Michael Silverstein
University of Chicago

It should be clear to anyone who surveys the historical record that the “discovery” of the phoneme – that is, the codification of phonological theory and method – was key in linguists’ consciousness of a new disciplinary era, one that retrospectively ascribed a conceptual revolution to the sainted figure of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). The analysis of every plane of language, from word morphology to phrasal, clausal, and sentential syntax (and for some hardy structuralist souls, to stretches of discourse beyond) has been calqued from linguists’ experience of working with the phonological plane. The ironies of all this are supreme in relation to the available text of the 1916 Cours de linguistique générale, where “Saussure” – as reconstituted d’outre tombe by Bally and Sechehaye – has nothing of interest to say about synchronic sound systems as such, but really concentrates on the analysis of lexical and grammatical symbols.¹

But the ironies do not cease there. The live and youthful Saussure of all of about 19 years of age had, in fact, glimpsed what morphological and morphophonological structure in the modern sense was all about in his Mémoire (1879) on the Proto-Indo-European vowel system. Working backwards from attested forms in the various branches he demonstrated that the logic of the phonological combinatorics of word-roots in their various derivations and inflections pointed unerringly to the prior existence of now-lost phonemic segments that left their traces in at first seemingly irregular vowel correspondences in the daughter dialects, at once made regular by the presumption of these “coefficients sonantiques” (later identified as “laryngeals”) that were absorbed by adjacent vowels, “coloring” them.² Amazingly, despite the indirect confirmation by Jerzy Kuryƚowicz in his famous 1927 paper on Hittite ḫ (which occurs, for the most part, in several of the predicted syntagmatic positions), and despite the typological parallelisms in American Native languages such as Tonkawa, Nootka, and certain Salishan languages, “Laryngeal Theory” was still highly controversial among Indo-Europeanists down to my undergraduate days in the 1960s!

The point is, in a diachronic framework, Saussure’s brilliant youthful insight at once implicitly created, through a kind of convergent internal reconstruction, a model of the (morpho)phonological structure of the ancestral language at the same time he explicitly did what any Leipzig Neogrammarian – among whom he was at that very moment matriculated – would aspire to do: to render otherwise “irregular” correspondences “regular.” The first is the pre-condition for the second: some kind of abstract structural unit in syllabically framed distributions turned out to be the hero of “sound” change. Neogrammarianism and diachrony thus form the real framework we must consider to understand both the roots of synchronic structuralism and the profound continuities notwithstanding the reorientation of the disciplinary focus in method, in models, and (as my old teacher Van Quine used to say) in “ontic commitments” about language.

The story to be told here, thus far to my mind not clearly enough articulated, is the gradual emergence and Kuhnian “normalizing” of the mode of inductive study of the Indo-European languages individually and as members of a language family sparked by, and institutionally increasingly focused upon the facticity of autonomous phonological change, a.k.a. Lautgesetz ‘sound law’ (see Jankowsky 1972; Wilbur 1977; Morpurgo Davies 1994). Lautgesetze had both an epistemological and an ontological manifestation, not carefully enough distinguished either in the instance or in the later historiographic accounts of the late 19^th century. To be sure, the continued disciplinary focus on the plane of phonology served as the work-space in which the transition without a rupture of discipline was effected between the comparative-historical linguistics of etymological forms-over-time and the descriptive-structural linguistics of system-internal relations-of-forms.

Note, then: in the context of German Sprachforschung, what becomes reflexively obvious to its practitioners around 1875-1880 is the mutual necessity of the ontological presumption of uniformitarian regularity of autonomous “sound change,” the great scientific discovery of the era about language history (see Pedersen 1931; Bloomfield 1933:346-368), and the epistemology of “the method of residues” (see Mill 1843; Wundt 1883; Venn 1889; Fowler 1893; Hibben 1912), one of the chief modes of “inductive” reasoning set out by all the philosophers of science of the time. Whether operating in the realm of a single language or across multiple languages, in this “comparative” approach to etymological investigation one gathers textual examples, occurrences of linguistic forms and one segments and sifts them seeking to extract a generalization about the forms considered to be members of a class insofar their class characteristic(s) would make of each of them an instantiation of the same property. The concordance was the research tool that gathered together under a lemma all instances of the property – common lexical root, common syntactic form, etc. – within a corpus.

For historians of language in particular the guiding principle of lemmatization is ultimately a statement of a particular “correspondence of form” across several dialects or languages or across stages of a single language. In turn, such correspondence is to be explained by an interpretative account of temporal process: how an earlier form must have altered under sound laws (including “no change”) specific to each of the corresponding dialects/languages/stages, producing, it would appear, the multiple attested forms gathered and systematized in the instance of correspondence. Observe that each word or set expression in a corpus will be lemmatized under as many different rubrics as there are correspondence sets in which it participates; and thus, historically speaking, each such form has its own proper etymological “biography” (as Antoine Meillet [1866-1936] was fond of saying) as the attested cumulative product of as many applicable phonological processes as explain it from some initial stage, its etymon.

Note that by following this logic iteratively in applying the inductive method of residues, exceptions at one level of generalization – those as yet inexplicably excluded from a particular lemmatization – become special cases the exceptionless regularity of which within their own, more circumscribed lemmatization one can come to discern when the exceptions, too, are gathered and sifted as their own group, implying a chronologically ordering of sound laws.³ This mutual implication of the covering-law regularity of chronologically ordered sound change and the success of the logical method of residues in iterated lemmatizations of sound correspondences is what came to acute reflexive consciousness in pronouncements by August Leskien (1840-1916), Wilhelm Osthoff (1847-1909), and Karl Brugmann (1849-1919) during the 1870s, as they formulated their dicta about method and theory.

Hence, two important corollary investigations emerged both for Neogrammarians and for their critics to give support (or not) to the ontological presumption that Lautgesetze, “sound laws” are truly “law”-like – Ausnahmslos ‘exceptionless’ – as irresistibly unconscious collective processes of phonetic modification applying to all applicable original stage 1 forms in chronological order so as to derive later, stage n forms in the historical trajectory of linguistic form transmitted over time within a language community. That is, such “laws” should apply purely as a function of the sonic shape of linguistic forms at the moment and in the community in which a change of sonic shape occurs.

It was realized that studying living, especially “exotic”, languages may reveal the out-of-consciousness phonetic and other tendencies in pronunciation when various sounds are produced/heard in rapid succession, the colorations that sounds undergo when uttered in sequence. Thus, to the degree to which we can gather empirical evidence, we might understand perturbations of the sonic realization of particular sounds put together in words with other particular sounds, to be the leading micro-diachronic edge of change, perhaps, in fact, akin to specific inductively inferred changes that have been posited to have occurred in the undocumented, prehistoric past of the ancient languages.⁴

But the really difficult question is, how does one – inductively! – find the units of “sound” of exotic, non-standardized and only spoken exemplars of Indo-European languages, let alone those of languages of non-European peoples in small language communities that have no experience of an orthographically fixed register? In the ancient languages philologists could simply rely on the apparent Buchstaben, the letters, of the alphabetic graphic modes of inscription or their syllabary-script equivalents. Transcriptional experience with such syllabaries of several Asian languages such as Sanskrit Devanāgarī had, as well, “reduced” them to representation in alphabetic letters. But notice how this practical matter – essentially inventing an alphabetic script for the “true” or “real” sound segments – presents a whole new epistemological problem for contemporary, “living” linguistic phenomena in their spoken manifestation: can we find help in achieving what we now term the “phonemicization” of a sound system and its representation in alphabetic graphic signs through the methods of philology as it had been constituted – to be sure, for comparative-historical investigation – as an inductive science?

Notice, then, what was at issue in the last quarter of the 19^th century. As an inductive scientific project, Neogrammarianism – and with it, 19^th century linguistics, note – was sent, respectively, to the natural science laboratories of the psychophysicist and the physiologist to investigate the phenomenon of “sound” in people’s production and reception of language, and to the ethnologist’s and folklorist’s field where languages lived in the spoken actualities of discursive communication. In short, the task of shoring up the very foundations of linguistic theory, notwithstanding its historical focus on reconstruction and classification in the heyday of Neogrammarianism, fell first to the phonetician and, second, to the field worker. We must observe that in the history of linguistics, the second, the empirical fieldwork track seeking out and describing “exotic” languages such as those of the indigenous Americas, of Africa, etc., led to descriptive and structural linguistics as we know it, yet built on continuity of methods that essentially survive the transition.

The first, the laboratory instrumentation of refined micro-measurement of articulated and audible sound for its own sake – a pointillist intellectual cul-de-sac for phonetics as it was for physics – was eventually reincorporated into linguistics only when it was seen through the ontological perspective of emerging structuralism, which led to the concept of the system of phoneme-segments and their combinatorics. This structuralist reimagination of what, in fact, are the “sounds” of (synchronic) languages played the central role in the birth of a new kind of inductivist linguistics in which findings about phonetic substance and process (articulatory—acoustic—auditory) – now in relation to ‘phonology’ or ‘phonemics’ – can take their place in explaining the physical and psychobiological affordances constraining possible language structures.

In the second realm, that of fieldwork, Franz Boas (1858-1942) is the key figure in the transition. Boas, ironically, was trained in laboratory (psycho-)physics with an 1881 Kiel Ph.D. But by September 1886, undertaking his first Northwest Coast expedition after an exhilarating apprentice year in Berlin, even his field notebooks show that he had completely absorbed the working methods of inductivist philology and linguistics and what we would today term a relativist and cognitivist understanding of cultural – including linguistic – categorizations and “ontic commitments.” Boas’s linguistics was, of course, a component of a broadly conceived “anthropo-geography” or anthropology, a field then dominated by racializing, social evolutionary thinking about the variability within the human species of everything from head- and bodily-form, cultural artifacts, cosmogonic beliefs, and even linguistic categories – including the sounds of languages.

By 1889 he published a foundational paper, “On alternating sounds,” on the topic of the perceptibility of those in “exotic” languages, in the instance a shot-over-the-bow directed at existing evolutionary doctrine about American Native languages. Its anti-evolutionary stance in interpretating variation of categories across phonological systems was, in fact, the paradigm for his entire anthropological oeuvre focused on “The mind of [so-called ‘]primitive[’] man” (1911), shifting explanatory focus from diachrony to synchrony as it relocated variation in socio-culturally acquired norms of categorical response to the sounds of speech, i.e., phonemically biased hearing.⁵ Boas’s example of indefatigable fieldwork to document previously undocumented languages/cultures through the collection of native discourse (texts), his insistence on inductive philological methods of inference in creating concordances and grammars from them, and his decisive anti-evolutionary “emicization” of linguistics and cultural anthropology were foundations of his pedagogy at Columbia University: these frame as well the transition to his intellectual progeny dealing with living languages who worked out the ontology and epistemology of the phoneme, for them the foundational scientific entity of modern linguistics as a science of implicit cognitive norms in a community of speakers, as Bloomfield noted in 1927.

By this time, then, the earlier central substantive problem of the (pre)historical provenance and chronological development of the “sounds” of the words in languages with written records, had morphed into the substantive problem of what, precisely, are the “sounds” of a given language, and how they are organized by a set of mutually structuring relationships in a synchronic system. When we examine the work of the key figures of the wider Boasian tradition, we can observe that across the transition of theoretical focus from diachronic comparative philology to synchronic descriptive-structural linguistics precisely the same inductive methods carried over to create epistemologically corresponding but ontologically different theoretical entities. Scientific practices leading to inferences of etymological sounds at chronologically reconstructed stages carry over to those concerning phonemic (and morphophonemic) segments as opposed to their positionally (syntagmatically) variant realizations and neutralizations; phonetic changes or “sound laws” thus become structural (morpho-)phonological rules; earlier vs. later forms becomes “inner/organic” vs. “outer/inorganic”; chronological order of occurrence of changes becomes logical order of application of rules; etc.⁶

Notes

¹ Interestingly, most of those who actually developed structural phonology in the earlier part of the 20^th century – in America, the great masters, Edward Sapir (1884-1939) and Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949), in Britain, Daniel Jones (1881-1967), and on the Continent Nikolai Trubetskoy (1890-1938) and Roman Jakobson (1896-1982), plus their immediate students – retrospectively ascribed to the Cours and to similar sources the raîson d’être for structural analysis, notwithstanding “Saussure’s” concentration on meaning-bearing lexico-grammatical form and not on phonological structure as such.

² For a summary of the Mémoire and its context of appearance, see now John Joseph’s biography of Saussure (2012: 221-249).

³ Think of Grassmann’s Law of deaspirating the first of two aspirate stops in syllabic sequence in Indo-European roots [*DH ...DH... > D...DH...] that explains certain otherwise glaring exceptions to Grimm’s Law regularities of how Indo-European stop types are realized in Germanic; or Verner’s Law of the apparently double shift of manner-of-articulation of Indo-European stop consonants that follow the word-stress in Germanic [*...V' T... > ...V' D...], rather than the one predicted by Grimm’s Law [*T > Θ]. Bloomfield’s (1933:357-359) admiring account of these as a scientific whodunit is classic as an historiographic conflation of the logic of the method of residues with the actual history of investigation and discovery.

⁴ For example, a target k-sound in English is produced slightly differently, and sounds generally different, when an -i-sound follows and when an -a-sound follows; the k- is pronounced inevitably further forward in the mouth before -i-. Sure enough, many historical examples are attested among the world’s linguistic (pre)histories of so-called “palatalization” and even accompanying “affrication” of velar sounds like k,g, changing to more forward places of pronunciation, as in č [tsh], ǰ [dzh], resulting in historically later forms deriving from those in which the k-,g- sounds precede high and front vowels like -i- and -e-.

⁵ Wells (1974:445-50) treats this paper without the important wider intellectual contextualization informing Stocking’s (1968:133-60, esp. 157ff.) interpretation. See also Mackert (1993; 1994) on Boas’s invocation of hearing mediated by an “apperceptional” category filter.

⁶ Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929) had wondered about this in formulating a theory of morpho-phonological as opposed to mere phonetic “alternations” (cf. 1895). (Note that the Cours [1916:215-20; pt.III-ch.III-§§4-6] treats “l’alternance” as fallout from the application of diachronic sound laws.) A justly famous observation of Bloomfield’s (1939:105-106) is to the effect that the only analytically posited, “underlying” morpho-phonemic forms of his Menomini [Algonquian] phonological description in large measure recuperate the reconstructed pre-historical forms one would postulate on the basis of the comparison of this language with other Algonquian languages. The morpho-phonological rules, applied in stipulated logical order in order to derive the actually pronounced “surface” forms of Menomini words, in large measure duplicate the inferred “sound laws” that, applied in their inferred chronological order, would derive current Menomini from its earlier linguistic form, then generally known as “Proto-[Central-]Algonquian.” Later self-styled “generative phonologists,” e.g., Chomsky & Halle (1968:251), took note of Bloomfield’s observation and celebrated it as an adumbration of their own recapitulationist sense of ordered phonological rules – a position still not worked out in all its presumptions and entailments.

References

Baudouin de Courtenay, Jan. 1895. Versuch einer Theorie phonetischer Alternationen. Ein Capitel aus der Psychophonetik. Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner.

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1927. ‘On Recent Work in General Linguistics’. Modern Philology 25(2): 211-230.

––––. 1933. Language. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

––––. 1939. ‘Menomini Morphophonemics’, in Etudes phonologiques dédiées à la mémoire de M. le Prince N. S. Trubtezkoy. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 6:105-115.

Boas, Franz. 1889. ‘On Alternating Sounds’. American Anthropologist (o.s.) 2(1):47-53.

––––. 1911. The Mind of Primitive Man. New York: Macmillan.

Chomsky, Noam, & Halle, Morris. 1968. The Sound Pattern of English. New York, Evanston & London: Harper & Row.

Fowler, Thomas. 1893. The Elements of Inductive Logic. 4th Ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Hibben, John Grier. 1912. Logic, Deductive and Inductive. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Jankowsky, Kurt R. 1972. The Neogrammarians: A Re-evaluation of their Place in the Development of Linguistic Science. The Hague & Paris: Mouton & Co.

Joseph, John E. 2012. Saussure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kuryƚowicz, Jerzy. 1927. ə indoeuropéen et ḫ hittite, in Witold Taszycki et al., Symbolae Grammaticae in Honorem Ioannis Rozwadowski, vol. 1, pp. 95-104. Cracow: Drukarnia Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.

Mackert, Michael. 1993. ‘The Roots of Franz Boas’ View of Linguistic Categories As a Window to the Human Mind’. Historiographia Linguistica 20(2-3): 331-351.

––––. 1994. ‘Franz Boas’ Theory of Phonetics’. Historiographia Linguistica 21(3):351-384.

Mill, John Stuart. 1843. A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Investigation. London: John W. Parker.

Morpurgo Davies, Anna. 1994. The Nineteenth Century. History of linguistics, vol. 4. Giulio Lepschy, ed. London & New York : Longman.

Pedersen, Holger. 1931. Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century; Methods and Results. John W. Spargo, transl. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1879 [1878]. Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.

––––. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, eds. Lausanne & Paris: Payot.

Stocking, George W. 1968. Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology. New York: The Free Press.

Venn, John. 1889. The Principles of Empirical or Inductive Logic. London & New York: Macmillan & Co.

Wells, Rulon S. 1974. ‘Phonemics in the Nineteenth Century, 1876-1900’, in Dell Hymes, ed., Studies in the History of Linguistics: Traditions and Paradigms, pp. 434-53. Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press.

Wilbur, Terence H., ed. 1977. The Lautgesetz-Controversy: A Documentation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Wundt, Wilhelm. 1883. Logik. Eine Untersuchung der Principien der Erkenntniss und der Methoden Wissenschaftlicher Forschung. Vol. 2. Methodenlehre. Stuttgart: Verlag von Ferdinand Enke.

How to cite this post

Silverstein, Michael. 2013. ‘From Inductivism to Structuralism: the “method of residues” goes to the field’. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2013/09/11/from-inductivism-to-structuralism-the-method-of-residues-goes-to-the-field

Andrea C. Schalley
Griffith University

It is social cognition which enables us to construct functioning societies sharing knowledge, values and goals, and to undertake collaborative action. It is also crucial to empathising and communicating with others, to enriching imprecise signs in context, to maintaining detailed, differentiated representations of the minds and feelings of those who share our social universe, to coordinating the exchanges of information that allow us to keep updating these representations, and to coopting others into action.
(Evans 2012)

What about the linguistic research community – is this a “functioning society”, to use Evans’ notion? Which knowledge, values, and goals are we (and I consider myself a member of this “society”) aiming to share? What are our goals? In this post, I will try to look at “the linguists” as a “society” and discuss whether it is “functioning” from a “social cognition” point of view. I hope that a meta-discussion on the state of linguistics may result, potentially benefitting the further progress and development of the field.

