Linguistic and Literary Studies: Volume 4 Linguistics and Literature / Sociolinguistics and Applied Linguistics 9783110807646, 9789027977472

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LINGUISTIC AND LITERARY STUDIES-IV

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS Studies and Monographs 10 Edited by

WERNER WINTER University of Kiel, Germany

MOUTON PUBLISHERS THE HAGUE · PARIS · NEW YORK

LINGUISTIC AND LITERARY STUDIES In Honor of

Archibald A. Hill Edited by

M O H A M M A D ALI JAZAYERY E D G A R C. POLOMfi WERNER WINTER

IV: LINGUISTICS A N D LITERATURE/ SOCIOLINGUISTICS A N D APPLIED LINGUISTICS

MOUTON PUBLISHERS THE HAGUE · PARIS · NEW YORK

Linguistic and Literary Studies ISBN: 90-279-7717-8

(VolumeI)

90-279-7727-5 (Volume Π) 90-279-7737-2 (Volume III) 90-279-7747-X (Volume IV) © 1979, Mouton Publishers, The Hague, The Netherlands Printed in Belgium

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE Η. S. ANANTHANARAYANA AND W. P. LEHMANN

An attempt at structural criticism: Rigveda 10.129

11

ANOOP C. CHANDOLA

Musicolinguistics in literary esthetics

21

EUGENE DORFMAN

Aucassin and the Pilgrim of Limosin

27

GEORGE FORTUNE

A Shona love poem

45

ROBERT A. HALL, JR.

Primicias estilisticas de P. G. Wodehouse

55

L. G. HELLER AND JAMES MAORIS

The goals of literary analysis and a new definition of literature

63

HARRY HOUER

The structure of Navajo poetry

75

ROMAN JAKOBSON

Notes on the makeup of a proverb

83

ROY G. JONES

Linguistic and metrical constraints in verse - iambic and trochaic tetrameters of Pushkin

87

6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ERNEST N. KAULBACH

Piers Plowman Β. IX.: Further refinements of Inwitte . . . .

103

JERZY KURYLOWICZ

Linguistic fundamentals of the meter of Beowulf

Ill

RUTH LEHMANN

Contrasting rhythms of old English and new English

. . . .

121

SAMUEL R. LEVIN

The position and function of linguistics in a theory of poetry

127

LILI RABEL-HEYMANN

Morgenstern's linguistic fantasies

137

CHARLES T. SCOTT

Typography, poems, and the poetic line

153

ALFRED SENN

Observations on Jakob Schaffner's literary language

161

ELIZABETH C. TRAUGOTT

'Style' as Chameleon: Remarks on the implications of transformational grammar and generative semantics for the concept of style

169

ROBERT H. WILSON

Fate and choice in Malory's Arthurian tragedy

185

SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS HAROLD B. ALLEN

Samuel Johnson: Originator of usage lables

193

SCOTT J. BAIRD

English in Japan: Quotatives in informal bilingual speech . FREDERIC G. CASSIDY

Under the Hill

201 209

TABLE OF CONTENTS

7

LURLINE Η. COLTHARP

Some innovations in vocabulary: The tongue of the Tirilones .

217

JOSHUA A. FISHMAN

The sociolinguistic 'normalization' of the Jewish people . . .

223

Μ. A. K. HALLIDAY

The teacher taught the student English: An essay in applied linguistics

233

EINAR HAUGEN

Language ecology and the case of Faroese

243

ANN R. B. HEALD

A partial black word list from East Texas

259

CARLETON T. HODGE

Egyptian and Mischsprachen

265

DELL H. HYMES

Syntactic arguments and role relationships: Are there some of the latter in any of the former ?

277

GLORIA R. JAMESON

Cross-cultural communication through literature

293

YAMUNA KACHRU

Notes on participant roles and grammatical categories in HindiUrdu sentences

309

ROBERT B. KAPLAN

Toward a theory of applied linguistics

319

JOHANN KNOBLOCH

Eine transatlantische Isoglosse

333

WILLIAM F. MARQUARDT

A linguist looks at reading

335

8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

JliU V. NEUSTUPNY

Toward a model of linguistic distance

345

PRABODH B. PANDIT

On the nature of phonic interference

355

CAROL Μ. M. SCOTTON

Nationalism and personal ambition in language c h o i c e . . . .

361

DOUGLAS K. SHAFFER

The spread of English over immigrant languages in the U. S. .

371

JESSE J. VILLARREAL AND Μ. T. TODARO

Distinctive features and articulation disorders

379

LADISLAV ZGUSTA

Equivalents and explanations in bilingual dictionaries . . . .

385

LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

AN ATTEMPT AT STRUCTURAL CRITICISM: RIGVEDA 10. 129 H. S. ANANTHANARAYANA and W. P. LEHMANN

Hill's essays in criticism have taught us to apply to literary works the careful observation which linguists have found essential for the description and explanation of language. His analysis of 'Pippa's Song' (1956: 51-56) illustrates the power of the technique. Observation of the syntactic pattern - the parallelism between the sentences making up the lines of 'Pippa's Song' - and of the selection patterns within these sentences disclosed the linguistic structures which Browning used to obtain his poetic effects. The selection classes making up each sentence exhibit the same pattern. As in the first line: The year's at the spring the second noun indicates a unit 'contained' within the first-mentioned unit, and indeed the 'best' of such possible contained units (1956:52). A technique so powerful in providing the basis for arriving at the meaning of modern verse should also be applied to the analysis of ancient verse. For poetry of the past contains many more problems of interpretation than does more recent poetry; and every available technique should be used to determine its meaning. In our 'attempt at structural criticism' we examine a poem from the last book of the Rigveda, a poem dealing with cosmogony. The poem has been widely discussed, and frequently translated. A short essay cannot review the massive commentary of Indian and Western scholars, nor even deal with all the conflicting interpretations. Like Hill, we restrict ourselves to observations on the linguistic structure, leaving interpretation to the individual reader.* Moreover, we will not attempt a translation of the poem. Translations of the eminent poems of the Rigveda should be made by poets - but on the basis of thorough linguistic analysis of the poem in question. Since, however, Vedic verse is only accessible to scholars with a knowledge of Sanskrit, we include a philological translation.

12

Η. S. ANANTHANARAYANA AND W. P. LEHMANN

The poem is composed in tri§tubh meter, the most frequent meter of the Rigveda. Each stanza consists of four lines of eleven syllables, divided into two hemistichs. The meter of individual lines is either of the two following patterns: w — w —, w w — I — w — w w — w — w, w w I — w — w Since metrical length is provided by long vowels, or by short vowels followed by consonant clusters, even readers unacquainted with Sanskrit can determine the scansion of individual lines from a transliteration. The seven stanzas of the poem are as follows: 1. näΝ—•asad äsin no sad äsit taddnim neither nonexistence was nor existence was then najisid räjo no viomä paro yät neither was darkness nor brightness extreme, which remote, far kim ävarivah küha käsya §ärmann what enveloped, where, (for) whose care ämbhah kim äsid gähanam gabhiräm water [question particle] was dense deep 'At that time there was neither non-existence nor existence; There was neither darkness, nor the brightness which is extreme. What did it envelop? Where? In whose care? Was there water, dense, deep?' 2. nä mrtyur äsid amftam nä tärhi neither death was deathlessness nor then nä rätriä ähna äsit praketäh nor of-night of-day was distinct knowledge änid avätäm svadhäyä täd ekam breathed without-wind by-will power that one täsmäd dha_anyän nä paräh kim canäjlsa from that, verily other not extreme, whatever was than that remote, far

13

AN ATTEMPT AT STRUCTURAL CRITICISM

'Accordingly there was neither death nor deathlessness; Nor was there knowledge of night or of day. That one presence breathed without air by his own power; There was nothing more inaccessible than that.' 3. tama äsit tämasä gülhäm ägre darkness was with-darkness hidden before (earlier) at-beginning 'praketäm saliläm särvam ä idäm not-distinct flux all was this tuchyönajibhii äpihitam yäd äsit by-emptiness becoming covered what was täpasas tän mahinä_aj äyata_ekam of-heat, that by greatness, was one of-ardor by power made 'Darkness was hidden by darkness in the beginning; All this was indistinguishable flux. What was to be, was covered by emptiness; That one presence was made alive by the power of thought.' 4. kämas täd ägre säm desire, love that before, together at-beginning

avartataädhi became, above, turned on

mänaso retah prathamäm yäd äsit of-mind seed first what was sato bändhum asati niravindan of existence binding in non-existence obtained hrdi prati§yä kaväyo mani§ä in-heart deliberating wise ones, seers with-devotion 'Love arose in that at that point, And this was the first seed of mind. The binding of existence in non-existence they found, Seers, deliberating in their hearts with devotion.

14

Η. S. ANANTHANARAYANA AND W. P. LEHMANN

5. tirascino vitato rasmir esäm in between spread cord of these (creations) adhäh svid äsid upäri svid äsit below [particle] was above [particle] was retodhä male beings, seed placers

äsan mahimäna were female beings, powers

äsan were

svadhä avästät präyatih parästät female beings, below, (lower) male, above, (higher) self-power extended In the middle the cord of these was stretched; Was there something below ? Was there something above ? There were male forces, there were female powers; The female powers were below; the male forces above. 6. ko addhä veda kä ihä prävocat who indeed knows who here express, speak forth küta äjätä küta iyäm visr§tih whence (was) born whence this act of creation arväg devä asyä visärjanena later gods of this creative action äthä ko veda yäta äbabhüva therefore who knows whence came about Who indeed knows? Who here can speak up? From where was [the universe] made? From where is this universe ? Gods are later than the creation of it; Who therefore knows where it came from ? 7. iyäm visrstir yäta äbabhüva this creation whence became yädi vä dadhe yädi vä nä [dadhe] if or placed, made, if or not placed, made, created created

AN ATTEMPT AT STRUCTURAL CRITICISM

15

yo asyaadhyaksah parame vioman who of this overlord in-extreme, in-remote brightness so angä veda yädi vä nä he precisely, only knew if or not

veda knew

Where did this creation come from? Did he make it, or didn't he make it? Who is its overlord in the extreme brightness, He only knows, if indeed he knows. As even a cursory examination of the poem reveals, for example stanza three, the two hemistichs of each stanza have a consistently different aim. The first hemistich of each verse makes a cosmological statement; the second comments on the situation presented in that statement, often indicating a change in the situation. Accordingly, even more than the normal tri§tubh stanzas, the poem exhibits binary structure, pointing out contrasts between two sequences in each stanza. The first hemistich of stanza three, for example, characterizes the state of darkness, of matter in flux; the second hemistich indicates that being arose from this state. The same principle of composition is found in the other stanzas. We will not discuss here ihe relationship of the stanzas to one another. As Thieme has pointed out (1964:65-66), stanzas one and two form a unit in contrast with stanzas three and four. The first two stanzas describe the earliest period, characterized by non-existence; the third and fourth indicate the beginning of äbhii 'being' and of mänas 'mind'. Stanzas six and seven indicate the lack of knowledge about the origin of creation, with five as a transitional stanza. Our recognition of the bipartite structure of the poem and of each stanza leads us also to regard each hemistich as a unit. Interpretations contrary to this view must therefore be rejected. In this way Macdonell's interpretation of the second half of line 4 in stanza one (1917:207) is to be preferred to Thieme's (1964:66), who takes the two adjectives as an answer to the first part of the line. Thieme translates line 4 of stanza one: "Existierte das [Süß-] Wasser? [Nein, nur] ein tiefer Abgrund!" 'Did water exist? [No, only] a deep abyss.' This interpretation equates the second part of line 4 with line 2 of the stanza. But a principle of analysis recognizing the bipartite structure exhibited in the poem makes such an interpretation unlikely; instead, the last two words should be taken as a continuation of the statement in the second hemistich, and as in Mac-

16

Η. S. ANANTHANARAYANA AND W. P. LEHMANN

donell's translation and ours, interpreted as adjectives modifying ämbhafjt. This is also the interpretation of Säyana, the great commentator on the Rigveda. Accordingly, we propose this principle of analysis throughout the poem; each hemistich must be taken as a unit, with contrasts between the two hemistichs of each stanza. The bipartite structure, however, is not limited to the hemistichs. It pervades the entire poem, from the first line. In this line, dsad 'nonexistence' and sdd 'existence' are contrasted. An imperfect form of the verb 'to be': äsit (with its morphophonemic variant äs in) states the contrast, as do repetitions of this verb throughout the early section of the poem: stanza two, lines 1 and 2 and stanza three, lines 1 and 3. In more ways than one, äs it is a key word for indicating the duality of structure. As the positive features of creation become more prominent, the occurrences of äs it are placed farther from each other, until in stanza four - when creation is begun - äsit no longer is used twice. When it is used in stanza five, after creation is accomplished, the two occurrences of the singular form äsit are contrasted with two plural forms of the same verb: äsan. Existence at this point no longer consists of abstract mass-qualities; there are now retodhd 'male beings' and mahimäna 'female powers'. Besides observing the pattern of contrasts within portions of individual lines, we may note the inner relationship of the negative and positive characteristics in the various lines of the poem. In the first two stanzas, the negative element is placed before the positive: äsad before sdd; mrtyür before amftam; rdtriä before ähna. Since this pairing of negative and positive is so prominent, we may also expect it in line 2 of stanza one, even though the line has been interpreted without this contrast. For rdjo has been translated 'air' (Macdonell), 'Raum - space' (Thieme), 'Luftraum - space of air' (Geldner) rather than as a negative attribute contrasting with the noun viomä 'brightness of heaven'. Yet such a negative meaning of rdjas is found in the Rigveda, as in 1.35.2 ά krsnena rdjasä vdrtamäno 'Driving here through black darkness'; the meaning 'darkness' is also supported by cognates such as Gothic riqis 'darkness'. The structural principle observed in the poem accordingly leads us to interpret rdjo in this line as 'darkness' rather than as the neutral 'air'. In line 2 of stanza one, therefore, the darkness below is contrasted with the brightness above, as in line 2 of stanza two, night is contrasted with day. Moreover, this principle also points up more sharply the meaning of

A N ATTEMPT AT STRUCTURAL CRITICISM

17

amrtarfl in line 1 of stanza two. Rather than 'immortality' (Macdonell) and 'Unsterblichkeit - immortality' (Geldner 1951:359-361) or even the somewhat better 'Leben - life' (Thieme), it means what the word literally indicates: 'the negative or opposite of death'. In the first two stanzas the poet pairs 'non-existence, darkness, death, night' with their opposites. The pairing continues through the poem, but not with the negative quality placed first, as lines 2 and 4 of stanza seven show. In stanza seven the positive is placed first, the negative second, reflecting the departure from non-existence to the accomplishment of creation. The shift in position is found already in stanza four, where of the pair sato 'being' and äsati 'non-being', sato is placed first, in sharp contrast with the placement of asad 'non-being' and sad 'being' in line one of the poem. For after the universe was manifested by removal of the cover of emptiness, and when the first seed of mind had come into existence, the positive member of pairs is more prominent, and is placed before the negative. Moreover, the contrasting pairs no longer need be positives and negatives. In answering the question of stanza five, line 2, the poet proposes male and female principles. The male retodhä 'seed-placers' precedes the female mahimäna 'powers' in line 3; the female svadhä 'self-power' on the other hand precedes the male prdyatih 'extended' in line 4. And in stanza six, the two principal words supplement each other rather than contradict one another: veda and prd vocat 'know' and 'express'; djätä 'born' and visrsfih 'act of creation'. Finally, in stanza seven when creation is complete, the contrasts in substance are resolved. In line 1, visrstir of stanza six, line 2 is paired with äbabhüxa of stanza six, line 4. In line 2, the verb derived from dhä 'place' combines the male force retodhä of stanza five, line 3 with female svadhä of stanza five, line 4. The contrast between negative and positive principles has been resolved in favor of the positive result: creation. The emphasis on äsad 'non-existence' at the beginning of the poem has been replaced by recognition of the reality of creation. Although he maintains his principle of binary contrasts, the poet no longer opposes negative and positive principles, or negative and positive states. In stanza seven the contrast is between knowing and not knowing whether creation was brought about by an individual agency. Even the ädhyaksah 'overlord' in extreme brightness may not know. Having kept his binary principle of composition, the poet now focusses it on knowledge of the process of creation, which itself had been accomplished. Without referring to other interpretations conflicting with the proposed principle of composition, we suggest that any future interpreters

18

Η. S. ANANTHANARAYANA AND W. P. LEHMANN

and translators must recognize it. Whatever the rasmir 'cord' of stanza five, line 1, whether or not is to to be related to the bdndhum 'binding' of stanza four, line 3, it delimits the principles and matter above from that below - setting up another contrast. The kavdyo - 'seers' in the most literal sense, since the noun is derived from the root kü 'see' - discovered the bändhum·, only the ddhyaksah 'overlord' of stanza seven, line 3, may know the source itself of the creation. But though only he may know it, the poet maintains to the end his polar contrasts, suggesting that even the ädhyaksah may not. Syntactically then, the bipartite structure is characteristic throughout the poem. As further examples we may note that adhdh 'below' contrasts with updri 'above' in stanza five, line 2, and avdstät 'below' with pardstät 'above' in line 4. Among other contrasting pairs we may also point out the question ko addhä veda 'who indeed knows' of stanza six, line 1 with its answer of stanza seven, line 4 so angd veda 'he only knows', and its pendant yddi να ηά veda 'if indeed he knows'. It is this parallelism which encourages us to take the unusual step of emending line 2 of stanza seven; for like line 4, the verb was probably used twice in the line. In this way the line is not metrically defective. By observing the application of the principle of composition, even though the bases of the contrasts vary, we come to an understanding cf the poem. We do not wish here to pursue a lexical study, relating key words like tdpas 'heat', kdmas 'desire, love', reiah 'seed' with their uses in other Vedic poems dealing with creation, or with passages in subsequent commentaries and prose treatises. Obviously the poem cannot be understood without accurate knowledge of the uses of these words in their tradition. Our aim was to apply to a Vedic poem the structural principles which Hill demonstrated in his interpretation of Browning's poem. Nor did we note the poet's control of his phonological matter. He was obviously skilled in his control of the sound of his poem, as in contrasting words like dnid of stanza two, line 3 and äs id of line 1. Further, the use of tdmas and tdpas at the beginning of lines in stanza three is hardly without design, nor that of kdmas in line 1 of the following stanza, with their assonance binding them together. These key words, and others, provide a phonological structure for the poem. Another word in Thieme's chain of creation (1964:65): 'non-being, being, thought, desire, heat, seed, breathing being' is retah 'seed' of stanza four, line 2. It is repeated in retodhd of stanza five, line 3, of which -dhä itself is repeated in svadhd of stanza five line 4 and in addhä 'indeed' of stanza

AN ATTEMPT AT STRUCTURAL CRITICISM

19

six, line 1 as well as in the finite form dadhe of the last stanza. His use of phonological and syntactic patterns illustrates that the poet was a master of form as well as a master of content which has attracted all who have concerned themselves with views of creation and the Veda. Osmania University, Hyderabad and University of Texas at Austin

NOTE * Work on which this paper was based was carried out under Grants RO-4816-71-69 and RO-6120-72-128 from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

REFERENCES Geldner, Karl Friedrich. 1951-57. Der Rig-Veda. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1951. Harvard Oriental Series, Vols. 33-36. Hill, A. A. 1956. Pippa's Song: two attempts at structural criticism. Studies in English 35. Austin: University of Texas Press, 51-56. Reprinted in Readings in applied English linguistics, ed. Harold B. Allen, New York, 1958. Macdonell, Arthur A. 1917, subsequently reprinted. A Vedic reader for students. Oxford University Press. Thieme, Paul. 1964. Gedichte aus dem Rig-Veda. Stuttgart: Reclam. UniversalBibliothek Nr. 8930.

MUSICOLINGUISTICS IN LITERARY ESTHETICS ANOOP CHANDOLA

The interdisciplinary study of music and language is called 'musicolinguistics'. Such a study is motivated by the fact that language and singing as verbal behaviors share two components - intonation and rhythm. These two components, however, differ in their organization in these two behaviors. Such a difference makes these two behaviors separate from each other. Music has been associated with poetry. No poetry is known which does not display some differences from NORMAL language. The experience through poetry is itself an ABNORMAL experience like any other esthetic experience. It is hard to say how far the ABNORMALITY of poetic language adds to its abnormal experience. The most commonly known means of making poetic language abnormal is to organize some components of its linguistic units in some sort of regular spacing and timing. This kind of regularity is known as 'meter'. The musical tones and beats also have rhymes and rhythms in that their spacing and timing have some regularity. Although linguistic and musical meters are different in their organization, they are influenced by each other. The musical meter adds another dimension of abnormality to the language of a poem. There are, however, some parallelisms between musical and linguistic units which help restore the normality of the language for the hearer. That is, the abnormality can be referred to by the normality at the form level just as it is necessary to refer to the abnormal experience in terms of the normal one at the psychological level, as will be demonstrated in this paper. Consider the following poem taken from the medieval Braj dialect of Hindi-Urdu: säwaro khela rahyo hai hori tata jamunä ke tira. the-dark-one play ing is 'hori' edge Jamuna of bank bhara picakäri having-filled pump

taka taka man bhija having-gazed having-gazed threw

ANOOP CHANDOLA

22

gai mon cira. drenched wet my skirt. 'The dark one (Krishna) is having fun at "hori" (colorthrowing festival) on the bank of the river Jamuna. Having filled the water pump (with colored water) he aimed at me again and over and threw (the colored water at me); my skirt is wet now.' The Roman transcription here is the same as has been internationally adopted for Sanskrit. The vowels i, a, u are short and all others are long. The vowels ai and au are respectively long [ae] and [o]. Metrically a short vowel can be considered long when followed by two or more consonants. The long vowels can become their shorter counterpart for metrical reasons, e.g. morl 'my' can be pronounced as mori. A short vowel is considered to have one mora and a long one two morae. There are twenty-nine morae in each of the two lines of this poem. Presumably in these lines, a young milk maid is telling another person about what the young fellow, Krishna, was doing during the hori festival. In this Indian festival people throw colored water or dry color over each other. The traditional musical score of this poem (a version of which can be seen in Bhatkhande 1922) is given below: Part 1: III 11

12 13 14

C 0 ) F# G Β at

sa

X 1 2 3

C

wa ro -

(2) Β hai

Ab G

II 4

6 -

C

-

ra

hyo -

Db

Ε

Db -

-

Ε ta

ta

ja

mu -

-

Ε

Db

Ε

DbC

-

Ab F# -

Ab Ab F# -

ho

-

-

C

la

ri

10

Db Β -

Db khe -

-

0 8 9

C

-

B ^ (3)C nä

DbC

-

C

ke ti

Ab-

-

F#

-

-

Part 2 (first version): e

(4)

F# G -

Β

-

bha ra -

pi

-

Β ca

t kä

-

ra

MUSICOLOGY IN LITERARY ESTHETICS

c (5) Β —

(6) Β

23

C C c -

ri

Ab G

-

-

ri

Β ta

C - Db ka - ta -

G F# bhi

c G Β ja

-

C Β mä

C ka

—

—

Db I

-

ga

C —

-

F# (7) C mo

-

C

-

-

ri

-

cl

-

-

Β -

Ab F# EDb Ε - —

~

Db C -

The transcription of this musical score is based on the Indian notational system. This composition is set in a rhythm consisting of fourteen beats as indicated by the Arabic numerals above. The first beat is the one which gets the highest stress called lsam' in Hindi-Urdu. The highest stress is the basic reference point in each cycle of a rhythm. Thus, Beat No. 1 starts the same cycle every time. The divisions or bars are based on the presence or absence of 'claps'. The first clap is always the first beat and is indicated by an 'X' over Beat No. 1. The zero over a beat implies the absence of 'clap', e.g. over Beat No. 8. The other Roman numerals, e.g. II, III, etc., mean 'second clap', 'third clap', etc. The clapping system seems to be based on the anology of caesura in meter. Thus, two meters may have an identical number of morae or syllables and may differ only in the placing of the caesura. Similarly, two or more rhythms may have an identical number of beats but differ in the 'clap' placement. The tones of the Indie octave are C, Db, D, Eb, E, F, F#, G, Ab, A, B\>, B. The lower octave tone has a dot below; e.g., G means 'lower octave G'. A dot above a tone indicates a higher octave tone; e.g., G means 'higher octave G'. The hyphen or dash indicates continuation of the preceding tone or vowel. The sign ^ over two or more tones indicates slide or legato. A tone written over another tone indicates a touching of the over-written tone slightly before coming to the tone written below; e.g., br means 'take C for a very short duration and then Β go to B'. The sign ___ below two or more tones or syllables means 'one beat time'. Each cycle or line is numbered here for convenience. Thus, there are seven cycles or lines, from (1) to (7), in this song text. The musical meter is based on the number of beats. The poetic meter here, on the other hand, is based on vowel length. The poetic meter

24

ANOOP CHANDOLA

cannot violate the natural length of a vowel except that a short vowel can become long and vice versa in special contexts under poetic license. Musical meter is not bound by the natural length of a vowel. Should we assume that one short vowel is equal to one beat and one long vowel is equal to two beats, we immediately find out that this ratio is not maintained. For example, the vowel i in the word horl of line (2) has two beats (Beat Nos. 3 and 4) whereas the vowel ϊ in the word tira of line (3) has nine beats (Beat Nos. 1 to 9). The vowel a of the word khela in line (1) has three beats, whereas the same vowel in the word rahyo in the same line has only one beat. The result is that this poem takes at least seven cycles or lines of musical meter, but only two cycles or lines of poetic meter. These metrical lines do not coincide with the natural boundaries of the sentences. Thus, sentences have become much more abnormal in the musical score than they were in the original poem. The distribution of tones over vowels, like that of beats, is not even either, as can be seen in the i of horl and tira. The I in horl has two

different tones (Ab, F#), whereas the same vowel in lira has six different tones (B, C, Ab, F#, E, Db). The tonal and beat distribution can be modified. Thus, we get still another version of the second half or part of this song poem as is shown below: Part 2 (second version): X III 11 12 13 14 1

2

c

G F# G bha ra

(4)

c C (5) Β c C Β ta ka ta ka mä

c

(6) Β Ab G ri mo -

-

-

-

c

-

-

Ab F# Ab d

5

3 4

-

-

-

II 6

7

Β c ca kä

Β pi

0 8

c

-

9

-

ΓΪ £

-

-

D& C C C Β c ri bhi ja ga ΐ -

F# Ε -

Db

-

Ε Db -

-

We find some musical patterns here which seem to be linguistically motivated: (1) The last word of each line in the original poem rhymes with the sound sequence -Ira as seen in the words tira and clra. The same parallelism is exhibited by the identical tonal sequence of Ab F#

MUSICOLOGY IN LITERARY ESTHETICS

25

Ε Db Ε Db C et the end of Part 1 and Part 2 of the musical score. (2) The highest stress, i.e. the first beat, occurs on the vowel which is stressed, e.g. on the first vowel of the words khela, hori, tira, bhara, taka, bhija, cira. Stress is predictable in Hindi-Urdu, occurring on the first long vowel. If there are only short vowels in a word, the first one is stressed. (3) Except for the intonation and rhythm, all other linguistic features remain unchanged. Even in the case of quantity, short vowels have relatively fewer beats than the long ones. If phonetic parallelisms like these were not there, the hearer would have more difficulty in identifying the language in its normal general form as he personally feels it. Identifying normal language here would mean editing or restoring the natural language in terms of the linguistic competence of the native. For example, the hearer would try to understand the language by eliminating the beats and tones of music, the changed word order motivated by the linguistic meter, etc., inasmuch as they are not real to the natural language. The process, therefore, is this: the poet or composer first superimposes these abnormalities over the natural language; then the hearer intuitively eliminates these abnormalities. On the emotional level, the hearer identifies his own emotion with the emotion that is suggested by the contents of the poem. This poem has the emotion or feeling of love. The Krishna and the milkmaid of this poem and their actions of love are not real, as they are the creations of a poet. But their love symbolizes the natural sexual love that can occur between a boy and a girl. Their symbolic love arouses the emotional potential of the hearer which enables him to identify his emotion of love with the symbolic one. In short, this symbolic emotion can be referred to as the normal or natural human emotion, namely 'love'. The hearer has the psychological competence to eliminate the non-existent Krishna, the milkmaid and their love, and to generalize them as natural human lovers; then he personalizes the suggested emotion of the poem by becoming himself emotionally aroused. This is exactly parallel to the abnormal language of poetry and music, which can be referred to by the hearer in terms of his own particular feeling for the natural language. To sum up, the use of music in poetic language helps in arousing the emotion of the hearer, not only rapidly but sharply, and the total esthetic experience is richer as the hearer enjoys not only poetry but, simultaneously, music as well. University of Arizona

26

ANOOP CHANDOLA REFERENCE

Bhatkhande, V.N. 1922. Hindusthäni Sanglt Paddhati. Vol. 3. Bombay: B.S. Sukhtankar (Marathi Edition). Hathras: Sangeet Karyalaya (Hindi Edition).

AUCASSIN AND THE PILGRIM OF 'LIMOSIN': A BILINGUAL P U N EUGENE DORFMAN

Aucassin, cast into prison as punishment for his unprecedented act of treachery in releasing the defeated enemy war chief, Bougars de Valence, under oath to engage in perpetual harassment of his own father, Garin de Beaucaire, calls to mind one day a dying pilgrim whom Nicolette miraculously cures on the instant by the simple lifting of her skirt and the therapeutic display of a previously hidden lower limb. Like Antaeus again in contact with the life-giving earth, the pilgrim is at once restored by the sight to full strength; rising from his bed 'safe and sound and entirely cured', the wanderer returns immediately to his homeland. A natural curiosity about who the pilgrim really is, why he is wandering, and which is actually his homeland, is skillfully deflected by the anonymous poet; a pilgrim is a wanderer by definition and if, as the poet laconically remarks, he was 'born in Limosin', this information tempts us to assume, as the critics implicitly have, that we know who he is and where he is going, thus diverting our attention - in a literary version of the shell game - to 'more relevant' matters. There is more than meets the unsuspecting eye in Aucassin's touching prison soliloquy as he addresses his beloved: 'Nicolete, flors de lis, douce amie ο le cler vis, plus es douce que roisins ne que soupe en maserin. L'autr' ier vi un pelerin, nes estoit de Limosin, malades de l'esvertin, si gisoit ens en un lit, mout par estoit entrepris, de grant mal amaladis; tu passas devant son lit,

28

EUGENE DORFMAN

si soulevas ton train et ton ρεϋςοη ermin, la cemisse de blanc lin, tant que ta ganbete vit: garis fu Ii pelerins et tos sains, ainc ne fu si; si se leva de son lit, si rala en son pais sains et saus et tos garis' (XI, 12-31).1 Eminent critics, excusably unaware that the text is coded to Hebrew signals involving Biblical exegesis, and bemused by the poet's unerring sleight of hand, have fastened their attention - atomistically - on a number of striking features in the passage. It can hardly fail to evoke critical notice that a lover's description of his sweetheart as 'sweeter than grapes and bread dipped in wine' falls outside the common run of such endearments. N o less unusual is the spectacle of a hero who calmly recounts an episode in which his beloved raises her garments sufficiently before a dying stranger to bring him back to life. Aucassin caps this curious melange by again apostrophizing Nicolette, terminating his monologue with the plaintive cry that it is on her account that he is in prison where it would be fitting for him to die for her. 2 The three features mentioned merit individual examination before an attempt is made to lock them in together as an integrated whole, as the poet presumably intended them to be. Omer Jodogne, following the poet's gentle lead and concerned - by force of circumstance - with the surface story, rightly ascribes to 'buffoonery' the unromantic (if not necessarily unflattering) description of Nicolette: La bouffonnerie s'associe adroitement au serieux et c'est vraiment le secret de l'auteur de partir d'une expression naturelle vers l'outrance comique. Dans sa prison, Aucassin evoque Nicolette, "flors de lis, douce amie ο le cler vis". Epithdtes traditionnelles,3 bien meritees assurement. Mais il poursuit: "plus es douce que roisins ne que soupe en maserin" (XI 12-15). Peut-etre pouvait-on comparer la douceur d'une amie ä celle du raisin, mais que peut-on penser de la douceur d'un morceau de pain tremp6 (une soupe) dans une öcuelle de bois ? Autrefois, en 1932, avant son etude de 1950, Pauphilet s'etait affreusement m6pris en osant traduire cette soupe au maserin par "coupe de breuvage aux levres qui ont soif".4 Selon Aucassin, Nicolette aurait gueri un ρέΐβπη de Yavertin (de la folie) en lui montrant le bas de sa gambette (XI 15-31). II y a moins de cinquante ans, de vieux messieurs, apercevant une belle cheville ... perdaient la tete (1960:59-60).

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The same critic has previously observed, in a paragraph replete with examples, the tendency of Aucassin to yield on every possible occasion to weeping, despair, and thoughts of death: Ί1 pleure ... et croit mourir (XI40-41) lorsqu'il est prisonnier ä son tour' (56). This specific reference to the terminal lines of the passage cited is not related in any way to his discussion of the 'soupe en maserin' or the 'pilgrim of Limosin'. A. Micha, taking the pilgrim incident lightheartedly at face value, regards it mainly as a beauty contest. In his view, the poet has accepted the 'tacit challenge' of his confreres to compete in the race to create the most perfect paragon of beauty among the heroines of romance, the Enides, the Soredamors, the Iseuts. Seeking a means to 'beat the records' of his predecessors, according to the critic, the poet has portrayed a luminous, even a miraculous, beauty; not, however, without recourse to a rather hackneyed device: Au reste la beaute de cette femme "n'eclaire" pas seulement le coeur d'Aucassin, cela ne suffirait pas: eile gu6rit les pelerins qui n'ont plus qu'ä rentrer chez eux, en parfaite sant6, sans avoir besoin de poursuivre un lointain pdlerinage. Miraculeuse beaut6, au vrai sens du mot; et pour crayonner ce spirituel dessin oü le malade allonge sur son lit recouvre la santd apres avoir vu la jambette de Nicolette, l'auteur η'a eu qu'ä prendre ä la lettre une comparaison depuis longtemps banale, celle de la beaute qui est la meilleure medecine. Ainsi les cheveux de Guentevre, dans le roman de la Charrette, guerissent par la raeme vertu (v. 1440 ss.) la pämoison de Lancelot (1959:287). Although Micha fails to mention the dubious 'soupe en maserin' simile, its effect is obliquely felt in his ironic multiplication of the number of pilgrims cured ('eile gu6rit les pelerins qui n'ont plus qu'ä rentrer chez eux, en parfaite sante'), where the text itself specifies only one. Pragmatically, the possibility that the lone wanderer represents an entity subject to identification is thus swallowed up in the generalization. K. Rogger, concentrating, like Micha, on the 'miraculous cure', ranges himself at the other end of the spectrum; not only does he treat the pilgrim incident in all seriousness, he also considers it to be unique for its time: Έ η effet, une guerison de cette sorte semble unique dans la litterature du moyen age' (1954: 3).5 In his description of the event, Rogger makes a gratuitous assumption: '... un malade est arrivö au lieu de pelerinage oü il espere etre gueri ...' (4). Nothing in the chantefable authorizes 6 the reader to assume that the site is a place of pilgrimage. The critic nevertheless concludes that, in her curative properties, Nicolette takes on the quality of a saint:

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EUGENE DORFMAN

Nicolette elle-meme est-elle un personnage du folklore, a-t-elle les caracteres d'une f6e? En tout cas son voeu de guerir, sa fierte d'etre celle qui apporte le salut, la place ä un niveau infiniment superieur ä telle fee lascive de l'ancienne littörature et la rapproche plutöt d'une sainte. En effet, dans les ldgendes de l'occident chretien, il n'y a pas de sujet aussi riche que celui des guörisons miraculeuses7 effectuees par les saints, avantage dont profitaient jusqu'aux betes, surtout domestiques. On η'ignore pas que c'est, de preference ä tout autre miracle, le critere de la saintete. Le Sauveur meme est, en allemand, non pas celui qui sauve, mais celui qui guerit: Heiland. Or, Nicolette a ce pouvoir. Si le don de guerir est un apanage non des fees, mais des saints, 1'aureole en est un autre. Le nimbe des saints ne parait etre qu'un cas particulier de la propriete qu'a leur corps de repandre une lueur. Or, le christianisme a, comme le judaisme, la croyance ä ce phenomene et il le partage avec bien d'autres religions... Par ces deux qualites, Nicolette participe de la nature des saintes (Rogger 1954:13-14). Mario Roques, not without reason, takes a dim view of the preceding: Dans son second article Μ. K. R. s'arrete d'abord Sur les elements du recit. Apres des consid6rations assez banales sur la fantaisie ou les invraisemblances de certains traits, il s'efforce de montrer que "beaucoup de details paraissent etre tires de croyances mythologiques ou folkloriques". II en arrive ä se demander si Nicolette η'a pas quelque chose de la fee ou de la sainte, ce qui est assez inattendu. Mais surtout il insiste sur l'histoire du pdlerin limoisin malade de Vesvertin qui, veritable miracule, fut soudain gueri, put quitter son lit et retourner en son pays, pour avoir seulement vu, sous la traine, soulevee dans la marche et sous le ρείίςοη et la longue chemise, la jambette de Nicolette. On a tant parle jadis, au temps des jupes longues et des robes trainantes, du charme de ces visions fugitives d'un blanc jupon et d'un bas de jambe bien fait, et les Ingenus de Verlaine en temoignent encore si bien, que nous serions portes ä croire le pdlerin rendu ä la vie et ä la sante morale (car Vesvertin est un desordre de 1'esprit)8 par la vue de cette merveille de grace et d'etegance naturelle: erreur, semble-t-il ä Μ. Κ. R. Pour celui-ci, ce n'est sans doute pas mouvement naturel de coquetterie soigneuse, si Nicolette releve sa traine en passant devant le lit du malade ... et ce n'est pas effet psychique si le malade en reprend goüt ä la vie, mais c'est (p. 5) "que l'auteurpuisse ici dans des conceptions folkloriques disparues depuis lors,9 et qui adjugeaient [entendez: attribuaient] aux parties secretes (surtout des femmes) des vertus magiques, si bien que leur r6v61ation ecartait la foudre, etc."; ä defaut d'"exhibition" [Μ. K. R. dixit] on pouvait "remplacer les parties memes par la chemise impregn6e de leurs imanations" [id.]. Μ. K. R. ne dit pas clairement s'il pense que l'auteur d'Aucassin et Nicoleite avait lui-meme cette conception, ni comment eile trouvait son application dans la vision fugitive accordie au pfelerin. Le lecteur jugera si de tels commentaires folkloriques peuvent ajouter quelque chose au charme de Nicolette (Roques 1954:118-119).

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31

Roques, like Bedier, modestly restricts the area of display far more than does Rogger; even so, he - not surprisingly - finds it astonishing ('assez inattendu') that the remedy employed successfully to cure the illness of the pilgrim, namely the raising of a skirt, should be considered the act of a saint. In the introduction to his edition of the chantefable, Roques recognizes that the poet has composed his tale not without 'quelque intention parodique' (1929/1962: xi); nevertheless, in the critical passage just cited, he appears to be in accord with Rogger in interpreting the pilgrim incident more or less literally. Robert Harden, regarding Nicolette as 'the real hero of the tale' (1966: 7), sees in the incident another instance of the inversion of roles between the hero and heroine, whereby Nicolette performs all (or nearly all) the acts of prowess promised by the poet in his exordium. Harden joins Rogger in viewing Nicolette's act as that of a saint, but he does so within the frame of reference of Micha and Jodogne, as in fact a parody or burlesque of such activities in the contemporary literature: 'As for Nicolette, much of the inversion in her character has already been exposed in discussing that of her lover. However the author on several occasions also burlesques the type of heroine, sweet, infinitely patient, impossibly pure which she is supposed to represent. On one occasion she is portrayed as a virtual saint in an obvious parody of the miracles attributed to such people. Aucassin tells of how one day she came to the bed of a pilgrim from Limousin who was deathly ill. Gradually she lifted her garment from various areas of her body until one leg was finally exposed. At the sight of this limb the sick man was instantly cured and rose from his bed. Such a tale is worthy of a fabliau' (Harden 1966:7). The pervasive aspect of parody, astutely discerned by Harden, Jodogne, Micha, and others, 10 which enfolds the tale as in a mantle, is clearly there in full force. Its function, however, is to disguise the fact that underlying the overt details of the surface story there is hidden a parable (that is, a parastructure) of profound significance. The poet artfully conceals the necessary clues by various devices; in this instance, they first appear in the 'traditional epithets', easily passed over as innocuous formulas: 'Nicolete, flors de lis, douce amie ο le cler vis'. In the 1951 part of his 'Etude', Rogger did realize that the lily had a special significance for Aucassin, but he generalized it as: 'Le Lis, Symbole de la Femme' (1951:422). Wayne Conner properly credits Rogger with this important suggestion, but correctly characterizes the generalization as 'wide of the mark' (1955: 85). Seeking to determine the function of the lilies in the bower which Nicolette has constructed as a love test, 11 Conner declares:

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EUGENE DORFMAN

In any case, to appreciate the full significance of the lilies in Nicolette's bower, it is essential to remember their only other occurrence in the work, when Aucassin addresses Nicolette in XI, 12 ("Nicolete, flors de lis") and 32 ("Doce amie, flors de lis").12 As is well known, the lily is a figure frequently used by medieval authors in describing female beauty. (...) Accordingly some, like Scheludko (page 486) see in Aucassin's "flor de lis" only a conventional epithet of the type "o le cler vis". Certainly the expression is not unusual, though it is far fresher (it is the only metaphor) than the many others such as "douce amie" found in the chantefable. But I feel that literary convention is an inadequate explanation here, just as factors of form cannot alone account for the lilies of the bower. (...) In my view then, fleur de lis as used here is more than a conventional term. It is also a nickname or pet name - something, say, like the modern "Honey" or "Baby" (also conventional!) - which Aucassin must have been in the habit of using when alone with Nicolette (1955:84-5).

Conner is eminently justified in concluding that the lily serves as an identification tag, that is, 'a kind of signature', for Nicolette. 13 He is, however, somewhat hasty in accepting the equally significant ο le cler vis as a 'conventional epithet'. Aucassin et Nicolette is a coded text, containing a variety of linguistic devices which signal relevant passages in the Hebrew Bible, supplying a secret parable, or 'parastructural' dimension, to the romance. Among these is the use of the Hebrew morpheme le 'to' (in the text, old Fr. le 'the, him, her, it') which, standing between two words, serves to indicate a capsulation - that is, an embedded message from the Bible - extending from the first word to the second; 14 the capsulation reveals the inner meaning to be assigned to people and events in the surface story, transforming their character in an entirely new light. Thus, ο le cler vis requires that we seek out a relevant passage extending from ο to cler (o ... le ... cler); in Hebrew, ο is be- 'in, with, among', cler is bar, f. bara 'clear, innocent, pure'. The message, which could not be more appropriate, occurs in the Song of Songs: "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine, 15 That feedeth among the lilies [foz-shoshanim]". Thou art beautiful, Ο my love, as Tirzah, Comely as Jerusalem, Terrible as an army with banners. Turn away thine eyes from me, For they have overcome me. Thy hair is as a flock of goats, That trail down from Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes,

AUCASSIN A N D THE PILGRIM OF 'LIMOSIN'

33

Which are come up from the washing; Whereof all are paired, And none faileth among them. Thy temples are like a pomegranate split open Behind thy veil. There are threescore queens, And fourscore concubines, And maidens without number. My dove, my undefiled, is but one; She is the only one of her mother; She is the choice one of her that bore her. The daughters saw her, and called her happy; Yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her. Who is she that looketh forth as the dawn, Fair as the moon, Clear [bara\ as the sun, Terrible as an army with banners? (6: 3-10) It can be no coincidence that the first word of the ο ... le ... cler capsulation, Heb. ba-, just precedes shoshanim 'lilies', Nicolette's signature flower, and that the second word, Heb. bara, just follows her description as 'fair as the moon', linking this Carthaginian princess with the pagan Carthaginian goddesses, Ashtoreth and Tanit, hinting at the 'evil woman' of idolatry whom Aucassin is to shun. 16 On another level, this passage helps identify Nicolette as symbolic of the land of Israel, 'beautiful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem'; the chief object of the romance, in fact, successfully achieved in the end, is to effect a reunion between the people of Israel (Aucassin) and their long-lost homeland (Nicolette). Weeping bitterly in his desolate cell, Aucassin - as Solomon in the Song of Songs - expresses his hunger for his absent 17 beloved (the land of Israel) by comparing her with the sweetness of grapes ('plus es douce que roisins') and bread dipped in the wine goblet ('soupe en maserin'). Not surprisingly, these rather unusual allusions are found to echo Solomon's beautiful description of the Shulamite: 'Thy navel is like a round goblet [maserin], Wherein no mingled wine is wanting; Thy belly is like a heap of wheat Set about with lilies. Thy two breasts are like two fawns

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EUGENE DORFMAN

That are twins of a gazelle. Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; Thine eyes as the pools in Heshbon, By the gate of Bath-rabbim; Thy nose is like the tower of Lebanon Which looketh toward Damascus. Thy head upon thee is like Carmel, And the hair of thy head like purple; The king is held captive in the tresses thereof. How fair and how pleasant art thou, Ο love, for delights! This thy stature is like to a palm-tree, And thy breasts to clusters of grapes [rowws]. I said: "I will climb up into the palm-tree, I will take hold of the branches thereof; And let thy breasts be as the clusters of the vine [roisins], And the smell of thy countenance like apples; And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine ...' (7:3-10). Here again, the allusion is to the geography of Israel ('thy head upon thee is like Carmel'); it is Nicolette, representing the land of Israel, whose head is 'like Carmel', that is, significantly, high up on the mountain, and far up in the north. She is, moreover, the 'palm-tree', which he will have to 'climb up' to reach the heights he seeks; and Aucassin is still too far away to see any part of her as yet. At this point, Aucassin calls to mind a pilgrim who, the poet informs us, was born in Limosin ('nes estoit de Limosin'). The information appears to be gratuitous; why do we need to know his place of birth? Before the attempt is made to unravel this puzzle, however, it is necessary to consider his condition a little more closely. His malady, first of all, takes the form of madness or folly ('esvertin'); he is sick in mind Qentrepris') and extremely ill ('de grant mal amaladis'). Strangely - if that is the word - these are the very ills which the poet, in his exordium, promises to cure in any reader so afflicted who 'hears' his tale:

'Nus hom n'est si esbahis, tant dolans ni entrepris, de grant mal amaladis,

AUCASSIN A N D THE PILGRIM OF 'UMOSIN'

35

se il l'oit, ne soit garis et de joie resbaudis, tant par est douce' (I, 10-5). The poet has appointed himself physician to a 'special audience' 18 of those who are esbahis 'confused, dazed, perplexed' and dolans 'sorrowful', as well as entrepris and amaladis. The first two of these afflictions are apparently lacking in the description of the pilgrim, until we observe that for esbahis the poet has substituted esvertin, a variant of folie (in effect, a stronger version of 'confusion of mind'). This, in fact, is the charge which Garin, representing the special audience of gerim 'strangers' or Jews in the lands of the Exile, levels against his son Aucassin (when the latter insists on his reward - the kiss from Nicolette for which he has fought - in the chapter preceding the prison scene):'... tes enfances deves vos faire, nient baer a folie' (X, 40-1). Moreover, it is Aucassin who is described as dolans, upon entering the prison and commencing the soliloquy in question: 'Quant or i vint Aucassins, dolans fu ...' (XI, 8-9). Thus the special audience, the pilgrim, Aucassin, and Garin are all gerim 'strangers', all suffer from the same disabilities, and all, collectively speaking, are one, centered in the symbolic personality of Aucassin. The numerous capsulations in the romance (too many and too relevant to be accidental) indicate that Aucassin, in a manner of speaking, is reliving the major events in the lives of Israel's principal heroes, recapitulating Jewish history. He plays an additional central role in the parastructure, that of the coming Messiah. The textual evidence for this - on the surface - surprising conclusion is based on the poet's use of an unusual syntactic expression, du viel antif (J, 2), found nowhere else in French literature; the apparent redundancy of du viel 'of old', combined with antif 'from ancient times', has long perplexed19 the critics. These concepts are ordinarily conveyed in Hebrew by mi-ymey kedem, mi-ymey olam, or the like. There is a celebrated passage in Micah, however, prophetically announcing a deliverer destined to become 'a ruler in Israel'; here can be found the reduplicated expression, of which du viel antif is the loan translation: 'But thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, Which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, Out of thee shall one come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel [moshel be- Yisrael];

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EUGENE DORFMAN

Whose goings forth are from of old, from ancient days [mi-kedem mi-ymey olam]' (5:1).

If Aucassin and the pilgrim are one, there are now three geographical locations to be reconciled; the future ruler or Messiah 20 will come from Bethlehem in Israel, Aucassin himself is from Beaucaire, while the pilgrim presumably is a native of Limosin. Since Aucassin subsumes in himself the characters of the Messiah and the pilgrim, according to the suggestion postulated here, his land of Beaucaire is the focal point of the geography involved. The link between Beaucaire and Israel, established in A narremic guide for the perplexed, is based on a passage in which the prophet Hosea contrasts the eternal nature of God with the fleeting21 quality of Ephraim and Judah, the two Jewish kingdoms, expressed as ka-anan-boker 'like a morning cloud', a transparent pun to be read as 'Canaan-Beaucaire'. Beaucaire is thus Canaan, the Promised Land; and Aucassin, the son of Garin (David), is a descendant of the house of David, the promised Messiah from Bethlehem. How then does Limosin fit into this conception? Bernard J. Bamberger explains the Jewish concept of the Messiah: Originally this word was no more than a royal title. Israelite kings were inaugurated, not by donning a crown, but by the pouring of oil upon their heads. Thereafter they were known as the "anointed of the Lord" (M'shiach Adonoi) When the Kingdom of Judah fell, the people naturally hoped they would regain their independence and be ruled once more by their own king, of the family of David. Thus the expectation of the Messiah was basically political - the hope of national independence under a native ruler. (...) In its final stages, prophecy displayed certain new qualities. The simple, sublime poems of Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah were succeeded by visions fantastic in form and hard to unterstand. Instead of directing their message to the specific situations of their own day, the latest prophets dealt more and more with the remote future. They anticipated a change, not so much through the moral rehabilitation of the people as through the miraculous intervention of God. They pictured a catastrophic judgment upon the heathen nations, to prepare the way for the new triumph of the Jews. Such prophecies are a sort of bridge to the new apocalyptic literature (1964:70-71).

The 'fantastic visions' of the latest prophets gave way in time to the more reasonable views of the great teacher Maimonides 22 who, Bamberger reports, 'approached this subject as a strict rationalist. He ignored the apocalyptic fantasies, and interpreted the prophetic visions as no more than poetic imagery. The Messiah, he insisted, will be simply a great political ruler who will liberate the Jewish people and restore a national life upon the soil of Palestine' (1964:159). For Maimonides,

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then, the Messiah is a man, a superior human being, capable of leading his people back home and ruling them there, but a man - in every sense of the word. Our poet is aware, uncomfortably, perhaps, that there is another Messiah in the field, equally a suffering Servant; a Man widely acknowledged as God and the Son of God and an equal member of the Holy Trinity. How can he distinguish unmistakably between the two? It is here that 'Limosin' serves his purpose; li is the Old French definite article in the nominative plural; mas is Heb. 'man, person', in the plural, phonetically [masim], that is, mosim 'people'. The Franco-Hebrew hybrid, li-mosim (Old Fr. pronunciation [Ii mos!]), forms an exquisite pun, permitting us to translate un pelerin, nes estoit de Limosin as 'a pilgrim, he was born of the people'. A bit of previously useless information (who cares where the pilgrim was born ?) thus becomes a functional clue in distinguishing Aucassin as the Jewish Messiah, the moshel beYisrael who 'was born of the people'. Aucassin is the perennial wanderer, the 'pilgrim' sick in mind and body, lying paralyzed in his bed in the lands of the Dispersion, yearning for health in a restored Homeland; yet he has all the attributes of mighty Samson: 'Biax estoit et gens et grans et bien tailli6s de ganbes et de pies et de cors et de bras ... (II, 10-2). What will be the mechanism to release him from the sick apathy of his prison ? Nicolette passes in front of the pilgrim's bed, lifts her skirt, and displays her leg. No more is needed than a fugitive sight of one small limb of the beloved land of Israel ('beautiful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem'). In contact with the life-giving earth on that tiny dot of the world's surface, the pilgrim is fully restored to health, ready and eager to 'climb up into the palm-tree'. He rises from his bed and immediately goes to his country: 'si rala en son pais sains et saus et tos garis'. Aucassin, the eternal wanderer, 'born of the people', is himself Li mosim - 'The People' - that is, the Jews, home at last in Israel. The pilgrim incident, though couched in the past, is a prophetic vision of the future; at this stage of the romance, Aucassin is still lying in the prison of exile. In a litany of praises, ostensibly showered upon his 'doce amie' Nicolette, he reminds himself of the glorious life he has led in his 'sweet beloved', the land of his dreams: 'biax alers et biax venirs ...', the fine comings and goings, the good games and the jests, the lofty conversations and pleasures, the sweet kisses and emotions. The land is so desirable that none could hate her: 'nus ne vos poroit hair'. In the surface story, this is an ironic jest, in view of Garin's opposition to the

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EUGENE DORFMAN

marriage and his persecution of Nicolette which has resulted in her incarceration. On the other hand, in the parastructure, the historical difficulty has been precisely that too many have loved - or coveted Israel too much, the Assyrians and the Babylonians, the Greeks and Romans, the Arabs and Turks (extending far beyond Aucassin's day). Contrasting the joys of his former life in Israel with his bitter lot at present, Aucassin utters the mournful cry: 'Por vos sui en prison mis ...' In the surface story, this is a statement of belief, with which the poet concurs, 23 that it is on Nicolette's account that he is in prison. The event which actually triggers this denouement, however, is his act of treachery in releasing Bougars and enjoining him to perpetual harassment of Garin (X, 62-5); it is, of course, his love of Nicolette which propels him into this hasty, angry, 24 and vengeful act. In the parastructure, it is equally his love of Israel which is responsible for his current trials; the problem is that there are two Israels, and he has chosen the wrong one. From their earliest beginnings, the prophets have always inveighed against those elements of the Jewish population who - by yearning toward assimilation and the acceptance of pagan deities, the worship of the 'evil woman' of idolatry - divide Israel into two camps, the 'idolaters' and the ones who 'walk in the ways of God'. By treacherously siding with Bougars (Maimonides, follower of the 'pagan deity' Aristotle), Aucassin has called down condign punishment on his head. Pessimistically, the lonely prisoner in his cell broods morbidly on his miserable fate; it would be fitting to die for his 'beloved': '... or m'i convenra morir por vos, amie'. This is another of the poet's significant inversions; what would be truly fitting would be to live for her. Given the choice between life and death, the 'idolater' leans toward death; as Deuteronomy discloses,25 this is no way to recover the Promised Land. What our hero most needs now is the bracing effect of Nicolette's leg.26 The image is well chosen. If Aucassin is to deliver his people and restore them to their land in a final reunion, he must cease acting like a child, willful, petulant, rebellious, apathetic, defiant, angry, easily subject to despair in the face of obstacles, constantly thinking of death as the solution to his manifold problems; he must, in short, become a man, and a man among men {li mosim). University of Alberta

AUCASSIN AND THE PILGRIM OF 'LIMOSIN'

39

NOTES 1

All quotations of Aucassin et Nicolette, are from the Mario Roques edition (19291962). Various Hebraic (and narremic) aspects of the text were discussed in papers: The narreme: linguistics and literature, University of Colorado Department of Linguistics, 1968-9 Series, Boulder, April, 1969; A narremic analysis of Aucassin et Nicolette, and The education of a Jewish prince: reason and tradition in Aucassin et Nicolette, The Guild for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Edmonton, October, 1969, and March, 1971; Hebraic affinities in Aucassin et Nicolette, Western Canadian Modern Language Association, Edmonton, February, 1970. See the author's Tora lore in Torelore: a parastructural analysis. Memorial Volume for Ruth Hirsch Weir (The Hague: Mouton, forthcoming); The flower in the bower: garris in Aucassin et Nicolette. Studies in honor of Mario A. Pei, ed. by Paul A. Gaeng (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, in press); A narremic guide for the perplexed: parody and parable in Aucassin et Nicolette (in preparation). See also Dorfman 1969. 2 'Doce amie, flors de lis, biax alers et biax venirs, biax jouers et biax bordirs, biax parlers et biax delis, dox baisiers et dox sentirs, nus ne vos poroit hair. Por vos sui en prison mis en ce celier sousterin u je fac mout mal fin; or m'i convenra morir por vos, amie' (XI, 32-42). 3 These apparent 'traditional epithets', it will be seen below, serve positively to identify the 'real' Nicolette. 4 Pauphilet's gaffe of 1932 comes remarkably (intuitively?) close to the poet's underlying intention. 5 It may be that this judgment, contradicted below, was intended by its author to be read in a contrary sense, with prosodic stress on 'semble'. 6 Curiously, in a related matter, Rogger (1954:4) makes a similar charge against Bedier: 'Dans sa pröface ä la traduction de G. Michaut, B6dier 6crit: "Passe Nicolette: eile souleve un peu sa pelisse d'hermine et sa traine; sous la chemise de blanc lin, elle laisse - coquetterie ou compassion ? - paraitre et briller sa cheville fine". Pourquoi, demandons-nous, cet amoindrissement du geste, ce "un peu" ? Rien dans la chantefable ne nous y invite. Et pourquoi la cheville au lieu de la jambe ? Rien n'excuse ce subterfuge, pas meme le diminutif ganbete qui accuse seulement l'intention d'adoucir toute allusion par trop crüment erotique. Quant ä la "coquetterie", elle serait vraiment trop cruelle et d'une stupide impudence devant un malade alitö. Mais quelle suggestion intdressante que cette "compassion". Pour retrouver un equivalent ä cette scene, il faut aller jusqu'ä Barbusse qui, dans son "Enfer", fait se devetir une jeune femme devant un moribond, son ancien amant, en guise d'ultime offrande [fn. 1: 'Voir cependant: Der arme Heinrich']. 'Bedier ne suppose pas un instant que ce geste (du retroussement) se soit r6alis6 inconsciemment ou fortuitement. En effet, les circonstances exposdes dans le passage en question supposent le dessein delib6r6 de gu6rir: car enfin, qu'allait-elle faire dans cet höpital ?' Three principal facts emerge from this citation: 1) Rogger believes the incident to be a serious (if fictional) account of a saint's power to cure; 2) he insists that the cure was effected by the literal display of a woman's leg; 3) he repeats, in effect, that the occurrence is unique (or extremely rare) in medieval literature. It should not perhaps pass without noting that his 'lieu de pelerinage' has been transformed into an 'höpital'.

40

EUGENE DORFMAN

7

Unless the 'ldgendes de 1'Occident chr0tien' are not part of medieval literature, this would seem to contradict the previous reference to the uniqueness of the event.

8

The fact that the pilgrim's malady is esvertin 'madness or folly' is one of the keys to his identity. 9 Roques' criticism is well founded; Rogger's appeal to ignorance ('folkloristic conceptions which have since disappeared') is too frail a reed to support any theory. 10 See McKean 1961/3:64; Frank 1954:238-9; Woods 1965:214-5. 11 See Dorfman, 'The flower in the bower'. 12 Conner suggests that when flors alone is mentionned in the text flors de lis is intended:'... it is quite conceivable that the detail of the lis (in flors de lis) now absent from the prose references to the loge (flors only, in XX, 3 and XXIV, 75), was originally present in them as it still is in XIX, 12 (flors de lis), in the far more stable rhyme position' (1955:84). The inference is not supported, however, by another occurrence of flors alone, this time in the 'rhyme position' used by Conner as corroboration; the scene is Beaucaire, and Aucassin voit les herbes et les flors s'oit canter les oisellons, menbre Ii de ses amors, de Nicholete le prox... (XXXIX, 5-8). Since the purpose of the herbes and the flors here is to remind Aucassin of his beloved, this adds further support to the author's contention that there is, in addition to the lily, 'another flower in the bower', namely the erbe du garris 'rosemary', symbol of remembrance and constancy. 13 In 'The flower in the bower', the author identifies Nicolette as Solomon's beloved, the Shulamite of the Song of Songs: I am a rose of Sharon, A lily of the valleys (2:1). For textual evidence linking Aucassin with Solomon, see forthcoming publications listed in fn. 1. While Solomon and the Shulamite play a central role as analogs of Aucassin and Nicolette, both hero and heroine enact many other episodes of Jewish history, in addition to serving as collective symbols of the people and the land of Israel. 14 The discovery that the le was being used in this way came about through the effort to ascertain an intelligible reason for the apparent absurdities occurring in Torelore, that strange land where Aucassin beats into submission a king lying in child-bed, compelling him to outlaw male child-bearing in his realm, and where he transforms the queen's Utopian war, fought with baked apples, fresh cheeses, and mushrooms, into a bloody battlefield, slaughtering her enemies with a mighty sword. In narremic analysis, an episode such as that of Torelore (like Erec's Joie de la Cour; see Dorfman 1969: 47-50) reveals itself as an epilog in which the hero demonstrates that he has mastered the lesson(s) he is supposed to have learned during his performance of the acts of prowess, proving that he has earned the right to the final reward. What lesson could Aucassin have been mastering during the 'acts of prowess' which he gave no evidence of performing (in the overt details of the story) ? As every one knows, Nicolette is the 'real' hero, performing all the acts of prowess everywhere - except in Torelore. The Book of Proverbs, in Hebrew, supplies the answer to this tantalizing question: ki ner mitzva \e-Tora or ve-derech chayyim tochechot musar: li-shemarecha me-eshes ra ... 'For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching is light, And the reproofs of instruction are the way of life; To keep thee from the evil woman ...' (6:23-4). The thematic message is thus 'capsulated' between Tora and ra, that is, from Tora

AUCASSIN A N D THE PILGRIM OF 'LIMOSIN'

41

to ra\ taking into account that 'to' is Heb. le, we have Tora ... le ... ra, camouflaged as Torelore. (For further details, see 'Tora lore in Torelore') Quotations from the Hebrew Bible are from Norman Henry Snaith (ed.). Sefer Tora Neviyim u-Ketuvim (London, 1965); English citations are from The Holy Scriptures, according to the Masoretic text (Philadelphia, 1965). 15 The poet, noted for his many inversions in the romance, utilizes this line in the negative, as a basis for Nicolette's test of Aucassin's love: 'Jure Diu qui ne menti, se par la vient Aucasins et il por l'amor de Ii ne s'i repose un petit, ja ne sera ses amis, n'ele s'amie' (XIX, 17-22). (See 'The flower in the bower'.) 16 See Tora lore in Torelore, and A narremic guide for the perplexed; also above, fn. 14. 17 The cry that wells up in his heart must be very much like that of Solomon's: 'Return, return, Ο Shulammite; Return, return, that we may look upon thee' (7:1). 18 For the disabilities of the French Jews in the Middle Ages, see A narremic guide for the perplexed; also, for the relation between Garin [Heb. gerim] and David, father of Solomon (in First Chronicles, David declares: 'For we are strangers [gerim] before Thee (29:15), referring to his people, the Jews). 19 See fn. 16; there is a salutary lesson here, urging caution against the too hasty emending of texts in accordance with preconceived notions of form and content. 20 See Goldman 1966:174: 'This prophecy of the Messiah is comparable with the more famous shoot out of the stock of Jesse prophecy in Isa. xi. To hearten the people in their calamitous plight, Micah foretells the coming of one from Bethlehem (i.e. of the house of David) who, in the strength of the Lord, will restore Israel to their land and rule over them in God's name in abiding peace'. When Aucassin returns to Beaucaire from his exile (?) in Torelore, his people lead him to his castle (from which he will rule since his parents are dead), they vow their fealty to him, and he keeps his land in abiding peace: Ί1 le menerent u castel de Biaucaire, si devinrent tot si hom, si tint se tere en pais' (XXXIV, 15-6). 21 Ό Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee ? Ο Judah, what shall I do unto thee? For your goodness is as a morning cloud [ka-anan-boker], And as the dew that early passeth away' (6:4). The expression decomposes into: ka- 'like', anan 'cloud', boker 'morning'. 22 In A narremic guide for the perplexed, the enemy war chief Bougars (< Bulgarus 'heretic') is identified as Maimonides, considered an 'arch-heretic' in his day; his Guide for the perplexed was publicly burned in France in 1234 (see Fox (1968:xviii). With the poet's puckish sense of humor, responsible for all the inversions in the text, Maimonides is thus labeled a 'heretic' on the surface, while his ideas are accorded the flattery of imitation in the parastructure. The present writer believes that on still another level of this most intricate of romances, the poet was attempting to moderate the furor against Maimonides. 23 'Qant or voit li quens Garins de son enfant Aucassin qu'il ne pora departir de Nicolete au cler vis, en une prison l'a mis ...' (XI, 1-5).

42

EUGENE DORFMAN

24

The name Aucassin, the phonetic equivalent in Old French of the (seemingly) Arabic Al-Kasim (see Griffin 1965:247), is designed to caution its owner against yielding to this undesirable characteristic; it is based on an acronym-like capsulation found in Ecclesiastes: «/-tevahel beruchacha li-cheos ki kaas be-cheyk kesil/m yanuach. 'Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry; For anger resteth in the bosom of f o o b ' (7:9). The lexeme base kaas 'anger, vexation, insolence' is surrounded by the morphemes, al- 'not, nay' and masculine plural marker -im, resulting in at... kaas ... im; unlike Tora ... le ... ra and ο ... le ... cler, the le signal is lacking, but the embedded message is no less relevant and appropriate (see Tora lore in Torelore). 25 Ί call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed; to love the Lord thy God, to hearken to His voice, and to cleave unto Him; for that is thy life, and the length of thy days; that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them' (30:19). 26 After her escape from prison and her love debate with Aucassin through the walls of his cell, Nicolette encounters some shepherds with whom she leaves a message for her lover: 'Se Dix vos aüt, bei enfant, fait ele, dites li qu'il a une beste en ceste forest et qu'il le viegne cacier, et s'il l'i puet prendre, il n'en donroit mie un menbre por cent mars d'or, non por eine cens, ne por nul avoir' (XVIII, 17-20). The 'beast', of course, is Nicolette. When the incredulous shepherds doubt her assertion that Aucassin would not give up 'one limb' of her for a hundred, or even five hundred gold marks, or for any material possession, she explains why this is so: 'Le beste a tel mecine que Aucassins ert garis de son mehaing ...' (XVIII, 30-1). 'The beast', she is saying, 'has the only medicine to cure Aucassin (and the Jewish people) of all ills'; and the cure begins with the first sight of a sinple limb of the land of Israel.

REFERENCES Bamberger, Bernard J. 1964. The story of Judaism. New York. Conner, Wayne. 1955. The Loge in Aucassin et Nicolette. Romanic Review. 46.81-89. Dorfman, Eugene. 1969. The narreme in the medieval Romance epic: an introduction to narrative structures. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Fox, Marvin. 1968. Prolegomenon. In: A. Cohen, The teaching of Maimonides. New York. Frank, Grace. 1954. The medieval French drama. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Goldman, S. 1966. Micah, introduction and commentary. The Twelve Prophets, ed. by A. Cohen. London: Soncino Books of the Bible. Griffin, Robert, 1965. Aucassin et Nicolette and the Albigensian crusade. Modern Language Quarterly. 26.243-236. Harden, Robert. 1966. Aucassin et Nicolette as Parody. Studies in Philology 63.1-9. Jodogne, Omer. 1960. La parodie et le pastiche dans "Aucassin et Nicolette". Cahiers de l'Association Internationale des Etudes Francises. 12.53-65. McKean, M. Faith (Sister). 1961/3. Torelore and Courtoisie. Romance Notes. 3/4. 64-68. Micha, A. 1959. En relisant Aucassin et Nicolette. Le Moyen Äge 14.279-292. Rogger, K. 1951. fitude descriptive de la chantefable "Aucassin et Nicolette" I. Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie. 67. 409-457.

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Rogger, K. 1954. fitude descriptive de la chantefable "Aucassin et Nicolette" II. Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie. 70.1-58. Roques, Mario. 1929-1962. Aucassin et Nicolette: chantefable du Moyen Äge. 2nd ed. rev. Paris: E. Champion, 1929 (Photographie copy with 'Note additionelle'. Paris: 1962). Roques, Mario. 1954. Review of Etude descriptive de la chantefable "Aucassin et Nicolette", by Κ. Rogger (1951-1954). Romania 76.113-119. Woods, William S. 1965. The Α übe in Aucassin et Nicolette. Medieval Studies in Honor of Urban Tigner Holmes, Jr., ed. by John Mahoney and John Esten Keller. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

A S H O N A LOVE POEM G. FORTUNE

1. What is offered here is the text of a love poem in Shona, introduced by a few lines of narrative to provide a context.1 Poems recited by men in praise of women formed a special genre of praise poetry among the Shona, comparable to such other types as the clan praises, the boasts and the praises of outstanding professional men such as hunters, ironsmiths, expert musicians, warriors and chiefs. This praise poetry belonged to a culture which is now rapidly disappearing. However, it lives on sufficiently in the body of oral tradition to provide a model for the new written poetry of literate poets. Further the genre of courtship poetry, of which an example is provided in this paper, is still in use and may live on when others have disappeared. The general term for praise poetry in Shona is madetembedzo 'praises'. It is derived from the verb radical -detemb-ά 'praise, thank, praise thankfully'. Poems which are recited during courtship may be called madetembedzo okupfimbänä 'praises for wooing' (cp. -pfimbdn-d 'make love'). They are not restricted to courtship, however, and poems originally composed for courtship may be developed to become, mutatis mutandis, the praises of a wife. The extract which follows describes an encounter between two lovers and the praises which this encounter inspired.

2. THE TEXT

VäChigümbate 1. Sezvine chinokwenyera, Kufämäsangä äkafärä kwäzvo kungoerekana ängoti uso n6uso dhumä naRwäringeni. 2. Rwäringeni äcbva kutsime kwaäkänga ändocherä mvürä yekushändlsä kumbä. 3. lye wo Kufämäsangä äkänga achiendawo zväke kwaäienda. 4. Sevänhu

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G. FORTUNE

vakänga vächangobva mukupänä ndumä, rudo rüchäpfutä semoto, väkamirä kwenguva ndefü vachingünokurukurirana zvaiva kutsi kutsi kwemwoyo. 5. Sezvo tose tichizivä küti vasikanä nevakomanä mäkara asionane, Rwäringeni äkäita seasisazive kuti kumbä künodiwä mvürä yekushändisä. 6. Kufämäsangä, zvaäkaona chibayamwoyo chäke, äkadetembä zvoküti ainzwä äifunga kuti nhäsi mvürä ichatürükä. 7. Ά ! Rwäringeni! Ichokwadi here küti küsängana newe kwandiri küita uku? 8. Kana kuti kurota?' 9. 'Küsängana.' 10. Äkati ämutora Kufämäsangä,

5

'Ndimi amäi vängu, VäChigümbate, Yomütsipa murefü unenge weswiza. Makäbikira'she rüpiza, Akarivara kutongä mhosva padaie. VäMadetembe, Makädetemba väshe kumunda, Kunze kukave, mübvumbi.

Amäi vängu, VäMarüsarira, Makäsarira kuunidza vagere zvävo. 10 Makäti, "IJyä ndikudetembe", Dzokono mozod6tembä dätya, Rikapisä rongo rerüpiza kwavämwene. Dende rängu bünzümürwa risinä rüremera. Zinamä-matadza rängu ririri, 15 Nzungü dzomükuyirwa. Amäi vängu, VäChirera-nherera, Munoti tsitsi, Mukati runako rwunenge rwetsiru rofürira upäwo. VäChiväräidze, 20 Makävaraidza ndümurwä, Ikati, "Heruno rügare. Yakäfa havänä chaväkaona'V 3. TRANSLATION One with loving

embraces

1. As if something had been drawing him on, Kufamasanga was very happy to come, suddenly and by chance, face to face with Rwäringeni.

A SHONA LOVE POEM

47

2. Rwaringeni was coming from the spring where she had gone to draw water for use at home. 3. Kufamasanga himself was also going on an errand of his own. 4. As persons who had just exchanged love tokens, their love still burning like fire, they stood for a long time communicating to each other what was deepest in their hearts. 5. Since all of us know that girls and boys normally keep apart (lit. are wild beasts which do not see each other), Rwaringeni acted as if no longer aware that at home water was needed. 6. When Kufamasanga saw his sweetheart, he broke out into praises such that whoever heard him would think that that day would bring the early rains. 7. 'Ah! Rwaringeni! Is it true that this experience is a meeting with you? 8. Or is it a dream? 9. 'It is a meeting.' 10. Then Kufamasanga took her up,

5

'You are my mother, One with loving embraces, One with a long neck like that of a giraffe. You cooked bean stew for the chief, And he forgot to judge the case before the court. One full of grateful praise, You praised the chief at the field, And there came a drizzle of rain outside.

My mother, One who stays at home to care for others, You stayed to brighten even the contended. 10 You said, "Come and let me praise you", But then you went on to praise a frog, So that it caused a pot of bean stew at its motherin-law's place to burn. My calabash, so light yet so capacious. Dear paste that sticks to my gums, 15 Ground nuts doubly ground.

20

My mother, One who cares for orphans, You show pity, And beauty like that of the heifer grazing towards a cow's estate. One whose company is a delight, You made the weanling happy, So that it thought, "This is life indeed. The dead never saw the like".'

