Language by Edward Sapir
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Edward Sapir >> Language
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[Footnote 50: An Indian language of Nevada.]
[Footnote 51: An Indian language of Oregon.]
We come now to the subtlest of all grammatical processes, variations in
accent, whether of stress or pitch. The chief difficulty in isolating
accent as a functional process is that it is so often combined with
alternations in vocalic quantity or quality or complicated by the
presence of affixed elements that its grammatical value appears as a
secondary rather than as a primary feature. In Greek, for instance, it
is characteristic of true verbal forms that they throw the accent back
as far as the general accentual rules will permit, while nouns may be
more freely accented. There is thus a striking accentual difference
between a verbal form like _eluthemen_ "we were released," accented on
the second syllable of the word, and its participial derivative
_lutheis_ "released," accented on the last. The presence of the
characteristic verbal elements _e-_ and _-men_ in the first case and of
the nominal _-s_ in the second tends to obscure the inherent value of
the accentual alternation. This value comes out very neatly in such
English doublets as _to refund_ and _a refund_, _to extract_ and _an
extract, to come down_ and _a come down_, _to lack luster_ and
_lack-luster eyes_, in which the difference between the verb and the
noun is entirely a matter of changing stress. In the Athabaskan
languages there are not infrequently significant alternations of accent,
as in Navaho _ta-di-gis_ "you wash yourself" (accented on the second
syllable), _ta-di-gis_ "he washes himself" (accented on the first).[52]
[Footnote 52: It is not unlikely, however, that these Athabaskan
alternations are primarily tonal in character.]
Pitch accent may be as functional as stress and is perhaps more often
so. The mere fact, however, that pitch variations are phonetically
essential to the language, as in Chinese (e.g., _feng_ "wind" with a
level tone, _feng_ "to serve" with a falling tone) or as in classical
Greek (e.g., _lab-on_ "having taken" with a simple or high tone on the
suffixed participial _-on_, _gunaik-on_ "of women" with a compound or
falling tone on the case suffix _-on_) does not necessarily constitute a
functional, or perhaps we had better say grammatical, use of pitch. In
such cases the pitch is merely inherent in the radical element or affix,
as any vowel or consonant might be. It is different with such Chinese
alternations as _chung_ (level) "middle" and _chung_ (falling) "to hit
the middle"; _mai_ (rising) "to buy" and _mai_ (falling) "to sell";
_pei_ (falling) "back" and _pei_ (level) "to carry on the back."
Examples of this type are not exactly common in Chinese and the language
cannot be said to possess at present a definite feeling for tonal
differences as symbolic of the distinction between noun and verb.
There are languages, however, in which such differences are of the most
fundamental grammatical importance. They are particularly common in the
Soudan. In Ewe, for instance, there are formed from _subo_ "to serve"
two reduplicated forms, an infinitive _subosubo_ "to serve," with a low
tone on the first two syllables and a high one on the last two, and an
adjectival _subosubo_ "serving," in which all the syllables have a high
tone. Even more striking are cases furnished by Shilluk, one of the
languages of the headwaters of the Nile. The plural of the noun often
differs in tone from the singular, e.g., _yit_ (high) "ear" but _yit_
(low) "ears." In the pronoun three forms may be distinguished by tone
alone; _e_ "he" has a high tone and is subjective, _-e_ "him" (e.g., _a
chwol-e_ "he called him") has a low tone and is objective, _-e_ "his"
(e.g., _wod-e_ "his house") has a middle tone and is possessive. From
the verbal element _gwed-_ "to write" are formed _gwed-o_ "(he) writes"
with a low tone, the passive _gwet_ "(it was) written" with a falling
tone, the imperative _gwet_ "write!" with a rising tone, and the verbal
noun _gwet_ "writing" with a middle tone. In aboriginal America also
pitch accent is known to occur as a grammatical process. A good example
of such a pitch language is Tlingit, spoken by the Indians of the
southern coast of Alaska. In this language many verbs vary the tone of
the radical element according to tense; _hun_ "to sell," _sin_ "to
hide," _tin_ "to see," and numerous other radical elements, if
low-toned, refer to past time, if high-toned, to the future. Another
type of function is illustrated by the Takelma forms _hel_ "song," with
falling pitch, but _hel_ "sing!" with a rising inflection; parallel to
these forms are _sel_ (falling) "black paint," _sel_ (rising) "paint
it!" All in all it is clear that pitch accent, like stress and vocalic
or consonantal modifications, is far less infrequently employed as a
grammatical process than our own habits of speech would prepare us to
believe probable.