So – let us draw some parallels:

1. Society:
   The society under scrutiny is the linguistic research community.
2. Knowledge:
   Knowledge important to the society is how language as a phenomenon / specific languages work and how language is used. This has roughly (!) led to three main knowledge domains in linguistics – theoretical linguistics (how language as a phenomenon works), descriptive linguistics (what we know about specific languages), and applied linguistics (how language is put to use). Naturally, these domains intersect and inform each other, and each has been split further into subdomains – fields of research such as phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, first and second language acquisition, multilingualism, sociolinguistics, language change, language contact, language documentation, or linguistic typology, to mention a few.
3. Values:
   The society values a scientific approach to language; overall, there is an expectation that ‘good science’ is carried out in the discipline. Nonetheless, methodological disagreements do exist and a substantial number of schools of thought can be found in the society.
4. Members and groups in the society:
   These schools of thought form ‘social groups’ within the society, groups that complement and support but also compete with each other. The groups can be likened to kinship groupings in social terms (‘X is a student of Y’), or, if more broadly based on theoretical or subfield-based notions, on the ingroup/outgroup distinction (‘She is a generative syntactician’). Communication across such groupings is often difficult due to specific ‘ingroup’ terminology, but loyalty considerations also often prevent members of the society from being open-minded towards other social groups within the society.
5. Goals:
   Dietmar Zaefferer (as cited in Schalley 2012b:20) has summarized the goals of the society very eloquently: the society aims to

   (a) deepen our understanding of the form, content, and use of linguistic symbols,
   (b) gain insights into the architecture of languages and their subsystems,
   (c) elucidate the interplay between linguistic and other cognitive feats as well as
   (d) between the corresponding individual and trans-individual characteristics of our minds, and therefore
   (e) contribute to human self-conception in its specificity.

Yet, what about undertaking collaborative action, the last point listed in the first sentence of Evans’ quote? How are the items listed above impacting on it? In the following, I will concentrate on a discussion of how well the linguistic research community organizes its ‘collaborative action’. Instances of this include, amongst others, the collaboration of individual linguists on a joint project (e.g., as part of a funded research project), or collaboration in the sense that knowledge is shared through a coordinated exchange of information (for instance via peer-reviewed publications).

Interestingly, in these cases there are external gatekeepers involved, whose aims we cannot expect to be well aligned to the linguistic society’s goals. These include (i) funding bodies, who have to take political agendas into account, (ii) publishers, who are market-driven and thus do not necessarily prioritize the society’s goals, and (iii) employers, who want to increase the overall institution’s reputation and performance, resulting in at times detrimental decisions for the linguistic society and some of its members (e.g. by them not being allowed to apply for external funding). So one question the society should be asking itself is how it can best manage these external factors and minimize their impact on the society and its aims as a whole. Contributing to peer reviewing is one possibility, but there are other more ‘radical’ options available to us, such as taking over some of the gatekeepers’ functions. An example of the latter is the recent establishment of Language Science Press, an imprint growing out of the Open Access in Linguistics initiative. Of course, this requires sustained collaborative action within the society – and collaborative action of a different nature than the one mentioned above, as this is not just about furthering linguistic research per se.

The other question is what internal processes and procedures the society has set up to enable collaborative action and knowledge sharing within the field. Building on Evans (2012) quote from the beginning, how good are we in

• “empathising and communicating with others”
  (e.g. communicating about each other’s research),
• “enriching imprecise signs in context”
  (e.g. understanding each other’s way of “doing linguistics”, including the terminology we use),
• “maintaining detailed, differentiated representations of the minds and feelings of those who share our social universe”
  (e.g. conceptualizing each other’s views and perspectives on linguistics),
• “coordinating the exchanges of information that allow us to keep updating these representations”
  (e.g. coordinating exchanges of linguistic data and knowledge on language or languages),
• “coopting others into action”
  (e.g. getting each other to make an effort to share our data and knowledge)?

This appears to be an area where we can surely improve. Linguistic diversity, while highly enlightening, also poses a major challenge here: due to the nature of the field, any linguist will only have access to or study (a) a limited number of languages, (b) a limited number of linguistic phenomena, and (c) a limited amount of literature and/or fieldwork data. It is impossible for any scholar to obtain a comprehensive overview of even one small phenomenon across the languages. With around 5,000–8,000 living languages (according to Ethnologue, there are currently 7,105 known living languages; Lewis et al. 2013), even for a simple feature such as the order of the object and verb, there is ‘merely’¹ collated information on currently 1,519 languages available, as provided by The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) (cf. Dryer 2011), and thus for about 20% of the currently known living languages.

But how can we achieve more comprehensiveness? This is only possible by collaborating closely and sharing and integrating the knowledge we have. No single person will ever be able to take in and process all the data that we have about the world’s languages. Any linguist’s knowledge can, due to the nature of the field, be compared to pieces of a puzzle. Cross-linguistic work relies on being able to put these pieces together, and this can only happen through ‘collaborative action’. A sustained collaborative effort of the field is needed to put the puzzle together, with scholars integrating their knowledge into an overall knowledge base that can be flexibly queried, i.e. a storehouse of discipline knowledge that is integrated enough to allow access from different perspectives and with different aims in mind. Given current technological developments (e.g. Semantic Web technologies), I believe we have arrived at a crossroads. It now appears that we have the technical infrastructure to seriously start such an enterprise – and we need to take advantage of this opportunity. True progress of the field, given the constraints just discussed, will rely on linguists substantially contributing to such a collaborative enterprise, and thus allowing themselves as members of the society to be coopted into action. For this to happen, we need to find ways of rewarding contributions to such efforts (and not just of ‘independent’ publications such as papers and books); initial progress towards this is being made right now (cf., for instance, discussions currently held in Australia to establish appropriate recognition for curated corpora). We also need to be accepting of terminological differences and schools of thoughts (and hence to find ways of dealing with, for instance, the tension between in-depth language-specific description and broader cross-linguistic comparison, cf. Haspelmath 2010). There are incipient efforts under way to solve the technical and conceptual challenges and to establish a knowledge base that allows to do this and to carry out such collaborative action (e.g. Borkowski & Schalley 2011; Schalley 2012a, c); thus potentially leading towards the creation of a storehouse of discipline knowledge. Efforts are also increasing to link currently available data for further processing (cf. the Linguistic Linked Open Data Cloud, an initiative of the Working Group on Open Data in Linguistics).

Of course, many challenges still lie ahead. Nonetheless, we are likely to have to change the ways in which we disseminate our research in order for the field to progress substantially. Are you open to it?

Notes

¹ I have put ‘merely’ in single quotation marks, as having such information collated for so many languages is indeed a major achievement. Hence – while it is ‘merely’ accessible for 20% of the known living languages – this is nonetheless a most impressive result, and the one with the most languages involved I know of.

References

Borkowski, Alexander & Andrea C. Schalley 2011. Going beyond archiving – a collaborative tool for typological research. In: Nick Thieberger, Linda Barwick, Rosey Billington & Jill Vaughan (eds.), Sustainable Data From Digital Research: Humanities Perspectives On Digital Scholarship. Melbourne: Custom Book Centre, University of Melbourne, 25–48. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/7932.

Dryer, Matthew S. 2011. Order of object and verb. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online.
Munich: Max Planck Digital Library, chapter 83. http://wals.info/chapter/83,
accessed 17 September 2013.

Evans, Nicholas. 2012. The refraction of other minds: Language, culture and social cognition. Nijmegen Lectures 2011 (January 9-11, 2012), Lecture 2. http://www.mpi.nl/events/nijmegen-lectures-2011/program-abstracts/lecture-2, accessed 16 September 2013.

Haspelmath, Martin. 2010. Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in crosslinguistic studies. Language 86(3): 663-687.

Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2013. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Seventeenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.

Schalley, Andrea C. 2012a. Many languages, one knowledge base: Introducing a collaborative ontolinguistic research tool. In: Andrea C. Schalley (ed.), Practical Theories and Empirical Practice. A Linguistic Perspective. (Human Cognitive Processing 40.) Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 129–155.

Schalley, Andrea C. 2012b. Practical theories and empirical practice – Facets of a complex interaction. In: Practical Theories and Empirical Practice. A Linguistic Perspective, ed. Andrea C. Schalley. (Human Cognitive Processing 40.) Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1-31.

Schalley, Andrea C. 2012c. TYTO – a collaborative research tool for linked linguistic data. In Christian Chiarcos, Sebastian Nordhoff & Sebastian Hellmann (eds.), Linked Data in Linguistics. Representing and Connecting Language Data and Language Metadata. Heidelberg: Springer, 139–149.

How to cite this post:

Schalley, Andrea C. ‘The social cognition of linguists.’ History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2013/09/25/the-social-cognition-of-linguists

Chloé Laplantine
Laboratoire d’Histoire des Théories Linguistiques
CNRS-Université Paris Diderot

Frances Densmore et le chef Blackfoot, Mountain Chief, pendant une session d’enregistrement au Bureau of American Ethnology

Les langues amérindiennes ont une place critique dans la linguistique d’Emile Benveniste (1902-1976). A deux reprises dans les Problèmes de linguistique générale, il explique l’importance pour l’histoire de la linguistique des recherches engagées à la fin du 19^e siècle, sous l’impulsion de Franz Boas peut-on supposer, parce qu’elles mènent le linguiste à se faire l’analyste de son propre regard, de ses propres catégories de langue-pensée comme non-universelles, pour finalement devenir capable d’une analyse des langues. Ainsi Benveniste, en 1968, dans un entretien  avec Pierre Daix fait ce récit :

Vers 1900, des hommes, et tout particulièrement des Américains, ont dit : « Vos conceptions sont irréelles ou, en tout cas, très partielles, vous ne tenez compte que d’une partie du monde linguistique : le monde indo-européen. Il y a une foule de langues qui échappent à vos catégories ». Cet avertissement a été très utile et ces langues, notamment les langues indiennes d’Amérique que j’ai personnellement étudiées, sont très instructives, parce qu’elles nous font connaître des types de catégorisation sémantique et de structure morphologique nettement différents de ceux que les linguistes formés dans la tradition classique considéraient comme inhérents à l’esprit humain[1].

Une autre remarque, un peu plus tôt, en 1954 dans l’article « Tendances récentes en linguistique générale », va dans le même sens, d’un renouvellement important pour la linguistique générale et la linguistique descriptive impulsé par les recherches amérindianistes :

A un autre point de vue, on s’est aperçu que la description de certains types linguistiques, des langues amérindiennes notamment, posait des problèmes que les méthodes traditionnelles ne peuvent résoudre. Il en est résulté un renouvellement des procédés de description qui, par contre-coup, a été étendu aux langues qu’on croyait décrites pour toujours et qui ont pris nouvelle figure[2].

Ci-dessous, j’ai noté les mentions que fait Benveniste des langues amérindiennes dans les articles des Problèmes de linguistique générale, les auteurs et les ouvrages qu’il cite, ainsi que les quelques articles où il s’est directement intéressé à des langues amérindiennes.

Ce relevé n’est pas complet, mais il s’en approche sans doute. On voit que l’intérêt de Benveniste pour les grammaires des langues amérindiennes débute dans les années 1940, et qu’il les fait intervenir dans son travail pour poser des questions d’ordre général : la personne dans le verbe, la phrase nominale, la phrase relative, les pronoms, les classifications des langues… On voit également que la bibliographie de Benveniste, les ouvrages auxquels il se réfère, appartiennent en gros à un même ensemble, une même époque ; celle d’une linguistique ethnographique, héritière de Wilhelm von Humboldt. C’est la linguistique mise en route aux Etats-Unis par Franz Boas et ses élèves, une linguistique critique des méthodes traditionnelles et qui réévalue les notions qui servent à appréhender les langues, en montre l’historicité. C’est une linguistique qui, sans que Benveniste en soit proprement l’héritier, le rencontre, et avec laquelle il travaille de façon très proche.  Elle est présente implicitement dans beaucoup d’articles comme « Catégories de pensée et catégories de langue » en 1958, ou encore à certains moments dans  « Remarques sur la fonction du langage dans la découverte freudienne » en 1956, les deux textes ayant en commun la réflexion sur les catégories de langue-pensée et l’inconscient dans le langage.

Durant les étés 1952 et 1953, Benveniste mènera des enquêtes de terrain dans le nord-ouest américain, étudiant principalement les langues haida et tlingit, mais aussi gwich’in, au tutchone et à l’eskimo.  En se référant aux carnets d’enquête disponibles, on peut retracer son itinéraire, le dater. Ainsi, durant l’été 1952, il s’est exclusivement intéressé au haida (Skidegate, BC (8-16/07/1952), Masset, BC (18/07-04/08/1952) ; Ketchikan, AK (22/08-06/09/1952)). En 1953, son travail a principalement porté sur le tlingit (Juneau (30/06-25/07/1953), Haines (27/07-01/08/1953), Klukwan (31/07/1953)), puis Benveniste est allé plus au Nord, étudiant le tutchone du Sud (Burwash Landing, YT (06/08/1953), le gwich’in (Fort Yukon 08/1953, AK[3]), puis enfin l’eskimo (Kotzebue début 09/1953, AK). A partir des données récoltées dans les carnets de terrain, on peut dresser une carte qui rendra visibles les lieux où Benveniste est allé travailler :

Nous disposons pour le moment de 29 carnets ou bloc-notes ; la plus grande partie est conservée à la Ramsuson Library de l’Université de Fairbanks, un carnet et un bloc de feuilles se trouvent à la Bibliothèque nationale de France à Paris. Ce sont surtout les notes prises lors des entretiens avec les différents informateurs, ponctuellement des commentaires portés sur la page de gauche ou des récits. C’est au lecteur de comprendre le cheminement de pensée de Benveniste lors des entretiens.

Benveniste, au retour de son second voyage en 1953, a dispensé un enseignement au Collège de France consacré à la langue tlingit[4], et a publié un article dans le Bulletin de la Société de linguistique de Paris, « Le vocabulaire de la vie animale chez les indiens du Haut-Yukon »[5]. Quoique posant dans son titre la notion de « vocabulaire », qui semblerait restreindre l’étude à un aspect de la langue, Benveniste fait bien autre chose que de récolter les termes d’un vocabulaire pour aboutir à une concordance, il pratique pour chaque terme une analyse. Comme il l’écrit lui-même : « Quel que soit l’intérêt documentaire et “culturel” de ce vocabulaire, c’est avant tout à l’étude de la structure linguistique qu’il doit introduire »[6]. Citons par exemple un passage à propos du castor :

A trois ans, le castor mâle est dénommé čˀɛdiβì dìnǰί « mâle qui a trouvé un bon endroit en nageant ». Ceci s’explique par les habitudes du castor à cet âge ; nageant au fil de l’eau, il rencontre une femelle, avec laquelle il va s’établir et bâtir une maison. La forme čˀɛdiβì  « il trouve un bon endroit dans l’eau » contraste lexicalement avec čˀɛdizʹί « il trouve un bon endroit sur terre » ; cf. čˀɛdiśίzʹί « j’ai trouvé un bon endroit (sur terre) », 3^e sg čˀɛˀìnzʹί, se dit par exemple de l’ours qui trouve une proie toute prête, telle qu’une bête déjà tuée, et n’a plus qu’à en profiter : ainsi βi « action dans l’eau » s’oppose à śi (sonorisé zʹi) « action sur terre ». – L’animal a aussi pour sobriquet tɛ̀x̣ócìk, de tɛ « région de l’eau », x̣o « mâcher », ronger », et cik « rouge », composé de sens elliptique. Quand au printemps on voit au bord de l’eau que les pousses rouges des saules ont été mâchonnées, on sait que le castor de trois ans  est passé par là. Le nom est paraphrasé :
kˀai        dίcik         čù̜zʹ it                         tɛ̀γαί                      téˀɑ̀čɑ̀k
saule   rouge    eau-intérieur     bord de rivière        mâchant vite
« il mâchonne vite, dans l’eau, le long de la rive, les saules rouges »[7].

On voit ici que l’analyse cherche à souligner la motivation dans la langue. Les gloses qui font le commentaire explicatif ne sont, d’autre part, pas des données objectives, mais les explications données par les informateurs, c’est-à-dire une construction du réel. On retrouve chez Benveniste le projet d’une analyse des formes de la langue telles que Boas le soutenait. Ainsi à la fin de l’introduction du Handbook of American Indian Languages, en 1911, il explique ainsi :

In accordance with the general views expressed in the introductory chapters, the method of treatment has been throughout an analytical one. No attempt has been made to compare the forms of the Indian grammars with the grammars of English, Latin, or even among themselves; but in each case the psychological groupings which are given depend entirely upon the inner form of each language. In other words, the grammar has been treated as though an intelligent Indian was going to develop the forms of his own thoughts by an analysis of his own form of speech.[8]
[je traduis :] En accord avec les vues générales exprimées dans les chapitres préliminaires, la méthode de traitement a été constamment une méthode analytique. Aucune tentative n’a été faite de comparer les formes des grammaires indiennes avec les grammaires de l’anglais, du Latin, ou même entre elles ; mais dans chaque cas les groupements psychologiques qui sont donnés dépendent entièrement de la forme interne de chaque langue. En d’autres mots, les grammaires ont été traitées comme si un indien intelligent allait développer les formes de sa propre pensée par une analyse de sa propre forme de discours.

Chez Benveniste, comme chez Boas, la langue est toujours un inconnu (et en quelque sorte doit le rester), elle est non contenable par un modèle prépensé. En lisant les carnets d’enquête de Benveniste, on a le sentiment d’une recherche entièrement dans la découverte d’un fonctionnement signifiant de ces langues. Dans un courrier envoyé à la Rockefeller Foundation dans le but d’obtenir une subvention pour son second voyage dans le nord-ouest américain, Benveniste explique ainsi : « en termes sommaires, ma préoccupation est de savoir comment la langue ‘signifie’ et comment elle ‘symbolise’. Les tendances actuelles d’une certain école de linguistique vont à analyser la langue sur la base de la distribution et des combinaisons formelles »[9]. On peut supposer que cette tendance qui approche la langue en termes de « distribution et de combinaisons formelles », c’est notamment la linguistique distributionaliste bloomfieldienne, et les commencements de la grammaire générative de Chomsky… chez qui le modèle logique fait oublier un aspect du langage, à savoir la signifiance[10].  Avec ses enquêtes en Amérique du Nord, Benveniste fait l’expérience, après Boas, après Sapir, d’une remise en question de tout un savoir traditionnel sur les langues et le langage.  C’est également cette expérience qu’il fera en 1967 avec les poèmes de Baudelaire, faisant de « la langue de Baudelaire » un inconnu, une langue qui ne se laisse pas appréhender par un modèle linguistique traditionnel (basé sur le signe), ni par une représentation du poétique (par une théorie de l’écart entre la langue ordinaire et la langue poétique). Ainsi, à propos de l’originalité de Baudelaire, Benveniste demande : « mais où réside-t-elle ? » [11]. C’est du point de vue d’une culturologie[12] que Benveniste aborde alors les poèmes de Baudelaire, observant comment pour le lecteur elle renouvelle l’expérience du monde :

Le poète
On recrée donc une sémiologie nouvelle,
par des assemblages nouveaux et libres de mots.
A son tour le lecteur-auditeur se trouve en présence
d’un langage qui échappe à la convention essentielle
du discours. Il doit s’y ajuster, en recréer pour
son compte les normes et le ‘sens’.[13]

[1] Emile Benveniste, « Ce langage qui fait l’histoire » (entretien avec Pierre Daix pour Le Nouvel Observateur), Problèmes de linguistique générale, 2, Paris, Gallimard, 1974, p. 34-35

[2] Emile Benveniste, « Tendances récentes en linguistique générale », Problèmes de linguistique générale, Paris, Gallimard, 1966, p. 6.

