited, it is not isolated. Rather, a language has essential contacts across at least two regions of its boundary, one with sound and one with a vast range of phenomena which can be labeled broadly as “experience.” We may call these regions interfaces because, intimate as the contacts may be, the boundary is not broken. A lan¬ guage maintains its characteristic internal organization entirely intact right up to the interface. . . . The boundary is not broken, but is, in these two regions, permeable. The membrane in the classical model of the living cell is an excellent metaphor.42

As I have already pointed out in section 8.4 above, some TG grammarians are trying to describe co-occurrence restrictions in language—in order to explain, for example, why a native speaker would not say something like * The book died—by building rules into the syntax that would prevent the generating of such a sentence. There are other linguists, however, who feel that the reason a native speaker would not utter such a sentence is not because of the grammar, but rather because of evidence from his own experience: in his experience, books do not live and die. Stratificational gram¬ mar makes it possible to explain how one’s experience can affect one’s language—how, in fact, a new experience may even bring about a change in the structure of one’s language by affecting the structure of the sememics. To quote Gleason again: The phenomena contacted by the [experience] end of language are . . . various. They cannot be characterized in any useful simple way, only exemplified: a fly walking across a table, a solar eclipse, a destructive earthquake, the decay of a pion, a pattern in the clouds, a sudden pain, a wide-ranging generalization. . . . Anything which catches the idle curiosity of a human observer, anything which intrudes forceably into his life, anything he himself creates, in fact, anything at all may stand across the interface in contact with language, and so impose its re¬ quirements upon language organization. Just within the boundary of language, adjacent to this interface, must be a digital apparatus capable of erecting a suitable model of any segment of this tremendous variety of intergrading and tangled phe¬ nomena. This part of language is best labeled as a sememics or a

semology.43 Gleason points out that “a stratificational grammar can provide a workable basis for understanding and formalizing the processes of both transductions through language” —that is, from meaning or

42 Ibid. 43 Ibid., pp. 80-81.

154

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

experience through language to sound (that is, speech), and from sound (as heard) through language to meaning or experience. “A transformational-generative grammar has insuperable difficulty with one of the two.”44 Stratificational grammar promises to provide a formal way for relating the syntactic structure of a (person’s) language to the semantic structure while at the same time making it possible to explain differences between them. As one small example, consider sentences 1 and 2, which appear in Bennett’s article on English prepositions: (1) He was standing at the door. (2) He was looking at the door. As Bennett points out: These exhibit the same structure on the lexemic stratum: in each case at the door is a constituent. On the sememic stratum, however, at in (1) is a separate sememe, whereas at in (2) is part of the complex sememe look at, which functions as a unit in the semotactics.45

Thus by positing different strata, each with its own organization, we can explain formally how a complex idiom like kick the bucket can be made up of a verb with a noun cluster as its object on one stratum and can at the same time represent—“realize”—a single meaning, a single sememe, on another stratum. Stratificational grammar also promises to make possible the anal¬ ysis of texts larger than sentences: of paragraphs, essays, whole books, even sonnets. (An entire sonnet, for example, may be merely the realization, on lower strata, of a single hypersememe.) And by its very nature, stratificational grammar proposes to be a model for the production and understanding of language in the human brain. But one of its severe limitations, in my opinion, is that it does not pay enough attention to the various kinds of units within the syntax that even small children, I believe, learn to recognize as units rather than as reductions from full sentences. (I refer to such units as prepositional phrases and noun clusters and included clauses and predicatids, that is, non-finite predicates.) Nor does stratifica¬ tional grammar allow for the “general overall meanings” of fixed positions, or for the importance of differences in context, or for the primary importance of functions, especially those which I call “metafunctions.” (Transformational grammar also has these limi44Ibid., pp. 90-91. 45 Op. cit., p. 155.

OTHER APPROACHES TO GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS

155

tations.) It was partly in order to find a way of handling such concepts that I have developed sector analysis, which will be de¬ scribed in some detail in Part IV.

156

LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED GRAMMARS

part four an introduction to sector analysis

11 Theoretical Foundations 11.1 Basic Assumptions The description of English outlined on the following pages is based on certain assumptions about linguistic analysis in general and about the analysis of English in particular, and also on assump¬ tions about the value of studying or teaching English grammar. Since these assumptions have in large measure determined the form of the grammar as presented here, I should, perhaps, make them explicit before turning to the grammar itself.

11.1.1 A Grammar of Written English This grammar is based, in the first place, on the assumption that written English and spoken English are different, but overlapping, systems of the English language, each with its own conventions or “rules.” It is assumed that the study of written English is of primary THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

157

importance in the teaching of English to native speakers: certainly the English teachers in our schools are more directly concerned with the written system than with the spoken one. But saying that this is a grammar of written English is not the same as saying that it is a grammar of formal English. Written English includes all the kinds of English that appear in writing—informal as well as formal. This is merely a grammar of written English in the sense that it defines sentences and other constructions in terms of signals that one sees on the printed page rather than in terms of sounds that one hears.

11.1.2 A Grammar for the Classroom This grammar is based, secondly, on the assumption that if a new grammar of English is to have any real value for the teacher, it must be a grammar that—in its broad outlines at least—is teach¬ able even to elementary school students and to those who may not already have had any formal study of traditional grammar. This new grammar, however, must not be the goal of instruction in and of itself: that is, the grammar must not end up being a complex superstructure of rules and prescriptions that might in time be considered more real or important than the living language itself. Instead, the grammar must build upon what students already know and feel, consciously or unconsciously, about the structure of English; it must help them to recognize and categorize their knowledge, and then lead them inductively toward a constantly expanding recognition and mastery of the many resources of the language. But even those students who study this new grammar will inevitably meet traditional labels, in other classes or in other situations. It would seem helpful, therefore, to use traditional terms (such as subject, clause, noun, verb) whenever possible, introduc¬ ing new terms only where new labels are needed—although in¬ evitably, if the grammar is to be based on an objective, linguistic analysis of the language, most of the grammatical terms will have to be given new, more rigorous definitions.

11.1.3 A Grammar of Construction Types Thirdly, the grammar to be described here is based on the assump¬ tion that for a grammar to have special relevance for the teaching of reading and writing, it must emphasize not words but construc-

158

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

tions—the larger syntactic units that combine in different ways to make up the infinite number of sentences (and even units larger than sentences) that speakers and writers have uttered or written in the past, or will utter or write in the future. It is assumed that no sentence is made up of a string of words strung together one after another, like beads in a necklace, but rather that every sentence consists of a sequence of constructions (on a lower layer), that each of those constructions in turn consist of a sequence of constructions (on a still lower layer), and so on in each instance down to the word layer, the whole forming a grammatical hierarchy of constructions (and words) nested within other constructions. Once a student can learn to recognize these larger syntactic units and can grasp the syntactic relationships between them, there will be less danger of his continuing to read “by words,” as so many poor readers do. To be a good reader, a student must be able to perceive the structure of written sentences at sight, as they appear on the printed page; this means that he must be able to recognize at a glance units larger than single words or mere phrases. And if the student is also to learn to write more effectively, he must become aware of the ways in which good writers use these larger units so that he, in turn, can learn to combine and manipulate them in his own writing. Once a student is able to perceive the subtle differences in meaning suggested by different arrangements or combinations of units, and once he has begun to try out these arrangements in his own writing, he is on his way toward mastery of the devices used by good writers to achieve greater variety, precision, and subtlety of statement. It is further assumed that the native speakers of a language learn to recognize different types of constructions in their own language as construction-types, not as forms that have necessarily been derived from full sentences by means of deletions or other kinds of transformations. I do not believe, for example, that a child who says “Nice doggie” to a dog has learned the construction nice doggie as a transform of The doggie is nice but rather as a construction in its own right (in this instance, a noun cluster, that is, a noun preceded by an adjective).1 Nor do I believe that the constructions to review my manuscript and to eat in the sentences the doctor con¬ descended to review my manuscript and the children refuse to eat, are “what remains of embedded sentences (namely, the doctor 1 See the discussion of a similar example in Robert L. Allen, “Sector Analysis: From Sentence to Morpheme in English” in the Georgetown Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics, No. 20 (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1967), pp. 159-160.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

159

reviewed my manuscript and the children eat) after certain transformations have been applied.”2 Surely in the sentence Play¬ ing tennis is good exercise, the construction playing tennis is not derived from some such sentence as Somebody is playing tennis by deleting somebody is. Playing tennis is a generic predication that refers to the playing of tennis at any time by anybody—and such a concept is regularly expressed in English by just this type of construction.3

11.1.4 A Grammar of Specific Kinds of (Directed) Relationships Sector analysis is also based on the assumption that although indeed “a language may be regarded as a system of relationships,” as Sydney M. Lamb claims,4 there are many more, and more specif¬ ic, kinds of relationships than mere “ordered or unordered,” “upward or downward,” “AND’S and OR’S.” I believe that the recognition of these different kinds of relationships plays an important role in one’s understanding of complicated sentences. Surely it is im¬ portant for a reader to recognize the fact that in the sentence Opening the window, the butler jumped out, the relationship of opening the window to the butler is similar to that of jumped out to the butler: only for that reason can the sentence be rephrased as The butler opened the window and jumped out. In the first sentence both of the constructions opening the window and jumped out make predications about the butler. Again, it is important for the reader to recognize the fact that in the sentence I could hear the boy standing on the ledge shouting for help, the relationship of standing on the ledge to the boy is not the same as that of shouting for help, even though both constructions have the same form: standing on the ledge is a modifier of the boy, while shouting for help makes a predication about the boy. It is assumed, furthermore, that all relationships are directed relationships:5 that is, “they are best described as the relation of something to some¬ thing else, not as the relation holding between two or more ele-

2 Roderick A. Jacobs and Peter S. Rosenbaum, English Transformational Grammar (Waltham, Mass.: Ginn and Company, 1968), p. 55. 3 For a discussion of generic predications, see Robert L. Allen, The Verb System of Present-Day American English (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1966), p. 204. 4 Outline of Stratificational Grammar (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1966), p. 3. 5See Robert L. Allen, “The Structure of Meaning,” Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists, Cambridge, Mass., 1962 (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1964), pp. 421-426.

160

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

ments.”6 7 In other words, in analyzing the sentence Percy put the hat on the table in the hall,1 it is not enough to say that on and in are both prepositions and that both introduce prepositional phrases. It is important to point out that in introduces the phrase in the hall (or has as its object the noun construction the hall), while on introduces the prepositional phrase on the table in the hall (or has as its object the noun construction the table in the hall, which includes the other phrase, in the hall).