V
FORM IN LANGUAGE: GRAMMATICAL CONCEPTS
We have seen that the single word expresses either a simple concept or a
combination of concepts so interrelated as to form a psychological
unity. We have, furthermore, briefly reviewed from a strictly formal
standpoint the main processes that are used by all known languages to
affect the fundamental concepts--those embodied in unanalyzable words or
in the radical elements of words--by the modifying or formative
influence of subsidiary concepts. In this chapter we shall look a little
more closely into the nature of the world of concepts, in so far as that
world is reflected and systematized in linguistic structure.
Let us begin with a simple sentence that involves various kinds of
concepts--_the farmer kills the duckling_. A rough and ready analysis
discloses here the presence of three distinct and fundamental concepts
that are brought into connection with each other in a number of ways.
These three concepts are "farmer" (the subject of discourse), "kill"
(defining the nature of the activity which the sentence informs us
about), and "duckling" (another subject[53] of discourse that takes an
important though somewhat passive part in this activity). We can
visualize the farmer and the duckling and we have also no difficulty in
constructing an image of the killing. In other words, the elements
_farmer_, _kill_, and _duckling_ define concepts of a concrete order.
[Footnote 53: Not in its technical sense.]
But a more careful linguistic analysis soon brings us to see that the
two subjects of discourse, however simply we may visualize them, are not
expressed quite as directly, as immediately, as we feel them. A "farmer"
is in one sense a perfectly unified concept, in another he is "one who
farms." The concept conveyed by the radical element (_farm-_) is not one
of personality at all but of an industrial activity (_to farm_), itself
based on the concept of a particular type of object (_a farm_).
Similarly, the concept of _duckling_ is at one remove from that which is
expressed by the radical element of the word, _duck_. This element,
which may occur as an independent word, refers to a whole class of
animals, big and little, while _duckling_ is limited in its application
to the young of that class. The word _farmer_ has an "agentive" suffix
_-er_ that performs the function of indicating the one that carries out
a given activity, in this case that of farming. It transforms the verb
_to farm_ into an agentive noun precisely as it transforms the verbs _to
sing_, _to paint_, _to teach_ into the corresponding agentive nouns
_singer_, _painter_, _teacher_. The element _-ling_ is not so freely
used, but its significance is obvious. It adds to the basic concept the
notion of smallness (as also in _gosling_, _fledgeling_) or the somewhat
related notion of "contemptible" (as in _weakling_, _princeling_,
_hireling_). The agentive _-er_ and the diminutive _-ling_ both convey
fairly concrete ideas (roughly those of "doer" and "little"), but the
concreteness is not stressed. They do not so much define distinct
concepts as mediate between concepts. The _-er_ of _farmer_ does not
quite say "one who (farms)" it merely indicates that the sort of person
we call a "farmer" is closely enough associated with activity on a farm
to be conventionally thought of as always so occupied. He may, as a
matter of fact, go to town and engage in any pursuit but farming, yet
his linguistic label remains "farmer." Language here betrays a certain
helplessness or, if one prefers, a stubborn tendency to look away from
the immediately suggested function, trusting to the imagination and to
usage to fill in the transitions of thought and the details of
application that distinguish one concrete concept (_to farm_) from
another "derived" one (_farmer_). It would be impossible for any
language to express every concrete idea by an independent word or
radical element. The concreteness of experience is infinite, the
resources of the richest language are strictly limited. It must perforce
throw countless concepts under the rubric of certain basic ones, using
other concrete or semi-concrete ideas as functional mediators. The ideas
expressed by these mediating elements--they may be independent words,
affixes, or modifications of the radical element--may be called
"derivational" or "qualifying." Some concrete concepts, such as _kill_,
are expressed radically; others, such as _farmer_ and _duckling_, are
expressed derivatively. Corresponding to these two modes of expression
we have two types of concepts and of linguistic elements, radical
(_farm_, _kill_, _duck_) and derivational (_-er_, _-ling_). When a word
(or unified group of words) contains a derivational element (or word)
the concrete significance of the radical element (_farm-_, _duck-_)
tends to fade from consciousness and to yield to a new concreteness
(_farmer_, _duckling_) that is synthetic in expression rather than in
thought. In our sentence the concepts of _farm_ and _duck_ are not
really involved at all; they are merely latent, for formal reasons, in
the linguistic expression.