[3] De son séjour dans la région de Fort-Yukon est issue son article « Le vocabulaire de la vie animale chez les indiens du Haut-Yubon », publié immédiatement à son retour dans le Bulletin de la Société de linguistique de Paris.

[4] Annuaire du Collège de France, année 1953-1954, p. 221-222.

[5] « Le vocabulaire de la vie animale chez les indiens du Haut-Yukon », Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, 49, fasc. 1 (n°138), 1953, p. 79-106.

[6] Ibid., p.82.

[7] Ibid., p. 87-88.

[8] Franz Boas, « Introduction », Handbook of American Indian Languages, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 40, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1911, p. 81.

[9] Tapuscrit conservé à la Bibliothèque nationale de France, parmi les Papiers d’Orientalistes, Don 06.15, pochette 7.

[10] Par parenthèse, Bloomfield est bien connu pour son travail de terrain chez les algonquins, et Chomsky disait que la première grammaire générative écrite avait été celle de la langue Hidatsa par Voegelin.

[11] « Ce qui déconcerte même les poètes qui le lisent aujourd’hui avec –cependant– la double conscience de la puissante originalité de Baudelaire (mais où réside-t-elle alors ?) et de toutes les novations / qui sont issues de lui et qu’il a au moins rendues possibles » (BAUDELAIRE, 22, f°67-68 /f°31-32)

[12] C’est l’idée d’une interprétance de la langue. Benveniste l’explique ainsi : « Dans ce qui est déjà tenté sur le domaine social, la primauté de la linguistique est ouvertement reconnue. Ce n’est pas du tout en vertu d’une primauté intrinsèque, mais simplement parce que nous sommes avec la langue au fondement de toute vie de relation ». Emile Benveniste, « Structuralisme et linguistique », (un entretien de Pierre Daix avec Emile Benveniste), Les Lettres françaises, n° 1242 (24-30 juillet 1968), p. 10-13 ; repris dans les Problèmes de linguistique générale, 2, Gallimard, Paris, 1974, p. 26.

[13] BAUDELAIRE, 22, f°53 /f°305.

How to cite this post:

Laplantine, Chloé. 2013. ‘Emile Benveniste et les langues amérindiennes’. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2013/10/02/emile-benveniste-et-les-langues-amerindiennes-4

[Program updated 27 October 2013]

David Moore
University of Western Australia

Introduction

A Uniform orthography can be defined as one which is segmental and phonographic. Each graphic segment is pronounced and has a distinct value. Internal consistency in transcription is achieved by defining each segment and the sound that it represents in the orthography. Each sound of a language is assigned a segment: a letter or a combination of letters which is outlined in statement of the orthography or ‘phonetic key’. By contrast, a non-uniform writing system involves writing languages where the value of each segment is unspecified. If the language of transcription is English, there is a poor correspondence between the letter and sound. The problem is particularly acute with English vowels. The five vowel letters of English are polyvalent; that is they each represent a number of English phonemes. Ten English phonemes are represented by <a> in English (Coulmas 2003: 186). Also, each English vowel phoneme can be represented by different graphemes. The spelling may be at the word level and based on what Dench (2000:59) says is ‘subjective impression of similarity to particular English words’. Individual segments in this ‘logographic’ spelling have little or no phonetic interpretation.

Uniform orthographies were the forerunners of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The first Australianist linguist to use the IPA appears to have been John McConnell Black (1855-1951), for a language of the Western Desert (Black 1915). I claim that some early investigators of Australian languages used Uniform orthographies in their writing of Australian Aboriginal languages and avoided the problems of English-based spelling.

Antecedents: Uniform orthographies in the late 1700s

Amongst English-speaking researchers of the late eighteenth century there were opposed views of the way in which words from Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit should be transliterated from their original scripts to the characters of the roman alphabet. Halhed and others advocated the use of English sound values (Master 1946). The year 1788 is significant as the date of the first British settlement in Australia, and is also the date of publication of the Dissertation on the Orthography of Asiatick Words in Roman Letters (Jones 1788). Its author, Sir William Jones (1746-1794), realised that the languages of the Indian subcontinent couldn’t be written consistently using the sound values of the English alphabet. He wanted to represent vowels with their ‘continental’ (particularly Italian) values. There was little difference between Jones and his opponents in the representation of consonant sounds. According to Jones, ‘each original sound may be rendered invariably by one appropriated symbol, conformably to the natural order of articulation, a perfect system of letters ought to contain one specific symbol for every sound used in pronouncing the language to which they belonged’ (Cannon 1990:249). I use ‘roman’ in lower case for the twenty six letters of the roman writing system, as distinct from that of a particular language.

The widespread adoption of the Jonesian system

The Dissertation excited great interest in Britain and Europe (Master 1946:7). There were many attempts to represent the sounds of hitherto unwritten languages according to Jones’ conventions. John Pickering (1777-1846) recommended the use of the Jonesian system for recording American Indian languages (Pickering 1820). In 1807 the Reverend John Davies sent the Congregationalist London Missionary Society (LMS) a copy of his manuscript for a “Tahitian Spelling Book” for publication, using the occasion to argue for the ‘continental’ system (Schütz 1994:107). The LMS adopted the system for Tahitian. Lancelot Threlkeld (1788-1859) worked for the LMS in the 1820s and used the ‘South Sea Islands’ orthography in his Australian Grammar (Threlkeld 1834).

Royal Geographical Society conventions 1836

Travellers needed a guide to the correct pronunciation of foreign names. Number three of the Journal’s aims was the development of a ‘more uniform and systematic orthography than has hitherto been observed, in regard to the names of cities and other objects; and a more precise and copious vocabulary than we at present possess, of such objects’ (Prospectus of the Royal Geographical Society: xi). The first explicit statement of the RGS orthographic conventions appears to have been in a footnote to Observations on the Coast of Arabia between Rás Mohammed and Jiddah (Wellsted 1836). See also Aurousseau (1942:245). Wellsted’s use of the RGS conventions was to write place names of Arabic, an Afro-Asiatic (Semitic) language with a Classical literature.

The vowel letters would be pronounced as for Italian and as read in selected English words: the <a> in ‘far’, <e> in ‘there’, <i> in ‘ravine’, <o> in ‘cold’ and the <u> in ‘rude’.

The consonants were to be pronounced as for English. The footnote reveals the writer’s familiarity with the sounds of British languages and English dialects and show an attempt to explain the unfamiliar by the familiar. The ‘Northumbrian r’, probably [ʁ], the use of the voiced uvular fricative allophone/variant of post-alveolar approximant /ɹ/ (Hughes, Trudgill and Watt 2005:124) is compared with a ‘guttural’ sound of Arabic, probably غ gayn, the voiced velar fricative [ɣ], transliterated <gh>. The voiceless velar fricative ch [x] of Welsh and Scots is compared with Arabic, خ xā’, and transliterated <kh>. Digraphs and the apostrophe were used to represent sounds for which there was no conventional spelling in European languages. Ain ع, a voiced pharyngeal fricative [ʕ] was transliterated with an apostrophe.

The use of the RGS conventions in Australia

The RGS conventions were used for the transcription of hitherto unwritten languages and this was the case in Australia where all the Aboriginal languages of the continent were unwritten until the arrival of Europeans. In Australia, as elsewhere, some early researchers used uniform orthographies and others wrote sounds according to their knowledge of English.

Dr John Lhotsky (1795-1865) collected language data in the Australian Alps from January to March 1834 and from Tasmania in 1836. His contribution to the Journal (Lhotsky 1839) appears to be the first example of the application of RGS conventions to an Australian language.

Recognition of consonant sounds

Early researchers had a pioneering role in recording sounds on paper for the first time. Awareness of foreign sounds increased with time spent in the field. Threlkeld (1834:6) had already encountered the velar nasal [ŋ] word-initially, based upon his hearing of Polynesian languages in which the sound commonly occurs at the beginning of a word. His recognition of the velar nasal probably led later other Australian researchers to recognise the sound in Aboriginal languages.

Lyon (1833) heard a sound which he compared with Classical Hebrew ע ayin, a voiced pharyngeal fricative [ʕ]: ‘the Ain of the Hebrew, the pronunciation of which has been so long a desideratum to the philologists of Europe, these people (Nyungar speakers) seem to possess in perfection’ (Lyon, Perth Gazette 30th March 1833). Lyon doesn’t identify the sound in Nyungar which the ayin resembles. Although [ʕ] doesn’t occur in Nyungar, this instance shows Lyon attempting to describe the unfamiliar by the more familiar. However, ayin had become a ‘silent letter’ in Hebrew and its sound value would have been difficult for Lyon to recover. Lhotsky (1839) noted that would be ‘more accurately rendered by Polish z’ which has no equivalent in the English tongue’.He was referring to /ʑ/, the voiced palatal fricative.

The consonant letters of the roman alphabet which were discarded are as significant as those which were included. Early researchers edited their work and made orthographic choices, using a selection of letters. Redundant letters such as <c> and <q> were discarded. Lyon (1833), comparing sounds in the Nyungar language with the Classical Hebrew alphabet noticed that the Nyungar language had ‘neither the Zain [z], the Samedi [s], nor the Schin [ʃ] of the Hebrews. The letter s, they are incapable of pronouncing’. He felt that he was ‘obliged to throw out every letter which was in the least allied in sound to the letter s’. George Fletcher Moore (1798-1886) read the RGS Journal and utilised the RGS conventions (Moore 1842:vii). In 1833 he obtained the name ‘carrar’ for the black goanna (Varanus tristis) from Weeip, one of his Nyungar-speaking informants (Cameron 2009). The entry was changed to ‘kardar’ for the Descriptive Vocabulary (Moore 1842:56) after <c> had been eliminated from the orthography. Salvado (1851) wrote <c> in his transcription of Nyungar words for the palatal plosive /c/ which Moore represented with <dj>:

Table 1: Transcription of Nyungar word for ‘Wedge- tailed Eagle’.

Although the IPA eventually adopted [c] for the palatal plosive, the use of non-English consonantal values would not have helped the English-speaking reader. The users of the RGS were English-speaking Britons and so the use of English consonantal values, where this aim was realistic, was practical. Even though researchers were encouraged to use the values of English consonants they found ways to be creative in representing unfamiliar sounds.

Scott Nind (1831:47) noted that the Nyungar language ‘abounds in vowels’ but the values of the individual segments are not spelled out and no phonetic key to his transcription is provided, as can be seen in comparison with that of researchers who used the RGS:

Table 2: Early Transcriptions of Nyungar word for ‘Black Duck’

Travel and levels of education

The use of uniform orthographies presupposes a level of language awareness, often lacking among settlers in the frontier Australian communities of the nineteenth century. Then, as now, there were those who sought to write Aboriginal words according to English spelling conventions. Educated and travelled researchers were familiar with European languages and the languages and English dialects of Britain and Ireland. They had often engaged with what Clarke (1959:176) describes as ‘that form of foreign travel which we know as the study of the classics’, including Hebrew, Greek and Latin. They tended to be more aware of the limitations of English spelling because they had experience of foreign language scripts in which each letter had a distinct pronunciation which had to be learned.

The late nineteenth century

The RGS conventions were published as a ‘System of orthography for native names of places’ in the Proceedings (RGS 1885). The RGS aimed for a pronunciation of the ‘true sound pronounced locally’. Characters were selected from the twenty six letters of the roman alphabet. Of the thirty-four characters of the RGS, four digraphs represented consonant sounds and four other digraphs represented dipthongs. Hyphens were not allowed, and accent marks were only allowed for indicating stress.

As more sounds were discovered, the resources of the roman alphabet were found to be inadequate. Augmentation of the roman alphabet was necessary to write new sounds. The consonant digraphs were increased to nine in the 1892 revision. The RGS authors remained committed to the letters of the roman alphabet with limited additions: ‘Those who desire a more accurate pronunciation of the written name must learn it on the spot by a study of local accent and peculiarities’ (RGS 1885). The letters of the 1885 orthography:

The RGS in the history of Australian linguistics

In Australian linguistic writing, there has been little appreciation that uniform orthographies represented a genuine advance on English-based spelling. Uniform orthographies and their value to linguistic research are unacknowledged in the literature on the history of Australian language research. Dixon, Ramson and Thomas (1990:7) dismiss the work of R.H.Mathews (1841-1918) and others: ‘Unfortunately, these early recorders were not trained linguists and wrote down Aboriginal words in terms of English sounds rather than in a phonetic alphabet’. However they (1990:15) also claim that Aboriginal languages are now written according to a Roman (sic) alphabet, implying that uniform orthographies utilising roman characters were only created in the twentieth century by professional linguists. Surely R.H. Mathews used the resources of the roman alphabet (Koch 2008). As argued in this paper, the aim of the RGS orthography was to circumvent the need for English spelling conventions.

Conclusions

It is fortunate for language documentation that many Aboriginal languages were written according to the RGS orthography. There are differences in quality in early wordlists and it is more likely that words were transcribed accurately with a uniform orthography. The RGS orthography was in use from the 1830s and gradually refined over the following century. The RGS system enabled English-speaking researchers to transcend the inconsistencies of English spelling. The extent to which the researchers recorded sounds accurately according to the RGS conventions must be answered in individual cases.

Bibliography

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Pickering, John (1820). An Essay on A uniform orthography for the Indian Languages of North America. Cambridge: Hilliard and Metcalf.

Royal Geographical Society (1831). Prospectus of the Royal Geographical Society, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol. 1, pp. vii-xii

Royal Geographical Society (Aug., 1885). System of Orthography for Native Names of Places. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, New Monthly Series 7, 535-536.

Salvado, R. (1851). Two native dialects of the New Norcia district. Rome: De Propaganda Fides.

Sampson, Geoffrey (1985). Writing Systems: a linguistic introduction. London: Hutchinson.

Schütz, Albert J. (1994). The Voices of Eden: A history of Hawaiian Language Studies. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Threlkeld, E.L (1834). An Australian Grammar, comprehending the principles and natural rules of the language, as Spoken by the Aborigines in the Vicinity of Hunter’s River, Lake Macquarie &c, New South Wales. Sydney: Stephens and Stokes.

Wellsted, R. (1836). Observations on the Coast of Arabia between Rás Mohammed and Jiddah. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London 6, 51-96.

How to cite this post

Moore, David. 2013. ‘A uniform orthography and early linguistic research in Australia’. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2013/10/16/a-uniform-orthography-and-early-linguistic-research-in-australia

Patrick Flack
Charles University, Prague

The name of Dutch linguist and philosopher Hendrik Josephus Pos (1898-1955) is not one that rings many bells today, except perhaps in the Netherlands and the (growing) circles of Merleau-Ponty specialists. But to the keen student of the history of the language sciences who does accidentally bump into him and decides to lend his work some attention, Pos will reveal himself as a fascinating source that offers an intriguing new perspective on the development of linguistics in the first half of the 20th century.

During his lifetime, Pos was an important figure who enjoyed a solid international reputation both within academic philosophical and linguistic circles and as a public person. A student of the neo-kantian Heinrich Rickert and then of Edmund Husserl, he was one of the first to put forward an explicitly philosophical reflexion on the foundations of linguistics in his 1922 dissertation “Zur Logik der Sprachwissenschaft” (The Logic of the Language Sciences) – a book that alledgedly* made a very strong impression on none other than Louis Hjelmslev (who possessed a heavily annotated copy). During the 1930s, Pos entertained frequent and amicable relations with all the structuralist Circles (Geneva, Prague, Copenhagen) as well as with thinkers such as Karl Bühler, Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger. Both Roman Jakobson [1973, p.13] and Nikolaï Trubetzkoy [1936, p.5], with whom he corresponded, mention him as an important contributor to the development of linguistics. After the war, his hybrid brand of philosophy of language attracted the sustained attention of Merleau-Ponty (who argues extensively with him, e.g. [Merleau-Ponty 1952]) and Eugenio Coseriu (who got one of his students to write a thesis about him [Aschenberg 1978]).

On their own, these historical connections do not prove of course that Pos was a great or interesting contributor to linguistics and philosophy of language, whose work might therefore be obviously worthy of our renewed attention. It is in fact generally fair to say that Pos was not a particularly original or idiosyncratic thinker and that he did mostly play secondle fiddle to the above-mentionned luminaries of linguistics and philosophy. That being said, the rather peripheral or derivative nature of Pos’s contributions to our understanding of language and linguistics does not mean that they were insignificant in their time or irrelevant to us today. As I would like to very briefly argue here, Pos’s work can in fact play a crucial role in helping us understand the conceptual dynamics and disciplinary networks of early structuralist linguistics.

The key to a fair evaluation of Pos and his contribution to either linguistics or philosophy of language is to start by considering him not as the author of a strong, systematic theory (which he never produced), but as an important interlocutor in an ongoing dialogue about language and its study. Such an approach is warranted first of all by the structure of Pos’s own work: except for his two dissertations (Zur Logik der Sprachwissenschaft, 1922 and Kritische Studien über philologische Methode, 1923) and two short summarising studies, he never wrote a book-length treatise, preferring instead to express himself through numerous articles, reviews, conferences, letters, etc. Tellingly, one of his most influential ideas – on the nature of linguistic oppositions – was set out in “La notion d’opposition en lingusitique”, a two-paged paper delivered at the fourth Congress of linguists in Geneva [Pos, 1938]. In most of his publications, one can see Pos constantly reacting to new ideas, inflecting the course of his own thought and trying to stimulate intellectual exchanges between fields and schools.

In other words, Pos’s work itself bears all the hallmarks of an essentially “dialogical” thought, which was conceived and intended as part of a broad, incessant conversation. Pos himself, it is worth adding, was a man of dialogue, who engaged in difficult political causes with a sense of moderation and compromise[Derkx 1994], and who was always interested in fostering exchanges. As Pieter Seuren recently commented on his blog, one of Pos‘s foremost achievements was to have had a very broad and positive impact on the Dutch “scene”, and to have taught his students (including Seuren himself) to think independently.

When one approaches Pos’s work from this dialogical angle, its interest becomes quite evident. This relevance derives first and foremost from the obvious quality of his dialogue partners. Pos, as I hope has already been made clear, was not an isolated scholar working in a marginal intellectual context, but interacted with the greatest philosophers and linguists of his time. He was not content, moreover, to react to the ideas of the thinkers he was in direct contact with (Rickert, Husserl, Cassirer, Heidegger, Bühler, Meillet, Jakobson, Trubetzkoj, etc.), but also commented almost the whole spectrum of the relevant theories on language at that time (Bergson, Marty, Paul, Stumpf, Vossler, Wundt, etc. – the notable exeptions being Saussure, Frege and the Vienna Circle). Because Pos (unlike Saussure) quotes his sources extensively and precisely and because (unlike Marty) he is not engaging in incessant polemics, his work takes on the quality of a precious historical witness of the linguistic debates of the interwar period.