11.1.5 A Grammar with Tolerance for Differing Interpretations Still another basis of sector analysis is the assumption that any approach to linguistic analysis, if it is to be valid, must allow for differing interpretations of potentially ambiguous sentences (and there is much more potential ambiguity in even seemingly straight¬ forward sentences than has generally been recognized). As I have noted: If the sender of an ambiguous message . . . happens to be present, one may refer to him for the “correct” analysis. (But even the encoders of messages have been known to forget what they originally meant.) However, in the absence of such an authoritative source, only one solution seems possible: either—or both—of. . . two possible analy¬ ses must be accepted as correct. In other words, one interpreter may “take” the sentence to mean one thing, while another interpreter takes it to mean something else. As long as both interpretations are justified by the linguistic evidence and no contextual clues for the resolution of the ambiguity have been provided, both interpreters must be con¬ sidered to be right. . . . The linguist cannot determine which analysis is “correct” (since both are), nor can he predict with certainty which analysis a given informant is likely to choose. All that the linguist can do is to state the existence of two different and equally acceptable analyses, and to show in what ways they differ—and perhaps also to suggest the kind of larger context in which one sentence rather than the other would be more likely to occur.8

Thus, given the sentence My brother wrote a poem on Thanks¬ giving Day, one student may claim that the object of the verb wrote is a poem on Thanksgiving Day, while another student may claim 6Robert L. Allen, “On Linguistic Metafunctions,” paper read at the Sixteenth Annual Conference on Linguistics, sponsored by the International Linguistic Association, New York, N.Y., March 13, 1971. 7 See page 16. 8 The Verb System of Present-Day American English, p. 124.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

161

that the object of wrote is only a poem and that on Thanksgiving Day expresses the time of his writing of the poem. In the absence of any other evidence, the teacher would have to accept both analyses as correct. Pointing out that the use of the preposition about instead of on would have made the sentence unambiguous may be helpful as one way of showing students how to avoid ambiguities in their own writing, but it would not really be relevant to the analysis of the sentence as given here. In a larger context, however, the sentence might not be ambiguous. If it were followed (in the paragraph or conversation in which it occurred) by either the sentence He wrote it on Wednesday or the sentence He wrote it then because he had no schoolwork, the ambiguity would be resolved.9

11.1.6 A Grammar of Positions, Whether Filled or Unfilled Sector analysis also assumes that English does not have four basic sentence patterns, or seven, or even ten. On the contrary,

’This example was selected to show that one of the most common problems in the analysis of sentences lies in determining the units or “chunks” into which each construction in a sentence should properly be divided on its own layer. Whenever a given construction can be appropriately chunked in more than one way, the sentence in which it appears is potentially ambiguous. Thus the example sentence given above is ambiguous because its predicate could be divided up into either two chunks (wrote/a poem on Thanksgiving Day) or three chunks (wrote/a poem/on Thanksgiving Day). One way of identifying chunks is by means of substitutes appearing in succeeding sentences: since Thanksgiving Day always falls on Thursday, the phrase on W ednesday in He wrote it on Wednesday cannot substitute for on Thanksgiving Day, and it must therefore substitute for the large chunk a poem on Thanksgiving Day {i.e., a poem about Thanksgiving Day). But in He wrote it then . . . , the word then substitutes for on Thanksgiving Day, so that it must substitute for only the smaller chunk a poem. Robert Longacre is right in pointing out the importance of “the search for constructions of maximum relevance” (“Some Fundamental Insights of Tagmemics,” Language XLI, No. 1 [January-March 1965], 65). However, he fails to see more than the four or five levels that orthodox tagmemic grammarians always seem to find in their analyses of different languages and does not recognize the fact that in English, at least, there are several more levels (called “layers” in sector analysis) than those he lists. As a result he does not find all the “constructions of maximum relevance” in English. Longacre states, for example (on page 73), that “tagmemic analysis divides this one-clause sentence (the English sentence A great big green frog is sitting on the bump on the back of a log on the bank of the pond) into three clause-level tagmemes: subject (S) manifested by A great big green frog, predicate (P) manifested by is sitting, and locational (L) manifested by the rest of the sentence.” As a matter of fact, the construction is sitting in this sentence is of minimal importance compared to the construction is sitting on the bump . . . pond. Is sitting is merely a verbal unit, but the larger unit is sitting . . . pond is the unit that makes a predication about A great big green frog. A better example might be A year after the accident the old man was still living in New York. (Compare A year after the accident the old man was still living.) Certainly in this example the phrase in New York should not be considered to be a manifestation of a locational tagmeme on the same level as the subject. To treat it as a manifestation of a tagmeme on the same level or layer as the old man and was still living is to ignore the fact that was still living and in New York together manifest the single tagmeme “predicate (P) ” on the same (clause) level as the tagmeme subject (S) manifested by the old man. Without the phrase in New York, the predicate in the example sentence would mean “was still alive,” not “was still residing.” To overlook the single construction was still living in New York is to overlook one of the most important constructions in this sentence. (For a discussion of the importance of recognizing different kinds of predications rather than different kinds of verbs, the reader is referred to Robert L. Allen, The Verb System of Present-Day American English, pp. 197ff.)

162

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

English sentences are considered to have one basic, overall order or “spectrum” of positions on each layer: one thing all native users of English share in common is a feeling for these basic sequences of positions. However, since one or more positions on any layer may, and probably will, remain vacant in any given sentence, the recog¬ nition of unfilled positions is crucial to any thorough grammatical analysis. The reader, of course, will meet many English sentences in which the units do not fit into positions in the order to be described here. This is especially true of “literary” writing, where units are deliber¬ ately shifted around for stylistic reasons. However, in the great majority of both written and spoken sentences, the positions on the different layers do follow the sequences to be described here, although, especially in spoken English, there will be some unfilled positions in every sentence.

11.1.7 A Grammar of Form-Function Correlations Finally, sector analysis is based on the assumption that meaning is an integral part of language and thus cannot be ignored in the description of any language. But it is further assumed that the best descriptions will usually proceed from forms (which are overt) to meanings (which are covert), rather than from meanings to forms—although meanings may often guide one to the recognition of forms. Forms should not, however, be described as individual items out of context but rather as form-function correlations, that is, as tagmemes or tagmas.10 These, not the forms by themselves, signal specific meanings. Forms are merely tokens for potential mean¬ ings; it is only when such tokens occur in specific positions or have specific functions that they express actual or specific meanings. The form (or morph) bear, for example, is merely a token for any one of two or more possible meanings; it is only the specific tagma “n:bear" or, as it would appear in a dictionary, “bear(n.)” (that is, bear in a noun position or with noun function) meaning “a large furry animal,” and the specific tagma “v:bear” or “bear (v.)” meaning “to tolerate, endure, put up with,” as in the following example: 1. That hear can’t bear classical music. 10Tagmas are the first approximation of tagmemes, as phones are of phonemes, and morphs are of morphemes. One tagmeme may comprise two or more similar tagmas or allotagmas.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

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Whether these two occurrences of bear are occurrences of the same word or of different words is actually immaterial in tagmemic analysis since it is assumed that only the form-function correlations signal specific meanings, not the forms alone. The grammar outlined in the following pages is not intended to be a complete or exhaustive description of written English. It is, rather, an introduction to the kind of analysis of written English suggested by the foregoing assumptions. Many details have been dealt with only superficially; others have been ignored altogether.11 I believe, however, that even this outline of sector analysis reveals several features of English structure that have been overlooked in other descriptions.

11.2 Function and Form Sector analysis is essentially tagmemic in its approach.12 Thus, it is assumed that the basic grammatical units are tagmemes— correlations between positions or functions and the sets of formclasses occurring in those positions. Tagmemes express actual, as opposed to potential, meanings. In sector analysis the primary emphasis is placed upon the different kinds of positions that are to be found in sentences on different layers and upon the different kinds of units that may occupy one or another of those positions. The positions occurring on the higher layers in the hierarchical structure of a sentence are called sectors: these are for the units primarily involved in making predications—that is, in “saying” whatever it is that a sentence says. The positions occurring on lower layers are called slots. A unit made up of two or more words that function together as a single grammatical unit and that together fill either a sector or slot on some layer higher than the word layer, is called a construction.13 A construction may also be made up of two or more constructions functioning together to fill a single position. "For a more detailed description of sector analysis, the reader is referred to Allen, The Verb System of Present-Day American English and also to the same author’s The Structure of the English Sentence(in preparation). Work texts based on an even more simplified version of sector analysis than that presented here which have already been used with considerable success in both elementary schools and high schools are the Discovery and Exploration series, formerly published by Noble and Noble but soon to be published (in expanded form) by Paideia, Inc. 12 Although there are several similarities between the grammar presented here and the kind of grammatical analysis developed by Kenneth L. Pike and others working with him, sector analysis did not derive from Pike’s tagmemic theory. I had worked out the broad outlines of the present grammar before I first read any of Pike’s publications about tagmemes. I am indebted to Pike, however, for providing a strong theoretical foundation for this kind of analysis. Strictly speaking, the term words in this definition should be replaced by the more precise term lexemes. The expression have to (meaning “must”), for example, is written as two words in English, although the two words together have only a single meaning, one that could not be

164

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

In sector analysis every sentence is assumed to consist of strings of tagmemes, on different layers—that is, of strings of positions (on the different layers) for different kinds of words or constructions. One or more of the positions on each layer must be filled: the tagmemes manifested by their fillers are obligatory. (Such positions may be indicated by the sign “ + .”) The remaining positions on each layer may or may not be filled: the tagmemes manifested by their fillers are optional. (Such positions may be indicated by the sign “±.”) Every construction, in turn, is itself assumed to consist of a string of tagmemes, that is, of a string of positions for various kinds of obligatory and/or optional units functioning on the layer of the construction. In general, therefore, a sentence may be said to consist of a hierarchy of words or constructions nested within larger constructions occurring in fixed sequences of positions on succes¬ sively higher layers of structure. Or, to put it differently, a sentence may be said to comprise a string of tagmemes each of which is made up in turn of other strings of tagmemes, down to the word layer. As has aready been pointed out, the units in the majority of English sentences regularly occur in certain fixed sequences of positions. It cannot be claimed, however, that the units in all English sentences are so ordered: English allows for certain varia¬ tions and alterations of the basic order. For example, “minor sentences” such as Here comes the teacher and Down the river floated a canoe are not uncommon in present-day English, although they occur far less frequently than do “major sentences” (that is, “regular sentences”), in which the units occur in the sequences described below.14 Only major sentences will be considered in the following pages; minor sentences have had to be omitted from this summary presentation. In sector analysis the function of a given construction is deter-

predicted as a result of looking up the meanings of the words have and to separately. Again, the two-word unit good and in the sentence I like my coffee good and hot has the meaning “very,” which could not be predicted on the basis of the meaning of good and the meaning of and taken separately. Such word-combinations that have single meanings are often called lexemes, that is, minimal significant units of lexical meaning. Nevertheless, the more common term word is used here instead of lexeme. (The reader should bear in mind the fact that expressions with single meanings, like have to and good and, are not constructions, though each is made up of “two or more words.”) 14To support the contention that a sentence like Down the river floated a canoe does not fit the regular conventions of present-day English, it may be pointed out that this statement cannot be converted directly into a yes-no question as it stands: the question Did a canoe float down the river? can be derived directly from the major sentence A canoe floated down the river, but not from the minor sentence Down the river floated a canoe. In the case of Here comes the teacher, even the verb form has to be changed (to the more modern form is coming) before the statement can be converted into the yes-no question Is the teacher coming?

