The aim of the present paper is a modest one.*
We have all been waiting lately for the promised extension of descriptive
linguistic techniques to the field of semantics.
Any such extension is going to face the following groups of problems :
1.0 Investigation or discovery, to include –
1.1
Collection of data – primarily, a corpus of messages and secondarily, previous
attempts at scientific or pre-scientific description; and
1.2 Collation and analysis – primarily, breaking
the code underlying the corpus and secondarily, “structural restatement” of previous
descriptions.
2.0 Presentation in a form that can be tested
by others. Any of three styles may be
adopted –
2.1 A set of instructions for encoding a message,
that is, generating a well-formed utterance (GENERATIVE PROTOCOL).
2.2 A set of instructions for decoding a message,
that is, deciding whether a given speech event is well-formed and, if so, exhibiting
its structure (DIAGNOSTIC PROTOCOL, comparable to some extent to the decision
procedures of logic).
2.3 A direct presentation of the code (underlying
well-formed utterances and adumbrated in 2.1 and 2.2 above) in classificatory
terms (DESCRIPTION OF THE SYSTEM).
3.0 Criticism or evaluation, especially with
a view to choosing between alternative analyses.
What I propose to do here is to adopt the so-called rewrite formula, a
trick successfully employed in presenting grammar (and lately, phonology) as a
generative protocol as defined above, and try it out in one area of the presentation
of semantics – namely, translation glossing. To use Jespersen’s triad, the three
modes of presentation described above may be said to proceed in the following
manner :
Generative : Notion Function Form
Diagnostic : Form Function Notion
Descriptive : From Function Notion1
The
general schema for the formula will be (read x → y as “rewrite x as y”)
:
{From with Function} (with “Gloss”) →
{From with Function} with “Gloss”
where
“Gloss” will be either absent on the left hand side or different on the two sides.
While {Form with Function} will be specified by grammatical spelling with or without
limiting conditions, “Gloss” will be a translation in the metalanguage. For the
purpose of this paper, we shall not attempt to show the usefulness and relevance
of translation glossing beyond saying that it can find a place eventually in the
diagnostic protocol.
In all my examples, I shall use Marathi as the language whose forms are
to be supplied with gloss and English as the metalanguage. A few simple examples may be set forth :
(1)
bhau →
bhau “brother”
(2)
lek masculine → lek masculine “son”
(3)
culta →
culta “father’s brother”
(4)
dhak¶- →
“who is born later than ego”
(From
now on the carryover of {Form} from the left hand side will be left understood.)
(5) adj. + subst. → “adj. + subst.”
Applying these instructions, we get :
(6)
dhak¶a bhau → “brother who
is born later than ego”
*(7)
dhak¶a lek
masculine →
“son who is born later than ego”
Obviously we are in trouble, because we have failed to account for the
conditioned modification of the gloss in (4) in this context. A suitable restriction will be :
(8) dhak¶
– when adj. To lek masculine, etc. → “who came to have that relationship
with ego as junior to others who have the same relationship with ego”
This will ‘take care’ not only of
(9)
dhak¶a lek
masculine “son who came to have…ego” (i.e., “younger son”)
but
also of :
(10) dhak¶i
bayko → “wife who came to have … ego” (i.e. younger wife”)
(11) dhak¶i
sun → “son’s wife who came…ego”
(A moment’s thought will show that the new gloss of dhak¶- cannot do duty in (6).)
so far, we have set up three kinds of rewrite formulas for translation
glossing : (a) the one giving the basic notional range of a particular simple
form or formal feature; (b) the one deriving the gloss of a composite form by
combining the glosses of its components – for example, in (6) we have pooled together
the glosses of dhak¶-, bhau, and adj.+subst.; and (c) the one requiring a modification
in the gloss of a simple form when it appears as a component of some larger composite
form of a specified type – for example, (7) calls upon us to interpret dhak¶
- not as “who is born later than ego” but as “who came to have that relationship
with ego as junior to others who have the same relationship with ego” when it
appears in the environment, for instance, to lek—— -a ahe.
One may wonder at this point, why all this fuss, why not replace both (4)
and (8) by a single formula?
*(12) dhak¶- →
“younger”
This
will fit (6) as well as (9), (10), (11). We
shall return to this point a little later after considering a few more examples
:
(13) culti → “fathers’s brother’s
wife”
*(14) dhak¶a
culta → “father’s brother who is born later than
ego”
This does not work, so we try putting culta along with lek
masculine, bayko, etc. in (8) and deriving therefrom.