Pos’s importance as an historical witness of the interwar period is strengthened by the fact that he was not only an echo-chamber or a diligent quotation machine. He did not only analyse and comment the ideas he drew from the neo-kantians, the neo-hegelians, the phenomenologists, the neo-grammairians, the early structuralists, the empirical psychologists, etc., but he sought to bring them into dialogue, to apply the discoveries of one school, one field, to the other and thus to cross-fertilise them. His 1922 dissertation is a particularly good example of such productive cross-overs: in effect, he attempts there to apply neo-kantian epistemology (and in particular, Lotzean and Rickertian epistemology) to the most recent findings and theories in the field of linguistics. Whilst attempting to provide a new, coherent methodological framework to the sciences of language, Pos explicitly resisted the temptation to simply subsume the empirical linguistic facts to a speculative philosophical system, a fact which helped him produce a theory that was really about language and the methodological conditions of its study.

An intriguing aspect of the theory of linguistics that emerged as a result of Pos’s synthetic effort in “Zur Logik der Sprachwissenschaft”, is that it is remarkably similar to the one put forward some 10 years earlier in the “Cours de linguistique générale” [Salverda 1991]. One might want of course to brush aside that similarity by arguing that Pos simply drew from Saussure. The fact of the matter is that Saussure is one of the rare thinkers not to be quoted in “Zur Logik der Sprachwissenschaft” and one has good reasons to believe that, although he probably knew the text, he did not consider it particularly relevant (Uhlenbeck 1977, p.489). In any case, Pos’s detailed arguments clearly and convincingly make use of neo-kantian concepts and arguments (and not of saussurean ones), which at the very least shows that a theory similar to the the one suggested in the “Cours de linguistique générale” can be derived from such premisses. In fact one might rather want to ask whether the Cours itself isn’t based on such neo-kantian arguments. Key neo-kantian concepts such as that of “value” (Wert), or the clear distinction between the concrete, unknowable facts of experience and our abstract, transcendental knowledge of them seem indeed to be at work in Saussure’s notions of “valeur” and his distinction between langue and parole.

This last observation is clearly very speculative and will probably be hard to demonstrate conclusively, as Saussure never quotes any neo-kantian sources. My point here, however, is not so much to suggest that we should re-interpret Saussure himself in a neo-kantian light (although I believe that might be done and would certainly be interesting to attempt), but rather that we should reconsider the genesis of structural linguistics as whole in that way. Pos, indeed, offers us the concrete historical example of a theoretical model of linguistics that was clearly elaborated as the result of a meeting between neo-kantian philosophy and neo-grammairian linguistics. Crucially, that hybrid model was met with explicit and strong approval by almost all the great structuralist linguists (although in fairness, one should also mention that it was thrashed by Antoine Meillet [1922] – but maybe that’s a mark of honour). In Prague – after Pos had given his conception of language and linguistics a much more phenomenological, anthropological and Hegelian turn – it went on to serve as one of the main philosophical justifications of the new phonology [Fontaine 1994, p. 15]. In short, all this is more than enough to warrant taking another look at the genesis of structuralism through the prism of Pos’s work.

* I cannot find the reference, it is an article (by Boon?) in Daalder 1990.

References and further reading

Aschenberg, Heidi (1978), Phänomenologische Philosophie und Sprache, Tübingen, Narr.

Coquet, Jean-Claude (2007), Phusis et Logos: Une phénoménologie du langage, Paris, Presses Univ. de Vincennes.

Daalder, Saskia (1999), H. J. Pos (1898 – 1955): studies over zijn filosofie van taal en taalwetenschap, Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Diss.

Daalder, Saskia; Noordegraaf, Jan (eds.) (1990), H.J. Pos: taalkundige en geëngageerd filosoof, Amsterdam, Huis aan de Drie Grachten.

Dennes, Maryse (1997) “L’influence de Husserl en Russie au début du XXème siècle et son impact sur les émigrés russes de Prague“, Cahiers de l’ILSL 9, pp. 45–65.

Derkx, Peter (1994), H.J. Pos, 1898-1955: Objectief en partijdig, Hilversum, Verloren.

Jakobson, Roman (1973), Main trends in the science of language, London, Allen & Unwin (Main trends in the social sciences, 6).

Fontaine, Jacqueline (1994)  “La conception du système linguistique au Cercle linguistique de Prague“, Cahiers de l’ILSL (5), pp. 7-18.

Meillet, Antoine (1922) “Pos: Logik der Sprachwissenschaft”, Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 23 (2).

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1952) “Sur la phénoménologie du langage”, In: Herman Leo van Breda (ed.), Problèmes actuels de la phénoménologie, Colloque international de phénoménologie, Bruxelles, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, pp. 91–109.

Parret, Herman; van der Velde, Roger (1980) “Structuralism in Belgium and in the Netherlands”, Semiotica 29, pp. 145–174.

Pos, Hendrik Josephus (1922), Zur Logik der Sprachwissenschaft, Heidelberg, Winter.

Pos, Hendrik (1923), Kritische Studien über philologische Methode, Heidelberg, Winter.

Pos, Hendrik (1938) “La notion d’opposition en linguistique“, In: H. Piéron, Meyerson I. (eds.), Onzième congrès international de psychologie, Paris, Alcan, pp. 246–247.

Pos, Hendrik (1939) “Perspectives du structuralisme“, In: Collective (ed.), Etudes phonologiques dédiées à la mémoire de M. le Prince N.S. Trubetzkoy, vol. 8, Praha, Jednota Československých matematiků a fyziků (Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague, 8), pp. 71–78.

Pos, Hendrik (1939) “Phénoménologie et linguistique“, Revue internationale de philosophie (1), pp. 354–365.

POS, Hendrik (2013) “Ecrits sur le langage “, Genève-Lausanne, sdvig press.

Salverda, Reiner (1991) “The contribution of H.J. Pos (1898-1955) to early structural linguistics”, In: J. Fenoulhet, T. Hermans (eds.), Standing Clear: A Festschrift for Reinder P. Meijer, London, University College London, pp. 220–237.

Trubetzkoj, Nikolaj (1936) “Essai d’une théorie des oppositions phonologiques“, Journal de psychologie XXXIII, pp. 5-18.

Uhlenbeck, Eugenius Marius (1977) “Roman Jakobson and Dutch linguistics”, In: Cornelis van Schooneveld, Daniel Armstrong (eds.), Roman Jakobson: Echoes of his scholarship, Lisse, Peter de Ridder, pp. 485–502.

Note: I have digital copies of quite a few of the shorter texts if you are interested

How to cite this post:

Flack, Patrick. 2013. ‘Hendrik Pos and the epistemological foundations of structuralism.’ History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2013/10/30/hendrik-pos-and-the-epistemological-foundations-of-structuralism

Jaap Maat
University of Amsterdam

1. The Popham notebook

In the summer of 2008, a leather-bound booklet attracted the attention of a member of staff of Warner Leisure Hotels in Littlecote House, near Hungerford, Wiltshire, UK. It looked old, and in fact it was. It turned out to be a seventeenth-century notebook, filled for the most part with hand-written text. On the title page it said: “Alexander Popham, his book. Oxford, Novemb. 8. 1662″.

It soon became clear that this notebook was a fascinating find, as it promised to shed light on a famous case in the history of teaching language to the deaf. Littlecote House used to be the home of the Pophams, a wealthy family whose members were admirals and judges playing an important role in early modern political history. Alexander Popham was born deaf, and remained mute until he was about ten years old.

He then was taught, at least in part successfully, how to speak, read and write, by two teachers: first by William Holder (1616-1698), and subsequently by John Wallis (1616-1703). The recently discovered notebook is written in the hand of Wallis, Popham’s second teacher, and it is obvious from its contents that it was composed by Wallis specifically for the purpose of instructing Popham.

The case of Alexander Popham has primarily become famous for two reasons. First, although he was not the first person born deaf in Western history to succeed in acquiring command of a language of the hearing, to do so was certainly a rare and remarkable achievement. Until the sixteenth century, it was generally considered impossible to cure deafness or to find a remedy for muteness other than to have recourse to signing, which was typically seen as at best a very deficient substitute for spoken language. In 16th-century Spain, the first systematic attempts were undertaken to teach written and spoken language, in this order, to deaf-mutes (Plann, 1997). These attempts reportedly succeeded, and although Holder and Wallis must have been aware of this, they  considered themselves pioneers. Secondly, both teachers of Popham afterwards claimed the credit for this success, which led to a bitter dispute between them. The dispute attracted more attention from historians than the average petty quarrel between rival scholars as it was fought out in print, and took place within the early Royal Society, involving as it did two of its prominent members, who both appealed to other fellows in support of their claims.

In what follows, I summarize the debate between Holder and Wallis before briefly returning to the Popham notebook.

2. Teaching of Alexander Popham (1659-1662)

In 1659, when Alexander Popham was 10 years old, his parents entrusted him to the care of William Holder, who undertook to teach him to speak. It is unknown why Alexander’s parents turned to Holder, a clergyman who was to become a leading phonetician and musicologist in later years, but had not published on those subjects at the time.

Alexander stayed with Holder for about a year, and as Holder later claimed, his teaching met with spectacular success. Popham was able to pronounce words “plainly and distinctly, and with a good and graceful tone” (Holder 1678, p. 5). According to Holder, this was seen as an extraordinary achievement, which attracted many visitors to his house at Bletchington near Oxford, who came there to see and hear the deaf boy speak. Among these were not only men like Ward, Wilkins, and Bathurst, who (just like Holder and Wallis) were to become founders or fellows of the Royal Society, but also, or so Holder claimed, John Wallis – a claim that was categorically denied by the latter. Holder further asserted that he took his pupil to London, where the boy’s relatives, and “many persons of all degrees satisfied themselves in hearing Mr. Popham speak” (Holder 1678, p. 5). After about a year, Holder’s teaching was broken off as he moved to another parish.

Two years after that, in September 1662, Alexander was brought to John Wallis, for the same purpose: to teach language to him.

Wallis had acquired a reputation as a teacher of a deaf person in that same year. In December 1661, he started teaching Daniel Whaley, then some 25 years old, who had lost his hearing at the age of five, and subsequently lost his ability to speak. Wallis managed to make Whaley pronounce several words, a result which he showed to a meeting of the newly established Royal Society in May, 1662. He also showed Whaley to the king and his court in London shortly afterwards. It is understandable, then, that Popham’s mother asked Wallis to take care of his further education. Wallis, according to his own account, had never met young Popham before he took him on as a pupil, thus contradicting Holder’s version of the events. Furthermore, when Popham entered his tuition, he was unable to utter a single word, and lacked every ability in the use of English. The latter claim was not contested by Holder, but could be easily explained by him: as Popham’s education had been incomplete, and he had had no further practice, he lost everything that Holder had taught him in the two years between his own teaching ended and that by Wallis began.

3. The dispute (1678)

The actual dispute between Holder and Wallis did not take place until 1678, sixteen years after the events. However, to understand what fuelled the quarrel, it is necessary to mention a few things that occurred in the meantime. In 1669, Holder published his ‘Elements of Speech’, which contained a sophisticated analysis of speech sounds according to articulatory principles. It also contained ‘an appendix concerning persons deaf and dumb’, in which Holder explained how a deaf person could be instructed to produce speech sounds.

It is not completely certain, but extremely likely that it was in reaction to Holder’s publication that Wallis felt it necessary to point publicly at his own achievements both in articulatory phonetics and in teaching language to deaf persons. In 1670, he published, in the Philosophical Transactions, the Royal Society’s journal, a letter written by himself in 1662, when he was teaching Whaley, in which he explained to Robert Boyle what progress he had made in this. He added a short but unsigned postscript, mentioning that ‘Dr. Wallis’ had later also successfully taught  ‘a young Gentleman of a very good family’, who was born deaf, clearly intending Popham (Wallis 1670, p. 1098). The postscript also drew attention to the fact that Wallis had given a thorough analysis of speech sounds in his ‘De Loquela’, published in 1653.

The publication in 1670 of Wallis’s letter to Boyle, and especially its postscript, infuriated Holder. In his view, Wallis was trying to appropriate the credit for teaching Popham as exclusively his own, whereas in fact it belonged chiefly to himself, as his first teacher. What Wallis could boast was to have revived, not to have developed a skill in Popham, just as happened with his other pupil Whaley, who must have had speech as a young child. Besides, the skills of Whaley that were displayed to the Royal Society meeting were rather poor: he was able to pronounce a few words “with a harsh ill tone” (Holder 1678, p. 6). Holder gritted his teeth in silence for years, until he saw another publication (Plot’s Oxfordshire, Plot 1677) in which Wallis’s achievements (which did not concern Popham) were extolled in the third person, although, Holder was convinced, Wallis had penned the entire eulogy of Dr. Wallis himself, just as in the wretched postscript of 1670. In 1678, Holder decided to expose Wallis’s devious ways in a pamphlet entitled ‘A Supplement to the Philosophical Transactions of July, 1670, with some reflexions on Dr. John Wallis, his Letter there inserted’, in which he explained what ‘subtle contrivances’ Wallis had used to reap the fruit of another person’s labour, driven by an excessive greed of fame.

Wallis was quick to respond. In the same year, 1678, he published ‘A defence of the Royal Society, and the philosophical transactions, particulary those of July, 1670, in answer to the Cavils of Dr. William Holder’, a lengthy piece in which Holder’s accusations were answered in great detail. The thrust of the argument was that Holder had got a central fact wrong: Wallis had never witnessed any results obtained by Holder in teaching Popham. He did know that Holder had attempted to teach language to Popham, but when his mother brought the boy to him, which was when Wallis first met him, he could not utter or understand a single word of English.

Wallis concluded that Holder’s teaching must have been completely unsuccessful, for it was unlikely that Popham could have forgotten everything in the space of two years. It would therefore have been embarrassing for Holder if Wallis had mentioned the former’s previous teaching in his 1670 postscript. Rather than being disingenuous, he had acted out of politeness in passing over it. In sum, Holder had tried in vain what Wallis accomplished afterwards, and was now complaining that he was deprived of the credit for something he never achieved. Wallis did not forget to emphasize that his own success in teaching Popham to speak was based on his theory of articulatory phonetics, published in 1653, that is, many years before Holder published anything on that subject.

4. Shared assumptions, different approaches

The controversy between Holder and Wallis was clearly related to a number of diverse issues, one of which was the question of who was the better phonetician. But perhaps more interesting than their rivalry in this respect is the fact that they agreed on the principle that teaching speech to a person born deaf should be based on a correct theory about the production of speech sounds. They both presented their real or alleged success in teaching Popham as a direct consequence of such a theory. As far as the more futile aspect of the debate is concerned, it is clear that it hinged on contradictory answers to two questions: first, did Holder manage to teach Popham to pronounce words distinctly, and, second, if so, did Wallis know this?

It is noteworthy that Holder’s claim did not go any further than that Popham was able to pronounce words. It is apparent from his own description of his method in the appendix to the Elements of Speech, that his teaching never went beyond that stage. He intended to pay attention to grammar, and to the meaning of words, but he never got round to that (Holder 1669, p. 157). Thus, his approach reflected his preoccupation with phonetics, and it seems likely that whatever he taught Popham, this could not have been of any use to the boy. It is also likely that without continued practice anything Popham did learn was soon lost again. As appears from the Popham notebook, and also from his letters, Wallis realised that it was essential for the deaf pupil to understand language, and that the capacity to utter words without understanding was useless.

5. The notebook and the debate

The Popham notebook does not contain any material that could resolve the dispute between Holder and Wallis. It may by now be clear why it could hardly have contained such material. After all, it was written by Wallis for the purpose of teaching a deaf boy, who, according to both disputants, was unable to say or understand a word of English when Wallis’s tuition began. Of course, this does not mean that the notebook is not an extremely interesting find. Not only has it occasioned us to review a famous but poorly investigated controversy once more, but it gives detailed insight into the actual method used by Wallis in his teaching of Popham. The outlines of this method were sketched by Wallis in a letter to Beverley in 1698, but now the notebook has emerged we are able to fill in many of the details. Semantics and grammar were at least as important as the production of speech sounds in Wallis’s method, and this is reflected in the contents of the notebook.

This post might get too long if I were to go into the contents of the notebook any further. We are preparing an edition of it, which is shortly to appear (Cram and Maat, forthcoming). The edition will also contain the relevant letters and pamphlets, as well as an introduction in which the broader context of teaching language to the deaf is discussed.

References

Cram, David and Jaap Maat. Forthcoming. The Popham Notebook. John Wallis’s Manual for Teaching Language to a Boy Born Deaf. Oxford University Press.

Holder, William. 1669. Elements of Speech: An Essay of Inquiry into the Natural Production of Letters’ with an Appendix concerning persons Deaf & Dumb. London.

Holder, William. 1678. A Supplement to the Philosophical Transactions of July 1670, with some reflexions on Dr John Wallis, his letter there inserted. London.

Plann, Susan. 1997. A Silent Minority, Deaf Education in Spain, 1550-1835. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.

Plot, Robert. 1677. The natural history of Oxford-shire, being an essay toward the natural history of England. Oxford.

Wallis, John. 1653. Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae. Cui praefigitur, De Loquela, sive Sonorum Formatione, Tractatus Grammatico-physicus. Oxford.

Wallis, John. [letter dated 1662] 1670. ‘A letter of Dr. John Wallis to Robert Boyle Esq, concerning the said Doctor’s Essay of Teaching a person Dumb and Deaf to speak, and to Understand a language’. Philosophical Transactions, 1670, vol. 5, pp. 1087-97.

Wallis, John. 1678. A Defence of the Royal Society, and the Philosophical Transactions, particularly those of July, 1670: In answer to the cavils of Dr. William Holder. London.

Wallis, John. 1698. ‘A letter of Dr. John Wallis to Mr. Thomas Beverley.’ Philosophical Transactions, October 1698, vol. 20, pp. 353-360.

How to cite this post

Maat, Jaap. ‘Teaching language to a boy born deaf in the seventeenth century: the Holder-Wallis debate’. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2013/11/06/teaching-language-to-a-boy-born-deaf-in-the-seventeenth-century-the-holder-wallis-debate

Joshua Nash
University of Adelaide

Ecolinguistics can be divided into two strands. The first deals with environmental discourse analysis, often termed eco-critical discourse analysis, critical ecolinguistics, or the language of ecology and environmentalism, while the second, language ecology, which deals with interactions between humans, mind, and environment, is often expressed through lexico-grammatical studies of how humans talk about and adapt linguistically to new and foreign environments. This second strand is also referred to as the ecology of language. I will not be overly concerned with the first strand.

Since its beginnings in the 1980s and 1990s, ecolinguistics has grown into a research field in its own right, although the boundaries of what ecolinguistic analysis is and how one should go about doing ecolinguistic research have not been made explicit by scholars working in the field. The linguistic community has also questioned the relevance of ecolinguistics as a subdiscipline and on what theoretical ground ecolinguistics actually stands (e.g. Edwards 2008; Ostler 2001; Owen 2004). There have also been several critical voices concerning various aspects of ecolinguistic research (e.g. Goddard 1996; Siegel 1997). With the exception of Garner (2005), scholars and theoreticians have not been explicit enough in stating the theoretical breadth of ecolinguistics and its practical implications for general linguistic theory.