Returning to this sentence, we feel that the analysis of _farmer_ and
_duckling_ are practically irrelevant to an understanding of its content
and entirely irrelevant to a feeling for the structure of the sentence
as a whole. From the standpoint of the sentence the derivational
elements _-er_ and _-ling_ are merely details in the local economy of
two of its terms (_farmer_, _duckling_) that it accepts as units of
expression. This indifference of the sentence as such to some part of
the analysis of its words is shown by the fact that if we substitute
such radical words as _man_ and _chick_ for _farmer_ and _duckling_, we
obtain a new material content, it is true, but not in the least a new
structural mold. We can go further and substitute another activity for
that of "killing," say "taking." The new sentence, _the man takes the
chick_, is totally different from the first sentence in what it conveys,
not in how it conveys it. We feel instinctively, without the slightest
attempt at conscious analysis, that the two sentences fit precisely the
same pattern, that they are really the same fundamental sentence,
differing only in their material trappings. In other words, they express
identical relational concepts in an identical manner. The manner is here
threefold--the use of an inherently relational word (_the_) in analogous
positions, the analogous sequence (subject; predicate, consisting of
verb and object) of the concrete terms of the sentence, and the use of
the suffixed element _-s_ in the verb.
Change any of these features of the sentence and it becomes modified,
slightly or seriously, in some purely relational, non-material regard.
If _the_ is omitted (_farmer kills duckling_, _man takes chick_), the
sentence becomes impossible; it falls into no recognized formal pattern
and the two subjects of discourse seem to hang incompletely in the void.
We feel that there is no relation established between either of them
and what is already in the minds of the speaker and his auditor. As soon
as a _the_ is put before the two nouns, we feel relieved. We know that
the farmer and duckling which the sentence tells us about are the same
farmer and duckling that we had been talking about or hearing about or
thinking about some time before. If I meet a man who is not looking at
and knows nothing about the farmer in question, I am likely to be stared
at for my pains if I announce to him that "the farmer [what farmer?]
kills the duckling [didn't know he had any, whoever he is]." If the fact
nevertheless seems interesting enough to communicate, I should be
compelled to speak of "_a farmer_ up my way" and of "_a duckling_ of
his." These little words, _the_ and _a_, have the important function of
establishing a definite or an indefinite reference.
If I omit the first _the_ and also leave out the suffixed _-s_, I obtain
an entirely new set of relations. _Farmer, kill the duckling_ implies
that I am now speaking to the farmer, not merely about him; further,
that he is not actually killing the bird, but is being ordered by me to
do so. The subjective relation of the first sentence has become a
vocative one, one of address, and the activity is conceived in terms of
command, not of statement. We conclude, therefore, that if the farmer is
to be merely talked about, the little _the_ must go back into its place
and the _-s_ must not be removed. The latter element clearly defines, or
rather helps to define, statement as contrasted with command. I find,
moreover, that if I wish to speak of several farmers, I cannot say _the
farmers kills the duckling_, but must say _the farmers kill the
duckling_. Evidently _-s_ involves the notion of singularity in the
subject. If the noun is singular, the verb must have a form to
correspond; if the noun is plural, the verb has another, corresponding
form.[54] Comparison with such forms as _I kill_ and _you kill_ shows,
moreover, that the _-s_ has exclusive reference to a person other than
the speaker or the one spoken to. We conclude, therefore, that it
connotes a personal relation as well as the notion of singularity. And
comparison with a sentence like _the farmer killed the duckling_
indicates that there is implied in this overburdened _-s_ a distinct
reference to present time. Statement as such and personal reference may
well be looked upon as inherently relational concepts. Number is
evidently felt by those who speak English as involving a necessary
relation, otherwise there would be no reason to express the concept
twice, in the noun and in the verb. Time also is clearly felt as a
relational concept; if it were not, we should be allowed to say _the
farmer killed-s_ to correspond to _the farmer kill-s_. Of the four
concepts inextricably interwoven in the _-s_ suffix, all are felt as
relational, two necessarily so. The distinction between a truly
relational concept and one that is so felt and treated, though it need
not be in the nature of things, will receive further attention in a
moment.
[Footnote 54: It is, of course, an "accident" that _-s_ denotes
plurality in the noun, singularity in the verb.]
Finally, I can radically disturb the relational cut of the sentence by
changing the order of its elements. If the positions of _farmer_ and
_kills_ are interchanged, the sentence reads _kills the farmer the
duckling_, which is most naturally interpreted as an unusual but not
unintelligible mode of asking the question, _does the farmer kill the
duckling?_ In this new sentence the act is not conceived as necessarily
taking place at all. It may or it may not be happening, the implication
being that the speaker wishes to know the truth of the matter and that
the person spoken to is expected to give him the information. The
interrogative sentence possesses an entirely different "modality" from
the declarative one and implies a markedly different attitude of the
speaker towards his companion. An even more striking change in personal
relations is effected if we interchange _the farmer_ and _the duckling_.