*(15) dhak¶a
culta → “father’s brother who came to have that relationship
with ego as junior to others who have the same relationship with ego”
This does not work either. A similar
situation obtains with culti. The results that we do desire as consistent
with the facts of Marathi speech are respectively.
(16) dhak¶a
culta → “father’s dhak¶- brother”
(17) dhak¶i
culti → “father’s
dhak¶- brother’s wife”
(The incongruous dhak¶-
in gloss can of course be suitably gotten rid of later by applying (6).)
It is obvious that the rewrite formulas of type (b) and (c) (combinatory
derivation and conditioned modification) cannot cope wit this. To set up special formulas of type (a) individually
for these two (and similar other) cases is a costly and possibly wasteful procedure,
though I suppose we shall be forced to adopt this course in the case of recalcitrant
idioms like
(18) (a)
buddhi →
“intellect”
(b) b«½ → “power”
(c) buddhib«½ ~
budb«½ →
“chess”
(19)
culta “…brother / sister…” with
culti
etc.
dhak¶-
→ “…dhak¶- brother
/ sister…” (with no further gloss for
dhak¶-)
(Here ‘etc.’ covers other items like dir “husband’s brother”, n«¸«nd “husband’s
sister”.)
This strikes me as in some way analogous to the grammatical rewrite formulas
for obligatory transformation : further analysis is necessary at this point.
Coming back to the point raised by *(12), we realize that dhak¶- of (19) cannot be translated by “younger”
in English :
*(20) dhak¶a culta →
“younger uncle”
“Younger uncle” in English is rather to be paraphrased “uncle who is younger
than other uncles” (cf. *(15) above).
This brings home to us an important point about the glossing metalanguage
we may use in the presentation of semantics – namely, that one should not depend
on detailed congruences between the object-language and the glossing metalanguage
(in our case, Marathi and English respectively). Ultimately, our primary aim here is not a ‘transfer grammar’ between
Marathi and English (with both as object languages) but a description of Marathi
in its own terms. The glossing metalanguage
that is to serve as our tool, therefore, is not the natural English spoken in
some speech community or other but an artificial version of it.
We have so far indicated five possible types of glossing formulas : (a)
the simple, (b) the simple additive, (c) the conditional, (d) the simple suppletive,
and (e) the replacive – exemplified respectively by (1), (6), (8), (18c), and
(19). A few more examples may now be given to exhibit one more possibility :
(21)
bhau “…brother…” with cul«t
culta
dir
etc.
preceding
→ “…father’s brother’s son…” (with no further gloss for cul«t)
Deriving from this :
(22) cul«t bhau → “father’s brother’s son”
(23) cul«t culta
→ “father’s father’s brother’s son”
(24) cul«t dir → “husband’s father’s brother’s son”
But there is a further complication :
(25)
cul«t bhau “….brother….” with
culta
dir
etc.
cul«t preceding “…father’s brother’s son…”
Applying this,
(26) cul«t cul«t bhau →
“father’s father’s brother’s son’s son”
More simply, we can say that (21) is a replacive formula capable of recursive
application. Another example of the recursive sub-type of type (e) is
(27)
bhau “…brother…” with mav«s
culta
dir
etc.
preceding
→ “mother’s sister’s son….”
Applying (21) and (27) jointly and, recursively, we are in a position to
supply glosses to possible forms like
mav«s bhau
cul«t mav«s bhau
mav«s cul«t bhau
mav«s maves cul«t bhau
It
should perhaps be added that different but analogous formulas will be needed to
explain cul«t
and maves used with other kin terms than bhau, culta, dir, etc.
I might as well pause here, since my chief aim was raising problems rather
than indicating solutions.
COLOPHON
* An earlier version of this paper was presented
at the Autumn Seminar of Linguistics held at M.S. University of Baroda in October
1962, to whose co-participants I am indebted for comments and suggestions.
This version was published in Indian Linguistics 24:25-30,1963.
- Popularly, the three may be dubbed as the speaker’s, the listener’s,
and the bystander’s grammar respectively. It must be clearly understood though that
the first two are at best “official” reports of what happens in the actual traffic
of language – bearing to it as much resemblance as cadaver dissection does to
what the surgeon sees when he opens up the living body. Incidentally Chomsky and
Halle’s rejection of the demand for explicit discovery procedures applies legitimately
only to code-breaking. (1.2) (an activity undertaken by the analyst) and not to
decoding (2.2) (an activity on the language-user’s part observed by the analyst).
I have a suspicion that Halle at least is guilty of confusing the two.