Ecolinguistics provides several conceptual questions. I am concerned with one major empirical question: How can relationships involving people, language, place, and names be measured empirically? Research in linguistics has generally focused on linguistic structure decontextualised from the environment in which the language is spoken. Sociolinguistic research has contributed significantly to an understanding of language use and language in social context just as ecolinguistics has created awareness of language as an ecological phenomenon (Haugen 1972).

Some ecolinguistic research has focused on more obscure issues, to the extent that some would claim much of what is in the interest range of ecolinguistics does not concern linguistics at all. Regardless, there is a need for contextually sensitive empirical analyses which ask questions about interrelationships concerning language, culture, and the natural environment without being alienated from mainstream linguistics. Broad philosophical analyses of the relationship between lexicon and environmental management are important in their own right. However, it leaves unanswered the question of how to analyse specific aspects of particular linguistic ecologies (e.g. toponyms).

There is a distinct lack in linguistics and toponymy of a method and theory which  outlines how, along with formal structural analysis, the ecological  implications of toponyms and their connection to the nexus of place  where they develop and exist should be analysed. Such an approach will not only emphasise the efficacy of the structural analysis but will also accentuate the multitude of cultural and ecological parameters necessary to consider when conducting an ecolinguistic analysis of toponyms.

In what follows, I reflect on elements relevant to an ecolinguistic consideration of toponymy. These reflections are based on my linguistic fieldwork conducted on Norfolk Island, South Pacific, where Norf’k is spoken and used in toponymy (Nash 2013). Sapir (1912: 231) illustrates how history is reflected in toponyms:

Only the student of language history is able to analyse such names as Essex, Norfolk, and Sutton into their component elements as East Saxon, North Folk, and South Town, while to the lay consciousness these names are etymological units as purely as are “butter” and “cheese”. The contrast between a country inhabited by an historically homogeneous group for a long time, full of etymologically obscure place-names, and a newly settled country with its Newtowns, Wildwoods, and Mill Creeks, is apparent.

As one of the early proponents of exploring relationships between language and its bio-cultural environment, Sapir’s suggestions about toponymy are still remarkably relevant. In traditional views of linguistic analysis, languages can be studied without any reference to the bio-cultural context in which they are used. They can also be transplanted and replace other languages; they are arbitrary codes to express universal cognitive categories. These concepts have been at the heart of the ecolinguistic critique of traditional linguistics.

The idea that linguistic practices are detachable from the world suggests one can distinguish between two prototypical language types: (1) ecologically embedded languages, and (2) disconnected languages. These are idealised types and in reality most languages are a complex mix between being constructed by their environment and constructing their environment (Mühlhäusler 2003: 2). However, such a split between conceptions of what languages are is useful in an empirical analysis. An ecologically embedded language should exhibit the following properties:

1. Words reflect social interaction between humans and their environment, e.g. Moo-oo Stone on Norfolk Island is an offshore rock formation with a large amount of moo-oo, or native Norfolk flax; Dar Fig Valley is the name of a valley where locals used to grow figs; Deep Water is a fishing location on the east coast known for the depth of the water in this area.
2. Lexical and grammatical forms are not regarded as arbitrary, e.g. the toponym Johnny Nigger Bun Et (English: Johnny Nigger Burnt It) as a grammatical unit is a sentence. It expresses an idiosyncratic Norfolk personal name form, i.e. ‘Johnny Nigger’ remembers the uncontrolled burning of a coastal area by an American whaler who came to live on Norfolk in the 1800s.
3. The same word can be used to describe human and other life forms, e.g. the Norf’k horg (pig, hog) is used to describe animals, humans and even the name of a fishing location. Dar Horg is named after a terrestrial feature which resembles a pig from the sea.
4. The lexicon and grammar of space reflects topography, e.g. Out ar Station is in a distant location on Norfolk; Up in a Stick is topographically ‘up’ in comparison to the administrative centre of Norfolk which is ‘down’.
5. Language is a memory of past interactions between humans and nature, e.g. Gun Pit is a concrete structure on the west coast of Norfolk built during World War II. It is also the name of the fishing ground Ar Gun Pit which uses Gun Pit in one of its marks. A diachronic approach is of vital importance to the study of synchronic patterns of language use.

An understanding of the interrelated phenomena can be achieved by interacting in real-world situations, with members of the respective speech communities living in the actual ecology where the language is spoken and used every day. Names associated with tourism on Norfolk (Hibiscus Lodge, Daydreamer Holiday Apartments, Fletcher Christian Apartments, Bligh Court) show how history affects naming. The vision of Norfolk as an island paradise is reflected in these names. This ecocritical (re-)construction of Norfolk is seen in many domains of naming including the reintroduction of Polynesian names and a distinct absence of Australian anthroponyms.

An ecolinguistic point of view considers toponyms as important cultural and environmental artefacts and events. By having access to toponyms and their histories, toponymic maps, and toponymic books or gazetteers, the tapestry of toponymic and topographic contours (names and the world) is revealed (e.g. Pouderoux et al. 2007, cf. Mark et al. 2011’s volume Landscape in Language). Ecolinguistics provides a basis upon which the analysis of this cross-disciplinary mix of linguistic, social, and environmental relationships can be undertaken. An ecolinguistic analysis provides a philosophical and conceptual framework for what I believe can result in a more accurate and detailed description of toponyms in their historical, social, and ecological context.

Joshua Nash is the 2013 Bill Cowan Barr Smith Library Fellow at the University of Adelaide. He acknowledges the generous financial support of a Sir Mark Mitchell Research Foundation grant and small grants from the Royal Society of South Australia, the Historical Society of South Australia, and the J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice at the University of Adelaide.

References

Edwards, John. 2008. The ecology of language: Insight and illusion. In Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Vol. 9: Ecology of Language, Angela Creese, Peter Martin & Nancy H. Hornberger (eds), 15–26. Berlin: Springer.

Garner, Mark G. 2005. Language ecology as linguistic theory. Kajian Linguistik dan Sastra 17(33): 91–101.

Goddard, Cliff. 1996. Cross-linguistic research on metaphor. Language & Communication 16(2): 145–151.

Haugen, Einar. 1972. The Ecology of Language. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Mark, David M., Turk, Andrew G., Burenhult, Niclas & Stea, David (eds). 2011. Landscape in Language: Transdisciplinary Perspectives [Culture and Language Use 4]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Mühlhäusler, Peter. 2003. Language of Environment – Environment of Language. London: Battlebridge.

Nash, Joshua. 2013. Insular Toponymies: Place-naming on Norfolk Island, South Pacific and Dudley Peninsula, Kangaroo Island. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Ostler, Nicholas. 2001. Little Jack Horner’s Christmas Pie. http://www.ogmios.org/ogmios_files/1711.htm

Owen, Charles. 2004. Review of Fill & Mühlhäusler (eds), The Ecolinguistics Reader. Language & Communication 24: 183–193.

Pouderoux, Joachim, Gonzato, Jean-Christophe, Pereira, Aurélien & Guitton, Pascal. 2007. Toponym recognition in scanned color topographic maps. Proceedings of ICDAR 2007: 9th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition: 1–5.

Sapir, Edward. 1912. Language and environment. American Anthropologist 14(2): 226–242.

Siegel, Jeff. 1997. Review article: Linguistic Ecology: Language Change and Linguistic Imperialism in the Pacfic Region by Peter Mühlhäusler. Australian Journal of Linguistics 17: 219–238.

How to cite this post

Nash, Joshua. ‘Toponymy and ecolinguistics’. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2013/11/13/toponymy-and-ecolinguistics

Pilar Máynez
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Sobre el repositorio que resguarda la versión tardía del Sermonario de los Sanctos del año en lengua mexicana

La Biblioteca Nacional de México fue oficialmente inaugurada el 2 de abril de 1884 en la antigua iglesia de San Agustín y el 16 de diciembre de 1967 pasó a formar parte del recientemente creado Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas, perteneciente a la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Dicho repositorio que constituye, sin duda, el más importante de México por el número de volúmenes y por la relevancia de los mismos, contiene igualmente una de las colecciones más valiosas sobre incunables, libros raros y archivos especiales en su Fondo Reservado; éste alberga alrededor de cuatro mil volúmenes, correspondientes al periodo comprendido entre los siglos XV al XX,[i] dentro de los que se incluyen invaluables manuscritos en lenguas indígenas.

Aunque no se cuenta aún con la bibliografía completa de los textos escritos en el tan amplio mosaico de lenguas indomexicanas, los catálogos realizados por Ángel María Garibay y Roberto Moreno de los Arcos[ii] constituyen una importante aproximación al mencionado acervo. Moreno de los Arcos, por su parte, atendiendo a la información proporcionada por García Icazbalceta y su continuador Agustín Millares Carlo, asegura que, sólo en lo que respecta al siglo XVI, tenemos como existencia comprobada 179 obras, de las cuales 30 están escritas en náhuatl o mexicano y 50 en otras lenguas indígenas, mientras que de “85 consta su existencia, 15 en lengua náhuatl y 38 en otras lenguas” (1966:27).

Garibay y Moreno de los Arcos destacan, entre las obras que custodia el Fondo Reservado, varias de carácter doctrinal escritas en náhuatl que merecen ser estudiadas como testimonio lingüístico e intercultural. Se trata de textos, algunos de ellos aún inexplorados, que mucho pueden abonar en lo que desde hace varias décadas se ha denominado Lingüística Misionera. Figura, por ejemplo, con signatura 1628 bis, el manuscrito titulado Cantares Mexicanos y otros opúsculos que publicará próximamente la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, en su totalidad, en edición crítica y bilingüe. También el Fondo Reservado preserva otras obras como son las Domínicas en mexicano, de autor desconocido (Ms. 1478), y el manuscrito 1476 correspondiente a santorales con algunos refranes y fábulas escritos por diferentes manos. A continuación nos abocaremos a una de ellas.

El Sermonario de Sahagún. Breve referencia sobre su contenido y sus peculiaridades lingüísticas

Temprano en el conjunto de obras de carácter doctrinal realizadas por los misioneros lingüistas y primero en la amplísima y diversa producción de fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590) fue el Sermonario de los Sanctos del año en lengua mexicana. Data del año 1540 como el propio Sahagún lo sostiene en el manuscrito preliminar de la obra,[iii] que se conserva con la signatura 1485 en la Colección Ayer de la Newberry Library de Chicago.[iv] Se trata de un elenco de cincuenta y dos domínicas a partir del primer domingo de Adviento hasta el decimonoveno después de Pentecostés, así como de otras en honor a varios santos, que decidió revisar y enmendar en 1563, como lo hizo una y otra vez con el resto de sus obras, y cuya segunda versión se conserva con la signatura 1482 en el Fondo Reservado de la Biblioteca Nacional de México.

Dicho manuscrito -de letra clara y cuidada- se encuentra en buen estado, aunque con esporádicas tachaduras, e incorpora apostillas en lengua castellana y mexicana, así como algunos términos y glosas interlineares debidos en su mayoría a Sahagún.[v] Se conforma de 263 hojas numeradas, tres más de guarda iniciales incluyendo el índice y tres finales, y está escrito en papel en 4º. Los 116 primeros folios son de autoría de fray Bernardino de Sahagún, mientras que el resto se deben a Alonso de Escalona, contemporáneo suyo y quien paradójicamente en vida impidió que se concluyera y difundiera la obra etnológico-lingüística conocida como Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, realizada por fray Bernardino y sus colaboradores indígenas a lo largo de treinta años. [vi]

Ahora bien, el manuscrito doctrinal que aquí nos ocupa está concebido como una unidad en la que cada uno de los sermones está construido sobre el mismo esquema. En primera instancia, aparece el día del calendario litúrgico al que alude, enunciado en latín. En segundo lugar el tema que trata, el cual reproduce, por lo general, un versículo de la lectura del Evangelio acompañado, en ocasiones, de la referencia correspondiente en la Vulgata. Por último, se presenta el sermón que se compone de un texto introductorio y su desarrollo que difiere en su extensión, el cual está dirigido a un auditorio indígena presencial  (Bustamante 1999: 68), al que se exhorta a abrazar el credo cristiano, mediante diversos recursos lingüísticos y retóricos.[vii]

La primera parte de este volumen, que corresponde a Sahagún, estuvo realizada, según lo admite el propio franciscano en el folio 48 del manuscrito conservado en la Colección Ayer, considerando la cosmovisión propia del receptor al que las homilías iban dirigidas, es decir, al indígena; así sostiene que es “fácil de entender para todos los que lo oyeren, altos y bajos, principales y macehuales, hombres y mujeres” en “lenguaje congruo, venusto y llano”. En el manuscrito 1482 al que nos referimos particularmente aquí, Sahagún admite, sin reservas, la participación de sus colaboradores indígenas en su elaboración, como lo hace también en el Libro de los Coloquios datado en 1564, y a lo largo de su multicitada Historia General. Así lo leemos en el Libro décimo de su Historia.

“…si sermones y postillas y doctrinas se han hecho en la lengua indiana que puedan parecer y sean limpios de toda herejía, son los que con ellos se han compuesto, y ellos, por ser entendidos en la lengua latina, nos dan a entender las propiedades de los vocablos y las propiedades de su manera de hablar” (2002: 931 ).

Respecto a la composición del Sermonario, y a partir del análisis de dos sermones incluidos en esa obra, Georges Baudot[viii] advierte que existe una filiación con los discursos conocidos como huehuetlatolli o “palabra antigua” en cuanto al uso de imágenes y recursos estilísticos; así mismo identifica lo que denomina “mexicanización del texto” que se origina por la inserción designativa de realidades propias del universo indígena. A manera de ejemplo, alude a la rectificación que hace Sahagún de propia mano respecto al término “asno”, que es modificado por el náhuatl mazatl, “venado”.[ix]

Por otra parte, y como resultado de la confluencia de culturas en el periodo novohispano, se observan algunos préstamos del español y también ciertos hibridismos para aludir a conceptos que el fraile consideró torales de la fe católica, como Evangelio, santos sacramentos, prophetasme y tanima; e incluso, pueden aparecer yuxtapuestas en lenguas mexicana y castellana referencias de un mismo concepto como totecujoe diose. Su inserción, como en el caso de otras obras de carácter doctrinal debidas a fray Bernardino, puede deberse a su especial interés de que el nuevo converso identificara claramente el concepto como parte del credo recién instaurado y no como producto de una síntesis de creencias. Por último, cabe señalar que en el sermón relativo a la Navidad, la preocupación religiosa del franciscano se hace patente al aconsejar a los oyentes respecto a los peligros del antiguo culto idolátrico, aspecto que, como se constata en sus últimos escritos, mereció reiteradas consideraciones hasta el final de su existencia. Así en la revisión de su Arte adivinatoria fechada en 1585, cinco años antes de su muerte, cuestionó los avances logrados en la evangelización de los naturales y concluyó que el culto hacia sus diferentes dioses persistía junto con el cristiano y que la Iglesia había sido fundada en falso.

Referencias

Fuente  

Sahagún, fray Bernardino de  [1563]. Sermonario de los sanctos en lengua mexicana. Manuscrito 1482 de la Biblioteca Nacional de México.

Obras de consulta

Baudot, Georges. 1982. “Los huehuetlatolli en la cristianización de México: Dos sermones en náhuatl de Sahagún” . Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl. 15: 125-145.

Bustamante García, Jesús. 1990. Una revisión crítica de los manuscritos y de su proceso de composición. México: UNAM.

Dueñas Salinas, Saray Alejandra, et al.  2013. Manuscritos en lenguas indígenas en el Fondo Reservado de la Biblioteca Nacional (siglos XVI y XVII). Una cala. Inédito.

Garibay K., Ángel María. 1966. “Manuscritos en lengua náhuatl en la Biblioteca Nacional de México”. Boletín de la Biblioteca Nacional de México. 17(enero-febrero): 15-19.

León-Portilla, Miguel. 1999.  Bernardino de Sahagún. Pionero de la Antropología. México: UNAM y El Colegio Nacional.

Moreno de los Arcos, Roberto. 1966. “Guía de obras en lenguas indígenas existentes en la Biblioteca Nacional de México”. Boletín de la Biblioteca Nacional de México. 17  (enero-junio): 21-210.

Sahagún, Bernardino de. 2002. Historia general de  las cosas de Nueva España. Versión integra del texto castellano del Códice florentino y edición de Alfredo López Austin y Josefina García Quintana. T.II, México: CONACULTA. [Original 1577].

Salgado Ruelas, Silvia. “Libros manuscritos y bibliotecas novohispanas en la Biblioteca Nacional de México.” <dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/4242248.pdf#page1> (12 Oct. 2013).

How to cite this post

Máynez, Pilar. 2013. ‘El Sermonario de fray Bernardino de Sahagún y los fondos en lenguas indígenas de la Biblioteca Nacional de México’. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2013/11/27/el-sermonario-de-fray-bernardi

Jean-Michel Fortis
Laboratoire d’histoire des théories linguistiques, Université Paris-Diderot

On peut s’interroger sur l’évolution qui voit Bloomfield passer de la psychologie à dominante wundtienne, qui imprègne son Introduction de 1914, au behaviorisme, et d’une linguistique “mentaliste” à une linguistique psycho-abstinente et centrée sur l’analyse des formes. Une version simple de cette évolution est celle que décrit Langendoen (1998): de conceptualiste, Bloomfield devient behavioriste et structuraliste.

Je voudrais donner ici une image plus complexe de cette transition, en insistant sur le découplage entre la conversion au behaviorisme et l’évolution des idées linguistiques de Bloomfield. Cette évolution est à mon avis graduelle, et entretient des rapports complexes avec la psychologie de l’époque (celle de Wundt, essentiellement, mais aussi de Hermann Paul). Trois examples, qui sont autant de rapports à la psychologie, peuvent l’illustrer.

Dans un premier cas, Bloomfield donne un soubassement psychologique à des phénomènes linguistiques, pour n’en garder que ce qui est compatible avec des critères distributionnels d’analyse. Ici, le mentalisme embraye la discussion, donne un fondement psychologique à l’explication, pour se trouver recyclé en approche distributionnelle. La discussion partira de ce que dit Bloomfield à propos de la distinction analytique / synthétique.

Un autre cas concerne la réinterprétation par Bloomfield de l’analyse wundtienne de la proposition. En l’occurrence, dès l’Introduction de 1914, Bloomfield reprend Wundt en l’édulcorant, c’est-à-dire en restant plus près des formes de surface que Wundt. L’origine de l’analyse en constituants peut donc être cherchée chez Wundt, mais chez un Wundt en partie dépsychologisé.

Enfin, dans un troisième type de cas, la psychologie mentaliste ne joue qu’un rôle insignifiant dans la description linguistique, et ce à l’époque même où Bloomfield défend une linguistique psychologique. Ce cas est illustré par les précoces Tagalog Texts (1917).

Bien sûr, il ne s’agit pas ici de présenter Bloomfield et son évolution, mais de donner quelques coups de sonde historiques dans certains domaines.

L’analytique et le synthétique

Dans plusieurs de ses premiers textes, Bloomfield prend position sur la distinction des langues analytiques et synthétiques. Pourquoi cette préoccupation?

Une hypothèse serait que Bloomfield voit dans cette question la possibilité de faire converger deux perspectives : celle, plus historique et axiologique de Jespersen (1894), qui perçoit dans l’histoire un progrès du synthétique vers l’analytique (voir la contribution de James McElvenny 2013 sur ce même blog), et celle, wundtienne, d’une théorie psychologique du fondement possible de cette distinction.