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

165

mined largely by its use—that is, by the position that it fills—in a larger construction. For instance, in example 2 below, last winter fills the subject position and performs what we may call subject function: 2. Last winter was very cold. But in the next example, last winter fills what is traditionally called an adverbial position and performs what will here be called ad¬ verbial function (although it should be noted that in sector analysis adverbials are not considered to be units that modify other units but rather units that give additional information about the units they go with): 3. Last winter my parents moved to Florida. In analyzing a sentence, therefore, it is important that we identify the function of a given unit first; we usually identify this function on the basis of the position that the unit occupies within a larger construction. Once we have identified its function, we then ex¬ amine the unit by itself, on a lower layer, to determine its form. Thus on the sentence layer we would identify the unit last winter in example 3 as having adverbial function; we would then take the unit out of the sentence in order to examine it by itself on the next lower layer, and would find that it has the form of the type of construction we will call a noun cluster—the noun phrase of traditional grammar. (A cluster consists of one essential element or nucleus—in this case, a noun—together with all the modifiers of that nucleus. Noun clusters will be described more fully in later sections.) In analyzing the noun cluster last winter on this lower, cluster layer, we would find that the unit consists of the nucleus winter modified by the word last. Then, on a still lower layer—on the word layer—we would identify the word last as an irregular adjective and the word winter as a noun. Such a layer-by-layer analysis is suggested by the following oversimplified diagram:

lOast winterM

last = adj 166

-nK

win ter = n

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

On the first line of the analysis, the sentence layer, (Sn stands for “Sentence”), the adverbial unit is cut off by a large parenthesis. On the second line, the cluster layer (nKstands for “noun cluster”), the noun cluster is enclosed between the symbols K M, the nucleus of the cluster is marked with an asterisk, and the modifier of the nucleus is marked with an arrow drawn beneath it pointing toward the asterisk. On the last line of the analysis, the word layer, the form-class (or part of speech) to which each word belongs is indicated by the abbreviations adj and n, standing for “adjective” and “noun.” If we were to carry out the same kind of analysis on the sentence in example 2 above, we would find, of course, that on the cluster layer the subject last winter has identically the same form as the adverbial last winter, even though the subject differs crucially from the adverbial in its function (which would be shown by the position that if fills on the next higher layer). It appears from the above, then, that in the complete analysis of any sentence, each unit should first be classified as to its function (that is, as to the position it fills as part of the construction on the next higher layer), and then, on a lower layer, should be classified as to its form. But both analyses are equally important: no unit is fully analyzed until it has been described both as to its function and as to its form. At the same time it must be remembered that it is as important to analyze the function of a unit separately from its form as it is to analyze one layer separately from another. In fact, any construction (that is, almost any unit made up of more than one word) should be analyzed into its constituent units on the next lower layer, and each of these constituents should in turn be an¬ alyzed on a still lower layer. This kind of analysis should be con¬ tinued until all the constructions have been carried down to the word layer, where each word may be classified according to its part of speech15—that is, according to the word-class to which it belongs.

11.3 The Essential Structure of a Sentence Before commencing on a layer-by-layer analysis of the English sentence, it may be helpful to ask what it is that a sentence does. Every language has units that correspond to sentences in English, although these may take different forms in different languages. But

15The term parts of speech as used in this grammar refers to many more word-classes than the traditional eight.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

167

the basic purpose or purposes that sentences serve seem to be common to all languages. Essentially, a sentence is a linguistic unit comprising two com¬ ponents, one of which (the subject) names some entity about which the other component (the predicate) says something (or denies something, or asks a question). This may be schematized as fol¬ lows: 5.

Subject

Predicate

In speech or in advertisements or in the early language of small children, the subject may not be expressed in words but may be indicated by means of a picture, or by holding up or by pointing at—or otherwise calling attention to—some entity, as when a French teacher holds up a pencil and says “(Un) crayon,”16 or when a person bites into a cookie and says “Delicious,” or when one person comments on another person’s winning at some game and says “Well done” or “Lucky dog,” or when the picture of a bottle of some special kind of perfume appears in an advertisement with the word “Irresistible” printed under it. In all of these instances, the subject is implied rather than stated; the predicate thus seems to be the one essential component—linguistically—of the subjectpredicate relationship. (This is particularly true of languages like Italian in which a sentence like Piove “Is raining” would be considered a complete sentence.) However, the great majority of sentences in written English, at least, have both a subject and a predicate. These two tagmemes, then—subject (S) manifested by some kind of nominal, and predicate (P) manifested by some kind of predication—are both obligatory, and may be considered to consti¬ tute the bare essentials of an English sentence.17 In sector analysis, the subject and predicate together are called the trunk of the sentence.) It is also possible to make a further predication about a trunk. Since this kind of predication is a predication about the whole trunk rather than about either part of the trunk, it may either precede or follow the trunk, as in the following example:

16Naming—or teaching the name of something in a foreign language—thus appears to be a special kind of predication making. 17 It should be noted that the P position in sector analysis is the position for the entire predicate, not a position for the verb phrase alone. In the diagrams on the following pages, both subject and object nominals will be enclosed within rectangles, and predications about nominals will be indicated by means of wavy arrows drawn above them pointing towards the nominals about which they make predications.

168

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

6a. Slowly ( Hortensia rose) ( Hortensia rose ^slowly.18

The word slowly in example 6 occurs in what has already been referred to as an adverbial position. In both of these sentences, slowly says something about “Hortensia’s rising”: it was slow. In example 6a, slowly fills the front adverbial position, while in example 6b, it fills the end adverbial position. An adverbial like this one, which can shift from the front of a sentence to the end of a sentence, will be called a sentence adverbial (and will be identified by its potentiality for shifting around the trunk without basically altering the meaning of the sentence). Some adverbials, however, seem to make predications about only the predicate of a sentence, not about the whole trunk. Such adverbials occur after (more precisely, in) the predicate, and cannot shift to the front of the sentence: 7. Hortensia walked upstairs. But Not: *Upstairs Hortensia walked.19 An adverbial like upstairs, which functions not on the sentence layer but rather on the predicate layer, will be called a predicate adverbial. Since such an adverbial is part of the predicate, which in turn is part of the trunk, it may be followed by a sentence adverbial (which in a rigorous analysis would be shown as functioning on a higher layer):

Cf.:b. Slowly ( Hortensia

walked upstairs).

The essential structure of a sentence thus appears to consist of a subject, a predicate, and possibly one or more adverbials: the subject, to name some entity; the predicate, to make a predication

18Predications about non-nominals (that is, about units other than simple nominals) will be indicated by means of wavy arrows drawn under them pointing towards the units about which they make predications. It is interesting to compare the three units appearing in example 6 with Jespersen’s three “ranks”: the subject, Hortensia, corresponds to his “primary”; the predicate, rose, corresponds to his “secondary”; and the adverbial, slowly, corresponds to his “tertiary.” 19An asterisk preceding a sentence indicates that the sentence is not an example of natural standard English.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

169

about the subject; and the adverbials, to make predications either about the predicate alone or about the subject and predicate to¬ gether.

11.4 Tagmemes, Tagmas, and Specific Tagmas A tagmeme is the correlation between a function or position and the set of form-classes that may occur in, or fill, that position. It may be represented symbolically by means of a capital letter indicating the function or position, followed by a colon which is in turn followed by an abbreviation indicating the set of form-classes that may fill the position (that is, perform the given function). Thus the subject tagmeme in English may be represented as S:Nom, where S represents “Subject position” or “Subject function,” and Nom represents “Nominal.” The term “nominal” is a cover term for all the different kinds of form-classes (including construction-types) that can fill the subject or object positions in an English sentence, that is, the set of nominals includes such construction-types as noun clusters, verb phrases, prepositional phrases, clauses, and the like, as in the following examples: S Last winter was very cold. Playing tennis is good exercise. Over the fence is out. What you don't know could fill a book.

9a. b. c. d.

S: S: S: S:

noun cluster verb phrase prepositional phrase clause

It is clear, therefore, that the tagmeme S:Nom includes, as differ¬ ent allotagmas of the tagmeme, the tagmas S:noun cluster, S:verb phrase, S:prepositional phrase, S:clause, and the like. It is possible, therefore, to break tagmemes like S:Nom down into their various allotagmas (or, more simply, tagmas). But for any given sentence, it will also be useful to look at the specific tagmas— that is, at the correlations between the various functions or positions and the specific words or word-groups that fill those positions. The following, for example, are some of the specific tagmas that are to be found in the sentences in example 9: 10a. b. c. d. 170

S: S: S: S:

last winter playing tennis over the fence what you don’t know

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

In diagramming sentences in sector analysis, it has proved helpful to show both the (allo)tagmas and the specific tagmas at the same time, with the construction-type indicated after an “equals” sign following the specific words. The different positions or functions within the construction are shown by means of letters or other symbols drawn about or below the words themselves. For example:

11. Example: S:

last winter was very cold =Sn = nK K last" winter >| * * : winter = n last = adj.

(The positions filled by—or, to put it another way, the functions performed by—the words last and winter are shown on the left by the arrow and the asterisk.) In the discussion that follows, the order of presentation will be first to describe the most important of the sectors that occur on the higher layers in an English sentence and then to describe some of the construction-types that may occur in those sectors. Because of space limitations, the presentation here must of necessity be some¬ what abbreviated. For a fuller description, the reader is referred to the works listed in the Bibliography under “Sector Analysis.”

12 The Most Important Positions in an English Sentence 12.1 The Positions on the Sentence Layer A written sentence in English is, basically, a punctuation unit— that is, in written English a given sequence of words is marked as a sentence by means of a capital letter at the beginning and an appropriate mark of punctuation at the end, as in example la: la. Last winter my parents moved to Florida. If we were to remove the beginning capital and the final period from this sequence, we would no longer have an actual sentence; we would merely have a potential sentence, as in example lb: lb. last winter my parents moved to Florida We will call such a potential sentence a sentence-unit.1 The se^his term was first suggested by Edwrard M. Ouchi, who used it in his own high school English classes. In the first (mimeographed) version of English Grammars and English Grammar (1964), sentence-units were called “non-included clauses.” They are essentially the same as the “T-units” described by Kellogg W. Hunt in his Grammatical Structures Written at Three Grade Levels (1965).