48

G. FORTUNE

4. CRITICISM

4.1 Introduction As the introduction to the poem shows, the praises form part of the situation of encounter between the two lovers and they arise cut of their relationship of engagement to one another. The praises are oral poetry, composed within the tradition of Shona praise poetry. The oral character of the poem, as well as the face-to-face encounter, is reflected in the structure of the poem, the lines of which consist largely of apostrophes linked together by various forms of repetition. Courtship praises are not required to be original in their entirety. A number of praises are in general use and are met with over and over again, e.g. Vomutsipa murefö unenge weswiza

'One of the long and graceful neck, like the giraffe's'. However, it appears that suitors do try to present an offering which is fresh and original to some extent by including new images and praise names. These, if successful, become common property, being added in their *urn to the body of traditional poetry in possession at the time. In the best poetry, imagery combines with the element of external form to produce its effect. This is as true of Shona traditional poetry as of the poetry of any other tradition in the world. The formal features of praise poetry consist of the use of praise names and of specific forms of repetition, namely linking, parallelism, alliteration and the repetition of radicals, stems, words and phrases. 4.2 Praise names The praise names used in courtship differ from those used in clan praises by being constructed or chosen in order to suit the person praised. In the clan praises whereby clansmen are thanked for services by members of other clans, the praise names used are traditional and proper to the clan concerned. The mode of the poem is apostrophic, the beloved being addressed throughout by praise names and sentences with second person inflection. The tone is full of respect and the praise names and sentences are in the honorific plural number. They are addressed to her and at the same time celebrate her qualities of body and character. The praise names are in the following lines,

A SHONA LOVE POEM

49

1. VdChigümbate 5. VdMadetembe 8. VdMarüsarisa

O n e with loving embraces' O n e full of grateful praise' O n e who remains behind to care for others' 16. VdChirera-nherera 'One who cares for orphans' 19. VdChivdraidze O n e who delights others by her conversation' These praise names are all nominal constructions of class 2a. Three of them, those of 11. 1, 5 and 19, are constructions based on verb radicals, the radicals being inflected by a noun prefix or nominaliser and the terminal vowel, e.g., Vd- Chi- vdrdidz-e

The radicals are -giimbdt-d 'embrace', -detemb-d 'utter praises' and -vdrdidz-a 'divert, amuse'. The praise name, VäMarüsarisa, is a construction in which the class 2a prefix and the verb marusarira 'you have remained behind for it', e.g. rudhende 'a group of people' or rufü 'death', are the constituents. The final praise name, VdChirera-nherera O n e who cares for orphans', is a construction consisting of the prefix να- and a nominal inflection of the verb phrase -rer- nherera 'care for orphans'. Vd-chi-rer-a nherera

Each of these praise names is expanded by a phrase (cp. 1. 2) or by a sentence of which it is the vocative subject (cp. 11. 6-7, 9, 17-18, 20-21). 4.3 Linking Linking is divided into three types, front-linking, cross-linking, and final linking. Front-linking occurs when the first element in each of two or more poetic units is repeated. There is great freedom and flexibility in the use of this device. The element repeated may be a single class affix, a word or a phrase, and the units of the poetry which are linked (and

50

G. FORTUNE

thus made a unit of a more complex kind) may be lines or stanzas. For example, 1. 9 and 11. 10-12 are initially linked by the repetition of the subject prefix of the 2 pi., m-. The three stanzas, 11. 1-7, 8-15, 16-21, are initially linked by the repetition of the phrase amai vdngu 'my mother'. It is this device, namely the repetition of initial phrases, which is used as the basis for the grouping of lines into stanzas in traditional poems and hence their division into units larger than lines. Modern poets in Shona make use of the device of final linking to create stanzas by repeating a final line or phrase which has the nature of a refrain. The line is a unit at a certain level in the structure cf Shona poetry as it is in other poetries. That it is a unit is shown by the fact that lines are linked as such to other lines by the devices mentioned, namely linking and parallelism. Another way of describing the phenomena of lines in poetry is to say that they are often created by the devices of linking and parallelism. Lines may or may not coincide with sentences. Often they consist of phrases or clauses. For example, 1.5 and 1.19 consist of single praise names, each initially to the following line by the repetition of a verb radical, -detemb-ά in the cases of 11. 5-6, and -värmdz-a in the case of 11. 19-20. L.2 consists of a possessive phrase of class 2, 1.3 of a main clause, 1.4 of a consecutive clause. In cross-linking the final element of a poetic unit is repeated at the commencement of another. For example, 11. 1 and 2 are cross-linked by the repetition of the class affix of class 2. This is found as νά-, the noun prefix of class 2a, in 1. 1 and as ν-, part of the possessive inflection in 1. 2. 1. 2. V-omütsipa

Vä-Chigümbate,

As in the case of initial linking, the fact of cross-linking creates both the poetic lines and the couplet which results. There is the same freedom and flexibility, both in the range of elements which are repeated and the size of the units which are linked, as in initial linking. LI. 1 and 2, as already stated, are cross-linked by the repetition of the class affix of class 2. LI. 8 and 9 are cross-linked by the repetition of the verb radical -särir-ά 'remain for'. In 11. 10-12, and again in 11. 20-21, we have complex sentences spread over two to three lines. The constituent clauses, in these cases, correspond to the lines which have been determined on the basis of clause structure, internal pause and breath groups. In these sentences 11. 11-12 and 11. 20-21 are cross-linked by the repetition of the class affix, that of class 5 between dätya and Rikapisd and that of class 9 between ndümurwä and lkati. The two sentences themselves, and others

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as well, namely those which occur in 11. 3-4, 6-7, 9, and 17-18, are initially linked as such by the repetition of the 2 pi. affix, mu- ~ m-. There are thus poetical effects to be gained by the coincidence of poetic units at various levels (lines, couplets, extensions of praise names, stanzas) and grammatical units (phrases, clauses, and sentences). It is here that an insight into the grammatical structure assists the appreciation of poetry. As already stated, final linking does not seem characteristic of Shona but modern poets make use of it to mark stanzas by a recurring refrain. It is also present in final rhyme, an element foreign to Shona traditional verse. 4.4 Parallelism Poetic units may be linked and organised into more complex units by the use of parallelism. By parallelism is meant the use of similar grammatical constructions to repeat and emphasize an identical idea with the aid of different imagery. In the poem VäChigümbcti we have a very good example of parallelism in the case of 11. 3-4, 6-7, 10-12 and 20-21. The recurring similar construction is that of a complex sentence which has a main clause with a 2 pi. remote past principally inflected verb phrase as predicate followed by a consecutive clause. The underlying idea in all four sentences is the same, namely that whatever the beloved does is wonderful. The imagery in which this idea is conveyed varies from sentence to sentence. In 11. 3-4, it is seen in the excellence of her cooking; in 11. 6-7, in the sweetness of her praises; in 11. 10-12, once again, but this time in humorous vein, the effectiveness of her thanks and praises; and in 11. 20-21 her sweet and refreshing way with others. Like linking, parallelism is a very flexible principle of organisation. The degree of grammatical similarity between parallel structures may vary from the repetition of an identical sentence pattern, as in the above example, to that of much more general features, for example that observed in 11. 13-15 where we have the apposition of substantive phrases descriptive of the beloved. The device whereby each of the praise names in the poem is expanded in a phrase or sentence is another good example of parallelism used in order to reinforce the very general sentiment of the beauty and excellence of the suitor's sweetheart. The parallelism between 11. 1-2, 5-7, 8-9, 16-18 and 19-21 may be closer than what is conveyed in the translation. The predicates in 11. 6, 9, 17 and 20 could be treated as relatively inflected. There is no formal distraction between the 2 pi. affirmative principal inflection and the 2 pi. affirmative relative inflection of verb phrases. If these predicates were treated as relatives, we would

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have a series of substantive phrases, fairly closely parallel in structure and similar in their general import. 4.5 Alliteration and assonance Linking between poetic units involves the added similarity of alliteration, and even assonance, when the linking element is of class affix. The repetition of class affixes, which is a structural principle in the construction of phrases and clauses, is used poetically to provide what Cope has called "natural" alliteration (Cope: 45). Examples of this natural alliteration in VdChigümbati are to be found in 11. 1, 8 and 16 (class 2 affix, να-; in 11. 18 and 21 (class 11 affix, ru-); 11. 12-14 (class 5 affix, /•/-); and 11. 6-7 (class 17 affix, ku-). Natural alliteration and assonance is often reinforced by artificial alliteration and assonance, that is by the repetition of syllabic features in words otherwise unrelated, e.g. 1. 11 -detemb-d datya 'praise a frog'; 1. 17-18 tsitsi...isiru 'pitv...heifer'; 1. 16 -rer-a nherera 'care for orphans'. 4.6 Repetition Repetition may occur at places other than the critical ones specified already, and still aid the development of the poem's drift and feeling. Thus the word rupiza occurs twice, in 11. 3 and 12. In 1. 3 it is used to praise the beloved's skill in cooking. In 1. 12 it is used to convey the overwhelming effects of her praise. In 11. 10-11, the radical -detemb-ά is repeated and the effect of the repetition is to emphasise the appreciativeness which the beloved shows. 4.7 Conclusion The above appear to be the main traditional poetic devices used to give the poetry an organisation of elements into form. The poem VdChigümbate is fairly typical of its genre in that it shows their use to be free and flexible and their scope to vary from short sequences of lines to the poem as a whole. Often poems lack an over-all scheme or form. Unity is achieved by the relevance of the poem as a whole to the situation and by the consonance and development of the imagery. In contrast with many examples of traditional courtship poems, VdChigumbati is well organised. Initial linking, with the repetition of the refrain amdi mngu 'my mother', provides the basis for the division of the poem into three stanzas. Another structural principle, the use of praise names with their extensions, cuts across the stan2aic division. The movement of the poem

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is from praise name to praise name, and one may perhaps regard all the praises which follow each praise name and separate it from the next one as an expansion of its meaning. LI. 1-4, 5-7, 8-15, 16-18 and 19-21 would then provide five extended praises. The imagery moves gradually from the beloved's physical attractions to her skill in cooking and poetry and thence to the moral qualities of concern, appreciativeness, kindness and delightfulness in conversation which make it likely that sne will prove a good wife. Some of the praises, for example those in 11. 3-4, 6-7 and 10-12, consist of zvizükürii, humorously exaggerated statements» which lighten the mood of the poem and wreathe it in smiles and the laughter of love. University of Rhodesia

NOTE 1

Shona is the name given to a group of related Bantu dialects spoken in Rhodesia, Mocambique and Botswana by about four million speakers. The text studied here is in the Zezuru dialect. It was written by Mr. A. C. Hodza, a traditional poet who is also a member of the Department of African Languages, University of Rhodesia. In the transcription of the text, high-toned syllables have been marked with an acute accent while low-toned syllables have been left unmarked. Verb radicals have been cited with an additional terminal vowel which is sometimes necessary to carry a hightone mark. The translation provided is more literal than literary and is designed to fit the text closely. The corresponding sentences in text and translation are similarly numbered. I should like to express my indebtedness to Professor Trevor Cope's work, Izibongo, Zulu praise poems, (Oxford Library of African Literature, 1968), particularly the stimulating study of Zulu prosody in his Introduction.

PRIMICIAS ESTILISTICAS DE P. G. W O D E H O U S E ROBERT A. HALL JR.

Don't be afraid: this discussion is going to be in English, despite the Spanish title. It was too good an opportunity to miss, however, to use the concise Spanish expression — literally, j "stylistic first-fruits" — rather than the cumbersome English "Early manifestations of P. G. W. 's style". Comic style, of course, since that has been his stock-in-trade for the last fifty years.1 Wodehouse did not become a writer of primarily humorous, not to say farcical, stories until the 1920's, beginning with Leave Ii to Ρsmith (1923). Before then, he had been more of a 'general practitioner', as it were, producing works in various genres, but acquiring a special reputation in the nrst decade of the century as an author of English school-boy stories. Most of his earlier works are not specifically intended to be humorous, although they contain a number of individual stylistic devices2 which foreshadow his later, fully developed technique of comic narration, especially the far-fetched and incongruous comparison: e.g. He was a man with a manner suggestive of a funeral mute suffering from suppressed jaundice {The Little Nugget [London: Methuen, 1913], Chapter 4:1) or His brain, working with the cool rapidity of a buzz-saw in an ice-box ('Deep Waters', in The Man Upstairs [London: Methuen, 1914]). Two of his early long stories, however, are definitely and primarily humorous: William Tell Told Again (London: A. and C. Black, 1904), and The Swoop! or, How Clarence Saved England (London: Alston Rivers, 1909).3 The first is a parody of retellings of famous stories ad usum Delphini, such as Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare and their many Victorian imitators. The Swoop! satirizes the novels and plays dealing with a possible German invasion of England, of which a number were written immediately after the Boer War, when the British public were becoming aware of German hostility and of the possibility that war might come from that quarter. 4 William Tell Told Again, like many similar parodies, keeps to the

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basic outline of the traditional story, but distorts many single elements for their comic value, and adds minor unauthentic details to create disparities and incongruities. The general SB is that of the slightly artificial, pompous prose of stories retold for children, with occasional archaisms such as Γ faith!. All the characters and their actions are treated as if they were turn-of-the-century British, according to their approximate class-level. Gessler's speeches are in the style of the authoritative, sarcastic school-master, 5 as when he scolds Tell (p. 69): O h , so you didn't touch them [i.e. the soldiers]? Ah! But you defied my power by refusing to bow down to the hat. I set up that hat to prove the people's loyalty. I am afraid you are not loyal, Tell.' Ί was a little thoughtless, not disloyal. I passed the hat without thinking.' 'You should always think, Tell. It is very dangerous not to do so. And I suppose that you shot your arrow through the hat without thinking?' or when he prepares to have Tell shoot the apple off his son's head (pp. 74-75): 'Come,' saidGessler, 'clear a path there - clear a path! Hurry yourselves. I won't have this loitering. Look you, Tell; attend to me for a moment. I find you in the middle of this meadow deliberately defying my authority and making sport of my orders. I find you in the act of stirring up discontent among my people with speeches. I might have you executed without ceremony. But do I? No. Nobody shall say that Hermann Gessler the Governor is not kindhearted. I say to myself, "I will give this man one chance." I place your fate in your own skilful hands. How can a man complain of harsh treatment when he is made master of his own fate?' Most of the SD's in William Tell Told Again involve informal, colloquial expressions or turns of phrase set against a SB of formal usage, in the SC of the semantic contrast between some serious, occasionally even heroic, action or attitude and an unheroic, everyday reaction to the situation. Thus, in Chapter X (pp. 64-65)6 Gessler came riding up on his brown horse, and the crowd melted away in all directions, for there was no knowing what the Governor might not do if he found them plotting. They were determined to rebel and to throw off his tyrannous yoke, but they preferred to do it quietly and comfortably, when he was nowhere near. So they ran away to the edge of the meadow, and stood there in groups, waiting to see what was going to happen. Not even Ulric the smith and Ruodi the fisherman waited, though they knew quite well that Tell had not nearly finished his speech. They set the orator down and began to walk away, trying to look as if they had been doing nothing in particular and were going to go on doing it - only somewhere else. Tell was left standing alone in the middle of the meadow by the pole. He

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scorned to run away like the others, but he did not all like the look of things. Gessler was a stern man, quick to punish any insult, and here were two of his soldiers lying on the ground with their nice armour all spoiled and dented, and his own cap on top of the pole had an arrow right through the middle of it, and would never look the same again, however much it might be patched. It seemed to Tell that there was a bad time coming. Gessler rode up and reined in his horse. 'Now then, now then, now then!' he said, in his quick, abrupt way. 'What's this? What's this? What's this?' (When a man repeats what he says three times, you can see that he is not in a good temper.)7

Many of the SD's involve play with language, largely of the rather obvious kind that would appeal to a juvenile audience, such as: Walter Fürst, who had red hair and looked fierce (p. 2); Klaus von der Flue, who was a chimney-sweep of the town (p. 11); 'My bow-string has bust.' ("Bust" was what all Swiss boys said when they meant "broken.") (p. 31); 'What I sez,' said Friesshardt, 'is, wot's the use of us wasting our time here?' (Friesshardt was not a very well-educated man, and he did not speak good grammar.)8 (p. 45)

We find a magnificent mixed metaphor at one point in Tell's speech (pp. 62-63): 'Gentlemen,' continued Tell, 'the flood-gates of revolution have been opened. From this day they will stalk through the land burning to ashes the slough of oppression which our tyrant Governor has erected in our midst.'

Wodehouse's later incongruous enumerations 9 are anticipated in the description of Tell (p. 18): He had the courage of a lion, the sure-footedness of a wild goat, the agility of a squirrel, and a beautiful beard.

The book is accompanied by 'illustrations in colour by Philip Dodd, described in verse by John W. Houghton'. (In view of Wodehouse's extensive use of pseudonyms, 10 and the extraordinary similarity of these poems to his own later verse-style, one wonders whether they were not really by Wodehouse himself.) The poems are too long to quote in extenso; they contain such word-play as puns on Tell and the English verb tell (in the verse facing p. 1), or arrow-gant presumption (with Plate VII, facing p. 42), apple-cation (Plate XI, opposite p. 66), and e-quiver-cation (Plate XIII, facing p. 82). Whereas William Tell Told Again would appeal primarily to a schoolboy audience, The Swoop! is clearly aimed at a wider public, of both youngsters and adults. Between 1900 and 1914, several novels dealt

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with the theme of a fictional German attack; but the obvious immediate target of Wodehouse's humor was Guy du Maurier's play An Englishman's Home (1909), dealing with the effects of a German invasion on an English family in East Anglia. 11 Wodehouse's story likewise is set in a family, that of the Boy Scout Clarence Chugwater. It is in two parts: Ί . The Invaders' (pp. 7-51) and ΊΙ. Saved!' (pp. 53-122). Clarence is ultra-patriotic, and deeply disturbed that others do not share his concern for the fate of England in the face of possible invasion. Nine foreign armies land at various points and race to see which will arrive first in London. The Germans and the Russians win, and the Europeans force the non-Europeans to leave by drawing the Colour Line. They make next to no impression on English life, except for destroying all the eye-sores of London in their bombardment of the city. The German and the Russian generals both go on the music-hall stage. Through the Boy Scout 'underground' net-work of officeboys and cub reporters, Clarence engineers a conspiracy whereby the German general is booed by a house packed with Russian soldiers. The Germans and the Russians battle in a pea-soup fog on Hampstead Heath, and the Germans win. But Clarence and the Boy Scouts, armed with catapults (cf. Lord Ickenham's prowess with this weapon12) and hockey-sticks, capture the German general and army, and force them to leave. Clarence takes their place on the halls, and is declared a national hero. Statues are erected to him, and Piccadilly is renamed Chugwater Road.

Emphasis is laid throughout on the contrast between the Englishmen's interest, directed exclusively towards sports and music-halls, and their indifference to the serious aspects of invasion and war. The invasions have their slap-stick aspect (e.g. black invaders at Margate, an obvious reference to music-hall minstrels). Their chief effect is to draw sight-seers away from paid spectacles. Wodehouse has some fun with the way the British public is informed of the invasions. In the newspaper, the stoppress news reads: 'Fry not out, 104. Surrey 147 for 8. A German army landed in Essex this afternoon. Loamshire handicap: Spring Chicken, 1; Salome, 2; Yip-i-addy, 3. Seven ran.' (p. 16) A poster (p. 14) reads:

SURREY DOING BADLY GERMAN ARMY LANDS IN ENGLAND

As might be expected, Wodehouse gives comical names to the foreign generals and officers, such as the German Prince Otto von Saxe-Pfennig

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and Captain von Poppenheim; the Russian Grand Duke Vodkakoff; the Mad Mullah from Somaliland; and Prince Ping Pang Pong from China. The Chinese land in Wales, as a result of which they especially (p. 33) had undergone great privations, having lost their way near Llanfairpwlgwnngogogoch, and having been unable to understand the voluble directions given them by the various shepherds they met. In an illustration (p. 34), they see a sign marked 'to Llollipopcymlydudno'. At the banquet held after the foreign armies take London (pp. 45-46), the foreign generals reveal themselves as ridiculous scoundrels: Raisuli of Morocco is a thief and cracksman; the Mad Mullah is (naturally) insane; the general from Monaco is a card-sharper; the Young Turk, drunk and ill-mannered; and the King of Bollygolla behaves like the savage he is. Linguistically based SD's include puns on foreign names and play with foreign languages, as spoken and written: [...] the next moment the door opened and the servant announced: 'Mr. Prinsotto and Mr. Aydecong.' (p. 17) The preliminary parley et Lllgxtpill between Prince Ping Pang Pong, the Chinese general, and Llewellyn Evans, the leader of the Cardiff excursionists, seems to have been impressive to a degree. The former had spoken throughout in pure Chinese, the latter replying in rich Welsh, and the general effect, wired the correspondent, was almost painfully exhilarating, (p. 23) [At the banquet of the conquering generals:] The reply of Prince Ping Pang Pong of China was probably brilliant and scholarly; but it was expressed in Chinese characters of the Ming period, which Prince Otto did not understand; and even if he had, it would have done him no good, for he tried to read it from the top downwards instead of from the bottom up. (p. 43) 'The wise man,' said the Russian, still determined on evasion, 'never takes sides, unless they are sides of bacon.' (p. 104) As in William Tell Told Again, the outsiders, especially the German Prince, are seen in the role of bossy school-masters. When Clarence talks with Prince Otto, the latter, despite a nasty cold, takes the part of a teacher of English, correcting the boy's grammar: '[...] Let the nations learn from this that it is when apparently crushed that the Briton is to more than ever be feared.' 'That's bad grabbar,' said the Prince critically. 'It isn't,' said Clarence with warmth. 'It is, I tell you. Id's a splid idfididive.' Wodehouse's propensity for coining new, pseudo-learned formations (e.g. butlerine, dowageresque in his later works) appears in his description (p. 73) of a 'sparkling comedienne of pronounced peroxidity'. Wodehouse's narration is, as usual, in quite formal standard English,

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which serves as SB for the quick colloquial dialogue and for the incongruity of informal expressions thrown into the middle of stiff narration or speech, as in the following dialogue between Prince Otto and Captain von Poppenheim (p. 36): The Prince brooded. Then he spoke, unbosoming himself more freely than was his wont in conversation with his staff. 'Between you and me, Pop,'' he cried impulsively, 'I'm dashed sorry we ever started this dashed silly invading business. We thought ourselves dashed smart, working in the dark, and giving no sign until the great pounce, and all that sort of dashed nonsense. Seems to me we've simply dashed well landed ourselves in the dashed soup.'' Captain von Poppenheim saluted in sympathetic silence. He and the prince had been old chums at college. A life-long friendship existed between them. He would have liked to have expressed adhesion verbally to his superior officer's remarks. The words 7 don't think' trembled on his tongue. But the iron discipline of the German army gagged him. He saluted and clicked his heels.

Note the intrusion of the inane conversational style of the stereotyped London young man-about-town (a la Bertie Wooster and Bingo Little) into the speech of the two German officers, especially Prince Otto's use of dashed twice in each sentence. Current styles of writing also come in for parody, as in the journalist's report of the scene at the Lobelia Theatre, where Prince Otto is booed by the Russian soldiers. He says, in the curt, nominal 'futurist' manner then being popularized by Marinetti and others: 1 3 A night to remember. A marvelous night. A night such as few will see again. A night of fear and wonder. The night of September the eleventh. Last night. Nine-thirty. I had dined. 1 had eaten my dinner. My dinner! So inextricably are the prose and romance of life blended. My dinner! I had eaten my dinner on this night. The wonderful night. This night of September the eleventh. Last night!

Neither William Tell Told Again nor The Swoop! is, in itself, a major contribution to English literature. As in many other instances, however, they are valuable as fore-runners of what the young Wodehouse was to achieve in his later works. One of the most-quoted school-boy 'howlers' is 'Comment on The child is father to the man. - This was said by Shakespeare. He often made mistakes like this.' No, not in this case. Here, we can say 'The young man was father, grand-father, and great-grandfather to the mature man.' As this is being written, Wodehouse has passed his ninetieth birth-day and is still going strong, along the same path of successful humor down which he started with these two books. Cornell University

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NOTES 1

Cf. the discussions in Usborne 1961, especially 69-78, 154-161; and in Hall 1964; 1969. 2 Here, as in earlier discussions of Wodehouse, I use the terms proposed by Michael Riffaterre, and distinguish between stylistic back-ground (SB), stylistic context (SC), and stylistic device (SD). Cf. Riffaterre 1959; 1960. 3 I am indebted to R. B. D. French, of Trinity College (Dublin), for the opportunity to read both of these scarce books. 4 The best known of these is When William Came, by Η. H. Munro (Saki); although it did not appear until 1914, five years after The Swoopl, it is perhaps the most representative of the entire genre. 5 Compare the humorous incongruity of Psmith assuming the manner of a headmaster in talking to Mr. Downing, the head-master of Sedleigh, in Enter Psmith (London: Jenkins, 1953), Chapter 29 ( = Mike [London: A. and C. Black, 1909], Chapter 58); or of Bertie Wooster speaking similarly to Roderick Spode in The Code of the Woosters (London: Jenkins, 1938), Chapter 7. Cf. Usborne's remarks (1961: 170). 6 The SD's are italicized. 7 There is perhaps an echo of this in the triple repetitions which characterize the speech of General Sir Hector Bloodenough in 'The Bishop's Move' (in Meet Mr. Mulliner [London: Jenkins, 1927]). 8 Friesshardt, Leuthold, and members of the Swiss populace are represented throughout as using a stereotyped lower-class British English. 9 Such as the list of the contents of Albert Peasemarch's pocket in the final chapter of The Luck of the Bodkins (London: Jenkins, 1935): 'So saying, he produced from his trousers pocket a pencil, a ball of string, a piece of indiarubber, threepence in bronze, the necklace, a packet of chewing gum, two buttons, and a small cough lozenge, and placed them on the table.' 10 Cf. the partial list given in Voorhees 1966: 27. 11 Cf. the brief discussion in Gillen 1969: 107-108. 12 Particularly in Cocktail Time (London: Jenkins, 1958), where he gets the story under way by shooting Sir Raymond Bastable's topper off with a Brazil-nut; cf. also Usborne 1961:108-116. 13 On later occasions, too, Wodehouse had fun with the then avant-garde novelists and artists, as in his description of the art-critic Cyprian Rossiter (in 'The Man who gave up smoking', in Mr. Mulliner Speaking [London: Jenkins, 1929]), or of Gladys Bingley, 'The Sweet Singer of Garbidge Mews, Fulham', and of Bernard Worple, the neo-Vorticist sculptor, and Rodney Scollop, the powerful young sur-realist, all three in 'The Story of Webster' and 'Cats will be cats', in Mulliner Nights (London: Jenkins, 1933). REFERENCES Gillen, Charles H. 1969. Η. H. Munro (Saki). New York: Twayne Publishers. Hall, Robert Α., Jr. 1964. P. G. Wodehouse and the English Language. Annali dell' Istituto Orientale de Näpoli-Sezione Germänica 6.103-121. Hall, Robert Α., Jr. 1969. Incongruity and stylistic rhythm in P. G. Wodehouse. Annali dell' Istituto Orientale de Näpoli-Sezione Germänica 9.135-144. Riffaterre, Michael. 1959. Criteria for style analysis. Word 15.154-176. —. 1960. Stylistic context. Word 16. 207-218. Usborne, R. 1961. Wodehouse at work. London: Jenkins. Voorhees, R. J. 1966. P. G. Wodehouse. New York: Twayne Publishers.

T H E G O A L S OF L I T E R A R Y A N A L Y S I S A N D A NEW DEFINITION OF LITERATURE: TOWARD A MORE COMPREHENSIVE DESCRIPTIVISM

L. G. HELLER and JAMES MACRIS The potential goals of literary analysis are varied. If the field is to progress, however, from ad hoc subjectivism and haphazard, idiosyncratic observations to a scientific discipline, we believe that the goals must be threefold: 1. Description 2. Prediction 3. Explanation 1. DESCRIPTION

The type and levels of description to which we refer must encompass at least the following: Phase 1: The communicative structures, at least the relevant, or -emic, features - the parameters, in our terms. Phase 2: The audiences, with appropriate -emic breakdowns of the relevant subclasses. Phase 3: The relevant reactions of audiences to literary structures (as stimuli). Phase 4: The correlations between the particular communicative structures and the particular reactions of particular audiences to those communicative structures. The second goal of literary analysis, prediction, which would bring that discipline into the realm of science, should follow inevitably from Phase 4 of the description, namely, the precise statement of the correlations. One may reasonably assume that, all other things being equal, such precision of statement should hold true for the future, as well as for the past, correlations based upon observed data. This hypothesis may, of course, be subjected to rigorous testing: creating literary works by formula and observing the responses of the -emically-described audiences.

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If the responses hold true, as in the past, one may reasonably assume a pragmatic truth (but be ready to reject or revise past assumptions whenever the observed data do not match the predictions). We have described communicative structures elsewhere.1 Thus far, we discern two discrete strata of such structures. The first, which may be called low-level from one point of view, may be encompassed under the heading usage and style. The second seems to involve a symbolic representation of the sociocultural value systems and the fundamental -emes, and may be called, for want of a better label, literary structures. In dealing with usage and style, we have recognized that the reactions to particular utterances go through two stages. Stage 1 is a straight comparison of the utterances of the communicator with some preferred target model of the particular audience. Each pattern involves a complete system replete with the normal levels of communicative systems (phonological, morphological, etc.). To reduce the infinite variety of systems to manageable - hence, describable - compass, we resorted to the communicatively relevant -emes which differentiate one individual from another in society. We call these the /«^/-personal parameters. Representative types are geography, education, age, sex, occupation, and religious or ethnic background. 2 Thus, for example, the speech patterns of an individual from New York and one from Massachusetts are different, the well-educated individual has a speech pattern which differs in certain respects from the less-well-educated individual, and so on. Every individual in the world differs from every other individual by at least one parameter, and usually by more than one. He may, in a manner of speaking, be described as the realization of the entire bundle of interpersonal parameters. Associated, then, with each such bundle is a unique set of communicative structures, differing in at least some respects from the communicative structures associated with some other individual. Furthermore, each individual has an entire set of communicative structures, not just one, each appropriate to - hence, used in - a given context. We isolate these subsystems by resorting to /«impersonal parameters, each such relevant feature (or -erne) constituting the way in which the different communicative contexts vary. Representative types of intrapersonal parameters are formality, medium, spychological set of communicator, and so on. Thus, for example, an individual employs one pattern in a formal situation and another in an informal one. He does not use the same pattern in his speaking as in his writing. Hence, by reducing each individual in a given context to the relevant inter- and intrapersonal parameters, one characterizes the entire range of possibilities. Then, as

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indicated, comes the explicit confrontation of the particular output pattern with the preferred target pattern. Stage 2 of this reaction to usage and style rests, we would assert, on a straight efficiency basis, but efficiency as measured by different criteria. The fundamental types of efficiency which we have discerned thus far we characterize under the labels systemic, transmissional, and psychological efficiency. Each of the three basic types in turn subdivides into two or more underlying varieties. One subdivision of transmissional efficiency constitutes a simple compression index between the length of an utterance and the amount of information conveyed {discrimination of distinctions, in our terminology). Thus, under this type of efficiency measure, any change which would reduce the length of the utterance while keeping the information the same, or increase the information while keeping the length constant, or both, would constitute a measurable improvement. An example is the reduction of 'The man who is near the door is my uncle' to 'The man near the door is my uncle.' Similarly, the substitution of lurched for walked in "He walked down the street" adds the information that he walked in a particular fashion to the simple fact that he walked, with no measurable increase in transmissional length. Some such observations are incorporated in one fashion or another into many standard handbooks on writing, but no all-encompassing theory has brought them under one rubric, as here (i.e., efficiency). This evaluation of usage and style, then, rests on two measures: (1) comparison of output with the target model, and (2) efficiency within the output model. In dealing with the second stratum of communicative structures, that is, literary structures (in Heller and Macris 1970), we made a modified tagmemic analysis within a parametric framework. We handled the problem backwards and noted which particular literary works had already evoked strong critical acclaim. We then embarked on a search for recurrent partials in these works. We did find structures, and indeed, even families of structures, which were notably absent in works of lesser impact. Ideally, we should have differentiated the types of structure which evoked different types of reaction. In that phase of our analysis, however, we were exploring a new methodology - hence, lacked some of the possible refinements which hindsight has provided. Nevertheless, the appearance of the fundamental types of structure, with the remarkable consistency that we found, did, in our opinion, represent a major step forward. At that time, we made no attempt to explain why these structures evoked their particular reaction. We simply noted that the reaction was there and

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that in each instance the stimulus associated with the reaction was constant. Perhaps a single example may clarify the nature of the methodology. Put in the most abstract symbolism, one of the recurring families of structures displayed the following pattern: Functiom Function

Manifesting Marki— Manifesting Mark2-i

Functions Function

Manifesting MarksManifesting Mark4—

The meaning of the symbols is as follows: There are four functions (literary goals) labeled Function 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. Each is manifested by an associated mark, Manifesting Mark 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively. To achieve Function 1, a character in a play, novel, short story, and so on, must perform a certain action, the manifesting mark. In this family of structures, however, Manifesting Mark 1, associated with Function 1, is identical with Manifesting Mark 4, associated with Function 4. Thus, if the character performs the action necessary to bring about Function 1, he will also bring about Function 4. In a similar way, Manifesting Marks 2 and 3 are identical; hence, Functions 2 and 3 are tied together. Characteristically, Functions 1 and 2 are the positive and negative of the same goal, and Functions 3 and 4 stand in the same inverse relationship to each other. To give body to this abstract formulation, consider the plot of Corneille's drama Le Cid, often regarded as one of the great French plays. 3 Don Rodrigue wants to marry Chimene. Call this goal Function 1. The converse of this goal is 'Do not marry Chimene.' (Function 2). However, Chimene's father has insulted Don Rodrigue's father, who is too old to fight his own battles. Hence, it is incumbent upon Don Rodrigue to challenge and, if possible, to kill Chimene's father. Thus, Function 3: 'Defend father's honor' correlates with Manifesting Mark 3: 'Kill Chimene's father.' The converse of Function 3, namely, Function 4, is 'Do not defend father's honor', and this function correlates with, or is manifested by, Manifesting Mark 4: 'Do not kill Chimene's father.' But Chimene will not marry Don Rodrigue if he kills her father. So, to bring about Function 1 ('Marry Chimene'), Don Rodrigue must choose Manifesting Mark 1 ('Do not kill Chimene's father'). To bring about Function 2 ('Do not marry Chimene'), he need only choose Manifesting

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Mark 2 ('Kill Chimene's father'). Thus, the pattern is as follows, abbreviating function and manifesting mark as F and MM respectively: Fi: Marry Chimene F2: D o not marry Chimene

M M i : D o not kill Chimene's father — MM2: Kill Chimene's father —

F3: Defend father's honor F4: D o not defend father's honor

MM3: Kill Chimene's father— MM4: D o not kill Chimene's father —

As seen, Function 1: 'Marry Chimene' and Function 3: 'Defend father's honor' are mutually exclusive, or in complementary distribution, because of the structuring of the manifesting marks. Normally, there would be nothing antithetical about a young man both marrying his sweetheart and defending his father's honor. Yet the patterning seen here, the one which seems to characterise all works of major impact, precludes such simplistic possibilities. One may reasonably observe that this type of structure is what is commonly referred to as 'being on the horns of a dilemma', or as 'the double bind', as well as by other labels. This fact is obvious. What is less obvious, however, is the fact that various types of irony, many without any formal terminological label, likewise fit into this family of structures.4 The methodology depicted here may be used to classify different literary genres in a nonsubjective way. Thus, for example, the characteristic detective story may be typologized as such not by virtue of the presence of a law-enforcement agent, either public or private, but rather by the structure and the change of structure which takes place within the work. The typical initial pattern of the genre follows:

Here, the manifesting mark is the clue, which has potential correlations with a number of different functions (i.e., the suspects). The detective uncovers evidence bit by bit which precludes the various correlations between the functions and that clue. He discovers that the correlation between Fi and the manifesting mark is impossible because that suspect was somewhere else at the time of the murder; the correlation between F3 and the manifesting mark is impossible because this suspect does not

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smoke, and ashes were found at the scene of the crime, and so on. When all correlations but one have been eliminated, the culprit is identified as the only one who could have committed the crime. 5 The family of puns relate to the foregoing in that there is more than one function correlated with a single manifesting mark. Thus, for example, consider the following pun: "I'm getting mighty exhausted contesting my wife's will," admitted Mr. Hecubar to a confidante. "I never knew she had died," said the shocked confidante. "That's the trouble," sighed Mr. Hecubar. "She didn't."6

Here, as seen below, the manifesting mark will correlates with two different functions, namely, F\: 'purpose or determination' and Fz\ 'a legal document'. F i : 'purpose or determ : , , o t •' Λ " , MM: will F 2 : 'a legal document' This particular pun is a simplex analogue of the allegory since it retains the multicorrelation (here, a bicorrelation) without change. Puns themselves, however, constitute a very large and complicated family of structures comprising many hundreds of subpatterns, all resting on a more-than-one-function-to-one-manifesting-mark correlation. Of special interest is the fact that the type of reaction to the structural variety of puns appears to be perfectly constant: certain kinds of puns which can be characterized with absolute precision regularly evoke what could be described as the "Oh, no, how could you?" kind of reaction - normally a laugh, followed by a groan. One point which we have made over and over again in recent years is the fact that communicational systems may employ every perceptible line of transmission. We have coined the term phonokinemorpheme to describe a complex communicational signal whose constituents were (1) a phoneme, which by itself had no meaning other than that of discreteness from other phonemes, and (2) a kineme, or minimal gesture, which by itself had no meaning. Together, the phoneme and the kineme constituted a morpheme which did have a meaning. 7 In just such a way, one may find kinesic analogues of the pun, and presumably of other literary structural types. Thus, for example, a kinesic analogue of one type of pun is a comic device which has appeared in one or another variation in countless movies and plays. A young man follows

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a pretty girl into a building, where he tries to wave hello to her. Unnoticed by him is the fact that they have entered a room in which an auction is being conducted. He waves to her; he nods and waves again. Each time he gestures, however, the auctioneer takes his signal as a bid on a very expensive painting. Before he is finished, the young man manages inadvertently to outbid the other would-be customers and to purchase the painting for half a million dollars. 8 Here, the kineme, the wave of the hand, correlates both with a social gesture indicating friendly interest and with a conventionalized device for offering money.

2. PREDICTION As indicated, once the description is carried out for all relevant categories, a statement of the correlation between the particular stimulus and the reaction of the particular audience permits the projection of the descriptive insight to a prediction, namely, that the same kind of audience will react to the same kind of stimulus with the same kind of reaction. Where the particular reaction is favorable acceptation or unfavorable rejection, one has the essence of an evaluative system phrased in prognostic terms. Where the reaction is something other than approval or rejection (e.g., laughter or tears), one has a nonevaluative prognosis, but a prognosis of a type that has potential practical value (e.g., the programming of effective jokes for a comedian to tell). Some literary analysts of a more traditional persuasion object both to precision of description and to prognosis on the grounds that analysis and prediction remove all of the humanistic excitement from the literary sphere. We have seen this reaction time and again in response to serious attempts at nonsubjective analysis. We would deny that the foregoing line of inquiry deprives the literary endeavor of its excitement, but we will not argue the point here beyond noting the anti-intellectual impetus of such objections. We would grant, however, the relevant question of the degrees of predictability which may be achieved. Clearly, the second goal of literary analysis - prediction - can be no more accurate than the first goal - description - permits. To the extent that the description fails at any level, the prediction will extrapolate that failure. We recognize that not all of the -ernes of the system have been adequately handled, or perhaps even recognized. We do believe, however, that we have established at least the potentiality for the precision of correlation which makes prediction feasible.

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3. EXPLANATION

A field becomes a science when prediction enters the picture. It may start toward a science when the descriptive aspect rests on accurate observation. At this level, however, one does not know whether that which is described includes more or less than that which is relevant. For example, in physics, a number of observations established a certain relationship between the distance an object might fall and the time it took. These observations were accurate, and a general formula - S = ]/2 gt2 emerged. In a sense, this equation rested on past observations, but it likewise predicted future possibilities. Thus, the physicists were able to test other examples to see if these also fit the equation. This level, then, was scientific. It did not constitute the highest level of science, though, since it did not explain why the relationship held true. In other words, the level of explanation is higher than that of prediction and constitutes the third goal of scientific analysis. At particular points, we are beginning to see potential explanations for phenomena previously unexplained. Thus, for example, we have demonstrated elsewhere that dream displacements rested on the communicative or sociocultural structuring of the dreamer, and that it followed a very precise mechanism which was related in fundamental structure-based ways to phenomena as diverse as Verner's Law (in a new formulation given by us) and the pattern of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage.9 Recently, we became aware of points of intersection between some of our findings (in Heller and Macris 1970) and some theories of the psychiatrist Dr. Karen Horney. We would remark, first of all, that we had no preconceptions as to what we would discover when we initiated the studies that led to these findings. We merely followed where the evidence led. Furthermore, Dr. Horney assuredly did not tailor her theories to fit our findings, which she could have had no means of knowing. Nevertheless, the convergence of the literary and the psychological theories suggests a psycholiterary explanation for the reaction to literature (or, at least, to certain types of literature) and a potential definition of literature. Dr. Horney, who has split very sharply with many of her colleagues and predecessors in the field of psychology, and in particular has rejected the theories of Freud, includes among her publications several books on the analysis of neurosis. Horney 1966 arrived at a culture- rather than an instinct-based source of neurotic compulsion, and she attributed neurosis to the conflict generated when two drives of equal weight are

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mutually exclusive and when the subject can neither choose between them nor reject one. As she points out (23), 'We may have to decide between desires that lead in opposite directions' or 'we may be in conflict ... between two sets of values.' According to Horney (24), 'One loyalty may interfere with another; personal desires may stand against obligations to the group.' She adds the following (26): 'Even if we recognize a conflict as such, we must be willing and able to renounce one of the two contradictory issues. But the capacity for clear and conscious renunciation is rare, because our feelings and beliefs are muddled, and perhaps because in the last analysis most people are not secure and happy enough to renounce anything.' Horney (47) discusses the core of neurosis as follows: '... the conflict born of incompatible attitudes constitutes the core of neurosis and therefore deserves to be called basic. And let me add that I use the term core not merely in the figurative sense of its being significant but to emphasize the fact that it is the dynamic center from which neuroses emanate ... Broadly considered, the theory may be viewed as an elaboration of my earlier concept that neuroses are an expression of a disturbance in human relationships.' The fundamental structure depicted by Horney as the core of neurosis is essentially that which we characterize as a duplex Type-4 system.10 Furthermore, the subvarieties recognized by Horney precisely match the subvarieties of our duplex Type-4 system, under the various terminological innovations which we have proposed. 11 One additional point which we made, but without explanation, was the fact that when the antithetical goals (or literary functions) were not of equal weight, those works in which they appeared did not have the same forceful impact as those works in which they had equal validity. This circumstance accords well with details of Horney's theory. To the extent, then, that (1) we have successfully isolated an important partial of literary structure that correlates with emotional impact upon an audience, and that (2) Horney's suggestion about neurosis is correct, we have a potential explanation for the emotional impact of great literature : that impact stems from a temporarily induced neurosis whose cause is an inability to choose between mutually exclusive goals. Conversely, literature itself (or at least certain types of literature perhaps) may therefore be defined as 'those communicative structures capable of inducing temporary neurosis'. Thus, the emotional impact is the tension engendered by the neurosis. The family of pun structures, with its many hundreds of subvarieties, rests on a particular simplex Type-4 structure. The impact of the pun

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(of any sort) is typically a release of tension (i.e., the laughter). The impact of the related, but duplex, structures referred to is the cumulation of tension (i.e., the neurosis - whence, the emotion). Future research may clarify the relationship between the structures and the reactions. We would merely point out that more precise descriptive techniques such as those suggested provide at least the potentiality for a more precise descriptive, predictive, and explanatory formulation. In short, we would suggest that literary analysis stands on the verge of becoming a science. The City College, City University of New York and Clark University and College of the Holy Cross

NOTES 1

Particularly in Heller and Macris 1967a, 1967b, 1968, 1969, 1970, and 1972b. We make no attempt at a complete characterization of the system here (or below). For a thorough treatment, see Heller and Macris 1972b. 3 Corneille's Le Cid is discussed in greater detail in Heller and Macris 1970:11-2 and 24-5. The two structures given here are treated somewhat differently on pp. 25 and 26 of that work. 4 The differences of types such as what we have called suppressed-structure irony and pseudoätructure irony (see Heller and Macris 1970:26-30) are real and describable, but beyond the limitations of this brief survey. Nevertheless, these bear the family resemblance mapped out in a formal way, though not otherwise readily perceptible. 5 Mysteries differ from detective stories in that a miscorrelation is made at the beginning and the correct correlation is not seen until the end (Heller and Macris 1970:37-8). On the other hand, allegories differ simply in that all of the possible correlations are retained from beginning to the end (Heller and Macris 1970:39-41). 6 Bennett Cerfs Bumper Crop of Anecdotes and Stories, Mostly Humorous, About the Famous and Near Famous, Vol. 2, Good for a Laugh (Garden City, New York, 1952), 214-5. 7 See Heller and Macris 1972a:29-31, sec. 2.25, for a brief analysis of gestural systems. 8 For an analysis of a Latin pun, followed by an analysis of the above device, see Heller and Macris 1972a:23-4, sec. 2.19. Incidentally, kinesic analogues of the pun allow the same kinds of predictability as in the other varieties, and the reactions remain remarkably parallel once the analysis is carried out at the appropriate underlying level. Thus, one has the "Oh, no, how could you ?" kinesic analogue of the pun. 9 See Heller and Macris 1972a:31-3, sec. 2.26; 5-11, sec. 2.11; and 20-1. 10 Type-4 systems manifest more than one function by a single mark. See esp. Heller and Macris 1967:24-5 on Type-4 linguistic systems. In duplex literary structures, the positive and negative structuring of each function is relevant. The duplex structures discussed in Heller and Macris 1970 are the antithetical conflict (24-6), suppressedstructure irony (26-8), pseudostructure irony (29-30), and non-complementary pseudostructures (30-2). 11 The last three terms in n. 10. 2

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REFERENCES Heller, L. G., and James Maoris. 1967a. Parametric linguistics. The Hague, Mouton. —. 1967b. English usage and modern linguistic theory. American Speech 42.131-5. —. 1968. Towards a nonsubjecti\e evaluative system for literature: some linguistic analogues. Language and Style 1.103-8. —. 1969. Toward a general linguistic and nonlinguistic sociocultural typology and its dynamics. Journal of Communication 19.285-300. —. 1970. Toward a structural theory of literary analysis: prolegomena to evaluative descriptivism. Worcester, Mass., Institute for Systems Analysis. —. 1972a. Multilateral allovariance. London, International Linguistic Association. —. 1972b. Usage and style (tentative title). (In preparation.) Horney, Karen. 1966. Our inner conflicts: a constructive theory of neurosis. New York, W. W. Norton.

THE S T R U C T U R E OF N A V A J O POETRY HARRY HOIJER

INTRODUCTION

Although many collections of American Indian poetry have been published (see, for example, Day 1951), little has been written on the structure of the poetry. My purpose in this paper is to analyze and describe some of the main structural characteristics of Navajo poetry. To this end I present in translation three poems. The first of these illustrates a rather simple structure while the remaining two have increasingly complex structural features. My translations are free rather than literal; I have attempted to convey in English words and phrases what I believe to be the essential meaning of the Navajo words. Since, however, Navajo poetry derives from Sacred songs that are an important part of religious ceremonies, it will often be necessary to explain something of the ceremonial to which the song belongs, in order that the translations be understood. The three poems I have translated do not of course adequately reflect the diversity of Navajo poetry. A variety of both religious and secular forms are presented by Day (1951: 64-75), and quite a number of poems unrelated to ceremonials have been published (see Wetherill, 1952).

THE POEMS

IA The White Shell Woman, it surrounds her The Talking God, it surrounds him The Big Corn, it surrounds them. At its feet is the earth At the tips of its leaves is the black cloud

HARRY HOIJER

Its waters are the male rain Its big stalk is my body At the ears of the corn is its pollen On its flowers is its pollen On the silk of the corn lies the rainbow Its kernels are of white shell Before it stands the Talking God Behind it stands the Hogan God Under it lies the lizard Over it flies the night bird Above the corn flowers flies the bluebird All around are the corn beetles Under it is the earth Above it is the black sky One who lives at the rim of old age One from whom all is beautiful Behind him all is beautiful Before him all is beautiful.

IB The Changing Woman, it surrounds her The Hogan God, it surrounds him The Big Corn, it surrounds them. At its feet is the earth At the tips of its leaves is the black fog Its waters are the female rain Its big stalk is my body At the ears of the corn is its pollen On its flowers is its pollen On the silk of the corn lies the rainbow Its kernels are of abalone shell Behind it stands the Hogan God Before it stands the Talking God Over it flies the night bird Under it lies the lizard Above the corn flowers lies the corn beetle All around it are the growing things Above it is the black sky

THE STRUCTURE OF NAVAJO POETRY

Under it is the earth One who lives at the rim of old age One from whom all is beautiful Before him all is beautiful Behind him all is beautiful. IIA I have arrived, I have arrived I have arrived, I have arrived. I, I am the child of Changing Woman, I have arrived To the East, I have arrived To the home of the Sun, I have arrived It lies on black waters, I have arrived A house of turquoise floats upon it, I have arrived It has a ladder of turquoise, I have arrived A turquoise rattle moves above it, I have arrived Varicolored cloths lie before it, I have arrived A turquoise path leads to it, I have arrived The footprints are of turquoise, I have arrived The seats are of turquoise, I have arrived The hand prints are of turquoise, I have arrived I, I am one who lives at the rim of old age One from whom all is beautiful I have arrived, I have arrived. IIB I have arrived, 1 have arrived I have arrived, I have arrived. I, I am the grandson of Changing Woman, 1 have arrived To the East, I have arrived To the home of the Moon, I have arrived It lies on blue waters, I have arrived It has a ladder of white shell, I have arrived A white shell rattle moves above it, I have arrived White cloths lie before it, I have arrived A white shell path leads to it, I have arrived The footprints are of white shell, I have arrived

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The seats are of white shell, I have arrived The hand prints are of white shell, I have arrived I, I am one who lives at the rim of old age One from whom all is beautiful I have arrived, I have arrived I have arrived, 1 have arrived. Ill A I, now I wander about I, now I wander about, I, now I wander about. I, I am the Talking God From the East I wander about, Now I wander about The dawn lies extended before me, now I wander about White corn lies extended before me, now I wander about All kinds of soft goods lie extended before me, Now I wander about All of the waters lie extended before me, Now I wander about Pollen lies extended before me Now I wander about On top of the Talking God's head Lie rock crystals and all the soft goods Now I wander about, now I wander about An ear of corn teaches me, now I wander about I, I wander about on it, now I wander about I, I am one who lives at the rim of old age One from whom all is beautiful Now I wander about Before me all is beautiful Behind me all is beautiful I, now I wander about I, now I wander about. Ill Β I, now I wander about I, now I wander about, I, now I wander about.

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I, I am the Hogan God From the West I wander about Now I wander about The yellow twilight lies extended before me, now I wander about Yellow corn lies extended before me, now I wander about All kinds of soft goods lie before me Now I wander about The little one of the waters lies extended before me Now 1 wander about Pollen lies extended before me Now I wander about On top of the Hogan God's head Lies the rainbow and the hard goods Now I wander about, now I wander about A round kernel of corn speaks to me, now I wander about I, I wander about on it, now I wander about I, I am one who lives at the rim of old age One from whom all is beautiful Now I wander about Behind me all is beautiful Before me all is beautiful I, now I wander about I, now I wander about.

COMMENT AND DISCUSSION

Poem I illustrates the bipartite structure of many Navajo poems. It will be noted that parts A and Β have much the same wording; the differences are largely in the holy persons mentioned and in the descriptions of the Big Corn. Thus, in part A White Shell Woman is mentioned, who is replaced in part Β by Changing Woman. To the Navajo, however, these are not distinct holy people but are only alternate names for the same one, the Woman who, made pregnant by the Sun, gave birth to the twin boys, Killer of Enemies and Child of the Water, who rid the earth of the powerful monsters so that human beings could safely inhabit the earth. Two others of the holy people also appear: Talking God in part A and Hogan God in part B. Finally, in both parts A and Β appears a

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somewhat vague personality described in the line One who lives at the rim of old age' who is often, in the poems, addressed as a person. In one sense, however, this phrase might be translated 'one who is immortal', and therefore in the poems 'one from whom [or by means of whom] all is beautiful'. In other respects parts A and Β are much alike except for minor differences in wording. Thus, for example, in part A Talking God stands before the Corn and Hogan God stands behind it. In part B, however, their positions in respect of the Corn are reversed. Similarly the male rain, a heavy and stormy rain, is mentioned in part A, and the female rain, a mild, slow and steady rain, in part B. Poem II has a somewhat more complex structure. In part A it is the child of Changing Woman who goes eastward to the home of the Sun; in part Β the grandchild of Changing Woman goes eastward to the home of the Moon. Both homes are described in some detail. It will be noted that the home of the Sun rests upon black waters and has furnishings of turquoise whereas the home of the Moon rests upon blue waters and has furnishings of white shell. More important structurally is the constant repetition in both A and Β of the line Ί have arrived'. This use of a refrain is common in many Navajo poems. As in poem II the repreated line frequently begins and ends the poem. Finally, it should be noted that poem II is presented only in part. After parts A and Β are recited, the whole of poem II is repeated with only one difference: the line Ί have arrived' is replaced by the line Ί have come up'. Poem III is the most complex structurally of the three poems we have translated. It has the same bipartite structure as is illustrated in poems I and II. However, in poem III, the holy personages are the Talking God in part A and the Hogan God in part B, and the poem describes their wanderings about over the earth and provides as well some description of the two holy beings. The often repeated line is somewhat more complex from 'now I wander about' to Ί , now I wander about' and Ί wander about on it'. Note also that both of the holy people are identified specifically with 'one who lives at the rim of old age'. As in the case of poem II, poem III is given only in part. The whole of poem III is repeated seven times, each repetition differing mainly in the repeated line, which becomes in turn Ί turn around on the earth', Ί

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have begun to return to the earth', Ί have returned to the earth', Ί sit down on the earth', and so on. University

of California,

Los

Angeles

REFERENCES Day, A. Grove. 1951. The sky clears. Poetry of the American Indians. New York: The Macmillan Co. Wetherill, Hilda Faunce. 1952. Navajo Indian poems. New York: Vantege Press, Inc.

N O T E S O N THE M A K E U P OF A P R O V E R B ROMAN JAKOBSON

Russian blin is a flat pancake baked from batter and served as a customary, ritual dish of the carnival, nuptial, and funeral feasts. A widespread proverbial expression, Pervyj blin komom 'the first pancake [turns out to be] a lump', is a typical example of the pithy style common to this brief and tenacious genre of the Russian oral tradition. The instrumental komom, as well as the impossibility of transposing the same formula into the past by inserting the preterit copula byl 'was', prompts us to see here a truly elliptic omission of a finite verb rather than a zero form of the present tense copula. The ellipsis leaves the question open, whether one means a generalized present okäzyvaetsja, svertyvaetsja, lozitsja, vyx0d.it, 'turns out, appears to be, rolls up into', or merely a particular occurrence - okazälsja, svernülsja, leg, vySel, 'appeared to be, turned out, rolled up into'. Actually, the same saying is used in both functions - either as a maxim (poslovica) or as a byword (pogovörka). For instance, the Russian-English Dictionary edited by A. I. Smirnickij et al. finds an equivalent to this Russian saw in the English proverb 'you must spoil before you spin', whereas L. V. Scerba et al. in their Russian-French Dictionary are equally justified in assigning a narrower sense to the quoted byword [mc]: 'c'est [s/c] un debut malheureux.' 1 As to Puskin's letter of January 1831 with its jocular transposition of the familiar saw into the future - 2αΓ, esli pervyj blin ego budet komom - the completive budet imparts to this sentence the adequate meaning: Ά pity, if his first pancake may turn out to be a lump'. The clash of the two adjacent stresses points out the contrast of the two confronted nouns: the nominative subject blin, which designates the flat ritual cake, and the 'instrumental of likening' komom, the wrinkled lump, which denotes a temporal failure or the usual, perhaps even unavoidable, troubles at any start. 2 Beside the characteristic tendency to discard indicative finites, we observe in the sentence discussed a terse, concentrated phonological

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shape, which in turn is a salient property of Russian adages. The first three of the prime numbers - 2, 3, and especially 5 - underlie the sound pattern of this proverb. 3 Its text consists of three words, all three declinable, and all three with a stress on the initial (or only) syllable. The five syllables of the proverb are symmetrically distributed among the three words: 2 + 1 + 2 . Three of the five vowels are stressed and the other two posttonic. To the five syllables a twice higher number is contraposed by the ten nonsyllabics: one /j/, viz. a glide with neither vocalic nor consonant feature, and nine phonemes - three per word - endowed with a consonantal feature. 4 Five of them are sonorants: two liquids and three nasals. Among consonants five labials - two in each of the two disyllables (PerVyj - koMoM) and one in the sole, medial monosyllable (Blin) - combine gravity with diffuseness. The only three stops, all three grave, open the three words of the sentence ( Ρ - Β - Κ). Three clusters, each of them connecting a sonorant with an obstruent (rv - bl - nk) sentinel the three stressed vowels within the proverb. The first of these vowels is followed, the third preceeded, and the second, medial, both followed and preceeded by such a cluster. As to the selection of phonemes, the absense of sibilants and of acute obstruents in general is to be noted. Both marginal words differ from the medial blin by the voicelessness of their initial stops and by the correspondence of their stressed, middlerise vowels - e and ο - both of them neither diffuse nor compact. On the other hand, the nominative forms of the head word blin and its attribute pervyj share the acute feature of their stressed vowels, accompanied by the only two liquids of the whole text: pERvyj bLIn. We may, moreover, assume the sharpness of the two liquids /er'/ and /Vi/, because in the given root, the archaic variety of Standard Russian, as well as the majority of dialects, preserve the palatalized vibrant [r']. The final instrumental with its grave /ό/ and with two following grave nasals builds a striking contrast to the acute vowel and the adjacent, likewise acute nasal - bllN: it is a descent from acute to grave which evokes an association with the onomatopoetic sequence bim-böm familiar to the native folklore. The proverb in question may be also linked to another homophonous prototype. The diminutive endearment blinok occurs in the greeting formula S pervym blinkom 'with the first little pancake' at starting one or the first of the Shrovetide pancake meals. Like a similar salute for the first snow - S pervym snezkom - it is built of two symmetrical word units, and either of these two units comprises five nonsyllabics and two

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syllables, each of them preceeded by a cluster of two nonsyllabics. The inveterate approach and preamble to such a festivity have been reflected in K. Fedin's short story of 1922 Blinki 'Little Pancakes': Pervyj-to blinök täk, s maslicem, ctoby tisto otvedaC i blinu. pocet otdaf 'the first little pancake [is to be taken] barely with a little bit of butter [without appetizers], in order to taste the dough and to render homage to the pancake itself'. Then the proverb PERVyj BLIN KOMom appears as a disillusioned, sobering and, one could say, paronomastic antithesis to the jovial acclamation j PERVym BLINKOM. Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology

NOTES 1

Cf. Permjakov 1970, Ch. 1. The two substances confronted, as A. A. Potebnja (1958:484ff.) points out, 'are entirely different, so that our thought admits no merger between them', and the instrumental of likening carries no grammatical, formal difference between metamorphosis and comparison. 3 On the role of pentamerous structure see Jakobson 1970, 1971a, 1971b. 4 For phonological terminology consult Jakobson and Halle 1968 (ch.3);1971. 2

REFERENCES Jakobson, Roman. 1970. Subliminal verbal patterning in poetry. Studies in General and Oriental Linguistics, presented to Shiro Hattori, ed. by R. Jakobson and S. Kawamoto, 302-308. Tokyo: TEC Co. —. 1971a. Unterbewusste sprachliche Gestaltung in der Dichtung. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 1.101-112. —. 1971b. Poötique 7.325ff. Jakobson, Roman, and Halle, Morris. 1968. Phonology in relation to phonetics. Manual of Phonetics, ed. by Bertil Malmberg, 411-449. Amsterdam: North Holland. —. 1971. Fundamentals of Language. 2nd ed. (Janua linguarum, Permjakov, G. L. series minor, 11). The Hague: Mouton. 1970. Ot pogovorki do skazki. Moscow. Potebnja, A. A. 1958. Iz zapisok po russkoj grammatike. 2 vols., ed. by V. J. Bokovskij. Moscow: UCpedgiz.

LINGUISTIC AND METRICAL CONSTRAINTS IN VERSE: IAMBIC A N D TROCHAIC TETRAMETERS OF P U S H K I N ROY G. JONES INTRODUCTION

The form of verse results from the interplay between two constraints, one linguistic and the other metrical. They are normally compatible, i.e., the additional restrictions which distinguish the language of poetry from that of prose apply to relevant features of language which is not verse. If this compatibility is present the distortion caused by the addition of metrical restraints to linguistic constraints is natural; if absent, the distortion is unnatural. 'The standard language is the background against which is reflected the esthetically intentional distortion of the linguistic components of the work, in other words, the intentional violation of the norm of the standard' (Mukarovsky 1964:18). Metrical systems which are not based on relevant features of language are not native developments and those which do utilize features not ordinarily capable of serving as the basis of meter in a language have been borrowed from another one where they are. Such borrowed systems may distort the language system in an unnatural way. Such distortion can be found in Russian verse written before the middle of the eighteenth century. This verse was written in terms of a system, borrowed from Polish through Ukrainian, which required (1) a fixed number of syllables in the line, (2) a caesura, a break within the lines, and (3) exclusively feminine rhyme (Unbegaun 1956:3). There was no regular distribution of stresses within the line, and recitation required a distorted pronunciation of both stressed and unstressed vowels. Despite the fact that this purely syllabic system did not exploit the prosodic possibilities of Russian, it persisted for almost a hundred years. Tredjakovskij recognized that the basis of Russian meter should be the opposition of stressed and unstressed syllables, and in 1735 proposed that in Russian verse there should be a regular distribution of stresses. The distribution he insisted upon was trochaic. 'The line perfect in all

88

ROY G. JONES

its components, and the best line, consists only of trochees or contains a large number of them ... while the worst line consists only of iambs or of a large number of them' (Tredjakovskij 1968:42). He also recommended a feminine rhyme. The proposal was more a modification of the syllabic system than a rejection of it. Lomonosov in his treatise of 1739 went further than Tredjakovskij and accepted iambic lines and ternary meters which Tredjakovskij rejected as improper for Russian verse. "I consider the lines which consist of anapests and iambs to be the best, most beautiful and easiest to compose..." (Lomonosov 1968:75). Modern theorists of Russian metrics do not classify the various meters as good or bad, but leave it to the poet to choose the meter that pleases him. However, some specialists have stated that certain meters are more suitable for the Russian language than others, i.e., in our terms, certain meters exemplify a more natural metrical distortion of linguistic constraints. Sengeli compared the frequency of words which have the same length and position of stress in trochaic and iambic verse with their frequency in prose and found that the language of trochaic verse is more like prose than the language of iambic verse is. He concluded that this is due to the interaction of purely linguistic and purely rhythmical elements (Sengeli 1923:19ff). Nikonov in his study of position of stress in Russian words makes a similar comparison and shows the much greater frequency in iambic verse of words stressed on even syllables than is found in prose. On the basis of these observations he poses the question of whether the word structure of Russian tends more naturally toward a trochaic rhythm than to an iambic one (Nikonov 1963:7). Tomasevskij compares these frequencies in iambic verse and prose and explains the higher frequency of words stressed on even syllables as probably due to the 'iambic foot' (Tomasevskij 1925:105). In this study we propose to examine iambic and trochaic tetrameter verse of Pushkin with respect to the notion of naturalness of metrical constraints, especially to determine (1) whether, and if so why, trochaic meter is indeed a more natural one for Russian and (2) the degree to which frequency of words in the language is reflected in the frequency at which they are combined into lines of verse. WORD FREQUENCIES IN PROSE AND VERSE

Verse in a meter which is more compatible than another with the system of linguistic constraints should show a greater similarity in frequency of word types. Sengeli's (1923:25-28) comparison of the two

LINGUISTIC A N D METRICAL CONSTRAINTS IN VERSE

89

kinds of verse was made using frequencies derived from lines which contain all four metrical stresses as well as those which omit one or two of them. They do not necessarily show that the trochaic meter as meter distorts the language less than iambic does, but that the implementation of the trochaic meter results in a greater conformity of the language of trochaic verse and prose than is seen with iambic. To show the effect of the meters on the language those lines which contain all the metrical stresses (Sengeli's Type I) should be compared. This comparison is made in Table 1. The only words which can occur in this type of line are those of one and two syllables and a 3-syllable word stressed on the second syllable. The frequencies are calculated in terms of these words only. Iambic verse shows the greater divergence from prose. Monosyllabic words and disyllabic words stressed on the first syllable are low while words stressed on the second syllable are high. The frequency of monosyllables is higher in trochaic verse than in prose. All other words occur at a slightly lower frequency. Thus, if stressed and unstressed syllables are arranged in a one-to-one alternating pattern in Russian, the frequency at which words occur in such sequences will be closer to the frequency of prose when the sequence begins with a stressed syllable. Trochaic lines, those which contain all metrical stresses as well as those which omit some of them, are more similar to an ordinary sequence of words than are iambic lines. TABLE 1

Word Type* I 1 II 1 2 III 2 *

Prose /o 23.6 25.9 28.3 22.2

Iambic /o 18.8 15.4 36.4 29.4

Trochaic /o 31.1 23.2 24.8 20.9

Roman numerals designate word length, Arabic the stressed syllable.

In iambic verse the even syllables are in principle stressed as are the odd syllables in trochaic. In prose the frequency of words stressed on even syllables and of those stressed on odd syllables is approximately the same, 42% and 43% respectively. (The rest are monosyllables.) In this respect Russian words are equally appropriate for either meter: the number of 'trochaic' words and 'iambic' words is almost the same. The only place in the line where the stress must be on an odd syllable in trochaic

90

ROY G. JONES

verse and on an even one in iambic is the absolute beginning of the line. After the first word in the line, the stress may occur on either an odd or even syllable, depending on the number of syllables in the preceding word. But if the terms 'trochaic' word and 'iambic' word are defined by their ability to BEGIN a line of verse, the stressed monosyllabic words must be included among the trochaic ones. The frequency of such words is then over 57 % versus 43 % for iambic. The existence in the language of a word type defined as trochaic and corresponding to which there is no equivalent iambic word implies that the language of trochaic verse should be closer to prose than the language of iambic verse. Monosyllabic words were defined as trochaic since they may begin a trochaic line. Their frequency in Pushkin's prose is 14%, but over 26% of the trochaic lines in his tales begin with a monosyllabic word. If in calculating word frequencies, we exclude the first word in the line and those lines in which the first stress is omitted, iambic verse deviates less from prose than does trochaic. This comparison, Table 2, illustrates the contribution of monosyllabic words toward a close agreement between word frequencies in prose and trochaic verse. Their high frequency is itself a distortion of the language, but the general result is less distortion in frequencies of other words. In traditional meters, the only obligatory stress is one in the last foot. All other feet may omit the stress, but certain feet do so more often than others. In Evgenij Onegin (iambic tetrameter) and the tales (trochaic tetrameter) the stresses are omitted as indicated below: Foot Iambic Trochaic

1 16% 43%

2 10% 2%

3 46% 55%

4 0% 0%

Jakobson (1960:362) describes this distribution of stresses as a 'regressive undulatory curve' with its highest point in the fourth foot, lowest in the third, next highest in the second foot which is higher than the third but lower than the fourth, etc., until the beginning of the line. Taranovskij (1966:184) states that the rhythmic movement of Russian binary meters is formed by the action of two laws, regressive dissimilation and the stabilization of the first strong (stressed) syllable after the first weak one in the line. The distribution of the stresses described by the regressive undulatory curve and the law of regressive dissimilation is determined by the interaction of the linguistic and metrical systems. Only the meter requires the constant stress in the last foot. Given constant appearance of the stress and the structure of Russian words, it is natural that the

91

LINGUISTIC AND METRICAL CONSTRAINTS IN VERSE TABLE 2

WORD

PROSE

TYPE

%

I 1* II 1 2 III 1 2 3 IV 1 2 3 4 V 1 2 3 4 c Z>

VI 3 4 VII 4 *

14.4 15.8 17.2 7.4 13.6 8.1 1.1 6.6 7.6 1.2 0.2 1.3 2.2 1.7 Π υ.11 0.5 0.6 0.1

TROCHAIC

All Lines

IAMBIC

Less 1 st Word All Lines Less 1st V

%

%

%

16.6 18.4 18.6 4.1 15.3 10.0

16.6 24.6 19.7 6.9 19.6 4.8

8.7 12.5 26.7 1.7 27.9 7.5 0.1 3.3 4.4 2.5 0.2 0.2

—

1.1 11.5 1.1

—

1.9 3.9 1.2

—

—

—

—

2.2 0.9 0.1

—

0.7

—

2.7

V / o

12.2 16.9 22.5 6.1 20.8 8.1 0.2 3.9 6.1 1.4 —

0.4 —

1.5

— .

—

—

—

—

1.2 0.1

—

—

R o m a n numerals designate word length, Arabic the stressed syllable.

preceding foot should show the highest incidence of omission of the stress (Jakobson 1960:362, Tomasevskij 1929:121). The omission of stress in the first foot is not related to meter but to the language system. Both 4-foot and 5-foot iambic lines omit the first stress in almost 16% of the lines. In Pushkin's 4-foot trochaic lines, the first foot lacks its stress in 43 % of the lines. 18.4% of the words in Pushkin's prose begin with two unstressed syllables and may form the beginning of a trochaic line; 3.5% have three unstressed syllables before the first stress and may begin an iambic line. The ratio of these words capable of beginning a trochaic line to those which may begin an iambic one is approximately five to one. The proportion of trochaic lines to iambic lines beginning with these words is about three to one. The ratios differ

92

ROY G. JONES

but the higher number of trochaic lines omitting the first stress must be related to the higher frequency of such words in the language. The law of stabilization of the first stress is explained by these word frequencies. The frequency of omission of the stress in the second and third feet is almost the same for both meters, 56% in iambic and 57% in trochaic. As with the occurrence of monosyllabic words, it is at the beginning of the line where differences between iambic and trochaic lines in frequency of omission of stress are observed.

WORD FREQUENCIES AND LINE FREQUENCIES

The metrical constraints of iambic and trochaic verse are compatible, though to different degrees, with the linguistic constraints in terms of overall frequencies of words. Since a line of verse is a combination of words, the frequency of a given combination organized according to a compatible metrical system should normally be related to the frequency of its component words in prose. If the frequency of a line of verse composed of a given combination of words depended directly upon the frequencies of these words in prose, the product of these frequencies would give the probability of this type of line. Sengeli (1923:57fF.) has tried to establish a relationship between probability and frequency, but his method is not reliable. His most extensive effort was to correlate the frequency of lines omitting one or more stresses with his calculated frequency coefficient. He tries to explain the discrepancy between them by a theory of the 'intense' or half-stress, which supposedly appears on certain unstressed syllables with regard to the position of the stress and word extremities. The lines whose frequency deviates from the frequency coefficient are said to be those containing words where the appearance of the half-stress does not follow the rules. This approach makes the basis of meter not the contrast of stressed and unstressed syllables but unstressed syllables opposed to both stressed and half-stressed ones. Tomasevskij in his study of Pushkin's iambic meters uses probabilities which are calculated on the frequency of the words occurring in the work he is investigating and not on their frequency in prose (Zirmunskij 1966: ll3ff.). It is impossible to establish a relationship of these probabilities with line frequencies. Gasparov (1968:72) applies the statistical method to accentual verse containing three stresses in a line. He finds a sharp discrepancy between the actual frequency of the five basic rhythmic forms of the accentual line and the theoretical frequency. Even in

93

LINGUISTIC A N D METRICAL CONSTRAINTS IN VERSE

Gasparov's study there appears to be little if any relation between the calculated probability and the observed frequency of a line. These investigations seem to indicate that the verse exhibits such distortion of this language feature that it is impossible to recognize a relationship. The general preference of the poet for certain combinations, or his desire to create a particular rhythmical effect, would probably cause some deviation of actual frequency from that expected. The following lines from Bal'mont's 'Celn tomlen'ja' clearly show the poet's intent to emphasize the alliteration of the initial consonants by the choice of predominantly disyllabic words with the initial syllable stressed: Vecer. Vzmore. Vzdoxi vetra Velicävyj vozglas voln Bürja blizko. V bereg b'etsja Cüzdyj cäram c6rnyj celn

._//_/

Probability

Number of lines

% of all lines

-/

1

.00078

381

5.0

/

2

.00061

261

3.4

.00043

197

2.6

.00052

208

2.7

.00056

232

3.1

.00184

767

10.1

.00175

577

7.6

.00034

55

0.7

.00032

29

0.4

.00044*

40

0.5

Fig. 1. 4-Foot Iambic Lines, Group A * Indicates divergence between probability and frequency.

94

ROY G. JONES Probability

Number of

lines

% of

all

lines

.00052

316

4.2

.00040

179

2.4

.00028

152

2.0

.00048

268

3.5

.00051 *

225

3.0

.00169

937

12.4

.00155

904

11.9

.00023

31

0.4

.00169*

220

2.9

.00156*

180

2.4

Fig. 2. 4-Foot Iambic Lines, Group Β *

Indicates divergence between probability and frequency.

High probability in itself does not imply a correspondingly high frequency of occurrence of a line. The first two line types below have almost identical probabilities: 1 _/ _/__ 2 _/_ / 3 -/-

/

_/(_)2 /(_)

.00353 .0034

/(-)

-0031

But the line with the higher probability occurs 577 times and the other 937. Line 3, whose probability is even lower than that of line 2, still occurs much more frequently than line 1, 904 times. Line 2 has a higher probability than 3 and also occurs more frequently. The only similarity in the construction of the lines is the initial word of three syllables stressed on the second syllable. It will be shown below that this is significant in comparing the probabilities of line types.

95

LINGUISTIC A N D METRICAL CONSTRAINTS IN VERSE

Probability

Number of lines

% of all lines

.00175*

104

1.4

.00136

107

1.4

.00096

18

0.2

.00032

192

2.5

.00025

124

1.6

.00017

106

1.4

.00038

93

2.5

.00041*

84

1.1

.00133

290

3.8

.00092

283

3.7

F — / —

-/

1

Fig. 3. 4-Foot Iambic Lines, Groups C, D, E, F * Indicates divergence between probability and frequency.

The data are presented as if the first word in the line is the first one selected by the poet. This is not necessarily the case, but it is not important whether the poet begins the composition of a line by selecting the first word, the last, or any other. Once a word has been chosen, there are only a few other words with which it can be combined within the framework of a meter. For example, if a 3-syllable word stressed on the first syllable is selected for a position within a 4-foot trochaic line, it can be preceded only by a dissyllabic word stressed on the first syllable and followed by a 2- or 3-syllable word stressed on the second syllable. Therefore, the branching diagrams, Figures 1-6, are based on the first

96

ROY G. JONES

-/

1

Probability

Number of lines

% of all lines

.00066

102

5.8

.00051

55

3.1

.00036

30

1.7

.00044

46

2.6

.00047

49

2.8

.00154

133

7.5

.00147*

58

3.3

.00028

1

.00027

0

.00037

1

Fig. 4. 4-Foot Trochaic Lines, Group A *

Indicates divergence between probability and frequency.

word of a line with branches indicating successively the words which may follow the preceding one, until the end of the line is reached. With one exception, in the 4-foot iambic lines which may begin with a disyllabic word stressed on the second syllable, the higher the probability, the higher the frequency of that line. When lines beginning with a 3-syllable word stressed on the second syllable are compared, the same relation between probability and frequency is seen in only seven of the ten lines. One of the three lines which may begin with a 4-syllable word stressed on the second syllable, line CI; and one of the three beginning with a 5-syllable word stressed on the fourth syllable, E2, do not agree in the relation of high probability and high frequency. Lines which contain an initial 4-syllable word stressed on the last syllable do, Group D. The lines which do not have a high probability paralleled by a high frequency are characterized by one of two features: either by the absence of stress

97

LINGUISTIC AND METRICAL CONSTRAINTS IN VERSE

-/

- /

Probability

Number of lines

% of all lines

1

.00061

55

3.1

2

.00047

39

2.2

3

.00039

22

1.2

4

.00056

50

2.8

5

.00059*

17

1.0

6

.00196*

123

6.9

7

.00180

193

10.9

8

.00026

1

9

.00197*

11

10

.00182*

—

—

0.6 — -

Fig. 5. 4-Foot Trochaic Lines, Group Β *

Indicates divergence between probability and frequency.

in the second foot or by the occurrence of at least one disyllabic word stressed on the first syllable, a 'trochaic' word. The single divergent line in Group A (A10) omits the stress in the second foot, as do lines B9, BIO and CI. Line B5 has a higher probability than B4 but a lower frequency. It contains two disyllabic words stressed on the first syllable while B4 has only one. A similar pattern occurs with El and E2. Line E2 with a higher probability and lower frequency contains one such word while El does not. In the trochaic lines, A7 and B7 do not show the expected relationship between probability and frequency, nor do they contain one of the sequences which characterize the deviant iambic lines. All the deviant lines in trochaic Group Β can be explained by the same features observed in iambic lines. B9 has a very high probability but extremely low frequency: the stress of the second foot is omitted. The low frequency of

98

ROY G. JONES

Probability

Number of lines

% of all lines

.00196

17

0.8

.00145

3

0.1

.00108

8

0.4

.00214

161

9.1

.00162

57

3.2

.00118

46

2.6

.00169

87

4.9

.00182*

45

2.5

.00579

238

13.4

1

.00678

118

6.6

/ 1 /-

.00076

F •/

G 0.4

Fig. 6. 4-Foot Trochaic Lines, Groups C, D, E, F, G *

Indicates divergence between probability and frequency.