Qu’est-ce qu’une langue synthétique selon Bloomfield ? Dans l’Introduction, aux langues analytiques, Bloomfield oppose les langues dites nominales ou attributives (nominal ou attributing languages ; 1914a: 64), au nombre desquelles il compte le groenlandais et en général les langues à “mots-phrases”, mais aussi le nahuatl (les exemples viennent probablement de Steinthal). Ces langues, explique Bloomfield, enveloppent dans l’action ou l’attribut la mention de l’objet qui en est le substrat (‘blanc’ doit se dire ‘tel objet-blanc’), et ne distinguent pas formellement entre l’objet qualifié et la prédication (‘tel objet-blanc’ se dit comme ‘est-tel-objet-blanc’). A cette aune, le latin est plutôt du côté des langues synthétiques : cantat, en effet, enveloppe l’objet prédiqué.

En outre, les langues synthétiques, n’ayant pas séparé l’entité prédiquée du prédicat, n’ont pas de sujet. La transition des langues nominales, à l’anglais est ainsi décrite comme l’émergence des catégories syntaxiques (1914b: 69). Les catégories syntaxiques signalent un plus haut degré d’abstraction et de “fictivité”. Elles séparent l’entité de l’action (abstraction), et transfèrent la structure narrative [acteur sujet-action prédicat] à des états de choses statiques comme Mount Blanc is high  (fictivité ; 1914b: 69). Tout ceci est conforme à Wundt.

L’aperception

Whitney (1884) ne voyait pas quelle différence pouvait bien séparer les deux types de langues au plan de l’analyse des idées. Bloomfield a une réponse: l’aperception. Jespersen avait déjà affirmé que la supériorité de l’analytique consistait en la possibilité d’accentuer les éléments. Dans l’anglais I had sung (vs cantaveram), expliquait-il, “the elements are analysed, so that you can at will accentuate the personal element, the time element, or the action” (1894: 25). Dans le vocabulaire de Wundt, cette possibilité reflète une capacité cognitive plus générale de focalisation volontaire sur un élément d’une représentation totale (Gesammtvorstellung), que Wundt appelle aperception. Le terme est abondamment employé en psychologie à la suite de Herbart, par ex. par Steinthal, mais l’acception qu’en donne Wundt lui est propre.

Dans Sentence and Word (1914b), Bloomfield explique que la différence fondamentale entre un morphème lié (“formative element”) et un mot est celle qui sépare “valeur d’association” et “valeur aperceptive” (1914b). Dans exibant, ex- doit sa valeur à son association avec excessit / exegit (de exigo) etc. ; -i- doit sa valeur à la série abirem / redimus etc.; -b- à regebat / videbit etc., valeur glosée comme celle d’une ‘notion vague de continuité, passée ou futur’ ; -a- à regebat / eram / fuerat (valeur de passé); -nt- à dolent / conantur / delectantur etc. ‘plus d’un acteur impliqué dans l’action’ (1914b: 69-70). Que les morphèmes soient isolés par leur répétition au sein de groupes associatifs est une idée que Bloomfield doit probablement à Hermann Paul et à sa psychologie de provenance herbartienne.

Maintenant, la phrase anglaise ðejwrgòwiŋáwt (they were going out) est absolument similaire au latin exibant, à ceci près que la focalisation de l’attention peut détacher ðej de wrgòwiŋáwt, mais ne peut aucunement scinder exibant (Bloomfield 1914b: 70-1). Autrement dit, les mots de they were going out ont une “valeur aperceptive”, tandis que les morphèmes de exibant sont confusément isolés par la force associative qui les lie aux formes homologues.

Attention, la forme analytique est aperceptible plutôt qu’aperceptée. Elle peut en effet fonctionner à vide, comme lorsque la phrase He’s a lucky fellow,  employée avec une pure valeur émotionnelle, se voit désinvestie de son articulation prédicative et n’est plus qu’une interjection développée (1916: 15). Ainsi, le critère psychologique n’est pas très sûr et paraît dépendre du contexte. D’une certaine manière, il sert à formuler une potentialité de comportement phonétique (le stress) et syntaxique.

Des groupes associatifs aux morphèmes

Dans l’Introduction, les groupes associatifs ont un double rôle: celui, formateur, de changement analogique, et celui, analytique, de segmentation morphologique.
Conformément à la mécanique herbartienne qu’on trouve chez Paul, la segmentation des éléments reflète les forces d’attraction de groupes associatifs, et le degré d’indépendance des éléments varie en fonction de ces forces d’attraction. Ainsi, les constituants des formes suivantes peuvent-ils se ranger sur une échelle d’indépendance croissante:

fl- et -ash dans flash, par opp. à flame, flare, flicker, flimmer et aussi à clash, crash, dash, lash, slash < -s dans fire-s < -´s dans the King of England’s son < -teen dans thirteen < bull dans bulldog (Bloomfield 1914a: 94-5).

Fl- et -ash sont moins indépendants car, outre que le locuteur est inconscient de leur valeur, ils ne peuvent être ajoutés à loisir à une autre forme; le -s pluriel est plus indépendant pour la raison inverse; le -´s possessif a une distribution plus large que le pluriel (il peut déterminer un syntagme); teen est susceptible d’être employé seul (a girl in her teens); enfin, bull entre dans un composé dont l’autre élément (dog), à la différence de thir- dans thirteen, est employé comme mot aussi.

Cette fois donc, ce sont bien des critères essentiellement distributionnels qui définissent les morphèmes liés. On note aussi que la distribution fournit des degrés de liaison, non une dichotomie morphèmes libres / morphèmes liés.

Bref, dès l’Introduction, les critères distributionnels voisinent avec la théorie psychologique. C’est néanmoins la théorie psychologique des groupes associatifs qui semble embrayer la discussion des classes distributionnelles. Cette théorie est encore en lien avec la notion d’aperception dans les textes de cette époque, mais cette notion ne fournit qu’un critère fluctuant des mots indépendants, et dans les Postulates elle est éliminée définitivement par l’obtention d’un critère distributionnel des formes libres et donc des mots (i.e. le fait de pouvoir être un énoncé, utterance). Ainsi, l’abandon de la définition “mentaliste” des “éléments formatifs” et des mots par l’aperception prolonge le germe de distributionnalisme qui pointe dans l’Introduction. Il n’en demeure pas moins que dans Language, Bloomfield continuera à associer une valeur sémantique aux morphèmes issus des groupes associatifs. Simplement, une fois converti au behaviorisme, il s’abstiendra d’identifier cette valeur à une représentation mentale, et parlera de situational features (Language 1933: 267-8), qu’on pourrait se risquer à rapprocher des contingencies de Skinner.

Sujet et prédicat : le rapport à Wundt

Selon Murray (1994: 118), l’inadaptation de la structure sujet – prédicat pour traiter certaines constructions aurait incité Bloomfield à abandonner la “loi de dualité” wundtienne, qui fait de cette structure un pivot de l’analyse psychologique, et à délaisser Wundt. Mais Bloomfield a toujours rejeté l’universalité de la structure sujet-prédicat, comme nous l’avons vu, et ce rejet s’est effectué dans le cadre wundtien.

Si nous suivons Percival (1976, repris par Seuren 1998), la division successive en sujet-prédicat proposée par Wundt est à l’origine de l’analyse en constituants immédiats. Bloomfield est-il le fils prodigue qui prend son héritage et abandonne le père, ou bien lâche-t-il le père et l’héritage? Comment Bloomfield restitue-t-il Wundt?

L’analyse en constituants

Dans la Völkerpsychologie, Wundt définit la phrase comme la décomposition d’une représentation totale (Gesammtvorstellung) consciente en parties rapportées les unes aux autres (1912: 243-4). Cette décomposition peut s’opérer selon deux modes de construction de l’énoncé (1912: 321s). Le premier, dit “prédicatif”, est une décomposition successive de la représentation totale en structures sujet-prédicat, décomposition qui est effectuée sous contrôle attentionnel, c’est-à-dire aperceptif. Sa binarité en fait un mode de liaison interlexicale fermé (geschlossene Wortverbindung), dont les manifestations sont les divisions entre sujet et prédicat grammaticaux, prédicat verbal et objet, sujet / objet nominal et attribut, verbe et adverbe.

Wundt représente la division de l’énoncé en prédications par une arborescence qui évoque les arbres de dérivation. Soit par exemple la proposition ein redlich denkender Mensch verschmäht die Täuschung (‘une personne d’esprit honnête dédaigne la tromperie’). Elle peut être successivement divisée en prédications: le sujet contient l’affirmation ‘ein Mensch denkt redlich’ (litt. ‘un homme pense honnêtement’), le prédicat denkt redlich contient à son tour l’affirmation ‘redlich (Redliches) wird gedacht’ (‘quelque chose d’honnête est pensé’), et le prédicat principal contient sous forme condensée ‘die Täuschung wird verschmäht’ (‘la tromperie est dédaignée’).

Décomposition de ein redlich denkender Mensch verschmäht die Täuschung (adapté, d’après Wundt 1912: 330)

Avant Wundt, Becker avait déjà proposé d’analyser un énoncé en divisions successives, quoique d’une autre manière (voir par ex. 1843: §206 ; Graffi 2001: 136-7). Il y a là, vraisemblablement, un écho de la Grammaire Générale.

Le second mode de construction, “attributif”, correspond à la parataxe, à l’apposition, à la coordination inter- (et non intra-) propositionnelle. La construction attributive peut parasiter une liaison fermée. Dans er ist ein guter, treuer, gewissenhafter, fleissiger Mensch (‘C’est une personne bonne, fidèle, consciencieuse et travailleuse’) l’énumération est une intrusion attributive de ce genre. Ainsi peuvent s’interpénétrer dans une même phrase les liaisons ouvertes et fermées.

Les liaisons attributive et prédicative ne sont pas cantonnées au palier de la proposition. Elles caractérisent aussi un style narratif, contraint par les ressources grammaticales de la langue, mais aussi déterminé par l’émotion, la visée communicative (en littérature), la pathologie ou simplement la tension momentanée de l’esprit.

Ce que Bloomfield retient d’abord de Wundt est la progression aperceptive du sujet au prédicat dans la conscience, et la structure hiérarchique des membres d’une construction:

In the primary division of an experience into two parts, the one focused is called the subject and the one left for later attention the predicate ; the relation between them is called predication. If, after this first division, either subject or predicate or both receive further analysis, the elements in each case first singled out are again called subjects and the elements in relation to them, attributes. (…) Thus in the sentence Lean horses run fast the subject is lean horses and the horses’ action, run fast, is the predicate. Within the subject there is the further analysis into a subject horses and its attribute lean, expressing the horses’ quality. In the predicate fast is an attribute of the subject run.
(1914a: 60-1)

Mais Bloomfield s’écarte de Wundt: il ne fait aucune allusion aux liaisons fermée et ouverte, qui sont véritablement le palier psychologique chez Wundt; il ne généralise pas la dualité sujet-prédicat à tous les niveaux d’analyse mais parle d’attribut, non de prédicat, après la première division; il reste au niveau de la phrase, et ne parle pas de style narratif. Tout ceci indique que chez Bloomfield la division n’est plus une analyse psychologique distincte du niveau formel, mais coïncide avec ce niveau. Dans cette mesure, il dépsychologise Wundt, quoiqu’il conserve la définition aperceptive du sujet.

Notons finalement que la portée de l’analyse en constituants reste limitée chez Bloomfield, qui se focalise, dans ses descriptions, sur les constructions, non sur la structure en constituants. Ce sont d’abord les constructions qui constituent l’objet de la grammaire tel que Language les définit, à savoir “the meaningful arrangements of forms” (1933: 163). Les Tagalog Texts confirment d’ailleurs cette primauté, et le résumé qu’en donnera Language laissera inchangées leurs thèses principales (1933: 200-1).

Les Tagalog Texts

Publiés en 1917, les Tagalog Texts sont un ouvrage d’avant-garde où Bloomfield propose une analyse prioritairement fondée sur les régularités formelles. Il réduit ainsi les parties du discours à deux, les particules et les mots pleins, ce qui ne peut se justifier que par une prise en compte du comportement formel et distributionnel du tagalog (où, par ex., tout nom fonctionne librement comme prédicat). Sa définition de la structure sujet-prédicat ne fait aucunement appel à la notion d’aperception; bien plus, elle n’identifie même pas le sujet au mot indépendant, donc aperceptible, désignant un acteur, comme d’autres textes de Bloomfield le suggéreraient. Cette définition est en réalité formelle: le sujet est une “expression” appartenant à une certaine classe de formes, que Bloomfield énumère (elles correspondent aux formes nominatives, mais Bloomfield n’emploie pas le terme).

Sa classification des structures “attributives”, qu’il oppose aux “prédicatives” (en sujet-prédicat), est particulièrement intéressante: elle est résolument formelle, et fondée sur les marques (ou l’absence de marque) de liaison entre les constituants de chaque structure. Le tableau ci-dessous en donne une idée.

Il est frappant de constater que Bloomfield classe les structures sans mettre au premier plan les catégories traditionnelles (cas, subordination etc.), voire en les ignorant totalement. Il ne prend pas en considération les cas: alors que les grammaires du tagalog font de nang une marque de génitif ou de non-subject core argument etc., Bloomfield lui attribue une dénomination (disjunctive attribute) sans contrepartie dans d’autres langues. Certes, quand il énumère les différentes fonctions de nang, il repère son emploi possessif, son emploi en marque d’objet etc., mais la base de sa classification, comme pour les parties du discours, est formelle et distributionnelle: est un attribut disjonctif ce qui a la distribution d’une expression en nang et n’a pas de marque attributive d’un autre type. Tant d’innovations ont rebuté Blake (1919), qui publiera ensuite (1925) une grammaire plus conventionnelle.

En résumé, les Tagalog Texts n’ont rien d’une grammaire psychologiste. L’étude, si on l’expurgeait de quelques infimes vestiges wundtiens (comme la notion de dominant idea, i.e. de dominierende Vorstellung), passerait facilement pour une œuvre du second Bloomfield, celui d’après les Postulates. Mais alors, si elle est coupée de la description, à quoi sert la psychologie mentaliste?

Mentalisme et behaviorisme

La psychologie mentaliste a transmis des thématiques et des outils qui ont été recyclés dans une version formelle et distributionnelle. Le groupe associatif a par exemple joué un rôle important dans l’importance dévolue à l’analyse en morphèmes et aux classes formelles. Il est clair que les prémices du Bloomfield formaliste et distributionnaliste sont présentes à une date précoce. Cette inclination montre que le formalisme de Bloomfield n’est pas lié à sa future austérité behavioriste.

Les premières attestations de la conversion de Bloomfield au behaviorisme datent de 1922 (cf. Bloomfield 1922) et suivent de peu son arrivée à l’Ohio State University (1921), où il fait la rencontre de Weiss (Hall 1990). L’influence personnelle de Weiss semble difficilement contestable si l’on considère le dithyrambe posthume que Bloomfield lui adresse (Bloomfield 1931). Toutefois, selon Joseph (2002), c’est plutôt la lecture de Saussure, qui remonte à cette même époque, qui aurait joué un rôle décisif. On objectera qu’étant donné la pratique descriptive de Bloomfield, l’importance considérable qu’il attache au courant scientifique physicaliste et behavioriste, et son intérêt pour l’idée de science et les critères de scientificité, le rôle de Saussure ne devrait pas être surestimé.

Bloomfield lui-même renvoie vraisemblablement à Delbrück (1901) pour justifier une sorte d’indifférentisme en matière de psychologie (1933: vii), non sans professer ensuite sa nouvelle foi, en particulier dans le fameux apologue biblico-behavioriste de Jack et Jill (1933, ch. 2). Il y a là une contradiction, mais qui pourrait éventuellement se comprendre par la lecture de Weiss (1929 [1925]). Dans le système de Weiss, la place de la psychologie est renégociée, et elle semble être écartelée entre plusieurs disciplines où n’apparaissent plus les états mentaux (ce sont la biologie, l’anthropologie, la statistique sociale, et la méthode “behavioriste” d’étude de la société et de l’individu social; Weiss 1929 [1925]: 433). Le cadre de cette redéfinition est une unité ontologique entre le physique, le biophysique et le “biosocial”. Ce qui importerait aux yeux de Bloomfield serait donc le monisme ontologique et la dissolution de la psychologie traditionnelle, celle basée sur la délimitation d’un domaine qui serait ontologiquement spécial.

En dehors de Weiss, le contexte mondial doit aussi être pris en compte. En psychologie, l’impact des idées de Sechenov et de Pavlov sur le réflexe et le conditionnement est puissant, et converge, selon Esper (1968), avec une vision sommaire de la neurophysiologie des fonctions supérieures chez un biologiste comme Jacques Loeb (lu, entre autres, par Skinner). Aux Etats-Unis, Watson, et les philosophes Holt, Mead and De Laguna défendent des thèses behavioristes sur la notion de signification, l’origine et la fonction du langage (Powell & Still 1979), tandis que l’influence de Wundt s’éclipse (Danziger 1979). Des années plus tard, Bloomfield (1936) considérera avec optimisme le Cercle de Vienne comme un succès théorique en prolongement des années 1920, et recommandera à Greenberg la lecture des travaux qui en sont issus.

Encore une fois, l’aspect essentiel de ce mouvement semble être, aux yeux de Bloomfield, son réductionnisme physicaliste, cœur du livre de Weiss (cf. Bloomfield 1936). Ainsi Bloomfield oppose-t-il, au début de Language, le mentalisme au mécanisme, c’est-à-dire au physicalisme, arguant que esprit, image, concept, volonté etc. doivent être réductibles à des mouvements des corps. Pure promesse de réduction, ce physicalisme proclamé n’interfère pas avec la linguistique, et n’interférera pas davantage avec la psychologie behavioriste. Le linguiste peut donc poursuivre son œuvre descriptive, que la perte de la psychologie mentaliste laisse indemne, et même traiter abondamment de matières sémantiques. On ne lui demande que de purger sa théorie de la terminologie mentaliste.

Références bibliographiques

Becker Karl Ferdinand. 1843. Ausführliche Deutsche Grammatik als Kommentar der Schulgrammatik, 2ter Band. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag von S.F. Kettembeil.

Blake, Frank R. 1919. Review of Tagalog Texts with Grammatical Analysis by Leonard Bloomfield, The American Journal of Philology 40(1) p.86-93.

Blake, Frank R. 1925. A Grammar of the Tagalog Language, the Chief Native Idiom of the Philippine Islands. New Haven (Connecticut): American Oriental Society.

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1914a. An Introduction to the Study of Language. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1914b. Sentence and word. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 45: 65-75 [in Hockett 1970: 61-69].

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1916. Subject and predicate. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 47: 13-22 [in Hockett 1970: 70-77].

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1917. Tagalog Texts with Grammatical Analysis. Urbana: The University of Illinois.

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1922. Review of Sapir, Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech. The Classical Weekly 15: 142-3 [in Hockett 1970: 91-94].

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1924. Review of Cours de Linguistique Générale by Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Bally, Albert Sechehaye. The Modern Language Journal 8(5): 317-9 [in Hockett 1970: 106-108].