MOST IMPORTANT POSITIONS IN AN ENGLISH SENTENCE

171

quence in example la, which includes sentence punctuation, is a real sentence (abbreviated Sri); the sequence in example lb, which lacks sentence punctuation, is a sentence-unit (abbreviated Ut). These two construction-types occur on different layers. The layer on which the real sentence appears (with its punctuation) may be called the SENT layer (for “sentence”). When we remove the sentence punctuation, we get the same sequence of units lacking only the capitalization and the sentence punctuation. We bring this sequence of units down to the next lower layer—the U layer (for “sentence-unit”). The only difference between the SENT layer and the U layer is in the presence or absence of sentence punctuation. Thus we may say that a sentence (Sn) consists of (obligatory) capitalization plus an (obligatory) sentence-unit plus (obligatory) end punctuation: 2. + cap + U + punc = Sn2 12.2 Positions on the Augmented-Sentence-Unit Layer It frequently happens that a sentence-unit is introduced by a linker (that is, a word or group of words like but or on the other hand) that “links” the given sentence to a preceding sentence. The presence of a linker in a sentence-unit (in the L position) does not really result in a new construction-type: the sentence-unit is still a sentence-unit. However, it is augmented by the addition of the linker, which must be recognized in the analysis of the sentence. In order to have the sentence-unit itself appear alone on a separate line in the analysis—without any added elements such as linkers or extraneous inserts—it is helpful to recognize one more layer above the U layer when necessary, a layer labeled “U + ,” that is, an augumented-U layer, with additional positions for linkers and/or inserts. (The positions in which inserts occur are marked by means of carets: “a”.) Thus, if example la above also included the words But Mary, we would analyze it—on its “highest” layers—as follows: cap

U+

punc

3. SENT*: But Mary, last winter my parents moved to Florida. = Sn LA U U+ : U :

but Mary, last winter my parents moved to Florida=Ut+ last winter my parents moved to Florida=Ut

2 U is used in this formulation instead of Ut (which is the abbreviation for the sentence-unit as a construction-type) since this formula actually represents a sequence of positions or functions. ‘Unfortunately it is not possible to use the label S for the sentence layer since that label has

172

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

Only the initial capital and the end-punctuation mark are re¬ moved on the U (or U +) layer; capital letters and commas (or other kinds of punctuation) that occur inside the sentence remain as they are. On lower layers, however, punctuation marks are removed whenever the elements they separate from the rest of the sentence are removed. For instance, when but Mary is removed on a lower layer of structure, the comma following Mary is also removed.

12.3 Compound Units Two or more sentence units may occur together on the U layer, joined by means of a coordinator such as and or but, or by means of a comma or semicolon, or by some combination of these, as in last winter my parents moved to Florida, last spring Nora’s parents moved to California, and in June Percy’s parents went to Europe. When two nouns are joined together to form a single word—such as book and case in bookcase— the resulting word is referred to as “a (single) compound noun.” Following the same convention, we may refer to the combined sentence-units in the example above as “a (single) compound sentence-unit” or to the whole sentence as “a compound sentence” (for short) and may first treat the compound sentence-unit as a single unit on the U layer. Once we have identified each constituent sentence-unit, however, we then bring it down to its own U layer and analyze it as a sentence-unit in its own right. (Similarly, both book and case, when “taken out” of the compound noun bookcase, turn out to be simple nouns in their own right.) Using the symbol + to mark the coordinators in the compound sentence-unit above, we can start the analysis of the whole sen¬ tence in which the compound sentence-unit occurs as follows: cap U+ 4. SENT: But Mary, last winter my parents moved to Florida, last spring Nora’s parents moved to California,

already been preempted for the subject (and subject layer). Hence the use of SENT. It should be borne in mind, however, that a sentence does not normally occur alone by itself, as if in a vacuum: it is usually only one of a sequence of sentences (in a paragraph or composition or essay—or even in a conversation). As such it fills a specific position in that sequence. If we were analyzing a whole paragraph, for example, we should label our sentences (on the sentence layers) SENT,, SENT2, SENT3, and so on. When analyzing only one sentence, however, it is probably enough to indicate whether it is supposed to be the first sentence in an essay or paragraph (that is, SENT,) or merely a sentence occurring at some other spot (SENTn). Since the example sentence above begins with a linker (But), it is obviously not the first sentence in its own sequence, and is therefore labeled SENTn.

MOST IMPORTANT POSITIONS IN AN ENGLISH SENTENCE

173

punc and in June Percy’s parents went to Europe.

=Sn

LA U U + : but Mary, last winter my parents moved to Florida, last spring Nora’s parents moved to California, and in June Percy’s parents went to Europe

=Ut+

+

Ui

U: last winter my parents moved to Florida,

U2

+

last spring Nora’s parents moved to California, and

U3 in June Percy’s parents went to Europe Uj: last winter my parents moved to Florida U2: last spring Nora’s parents moved to California U3: in June Percy’s parents went to Europe

= Ut+Ut4 =Ut =Ut =Ut

It is important to remember that a sentence-unit is a construc¬ tion—a single unit filling a single position on one layer, although it is itself made up of other constructions. This means that the sentence-unit last winter my parents moved to Florida, for in¬ stance, must be regarded as an indivisible construction filling a single U (or UO sector on a higher layer. Obviously, this construc¬ tion is made up of other constructions, but we do not examine the makeup of the sentence-unit itself on the higher layer. On that layer we examine the sentence-unit in terms of the way it functions as a whole. Only when we analyze the sentence-unit itself, on the next lower layer of structure, do we look at its constituents.

12.4 The Sectors on the Sentence-Unit Layer There are basically three different sectors on the next lower layer, the U layer, although one or more of these sectors may be repeated, just as there may be more than one sentence-unit in a compound sentence-unit. Two of these three sectors are positions for sentence adverbials. As was noted before, a sentence adverbial, like slowly in examples 6a and 6b above, may occur at the beginning of a sentence-unit (before the subject) or at the end of a sentence-unit. We will call a sentence adverbial that occurs before the subject a 4 Ut + Ut will stand for a compound sentence-unit.

174

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

front adverbial and the position it occupies the F sector (for “front sector”). We will call a sentence adverbial that occurs at the end of a sentence-unit an end adverbial; we will call the position it occupies the E sector (for “end sector”). Initially sentence adverbials will be identified by their potentiality for being shifted from the F to the E sector—or from the E to the F sector—without basically changing the meaning of the sentence-unit:5 F E 5. last winter) my parents moved to Florida my parents moved to Florida (last winter This shifting test will not work in all instances, however. In some sentence-units these adverbial positions can be identified only on the basis of their patterning, that is, on the basis of the similarity in structure between such sentences-units and others already ana¬ lyzed. As will become apparent later, patterning is the only criterion that can always be relied upon for the identification of different constructions. The third position in a sentence-unit—the position between the F and E positions—is the T sector, for the trunk of the sentence-unit. By definition, this is all of a sentence-unit between the F and the E sectors; the trunk in the example sentence, therefore, is the con¬ struction my parents moved to Florida, which fills the T sector. In diagramming a sentence-unit on the U layer, we can mark the positions for the three tagmemes that make up the sentence-unit, even when one of these positions is not filled (since all positions are potentially fillable). Vacant positions can be indicated by the symbol 0, which is conventionally used in linguistic analysis for “zero”: F \ T / E 6. U: last winter I my parents moved to Florida I 0 = Ut The wavy arrow under the front adverbial last winter shows that last winter makes a predication about the non-nominal my parents moved to Florida. As was pointed out in section 11.3 above, sentence adverbials do not modify the trunks they accompany but rather make additional predications about those trunks. In other words, the example sentence actually makes two predications, on different layers: on the trunk layer it states that my parents moved

5It is worth noting that a sentence like Last winter my parents moved to Florida cannot be converted into a natural yes-no question without shifting the front adverbial to the end: Did my parents move to Florida last winter?

MOST IMPORTANT POSITIONS IN AN ENGLISH SENTENCE

175

to Florida; on the sentence-unit layer it states that my parents’ moving to Florida occurred last winter. It should be pointed out here that more than one sentence adverbial may occur in the same sentence-unit in the E sector, as well as—although less frequently—in the F sector, as for instance in example 7: T [ E, E2 7a. my parents moved to Florida \ last winter because of the cold F \ T / E b. last winter ) my parents moved to Florida \ because of the cold F \ T / E c. because of the cold, j my parents moved to Florida \ last winter

F,

F2

\

T

d. last winter, because of the cold, / my parents moved to Florida Schematically, the composition of a sentence-unit may be repre¬ sented as follows: 8. ±F

)

+T

(

±E = Ut

12.5 The Sectors on the Trunk Layer The next layer below the U layer is the T layer (for “trunk layer”). Here there are positions for two tagmemes: the S sector for the subject tagmeme and the P sector for the predicate tagmeme. (The term subject, as used here, usually refers to what in traditional grammar is called “the complete subject.” As was pointed out in section 2.2 above, the existence of any such unit as a “simple subject” is rejected in sector analysis.) The predicate is, by defini¬ tion, that part of the trunk that is not included in the subject. It may include predicate adverbials. Sentence adverbials, however, such as the front and end adverbials described above, are con¬ sidered to be outside the predicate. In diagramming a trunk, the subject and predicate will be marked as in example 9:

_S_ 9. T:

the man who lives across the street

hates cats = Tk

Since both the S and P sectors must be filled in any major sentence, the composition of a trunk may be represented schematically as in example 10:

176

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

The subject in a trunk can usually be identified by changing the form of the trunk from the statement form to the yes-no question form. If the trunk is already in the form of a yes-no question, it must be changed to the form of an (emphatic) statement. For instance, we can change the trunk in example 9 above into a yes-no question, as in example 11a—and then into an emphatic statement, as in example lib: 11a. does the man who lives across the street hate cats b. the man who lives across the street does hate cats When we change example 11a into example lib, we have to shift the position of one of the words: the word does. This word is one of a group of X-words that regularly shift position when a sentence is changed from its statement form to its yes-no question form (or from its yes-no question form to its statement—or emphatic—form). The X-words include many of the words traditionally called aux¬ iliaries; however, not all auxiliaries are X-words—and the list ol X-words includes some words that are sometimes called verbs rather than auxiliaries. The most common X-words are am, are, is, was, were; will, would; shall, should; can, could; may, might, must; ought; and have, has, had, and do, does, did when these words are not used as verbs.6 X-words may occur on either side of the subject position, that is, in a yes-no question the position for the X-word regularly precedes the position for the subject, while in a statement the position for the X-word follows the subject position. Both positions may be vacant in non-emphatic statements, as in example 9 above; however, the second position will be filled by do, does, or did in the emphatic form of such statements, as in lib. The subject of a sentence is defined, therefore, as the unit around which an X-word shifts—or, to put it in another way, the subject is made up of all the words that occur between the two X sectors7 as in example 12: 6 Do, does, did and have, has, and had may be either X-words or verbs depending upon the position they occupy. For example, in the sentence Ido my homework every night, do is a verb; but in the sentences Do you do your homework every night? and I do do my homework every night, the first do is an X-word, and the second is a verb. 7This definition of the subject, like that of sentence adverbials, is one that is applicable in most, but not all, instances. In some sentences that have long, complex subjects, the shifting of the X-word to its pre-subject position would result in an unnatural sentence; in such sentences the subjects can be identified by the recognition of certain similarities in patterning between them and other sentences that have already been analyzed. Again, there are certain recognizable words (such as words ending in -ly like really, certainly, slowly) and words belonging to a memorizable list (like already, often, never) that may occur between the subject position and the following X position, as in I never will understand why Percy left home: these words do not form part of the subject. (For a fuller discussion of these words, see section 12.8 below.)