B6 as compared to B7 is explained by the word type '/-' in B6. The occurrence of two such words in B5 and none in B4 accounts for their relative frequencies. The frequencies presented earlier show that the second foot is the least likely one to omit the stress. However, that the presence of a sequence of three unstressed syllables after the first stress in a line should be paralleled by a low frequency of that line is not one of the language

LINGUISTIC AND METRICAL CONSTRAINTS IN VERSE

99

constraints. Line 9 and 10 in Groups A and Β in both iambic and trochaic verse omit the second metrical stress. The probabilities in Groups A are low in both meters, and the line frequencies are also low. In Group Β the probabilities are quite high compared to the others in the group. The frequencies of iambic lines B9 and BIO are very low, while those of trochaic B9 and BIO are the lowest in the group. Since this feature of a line is one of two which characterizes lines whose ranking of probability does not show a corresponding ranking of frequency, when probabilities and frequencies of lines without these features may be so ranked, it may be considered one of the constraints of the metrical system. In Group A and Β lines, which comprise 81.2% of the iambic and 55.5 % of the trochaic lines, both the first and fourth stresses are constant. The avoidance of a stress in the third foot cannot be explained as due only to a fixed stress in the fourth. The metrical rule concerning omission of a stress with regard to a fixed stress must also include a statement about relative positions. A 2-syllable word stressed on the first syllable occurs in prose at a frequency second only to a word of the same length stressed on the last syllable. The high frequency of such a word in prose contributes to the higher probability of a line in which it appears. But the frequency of such lines, in both iambic and trochaic verse, is actually lower than expected, when they contain one such word, if the stress of the first foot is omitted, and when any line contains two or more such words. The frequency of lines containing this word, at variance with the language system, can be ascribed to a metrical constraint. The relation between probabilities and frequencies operates only within the confines of a group. Equal probabilities of a line in Group A and of another in Group Β do not imply an equal frequency of the two lines. The groups differ in the form of the first and second words in the lines. When iambic Group A and trochaic Group A and iambic Group Β and trochaic Group B, which differ only by the presence or absence of an unstressed syllable at the absolute beginning of the line, are compared, much greater agreement is observed between a given probability and the frequencies of the lines in the two groups. Line

Probability

% of Lines

iambic A3 trochaic A4

.00043 .00044

2.6 2.6

iambic A4 trochaic A2

.00052 .00051

2.7 3.1

100

ROY G. JONES

Although a direct proportionality of probability to frequency cannot be established, this comparison reveals that there does exist a relation between the two on a broader scale than within a group. The correspondence between probability and frequency within a group and between the same groups of the two meters, and the lack of correspondence among groups of the same meter, imply that probabilities as used in this study are not sufficient to account for all the variables which should perhaps be considered, and that a more sophisticated statistical method could show a more direct relationship between probability and frequency for all types of lines. Rice

University

NOTES 1

The frequency of words in Pushkin's prose and of the lines of iambic and trochaic pentameter verse is based on the data of Sengeli 1923:20,144-147,176. The calculations of the frequency of words in the verse and all other calculations were made independently from data derived from his. The date are taken from the following works of A.S.Pushkin: in prose - 'Pikovajadama'; in iambic tetrameter- 'BaxCisarajskij fontan', 'Poltava', 'Mednyj vsadnik', and 'Evgenij Onegin'; in trochaic tetrameter - Ό care Saltane', Ό mertvoj carevne', Ό zolotom petuske'. 2 ' - ' indicates an unstressed syllable, '/' a stressed one. Space indicates word division. 3 The lines may end with either a stressed or unstressed syllable. The probabilities of lines identical except for a masculine or feminine ending were first calculated separately. The frequency seemed to be independent of the type of ending and the stated probabilities are the average of the two and the frequencies of the lines their sum.

REFERENCES Gasparov, M. L. 1968. Russkij trexudarnyj dolnix XXv. Teorija stixa, Leningrad. Jakobson, Roman. 1960. Linguistics and poetics. Style in language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 350-377. Cambridge. Lomonosov, Mihailo. 1968. Letter on the rules of Russian versification. Russian versification, ed. and trans, by Rimvydas Silbajoris, New York and London. Mukarovsky, Jan. 1964. Standard language and poetic language. A Prague school reader in esthetics, literary structure, and style, selected and trans, by Paul Garvin, 17-30. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press. Nikonov, V. A. 1963. Mesto udaren'ja ν russkom slove. International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics 6.1-8. Sengeli, Georgij. 1923. Traktat ο russkom Stixe. Moscow and Petrograd. Taranovskij, Kiril. 1966. Osnovye zadaöi statistiieskogo izuöenija slavjanskogo. Poetics, Poetyka, Poetika, vol. 2. The Hague and Warsaw.

LINGUISTIC AND METRICAL CONSTRAINTS IN VERSE

101

Tomasevskij. 1929. Ο Stixe. Leningrad. Tredjakovskij, Vasilij. 1968. A new and brief method for composing Russian verse. Russian versification, ed. and trans, by Rimvydas Silbajoris, New York and London. Unbegaun, B. O. 1956. Russian versification, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Zirmunskij, V. M. 1966. Introduction to metrics, trans, by C. F. Brown. The Hague.

PIERS P L O W M A N Β.IX.: F U R T H E R R E F I N E M E N T S OF I N W I T T E ERNEST N. KAULBACH

Randolph Quirk's study of inwit (1953) has contributed much towards a more intelligent reading of Piers Plowman B.IX. 1 We now have reason to believe that the poet's use of the term "is precise and technical to a degree hard to parallel in M E " and that the poet "is not one of the ME writers who use 'inwit' for 'conscience'", with this qualification: ... this is not to say that he makes 'conscience' a separate faculty from 'inwit'; conscience is rather one aspect of inwit's activity; it is inwit's awareness of right and wrong brought to bear upon one's actions; it is inwit in action (Quirk 1953:187-188).

A convincing interpretation of B.IX. 10-22 follows from this reading of inwit: Kind has built a castle called Caro in which he has settled his sweetheart, the lady Anima, and her servants Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest. For the love of Anima, a 'wise knight', Sir Inwit, is made constable of the castle and protects them all from his point of vantage in the head, along with his five sons, the good actions (Quirk 1953:187).

Sir Inwit's function of keeping "wacche" (B.IX. 17) is simply a metaphorical expression for the "awareness of right and wrong" which protects the castle and Anima. When Quirk refines the meaning of inwit in the highly technical sense of "agens aspect of intellectus in Thomist terms," the interpretation of B.IX. 17-22 and 52-59 seems much more forced (1953:187). As the personification of "agens intellectus" (cf. Summa Theologiae, la, 79, 4c), Sir Inwit does not learn from the "lux" of a "superior intellectus" (presumably that proceeding from Kynde) but simply from the "lerynge of Kynde" (C.XI.172). As "agens intellectus", Sir Inwit does not abstract universal forms of knowledge from particular images within Anima (cf. Summa Theologiae, ibid.) but is simply "that help that Anima

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ERNEST Ν. KAULBACH

desyreth" (A.X.47). Inwit may be well understood as the actual "awareness of right and wrong" but not in the technical sense of the Thomistic "agens intellectus". As E. C. Knowlton (1921:197-198) pointed out, inwit is to be read in a context of concrete imagery where Kynde teaches this watchman who in turn teaches Anima. "By loue and by leaute . therby lyueth Anima;!And Lyf lyueth by Inwitt . and lerynge of Kynde" (C.XI.171-172). Inwit personifies moral "awareness" not in the context of "agens intellectus" but in a much more concrete context. This complex person may be better understood in the context which John of Salisbury uses to describe him {Metalogicon, P.L. CXCIX, 926BC): Agit haec [ratio origine divina] corporis curam et animae, et utrumque componit... Et quia sensuum examinatrix est, qui ob fallendi consuetudinem possunt esse suspecti, natura optima, parens omnium, universos sensus locans in capite, velut quemdam senatum in Capitolio animae, rationem quasi dominam in arce capitis statuit, mediam quidem sedem tribuens inter cellam phantasticam et memoriam, ut velut e specula sensuum et imaginationum, possit examinare judicia. ...haec ipsa vis,... divina sit... (This reason has care over the body and soul and unites both... And because she is the judge of the senses, suspect because of their habitual inaccuracy, the highest Nature, parent of all, established reason as mistress in the fortress of the head, locating all the wits in the head as if locating a senate in the capitol of the soul. [Nature] gave reason a seat between the lobe of imagination and the lobe of memory, so that, as if it were the watchtower, it could test the judgments of the senses and imagination. ... this power ... is divine....)2 It is clear enough that Inwit is not the personification of "agens intellectus" but of a "ratio" whose function is defined in relation to "Natura" (Kynde), to its seat in the "caput" ("hed", B.IX.56), to its function as "specula" ("wacche"), and to the senses ("fyue feyre sones"). Inwit is "after the grace of God the grettest" (B.IX.58) because of a divine ability to join soul and body together ("Anima" and "Caro" or "man with a soule", B.IX.48-49). In spite of his being a "divina vis", Inwit is intimately related to the body, head and senses, as if he were the watchtower ("specula") which examines and judges information received from the senses and the imagination. Although John of Salisbury's imagery does clarify some of the technical functions of Inwit, we are still hard pressed to claim that the Piers Plowman poet describes Inwit in terms of this "ratio". Although we can understand why Inwit is "wys" (B.IX. 18a), the poet makes him out to be a male, moreover a knight. 3 The poet ascribes to Inwit more divine power than judgment, he ascribes to Inwit an "awareness of right and wrong".

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Assuming that the Piers Plowman poet intends us to conceive In wit first as watchman and secondly as watchman over the senses because he describes in these images first, we must trace the image "specula" and its relationship to "awareness of right and wrong" in order to understand more precisely the function that Inwit plays. 4 We must go back to John of Salisbury's chief mentor who showed him how to use this imagery borrowed from Plato and Cicero, St. Augustine (cf. note 4). In a widely quoted passage from De Trinitate, XII, cap. 8, Augustine explains the function of this "ratio" as watchman: Qui [homo interior] etiam ipse per illam rationem cui temporalium rerum administratio delegata est immoderato progressu nimis in exteriora prolabitur consentiente capite suo, id est non earn [rationem inferiorem] cohibente et refrenante ilia [ratio superior] quae in specula consilii praesidet quasi virili portione, inveteratur inter inimicos suos invidos daemones cum suo principe diabolo..., et sic ab ilia inlustratione veritatis ambo nudati, atque apertis oculis conscientiae ad videndum quam inhonesti atque indecori remanserint. (Now if the interior man in his use of that reason whose office concerns the administration of temporal goods stumbles because of hasty paces forward into excessive concern for exterior things, after he has consented to himself in his head that is, when that reason in the male proportion which keeps watch in the watchtower of counsel does not contain and restrain the lower reason - , then the interior man establishes himself among his enemies together with their prince the devil, enemies envious of his power... And so both [higher reason and lower reason, compared respectively to Adam and Eve] are denuded by that light of truth. And when both have opened their eyes of conscience, they remain looking at their loss of moral good and their loss of gifts.)5 The "interior man," the man trying to find out whether he is man or beast, 6 becomes "interior" when he uses the higher reason to restrain the appetite of lower reason for temporal goods. The higher reason is "virile" in comparison with the lower reason ("female") both because of its strength to take "counsel" immediately from God and because of its rule over the lower reason's appetite by the strength of that "counsel". 7 This "ratio" is positioned in the head just as stated in John of Salisbury but is considered to be male by Augustine because it rules over the lower reason's appetite for exterior things. Such a male "ratio" is not to be considered to be the same as Inwit until this "ratio" takes "consilium" in its watchtower. This is to say that the male reason takes "counsel" immediately from God in order to restrain ("refrenante") the motions of lower reason towards a misuse of the senses. Since the "sensual motion of the soul towards the senses of the body" is sensuality (Peter Lombard, II Sententiae, d.24, cap. 5)8,

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"ratio" becomes Inwit when in its watchtower it takes "counsel" from "immutable and eternal truth" and becomes aware of good or evil in the motions of the lower reason towards sensuality. St. Augustine's "consilium" is, in later scholastic terms, the awareness of the nuances of good and evil before moral choice: Et ponuntur tres ex parte rationis, qui procedunt ab imperfecto ad perfectum: primo est motus inquisitivus de faciendo vel non faciendo, scilicet consilium. (And there are posited three acts on the part oi reason, which proceed from the imperfect to the perfect: the first is a movement searching out whether something is to be done or not to be done, namely counsel.)9 In short, Inwit is a highly technical term for the act of "ratio superior" taking "consilium" from Nature (or God), specifically from the eternal and immutable truth evidenced in the working of Nature. After Witte has described the relationships of Inwit to Anima in the commonplace images of B.IX.52-56a, 10 he tells Will why Inwit is the most powerful faculty "after the grace of God" (B.IX.56a-58): .and to the herte he loketh, What Anima is lief or loth, he lat hir at his wille (and he looks after the heart; whatever is sought or avoided by Anima, he leads her at his will).11 Anima has a tendency to use the lower reason for her delight in the senses and to pervert the "lerynge of Kynde" to her private pleasure, according to Augustine {De Trin., XII, cap. 9): Potestatem quippe suam diligens anima a communi universo ad privatam partem prolabitur, et apostatica ilia superbia quod initium peccati dicitur, cum in universitate creaturae deum rectorem secuta legibus eius optime gubernari potuisset, plus aliquid universo appetens atque id sua lege gubernare molita, quia nihil est amplius universitate, in curam partilem truditur et sic aliquid amplius concupiscendo minuitur...; totumque illud ubi aliquid proprium contra leges quibus universitas administratur agere nititur per corpus proprium gerit quod partiliter possidet... et phantastica fornicatione turpiter inquinatur omnia officia sua ad eos fines referens quibus curiose corporalia et temporalia per corporis sensus quaerit... (For love of her own power "anima" stumbles from common universality into her own private concerns because of that apostate pride which is called the beginning of sin. Although she could be best governed by God her leader in the community of creation, she desires more than the common law and tries to govern herself by her own law. Thus she is shoved into convern for only her own cares and, desiring more, she is lessened... She does all this through her own body which she restricts for her own use when she attempts to do something for herself against the laws which govern the universe...; and by fornication with her own images she basely defiles every

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exercise of her own powers, using them for purposes where she seeks too particularly bodily and temporal things through use of the senses.) When Anima is "lief" (attracted to motions produced by her use of the senses), Inwit is said to "lead", i.e., to tell or give a judgment about the good or evil in such and such a sensory use. He "leads" because the "head perceives things through the senses, and by reason or intelligence decides whether things are to be desired or fled".12 Inwit is a powerful watchman over Animals tendency to misuse the senses in excessive attractions towards the goods of the earth. Because of Anima's tendency towards sensuality, Inwit must be first and foremost a "knihte" (and not the "senator" as in John of Salisbury): rationales [sensus] sunt tamquam milites, qui hostes puta concupiscentias impugnant per arma justitiae.13 The poet has recourse to (pseudo-) Augustine's De Spiritu et Anima rather than to the Platonic tradition to explain his understanding of Inwit. Although his location is in the head, the seat of reason, Inwit looks after the heart, because the attractions of the senses are in the heart, Anima's place of "reste" (B.IX.55b). There Anima can misuse the senses for her own concupiscence, i.e., the desire to follow her own law instead of the "leryng of Kynde." Inwit must be a knight: senators do not fight, only knights fight against the motions of concupiscence. Inwit's "awareness of right and wrong" is not only rational in the sense that Inwit knows, his "awareness" is motivating, i.e., forcing Anima to be led "at his wille" (B.IX.57b). Langland's use of the term inwit is "technical to a degree hard to parallel in ME." In the context of B.IX.16-17, the term means first and foremost a "watch" against concupiscence or sensuality by a "ratio" who specifically takes counsel from Nature immediately. Inwit keeps watch against a misuse of the senses. In this context Inwit protects Anima against "Enuye" (B.IX.7, Augustine's "invidos daemones") who has power to "winne hir awey" because of her proneness to misuse the lower reason and senses. Inwit here is "ratio superior" in the act of taking counsel from Kynde about what is to be done or avoided in the use of sense knowledge. In the context of B.IX.52-56, Inwit's function as knight is further defined. Since Anima can misuse the senses in the heart, Inwit looks after the heart by leading Anima "at his wille": as knight he fights to motivate her to the good. In the larger context of B.VIII.124-127 where Thought asks Witte to explain to Will the location of Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest, Inwit seems to be the most important faculty described by

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Witte. Inwit is important because he is the personification of the first moral awareness separating that "ratio" which is uniquely human from that "ratio" which is ascribed to beasts. In the same De Trinitate, XII, cap. 8 Augustine says: Ascendentibus itaque introrsus quibusdam gradibus considerationis per animae partes unde incipit aliquid occurrere quod non sit nobis commune cum bestiis, inde incipit ratio ubi jam homo interior possit agnosci. (And so when interiorly ascending through steps of consideration of the parts of "anima," where something occurs to us which is not common to us and the beasts, there begins that "ratio" whereby the interior man may be recognized.) When Thought asks Witte to explain Will's desire to know "whether he be man or no man" (B.VIII.125), Witte's explanation of lnwit serves to answer Will's desire very well. If Will uses Inwit in accordance with the "lerynge of Kynde," he is "homo interior" because Inwit restrains excessive attractions to exterior things which belong to beasts. The use of Inwit as "ratio superior" taking "counsel" is the first moral awareness towards an intended good purpose (Will's "entente," B.VIII.126b): Counsel does not only concern things which are performed but also things arranged in an order of doing. For this reason consultation is said to be made about future acts, inasmuch as man through known future acts directs himself towards doing something or avoiding something. 14 Inwit is indeed a highly technical term. University of Texas ai Austin

NOTES 1

All quotes from Piers Plowman are taken from the Skeat edition (London, 1968). Usually the imagery related to the term specula connotes God's Providence as, e.g., in De Consolatione Philosophiae, IV, pr. 6: "Qui cum ex alta providentiae specula respexit, quid unicuique conveniat agnoscit et quod convenire novit accomodat." Such a sense is found in Alexander of Hales' Summa Theologica (Quaracchi, 1924), I, 294a. The term comes to mean "prevoiance" in the vernacular (cf. DuCange, Glossarium, "specula"). Although Alain de Lille allegorizes "specula," or watchtomer as the Church (Distinctiones Dictionum Theologicalium "specula" P.L. CCX, 950), the Piers Plowman poet seems to use "specula" in the sense in which it is found in Hugh of St. Victor's text of De Spiritu et Anima (P.L. XL, 808 and note 1): "Sed postquam delectationem nostram in terram peccando sparsimus, peccati pulvis superjectus est cordi nostro: et ideo ab ilia internae contemplationis specula corruentes in has miserias praesentis vitae tenebras labimur, ubi Deo digne ministrare non valemus, quia sorde iniquitatis ... quid agendum vel vitandum nobis sit, ex magna parte jam non videmus." The metaphoric "watchtower" has some relationship to a knowledge of good and evil ("quid agendum vel vitandum sit"). 2

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The term "specula" is sometimes confused with "speculum" (cf. Hugh of St. Victor's text of De Spiritu et Anima; Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum Naturale [Douai, 1624], I, 1932BC); but Augustine clearly distinguishes his use of the terms in De Trinitate, XV, cap. 8. The distinction is maintained by Peter Lombard (Glossa, P. L. CXCIXII, 28) and by Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae, II-II3®, 180, 3, ad 2). 3 The tradition that "ratio" in the watchtower is female is strong and is even to be found in the Roman de la Rose (ed. Felix Lecoy [Paris, 1965], I, 11.2959-2960): Reson fu la dame apelee. Lors est de sa tor devalee. (Cf. also 11.4196-4197). There is some reason for the change from female to male. John of Salisbury refers those readers "qui vero naturam animae diligentius investigare voluerint" to the works of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and their Christianizer Augustine (P.L. CXCIX, 928B); specifically to Plato's Timaeus and Politia and Cicero's In Tusculanis, as they are interpreted by Augustine (cf. P.L. CXCIX, 926-927). Cicero says of the soul (In Tusculanis, I, 10, 20): "Plato triplicem finxit animum, cujus principatum id est rationem in capite sicut in arce posuit, et duas partes ei parere voluit, iram et cupiditatem, quas suis locis iram in pectore, cupiditatem subter praecordia locavit." (For the same, cf. Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus Rerum [Frankfurt, 1601], III, cap. 16.) That passage in the Timaeus (section 69) which Cicero refers to was not translated by Chalcidius, although Chalcidius refers to it in the opening comments on the Timaeus (ed. J. H. Waszink, 247/7-12): "Sic animam quoque ordinatam videmus: rationabilem quidem partem ejus, ut sapientissimum, principem partem obtinentem tamquam totius corporis capitolium, vigorem vero qui est iracundiae similis ut militarem iuventutem in cordis castris manentem, vulgare et sellularium, quod est cupiditas seu libido, inferioribus abditum occultatumque natura." We are nearer the image of watchman as "ratio", even if the watchman is located in the heart. Cicero's passage and Chalcidius seem to be collated in the Glosae Super Platonem of Guillaume de Conches, a teacher of John of Salisbury (Metalogicon, 856A, "praeceptores mei... Guilielmus de Conchis"). Guillaume says (ed. E. Jeauneau, 75): "Ad hanc similitudinem voluit Socrates in arce civitatis esse senatum ut in arce capitis est sapientia; sub isto esse milites ut in corde animositatem, sub quibus sunt cupidinarii ut in lumbis est concupiscentia." As close as the images come to Inwit,s till Inwit as "ratio" and "knight" come from Augustine's use of these theories. 5 P.L.XLII, 1005 (Corpus Christianorum, L. 368/4-15). This difficult passage became widely commented on because of its quotation in Peter Lombard's II Sententiae, d.24, cap. 5 where it explained how we, like Adam and Eve, fall into sin (cf. Commentaries of both Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure). Adam (the high reason or "ratio superior" concerned with contemplation and "counsel" taken from immutable and eternal truth [De Trin., XII, cap. 3, repeated in S.T., la, 79, 9c, "ratio superior est quae intendit aeternis conspiciendis aut consulendis"]) and Eve (the lower reason concerned with necessities of life exterior to the inner man [cf. S.T., la, 79, 9c, "ratio vero inferior... dicitur quae intendit temporalibus rebus"]) are wedded together as if faculties of one "intellect". When the lower reason becomes too concerned with "exterior" things, the higher reason is tempted to consent. Augustine seems to have borrowed the idea of lower and higher reason from the Timaeus 41 d, where "ratio" is said to have three degrees, the first in the divinity, the second in masculine reason, and the third in feminine reason (cf. Glosae Super Platonem, ed. Jeauneau, 210/10-11). 6 The expression is used in De Trin. XII, cap. 1 to define that which is human and which man does not have in common with the beast (P.L. XLII, 997): "Age nunc videamus ubi sit quasi quoddam hominis exterioris interiorisque confinium. Quidquid 4

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habemus in animo commune cum pecore recte adhuc dicitur ad exteriorem hominem pertinere." 7 Bonaventure distinguishes higher reason form lower reason (Comment. in II Sentent., d.24, art.2, q.2., concl.): "secundum dispositiones, quia haec fortis et illa debilis; secundum officia, quia haec regit et illa regitur... Ratione diversae dispositionis in debilitate et fortitudine haec vocatur vir, et illa mulier." 8 "... sensualis animae motus qui in corporis sensus intenditur". 9 Alexander of Haies, Summa Theologica, II, 490 b ; cf. Thomas Aquinas's definition in S.T., I-II^, 14, 1. The nuances of good and evil mean that (S.T., I a , 19, 12, ad4): "consilium non est solum de melioribus bonis assequendis sed etiam de minoribus ma lis vitandis." There are degrees to "good" and "evil". 10 For "ratio" in the head, cf. Glosae Super Platonem (ed. Jeauneau, 74/note a); for "anima" considered "Lyf of the body", cf. De Trin., VI, cap. 6 and S. T., I a , 75, 1; for "anima" considered "wandering through the body," cf. De Trin., VI, cap. 6 and S. T., I a , 76, 8. "In the herte is hir home" is found in De Spiritu et Anima (P.L. XL, 794) and, according to Chalcidius (ed. Waszink, 238/20-239/1), this theory derives from the Stoics. 11 Skeat translates "lat" as "assents" from "leten," and allows the reading "leads" from "leden". The Goodridge translation uses the latter. 12 Glosae Super Platonem, 234/19-20: "... per sensum enim res [caput] percipit, ratione vero et intelligentia discernit an appetende vel fugiende sint." (Cf. S.T., I-II ae , 14, 3, ad 3, "consilium dirigitur ad aliquid faciendum vel vitandum".) 13 Pseudo-Augustine, De Spiritu et Anima, P.L.XL, 808. Cf. Glosae Super Platonem (76/14-15): "Praedixerat [Plato] geminam oportere milites habere naturam, scilicet animositatem et sapientiam." 14 S.T., I-II ae , 14, 3 ad 3.

REFERENCES Knowlton, E. C. 1921. Nature in Middle English. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 20. 186-207. Quirk, Randolph. 1953. Langland's Use of Kind Wit and Inwit. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 52.182-188.

LINGUISTIC F U N D A M E N T A L S OF THE METER OF BEOWULF J. KURYLOWICZ

Linguistic analysis of metrical texts has radically changed in the last decades, even before the birth of classical phonemics, as evidenced by R. Jakobson's treatment of Czech versification (1923). In the preceding period there had been a tendency to consider metrical data not corroborated by the language of the prose as archaisms or poetic licences. The principle that the metrical form necessarily contributes to the preservation of phonetic archaisms, had become the chief methodical tenet of research. What one was looking for was a DIACHRONIC difference underlying the synchronic difference between metrical and prose texts. This attitude has of course to be explained by the general approach to linguistic facts, which at that time was mainly HISTORICAL. Nowadays the interest has shifted. Owing to the rise of phonemics and classical structuralism the FUNCTIONAL aspect of metrical facts has been brought to the fore. We are interested in the TRANSPOSITION of phonemic and prosodic features of spoken language into metrical features. Norms of spoken (colloquial) language are in a peculiar way transformed to serve metrical functions. Thus, e.g. rules concerning accent (stress), words, syntactical groups, sentences, may be transformed into rules concerning ictus (arsis), foot (bar), hemistich, or verse. In Vedic a personal verb or a vocative carries a stress only if beginning the VERSE LINE, because in colloquial language they were stressed in SENTENCE-initial position. Whereas metrics does not inform us about phonetics and prosody of colloquial language, we are interested in phonetic (phonemic, morphophonemic) aspects of the language exploited and transformed to serve metrical functions. The verse form represented in the Old Germanic languages except in Gothic, the alliterating long line ('Langzeile'), offers three characteristic traits, all of them being rooted in spoken language: (1) The metrical equivalence (responsio) — = x; (2) Alliteration; (3) The system of metrical stress.

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As a rule each ACCENTED word (plus occasional clitics) constitutes a bar or foot. Its minimal volume is represented by a monosyllable in (1)

LONG VOWEL

ΟΓ DIPHTHONG, ΟΓ i n SHORT VOWEL +

CONSONANT, e . g . ,

O.E. mä 'more', dceg 'day', or by a disyllable SHORT VOWEL + FOLLOWING SYLLABLE, e . g . , / A M « . Inherited stressed monosyllables in SHORT VOWEL have undergone a lengthening of the vowel both in North and in West Gmc. Cf. O.N. sä 'this' < * sä, svä 'so' < * swä, *sö 'this' (fem.) > *sü > sü; O.E. swä, he. Gothic sa, swa is uncertain, but cf. the spelling a for /a·/ in fahan = /fa'han/. The vowel of the Gothic negative particle ne (besides proclitic ni strat-ägos (straiegos). It is evident that here again a lengthening occurring only after a morphological juncture has been carried over to word junctures owing to the metrical cohesion of the verse-line (Kurylowicz 1956:276ff.). In Germanic there was a morphological juncture between the reduplication and the verbal stem. Its strength must have been intermediate between the plus in STEM + SUFFIX and the plus joining the members of a compound. Owing to the cohesion of the verse (or hemistich) REDUPLICATION + VERB-STEM could have become metrically equivalent with MONOSYLLABIC WORD + WORD, if their initials fulfilled the requirements imposed by the above rules (a), (b), (c). Hemistichs like oft Scyld Scefing ( 4 ) , f y r s t förögewät (210), flota fdmi(g)heah (218), wlanc Wedera leod (341), would thus represent the original state of affairs, and compounds like wigwioröunga (176) could be regarded as intermediate between reduplication and alliteration. Cf. the hemistichs heardhicgende (394, 799), pone cwialmcuman (792), in fendreoöo (851), milgemearces (1362), heorohöcyhtum (1438), ealltrenne (2338), tö gegangenne (2416), wiö öäm gryregieste (2560), and so forth. The hypothesis that such has been the actual development is reinforced by the following considerations: (a) Originally ALLITERATION occurred only between words IN IMMEDIATE CONTACT. This is the rule in O. Irish. This is also borne out by the whole Germanic development, (b) The gradual swelling of the LANGZEILE and the separation of the two alliterating word-forms of the 1 s t hemistich (cf. the chain Edda-Beowulf-Heliand or Hildebrandslied), together with the introduction of rhyme, entailed a weakening of this metrical device leading to its early elimination in German, (c) Where alliteration is still preserved (as in sayings, proverbs, etc.), the original condition of the immediate neighbourhood of the alliterating words is respected, e.g. German mit Kind und Kegel, mit Mann und Maus, über Stock und Stein (und enclitic), Engl, house and home, love and liking, woe and weal, (d) Alliteration as a metrical device is attested in O. Irish and in Latin, both characterized not only by an (originally) initial stress, but also by reduplication in the inflection of the verb. As regards Beowulf (about 700), its alliterations are in general in agreement with the rules laid down for Germanic. The labiovelars hw-, cw- seem to be the only exception. In Gothic the reduplicated preterite of hopjan 'to boast' is hai-hop, h- being a single phoneme, not a cluster

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(h -f w). We may infer by analogy that q (as in qiman) was also a labiovelar phoneme, not k + w, although no reduplicated preterite with qis attested. Moreover fa, q are rendered in Gothic by simple graphemes, not by ligatures. Now in O.E. hw- alliterates with h-, and cw- with c-. Old hw having disappeared in O.E. in intervocalic position, its place was taken by biphonemic -h + w- attested at the internal juncture of compounds, cf. feorh-wund 'mortal wound', durh-wadan 'penetrate', scöhwyrhta 'shoemaker'. Old initial hw- was identified with the new internal cluster, i.e., underwent a biphonemic interpretation. The fate of cw has been similar. Simplified to -c- between vowels, it was preserved initially and merged with biphonemic -c + w- of compounds like cesc-wiga 'warrior' or ömc-wudu 'spear'. Cf. the alliterations hwearf: hrcedlice (356), gehwoeöer : hröpra (2171); cwen : cynna (613), cyninge : cwico (3093). The alliteration of O.E. c jkj with c(i) /c/, of g with y, of sc /sk/ with sc(i) /s/ is accounted for diachronically by their common origin, synchronically by living (morpho)phonemic alternations (ceosan : curon, sceal : scolde, etc.). (3) The accentual types of the Germanic word are represented by: (a) The neuter or unmarked accentuation _oc; (b) The positive accentuation xj_(x); (c) The negative accentuation _£_x(x), the counterpart of (b). Type b was characteristic chiefly of compound VERBS (with the prefixes ä-, be-, for-, ge-, geond-, od-, etc.). Type c was the rule chiefly for NOMINAL compounds, sometimes for simples with productive (heavy) suffixes, e.g. -esta, -ende, -inga after a long stressed syllable (semninga 64). Cf. ofer-hycgan 'despise, disdain' (type b): oferhygd 'pride, arrogance' (type c); ymb-sdton: ymbe-sittendra. The secondary accent of c is conditioned by the morphological juncture of the compound. Therefore forms like IsenörSat 'iron-armed troop' (j_xx) and hringboga :coil-bender, dragon' ( / xx) may be regarded as combinatory prosodic VARIANTS. On the other hand, c as a whole may be considered a variant of a, since the secondary accent of _^_x(x) is morphologically conditioned and not autonomous. Finally, from the metrical point of view all types of accentuation are isofunctional since every stressed word is apt to constitute a metrical bar. However, the secondary accent which, being implied by a morphological juncture (as a rule in compounds, rarely in simples), is prosodically not relevant, may be RAISED in the meter functioning as arsis

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(ictus), i.e. constituting a separate bar. A morphologically conditioned prosodic feature becomes thus metrically autonomous. The use of a secondary accent as ictus is OPTIONAL, cf. eorl Beowulfes

\ ealde läfe (Beowulf, 795),

but beornas on bläncum meeröa gemyndig,

|

deer wees Beowulfes (856);

\ mag Hy(ge) laces (1530),

but ond Higeläces

\ heorögeneatas (261)

From the point of view of the meter the secondary accents are ANCEPS; they may function either as arsis (ictus) or as thesis (lack of ictus); they are not something intermediate between arsis and thesis (Sievers' NEBENHEBUNG, i.e. minor arsis). The METRICAL transcription of a hemistich like mäööumfcet mxre (2405) is m&ööumfcet märe, that of mordorbealo mäga (1079) is möröorbealo mäga as against Sievers' transcriptions mäödumföt mcera and möröorbealo mäga. Mutatis mutandis this difference is comparable to that between phonemic and phonetic transcriptions, the latter referring to the ORAL REALIZATION OF THE UNDERLYING PATTERN.

Already in Schipper 1910:32, we find the opinion that 'it is better ... to look on such members with a secondary accent as having only the rhythmical value of unaccented syllables, and to call them THESIS with a slight accent.' Secondary accents have no SPECIAL metrical functions. There is, against Sievers, no difference of pattern, e.g., between subtype Ai (as in sceaffena frriatum) and subtype A2 (as in wisfaest wordum = wisfcest wordum). The three types of accentuation specified above (a, b, c) are responsible for the metrical variants of the hemistich as established by Sievers: A = J_XJ_X (fundamental form) Β = x_i_x_i_ (substitution of positive xj_ for neutral j_x in both bars) C = XJ_J_X (substitution of XJ_ for ^ j t in the second bar) D = ' r xx (substitution of negative j_xx for positive xj_x in the last three syllables of A. E.g. torht getdhte (313) = A, but sceärp scyldwiga (288) = D.)

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Ε

(substitution of negative j_xx for positive xj_x in the first three syllables of B. E.g. on Hdlga til (61) = B, but weor&myndum päh Ε.) Metrically D = j_ /_xx; Ε = j_xxj_ =

J_XXJ_

The difference between the metrical pattern (model) and its realization gees still farther. Not only secondary accents may function as arses, but primary accents may be reduced to secondary and lose their status as ictus. Besides the unaccented syllables of polysyllabic words many monosyllabic and dissyllabic words, such as prepositions, conjunctions, particles, pronouns are unstressed (clitics) and occur only in the theses. What interests us here is the prosodic reduction cf fully stressed monosyllabic and polysyllabic words: (Beowulf wzs breme-) bldd wfde sprang (18) 'fame spread widely' (foleum gefräge-) fie der ellor hwearf (55) 'the father went elsewhere' (pritig pegna;) pänon eft gewat (123) 'from there he departed again' (pä waes xfter wiste) wöp üp ähäfen (128) 'then lamentation was raised' (on Heapo-Riamas) holm üp xtbhr (519) 'the sea carried (him) up' (stffode sorhfull;) sunu dead fornäm (2119) 'death took away the son' The secondary accent of the final word is equivalent to the lack of metrical ictus (thesis). In the first hemistich even the accent of the second ALLITERATING word could thus be suppressed, e.g.: güöhorn gälan. (Sumne Geata leod) (1432) '(they heard) the war-horn sound' sorhleas swefan (mid pinra secga gedryht) (1672) 'to sleep free from care' word-gyd wrecan (ond ymb wer sprecan) (3172) 'to utter the lay' Here again absence of ictus could be assumed for galan, swefan, wrecan.

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In the above instances we have to do with type D (J_J_XX, metrically r > xx), though similar reductions could occur also in other versetypes, thus leton hölm heran (48) or seofon niht swüncon representing type A. ^ ^ ^ The examples güöhorn gälan, sorhlias swefan, word-gyd wxecan show the RAISE of a SECONDARY accent (2nd member of compound) with the simultaneous LOWERING of the PRIMARY accent of an ALLITERATING word. This ICTUS-ASSIGNMENT, working both ways (raising of secondary and lowering of primary word accents) is probably the most peculiar feature of the O. Germanic meter. Raising may be regarded as a conservative trait, lowering as a more recent one, proper to any metrical system. Lowering of primary accents is to be explained by the tendency towards the metrical integration of the verse line and its internal cohesion, opposing it to other units of the same order (verses or hemistichs). The extreme result of this tendency is a complete ACCENTUAL INTEGRATION of the verse-line or of the hemistich entailing the loss of word accent qua metrical factor. Cf. the rise of quantitative meter in some I.E. languages (Kurylowicz 1966/1970:421ff.). It is of course to be expected that the lowering of word accents must be somehow connected with similar facts of colloquial speech. Future investigations of syntactical structures which favour the lowering will discover the relation between colloquial and metrical phenomena. In the above examples it is the final position of the personal verb or the infinitive which seems to account for the weakening which is of course not obligatory (e.g. he pe set sünde oferfldt 57). The overall rhythm of the O. Germanic and O.E. verse-line is falling just like that of the simple word. The type / χ / χ (A) is to be considered as the fundamental variant of the metrical structure of the hemistich just as the neuter accentuation _r_x is regarded as the fundamental variant of word-stress. But the prosodic analogy between word and hemistich is - as we shall see - still more detailed. The first hemistich may contain two alliterating word-forms as against a single form of the second. If in the first hemistich there is only one alliterating word, it may represent either the first or the second arsis, e.g.: on flödes äht | feor gewitan (42), first ictus alliterating pä wies on bürgum | Biowulf Scyldinga (53), second ictus alliterating

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In the second hemistich alliteration goes always with the first ictus (two alliterating word-forms being exceptional). This neutralization proves a hierarchy of arses. Although each hemistich offers two arses, it is the first arsis, the only one always accompanied by alliteration in the second hemistich, which dominates the second arsis. In the first hemistich the second alliterating word may even represent a thesis, cf. above güöhorn galan, etc. The falling rhythm j _ \ of the word stress is mirrored in the falling rhythm of the second hemistich. Let us symbolize by the first, by j_ the second arsis (ictus). The metrical structure of the second hemistich is accordingly (hwcet, wse Gär- Dena) in gearddgum (1) \ (peodcyninga) prym gefr Unon (2) > (hü δα dpelingas) eilen fremedon (3) ) and so on. We assume the same falling rhythm for the first hemistich with alliteration in the first arsis: (I) Scyldes eafera, (Scedeländum in) (19) in msegpa gehwäm (män gepeon) (25) on flodes zht (feor gewtian) (42) Now in the type A the single alliteration of the first hemistich not unfrequently falls on the second arsis (the so-called subtype A3). Alliteration on the second arsis is rare in types Β and E, and does not appear at all in C and D. It seems proper to regard the subtype A3 as having a rising rhythm ( ' x>jx): (II) eow het secgan (slgedrihten min) (391) ic pset hogode (pä ic on holm gestah) (633) wear δ him on Heorote (to händbqnan) (1330) Finally a LEVEL ictus is to be assumed for hemistichs with two alliterating words though the first arsis is still dominated by the second: (III) mönegum mxgpum (meodosetla ofteah) (5) egsode eorlas, (syddan χ rest wear δ) (6) feasceaft fünden; (he pies frofre gebdd) (7) The three rhythmical variants of the first hemistich (I, II, III) correspond to the three types of word stress:

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Ü to word-stress j_x j_ ... >j_ to word-stress x_i_(x) ... « to word-stress j_x(x) In the second hemistich the first, i.e. fundamental, variant {n ... j_) acts as a kind of METRICAL "REFRAIN". Its first arsis was regarded as the pivot of alliteration; cf. the terms O.N. hQfudstafr, German Hauptstab ('head-stave')· From the rhythmical point of view the Germanic hemistich is a kind of COMPOUND: //X plus j_x, _>_x plus //χ, ax + nx, i.e. a rhythmical unit of a higher order than the ordinary compound word ( / χχ, _^χχχ etc.). But there are points of contact between these two levels. A single compound word may function as hemistich, e.g. peodcyninga | prym gefrünon (2). In the first hemistich the first and the second arsis j_) are represented by the primary and the secondary stress of a compound. Cf. also w'ilgestpas (23), Mldewdpnum (39), peodgestreonum (44), HeaöoScilfingas (63), eadiglice (100), etc. Hierarchy of the arses, borne out by the possibility of using compound words as hemistichs, is isomorphic with word stress and is an intrinsic feature of the Germanic verse line. It seems to be the principal clue to the understanding of both its origin and its history. Among other things, the optional use of compounds as hemistichs may throw light on the development of the metrical device of alliteration from an originally morphological formative (viz. reduplication). Krakow REFERENCES Jakobson, Roman. 1923. Ο Cesskom Stixe preimuscestvenno ν sopostavlenii s russkim. Berlin. Kurylowicz, Jerzy. 1956. L'apophonie en indo-europeen. (Polska Akademia Nauk. Prace J^zykoznawcze, vol. 9). Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Polskiej Akademii Nauk. Kurylowicz, Jerzy. 1966/1970. The quantitative meter of Indo-European. IndoEuropean and Indo-Europeans, ed. by George Cardona, Henry M. Hoenigswald, and Alfred Senn, 421-430. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Schipper, Jakob. 1910. A history of English versification. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

CONTRASTING RHYTHMS OF OLD ENGLISH A N D NEW ENGLISH RUTH P. M. LEHMANN

Archibald A. Hill and I have often exchanged papers or discussed interpretations of verse of various periods - Blake, Hopkins, Gawain. Our points of view may differ, but I have learned much from his concentration on the primacy of meaning. Though this paper centers on sound effects and the changes in meter that accompany changes in language, the question of meaning and word choice by reason of efforts at semantic emphasis, connotation, or texture, is a parallel and equally important consideration. The origin of this paper was in efforts at translation. The attempt at first was to make a tolerable poem in its own right, without doing violence to the meaning of the original. Next in analyzing the differences of poem and translation, the aim shifted to an attempt to imitate the effects of the original. Further analysis led to an attempt to imitate as far as possible the distribution of verse-types of the original. Out of these efforts came a fuller realization on my part of the many ways in which changes in language bring about changes in sound. It is my hope that this paper will give others a similar sense of these interrelationships. In this first example, the translation was rimed as an afterthought. The verse resembles OE verse only in having four stresses to a line, alliteration on one or both of the first two lifts, always on the third lift and never on the fourth (except in crossed alliteration). But the syntactic necessity for breaks between verses always falling between lifts two and three was ignored. To the ear the poem was rather shapeless until rime was added to signal the end of lines. Clearly a regular alliterative pattern is less effective than stresses and pauses to effect recognition of the form.

THE WIFE'S LAMENT

I sing of sorrow, of myself lament; in my despair I speak: since grown

RUTH P. Μ. LEHMANN

to woman, great the grief I've known, but never more than now. I'm rent with exile's endless ache. Long since my lord forsook this land. He's gone across the waves. I cry each dawn: "Here is your land, my love, my prince!" When friendless I had fared, my goal his home, to still my hungry soul. His kinsmen sought a cause whereunder we might by tricks be torn asunder to live afar most lonely, yearn for heart to heal and hope return. My master bade me bide apart in haunted refuge; here were few of loyal friends; the loves I knew I left behind with leaden heart. Then I had found a fitting mate, ill-starred, unhappy, hiding fear of murder under mark of cheer. Often we vowed the only fate to part us - death. But poor, bereft, our vanished love, our vows, we keep in memory: it makes us weep. I drag the weight his deeds have left. One bade me find a forest dim. Beneath an oak in earth I lie; I live in caves and long for him. The dales are dark, the dunes are high, these barrows bare, briars overhead a joyless home. My husband's plight clutches my heart with clamps of fright. Friends are alive; they loll in bed, while waking I must walk alone 'til dawn, by oak and den unknown. There must I wait a weary day, there can I weep my woes and say not yearning, hurt of heart and breast brings to me night that knows no rest. The young must hide the hurt within with manly heart and mark of cheer

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though always worry wears him thin. Whether delight belongs now here, whether afar from friends and kind my love should stand where stonecliffs loom, winds whipping, with a woeful mind; on flooded floors, in fallen room, my dear one suffers dreary care remembering more than man can bear of happy halls. How hard the fates for him who longs for love ... and waits. Besides the addition of rime and the sentences ending after the third lift, the translation is unlike the original in the excessive use of type Β lines with their iambic rhythm, and in the alliteration on the second lift when only one of the first two alliterates. The first difference has frequently been noted as developing out of the loss of inflexions and regularization of the use of the article. The alliteration of the second lift, however, comes partly from the inflexibility of word order in the later language, partly from the greater stress of finite verbs at present, and partly from a present trend to have the stresses of a verse move from weaker to stronger, rather than from stronger to weaker as in OE. This latter development shows itself in the phrase-stress rule where the normal English sentence has middle pitch until the final rise and drop accompanying primary stress. Even in the phrase where the drop is only to the middle pitch, the pattern is the same, and these patterns may bring stress on a verb. Compare: 2 3 1 It's a matter of hard work. 2 3 2 2 3 2 1 If you work hard, you'll get somewhere. 2 3 1 That's not what I mean. In OE "matter" and "hard" would receive primary stresses. But in OE hond ond heard sweord, ealdsweord eotonisc, or A scyle geong mon exemplify rather the compound stress rule, that is, the preceding adjective is stressed.

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Since no attempt was made in The Wife's Lament to capture the sound effects of verses as syntactic units, a second illustration may point more directly to what can be achieved in imitating OE alliterative verse in NE.

BEOWULF 2444-2462

It is ache of heart for an aging man to have to bear that his boy should ride young on the gallows. Then he grieves aloud in a sad lament when his son is hanging (joy of carrion crows) without cure or vengeance; the old one can offer his own no help. He will always remember as morning breaks how his son was lost; he looks for no other; he cares for no boy to be born in his house as a second heir when his only son in the doom of death found the depths of life. He sees in sorrow his son's old place: the winehall waste, the windswept couch, the gladness gone; the grave has his boy, the rider sleeping. No sound of the harp now, no play in that place, no pleasures of old. Then he mounts to his bed and mourns alone for his only child; and cheerless and wide the idle acres, the empty room. Here too, the preponderance of iambs leads to too rhythmic a version. Alliteration on the second lift again occurs too often. It should not occur at all in type B, but though the second line has syntactic resemblances to A 3 , the meter is clearly type B, as is that of the next to the last line. Yet another characteristic of later verse appears: since a pounding rhythm is soon established, any word can stand in unstressed position as in the fifth line. But in OE verse, nouns, unless virtually forming compounds with a preceding adjective (Beo. 1558, 1663, 279; 2509, 2638, 2987), are always stressed and usually alliterating. Another difference, although anacrusis is limited to a few prefixes and unstressed connectives in OE, this translation has a number of lines that begin like Β but end with a drop like A. But of course the chief departure is the very frequent use of Β and the absence of the more disruptive types, C, D,

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and E. A conscious effort succeeded in introducing a few of these types in the next example, though type Β still dominates.

BEOWULF 1357-1379

They haunt a land of wild wolfslopes, windscourged headlands, fearsome fentracks. A foaming stream down drops away past dark'ning cliffs low flood, high fields. Not far away, a mile or more, the mere stretches. Above it hang hoarfrosted woods, shrubs, rooted fast, shade the water. At dusk one can see a devilish marvel: flame on the flood. None fully knows, though old and wise, the unplumbed depth. Harried by hounds the hart on the moor, the strong-horned stag, startled would seek the forest afar when facing death; give up life on the ledge before leaping in to hide his head in that horrid current. Tumult of waters towers in spray sheer to the sky; the scud, windblown, darkens the day; the dusky air glooms, the heavens weep. Our hope is in you, again in you alone. The lair you know not a fearful place. You'll find inside that sinful soul. Seek, if you dare!

Here, however, rather anomalous forms appear: "flame on the flood", "harried by hounds", "towers in spray", "sheer to the sky", "darkens the day", and "Seek, if you dare!" The last illustrates how the loss of inflectional endings changes the frequency of some metrical types; they all demonstrate how the loss of distinction between long and short syllables alters the feel of the verse. These verses would all be acceptable, though not typical Ε types in OE. That distinction between long and short syllables helped to keep the diminuendo of the line. A few lines, like ridend swe/αό 2457 have the

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second lift on a short syllable and on a finite verb. In the off-verse the second lift cannot alliterate and since more of these lifts on a short syllable occur in the off-verse it indicates that indeed this lift is weaker than the preceding one. The loss of long-short distinctions in vowels and consonants of later English makes these contrasts difficult to imitate, but they were real distinctions in OE verse. In the translation here 'low flood, high fields' as the equivalent of flod under foldan keeps the cynghanedd (fl-d f-ld) but the adjectives added because of the loss of syllables are unstressed. In OE verse, they would have born the alliteration. Besides the accent of adjectives that precede nouns, OE has light stress on finite verbs, yet in this passage 'haunt' 'drops', 'shade', 'towers', and 'darkens' all alliterate. Not only in my own versions have these departures from OE practice appeared, but in all those that I have examined. Moreover, this is the direction of change in ME alliterative verse. Even in Maldon the final lift occasionally alliterates, and the types D and Ε are much less frequent than in the older verse. To sum up the changes in language: Long and short vowels and consonants came to be distinguished by quality rather than quantity; loss of inflectional endings led to an increase of monosyllables, function words (articles, prepositions, auxiliaries), and a more fixed word order made it difficult to catch the effect of the OE verse so that compromises had to be made. Modern English is isochronous. It is quite likely that OE was not. It seems deliberately and consistently to shift types of half lines frequently enough so that no regular rhythm is established. As a result, stresses could not be suppressed, as in later times; indeed categories of words always had to occupy a lift or a drop - syntactic stress, one might call it, as opposed to the metrical stress of later verse whereby an underlying pattern (most commonly iambic) will force some words into prominence and suppress others, depending on whether they occupy an odd or even syllabic position in the line. Alliteration was never a way of bringing out the form of the verse, though it regularly reinforced the strongest lifts. But initial sounds of unstressed syllables are totally ignored - hardly possible if alliteration could by itself raise a syllable to prominence. It is not surprising, then, that modern imitations, even when OE alliterative patterns are dutifully followed, cannot make the verse sound like OE. One can learn something then even from failure. To each language its own verse forms. University of Texas at Austin

THE POSITION A N D F U N C T I O N OF L I N G U I S T I C S IN A THEORY OF POETRY SAMUEL R. LEVIN

Like most things worth studying, poetry is a complex phenomenon. 1 And, as with most other phenomena in our lives, we approach it knowing certain things about its nature. If, however, we intend to study it formally, with a view to constructing a theory that will account for it, then I think that of the various presuppositions and preconceptions that we have about poetry, two must be singled out as specially relevant to such a construction: we begin its study with a knowledge that poetry produces a characteristic effect, usually termed the 'esthetic' or 'poetic' experience, and a sense that it incorporates a structure. Accompanying these two assumptions - that there is an effect and that there is a structure - is a corollary assumption, namely, that the structure underlies and determines the effect. On the basis of these assumptions, one can then define the task of a theory of poetry as that of making precise the way in which the structure and effect are related. One's goal, in other words, is to provide a warrant for the poetic effect, and in terms of the approach to the problem adopted here that warrant is provided by the poem's structure. The greater part of literary criticism can then be superimposed on the demonstration of this relationship. In terms of the above assumptions, the various deficiencies characteristic of most treatments of poetry group themselves into three types: attention is focused exclusively or predominantly on the poem's effect; attention is focused on the poem's structure; attention is focused on both, but either the attempt is not made to relate the two or, if it is made, the attempt is inadequate. The first deficiency is reflected in statements to the effect that a poem is, say, 'moving', or 'pithy', or 'ingratiating'. If this is all that is said, we have been given nothing but the reader's impressions. The second deficiency is reflected in statements limited to describing structural features, say the syntax of the meter of the poem. Primarily, such statements show simply that techniques of analysis are available for describing certain compositional aspects of poetry. The two types

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of deficiency just mentioned derive from two polar approaches to the problem of criticism, the first stemming from a preoccupation with the esthetic effect produced by poetry, the second growing out of an orientation toward its structure. As statements professing to a full-fledged treatment of poetry, both these types would clearly be deficient. In fact, statements of these kinds are rather rare; their characterization here is justified chiefly to set limits. The third type of deficiency, the one usually encountered, is not so easily disposed of, since effect and structure are both taken into account; the deficiency here, however, lies in the inadequate tactic used in the attempt to relate them. Assuming that the attempt is made, it usually takes the form of a simple assertion of the fact - say, that the (effect of) richness of a poem is a function of its complex grammatical structure, or that its (effect of) freshness is a function of internal rhymes. In the absence of any principled reasons for making such assertions, there is little warrant beyond the writer's authority for accepting his correlations. With more apparent plausibility, it is sometimes argued that the preponderance of verbs or past participles in a poem accounts for its sense of movement or dynamism - tnis on the assumption that such parts of speech involve, embody, or suggest action - , or that its strongly nominal or gerundial character is what lies behind its quality of repose or stasis. But claims of this kind, if they are accepted at all, are accepted on little more than faith. In all cases of this sort, instead of a bridge being constructed from structure to effect, a leap is made. In consequence, with open space separating the two terminals, it is not clear that they in fact are related - let alone what the relation might be.2 As I have argued elsewhere I believe that the way to bridge the gap is by introducing the notion of poetic competence.3 Although, in principle, poetic competence is analogous to linguistic competence, the factors comprised by the respective competences are not the same. But if a case has been made out for the importance of competence in a purely linguistic analysis, then I would think it all the more plausible that competence should be taken into account in linguistic studies of poetry. To be sure, the issue of competence in the case of poetry is not as clear-cut as it is in that of language - in the sense that it is not immediately obvious just what are the poetic analogues of such linguistic responses as that a sentence is well-formed, antonymous, or paraphrastic. The question therefore arises as to what kind of evidence can be marshalled to substantiate the claim that a given set of responses, advanced as representing responses from poetic competence, in fact qualify as such. To meet this

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question one can cite the evidence from one's own experience with poetry and, in addition, the testimony from the long tradition of literary criticism, in which certain faculties of poetry are consistently stressed. To these considerations may be added the fact that the factors to be adduced as competent responses to poetry will be such as allow for the ascertaining of appropriate linguistic supportive structures. The fact that there is such a possibility is thus also presumptive evidence for the validity of the factors advanced as representing responses from poetic competence. Needless to say, introducing the notion of poetic competence into a linguistic analysis of poetry entails a greater complication of the problem. But against this increased complexity must be balanced the fact that it is just these added competence factors which reveal to us that the text under examination is not simply language, but language so organized as to stimulate an esthetic response. That is to say, when we read or hear certain texts we apprehend them as poetry. This apprehension which, it is important to note, we register before we perform any analysis on the text, consists precisely in the aggregate of competent responses which we develop as we read the text. 4 Among the competent responses specific to poetry I take to be the following: poetry is characteristically unified, characteristically novel, compressed, simple, and complex. The list is not exhaustive and not all of these responses will necessarily be elicited by the same poem. In connection with the terms 'unity', 'novelty', etc. it should be noted that as they are ordinarily used in discussions of poetry they are critical, not linguistic terms. Underlying the use of such critical terms, however, are various linguistic structures and arrangements, and it is about the latter that linguistic generalizations can be made. Now it is precisely between the use of these terms as critical predications and the statements describing the various linguistic structures in a poem that a theoretical gap exists - in the sense that there are no principled reasons for making one or another correlation between statements from the two domains. This is to say that a critical judgment referring to a poem's unity and a description revealing, say, syntactic parallelism in its linguistic structure provide only a prima facie case for a correlation; nothing in existing critical theory, however, makes this correlation any more or less determined than any other correlation that one might wish to advance. It is to bridge this gap that the competent response of unity is introduced. The term 'unity' will thus appear twice in the theory - once as designating a competent response and once as a critical term. Mediating between

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these two uses will be linguistic analysis, which will be directed in the first instance to describing formal analogues of the competent response and which will then offer up certain linguistic generalizations about the structure of the poem as validation of that response - at which point what was at first the designation of a competent response may legitimately be used as a critical term. It should also be pointed out that in the present context the terms 'unity', novelty', etc. have nothing to do with a poem's reference(s). A poem may refer to many and disparate things, yet analysis of its linguistic structure may confirm a judgment of unity; it may deal with an ordinary or trivial subject and analysis of its linguistic structure may document a judgment of novelty. This state of affairs results from the fact that a linguistic theory of poetry, at least as it can be envisaged at present, will have little to do with the cognitive mode of poetry; it will focus primarily on its structural composition. This focus is quite consistent with the goal of accounting for the esthetic effect induced by poetry, since this effect presumably derives not from the intellectual content of a poem but from its form. In this same connection other modes sometimes attributed to the language of poetry - the imaginative, emotive, and ethical modes, for example - insofar as these are held to derive from the meanings conveyed in a poem, will also be largely left out of account. To the extent that such modes are reflections of linguistic forms and their arrangements, however, their effects can be incorporated in the analysis. In this paper I can only suggest the kinds of linguistic structures that might be expected in the face of these various responses from competence. 5 Thus, underlying and supporting a judgment of unity might be linguistic analysis that reveals a pattern of syntactic parallelism, for example, or a consistent use of certain sentence types, or selection from restricted lexical sets; underlying and supporting a judgment of novelty might be linguistic analysis that reveals various types of deviation from ordinary syntactic and semantic norms or the phonological patterns comprised by rhyme and meter. In the same way, complexity would be shown to be a function, perhaps, of complicated series of grammatical transformations, compression a function of particular grammatical deletions, and simplicity of the predominant use of elementary sentence types. In the account presented here the notions of unity, novelty, etc. thus play two separate roles in the general critical concern: once as responses to certain formal aspects of a poem, and again as critical attributes explained by linguistic analysis. These notions thus have both a pre-

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systematic and a systematic status and function and are thus comparable in this respect to such linguistic notions as synonymy, anomaly, ambiguity, paraphrase, and so forth. I should now like to turn attention to the construction of a critical hierarchy and to the position and function of linguistics within such a hierarchy. A convenient starting-place for the elaboration of such a hierarchy is provided by Wellek and Warren (1949:248) in the distinction they draw between the notions of value and evaluation: the ordinary reader values literature; philosophers and critics evaluate it. Readers value a literary work for the effect it produces on them or, better, for the combination of responses it evokes from them, this making up the effect. All this is reaction and, as such, is genetically and logically prior to evaluation which, properly speaking, is a reasoned and deliberate act performed in consideration of traditional standards and norms. In terms of the assumptions of this paper, a critic, like a reader, values a poem for the esthetic effect it induces in him, where this effect is prompted by certain formal arrangements in a poem's structure that activate his competence to responses of unity, novelty, and so on. But the recognition that a poem incorporates in its structure features making for unity and novelty - in other words, that it has a value - does not of itself permit him to evaluate it since, presumably, any text that qualifies as a poem will comprise some quotient of these same features. At this point the critic must weigh the interplay of these features in the total framework of the poem and determine whether they are balanced or discordant among themselves, whether their combination results in an interesting tension or not, and so on. Depending on his answers to these questions (as well as on his decisions about various other criteria), he will judge the poem coherent or loose, interesting or banal, or something similar. We thus introduce the critical rank of evaluation, which may terminate in some such judgment as 'good' or 'bad', 'successful' or 'unsuccessful', 'excellent' or 'ordinary'. On the basis of these latter judgments the critic may then compare the poem under examination with previously evaluated poems and in this way determine its place in the canon. This last process takes place at the rank of valuation. Valuation is appraisal and, like evaluation, it involves judgment. Both valuation and evaluation differ from valuing, however, which stems from intuitive reaction and involves no judgment. The various considerations discussed so far are represented in the following chart. 6

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Critical \Stages Input Critical Ranks

Processing

Output

\ \ !

good: bad successful: unsuccessful

Valuation

unity, novelty, complexity

Evaluation

Linguistics

better than: worse than more successful: less successful

classic: nonclassic

assessment of good: bad balance, propor- successful: tion, combinaunsuccessful tion

unity, novelty, > complexity (pre- linguistic systematic) analysis i i

i1

linguistic generalizations [unity, novelty, com- J plexity (systematic)] j

!

i Value

language of ' the poem

intuitive responses to formal structure

esthetic experience [unity, novelty, complexity (presystematic)]

Fig. 1

As the chart illustrates, the output of one level becomes the input to the next higher level. It should also be pointed out that linguistics, although represented by a level on the chart, is not really a critical rank. (Thus the dotted lines setting it off.) It serves merely to mediate between the rank of value and that of evaluation. It takes (part of) the esthetic experience, granted to the reader by the exercise of his competence, and

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which is constituted by an unsystematic awareness of the qualities unity, novelty, etc. in the poem's structure, and raises these apprehensions to the status of properties by offering linguistic generalizations that provide an explanation for the reader's experience. The linguistic level then turns over the properties unity, novelty, etc., now made systematic, to the rank of evaluation as input. The chart also makes clear the sense in which criticism that alludes to these properties and has no recourse to the linguistic level is subjective or impressionistic. While such criticism may refer to unity or novelty, these notions have therein no systematic import. It is rather obvious that the chart could be expanded, particularly along the vertical dimension. I will here, however, discuss only one such possibility. It concerns the question of the conventional features of poetry, the function they perform, and their incorporation into the analysis. By conventional features I mean such poetic staples as rhyme, meter, sound euphony, enjambment, and caesura. From the linguistic point of view the essential fact about these features is that, although they comprise patterns or arrangements of linguistic elements, the patterns or arrangements so constituted have no cognitive function. In terms of the assumptions of this paper their function must therefore be esthetic. Thus, in a rhyming pair like beam/cream, the rhyming element -earn has only an esthetic function. The characterization given here of rhyme applies also to the other conventional features of poetry 7 . In fact, one can use this characteristic, that of functioning purely esthetically, as the defining mark of the conventional features. Inasmuch as the aim of the present approach to poetry is to account for its esthetic effect, the conventional features should obviously play an important role in its elaboration. The appropriate place for the inclusion of these features is in the initial input, i.e. where in the chart is entered 'language of the poem'. This may be done either by adding a note to the effect that 'language of the poem' is to be understood as comprehending the conventional features, or by defining the language of the poem more narrowly and then adding 'conventional features' to the same cell as that occupied by 'language of the poem'. In any case, the analysis, given its aim, will have to deal with both linguistic and conventional features, since both contribute to the effects of unity, novelty, compression, simplicity, and complexity generated by poetry. Dealing with the question of value, Northrop Frye (1957:27) has written, '... the positive value-judgement is founded on a direct experience which is central to criticism yet forever excluded from it.

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Criticism can account for it only in critical terminology, and that terminology can never recapture or include the original experience. The original experience is like the direct vision of color or the direct sensation of heat or cold, that physics "explains" in what, from the point of view of the experience itself, is a quite irrelevant way'. I take it that what I have been claiming for linguistic analysis corresponds to the 'explanation' that physics provides: the latter for the sensation of heat or cold, linguistic analysis for (part of) the esthetic experience. In this connection we should consider the sense in which a theory is explanatory. As a rule, the consequences of a theory do not impinge directly on the set of empirical facts which prompted the construction of that particular theory. Thus, the theorems of a physical theory of heat involve the movement of gas molecules, not the sensations associated with the everyday experience of heat. From this point of view it describes not heat directly, but the forces presumed to underlie it. In the same way the linguistic theory propounded here does not directly describe unity, novelty, etc.; it describes, rather, certain grammatical and phonological patternings and arrangements. What guarantee there is that the 'explanations' provided by the theory are correct is given by the consistency of the theory and the validity of whatever heuristic and experimental evidence prompted the construction of that particular theory. Thus, although Frye is right in saying that critical terminology can never recapture or include the original experience of poetry, I would suggest that one may make a more optimistic statement about linguistic analysis. For although it too cannot recapture or include that experience, it can do the next best thing: it can account for it. Graduate Center, The City University of New York

NOTES 1

This is a slightly revised version of a paper read at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, December, 1967. 2 Cf. on this question Wimsatt (1960:250). 3 See Levin (1963:276); cf. also Bierwisch (1965:50-51). 4 This is to say that despite the fact that in our common experience with poetry it is the setting, i.e. the way the text is presented to us, which signals us that what we are reading is a poem, there is such a thing as inherent poeticality. 5 For a detailed discussion of one such response see Levin (1971a). 6 The chart in Fig. 1 is clearly oversimplified; I hold a brief only for what is represented in the lower portion of it, i.e. the mediating role performed by linguistics and what it mediates. By way of comparison, cf. the division of critical terms into three

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classes given by Wimsatt (1960:248). Although Wimsatt's terms are largely different from the ones used in this paper and although his arrangement of them is likewise different, I believe that our respective goals are not dissimilar. Cf. his statement (251) "...it may be that the best of these terms, those which define poetry as a kind of order and wholeness [and I would here propose the terms 'unity', 'novelty', complexity', etc.], are able to preserve on one side their character of the analyzable while on the other taking on the undefinable and unanalyzable meaning of poetry or beauty". 7 The conventions in general are dealt with in Levin (1971b).

REFERENCES Bierwisch, Manfred. 1965. Poetik und Linguistik. Mathematik und Dichtung, ed. by Helmut Kreuzer and Rul Gunzenhäuser, 49-65. Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagsbuchhandlung. Frye, Northrop. 1957. Anatomy of criticism. Princeton University Press. Levin, Samuel R. 1963. Deviation - statistical and determinate - in poetic language. Lingua 12.276-290. —. 1971a. The analysis of compression in poetry. Foundations of Language 7.38-55. —. 1971b. The conventions of poetry. Literary style: a symposium, ed. by Seymour Chatman, 177-193. London and New York: Oxford University Press. Wellek, Rene, and Austin Warren. 1949. Theory of literature. New York: Harcourt Brace and Co. Wimsatt, W. K., Jr. 1960. The verbal icon. N.p.: The Noonday Press.

MORGENSTERN'S LINGUISTIC FANTASIES 1 LI LI RABEL-HEYMANN

The poet Christian Morgenstern is best known in the German speaking world for his Galgenlieder or 'Gallows Songs', and since the publication of Max Knight's brilliant translations into English in 1963 he has become popular in the United States too. The Galgenlieder are poems quite out of the ordinary: they are clever, charming, humorous, whimsical, crazy, philosophical; one cannot find an exact counterpart for them in either English or American literature. The critics have elaborated on Morgenstern's reputation as an artist and as a poet, they have compared him to Wilhelm Busch, Edward Lear, and Lewis Carroll, they have speculated on the state of his mind and his soul and his motives for creating the Galgenlieder. In my opinion, Morgenstern is unique in that he does not employ caricature like Busch and he does not write nonsense verse in the manner of Carroll or Lear. If any English language poet seems to share certain characteristics with Morgenstern I would rather suggest Ogden Nash. Both Morgenstern and Nash are superb observers of the human animal in his every-day behavior, of the ludicrous aspect of human frailty and the organizational apparatus. The two poets use similar methods in manhandling their native language, in producing verse that is eminently quotable by their devoted fans. And yet: Ogden Nash stands on this earth with both feet planted solidly on firm ground - there is a here-ness, a matter-of-factness, an earthy quality in his humor - while Christian Morgenstern seems with one foot in the beyond, with his glance toward a blue distance, losing himself in eternity like the two parallels {Die zwei Parallelen)'. Two parallels wandered into infinity, they never wanted to cross each other, this was their secret pride and joy. But after wandering side by side for ten light years the lonely pair no longer felt earth-bound - they floated like two souls together through eternal light and the eternal light penetrated them and in it they became one: eternity engulfed them like two seraphim.

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Half of our chuckling delight with the Galgenlieder comes, of course, from the topics Morgenstern chooses for his poems: 1. He observes the petty problems of every-day life, its sounds, movements, and design. 2. He mocks popular customs, opinions, and superstitions. 3. He pokes fun at bureaucratic regulations. 4. He endows animals with human qualities. 5. He invents fabulous animals. 6. He blows life into lifeless objects. 7. He makes fantastic inventions. 8. He writes visual verse. 9. He rhymes the unrhymable. 10. He plays with German phonology and morphology. 11. He creates new words. 12. He dissects proverbs and idioms and interprets them literally. Others have commented on the content of Morgenstern's verse (topics 1-7), and all of his critics are in agreement on his great success in writing original, unorthodox, zany poems, but nobody seems to have spelled out just what it is that Morgenstern does to the German language. In my attempt to classify and describe Morgenstern's game with the German language (topics 8-12), I shall probably commit an unforgivable sin: namely that of discussing the poet's surrealistic inventions in realistic language and thus taking the fun out of amusing creations. But that is a risk I have to take. One of the most famous Morgenstern poems is Fishes' Nightsong: it consists of nothing but macrons and microns arranged in the shape of a fish body. Since the microns in German were open on top, Knight's rendering had them open at the bottom. Another appeal to the eye results from transforming a written capital Ν into a capital St which in Gothic script are very similar: 2ft and Morgenstern thus changes a Nile horse into a Style horse. The latter is right away being requisitioned for crests and coats-of-arm, bui toward the end of the poem German script is no longer taught to the Nile horse, which from now on is spelled in Roman letters and is called 'hippopotamos'. Die Trichter 'The funnels' is written in the shape of a funnel: it starts out with six words in line one, diminishing in each line, and ending with e.t. on line seven, and c. on line eight. The Land, of Punctuation lets conventional written symbols act like warriors: a league composed of commas and periods does battle against the semicolons, while the latter

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are captured by braces and imprisoned by parentheses. The minus sign eliminates them from life. The question marks come home and a new battle between dashes and commas breaks out. Surviving dashes march in the funeral procession, the exclamation mark intones the grave-side sermon; and with no commas left over they trot home dash, dot, dash, dot.... Morgenstern's poems follow no specific meter; most of them are short, no longer than three to four stanzas. Stanzas have from two to four lines and each line counts from eight to eleven syllables. In some stanzas the length of lines diminishes so that line one is longer than line two, which in turn is longer than line three, and so on. With very few exceptions all poems have end rhyme. The rhyme scheme varies from poem to poem: it may be abba, abab, or aabb; in three-line stanzas it is abc-bca-dbd (Zimmerluft), or aab-ccd-eef {Antwort), or aba-cdc-efe (Korf in Berlin). While these statistics may sound dry and conventional, Morgenstern's rhymes are anything but conventional. Sometimes they are very funny because of their incongruous juxtaposition of words and ideas. But more often Morgenstern contrives rhymes out of unrhymable word pairs by revamping one word or splitting it in half. Das ästhetische Wiesel illustrates this method: Das ästhetische Wiesel Ein Wiesel sass auf einem Kiesel inmitten Bachgeriesel. Wisst ihr weshalb? Das Mondkalb verriet es mir im Stillen: Das raffinierte Tier tat's um des Reimes willen. Or in Neinl: Es ist des Galgenstrickes dickes Ende, welches ächzte, Gleich als ob

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im Galopp eine müdgehetzte Mähre nach dem nächsten Brunnen lechzte (der vielleicht noch ferne wäre). Ogden Nash parallels such creation with: The trouble with a kitten is THAT Eventually it becomes a CAT. In Das böhmische Dorf, Palmström, Morgenstern's protagonist for sensitive aesthetic pronouncements, is accompanied by Mr. von Korf, the other protagonist and great inventor; von Korf goes along only because his name rhymes with Dorf. In Feuerprobe a theater custodian is called Kriegar-Ohs to rhyme with Figaros (Hochzeit). In Die Windhosen ('Sudden Squall', literally wind-pants) the tailor who makes the pants is called Amorf to rhyme with the same Mr. von Korf. Other devices employed to force a rhyme are: a) An obsolete word is used: Das Grab des Hundes: Denn ich kann nicht sagen meh, ... Wie sie aussah, die Idee! Tapetenblume (wallpaper flower): Du siehst mich nimmerdar genung (for genug) Und folgst du mir per Rösselsprung ... b) A new verb is created out of a noun: Droschkengauls Jännermeditation (hackney-nag's January meditation) : Es fehlt nur dass ich blutig glute (probably for glühe from Glut) so wär ich eine Nordlicht Stute! c) A consonant is conveniently substituted to effect a rhyme: Die Kugeln (the spheres): ... dass er wenn er nachts erwacht, die Kugeln knistern hört, und ihn ein heimlich Grugeln (for Gruseln) packt ...

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d) A vowel is replaced for the same purpose: Das Perlhuhn (the guinea fowl): ... Es zählt von Wissensdrang gejückt, (for gejuckt) (die es sowohl wie uns entzückt:) die Anzahl seiner Perlen. Das Hemmed (the shirt): Kennst du das einsame Hemmed? Der's trug, ist bass verdämmet! (for verdammt) Der Gaul (the nag): "Ich bin, verzeihn Sie," sprach der Gaul, Der Gaul vom Tischler Bartels. "Ich brachte Ihnen dazumaul (for hier im Maul influenced by dazumal) Die Tür- und Fensterrahmen." Zwischendurch (in between): Bürde (for Bürde) is rhymed with wurde. Morgenstern takes other liberties with the German language: he invents suffixes, dissects polysyllabic unit morphemes, transposes N N compounds to create new animals; he adds comparative and superlative suffixes to comparative adjectives; he adds feminine derivative suffixes to nouns that normally do not take one; and he lets verb tenses and the peal of bells act like human beings. Let me illustrate. From the noun Gigant, whom he calls the biggest mammal in existence, Morgenstern separates a suffix -ant. The stem Gig-, he says, was a figure so large that it no longer exists. But one day a tiny thing, the Zwölef-ant was created, yet he too disappeared, only his bones are yellowing in a museum. However, Mother Nature gave us the Elef-ant until man, the trigger-happy baboon, shot him for his teeth, before he could fade into the Zehen-ant. The poet appeals to the SPCA: how grateful the Ant would be if you only let him grow up and prosper until in the distant future he will dwindle away into the Nulel-ant 'zeroant'. The poem is entitled Ant-ologie. Mehr 'more' is the comparative of viel 'much'; in Die Anfrage 'The Inquiry' Morgenstern adds a superlative suffix -ste creating mehrste in order to rhyme with erste 'first'. Another suffix is taken from the regular German lexicon, -in 'female living being'. The German language uses Wäscherin, Bärin, Wölfin, etc. but Morgenstern invented Uhuin, the female Owl. In the poem Β im

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Bam, Bum, a Glockenton 'bell's peal' Bam is a male who flies through the night, in search of his beloved Glockentönin Bim; alas, Bim has fallen in love with Bum, the other man. The third use of -in is more complicated: Die Nähe 'nearness' walks around dreamily; she never gets to the things properly. One night, while she sleeps, the categorical comparative steps to her bed and begs her to rise; Ί will raise you to Näher "nearer", or if you will, to Näherin "seamstress".' The pun utilizes the homophones nähen 'to sew' and Nähe 'nearness, proximity'. Ogden Nash parallels this type of suffixation by: Oh, weep for Mr. and Mrs. Bryan! He was eaten by a lion; Following which, the lion's lioness Up and swallowed Bryan's Bryaness. Transposition of nouns in a compound make a Lämmergeier into a Geierlamm, a great bearded vulture; it says neither hu nor mäh and eats you up when you get too close; then it turns its eyes heavenward in complete innocence. Perhaps this creation is patterned on Unschuldslamm, 'Innocent Lamb'. The best-known of all morphological exercises is probably the Werwolf who begs a dead school master at his grave site to decline him; the latter obligingly recites der Werwolf, des Weswolfs, dem Wemwolf den Wenwolf but refuses to put him into the plural, whereupon the werewolf departs in tears because he had wife and child! Morgenstern also engages in linguistic acrobatics which are rarely used in German except in talking to small children. Alliteration, repetition, and reduplication seem to be employed for onomatopoeic purposes or for providing a verse line with a needed syllable. The latter two processes occur in Der Schaukelstuhl auf der verlassenen Terrasse "The rocking chair on the deserted terrace': ... ich wackel und nackel den ganzen Tag. Und es nackelt und rackelt die Linde. Wer weiss, was sonst noch wackeln mag im Winde, im Winde, im Winde. In Der Walfafisch a child cries: das Wass, das Wass, das Wassl and the poem ends with two examples of reduplication:

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das Wasser rann mit Zasch und Zisch, die Erde ward zum Wassertisch. Und Kind und Eul, Ο Greul, ο Greul sie frissifrass der Walfafisch. Schicksal begins with 'Der Wolke Zickzackzunge spricht Another poem, which the reader is asked to whisper, Das Fest des Wüstlings 'The Wastrel's Feast' utilizes alliteration throughout to paint a sound picture of the nightly disturbance: Was stört so schrill die stille Nacht? Was sprüht der Lichter Lüsterpracht ? Das ist das Fest des Wüstlings! Was huscht und hascht und weint und lacht ? Was cymbelt gell ? Was flüstert sacht ? Das ist das Fest des Wüstlings! Die Pracht der Nacht ist jach entfacht! Die Tugend stirbt, das Laster lacht! Das ist das Fest des Wüstlings! This is one of the few Galgenlieder where humor and ridicule seem to be absent, showing the poet from his serious side in which he acts as a critic of his society rather than as an entertainer and amuser Das Gebet 'The Prayer' plays with the two meanings of German acht. 'eight' and 'attention'. An acoustic misunderstanding between hab acht 'pay attention' and halb acht 'half-past seven', literally 'half-eight', sets the stage for a series *halb acht, halb neun, halb zehn, etc. which the translator renders by med-it-ate, med-it-nine, until he reaches med-twelve, and goes the original one better with med-night. The river Elster remembers that it once was a bird, a magpie; it enters the body of a sleeping crow and simply flies away. The river is no longer there and runs dry, so that a farmer who takes a rifle and shoots the bird dead will eventually die of thirst. If there is a Weste 'vest' and 'west', let there be an Oste 'east'. If the Weste is worn on the front of a person, the Oste should be worn on the back. Korf in Europens Bücher thinks Geist 'esprit, spirit' and 'ghost' is light and should therefore, according to Geisterbrauch 'the customs of the ghosts', walk around in lightweight clothing, not bound between heavy covers.