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1926. A set of postulates for the science of language. Language 2(3): 153-164 [in Hockett 1970: 128-138].

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. London: George Allen & Unwin.

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1936. Language or ideas. Language 12(2): 89-95 [in Hockett 1970: 322-328].

Danziger, Kurt. 1979. The positivist repudiation of Wundt. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 15: 205-230.

Delbrück, Berthold. 1901. Die Grundfragen der Sprachforschung. Strasbourg: Verlag von Karl J. Trübner.

Esper, Erwin A. 1968. Mentalism and Objectivism in Linguistics. The Sources of Leonard Bloomfield’s Psychology of Language. New York / London / Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Hall, Robert A. 1990. A Life for Language. A Biographical Memoir of Leonard Bloomfield. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Hockett, Charles F. (ed.). 1970. A Leonard Bloomfield Anthology. Bloomington / London: Indiana University Press.

Jespersen, Otto. 1894. Progress in Language. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co.

Joseph, John E. 2002. Bloomfield’s and Chomsky’s readings of the Cours de linguistique générale. In John Joseph, From Whitney to Chomsky, Amsterdam / Philadelphia, John Benjamins: 133-155.

Langendoen, D. Terence. 1998. Bloomfield. In Robert A. Wilson and Frank C. Keil (ed.), The MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, MIT Press: 90-91.

McElvenny, James. 2013. Otto Jespersen and progress in international language. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences, blog collectif, http://hiphilangsci.net/2013/05/15/otto-jespersen-and-progress-in-international-language/

Murray, Stephen O. 1994. Theory Groups and the Study of Language in North-America. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Paul, Hermann. 1886². Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. Halle: Max Niemeyer.

Percival, Keith W. 1976. On the historical source of immediate constituent analysis. In McCawley, James D. (ed.), Syntax and Semantics. Notes from the Linguistic Underground, New York, Academic Press: 229-242.

Powell, R. P. & Still, A. W. 1979. Behaviorism and the psychology of language. An historical reassessment, Behaviorism 7(1): 71-89.

Seuren, Pieter. 1998. Western Linguistics. An Historical Introduction. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.

Weiss, Albert Paul. 1929² [1925]. A Theoretical Basis of Human Behavior. Columbus (Ohio): R.G Adams & Co.

Whitney, William Dwight. 1884. Language and the Study of Language. Twelve lectures on the Principles of Linguistic Science. London: N. Trübner & Co.

Wundt, Wilhelm. 1912³. Völkerpsychologie. Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythos und Sitte. 2. Bd, 2. Teil. Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann.

How to cite this post

Fortis, Jean-Michel. 2013. ‘Bloomfield : Du mentalisme au behaviorisme’. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2013/12/04/bloomfield-du-mentalisme-au-behaviorisme

Rebeca Fernández Rodríguez
Centro de Estudos em Letras (CEL)
Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD)

Missionary lexicography in the Philippines is extensive and exhaustive. Dozens of grammars and vocabularies have been written since the Spanish arrival in the Philippines in 1565. In many cases they have remained in manuscript form. However, in the last decade, some scholars have focused their research on specific languages and documents. Quilis edited Blancas de San José’s Arte y Reglas de la lengua Tagala (1661) in 1991; García-Medall edited Alonso de Méntrida’s Diccionario de la lengua bisaya, hiligueina y haraya de la Isla de Panay in 2004; Zwartjes edited Melchor Oyanguren’s Tagalysmo elucidado (1742) in 2010; and I am working on an edition of manuscript Calepino Ilocano.

Even though there is an increasing number of papers and books on Philippine linguistic documentation, there is no study on how dictionaries were compiled and finally printed. Missionaries worked on previous dictionaries, improving them by making amendments, adding new terms and examples. Authorship was not regarded as it is today. Grammars and dictionaries were kept in libraries or passed from hand to hand and were constantly improved.

So we might ask what work Spanish missionaries in the Philippines did on their field notes to prepare printed dictionaries. We can begin to answer this question by looking at three different Ilocano manuscripts kept in the Library of the Estudio Teológico Agustiniano de Valladolid (Spain) and comparing them to the first printed Ilocano dictionary of 1849.

Augustinian Francisco López (?–1627) made the first translation of the Doctrina Christiana into Ilocano in 1621, wrote the Arte de la lengua yloca (1627) and started a dictionary. Unfortunately he died before finishing it. Many years later, two Augustinians José Carbonel (1665–1711) y Miguel Albiol (?–1710) completed López’s early dictionary: Thesauro (ca. 1710). This dictionary is said to contain many mistakes and so Pedro de Vivar (1730–1771) was ordered to compile a new Ilocano dictionary. He finished it by 1760 and it was sent to Manila to be printed. But it ended up being destroyed when the British took the city.

Tesauro Ilocano – López & Carro – 1792

Another Augustinian, Andrés Carro (?–1806), worked on Vivar’s unpublished dictionary and reorganized it. Carro wrote the proverbs, riddles and adagios under the main entry instead of keeping them in the appendix. He finished his dictionary, Tesauro vocabulario de la lengua yloca al castellano, in 1792. This is the first manuscript of our study. The second is the so-called Calepino Ilocano, formerly dated ca. 1797 and now dated between 1797 and 1805 – as will be explained later. The third manuscript has no cover and is poorly preserved (humidity, worms, etc.). One of the librarians of the Augustinians in Valladolid registered it also as Calepino Ilocano, believing it was just a copy of the latter – to avoid misunderstandings, I will call it ‘Draft’ here.

Carro signed his manuscript in 1792. But two years later his handwritten copy was given to another Augustinian called Francisco Abella (1767–1813), who signed in the reverse of the cover. He annotated the vocabulary and added new entries and comments while he was studying the language. Some of his new entries contain ethnographic and geographical information as well as examples, changes in orthography and word order.

Abella and Hermosa’s signatures

Carro and Abella’s copy was then in the hands of another Augustinian called Justo Hermosa (1780–1846) in 1805. According to Augustinian Records, when Hermosa arrived in the Philippines, he was sent to work with Abella for two years. It is not surprising then that Hermosa used Abella’s copy to study and learn Ilocano. Keep in mind that when missionaries first arrived in the Philippines they were sent to work with older missionaries in order to learn the language and their future tasks. They spent around two years learning before they were sent to their own mission.

Carro’s copy annotated by Abella was copied again at least twice: a) the Calepino Ilocano, copied between 1797 (date of an ethnographical entry) and 1805 (when Hermosa got Carro-Abella’s copy); and b) the Draft which included Hermosa’s corrections and additions and which was probably in use until 1825.

The Calepino Ilocano is an almost faithful copy. All the mistakes highlighted in Carro-Abella’s copy are corrected and new words and examples are included. But it does not include any of Hermosa’s annotations. My guess is that this neat copy was made by a Spanish native speaker to be archived. There are no annotations and it is very well preserved.

On the other hand, I believe the Draft was copied by a non-Spaniard. Its orthographical mistakes can only be explained if someone was copying the manuscript without completely understanding what he was copying.

The Draft underwent a second step. Two Augustinians – my guess is that these were José Inés (1814–1869) and Pedro Berger (1798–1854) – took their time to revise the vocabulary. It has dozens of new entries and examples, crossing-outs of geographical information (probably to make it less local in the printed version since Región de Ilocos was very vast), and accurate orthographical changes in Ilocano. The Draft – and that is why I called it draft – was checked and annotated to be sent to the printers.

I think it was considered to be too “dirty” to understand what printers had to do. So there had to be another neat copy with further changes that was the final version used by the printers. The printed version in 1849 has all the changes included in the Draft but it also contains some minor differences.
Comments and annotations in the entries were some of the most important aspects in this study. Two entries serve to date both the Calepino Ilocano and the Draft. The first one was Bingrao. Abella wrote in Carro’s manuscript that this bug had caused so much destruction “this year of 1797”. This information was copied both in the Calepino and the Draft. The Draft crossed it out and the printed version shows the entry bingrao without the additional information.

Crossed out information

The second entry that provides a hint to date the Draft being after 1825 is that for Uraro . Carro’s original manuscript and Calepino Ilocano explain that in 1656 there was a hailstorm. The draft not only includes this date but explains the following: “and in Magsingal in 1825” as it is in the printed version.

Hailstone in 1825 in the Draft

Another interesting entry is Bulagao. Both Carro’s original copy and Calepino Ilocano included that the mount in Magsingal is the highest in the Region of Ilocos. But – I guess – Hermosa crossed this annotation out and so neither the Draft nor the printed version contain this information.

The highest mountain in Región de Ilocos – 1792

Having compared these three manuscripts (Carro’s, Calepino and the Draft) with the printed version Vocabulario de la lengua yloca, trabajado por varios religiosos del orden de N.P.S. Agustín, coordinador por Andrés Carro y últimamente añadido y puesto en mejor orden alfabético por dos religiosos del mismo orden (1849), I have come up with the following: Missionaries spent their first two years in the Philippines learning the languages they were going to use. They learnt with the help of a missionary and his books, both grammar and dictionary. These books were manuals that were improved by their owner’s knowledge and use of the language. When the improvement was outstanding or the books needed, a checked version was sent to the printer.

* I would like to thank the librarian of the Estudio Teológico Augustiniano in Valladolid for letting me take pictures of all these manuscripts.

References

Carro, Andrés. 1849. Vocabulario de la lengua yloca, trabajado por varios religiosos del orden de N.P.S. Agustín, coordinador por Andrés Carro y últimamente añadido y puesto en mejor orden alfabético por dos religiosos del mismo orden. Manila: Tip. del Colegio de Santo Tomás. (https://archive.org/stream/rosettaproject_ilo_vocab-1#page/n0/mode/2up)

López, Francisco & Andrés Carro (OSA). 1792. Tesauro vocabulario de la lengua yloca al castellano. (Sig.: ETAV F-A-d150)

Vivar, Pedro. ca. 1800. Calepino ylocano o vocabulario de yloco en romance compuesto por diferentes padres ministros antiguos, diestros en este idioma y últimamente corr[egido] y añadido según lo que ahora se usa y de última mano por el Padre Vivar. (Sig.: ETAV F-A-d127)

Vivar, Pedro. ca. 1825. Calepino ylocano o vocabulario de yloco en romance compuesto por diferentes padres ministros antiguos, diestros en este idioma y últimamente corr[egido] y añadido según lo que ahora se usa y de última mano por el Padre Vivar (Sig.: ETAV F-A-a130-132)

How to cite this post

Fernández Rodríguez, Rebeca. 2013. ‘New dating of the Iloko manuscript lexicography’. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2013/12/11/new-dating-of-the-iloko-manuscript-lexicography

Raf Van Rooy
PhD fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO)
University of Leuven

It is well known that, in present-day English, the verb ‘smell’ can obtain a negative connotation when used intransitively; the adjective derived from it, ‘smelly’, is even lexically restricted to the meaning ‘having a bad smell’. By contrast, speakers of English tend to allot more positive interpretations to the sense adjective ‘tasty’ (cf. Krifka 2010). That is to say: everybody with a healthy appetite would prefer ‘tasty’ to ‘smelly’ food. Another example, from a rather unexpected corner, is the association between stench and syntax errors in computer terminology. It appears that the terms CodeSmell (alternative terms: CodeStench and CodePerfume) and LanguageSmell refer to the use of erroneous codes in computer programming (see http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CodeSmell). ‘If it smells, it’s bad’, appears to be the maxim of olfactory imagery in English. Things seem to have been quite different in some premodern Latin and Italian texts I encountered during my research on the history of the ‘dialect’ concept. In these writings, the image of ‘smell’, always expressed by means of the Proto-Indo-European root *od- (cf. ancient Greek ὀσμή), seems to be usually tied up with more positive features, such as antiquity, purity, and naturalness, especially with reference to linguistic contexts. Since no studies on this topic are known to me, I would like to briefly explore some of these passages in the present contribution, so as to shed a little more light on this peculiar aspect of premodern language attitudes.

The Roman orators Cicero (106–43 BC) and Quintilian (ca. AD 35–ca. 100) offer us an interesting starting point. Driven by their concern for the use of a correct Latin on public occasions, they occasionally resort to the image of smell in order to picture the characteristics of ‘good’ language in general and appealing orations in particular. For example, to the question whether Demetrius of Phalerum spoke (good) Attic, Cicero replied: “I think that Athens herself can be scented through his orations” (Brutus 82.285: “Mihi quidem ex illius orationibus redolere ipsae Athenae uidentur”).¹ In the very same work (21.82), he describes Servius Galba’s speeches as “smelling of antiquity” (“orationes […] redolentes […] antiquitatem”). Although the context seems to be rather negative here – he describes the ‘dryness’ of Galba’s rhetorical products – archaism is implicitly recognized as a positive feature, which Cicero likewise perceives in other great orators of the past such as Cato the Elder. In his De oratore, he also relies on the verb olere to express puristic prescriptions; this time, however, the image cautions against all too excessive foreign particularities in speech.² Quintilian, for his part, tries to warn his readers about the risk of being accused of using regionalisms, a criticism to which even the famous historian Livy fell victim (there was allegedly some Patauinitas in him). For this reason, he advises that “all words and accent should smell like a native of this city” (8.1.3: “et uerba omnia et uox huius alumnum urbis oleant, ut oratio Romana plane uideatur, non ciuitate donata”), thus implementing the ‘smell’ image in a normative-puristic context (cf. Adams 2007: 195).³

Jumping to the later Middle Ages, I came across similar usages of the olfactory image linked to linguistic features. The Welsh chronicler Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis; ca. 1146–ca. 1223), for example, connects it with purity and antiquity, as Cicero and Quintilian had done before him. In his Description of Wales (Descriptio Cambriae) 1.6 (“On the delightfulness and fertility of Wales”; ed. Dimock 1868: 177), Gerald maps out the regional varieties of the southern part of modern Great Britain. Using the same Latin term as Cicero (redolere), he contends that southern English is purer (“magis […] incomposita”) than its northern counterpart (which is ‘corrupted’ by Danish and Norwegian influences). He asserts that the former “smells by far more of antiquity” (“uetustatem longe plus redolens”) and “preserves the property of the original tongue and the ancient way of speaking to a greater extent” (“originalis linguae proprietatem, et antiquum loquendi modum magis obseruat”).⁴

At the end of the medieval era, the Italian poet and scholar Dante Alighieri (ca. 1265–1321), already on the verge of the Renaissance, elaborates upon the synesthetic imagery in his famous unfinished treatise On vernacular eloquence (De uulgari eloquentia; written ca. 1305), by introducing a panther into the discussion (see 1.16.1 and 1.16.4-5; cf. also Van der Horst 2008: 62-64). The exotic animal and the odor-guided hunt for it are employed to visualize his concept of the uulgare illustre (on which already much research has been conducted; see, e.g., Holtus 1989). After having ‘hunted’ in every Italian city and investigated the variety (or varieties) spoken in each of them, Dante feels compelled to admit that he has not been able to catch the panther that is the uulgare illustre. The metaphorical animal, even though “it emits its scent everywhere”, “doesn’t appear anywhere” (1.16.1: “pantheram […] redolentem ubique et necubi apparentem”). A few paragraphs below, the odor imagery reappears, although a reference to the panther is lacking. There, Dante contends that a common form of speech necessarily outshines locally restricted varieties; for all that is common to a whole people is better than everything that is particular and diversified. This is where smell comes in again; whereas the uulgare illustre “diffuses its odor in every city”, it “has its bed in none” (1.16.4: “[…] in qualibet redolet ciuitate nec cubat in ulla”). However, the scent can be stronger in some areas than in others (1.16.5: “Potest tamen magis in una quam in alia redolere, […]”). Thus, largely relying on synesthetic imagery (in combination with the hunting metaphor), the Florentine poet is trying to define his linguistic ideal (an “illustre, cardinale, aulicum et curiale uulgare”; 1.16.6) as well as stressing its sheer unattainability.

I conclude this exploratory contribution by briefly touching upon two passages from the first half of the 16th century. The first is to be found in Baldassare Castiglione’s (1478–1529) Il Cortegiano (the second redaction of 1528 in Cordié 1960: 60), in which the Greek dialectal situation is discussed (see Trovato 1984: 217). Here, a new element shows up; the olfactory figure is related to ‘naturalness’ of speech. Each non-Attic Greek writer chose to remain recognizable both “in his way of writing” as well as “at the ‘odor’ and peculiarity of his natural speech”, in spite of the alleged superior position of the Athenian tongue.⁵ The Picard philosopher and theologian Charles de Bovelles (Carolus Bouillus; 1479–1566), in his turn, falls back on the ‘odor’ image to discuss etymological links between contemporary tongues on the one hand and Latin and Greek on the other (“Quia autem immensum nobis exurgeret uolumen si recensendae istic forent hae uoces, cuiusuis linguae, quae uel Latinam redolent originem uel Graecam”), when discussing the vast and unregulated variety of vernacular speech in his 1533 Liber de differentia (p. 13). The quality of antiquity is – again, but this time more implicitly – linked up with scent.

By means of this necessarily incomplete survey, I hope to have indicated that the ‘synesthetic approach’ of the authors discussed above may be an interesting perspective to tackle diverging evaluative attitudes toward language in premodern learning. Unlike the semantics of the English word ‘smell’ and ‘smelly’, the olfactory image is principally – but not exclusively – employed in more positive contexts (at least in Latin and Italian). It refers to varying features such as purity (often connected with normative stances; cf. Cicero, Quintilian, Gerald, and Dante), antiquity (Cicero, Gerald), and naturalness (Castiglione). Bovelles’ reliance on the ‘odor’ metaphor in sketching etymological affiliations may be seen as an extension of the ‘antiquity’ feature. The majority of these authors were very influential throughout premodern history, so that it is not inconceivable that other scholars might have been inspired by them. Further research could help in mapping out to what extent this image was taken up in linguistic contexts (and to what extent the lexeme od-/ol- was still primarily connected with the sense of smell; cf. note 4 below).

Notes

¹ I have made Latin spelling uniform. Unless mentioned otherwise, the Latin passages are quoted from Brepolis’ Library of Latin Texts.

² 3.44: “Quare cum sit quaedam certa uox Romani generis urbisque propria, in qua nihil offendi, nihil displicere, nihil animaduerti possit, nihil sonare aut olere peregrinum, hanc sequamur, neque solum rusticam asperitatem, sed etiam peregrinam insolentiam fugere discamus.”

³ Interestingly enough, this passage has been invoked by a so-called ‘birther’ to doubt Barack Obama’s pure ‘natural American citizenship’ and his eligibility for the office of US president (for the precise context within which this passage appears, see the URL http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm#ref04.05). The ‘birther’ in question is a representative of a more rational movement among ‘birthers’, in that he tries to offer objective counterarguments against the legitimacy of Obama’s position as US president.

⁴ It may, of course, be questioned to what extent the smell element in redolere was still present in the conceptualization of later authors such as Gerald. However, the ensemble of examples seems to indicate that most of them were conscious of the olfactory aspect of this verb (cf. its prominence in Dante’s imagery).