_The duckling kills the farmer_ involves precisely the same subjects of
discourse and the same type of activity as our first sentence, but the
roles of these subjects of discourse are now reversed. The duckling has
turned, like the proverbial worm, or, to put it in grammatical
terminology, what was "subject" is now "object," what was object is now
subject.
The following tabular statement analyzes the sentence from the point of
view of the concepts expressed in it and of the grammatical processes
employed for their expression.
I. CONCRETE CONCEPTS:
1. First subject of discourse: _farmer_
2. Second subject of discourse: _duckling_
3. Activity: _kill_
---- analyzable into:
A. RADICAL CONCEPTS:
1. Verb: _(to) farm_
2. Noun: _duck_
3. Verb: _kill_
B. DERIVATIONAL CONCEPTS:
1. Agentive: expressed by suffix _-er_
2. Diminutive: expressed by suffix _-ling_
II. RELATIONAL CONCEPTS:
Reference:
1. Definiteness of reference to first subject of discourse:
expressed by first _the_, which has preposed position
2. Definiteness of reference to second subject of discourse:
expressed by second _the_, which has preposed position
Modality:
3. Declarative: expressed by sequence of "subject" plus verb; and
implied by suffixed _-s_
Personal relations:
4. Subjectivity of _farmer_: expressed by position of _farmer_
before kills; and by suffixed _-s_
5. Objectivity of _duckling_: expressed by position of _duckling_
after _kills_
Number:
6. Singularity of first subject of discourse: expressed by lack of
plural suffix in _farmer_; and by suffix _-s_ in following verb
7. Singularity of second subject of discourse: expressed by lack
of plural suffix in _duckling_
Time:
8. Present: expressed by lack of preterit suffix in verb; and by
suffixed _-s_
In this short sentence of five words there are expressed, therefore,
thirteen distinct concepts, of which three are radical and concrete, two
derivational, and eight relational. Perhaps the most striking result of
the analysis is a renewed realization of the curious lack of accord in
our language between function and form. The method of suffixing is used
both for derivational and for relational elements; independent words or
radical elements express both concrete ideas (objects, activities,
qualities) and relational ideas (articles like _the_ and _a_; words
defining case relations, like _of_, _to_, _for_, _with_, _by_; words
defining local relations, like _in_, _on_, _at_); the same relational
concept may be expressed more than once (thus, the singularity of
_farmer_ is both negatively expressed in the noun and positively in the
verb); and one element may convey a group of interwoven concepts rather
than one definite concept alone (thus the _-s_ of _kills_ embodies no
less than four logically independent relations).
Our analysis may seem a bit labored, but only because we are so
accustomed to our own well-worn grooves of expression that they have
come to be felt as inevitable. Yet destructive analysis of the familiar
is the only method of approach to an understanding of fundamentally
different modes of expression. When one has learned to feel what is
fortuitous or illogical or unbalanced in the structure of his own
language, he is already well on the way towards a sympathetic grasp of
the expression of the various classes of concepts in alien types of
speech. Not everything that is "outlandish" is intrinsically illogical
or far-fetched. It is often precisely the familiar that a wider
perspective reveals as the curiously exceptional. From a purely logical
standpoint it is obvious that there is no inherent reason why the
concepts expressed in our sentence should have been singled out,
treated, and grouped as they have been and not otherwise. The sentence
is the outgrowth of historical and of unreasoning psychological forces
rather than of a logical synthesis of elements that have been clearly
grasped in their individuality. This is the case, to a greater or less
degree, in all languages, though in the forms of many we find a more
coherent, a more consistent, reflection than in our English forms of
that unconscious analysis into individual concepts which is never
entirely absent from speech, however it may be complicated with or
overlaid by the more irrational factors.