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Morgenstern's ingenuity in the creation of new words and new names is boundless. A man with as keen a sense of language as he knew the vast untapped reservoir of possible syllables and words within the confines of the German language, and he used it to the fullest. Knowing something about the history of the Galgenlieder I firmly believe many, if not most, of Morgenstern's coinages are spur-of-the-moment inventions, some perhaps involuntary errors or slips of the tongue. We all have times when in the gay company of highspirited friends conversation becomes animated and inventive, and one outdoes the other in funny creations and analogous witty formations. But we never write anything down and we are no poets - there lies the rub. Probably the two most famous creations are the Gingganz (Knight's Wentall) and the Nasobem. The former owes his existence to the removal of two consecutive words belonging to two different immediate constituents. A boot and his jack were wandering across the land; the boot says: "... ich ging ganz in Gedanken hin ..." 2 which the translator renders by "... I went all lost in thought, bemused ..." (Knight in Morgenstern 1963:125). Morgenstern himself suggested to define a Gingganz henceforth as one lost in thought, absent-minded, pondering, dreaming, brooding. 3 The Nasobem is a mysterious creature that walks around on its noses, accompanied by its child; it cannot be found in any German encyclopedia, it sprang from the poet's lyre for the first time. Several well-known morphological manipulations and processes can be used to explain certain creations: one constituent of a Ν + Ν compound has been replaced by another covering the same or a similar semantic territory. While the original N1N2 compound represents a known lexeme which is translatable into other languages, the N1N3 or N 3 N 2 compound is freely invented and has no meaning for the native German speaker. Invented Creature: Tagtigall Sturmspiel Werfuchs Ochsenspatz

Underlying Form: Nachtigall 'nightingale' Windspiel 'greyhound' Werwolf 'werewolf Ochsenschwanz 'oxtail'

Among his Galgenlieder Morgenstern inserts a list of twenty such Ν + Ν creations entitled 'New formations proposed to Nature'; I have tried to detect a formal principle underlying these formations, but found that sound similarities played as much a role as semantic considerations did.

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Beside the four creatures mentioned above ten further underlying compounds may be assumed: Turtelunke « Turteltaube 'turtle dove') Schosseule « Schosshund 'lap dog' or Nachteule 'night-owl') Quallenwanze « Baumwanze 'tree bug') Sägeschwan « Sägespan 'sawdust') Weinpintscher Γ < Weinpantscher 'adulterator of wine' or Rehpintscher) Rhinozepony ( < Rhinozeros, where -ros is interpreted as Ross 'horse') Gänzeschmalzblume « Butterblume 'butter cup') Menschenbrotbaum Affenbrotbaum 'baobab-tree') Gürtelstier « Gürteltier 'armadillo') Pfauenochs « Pfauenauge 'eyed hawk moth, peacock butterfly') The remaining seven creatures leave me baffled: Kamelente 'camel duck', Regenlöwe 'rain lion', Walfischvogel 'whale-bird', Süsswassermops 'fresh water pug', Eulenwurm 'owl-worm', Giraffenigel 'giraffe hedgehog', and Löwenreh 'lion deer'. And then there is the famous Mondschaf, the 'moonsheep' which is probably based on Mondkalb 'mooncalf' listed in Kluge as 'the malformed young of a cow, in N H G extended to misformed human offspring'. In other poems Kräuterdachs occurs, perhaps patterned on Kräuterweib, a herbwoman who filled the function of a medicine man in older times. Beside Werfuchs, Werhund also occurs. Nocturnal animals and those which evoke fright inhabit Morgenstern's poems, such as the owl, the bat, the mouse, the wolf, the dog, and the raven; combine any of these with wind, night, and moon, and the stage is set for a haunted atmosphere. Thus the Nachtwindhund combines darkness with the howling of both wind and dog. My English translations cannot approximate the wild and spooky connotations of the following: Schluchtenhund 'ravine dog', Nacht-AlpHenne 'nightmare hen', Nachtschelm 'night rogue', and Nachtmahr 'nightmare'. Midnight gives birth to the Mittemachtsmaus 'midnight mouse', and a new moon to the Neumondweib 'new moon woman', the only two-legged creature in Morgenstern's zoo. One could construe underlying compounds, but they are certainly not as obvious as those mentioned earlier. Apocope and analogy are at work in Der Vergess. The protagonist is called an Unverbess or, for short, Unver, i.e., he was incorrigible; because of his Bildungshung (patterned on Bildungsdrang and Bildungshunger 'a craving for culture'), he became a Vielfress (Vielfrass = glutton), yet he was no Haltefrass, i.e., he retained nothing which his mind ate.

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In a short list entitled 'How the gallows-child remembers the names of the months' we observe a trend to popular or folk etymology. Jaguar for Januar, Zebra for Februar, Nerz 'mink' for März, Mandrill for April, Maikäfer (a sort of large June bug) for Mai, Pony for Juni, Muli for Juli, Auerochs 'bison' for August, Wespenbär for September, Locktauber for Oktober, Robbenbär for November, Zehenbär for Dezember. It is fortunate that the gallows child is only a figment of Morgenstern's imagination because any real child would have a terrible time to remember these made-up animal names. The Zwi could have been born through shortening {Zwilling, Zwitter, Zwiespalt), ablaut (from zwei), or in order to rhyme with Knie. As we have already found out, many of Morgenstern's creations were caused for rhyming's sake. The Zwi has two heads, one in the usual place and one on his knee; a man who can hold Zwiesprache 'dialogue' with himself, he can 'sit eye to eye with himself'. Literary commentators have advanced philosophical interpretations about a person's alter ego, about the Faustian 'zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust', which are said to have formed the background for this poem; I rather think it was the joy of rhyming. Two examples to illustrate personification of objects and abstract concepts will have to suffice. A very short poem Unter Zeiten personifies verb tenses: Das Perfekt und das Imperfekt tranken Sekt. Sie stiessen aufs Futurum an (was man wohl gelten lassen kann). Plusquamper und Exaktfutur blinzten nur. But not only verb tenses behave like people, temperature scales become aristocrats. In Kronprätendenten 'Heirs Apparent', Count Reaumur hates those who serve Celsius, while King Fahrenheit sits in his corner, eats porridge, and muses 'Oh, the good old times when they measured with me.' Little did Morgenstern know of North American thermometers in the 1970's! Although I said above that Morgenstern's poetry should not be called nonsense poetry, he purposely invented certain nonsense words which are often based on onomatopoeia. In Die zwei Wurzeln two pine roots are conversing with each other. One says knig, the other says knag,'... das ist

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genug für einen Tag\ Economy with words is a virtue in Morgenstern's estimation, as we shall see later on. Sound and motion are illustrated in Das Hemmed which flutters in the wind flattertata flattertata·, es knattert ('crackles') und rattert in the wind, while the wind howls windurudei windurudei. In Die Fingur, vowel quality and alliteration express the scary mood of an eerie scene: Es lacht die Nachtalp-Henne es weint die Windhorn-Gans, es bläst der schwarze Senne zum Tanz. Ein Uhu-Tauber turtelt nach seiner Uhuin. Ein kleiner Sechs-Elf hurtelt von Busch zu Busch dahin ... Und Wiedergänger gehen, und Raben rufen kolk, und aus den Teichen sehen die Fingur und ihr Volk ... The vowel a laughs in line 1, w- whines in line 2, u renders the owl's call in lines 5, 6 and 8, g- 'goes' hard in line 9, and r- caws in line 10. I do not know who or what the Fingur represents; she seems a ghostlike creature that lives in a pond. In Gruselett 'Shudderette', the Fingur reappears. With the exception of the words Flügel and grausig the entire poem is made up of nonsense words, somewhat in the vein of the Jabberwocky. Sentence structure is grammatical and function words are retained, so that the reader shudders appropriately. Flügel is reduplicated with -flagel: gaustert reminds us of geistert 'it spooks'; plaustert makes us think of plustert 'ruffles his feathers'; gutzt must be a verb, it makes me think of glotzt 'an evil stare'; three initial vv-'s (wiruwaruwolz) show total confusion in the bush, while the three initial g-'s underline the hard, insolent stare of an evil creature called Golz (... und grausig glotzt der Golz). In Korfs Verzauberung a witch hurries toward a place called Odelidelase to rhyme with Base and blase in stanza one, while in stanza two it changes to Odeladelise in order to rhyme with Wiese and bliese. Reduplication of syllable-initial d- and /- seems to me to indicate a wavy, undulating motion toward a far-away place where the witch blows planets out of foam bubbles. Intervocalic -s- in Base, blase, Wiese, bliese,

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Muse and Bluse - in the sixth stanza the place name is changed to Odeladeluse - further underlines the softly blowing movement to an unknown place from where there is no return. Morgenstern's best-known nonsense poem is, of course, the Great LalulaA It contains not a single known word; syllable and word structure are mostly C(r)VC, there is much reduplication (bifzibafzi, entepente, semisemi, quempulempu), alliteration (siri suri sei), and repetition {lalu lalu lalu lalu la). Punctuation, diacritics, and choice of vowels seem to demand a pompous, semi-mysterious, pseudo-oriental delivery. Those of us who dissect language professionally often think of what meaning would result if a well-known idiom or much-used slang phrase were to be interpreted literally; I am thinking of 'pulling a person's leg', 'making a snap judgment', or 'coming to a dead stop'. Morgenstern did just that: he played with the literal meaning of idioms and proverbs. Korf and Palmström take language lessons, they are studying Wetterwendisch. Wendisch is the language of a Slavic people in Eastern Germany, also called Sorbian, but the compound usually means 'unstable as the weather', i.e. a person of variable moods. Studying this language, their mind is freed of gravity and they become unstable, moody, and choleric. Yet the affair remains peripheral and they become again characters. The Purzelbaum 'somersault' (literally 'tumble-tree') speaks: only you see me and you know what sort of a tree I am; I do not shoot, one shoots me. Do I bear fruit ? I doubt it, I have no roots either. As soon as I have tumbled, I am only a Purzeitraum (a tumble-dream). If we were to interpret 'somersault' /samer + sohlt/ as composed of summer and salt we could compare it to winter salt and spin a similar outrageous story around the two salts. If you 'give up' or 'lose hope' in German you throw the rifle into a cornfield (die Flinte ins Korn werfen).6 Palmström, ambling through a wheatfield in the evening, finds a rifle, sits down and examines his find. Sympathizing with the disheartened former owner, he leans the rifle against a mile-stone, hoping the latter might retrace his steps and catch sight of his rifle and of the moon rising in the East. A popular saying Wie du mir, so ich Dir Ί treat you the way you treat me' seems to underlie the poem Auf dem Fliegenplaneten: houseflies force people to adhere to sticky bands of honey while others are condemned to swim in sweetish beer. In only one way houseflies are different from humans: they do not bake us humans into their rolls, nor swallow us by mistake.

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A biblical quotation der Glaube versetzt Berge (I Cor. 13:2) provides the background for a poem where two hills suddenly exchange places: 6 the village bulls low frighteningly, a man falls to his knees. But farmer Metzner admits that he was the 'land-transposer': 'Go ahead and turn me in! Nothing but my belief has transposed the mountains, I feel strong now'. In typical nonsequitur Morgenstern-style the last stanza ends with 'everyone's eye stood gigantically open when the farmer spoke thus; yet the country was protestant and in Dalldorf died a hero.' 7 A charming poem Tertius Gaudens, subtitled 'a piece of development history', combines the proverb 'to throw pearls before the swine' (Perlen vor die Säue werfen) with the origin of the Perlhuhn 'guinea fowl', literally 'pearl-hen'. Three pigs and a chicken rested together in a basket, the chicken was blind, as the proverb says. A man (or woman) stepped up to the basket and he (or she) threw - beets, you may think - no, he (or she) threw pearls before the beasts. The pigs lazily closed their eyes, but the chicken got up and ate the pearls as though they were corn. Man was furious and plotted revenge, but God in his Heaven decided that in the next generation the chicken should wear the pearls outside - and in this way the world received the pearlhen as a present. The same topic provides the subject matter for another very short poem. The pearlhen counts one, two, three, four - What is it counting, the good bird ? Down there by the dark alder trees. It counts, itching with a desire for knowledge (which enthuses it as much as ourselves) the number of its pearls. The poem has rhythm and rhyme; German Erlen 'alder' rhymes with Perlen, vier rhymes with Tier, and gejuckt 'itched' is made to rhyme with entzückt 'delighted'. We can be sure the bird was made to be wandering under Erlen only to provide a rhyme for Perlen. The pearl-hen is not the only bird who can count; Ralph, the raven, sits on a milestone and croaks ka-em zwei-ein, ka-em zwei-ein (km 21). Morgenstern, who professed to hate numbers 'because they dominate our modern age', gave numeral names to some of his animal inventions: The Sechs-Elf (6-11, but actually a kind of elf) is a forest spook; the Zwölf-Elf says in Das Problem: my name is inconvenient, it's just as if I were called three-four while my name is seven', and lo, from that day on, he called himself twenty-three. There is a pig called Siebenschwein which marries the Nachtschelm and has thirteen children whose fates are enumerated in great detail. Another pig, the Vier-viertelschwein joins his hands and feet to those of the Auftakteule (upbeat-owl) to perform a dance. These last-named poems reflect an ominous mood, they describe eery sounds and activities by odd creatures who often perform at night.

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The scariest of them is perhaps Unter Spiegelbildern 'Among mirror images', which describes a dream fantasy: a woman sees herself reflected in mirrors 154,000 times. Morgenstern interjects 'o GraunV, 'oh horror!. While other people are seen in a way that nobody had ever seen them before, here it becomes evident whoever was a beast or a genius in his former life. The last two stanzas warn: beware of the mirror, or you will fall under my spell. Your mirror's dark truth has your image, you know not how, and then I see your truth because mirrors never lie. One of the strangest contradictions in Morgenstern's mind is his attitude toward human language in general and words in particular. He, master and manipulator par excellence of the German language in all its ramifications, expert punster and ridiculer of proverbs, phrases, sayings, and idioms, decries words and their meanings, the fallacy of language, and man who falls into the traps that language sets him. In Stufen, a collection of thoughts in diary form, his widow Margareta assembled almost a hundred sayings on language and words. The first entry (1895) says: Ά word is something infinitely crude: it lumps millions of relationships together and packs it like a lump of earth. Soon the earth will be dry and hard - the ball remains like a red and drastic whole, but the millions of particles which make it up, are as good as forgotten.' In a 1906 entry he says: 'language is reality fissured into our terminology, only the word tears open the fissure which does not exist in reality.' Morgenstern thinks little of people who talk too much: 'most of them do not speak, they only quote. One could almost put everything they say between quotation marks because it (that which is said) is handed down, not created this moment' (1907). And again: 'One may say what one wants, men do nothing else but bark, cackle, crow, bleat ...'. In Wortkunst, Palma Kunkel is reported to speak, yes: but not like a people in darkness. She does not ask the giant nor the dwarf how they are, not about the weather, not the tailor; at most she asks about their basic problems. Thus she remains young and fresh, while her breath does not expire into vapor. Morgenstern also praises the parrot who never utters his words; the number of words which he does not utter is infinite because he is the smartest bird. While he measures you severely, his tongue seems shrivelled up; no matter who you are, he does not betray a word to you. Morgenstern respects water: without a word, it runs constantly; otherwise it would not say much more than 'beer and bread, love and faithfulness' which would not be new. This shows that the water is better οίϊ silent. What upsets Morgenstern most about language is its arbitrariness. Why

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does a thing have to be called by a certain name? Die Westküsten illustrate the poet's feelings. One day the west coasts stepped forward and declared they were neither west- nor east-coasts: they wanted their freedom to shake off the yoke imposed upon them by a horde of human brutes. A long discussion ensues, and finally they draw up a resolution: the west coasts unanimously decreed that they did not exist. But not a creature paid attention, neither the whale nor the sea gull, nor the cloud. Asked why the whale should not be called a whale, the latter quietly retorted 'only your thinking makes me into one.' Suddenly the coasts saw themselves as though in a mirror, and their quarrel seemed senseless. Quietly they swam home and the resolution remained un-sent. But more suffering came to Lore, the parrot, than to the west-coasts8. 'What's his name?' people asked, but nobody would tell anybody; once upon a time the parrot was being addressed as Lore, whereupon he fell into melancholy for weeks. He only recovered through the help of Fritz Kunkel's young dog. The poodle, as yet unbaptized, was helpful by nature: when he heard of Lore's sorrow (der Lore Leid, obviously a pun on Lorelei) he had himself christianed Lorus somehow taking the name upon himself, thus shaming the whole world. Korf (the parrot's owner) executed the baptismal act and the bird henceforth was healed. Some critics insist that Morgenstern distorted and reshaped words purposely to show up the wickedness and silliness of language; personally, I think he enjoyed himself tremendously punning and playing with words and meanings. Morgenstern had a great sense of humor, and humor is the other side of a sense for the tragic. 9 Morgenstern was a sensitive artist who suffered from the iniquities of his time and with his lighthearted humor he helped himself over gloomy periods in his personal life. Writing about his grotesques,10 he himself expresses this clearly: 'If these two, three small volumes which for me signify no more than occasional works (Beiwerkchen), non-essentials (Nebensachen), only spread a little spiritual lightheartedness, serenity, freedom, enliven the imagination, thaw a little the soul's music frozen in the postman's horn, then it's enough (Morgenstern 1921:15). The University of Calgary NOTES 1

Any similarity between my analysis and that of Leo Spitzer 1918 is strictly accidental because his book, ordered through inter-library loan, reached me the moment my manuscript was finished. This is regrettable because his is apparently the only work in German dealing with the linguistic aspects of Morgenstern's language.

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2

Reminiscent of Goethe's poem Gefunden: Ich ging im Walde so für mich hin, und nichts zu suchen, das war mein Sinn...' 3 Christian Morgenstern über die Galgenlieder, the author's own mock commentaries, attributed to Dr. Jeremias Müller, a pedantic philologist. Verlag Bruno Cassirer, Berlin 1921. In Stufen, R. Piper & Co, München, 1922, Morgenstern says: "Gingganz ist einfach ein deutsches Wort für Ideologe", p. 95. 4 In the introduction to Jeremias Müller's commentaries cited above Morgenstern calls the Lalula a phonetic rhapsody, originally designed to be recited with the same passion and conviction which is ordinarily accorded to much less worthy 'word art'. Morgenstern, an avid Volapük disciple, had invented a language while still at the gymnasium and, he said, why should I not write my own Volapük to be recited by this especially talented gallows brother? 5 The translator speaks of 'The Thrown-in Towel'. 6 A pun on the word versetzen: in the biblical passage it means 'remove' while in Morgenstern's poem it means 'exchange'. 7 Dalldorf was the name of a well-known insane asylum near Berlin. 8 Lore or Lori is the traditional name for German parrots. 9 Death occurs in some form or other in 10% of his Galgenlieder, but it is always treated lightheartedly. 10 Morgenstern himself introduced this term for his Galgenlieder, and it has been adopted by most critics, both in German and in English.

REFERENCES Beheim-Schwarzbach, Martin. 1964. Christian Morgenstern. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. (Rowohlts Monographien) Kayser, Wolfgang. 1963. The grotesque in art and literature. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. Morgenstern, Christian. 1921. Über die Galgenlieder. Berlin: Bruno Cassirer. Morgenstern, Christian. 1922. Stufen. München: R. Piper & Co. Morgenstern, Christian. 1963. The Gallows Songs. Christian Morgenstern's "Galgenlieder". A selection, translated, with an introduction, by Max Knight. Berkeley: University of California Press. Morgenstern, Christian. 1964. Alle Galgenlieder. Frankfurt: Insel Verlag. Nash, Ogden. 1933. Parents keep out. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Schönfeld, Herbert. 1932. Über Christian Morgensterns Grotesken. Zeitschrift für deutsche Bildung 8:225-237. Spitzer, Leo. 1918. Die groteske Gestaltungs- und Sprachkunst. Christian Morgensterns Motiv und Wort. (Studien zur Literatur- und Sprachpsychologie.) Leipzig: O.R. Resiland. Staehlin, Friedrich. 1950. Morgensterns Spiel mit der Sprache. Muttersprache, Jahrgang 1950, 276-285.

T Y P O G R A P H Y , POEMS, A N D THE POETIC LINE CHARLES T. SCOTT

Vladimir Nabokov (1963) concludes the English translation of his novel The Gift with the following paragraph: 1 Good-by, my book! Like mortal eyes, imagined ones must close some day. Onegin from this knees will rise - but his creator strolls away. And yet the ear cannot right now part with the music and allow the tale to fade; the chords of fate itself continue to vibrate; and no obstruction for the sage exists where I have put The End: the shadows of my world extend beyond the skyline of the page, blue as tomorrow's morning haze - nor does this terminate the phrase. It is immediately clear that the language of this final paragraph of the novel is not what we are accustomed to expect of written prose - fiction or otherwise. Indeed, the apparent rhyme sets and iambic meter, particularly of the beginning and concluding lines of the paragraph, suggest that the discourse might better be interpreted as one of verse, rather than one of prose. Following this lead, we can represent the discourse in the following way and make the further claim that the discourse is not a paragraph after a!l but a verse form very much like the sonnet:

And yet the ear cannot right now part with the music and allow the tale to fade; the chords of fate itself continue to vibrate; and no obstruction for the sage exists where I have put The End: the shadows of my world extend beyond the skyline of the page,

a b a b c c d d e f f e

blue as tomorrow's morning haze nor does this terminate the phrase.

g g

Good-by my book! Like mortal eyes, imagined ones must close some day. Onegin from his knees will rise but his creator strolls away.

The verse is similar to the traditional English form of the sonnet in

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terms of its organization as three quatrains followed by a couplet. The dissimilarities are found in the use of iambic tetrameter line rather than the customary pentameter and in the deliberate mixture of possible rhyme schemes for the three quatrains. Application of the rules proposed by Morris Halle and Samuel Jay Keyser (191:164-80) for iambic meters would demonstrate that (1) each of the lines is metrical, and (2) some lines are more complex actualizations of the abstract metrical pattern than others. 2 The differences in complexity of actualization of the iambic pattern (compare, especially, the lines of the second quatrain with those of the rest of the verse form) account for the consistent intuitive response of readers that, while the beginning and the end of the 'paragraph' sound like verse, the middle sounds more like prose. 3 Now consider the following discourse: Shame It is a cramped little state with no foreign policy, save to be thought inoffensive. The grammar of the language has never been fathomed, owing to the national habit of allowing each sentence to trail off in confusion. Those who have visited Scusi, the capital city, report that the railwayroute from Schuldig passes through country best described as unrelieved. Sheep are the national product. The faint inscription over the city gates may perhaps be rendered, "I'm afraid you won't find much of interest here." Census reports which give the population as zero are, of course, not to be trusted, save as reflecting the natives' flustered insistence that they do not count, as well as their modest horror of letting one's sex be known in so many words. The uniform grey of the nondescript buildings, the absence of churches or comfort-stations, have given observers an odd impression of ostentatious meanness, and it must be said of the citizens (muttering by in their ratty sheepskins, shying at cracks in the sidewalk) that they lack the peace of mind of the truly humble. The tenor of life is careful, even in the stiff unsmiling carelessness of the border-guards and douaniers, who admit, whenever they can, not merely the usual carloads of deodorant but gypsies, g-strings, hasheesh, and contraband pigments. Their complete negligence is reserved, however, for the hoped-for invasion, at which time the happy people (sniggering, ruddily naked, and shamelessly drunk) will stun the foe by their overwhelming submission, corrupt the generals, infiltrate the staff, usurp the throne, proclaim themselves to be sun-gods, and bring about the collapse of the whole empire. As might be expected, given the direction of argument of this paper, this discourse is a revised presentation of a poem by Richard Wilbur (1961), which was published as follows: 4 Shame It is a cramped little state with no foreign policy, Save to be thought inoffensive. The grammar of the language

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Has never been fathomed, owing to the national habit Of allowing each sentence to trail off in confusion. Those who have visited Scusi, the capital city, Report that the railway-route from Schuldig passes Through country best described as unrelieved. Sheep are the national product. The faint inscription Over the city gates may perhaps be rendered, "I'm afraid you won't find much of interest here." Census-reports which give the population As zero are, of course, not to be trusted, Save as reflecting the natives' flustered insistence That they do not count, as well as their modest horror Of letting one's sex be known in so many words. The uniform grey of the nondescript buildings, the absence Of churches or comfort-stations, have given observers An odd impression of ostentatious meanness, And it must be said of the citizens (muttering by In their ratty sheepkins, shying at cracks in the sidewalk) That they lack the peace of mind of the truly humble. The tenor of life is careful, even in the stiff Unsmiling carelessness of the border-guards And douaniers, who admit, whenever they can, Nor merely the usual carloads of deodorant But gypsies, g-strings, hasheesh, and contraband pigments. Their complete negligence is reserved, however, For the hoped-for invasion, at which time the happy people (Sniggering, ruddily naked, and shamelessly drunk) Will stun the foe by their overwhelming submission. Corrupt the generals, infiltrate the staff, Usurp the throne, proclaim themselves to be sun-gods, And bring about the collapse of the whole empire. In the case of Nabokov's paragraph, it was immediately apparent that the language of that discourse had been organized in accordance with certain principles beyond those which account f o r the surface structure of English phrases, clauses, and sentences. In fact, those principles accounted for such other constructional properties of the discourse as its metrical pattern and its rhyme sets. In the case of Wilbur's poem, it does not seem to be immediately clear that the language of the discourse has been organized according to any principles other than those which account for the syntax. Under close analysis (not to be developed here), 5 it may turn out that this assertion is premature. On the basis of intuitive response, however, the statement appears to be a fair one. If so, then it is also fair to ask whether it makes any difference - t o our understanding of the discourse, in our perception of it as verbal art

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object, in the critical stance that we might adopt towards it - if the discourse is presented in either the revised format or the published format. And, if there is no significance to the difference of presentation, why do we accept Wilbur's discourse as a poem? That is, what basis do we have for categorizing "Shame" as a poem and not a prose passage? Surely not because it was published as poems are customarily published, i.e. in accordance with the usual typographical conventions. With the Nabokov example, we are compelled to understand the discourse as poem, not because of typographical clues (there are none), but because the special principles of organization observed were to be found in the language data directly. It is at least not so readily apparent that the same can be said of the Wilbur example. As a result of comparing the two forms of these discourses, the paragraph versions and the poem versions, one conclusion appears inescapable: the typographical conventions associated with the presentation of verse and of prose are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for defining these two generic forms. Yet, in a literate society such as ours, we are predisposed by these conventions to categorize discourses as one or the other. An unquestioning adherence to this predisposition poses a danger for the literary critic, a danger that normally goes unrecognized. When discourses are presented in accordance with such typographical conventions as wide margins, line sequences, stanzaic organization, etc., the critic is predisposed to assume that the object of analysis and interpretation is a poem. But this simple, initial assumption entails a host of other assumptions, including, most importantly, the critical bias that will automatically establish the particular universe of questions and evaluation criteria within which the critic will perform his task. In short, we return to the fundamental distinction between definition and evaluation, or, put differently, the problem of knowing what the object is whose worth we hope to assess. We turn now to an example somewhat different from the preceding two. Consider the following two representations of Gerard Manley Hopkins' (1948) "The Windhover," the first of which is the published version. 6 The Windhover: To Christ our Lord I caught this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

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High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing! Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion Times told lovelier, more dangerous, Ο my chevalier! No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

The Windhover: To Christ our Lord a I caught this morning morning's minion, b kingdom of daylight's dauphin, b dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, b in his riding of the rolling level c underneath him steady air, d [ey] + and striding high there, d · resohow he rung upon the rein d nant of a wimpling wing in his ecstasy! e then off, off forth on swing, f As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: g the hurl and gliding rebuffed the big wind. g my heart in hiding stirred for a bird, a the achieve of, the mastery of the thing! f

15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume here buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion times told lovelier, more dangerous, Ο my chevalier! No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

A close examination of the two formats for the poem reveals that the basic metrical pattern of both is the iambic pattern, contrary to some interpretations of the published version which claim that Hopkins employed a variation of the Old English alliterative pattern. 7 The second format, moreover, is interesting for several reasons: (1) by putting the "dedication" with the title and treating the whole sequence as a line (iambic tetrameter), the octet plus the title of the published version turn out to be a fourteen-line sub-poem - a "sonnet" within a "sonnet," so to speak; and (2) the lines of the second format are established on a principled basis, i.e., they correspond to the basic iambic meter, they

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exhibit a fairly patterned rhyme scheme, and they adhere generally to the boundaries of syntactic constituents. In short, there appear to be special principles of organization involved which suggest that the twentyone-line version of the discourse is as justified under the notion poem as the published fourteen-line version is. If this view of the two formats for the poem is correct, then it seems clear once again that the typographical features customarily associated with poems are not the definitive criteria for categorizing discourses as poems. It seems clear, in other words, that in this example the discourse would be identified as a poem under any set of typographical conditions. Furthermore, it also appears to be the case that at least two different line organizations of this poem are possible within a single set of typographical conventions. To summarize: the Nabokov example demonstrates that the typographical practice associated with paragraphs cannot disguise the real identification of the discourse as a poem; the Wilbur example suggests that the typographical practice associated with poems still leaves open the question as to whether the discourse is a prose passage and not a poem at all; the Hopkins example shows that, even when it is quite clear that the discourse under scrutiny is indeed a poem, there may still be more than one way in which the poem can be represented. These observations perhaps serve only to confirm what the literary critic would regard as obvious, viz. that the notion poem as a discourse unit is understood and, indeed, identifiable quite apart from the typographical manner of its presentation. In theory, this is perhaps so; in practice, as suggested above, we have reason to be dubious of this claim since it would appear that typographical practice in the publication of poetry has established a cultural bias in our understanding of the notion poetic line. And, since poems are understood to be composed of constituents called lines, it is probably also true that our understanding of the notion poem is culturally biased by our typographical conventions. The examples cited above should demonstrate that typographical practice is one factor that can be excluded as a basis for establishing the line as a poetic discourse unit, but they do not, in a positive way, assert the conditions under which the line may be defined as a unit of those discourses that we call poems. What motivation is there for proposing that the principles of poetic line formation are a proper and necessary subject for analysis and description? Most generally, we can suggest that the study of these principles is indispensably part of the general theory of poetics, and that a theory of poetics is required precisely because we should hope to

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provide an account of what Bierwisch (1970) has called the poetic competence of language users. More specifically, we may note that the poetic line is a descriptive term that must enter into definitions of other poetic discourse constituents. For example, the description and definition of rhyme as a stylistic device is impossible without reference to the line as the domain within which this device operates. Larger size-level poetic constituents (e.g. stanzas) and poetic discourse units (e.g. sonnets) cannot be defined without reference to lines as ultimate constituents. The concept of metrical pattern, moreover, presupposes the line as the language segment that manifests or realizes the abstract pattern. There are, in short, a number of reasons, all pertinent to the descriptive goals of poetics, why efforts to provide a formal characterization of the poetic line are well motivated. For verse, the question of the formal nature of the poetic line is inextricably tied to the rules governing metrical patterns, since John Thompson (1970) is presumably correct in stating: "In verse the language turns from time to time and forms a new line. It turns at a point determined by the meter." The Nabokov example is a clear demonstration of this principle. For poetry that is not constructed as verse, however, the question of the formal nature of the poetic line is less clear, and the principles governing line formation in these instances remain open to description and analysis. The Wilbur example appears to provide evidence for this need since, without an understanding of the principles governing the lines of "Shame," it is not clear why the discourse should be regarded as a poem at all. The University of Wisconsin-Madison NOTES 1

Reprinted by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons. This example was first called to my attention by Carol Williams. 2 Morris Halle and Samuel Jay Keyser. English Stress: Its Form, Its Growth, and Its Role in Verse. New York: Harper and Row, 1971. See pp. 164-180. 3 I have presented this text to groups of students on a number of occasions and the immediate reaction has been consistently uniform, i.e., as described. 4 Copyright 1961 by Richard Wilbur. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 5 There is at least the possibility that a system of fixed number of accents per line is at work here, though I have not undertaken an analysis of this text to determine if this is actually so. 6 Copyright 1948 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc. 7 For a full discussion of this claim, see Scott forthcoming.

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REFERENCES Bierwisch, Manfred. 1970. In Freeman 1970, 96-115. Freeman, Donald C., ed. 1970. Linguistics and literary style. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston. Halle, Morris, and Samuel Jay Keyser. 1971. English stress: its form, its growth, and its role in verse. New York: Harper and Row. Hopkins, Gerald Manley. 1948. Poems of Gerald Manley Hopkins. 2nd ed. Ed. by W. H. Gardner. Oxford University Press. Nabokov, Vladimir. 1963. The gift. Translated from the Russian by Michael Scammel in collaboration with the author. G. P. Putnam's Sons. Scott, Charles T. Forthcoming in 1974. Towards a formal poetics: metrical patterning in 'The Windhover'. In Language and style. Thompson, John. 1970. Linguistic structure and the poetic line. In Freeman 1970, 336-346. Wilbur, Richard. 1961. Advice to a prophet and other poems. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

O B S E R V A T I O N S ON JAKOB S C H A F F N E R ' S LITERARY LANGUAGE ALFRED SENN

1. The Swiss author Jakob Schaffner was born in Basel in 1875 of a Swiss father and a German mother (from the neighboring State of Baden), was orphaned at the age of eight years, was raised in a Swiss charity school, and then learned the shoemaker's trade in Basel from 1891-93. At the age of eighteen he started on his first extended travel as a traveling journeyman, roaming all through western Germany, northern France, and the Low Countries. Then he returned to Basel and resumed his shoemaking, only to exchange it for free-lance writing at the age of 24. He again made repeated travels through Germany where he took up permanent residence in 1913. He died in Straßburg in 1944.1 2. Out of the colossal literary production of Jakob Schaffner a relatively small part, not chosen with any view to its content value, was scrutinized for the purpose of this paper. The selected items were published in the following years to which reference is made at pertinent passages of my text to indicate the occurrence of the expressions discussed: 1907: Die Laterne und andere Novellen (Grobschmiede, Die Begegnung, Agnes, Der Kilometerstein, Die Schrift, Die Eschersche, Der Altgeselle, Die Laterne). 257 pages. 1910: Konrad Pilater. Roman. 548 pages. 1912: Die Irrfahrten des Jonathan Bregger. Roman. 184 pages. This is a revised edition of Schaffner's first book published in 1905 with the title Irrfahrten. 1924: Die Mutter. Novelle. 75 pages. 1926: Das große Erlebnis. Roman. 408 pages. 1931: Der lachende Hauptmann (Novelle) and Heimat und Welt (Ansprache bei der Überreichung des großen Preises der Schweizerischen Schillerstiftung am 5. Oktober 1930 in Basel). 72 pages. 1931: Die Predigt der Marienburg. 148 pages.

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1938: Berge, Ströme und Städte. Eine schweizerische Heimatschau. 366 pages. 3. Schaffner's native dialect was Low Alamannic, spoken in the Swiss city of Basel and on both sides of the Rhine River down to Straßburg, covering the former State of Baden (with the Black Forest) and Alsace. Since prior to the First World War Alsace belonged to Germany, much of what in Schaffner's early works is presented as taking place in Germany, actually takes place in Alsatian towns. It was Schaifner's ambition to free himself of regional characteristics and to become a real 'German', an 'all-German'. To attain this end, he avoided Alamannic dialect, forms in grammar and vocabulary, but adopted on the other hand a large number of north German peculiarities. If we do find Alamannic traces they got into his works without his awareness, especially at the beginning of his literary activity. GRAMMATICAL PECULIARITIES

4. According to Duden, Grammatik der deutschen Gegenwartssprache (Mannheim 1966) § 1795, the noun der Stiefel 'boot' forms the plural die Stiefel in standard German, but die Stiefeln in some dialects and in colloquial speech. Schaffner uses the plural form Stiefeln in 1907 (p. 78) and 1910 (p. 393), Schaftstiefeln 'topboots' in 1907 (p. 78), Reitstiefeln 'riding boots' in 1910 (p. 331),but Stiefel in 1910 (p. 490) and 1938. He also has the dialect forms die Haarringeln (sing, das Haarringel) 'the curls' in 1907 (p. 112) and die Tachteln (sing, die Tachtel) 'slaps in the face' in 1907 (p. 236). Dialectal is the neuter gender in the phrase ums Eck 'around the corner' in 1907 (p. 114) instead of standard German um die Ecke. LEXICAL PROVINCIALISMS

5. Dialectal is the word Maien 'flowers' which is used in 1907 (p. 152) in alternation with Blumen for the purpose of obtaining an archaic style. The author speaks of Laubflecken 'freckles' in 1907 (p. 90) and 1910 (p. 547), but uses the standard German equivalent Sommersprossen in 1924 (p. 19) and 1926 (p. 171). The half-dialect noun Backen 'cheeks' appears in 1912 (p. 174) in a dialogue, but the standard form Wangen in 1910 (p. 140) in the running text, i.e. as the author's expression. The

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regional expression Nachtessen 'supper' shows up in 1907 (p. 50), 1910 (pp. 90, 384 [in a dialogue], 389, 401, 407), and 1912 (p. 81 [three times in Basel], p. 100 [in Germany]); the standard form Abendessen in 1907 (p. 188), 1910 (p. 131 [in Nancy]), in 1912 (p. 106 [on an ocean-going boat]), and in 1938 (p. 170). There is stylistic interchange between Stiege and Treppe 'stair' in 1910 and 1912, but later (e.g. in 1938) Stiege is abandoned in favor of Treppe. There is only Ellenbogen 'elbow' in 1907, then (in 1910) wavering between Ellenbogen and Ellbogen, and finally (1931) only Ellbogen. Taken from the dialect of Basel is the verb ketzern (1910, p. 257) 'to make noise'. Alamannic are aufmutzen 'to dress up (for a special role)' in 1910 (p. 217); laufen in the sense 'to go, to walk' in 1907 and 1912; lcaressieren 'to flirt' in 1910; ich sage zu ihm Karl Ί call him Karl' in 1910; jemandem verkommen or vorkommen 'to meet someone' (in 1910) instead of begegnen; the intransitive verb verleiden (1910) 'to become boring, less attractive'; man hängte sich gegenseitig Schlötterlinge an 'they threw taunts at each other' (1907).2 6. The Word Matte 'meadow' is known to Schaffner from his native dialect as an Alamannic dialect expression for standard German Wiese. Therefore, he avoids it in his early works, except for 1912 (p. 27) where its singular form die Matte is used as a stylistic variant for ein Stück Wiesland 'a piece of meadow' mentioned a few lines earlier. Moreover, the word (in contrast to its antecedent) occurs in a conversation between Alamannians for whom Matte is more natural than Wiese. A surprising occurrence in Die Predigt der Marienburg (1931, p. 29) in East Prussia is a case of poetic ebullience of the author who compares the saftigen grünen Matten 'the lush green meadows' of southern Germany with the northern vegetation of the Prussian planes. In the travelogue on Switzerland, Berge, Ströme und Städte, published in 1938, the author, then an old man living abroad and visiting his original homeland, was affected by homesickness which he expressed in a highly poetic language. The frequent use of the Alamannic word Matte in this work is nothing but the expression of such poetic rapture. Repeated alternation of Matte with standard German Wiese (e.g., pp. 12, 13, 67, 69, 74, 91, 96, 122, 160, 266, 286) clearly shows that for Schaffner the two words are identical in meaning. In this respect he agrees with other Swiss writers such as C. F. Meyer (e.g. in the story Die Richterin) and Kurt Guggenheim in the novel Alles in Allem (Zürich: Artemis Verlag, 1957). Jakob Escher-

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Bürkli, in his study on Wiesen and Matten in Switzerland, published in 1937,3 states on p. 7: Eine Gegenüberstellung zweier verschiedener Dinge ist auch bei den wenigen Zitaten, wo Grimm dies noch anzunehmen scheint, nicht ersichtlich. Die Nachfrage auf dem Lande wie die Stellen aus der Literatur gestatten also den Schluß nicht, daß ein Unterschied der Bedeutung zwischen Wiese und Matte bestehe oder bestanden habe. Dafür tritt in den Gesprächen mit aller Schärfe und Entschiedenheit das Gemeinsame der beiden Fluren hervor: Wiesen und Matten werden gemäht.

Therefore, the definition 'Gebirgswiese' given in Sprach-Brockhaus (6th edition of 1951) is wrong. To this point Escher-Bürkli says: Weide und Alp sind von Wiese und Matte streng geschieden und bilden wieder einen fest umrissenen Begriff für sich.

The assertion made in Trübners D. Wb. that Matte is purely Alamannic and unknown in the neighboring Swabian area must be modified to the effect that today it is not known in the easternmost part of the Alamannic area either, e.g., in the Bodensee region of Switzerland (where I grew up as a farmer's boy), where Wiese is used. Again I quote from EscherBiirkli: Von einem Unterschied in Sinn und Bedeutung der beiden Bezeichnungen kann nicht mehr die Rede sein ... Was jetzt die beiden Wörter unterscheidet, ist Ost und West.

Escher-Bürkli's study is based on the toponymic use of the two words (and their occurrence in historical documents, such as deeds, tax records, etc, of earlier centuries) in all of Switzerland. It shows that Matte has been pushed westward by Wiese, but still survives in a few place names scattered over the northeastern part of the country where Wiese is the rule in the modern spoken language. This is confirmed by Paul Zinsli in his article "Ortsnamenschichten und Namenstrukturen in der deutschen Schweiz"4 who calls Matte 'westschweizerisch' and speaks of 'das westschweizerische Matte-Gebiet' which as early as the Middle Ages extended northward into the western part of 'Niederalemannien'. 7. In 1912 (p. 106) the standard German word der Karren 'cart' is used in the compounds Stoßkarren and Schiebkarren 'pushcart, wheelbarrow', while the feminine die Karre appears in 1907 (p. 75), 1910 (pp. 309, 480), and in 1938 (p. 24). Martin & Lienhart, I.e. 1466 f. has only the masculine form Karren which is also the only form used in Switzerland, as can be seen from Schweizerisches Idiotikon III (1895) 422-428. Trübners Deutsches Wörterbuch IV (1939) 99 lists both Karren and Karre jointly in the

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position of leadword, but gives the masculine form Karren precedence over the feminine Karre, adding that the feminine is more frequent in the Middle German, and the masculine in the Upper German dialect area. Apparently Schaffner considered his native word der Karren as dialectal and avoided it therefore later on. 8. I am puzzled by Schaffner's noun Ofenkunst used in 1907 (pp. 23 [four times], 25, 47) and simply Kunst (ib., p. 23). It is not clear whether it is identical in meaning with die Kunst listed in Martin & Lienhart, I.e. I (1899) 452 (from the Alsatian districts of Altkirch and Mülhausen) and defined as 'Kachelofen mit zwei großen Stufen zum Sitzen'. If it is - and the compounds Bauernofenkunst 'a farmhouse stove' (1910, p. 34) and Ofenkunst-Stufen 'steps of a tiled (living-room) stove' (ib., p. 35) point in that direction - it designates 'a tiled stove in the living room of a farmhouse (for heating the room)', the same as Kachelofen or Stubenofen. Built onto it (in front, on the side, or around it) there is a large stone step (or even two, like stairs leading up to the top of the stove), the Ofenbank 'stove bench', which is used as a couch to rest on (sitting or lying). I know the simple word Kunst (in the sense given by Martin & Lienhart) 5 from my late father (who came from Baselland) and from some Swiss dialect literature, but I never met a compound Ofenkunst (which is made up of two tautological components). In some of its occurrences, Schaffner's Ofenkunst designates the stove, in others the stone bench by the stove. He was not quite clear about the meaning of the word and this vagueness suggests that he had no personal contact with the subject so named. FOREIGN WORDS

9. Schaffner uses foreign words where his artistic principles require it, but gives them up in case they have been officially abandoned in the standard language. A few examples shall suffice. Schaffner has Trottoir 'sidewalk' in 1910 (pp. 88 [in Nancy], 164 and 331 [both times in Aberweiler]), but Bürgersteig in 1907 (p. 58 [in a German city]), in 1910 (pp. 376 and 393 [both times in Aberweiler]), in 1926 (p. 378 [in Berlin]), and 1938 (p. 27 [in Switzerland]). He uses Rendezvous (never Stelldichein) in 1910 and 1926. In Der lachende Hauptmann of 1931 (p. 6), a Russian army officer poussiert 'flirts', but a few lines later it is liebelt. In 1907 (p. 85) we find Karussell 'merry-go-round', but in 1910 (p. 131), in the same meaning, Rennmühle, a word not listed in any dictionary.

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10. In 1907, Alsatians use the following French words: das Exkiise 'the excuse' (p. 45 [for Entschuldigung]), partout 'at any price' (pp. 36, 39), Plafond 'ceiling' (p. 36 [for Zimmerdecke]). In 1912, in a Basel setting, we find Enveloppe 'envelope' (pp. 125, 145 [for Briefumschlag]) and sich frottieren 'to towel oneself' (p. 153). In 1910 (pp. 266, 268, 270, 480-483), in the Alsatian Aberweiler, we find alternation of Cousine and Base, referring to one and the same girl, and (p. 483) of Onkel and Vetter in the sense of 'uncle'. In 1926 (pp. 197, 214, 219, 225), the American dances Boston, Foxtrott, Shimmy, Twostep, beside the Hopser, Polka, and Tango, were performed in Berlin. In 1926 (p. 223), in a fashionable Berlin setting, the English word smart is used and the verb schwofen 'to dance' which originated in the students' slang. 11. A large portion of the novel Konrad Pilater (1910) deals with the life of traveling journeymen or tramps, mostly in western and northwestern Germany. True to his practice of adapting the language to the station and profession of the persons described, Schaffner takes a goodly number of words from the appropriate professional cant, in this case Rotwelsch or Gaunersprache, that is 'tramps' cant' or 'thieves' cant'. In this novel we find the following nouns of this type: der Kunde (p. 15) and Pennbruder (p. 80) 'fellow tramp', Trittlinge 'shoes' (p. 93); the following adjectives: duft 'swell' (p. 15; also 1907 [p. 241]), mies 'bad, wretched, miserable' (pp. 15,499; also 1907 [pp. 208,219]); the following verbs: fechten 'to beg (said of a traveling journeyman)' (pp. 14, 24, 530), hochnehmen 'to arrest' (p. 498), walzen 'to tramp as a traveling journeyman' (p. 150). In 1907, we find also the nouns der Schmus 'empty chatter' (p. 198), die Sonntagskluft 'Sunday suit' (p. 189), and the adjective schofel 'indelicate' (p. 196). The noun Schnorrergesellschaft 'the beggars' appears as late as 1924 (p. 6). I don't have enough material from later years to decide definitely whether the absence of this type of words in 1926, 1931, and 1938 has any connection with the antisemitic agitation of the extreme purists lead by Alfred Goetze, especially after 1936, according to which the German language had to be purged of such elements because they were of Jewish origin.6 I do believe that, in this respect, Schaffner remained independent. 12. A realistic tendency, concerning social status, linguistic and national background, characterizes the speech of all acting persons. To

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be sure, in the short story Der lachende Hauptmann of 1931, where the fate of a lost White Russian military detachment is told, the language of the running text and of the dialogue is rendered in flawless standard German; similarly in 1926, when the Russian students speak among themselves. However, when these same Russian students speak German with their German comrades, either their pronunciation or sentence structure is occasionally faulty, e.g. Katharina Alexandrowna says (p. 54) stirzen for stürzen, and wenn ich werde mit ihm gesprochen haben (p. 53) instead of wenn ich mit ihm gesprochen haben werde. In 1910 (p. 151), the awkward handling of the German language by a French shoemaker in Nancy is ridiculed, just as an Italian shoemaker speaks a distorted German in Basel in 1912. Differences are also pointed out in the speech habits of German speakers, e.g. between Austrian and Saxon in the Alsatian Aberweiler (1910, p. 460); a noncommissioned officer of the German army is ridiculed in 1907 (p. 101), a Viennese student in Berlin in 1926 (p. 49), the speech of a landlady and her children in East Berlin in 1926 (p. 66-67); likewise the pompous speech of a retired Prussian civil servant in 1926 (pp. 109 and 256). In 1907 (p. 201), the man who had come from Frankfurt to Straßburg uses the word Mädel instead of the standard German Mädchen 'girl'.

VARIATION

13. In general, Schaffner likes variation of words. Thus in 1926, he uses Gang (p. 54) for the same concept which, two pages later, he calls Korridor. For the same reason, he uses his native designation Samstag 'Saturday' in 1907,1910, and 1926, also Samstagabend 'Saturday evening' in 1912 and Samstagnachmittag 'Saturday afternoon' in 1926; but the north German expression Sonnabend7 in 1926, as well as Sonnabendglocken 'Saturday (church)bells' in 1907, Sonnabendgeläut 'bell-ringing on Saturday' and Sonnabendspaziergänger 'person taking a walk on Saturday' in 1910. - In 1910 (pp. 375, 376, 390) there is alternation between Fabrikzeichen and Fabriksignale 'factory sirens'. 14. The author's passion for variation prompted him to borrow freely from other German dialects, especially north German, and from the Umgangssprache, the colloquial variation of standard German as used in Germany (but not in Switzerland) by its citizenry of all social strata. The noun Göhren 'boys, children' used in 1907 (p. 63) was taken from

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Fritz Reuter's low German novel Ut mine Stromtid (first published in 1864) where we find the spelling Gören repeatedly, e.g. on p. 145 of the Reclam edition. In this group belong a considerable number cf other nouns, adjectives, and verbs, e.g. the following two items: die Raffe 'heap' in 1910 (p. 134), but called Haufen on the next page; die Teke 'counter (in a store)'8 in 1910 (p. 67 [in Basel]), but called Ladentisch on p. 74 of the same text. University of Pennsylvania

NOTES 1

Cf. the monograph (with bibliography) by Pio Fäßler; Zürich: Rascher, 1937. Jean Moser, Le roman contemporain en Suisse allemande. Lausanne: R. FreudweilerSpiro, 1934. Hans Bänziger, Heimat und Fremde. Ein Kapitel 'Tragische Literaturgeschichte' in der Schweiz. Bern: Francke 1958. Jakob Schaffner in Schweizer Lexikon VI (1948) 870. 2 The Alamannic character of this phrase is shown by E. Martin & H. Lienhart, Wörterbuch der elsässischen Mundarten II (Strassburg: K. J. Trübner, 1907) 476. Sprach-Brockhaus gives Schlötterlig as specifically Swiss (which I can confirm). 3 Jakob Escher-Bürkli, Wiesen und Matten in der Schweiz. Mit einer Tabelle und einer graphischen Darstellung. Neujahrsblatt auf das Jahr 1937. Zum Besten des Waisenhauses in Zürich herausgegeben von der Gelehrten Gesellschaft. Zürich: Kommissionsverlag Beer & Co, 1937. 4 Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, London July 3-8, 1966, p. 71. Cf. Ernst Erhard Müller, Wortgeschichte und Sprachgegensatz im Alemannischen; Bern: Francke, 1960. Moreover, cf. E. Martin & H. Lienhart, I.e., I (1899) 735; Schweizerisches Idiotikon. Wörterbuch der schweizerdeutschen Sprache bearbeitet von Fr. Staub und L. Tobler IV (Frauenfeld: J. Huber 1901) 548-551; Trübners Deutsches Wörterbuch IV (1942) 576 f. with bibliography. 5 Cf. also Schweizerisches Idiotikon III (1895) 368, and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch V (1873) 2684. Kunst is a regional synonym of Kachelofen. According to Schweiz. Idiot. I (1881) 109, the ancient furnishing of the houses consisted of only one stove which was in the living room, and this stove was called Ofen or Kachelofen. The Bernese author von Tavel, in Hugo Marti, Rudolf von Tavel, Leben und Werk (1936) p. 17, reminiscing about his childhood in his parental home of the seventies of the 19th century, speaks of the large dining room, 'das in der Rückwand einen mächtigen Kachelofen mit "Tritt" enthielt. Dieser Tritt war uns Wiege, Thron, Altar, Kanzel, Schaubühne, Burg ...' 6 Cf. Peter von Polenz, "Fremdwort und Lehnwort sprachwissenschaftlich betrachtet", Muttersprache. Zeitschrift für Pflege und Erforschung der deutschen Srpache. 77. Jahrgang (1967) 65-80, especially 67 f. 7 Cf. Paul Kretschmer, Wortgeographie der hochdeutschen Umgangssprache (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1918) 460-467. Trübners Deutsches Wörterbuch VI 8 (Samstag) and 406 f. (Sonnabend). According to p. 8 of the latter, a final decision in the battle of these two words cannot be expected for a long time. 8 I have heard this word in Springe-am-Deister (near Hannover) in 1925. In Duden*s Rechtschreibung, Sprach-Brockhaus, and in Gerhard Wahrig, Das große deutsche Wörterbuch (Gütersloh 1966) the word is spelled Theke.

'STYLE' AS CHAMELEON: REMARKS ON THE IMPLICATIONS OF T R A N S F O R M A T I O N A L GRAMMAR A N D GENERATIVE SEMANTICS FOR THE CONCEPT OF STYLE ELIZABETH CLOSS TRAUGOTT 'Style is the man', 'style is meaning', 'style is choice', 'style is deviance'. These and many another aphorism point to the chameleonlike quality of the concept of style. For most critics the concept of style is not the central element in a theory of literature, but rather an ancillary one, largely dependent for its definition on answers to such questions as 'What is my theory of meaning?' This dependency has long been recognized, but perhaps nowhere is it as clear as in literary analysis inspired by models of language. In these days when linguists are making claims that linguistic theory can offer support to literary analysis by providing both a formal linguistic description and a metalanguage, and when some linguists go so far as to claim that a theory of language necessarily embraces a theory of literature (Jakobson 1960, Saporta 1960), it is important that the nature of this dependency should be clearly recognized. Until the currently inconceivable time when one linguistic model is considered the only adequate one, linguistics cannot provide a definitive answer to the question 'What is style?', but different linguistic models can point to different issues in a theory of style, and vice versa different linguistic models can be used to support different preconceived notions about style. I will be concerned here with the implications for a definition of style of the various models of transformational generative grammar and its outgrowth, generative semantics, that have developed since the publication of Chomsky's Syntactic structures in 1957. First, however, it may be useful to outline the similarities and differences between transformational generative grammar and generative semantics (hereafter abbreviated as TGG and GS) and to sketch the kinds of attitudes to language that arise from the two theories. Both TGG and GS are 'generative' in that the grammar is defined as a device for specifying and predicting what is a possible well-formed ('grammatical') utterance in the language. Both are 'competence' grammars in that they are intended to account for the internalized

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knowledge that an idealized native speaker has which enables him both to understand and to create new sentences of the language. Particular utterances or texts are regarded merely as examples or particular manifestations of what a speaker can do; in uttering ä sentence, that is, in performing a linguistic act, a speaker presumably uses in part his linguistic competence, but he also uses much else, for example his knowledge of the world or of his addressee's state of mind. Where TGG and GS differ considerably is in the claims made about what the most important issues in competence are. TGG's claim, especially as developed by Chomsky (1965, 1972), is that the prime task of the linguist is to account for language acquisition. This leads to the postulation of a highly restricted class of possible grammars with many different kinds of levels. For example, it is claimed that there is an autonomous level, called the deep structure, where syntactic categories and their relations are specified and where all lexical insertion occurs. There is also a semantic component which is interpretive; this means that it scans syntactic strings and assigns readings to them. Among its tasks is the specification of anomaly, contradictoriness, paraphrase, presupposition, inference, and so forth (see especially Bierwisch 1970b). By contrast, the main claim of GS, especially as developed by G. Lakoff (1970b) and R. Lakoff (1971) is that the prime task of the linguist is to account for the internalized knowledge speakers of a language have that enables them to use language in appropriate contexts. The model of grammar associated with GS is very different from that associated with TGG since in GS the claim is made that the class of possible grammars is by no means as restricted as transformationalists argue. For example, according to GS, no sharp distinction justifying separate levels can be made between syntax, semantics and lexicon. The base is a logical, not a syntactic, structure (for details see especially McCawley 1970). Sets of derivations specify well-formed pairings of logical structures with surface forms and with classes of contexts in which the surface structures can be used. Hence rules of GS are derivations involving triples of the type: Logical structure) ^ Context )

_ . Surface form

In this they are quite different from the rules of a TGG which, though of various sorts (phrase structure rules, transformations, and semantic interpretation rules) are all pairings; for example, transformational rules are of the type: Structural description -»· Structure change

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Some of the differences between TGG and GS can be summarized in diagrams of the following sort: 2 Transformational grammar

Generative

semantics

The differences may be further clarified by brief discussion of two sentences, May we come in ? and You are a good linguist, the first of which has been analysed in detail in GS terms by Fillmore (1971). In TGG May we come in? would be considered fully grammatical syntactically, in terms of deep structure, transformations and phonological rules. Semantically it would be interpreted as well-formed (nonanomalous, non-contradictory, etc.). Furthermore, it would be pointed out in the semantic component that come entails that the speaker and addressee will be in proximity, and that may has performative function, that is, that it constitutes a request for an answer.3 In GS terms, however, the claim would be made that the string May we come in ? is well-formed only if certain interpersonal and situational conditions, usually called appropriateness conditions, apply. As Fillmore (1971) has shown, these conditions are of various types. Some operate within the sentence: an addressee is assumed present who is capable of granting the request, and it is assumed that the speaker is outside of something which he intends to be in (hence this question would normally be inappropriate uttered in the middle of an unfenced field). There are also 'beyond the sentence' appropriateness conditions: for example, the assumption of certain role relationships between speaker and addressee such that May we come in? asks for a permission to be granted, yet the answer Yes, you may, which is a permission and mirrors the grammatical structure of the question, is appropriate only if the answerer is in a situation of considerable authority; normally, the command form, Yes, come in, or such forms as Sure (which simply avoid the issue) are more appropriate, since in situations like these the command assumes less authority

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than the permission. Α GS model of English is intended to provide all this information. Similarly, in TGG You dre a good linguist would be interpreted by the semantic rules as implying sarcasm, because of the position of the stress. But in GS the stress pattern would be generated only given the right conditions for sarcasm. These are that (a) the speaker believes the proposition (in this case, You are a good linguist) to be false, (b) the speaker expects the addressee to have believed the proposition to be true prior to the time of the utterance, and (c) the speaker expects the addressee, on hearing the utterance, to realize he was mistaken in his belief.4 Note that You dre a good linguist but you don't believe it would be contradictory if it were sarcasm (the contradictoriness is specifiable only in terms of the assumptions discussed above); but it is perfectly well-formed as a sincere statement. This time the stress is predictable in terms of the speaker's belief in the truth of the proposition and of his belief that the addressee does not believe the proposition. These examples indicate that in GS terms grammaticality is a function, not of syntactic selectional features, but rather of the interrelationship between context and logical structure. CONTEXT and APPROPRIATENESS CONDITIONS are here to be understood to include the assumptions and expectations of speaker and addressee that make an utterance appropriate, particularly the speaker's beliefs about the propositions expressed (see especially Fillmore 1968; Gordon and G. Lakoff 1971; G. Lakoff 1969, 1970b; R. Lakoff 1971). The differences in emphasis between TGG and GS as sketched here clearly point to very different implications for a theory of style, yet we must not lose sight of the fact that there are also very significant similarities between the models, and that, therefore, they both promote the same broad principles of approach. Of essential importance to any investigation of the relationships of either TGG or GS to literary analysis is the fact that both are competence grammars. Genre theory in many respects has traditionally had much in common with the principles of competence grammar. It tries to establish the idealized patterns of comedy, tragedy, pastoral, lyric, epic, and so on, and it takes particular works as particular examples, many of them not perfectly grammatical (that is, not perfect matches to the idealized system). But when literary analysis is concerned with texts - and it is here that linguistic theory is most obviously useful since it is at this level that the language becomes all-important - the relevance of the principles of competence grammar are not so immediately obvious. Competence grammar does, never-

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theless, have considerable insight to offer, at least as far as the language of a text is concerned, for the grammarian will ask 'Can I establish a grammar for this literary text such that the text is a sample of the grammar as a whole?' (see especially Thorne 1967, 1970). This will force him to ask both what is possible and what is putative ly not possible in the grammar, in other words, what would be ungrammatical in a text. It will also encourage him to speculate how more text than is in the original data might be created. No implication is made that a linguist can show directly how the extralinguistic elements of a text, such as archetypal images, symbols, references to cultural phenomena such as musical, architectural, or artistic works, are patterned in the text. Nor is there any implication that only one grammar operates in a text. There may be two or more interrelated grammars. The point is only that the text is assumed to have one or more specifiable structures which exceed its own bounds. The grammar (or grammars) formalizing these structures is neutral to time. It is a kind of blue-print representing the totality of the abstract structure of a possible text. As such it theoretically exists independently of the reader and the reading experience, though of course it is discoverable only through them. Any view of literary analysis inspired by competence-grammar models will therefore be at a very far remove from the kind of affective criticism proposed by Riffaterre (1964) and particularly Fish (1970) that tries to recreate the reading experience and the line-by-line effect of a work on a reader. When the linguistic structure of a text differs from that of an idealized speaker of the language, the question naturally arises of whether to take the difference strictly as difference or as deviance. Thorne opts for the latter. This is a natural conclusion if we are working with a competence model, since we cannot be said to have the structure of a literary text internalized in our mind ahead of reading the text; what we do have is the capacity to grasp as a system another system based on our own. As Bierwisch (1970a:lll) says, some texts 'are only comprehensible in the light of the rule-system from which they deviate'. Another question that arises is whether the grammar should specify how grammatical patterns are grouped in a literary work. Most work on transformational grammar has been devoted to the sentence, not to discourse, and therefore can only begin to cope with this problem. Only generative semantics has made any real inroads into discourse, although it is still essentially sentence-based. Nevertheless, in the relatively early days of transformational grammar one interesting suggestion was made. Bierwisch (1970a) suggested that a grammar should specify literary, or

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as Bierwisch called it, 'poetic' competence. According to him, a grammar of a natural language should have attached to it a selectional Poetic Structure mechanism which determines how closely grammatical structures approximate to poetic regularities. This mechanism operates only on the output of the grammar of the native language. This means that a grammar will specify the linguistic structure of a text, including the degree and type of deviance, in terms of the native language, not in a unique text-grammar, and then the attached Poetic Structure grammar will specify how far the deviance approximates poetic devices on a scale of poeticality. As Bierwisch says, what exactly belongs in this Poetic Structure is an empirical question, but he takes as an example the notion of multiple relatedness as developed by Jakobson (I960). 5 Other candidates might be compression (Levin 1971), and the mimetic force of literature (Ohmann 1971a, 1971b). As a RECOGNITION GRAMMAR Bierwisch's Poetic Structure is interpretive. One can ask only how far a certain text fulfills the conditions specified. One cannot show that there is a close interrelation and dependency between Poetic Structure and grammar. In fact, the form of a work may in part determine the literary devices used, and both may determine the linguistic expression. This is most obvious in a highly constrained form like the sonnet, but is also true of every kind of literary work. 6 Toward the end of this paper I will suggest that a Poetic Structure component can and should play a more definitive role than Bierwisch suggests, and that it forms a natural part of a model of GS extended to account for discourse. Both T G G and GS are concerned with accounting for well-formedness, creativity, ambiguity, and so forth. They are not, however, concerned with probability. 7 So the types of grammars in question will only state that You may go is ambiguous, and why, but will make no claims that the permission interpretation is more probable. Nevertheless, literary analysis must take into account frequency and especially probability if it is to account for characteristics of a work or author. It is surely almost useless to say simply that Hemingway uses coordinate structures. He also uses all other kinds of structures available in English. In terms of competence grammar these facts would be given equivalent status. What we need to know is that coordinate structures are a key to Hemingway's writing and very frequent, so frequent that they take on a special character of their own. Or consider Eliot's 'Rhapsody on a windy night'. There are two subgrammars in this poem, one associated with the lamp, the other with the memory. What is important in the lamp's grammar is that action verbs and directional adverbs are so frequent as to take on

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special meaning: everything is in motion, even the corner of the woman's eye twists like a crooked pin. In the memory's grammar, however, there are static pictures expressed by nouns coupled with locative adverbials (female smells in shuttered rooms ... cocktail smells in bars) and this too imparts a special meaning to the concept of memory and even to what are usually grammatical action verbs, as in The reminiscence comes! Of sunless dry geraniums/ And dust in crevices. So most writers who assume that stylistics is part of grammar and who use the grammatical models in question have to add the notion of quantification, although it is not theoretically part of either TGG or GS. With these general issues in mind, we may now turn to the problem we started with: how can style be defined in terms of TGG and GS ? One possibility is to regard stylistics as the study of frequency distributions or regularities established in the text, whether deviant or not (Thorne 1965, 1970), or as the study of frequency distributions of structures that are deviant (Saporta 1960). So viewed, stylistics is strictly outside the domain of competence grammar; it is a study of performance, of how structures specified in the grammar are used in a text or by an author. Nevertheless, it is dependent on the competence grammar since the structures in question have to be generated by a grammar before they can be studied for their frequency distribution. In addition, stylistics may be concerned with passing judgments. One may describe a style as 'terse', 'compressed', or 'long-winded' by drawing conclusions concerning the effect of certain characteristics found in a text. Or, as more often happens, one may feel that a style is 'terse' and seek to find justification for this intuition in the rules of grammar. In either case, the judgment is again a matter of performance and outside the realm of the competence grammar, though dependent on it. The leap from a syntactically-based rule of TGG to such a judgment is often greater than is assumed; more motivation for the leap would seemingly be given by GS since the latter explicitly tries to accouut for the relationship between a structure and its appropriateness conditions; nevertheless, there is still no direct way to get from the facts of a competence grammar to the stylistic judgment. If we start with a competence model we can always view stylistics as essentially outside its domain. The really interesting question is whether stylistics can be defined, at least in part, within the grammar itself. Some attempts have been made to define style internally within grammar; others can well be imagined. Anyone familiar with work on stylistics inspired by TGG will probably recall most readily the claim

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made by Ohmann (1964, 1966) that style is choice. Although he talks about quantification, his main concern is with internal choice. A style to him is 'a way of doing if (1964:426). He sought at first (1964) to find a correlate for this axiom in Chomsky's Syntactic structures. Choice in this model being a function of optional transformations, Ohmann hypothesized that the optional rules of a TGG could provide both theoretical support for 'style is choice' and a formal representation of the intuitions we have of some basic similarity in meaning between such sentences as The wall-hanging looks eerie and Does the wall-hanging look eerie ? Two years later we find the same claim that style is choice (Ohmann 1966). But how radically different in conception! With an Aspects, or Standard Theory, model in mind, where can one speak of choice but in the deep structure, since transformations are now claimed to be meaning-preserving ?8 Choice can only be made in the base component: sentence type (declarative, interrogative, imperative, etc.), voice (active, passive), mood, aspect, and of course lexicon, are all open to choice; so are the various possibilities of recursion (derived by coordination and embeddings of various sorts). In Syntactic structures we found choice in optional transformations, hence in surface form; with Aspects choice is in categories and their relations, that is, in an abstract syntactic form that Ohmann hypothesizes may be identifiable with CONTENT. For him transformational rules, being obligatory, provide surface FORM. So 'style is choice' means 'style is choice of content (deep structure)'. But let it be noticed, this is syntactic content; it underlies semantic interpretation, true, in the sense that it is necessary and sufficient for it, but it is not semantic and has no relationship to the age-old equation of content with idea, form with expression. Indeed, it is actually FORM at a very abstract level. The utter dependency of a theory of style as choice on the grammatical model used, can be seen when we turn to Extended Standard Theory (Chomsky 1970). Once more transformational rules are permitted to change meaning. While it is possible still to assume that style is choice at the deep structure level, this is not a very interesting way of defining style since deep structure is no longer sufficient, though necessary, for semantic interpretation. So another, more appealing possibility looms - that stylistic choice resides in the choice of possible readings (semantic interpretations) of sentences. For example, Chomsky wishes to treat the ambiguity of sentences like We nearly sold our house as determined on the basis not of deep structure but of interpretive principles. It could be considered a matter of style that some authors use such ambiguities

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a lot, others not at all, or that some authors favor meaning-changing transformations, etc. Such a claim would be highly constrainted, since semantic properties that are not motivated by the deep structure and are therefore interpretable only from phonologically interpreted surface structure are very limited in type. They include domain (the domain of nearly in We nearly sold our house is either the initiation or the completion of the transaction), co-reference, and topicalization (e.g. the special emphasis given this book in This book I like); all can in fact ultimately be regarded as problems of domain. Syntactic categories and their relationships, however, are still all determined from deep structure. Extended Standard Theory therefore actually lends itself more readily to the definition of style as meaning than as choice. 'Style is meaning' has two interpretations. One is the weak interpretation favored by, for example, Beardsley (1958) and Wimsatt (1941). Beardsley (1958:224) speaks of style as 'detail, or texture of secondary meaning plus general purport'. 9 He allows that there is cognitive meaning, and then secondary, implicit meaning, only the latter is involved in style. Choice between implicit meanings, given the same cognitive meaning, is possible. Cognitive meaning is largely associable with deep structure, implicit meaning with the kind of semantic information derivable according to Extended Standard Theory from surface structure. If fully formulated, semantic interpretation rules that concern the multitudinous dimensions of domain, could provide critics like Beardsley with a valuable explicit theory on which to base stylistic analysis. Beside the weak theory of style as meaning there is the strong theory proposed by such critics as Croce (1922), namely that there is only one way of saying one thing, therefore 'style' is really a vacuous term; all there is is meaning. GS is the only linguistic model that might be used to support such a strong definition of style as meaning since it theoretically provides a unique set of derivations for each surface structure. Nevertheless, we are also free to speak, like Ohmann, of style as choice of content in GS, that is, of choice made at the abstractest level of the grammar. Let us be sure, if we do so, to remember that such a choice is choice of abstract logical structures and therefore quite different from the syntactic categories and relations that Ohmann (1966) regarded as content in 'Literature as sentences'. But GS opens v p for us far more possibilities than these initial comments might suggest. Since one of the primary goals of GS is the study of appropriateness conditions for the use of language, the GS model has far more relevance than the TGG model to such traditional concerns

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of literary criticism as 'point of view'. GS can help pinpoint the exact appropriateness conditions (including narrators' and characters' beliefs) used in any text, how they operate at different levels, and precisely where violations of the excepted norms occur. In the performance of writing, an author can make his narrator select various appropriateness conditions and so set up the type of reader he wants. In the performance of reading, the reader must examine the speaker's utterance and look for what is assumed, then match this with what he knows; if it is unknown, then he must decide whether to go along with the narrator in assuming the knowledge is shared or to reject the situation set up by the narrator. 10 The competence grammar, being neutral, will simply note what the assumptions operating are and what one has to accept for the utterances to be well-formed. While GS can help make explicit the various kinds of assumptions associated with naive, unreliable, jocular, or other types of narrator, it is still rather limited in its application since it is in principle based, like TGG, on the unit of the sentence. It is, however, a logical extension of GS to expand it to specify contexts of far greater dimensions than those associated with single sentences, or pairs of sentences such as question and answer. I would like to suggest here some of the areas in which an extension of GS to larger discourse, including discourse the length of an epic poem, drama, or a novel, could provide a formalization of appropriateness conditions that could be an invaluable tool for literary analysis. My proposals are all tentative, and put forward rather as suggestive comments that may inspire subsequent testing than as fully developed hypotheses. It has long been pointed out in literary analysis that author, narrator, and characters in a work are all to be differentiated. A serious study of narrative techniques and of author-narrator roles would, it seems to me, be informed by a study of the different kinds of linguistic appropriateness conditions associated with author, narrator, characters, etc., and of the interrelation between them, at the level of extended discourse. Ohmann (1971a, 1971b) has suggested that a defining characteristic of literature is the fact that it is mimetic; specifically, that the appropriateness conditions on the 'illocutionary' (performative) force of the speech act are suspended. Thus, 'a literary work purportedly imitates (or reports) a series of speech acts, which in fact have no other existence' (1971b: 14). Ohmann claims it is therefore irrelevant to Eberhart's poem containing the lines In June amid the golden fields,!I

saw

a

groundhog

lying dead, whether the / was Eberhart, whether he was an appropriate

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person to make such a statement (e.g., if he was blind he would not be), and whether golden fields and groundhogs actually were part of his experience. Such circumstances are simply not pertinent; the performative force is suspended, though one is invited to imagine such circumstances. One of the problems which Ohmann does not tackle is how one knows when the performative force is suspended. Despite Ohmann's claims to the contrary, it is impossible from the text to know for sure that the performative force is not suspended in Capote's In cold blood, and in Gibbon's Decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and that therefore neither of these works is literature. 11 Indeed, in a great number of works there is no definitive way of knowing whether suspension occurs or not. We must assume a work is literary and then all the rest follows; furthermore, we must assume the type of literature, for example prose or poetry. A model of discourse based on GS can capture this by formalizing among possible choices of contexts the availability of the appropriateness conditions for literary discourse. For a literary work to be well-formed, it must assume at least a speaker (the author) and an addressee (the audience),12 and perhaps some abstract performative which can be paraphrased as I hereby give you an imitation, I mimesis you, which will require that normal appropriateness conditions are suspended. Another necessary condition of a literary work is that the author quotes a narrator who tells a story, or else characters who act out the story, or some combination of these. One of the interesting things about the hypothesis that there is always an author who reports what a narrator says is that we can automatically predict from it the overall suspension of appropriateness conditions, and also that the author is neutral to what his narrator says. If the author wishes to come to the fore, or if he wishes to develop a narrator who is, for example, unreliable, the author will have to use special linguistic markings to indicate that he is asserting his presence instead of allowing it to be assumed, or that he has specific views and beliefs about the narrator. This follows from the fact that if 1 say The roof fell down, one of the appropriateness conditions is that I believe what I am saying; bu if I say Angus said the roof fell down, 1 am not assumed to belie\e what Angus said, only that he said something. It is only if I say something like Angus said the roof fell down but I don't believe him that my attitude to Angus' statement becomes relevant. Naturally, if the narrator is a first-person narrator and the author identifies himself with him, it follows that the same sort of neutrality about beliefs applies as in I said the roof fell down: the speaker believes he said something, but he does

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not necessarily have to believe either that he pronounced the phonetic string The roof fell down or that the roof did indeed collapse. It is not surprising that, in the absence of overt clues concerning author-narrator roles, ambiguity of point of view arises. The explanatory power of If author) say to you thai narrator said X is so great that it suggests that a special 'mimesis' performative such as the one suggested above is in fact not necessary. Given the suspension of appropriateness conditions on the author's report of what the narrator said, everything will be mimetic, yet within the narrator's account all the normal appropriateness conditions of indirect discourse apply. One of the sets of conditions operating will be those of the language of the time. Intersecting with them will be conditions of various modes of literary discourse, for example, the fairy tale, the charm, the epic, comedy, tragedy, the lyric, and these modes themselves will intersect in specific ways. In a GS extended to literary discourse, not only could the structure conditions of genre be specified, but also plot expectations. 13 Norms of plot structure would include specification of emphasis on events rather than on logical connectives, hence one could predict from the grammar what Shklovsky (,1968) calls the 'making strange' of the nuts and bolts of plot development in Sterne's Tristram Shandy as a violation - - a t least in literature up to the present century. (Grammars of literary discourse are as subject to historical change as grammars of any other kind of discourse.) Other aspects of literary discourse that could be specified include the various devices that Bierwisch (1970a) speculated should appear in the Poetic Structure mechanism of a grammar. The difference is that, unlike Bierwisch's Poetic Structure, which is a recognition device, the literary discourse structure I have outlined is generative; it can itself motivate the choice of linguistic derivations; it is central to the notion of textual grammaticality, rather than ancillary to it. Given the view of grammar sketched here, literary and nonliterary contexts are essentially separate systems, though some overlap may occur. Nonliterary discourse does not necessarily assume the existence of literary discourse, but the latter must assume the former. In a literary work both types of context form the restrictions on the appropriateness of the derivations of linguistic strings. Thus, in extending GS to include literary discourse, we get the following model:

'style' as chameleon Logical structure

Ν

181

^ ; 7 > Nonhterary discourse A \ /

Literary discourse Surface phonetic structure

The arrow from literary discourse to nonliterary is meant to indicate that sometimes the assumptions of literary context may override and neutralize those of nonliterary context. Thus it is normal in charms, fairy-tales, and allegory, for actions not to assume an animate actor, whereas in nonliterary discourse actions assume animate actors. While we no doubt have both systems in mind, we clearly do not think of sentences like The gingerbread cookie ran down the hill as violating our assumptions, provided we accept that a fairy-tale is involved. Many literary works play on the interrelationship between the appropriateness conditions of various types of discourse. One of the major devices in foregrounding or bringing attention to appropriateness conditions is to assert them or to deny them. This is precisely what is going on in Carroll's song, 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' in Alice in Wonderland.14 The first few lines read normally: The sun way shining on the sea. We assume day is being described; but then these assumptions are defied: And this was odd because it was the middle of the night. They are further shaken by The sea was wet as wet could be since asserting an assumption (in this case that the sea is wet) always casts doubt on the validity of the assumption. Then once more our assumptions are denied. No birds were flying overhead allows us to assume that some birds existed in the landscape, but then we are told There were no birds to fly. At this point the assumptions of fairy tale become dominant (a hint that this is fairy tale is given by the echo of the nursery rhyme 'As I was going to St. Yves' in If seven maids with seven mops ...). In such a world it is perfectly plausible for walrus and oyster alike to have human attributes, to walk, wear shoes, and so forth. But this world of assumptions is destroyed too: And this was odd because, you know, /They hadn't any feet. Both our worlds being knocked down we go on to construct another world, that of an allegory 15 in which the mighty deceive and destroy the weak. At the end, the allegorical world and the other two worlds are brought together by a reminder of the old refrain. But this time there is no denial of assumptions, only a direct invitation to belief: And this was

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scarcely odd, because/Theyyd eaten every one. While a GS model of this poem, being static, would not show the progression just described, it would state the interrelationship of the sets of assumptions, and would show how the assumptions of the nonliterary world are violated, while those in the literary world conflict: the assumptions of fairy-tale are violated, those of allegory are not. I propose, then, that, given a GS model, stylistics is the study of the set of choices of logical structure and appropriateness conditions made in a particular text (or in the works of a particular author), and of the unique interrelationship found in the text between all the elements chosen. It is also, inevitably, the study of the particular kinds of violations of appropriateness conditions, if any, in a work, and of the dependency of other choices on such violations. To this extent, stylistics is concerned with developing a grammar of a particular text or author, and comparing it with the totality of possible literary works at that period, or with other grammars of particular texts or authors, in much the same way as Thorne (1965, 1970) suggested, although the kinds of elements specified in the grammar are fundamentally different from the kinds Thorne assumed. In addition stylistics should consider what is foregrounded, that is, given special value in the text (see especially Mukarovsky 1964, Halliday 1971:339-345), and also what is established as a regularity in terms of quantification. In other words, according to the view proposed here, grammatical theory is concerned with characterizing all kinds of possible discourse along with general conditions for appropriate use, while stylistics is concerned with characterizing in terms of this global grammar the particular structure of a particular work. Stanford University

NOTES 1

Much of this work was inspired by a seminar on linguistics and literature that I taught at Stanford, Fall 1971. It has profited enormously from comments and suggestions made by Naomi Baron, John Traugott, and all the participants of the seminar, especially Layeh Bock, Carol Farwell, Ann Holmquist, and Mary Pratt. 2 The TGG model used here is based on Chomsky 1972 (the model known as Extended Standard Theory). 3 For discussion of performatives see especially Austin 1962, Ross 1970, Searle 1969, and Traugott 1972. 4 If the addressee continues in his hubris, then he will have violated only the last of the appropriateness conditions, though he may have understood the purport of the utterance.