MOST IMPORTANT POSITIONS IN AN ENGLISH SENTENCE

177

xr 12. (does) the man who lives across the street (does) hate cats We will differentiate between the two X sectors by marking one with and X and the other with an X with a tilde over it. The unmarked X shows the X sector—the position of the X-word in a statement; the X with a tilde (X) shows the shifted X sector—the position of the X-word in a yes-no question. (The tilde is regularly used throughout this grammar to indicate shifted positions.) Since the X-word is part of the predicate even when it is shifted, the predicate in a yes-no question is discontinuous: part of it precedes the subject and part follows it, as in example 13: 13. T: does that man hate cats = Tk P: does_hate cats = Pt8

12.6 The Q and PP Sectors on the Augmented-Trunk Layer It is necessary to recognize an additional position on the trunk layer to accommodate wh-words like why and what in information questions (that is, questions other than yes-no questions, questions that ask for information). We will call this additional position the Q sector (for “question words”); and we will label the trunk layer when it is augmented to include the Q sector, T+ (that is, an “augmented-T layer”).9 Thus we would diagram a sentence-unit such as when you go to New York, what will you see as in example 14F \ T+ E 14. U : when you go to New York, J what will you see 0 =Ut

T+:

Q what will _

T

:

will

P

:

will

S you see A S |

A comparison of the noun cluster my sister’s hair with the noun cluster her hair shows that the single unit my sister’s fills the same slot in the former that the determiner her fills in the latter. In other words, the construction my sister's in the noun cluster my sister's hair fills the determiner slot in that cluster: 8a.Kmy sister’s hair>| b.K

her

hair>|

Obviously, then, the two words my sister’s form a single construc¬ tion, a construction of the type that we will call possessives. (Possessives have their own special substitute words—her, his, its, and their, for example—which may be called pro-possessives, just as she, he, it, and their—which substitute for nominals—may be called pro-nominals?) Possessives regularly end in -’s, or simply in These endings, though written as if they were part of the last word in the construction, are actually added to the whole construc¬ tion: my sister’s = my sister + -'s; my two sisters'= my two sisters + Possessives are signaled by just this ending, which is added on to the last word and is written as part of that word. In diagramming IMPORTANT CONSTRUCTION-TYPES IN ENGLISH

191

possessives, we have to cut off the ending before we can analyze the rest of the possessive on the next lower layer: 9.Kmy sister’s hair>| *

my sister K my sister>|

13.3 Phrases

A prepositional phrase, as we have seen, is a non-cluster type of construction. A phrase comprises two constituent tagmas: an in¬ troductory slot (p) manifested by a preposition, and a second slot manifested by a noun cluster. The noun cluster following a preposi¬ tion and forming with it the prepositional phrase, is traditionally called the object of the preposition (symbolized here as pO). Since the object of a preposition is regularly a nominal, we will enclose it within a rectangle in our diagrams; the phrase itself we will enclose between two angle marks (

K our housed —> *

= nK

= Phr = nK

our = d (for determiner) *: house = n 192

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

A phrase introduced by one preposition may fill an adjectival slot in a cluster filling the object slot after another preposition, as a modifier of the nucleus of the object of that other preposition. The embedding of one phrase inside another phrase in this way results in additional layers of structure and thus adds to the “depth” of the total structure: S 12. T:

P

the hat on the table in the hall

belongs to Percy = Tk = nK

S: Kthe hat on the table in the hallX —> * -—P | * 4 pO P —

:

the = d

the hall

= Phr

Kthe hall>|

= nK *:hall = n

The noun cluster the hat on the table in the hall may be said to have a depth of six layers down to (and including) the word layer.4 (The analysis presented here should be compared with the version appearing in section 2.1 above.)

13.4 Predicatids As we saw in section 12.7 above, any one of several different kinds of form-classes, including construction-types, can fill the Y sector. (For the whole set of such form-classes we have used the label Predicators.) One construction-type that commonly fills the Y sector—in other words, one subset of the set of predicators is the construction-type that begins with a verb form. Since this construc¬ tion-type fills the Y sector, the verb form in it must be non-finite: the sector for the tense morpheme is the X sector, not the Y sector. If we use the suffix -id to mean “non-finite” or “lacking in time41 strongly suspect that the degree of difficulty involved in reading one passage as compared to that involved in reading another passage of fairly equal length and similar vocabulary may be related to the “total depth” of the constructions filling the sectors in the sentences of one of the two passages as compared to those in the other.

IMPORTANT CONSTRUCTION-TYPES IN ENGLISH

193

orientation,” we can call a non-finite verb form a verbid,5 and we can call a predicator introduced by a verbid a predicatid. A predicatid is a construction-type comprising a string of four tagmemes, of which only the first tagmeme is obligatory. The four sectors for these four tagmemes are the V sector (for the Verbal), the O sector (for the Object of the verb), the B sector (for particles), and the C sector (for Complements). A predicatid (abbreviated Pd) can thus be represented schematically as in example 13: 13. i + V ± O ± B ± C >= Pd In our diagrams we will enclose predicatids between parentheses with little lines drawn across them, as above. (We will see later that there may be more than one complement—and even more than one object—in the same predicatid. We will also see that the B and C sectors can shift around the O sector.) 13.4.1 The V Sector The V sector in a predicatid is the position for a verbal unit. A Verbal comprises a verb form together with the preceding aux¬ iliaries (if any) that may occur. (The term auxiliaries as used here does not apply to X-words; X-words function differently from the auxiliaries: they fill the X sector, while auxiliaries fill auxiliary slots within the Verbal.) In other words, the V sector includes slots for one or more auxiliaries (symbolized by aux) in addition to the slot for the verb itself (symbolized v), as in example 14: S 14. T:

this dress

P should have been dry-cleaned = Tk X /

Y

P:

should/have been dry-cleaned = Pt

Y:

-(have been dry-cleaned)- = Pd aux aux

V:

V

have been dry-cleaned = VI

Every English verb (except the verb BE) has six forms. Three of these six forms are always finite, that is, they show timeorientation, either past or non-past. If we use the suffix -ex (from “X” as in “the X sector”) to represent time-orientation, we can call 5This is the term used by Jespersen in his Modern English Grammar.

194

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

the three time-oriented forms verbexes. One of these is the past form. Of the other two verbexes, one always ends in -s (or -es) while the other does not; we will call the former the S form and the other the 0 form. Thus ate is the past form of the verb eat, while eats is its S form and eat is its 0 form. The other three of a verb’s six forms are verbids: that is, they are non-finite and do not show time-orientation. A form like eating, for example, can be used in a sentence referring to some time in the past, or in a sentence referring to the present moment, or in a sentence referring to some future time, as in examples 15a, b, and c: 15a. Mr. Baxter was eating at noon yesterday. b. Mr. Baxter is eating now. c. Mr. Baxter will be eating at this same time tomorrow. In each of these sentences, it is the X-word that shows the timeorientation of the sentence (apart from the time-expression itself); the verb form eating remains unchanged even when the timeorientation of the sentence is changed. Every verb has three non-finite verb forms. Of these three, one is the base form,6 to which the suffix -ing is added to make the ING form. The third verbid is the form that usually ends in -d or -ed (as in hated and played), in -t(as in slept), or in -en(asin eaten)- we will call this form the D-T-N form—or the N form for short.7 The following table shows the three verbids and the three ver¬ bexes of both a regular verb and an irregular verb, as well as the eight forms of the irregular verb BE: VERBIDS Base Form hate eat be

ING Form hating eating being

N Form hated eaten been

VERBEXES d) Form S Form Past Form / hated hates hate ate eats eat was, were is am, are

13.4.2 The O Sector The V sector in a predicatid is followed by the O sector, which is optionally filled by the object of the verb.8 (Some verbs are “transifiThe base form is traditionally known as the infinitive. 7The ING form is traditionally referred to as the “present participle,” although it does not necessarily express any relationship to “present” time; the N form is traditionally called the “past participle” (or the “perfect participle”), although it does not necessarily express any relationship to past time. 8 By “object” here is meant the so-called “direct object” of traditional grammar.

IMPORTANT CONSTRUCTION-TYPES IN ENGLISH

195

tive”: that is, they require objects. Others are “intransitive”: they do not take objects. Some verbs are either transitive or intransitive, and a few verbs—like tell and order—take two objects, which may be labeled Ox and 02.) The object sector is, as a rule, a position for the same kinds of units that can fill the subject sector; we will show this in our diagramming by enclosing the unit in the O sector in a rectangle, as we do with the unit in the S sector. Like the subject, the object often comprises a construction con¬ taining several embedded units, all of which should in turn be analyzed on lower layers, as in the sentence Mrs. Fox wanted the policeman to make her husband stop having the lawn mowed while she was trying to take a nap.

16. T:

Mrs. Fox

= Tk Y

x/ -d/want

P: Y:^want

wanted

= Pt

the policeman to make her husband stop hav¬ ing the lawn mowed while she was trying to take a nap

Pd

13.4.3 The B Sector The B sector is regularly filled by a single word—a par¬ ticle—which can be shifted around the object (when there is an object) to the B sector, as in examples 17a and 17b: V

B

17a. The stranger turned b. The stranger turned on

O

B

the lights

on.

the lights

When the object is a pro-nominal, however, the particle cannot be shifted to the B sector before the O sector. For example, we might 'In this example, as in other examples to follow, several layers have been collapsed into one layer, in order to make it easier for the reader to follow the discussion. The sectors marked here are the sectors belonging on the predicatid layer; in a more complete analysis, of course, they should be analyzed on a much lower layer than the sentence layer.

196

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

say Next he turned the lights off or Next he turned them off, but we would not say *Next he turned off them. When the O sector is not filled, the particle, of course, cannot be shifted around it: V B 18. Then he sat down. Most particles have the same form as prepositions, but unlike prepositions, particles function alone, without following objects. Thus when words like up and on are used with objects, as in the phrases up the ladder and on the table, they function as preposi¬ tions. But when they are used alone, as in act up and come on, they function as particles.

13.4.4 The C Sector The C sector is a position for predicators—that is, for units that make (non-finite) predications about preceding nominals. When the O sector is filled, the complement in the C sector will make a predication about the filler of the O sector, that is, about the object. When the O sector is vacant, however, the complement will make a predication about the filler of the S sector, that is, about the subject. Since a predicator in the C sector functions on a lower layer than a predicator in the Y sector (within the P sector), we will call the former a secondary predication as opposed to the primary predica¬ tion made by the latter, as in examples 19 and 20:

The set of predicators, as we saw in section 12.7 above, includes such construction-types as noun clusters, adjective clusters, (and adjectives), phrases, and predichtids. These same constructiontypes can fill the C sector, as can a-words like asleep and alone, as in examples 21a through 21e:

IMPORTANT CONSTRUCTION-TYPES IN ENGLISH

197

o 21a. Kelly called

his boss

b. He thought

his boss

c. He

found

his boss

e. He

found

his boss

C Ka lazy fooly|. Kvery lazy>\. fsleeping in his bed.}, asleep.