A cursory examination of other languages, near and far, would soon show
that some or all of the thirteen concepts that our sentence happens to
embody may not only be expressed in different form but that they may be
differently grouped among themselves; that some among them may be
dispensed with; and that other concepts, not considered worth expressing
in English idiom, may be treated as absolutely indispensable to the
intelligible rendering of the proposition. First as to a different
method of handling such concepts as we have found expressed in the
English sentence. If we turn to German, we find that in the equivalent
sentence (_Der Bauer toetet das Entelein_) the definiteness of reference
expressed by the English _the_ is unavoidably coupled with three other
concepts--number (both _der_ and _das_ are explicitly singular), case
(_der_ is subjective; _das_ is subjective or objective, by elimination
therefore objective), and gender, a new concept of the relational order
that is not in this case explicitly involved in English (_der_ is
masculine, _das_ is neuter). Indeed, the chief burden of the expression
of case, gender, and number is in the German sentence borne by the
particles of reference rather than by the words that express the
concrete concepts (_Bauer_, _Entelein_) to which these relational
concepts ought logically to attach themselves. In the sphere of concrete
concepts too it is worth noting that the German splits up the idea of
"killing" into the basic concept of "dead" (_tot_) and the derivational
one of "causing to do (or be) so and so" (by the method of vocalic
change, _toet-_); the German _toet-et_ (analytically _tot-_+vowel
change+_-et_) "causes to be dead" is, approximately, the formal
equivalent of our _dead-en-s_, though the idiomatic application of this
latter word is different.[55]
[Footnote 55: "To cause to be dead" or "to cause to die" in the sense of
"to kill" is an exceedingly wide-spread usage. It is found, for
instance, also in Nootka and Sioux.]
Wandering still further afield, we may glance at the Yana method of
expression. Literally translated, the equivalent Yana sentence would
read something like "kill-s he farmer[56] he to duck-ling," in which
"he" and "to" are rather awkward English renderings of a general third
personal pronoun (_he_, _she_, _it_, or _they_) and an objective
particle which indicates that the following noun is connected with the
verb otherwise than as subject. The suffixed element in "kill-s"
corresponds to the English suffix with the important exceptions that it
makes no reference to the number of the subject and that the statement
is known to be true, that it is vouched for by the speaker. Number is
only indirectly expressed in the sentence in so far as there is no
specific verb suffix indicating plurality of the subject nor specific
plural elements in the two nouns. Had the statement been made on
another's authority, a totally different "tense-modal" suffix would have
had to be used. The pronouns of reference ("he") imply nothing by
themselves as to number, gender, or case. Gender, indeed, is completely
absent in Yana as a relational category.
[Footnote 56: Agriculture was not practised by the Yana. The verbal idea
of "to farm" would probably be expressed in some such synthetic manner
as "to dig-earth" or "to grow-cause." There are suffixed elements
corresponding to _-er_ and _-ling_.]
The Yana sentence has already illustrated the point that certain of our
supposedly essential concepts may be ignored; both the Yana and the
German sentence illustrate the further point that certain concepts may
need expression for which an English-speaking person, or rather the
English-speaking habit, finds no need whatever. One could go on and give
endless examples of such deviations from English form, but we shall have
to content ourselves with a few more indications. In the Chinese
sentence "Man kill duck," which may be looked upon as the practical
equivalent of "The man kills the duck," there is by no means present
for the Chinese consciousness that childish, halting, empty feeling
which we experience in the literal English translation. The three
concrete concepts--two objects and an action--are each directly
expressed by a monosyllabic word which is at the same time a radical
element; the two relational concepts--"subject" and "object"--are
expressed solely by the position of the concrete words before and after
the word of action. And that is all. Definiteness or indefiniteness of
reference, number, personality as an inherent aspect of the verb, tense,
not to speak of gender--all these are given no expression in the
Chinese sentence, which, for all that, is a perfectly adequate
communication--provided, of course, there is that context, that
background of mutual understanding that is essential to the complete
intelligibility of all speech. Nor does this qualification impair our
argument, for in the English sentence too we leave unexpressed a large
number of ideas which are either taken for granted or which have been
developed or are about to be developed in the course of the
conversation. Nothing has been said, for example, in the English,
German, Yana, or Chinese sentence as to the place relations of the
farmer, the duck, the speaker, and the listener. Are the farmer and the
duck both visible or is one or the other invisible from the point of
view of the speaker, and are both placed within the horizon of the
speaker, the listener, or of some indefinite point of reference "off
yonder"? In other words, to paraphrase awkwardly certain latent
"demonstrative" ideas, does this farmer (invisible to us but standing
behind a door not far away from me, you being seated yonder well out of
reach) kill that duckling (which belongs to you)? or does that farmer
(who lives in your neighborhood and whom we see over there) kill that
duckling (that belongs to him)? This type of demonstrative elaboration
is foreign to our way of thinking, but it would seem very natural,
indeed unavoidable, to a Kwakiutl Indian.
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