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5

Multiple relatedness or COUPLING as Levin (1964) calls it, is defined by Jakobson as the projection of 'the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection into the axis of combination' (Jakobson 1960:358); in other words, parallel structures which potentially form a paradigmatic set on two or more levels of the grammar are arranged sequentially (syntagmatically), e.g., in Whitman's Ί sing the body electric' we find parallel sentence-structure, parallel lexicon, and parallel phonological structure: The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,/That of the male is perfect, I That of the female is perfect. Analysis is based on the principle of multiple relatedness as exemplified particularly well in Jakobson and Levi-Strauss (1960). 6 The dependency of language and of the principle of multiple relatedness on genre is unfortunately not fully acknowledged in Jakobson and Levi-Strauss 1960. 7 The notion of markedness is, however, used to account for 'normal' as opposed to 'special' structure in phonology and also syntax (e.g. G. Lakoff 1970a: 134-143). 8 A few optional transformations remain, such as those that account for Look up the word, Look the word up, but these are considered to be meaning-preserving. 9 This is largely what Ohmann (1966) calls RHETORIC, not style. 10 The more the appropriateness conditions remain unexpressed, the freer the reader is to read as he wishes, but the more they come to be asserted, the more he is limited and confined, as in Balzac's Pire Goriot. 11 It is interesting to note in this connection that in his 'Essay on the study of literature', Gibbon made it clear that he thought he WAS writing literature. 12 Like any appropriateness condition, this one can be asserted, as happens particularly often in modern novels when the author steps forward and speaks. 13 One of the first attempts to use TGG in literary analysis (G. Lakoff 1964) was concerned with developing a grammar of precisely the kinds of structure indicated here, in this case the structure of folk-tales. 14 I owe this example to Carol Farwell. 15 Allegory itself is presumably largely definable in terms of layers of assumptions about the speaker's and hearer's concepts of the range of possible worlds.

REFERENCES Austin, J. L. 1962. How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Beardsley, Monroe. 1958. Aesthetics; problems in the philosophy of criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. Bierwisch, Manfred. 1970a. Poetics and linguistics. Linguistics and literary style, ed. by D. C. Freeman, 96-115. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. (Originally Poetik und Linguistik. Mathematik und Dichtung, ed. by Η. Kreuzer and R. Gunzenhäuser. Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1965.) Bierwisch, Manfred. 1970b. Semantics. New horizons in linguistics, ed. by J. Lyons, 166-84. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton. Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Chomsky, Noam. 1972. Some empirical issues in the theory of transformational grammar. Studies in semantics in generative grammar, 120-202. The Hague: Mouton. Croce, Benedetto. 1922. Aesthetic, trans, by D. Ainslie. New York: MacMillan. Fillmore, Charles J. 1968. Types of lexical information. (Working Papers in Linguistics 2.) Ohio State University. (Also in Studies in syntax and semantics, ed. by F. Kiefer, 109-37. New York: Humanities Press, 1970. And in Semantics, ed. by D. Steinberg and L. Jakobovits, 370-92. London: Cambridge Univers Press, 1971.)

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Fillmore, Charles J. 1971. Deixis. Lectures given at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Summer Program. Mimeo. Fish, Stanley. 1970. Literature in the reader; affective stylistics. New literary history 2.123-62. Gordon, David, and George Lakoff. 1971. Conversational postulates. Papers from the seventh regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 63-84. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Halliday, Μ. A. K. 1971. Linguistic function and literary style; an inquiry into the language of William Golding's The Inheritors. Literary style; a symposium, ed. by S. Chatman, 330-65. London: Oxford University Press. Jakobson, Roman. 1960. Linguistics and poetics. Style in language, ed. by Th. Sebeok, 350-77. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Jakobson, Roman, and Claude Levi-Strauss. 1960. Les Chats de Charles Baudelaire. L'Homme 2.5-21. LakofT, George. 1964. Structure above the sentence level. Paper delivered at the LS A Summer Meeting, Indiana University. —. 1969. Presuppositions and relative grammaticality. Studies in philosophical linguistics 1.103-116. —. 1970a. Irregularity in syntax. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. —. 1970b. Linguistics and natural logic. Synthese 22.151-271. —. 1971. On generative semantics. Semantics, ed. by D. Steinberg and L. Jakobovits, 232-96. London: Cambridge University Press. Lakoff, Robin. 1972. Language in context. Language 48.907-27. Levin, Samuel. 1964. Linguistic structures in poetry. The Hague: Mouton. —. 1971. The analysis of compression in poetry. Foundations of Language 7.38-55. McCawley, James D. 1970. Syntactic and logical arguments for semantic structures. Lectures given at the Fifth International Seminar on theoretical linguistics, Tokyo. Mukarovsky, Jan. 1964. Standard language and poetic language. A Prague school reader on esthetics, literary structure and style, ed. P. Garvin, 17-69. (Originally Jazyk spisovny a jazyk bäsnicky. Spisovnä öestina a jazykovä kultura. Prague, 1932.) Ohmann, Richard. 1964. Generative grammars and the concept of literary style. Word 20.423-439. —. 1966. Literature as sentences. College English 27.161-267. —. 1971a. Speech, action, and style. Literary style; a symposium, ed. by S. Chatman, 241-4. London: Oxford University Press. —. 1971b. Speech acts and the definition of literature. Philosophy and rhetoric 4.1-19. Riffaterre, Michael. 1964. The stylistic function. Proceedings of the Ninth international congress of linguists, ed. by H. Lunt, 316-22. The Hague: Mouton. Saporta, Sol. 1960. The application of linguistics to the study of poetic language. Style in language, ed. by Th. Sebeok, 82-93. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Searle, John R. 1969. Speech acts; an essay in the philosophy of language. London: Cambridge University Press. Shklovsky, Viktor. 1968. A parodying novel; Sterne's Tristram Shandy. Laurence Sterne; a collection of critical essays, ed. by J. Traugott, 66-89. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall Inc. Thorne, James P. 1965. Stylistics and generative grammars. Journal of linguistics 1.49-59. —. 1970. Generative grammars and stylistic analysis. New horizons in linguistics, ed. by J. Lyons, 185-97. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1972. A history of English syntax. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

FATE A N D CHOICE IN MALORY'S A R T H U R I A N T R A G E D Y * ROBERT H. WILSON

Malory's final Arthurian story, The most piteous tale of the morte Arthur saunz guerdon (Malory 1967:1 lSSflF.)»1 is indeed an appeal for sympathy. Gawain, Lancelot, and Guenevere (never Arthur) have guilt feelings near the end, but during most of the narrative, all think of themselves, and the narrator thinks of them, as victims — of limited knowledge, of accident or 'unhap', of Destiny and Fortune. At the start we are told, 'Hit befelle in the moneth of May a grete angur and unhappe that stynted nat tylle the floure of chyvalry of alle the worlde was destroyed and slayne' (1161). In breaking out of the trap which Agravain set for the lovers, Lancelot kills him and all his knights except Mordred, who flees (1168). Later, rescuing the Queen, he kills many knights in the crowd. Gareth and Gaheris he slew 'unarmed and unwares', and the narrator calls it a misfortune (1177). Lancelot gives this interpretation to both events: 'Alas, that ever 1 was so unhappy ... that I had nat seyne sir Gareth and sir Gaherys!' (1189), and later, 'In an unhappy owre was I born that ever 1 shulde have that myssehappe to sie firste sir Gawayne, sir Gaherys, the good knyght, and myne owne frynde sir Gareth ... And yet, alas, myght I never have hap to sie that traytoure, sir Mordred!' (1249). When Lancelot is exiled, he complains, 'Fortune ys so varyaunte, and the wheele so mutable, that there ys no constaunte abydynge' (1201), and when he returns to England after Arthur's last battle, 'We ar com to late, and that shall repente me whyle I lyve, but ayenste deth may no man rebell' (1251). He means primarily that the dead cannot be brought back to life, but also suggests that we live in a world where death is inevitable. And when Bedevere reports Arthur's death, 'Syr Launcelottes hert almost braste for sorowe, and sir Launcelot threwe hys armes abrode, and sayd, "Alas! Who may truste thys world?'" (1254). After Arthur's dream of Fortune's wheel, Gawain in a vision had told him he would be killed if he fought in the morning. A truce was agreed

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upon, but a knight at the final conference, drawing his sword to kill a snake, 'thought none othir harme'. His action precipitated battle, 'And kynge Arthur toke hys horse and seyde, «Alas, this unhappy day!'" (1233-35). Lucan calls it 'thys wycked day of Desteny' (1237). In apparent contradiction to this stress on external causes is the interpretation advanced by Vinaver 1947, 1967: xciii-xcix, 1621-26, developed further by Lundie 1966 and Brewer 1968:23-35, that disaster grows out of the deepest emotions of the characters themselves. They are involved in a conflict of two loyalties: of knight to lady, of knight to king and family and feudal companion. These good motives drive them to harmful actions ~ sometimes, it is apparently suggested, after internal struggle — until their lives and the kingdom have been ruined. But the closer one looks at the emotional conflicts, the less doubt he sees about what any character will do, which might disturb tragic inevitability. Only, the alternative motive provides a contrast to bring out the strength of the dominating one. Thus, at the end of the last battle, Arthur wants vengeance on Mordred. 'Gyff me my speare ... for yondir 1 have aspyed the traytoure that all thys woo hath wrought.' 'Sir, latte hym be', answers Lucan, arguing that vengeance can be accomplished safely later. But in instant response, '"Now tyde me dethe, tyde me lyff", syde the kyng, "now I se hym yondir alone, he shall never ascape myne hondes! For at a bettir avayle shall I never have hym.'" And Bedevere says, 'God spyede you well!' (1236-37). There seems little doubt that Arthur's choice is the brave and moral one, and Bedevere is speaking for Malory. Yet putting into our minds the 'practical' alternative makes Arthur's nobility in rejecting it more emphatic. In other scenes it is the same. When a character decides between two courses of action, he does not agonize in hesitation. Ethically or psychologically, one alternative is obviously preferable, and the choice is made rapidly. Other characters can tell what it will be. Or at times only one course seems possible, and there is no decision at all. Once events are under way, people lament what is going on, but cannot imagine halting it. They are victims; or if they have free will, it is in the sense that they are doing what they want to, yet they could not have wanted differently and are therefore enmeshed in a sort of fate after all.2 The love of Lancelot and Guenevere has been a 'given' all through Malory's account, and at the start of the final tale, her summons to Lancelot to visit her while the King has gone hunting is not reported, like a significant decision, but just referred to by Lancelot. The motives

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attributed to him in answering her call are loyalty, that he will do what his lady has commanded, and bravery, that he will not shrink from the danger of a trap. Failure to follow either one would be out of character (1164-65). That he fights Agravain and Mordred and their men, instead of letting himself be taken prisoner, is equally automatic. The lovers do make one decision, but without much effort. Says Guenevere, when the knights first appear, Ί dred me sore oure longe love ys com to a myschyvus ende.' Lancelot, before going to fight, is surer, 'Hit ys so that the day ys com that oure love muste departe', and after he has overcome his enemies, 'All oure trew love ys brought to an ende, for now wyll kyng Arthur ever be my foo.' He suggests taking her with him, but she refuses on the ground that if she is not sentenced to death, there need be no more fighting. She is ready to be a loveless wife, and Lancelot's phrasing, Ί shall save you frome all maner adventures daungers', may imply that they would not have lived together, and when he later took her to Joyous Garde, they did not (1165-68, cf. 1195,1202). The judicial and military story has similar decisions without a real alternative. Once Agravain presents the scandal to Arthur, the King must proceed; to have Lancelot caught 'with the dede' is the only way to answer an appeal for justice if the charge is true (1163). When Agravain and his knights have been killed, Lancelot and his friends know there will be war and the Queen will be condemned (1169, 1171-72). The King, with his honor as a monarch offended, does not listen to Gawain's plausible arguments for Lancelot. 'Now hit ys fallen so ... that I may nat with my worshyp but my quene muste suffir dethe' (1174-75). When Lancelot kills Gareth and Gaheris, he knows what the results will be (1199), and so does Arthur: 'The deth of them woll cause the grettist mortall warre that ever was, for ... whan sir Gawayne knowyth hereoff that sir Gareth ys slayne, I shall never have reste of hym tyll I have destroyed sir Launcelottys kynne and hymselff bothe, othir ellis he to destroy me' (1183). But Arthur's words, and later statements by the narrator that the King would have been accorded with Lancelot except for Gawain (1190, 1194) could be taken as information about Arthur himself only by seeing him as a more vacillating character than the story indicates. In fact, he plans vengeance against Lancelot before Gawain has given him much urging (1185), and when he is besieging Joyous Garde, he announces to Lancelot, Ί am thy mortall foo and ever woll to my deth-day; for thou haste slayne my good knyghtes ... Also thou haste layne be my quene

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and ... taken her away fro me by fors' (1187). Gawain in his wrath merely voices what vengeance inevitably demands of the King. And after Lancelot's generosity during the siege brings Arthur to tears that 'ever yet thys warre began', he does not think about stopping it until the Pope intervenes (1192-94). When Arthur has taken his Queen back and pursued Lancelot to the continent, Gawain's driving influence is indeed given more stress. A message from Lancelot proposing peace seems to bring the King close to decision, but then his words to Gawain imply that he is committed: 'Mesemyth ... hys fayre proffers were nat good to be reffused. But sytthyn I am com so far uppon thys journey, I woll that ye gyff the damesell her answere, for I may nat speke to het for pit6.' Gawain echoes him, 'Sey ye to sir Launcelot that hyt ys waste laboure now to sew to myne uncle. For ... hit ys to late' (1213). Before Benwick, when Gawain is badly wounded, Arthur again laments that the war began, and falls sick for sorrow. His men do a minimum of fighting. But the King takes no step toward peace (1218). Lancelot, when he and Guenevere were trapped, promised to rescue her if she was condemned; and when he returned to his friends, told them, 'Now ys warre comyn to us all' (1168-69). Nevertheless, we are given the drama of a scene in which he and his friends consider what to do if she is sentenced. It would be shameful, they feel, if he did not save her, since she would be burned for his sake. He and his friends agree in almost identical words, with no hesitation, even though the conversation covers nearly two pages. Lancelot also forecasts that in the rescue, Ί must do much harme ... and peradventure I shall there destroy som of my beste fryndis.' But this painful likelihood does not make him pause. Without waiting for a reply, he goes on to the question of how he can keep the Queen if he takes her (1171-72). Once the rescue is undertaken, the death of his friends comes inevitably, or at least by the chance of which knights he and his followers strike. The moral defense which Lancelot offers, to cover this and earlier killings, is: Ί was forced to do batayle with hem' and 'So ded I never but in my deffence, that I was dryven thereto in savyng of my lyff' (1177, 1188, 1190). The alternative of losing his life, like a martyr, would not be part of the profession of arms. During the wars, he can properly adopt a defensive posture, under siege. At Joyous Garde, he refuses to come out against the King until honor, moved by the insults of Gawain and the appeals of his friends, leaves him no choice. 'Than muste I nedys unto batayle.' But he still orders

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his knights to spare Arthur and Gawain individually (1187, 1190-91). In the fighting, Arthur in person attacks Lancelot, who forbears him. Bors de Ganis, representing the law of self-preservation, strikes down the King, draws his sword, and says to Lancelot, 'Sir, shall I make an ende of thys warre?' "'Nat so hardy," seyde sir Launcelot ... "For I woll never se that moste noble kynge that made me knyght nother slayne nor shamed"' (1192). It is a dramatic choice between two motives, yet Lancelot's instant decision only carries out his earlier policy. In Benwick he again stands siege, then sallies for honor at Gawain's challenge to single combat. Ί wote as wel as ye,' Lancelot concedes, Ί muste nedys deffende me, other ellis to be recreaunte.' And he says to Arthur, Ί muste deffende myselff, insomuch as sir Gawayn hathe becalled me of treson; whych ys gretly ayenste my wyll ... but ... I am dryven thereto as beste tylle a bay' (1211-12, 1215-16). Fight Gawain he does, and defeats him, but will not kill him; his reason: 'Wyte thou well, sir Gawayne, I woll never smyte a felde knyght.' So he has no choice but to let Gawain recover, and Gawain has no choice but to challenge him again with the same result. They could only have waited until a third battle - symbols of the imprisonment of all the major characters by circumstance and their own natures—except that a completely external cause, in Mordred's rebellion, turns the story toward full catastrophe, to complete the work of Fate (1216-27). The University of Texas at Austin

NOTES * This is a short version of a paper entitled 'The Arthurian tragedy in Malory' read by Professor Wilson as one of a series of lectures delivered during the spring semester 1972 at the University of Texas at Austin in honor of Professor Hill. 1 All subsequent references in parentheses are to pages in this edition; and Malory quotations are taken from it, without reproducing the brackets which indicate differences from the Winchester MS. 2 See Frappier 1969: 1011-14, 1021-22, for an analysis of how in one of Malory's sources, the Mort Artu, fate is related to the limitation of the characters' choices by their own noble natures.

REFERENCES Brewer, D. S., ed. 1968. The Morte darthur parts seven and eight. London: Edward Arnold; Evanston: Northwestern.

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Frappier, Jean. 1969. La bataille de Salesbieres. Melanges offerts ä Rita Lejeune 2.1007-1023. Gembloux: Duculot. Lundie, R. S. 1966. Divided allegiance in the last two books of Sir Thomas Malory. Theoria 26.93-111. Malory, Thomas. 1967. The works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. by Eugene Vinaver. 2nd ed. in 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. The critical comments are almost identical in the 1st ed. of 1941 but are paged lxxviii-lxxxv, 1606-1612.)

SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS

SAMUEL JOHNSON: O R I G I N A T O R OF U S A G E LABELS HAROLD B. ALLEN

In the initial planning stage of a modern dictionary not the least important policy decision is the answer to 'What are we going to do about usage labels?' There are various subordinate questions such as 'What labeling terms shall we use ?' and 'How specific should be the reference of regional labels?', but the crucial issue is this: 'Should usage labels reflect quantitative evidence or subjective attitudes?' It may be put also like this: 'Should our usage labels be descriptive or prescriptive?' The term usage label is itself ambiguous, and its meanings represent the two diverse answers to that issue. Usage 1 would define as the relationship between any linguistic feature and the context in which it typically occurs. Such a feature may be one of pronunciation or spelling, morphological variation, syntactic use, or meaning. The student of usage determines that relationship on the basis of as much sound quantitative evidence as he can muster. A linguistic geographer, for example, can say that 87 percent of a selected sample of older and uneducated speakers in a certain region use a certain word, but that only 18 percent of the younger college graduates use it. A dictionary editor can add this fact to other evidence, perhaps some in his vast collection of citation slips, and find justification for applying the label Archaic or Old-fashioned as a usage label. His dictionary's policy is that the label is essentially descriptive. Another dictionary editor can rely instead upon his own opinion, or the opinions of various selected individuals who report to him their reactions to a language feature. A usage label so based represents, then, an opinion, single or collective, and presumably authoritative, about usage. It reflects an attitude toward usage and not usage itself. The policy of such an editor's dictionary is that the label is essentially prescriptive. These contrasting policies have become familiar to dictionary-users through the recent furor over the Merriam- Webster Third New International Dictionary[{ 1961). By the middle of the nineteenth century the newscholarly insights into the nature of language had led to the development

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of the thesis stated by Richard C. Trench in his On some deficiencies in our English dictionaries (1857) that the job of a maker of a dictionary is that of a historian of language, not that of a critic. This viewpoint was that of the editors of the New English Dictionary, soon (1858) to be launched and later to be renamed the Oxford English Dictionary; and it strongly influenced the editors of later commercial dictionaries. The Second edition of Webster's New International Dictionary in 1934 frankly identified its position as that of a 'faithful recorder and interpreter' of 'the best present usage', and it disavowed any attempt 'to dictate what that usage should be'. The Third Edition consistently adhered to this principle with what, in an effort to avoid ambiguity, it called its 'status labels'. The section 'Explanatory notes' (§8) comments: Ά status label in italics sometimes appears before a definition. It provides a degree of usage orientation by identifying the character of the context in which a word ordinarily occurs.' The almost violent initial reaction to this continued Merriam-Webster descriptivism, detailed in Dictionaries and that Dictionary (1962) by James H. Sledd and Wilma R. Ebbitt, found relief when prescriptivism appeared as the touchstone in the American Heritage Dictionary (1969). In this work, intended for people seeking to be told what to use, the usage labels are chosen to direct rather than only to inform. Words about which some differences of opinion exist have been subjected to a poll of a 'usage panel' of about one hundred members, described in a prefatory article by Morris Bishop as 'professional writers who have demonstrated their sensitiveness to the language and their power to wield it effectively and beautifully'. It was not, however, their own use of language, effective or otherwise, that was reported in the poll of this panel. It was rather their attitudes that were tallied, a fact that does not necessarily have close correlation with their personal practice. In responding to the poll, as Bishop frankly acknowledges, the panel members 'revealed, often with passion, their likes and dislikes, their principles, and also their whims and crotchets'. As a matter of fact, he adds, 'many of them revealed, on particular questions, an attitude more reminiscent of Dr. Johnson than of the modern linguistic view; they tend to feel that the English language is going to hell if "we" don't do something to stop it, and they tend to feel that their own usage preferences are clearly right.' The reference to Samuel Johnson is perhaps more apt than Bishop intended, for a study of the dictionaries before Johnson's great work of 1755 strikingly lays upon him the onus - or honor — of having invented

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the usage label. For him, of course, it was a handy device for encapsulating language 'whims and crotchets'; not until a century later did it become a vehicle for epitomizing objective evidence. Efficient as this device has proved to be in modern lexicography, it is curious that its origin has been largely ignored. Much has been written in praise of Johnson's two contributions to lexicography — his definitions and his illustrative quotations ~ but even the most complete treatise yet written, Dr. Johnson's Dictionary (1955) by James H. Sledd and Gwin J. Kolb, slights Johnson's role as creator of the usage label. The first workers in the field of English lexicography, the compilers of bilingual and polylingual dictionaries, were content to present verbal and phrasal equivalents in the languages treated. This practice is found in all such works from Galfridus's Promptorium Vocabulorum of 1440 to Cotgrave's French-English dictionary of 1611. This practice obtains also in the work of the first compilers of monolingual English dictionaries, Robert Cawdrey's little A Table Alphabeticall in 1604 and John Bullokar's Expositor of Hard Words in 1616. But in Henry Cockeram's English Dictionarie in 1623 there appeared for the first time at least meager indication of editorial attitude. This dictionary actually consisted of two volumes. In the first the established tradition was followed, but in the rare '2d Booke' Cockeram admitted to having 'inserted ... even the mocke-words which are ridiculously used in our language ... and the fustian termes, used by too many who study rather to bee heard speake, than to understand themselves'. Cockeram did not, however, identify the specific words which he had thus included. His successor, Thomas Blount, was equally vague. Although in his Glossographia of 1656 he complained that men 'affect novelty in speech' and that 'there is presumptuous and far-fetching of words', he did not condemn neologisms in general and, indeed, declared that new words often enrich the language. He stigmatized no specific words as undesirable. It remained for John Milton's nephew, Edward Phillips, to take the next step toward editorial prescriptiveness. In his New World of English Words in 1658 he, like Blount, acknowledged that some borrowed words are acceptable, and at the same time he offered to the reader of the Preface the general admonition to 'fly all Pedantismes' and to avoid 'certain kinds of Mule-words propagated of a Latin Sire, and a Greek Dam, such as Acrilogie, Aurigraphy, and others eiusdem farinae\ But Phillips went on farther to become the first English dictionary-maker to indicate within a general lexicon those words that he thought the reader should not accept. This he did by stigmatizing such entries with a preceding

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obelisk (f). In a representative sample consisting of the words in A, B, M, and T, comprising about one-sixth of the total lexicon in his work, Phillips marked, however, only the following twenty-two words: abannition alutation applombature agamist ambilogy appuyed agelastic anabathrum magnality alliency anacrisis manutention allocation anagogical mendaciloquent altiloquent antigraph mirabile altitonant apepsie apotheke altivolant It is noteworthy that no stigmatization occurred in letters Β or T, a circumstance likely due to the lower proportion of classically derived words beginning with those letters. Also noteworthy is the fact that the corresponding sections in the fourth edition of 1678 contained only twenty-two daggered words and fifth edition of 1696 only ten, with almost no overlap among the various editions. Phillips's admonition appeared verbatim in Cocker's Dictionary of 1704, where Phillips's entire preface was reprinted baldly over the name of John Hawkins, who prepared the manuscript for the press after Cocker's death; but the dictionary itself contained no marked words. Cocker's example was followed in 1708 by Elisha Coles, whose dictionary actually contained, without an obelisk, some terms blacklisted by Phillips, and also included even some 'Canting Terms' because, as Coles remarked to the reader, 'Some knowledge of them may serve to save your Throat from being cut, or your Pocket from being pick'd.' In the meantime a posthumous edition of Phillips's dictionary, the sixth, had appeared in 1706 with John Kersey as editor. In the preface Kersey refrained from animadversions against any words, but the dictionary itself continued - without explanation to the reader ~ Phillips's use of the obelisk. In the representative sample of letters Α, Β, M, and Τ there appear twenty-nine marked words. In Kersey's own book, the Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum of 1708, the same practice occurs. Kersey used the obelisk to distinguish thirty-three animadverted words in Α, Β, M, and T, mostly terms of classical origin such as arctation, mucosity, mussitation, and titubation. An apparent but explicable ambivalence characterized the actions of Nathan Bailey, greatest of the dictionary-makers before Johnson. His first production, The Universal Etymological English Dictionary of 1721 was free of any marked words. The second edition in 1727 was accom-

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panied by a curious second volume, which had two parts. The first was simply a supplement to the first volume, with additional lexical entries. The second, designated 'An Orthographical Dictionary', was described thus: 'Shewing both the Orthography and the Orthoepia of the English Tongue, by I. Accents placed on each word, directing to their true Pronunciation. II. Asterisms, distinguishing those words of approv'd Authority from those that are not.' He then noted that words lacking approved authority for literary use will be marked by an obelisk. The obelisk then is applied to no fewer than 52 words in the letter A, 67 in B, 14 in M, and 36 in T, a total of 169 in our selected sample, by far the largest number yet found. Yet this venture into prescriptivism in a special dictionary was rejected by Bailey as a precedent for his following general work. His chef d'ceuvre, the folio Dictionarium Britannicum of 1730, contains no designations of any kinds stigmatizing words as unworthy of use in any context. Diversity of practice appeared in the few remaining lesser dictionaries published before Johnson's. Thomas Dyche's New General English Dictionary, completed by William Pardon in 1740, was noncommittal about vocabulary entries. Benjamin Martin's Lingua Britannica Reformat a of 1749 reverted to Phillips's device of the telltale obelisk, with twenty-two such marked words in the Α, Β, M, and Τ touchstone sections. These words, incidentally, differed from those in preceding lists in that many of them were nonclassical, such as belated, belay, bestead, and thumping. And Martin objected to the now familiar timidl Before Johnson, then, two divergent practices existed with respect to the overt expression of editorial attitude toward individual words in the lexicon. The older practice, somewhat consistent with the aim of listing only the 'hard words' of the language, was that of apparent objectivity, what might be called a zero expression of attitude, marked by the simple presentation of words with their definitions. This is what Bailey followed in his folio of 1730, an interleaved copy of which served as the basis for vocabulary of Johnson's dictionary. The other practice was that of using an obelisk or similar typographical symbol to single out terms considered unworthy, particularly in literary writing. This was the practice of Phillips, whose dictionary also served Johnson as a model. Such obelisked words were usually of classical origin; and it is significant that the index expurgatorius was not the same for any two editors or even for any two editions of the same dictionary. To anyone familiar with Johnson's role in the history of literary criticism Johnson's choice of Phillips's overt practice would be predictable

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even without the clear promise of such a choice in the Preface he wrote for his Dictionary of the English Language in 1755. There he wrote that he had introduced foreign words only to censure them; and though recognizing the fact of linguistic change he described 'illiterate writers, ... who, not knowing the original import of words, will use them with colloquial licentiousness, confound distinctions, and forget propriety'. Johnson did, indeed, follow the lead of Phillips in exercising editorial prerogative to reveal his own attitude, but no inference from the prefatory statement quite prepares one for the actual situation disclosed in a word-by-word examination of Johnson's two bulky folios. Not only did he generously allow himself the privilege of adjuging a greater number of words than did any of his predecessors, but also he revolutionized judgmental indication by replacing the categorical obelisks or asterisks with verbal usage labels. Although the 41, 443-word vocabulary in Johnson's Dictionary is approximately that of its immediate forerunners, Johnson's stigmatized terms outnumber those in earlier works. The previous maximum in the sample sections of a regular dictionary was only thirty-three in the 1708 Kersey; the maximum in a special list was 169 in the second volume of the 1727 Bailey. In the corresponding portions of Johnson's, however, the total is 285. In the entire dictionary there actually appear more than 1,150 words bearing indications of Johnson's personal attitude toward them, roughly one in forty, or about two and one-half percent. But what is remarkable is not the increase in the total of stigmatized words; it is Johnson's innovation of usage labels. And since he criticized some words for more than one reason, the grand total of his separate judgments about words reaches the surprising figure of 1,417! Most of these judgments he set forth in the form of frequently used verbal labels, although occasionally he allowed himself to make a full usage statement. The label words, expressions of his linguistic censure, number more than one hundred. They expand greatly the area of linguistic criticism, for besides the familiar objections to hybridization and 'fustian', Johnson reacted as well to matters of meaning, spelling, pronunciation, morphology, and syntax. The most generally recurring label is 'proper' or 'not proper', which (if derived 'improper', 'properly', 'improperly', 'propriety', and 'impropriety' are included) Johnson used precisely 300 times as a castigating epithet. The meaning 'hurtful', 'injurious', or 'detrimental' is an 'improper' sense of the word prejudicial, Johnson said; and, despite his illustrative quotations from Bacon, Cowley, Dryden, and Prior, to-day,

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to-night, and to-morrow are 'not properly [used] as substantives'. What Johnson signified here by 'proper' may be inferred from senses 5 and 6 of his own treatment of the word: '5. Fit; accommodated; adapted; suitable; qualified. 6. Exact; accurate; just.' The opprobrious label 'low' Johnson affixed as a badge of shame to no fewer than 217 words. Pope's use of cathedral in the line 'Here aged trees cathedral walks compose' is 'low'. Job is a 'low word now much in use', Johnson complained, while at the same time supporting its use with quotations from Arbuthnot, Pope, and Swift. The adverb latterly is a 'low word lately hatched'. For Johnson low meant, according to his own definitions 13, 14, and 15 in the Dictionary: '13. Not elevated in rank or station; abject. 14. Dishonourable; betokening meanness of mind; as low tricks. 15. Not sublime; not exalted in thought or diction'. Ninety-four words are 'corrupt', 'corrupted', 'corruptions', or 'corruptly used'. Extremest is 'corrupted' by the redundant expression of the superlative with -est. Draft is 'corrupt' for 'draught'. To Johnson corrupt meant 'Vitious; tainted with wickedness; without integrity'. Ninety-three words are labeled 'cant', which he apparently used opprobriously regardless of which of his three senses is applied: Ί . A corrupt dialect used by beggars and vagabonds. 2. A particular form of speaking peculiar to a certain class or body of men. 3. Barbarous jargon.' Slim he so classified, and he protested against Addison's use of it in the phrase 'a slim young girl'. 'Barbarous' or 'barbarism' Johnson applied thirty-eight times to show his disapproval. Dissunder, he reasoned, is 'barbarous' because in it, as in dissever, dis- adds no new idea. He then took illustrations from the writings of Chapman, Sidney, Raleigh, Shakespeare, and Pope. In the Dictionary Johnson defined barbarous as 'In a manner contrary to the rules of speech' and barbarism as Ά form of speech contrary to the purity and exactness of any language'. Thirty-two words Johnson attacked as 'Gallicisms', 'Latinisms', or 'Hebraisms', i.e., as not wholly naturalized. Thirty more he labeled 'erroneous', 'incorrect', 'wrong', 'mistaken', or the like. Two dozen he categorized as not based on good analogy; twenty-three are 'inelegant'; twenty-two are simply 'bad', twenty-one are of 'no etymology'; eighteen 'lack authority' or are 'unauthorized'; and sixteen are unequivocally 'ungrammatical'. Smaller groups of words Johnson labeled as 'not received', 'unworthy of adoption', 'colloquial', 'burlesque', 'not true (in signification)', 'vitious', 'vitiated', 'unnecessary', 'vulgar', 'confounded', 'licentious', and 'ignorant' in that order of frequency.

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Without here offering an analysis of the principles by which it may be inferred he made his judgments, whimsical and crotchety or not, and without attempting to orient them within eighteenth century linguistic philosophy, we can reasonably recognize that Johnson established an influential precedent. True, a number of the smaller dictionaries that appeared on both sides of the Atlantic during the next two centuries were content to follow the policy of Blount, Coles, Cocker, and Bailey in refraining from the use of labels. But, as another study can indicate in detail, the major dictionaries chose rather to follow Johnson in attaching to certain words some indication of their usage. Since the founding of the Oxford English Dictionary this indication has increasingly become based upon as much external evidence as can be accumulated. The American Heritage Dictionary''s reversion to the expression of editorial attitudes has now enabled it to take a position as challenger of that more recent tradition. Although fundamental differences of philosophy separate the American Heritage and the Merriam-Webster and other contemporary lexicons, the overt symbols by which the contrasting positions are manifested justify our speaking of 'the battle of usage labels'. And for the usage label itself, soundly or unsoundly based, Samuel Johnson is responsible. University of Minnesota

E N G L I S H IN JAPAN: QUOTATIVES I N I N F O R M A L B I L I N G U A L SPEECH SCOTT BAIRD

In general terms, the norm for informal bilingual speech among a cross sampling of co-ordinate, subordinate, and compound Japanese-English bilinguals (in all, over twenty hours of data, collected over a period of more than two years, representing about thirty different Ss in a dozen different recordings) evens out to an approximate one-third English, one-third Japanese, and one-third mixed. These discourses are made up of examples such as: A. B. A. B. C. B. A. C. B.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

C. B. C. B.

(11) (12) (13) (14)

C. B. C. A. B.

(17) (18) (19) (20) (21)

Clay is much bigger ja. Yes. Ugoki zenzen nibuine kono hen made konna heavy ni naruto sa. What's he doing? (5) Cussing him out again kal What? Ah. Ah. Soo demo nai mitai. nani, what, what, what, what? You lousy bum why don't you go down in the earlier rounds toka nan toka itte. Oh, this is the other guy? Yea, Bonavena. Oh, they're fighting ... or they're quarreling? No, they didn't fight. (15) It's the first time Clay said he is a real good boxer ne. (16) Bonavena was one of the ... What? Bonavena ga ne, one of the best boxers ... Te yutta no, Cassius Clay ga ? Hn, kattara nanto demo ieru na. He doesn't usually say that ne. (22) Cusses out the other guy. (23) But anoo, are deshoo, Bonavena ga he said Clay was the champion te yutta.

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SCOTT BAIRD

A quick glance will reveal that utterances 2,4, 6, 11, 12,13,14, 16,17, 22 can be accounted for by any good grammar of English, that 7, 8, 19, 20 can be accounted for by any good grammar of Japanese, but that 1, 3, 5, 9, 10, 15, 18, 21, 23 cannot be accounted for by any known grammar. It is the purpose of this paper to document a problem encountered in an attempt to isolate one small segment of these mixed utterances, i.e., quotatives (10, 19, 23), and to derive from the data some plausible explanations that, hopefully, could be added to the knowledge needed for a workable theory of language performance. To simplify discussion, examples cited will consist only of the very simple type of direct/indirect quotation, such as the process which embeds (24) within the larger construction (26) in a manner identical to the equivalent English sentence (25) being embedded within the larger construction (27). (24) (25) (26) (27)

Clay ga yuushoosha da. Clay is the champion. Bonavena ga Clay ga yuushoosha da to itta. Bonavena said Clay is the champion.

The first task one faces in bilingual speech is to ascertain whether or not the informants are capable of uttering sentences such as 24, 25, 26, 27 in a manner acceptable to projected grammars of English and Japanese competence. All attempts to test unsolicited examples, such as the Japanese 19, used by Ss in this research resulted in a positive ability to meet standards built into existing grammars. Thus assured that all informants, at least those chosen for a sampling because of their spontaneous generation of quotative sentences, did exhibit a monolingual competence in bolh languages, the second task was to ascertain what types of quotatives were uttered in mixed speech. An analysis of documented data reveals that two predictable types occur, Japanese utterances embedded within English sentences (28, 29, 30) and English utterances embedded within Japanese sentences (10, 31, 32). (28) (29) (30) (31) (32)

He asked me if I was going and I said tabun. You say hyaku-man en not one million yen. Sono kado de magaite, she said. Kare wa around eight o'clock to itta. Gakkoo de I'm not coming to itta η deshoo.

What was not predicted, however, was utterance 23. In this utterance the speaker begins in English 'But', then switches to a stalling or thinking

ENGLISH IN JAPAN

203

pause in Japanese anoo, are deshoo 'hmm, let's see, uh', then utters a Japanese quotative sentence Bonavena ga ... te yutta (the ga particle is a subject marker; te yutta is an informal variant of to itta 'said') in which the English sentence 'He said Clay was the champion', is embedded. Ignoring the introductory hesitancy, the utterance can be represented on a tree diagram: (33)

Japanese quotative S

S

The unexpected part is the embedded sentence, which is itself a quotative, i.e., 'Clay is the champion' embedded within 'He said'. (34)

Japanese quotative S

quotative S

204

SCOTT BAIRD

The easiest explanation for this utterance is to treat it as an exception, a deviant that is bound to turn up in bilingual speech data. But a check through the data results in the discovery of 35, an utterance obtained from a source in no way related to utterances 1 - 23: (35)

Otoosan ga he said it was alright to itta.

A second explanation is that 23, 35 are somehow analogous to apposition constructions like 'my brother, he' 36, certainly common in the informal variety of my Kansas dialect, anyway: (36)

My brother, he don't like to study too much.

Three objections can be brought against this explanation, however. First, and minor, is that no sentences like 36 occur in the English portion of our bilingual data. Second, and more important, this explanation handles the apposition construction of the subject noun 'Bonavena ga, he' and 'Otoosan ga, he' but it does not touch on the problem of the repeated quotative verb 'said ... te yutta' and 'said ... to itta*. Third, perhaps important and perhaps not, it does not take into account the reverse type of utterance, i.e., a Japanese quotation embedded within an English quotative sentences (37, 38, 39): (37) But the prof said doyoo made ii da to itta n, deshoo. English quotative S

The prof said

Japanese quotative S

(senseiga)

Japanese S

doyoo made ii da

to itta n, deshoo

ENGLISH IN JAPAN

(38) (39)

205

She went iya da to itta. He said to kaite nasai te yutta.

As the tree diagram for 37 shows, the appositive construction does not appear when the Japanese quotative appears within an English quotative. Since this particular appositive construction does not appear in Japanese anyway, i.e., since there is no Japanese equivalent to 36, the argument can well be made that one should not expect to find it embedded in bilingual speech either. The argument appears to lead nowhere, but evidence cited below only underscores the fact that no alternative argument leads anywhere either. Taken collectively, 23, 35, 37, 38, 39 form enough data to suggest that in bilingual speech the two predicted types of quotatives, i.e., Japanese embedded within English and English embedded within Japanese, are too simple to account for actual speech performance. It is tempting to suggest that the competence of a bilingual speaker must include two additional types of quotatives, repeated Japanese (quotative verb only) embedded within English and repeated English (both subject and quotative verb) embedded within Japanese. Τ suggest, though quite tentatively, that the temptation should be avoided. One reason I do not like the suggestion is that it implies knowledge about competence that is, to my knowledge, verifiable only in bilingual speech, i do not know where we linguists are expected to stand anymore in our concept of competence, but personally 1 have felt terribly insecure ever since the 1964 concept of 'homogeneous speech community' (Chomsky 3) disappeared - sometime before 1968 (Chomsky and Halle 3). As long as that phrase helped limit the ideal speaker-hearer's intrinsic knowledge, data such as these from an obvious 'heterogeneous speech community' were considered outside the realm of (interesting) linguistics. If these data are now to be considered, then I instinctively recoil from the suggestion that the deep structure, or even the underlying structure, of 34 is Japanese and that of 37 is English. The reverse seems to be true (to my non-native bilingual intuition). I cannot dismiss the very strong feeling that the deep structure of 34 is English with the quotative being tacked on almost as an afterthought; and that the deep structure of 37 is Japanese with the English quotative being tacked on almost as an afterthought. A second reason I do not like the suggestion is that I do not know how eto draw a tree diagram that will convincingly and accurately deriv

206

SCOTT BAIRD

sentence 40. And until that is done, I wonder about the explanatory power of these four quotative types: (40)

I am sure Yamada-san said to meet him at the bus stop te yutta.

A third reason is that I observe in bilingual speech a phenomenon that I feel belongs to the realm of performance and, if correct, can explain all of the sentences 23, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40 within a larger generalization. I am referring to a constant tendency to repeat constructions during the transition from one language to another. The fear is that meaning may be lost if the language is changed too abruptly. The compensation for the fear is to repeat certain constructions to aid the transition process. At this point I have no explanation as to why quotatives are sometimes repeated (23, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40) and sometimes not (10, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32). Nor do I have a good explanation as to why both subjects and quotative verbs are repeated in embedded English sentences but only quotative verbs repeated in embedded Japanese sentences. But I am offering the suggestion that bilinguals, when making a transition from Japanese to English (or vice versa), often feel a need to repeat grammatical elements in order to prevent loss of semantic content. Quotatives, as a single set of grammatical constructions, constitute one of, I suspect, a finite list of grammatical constructions that can potentially be repeated. In addition to the quotative examples, 9 offers a perfect example of this phenomenon. This example, as well as 36, may possibly lead to an explanation of the repeated subject in embedded sentences such as 41, where kare wa = 'he': (41) kare wa, he wouldn't do it. The most promising grammatical unit for further research of this type, though, appears to be centered around the verbal or predicate system. Numerous examples can be found to substantiate four other possible subsets, emphatic 'do + negative' (42), name citation (43), borrowed words into Japanese (44), and verbs associated with sports (45, 46, 47, 48). (42) He doesn't sonna koto shinai yo. (shinai 'don't) (43) My name is Ito to mooshimasu. (to mooshimasu '(I) am called') (44) kono tegami ο keep shite oite. (keep shite — oite 'keep') (45) I was playing tennis yaite ita. (yatie ita 'was playing')

ENGLISH IN JAPAN

(46) (47) (48)

207

D o you swim shiie imasu ka. (shite imasu 'do') He plays judo ο shimasu. {shimasu 'do') D o you ever golf suru kail (suru 'do')

Japan Lutheran Theological

College

REFERENCES Chomsky, Noam. 1964. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The M.I.T. Press. Chomsky, Noam and Morris Halle. 1968. The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.

U N D E R THE HILL F. G. CASSIDY

What makes a hill arch? Why does it bulge up over the general plane of the earth? The question has preoccupied explainers and storytellers among the folk of many lands, and though one finds occasionally that hills (or mountains, mounds, downs, howes, knolls, lows, liths, barrows) are set down there on top of the ground, or remain when the ground is washed away below, these do not so often arouse the tale-telling imagination as the other feeling — that there has been some force at work underneath, pushing from below, heaving up the surface like a roof and making some sort of hollow place, a cave, cavern, pillared hall; and as a natural consequence, that underground rooms or halls or even castles must be abodes - and what more obvious tnan that they must be the dwellings of powers other than human - gods, dwarfs, elves, fairies, dragons and other monsters; or that, after death, heroes in burial mounds should linger, not fully dead, still retaining some ghostly power which they may exercise over the living. In Celtic and Germanic Europe in early times all these conceptions existed. They have left their traces in the vocabulary, in folk literature, in place-names. Merely to see ä hill bulking above the surrounding plane is to raise the question, What is under the hill ? And when one has reason to know the answer, a name follows naturally. Among the Anglo-Saxon Maxims1 we find the verses, Draca sceal on hlaewe, frod, fraetwum wlanc. This is a plain statement of accepted experience which nobody in the tenth century or before would have thought to question. The nature of dragons, as everyone knew, was to inhabit an underground cave or hall where they guarded a treasure. From time to time they would issue forth and fly over the land. Men, terrified, would see the trails of flame. One such flight is recorded in the Chronicle for the year 793,2 and it was in trying to rid his land of such a fire-drake that Beowulf, the Geatish

210

F. G. CASSIDY

hero, came to his death. 3 This dragon's lair was, properly, under a hill (hlsew under hrusan ... under stancleofu4), a sea-cliff accessible only by a narrow path; and, once it was killed, the fifty-foot-long corpse, scorched in its own flames, was rolled off the edge to crash to the strand below. It is not surprising that a monster of this kind should be remembered. In Derbyshire today we find the name Drakelow, the dragon's mound, recorded since 942 (Ekwall 1947:143). Several other names contain the element Worm-, which refers to reptiles - serpents or dragons. Where do they usually lurk? Under the hill. Though the burying of possessions for the dead to use in the underworld is universal, the Celts were notable for their belief in a physical continuance after death. The dead lived on in the grave, hence sacrificial food was placed for them, and they might be consulted at the burial place. This underworld was not a gloomy place. As Caesar wrote, Chiefly the Druids teach that souls do not die, but pass from one to another after death. This they think excites to valor, the fear of death being neglected (MacCulloch 1948:81). Lucan confirms this, bearing witness to the Celts' concept of a bodily immortality (MacCulloch 1948:81). Whether independently or not, the Scandinavians held the same kind of belief. Grettir's famous struggle with the ghost of Glam 5 is but one of many such incidents in the sagas showing that death is only partial: a physical existence follows in which the dead person returns to haunt places where he had lived, struggles body to body with a living man, and is finally disposed of only when his head is cut off, his entire body burned, and the ashes buried. The abode of these dead-alive people was the grave, funeral mound, barrow, or cairn, man-made or within a natural orifice in the earth. In either case, the hill, mound, or barrow was inhabited. Not only dangerous creatures, dragons and ghosts live thus, but there are more spacious columned halls deep under mountains, fit retreats after death for great warriors, kings and emperors. It is a folk tale that Friedrich Rückert retells of the great Frederick Redbeard, not really dead, merely asleep in his underground castle in Thuringia, but ready to return again when his people need him: Der alte Barbarossa, Der Kaiser Friederich, Im unterird 'sehen Schlosse Hält er verzaubert sich.

UNDER THE HILL

211

Er ist niemals gestorben, Er lebt darin noch jetzt, Er hat im Schloss verborgen Zum Schlaf sich hingesetzt. Er hat hinabgenommen Des Reiches Herrlichkeit Und wird einst wiederkommen Mit ihr zu seiner Seit ... Such tales are a part of folklore, a world of beliefs inherited from the past which resists forgetfulness and does not easily yield to imposed religion. When Christianity came to Britain and later to Anglo-Saxon England it could not at once uproot heathenism and sought, rather, to reinterpret its old values in the new terms. The heroic virtues were transferred to Christ and the Saints, and military victories transformed to spiritual ones. Especially, and sweepingly, all the figures of popular belief - gods, giants, elves and fairies, monsters and harmful creatures, became the populace of Hell, the hellware. Hell itself, the underworld which by old beliefs had often been a place of pleasure and physical satisfaction, was made under Biblical and Roman concepts a realm of horrid shades, torments physical and spiritual, while the pleasures of earthly life - the courtly mead-drinkings, ring-givings, pledges of companions, songs in praise of heroes past - were transferred to Heaven, God's court, there to become blissfully spiritualized and eternal. One can see this change taking place as Grendel, Beowulf's troll-like, semihuman antagonist is condemned as one of the kind of Cain, at enmity with God, in effect a hell-demon. When Beowulf overcomes him he flees back to his home 'under a fen-slope ... a joyless dwelling' as devils exorcised flee back to Hell: Scolde Grendel Jxman feorhseoc fleon under fenhleoöu, secean wynleas wie ... 6 Grendel is an ambivalent figure, a monster at once manlike and diabolical, an underworld dweller, hence one of the hellware. In the more patently Christian poems the conception was repeatedly expressed: under eoröan neoöan ...

on t>a sweartan helle7

hwilum ic gehere hellescealcas, gnornende cynn, grundas maenan, niöer under naessum ... 8

212

F. G. CASSIDY

Eöellease ... manhus witon faest under foldan, Jjaer biö fyr and wyrm, open ece scraef.9 And the concept reappears in Middle English and later poetry, notably in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Green Knight is a faery giant who interrupts King Arthur's Christmas feasting with a challenge to an exchange of beheadings. Sir Gawain accepts and strikes off the Green Knight's head. The Knight coolly picks up his head, mounts his horse, and rides away, while the head reminds Sir Gawain that in a year's time it will be his turn to receive a stroke in exchange. A year later Gawain makes the rendezvous with the Knight at a forbidding green chapel among rocks, itself nobut an olde caue, Or a creuisse of an olde cragge.10 Shuddering in the eerie place, Gawain says to himself, Now I fele it is the fende ... t>at has stoken me J>is steuen to strye me here. 11 This mission he has been drawn into is the Devil's work. Just at this point, J>ene herde he of £>at hy3e hil, in a harde roche Bi3onde f>e broke, in a bonk, a wonder breme noyse.12 It is the Green Knight, sharpening his ax on a grindstone, and he soon issues from a hole in the bank to give Gawain his quittance. Obviously the giant is a superhuman figure and the workshop under the hill is proper to the nature of such grisly beings. So the hill under which figures of pagan belief had dwelt, with the earth as roof, have now become the covering of Hell, the abode of Satan and his crew, the old figures in a new form. The pagan Hell had been located vaguely in some place of darkness or in the North; Christianity fixed it in the 'lower regions' deep underground. Christ descended into Hell to harrow it; Satan had fallen there physically after his defeat and expulsion from heaven. As a regular part of Christian cosmology it requires no demonstration. The aspect less readily recognized is the folkloric survival of the feeling about hills, and why they are, and what they hide beneath them. In the course of time our phrase becomes allusive, sometimes almost euphemistic, a hint toward things best not too plainly spoken of. Under also continues as from Anglo-Saxon times forward to have two meanings: 'in a physical position below' something (the

UNDER THE HILL

213

commonest sense) and 'at the bottom or foot of' something, alongside the lower part of it. This makes possible for the poet deliberate ambiguities, suggesting uncertainty, blurred focus, fleeting reality. At the end of the process, the artist in an age of non-belief, aware yet of the trailing web of former beliefs that people cling to, is able to blend together folklore and Christian concept and touch them with profound nostalgia; as a deep-rooted inheritance of the experience of mankind, they still have valid emotional power. Ralph Hodgson has done this in his poem Eve (Untermeyer 1932:504-5), where he merges into a single figure the world's first Woman and a nowaday village girl, subjected alike to temptation beyond their strength and wisdom. His picture is painted with delicacy and tenderness: Eve with her basket was Deep in the bells and grass, Wading in bells and grass Up to her knees. Picking a dish of sweet Berries and plums to eat ... The Cobra, seeing his chance to 'humble proud heaven', whispers to her, 'Eva!' - and she pauses to listen, exquisitely, Eve with a berry Half-way to her lips. Then comes the lightly mocking solicitude of one who wishes Eve could be warned, yet knows it is no use: Oh, bad our simple Eve Seen through the make-believe! Had she but known the Pretender he was! Out of the boughs he came, Whispering still her name, Tumbling in twenty rings Into the grass. All is in vain - she yields to the Tempter, who, successful, takes his leave, though the birds scream at him as he slips away. How they all pitied Poor motherless Eve!

214

F. G. CASSIDY

The conclusion is cruel but inevitable: Picture her crying Outside in the lane, Eve, with ho dish of sweet Berries and plums to eat, Haunting the gate of the Orchard in vain ... Picture the lewd delight Under the hill tonight 'Eva!' the toast goes round, 'Eva!' again. The simple phrase which has been followed here may serve to illustrate the tenacity of folklore. A pagan belief in an underworld peopled by creatures manlike and monstrous, whence the dead might range forth still with physical force, and that, specifically, hollow hills and mounds served as habitations for these underground powers, has persisted down the centuries, constantly fading yet never wholly erased. Christianity overlaid and altered the old belief, sank Hell more deeply under, herded together in common banishment the pagan gods, the giants, trolls and haunting ghosts, as Satan's hell-folk. Still the phrase retained its old echo among the folk, and the poets have availed themselves of it. Hodgson's Eve is but a late example. Any real belief has now entirely disappeared : the poet is able to touch the notes of tender mockery and ruefulness, to identify the First Woman with all women, to see her succumb to temptation of the flesh and hear the menfolk of the village of Hell toast her fall in the tavern with appreciative glee. The brew they drink is not as strong as once it was, but they drink it in the same old place - under the hill. University of Wisconsin

NOTES 1 2 3 4 5 6

Maxims II, 'Cotton Gnomes' 26-27 (Dobbie 1942:56). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Mss. D, E, F. Beowulf (Dobbie 1953). Beowulf, respectively lines 2411, 2540. Note also line 2755: under beorges hrof. Grettissaga, extracts from Chambers 1959: 163-75. Beowulf 819-21.

UNDER THE HILL 7 8 9 10 11 12

215

Genesis 311-2. (Krappe 1931:12). Christ and Satan 132-4. (Krappe 1931:140). Exodus 534-8. (Krappe 1931:106). Sir Gawain and the Green Knight lines 2182-3 (Tolkien and Gordon 1946). Ibid, lines 2193-4. Ibid, lines 2199-2200.

REFERENCES Chambers, R. W. 1959. Beowulf. 3rd ed. Cambridge: University Press. Dobbie, Elliott van Kirk. 1942. The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems. (The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 6). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; New York: Columbia University Press. Dobbie, Elliott van Kirk. 1953. Beowulf and Judith, (The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 4). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; New York: Columbia University Press. Ekwall, Eilert. 1947. Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names. 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Krapp, George Phillip. 1931. The Junius Manuscript. (The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 1). London: Routledge; New York: Columbia University Press. MacCulloch, J. A. 1948. The Celtic and Scandinavian Religions. London: Hutchinson. Tolkien, J. R. R., and Gordon, Ε. V. 1946. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Untermeyer, Louis. 1932. The book of Living Verse. New York: Harcourt, Brace.

SOME I N N O V A T I O N S I N V O C A B U L A R Y : THE TONGUE OF THE TIRILONES LURL1NE H. COLTHARP

A student of textbook Spanish in El Paso, Texas, would be frustrated trying to look up a local garage sign, MÖFLES, in his dictionary; and he would be confused on hearing a conversation about automobiles between two speakers who are members of the subculture of Latin Americans. Ayer (1971:118) said: 'Most of the vocabulary related to automobiles is based on English, the Spanish words never having established themselves.' This case study was undertaken to determine the etymology of automobile terms as they occur in the normal conversational Spanish used in the argot of the Tirilones, or Chicanos, in El Paso, Texas. Six conversations were recorded in October 1971. Each conversation was carried on between two young males in their twenties. One of those conversations was chosen as the corpus of this study. Choice was primarily on the bases of naturalness of the conversation and convenience of its length. The suprasegmentale indicate that both speakers were relaxed and talking in a natural manner. The two young men, designated as R and L respectively, were both twenty-three years of age. The length of the recording provides a manageable corpus for the limits imposed on this study. The following excerpt from the conversation is given in transcription and in translation to provide a representative segment of the corpus in context: L RL RL RL R-

Estä a todo vuelo, 6se. iQue clas' de motor trai? Un dos ochenta tres con cuatro barriles. Es un cincuenta siete ^verdad? Si, es un cincuenta siete, ese, buti cuidadita. £Que es, un V-Eight con siete plogas?1 No, carnal, es un ocho - ocha plogas. £Que paso con tigua? No, es que mi Foringo que traigo yo. Es un seis, tü sabes. Foringo, ese, carnal. No le hagua £se, puros Chevys.

218 L R L R L R L L R L R L R

-

LRLR -

LURLINE Η. COLTHARP

No te culpo, carnal. i,Que das' de transmision es este? Trae un cuatro. i,Un cuatro? Sirol. ^Cuatro que? Four-speed. 2 El mio es un tres. Tu sabes quando vias una pobreza. Y los rims, carnal ?donde los apanaste? Guachen calientes. Vienen con la ranflita. Se guachen calientes. No, no son calientes. ^Este upholstery, te lo ventaste en Juaritos? No, yo me lo avent6. No. Un cunado que tengo yo que se avienta pa' este jale me dijo que el so' lo aventaba si yo le ayudaba. Era buti jale, ese, pero entre los dos no lo aventamos y nos dejamos cae'. ^Este stereo que trais aqui, no tienes miedo que te lo claven? No, ese, lo traigo hasta con Have y todo este pedo. No, pero meten un fierro y te lo friegan. Chale, se cuidä' yo buti esta ranflita, yo.

The following translation was made by one of the two participants in the conversation, R: L R L R L R L R L R L R L R L L R

-

It's a nice car. What kind of a motor does it have ? It's a 283 with a four-barrel carburetor on it. It's a '57, huh? Yeah, it's a '57. It's real clean, too. What is it, a V8 with seven spark plugs ? No, it's a V8, carnal, eight spark plugs. What's the matter with you? No, it's because I have a Ford. It's got six spark plugs. Is it a Ford, carnal? I don't like Fords. Just Chevys. I don't blame you, carnal. What type of transmission does it have? It has a four. A four? Yes. Four what? Four-speed. Yeah, mine's a three. You know - when you live in poverty. Hey, where did you get the rims ? They look like as if they're stolen. They came with the car.

SOME INNOVATIONS IN VOCABULARY

L R L R

-

LR LR -

219

They look like as if they're stolen. No, they're not stolen. Did you get this upholstered in Juarez ? No, I did it myself. I have a brother-in-law who's real good at this kind of work, and he told me that he'd do it for me if I'd help him. It was a lot of work, but between the two of us, we did it and did a great job. How about this stereo? Aren't you afraid that somebody'11 steal it from you ? No, I've got it with a key and all that stuff. They'll stick a bar through there and just break it. I take real good care of my car.

Following are words and expressions peculiar to the argot of the Tirilones which might need specific translation: a todo huelo buti calientes carnal chale claven, clavar cuidadita dejamos cae' ese Foringo guachen, guachar

jale Juaritos pedo ranflita, ranfla sirol

'real good' a lot, much, very much hot, 'stolen' (a literal translation of the Englis slang word) brother, a friend (a loose term of friendship) no to steal 'clean', well cared for 'we did a good job' you (a filler term) Ford to see, to look (guachar = English 'watch', an example of complete phonological assimilation [Coltharp 1970:8]) a job, work Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico (immediately across the border from El Paso, Texas) 'stuff' (a loose translation; this term has a large variety of meanings [Coltharp 1965:235-236]) car (also ramflita, ramfla [Coltharp 1965]) yes

The above excerpt demonstrates a normal language flow as well as the insertion of words from the calo and of words from the English. Note that not only do English words enter the Spanish, as in 'four-speed' and 'class', but also that the calo enters the translation as in carnal.

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LURLINE Η. COLTHARP

The entire conversation was used as the corpus for this suidy. All words having to do with automobiles, accessories, gasoline and oil, and repairs were analyzed. The analysis established three divisions: Spanish words, English words, and words containing morphemic changes. Words were classified as Spanish only if they were in the Real Academia Espanola 1970. The following Spanish words used in the corpus are given with their translations and the respective page numbers of the Diccionario: aceite bateria carburador generador motor pilotear regular transmision

oil battery carburetor generator motor drive (pilot) regular transmission

3 172 259 661 900 1025 1124 1287

All of the above were found in the Diccionario with definitions matching their usage in the conversation. Additionally, other words were found in the dictionary; however, in keeping with Academy procedure, their technical usages were not given: anillos barril puerta punto, puntos

rings as in 'a ring job' barrel as in 'a four-barrel carburetor' door as in 'a two-door' model points 'ignition points'

N O T E : The plural forms were used in 'cuatro barilles' and 'dos puertas\ Also, one letter of the alphabet and several Spanish numbers were used:

un un un un un V

dos ochenta tres ocho cuatro seiz tres

'a 283' (a motorcar model designation) 'an eight' (an eight-cylinder motor) 'a four' (a four-speed transmission) 'a six' (a six-cylinder motor) 'a three' (a three-speed transmission) Ύ ' in Ύ-Eight' (a motor type)

It will be noted that of the nineteen automobile terms classified as Spanish, one is a letter, five are numbers, and nine are cognates with their English counterparts. Discounting the use of numbers and the alphabetical designation, only three are completely different: aceite, anillos, and puertas. To this may be added ramflita 'car' from the calo.

SOME INNOVATIONS IN VOCABULARY

221

The terms classified as English were pronounced as English according to the dialect of the El Paso area. They are: air conditioner alternator bumper bushings crankshaft eight grill premium rims speed starter stereo stick shift tune up upholstery vets

['bampar] was in free variation with ['bompar]

(elgril)

['sterio] and also [es'terio] [ap] and also [op] short for Corvettes, the normal abbreviation used in the area

Of the terms that showed change, one showed only a change in pronunciation. The term 'Chevy', usually pronounced ['Jevi] in this area, was pronounced only ['tjevi]. As has been noted, three terms were given more than one pronunciation: 'bumper', 'stereo', and 'up' in 'tune up'. One term was shortened: ['ratjes] for Rochester, a brand name of a carburetor. Four terms showed addition. Of these, two were given feminine endings: brecas 'brakes' and plogas 'plugs'. Both also had changes in pronunciation: ['brekas] and ['plogas], which alternated with ['plagas]. Another addition was in the word gasofa 'gas' or 'gasoline'. The term Foringo for 'Ford' shows both loss and addition, the loss of [d] and the addition of [-ingoj. Of the forty-one automobile terms isolated for analysis, nineteen were Spanish (including five numbers and a letter), sixteen were English, and six were English words which have been modified. On the basis of nineteen to sixteen, it might be stated that a larger number of Spanish words are used in automobile terminology. However, if the six modified words are added to the sixteen English words, one can state that English words are in the majority in automobile terminology in the Spanish of the United States border area, specifically in the language of the Tirilones, or Chicanos, in El Paso, Texas. No attempt is made to predicate language

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percentages for an entire subculture on the basis of a single conversation; however, the totals might be taken as indicative. The University of Texas at El Paso

NOTES 1

This conversation took place shortly after a joke had appeared in an El Paso English-language newspaper about a seven-cylinder automobile. 2 It is interesting to note that when the meaning of un cuatro, referring to a fourspeed transmission, was questioned, the speaker finally translated into English to eliminate doubt from his meaning.

REFERENCES Ayer, George W. 1971. Language and attitudes of the Spanish-speaking youth of the Southwestern United States. Applications of linguistics. Selected papers of the Second international congress of applied linguistics, Cambridge 1969. Coltharp, Lurline H. 1965. The tongue of the Tirilones. University, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press. —. 1970. Invitation to the dance: Spanish in the El Paso underworld. Texas studies in bilingualism: Spanish, French, German, Czech, Polish, Sorbian, and Norwegian in the Southwest, ed. by Glenn C.Gilbert, 7-17. Berlin: Walter deGruyter & Co. Real Academia Espanola. 1970. Diccionario de la Lengua Espanola. Madrid: Editorial Espasa-Calpe.

THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC ' N O R M A L I Z A T I O N ' OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE JOSHUA A. FISHMAN

Zionist ideology typically defined the 'normalization' of the life-style of the Jewish people in terms of similarity to the basic patterns of other, presumably already normal, peoples (k'khol hagoim): a free people in its own homeland, speaking its own one and only language and engaged in all basic productive pursuits. The above ideology also identifies those features of Jewish existence in the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries which Zionism considered to be non-normal: (a) subjection to foreign political and cultural domination, (b) dispersion in the diaspora, and, therefore, fractionization into several disparate regional Jewish TRIBES and SUBCULTURES, (c) communicating with each other in postexilic, derivative Jewish languages or in languages adopted from co-territorial populations, and (d) forced into middle-man and middle-class pursuits by virtue of being denied entry into the basic agricultural and industrial branches of the economy. Zionism, therefore, viewed itself as a revolutionary nationalist movement whose goal was the 'normalization' of the above 'abnormalities'. Like other such movements (those 'among the nations' as well as other, non-Zionist and anti-Zionist, Jewish nationalist movements), Zionism pursued unification, authentification and modernization (Fishman, in press). However, unlike most other such movements it defined the Golden Past, the Great Tradition, in terms of a far-far away and a long-long ago, to such an extent that Zionism-in-practice implied considerably more rejection of the immediate or recent past and considerably more uncompromising dislocation from the established routines of everyday life than was aimed at either by the Bundists, the Territorialists or the Sejmists, on the one hand (to mention just a few early rivals of Zionism in Jewish Eastern Europe; see Menes 1957), or by the White Russian, Polish, or Ukrainian nationalist movements, on the other hand.

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THE 'NON-NORMAL' SOCIOLINGUISTIC PATTERNS AMONG SEFARDIM

The sociology of Jewish language behavior in the pre-Zionist era was radically different as between Sefardim 1 and Ashkenazim, and, among the Ashkenazim per se, it was radically different as between WesternCentral European and Eastern European Jews. The Sefardi pattern typically revealed Hebrew-Aramaic as the language of worship and of traditionally sanctified texts, on the one hand, and postexilic Jewish vernaculars (Weinreich, in press, lists, among others, Parsic, Juhuric, Bukharic, Jidi, Judesma, Chuadi, Krimtshakic, etc.), on the other hand. The latter were rarely identified with either writing or print, and therefore were generally languages of 'common everyday life' rather than being normatively languages of scholarship, literature, ideology or technology. There were, of course, Sefardim who mastered the local co-territorial standard languages (and increasingly so as we approach the end of the 19th century), but this was normally the exception rather than the rule if we consider the nearly five hundred years that had elapsed since the flight from Iberia and the entire span of Sefardimdom from Morocco to Madras. Almost everywhere and all of this time Sefardim were an impoverished and segregated population living in the midst of host societies that were at a preindustrial level of development. This is not to say that there were no contacts between the Sefardim and their coterritorial neighbors. There most assuredly were or the derivative Jewish vernaculars themselves would not have arisen. However, the normal economic and social facts of life were such that Jews had little entry into those networks of coterritorial society that themselves mastered the local standard languages. Given the self-imposed as well as the other-imposed restrictions on intimate relations with the coterritorial 'common man', local vernaculars WERE learned but they soon underwent major independent transformations due to their greaterwithin-groupthan betweengroup functions. To what extent does the above sociolinguistic pattern deserve the designation 'abnormal' or 'non-normal'? Obviously it was very much like the pattern that existed among the common people in whose midst the average Sefardi lived. They too did not control the standard written or spoken varieties (if indeed such existed) that corresponded to their vernaculars, and they too possessed (although even more so than among the Jews, few controlled) a classical language for sanctified and nearsanctified functions. Obviously, this was and is the common pattern throughout much of Africa and Asia even today, among indigenous

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populations. Thus, this pattern - which boils down to (a) the absence of an urban middle class in functional interaction with the pace-setters of coterritorial society and (b) the absence of within-group prestige functions for the vernacular - is 'non-normal' only in that it may be defined as UNDESIRABLE from the point of view of Jewish self-dignity and self-preservation in a period in which modernizing tendencies and conflicts were beginning to make themselves felt. Under such circumstances, a population that could count on stable support from neither the upper classes nor the lower classes, at a time when new proto-61ites were arising to force a reallocation of power and privilege, was obviously in grave danger to life and limb. This was a danger which often faced Jews far more than other segments of the indigenous coterritorial populations because Jews were not viewed as indigenous no matter how long they had lived in their places of residence. It is in this sense that the Jewish sociolinguistic picture described above MAY be said to reflect a 'non-normal' state of social-powerlessness-prior-to-the-storm and it was this that Zionist theoreticians foresaw and stressed (at a time when other ideologies of European Jews tended to ignore Sefardimdom entirely).

THE 'NON-NORMAL' SOCIOLINGUISTIC PATTERN AMONG WESTERN ASHKENAZIM

By the time of the birth of modern political Zionism the sociolinguistic pattern of the bulk of Western Ashkenazimdom and that of the smaller Sefardic communities in those same countries did not differ radically from that which typifies American Jewry today. Hebrew was retained as the language of infrequent worship and still more infrequent other sanctity-related pursuits by the majority, but by no means by all 'practicing Jews'. Even so, Jewish vernaculars (largely Yiddish) among indigenized Jews (as distinct from those who had recently arrived from Eastern Europe) had largely disappeared. The 'average Jew' spoke the vernacular of the country in which he lived. His verbal repertoire in this vernacular, in terms of regional or social varieties, reflected his experiential and identificational role repertoires both of which were only marginally distinguishable from those of parallel coterritorial urban middle-class speech networks. Languages other than the vernacular of the country were known only as a result of individual foreign travel or educational opportunity (rather than as a result of familial or occupational contacts across national borders between Jewish communities).

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This too was precisely according to the norm of the coterritorial nonJewish urban middle class. To what extent, if any, does the above sociolinguistic pattern deserve the designation 'non-normal'? It was (and is) very much like that of those modernized speech networks, whether in the West or in the East, whose mother tongues have undergone development and/or planning to the stage of having become standardized also for governmental, technological, educational and most other 'high-culture' functions more generally (often including religion). Even the fact that the language of stressed sanctity and the language of activities not marked by any such stress were both distinct and greatly different from each other in the Jewish case was (and is) not that unusual if we consider various Christian communities in the modern world, for whom this was (and, to some extent still is) the case. The Western Ashkenazic pattern was, therefore, in no way abnormal or nonnormal in any actuarial sense, and therefore, if it was judged to be so by many Zionists (as well as by many Jewish nationalists of other ideological persuations) it was because of their attitudes toward it. The sociolinguistic situations of a Latin-praying and French-speaking middle-class Parisian Catholic and that of his Hebrewpraying and French-speaking Jewish counterpart were not considered to be the same at all from the points of view of these ideologies. The latter was viewed as being impelled toward de-authentification and de-ethnification in a way and at a rate that did not at all apply to the former. Nevertheless, even after all of his abnormal efforts to reform, to adapt, to legitimize himself vis-a-vis his coterritorial non-Jewish peers, these still tended to view him as a dispensable, foreign element and, as such, as one that could be sacrificed to their own greater prosperity or power if need be. Zionist ideologists anticipated that the civil and social equality that Jews had recently gained in the West was more hallowed in their own eyes than in the eyes of the non-Jews with whom they so sought to fraternize. The fact that German Jews considered themselves as 'Germans of Moses' persuasion' did not at all guarantee that most Germans viewed them as such, or would, when the chips were down, respect the rights guaranteed to them as such. The assimilated Western Jews' integrative passions were, therefore, viewed (by Zionist ideology) as ultimately both indecent and futile. Their sociolinguistic profile was a direct reflection and consequence of these passions and, as such, it was as sick (as 'nonnormal', if you please) as these passions per se.