It sometimes happens that the C sector is filled by two comple¬ ments. In such cases, the order of the complements can usually be reversed since both of them are actually fillers of the same position. For example: O C, C2 22a. Kelly found his boss asleep in bed. b. Kelly found his boss in bed asleep. A phrase occurring in the C sector can often be shifted to a position preceding the shifted B sector. We will call this position the shifted C sector.10 After a verb like give, pay, show, buy, or ask, we can normally shift a phrase introduced by the preposition to or for (or, after ask, a phrase introduced by of) to the C sector; when we shift such a phrase around the O sector, we delete the preposition, as in examples 23a and b:

V

c

23a. Percy gave b. Percy gave

o an apple

his teacher

c his teacher

an apple

When the phrase to his teacher shifts to the C sector, it loses its preposition, becoming his teacher. In other words, the non-cluster in the C position has been changed to a cluster in the C position. (This is in keeping with the tendency in English to place clusters before non-clusters: compare the relative positions of the adjectival cluster very tall with that of the adjectival non-cluster near the window in the noun cluster the very tall girl near the window.) Occasionally, however—especially if the object itself is fairly long—the C sector will be filled by a phrase from which the preposition has not been deleted:

10The C sector is the position for the shifted complements traditionally referred to as “indirect objects.”

198

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

V

c

O

24. Percy threw into the fire

the letter which Melinda had written to him in June

Again, the C sector may even be filled by an adjective that has been shifted to this position from the C sector: VC 25a. The wind has blown

O

C

the door

open.

O the door

b. The wind has blown open

Both the B sector and the C sector—or the C sector and the B sector—can be filled in the same sentence. Compare, for example, sentence 26a below with sentence 26b: V

C

B

her letter

26a. He said he would give V

C

B

b. He said he would give her back

13.4.5

O

O

B

C

back B

C

her letter

The Different Types of Predicatids

Predicatids are among the most widely used constructions in formal written English. They are certainly one of the most versatile of the several construction-types. Indeed, the ability to use predica¬ tids skillfully is one of the marks of a good writer. Predicatids can be classed in three different groups according to the non-finite verb form filling the obligatory V sector that in¬ troduces the predicatid. Thus we can speak of base-form predica¬ tids, ING predicatids, and N predicatids, like those in examples 27a through 27c: 27a. b. c.

S X Y You should-(write Friday with a capital F}. BASE-FORM PD. I am fwriting Friday with a capital F}. ING PD. Friday is {written with a capital F}. N PREDICATID

It can be seen from example 27a that a so-called imperative sentence” (that is, a command) is merely a base-form predicatid with no subject or X-word (and is therefore a minor sentence-type.): IMPORTANT CONSTRUCTION-TYPES IN ENGLISH

199

28a. Write Friday with a capital F. b. [You should] Sit down. c. [You should] Be quiet. Conventionally a base-form predicatid is introduced by to when it is taken out of the Y sector and is used in some other position—as, for instance, in the S sector in example 29: 29.

iTo write Friday with a capital FJ- is old-fashioned.

We will call predicates of this type TO predicatids.11 In analyzing such predicatids on the predicatid layer, we will treat the to together with the following base form of the verb as filling the verbal sector, as in example 30: VO

,-a-^

C

30. S: -(to write Friday . A predicatid may also be used after a noun as an adjectival modifier, as in example 32e:

11 The to introducing such predicatids is not a preposition. It is sometimes called “the sign of the infinitive.”

200

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

s

p

that man eating lunch in his office

is Mr. Baxter = Tk

S: Kthat man eating lunch in his office »

= nK

32e. T:

—»

*

= Phr = nK

*

It frequently happens that the head in a consociate is itself a construction; most commonly, perhaps, a predicatid. In the follow¬ ing example 42, for instance, the predicator in Y is the consociate boiling water in a glass, in which the head is in turn the predicatid boiling water: S 42. T:

Percy

P is boiling water in a glass X /

= Tk

Y

is/boiling water in a glass

= Pt

H D 4foiling watery in a glass 4

Y: V H:-f boiling

O water )-= Pd

P

= Ct

pO

D:

= Phr15

It should be noted that, in the sentence diagrammed here, the unit boiling water is not a nominal; therefore the phrase in a glass cannot be a complement in the C sector. Again, the phrase in a glass is not a traditional “adverbial” in the sense that it goes with

14In our diagrams we will enclose consociates between parentheses crossed by three short lines, to distinguish them from predicatids, which we enclosed between parentheses crossed by single short lines. Ev ery unit in a sentence—every “chunk on every layer—should be brought down and analyzed, layer by layer, down to the word layer, where the part of speech of each word or lexeme should be indicated. In the interests of saving space, however, the diagrams presented here are usually incomplete; they are commonly started on the trunk (or sentence-unit) layer, and are continued down only far enough to show the diagramming of the construction-type under discussion. In most instances, the part-of-speech classification has been ignored completely.

204

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

the verb: Percy is not boiling in the glass; he is boiling water in the glass. Finally, the whole unit boiling water in a glass is clearly a single construction of some kind (here called a consociate): the whole unit can be shifted as a unit to other sectors in the sentence— for instance, to either the S sector or even to the F sector, as in examples 43a and 43b. S 43a. T:

Boiling water in a glass F

b. U:

can be dangerous. T Percy got burned.

Boilii^^^

It is often difficult to determine, for a given sentence, just how much the writer intended as his “main predication” (that is, as the primary predication filling the Y sector) and how much he added on as an “additional comment” (that is, as a sentence adverbial in the E sector). The sentence Henry lost his job yesterday, for instance, could be analyzed as in either example 44 or example 45: T 44. U:

F

Henry lost his job (yesterday = Ut

S

P

Henry

= Tk

lost his job

X/ Y -d/lose his job

45. T:

V

O

-(lose

his job

Henry

= Pt

>

= Pd

lost his job yesterday = Tk

P:

XI Y -d/lose his job yesterday = Pt

Y:

^ lose his job yesterday ^ = Ct V

H:

O his job

= Pd

In the first analysis, yesterday is treated as a sentence adverbial filling the E sector; in the second analysis, yesterday is treated as a IMPORTANT CONSTRUCTION-TYPES IN ENGLISH

205

predicate adverbial filling the D sector. These two different analy¬ ses suggest two different possible meanings for the sentence, which may be suggested by presenting the sentence in two different contexts, as in examples 46a and 46b: 46a. Henry is very upset. He lost his job yesterday. b. Henry didn’t lose his job last week. He lost his job yesterday. If the second sentence in each pair were read aloud—or if it were spoken in answer to either the question “Why is Henry so upset? ” or the question “When did Henry lose his job?”—the difference in the meanings of the two sentences would be signaled by different stress patterns: the word yesterday would be weakly stressed in the first case (and might even be omitted), but it would be strongly stressed in the second case where it is part of the primary predication (that is, part of the predicate). The word yesterday might conceivably be shifted to the beginning of the sentence if the sentence followed a statement like Henry is very upset (as in 46a above); but it would not be shiftable in response to the question “When did Henry lose his job?” Frequently one must examine a context larger than that of the sentence itself in order to be able to determine whether a given unit fills the D sector or the E sector. As in the case of fillers of the C and E sectors, it also happens that theie may be more than one filler of the D sector in a given sentence. However, these do not usually function like two comple¬ ments, which both belong on the same layer and could be expressed in reverse order without materially changing the meaning of their sentence. Each additional predicate adverbial is usually added to the predicator plus all preceding predicate adverbials, like the layeis in an onion, which can be “peeled off” one at a time, working from the outside layer inwards. Sentence adverbials in the E sector, being on the outermost layer, are of course peeled off first in the analysis, as in example 47:

47. U: John the Baptist

T lived for a while in the wilderness of Judaea

while preaching baptism and repentance

P T:

lived for a while in the wilderness of Judaea XI

=Tk

Y

-d/live for a while in the wilderness of Judaea = Pt

206

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

H,

Y:

D, #live for a while ^- Ctj

Hp.

d2 Ho ^live ^

~ Ct2

H2:

V -(live)-

= Pd

13.6 Included Clauses The term clause is commonly used for any syntactic unit contain¬ ing a subject and a predicate, including what we have here been calling a trunk. In sector analysis, however, the teim clause is used only for an included clause: that is, for a clause that is included within a larger construction and that fills a definable position within that larger construction.16 In example 48 below, for in¬ stance, the included clause is a sentence adverbial and fills the F sector in the sentence. The included clause is itself composed of a sentence-unit introduced by an includer, whose function is to include its clause within a larger construction. The includer fills an introductory slot, which we will mark with the letter I and cut off from the rest of the clause before bringing the rest of the clause down to the next lower layer (that is, the second U or U2 layer) for further analysis: F, 48. U i:

when

T,

E

Mary was sick last week,) Henry sent her roses (0 — Ut,

F,: [when

U2 Mary was sick last week]

= Cl

U2:

T2 e2 Mary was sick (last week

= Ut2

I

= Tk2

To:

On the F layer, we identify the sentence adverbial as a clause by virtue of the includer when that introduces it. We enclose the clause between square brackets, and mark the introductory position with I and the rest of the clause with U2. Since a clause by defi-

>«An included clause is called a subordinate (or dependent) clause in traditional grammar while a trunk is called a main (or independent) clause. Those terms are not used here for the reasons given in section 2.2 above.

IMPORTANT CONSTRUCTION-TYPES IN ENGLISH

207

nition is made up of an includer plus a sentence-unit, the unit that ic mains aftei the includer has been cut off must be a sentence-unit. An included clause may also be used adjectivally, as in the sentence in example 4 on page 190. Adjectival clauses present special difficulties for diagramming; limitations of space make it impossible to deal with all of them.17 It must suffice to point out that adjectival clauses are commonly introduced by wh-words (the so-called relative pronouns),18 which—as in information ques¬ tions—always perform two functions, that is, belong in two posi¬ tions. Since the first of these functions is that of introducing the adjectival clause, the wh-word regularly occurs first in its clause; its other position then remains vacant (and will be marked with a small triangle in our diagrams), as in example 49: S 49. T:

the three green trees which stand behind our house

are firs

= Tk

S.Kthe three green trees which stand behind__ our house>l= nK ^

^

^

^--——

_

_

I U [which A stand behind our house] U:

= Cl

F T E 0)Astand behind our house(0 = Ut S

T:

A

stand behind our house

= Tk

Included clauses may also occur as nominals, that is, they may fill positions commonly occupied by nominals, as in example 50: _S,_ 50.

that Johnny can read

is no surprise to me

Tkj

Adjectival clauses are called “relative clauses” in traditional grammar, where they are classed in two groups: restrictive and non-restrictive. Non-restrictive clauses, according to Porter G. Perrin, do not limit the meaning of a noun but add a descriptive detail” and “are set off by a comma or commas.” [An Index to English, 4th rev. ed. (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1965), p. 366.] Only restrictive clauses are considered to be adjectival in sector analysis; non-restrictive clauses are treated as “inserts.” (See section 15, below.) The includer that often replaces who, whom, or which in adjectival clauses, but not in information questions. It should probably be treated, therefore, as a “pro-re It-word”_that is as a possible substitute for wh-words in special contexts. (The includer that may be omitted when it has, as its second function, the filling of any sector except the S sector in its own clause.)