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THE 'NON-NORMAL' SOCIOLINGUISTIC PATTERNS AMONG EASTERN ASHKENAZIM

With the exception of Herzl and a very few other Westerners, the early Zionist ideologists were very largely Eastern European Jews, and it was the Ashkenazimdom of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires (which, by the way, constituted three-quarters or more of the world's Jewish population toward the end of the 19th century) that they knew most intimately and considered most thoroughly in the development of this ideological position. The sociolinguistic profile of the average Eastern European Jew was somewhat more complicated than that of his Western European (not to mention his Sefardic) counterparts. To begin with, a clearcut separation between the classical language of sanctity and the Jewish vernacular of daily life was less apparent. Hebrew and Yiddish certainly existed with clearly separate central tendencies for some networks and for some functions, but for most they tended to merge to greater or lesser degrees (Mark 1941; Weinreich 1953). In addition, Hebrew itself was already beginning to undergo modernization and secularization (both for modern literary and socio-educational purposes), and Yiddish was being placed at the very center of various non-Zionist and anti-Zionist nationalist ideologies, some of which denied any functions to Hebrew at all! Some of the latter ideologies even viewed the religious function (and, therefore, Hebrew) as entirely superfluous for a modern nationality. This monolingual exclusivity was more than matched by the modern Hebraist rejection of Yiddish. While the foregoing developments did not really reach the Jewish masses until just before and after World War I, knowledge of non-Jewish vernaculars was already becoming quite widespread by the end of the 19th century. Such knowledge (mastery was probably still rare) was necessarily experientially gained and occupationally restricted. Wherever it obtained it involved some spoken facility in the vernaculars) of the coterritorial peasantry(ies) (later to be known as Ukrainian, White Russian, etc.) and (more rarely) some written as well as spoken facility in the vernacular(s) of the coterritorial aristocracy(ies) and nascent bourgeoisie (e.g. Russian, Polish, German). The greater complexity of the sociolinguistic situation in Eastern Ashkenazimdom is a reflection of the greater social change which typified that Jewry (in the midst of immigration, 3 urbanization, and modernization) toward the end of the 19th century, in comparison either with Western Ashkenazimdom or Sefardimdom as a whole. However, in

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what sense can the Eastern Ashkenazic profile be considered nonnormal? In any broader comparative framework it is clearly reminiscent of the profiles of foreign enterpreneurial enclaves that are modernizing more rapidly than the still largely pre-industrial 'layercake' societies whom they have long served. Had Eastern Ashkenazimdom not been exterminated it probably would have become even more similar sociolinguistically to the Chinese in Southeast Asia, to the Armenians in the Near East, to the Japanese in pre-World War II Hawaii, to the Indians and Pakistanis in East Africa, to the Ibos in Northern Nigeria, and indeed to the more urban German Stammsiedlungen throughout Eastern Europe. The precariousness of all such groups, in terms of either physical, economic and/or cultural continuity in modern times, was clear to several early Zionist ideologists (but it must again be stressed, not ONLY to them). It was this precariousness in the face of the approaching social and economic revolutions of the coterritorial peoples in whose midst Eastern Ashkenazimdom lived that probably did most to establish the adjective ABNORMAL in the repertoire of Zionist speeches and publications for mass consumption. This analysis and evaluation of the situation constantly gained in popularity among Eastern European Jews during the 20's and '30s, but not rapidly enough to save more than a remnant of them from the holocaust unleashed by the Germans and their Eastern European accomplices.

THE 'NORMAL' ISRAELI SOCIOLINGUISTIC PATTERN

If the pre-Zionist sociolinguistic patterns were 'abnormal' or 'nonnormal' ones, at least in the sense of their undesirability from the point of view of Zionist ideology and aspirations, how normal or desirable is the pattern that is begging to appear in modern Israel? Currently, of course, the situation is far from that which the ideology foresaw, since the population is still overwhelmingly of recent and diverse (if not divergent) immigrant origin and the 'ingathering of the exiles' still continues today. As a result, after nearly three-quarters of a century of political and practical Zionism and after nearly a quarter century of statehood, it is no wonder that only approximately half of the Jewish population of Israel claims Hebrew as its mother tongue and that approximately a third uses some language(s) other than Hebrew as its primary language of daily life (Schmelz and Bachi MS, Hofman and Fisherman 1971). However, if we look at the children and grandchildren of the immi-

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229

grants we begin to see a far different picture than that represented by their parents or grandparents, either in their former countries of residence or in their new Israeli surroundings. The average sabra (native Jewish Israeli) is a Hebrew monolingual as far as real mastery is concerned. The language of prayer and the language of daily life are different of course, but the differences between them are largely stylistic. To some extent they are differences such as those that exist between temporally and functionally different varieties of the same language 'among the nations' rather than such as exist between unrelated languages. However, even this is not entirely true, since the revival of modern Hebrew is less than a century old and, therefore, it is still far more influenced by classical Hebrew than are other modern standard languages and vernaculars by their earliest written varieties. Above and beyond his Hebrew monolingualism (with as much internal linguistic variety-differentiation as corresponds to any given speech network's role differentiation), the average sabra reveals a halting familiarity with the Jewish and/or non-Jewish vernaculars of their parents and grandparents, as well as a halting (nodding?) familiarity with English, the Language of Wider Communication taught in Israeli schools from the fifth grade on. If we set aside the immigrant-based multilinguakim of young Israelis (on the ground that it is generally speaking a vanishing phenomenon and that, with its passing, cultural continuity with the immediate past will lessen considerably) we are left with 'English as a foreign language' as the only non-Hebrew exposure for the bulk of the younger generation. However, their command of English differs qualitatively from the command of various languages of wider communication that typified former Jewish generations receiving at least secondary education, whether of Sefardim or of Ashkenazim. On the one hand, some familiarity with English is very widespread (leaning, as it does, not only upon the school and university but also upon the radio and television). On the other hand, the active or expressive command of English generally attained by young people is a halting one indeed. So different is its structure from that of their Hebrew mother tongue that neither popular, elementary, secondary nor higher educational experiences are sufficient to make English really functional for more than a handful of those who are exposed to it for so many years at the very ages when languages are learned most easily. Whereas knowing Yiddish once helped Jews learn German, and knowing Ukrainian helped them learn Polish or Russian, knowing Hebrew is of little or no help in learning English (or any other modernized world language). As a result,

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while Israeli youngsters are aware of the importance of knowing English (indeed, from age 10 onward they realize that it is a more important language than Hebrew itself; see Starr and Laster, MS), it is a constant source of embarrassment and frustration for them and a widely recognized subject of difficulty and underachievement. Is the foregoing a picture of sociolinguistic normalcy? If so, it is the normalcy of rather small and linguistically isolated developing societies, rather than that of Denmark or Norway, not to mention Belgium or Switzerland. It is doubtful that this is exactly the sociolinguistic normalcy that Zionist ideology foresaw. At the moment, MOST sabras have only attained (at best) the linguistic 'normalcy' of various culturally homogeneous but still developing 'third world' populations in Latin America, Africa 01 Asia. (However, in all of these cases there is at least continuity with the vernacular(s) of one's parents and grandparents - a continuity sadly lacking in the Isreali case). In all of these cases only elites really master a language of wider communication. This may well be a variety of normalcy, but Zionist ideology must also approach it as critically as it approached the socio-linguistic patterns of diaspora Jewish communities in the past, and ask once again 'Is this desirable ? Does it foster the kind of optimal social, cultural, political and economic development we would hope for?' From this point of view it might be concluded tnat much still remains to be accomplished before a desirable normalization is attained. Yeshiva University

NOTES 1

The designation SEFARDIM is here employed in accord with prevalent Israeli usage today, i.e. to indicate non-Ashkenazim and, therefore, to incorporate not only those traditionally regarded as Sefardim (those originally of Spanish-Portuguese extraction and subsequently those whose ancestors settled in England, France, Holland, Southern Italy, The Balkans, the Near East and North Africa after their late 15th-century expulsion from the Iberian peninsula), but also Jews from Yemen, Iraq, Kurdistan, Persia, India etc. who were never Sefardi in orgin. 2 The major Eastern Ashkenazic immigrant 'colonies' in America and Western Europe (and later, in Canada, South America, South Africa and Australia) require separate description (Fishman 1965). To some extent they may be thought of as moving SLIGHTLY in the direction of Western Ashkenazimdom at the time that modern Zionist ideologies were being hammered out in Eastern Europe.

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REFERENCES Fishman, Joshua A. 1965. Yiddish in America: Sociolinguistic description and analysis. Publication 36, Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore and Linguistics (=International Journal of American Linguistics 31, no. 2 part 2). Bloomington, IURCAFL. —. Language and nationalism. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, in press. Hofman, John and Fisherman, Haya. 1971. Language shift and maintenance in Israel. International Migration Review 5.2:204-226. Mark, Yudel. 1941. Lomir oyfhitn di shprakh fun talmid-khokhem. (Let us conserve the language of the traditional scholar) Yidishe Shprakh, 1941, 3. Menes, Avrom. 1957. Der yidisher gedank in der nayer tsayt. (Jewish thought in modern times). New York: Congress for Jewish Culture. Schmelz, U. O. and Bachi, R. MS. Hebrew as everyday language of the Jews in Israel statistical appraisal. Starr L. and Laster, R. MS. Attitudes toward English and Hebrew as a function of social class and grade in school. Paper prepared for Hebrew University course on 'Language and National Identity', Spring 1971. Weinreich, Max. 1953. Yiddishkayt and Yiddish: on the impact of religion on language in Ashkenazic Jewry. Mordecai M. Kaplan Jubilee Volume, 481-514. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Reprinted in Readings in the Sociology of Language ed. by J. A. Fishman. The Hague: Mouton, 1968. —. MS Di kultur-geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh (The Cultural History of the Yiddish Language). In press in separate Yiddish, English and Hebrew editions. —. for an exhaustive bibliography on Jewish inter-sociolinguistics see Weinreich MS.

'THE TEACHER TAUGHT THE STUDENT ENGLISH': A N ESSAY IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS* M.A.K. HALLIDAY

How can linguistics help the language teacher? This question has been asked so often in recent years that we tend to regard it as settled, although the actual answers given might range anywhere from a carefully constructed study program, at one end of the scale, to a weary and negative 'It can't.' at the other. If we offer a positive answer, it will probably focus on the description and comparison of the languages involved, rather than on anything to do with language method. Linguistics has not had much to say on language teaching methods. Yet a teaching method is not an easy notion, and the distinctions of principle that are invoked sometimes seem very elusive. The attention may be on the teacher, on the learner, or on the language; we may try to classify in terms of the psychology of the language learner, the relative emphasis placed on different language skills, the type of instructional materials; there are so many possible angles of vision. But this is just the sort of situation where linguistics might be able to help. I propose to adopt, here, a very simple procedure for considering the application of linguistics to language teaching method. This will be to consider, in turn, a number of different grammatical descriptions of a single English sentence. The sentence is The teacher taught the student English. This sentence can be analysed in various ways, to each of which, I shall suggest, corresponds a particular philosophy of language teaching. In each analysis, (a) is the description of the sentence in terms of features, abbreviated to include only those that are relevant to the discussion; this is the basic description, representing the meaning of the sentence in grammatical terms, (b) is the structural description, which is derived from (a) and shows the configuration of structural elements through which the meaning is expressed, (c) is an example of another

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Μ. Α. Κ. HALLIDAY

sentence having the same features and the same structure; and (d) is a paraphrase, designed to bring out what the sentence means if it is analysed in this way. Let us start with Description No. 1: (a)

material process, action; non-middle, active; benefactive the teacher

taught

the student

English

(b)

Actor

Process

Beneficiary

Goal

(c)

Peter

gave

Paul

a silver penny

(d)

'The teacher imparted English to the student.' Description No. 1

If we adopt this analysis, we are seeing the language teaching process as a kind of transaction: as the handing over of some commodity to a recipient. Viewing the process in this way, we are likely to feel that the recipient is merely circumstantial to it; essentially, the process involves a giver and a gift - the teacher, and the language. The student's role in the transaction is then largely an incidental one, except that presumably the giver wishes to please the recipient, so the goods must be of the highest possible quality and also nicely packaged and wrapped. Se we give him the best English. We give him only the best, and of course it is our own idea of what is the best, not his, for it is rare for a giver to be able to operate with the recipient's scale of values rather than his own. We give him Shakespeare and T. S. Eliot, even if what he would value most highly is the motor mechanic's manual; and we wrap it up in the best critical scholarship we have, sometimes barely disguising our feeling that it is really too good for him. It would be worse, of course, to give him the motor mechanic's manual if what he wanted was T. S. Eliot; but this does not often happen. Either way, the gift is an act of charity, and the student is invited to take it, or leave it. It is the language that is under focus of attention - that is the 'goal' of the process, in grammatical terms. Compare this with Description No. 2:

'THE TEACHER TAUGHT THE STUDENT ENGLISH'

(a)

235

material process, action; non-middle, active; range-specific the teacher

taught

the student

English

(b)

Actor

Process

Goal

Range

(c)

Peter

beat

Paul

at tennis

(d)

'The teacher instructed the student in English.' Description No. 2

Here we have a different model of the language teaching process. The teacher is now doing something to the student rather than to the language: he is involving him in some kind of joint activity. The student has become a participant. At the same time, it is still the teacher, as 'actor', who sets the pace. The actor determines the nature of the process in question and the respective roles of the two participants, as winner and loser, or as teacher and learner. The student is no longer merely circumstantial; he is an essential element in the process. But his participation is subject to an external agency; something is happening to him, in which his own role, though necessary, is a passive one. The language has now become what I am referring to as the 'range,' a kind of delimitation of the scope of the process: the cognate object, in an extended sense. The teacher taught the student; and the relationship was with respect to English. English was the particular form taken by the teaching process, just as tennis was the form taken by Peter's defeat of Paul. If this is the image of the language teaching process (and it corresponds to the situation in some schools, especially where there is a teacher of strong personality who takes the same class for a number of subjects), the language becomes, as it were, a means of expressing the relationship between teacher and student. This approach favours classroom drills and exercises, and plenty of tests; the teacher is working on the student instructing him, in fact - and something should be seen to be happening. The student provides the responses. These may often be choral responses, especially in those countries where it is easier to achieve participation in this way.

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(If we wanted to be very spohisticated, we might introduce a further grammatical distinction between two types of goal-directed action, to each of which would correspond a different version of the 'instructional' approach, the one more one-sided, the other more reciprocal. In the former, the student is required to memorize rules and paradigms and vocabulary lists, and his performance is purely repetitive. In the latter, he performs quasi-creative tasks such as question-answering, substituting and transforming; here the student is hitting the ball back, not just imitating strokes, so that there is a real game being played. The danger is precisely that it is a game; it may become self-defining and selfjustifying, with little relation to the student's deeper understanding of language or to his actual and intended patterns of living.) Here, then, we encounter two somewhat different conceptions of the language teaching process, suggested by two possible analyses of a sentence that is used to describe it. One is that of consigning a commodity; the other is that of manipulating a person. But a language is not primarily a commodity, so in the first approach what is offered is usually something else; typically, literature, especially 'good' literature of a bygone age. This has been referred to as 'the literature fallacy' in language teaching. And language learning does not primarily take place by manipulation; rather, it is an active and voluntary process. Nevertheless if there is more than one way of analysing a sentence it is likely that no one description tells the whole truth, and it would be a mistake to suppose that these approaches to language teaching have nothing whatever to recommend them simply because by themselves they do not satisfy our notion of what 'learning' is or of what 'a language' is. Let us go on to consider Description No. 3: (a)

material process, action; middle, causative; range-specific the teacher

taught

the student

English

(b)

Initiator

Process

Actor

Range

(c)

Peter

got ... to take up

Paul

carpentry

(i.e. Peter got Paul to take up carpentry) (d)

'The teacher caused the student to learn (study) English.' Description No. 3

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237

This puts the matter in a rather different light. Here, the student is doing the job: he is learning English, and the teacher is helping him to achieve this desirable end. The term 'causative' should not, of course, be taken to imply coercion; it includes the sense of 'enable' as well as 'make'. We might have introduced the distinction between enabling and making into our grammatical analysis here; but we do not really need it, as it is a well known fact that it is impossible to make anyone learn anything if they do not want to. This view of language learning suggests programming and mechanization: the use of a full battery of audio-visual and other 'aids'. The student is the actor in the process; he is doing the work. The teacher comes in as a helper, an enabler; and in this context he brings with him all the modern techniques and facilities that are available for the purpose. Here we are probably much closer than in the earlier versions to the outlook of many language teachers today. They would think primarily in terms of the student, and would see their own role as that of guiding and helping him in his task. The question that we have not considered up to how, however, is what the nature of the learner's task actually is. This has just been taken for granted. There is one assumption common to all three descriptions of the sentence that have been given so far. We assumed at the start, and have continued to do so, that the clause to be analysed belonged to the class of 'material process' or 'action' clauses. But not all clauses are of the action type; there are other types of process recognized in language. As teachers we may well be inclined to regard teaching as a form of action, if only because it leads to exhaustion. But where teach is analysed as 'cause to learn' it may not follow that we regard learning in the same light. Certainly he is studying English could be a clause of action. But learning English does not mean the same thing as studying English; and teach is related to learn rather than to study. Suppose that we analyse teach as 'cause to learn' but treat learn as a mental rather than a material process, interpreting it as 'come to know'. This may be represented by Description No. 4, where 'cognizant' is simply the equivalent of 'actor' (in No. 3) in the context of a mental process. Both No. 3 and No. 4 are 'middle' in voice - there is only one inherent participant instead of two: and No. 4 is perfective in aspect:

238

(a)

Μ. Α. Κ. HALLIDAY

mental process, cognition; middle, causative, perfective; rangespecific the teacher

taught

the student

English

(b)

Initiator

Process

Cognizant

Range

(c)

Peter

primed

Paul

with history

(d)

'The teacher enabled the student to come to know English.' Description No. 4

This description retains from No. 3 the notion that teaching someone means enabling him to learn. But it treats learning as something different from the acquiring of skill in action. Learning a language, in this account is not like learning to drive, or learning bricklaying or acrobatics; it is a mental exercise involving the acquisition of knowledge. In the approach to language teaching that corresponds to this description, the focus is again on the learner. The student is the key participant in the process, and the teacher is present as helper and guide. What is the student envisaged to be doing ? He is enlarging his mental powers by the acquisition of new knowledge. And since the teacher is helping him in the process, the teacher's role is to supply the required knowledge, in doses of suitable size and strength. The joker here is the word knowledge. It has often been pointed out that there is a difference between knowing a language, in the sense of being able to speak and understand and read and write it, and knowing about a language - knowing its rules, and being able to write up a grammatical description of it or compile a dictionary. The view of the learning process that is embodied in description no. 4 fails to make this distinction. It corresponds, in other words, to what is now labeled 'the linguistics fallacy' in language teaching (it used to be called simply 'teaching grammar'), namely the tendency to teach about the language - that is, to teach linguistics - on the assumption that this is a means of teaching the language. This is a very old approach. It was no doubt taken over from the teaching of classics, which is a rather different kind of task, especially in the context of today. Its use in modern language teaching was described, and denounced, a hundred years ago by one of the pioneers of

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language teaching theroy, Francois Gouin. But it continues to flourish, and indeed gains new life each generation as new linguistic theories come along. There are shifts in emphasis and in ideas about language; but whether the emphasis is on the facts of the language or on the principles behind them, and whether the grammar is 'old' or 'new', whether Nesfield, Fries or Chomsky, the basic approach is the same. Learning a language is regarded as a process of acquiring knowledge, of coming to know something, like studying history or mathematics. But when we talk of 'knowing a language' we are not really talking about a knowledge of facts or principles. Even if mastering a language seems to belong to the class of mental processes rather than to that of actions, it may still be rather different from mastering a subject, whether mathematics or history. This was hinted at in Description No. 3, where 'learn' was interpreted as 'acquire a skill', only there the skill was assumed to be a skill in action. We can suggest another description of the text sentence, one which retains the notion of acquiring a skill - or rather a set of skills - but which treats these as skills of a special kind, not of action but of verbalization. In this analysis, knowing a language means having the ability to speak and understand and read and write it. These could be interpreted as mental processes; but if so they are mental processes of a different kind, with a strong component of 'doing' in them. Their unique status is reflected in the fact that there is often a special clause type in the grammar for expressing them, centering around verbs like say, tell, ask and understand. Let us call these processes of verbalization. Knowing a language is being able to verbalize; this is expressed in the grammatical description by the presence of the feature 'verbalization' instead of 'mental process: cognition'. In Description No. 5, as in No. 4, teach is analysed as 'cause to learn'. But whereas in 4 'learn English' is interpreted as 'come to know English', in 5, where the process is one of speaking, understanding &c. rather than one of knowing, 'learn English' does not mean 'come to speak English'; it means 'come to be able to speak English'. This version expresses the complex notion that teaching a language means helping the student to master the ability to verbalize. Here is Description No. 5 (where 'speaker' is the equivalent of 'actor' in the special context of verbalization). A notable feature of this description is that it applies rather specifically to language teaching, and treats it as unique. It is not easy to find a clause having the same features and structure in which Peter is not already teaching Paul a language. We might manage to

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draw a parallel from technical or from inspired linguistic powers, such as Peter trained Paul in the language of the law courts, or Peter induced Paul to woo the poetic muse. But these would hardly make the illustration any clearer; so here we leave item (c) out. (a)

(b) (d)

verbal process; middle, causative, perfective; range-specific; potential the teacher

taught

the student

English

Initiator

Process

Speaker

Range

'The teacher enabled the student to become a speaker (&c.) of English.' Description No. 5

In Description No. 5, a language is treated as a potential. To know a language is to possess that potential, to learn a language is to acquire it; and the process of teaching a language is one of helping the student to build it up for himself. The language potential, however, is represented as different in kind from other human skills; if we wanted to characterize it briefly, we could call it a 'meaning potential'. To know a language is to have mastered the ability to mean. This will be the last of our excursions into the grammar of the language teaching process. We have not attempted to justify or explain the analyses in detail; nor have we given more than a fragment of the full description, but only as much as was needed to show up the similarities and the differences. In moving from one description to the next, we have readily changed more than one feature at a time, ignoring other combinations and selecting just those which seem to suggest real interpretations of the language teaching process. But each of the five descriptions presents a possible and defensible account of the English sentence The teacher taught the student English. Certain aspects of its syntax may be brought out more systematically in one version than in another; but no version can be dismissed as wrong, and all have something to recommend them from a grammatical point of view. This sentence is, perhaps, something of a syntactic oracle. Now, up to a point, the same is true of all sentences; but this, it seems, is one of the more versatile ones. It is probably the simplest and most typical

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expression of the process of language teaching that one could find in English. Yet it represents this process in a way which makes it look something like conveying goods to someone, something like moulding or working on him, something like helping him acquire a skill, and something like supplying him with knowledge; while at the same time being unique, differing in some respect from processes of all other types. If the linguistic representation of the language teaching process is so manysided, it may be that the process which it describes is manysided too. This would not be an unreasonable view. If I had to choose just one of these five interpretations, and no other, I suppose I should choose the last, on the grounds that it approximates more closely than any of the others my own conception of language teaching and language learning, and that the most fruitful practices seem to be associated with this approach: those where the teacher attempts to structure the language learning, within the limits of the teaching conditions and the resources available, in ways which impose certain demands on the student's abilities - demands such as on the one hand to relate, albeit often very indirectly, to the student's own language learning goals, and on the other hand to stretch his abilities fully in all the areas of verbal imitation and exploration that are relevant to his needs. It is quite likely however that really effective language teaching is not tied methodologically to any one interpretation of the teaching process or of the learning process. Learning a language is a complex and demanding task which needs to be understood not only in psychological but also in sociocultural terms; it is not by any means the same task to all learners, and in a class of thirty students there will probably be thirty different ways or styles of learning. It would be surprising if any one conception of the process was equally suited to all. Seen in this light, all the descriptions of our text sentence may have something of the truth in them. We are not of course expecting to derive a general principle for the classification and evaluation of language teaching methods from the grammar of one English sentence; (that would be 'linguistics as magic' all over again). What the grammatical exploration does is to offer a way of looking at the language teaching process. At the same time, it offers a way of looking at a sentence; and that is something which a language teacher will always need to do, whatever his conception of his task. Brown

University

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* This paper is based on a talk given to the Karachi University English Teachers* Association, Karachi, Pakistan. My thanks are due to Dr. S. Ali Ashraf, Head of the Department of English, University of Karachi, for help and encouragement.

L A N G U A G E ECOLOGY A N D THE CASE OF FAROESE EINAR HAUGEN

One of the smallest language communities in the world is located in the North Atlantic, about three hundred miles north of Scotland's Shetland Islands, and midway between Iceland and the west coast of Norway. Here, on eighteen habitable islands, buffeted by winter storms, the Faroe Islanders have lived continuously for more than a thousand years, ever since their ancestors sailed out from Norway and occupied the islands. On land their chief occupation is raising sheep, after which the islands are named, as well as birding on the incredible bird cliffs of the islands. But mostly they make their living from the sea, fishing and whaling, and they live in small seacoast villages, each one tightly knit, and often isolated from its neighbors much of the year. According to the latest census estimate (1969) they number only about 38,000, of whom some 10,000 live in the capital, Torshavn. They are all that remain of what was once Norway's north Atlantic empire, including the islands off the Scottish coast, Iceland, and Greenland, as well as parts of Ireland and Scotland. Today they are under the rule of Denmark, as they have been since Norway and Denmark were united in the late fourteenth century; but in 1948 they achieved home rule under the Danish king. The Danes mostly take it for granted that they are Danish and speak a peculiar kind of Danish; in some handbooks one will find it stated that they speak a dialect of Icelandic. Both of these opinions are mistaken, as any Faroe Islander today will be glad to inform you. My own private inclination is to regard their language as a kind of Norwegian, but even this turns out to be wrong. What do they speak and write, and what are the problems that face them in their social and literary life? How can their problems of communication tell us something about the life of a language, and illustrate some general principles of what 1 have chosen to call LANGUAGE ECOLOGY? I hope you will forgive me for adopting the word 'ecology' for the field of study that I am here proposing. It is one of those catchwords that

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happens to be fashionable today, and it is being worked to death. At the same time it points up the problems and the concerns that I wish to consider, the question of why languages live and die, and what can be done about it. In the general concern about the health of our natural environment, we should not overlook the health of our social environment, and language is a significant part of that environment. You may well ask: can we speak of a language as being healthy or sick, of being born or dying, of being more or less alive? Who are its doctors, what are its diseases, what cures can they offer? In trying to give an answer to some of these questions I shall first give you a general survey of some theoretical principles, illustrate them with some specific case studies, and then return to Faroese as my principal illustration. In biology the term 'ecology' refers to the natural environment. It is a 'branch of science', to speak with Webster, that is 'concerned with the interrelationship of organisms and their environments, especially as manifested by natural cycles and rhythms, community development and structure, interaction between different kinds of organisms, geographic distributions, and population alterations'. It may also be applied to 'the totality or pattern of relations between organisms and their environment'. If we substitute the word 'languages' for 'organisms' in these definitions, we get a very acceptable definition of what I have called 'language ecology'. There is precedent for such an extension in the development of 'human ecology', a branch of sociology which is defined (again by Webster) as 'the study of the spatial and temporal interrelationships between men and their economic, social, and political organization'. In practice it is clear that the term 'ecology' is not confined to this essentially descriptive science that I have just defined. When conservationists speak of 'improving the ecology', or of 'the deterioration of the ecology', they are using ecology to mean the qualities of the environment as factors in the well-being of men. They are using their studies in ecology to promote certain programs which they conceive to be for the betterment of human life. In short, they are being dynamic and normative rather than static or descriptive. They are saying something about how the environment ought to be rather than about what it actually is. I have already suggested that a language ecology involves treating a language as if it were an organism. Every linguist knows that this is only a half-truth, which was extremely popular in the nineteenth century, but is now virtually abandoned in scientific linguistics. The so-called

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'biological model' brought with it a number of false inferences. The romantics thought of languages as having degenerated from an earlier perfection, as man had descended from the angels: English with its paltry two cases of the noun was 'degenerate' compared to the ancestral Indo-European with its magnificent eight. The Darwinists, on the other hand, thought of the same development from eight to two as 'progress', an evolution comparable to the development of the Victorian gentleman from Neanderthal man. Even so great a linguist as Otto Jespersen in Denmark was caught up in this thinking: he wrote a whole book called Progress in Language to defend English from its detractors. Today this view is obsolete, and no scholar would claim that a language with two cases is either better or worse than one with eight or even twenty-two. Languages are different and achieve the same end result in communication by different means. Today it is more popular to speak of language in terms that remind us of our industrial and technological civilization. Language is referred to as a 'tool' or 'instrument' of communication, a 'code' that serves certain social purposes. This, too, is only a metaphor, which quickly breaks down when we examine it. A language is not something we can take out and use or lay aside like a hammer; it is not external, an object one can look at or refashion to taste. All such metaphors fail to make clear certain characteristics of a language: it is not a dead or inert object like a tool, even when it serves useful ends like tools. Nor is it alive in the same sense that biological organisms are alive, and when it dies, the conditions are quite different. Languages have in common with organisms their persistence through time and their more or less gradual change, but they are not inherited biologically. While organisms pass on their features through the genes, languages pass them on through the brain. A language lives only as long as someone learns it and uses it and teaches it to someone else. Language is not part of man's biological heritage, though the capacity for language certainly is; but individual languages are part of his social heritage. Language ecology is therefore societal, and should form a significant part of a complete science of sociology. This has been recognized only in relatively recent years, at least in this country. In 1964 a Committee on Sociolinguistics was organized by the Social Science Research Committee, under the chairmanship of Charles A. Ferguson, which brought together for the first time sociologists interested in language and linguists interested in society. What I am here calling 'language ecology' is certainly one aspect of the interdisciplinary field of sociolinguistics or the sociology of language, as others prefer to call it.

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A descriptive ecology of language is therefore concerned with the social environments of languages, their mode of transmission, the occasions of their use, their interaction in any given population. In a recent article (1971) I have suggested ten kinds of data one ought to collect for an adequate ecology of any language: its linguistic classification, its users, the domains of its use, concurrent languages, its varieties, its traditions of writing, its degree of standardization, its institutional support, its language attitudes, and its ecological classification. I will not attempt to cover all of these points, even for Faroese; I shall chiefly be concerned with the question of what a language is and how one language competes with another. But first: what do we mean by 'a language' in this context? I am told that biologists have problems in the taxonomic definition of 'species': just how many characteristics does it take to distinguish one species from the next? The crucial trait appears to be the ability to interbreed. For languages there is a similar border line with equally vague features: mutual intelligibility. We need only think of English to realize that grave difficulties of understanding can exist even within one language, say London cockney, Lancashire rural, American hillbilly, or Australian slang. Yet these are all results of natural evolution in given geographical and social contexts from a earlier form of English. H. L. Mencken insisted that American was a language of its own, distinct from English; but most of us would take American and British English to be dialects of the same language. Natural languages everywhere show this kind of language-dialect relationship, since most languages are split into dialects. In time these may become mutually unintelligible, thereby becoming technically new languages. But because there is no one point at which all speakers fail to understand, there is no way of establishing either a historical or geographical point of separation. For this reason it is impossible to state the number of languages and dialects in the world; the estimate of mutually unintelligible languages runs between three and four thousand. However, there is another definition of language which is based on an either-or principle and is therefore capable of exact delimitation: this is the so-called 'standard language'. Contrary to the natural languages I have been discussing, tbis is a deliberately, we may even say artificially, fixed language, which serves as the medium of communication of a formal organization, such as a church, a state, or a society. Most of the world languages belong in this category, including English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Hindi, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese,

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etc. The question of whether such languages are mutually intelligible with another is not relevant: Hindi and Urdu are intelligible, as are Czech and Slovak, Norwegian and Swedish, Spanish and Portuguese, but these are nevertheless separate languages. Each standard language carries its own norms within itself and aims to comprise in its range of expression everything that man can express. The example of Norwegian is relevant here: there are in fact two standard Norwegian languages which are mutually intelligible, and therefore natural dialects, but as standard languages they are in an absolute sense distinct. In writing or speaking either one the norms which one follows are different. Descriptively they are alike, but normatively they are different. It would therefore be quite possible to count standard languages, and their number is far less than three thousand; a few hundred would probably suffice. The problem is that today there are languages that are only partly standardized; but the time is coming when every language that wants to be standardized can become so, which is one of the acute problems of language ecology. I have already mentioned that natural ecology is both descriptive and normative; the same is true of language ecology. The descriptive aspect has been summed up by Joshua Fishman (1965) as the question of 'who speaks what language to whom and when?' The normative aspect adds the questions 'why and how?' Normative ecology is a popular source of anxiety and trauma: people worry about how they should speak. Or perhaps more often: how they should write, since standardization nearly always involves written languages taught in schools. There is a giant step between speaking and writing, and the fact that the writing is a scholastic product gives it undue prestige; people tend to forget about the primacy of speech once they have mounted this ladder and can kick it out from under them. The model that most people have in mind when thinking about language and society is what I might call the uniform or monodialectal community. This is a language community in which everyone speaks the same dialect, that is, in which the indi\idual languages agree substantially in phonology, grammar, and vocabulary. Any deviations that exist are individual and do not identify the speaker as belonging to any other group. This is the theoretical basis of even so important a work as Chomsky's Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), in his words, 'a completely homogeneous speech-community' (p. 3). In this pure form no such community exists, ana it is useful only for the purposes of a mathematical-logical theory of language. The model is approximated

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most closely in family or tribal units, in peasant villages and rural communities, in closely homogeneous urban areas, or in tightly-knit elites. The unrealistic aspect lies in the assumption of isolation; in most real groups there are people who know at least passively some other dialect or variety of the common language. These are therefore bidialectal, and may deviate from the norm in ways that identify them with another. There is one particular kind of bidialectalism that has been identified in recent sociolinguistic discussion under the name of 'diglossia', first defined by Ferguson (1959) and developed by Fishman (1967). This is the situation found in Greece, for example, where religious and official writing is in a so-called 'pure' Greek, the katharevousa, while much journalism and belles lettres are in a so-called 'folk' Greek, the demotike. Ferguson also compared the use of French and Creole in Haiti, German and Swiss in Switzerland, Classical and Modern Arabic in Egypt. The important point for ecology is that the users of these two varieties alternate them according to their functions. While there are many speakers who fail to learn the formal or 'high' variety, those who do learn it use it only on occasions that can be defined as having a formal function, while the 'low' variety is used in informal functions. Ferguson limited this distinction to varieties of the same language; Fishman's contribution was to extend it to the use of different languages in complementary functions, e.g. Russian Jews who use Yiddish for informal purposes and Hebrew for formal purposes. The crucial point in diglossia would then be the alternation of languages or dialects by social functions. Researches in American English by William Labov have captured some of the speech forms that change as his informants move from informal conversation to serious discussion and reading aloud. A New York saleswoman who might say [fo:9 floa] in the bosom of her family may very well change to [forθ flor] in answering a well-dressed customer. A third ecological situation is that of the truly bilingual society. In its pure form this would be one in which two distinct but cooperating groups each maintained its language and communicated through bilingual interpreters. It is rare to find such communities as whole states, though Belgium, Canada, and Switzerland spring to mind as examples. The number of bilinguals will depend entirely on the degree of interaction between the groups. A bilingual who grows up along the borders of communication will learn to speak language A to members of group A and language Β to members of group B. He may be involved in much the same functions in relation to both groups. He may trade or gossip or joke on an informal level, or communicate more formally with speakers

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of both languages, but he selects his language according to what he knows is the need or preference of the other speaker. Shopkeepers in bilingual Montreal are in this position: they have a keen eye for the appearance of their customers, and can often tell which language to use before the speaker even opens his mouth. In a bilingual society the distinction between the languages is therefore more one of speech partners, or interlocutors, than it is of functions. Of course, the distinction is never entirely neat, for diglossia and bilingualism can exist side by side, along with pockets of monolingualism. But it will do for our purposes in making this general presentation. What is the significance of our three types of societies: homogeneous, diglossic, and bilingual? They reflect very different types of language ecology, which suggest different predictions concerning the life and death of the languages involved. Let us call them societies A, B, and C. There is first of all a major difference in the process of language acquisition. In the homogeneous society (A) everyone learns substantially the same language from his elders and passes it on almost unchanged to his juniors. In a diglossic society (B) a few people learn actively the high-status language after they have learned the /ow-status language which everyone uses in daily life. The high-status language requires special schooling, which is often not available to most of the population. In a bilingual society (C) children grow up learning both languages, more or less skillfully, according to their specific contacts; they may speak one at home, another with their playmates, a third at school, or they may have two sets of playmates with different languages. The three societies will also differ with respect to language dominance and status. In society A language differences will not divide the group; they will only be individual or age-graded differences in the mastery of one and the same dialect In society Β language differences are a significant part of the status-cleavage of the society itself Those who speak to and for the whole group mark themselves off by their special dialect or language: we are the elite. Any other way of speaking than ours is 'vulgar' or 'rustic'. There is no question about which is high-status (H) or low-status (L): the difference is accepted by all. In society C the lines of status are much less clear. Each group has what it considers to be 'a language' and the amount of prestige it can achieve for its language is a reflection of the prestige of the group itself. There is a potential conflict situation, since a group may recognize that it risks extinction unless it can maintain its language, and the maintenance of the language thereby becomes a symbol of the group itself.

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One predictable effect of these situations is on the development of the languages involved. The term 'interference' is sometimes used to designate the importation into one language of words and rules from another. In society A this is excluded on principle, though not always in fact: whatever change there is will occur within the society, as new needs arise. There is complete continuity, without intrusions or calamities. In society Β the attempt will be made to keep the high-status language frozen for the sake of maintaining a sacred or prestigious tradition, while the lowstatus language goes on changing. The low-status language is likely to adopt some features of the high-status language and will in time be greatly influenced by it; less influence will pass the other way, but inevitably there will be some. In society C the amount of interference will be determined by the relative dominance of the languages: a dominant language will seem like a desirable model and will influence the weaker. Finally, the question of life and death: what are the chances of maintenance of the languages involved? In society A there is no problem: as long as the society exists, the language will go on. It will become in time a 'different' language, but this does not matter, since no one will be alive to talk with the descendants. Only if the language is preserved in writing can one observe the gap. In society Β it is possible to achieve great stability also, but there are elements of change implicit in the situation. In the Middle Ages Europe maintained for centuries an overall diglossia, in which everyone spoke a local dialect, while those who could write, wrote Latin in the West and Greek or Church Slavonic in the East. The Arabic countries of the Middle East still maintain a diglossia between Classical Arabic and spoken Modern Arabic. This can go on as long as strong religious or hierarchical traditions remain; but something is bound to happen when access to roles in the elite becomes open to everyone, as when a universal public school system is established. Several possibilities then exist: either the High or Low language may win out, or a compromise between them may arise. The rise of submerged populations, what Deutsch has called their 'mobilization', may lead to a shift that makes a society C out of it, where various groups claim new rights for their own languages. Society C is often an unstable society, usually resulting from migrations, dislocations, wars, or revolutions. Here one can predict that as in the Renaissance and again after the French Revolution, the old diglossic society will pass through bilingualism to separate monolingual societies: Β will become C in an attempt to return to A. Or else some kind of functional bilingualism will have to be established, in which a federation of A's will cooperate through interpreters.

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This progression from society A through Β to C is one that has raised many problems of culture and education, one which governments have wrestled with ever since the Renaissance. These problems are especially acute in the new, emerging nations of Africa and Asia. When a language group becomes sufficiently self-conscious to realize that it is one and that its existence as a group is threatened, it can resort to certain measures. I have called the whole process one of language planning, a form of social planning (1966). In this case the planning amounts to a deliberate interference with the language ecology, on behalf of the group involved. The goal of planning is to introduce into the teaching of the younger members of the group a standardized form of the language. Such a language can, it is hoped, restore the uniformity of a society A, where only one form is taught to everyone. The establishment of such a standardized language, where none exists, is a complex operation, which occurred long ago for the major modern languages such as English, French, or German, as well as the Scandinavian languages Danish and Swedish. Mostly this occurred at the time of the introduction of printing and the establishment of centralized bureaucratic governments. A single kind of language replaced not only the diglossic high-status language, but also the dialectally divided low-status languages; the norm became a national language, neither dialectally split nor foreign-dominated, a language for government but eventually for the governed as well. The nineteenth century saw the rise of many such new languages for groups that had been neglected in the previous round of development, what Meillet once referred to as 'the Balkanization of Europe'. In many cases a process that had taken centuries for the other languages was reproduced by individuals working single-handedly and producing new instant languages. Standardization included, briefly stated, four major components: (1) the selection of a norm that would be acceptable even to those who had a different dialect as their native tongue; (2) the codification of this norm in grammars and texts that exemplified it and stated the rules so they could be learned by those who did not already know them; this includes agreement on how to spell the language when writing it; (3) the elaboration of the grammar and vocabulary so that it would be suitable for all levels of usage, high or low, simple or complex, as required by a modern civilization; and (4) the implementation of the planning by winning the consent of the people who were to use it. Such a process requires the cooperation of experts in language, the linguists, with experts in social organization and social change, but first and foremost, the cooperation of the people themselves, who are the final arbiters,

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not only of the results of planning, but of the very future of the language itself. Among the many cases of nineteenth century language planning, three dramatic examples will illustrate briefly what I mean: Irish, Norwegian, and Hebrew. In all three the establishment of national states included also the introduction of a new language by deliberate planning. In the case of Irish the result is virtually a total failure, in Norwegian a halfsuccess, in Hebrew an almost total success. Irish was the spoken and written language of Ireland as long as it was a society A, with a thousand-year old written tradition. The establishment of English rule turned it into a society B, with English as the high-status and Irish as the low-status language. But in the nineteenth century Ireland became a society C, where the schools made nearly everyone bilingual. No compromise was possible, and so the Irish moved from the uncomfortable society C back to a new society A where English was their medium. But the Irish independence movement found this unworthy of a free nation and included the Irish language as one of the symbols of its independence. Today great sums are being spent on the education of English-speaking Irish children in Irish as a second language, with minimal results. Irish is clearly doomed, because the language ecology of Ireland is against it; implementation fails unless there is some real necessity to keep a language alive. In Norway there are today two official Norwegian languages, as noted earlier, one a Dano-Norwegian which is descended from the speech of Danish-influenced officials in Norway, the other a New Norwegian which was created by the linguist Ivar Aasen in the 19th century. When Norway became independent in 1814, it was a society B, with Danish as the high-status and spoken Norwegian as the low-status language. Planners tried to restore it as a society A, but have so far only succeeded in making it a society C, with all the conflicts attendant on a bilingual situation. One language group fights the other, as if it were a question of mutual extinction, while others try to create a compromise language that will solve the problem by satisfying no one. The problem of restoring the inner unity of a society A is not yet solved, and many deplore the anomalousness of having two languages, while some accept it as a cultural enrichment. It is often said that in Israel the miracle has been accomplished of reviving a language from the dead. This is a gross over-simplification, since in fact Hebrew was never dead. It was a language which entered into a marked and extreme example of what I have called society B.

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Hebrew functioned throughout the Jewish community in all countries as the language of the religious unity of the Jewish faith. Even when it ceased to be anyone's daily speech about 200 A. D., it remained the written language of the sacred texts and as such was learned by everyone, at least by all men. It was spoken when needed among Jewish groups that had no other language in common, but mostly on topics related to sacred scripture. In the nineteenth century the combination of persecution in Russia and the opening of Palestine made it possible to dream of establishing a national Jewish state. This made it not only reasonable, but absolutely imperative to reshape Hebrew from a purely religious to a secular language, to select a norm, codify it, elaborate it, and try to implement it in the multilingual population that built the new Jewish state of Israel. The man who served as symbol and spearhead of the planning was the Russian emigre Ben Yehuda, but the reasons for his success lay in the situation, the ecology of the new state of Israel. This state rejected the diglossia of the diaspora, whereby Jews were split between a high-prestige language for religion and a low-prestige language like Yiddish or Ladino tor daily life. It created in effect a new Hebrew, which is in many ways very different from the old and has even been characterized as Hebrew on a Yiddish base. It has made of Israel a society A, in which one language serves for all internal purposes, from the most everyday occasions to the most complex scientific, political, economic, literary and religious facets of modern civilization. We are now ready to return to the Faroe Islands and their tiny north Atlantic community. In its early centuries this was a typical community A, in which native Faroese dialects gradually split apart and developed away from Old Norse. The lack of a written tradition permitted speakers to deviate unconsciously from the old. But with the establishment of the Lutheran church and a Trade Monopoly from Denmark the writing of Danish was introduced and a small number of Danish speakers formed an economic and social elite. In this respect the Faroes were treated no differently from Norway, Iceland, or provincial Denmark itself. All folk speech was a low-prestige language, with Danish in a diglossic relation that gave it high prestige. Among the population Faroese continued to be spoken, but a pidginized Danish was used in communicating with the Danish officials, who rarely bothered to learn the local speech. In the course of time some of this pidginized Danish influenced the Faroese of the natives, giving it a heavy infusion of Danish words and constructions. There was imminent danger of the complete loss of Faroese, like that of Irish, and this might indeed have happened

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if access to Denmark had been as easy for the Faroese as England was to the Irish. But remoteness gave the Faroese time to develop a countermovement on behalf of their language before it was too late (Haugen 1968). The first preserved attempt to write modern Faroese was made in 1773 by a 27-year old student at the University of Copenhagen, a native of the Faroes named Jens Christian Svabo. Svabo's life story is the pathetic one of a swallow who never made a summer; but he did a fantastic work, which was only recognized long after his death. He rescued for posterity the texts of numerous medieval dance ballads which are the chief glory of traditional Faroese literature; he wrote a remarkable ethnographic study of the islands; and he collected many thousands of Faroese words which form the basis of its modern dictionary. It is hard to conceive that anyone would have tried to make a standard language of Faroese without his work. But he himself did not have any such ambitions. He recognized the possibility, and he pointed the way, by noting (in 1773) that if anyone should want to restore it as a language, he would have to bring it back to 'its pristine purity', by restoring the lost Old Norse words, eradicating the new and 'corrupted' Danish words, and giving the language, 'if not a new pronunciation, in any case a new orthography'. In the terms of his time, this was a program of language planning, as I have sketched it. But in spite of his love of the language, he was too much of an eighteenth-century rationalist to propose anything so impractical and arduous. Instead he suggested that it would be much more sensible to work for introducing Danish and teaching everyone to use it correctly (Djupedal 1964). This was certainly the policy of the Danish government. Faroese youngsters like Svabo, who showed promise, were educated in Danish. But at home they continued to talk Faroese and to sing their ballads in that language. During the early years of the nineteenth century a new nationalistic wind blew through Europe, as we have seen, and a few Danish and Faroese students of language began to cultivate the writing of Faroese. The famous Danish linguist Rasmus Rask wrote its first scientific grammar in 1811; in 1823 a Faroese pastor translated the Gospel according to St. Matthew and in 1832 the Old Icelandic saga of the Faroe Islands. But the crucial threshold was passed in 1846 when Svabo's nephew, the Reverend V. U. Hammershaimb devised a new etymologizing orthography, just what Svabo had said would be needed if Faroese were to be brought back to 'its pristine purity'. This spelling saddled the children of the Faroes for all time with a learning problem similar to

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that faced by English children, namely, that the spelling does not reflect the pronunciation directly, but through the intermediary of its history and its grammar. The effect is to keep the written images of words and morphemes constant, even when the pronunciation changes; just as we in English spell the plural suffix -s whether it is pronounced /s/ or /z/, so in Faroese the Old Norse letter d is pronounced either /j/ or /v/ or not at all, and never has the sound it had in Old Norse, that of th in this. This makes it possible to spell the language so that it looks like a dialect of Icelandic, while they are actually very far apart and hardly intelligible when spoken. The written form is therefore easy to read, but hard to write; it is dignified and traditional, as an orthography probably should be. After more than a century of efforts to develop Faroese into a standard language, it became the main language taught in the public schools when home rale was established in 1948. In slow motion it had gone through all the steps I have mentioned as part of the standardization process: selection, codification, elaboration, and implementation. But we may well ask: was it worth it? On this there may be widely differing opinions, just as people can differ on problems of natural ecology. The existence of a Faroese language is today a fact; but a population of less than forty thousand islanders is at the mercy of a world in which they cannot live without contact with other languages. Danish continues to be the chief foreign language taught and for many Faroese still the most natural language to write. Spoken Faroese is far from having given up the Danish words that teachers forbid in written Faroese. We can say that the Faroese have deliberately moved themselves into a bilingual situation, making themselves into a society C, while trying to become a society A. At least in official work they are confused and uncertain as to what language to use and exactly how to handle it. Formerly, as in any society B, the prestige was clearly on the side of the high-status language, here Danish, but few could speak it. Today, Faroese competes with Danish as a standard language, but comes off badly because of inadequate resources. Danish is rejected as a symbol of domination, but has become much better known because of the rapid urbanization of life through modern communications. It is typical that while there is a not inconsiderable Faroese literature, the best-known and the best Faroese writer, William Heinesen, writes in Danish. If we establish the two dimensions of status and intimacy for measuring the roles played by two competing languages in a community, we may say that in a diglossic situation the low-status language is always a high-intimacy language. In medieval France Latin was high in status,

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but low in intimacy, while French was the reverse; in Norman England, English had low status, but high intimacy. When this kind of traditional society gives way to one with modern mobility, the roles are upset. In the Faroes the Danish environment has shrunk to insignificance, but the role of Danish as a medium of contact with outside culture has not been reduced. As a student of mine, who is now in the Faroes, has written me: the young people no longer think Danish is elegant, only that it is more exciting. 'In an ecological sense the influence of Danish here is felt at a more basic level.' There is a good deal of irritation about expressions that are used in written Faroese and are felt to be 'invented' and 'unnatural', usually imitations of Icelandic words. Most people still think of Faroese as something you talk, and don't like it if they have to look up a word in the dictionary. The movement to purify the language has made people conscious of Danicisms in their speech, but it has not caused them to eliminate them if they still feel them as natural. I hardly need point out the problems this creates for a literary style. The most successful written Faroese is that which deals directly with Faroese conditions or similar conditions in other countries. The general knowledge of Danish weakens the motivation for developing the literary language beyond this traditional base. Let me bring my remarks to a close by saying a few words about what we may call the 'balance sheet' of language ecology. I have asked whether the Faroese development of a separate standard language is worth the cost. In the final analysis it is impossible to answer this question with any assurance. Americans are especially impatient with groups that claim rights for their own language, as the long history of antibilingualism in this country shows. But the steamroller approach to small languages has much in common with the superhighway that flattens and destroys our landscape. What is group cohesion and pride worth? How can one measure in money the values that are lost when a group gives up its language in favor of another? The Faroese are fond of pointing out to visitors that since 1900 their population has doubled and their standard of living has multiplied, while the neighboring English-speaking Shetland Islands have lost half their population and are being wiped out economically. They are more than willing to let you think that their fierce insistence on being themselves has had something to do with it. Perhaps they are right. At any rate, it needs to be considered when we study the ecology of language. Harvard

University

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REFERENCES Deutsch, Karl. 1953. Nationalism and social communication: an inquiry into the foundations of nationality. Technology Press, M.I.T. Djupedal, Reidar. 1964. Litt om framvoksteren av det faeroyske skriftmälet. Skriftspräk i utvikling, 144-186. Oslo: Norsk spräknemnd. Ferguson, Charles A. 1959. Diglossia. Word 15.325-340. Fishman, Joshua. 1965. Who speaks what language to whom and when? La Linguistique 2.67-88. —. 1967. Bilingualism with and without diglossia; diglossia with and without bilingualism. The journal of social issues 23.29-38. Haugen, Einar. 1966. Linguistics and language planning. Sociolinguistics, ed. by William Bright, 50-71. The Hague: Mouton. —. 1968. The Scandinavian languages as cultural artifacts. Language problems of developing nations, ed. by Fishman, Ferguson, and Das Gupta, 267-284. New York: John Wiley. —. 1971. The ecology of language. The Linguistic Reporter. Vol. 13, Supplement 25. Washington, D. C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.

A P A R T I A L BLACK W O R D LIST FROM EAST TEXAS ANN R. B. HEALD

This list of expressions and vocabulary was begun about two years ago for my own enjoyment. I found them vividly decsriptive and witty, and therefore felt they were worth collecting for the enjoyment of others. Since 1 was not a dialectologist, I relied on Bagby Atwood's fine book (Atwood 1962) for method as far as it suited my limited corpus and scope. With two exceptions, I have excluded pronunciations from the explanations of the items listed (Atwood 1962:30). One exception was the variant pronunciation between Blacks and Whites of cushaw. Blacks \

r

pronounced the word: /ko + so/~/ku + so/. Whites said: /ko + so/. As for the other exception, I had to depend upon the Black pronunciation. The reason is that the word as it appears in dictionaries is different in spelling as well as definition. Blacks pronounced it: /go + Ιο | ρό + co/. The origin of this word was probably gutta-percha, a substance from various sapotaceous trees in Malaya, used in the arts, medicine and to insulate electric wires (Ο. E. D., vol 4:647). The items contained in this paper were collected from two informants. One helped raise me; the other helped raise my children. My principal informant was born in Keatchie, Louisiana, which is not far from the Texas border. When she was about a month old, her family moved to San Augustine, Texas (Pine Woods Region). She was raised in and around this area. When she was 29 years old, she moved to Baytown, Texas (Gulf Coast Plain). She is now 50 years old. My second informant was born and raised on a farm near Hempstead, Texas (Post Oak Belt). During her youth, she lived in Baytown. Later she returned to Hempstead. She is 68 years old. Trying to maintain racial balance, I interviewed about 35 people for recognition and use of the listed items. About 75% of them were women, ranging in age from the mid-forties to the mid-sixties. They were from the Post Oak Belt, the Pine Woods Region and the Gulf Coast Plain

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(Atwood 1962:5). It seemed reasonable to confine my study to this area because of the high concentration of Blacks here (Atwood 1962:14). The terms refer to Texas geographic regions (see figure). GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS OF TEXAS

San Augustine

Jaytown

POST OAK BELT COASTAL PLAIN PINE WOODS

Adapted from William T. Chambers, The geography of Texas

WORD LIST

broke her leg This expression means 'become illegitimately pregnant'. According to my informants, its use began when older women conversed in the presence of children. It is known and used by the Blacks, but is unknown to the Whites. Example of usage: 'Did you hear about

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sister Betty's girl? She broke her leg a couple of months ago.' The item appears in L. W. Payne 1909. cold as a wedge A wedge is a piece of metal tapering from a thick back to a thin edge (Webster: 1651). It is used to split logs. The Blacks know and use this expression. Although Whites know what a wedge is, the expression is unknown to them. hot as a boar mink Although recognized, this item is not generally used by women. According to my informant, her husband and brothers use the saying often. Whites, of either sex, are unfamiliar with it, although several men expressed their appreciation of the item. There is a similar expression used by some White men. It is: hot as a boar chinch in a featherbed. A chinch is a bedbug (Webster: 255). hot as a peanut parcher According to my informant, a peanut parcher is a covered wire basket with a long handle, for use in a fireplace. The informant never roasts peanuts. She always parches peanuts, although now it is done in an oven. Whites do not know this particular expression, but most are aware of the Black usage of parch, with peanuts. raggedy as cushaw guts A cushaw is a large oblong squash with a long crookneck. It is also called winter crookneck pumpkin and sometimes China squash (Webster: 363). The expression has been used by my principal informant to describe the clothes she was wearing. Also, I have heard it used to describe the mouth of a person who has lost several front teeth. All the Blacks interviewed know the item and use it frequently in conversation with other Blacks. This probably explains why none of the Whites interviewed have heard the expression. funeralize, -ed This means to bury someone. An example of its use could be: 'Did they funeralize him yesterday?' or, 'They are going to funeralize her tomorrow.' This usage of the word is common to Blacks. It is known to Whites but never employed in serious conversation by them. jgd + la i pa + The word is used by Blacks to describe anything made of tortoiseshell, either real or synthetic. I have heard it used to describe large synthetic tortoise-shell hair pins and hair clips. The word is unknown to Whites, as pronounced and defined by Blacks.

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little girl, little tressy These items are synonymous. They refer to female external genitalia and their use is restricted to babies and children, either as a descriptive term, or in a command. They are known and used frequently by Blacks. The items are not generally known to Whites. nigger chokers A nigger choker is a white sweet potato. According to my informants, white sweet potatoes are more dry and mealy than regular sweet potatoes, and therefore must be cooked for a longer time. They are difficult to obtain now, except in the country. All Blacks know and use this term among themselves. It is unknown to Whites, as are white sweet potatoes. pass, -ed To pass is to die. It is used in the past tense. An example of its use in a sentence is: 'Did she pass last night?' This usage is common among Blacks. Whites are familiar with passed, but prefer to use passed away, plunder The word is used by Blacks to describe female external genitalia. Its use is restricted to description of adult female genitalia. I heard the word when my principal informant made the following remark, 'Aw, she's just got risings on her plunder.' Risings are boils (Payne 1909:364). This definition of plunder is known by about half of the Blacks interviewed. Whites are unfamiliar with this meaning of the word. They define plunder as junk (Atwood: 1969:45). There are no special conclusions to make from this study beyond the well known fact that Blacks do not communicate with Whites in quite the same way they communicate with each other. Blacks more often than not reserve for use among themselves special descriptive expressions, such as those mentioned in this paper. And, the withholding of these expressions is a cause of at least one of the differences in communication between Blacks and Whites. I know this to be a fact, from my experience in interviewing Blacks. The truth is, if it had not been for the special relationships existing between my informants and me, I would never have heard most of these expressions. Baytown, Texas

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REFERENCES Atwood, E. Bagby. 1962. The regional vocabulary of Texas. Austin: The University of Texas Press. Chambers, William T. 1946. The geography of Texas. Austin: The Steck Company. Payne, Leonidas W. 1909. Vol. 8, Ά word list from East Alabama.' University of Texas bulletin. Austin: The University of Texas Press. O.E.D. = The Oxford English dictionary. 1961. Vol. 4. London: Oxford University Press. Webster = Webster's new world dictionary of the American language. 1960. College Edition. Cleveland and New York: The World Publishing Company.

EGYPTIAN A N D MISCHSPRACHEN 1 CARLETON Τ. HODGE

'... as the remote origin of nations goes back beyond the records of history, we have nothing but their languages to supply the place of historical information.' Leibnitz2

As has been noted elsewhere in this volume (see the Voegelins' article), interest in the concept of 'mixed languages' has increased in recent years. From a state of dormancy (witness the absence of MIXED or HYBRID LANGUAGE from Hamp 1966 [reflecting 1925-1950]) through respectable notice (Weinreich 1953:43: TRADE LANGUAGES) to a probable non-existence (Hockett 1958:423), it has further progressed to recognition in pidgin and creole languages (Stewart 1962:19-20; Hall 1964:379) and even to presumed NATURAL languages (e.g. Mbugu per Whiteley 1960). It is therefore of particular interest that one explanation of the nature of Egyptian vis-ä-vis Semitic and certain other languages has been that it was a Mischsprache. While it is true that a sizable book has been written to refute this viewpoint (Thacker 1954), it is felt worthwhile to review some of the theories involved and consider the matter from a different vantage point. Several problems faced the scholars who sought to establish the relationships of Egyptian to Semitic. First, there was difficulty in setting up regular sound correspondences. Too many consonants appeared as equivalents (cf. Erman 1892, Albright 1923, and Vergote 1945; Vycichl [1958:368] calculates that Eg.jd could theoretically correspond to fifteen different combinations in Semitic). At the same time there seemed to be a substantial number of lexica in common. Secondly, Egyptian had, apart from the imperative, only one 'verb' form which corresponded to one in Semitic (the Old Perfective or Pseudoparticiple; cf. Edel 1955:1,2). In order to account for these phenomena Adolf Erman proposed the theory that Egyptian resulted from Semitic influence on an African language. Mentioned by him as early as 1885 (52-55; 1894:30-32), it was taken up in somewhat more detail in 1892 and 1900. Impressed

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by the morphological and lexical material he found in common between Egyptian and Semitic in 1892, he felt inclined to reject his earlier idea that the Egyptian language resulted from the Semitic conquest of an African people (125-126). At the same time the great differences in Egyptian, attributed by him to drastic change, made him feel that some such theory might be necessary (128-129). By 1900 he was again convinced that Egyptian was precisely such a Mischsprache, formed when Semites forced their language upon the local, Nubian, inhabitants (34-37 [350-353]). Erman's influence on Egyptologists was very great - certainly greater than the theories of linguists writing then or since. It is therefore not surprising that many writers in the field may be quoted as holding some such concept of the origin of Egyptian: for example, Breasted 1964 [1905]:20, Calice 1931:25, Barton 1934:94 (reversing his earlier opinion 1902:20), Steindorff-Seele 1942:9 (not in original German version of 1900), Frankfort 1948:16 and fn 4 (348), James et al. 1964:68, Kees 1961:41, Aldred 1965:33-34, Pareti 1965:86 (cf. 107 fn 33 for counterview). In addition to these widespread reflections of the basic position, there were a number of scholars who developed what may be termed variations on the same theme. Among these may be mentioned Zyhlarz, Lefebvre, and Yycichl. Zyhlarz (1933:94-99) is more specific than other writers on the subject and has a more definite theory of the development of the Mischsprache. Among his definite statements should be particularly noted: 'Keiner der hier ermittelten sprachbildenden Faktoren präsentiert sich im Ägyptischen als rein dominant, sondern die ägyptische Sprache ist im Verbalausdruck ein Individualtypus für sich' (96). Have we here an attempt to define MISCHSPRACHE as a mixture with no one part dominant? He concludes from this and seven other criteria: 'Die gleicherweise über den hamitischen als auch semitischen Sprachtyp hinausentwickägyptische Sprache kann unmöglich eine im liberal-evolutionistischen elte Sinn mutierte Eingeborenensprache Afrikas gewesen sein, sondern sie muss ihre Entwicklungsphasen auf einem mehrsprachigen Völkergebiete durchgemacht haben, ehe sie zu ihrer eigenen Artung innerhalb des hamito-semitischen Sprachstammes erwachsen war' (96). He conceives the development to have been that of a trade language, based on a Libyan dialect (98). In Zyhlarz we find the clearest expression of the Mischsprache concept, supported by the most evidence (see the summary of his view in Ranke 1939:15-16). Lefebvre's article (1936), again based on Erman's thesis, considered not only Egyptian but all HAMITIC languages to be mixtures: 'Corame

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les langues qui lui sont apparentees, l'egyptien est un produit ä deux composantes: l'une africaine (et plus specialment libyque), l'autre semitique ... particulierement dans la structure et la flexion du verbe, c'est ä son substratum africain qu'il le doit' (289-290). Vycichl, one of the most prolific writers in the field, has published numerous suggestions regarding the relationship of Egyptian to other languages. While he considers Egyptian to be related to Semitic (even calling it 'ein frühes Arabisch' in 1958 [369]), he traced a number of words and formatives common to Egyptian and Berber (some also to others) and concluded that they were the remains of a pre-Hamitic (Typhonic) substratum (1951). This latter he does not identify with any known language or linguistic group. There were, however, dissenting views. The great French Egyptologist, Gaston Maspero, attributed the differences to the time depth of separation: O n e would say that the language of the people of Egypt and the languages of the Semitic races, having once belonged to the same group, had separated very early, at a time when the vocabulary and the grammatical system of the group had not as yet taken definite shape' (1894:46). Apart from the last part of the quotation this could be called the 'orthodox' linguistic view. It would appear to be the premise on which many scholars have worked, most tacitly disagreeing with the Mischsprache concept (open disagreement: Albright 1923:69; in general cf. Hodge 1970c and references). This quotation from Maspero, including the last part, could be taken as a summary of Thacker's much later work (see below). It is curious how the motif of the primitive language has persisted. A notable exception to the general lack of recent interest in the problem is Thacker's (1954) study of the Egyptian and Semitic verbal systems. This is a major work aimed at determining the relationship of Egyptian to Semitic by study of the verb. His conclusion is in favor of the orthodox view: 'The Semitic and Egyptian verbal systems are offshoots of the same parent system' (335). Thacker's work is of great value, but the facts he brings out need to be considered in a broader frame in at least three respects: (1) The entire group of related and presumably related languages (Afroasiatic, Erythraic, Hamito-Semitic) must be taken into consideration. (2) The structure of Egyptian needs to be considered in the light of its entire history, if we are satisfactorily to hypothesize on its earlier, unknown, state. Thacker is not negligent of this aspect; he does not draw all of the probable conclusions. (3) The structures of all of the languages involved need to be considered in the light of the linguistic cycle phenomena.

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2 and 3 are in effect the same aspect, being applied in 2 to Egyptian alone, in 3 to all. One corollary of points 2 and 3 is that we completely discard the notion of a progression in one direction only. Thacker falls into the fallacy of equating EARLY with SIMPLE. This is entirely unjustified. On the other hand, Egyptian has been for many the result of decay (so Erman, Calice, etc.). This is also entirely unjustified. One of the purposes of the present writer's work on the LINGUISTIC CYCLE is to demonstrate the naturalness of all stages of language development. Vis-ä-vis Semitic, Egyptian was considered: 1. Unrelated. Basically an unrelated language but with influences from Semitic (variant: and others). 2. Related. 2.1 Basically one of the four (Semitic, Cushitic, Chadic, Berber), with borrowings from one or more of the others. 2.2 Basically one of the four, with strong substratum or adstratum influences from an unrelated language or languages. 2.3 Related to the four but developing in a normally independent fashion. 2.4 Related to the four but also strongly influenced by one or more of them. 3. Created on the contact of several languages, including Semitic. 3.1 A MIXED language. 3.2 Pidgin/creole. 3.3 Lingua franca. This is a framework devised to include the theories proposed, rather than a list of linguistic possibilities. It is sometimes difficult, even with such a list, to classify the views presented. Erman's Nubian base is really 2.2, as he feels Egyptian is Semitic twisted out of shape by conquered Nubians. Lefebvre (1936) follows Erman in assuming Egyptian to be transformed Semitic, while Zyhlarz (1933) considers it basically Berber. Vycichl assigns many common elements to a prehistoric substratum but also assumes a relationship among the languages involved. Considerable clarification is needed if these possibilities are to be put in meaningful linguistic terms. What is at issue is the degree and kind of mixture envisaged. Concepts of SUBSTRATUM, ADSTRATUM, SUPERSTRATUM, LINGUA FRANCA, and PIDGIN are the primary ones involved. Neither SUBSTATUM, ADSTRATUM, nor SUPERSTRATUM as normally observed involves influence to the degree that the result may be called a Mischsprache: 'a language characterized by multiple genetic origin of its

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lexicon, syntactic, and morphologic patterns, etc.' (Axmanova 1966: 533 tr.). The two instances where 'mixed language' appears presently in use are those of pidgin/creole and such languages as Mbugu. Whether a pidgin/creole is genetically mixed is still open to question (cf. Hockett 1958:423), though we may admit the possibility for purposes of the present discussion. Mbugu appears to be an instance of relexification with retention of characteristic grammatical forms Cef. Whiteley 1960). The commoner instances of (even massive) lexical borrowing, with occasional morphologic or syntactic influence (e.g. English) do not have the amount of morphologic and syntactic borrowing necessary to claim true 'mixture'. Egyptian has been understood by some to be such a mixture (cf. Aldred 1963:59). We must leave open the question whether there really are mixed languages, any new claimant for the title to be carefully defined as well as described. As noted above, it is necessary to consider the matter from several standpoints. The first, that of Egyptian vis-ä-vis all other Afroasiatic languages, cannot yet be analyzed with any degree of certainty. We must first have careful analyses of the languages now grouped as Cushitic, Chadic, and Berber, with reconstructions of proto-languages within such groups as develop upon closer observation. While Zyhlarz (1933:2-3) was perfectly justified in complaining that others neglected all but Egyptian and Semitic, he was unjustified in claiming Berber to be the 'purest representative of Hamide' (2 fn 1 tr.). Further, any claim that Egyptian is a mixture of several languages of which only one (Semitic) is known from roughly contemporary sources would require far more knowledge than we now possess to substantiate. One may, however, consider whether the structure of Egyptian is such that a mixture of this kind is likely. This has already been discussed at some length by Thacker CI954) with regard to the verb. The general lack of correspondence between the two verbal systems prompted him to set up, among others, 'uninfected forms of universal application' to account for some Semitic and Egyptian verbal uses (128-153). Following this lead, he eventually set up two forms of the triliteral root as the earliest: 'Both forms were 'uninflected' and both had universal meaning because there was nothing in their structure to limit them in any way' (319). We are justified in asking what kind of linguistic structure this may represent. There are two presently feasible answers: 1) a different stage of the linguistic cycle 2) a pidgin/creole.

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Any discussion of proto-Afroasiatic must take into consideration the point in the linguistic cycle at which there was separation of the languages involved. As Old Egyptian may be considered as fairly heavily morphologic (cf., e.g., the verb forms in Edel 1955:4*), pre-Egyptian may be presumed to have been either syntactic (Sm) or in an intermediate stage (sm). That stage of the proto-language during which Egyptian left the fold would in all likelihood have been a primarily syntactic one (so Hodge 1970a: 5): Fig. 1

Stage 1

proto-Afroasiatic

Stage 2

pre-

Stage 3

Akkadian

*Sm

*sm

Egyptian

sM

As line 3 is an attested stage, only Akkadian and Egyptian may be listed. The other branches may be represented only hypothetically (*). The implication of this view is that the greater syntactic freedom of the proto-forms which Thacker feels he must posit is explainable in terms of the cyclic stage at which the languages separated. One of the things Thacker overlooks is the relatively uninflected nature of Late Egyptian VERB forms. It, too, is a SIMPLER stage but is not therefore EARLIER. The other possible explanation for a linguistic stage characterized by uninflected forms used in multiple ways is that the language was a Creole. In a general statement of 'syntactic features common to the Creoles', Beryl Bailey remarks '... their inflectional content is exceedingly meagre, so that the grammatical information is carried almost entirely by the syntactic system. Typologically, these languages ... are characterized by having syntactically independeni elements which account for the total grammatical structure. Creole words are invariable, with no inflectional endings ...' (1966:6). It was suggested in a previous article that pidgins and Creoles might be the utilization of certain syntactic constants in the languages involved with minimum morphologic carry-over (Hodge 1970a:6; cf. Weinreich 1964:42-43). This considers a 'natural' language to consist of: semantic motifs + syntactic constants + lexicon + constraints

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Historically there is constant re-assignment of semantic motifs to different line items (lexica) and to various syntactic structures. At any given time there are inherited forms (morphology) and structures (syntax), which are here labeled CONSTRAINTS (cf. Hodge 1970a, where these weight the scale for MORPHOLOGIC stages of the cycle). Within the history of a natural language these constraints are part of tradition and perform a valuable cultural function. The 'weight' of tradition depends upon the culture but all cultures utilize it as a stabilizing device. There is at the same time, due to the functioning of the SYNTACTIC CONSTANT, a degree of flexibility. The latter is a better term than INNOVATION, FREEDOM OF DEVELOPMENT, or any other expression which implies that movements for change have anything new to offer. In language we see these movements as contained within fairly restricted boundaries. It is the feeling of freedom or innovation enjoyed by the speaker or writer which is important to him - psychologically satisfying, one might say. Ignorant of the fact that his syntactic and semantic patterns are within a set mold, he is happy in KNOWING that he is different. If we develop our concept of tradition vs. innovation, aligning both morphology and the retention of an inherited written language on the side of tradition, we see these two features not only as filling different roles but as maintained in different ways. The traditional aspect demands a greater degree of organized enculturation - what may loosely be called 'formal education'. The innovative aspect lives as long as the language is transmitted from speaker to speaker - parent to child, playmate to playmate. Should contact with another culture be disruptive, the more vulnerable aspect is of course that which demands formalization. We therefore often see, on such contact, loss in the traditional area. It should be noted that this describes only what happens to inherited material within the total tradition. Whenever there is a contact culture> there is also 'influence' of varying degrees (loanwords, caiques, possibly even structural change). Language is thus seen as a set of semantic motifs actualized in speech by the operation of a set of syntactic constants manipulating a lexicon in part constrained by inherited combinations. We have seen that the contact of two languages (or speech areas) may result in the more rapid removal of inherited constraints. This does not imply any strong structural influence of one language upon the other, nor does it deny the possibility of such. Removal of the constraints merely leaves the rest of of the language to continue developing. A possible interpretation of a pidgin would be that it is one of the

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languages involved with the removal of all constraints ('abandonment of obligatory distinctions' - Weinreich 1964:42-43). This is strongly put, but it is useful to take this extreme position - not to claim it, but to use it as a base for modification. Can we imagine such a structure? semantic motifs + syntactic constants + lexicon Our new language should have a very large proportion of one motif to one lexical item. We would also assume that the lexical items would have only one shape.3 The definition of creole quoted above from Miss Bailey fits our new formula very well. The problem is that it isn't quite so. Any creole has already developed SOME morphology ( = constraints); see, e.g., Miss Bailey's own section on morphology, scant though it maybe (1966:16-17). We may rewrite our formula: semantic motifs + syntactic constants + lexicon + (constraints) It is, however, important to note the source of these constraints. They may be later borrowings from a more standard language (cf. Hall 1966:25-26), or they may be natural developments within the creole itself. They are rarely initial borrowings from one of the contributing languages. We are therefore justified in considering a creole to be initially almost constraint-free. Any sizable amount of inherited morphology will therefore disqualify a language from identification as originally a creole. As previously noted, there is little recognizable inherited material in the Egyptian verb (see, however, Thacker 1954 passim). On the other hand, there is considerable nominal morphology of an inherited nature. Vergote (1965) has shown that Egyptian has maintained a number of nominal patterns which are formally and often semantically the same as the familiar Semitic ones: qattälu, qitlu, qitlat, qatlu, qatlat, qutlu, etc.

E.g. qitlat forms nouns of action (often verbal nouns) in both Semitic and Egyptian: Coptic else 'lifting up', satbe 'chewing the cud', Β semni 'setting up' (82-83). Although these survive in Coptic more as fragments of a system than as a system, their existence at all is a very important factor in determining the relationship of Egyptian to Semitic (and to other languages). The combination of morphological features ( = constraints) which Egyptian shares with Semitic definitely rules out the possibility that Egyptian is unrelated to Semitic. The same data, containing as they do a large number of constraints, make it just as unlikely that Egyptian began as a creole. We may safely discard these two extremes.