208

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

I

u

S,:

[that Johnny can read]

U:

F T2 0 ) Johnny can read (

T2:

s2

P2

Johnny

can read

= Cl E 0

= Ut

= Tk 2

13.7 Clausids A clausid, as the -id suffix suggests, is a clause that lacks time-orientation. Just as a subject and a predicate together make up the trunk of a clause, so a subject and a predicator together make up the trunk of a clausid (abbreviated Cld). Unlike a clause, however, a clausid does not have in it front and end position for adverbials: in clausids, such adverbials move into the D sector and become part of the predicator. In example 51, for instance, the F sector on the first trunk layer is filled by an adverbial clause that in turn includes an F sector preceding its trunk (on its sentence-unit layer). In example 52, on the other hand, the F sector on the first trunk layer is filled by a clausid in which the adverbial has been shifted to the D sector in the predicator:

51. Uj:

F, since at that moment the doctor was out of his office),

T, the nurse answered the call

U2 F,: [since at that moment the doctor was out of his office]

= Uti

I

U2:

T2:

P:

Y:

= C1

F2 T2 e2 at that moment )the doctor was out of his office ( 0

= Ut2

S

P

the doctor

was out of his office

=Tk2

X Y was/out of his office

= Pt

P

pO

=Phr

etc.

IMPORTANT CONSTRUCTION-TYPES IN ENGLISH

209

F 52.

U:

7"

the doctor being out of his office at that moment,)19 S

F:- the doctor

the nurse answered the call

=Ut

Y being out of his office at that moment-

= Cld

Y:

H D ^being out of his office,

= Pd PO

P C:

etc. P D:

Y:

j

=Cld

D

^.coming out from behind the clouds^

=Ct

*

V H:

B

i coming out)- =Pd p

pOi i—

D:

= Phr

the clouds^ *

= nK

One of the greatest sources of difficulty in the analysis of English sentences is the fact that predicates can be used both as adjectival modifiers following nouns (as in example 32e above), and as predicators following nominal subjects in clausids (as in examples 52 and 53). Thus it frequently happens that a nominal containing a noun followed by a predicatid is potentially ambiguous. In example 55a below, for instance, the subject nominal those men eating in the office is a noun cluster in form, while in example 55b, the very same group of words is a clausid in form:23 S 55a. Those men eating in the office are Mr. Baxter and Mr. Dix. b. Those men eating in the office annoys the secretary. In example 55a eating in the office is an adjectival predicatid modifying the noun nucleus men: its function is to identify the men who are eating in the office. In example 55b, on the other hand,

22This phrase is unusual in that the object of the preposition (from) is not a nominal, as one would expect, but rather a second phrase (behind the clouds). The broken lines around the rectangle are to show that this is not a real nominal. 23 In other words, the two subjects have the same “surface structure,” but differ radically in their “deep structure.” In example 55a, the focal point in the subject is the noun men: the men are Mr. Baxter and Mr. Dix. But in example 55b, the focal point is the verbal eating: their eating (in the office) annoys the secretary.

IMPORTANT CONSTRUCTION-TYPES IN ENGLISH

211

eating in the office is part of a clausid; as such, it makes a predication about the nominal those men which it follows. The sentence in example 55b states that the eating in the office by those men annoys the secretary.24 This distinction between modification and predication is an extremely important one in present-day English. An adjectival predicatid helps to identify or describe the noun it modifies, but the predicatid in a clausid says something about the subject of the clausid. The difference between these two uses is shown graphically by the diagrams in examples 56a and 56b, in each of which three or four layers of analysis have been “collapsed” into one layer: P 56a.

b.

KThose men -(eating in the office)-»

are Mr. Baxter and Mr. Dix.

-f [those men ^eating in the office)— annoys the secretary.

In examples 55a and 55b, the form of the X-word (in 55a) and of the verb (in 55b) resolves the ambiguity. The plural form of the X-word are shows that it must “agree” with a plural subject nominal—that is, the nominal those men eating in the office must be plural, so that the focal point in the nominal must be men, and the nominal, therefore, must be a noun cluster with men as its nucleus. The singular form of the verb annoys, however, shows that it must agree with a singular subject nominal—that is, the nominal those men eating in the office must be singular, so that the focal point in the nominal must be eating, and the nominal, therefore, must be a clausid. There is, however, no overt tie between a verb and its object; if this same nominal were to occur in the object sector in a sentence, it might not be possible to determine whether it was a noun cluster or a clausid without additional information. This might come from a larger context than the sentence itself, as for example from the speech situation in which the sentence was uttered. The question in example 57, for example, might be asking whether Kelly has ever seen those men who are eating in the office now—that is, has he ever seen them, do they look familiar to him. On the other hand, it might also be asking whether 24In many handbooks, students are told that they should put the nominal in a construction like this in its possessive form, that is, the “correct” form of the subject in example 55b would be those men’s eating in the office. Actually, however, the use of a non-possessive nominal as the subject of a clausid—as in the example given above—is very common in present-day English, and often sounds less stilted than the use of a possessive form would, except possibly when the subject of the clausid is a pro-nominal rather than a noun cluster: most writers would probably use Their eating in the office annoys the secretary rather than Them eating in the office annoys the secretary.

212

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

Kelly has ever been around at a time when they were eating in the office—that is, has Kelly ever caught them in the act of eating in the office: v

O

In other words, the same “surface structure” may reflect two very different “deep structures.”

14 Word-Classes As can be seen from this outline of English syntax, there are many more than just eight “parts of speech” if by parts of speech we mean the different kinds of words (or lexemes) to be found in English. No complete inventory of all the different word-classes exists, but we have already identified quite a few of them; to several we have even given special labels. It has already been pointed out that there are basically two different kinds of word-classes: (1) the “listable” word-classes, each of which consists of a relatively small set of items that can be defined by listing the members of the set, and (2) the “non-listable” word-classes, which consist of sets of items that cannot be listed. (See section 7.4 above.) There are four non-listable word-classes: the nouns, the verbs, the adjectives, and the -ly adverbs. These four word-classes make up by far the greater part of English vocabulary. The listable word-classes include the following groups of words that we have already described (some of which, as we have seen, have very few members): the negator not (with its variant form -n’t); the middle adverbs, such as already, often, never; the X-words; the auxiliaries, such as having, being, been; the “sign of the infinitive” to; the determiners, such as the, a or an, my, every; the numerals, both cardinal (one, two, three, etc.) and ordinal (first, second, third, etc.); “special adjectives” like main and chief; the prepositions, such as of, with, to, for, in, into, on, because of; the wh- words, such as who, which, where, why (and also how)1; the adverbial includers, such as if, because, although, when; the nominal includers, such as that, if, whether, what (as in I asked

'All of the wh-words can be used as question-words; all of them can also be used as nominal includers; all but a very few (such as why and how) can also be used as adjectival includers.

WORD-CLASSES

213

what he was going to do, I asked if—or whether—he was going); the coordinators, such as and, or, and but; the linkers, such as then, next, but, on the other hand; the particles, such as up, down, off, on, away; the a-words, such as alone, asleep, alive, away; the fillers it and there; and the modi-modifiers, such as very, fairly, quite, sort of, good and. (As can be seen from even this summary listing, many words belong to more than one word-class; mere inclusion in a list, therefore, is not always a sufficient criterion for determining a word’s class membership: its use in a given sector or slot in a particular sentence often has to be taken into considera¬ tion, as well.) Other listable word-classes include the following: the response signals, such as yes, no, perhaps; titles, such as Mr., Miss, Dr., Professor; phrasals (or “contracted phrases”), such as upstairs, outdoors, nextdoor; exclamatory words or expressions, such as ouch, dammit, Hell’s bells, and similar expressions, including most of the so-called “four-letter words;” attention getters, such as look, Miss, hey you, pardon me2; hesitation signals, such as well, uh, you know, as a matter of fact; and construction modifiers. Construction modifiers, as the name suggests, are words (or lex¬ emes) that are used to modify different kinds of constructions rather than single words. They include such words as especially, only, just, all, both, half, about, even, merely, and no. The construction-types that they modify most commonly are phrases, clauses, and noun-clusters, as in the following examples: 1. Poindexter arrived just

2. Poindexter arrived^ust [as we were sitting down to supper]. V O 3a. I will take all^ Kthose red tomatoesX. b. I will take^us^ Kthose red tomatoesX . c. I will take ^ml^ Kred tomatoes >1. d. I will take n^ Kgreen tomatoesX. Since pro-nominals regularly substitute for noun-clusters, con¬ struction modifiers regularly modify pro-nominals, as in examples 4a and 4b:

2Persons’ names are also regularly used as attention getters.

214

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

4a. I like all

the girls

especially

the red-haired girl in the corner

b. I like all the girls, especially

her

The word just also belongs to the class of adjectives; when it functions as an adjective (that is, when it fills an adjectival slot), it manifests a different tagma from the word just filling a construc¬ tion-modifier slot—with a resultant difference in meaning: X / 5a. Judge Kovac is/

K

Y a just judged .

—> —»

b. Judge Kovac is/^justJO

*

judged.

As we have seen, a noun may function alone as the filler of the nucleus slot in a noun cluster with vacant modifier slots. As a result, an expression like just judges is ambiguous: the word just may be filling either the adjective slot or the construction-modifier slot, with resulting differences in meaning. For example: 6a.

K just judges >1 _ >_*_

b. just

Kjudges^

It should be noted, finally, that a construction modifier plus the construction it modifies constitutes a cluster—a phrase cluster, a clause cluster, or even a noun-cluster cluster, as in examples 7a, b, and c: 7a.

K

just X *

b.

K

just

[as we were sitting down to supper]>| *

c. K

just,

Ka judged *

One large group of listable words—and one of the most impor¬ tant—is the set of substitutes, of which there are several subsets. One of these is made up of the pro-nouns, the words (and expresWORD-CLASSES

215

sions) that substitute for nouns.3 There are relatively few pro¬ nouns; those most commonly used are one and ones: 8a. Tom has a red sweater; Dick has a blue sweater. b. Tom has a red sweater; Dick has a blue one. 9a. Tom likes red sweaters; Dick prefers blue sweaters. b. Tom likes red sweaters; Dick prefers blue ones.4 One when used as a pro-noun should not be confused with one when used as a pro-nominal: the pro-nominals substitute for whole nominals rather than for merely nouns. When one is used as a pro-nominal, it has no plural form and is not preceded by modifiers: 10a. Tom has

a red sweater

b. Harry wants

one

, too.