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There remain the various hypotheses of mixtures of sundry sorts. Here - primarily due to lack of contemporary data concerning the other languages involved - we can hardly prove or disprove any of the specific theories. Zyhlarz, mentioned as presenting the most detailed case for a mixture of some kind, used the term VERKEHRSSPRACHE (1933:98), not MISCHSPRACHE, in describing his hypothesized pre-Egyptian. A lingua franca or trade language is not by definition necessarily a Mischsprache. It is, rather, either a language at a more syntactic stage of the linguistic cycle - and hence relatively free of constraints, or a language which has on contact with others lost a good deal of its inherited constraints (these two not mutually exclusive). It would in this respect be more like Late Egyptian. Rather sudden loss of inherited constraints under the influence of another language is a normal phenomenon. Such loss is often accompanied by other signs of influence - loans, etc., but the major change in the language is not the result of borrowing, but of loss. It is not inconceivable that this happened to Egyptian. It would account for the loss of the prefix conjugation which many assume to have been in the proto-language. (With no evidence, even fossils, of its existence in Egyptian, it appears preferable to consider Egyptian as having developed from a stage prior to the solidification into morphology of the prefix system.) The trade-language view, while possible, is presently without evidence and may be considered unnecessary. The 'mixed' nature of Egyptian is most easily explained as the result of its natural inheritance. Related to the other Afroasiatic languages, it has lexical affinities with them. Leaving the parent stock at the time that it did, it inherited both some common constraints and a number of nominal sentence patterns which developed into its classical VERB system. The problems of determining the precise relationship between Egyptian and the related languages have not all been solved by the appearance of the latest deus ex machina, the linguistic cycle, but it gives us a new perspective. We see more clearly how natural the developments of the various languages are. We have not, however, ruled out the possibility of influence of another language influence on Egyptian. Given our very meager knowledge of the linguistic make-up of the Nile area before 3000 B. C., it is fruitless to speculate without further evidence. Indiana University

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NOTES 1

Originally presented as a lecture to the Language and History in Africa Seminar, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, November 25, 1971. It has been completely revised and considerably abridged (as the Pashto informant said of the infinitive (tMj 'to eat' as related to /xwram/ Ί eat': 'it is a changed form'). Acquaintance with earlier statements (Hodge 1970a,b) is assumed. It should be added that the present article is one of the results of summer research and a fall sabbatical semester, for which latter I wish to thank Indiana University. I also wish to acknowledge the help of research grants from Indiana University and from the American Council of Learned Societies. 2 Quoted from Pickering 1843:56. 3 Weinreich recognizes the full potential of the Creole (see 1964:43 fn 75) but his text stresses the initial stages of pidginization: 'only the bare essentials of existence are given in the hybrid form'. The view taken here is that at all stages the syntactic constants are operative and the potential for full expression there. The constraints are unnecessary; it is not that the language is so reduced that it doesn't need them.

REFERENCES Albright, W. F. 1923. The principles of Egyptian phonological development. RT 40.64-70. Aldred, Cyril. 1963 [1961]. The Egyptians. (Ancient people and places). New York: Frederick A. Praeger. —. 1965. Egypt to the end of the Old Kingdom. (Library of the Early Civilizations). London: Thames and Hudson. Axmanova, O. S. 1966. Slovar' lingvistiieskix terminov. Moscow: Sovetskaja Enciklopedija. Bailey, Beryl Loftman. 1966. Jamaican creole syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barton, George A. 1902. A sketch of Semitic origins. New York: Macmillan. —. 1934. Semitic and Hamitic origins. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Breasted, James Henry. 1964 [1905]. A history of Egypt. New York: Bantam Books. Galice, Franz Graf. 1931. Über semitisch-ägyptische Sprachvergleichung. ZDMG 85.25-37. Edel, Elmar. 1955/1964. Altägyptische Grammatik. 2 vols. (AnOr 34,39). Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. Erman, Adolf. 1885. Aegypten and aegyptisches Leben im Altertum. 2 vols. Tübingen: H. Laupp. —. 1892. Das Verhältniss des Aegyptischen zu den semitischen Sprachen. ZDMG 46.93-129. —. 1894. Life in ancient Egypt. London: Macmillan and Co. —. 1900. Die Flexion des aegyptischen Verbums. (SbDAW) Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 317-353. (Offprint paginated 1-37.) Frankfort, Henri. 1948. Kingship and the gods. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hall, Robert A. Jr. 1964. Introductory linguistics. Philadelphia and New York: Chilton Books. —. 1966. Pidgin and creole languages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hamp, Eric. 1966. A glossary of American technical linguistic usage 1925-1950. 3rd

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ed. (CIPL). Utrecht/Antwerp: Spectrum. Hockett, Charles F. 1958. Course in modern linguistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Hodge, Carleton Τ. 1970a. The linguistic cycle. Language Sciences 13.1-7. —. 1970b. Review of Studies in Egyptology and linguistics. Lg. 46.940-944. —. 1970c. Afroasiatic: an overview. Current trends in linguistics 6, Southwest Asia and North Africa, ed. by T. A. Sebeok et al, 237-54. The Hague: Mouton. James, T. G. H., A. F. Shore, and I. E. S. Edwards. 1964. A general introductory guide to the Egyptian collections in the British Museum. London: The British Museum. Kees, Hermann. 1961. Ancient Egypt: A cultural topography. London: Faber and Faber. Lefebvre, G. 1936. Sur l'origine de la langue igyptienne. CdE 11.266-292. Maspero, Gaston. 1894. The dawn of civilization: Egypt and Chaldaea. Ed. by A. H. Sayce, tr. by M. L. McClure. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. (French original 1878). Pareti, Luigi, et al. 1965. History of mankind. Vol. 2. The ancient world. Part 1. (UNESCO) London: George Allen and Unwin. Pickering, John. 1843. Address, at the first Annual Meeting. JAOS 1.1-60. Ranke, Hermann. 1939. The beginnings of civilization in Egypt. JAOS 59. Supplement. 3-16. Steindorff, George, and Keith C. Seele. 1942. When Egypt ruled the East. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stewart, William A. 1962. An outline of linguistic typology for describing multilingualism. Study of the role of second languages, ed. by Frank A. Rice, pp. 15-25. Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics. Thacker, T. W. 1954. The relationship of the Semitic and Egyptian verbal systems. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Vergote, Joseph. 1945. Phondtique historique de l'egyptien. (Bibliotheque du Mus6on, 19.) Louvain: Museon. —. 1965. De verhouding van het Egyptisch tot de Semietische talen. (MKVA27.4.) Mededelingen, Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Künsten. Brussels: Paleis der Academien. Vycichl, Werner. 1951. Eine vorhamitische Sprachschicht im Altägyptischen. Z D M G 101:67-107. —. 1954. Notes sur la prehistoire de la langue egyptienne. Or. 23.217-222. —. 1958. Crundlagen der ägyptisch-semitischen Wortvergleichungen. MDAIK 16:367-405. Weinreich, Uriel. 1964 [1953]. Languages in contact. The Hague: Mouton. Whiteley, W. H. 1960. Linguistic hybrids. African Studies 19.95-97. Zyhlarz, E. 1933. Ursprung und Sprachcharakter des Altägyptischen. (Reprinted from ZES 23). Berlin: Dietrich Reimer/Hamburg: C. Boysen.

SYNTACTIC A R G U M E N T S A N D ROLE RELATIONSHIPS: ARE THERE SOME OF THE LATTER IN A N Y OF THE FORMER? DELL HYMES

1. I associate Arch Hill with the richness of language as well as the rigor of linguistics because my first Linguistic Institute was spent partly in a seminar on literature and linguistics he helped conduct. That was twenty years ago, when the application of linguistic insight to the literary domain seemed frighteningly mechanistic to many scholars of literature, and suspiciously unscientific to many linguists. Now mediation between those two domains has resulted in a flourishing field of research. In this brief tribute I should like to suggest that mediation between linguistics and another domain may also yield something of value to both. The domain is that of social relationships. Much recent work in linguistics has recognized the necessity of taking into account characteristics of the context and participants in discourse (e.g., Finth 1935, Gunter 1966, Halliday 1970; Hymes 1964a: 38, 1964b: 3, 1970: 130; Jakobson 1957, 1960; Labov 1970, section 4; R. Lakoff 1969, mss. Nida 1945, Pike 1967: §1, 4, 2.13, Sapir 1933:151-8 ( = 1949:11-12), Tyler 1966, Wheeler 1967, Whiteley 1966.). Such work may be said to explore the ways in which sentences, as acts of speech, necessarily involve two complementary aspects of meaning, the 'referential' and the 'social'. In sociology the work of Harold Garfinkel, Erving Goffman, Harvey Sacks, Emanuel ScheglofF, and others has shown the necessity of taking into account characteristics of discourse. Such work may be said to explore the ways in which social relationships necessarily involve the management and on-going interpretation of discourse. These two areas of research have increasingly converged, but not quite joined. For the linguist, analysis of social relationships is typically informal, a matter of ad hoc contents (but cf. Fought 1972 on Goffman's notion of with). For the sociologist, analysis of texts is typically informal too, a matter of ad hoc content (but cf. certain observations of Schegloff 1968 and Goffman 1971 on remedial interchange). I shall try to show that more explicit consideration of social relationships, as an aspect of semantic analysis itself, may contribute to the

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understanding of both the presuppositions underlying sentences and the values underlying social relationships. 2. Consider the following four English sentences: (1) If you eat some candy, I'll whip you. (2) If you eat any candy, I'll whip you. (3) If you eat some spinach, I'll give you ten dollars. (4) If you eat any spinach, I'll give you ten dollars. These sentences are taken from Robin Lakoff 1969:609-610. The first pair constitute 4a, the second pair 4b, in her discussion. Lakoff abstracts her argument as follows: This paper presents evidence that semantic notions - such as presupposition, speaker's and hearer's beliefs about the world, and previous discourse - must be taken into account in a complete treatment of the distribution of some and any in conditional, negative, and interrogative sentences. Syntactic conditions alone will not account for the fact that, in certain sentence types, the two forms occur with different meanings (608). Lakoff's point is that the two sentences in each of these and other pairs differ in meaning, and the only surface difference between the members of each pair is that one has the quantifier some, and the other any. She proceeds to infer that in certain types of sentences the choice between some and any depends on factors other than the superficial syntactic configuration in which the quantifier is found. In questions of certain types, the use of some implies that the speaker hopes for, or at least anticipates a positive answer; the use of any implies the expectation of a negative answer, or at least a neutral feeling on the part of the speaker. (E.g., "Who wants some beans?": "Who wants any beans?" (609)). In conditions ... cases like 4a and 4b ... are not real conditions; they are, rather, threats or promises. In these, again, the emotional bias of the speaker comes into play, in the choice between some and any. A threat goes with any, since usually someone threatens someone else to prevent an undesired action; a promise goes with some, for a similar reason (612). The four sentences of concern here are interpreted in these words: In 4a, the first sentence [1] could, I think, only be spoken to someone who wanted to be whipped. The speaker in the second sentence [2], which is much more normal, makes the assumption that the hearer does not want to be whipped: this is a punishment. With any, the interpretation of the sentence is that the speaker does not want the hearer to eat the candy. Hence it matches

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up correctly with the apodosis, a threat of punishment. With some, the interpretation is that the speaker wants the hearer to eat the candy; hence the apodosis can't be interpreted as punishment. The sentence can be interpreted as meaningful only if there is an implication of perversion on the part of one of the persons involved. In 4b, on the other hand, just the opposite is true. The first sentence [3] is the normal one; it assumes that the person addressed wants ten dollars, as most people would, and is offering [sic: being offered?] a reward for doing something the speaker wants him to do. In the second sentence [4] the only possible interpretation is that, for some reason, the person addressed does not want to receive ten dollars, and that this sentence is a threat, parallel to the second sentence of 4a (611). We have, then, two 'normal' sentences and two sentences [1, 4] whose acceptance is taken to strain somewhat the imagination. 3. To many readers (and hearers) of English, sentence [4] will appear normal quite without strain, not as a threat, but as a promise: It is so unlikely that you will eat spinach that I feel entirely safe in promising you ten dollars if you do. Such sentences are common. We might dub them the 'I'll eat my hat' type. More generally, it is not the case that the meaningfulness of [1] requires an implication of perversion, and that the only possible interpretation of the addressor's assumption about the addressee in [4] is that the latter does not want ten dollars. Beyond the factor of SPEECH ACT PRESUPPOSITION, involving the status of a sentence as something like a PROMISE or THREAT (or a guarantee or a warning), there is an additional factor of social meaning, which may be called KEY, involving whether in its conventional intention the sentence is to be taken as MOCK or at FACE-VALUE.1 And the working out of the implication of key as a factor leads to recognition of yet another factor of social meaning, which has to do with the internal role relationships in terms of which a sentence is construed. As we shall see, more than one such construction is possible. As to key: notice that the contrast does not seem to be quite the same thing as a contrast between INSINCERE and SINCERE (Searle 1969:62). The speaker is not taking responsibility for having an intention, in both the insincere and the mock case, but in the latter (unlike the former) the speaker is not purporting to have the intention. The contrast mock: face-value thus appears to cut across insincere: sincere. Further, Searle makes the status of an utterance-as-promise independent, or neutral, with regard to sincerity or insincerity; the latter contrast is a question of actual intention (of motive, in Skinner's (1971) terms. Insincer

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DELL HYMES

promises are promises nevertheless, because of what they purport (of their conventional intention, in Skinner's terms). Sincerity conditions, then, as a matter of actual intentions and states, are at a step removed from the essentially cultural analysis in which we (like Lakoff, Searle, and Skinner) are engaged. The interpretation of an utterance as mock or face-value, on the other hand, seems inseparable from, and indeed indispensable to, the analysis of speaking as customary behavior. (Cf. Hymes 1967:24, 1972:62 - although in those papers SERIOUS was used for conventional intention, and hence ambiguously in retrospect, given specialization of the term serious now to motive). Notice also that terms such as promise and threat can only be applied informally here. One might speak instead, or also, of GUARANTEE and WARNING. (I owe awareness of this point to Bruce Frazer.) In the absence of a fully worked-out analysis of the English taxonomy of speech acts in this domain, we cannot be sure whether the availability of a terminological distinction reflects a difference in speech act as such, or additional aspects of meaning, having to do with topic, context, style level, etc. And of course we should not expect any language, including English, to be a perfect metalanguage for itself, in this or any other respect. This is a principal reason why an independent sociological analysis of conventional acts is essential. Linguistics cannot itself, through analysis of the FOLK ANALYSIS, or HOME-MADE MODEL, embodied in a language's terminology for speech acts, expect to discover the existence and nature of all the acts performed in a community through speech. Because of the additional factor of key, the two non-normal sentences [1, 4], then, may be either a threat or a promise, a warning or a guarantee, or the like. Each sentence may have either a mock or a face value and a positive or negative component. In other words, it is not only that sentences differing only in a single quantifier may yet differ in meaning. Sentences that do not differ at all, i.e., that have one and the same surface structure, are susceptible of at least two contrasting readings. In keeping with a standard form of argument (e.g. re Flying planes can be dangerous), the present case would seem to demonstrate that KEY (as conventional intention, not necessarily actual motive - cf. Skinner 1970, 1971), is a necessary part of the schema of interpretation underlying sentences. The interdependence of two broad types of function, or meanings would seem to apply here as elsewhere in the analysis of language. 4. The reasoning behind this conclusion can be presented more clearly

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281

if we adopt a format for restating the relevant features of the sentences in question. Let X represent the protasis or condition of a sentence (e.g. If you eat some candy), and let Y represent the apodosis or conclusion (e.g. I'll whip you). In these terms, Lakoff's analysis of the four sentences, quoted above (2), can now be given as follows: (1) (2) (3) (4)

Addressee wants Y, Addressor wants X. Addressee does not want Y, Addressor does not want X. Addressee wants Y, Addressor wants X. Addressee does not want Y, Addressor does not want X.

In this respect, of course, there are but two types of sentences: 1, 3 and 2,4. The further distinction in terms of NORMAL (2, 3) vs. ABNORMAL (1, 4) depends on SOME and ANY in relation to the customary wants of the participants and their community. A somewhat more elaborate description of the form of the sentences will help bring out the implications of key and role: (1) (2) (3) (4)

If you do something I want, I'll do something you want. If you do something I dont want, I'll do something you don't want. If you do something I want, I'll do something you want. If you do something I don't want, I'll do something you don't want.

Notice now that the relation between participants (addressor, addressee), condition and consequence (protasis, apodosis), and distribution of positive and negative evaluations (want), is permutable. In terms of the format given first above, one may have: (Γ) (2') (3') (4')

Addressee Addressee Addressee Addressee

wants X, Addressor wants Y. does not want X, Addressor does not want Y. wants X, Addressor wants Y. does not want X, Addressor does not want Y.

In terms of the format given second above, one may have: (Γ) (2')

If you do something you want, I'll do something I want. If you do something you don't want, I'll do something I don't want. (3') If you do something you want, I'll do something I want. (4') If you do something you don't want, I'll do something I don't want. For the purpose of this argument it has been assumed that some takes only positive senses (excluding NEGATIVE) and that any takes only negative

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DELL HYMES

senses (excluding POSITIVE), as Lakoff infers. (Nor are possible questions as to the scope of the syntactic analysis itself considered). Let us assume, as does Lakoff, that the normal cultural assumption or presupposition is that eating candy is positive, eating spinach negative, and that being whipped is negative, receiving ten dollars positive. We have then two forms of interpretation for each of the sentences. With regard to 1, If you eat some candy, Γ11 whip you, interpretation 1 [If you do something I want, I'll do something you want] yields a MOCK PROMISE. It is contrary to presupposition, as it were. It suggests that the addressee does not like candy and does like being whipped, and/or that the likelihood of either act is slight. In speech the mock promise would require intonation and voice quality suggesting mutual ingratiation. Interpretation 1' [If you do something you want, I'll do something I want] yields a FACE-VALUE THREAT. It is in accord with presupposition. It fits the assumption that the addressee likes candy, but not being whipped, and further suggests that the addressor does not want (his?) candy eaten (or does not want the addressee to eat [too much?] candy [sweets?] (before dinner?), and would be willing to punish the addressee if he did lact candy. With regard to 2, If you eat any candy, Γ11 whip you, interpretation 2 yields a FACE-VALUE THREAT, in accord with presupposition just as 1'. Interpretation 2' yields a MOCK THREAT, contrary to presupposition, just as 1, that to be carried off in speech would require intonation and voice qualities appropriate to the suggestion of mutual disinclination (of the addressee to eat candy, of the addressor to mind enough to punish for it). (I.e.; If you eat any candy [but you don't like candy], I'll whip you [but I don't like/wish to whip you].) With regard to 3, If you eat some spinach, ΓII give you ten dollars, interpretation 3 yields a FACE-VALUE PROMISE, in accord with presupposition. It suggests that the addressee does not like spinach (indeed, some people do, but we are restricting ourself to cultural stereotypes for the moment), but would like to receive ten dollars; it suggests that the addressor wants some spinach eaten (by the addressee ?), and, possibly, that he would not casually part with ten dollars. Interpretation 3' yields a MOCK PROMISE, contrary to presupposition. It suggests that the addressee likes spinach (contrary, at least to stereotype), but would not mind ten dollars; possibly, it suggests also that the addressor is not particularly interested in having the addressee eat spinach, and in any case is eager to seize on any pretext for giving ten dollars (to the addressee?). In

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speech it could be carried off with intonation and voice qualities suggesting prospective mutual satisfaction. With regard to 4, If you eat any spinach, ΓII give you ten dollars, interpretation 4 yields a MOCK THREAT, contrary to presupposition, that could be carried off in speech with intonation and voice qualities appropriate to mutual disinclination (here, to have spinach eaten, and to receive ten dollars). Interpretation 4' yields a FACE-VALUE PROMISE, in accord with presupposition. In summary, (1) (Π (2) (2') (3) (3') (4) (4')

Mock promise Face-value threat Face-value threat Mock threat Face-value promise Mock promise Mock threat Face-value promise

Thus, the cases judged a non-normal promise (1) and a threat (4), respectively, are found instead to be interpretable as instances of the speech act contrary to that to which they were assigned. (Assuming a constant set of presuppositions is preserved - to change the set of presuppositions of course would require us to change the analysis of all the sentences, normal as well as non-normal.) 5. All this is not to say that each interpretation is equally likely. Indeed, something along the lines of marked and unmarked meanings, or interpretations, can be discerned. This has been indicated in the remarks on intonation, although it must be remembered that normal intonation is itself an ingredient of meaning and interpretation. The key to the marked and unmarked interpretations would seem to involve what can be called a RECIPROCAL vs. a REFLEXIVE construction of the role relationship between participants. Interpretations 1-4, of the type If you do something I (do/don't) want, ΓΙΙ do something you (do/don't) want can be called reciprocal; interpretations l'-4' of the type If you do something you (do/don't) want, Γ11 do something I (do/don't) want can be called reflexive. Notice first that reciprocal and reflexive interpretations do not coincide with the status of a sentence as a speech act (threat, promise) or with the key of a sentence (mock, face-value). The two types of interpretation

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DELL HYMES

are distributed equally among both types of act and both kinds of key. Thus, threats comprise both 2, 4 and 1', 2', while promises comprise both 1, 3 and 3', 4'. Mock cases comprise both 1, 4 and 2', 3', while face-value cases comprise both 2, 3 and V, 4'. The two types are also of course distributed equally overall with regard to the two quantifiers: any is found in both 2, 4 and 2', 4', and some in both 1, 3 and 1', 3'. There is nevertheless a difference between the two types of interpretation with regard to quantifiers. The reciprocal cases are entirely any in the case of threat, and entirely some in the case of promise, whereas the reflexive cases are divided, with the mock threat having any, the mock promise some, but the face value threat some, the face value promise any. These relationships can be seen in the following diagram: /

THREAT

PROMISE

\

\Reflexive

Reciprocal

Reflexive

Reciprocal

FV Mock

/ \ FV Mock

/ \ FV Mock

/ \ FV Mock

any

any

some

any

some some

any some

2

4

Γ

2'

3

1

4'

3'

A further difference between the two types of interpretation can also be found in relationships involving the two parts of each sentence. If we consider the two quantifiers to have positive and negative values, following Lakoff (1969:613), and indicate them with + and —; if we contrast the two types of act themselves, marking threat as — and promise as + ; and if we mark the predicates of positive condition (eat candy) and positive consequence (receive ten dollars) with + , and the predicates of negative condition (eat spinach) and negative consequence (be whipped) with —, then the values for the several sentences could be entered at the bottom of the diagram given above, as follows: 2

4

1'

2'

3

1

+ -

-+

+-

+-

-+

+ -

4'

3'

- + - +

A more useful arrangement, for our immediate purpose, is to align

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285

the values as follows, giving first culturally assumed values for the predicates of the protasis and apodosis, then the value for the quantifier, then the value for the speech act. RECIPROCAL

Protasis (1) (2) (3) (4)

+ + — —

Apodosis Quantifier Speech act — — + +

+ — + —

+ — + —

(Mock promise) (Face value threat) (Face value promise) (Mock threat)

REFLEXIVE

Protasis (Γ) (2') (3') (4')

+ + — —

Apodosis Quantifier Speech act + +

4+ —

— + +

(Face value threat) (Mock threat) (Mock promise) (Face value promise)

With the reciprocal interpretations, the relationships are rather straightforward. The quantifier and the act have invariably the same value (some with a promise, any with a threat). The quantifier has invariably the same value as the predicate of the apodosis (consequence), when the key is face value, and the same key as the predicate of the protasis (condition) when the key is mock. With reflexive interpretation, the relationships are more complex. The quantifier and the act have the same value only when the key is mock (any with threat in 2', some with promise in 3')· In these cases the quantifier has the same value as the predicate of the apodosis, in contrast to what obtains with the reciprocal interpretation. When the key is face value, the quantifier and the act have opposite values (some with threat in 1', any with promise in 4'). In these cases the quantifier has the same value as the predicate of the protasis, again in contrast to what obtains with the reciprocal interpretation. The invariant relationships under the two interpretations can be summarized formulaicly, letting Pro = Protasis, Apo = Apodosis, Q = Quantifier, SpA = Speech act, FV = Farce value, and Μ = Mock. Under the reciprocal interpretation, Q = SpA, and Q = Αρο/FV, Q = Pro/M (or, if Q = Apo, then the key is FV, and if Q = Pro, then the key is M). Under the reflexive interpretation, it is not the quantifier, but

286

DELL HYMES

the apodosis that covaries exactly with the speech act, so that Apo = SpA, and Q = SpA/M, Q Φ SpA/FV (or, if Q = SpA, then the key is M, and if Q = φ SpA, then the key is FV). The paradigmatic or field approach being followed here (cf. LeviStrauss 1963:18) - the approach, really, of all serious structuralism - can be pushed further, as I shall now indicate, but the results approach the uninterpretable, so long as evidence is confined to the manipulation of sentences on a page or in a mind. With just such data, the approach is useful for the generation of a full set of possibilities, but inadequate to determine their interpretation. For that, observation and analysis of actual conversation in spontaneous settings is required. With that caution, notice now that the values of the protasis and apodosis (condition and consequence) need not be fixed in opposition, as Η , or — h One can consider sentences in which both values are + , and sentences in which both values are —. Thus, in terms of the reciprocal interpretation, one can have: [ + + ] (5) If you eat some candy, I'll give you ten dollars. [If you do what I want (which is conventionally + ) , I'll do what you want (which is conventionally +)]. (6) If you eat any candy, I'll give you ten dollars. [If you do what I don't want (conventionally + ) , I'll do what you don't want (conventionally +)]. [ ] (7) If you eat some spinach, I'll whip you. [If you do what I want (conventionally —), I'll do what you want (conventionally —)]. (8) If you eat any spinach, I'll whip you. [If you do what I don't want (conventionally —), I'll do what you don't want (conventionally —)]. In terms of the reflexive interpretation, one can have the same surface sentences, and, as underlying descriptions, the counterparts: [4-+] (5')

[

[If you do what you want (which is conventionally + ) , I'll do what I want (which is conventionally +)]. (6') [If you do what you don't want (conventionally + ) , I'll do what I don't want (conventionally + ) . ] (7') [If you do what you want (conventionally —), I'll do what I want (conventionally —)]. (8') [If you do what you don't want (conventionally —), I'll do what I don't want (.conventionally —)].

287

SYNTACTIC ARGUMENTS AND ROLE RELATIONSHIPS

Charted along the same lines as before: RECIPROCAL

(5) (6) (7) (8)

Protasis

Apodosis

Quantifier

+ + +

+ +

+

Speech Act

REFLEXIVE

(5') (6') (7') (8')

+ +

+ +

+ +

But how to interpret these formal possibilities in terms of speech act and key? If the invariant relationships previously noted should hold for these sentences, then, under the reciprocal interpretation, where Q = SpA, one would take 5 and 7 as promise, and 6 and 8 as threat. But no automatic reading of key would be possible. Q = Apo, as in cases of FV, but also Q = Pro, as in cases of M. (One could have taken Q = Apo/FV, but Q Φ Apo/M, in which case all these reciprocal cases would be FV, since Q is never not equal to Apo. That seems contrary to interpretations available for certain of the sentences, as suggested below, and contrary to expectations as to the general availability of contrast in key.) Without consideration of other aspects of the message, then, ambiguity results. On the other hand, under the reflexive interpretation, where Apo = SpA, one would take 5' and 6' as promise, and 7' and 8' as threat. Moreover, key is interpretable. Where Q = SpA, as in 5' and 7', the key is M, and where Q Φ SpA, as in 6' and 8', the key is FV. In the cases of reciprocal interpretation, perhaps key can in fact be interpreted in terms of the positive or negative values of the predicates, so that 5 would be a face-value promise in a tone of mutual ingratiation (you like eating candy, and I like giving away ten dollars - recalling lines in W. H. Auden's For the Time Being', A Christmas

Oratorio

(1945:

459) to the effect that Ί like committing crimes; God likes forgiving them; Really, the world is admirably arranged'). 7 would be a mock promise, in a tone of mutual disinclination or arrant improbability

288

DELL HYMES

(you are as loth to eat spinach, which I do not want you to do, as I am loth to whip you, which you don't want me to do). 6 would be perhaps a mock threat, perhaps in a tone such as 'If you are so naughty as not to resist the temptation to eat candy (a very likely event, since children such as you like candy), I shall just have to give you ten dollars, whether you like it or not - (ha ha).' 8 is perhaps a face-value threat, perhaps in a tone such as 'It may be highly unlikely that you would do something so unpleasant as to eat spinach, but if you do eat any spinach, perhaps just because I've told you not to, I'll whip you, just because I've told you not to.' Here we obviously are extending ourselves beyond what the machinery suggested in this paper can take formally into account, although not beyond what, one hopes, further exploration of conversation will make it possible to take formally into account. Let us sum up the status of the additional sentences, 5-8 and 5'-8', letting glossing of the latter go by, and then return to the question of markedness by way of conclusion: (5) (6) (7) (8) (5') (6) (7) (8)

Face Value Promise Mock Threat Mock Promise Face Value Threat Mock Promise Face Value Promise Mock Threat Face Value Threat.

6. Lakoff's interpretations involved a predisposition to take construal in terms of reciprocal roles as normal and exclusive. A predisposition to take sentences at face value is also reflected. Her normal cases (2, 3) have just these two characteristics. The other two cases (1, 4) cause difficulty because the reciprocal interpretation is imposed upon them without consideration of the possibility of contrast in key. Predisposition to interpret such sentences in terms of reciprocal roles is probably common in the United States and perhaps throughout Englishspeaking speech communities. Predisposition to take sentences at face value seems to me less common - the mock interpretation of 4 occurred to me immediately upon suggestion of difficulty with it, and I suspect that the mock: face value contrast is likely to occur readily to many others. I suspect, then, that adequate research would show that the reciprocal role interpretation is the common, unmarked one, but also

SYNTACTIC ARGUMENTS AND ROLE RELATIONSHIPS

289

that interpretation of sentences as mock, as well as at face value, is also likely. We are dealing, of course, with cultural definitions of situation. Lakoff's point that interpretations depend upon cultural definitions opens up the possibility of different cultural definitions. It seems likely that communities may differ with regard to the likelihood or acceptability of a contrast between mock and face-value interpretation, in general and in regard to types of situation. Perhaps the personal communities of Lakoff and myself differ in this regard, at least within the situation of considering syntactic examples. In any case, her analysis makes it clear that interpretation of such sentences depends upon cultural definitions of rewards and punishments, so that what is face value in one group need not be in another. Once the door is opened to contrast in key, one can see the need to determine not only such cultural definitions, but also norms for styles of speech. Mock utterances may be expectable in one group, even stereotyped to the point of losing any special force, and so rare in another group as to be momentarily uninterpretable as such in the flow of ordinary discourse. Much work in the ethnography of speaking is needed on these points. With regard to the MOCK: FACE VALUE dimension, then, there is a respect in which the mock cases appear more complex, more marked, if only in the recurrent need to invoke an appropriate intonation or other support of the intended interpretation. Still, vocal features comment upon the relationship between an overt sentence and its presuppositions in all cases, and, as has been suggested, it may be necessary to consider neutral intonation as but one choice within a set of appropriate intonations, the entire set being the proper object of analysis. Speech styles in relation to settings have to be considered as well, and in some cases it may be the face-value interpretation of an utterance that requires special support. In sum, it will not be surprising to conclude that mock interpretations are generally more marked, but it is dangerous to start with that conclusion, and to set them aside as departures, deviations, or the like. Much that is normal and natural in speech would then be missed or misperceived. The second respect in which one kind of interpretation is more complex is far more uncertain. The fact that in cases where the speech act is to be taken at face value, the value of the quantifier is in contrast to that of the act (Γ, 4'), whereas in cases where the quantifier does have the same value as the act (2', 3'), the act is to be taken as mock; the fact that apodosis and face value go together in value under the reciprocal inter-

290

DELL HYMES

pretation, but not under the reflexive interpretation - these facts suggest that the reflexive interpretation is indeed set off as less likely, requiring more support for its occurrence, and is therefore in a sense marked. A further point in this regard is that Lakoff's initial observation that any with a negative sense is appropriate to a threat, some with a positive sense to a promise, is sustained insofar as three out of the four threats (in cases 1-4, l'-4') have any, three of the four promises some. The exceptions help to suggest a scale of naturalness. Reciprocal appears more natural than reflexive (entirely any in threats, entirely some in promises). Within reflexive interpretations, the mock cases would perhaps be more natural than the face value cases (any in threat, vs. some, and some in promise, vs. any). A reciprocally interpreted threat or promise would be unmarked; a reflexively interpreted mock threat or promise somewhat marked; a reflexively interpreted face value threat or promise most marked and most in need of support for its successful interpretation. Finally, it may say something about the assumptions that users of language make about role relationships to find that threats and promises are naturally construed in terms of reciprocity; but it may also say something to find that a construal in terms of what has been called here reflexivity also does exist. And it would be desirable to investigate the relationship between these two types of construal in other communities. We are familiar with the type of linguistic relativity that finds in grammar indications of assumptions about the make up of the world and hew it is known. Current work in linguistics and sociolinguistics is beginning to suggest that one may find in grammar evidence of assumptions about the make up of the social world, and of the rights and duties to be expected and exchanged there. 2 This would be a second type of linguistic relativity, with its universalistic as well as its particularistic side (as was the case with the linguistic relativity of Boas, Sapir, and Whorf), and with a constructive as well as critical role to play.3 University of Pennsylvania

NOTES 1

Harvey Sacks has recently stressed the fundamental importance of this factor (cf. Labov 1970:82, n. 44). I first learned it from Ray Birdwhistell and the writing of Gregory Bateson. As seen below, the notion of 'sincerity' itself seems to require further discrimination. 2 I owe this idea to the stimulation of conversations with Erving Goffman, but he is not responsible for it.

SYNTACTIC ARGUMENTS AND ROLE RELATIONSHIPS

291

3

In a study published in 1968 (see references) I developed the critical role of a second type of linguistic relativity, but did not state the positive role, even though the last section of the paper implicity exemplified it. Current work by Elinor O. Keenan and Judith T. Irvine has brought it to focus. The functional approach to grammar of Halliday (1970) has much to contribute.

REFERENCES Auden, W. H. 1945. The collected poetry fo W. H. Auden. New York: Random House. Firth, J. R. 1935. The Technique of semantics. Transactions of the Philological Society (London), 36-72. Fought, John. 1972. Review of Goffman 1971. Language in Society 1(2). In press. Goffman, Erving. 1971. Relations in public. New York: The Free Press. Halliday, Michael A. K. 1970. Functional diversity in language as seen from a consideration of modality and mood in English. Foundations of Language 6:322-361. Hymes, Dell. 1964a. Directions in (ethno-)linguistic theory. Transcultural studies of cognition, ed. by A. K. Romney and R. G. D'Andrade, 6-56. Washington, D. C.: American Anthropological Association. —. 1964b. Introduction: Toward ethnographies of communication. The ethnography of communication, ed. by John J. Gumperz and Dell Hymes, 1-34. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association. —. 1966. Two types of linguistic relativity. Sociolinguistics, ed. by William Bright. The Hague: Mouton. —. 1967. Models of the interaction of language and social setting. Journal of Social Issues 33,2:8-28. —. 1972. Models of the interaction of language and social life. Directions in sociolinguistics, ed. by John J. Gumperz and Dell Hymes, 35-71. Jakobson, Roman. 1957. Shifters, verbal categories, and the Russian verb. Cambridge Mass.: Russian Language Research Project. —. 1960. Concluding statement: Linguistics and poetics. Style in language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 350-373. New York: John Wiley, and Cambridge: MIT. Labov, William. 1970. The study of language in its social context. Studium Generale 23:30-87. Lakoff, Robin. 1969. Some reasons why there can't be any some-any rule. Language 45:608-615. —. ms. Language in context. To appear in Language. —. ms. Language and women's place. Levi-Strauss, C. 1963. Totemism. Boston; Beacon Press. Nida, Eugene A. 1945. Linguistics and ethnology in translation problems. Word 1:194-208. Pike, Kenneth L. 1967. Language in relation to a unified theory of the structure of human behavior. The Hague: Mouton. Sapir, Edward. 1933. Language. Encyclopedia of the social sciences, vol. 9:155-169. (Reprinted in Selected writings of Edward Sapir, ed. by D. G. Mandelbaum, 7-32. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.) Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1968. Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist 70:1075-1095. Searle, John R. 1969. Speech acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Skinner, Quentin. 1970. Conventions and the understanding of speech acts. The Philosophical Quarterly 20:118-138. —. 1971. On performing and explaining linguistic actions. The Philosophical Quarterly 21:1-21.

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Tyler, Stephen Α. 1966. Context and variation in Koya kinship terminology. American Anthropologist 68:693-707. Wheeler, Alva. 1967. Grammatical structure in Siona discourse. Lingua 19:60-77. Whiteley, W. H. 1966. Social anthropology, meaning, and linguistics. Man 1:139-157.

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION THROUGH LITERATURE AN ANALYSIS OF THE RESPONSE OF FOREIGN STUDENTS TO 'AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE', A COLLEGE GENERAL EDUCATION COURSE

GLORIA JAMESON In his essay 'Literature in language teaching', Archibald Hill (1965) examines the tradition which gives the study of literature an important place in the language classroom and discusses ways of implementing this study in our rapidly changing world. He presents the content of literature as that part of the culture which its people wish to preserve. What language says is termed an anthropological description; how the language is used, the way in which literature sets it off from ordinary talk - its form - is termed a linguistic description. In this paper, foreign student response to both areas in an introductory course in American and English literature is analyzed through student performance on four tests, then compared with the performance of American students. The tests were designed to measure performance following the study of poetry, drama, and two groups of short stories. 113 papers of foreign students, from students of twenty countries speaking twenty-four languages,1 and 35 papers of American students were used for comparison. The foreign student section of this sophomore general education course has been taught since the spring of 1968 by the author, with a continuing effort to improve classroom presentations and performance tests that reflect student comprehension. The tests used for this analysis are those administered to classes in 1970 and 1971. For many people 'literature is above all a source of pleasure, of individual hope, and therefore new energy' (Kazin 1971:23), all of which are much needed by a foreign student struggling to acquire information and understanding that the majority of his associates seem both to possess innately and to use to their advantage. This source of energy and the 'sense of fact' that T. S. Eliot viewed as the essence of criticism (Kazin 1971:23) can be made available to those studying literature in a second or third language only when real communication takes place.

294

GLORIA JAMESON

When this happens, as it seems to for several students each time the course is taught, the instructor facilitating the experience shares the students' delight and feeling of renewal. The attempt to facilitate this communication of pleasure, of renewal, and of the sense of fact has been made for five years in a twelve-week literature course listed as one of the general education requirements in a state polytechnic college. The quarter system provides an average of twenty-four fifty-minute classes, an introductory class, and four testing periods. The course is taken by many undergraduates to fulfill a degree requirement, and a foreign-student or E.S.L. ( = English as a Second Language) section is offered each quarter for students whose first language and culture are different from those of most American high school graduates enrolled in the college. For most of the five-year period, the average college enrollment was 400 foreign and 10,000 American students. The dominant language backgrounds of the foreign students were Chinese (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore), Urdu (West Pakistan), and Persian (Iran). An average of 25 students, usually men between the ages of 20-35, completed the literature class each quarter. One or two young women, and approximately the same number of European students, enrolled each year. Most students entered the class as seniors, although it is listed in the catalog at sophomore level, and many postponed taking the course until their graduating quarter because they felt incapable of studying literature in a second or third language and maintaining an acceptable grade point average. A large number of students were transfers who had completed their first two years of work in a community junior college. These students had usually taken no English courses on campus, where special foreign student sections of freshman compositon and technical writing are provided, nor any courses out of their technical fields, for the previous two years. Two quarters or one semester of college English is listed as a prerequisite for students taking the literature course. Because of the students' differing language backgrounds and levels of English skill, it was helpful to the instructor to administer a test for fluency in English. This was usually given during the first class meeting. English ability has a close relationship to the response and achievement of the literature student, although the data supporting this will not be analyzed in this paper. The college admission policy rejected any entering student whose score was under 85 on the Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency, or 500 on the Test of English as a Foreign Lan-

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION THROUGH LITERATURE

295

guage, yet class tests using the short Michigan Test, Form A, resulted in a number of scores below 85. Students in the class felt the need to communicate and progress in English since they were required to live, work, and compete for grades with American students. For many the ability to communicate successfully in English would continue to parallel their vocational advancement. In the first class periods the relationship of English literature to their life and vocational goals seemed remote to the majority of students. Yet, since understanding and communicating in English were important for the achievement of these goals, they were ready to question ideas of personal freedom, cultural heritage, national goals, racism, political systems, war, poverty, affluence, and the individual's needs, as these were reflected in their reading materials. Pocket books easily available in supermarkets and drug stores were selected as texts, with a paperback guide to literary study (Niebling, Hews, Warren and Erskine, Dickinson, or Cohen - see REFERENCES). For $5, or less if used copies were purchased, the student had a wide range of reading material in American and English literature. Additional poems and other information, and the four tests, were duplicated for class use. In presenting the material to the students the instructor emphasized the values, ideas, and ways of life the western Europeans had developed since the time of ancient Greece and passed on to the United States through the dominant settlers, and the way English poetry, drama, and short stories reflected this cultural heritage. The selections studied were taken from the recent past - modern in language and content and related to current life - yet far enough removed to be seen as a pattern and examined. In 1970-71, the course began with poetry, since it was the oral language and culture of a people given pattern and rhythm, in order to be remembered and handed on. Richard Eberhart (1969), Archibald MacLeish's 'Ars Poetica', and Marianne Moore's 'Poetry', were used in the first discussions; later, Hill's (1965) analysis of the popularity of Joyce Kilmer's 'Trees' was used as a reflection of American cultural and moral values. Four of the five sections of Niebling (1966), and some class experimentation in writing haiku, cinquain, limericks, and rhymes, were part of the three-and-a-half week study. Following introductory comments on each of the four sections in Niebling, the instructor read poems aloud and guided discussion of their content and form. Each student selected a sonnet and a lyric for detailed study and a written analysis. The first draft of the first analysis was read, marked, and returned

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before the student wrote the analysis submitted for a grade. This analysis was graded and returned before the second analysis was submitted, which in some instances was written in class as part of the test that concluded the study of poetry. The analysis of the test papers shows an average of 77% correct responses for foreign students, and 75% correct responses for American students in their review performance in English and American poetry. Table I gives the details of the analysis. Maxwell Anderson's 'Lost in the Stars' (Hewes 1967:289-369) was the first drama read by the class. It was selected as an example of tragedy because some students usually had read or seen Alan Paton's 'Cry, the Beloved Country', and because most students are sensitive to racial, economic, and political issues, the need for justice and concern for man as a person, and because Maxwell Anderson and Kurt Weill give a strong, sensitive reflection of these universal issues in their musical drama. A tape of the highlights from the chorus, songs, and dialog, with the original Broadway cast, was made for class use, with copies that the students could check out. The use of the chorus to contribute to the understanding and atmosphere of the drama provided an illustration of the ancient Greek drama form discussed in the literary handbook's introduction to this genre. The music and dialog made a noticeable impact on many class members. Carson McCullers' 'The Member of the Wedding' (Hews 1967: 371-447) was read in the form first produced at the Empire Theater, New York City, in 1950. It was selected as a comedy because it portrays life in the southern United States during World War II, a period about which most foreign students have some information, and because the situation on which the plot is built, the dialog of the main characters, and Frankie's adolescent behavior reflect humor that can be understood by foreign students. Loneliness, racism, and the pain of adolescence are also shown, yet the students were less deeply involved than they were in 'Lost in the Stars', even when they spoke of their similar experiences in the recent past. Another important consideration was the availability of the film for a reasonable rental, so that it could often be shown to the class following the reading of the play. The tape and the film aided in drawing students into this area of study. Sparks of interest and pleasure were often evident in class sessions, discussions were more lively, and in later contacts students often referred to their enjoyment of the plays, their feeling for Stephen, and the world's need for racial understanding. The test over this portion of the course showed an average of 74%

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION THROUGH LITERATURE

297

correct responses by foreign students, 78% by American students. Details are shown in Table II. Eighty-two of the 113 foreign students said that 'Lost in the Stars' appealed to them more than 'The Member of the Wedding', and five said that both plays appealed strongly. Only one negative comment was made on each drama: a Punjabi student from India thought of 'Lost in the Stars' that 'too much happened and it was too far from reality', and a Chinese student said of the other play: Ί was confused by Frankie; the way she acted seems abnormal'. To see the native language and culture in relation to their comments, papers for Chinese, Persian, Urdu, Spanish, and Black African students have their comments identified in the listing of student responses in Table III. Fifteen short stories were selected from Warren and Erskine 1966 for class use.2 Two stories were usually discussed each class period. A performance test, similar to those given for poetry and drama, was administered following the study of the first eight stories, requiring the student to express his understanding of the subject in writing. This was always difficult for the few students with very limited ability in English, and those who needed more time to think out what they wanted to say complained that they did not have enough time to finish the tests. In the last two quarters, therefore, the instructor administered a multiplechoice test over the second group of seven short stories. Fifty questions were prepared, with a choice of three answers, in seven groups for the seven stories. The student marked his choice on a printed form that was later corrected with a grid. Performance on the first short story test showed that the foreign students averaged 75% correct responses and the American students 84% when the answers were written. On the multiple-choice test covering the second group of short stories the foreign students had 84 % correct responses, the American students 86%. The addition of a ten-point essay question to the multiple choice test taken by 25 foreign students lowered their average to 80 % correct responses. Although the multiple choice test is easier for students to take, and easy to administer and score, it has the shortcomings of offering no opportunity for individual expression, and of indicating less of the individual's understanding of the subject than the written response. A combination of the two types of tests is planned for the future. One of the goals of the instructor was to introduce a new genre only when 80% of the class had a correct response to 80% of the material

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already presented. This goal was approximated in most classes. When it was not reached, it seemed better to touch poetry, drama, and short stories in what was in all probability the one English literature course many of the foreign students would ever take than to extend the period required to reach the goal and omit one of the three areas. Poetry continues to be the most difficult genre, although it is the one most closely related to the native literature of many of the foreign students. For this reason it was presented first in 1970-71, instead of last, as in 1968-69. This seems to be a more satisfactory class procedure from the instructor's viewpoint, and students have not suggested a change in their evaluations of the course at the conclusion of the class. In the next quarter the instructor plans to elicit more information in the student evaluations in regard to this approach. The foreign students who responded to the request to evaluate the course usually said that they enjoyed it, that they were interested and stimulated to read more, and that they found poetry difficult, and some commented that the class might spend less time on poetry, studying fewer poems. The evaluations given by previous classes were read and noted but not kepi. Most of the American students taught in the fall of 1971, in one class with 6, and a second class with 7 foreign students, wrote a paragraph to a page in evaluating the class. Their general comments were that they enjoyed the course, recognized that all the needs of all the students could not be met, would like more student discussion and participation in the choice of the text material used; thought that class objectives were clear and the tests fair, and suggested that a novel or additional poems, plays, and short stories be read for additional credit. The comments of (1) a foreign student, (2) a sophomore American student whose entering placement test removed the requirement that he take freshman English, (3) three average American students and (4) one weak American student are quoted below.3 Student evaluations have been used in planning the next E.S.L. and regular sections of the literature class. American students will have a more open structure, more opportunity for discussion and participation in the selection of the text material to be read, and the opportunity for outside reading for additional credit. The E.S.L. section will attempt to incorporate more of this student participation, and the opportunity of outside reading for additional credit will be offered. The tests will be revised to eliminate weak questions and review the material that is covered in each class.

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299

TABLE I

Summary of foreign student and American student performance on poetry, drama, and short story tests Percent Correct Genre Poetry: Average score

Foreign

U.S.A.

77

75

78 77 835 85

73 —4 80 —6

60

62

77

83

74

78

76 697

90 537

75

87

77

87

75

78

75

84

Vocabulary Illustration of vocabulary definitions in stories Illustration of different points of view in stories Discussion of theme of a story Outline of a plot development

81 61 73 89 69

85 81 77 90 88

Short Stories: Score on Test II, multiple choice, 50 questions

84

86

Score when 10 point essay question was included for 25 foreign students

80

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Vocabulary: matching definitions Analysis of sonnet student chose Analysis of lyric student chose Analysis of new poem instructor chose Recognition of poetic characteristics in new material instructor chose 6. Explanation of literal and figurative meanings in new material instructor chose

Drama: Average score 1. Vocabulary: writing definitions 2. Discussion of elements of drama 3. Ways 'Lost in the stars' illustrates the definition of tragedy 4. Ways 'The member of the wedding' illustrates definition of comedy 5. Identification of protagonist and outline of the plot of the tragedy Short stories: Average score, Test I (similar to written tests for poetry and drama) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

300

GLORIA JAMESON TABLE II

Detail of foreign student performance in An Introductory Course to English/American Literature Percent Correct Response Genre

Foreign

U.S.A.

I. POETRY (113 foreign; 35 U.S.A. students) 1. Vocabulary: matching definitions

78

73

2. Analysis of sonnet student chose (96 foreign) a, b, e, f; 50 c, d; 47 g) a. b. c. d. e. f. g.

Identify poem as sonnet Describe structure, or literal paraphrase Describe connotations, figurative meanings Identify figures of speech Show end rhyme, pattern if any Mark strong stress in meter Memorize and write the sonnet

92 79 76 80 77 61 68

3. Analysis of lyric student chose (45 foreign) a. Identify poem as lyric b. Describe structure, or literal paraphrase c. Describe connotations, figurative meanings d. Identify and explain figures of speech e. Show end rhyme, pattern if any f. Mark strong stress in meter g. Describe imagery or musical characteristics

100 80 91 76 76 77 84

4. Analysis of new poem (45 foreign) a. Identify structure of poem, explain choice (41 'The Broken Dyke', E. S. Millay; 3 'The Choice', H. Corke; 1 no attempt: 98% made choice; 82% chose sonnet; 89% explained choice) b. Describe structure, or literal paraphrase c. Identify and explain figures of speech d. Show end rhyme, pattern if any

87

84 77 89

94 80 77 — 80 69 80

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301

Percent Correct Response Genre

Foreign

U.S.A.

5. Recognition of poetic characteristics in new material instructor chose (62 foreign) ('Counting-out Rhyme', E. S. Millay) a. b. c. d. e.

Show Show Show Show Show

example of assonance example of alliteration example of consonance internal rhyme repetition

63 53 37 69 79

63 46 37 77 86

74 55 84 82

80 60 94 97

90

83

55 20 16 4 4 1

60 26 11 3

70 65

53 39 44 56

6. Explanation of literal and figurative meaning (62 foreign) ('Stopping by Woods', Robert Frost) a. b. c. d. e.

Why the man stopped What roused the man to go on his way The reasons the man goes on Why the last lines are repeated What 'miles to go' and 'before I sleep' might mean

II. DRAMA (113 foreign; 35 U.S.A.) 1. Vocabulary: writing 6 definitions a. b. c. d. e. f.

Wrote Wrote Wrote Wrote Wrote Wrote

6 5 4 3 2 1

(62 foreign, (21 foreign, (19 foreign, ( 4 foreign, ( 5 foreign, ( 2 foreign,

21 U.S.A.) 9 U.S.A.) 4 U.S.A.) 1 U.S.A.) U.S.A.) U.S.A.)

2. Discussed 4 elements of drama presented in literary guide a. b. c. d.

Setting Characters Dialog Plot (19% foreign and 42% U.S.A. outlined

68

74

302

GLORIA JAMESON

Percent Correct Response Genre

Foreign

U.S.A.

plot development instead of drama elements) 3. Ways 'Lost in the Stars' illustrates definition of tragedy (15 points possible, 38 foreign and 20 U.S.A. achieved this; all made 5 or more points; average score foreign, 11.2; U.S.A.

75

87

77

87

75

78

1. Vocabulary: writing definitions (16 points possible, achieved by 24 foreign, 12 U.S.A. students; 3 foreign and 1 U.S.A. scored under 7; average score, foreign 13; U.S.A. 13.5)

81

85

2. Illustration of vocabulary definitions in stories (25 points possible, achieved by 2 foreign, 9 U.S.A.; 12 foreign and 1 U.S.A. scored under 10; average score, foreign 15.2; U.S.A. 20.2)

61

81

12.6)

4. Ways 'The Member of the Wedding' illustrates definition of comedy (10 points possible, achieved by 38 foreign, 20 U.S.A.; 1 foreign and 3 U.S.A. scored 0; average score foreign 7.7; U.S.A. 8.7) 5. Identification of protagonist and outline of plot of tragedy (20 points possible, achieved by 8 foreign and 9 U.S.A.; 1 foreign scored 0, a total of 5 scored under 6; no U.S.A. score under 6; average score, foreign 14.9; U.S.A. 15.6) ΙΙΓ. SHORT STORIES (113 foreign; 35 U.S.A.) Test I (similar to poetry and drama tests; written responses)

CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION THROUGH LITERATURE

303

Percent Correct Response Genre 3. Illustration of different points of view in stories (10 points possible, achieved by 15 foreign, 13 U.S.A.; 10 foreign and 4 U.S.A. scored under 5; average score, foreign 7.3; U.S.A. 7.7)

Foreign

U.S.A.

73

77

4. Discussion of theme of a story (10 points possible, achieved by 64 foreign, 24 U.S.A.; 4 foreign and 1 U.S.A. no response; average score, foreign 8.9; U.S.A. 9.0)

89

90

5. Outline of development of a plot (18 points possible, achieved by 11 foreign, 21 U.S.A.; 6 foreign, 1 U.S.A. no attempt; 17 foreign, 1 U.S.A. score under 10; average, foreign 9.4; U.S.A. 15.7)

69

88

84

86

Test II (38 foreign; 35 U.S.A.) Multiple choice, 50 questions (median score, foreign students 42; U.S.A. 43; when 25 foreign students had an essay question as a part of this test their correct response average dropped to 80 %)

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GLORIA JAMESON

TABLE III

STUDENT COMMENTS ON THE DRAMAS STUDIED: WHICH PLAY APPEALED MORE, AND W H Y ?

Chinese, Persian, Urdu, Spanish, and Black African responses are indicated. Foreign Students (113: no response, 1 student) 'Lost in the Stars' (82: 19 Chinese, 7 Persian, 8 Urdu, 4 Spanish, and 3 Black Africans) Number Comments 1. Plot well developed, holds interest to climax; dialog more intellectual. C 8 ; P 2 ; U 1 ; S 1 2. Deals with racial discrimination, with black and white problem in South America. C 14; Ρ 3; U4; S3 3. Social message universal - our need to create a better society. C 2 ; P I ; U 3 ; S 4 4. Tragedy changes people and their values, and makes the reader more involved personally because realistic. C 7 ; P 6 ; U 4 ; S 1 5. Moral struggle; stresses reconciliation, which the world needs. C 4 ; Ρ 1; S 1 6. Justice is an issue. C 6; U 1; S 2; BA 1 7. Rich development of characters. C 4 8. Shows love of father for son. U 1; S 1; BA 1 9. Reaches heart; makes us ashamed as men for not: a. breaking down wall separating religions, fellow men. b. loving humans more than pets. C 4; U 3; BA 2 10. Symbolism of the title and song as a folk tale. BA 1 11. Easy to understand. BA 1 12. Very hard emotional impact; sensitivity and warmth. C 6; Ρ 1; U 5; BA 1 13. First play read in English; enjoyed it more than poetry. 14. Had read 'Cry, the Beloved Country'.

15

42 15

27 5 12 4 4

10 1 1 20 1 3

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305

Number Comments 'The Member of the Wedding' (30: 9 Chinese, 7 Persian, 5 Urdu, 3 Spanish, 1 Black African) 1. Reminded me of when I was that age. C 2 ; Ρ2; SI 2. Usual child, living in own dream world as we all sometimes do, wanting things, but we don't know, get a close look. C 3; Ρ 2; S 2 3. Shows inside loneliness of young people. C 2 ; Ρ 4; U 2 4. Easy to read and understand. C I 5. Comedy, fun; tragic aspects but enjoyable to read, fun, touching, and sad. C 7 6. True of a girl growing up; of all of us. P I ; U 2 ; BA 2 7. Dialog witty and sentimental. C 1; Ρ 1; S 1; BA 1 8. Human psychology shown. Ρ 1 9. A look at everybody in the first scene; marvelous and enjoyable comedy. 10. Enjoyed movie I had already seen. 11. Reflects U.S.A. at one period. 12. Warmth and greatness of Bernice. Ρ 2 13. I like to be entertained, relax, prefer comedyand it can say as much. S I U.S.A. Students (36: 3 liked both) 'Lost in the Stars' (27) 1. It dealt with the racial issue, problems of black and white. 2. The atmosphere was real; it dealt with reality. 3. I was involved in the play, problem. 4. Tragedy is more involved, says more; a serious play with the theme of life and death. 5. Social comment, justice, relationships of people come alive and show man's trouble with his beliefs. 6. Shows moral issues, struggle with conscience; Stephen shows these; Stephen sees, understands, keeps picking up the pieces.

5

17 12 6 8 8 7 2 1 1 1 3 1

10 7 7 5

5

5

306

GLORIA JAMESON

Number Comments 7. Absalom was about my age; the hero; I could understand him; he was my kind of man - kept screwing up but was good. 8. Strong identity with Stephen; Stephen was 'the' person throughout the drama, it kept showing. 9. It arouses the emotions, has warmth and depth. 10. Very dramatic, beautiful in way it was written. 11. Exciting story, profound plot, entertaining reading experience; I don't read much literature like this play. Plot would be interesting to produce. 12. Music from tape helped make real, enjoy; especially listening to it at home I was involved and sad, identified with each character. 13. Enjoyed both, but more involved in tragedy, its powerful conclusion with good prevailing.

3 3 2 2

3

2 3

'The Member of the Wedding' (6) 1. 2. 3. 4.

I identify with the actions; it was closer home. Not as sad. 1 dislike musicals, thought this was a poor musical. Humorous, didn't require involvement; I have no time to get involved, and can understand Frankie. 5. Real, more believable; showed loneliness of growing up, people. 6. Dealt with maturing, inner conflict, what to do and when; I am close to her age. California State Polytechnic

2 1 1

1 2 2

College

NOTES 1

Chinese (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan) 34; Urdu (W. Pakistan) 16; Persian (Iran) 15; Spanish (Latin America) 8; India (Hindi 3, Punjabi 2, Gujarati 2, Malayalam 1) 8; Arabic 6; Korean 6; Thai 3; Pidgin English (Hawaii) 2; Black Africa (Amharic 1, Yoruba 2, Ibo 2, Luganda 1, Kikuyu 1) 7; Japanese 4; Vietnamese 2; Greek 1; Italian 1; Armenian 1; Illocano (Philippines) 1. 2 Group I: Aiken, C., Impulse; Algren, N., A bottle of milk for mother; Anderson, S., The egg; Collier, J., Witch's money; Conrad, J., An outpost of progress; Crane,

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S., The bride comes to Yellow Sky; Faulkner, W., Barn burning; Fitzgerald, F. S., Winter dreams. Group II: James, H., The tree of knowledge; Joyce, J., The boarding house; Lawrence, D. H., The horse dealer's daughter; McCullers, C., The sojourner; 'Saki' (Η. H. Munro), The open window; O'Connor, F., My Oedipus complex; Steinbeck, J., Flight. 3 Foreign student: 'This class was taught in such a method or level which I gain more than otherwise. Learning structure of poem and short stories and etc. has helped me understand literature more. Learning what to look for in any type of pleasure reading helps to understand more.' American student with superior background: 'This course attempts to present an overall introduction of the various facets of literature, and I feel it adequately does this. Unfortunately much material must be covered. Perhaps less varied material, such as limiting only to poetry and S. S., would enable the students to learn in depth one or two facets only, rather than skim several without leaving any lasting impression of any.' 'More student participation in the form of discussions whould further enable learning. I think discussion in your class was too one-sided, but perhaps of necessity.' American students with average background: (1) 'This is good in the way it stimulates reading. The amount of reading of short stories is too limited. The book Short Story Masterpieces is not that long that it could not be read in entirety, beside it has some very good stories. I'm not really fond of poetry or drama but I think I am about average in interest this way. As far as the instructor goes, is good. She adds a lot of understanding to the harder reading topics. Tests are good, the right number and about the right length, if you have done the assigned readings.' (2) 'Little student oral participation was encouraged. Texts were good. Testing was not a fair evaluation system. Subject was covered well and interesting. I do not think it should be a required course. Subject matter was interesting and well chosen.' (3) 'Class was fun, very representative of the types of literature and methods of evaluation. The poetry was very good. The plays were okay, but nothing too inspiring. The short stories are the most enjoyable as the reading and analysis of them is worthwhile. A novel of the students' choice for an extra credit report would be fun. One could make a comparison between a novel and a short story and a poem by some of the writers. The tests are fair evaluations.' American student with weak background: 'After study of poetry the course became more interesting to me. You certainly gave enough help in class, plus you were always available during office hours. If a man is a poor reader, native speaker or not, I think it is a very hard task to make them study the assignments and read. Perhaps reading aloud might help some students. Your teaching techniques were very good as far as I am concerned. It is not your fault for people being poor readers and not wanting to read. I do not think any instructor could have done any better.' NOTES TO TABLE I 4

33 of the 35 U. S. A. students chose to answer the vocabulary question rather than the sonnet analysis, leaving an insufficient number of the latter for analysis. 5 45 foreign students responded to this item, 41 selecting Millay's sonnet 'The broken dike', 3 selecting Corke's 'The choice' (Niebling 1966: 128-130). 6 This item was not in the test given 61 foreign students and 35 U. S. A. students. 7 21 foreign and 15 American students were confused and discussed the development of a plot instead of the elements of drama.

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REFERENCES Anderson, Maxwell. Lost in the stars. In Hewes 1967, 289-369. Cohen, B. Bernard. 1963. Writing about literature. New York: Scott, Foresman. Dickinson, Leon T. 1959. A guide to literary study. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Eberhart, Richard. 1969. The function of poetry. MLA newsletter, 1:4. Educational Testing Service. Test of English as a foreign language (T.O.E.F.L.). Princeton, New Jersey. Hewes, Henry, ed. 1967. Famous American plays of the 1940's. New York: Dell, # 2490. Hill, Archibald A. 1965. Literature in language teaching. In Essays in literary analysis, 76-88. Austin, Texas: (mimeographed). Kazin, Alfred. 1971. Professors are too sophisticated. Saturday Review, May 22, 1971, 23. MacLeish, Archibald. 1956. Ars poetica. In Sound and sense, by Laurence Perrine, 134. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World. McCullers, Carson. 1967. The member of the wedding. In Hewes 1967, 371-447. Moore, Marianne. Poetry. In Introduction to literature: poems, by Altenbernd and Lewis, 399. New York: Macmillan. Neibling, Richard, ed. 1966. A journey of poems. New York: Dell, # 4271. University of Michigan. 1965. Michigan test of English language proficiency, Form A. Warren, Robert P. and Erskine, Albert, eds. 1966. Short Story masterpieces, New York: Dell, # 7864.

NOTES ON PARTICIPANT ROLES A N D GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES IN H I N D I - U R D U SENTENCES* YAMUNA KACHRU

1. It is a well-recognized fact that grammatical categories such as subject, object, etc. do not coincide with participant roles such as agent, affected, beneficiary, etc. in any human language.1 Various languages, however, exhibit different correlations between grammatical categories and participant roles. One of the devices that languages use to correlate participant roles with grammatical categories is the marking of linguistic exponents of participants with specific grammatical markers. The cases of inflected languages and postpositions/prepositions of more analytic languages are instances of such grammatical markers. That features of verb control the permitted participant roles and the assignment of casemarkers to these in a sentence is also a well-recognized fact (Fillmore 1968 and 1969). In this paper, I propose to examine the process of caseassignment to various noun phrases which are exponents of participants in several types of Hindi sentences. In particular, I will concentrate on participant roles such as agent, patient, recepient and beneficiary, and sentence-types such as intransitive, transitive and causative. 2. In an earlier paper (Kachru 1971), I have claimed that certain grammaticosemantic features of the verb play an important role in case-assignment to various noun phrases in causative sentences in Hindi-Urdu. The grammaticosemantic features referred to in the above are the two features, (ätmane) and (parasmai), posited to account for certain properties of compound verbs in Hindi-Urdu in an even earlier work (Kachru 1965).2 The following sentences illustrate the compound verbs under consideration: 1. ram ne seb kha liye/*diye. Ram ate up the apples. 2. ram ne syam ko kitabe bhej di/*li. Ram sent the books to Shyam.

310

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Notice that these features are relevant only to transitive verbs. Notice also that a large number of transitive verbs in Hindi-Urdu are marked for both features, and hence occur with both the operators lena and dena (Kachru 1965 and 1966). Every native speaker of Hindi-Urdu, however, is aware of the semantic difference between pairs of sentences such as 3-4 and 5-6: 3 3. me sab kam kar lünga. I will do all the work. 4. me sab kam kar dünga. I will do all the work. 5. me ne bacco ke liye khilone kharid liye he. I have bought the toys for the children. 6. me ne baccö ke liye khibne kharid diye he. I have bought the toys for the children. In my discussion of causative sentences (Kachru 1971), I claimed that these features, i.e. atmane], are crucial for the assignment of postpositions ko and se to certain noun phrases following the causative embedding. I claimed that the subjects of all transitive verbs that are marked [ + atmane] are assigned the role of recipient in the causative sentences and are marked with the postposition ko. The subjects of transitive verbs which are marked [— atmane] are, after the causative embedding, assigned the role of mediary agent and marked with the postposition se. The following sentences illustrate these claims: 7. me ne ram ko seb khila diye. I made Ram eat the apples. 8. me ne ram se syam ko kitabe bhijva d!. I made Ram send the books to Shyam. I also pointed out the additional fact that the subjects of transitive verbs marked [ + atmane] combine the roles of agent and beneficiary both; hence, these verbs do not permit a benefactive adjunct: 9. *ram ne mere liye seb kha liye. *Ram ate the apples for me. 10. *ram ne sita ke liye cadar orhi. *Ram covered (himself) with a sheet for Sita. The following discussion examines these suggestions in some detail. 3.0 In general, the grammatical subject of an intransitive verb in Hindi-

GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES IN HINDI-URDU SENTENCES

311

Urdu may be either an animate or an inanimate noun. Grammarians such as Greaves have classified intransitive verbs into regular intransitive verbs and passive-neuter verbs such as in sentences 11-12 below (Greaves, 1933: § 269, 306-11): 11. bacca gira. The child fell. 12. kutta mar gaya. The dog died. It has been stated that whereas regular intransitive verbs participate in the impersonal construction, which, formally, is identical with the passive of transitive verbs, the passive-neuter verbs do not participate in such constructions. 4 Compare the following: 13. larke se cala nah! jata. The boy is unable to walk. 14. *bacce se gira nah! jata. A careful look at the data reveals that only intransitive verbs that permit an agent as subject participate in the impersonal constructions, and that others that take a victim or an experiencer as subject do not. Verbs such as jana, cdlna ('go, walk') etc. are non-stative verbs that require an agent, whereas verbs such as girna, mama ('fall, die') etc. permit only affected/victim/experiencer as subject. It has been suggested that passive in Hindi-Urdu implies volition on the part of the agent (Kachru 1970 and Hasan 1970), and it is therefore not surprising that verbs such as girna, marna ('fall, die') etc. do not participate in the impersonal construction. Notice that in this respect, Hindi-Urdu differ from English. English passive does not imply volition on the part of the agent.5 3.1 If we take into account the properties of intransitive verbs mentioned above, it is difficult to agree with Sah's claim that sentences such as 15 and 16 are synonymous (Sah 1971: chapter IV) and, therefore, passiveneuter verbs are to be treated as 'lexicalized' passive verbs: 15. makan bana. The house got built. 16. makan banaya gaya. The house was built. It is counter-intuitive, for example, to claim that sentence-pairs such as

312

YAMUNA KACHRU

17-18 and 19-20 are synonymous and that 17 and 19 are transformationally related to 18 and 20 respectively by the process of 'lexicalization' of the passive verbs of the latter: 17. kitabe bik gal. The books got sold. 18. kitabe bee di gai. The books were sold. 19. brka gir gaya. The boy fell. 20. larke ko giraya gaya. The boy was made to fall. If it were so, it should be possible to coordinate 'lexicalized' and nonlexicalized passives as in 23 and moreover 22 and 23 should both be grammatical in the meaning of 21, but they are not: 21. The boy fell in the water and got drowned. 22. larka panl me gira or dub gaya. 23. *tarka pan! me gira or duba diya gaya.6 The passives such as 18 and 20 above imply an agent, or, rather, they imply deliberate action initiated by an agent, rather than an event that occurs by itself as in 17 and 19. 3.2 This brings us to the claim that there is no causal of the active voice of a transitive verb in Hindi-Urdu, that the second causal is the causal of the passive of the transitive verb, and that, therefore, to account for causative sentences in Hindi-Urdu, it is essential to posit two causative predicates (Sah 1971). In the following discussion, I argue that this unjustified claim is unjustified, and that the following pairs of sentences, 24-25 and 25-26, are related by the same process: 24. larka pita. The boy got hit. 25. ram ne larke ko pita. Ram hit the boy. 26. ms ne ram se larke ko pitvaya. I made Ram hit the boy. 3.3 In his study Sah has given three arguments in favor of his claim. The first is semantic: he quotes Bailey's statement that the causal of the transitive verb is the causal of its passive. He then points to the

GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES IN HINDI-URDU SENTENCES

313

gain of identifying the postposition se that marks the mediary agent (ram in 26 above) as the same as that which marks the passive agent in 27: 27. (ram se) tarke ko pita gaya. The boy was hit (by Ram). He further points to the simplicity of morphological description of the causative forms if the passive verb is taken as the basic form. 3.4 There is, however, no syntactic evidence to suggest that a passive sentence could be embedded under a causative predicate in Hindi-Urdu. It is useful to contrast the properties of English and Hindi-Urdu causative sentences in this respect. In English, the /fave-causative permits a passive embedded sentence, e.g. : 28. John had his car washed by Bill. The A/a&e-causative does not permit such embedding: 29. *John made his car washed by Bill. There is no such contrast available in Hindi-Urdu. It has been suggested that there are no known paraphrases of Hindi causative sentences and that the pre-lexical causative transformational rule blocks if the lowest embedded lexical verb is 'complex' in a defined sense (Kachru 1971 and Kleiman 1971).7 It is obvious that sentence 32, which is the second causal of 30, is not to be interpreted as the causal of the passive counterpart of 30: 30. ram ne topi pshni. Ram put the cap on. 31. syam ne ram ko topi pahnal. Shyam made Ram put the cap on. 32. mohan ne syam se ram ko topi pahanvai. Mohan made Shyam make Ram put the cap on. Bailey's observation applies only to sentences such as 26 (me ne ram se hfke ko pitvaya Ί made Ram hit the boy'). Notice that these involve precisely the class of verbs that in their non-causal form take a victim/ experiencer as their subject. Hence, the interpretation Bailey suggests is inherent in the lowest embedded verb; and the causative II predicate of Sah contributes nothing to the interpretation of 32 over and above what the predicate causative contributes in earlier works by Kachru and

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YAMUNA KACHRU

Kleiman. If causative II were indeed responsible for the meaning 'processorientation', then one would expect 32 to be similarly interpreted, namely, '*Mohan caused the cap to be worn by Ram by Shyam', which is impossible. Native speakers of Hindi would agree that 32 still retains the 'agent-orientation' of 30, i.e., ram is still the agent of pahan. I have already stated that the assignment of the postposition se to the mediary agent in 32 (syam) is automatically accounted for by the features [ ± atmane] of the innermost verb. It seems that what is crucial is the feature [ + atmane]. The transitive verbs in Hindi are classified into three sub-classes according to whether they are obligatorily marked [ + atmane], obligatorily marked [— atmane] or could optionally be marked either [ + atmane] or [— atmane]. Verbs such as janna, slkhna, khana, plna, psrhna ('know, learn, eat, drink, study') etc. are obligatorily marked [ + at mane], whereas verbs such as dena, bhejna ('give, send') etc. are obligatorily marked [— at mane]. Verbs such as karna, ragna, kharidna (do, dye, buy) etc. are marked [ ± at mane]. Notice, however, that the features [ ± atmane] have important syntactic consequences. Consider the following: 33. Sita ne apne liye sari rag ll/*dl. Sita dyed the saree for herself. 34. sita ne radha ke liye sari rag di/ ? II. Sita dyed the saree for Radha. 35. me ne apna kam kar liya he/ ? diya he. I have done my work. 36. me ne apka kam kar diya he/ ? liya he.8 I have done your work. The difference between verbs marked [ — atmane] and those marked atmane] is that the former imply a beneficiary distinct from the agent; i.e., sentences such as 37 are understood to be similar to 38, which has an overt beneficiary present: 37. me ne kalam de di. I gave the pen. 38. me ne ram ko kalam de di. I gave the pen to Ram. The separation of participant roles of agent and beneficiary is important for this class of verbs. On the contrary, a sentence such as 39 is not interpreted as similar to 40; in the case of 39, the agent is assumed to be the beneficiary also:

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39. sita ne sari ragi. Sita dyed the saree. 40. sita ne radha ke liye sari regi. Sita dyed the saree for Radha. Verbs such as khana, pina ('eat, drink') etc. do not permit the splitting of the roles of agent and beneficiary. It is clear that the assignment of postposition ko to agents of [ + atmane] verbs, and the assignment of postposition se to the agents of verbs belonging to the other two classes after the causal embedding, is dependent upon the properties of the deepest embedded verb and not upon any feature of the causative II predicate. It is obvious that Sah's first two arguments in support of his treatment of causative sentences in Hindi are untenable. As regards Sah's third argument, Pray (1970 : 44.97 if) has given significant morphological and phonological evidence to support his claim that Hindi also has only one causal morpheme. The underlying forms for certain verbs that he suggests coincide with those Sah has suggested. It is, however, striking that Pray does not conclude that Hindi second causal forms are to be derived from the passive forms of first causals of transitive verbs. An account of causative sentences of Hindi on the basis of a causative II predicate is suspect from the point of view of universal grammar also. Certain languages such as Gujarati, Hindi, etc. have no doubt two morphologically related causal forms, but there are also languages such as Bengali which have only one causal morpheme. An account of causative sentences of Hindi in terms of a single causative predicate with the feature [— atmane] has much more explanatory power than the account suggested by Sah. 9 4.0 What I have claimed so far about the causative sentences of Hindi is as follows. The intransitive and transitive sentences in Hindi already carry exponents of such participant roles as agent, affected, beneficiary, etc. The causative predicate contributes only to the participant role of controlling or initiator agent, the other roles are subsequently adjusted according to the potential of the embedded sentence-verb. Causative embedding is a recursive process. The fact that Hindi allows for only two levels of causative embedding is a consequence of the two related processes of obligatory lexicalization of the causal verb and the assignment of grammatical markers (ko and se) to the exponents of participants in a causative sentence. It is conceivable that a language which is not

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YAMUNA KACHRU

restrained by morphological processes may allow indefinite recursion. The English mcrfce-causative, for instance, allows precisely such recursion. 5.0 Before concluding, certain remarks on the participant roles labelled recepient and beneficiary are in order. Notice that whereas recepient implies beneficiary, the converse is not true. A sentence such as 38 (me ne ram ko kshm de dl Ί gave the pen to Ram') implies that the pen was meant for Ram, Ram is both the intermediate and the ultimate beneficiary. Sentence 41 identifies the ultimate beneficiary (syam) but does not imply that syam was the intermediate beneficiary also: 41. me ne syam ke liye kabm de di. I gave the pen for Shyam. 38 is a complete sentence of Hindi. 41 is not, it implies an unspecified intermediate beneficiary. 42 has overt exponents of both intermediate and ultimate beneficiary: 42. me ne ram ko syam ke liye katam de di. I gave the pen to Ram for Shyam. By recepient is meant the participant role exemplified by ram in 42, by beneficiary, the role exemplified by syam. The postpositions ko and ke liye are thus semantically distinct, fco-assignment takes place by a rule of the grammar; ke liye could be claimed to be an independent predicate of Hindi-Urdu.10 NOTES An earlier version of this paper was presented at a meeting of the Linguistic Circle of Hyderabad held at the Central Institute of English, Hyderabad, India, 24th December, 1971. 1 I am using the term 'participant' in the same sense as Halliday 1967:38-39. 2 These have later been collapsed to one set of disjunctive features [ ± atmane]. Note that the transliteration (ätmane) and (parasmai) in my earlier work follows the traditional notation of Sanskrit grammarians. 3 Whereas 3 and 5 imply the agent to be the beneficiary also, 4 and 6 separate the two roles. 4 See Kachru 1970 for a more detailed discussion of the properties of passive and impersonal constructions in Hindi. 5 Compare the following English and Hindi sentences (from Hasan 1971)j A. Many mistakes were made by the girl. B. *brkl se bahut gatetiyä kl gal. 6 Notice that 23 is ungrammatical in the context of the reporting of an accident. In the context of reporting a murder, it is grammatical and means that somebody pushed him under once the boy fell into the water.

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7

Kachru 1971 and Kleiman 1971 have shown that causativization is impossible if the innermost lexical verb is modified by negation or certain other types of modality features. 8 In 35 and 36,1 have not characterized as ungrammatical the alternative compound verbs with dena and lena respectively because as a [ + atmane] verb, karna permits the identification or separation of roles of agent/beneficiary in the absence of an overt (ultimate) beneficiary. 34 is more complicated; the sentence with lena implies an intimacy between Sita and Radha by virtue of which the agent (Sita) also shares the role of the beneficiary with the ultimate beneficiary (Radha). 9 The evidence for the assignment of the feature [— atmane] to the causative predicate in Hindi is as follows, khatia 'eat' is marked [ + atmane], after the causal embedding (khana{caus)) is lexicalized as khilana which behaves as any other [ + atmane] verb. This is true of all causal verbs whether the innermost verb is transitive or intransitive (passive-neuter). This means that all passive-neuter verbs are redundantly marked [ + atmane]. (The features [ ± atmane] are not relevant for intransitive verbs that take an agent as subject.) I would like to add here that there are aspects of Sah's proposal concerning the causative II predicate which I have not considered here. I have examined his proposal only with regard to its implications for an adequate treatment of the causative sentences in Hindi. 10 ke liye could be claimed to be an independent predicate in Hindi in the same sense in which postpositions of Hindi (Steffensen 1971) and prepositions of English (Geis, 1970) have been claimed to be verbal elements.

REFERENCES Bailey, T. G. 1950. Teach yourself Urdu. London: The English University Press. Fillmore, C. J. 1968. The case for case. Universale in linguistic theory, ed. by E. Bach and R. T. Harms, New York. —. 1969. Types of lexical information. Studies in syntax and semantics, ed. by F. Kiefer. (Foundations of language supplementary series No. 10.) DordrechtHolland. Geis, J. 1970. Some aspects of verb phrase adverbials in English. Urbana: University of Illinois dissertation (mimeographed). Greaves, E. 1919. Hindi grammar. Allahabad: The Indian Press Ltd. (2nd ed. 1933). Halliday, Μ. A. K. 1967-68. Notes on transitivity and theme in English. JL 3-4. Hasan, R. 1971. Syntax and semantics. Biological and social factors in psycholinguistics, ed. by John Morton. University of Illinois Press, Urbana. Kachru, Y. 1965. A transformational treatment of Hindi verbal syntax. London: University of London dissertation (mimeographed). —. 1966. An introduction to Hindi syntax. Urbana: University of Illinois (mimeographed). —. 1970. Review of Untersuchungen zur Syntax der Hindi by P. Gaeffke. Lg. 46.968-75. —. 1971. Causative sentences in Hindi revisited. Papers on Hindi syntax, ed. by Y. Kachru. (Studies in the linguistic sciences: 1:2.) Urbana: University of Illinois (mimeographed). Kleiman, A. 1971. Some aspects of the causative construction in Hindi. Papers on Hindi syntax, ed. by Y. Kachru. (Studies in the linguistic sciences: 1:2.) Urbana: University of Illinois (mimeographed).

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Pray, B. 1970. Topics in Hindi-Urdu grammar. (Research monograph.) Berkeley Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies, University of California at Berkeley. Sah, P.P. 1971. A generative semantic treatment of some aspects of English and Hindi grammar. York: University of York dissertation (mimeographed). Steffensen, M. 1971. A deverbal analysis of adverbials in Hindi. Papers on Hindi syntax, ed. by Y. Kachru. (Studies in the linguistic sciences: 1:2). Urbana: University of Illinois (mimeographed).

TOWARD A THEORY OF A P P L I E D LINGUISTICS ROBERT B. KAPLAN

Before proposing a theoretical base for applied linguistics, it is probably unwise but necessary to venture a definition of the scope of applied linguistics. For purposes of this discussion, APPLIED LINGUISTICS may be taken to mean quite literally the application of linguistics, but not solely of linguistics, to the pragmatic needs of human beings. Obviously, that is a very broad definition. In this sense, to the unquestionable irritation of numbers of hyphenated linguists, applied linguistics may be said to include sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, much of dialectology, of computer linguistics, and of a number of other semidisciplines. Indeed, the recent predilection for prefixes modifying the term LINGUISTICS is a manifestation of insecurity on the part of linguists who seem to doubt whether linguistics is indeed as exact a science as its practitioners hope it is and whether linguistics is indeed at all concerned with language in its narrowest sense (Pattison 1970). Linguistics, in its purest forms, is neither an exact science nor concerned with language, narrowly defined 1 ; furthermore, the more it attempts to emulate an exact science the further it necessarily moves away from language, narrowly defined. In the United States particularly, linguistics has in the past half century striven to become an exact science. To the extent that it has succeeded, its success has depended upon a concern with syntax to the exclusion of context (Bloomfield 1933); that is, since syntax appears to be reducible to system and rule (if one ignores certain critical qualities of language), there has been a very strong tendency to deal with system and rule to the exclusion of all qualities of language which do not fit taxonomically within the particular set of rules proposed by the ruling elite of the moment. There is no inherent sin in choosing to deal with systems and rules, so long as it is recognized that the game is cyclic and necessarily bound within the model posited by the given system and set of rules (Kuhn 1964). The sin occurs when any given model is proposed

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as important in the practical matter of learning something about language acquisition and language pedagogy. As a matter of fact, while the study of linguistics has led to far greater knowledge of syntax, and therefore to better teaching of syntax (Rutherford 1968), it has made no significant contribution to language pedagogy in general during the last half century (Wardhaugh 1969). Quite the contrary, it has served to a large extent to provide fruitless inquiry and dead end roads. Education in the broader sense is no more linguistic (although it may be less) than it was in 1900, and the numbers of individuals learning language has decreased while there is considerable evidence that even those who are still trying to learn are achieving less (Jacobovits 1969). The theoretical disputes of various schools of linguists have reverberated into the ranks of language teachers and have resulted in nearly religious schisms splitting the profession rather than unifying it (Wardhaugh 1969). In short, linguistics is a medieval science, dealing in mystery and superstition based on a smattering of theology and a modicum of fact. Its Pardoners, who toil among the masses, have been corrupted by the priests, tainted with skepticism, confused by disputation, alienated by Puritanism, and have been inclined to greet as a savior every new demagogue who appears among the elite. The real needs of the public have been lost in the confusion. The government, in its universal wisdom, has raised additional clouds of dust by espousing the dogmatic recommendations of one or another oracle and funding with incredible sums of money the pursuit of one or another chimera (U S Senate 1967). It is not in the sense of control that government intervention in education is a danger; rather it is in the sense that the availability of federal funds arouses avarice which cannot be dispelled merely by the promise or practice of scholarship. Applied linguistics has not been a discipline so much as it has been an arbitrary name referring to a set of individuals of various skills and interests whose principal concern was with the practical application of linguistic principles to a variety of pragmatically determined situations. To a very large extent, applied linguistics has constituted the uneasy home for a group of individuals who were indeed language teachers but who were more concerned with understanding and improving what they were doing than they actually were either with research in the normal linguistic sense or with pedagogy as it has come to be practiced in language departments in publicly supported education in the United States - that is, as a relatively sterile, completely repetitive means of

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earning a salary. This group has been characterized, obviously, by dominant interest in language rather than in literature, although many of the members of the group have had extensive training in literature and some at least have rejected the teaching of literary criticism on the same basis that they have rejected one or another of the formal schools of linguistics. Thus applied linguistics is primarily concerned with practical problems. It is the discipline that has spun off individuals concerned with the measurement of language acquisition and with the issues of motivation, aptitude, and attitude in regard to language acquisition, individuals concerned with language planning and with the economic and social questions associated with that activity, individuals concerned with paralinguistic features of communication - indeed with the whole complex of communication. The academic insecurity of their interest is demonstrated by the term PARALINGUISTIC, which at least in part echoes an apology for communicative activities which lie outside the parameters of formal linguistics. In short, those who accept the designation tend to be individuals concerned with the solution of practical problems, but, by the same token, individuals holding little status in the political structure of a community which continues to call itself 'humanistic'. The academic ascendency of linguistics has tended to frustrate applied linguists and to channel their work into research areas approved by the ruling elite. Consequently, much of their effort over the past several decades has been both prescribed and limited. Applied linguistics has suffered from the absence of a raison d'etre of its own; its practitioners have been reduced to second-class citizenship in the academic community, and its activities have come to be viewed as mildly disreputable and beneath the notice of serious scholars. The self-fulfilling prophesy has, of course, operated; for lack of adequate training, the graduates of applied linguistic programs have been less well prepared than their colleagues in linguistics; for lack of adequately trained personnel, less well prepared individuals have been admitted to places of authority; for lack of academic respectability, the research proposed has been inadequately supported; for lack of support, necessary research has not been accomplished; for lack of both leaders and information, the recipients of the services have been poorly served. But applied linguistics is a viable discipline, necessary in its own right, having an area of research different from - though perhaps overlapping slightly with - that of linguistics, and serving the academic community in unique and distinct ways. The denial of its proper place

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has been based upon a number of fallacies. These fallacies are: (1) that second-language acquisition is instinctive; (2) that language acquisition depends upon the development of habitual responses to extremely limited stimuli; (3) that language may be taught by reinforcement of appropriate habit patterns; (4) that, because of these three verities, language teaching deals with skill transmission rather than with an intellectual process; (5) that language itself is solely a means of communication which can be acquired by any normal human being who wishes to communicate, and (6) that the need to communicate is innate (Lado 1964, Finocchiarro 1967, Kehoe 1968). Gradually, but essentially accidentally, linguistic research has itself demonstrated that these assumptions are fallacies (Jacobs and Rosenbaum 1968). The evidence has been accumulated as a byproduct of the development of system and rule models for syntax, models which demanded assumptions other than those underlying prior models. Assumptions about the nature of language and about the nature of language acquisition have changed, and the imperatives have come to some extent from linguistics, but also from sociology (Fishman 1966), anthropology (Hymes 1964), psychology (Skinner 1957, Ausubel 1962, Bruner 1966, Carroll 1966, Rivers 1968), and the social sciences in general. The social sciences in toto attempt to account for human behavior, and that behavior is so complex that no single social science can account for it, and so intricate that the social sciences tend to suffer from an inability to evolve a rigorous scientific discipline within which it is possible to work. Linguistics, which is probably the youngest of the social sciences, has adopted a stance, derived from theoretical mathematics, upon which it depends for some of its more productive models, which demands truly rigorous scientific discipline, and it has tended to retain that discipline at the cost of its subject. Linguistics, within its discipline, has ceased to be concerned with human behavior and has limited itself to the rigorous consideration of a single rule system in isolation from human behavior (Chomsky and Halle 1968). It is rather as though medical practitioners, having discovered that the process of life regeneration is rule-governed, had abandoned obstetrics in favor of genetics. The physical ills of the race, however, are so clearly evident that they cannot be ignored, and physicians have continued delivering babies while geneticists have pursued their laboratory investigations. The work of the geneticists has not significantly affected the immediate work of obstretricians, but it has certainly identified important problems with which both groups need to be concerned.

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Applied linguists are the obstetricians and pediatricians of linguistics. Certainly they need to be as well trained as geneticists and endocrinologists, but their training must be different because - while all of them deal with human beings - obstetricians deal with human beings in direct and immediate ways; or, rather, obstetricians deal with people while geneticists deal with the race. The facts which govern applied linguistics, quite unlike the assumptions listed previously, are: (1) second-language acquisition is an artificial activity; (2) language acquisition, while it certainly involves the internalization of certain kinds of habitual behavior, is extremely complex at least in the sense that an environment can produce an infinite number of stimuli each of which requires a unique response within a finite set of possibilities; (3) language may not be taught simply by reinforcing appropriate habit patterns but rather by providing the learner, within the limits of his individual range of experience, sufficient numbers of rules, illustrations, and abstractions so that he may manipulate those segments of the language which he is prepared to conceive; (4) language teaching is not solely concerned with transmission of skills but rather with potentially the most complex of intellectual activities; (5) language is not solely a communicative device but it is also a defensive device, and its defensive function may inhibit its free acquisition by some normal individuals desirous of communicating, (6) the need to communicate beyond a very finite limit is not innate but may be an artificial function of population pressure and a quite late manifestation of communal life in urban centers alien to human activities (McBride 1966). On native language acquisition, very little is known. The explanation offered by Augustine in the first quarter of the 4th century could have been endorsed by any language teacher well into the third quarter of the 20th century. Certainly, it is observable that all human beings, within what is defined as the normative ranges of intelligence, seem to acquire a native language; although it is equally observable that all human beings within any given language system do not utilize their native language to the same degree. In any case, the process appears to be normal and as such occurs to some degree with or without extensive intervention through formal teaching. Second-language acquisition, on the other hand, is quite another matter. It is observable that all human beings within the normative ranges of intelligence do not acquire a second language. Quite the contrary, it may be that biological pressures to protect the immediate survival and the gene pool of certain populations may operate as in-

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hibiting factors to the acquisition of a second language.2 In general, other languages are acquired by human populations most commonly along borders between such populations, where the needs for friendly contact, either to insure survival or to increase the gene pool potential, operate as motivating forces. In contemporary industrial societies, where population pressure and urbanization have combined to bring more human populations into immediate contact with larger numbers of other human populations, the motivation for other-language acquisition has increased, but it is still basically an artificial activity. Its artificiality is attested to by the wide disparity of degree of acquisition in normal populations, by the fact that facility appears to fall out along a normal ability curve, by the relatively high degree of failure unaccompanied by any serious consequence (Jacobovits 1969), and by the fact that language still operates importantly to mark the borders between populations where no other convenient device exists either because the populations are nomadic or because the populations are forced into artificial interspersion as a result of urban population pressure. In addition to these criteria, there are also a number of economic and social criteria important in the acquisition of other languages. For example, the general acceptability of a language is a critical factor (Lambert, et al. 1959). A language is politically designated as a SECOND language; it does not acquire that status by some natural linguistic process. In any political unit, the ruling elite determine which language shall be considered the NATIVE language; it may or may not be the most widely spoken language. It becomes the language of the media of communication, including importantly the law, and such use may increase its spread within the population living in such a political unit. Obviously, it will be the first language of at least some members of the population. The function of the ruling elite is to decrease internal tension. Under that impetus, the ruling elite may recognize other vernaculars, whether they be independent languages or dialects, as native to the geographic zone controlled by that ruling elite. The elite will also designate some language as the OFFICIAL language, which may or may not be the native language. In complex political units where the educational system has been assigned to an agency of government, a SCHOOL LANGUAGE may be designated. The school language may be the native language, or the official language, or a recognized VERNACULAR, or something else. Finally, the external relations of the elite will dictate the recognition of certain other languages as FOREIGN languages, given a certain prestige within the political structure and taught within the educational structure

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(Noss 1971). The designation 'foreign' is interesting and important in terms of both what it includes and what it excludes; that is, the political authority of a given geographic zone is quite likely to designate as 'foreign' languages those languages of other political entities or geographic zones with which that political authority has a need to communicate. Thus, in much of Europe English and Russian are studied as foreign languages because they are the languages of economically and politically important nations. Furthermore, in the political states of Eastern Europe, German and French are also commonly studied as foreign languages, although they may also be studied as second languages, both because of the relative physical proximity of the geographic zones of those speakers, of the historical importance of those languages, and of the awareness that speakers of those languages have had and may again exercise important influence in the economic and political life of all of Europe (Girard 1963, Lewis 1963, Perren 1963, Prejbisz 1963). Additionally, changing economic-political considerations may add new foreign languages, like Chinese, to the school repertoire via the route of designation as a foreign language. But it is unlikely that Kpelle or Maori or even Thai or Korean will be added to the list. By excluding most languages, the political authority circularly limits the capabilities of its citizens to deal with individuals from the non-represented language zones. In some instances, indigenous languages are excluded, thus reducing some portion of the population to literal non-existence. Obviously, it would be economically impossible for an impoverished school system which is already doing a dismal job of language teaching to increase its offerings to include all known languages; that is probably not even the objective. On the other hand, the circularity inherent in designating and not designating languages as foreign is often overlooked, and the general tendency toward preservation of the status quo in the professional academic community may lock in both the original choice and the inhibiting circularity. With or without the official recognition of the elite, trade languages may develop along population borders either within or proximate to the geographic zone ruled by the elite. Such trade languages - often Creoles or pidgins - derive from the need for economic communication and may even evolve into the native language of a middle-man trading class. All of these posited conditions have existed or do exist. In India, for example, English has been the official language for persons who spoke Urdu or Bengali as native languages and who attended schools in which Hindi or Gujarati was the language of instruction. In Singapore, native

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speakers of Tamil use English as a school language, Hakka dialect of Chinese as a trade language, and Malay as an official language. The Jews of medieval Europe used Yiddish both as a trade language and as a native language, and used the language of the place of residence in addition. In the United States today, native speakers of any language other than English use English as an official, an educational, and often a trade language. They are encouraged to study a foreign language in school. The term SECOND LANGUAGE is normally used in a different sense. The official language of a political zone may be a second language to a large segment of the population. A language is second rather than foreign because it is so designated by political authority, but the implication is that such a language is a second native language. Pedagogical distinction between second and foreign language simply reinforces the implication. All of this tends to suggest that second-language acquisition is highly relativistic, that it depends upon sociological, economic, and political influences having nothing whatever to do with the activity of language acquisition per se, that it depends upon biological influences as well, and that all of these influences may inhibit any acquisition of second languages or of a particular second language. Furthermore, these influences, coupled with individual motivation, aptitude, and attitude, determine whether and to what extent second language acquisition is possible.The existence of a relatively small number of individuals in the total population who can be designated bilinguals or polyglots does not constitute evidence to the contrary. Indeed, degrees of bilingualism cover a rather wide range, and 'perfect' bilinguals probably are extremely rare and may not exist at all. But quite aside from the variables already suggested, those variables which relate directly to language acquisition still need to be discussed. Contrary to the learning theory on which most contemporary approaches to language learning are based, it seems evident that language acquisition is not based upon the transmission of skill nor upon the internalization of habit patterns (Kaplan 1969); it is even likely that language acquisition does not depend entirely upon the transmission of an ability to manipulate phonology, morphology, or syntax. There are, of course, various levels of linguistic skills which are implicit in second-language learning, and it is obvious that second-language learners cannot and do not need to acquire the second language to some idealized level of performance. Assuming, however, that reasonably high performance is

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the objective in all second language learning, as opposed to foreign language learning, where the objective appears to be more directly involved in broad cultural awareness rather than in real language performance capability, then language learning must be expected to produce performance in all segments of language such that the learner can communicate effectively with native speakers. That in turn implies control of all segments of language to the point at which the redundancy factor is maximized for both sender and receiver, but it does not imply that the production of the learner will be error-free; that is, it does not imply perfect pronunciation or perfect syntactic control and it certainly does not imply a control of the macrostructs, like semantic rules and rhetorical rules, greater than that expected of native speakers. The kind of language acquisition here described probably can be separated into three distinct kinds of human activities: kinesic, mental, and legeric.3 1. Kinesic activity is intended to include all those language-related acts which involve primarily the use of musculature as controlled by the medula oblongata - overt motor activity and sensory process ranging all the way from manipulation of the tongue in the production of the phonemic inventory and manipulation of the larynx to maintain appropriate air pressure, through the manipulation of the lens of the eye in reading (left to right as in English vs. right to left as in Arabic or top to bottom as in Chinese), and the correlative manipulation of the hand in producing an appropriate orthography. 2. Mental activity is intended to include all those language-related activities, no matter how complex, which are essentially tactic rather than heuristic; thus, for example, a navigator operating within a known navigational system and making choices within a finite range of known variables is making tactic decisions (Gladwin 1970). In language terms, these tactic decisions involve the manipulation of the phonological inventory into acceptable morphemes and the arrangement of such morphemes into the acceptable range of syntactic structures; they also involve the learning of vocabulary items on what might be called a direct-translation basis, or on a model of oneword/one-meaning. Traditionally, this level appears to be the one at which language learning aims. An individual having the kinesic ability to produce a phonology and the tactic ability both to learn words and to manipulate the phonology which he can produce into those

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words may be said to have a certain proficiency in the second language. Such a proficiency does not imply that the learner understands what he is producing, nor does it imply that he has a very great repertoire of language segments with which to operate, although he may have acquired all of the regular phonological, morphological, and syntactic rules. Clearly, acquisition at this level will allow the learner to translate from his native language all those higher-level ideas - conceived in the first language - for which he possesses functional equivalents in the second language, but it will not allow him to conceive in the second language framework either ideas possible within his native language system or new ideas in the second language. The potential range of performance at this level is quite broad and is undoubtedly related to the learner's facility as a translator; thus, it is related in part to the number of language-learning experiences he has encountered in the past and is in part a function of his speed as a translating computer. 3. Legeric activity is intended to include all those language-related activities which may be said to be essentially heuristic, that is, all those activities which involve decision-making not bound by finite sets of known variables. Thus, for example, a physician operating on the basis of subjectively described symptoms, objective tests, and experience (including intuition) who arrives at a reasonable prognosis of a medical problem and from it, with appropriate modification, can diagnose and treat the disorder is making heuristic decisions. In language terms these strategic decisions involve the manipulation of semantic and rhetorical rules and the arrangement of phonological, morphological, and syntactic elements within a context into acceptable units of discourse or speech acts. These strategic decisions also necessitate discrete attention to the phenomenological constructs permitted within the second language system and independent of the phenomenological constructs of the native language except in so far as the two sets may overlap or share some of the same features. Legeric activity has rarely constituted a part of language instruction. Its exclusion has necessitated a focus no higher than that implicit in the mental or tactic level and has inhibited the acquisition of communicative competence. Within each of these ranges of linguistic activity, it is apparent that the second-language learner probably will not exceed his skill at the same level within his own language, and probably cannot be expected

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to attain the skill of a native speaker. For example, an individual who whistles /s/ in his native language probably will also do so in his second language whether whistling is phonemic or not; an individual who has difficulty grasping or expressing logical relationships in his native language probably will not exceed his native-language ability in the second language; an individual with a motor impairment inhibiting some linguistic function in his native language will not lose the motor impairment in the second language. In short, it is unlikely that the mere act of second-language acquisition will significantly increase the kinesic, mental, or legeric competence of the learner above that level of competence which he normally possesses in his native language. Any expectation that a learner will exceed the performance of a comparable native speaker is also unrealistic. The second-language learner will acquire language proficiency in a second language in direct proportion to his linguistic skills in his native language and in direct proportion to his intellectual abilities. Once he has acquired a second language at a relatively high level of performance and has operated in it, thus expanding through the use of a new phenomenological order the range of his intellectual activity, it is possible that some objective measurement of intellectual ability may change and in the long run the learner may acquire both his native and his second system on an incrementally higher level. Should this incremental IMPROVEMENT occur, it must be considered a by-product of second-language acquisition. Thus, there is no guarantee that language study is necessarily GOOD as an intellectual activity. If this model of the kinds of activities involved in language acquisition is reasonable, and its implications are valid, then both applied linguistics and language teaching need to undergo modification in terms of operations and objectives. This model implies that native language interference is more critical at the level of semantic rules (sub-categorizational rules) than it is at the level of phonological, or morphological, or syntactic rules (Arapoff-Cramer 1971); indeed, interference at the phonological, morphological, and syntactic levels is itself only an instance of interference at the semantic level. But at present very little work has been done to demonstrate either the importance of what may be called contextual and phenomenological categories of languages or ways in which these categories may be incorporated into the pedagogical strategies employed in language teaching. Properly, these problems constitute the concern of applied linguistics. Thus, applied linguistics may constitute the focal point at which variables derived from learning theory, from individual aptitude, attitude,

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and motivation, from broadly based biological laws and anthropological observations, and from studies of the nature of language (rather than syntax) may all converge. This is not to suggest that applied linguistics will die of its own vacuity if a theoretical base is not evolved; rather it is to suggest that, if a viable theoretical base is not evolved, applied linguistics will tend to remain subservient to theoretical linguistics, and its activities will of necessity be bound within the interests of theoretical linguistics, and not in any sense APPLIED. But before applied linguistics can become applied, some such reconsideration of the relation between second-language acquisition and human behavior as that suggested here must be undertaken, and a theoretical base quite independent of any model in linguistics will need to be evolved. Emphasis throughout has been placed on second-language acquisition because it seems clear that second-language acquisition is independent of first-language acquisition. First-language acquisition is not the proper concern of applied linguistics except in so far as it may offer insights into inherent linguistic hierarchies and thus assist in ordering. First-language acquisition is not the proper concern of language teachers because it occurs so early in the life of the individual, except in cases of aberration, and so thoroughly that it precludes the activity of the teacher altogether. All other types of language acquisition are the proper concern of applied linguistics, but second-language acquisition must constitute the base because that base includes in varying degrees the activities which define language teaching at all other levels. This paper has attempted to lay out one phase of the necessary theoretical base for applied linguistics. It is to be hoped that others will modify this phase and will supply the other necessary components to arrive, ultimately, at an independent theory of applied linguistics.

NOTES 1

Language 'narrowly defined' means a complete communication system. Theoretical linguistics, particularly as it has developed in the United States, is concerned only with a relatively small portion of language - that is, it has traditionally concerned itself with sentence and with the isolatable components of sentence. It can be contended that language really does not exist devoid of context. Linguists have avoided context in order to be able to work precisely with the isolatable components of sentence, but in so far as they have done so they have also avoided a concern with language. 2 A gene pool is a concept borrowed from genetics. In any given population, which in turn is defined as a group of interbreeding individuals, that population shares certain hereditary characteristics limited by the total genetic variation of the sum

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of the individuals. If such a population has within its genetic capability one or more characteristics highly favorable in terms of the survival of the entire group, there appears to be a natural tendency for the group to preclude - by a number of different devices - the introduction of alien genes into the existing pool. On the contrary, when the genetic capabilities of a population tend toward extermination of the group by preserving one or more hereditary characteristics counterproductive to the survival of the group, then the group - again by a variety of means - appears to welcome the addition of new characteristics via the admission of a number of individuals into the community thus adding to the gene pool of that community. Such a community, sharing a common gene pool and interbreeding to preserve the pool, may be called a breeding population. 3 The term LEGERIC is an adjective coinage derived from Lat. legere 'to gather', 'to collect', 'to choose', 'to read'; it is akin to Gr. legein 'to speak', and to Gr. logos 'word', 'speech'. It is intended to suggest the kinds of activities that underlie heuristic procedures.

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Ausubel, D. P. 1962. A subsumption theory of meaningful verbal learning and retention. Journal of General Psychology 66. 213-224. Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. New York: Holt. Bruner, Jerome S. 1966. Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University. Carroll, John B. 1966. The contributions of psychological theory and educational research to the teaching of foreign languages. In Valdman (1966), 93-106. Chomsky, N. and M. Halle. 1968. The sound patterns of English. New York: Harper and Row. Finocchiaro, Mary. 1967. English as a second language: from theory to practice. New York: Regents. Fishman, Joshua A. 1966. The implications of bilingualism for language teaching and language learning. In Valdman (1966), 121-132. Fries, C. C. 1952. The structure of English. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Girard, Denis. 1963. New trends in language teaching in France. Conference papers of the English language section of the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs, ed. by David Harris, New York. Gladwin, Thomas. 1970. East is a big bird. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University. Hymes, Dell. 1964. Language in culture and society. New York: Harper and Row. Jacobovits, Leon A. 1969. Research findings and foreign language requirements in colleges and universities. FLA. 2.436-457. Jacobs, R. and P. S. Rosenbaum. 1968. English transformational grammar. Waltham, Mass.: Blaisdell. Kaplan, Robert B. 1969. 491391625162541253661. Journal of English as a second language 4.7-18. Kehoe, Monika. 1968. Applied linguistics. New York: Collier-Macmillan. Kuhn, Thomas S. 1964. The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: Phoenix. Lado, Robert. 1964. Language teaching. New York: McGraw-Hill. Lambert, W. E., J. Havelka and R. C. Gardner. 1959. Linguistic manifestations of bilingualism. American Journal of Psychology 72.77-82.

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Lambert, W. E. and L. Jacobovits. 1960. Verbal satiation and changes in the intensity of meaning. Journal of Experimental Psychology 60.688-99. Lewis, E. Glyn. 1963. The teaching of English as a second language within the United Kingdom. Conference papers of the English language section of the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs, ed. by David Harris. New York. McBride, Glen. 1966. The conflict of overcrowding. Discovery. Noss, Richard P. 1967. Language policy and higher education. Higher education and development in South-East Asia 3.2. Paris: UNESCO-IAU. Noss, Richard P. 1971. Politics and language policy in Southeast Asia. Language science. 25-32. Pattison, Bruce. 1970. Research priorities. ELT. 25.4. Perren, George Ε. 1963. British teaching of English in the Commonwealth. Conference papers of the English language section of the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs, ed. by David Harris, New York. Prejbisz, Antoni. The teaching of English in Poland. Conference papers of the English language section of the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs, ed. by David Harris. New York. Rivers, Wilga. 1964. The psychologist and the foreign language teacher. Chicago: University of Chicago. Rivers, Wilga. 1968. Teaching foreign language skills. Chicago: University of Chicago. Rutherford, William B. 1968. Modern English. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. Skinner, B. F. 1957. Verbal behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. United States Senate. 1967. Committee on labor and public welfare. Hearings before the special subcommittee on bilingual education. Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office. Valdman, Albert (ed.). 1966. Trends in language teaching. New York: McGraw-Hill. Wardhaugh, Ronald. 1969. Current problems and classroom practices. TESOL Quarterly 3.105-16.

EINE TRANSATLANTISCHE ISOGLOSSE JOHANN KNOBLOCH

Ernst Pulgram (1968) hat die Aufmerksamkeit auf eine Neuerung in der adverbiellen Wortbildung der amerikanischen Umgangssprache gelenkt, nämlich auf die Verbindung von Nomen + -wise, die sich steigender Beliebtheit erfreut. Wie immer sind die Muster, von denen eine solche Neuerung ausgeht, durchaus gängig und bieten keinen Anlass zu schulmeisterhaftem Tadel: otherwise, likewise. Von diesen Ausgangswörtern, die noch kein nominales Vorderglied zeigen, könnte man zunächst an eine Verbreitung von Bildungen mit einem Adjektivabstraktum als Vorderglied denken {lengthwise, clearnesswise) und die Reaktion einer Gruppe von Versuchspersonen, die Bildungen wie humanness-wise, deadness-wise akzeptabel fanden, scheint dafür zu sprechen. Das Konkretum im Vorderglied stellt vielleicht die letzte Stufe dar: jedenfalls gehört hierher die Bildung von cigarette-wise, player-wise, theatre-wise, die wenig oder keinen Anstoss erregt. Pulgram weist auf die Verbreitung solcher Bildungen in der Sprache der Reklame, des Handels und der Verwaltung hin. Sie verdanken hier ihre Beliebtheit einer komprimierten Eindringlichkeit: 'There they are regarded as brisk and snappy, they confer (in the opinion of their users at least) the flavor of authority and officialdom upon an utterance, and they enjoy, as does any kind of argot or cant, a cliquish prestige, a favored position - which their adoption by ever more eager imitators, however, is rapidly eroding' (Pulgram 1968: 383). Mit dieser Charakteristik ist die soziolinguistische Rolle besagter Neuerung umrissen; in akademischen Kreisen wird sie gemieden: 'Myself, I do not use -wise adverbs ... Being a linguist does not oblige me to forswear my predilections style-wise - sorry, of style' (Pulgram 1968: 391). Der deutschsprachige Leser dieses Artikels wird unwillkürlich an eine analoge Erscheinung in der heutigen Umgangssprache erinnert, auf die die gleiche Charakteristik und schichtenmässige Einordnung zutrifft: unser -mässig. Berufsmässig habe ich durch den Wechsel nur gewonnen,

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aber wohnungsmässig haben wir uns verschlechtert. Proklitikon heisst ein Wort, das sich betonungsmässig dem folgenden unterordnet. Auch hier im Deutschen sind die Ausgangspositionen ähnliche: zweckmässig, behelfsmässig mit abstrakten Begriffen im Vorderglied sind älter als geldmässig (vom affektisch-rustikalen saumässig ist abzusehen). Diese Wortbildungsweise ist als heute wuchernd erkannt und be- bzw. verurteilt worden (Seibicke 1963).1 Auf die Übereinstimmung in beiden Sprachen hinsichtlich des syntaktischen Gebrauchs sei hier verwiesen. Die Frage, ob das Französische eine ähnliche Entwicklung einer neuen Adverbialkategorie (bekannt ist ja vulgärlateinisches -mente) aufzuweisen habe, ist mir von Mario Wandruszka2 mit dem Hinweis auf Relationsadjektiva wie un enfant caracteriel = 'ein charaktermässig schwieriges Kind', les variations saisonnieres — 'die jahreszeitlichen Schwankungen', les difficultes petrolieres = 'die Schwierigkeiten bezüglich der Erdölversorgung' beantwortet worden. Hier wird aber offensichtlich dem Stilempfinden nicht soviel zugemutet, wie im Englischen und im Deutschen. Die von Seibicke herausgestellte allgemeine Entwicklungstendenz „vielleicht des gesamten Neuhochdeutschen" (1963: 75), der „Zug zur grösstmöglichen syntaktischen Ausnutzung des Wortschatzes" durch „Schaffung einfacher, bequemer Funktionsmittel" die jedem Wort „ein Höchstmass syntaktischer Verfügbarkeit" verleihen, lässt sich also auch jenseits des Atlantik beobachten.

NOTES 1

Der ausführliche Aufsatz Seibicke 1963, auf den mich Mario Wandruszka freundlicherweise aufmerksam machte, tadelt S.76 die unnötigen Bildungen. Erkannt wird der Zusammenhang mit der Denkweise in der "Welt der Wissenschaft und der Verwaltung im weitesten Sinne (Staatsverwaltung, Recht, Wirtschaft, usw.)." (S.75). 3 Brieflich, 16.1.1971. Für die weiterführende Hilfe sei hier herzlich gedankt.

REFERENCES Pulgram, Ernst. 1968. A socio-linguistic view of innovation. Word 24.380-391. Seibicke, Wilfried. 1963. Wörter auf -massig. Sprachkritik und Sprachbetrachtung. Muttersprache 73.33-47; 73-78.

A LINGUIST LOOKS AT R E A D I N G * WILLIAM F. MARQUARDT

A linguist addressing a gathering of reading teachers is somewhat like a new ambassador from the U. S. presenting himself to the government of England. He knows that the authority of his message is unchallengable but can he be sure that they know it too ? On trying to restate his message to a community of linguists he is bound to feel somewhat like that ambassador on his first trip back home - less sure of the efficacy of his authority but full of insights he would like to understand better: ... like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific - and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise Silent, upon a peak in Darien. How can a linguist returning from interaction with reading teachers talk to fellow-linguists in the vein of Keats reporting the high he got from reading Chapman's Homer? Can more linguists be moved to use their science and their insights to help teachers of reading give learners frequent highs from reading and make growth-inducing reading daily behavior with them? Since more than half the people of the world cannot read at all and an estimated eighth of the people of the U. S. are said to be functionally illiterate, it would be hard to conceive of any contribution a linguist can make of greater social worth than to help bring growthinducing highs through reading to the billion non-readers or to the millions more for whom reading is little more than entrapment in the designs of image-makers and political manipulators. What can linguists do to help people everywhere become daily users of reading/writing behavior? Perhaps the best way to approach this question is to look at what linguists have been doing in recent years to help reading teachers.

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One of the best-known efforts in modern times by linguists to help reading teachers was that of Leonard Bloomfield. Dissatisfied with his sons' progress in reading in school and with the misunderstanding among teachers about the nature of language, he took up the problem in the 1930's. He felt that they failed to understand the primacy of the spoken over the written language. He believed that once they focused on making the learner skilled in decoding the graphic symbols on the page to the spoken meaning-bearing patterns he had mastered before coming to school they would soon be able to make every child an eager reader. Bloomfield's way of teaching the child to break the alphabetic code was to present first the most regularly spelled words so that the child would discover by himself the most common phoneme-grapheme correspondences. Gradually he would be introduced to the less and less common ones until he had learned all those relevant to his own speech. Bloomfield's ideas, though tested in schools in the Chicago area in the 1940's, were largely ignored until Rudolph Flesch (1955), charging that conventional methods of teaching reading were creating armies of retarded readers, non-readers, and dropouts, called for a return to phonics. The uproar Flesch caused led Clarence Barnhart, Bloomfield's friend and collaborator, to produce under the title Let's Read (1961) Bloomfield's largely unpublished materials on the teaching of reading. Publication of Bloomfield's views on the teaching of reading was only a straw in the wind. Linguists had already become involved in reading conferences in the fifties. Articles on the applications of linguistics to the teaching of reading were appearing in the language journals and reading journals. Charles C. Fries published in 1962 a book he had been working on for years, Linguistics and Reading. A year later Carl Lefevre's Linguistics and the Teaching of Reading appeared. In 1963 the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English set up a joint committee on linguistics and reading comprising such leaders in the field of reading as Morton Botel, Jeanne Chall, Helen M. Robinson and Kenneth Goodman and such linguists as Robert L. Allen, Sumner Ives, Raven I. McDavid, Jr., and myself. Under the chairmanship of Priscilla Tyler this committee met several times a year and conducted workshops at the IRA and NCTE conferences over a three-year period and produced two symposia of articles, one appearing in the December 1964 issue of The Reading Teacher, the other in the December 1965 issue of Elementary English. These articles explored mainly relationships between the code-features of spoken and written language: phonemic-graphemic correspondences;

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contrasts in spoken and written language syntax; comparison of listening/ speaking competence with its acquisition in reading/writing behavior; intonation-pattern correlations with syntax-markers and punctuation in the written language; and the relationship of 'linguistic forms' to spoken and to written language. My own contribution in these symposia, entitled 'Language Interference in Reading', launched the idea growing out of my experience as a teacher of English as a second language that reading/writing behavior may be somewhat different from listening/speaking behavior in the sense that second-language communication behavior is different from mothertongue communication behavior. I pointed out that just as vast numbers of students who were taught foreign languages in school never used these languages outside of school so did large numbers of students taught reading never use it outside of school, despite the fact that, on the one hand, speakers of the foreign languages studied were generally available in abundance, at least in metropolitan areas, and, on the other hand, users of reading/writing behavior were even more abundant. I pointed out, by way of contrast, the oftmentioned fact that every normal child masters the spoken language of his environment without formal instruction by the time he is six years old. I listed some of the concepts and operations a six-year-old had to master in order to carry on speech communication - a list so impressive that linguists are fond of saying that mastering it is the greatest intellectual achievement any person has in a life-time. I suggested that these concepts and operations internalized as listening/ speaking behavior might affect the child's acquiring reading/writing behavior in much the same way that they would his acquiring new language or new dialect behavior. At some points they would interfere and at others help him with his acquiring the new behavior - just as an American learning German would master cognate words like Finger, Mann, Hand, and machen quickly while stumbling on such unfamiliar patterns as the case-endings of the articles, adjectives, and nouns. I suggested further that just as language teachers nowadays use contrastive analyses of the learner's native language and culture and the target language and culture to predict the points of interference in his acquiring the new language behavior so might the teacher use a contrastive analysis of listening/speaking behavior acquisition with a possible model of reading/writing behavior acquisition to determine the major points of interference that might keep a student from acquiring true reading/writing behavior.

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I provided the following sketch of the main feature of listening/speaking behavior a normal child has acquired by the time he starts school: 1. He has learned to comprehend statements, questions, requests, and commands addressed to him, and to respond to them. 2. He has learned to understand and respond overtly and covertly to talk not directed to him, such as in conversations between peers, parents, or other adults, and in movie, radio, and TV programs. 3. He has learned to discriminate and produce the phoneme, morpheme, syntax, and intonation patterns of statements, questions, or requests in ways that are reinforced by peers and adults. 4. He has learned to communicate feelings, observations, and desires to the extent that he has acquired vocabulary through hearing others communicate theirs. 5. He may have learned to relate spoken forms and meanings to a number of printed forms through being exposed to them on TV, posters, road signs, cans, and the printed page while hearing their spoken equivalents. 6. He has learned to recognize many behavior patterns and meanings of his native culture associated with the verbal patterns of his language and is able to recognize deviations from them by persons from other cultures. I suggested that with this kind of communication behavior satisfying the child's immediate needs and, through increasingly artful and powerful forms of it on TV, satisfying his future needs as well, the environmental reinforcements for his persisting in this kind of behavior were stronger than the teacher's reinforcements for his learning reading/writing behavior in the classroom. I suggested further that the teacher should distinguish the kinds of listening/speaking behavior to be learned which are intermediate steps to full reading/writing behavior. They are, in order of familiarity to the child: hearing and participating in conversation, hearing and producing monologue, and hearing and performing oral reading. The last two types of spoken language are in their ideal forms what the English linguist David Abercrombie labels 'spoken prose', which he carefully distinguishes from real conversation. The most striking ways in which 'spoken prose' differs from conversation are the following: 1. Its intonation patterns are highly standardized; those of conversation are not. 2. It is even in tempo; conversation is not.

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3. Its pauses are closely related to the grammatical structure of the sentence, whereas in conversation they are unpredictable. 4. It does not use gestures and facial expressions to fill silences the way conversation does. 5. It rarely shows stammers and articulation slips, which are frequent but little-noticed in conversation. 6. It has fewer phonetically varied speech sounds than conversation has. (Phonemic analysis, it is worth noting, is based on spoken prose elicited from informants rather than on real conversation.) 7. It is more structurally complete than conversation. (Since much of the meaning communicated in conversation is derived from context, its sentences may lack verbs, objects, or even subjects. The sentence of traditional or transformational grammar is a unit of spoken prose, rather than of conversation.) 8. It has few of the meaningless words and phrases which in conversation serve to establish rapport between speakers or to fill gaps while the speaker is thinking of what to say next. What is clear now is that, once we see the parallel aspects of the child's mastering the listening/speaking behavior code and his mastering reading/ writing behavior, we realize that making him fully integrated in reading/ writing behavior requires more than drilling him in its code features. Just as the child learned listening/speaking behavior without directed drill on the code aspects of listening/speaking but through much communicative interaction with a variety of speakers reinforcing his efforts in natural ways, so must he be led to natural reading/writing behavior not through drill on the code aspect of reading/writing but mainly through giving him opportunities to use reading/writing, with a variety of reader/writers ready to reinforce his efforts in ways meaningful to him. What has been written this far applies to the teaching of reading to young children - the population linguists seem mostly concerned about. The principles set forth above apply with even greater force to getting teenagers more deeply involved in reading/writing behavior, as they are helped to discover the many satisfying ways it still provides for 'seeing it like it is' or 'getting turned on' as Keats was by Chapman's Homer. But a question arises as to whether reading will always have the urgent role in the adolescent's development that it has today. Will he need it for enjoyment? With the TV screen flashing programs designed to captivate the lowest level of taste among millions of viewers, reading for enjoyment may soon be a rare indulgence. For information? TV wins over the printed page in transmitting with speed and vividness the day-

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to-day information most people are satisfied with. Cheaper telephone and videophone service, extended by satellite, is cutting into the writing and reading of letters. Increasing use of three-dimensional stereophonic educational slides, films, videotape, and computer-assisted-instruction is reducing the importance of the printed page in education as well. A revolution in human communication described by Asimov (1970) as now underway may change even more radically the function of the printed word. Known as the fourth revolution - the earlier three having followed the invention of language, of writing, and of the printing press it has been led by com-satellite and space-communication technology. The com-sat system will allow people to disperse over the open spaces of land and ocean in reversal of the channeling of people into metropolitan complexes the invention of printing ushered in, because it enables every person anywhere to communicate through portable sight-soundtouch transmitter-receivers with any other person anywhere as well as with information-storing-and-retrieval centers. Obviously, if this fourth revolution runs its course the reading behavior now practiced and taught will become rare. There is, however, a purpose for reading that young people are becoming increasingly aware of - a purpose described by Aldous Huxley (1958) as the highest attainment of the human being - to be able to project oneself into the thought and feeling patterns of persons different from oneself in culture, language and social background. Huxley maintains that the best society is one that seeks to develop this capacity - empathy - in all its citizens. The best media for creating empathy in young people are still the language arts based on literature because pursuing empathy is still a private rather than a public process. Reading/writing behavior will probably continue to be the means by which individuals pursue growth in empathy for persons most different from themselves while the electronic media take over more and more the functions of providing information and entertainment. Aware of this increasingly important function of the printed page, writers are becoming more concerned about the problems of people from different cultures interacting with one another. Books like Michener's Sayonara and Hawaii, Griffin's Black Like Me, Shulman's West Side Story, and Segal's Love Story which explore ways of getting persons involved in cross-culture confrontation to develop empathy for one another are being read by young persons more inspite of than because of the efforts of teachers. Teachers are becoming more aware of writing that brings young persons into the thinking and feeling patterns of persons

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different from themselves and they are discovering ways of getting young persons to read literature that will help them empathize with persons from the cultures they are most often in conflict with. Recently insights from sociolinguistics have been brought to bear upon the problem of identifying reading that will help teachers involve young persons in gaining empathy and competence in communicating across cultures or minority group boundaries (Marquardt 1969, 1970). Literary works have been screened on a grid designed to highlight characteristics of the communication situation - communicator, communicatees, message environment, message purpose, message form, etc. - that are relevant in heightening a reader's involvement in a literary experience. The grid has seven horizontal columns specifying the various communication situations out of which a literary work reflecting cross-cultural interaction might be written and seven vertical columns specifying the form or genre of the works: autobiography, biography, stories, novels, plays, poems, essays. Communication Situation: 1. Works by mainstream culture Americans, primarily for mainstream readers, showing interaction between mainstream and minority culture members in the minority culture setting. 2. Works by mainstream Americans primarily for mainstream readers focused on minority culture and mainstream culture members interacting in the mainstream culture setting. 3. Works by minority culture members primarily for mainstream readers focused on minority and mainstream culture members interacting in a mainstream culture setting. 4. Works by minority culture members primarily for mainstream readers focused on minority and mainstream culture members interacting in the minority culture setting. 5. Works by mainstream culture members focused on presenting some specific feature of the minority culture primarily to mainstream culture readers. 6. Works by minority culture members presenting or interpreting some specific feature of the minority culture to mainstream and minority culture readers. 7. Works by minority culture members discussing some specific feature of the mainstream culture for mainstream and minority culture readers. The foregoing remarks suggest two areas that linguists might explore to help teachers of reading bring growth-inducing reading/writing behavior

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Thomas, Down These Mean Streets (1967)

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Wright, Uncle Tom's Children (1940)

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Killens, And Then We Heard the Thunder (1963)

Bontemps, Chariot in the Sky (1951)

Duberman, In White America (1964)

Steinbeck, The Pearl (1962)

Plate, Palette and Tomahawk: The Story of George Catbin (1962)

Porter, Collected Stories (1965)

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Rasmussen, Beyond the High Hills: A Book of Eskimo Poetry (1961)

Samoza, La Raza: Forgotten Americans (1966)

Hughes, The First Book of Jazz (1954)

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to young and old learners. One area is socio-psycho-linguistic models of speaking/listening behavior acquisition for contrastive analysis with models of reading/writing behavior acquisition so that learners can be led to acquire reading/writing behavior at least as effective as their speaking/ listening behavior. The other area is to explore more fully sociolinguistic criteria for selecting literature likely to give learners empathy-inducing insights into the patterns of thinking and feeling of persons most different from themselves. If more linguists would join reading teachers in their efforts to make all human beings capable of growth in resourcefulness and empathy through giving them reading/writing competence, perhaps we might bring about near-universal literacy before the fourth revolution in communication makes reading obsolete.

NOTES * This is a revised form of a paper presented at the Western Kansas Reading Conference, April 3, 1971.

REFERENCES Abercrombie, David. 1963. Conversation and spoken prose. English language teaching. 18.10-16.

Asimov, Isaac. 1970. The fourth revolution in communication. Saturday review. 53, 43.24-26. Bloomfield, Leonard and Barnhart, Clarence L. 1961. Let's read: A linguistic approach. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Flesch, Rudolph. 1955. Why Johnny can't read and what you can do about it. New York: Harper. Fries, Charles C. 1963. Linguistics and reading. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Huxley, Aldous. 1958. Brave new world revisited. New York: Harper and Row. Lefevre, Carl. 1964. Linguistics and the teaching of reading. New York: McGraw-Hill. Marquardt, William F. 1964. Language interference in reading. The reading teacher. 18.214-218. —. 1969. Creating empathy through literature between members of the mainstream culture and disadvantaged learners of the minority cultures. Linguistic-cultural differences and American education, ed. by Alfred C. Aarons, Barbara Y. Gordon, and William A. Stewart. The Florida FL reporter. 7.133- 141, 157. —. 1970. Criteria for selecting literary texts in teaching cross-culture communication, especially in English as a second language. Actes du X e Congres international des linguistes, Bucharest, 28 Aoüt-2 Septembre 1967, vol. 4, ed. by A. Graur, 1019-1025. Bucharest: Editions de l'Academie de la Republique Socialiste de Roumanie.

TOWARD A MODEL OF LINGUISTIC DISTANCE 1 JIRI V. NEUSTUPNY

The study of linguistic variation has so far mainly been focused upon variation within linguistic communities. Little theoretical attention has been paid to variation between and across communities, and problems of DIVERSITY (distribution of variation within communities) have commonly been given precedence over problems of DISTANCE (degree of variation between varieties within a system or between variety systems).2 In this note, I wish to point out (1) the usefulness for further development of distance studies of the concept of language area (Sprachbund), (2) the necessity of its extension to include non-langue components of communicative systems, (3) the necessity to discuss various types of constraints on distance, and (4) to newly propose the concepts of linguistic union and communicative style.

LANGUAGE AREA (SPRACHBUND) AND SPEECH AREA (SPRECHBUND)

The fact that historically unrelated languages spoken in the same geographical area may exhibit grammatical (syntactic, lexical, phonological) correspondences was recorded early in this century, for instance, by Kroeber, Jespersen, Boas and Sapir. 3 As two representative terms employed to account for this fact, 'Sprachbund' can be given for Europe, 4 especially for the Prague School, and 'linguistic area' for American linguistics.5 However, in structural linguistics the topic remained a peripheral one and despite occasional attention (Martinet et al. 1956) has not been theoretically further developed. Within the framework of contemporary (socio)linguistics it is necessary to note that areal resemblances are found not merely in the central part of the system of linguistic competence (i.e. in grammar), but also on its periphery. In other words, areal isoglosses cut across the whole sphere of the 'communicative competence' (Hymes, unpublished). An

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interesting allusion in this direction, to my knowledge never expanded, has already been made in the 1929 Theses of the Prague Linguistic Circle: Ί1 faut etudier systematiquement les gestes... qui ont de 1'importance pour le probleme des alliances regionales linguistiques (p. ex. gestes balcaniques communs)' (Theses 1929:42). Although based on the undifferentiated concept of 'language', a strong plea for a wide understanding of Sprachbund has been presented by H. Becker. While remaining on the programmatic level, he suggested the inclusion of stylistic features such as voice quality, poetic rules, the structure of drama, structure of some speech acts such as the sermon, etc. (1948:76). These stimuli are meaningful in suggesting that should we acknowledge the idea of LANGUAGE AREAS (Sprachbund), we are obliged to accept also SPEECH AREAS (Sprechbund) (cf. Neustupny 1969:57), and COMMUNICATION AREAS in general. Future development of (socio)linguistics will undoubtedly provide evidence that most of the national and less extensive linguistic communities should also be studied from the point of view of distance as communication areas in the proposed sense. The concept seems to be, however, primarily relevant for the study of distance across boundaries of small or medium-size communities. Already grammatical areal resemblances render considerable assistance in language acquisition and language use in bilingual situations. More than by grammar, however, communication seems to be facilitated by resemblances in the more peripheral parts of communicative competence (speech and nonverbal communication systems): personnel rules, channel rules, message-form rules, thematic rules, variety-selection rules, etc. (for systematization cf. Hymes 1962, 1964, 1967). For instance German is easy for a native speaker of Czech not merely because of the large-scale lexical (mostly areal) resemblances, but mainly because he knows WHEN, WHAT, and HOW his German interlocutor would communicate. The same Czech speaker will find French much less perspicuous, and an English speech situation may represent an anagram for him even if, due to school education, his French or English grammatical competence may be of a considerably higher level than his German grammar. The popular Czech belief of widely distributed fluency in German within the community reflects the experience of successful communication even in instances when the actual knowledge of German grammar is minimal. An Australian aborigine may 'speak' to another aborigine, even if their languages are mutually unintelligible, due to the areal isoglosses in the periphery of their communicative competence. On the other hand, a

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native speaker of an Indian language will be a handicapped participant among a group of Europeans, however excellent his grammatical competence in English may be, unless he has acquired the non-grammatical components of the European Sprechbund.

OTHER TYPES OF CONSTRAINTS ON LINGUISTIC DISTANCE

In my opinion it is useful to restrict, in accordance with the main stream of Sprachbund studies, the term 'areal' to a fairly limited category of constraints, and distinguish in synchronic accounts of distance between areal, accidental, genetic, interferential, typological and sociolinguistic resemblances. The suggested typology represents an attempt to define the categories on the level of synchronic description while keeping them in maximum accordance with a similar classification on a diachronic level. The meaning given to the term 'areal' will be clear from comparison with the accidental, genetic, and interferential types, which, although very closely related, still in typical cases can be distinguished. 1. Accidental resemblances. Accidental resemblances can be defined by the feature [accidentality], i.e., as isolated isoglosses which never connect more than two systems. Diachronically speaking, along with mere chance these isoglosses may reflect distant genetic relationship, an isolated case of interference in which consciousness about the interference was lost, a feature due to areal diffusion limited to one pair of languages only, etc. 2. Genetic resemblances. The proposition that genetic resemblances can be defined on a purely synchronic basis might be faced with hesitation. However, there are obvious examples which are easy to classify as genetic, e.g. the distance among the Scandinavian languages (Haugen 1966), between Czech and Polish, between Standard Japanese and the Ryukyu dialects. Apparently the feature which synchronically distinguishes these from the other categories is [comprehensiveness], i.e. multiple and obvious similarities within all subsystems of grammar (syntax, lexicon, phonology). When the number of obvious correspondences decreases, genetic resemblances can not be distinguished from the accidental and, if distributed contiguously, from the areal constraints on distance.

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3. Interferential resemblances. Interferential resemblances are distinguished from other types of similarity by a semantic feature [foreignness]: the order of names when 'surname' precedes the 'first name' bears in Czech, at least for some speakers, the feature [German, official style]; the Graeco-Roman vocabulary in many European languages carries the feature [Classical, learned style], etc. However, the meaningfulness of an interferential resemblance can be weakened or lost altogether (most of the Czech translation loans from German), in which case on the synchronic level the distinction between interferential and accidental or interferential and areal is lost. Occasionally interference can be of such magnitude that the loss of meaningfulness may result in obscuring the synchronic distinction between interference and genetic relationship. 4. Areal resemblances. Areally-determined similarities are negatively marked on all the three features of [accidentality], [comprehensiveness], and [foreignness]: an areal resemblance must connect at least three contiguous systems (Birnbaum 1968:71);6 the number of areal resemblances is rather limited; and the elements concerned are not marked as foreign. An isogloss which fulfils these requirements is, for instance, the European TU-VOUS: it is not accidental because the number of languages which share this feature is certainly more than two (French, Czech, Swedish...); it is not comprehensive because it is not paralleled in the same language by a large number of other representative resemblances; and it is certainly not interpreted by speakers as a foreign element borrowed from a particular language. Historically, many areal resemblances are resemblances of other types which have lost their features. Some of the areal resemblances may however never have been anything else than areal features (e.g., the Balkanic or New Guinea grammatical resemblances, cf. Sandfeld 1930, Wurm 1956). 5. Typological resemblances. Typological resemblances affect primarily the centre of communicative competence. By the term 'typology' I understand those grammatical typologies which are not confined to classifying languages, but represent attempts to identify whole sets of mutually related grammatical features.7 Such sets can be said to manifest a grammatical common denominator, or type, and any language can be viewed as employing one or more from a small universal inventory of such types. Languages with a strong agglutinative basis are, for instance,

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349

characterised by strongly independent morphemes, less clear words, one-declension paradigms, expression of each grammatical meaning by a separate morpheme, etc. (Skalicka 1935a, 1966). These languages are 'consonantal' (Skalicka 1964), their consonants are well organized into regular systems in which sequences (affricates, palatalized, aspirated, geminated consonants) are not easily divisible into segments (Neustupny 1966a). Syntactically the agglutinative principle implies the object + verb order and a number of other related characteristics (cf. Lehmann 1972). The corresponding graphic systems are likely to employ widely the morphemic principle; in poetry, rhyme is not easy to establish as a general rule (Neustupny 1961), etc. Languages which are connected by typological resemblances are not necessarily historically related or geographically close to each other. One remarkably similar pair of languages, for instance, is Japanese and Hindi. 8 However, the type itself is often areally distributed, a fact well known from Eurasia (agglutination) or Western Europe (isolation). 6. Sociolinguistic resemblances. Sociolinguistic similarities, contrary to the typological ones, bear primary importance for the more peripheral subsystems of communicative competence. A large number of coincidences in topical systems, systems of networks, features like particularism in speech, etc., are motivated (determined) by identical features of the social structure. For instance, the occurrence of contact topics in conversational openings (establishing of contact by searching for common acquaintances, experience, etc.) is motivated by the character of social group in the communities concerned. This motivation is the feature by which sociolinguistic similarities can be distinguished from the socially unmotivated areal and other constraints on distance.

THE CONCEPT OF LINGUISTIC UNIONS

It is undoubtedly meaningful to consider the types of distance as separate, and to speak, for instance, of speech areas, grammatical types, sociolinguistic types, etc. There are, however, strong reasons to believe that the six types of linguistic distance should normally not be seen as operating separately from each other. Namely: 1. As noticed above, it is often difficult to decide which of two types of similarity is involved.

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2. It is common, or perhaps even usual, that a single isogloss can be attributed to more than a single type of distance. The presence of the complicated system of honorifics both in Japanese and Javanese can, for instance, be attributed to at least the following factors: (a) Areal similarity (honorific systems of this type seem to be frequent in the Pacific Area). (b) Typological similarity (honorifics seem to be more easily developed in languages with types similar to Japanese or Javanese than in languages like English or Russian, cf. Neustupny 1968:416). (c) Sociolinguistic similarity (both Japan and Java are characterized by well-established hierarchial social systems). 3. All types of similarity seem to cooccur in cases such as Western Europe, India etc. Accordingly, I propose that cross-national linguistic distance cannot always be studied effectively under the separate headings of linguistic areas, genetic groups, cultural interferential spheres, or grammatical or sociolinguistic types, and that a more general concept of linguistic (or communication) UNION should be established. By extending Hymes' notion of the 'cognitive style' to all aspects of communicative systems and to all types of distance, we could say that a union is characterised by a relatively uniform 'linguistic' or COMMUNICATIVE STYLE.9 If the complex character of linguistic distance is to be accounted for, unions must be defined as mutually INCLUSIVE (e.g. European Union West European Union, East Asian Union - Japanese-Korean Union; as noted above, national communities should also be studied as unions), and OVERLAPPING entities (German being a member of both the West European and Central European Unions). It must also be acknowledged that several unions may cooccur within one linguistic community. For instance, in Australia at least the following unions cooccur: European English (including Australian, British etc.), Continental European (including Southern, Central, Eastern etc.), and Aboriginal Australian. There are CLEAR unions, characterized by a large number of isoglosses, and unions with a lesser degree of clarity (e.g. the Eurasian union). A union has its CENTRE and PERIPHERY (Neustupny 1966b), a feature already noticed for areas by Jakobson, Becker, Ivic and Birnbaum. Finally, a union may be INSTRUMENTAL in varying degrees, according to whether similarities serve or contradict communication needs. Western Europe seems to be a highly instrumental union in this sense, while the contemporary Balkan does not.

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The usefulness of the suggested model of distance can be exemplified at least in four directions. First, while studying INTELLIGIBILITY, the cooccurrence of all types of constraints on distance (accidental, genetic, interferential etc.) must be taken into account, and particularly all levels of the 'communicative competence' (not only syntax, lexicon, and phonology, but also the more peripheral subsystems) must be considered. Secondly, the degree of distance between unions (and communicative styles) may constitute major 'LANGUAGE' PROBLEMS. For instance, multilingualism presents completely different problems according to whether it implies crossing major inter-union boundaries or not. M. Clyne (forthcoming) has reported problems encountered by German immigrants (members of the Central European Union) in Australia with regard to certain routines (shop leasing, agreements etc.). As far as the knowledge of foreign languages in Japan is concerned, the problem has to be reconsidered from the point of view of all levels of 'communicative competence' (the differences in the peripheral parts of communicative competence - e.g., network rules, channel rules etc. - being more decisive than the purely grammatical ones, cf. Neustupny 1969). Thirdly, no CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS, whatever its sense may be (cf. Jernudd and Lindau 1971), can reach systematicity unless it builds on a comprehensive theory of linguistic distance. Finally, it seems that radical and comprehensive differences in communicative style imply the necessity of different APPROACHES to the systems. 'Romance linguistics', for instance, is not merely a diachronic notion, and can be given very concrete synchronic content. And the way Kazazis (1967) treated the Balkan Sprachbund may prove a significant stimulus for more successful attempts in a similar direction. CONCLUSIONS

The study of linguistic distance should be developed not merely for the centre of communicative competence but also for its more peripheral parts. From a synchronic point of view, several types of constraints on distance can be distinguished. When they cooccur, we can speak of a linguistic union, characterized by a uniform communicative style. Future research in linguistic distance will undoubtedly confirm the obvious fact that, if all types of distance are considered, linguistic discontinuity in contiguous geographical regions is an extremely rare phenomenon; and that intercommunity (socio)linguistics represents an extremely varied and rewarding field for further investigation.

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The author is grateful to Β. Η. Jernudd and Μ. G. Clyne for valuable comments and suggestions. 2 Historical comparative linguistics and lexicostatistics, linguistic typology, studies of language contact, semicommunication (Haugen 1966) and intelligibility (e. g. Wolff 1959, recently Sankoff 1969) are notable but mutually isolated exceptions. Cf. Hymes (ed.) 1964:567 et sequ. 3 F o r Kroeber's contribution see Hymes 1961b:700; cf. also Jespersen 1922:214-215. It seems, however, that the first acknowledgement of the Balkanic Sprachbund goes back to the first half of the 19th century (Kopitar, Schleicher, Miklosich, cf. Sandfeld 1930:11-13). 4 F o r bibliography, mainly on the Balkanic Sprachbund, see Hymes (ed.) 1964: 651-653, Birnbaum 1968 and 1970. Some additional items are: Halliday 1956, Ivic 1966-1967, Poläk 1949, Schröpfer 1956, Skaliöka 1934, SkaliCka 1935b, Theses 1929. 5 F o r older references see Hymes (ed.) 1964:651. Cf. also Garvin 1949, Birnbaum 1968, 1970, and Afendras 1968. 6 AREAL should not be interpreted simply as 'geographically contiguous': it is social contiguity, degree of contact, not merely the geographical location, which matters. 7 A consistent representative of this typology in structural linguistics has been V. Skaliöka (1935a, 1966 etc.). Cf. also J. Greenberg: 'In all these cases, then, we have a clustering of certain combinations of attributes while for others few or no languages exist which exhibit the combinations in question. In such instances a few salient types may emerge by a process discussed by Lazarsfeld under the name of reduction' (Greenberg 1957:77). Hymes' 'typology of cognitive styles' (1961a) also seems to belong in this group. 8 Further investigation might, however, show the affinity as concurrently areal. If there is a Chinese-Thai-Malay area (with Thai being 'in between' Chinese and Malay, and Tibetan, Mon-Khmer etc. as other members of the group - cf. Halliday 1956), then the resemblances between the Japanese-Korean Area and the Indian Area (Emeneau 1956) obviously correlate with their similar position vis-ä-vis this SinoMalayan wedge and the Eurasian Sprachbund. 9 In other words, COMMUNICATIVE STYLE represents a bundle of isoglosses, while a UNION is a group of varieties (in a traditional terminology we might say dialect < language < union). 1

REFERENCES Afendras, E. A. 1968. The Balkans as a linguistic area: a study in phonologica convergence. John Hopkins, Ph. D. dissertation. Becker, H. 1948. Der Sprachbund. Leipzig-Berlin: Gerhard Mindt. Birnbaum, Η. 1968. Slavjanskie jazyki na Balkanax i ponjatie tak nazyvaemyx jazykovyx sojuzov. Glossa 2. 70-92. Birnbaum, Η. 1970. Problems of typological and genetic linguistics viewed in a generative framework. The Hague: Mouton. Clyne, M. G. (forthcoming). Perspectives in language contact. Melbourne: Hawthorn Press. (A section of chapter 5 of this monograph will be preprinted in Linguistic Communications 5.) Emeneau, Μ. B. 1956. India as a linguistic area. Lg. 32. 3-16. (Also in Hymes, D. H. (ed.) 1964:642-653.) Garvin, P. L . 1949. Standard average European and Czech. Studia linguistica 3. 65-85.

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Greenberg, J. H. 1957. The nature and uses of linguistic typologies. IJAL 23. 68-77. Halliday, Μ. A. K. 1956. Are there areas of affinite grammaticale as well as of affiniti phonologique cutting across genetic language families ? Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Linguistics, 126, 443-444. London. Haugen, E. 1966. Semicommunication: the language gap in Scandinavia. Explorations in sociolinguistics, ed. by S. Lieberson, 152-169. The Hague-Paris: Mouton. Hymes, D. H. 1961a. On typology of cognitive styles in language. Anthropological Linguistics 3:1.22-54. Hymes, D. H. 1961b. Alfred Louis Kroeber. Lg. 37.1-28. (Also in Hymes, D. H. (ed.) 1964: 689-708.) Hymes, D. H. 1962. The ethnography of speaking. Anthropology and human behavior, ed. by T. Gladwin and W. C. Sturtevant, 13-53. Washington, D, C.: The Anthropological Society of Washington. (Also in Readings in the sociology of language, ed. by J. A. Fishman 99-138. The Hague: Mouton.) Hymes, D . H . 1964. Introduction: toward ethnographies of communication. The ethnography of communication, ed. by J. J. Gumperz and D. H. Hymes, 1-34. (American Anthropologist special publication, American Anthropologist 66:6: part. 2.) Hymes, D. H. (ed.) 1964. Language in culture and society. New York: Harper and Row. Hymes, D. H. 1967. Models of the interaction of language and social setting. The Journal of Social Issues 23:2.8-28. Hymes, D. H. MS. On communicative competence. Ivic, P. 1966-1967. Sur les affinites phonologiques des langues et des dialectes sur les cotes septentrionales de la Mediterranee. Bolletino dell'Atlante linguistico mediterraneo 8-9, 15-25. Jernudd, Β. H. and M. Lindau 1971. Approximations to Swedish phonetics by Australian English learners. Linguistic Communications 3.22-71. Jespersen, O. 1922. Language. London: Allen and Unwin. Kazazis, K. 1967. On a generative grammar of the Balkan languages. Foundations of Language 3.117-123. Lehmann, W. P. 1972. On converging theories in linguistics. Language 48.266-75, Martinet, A. 1956. Are there areas of affinite grammaticale as well as of affinite phonologique cutting across genetic language families? Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Linguistics, 121-124, 239-441. London. Neustupny, J. V. 1961. Gengo to inbun no kankei ni tsuite: Nihongo inbun no kyakuin to in'yu. (A contribution to the problem of the relationship of poetry and language). Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan 6.19-26. Neustupny, J. V. 1966a. Gengo ruikeigaku to Nihongo on'in taikei no bunseki. (Linguistic typology and the analysis of the phonological system of Japanese.) Onsei no kenkyü (Study of Sounds) 12.337-346. Neustupny, J. V. 1966b. On the analysis of linguistic vagueness. Travaux linguistiques de Prague 2.39-51. Neustupny, J. V. 1968. Politeness patterns in the system of communication. Proceedings of the Vlllth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, vol. 3, 412-19. Tokyo: Science Council of Japan. Neustupny, J. V. 1969. On 'Interpenetration des syst£mes linguistiques' by E. Petrovici. Actes du X e Congres international des linguistes, 57. Bucharest: Editions de i'Acaddmie. Neustupny, J. V. 1970. Nihon to sekai no aida no komyunikeeshon. [Communication between Japan and the world.] Mainichi Shinbun, 4th and 5th June. Poläk, V. 1949. La pöriphrase verbale de l'Europe Occidentale. Lingua 2.64-73.

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Sandfeld, Κ. 1930. Linguistique balkanique. (Collection linguistique, Societe de linguistique de Paris, 31.) Paris: Klincksieck. Sankoff, G. 1969. Mutual intelligibility, bilingualism and linguistic boundaries. International Days in Sociolinguistics, 839-848. Rome: Institute Luigi Sturzo. Schröpfer, J. 1956. Zur inneren Sprachform der Balkan Völker. Zeitschrift für Slawistik 1.139-151. Skaliöka, V. 1934. Zur Charakteristik des eurasischen Sprachbundes. Archiv orientälni 6.272-274. Skaliöka, V. 1935a. Zur ungarischen Grammatik. Prague: Facultas philosophica Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis. Skaliöka, V. 1935b. Zur mitteleuropäischen Phonologie. Casopis pro moderni filologii 21.151-154. Skaliöka, V. 1964. Konsonantenkombinationen und linguistische Typologie. Travaux linguistiques de Prague 1.111-114. SkaliCka, V. 1966. Ein 'typologisches Konstrukt'. Travaux linguistiques de Prague 2.157-163. Theses. 1929. Theses presentees au Premier Congres des philologues slaves. Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague 1.3-29. (Also in A Prague School reader in linguistics, ed. by J. Vachek, 33-58. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.) Wolff, H. 1959. Intelligibility and inter-ethnic attitudes. Anthropological Linguistics 1:3.34-41. (Also in Hymes, D. H. (ed.) 1964: 440-445.) Wurm, S. 1956. Are there areas of affinite grammaticale as well as of affinite phonologique cutting across genetic language families? Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Linguistics, 450-452. London.

ON THE N A T U R E OF PHONIC INTERFERENCE P. B. PANDIT

Substitution of one phonetic segment for another can be a result of imperfect learning. This situation could arise in the transmission of language from generation to generation (because the new learner, the child, has to 'recreate' the system from the data), or it could arise in the case of acquiring another language where the learner, the non-native speaker, in imitating the pronunciation of the native speaker, may replace the segments of the target language with the segments of the native language .The type of change which takes place in foreign language learning can be considered as a special case of imperfect learning. It differs, of course, from the native language learning because the cognitive ability of the adult for learning a second language is significantly different from that of the child who is learning the first language. The situation which a foreign language learner faces is usually dealt with in contrastive analyses as the interference of the first language with the acquisition of the second language. The phonemic contrasts of the native language determine the interpretation of the second language, and the sub-phonemic variations of the native language are interpreted as blind-spots, as the distinctions which the native speaker neglects to observe in his own language. This conditioning prevents the learner from identifying the phonemic patterns of the foreign language; the resulting substitutions are interpreted in terms of similarities - articulat o r or acoustic-of the segments of the native language and the segments of the foreign language. It is proposed here to present a situation where the substitution can be better explained as the learner's interpretation of the phonology of the foreign language in terms of the whole system or the subsystem rather than replacement of one segment by another segment in terms of articulatory or acoustic similarity of the segments concerned. Some native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages learn English in higher education. Many of them speak English quite fluently. English has spread,

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during the last 150 years, at various levels in the different strata of various communities in India. Code-switching from an Indo-Aryan language (also from other Indian languages) to English is a common practice among the educated Indians. This English with its local colour and flavour is known as Indian English. Some of its syntactical, lexical and phonological features can be related to the features of the various IndoAryan and Dravidian languages. Pronunciation of English could be a shibboleth for the identification of the mother-tongue of an Indian speaker. A number of phonetic substitutions are common across the IndoAryan languages; e.g.: (i) The Indian speaker ignores the allophonic distinctions of the breathy and non-breathy releases of the voiceless stops p, t, k of English. Even though the breathy and non-breathy release of consonants is phonemic in Indo-Aryan languages and allophonic in English, the native Indo-Aryan fails to perceive the distinction in English: the phonemes /p/, / t / , /k/ of Indian English have only one allophone each: [p], [t] and [k]. (ii) The interdental voiceless and voiced fricatives of English, /Θ/ and jdj, are interpreted by the native Indo-Aryan speaker as voiceless and voiced aspirated stops /th/ and /dh/. (The latter is sometimes rendered as dental non-aspirated /d/). English / θ / , /δ/ are rendered differently in various Indian languages: In Marathi, Panjabi and Hindi, /δ/ is replaced by jdj; in Gujarati and Sindhi /δ/ is replaced by /dh/. In the languages where /δ/ is replaced by /d/, there is a variation between /d/ and /dh/, stateable in terms of its occurrence in stressed and unstressed syllables in English. Thus, a speaker of Hindi, Panjabi or Marathi is likely to render English that /δε' t/ as /dhet/, but /δε' t/ or jöetj as jdetj. The same is true of this, /öa/ ~ /öi/ is always replaced by jdj in these languages. In the English spoken by Tamilspeakers, initial / θ / , /δ/ are replaced by / t / , jdj respectively; medially, /δ/ occasionally alternates between jd ~ δ/). As in Japanese, English /Θ/ could have been rendered as / s / ; the dental voiceless spirant jsj occurs in all the Indo-Aryan languages. What factors govern the choice of an aspirated voiceless dental stop /th/, rather than a voiceless dental spirant /s/ for the English /Θ/ (as in Japanese) ? Similarly, why is the voiced dental spirant /δ/ replaced by a non-aspirated/aspirated voiced stop jdj, /dh/ rather than by jzj, which also occurs in Indo-Aryan languages ? One of the common phonological patterns in the Indo-Aryan languages is the consonantal series of stops, including palatal affricates along the two dimensions of manner and point of articulation (Kelkar 1957, Pandit 1964, Masica et al 1963). There is a five-way opposition for the

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ON THE NATURE OF PHONIC INTERFERENCE

set: bilabial, dental, retroflex, palatal and velar. These five participate in a network of voiced - voiceless and aspirated - non-aspirated oppositions of manner. Consonant systems of the major Indo-Aryan languages such as Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Konkani, Marathi, Oriya etc. (Assamese is a typical exception) display this pattern. The conventional practice of comparing articulatory - acoustic features of the segments involved in the substitution does not oifer explanations of the above phenomena, (i) is a situation in which the native speaker fails to observe those phonetic distinctions in the foreign language which are phonemic in his native language, (ii) is a situation in which no explanation is offered regarding priority of /th/, /dh/ over /s/, /z/. It is possible to offer an explanation of the above phenomena if we consider that there is a configuration of the phonological system as interpreted by the native speaker, and that the direction of replacement is governed by this configuration - the total network of the oppositions - rather than by the phonetic similarities of the replaced and the replacing segments. A typical Indo-Aryan language such as Hindi or Gujarati will display this consonant pattern in which each stop/affricate participates in a fourfold oppositions as follows: ph

th

bh

dh

t

ch

th