The other pro-nominals include him, her, them and their “pre-x” forms he, she, they,5 as well as it. (The words me/I, us/we, and you are commonly listed with the pro-nominals even though, strictly speaking, they do not substitute for nominals: when a person uses the word me or I to refer to himself, he is not using it in place of some other word or group of words, but rather as a deictic word—that is, as a word pointing to himself, as speaker or writer. We may call words like these “special nominals.”6) Other substitute words that may be mentioned in passing are the pro-phrases here and there (for “in this/that place”) and now and then (for “at this/that time”), the pro-X-word do, the pro-predicatid do so, and the pro-zcfo-word that. (See footnote 18 on page 208 above.)7

3The label pro-nouns is always written with a hyphen in sector analysis, to distinguish it from the traditional term pronouns, which includes both pro-nouns and pro-nominals. 4It should be noted that pro-nouns, like the nouns for which they substitute, have plural forms—and may also take adjectival modifiers. 5 These are the forms that are used before X-words and verbexes—before verbal forms expressing time—as in I heard him shouting; he was shouting (or he shouted) for help. Compare the quotation from Sapir in Section 5.2 above: “May it not be . . . that he and him, we and us, are not so much subjective and objective forms as pre-verbal and post-verbal forms. . .”? 6Words like me/I, us/we, you—and even words like here, now, today, tomorrow—refer not to somebody or something (or some place or some time) mentioned in an earlier sentence, but rather to somebody or something (or some place or sometime) in the context shared by both the speaker and the hearer. Such words are labeled shifters by Otto Jespersen in his Language: It’s Nature, Development, and Origin (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1922), pp. 123-4. 7The substitutes discussed here are those that replace the constructions for which they substitute. Many “introducers” (that is, words that introduce constructions of different kinds)

216

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

15 Inserts 15.1 The Sector Spectrum The sectors on the highest layers in an English sentence—and the construction-types that may fill them—can be schematized as in example 1, where “+” represents an “obligatory” position (that is, one that must be filled in a major sentence), “±” represents an “optional” position (that is, one that may be, but does not have to be filled), and “+” represents a “shifted” position for a unit that may occur in its usual position or in its shifted position, but not in both:1

P:

+X

+M '

t>

+X

±M

= Tk

±PP

+P

+S

= Ut

(±E

+T

U: ±L±F) T:

+ punc = Sn

+U

1. SENT: + cap

/

= Pt

+Y

4-O

The Y sector is filled by a predicator. One type of predicator is the consociate: # + H

= Ct

+ D^

The H sector may be filled by a predicatid: ( + V +C + B ±0 + B + C)= Pd

All of these sectors may be “collapsed” into one linear sequence of sectors for the purpose of examining their relative position with respect to each other: this is the sequence in which they will reach the reader’s eyes or the hearer’s ears, although it must always be borne in mind that in any given sentence several of the sectors will undoubtedly be unfilled. On the other hand, some of the sectors may be filled by more than one construction of the same type. Moreover, since several of the sectors can be filled by constructions that in turn have positions for higher-layer construction-types, a given sentence may include higher-layer constructions nested in lowercan also be used to substitute for, or represent, the constructions which they introduce. For example: This sweater is red; that (for that sweater) is blue. Melinda can’t play chess, but Percy can (for can play chess). Melinda would like to go to the movies, but Percy doesn’t want to (for to go to the movies). These two kinds of substitutes are discussed in greater detail in Robert L. Allen, “The Classification of English Substitute Words,” General Linguistics V (1961). 7-20, and in Ruth Crymes, Some Systems of Substitution Correlations in Modern American English (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1968). 'Construction-types not represented in the diagram shown above are the following: Clauses = [+ l|+ U] Clausids = 4+ S + Y4 Phrases = Clusters = K±±±+±±>I or Possessives = + | | + ’s or ’

INSERTS

217

layer constructions that may in turn include higher-layer construc¬ tions. This provides for recursiveness, which makes it theoretically possible for a single sentence to be indefinitely long. The sector spectrum may be represented as in example 2: 2. Sn= +cap±L±F)+X+S+M+X±M4 -(+V+C + B±0±B±Cr)-±D^ ±PP(±E+punc (It should not be forgotten that the filling of the Y sector by a consociate, and of the H sector in that consociate by a predicatid— as is suggested by the sector spectrum presented here—is only one possible manifestation of the Y:Pr tagmeme.) By way of further summary, there appears on pages 226-227 a full layer-by-layer analysis of a sentence that contains all the construction-types described in the preceding sections. This anal¬ ysis is intended to illustrate one of the most important concepts emphasized in sector analysis: the concept that a sentence consists of a hierarchy of words and constructions nested within larger constructions, on different layers of structure.

15.2 “Roving” Linkers Inserts are units—words (that is, lexemes) or constructions—that are inserted in a sentence at one of the boundary lines between two sectors (or, more rarely, between two slots). Since inserts do not form an integral part of the structure of the sentence in which they occur, they do not usually fill fixed positions but may “rove around” in a sentence from one boundary line to another. The most important class of words to function as “roving” inserts are those that link their sentences to preceding sentences. Such roving linkers (known as “conjunctive adverbs” in traditional grammar) are words like however, therefore, nevertheless, and the like. The following examples show several different posi¬ tions in which the roving linker however may occur in a single sen¬ tence (the roving linker is marked with a caret over an r): f S X M V D 3a. However, the secretary does not approve . S f X M V D b. The secretary, however, does not approve .

218

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

S X M f V D c. The secretary does not, however, approve . S X M V f D d. The secretary does not approve, however, V O b. His wife—for the second time—inherited a large sum of money. > S A V c. His wife (please stop rustling that paper) inherited a large

O sum of money. As can be seen from these examples, parenthetical expressions may be set off between commas, between dashes, or between paren¬ theses.

15.5 ((Non-Restrictive Clauses” “Restrictive” clauses, as was pointed out in section 13.6 above, are adjectival clauses introduced by wh-words which modify the noun nuclei in noun clusters. “Non-restrictive clauses,” however, are not modifiers; they are inserts, which are used after nominals to add more information (that is, to make additional predications) about the entities referred to by the nominals. Since such clauses are inserts, they are frequently—but not always—set off by commas,2 as in example 7: 2Handbooks commonly exhort students to set non-restrictive clauses off between commas; some books on rhetoric (like Perrin’s Index to English referred to in footnote 17 in section 13.6) even

220

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

A His wife,

who was already rich in her own right, inherited a large sum of money.

(As can be seen from the diagram of this example, the entire clause makes a secondary predication about the preceding nominal.)

15.6 Appositives Noun clusters may also be inserted immediately after nominals in order to make additional predications about the entities referred to by the nominals. Such inserts are called “appositives” in traditional grammar, and the same term will be used here. An appositive will be marked with the symbol A instead of with a caret,* * 3 as in example 8:

8.

T:

A:

Mr. Baxter,

the personnel manager, is eating lunch in his office = Tk Kthe personnel manager M

In this example, the appositive the personnel manager makes a secondary predication about Mr. Baxter. Appositives (and also non-restrictive clauses) are probably best removed from their sen¬ tences for further analysis on the same layers as those on which the nominals preceding them function as parts of larger constructions.

16 Analysis Beyond Mere Syntactic Analysis Limitations of space do not permit more than a cursory glance at other devices used by writers to draw their readers’ attention to some relationship holding between two or more items in a given

state that such clauses are set off by commas. But many reputable writers do not always place commas around such clauses, especially if the clauses are fairly short. 3Occasionally an appositive is used to help identify the entity being referred to by the preceding noun or nominal. Such an appositive does not add information about the noun or nominal; it modifies the noun, and thus belongs as an adjectival in the noun cluster. For example: K my brother Henryk, ncrt Kmy brother John >1

ANALYSIS BEYOND MERE SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS

221

sentence or even in separate sentences.1 One of the most common of such devices is that of parallelism: by using two constructions that are similar in form and/or that include one or more identical words, the writer can suggest to the reader that the two units somehow “belong together”—that there is some kind of relationship between them that cannot be shown by means of purely syntactic relationships imposed by the structure of the sentence. This is especially true when the two units fill sectors or slots on compara¬ tively unrelated layers in a sentence (or in separate sentences): in such cases, it is often only the similarity in form, with or without identity in the use of words, that signals the parallelism. In the opening sentence of his essay “On American Leisure,” for example, Irwin Edman brings the two noun clusters the quality of a civiliza¬ tion and the quality of its leisure into a close relationship by means of their similarity in form as well as by the identity of their noun nuclei, in spite of the fact that the two constructions occur on quite different layers in the structure of their sentence:

1. SENTi:

cap U punc The best test of the quality of a civilization is the quality of its leisure. = Sn

T F U: 0) the best test of the quality of a civilization E is the quality of its leisure (0 = Ut S T:

the best test of the quality of a civilization P is the quality of its leisure = Tk

S: Kthe best test of the quality of a civilization^ P

=Phr

^or studies of the use of such devices by different writers—studies based in full or in part on sector analysis—see the section of the Bibliography entitled “Sector Analysis.” This section also lists several sector analyses of languages other than English.

222

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

P

pO

Ka civilization M —> *

pO: X P: is/ Y:

=nK

Kthe quality of a civilization^

pO:

= Phr =nK

the quality of its leisure

= Pt

Kthe quality of its leisured

=nK

pO

P

Kits leisure y\ —»

= Phr =nK

*

One other device that may be mentioned here is that of “mis¬ match”: by deliberately mismatching the expected sequence of units in a sentence, for example, with the real, underlying structure of the sentence as revealed by its meaning, a writer can give a stylistically different quality—sometimes an even poetic quality—to what he is writing. We know, for example, that the following line from Frederic H. Hedge’s translation of Martin Luther’s Em Feste Burg is “literary” in its style because of the mismatch between its “surface” or ostensible S + P structure and its real, underlying S + P structure. On the surface it appears as if the S sector in this trunk must be filled by the noun cluster a mighty fortress, and the P Rector by the predicate is our God:

S

P

a mighty fortress

is our God

*

2. T:

= Tk

When we test our tentative analysis by trying to convert the trunk into a yes-no question, however, we find that the real subject is our God: the yes-no question would be Is our God a mighty fortress?, not *Is a mighty fortress our God?(unless we happen to belong to a cult of fortress worshipers). Thus the x-word test for subjects shows that the real subject is the noun cluster our God, and the predicate is is a mighty fortress. We can show the mismatch between the two analyses by using broken lines for the true syntactic analysis and by superimposing one analysis on the other: ANALYSIS BEYOND MERE SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS

223

3.

a mighty fortress

is

^our GocTj

Writers do not differ very much in the different construction-types they use—after all, most good writers make use of all of the limited number of different construction-types English places at their disposal. They do differ, however, in the sectors that they favor for one construction-type or another. Some writers make little use of clausids in the F sector, for example, although they may use clausids frequently in the O sector; other writers, on the other hand, may favor the use of clausids in the F sector (or in the E sector). Again, one writer may make little use of anything but noun clusters and pro-nominals in the S sector, while another writer may fill that sector in his sentences with a great variety of construction-types. Some writers do not often use predicatids in the F sector, but regularly use phrases there instead; other writers use predicatids in almost every possible sector, and also in adjectival slots and insert positions. By making it possible to examine a writer’s use of different construction-types (and of the depth of his constructions) together with the positions in which he uses them, sector analysis provides the analyst—and the teacher—with a valuable tool for the analysis of style.

224

AN INTRODUCTION TO SECTOR ANALYSIS

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