⁵ “[…] benché la ateniese fosse elegante, pura e facunda più che l’altre, i boni scrittori che non erano di nazion ateniesi non la affettavano tanto che, nel modo dello scrivere e quasi all’odore e proprietà del suo naturale parlare, non fossero conosciuti.”

References

Adams, James Noel. 2007. The Regional Diversification of Latin 200 BC – AD 600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bovelles, Charles de. 1533. Caroli Bouilli Samarobrini liber de differentia uulgarium linguarum, et Gallici sermonis uarietate. Quae uoces apud Gallos sint factitiae et arbitrariae, uel barbariae: quae item ab origine Latina manarint. De hallucinatione Gallicanorum nominum. Parisiis: ex officina Roberti Stephani.

Brepolis’ Library of Latin Texts (http://clt.brepolis.net/cds/pages/Search.aspx)

Castiglione, Baldassare, Giovanni Della Casa, and Benvenuto Cellini. 1960. Opere di Baldassare Castiglione, Giovanni Della Casa, Benvenuto Cellini. Edited by Carlo Cordié. La letteratura italiana. Storia e testi 27. Milano-Napoli: Ricardo Ricciardi.

Dimock, James F., ed. 1868. Giraldi Cambrensis Opera. Vol. 6 [Giraldi Cambrensis Itinerarium Kambriae, et Descriptio Kambriae]. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer.

Holtus, Günter. 1989. “Das ‘vulgare illustre’ als Modell einer italienischen Kunstsprache. Standard, Substandard und Varietät in Dante Alighieris Traktat ‘De vulgari eloquentia’ (1305).” In Sprachlicher Substandard II. Standard und Substandard in der Sprachgeschichte und in der Grammatik, edited by Günter Holtus and Edgar Radtke, 1–13. Konzepte der Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft 44. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.

Krifka, Manfred. 2010. “A Note on an Asymmetry in the Hedonic Implicatures of Olfactory and Gustatory Terms.” In Between the Regular and the Particular in Speech and Language, edited by Susanne Fuchs, Philip Hoole, Christine Mooshammer, and Marzena Zygis, 235–45. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Trovato, Paolo. 1984. “‘Dialetto’ e sinonimi (’idioma’, ‘proprietà’, ‘lingua’) nella terminologia linguistica quattro- e cinquecentesca. (con un’appendice sulla tradizione a stampa dei trattatelli dialettologici bizantini).” Rivista di letteratura italiana 2: 205–36.

Van der Horst, Joop. 2008. Het einde van de standaardtaal. Een wisseling van Europese taalcultuur. Amsterdam: J. M. Meulenhoff.

How to cite this post

Van Rooy, Raf. 2014. Language and smell: traces of synesthesia in premodern learning. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2014/03/12/language-and-smell-traces-of-synesthesia-in-premodern-learning

Başak Aray
Université Paris I – Panthéon-Sorbonne, EXeCO (PHICO)

Efforts to establish an international auxiliary language (IAL) have a long history. Projects to overcome ethnic languages flourished in the 17th century Britain. Creators of these “philosophical languages” (Descartes, Dalgarno, Wilkins, Leibniz) stressed the shift between the structure of spoken languages and the structure of nature, and consequently the view that the former leads to a distorted understanding of the latter. To replace imperfect natural languages – they are inefficient, at best, if not obviously misleading, so they claimed – they devoted their efforts to designing a transparent medium to represent the real structure of things adequately.

The history of the universal languages took a new turn towards the end of the 19th century. With Schleyer’s Volapük (1879) emerged a new goal for constructed languages: unlike their Enlightenment-era predecessors, the new constructed languages had a practical focus on international communication. Most of them integrated a posteriori elements in their grammar and vocabulary in order to maintain a continuity with natural languages, which ensured that they were more accessible to learners (Couturat and Léau 1903: 113). This period may be characterized as a pragmatic turn. Epistemic ambitions of reflecting the real structure of things were discredited, and “universal language” was replaced by “international auxiliary language”. On the methodological side, conceptual analysis left its place to empirical observation of existing languages.

The new paradigm bore humanistic and cosmopolitan tendencies combined with a technophilia that inspired the extension of engineering to the linguistic field. Esperanto, the most emblematic – and, so far, most successful – IAL was accompanied by rhetoric from its creator, Zamenhof (1906: 1154), encouraging pacifism and promoting international brotherhood. The Delegation for the Adoption of International Auxiliary Language presented IAL as a historical necessity. In their history of the universal language, the leaders of the Delegation, Couturat and Léau, mention the ongoing rapid globalization of the world as the background to the IAL (Couturat and Léau 1903: VII). They explain this development by the exponential growth of transport and telecommunication technologies. These raised global mobility and revived international commerce, making the need for an IAL to facilitate international communication more important than ever.

International auxiliary language as a scientific project

The argument from historical necessity was intended largely as a response to conservative objections to IAL. Opponents contested the very possibility of creating a developed and usable artificial language. Such conservative views stressed the spontaneous evolution of language and showed scepticism towards the consequences of deliberate interventions in it. When we consider how various language planning programs on a national scale faced such traditional-minded objections, we can see that similar reactions to IAL are rather predictable, given how radical the idea of a constructed IAL is. Couturat (1906: 24) compares the transition from spontaneity to planned development in language to the transition from old European settlements to modern urbanism. He contends that any argument that appeals to the past is bound to be invalid, since many innovations were initially received with incredulity, but what seems unconceivable at first becomes later an ordinary part of life (medical imagery, motorised transport, wireless telegraphy, to mention a few). This fetishistic attachment to nature and the past obstructs progress by condemning inventions (1906:25-6). Couturat develops a Promethean image of the interlinguist as a persecuted innovator. His frequent comparison of IAL to decisive technological turning points in history (he states that achievement of the IAL will be a revolutionary step in history similar to the printing press) was arguably aimed at discrediting opponents as Luddites disconnected from historical reality.

Language planners’ pragmatic approach to language as a human creation fostered to suit our communicative needs is connected to a normative conception of science. For Jespersen, language’s instrumental nature as a human creation justifies its conscious modification on the basis of communicative needs (Jespersen 1922: 324). Similarly, Couturat (1911: 516) recommends the subordination of linguistics to a logic with an empirical basis. The Estonian language planning theorist Valter Tauli (1907-1986; 1968: 25-27) defines language planning (LP) as normative linguistics, as opposed to psychological and historical investigations on a purely descriptive level. He calls for the scientific treatment of questions of LP by trained specialists, on the model of pedagogy and agriculture. For Tauli, the task of LP is to generalize the best of the existing forms and to construct new ones to improve language. This critical framework contrasts with orthodox linguistics as a passive descriptive activity.

Empirical criteria for language evaluation

Language planners’ conscious adoption of a critical framework to treat linguistic facts led them to ground their evaluation on scientific foundations. In order to gain credibility as serious experts (and not a reputation for being fanciful utopians), they needed justified criteria to measure the value of existing language forms and decide on new ones. For, otherwise, IAL or language reform would face the serious objection of being simply the arbitrary manipulation of language, and its practitioners would be unjustly considered unscientific researchers. To resolve this question, interlinguists proceeded to find empirical criteria for linguistic evaluation. Under the influence of Antoine Meillet’s work on comparative grammar (Meillet 1926), Couturat (1911: 2) sought to discover general traits shared by all languages, the whole of which could constitute a sound foundation for directed language change. Coming from a Darwinian perspective, he imagined a language ideal in which the elements of existing languages converge in their ongoing evolution. As a dedicated Leibniz scholar, Couturat believed in the universality of mind across the plurality of languages and cultures. He saw interlinguistics as a rational anticipation of a future state. A criticism of the present state of actual languages combined with an empirically informed conception of logic allowed his theory to overcome the popular opposition of normativity and positivism.

Jespersen put his knowledge of the global evolutive tendencies of natural languages at the service of IAL. He collected a massive amount of data (mainly from Indo-European languages) representative of universal traits in the evolution of languages, from which he inferred criteria for language evaluation. This was meant to ground the creative path of interlinguistics on an empirical basis and moderate the artificiality of the IAL.The question of the scientific foundation of linguistic evaluation was thus resolved in a fruitful way that inspired perspectives for a posteriori interlanguage construction. Conciliation of facts and values was achieved by constructing values out of empirical data. Jespersen stated that as a rule languages conserve the most functional elements and lose the unfit ones at long term (1949: 382-3). The principle in its more general expression may be summed up as maximum efficiency for minimum labour. Its closeness to the governing principle of industrial production contributes to the modernist spirit of the IAL. After pointing out inequality in economy between different languages (some require considerably longer to learn, even for native speakers), Jespersen (1922: 328-9, 364) cites examples of transition from ancient to modern forms to prove the economical gain in the latter. A tendency to phonetic economy is observed through the shortening of words and the dropping of final syllables: bonum, homo and viginti in Latin became respectively bon, on, vingt in French. A similar tendency to final dropping is found in Danish and German dialects. Although initials are relatively stable, they are lost in some combinations (kn, gn, wr). Haplology is another common phenomenon that attests to evolution towards more economic forms: simp(le)ly, Eng(la)land; cont(re)rôle, ido(lo)lâtrie. Some striking evidence in favour of the general trend to shorter forms are augustum (lat.) – août (fr.); Inlaford (Old English) – laverd (Middle English) – lord (Modern English); occulum (lat.) – occhio (it.) – oeil (fr.), ojo (sp.); habaidedeima (Gothic) – had (English). In grammar, the ‘survival of the fittest forms’ favours the loss of case and number marking, elimination of gender and greater analyticity in syntax. Thus, modern Indo-European languages contain shorter forms (require less muscular and articulatory effort) with fewer variants (advantage for memorization), a more regular and more analytic syntax (increased flexibility), elimination of the concord (loss of redundancy, economic advantage) and a regular word order (clarity). This shows the path to follow for the construction of an IAL with good chances to survive and become rapidly global.

References

Couturat, Louis 1906. Pour la Langue Internationale. Coulommiers: Imprimerie Paul Brodard.

Couturat, Louis 1911. “Des rapports de la Logique et de la Linguistique dans le Problème de la Langue Internationale”. Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 19 (4), pp. 509-516.

Couturat, Louis & Léau, Léopold 1903. Histoire de la Langue Universelle. Paris: Hachette.

Jespersen, Otto 1922. Language. Its Nature, Development and Origin. London: Allen & Unwin.

Jespersen, Otto 1929. “Nature and Art in Language”. Reprinted in Jespersen 1960.

Jespersen, Otto 1949. “Efficiency in Linguistic Change”. Reprinted in Jespersen 1960.

Jespersen, Otto 1960. Selected Writings of Otto Jespersen. London: Allen & Unwin.

Meillet, Antoine 1926. Linguistique Historique et Linguistique Générale. Paris: H. Champion.

Schleyer, Johann Martin 1879. Die Weltsprache. Entwurf einer Universalsprache für alle Gebildete der ganzen Erde. Litzelstetten. Available at http://www.onb.ac.at/sammlungen/plansprachen/fruehdrucke.htm

Tauli, Valter 1968. Introduction to a Theory of Language Planning. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.

Zamenhof 1906. Aspirations of the Founder of Esperanto. Dr. Zamenhof’s Address to the Second Esperanto Congress. https://archive.org/details/jstor-25105718

How to cite this post:

Aray, Başak. 2014. Empirical methods in language construction. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2014/03/26/empirical-methods-in-language-construction

Ana Balderas García
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

El quehacer lingüístico en México se remonta al encuentro entre culturas que se dio en el siglo XVI. La imperiosa necesidad de convertir a los nativos al cristianismo, llevando el desconocimiento de las lenguas de éstos a cuestas, dio como resultado que los religiosos comenzaran a internarse en el análisis sistemático del náhuatl, tarasco, totonaca, zapoteco, etc. Así, las gramáticas y vocabularios hacen su aparición abriendo paso al conocimiento de nuevos sistemas comunicativos y, por ende, a paradigmas culturales inimaginables.

Arte en lengua zapoteca de fray Juan de Córdova
1578

Vocabulario de la lengua mexicana y castellana de fray Andrés de Olmos 1547

Arte de la lengua de Michuacán de fray Maturino Gilberti
1558

En la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, se da un fructífero avance en el estudio que nos compete. Representado por Manuel Orozco y Berra, Joaquín García Icazbalceta, Francisco Pimentel, José Fernando Ramírez y Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, las obras gramaticales y lexicográficas surgidas en aras de la conquista espiritual fueron consideradas de valor incalculable para poder resolver los enigmas que muchos de los especialistas de la historia mexicana tenían que enfrentar. Por lo tanto, se da un proceso de reimpresión importante constituido por las obras de Andrés de Olmos, Horacio Carochi, Antonio del Rincón, Alonso de Molina, Agustín de Vetancurt, entre otros. Así, la cuantiosa variedad de trabajos abocados a la Historiografía se entrecruza, nuevamente, con la Ciencia del Lenguaje.

Sin embargo, será en el siglo XX cuando se afiance una apertura inamovible en cuanto a los estudios lingüísticos se refiere y que evidentemente se proyecta, con gran ímpetu, hasta la actualidad. El periodo de entre 1980 y 1996 se considera, por algunos historiógrafos, como el “boom” de esta disciplina en México que fue configurándose diez años antes con Robins, y posteriormente con Sampson y Matthews en Europa.

En la etapa contemporánea, encontramos a LINGMEX (Bibliografía lingüística de México)[1] una base de datos en línea que se creó en el 2005, pero con antecedentes desde 1970. Da cuenta de la investigación que se hace sobre la lingüística mexicana, a partir de la difusión de información bibliográfica, tomando en cuenta a los autores de los estudios y las áreas.

Dentro de los ámbitos más cultivados por la Historiografía Lingüística mexicana, que han sido atendidos por LINGMEX, tenemos:

• Edición de obras coloniales y estudio de las ideas lingüísticas incorporadas.
• Historia de las políticas lingüísticas con relación a los hablantes indígenas.
• Historia de las lenguas originarias.

Ahora bien, con el objetivo de propiciar la investigación en dicha área, en el año 2000 se crea la Sociedad Mexicana de Historiografía Lingüística A.C. (SOMEHIL)[2]. Organizar una serie de eventos como congresos, conferencias, seminarios, etc.; establecer relaciones con asociaciones similares a nivel nacional o internacional, e impulsar la publicación de diversos materiales para dar a conocer los estudios de Historiografía Lingüística y Filología, son sólo algunos de sus objetivos.[3]

La lista de estudiosos dedicados actualmente al quehacer historiográfico en el contexto de la lingüística en México, la encabezan, en el caso de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México del Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, Ascensión Hernández que sacó a la luz dos tomos de una obra denominada Tepuztlahcuilolli, impresos en náhuatl: historia y bibliografía (1988). Además, junto con Miguel León-Portilla, editó el Arte de la Lengua Mexicana (2002) de fray Andrés de Olmos, la primera gramática dedicada a una lengua indígena del continente americano. En dicho trabajo se presenta un estudio introductorio, la transliteración y una serie de útiles notas que facilitan el acceso a la obra del fraile.

Por otra parte, Pilar Máynez de la Facultad de Estudios Superiores Acatlán, ha trabajado con los cronistas, especialmente con fray Bernardino de Sahagún. En su obra El calepino de Sahagún. Un acercamiento (2002), los términos nahuas empleados por el franciscano en la columna en castellano del Códice Florentino son su objeto de estudio. Desde hace dos años y medio coordina el Seminario permanente de Historiografía Lingüística que responde a la creciente importancia que ha adquirido dentro de la institución mencionada. Cabe señalar que los frutos iniciales de dicho seminario fueron expuestos en las denominadas “Primeras Jornadas de Historiografía Lingüística” realizadas en el 2013.

La notable actividad humanística de Ignacio Guzmán Betancourt que abarca el quehacer lingüístico, se suma a este recorrido. Adscrito al Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, dedicó sus trabajos al siglo XIX, principalmente. Ejemplo de ello es la investigación que realizó sobre la vida y obra de fray Manuel de San Juan Crisóstomo Nájera a quien denominó el primer lingüista mexicano (Máynez 2011:35-40). Además, su obra Bibliografía sobre historiografía lingüística y filología de las lenguas amerindias (2000),así como la edición de obras como las crónicas de Andrés Pérez de Ribas en 1992, conforman el vasto arsenal de sus trabajos lingüísticos, filológicos, históricos y antropológicos.

Thomas Smith, investigador del Colegio de México, realizó la edición, junto con Yolanda Lastra, del Vocabulario trilingüe español-náhuatl-otomí (1605) de fray Alonso Urbano. En su momento dirigió el proyecto Biblioteca Novohispana de Lenguas Indígenas en el que se editaron variadas obras de dicha época.

En el caso de la Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia encontramos a Bárbara Cifuentes con su obra Lenguas para un pasado, huellas de una nación. Los estudios sobre lenguas indígenas en México en el siglo XIX (2002), en la que permite un acercamiento a autores que, movidos por el contexto cultural y científico del momento, mostraron interés en el estudio de las lenguas indomexicanas en el ámbito propio del comparatismo de la época. Figura emblemática de este periodo fue Francisco Pimentel quien con su Cuadro descriptivo y comparativo de las lenguas indígenas de México o tratado de filología mexicana (1862) permite un conocimiento práctico de las lenguas a través de la descripción, la comparación y la crítica.

Lenguas indígenas en el México Decimonónico. Ecos, pregones y contrapuntos (2013) es una de las obras más recientes de Frida Villavicencio, investigadora del Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, quien ha realizado trabajos lingüísticos de las lenguas indígenas desde un enfoque diacrónico, tomando en consideración, por ejemplo, las políticas lingüísticas, la inequidad social, la diversidad cultural, etc.

De la Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara encontramos a Rosa Yáñez, quien se ha centrado en la reconstrucción de las lenguas que se mantuvieron en contacto durante el siglo XVI en la parte occidental mexicana, esto a partir de la revisión de los textos generados en la etapa novohispana. Una de sus obras más representativas es Guerra espiritual y resistencia indígena. El discurso de evangelización en el obispado de Guadalajara (2002).

Resulta de gran importancia hacer notar que el interés por la Historiografía Lingüística de México se ha proyectado hacia el extranjero. Ejemplo de ello es el trabajo de Esther Hernández del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, quien ha realizado una serie de trabajos con esa línea. En su obra Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana de fray Alonso de Molina. Estudio de los indigenismos léxicos y registro de las voces españolas internas (1996)analiza, a través de la revisión de varias ediciones de dicho trabajo lexicográfico, el vocabulario del español y atiende principalmente a la vitalidad de los nahuatlismos incorporados a esa lengua.

Finalmente, como se ha podido observar a través de este somero recorrido, la Historiografía Mexicana enmarcada en la Ciencia del Lenguaje, resulta ser un campo fértil que ha permitido un acercamiento importante al conocimiento de las ideas y teorías lingüísticas plasmadas a lo largo del tiempo y, en consecuencia, a la comprensión del español y las lenguas indígenas en el México de hoy.

Bibliografía

Barriga Villanueva, Rebeca (coord.), con la colaboración de Hermelinda Mendoza Filio. 2013. Lingmex: Bibliografía Lingüística de México desde 1970. 14a. ed. El Colegio de México. Disponible en: http://lingmex.colmex.mx/, (30 de enero, 2014).

Barriga Villanueva, Rebeca y Parodi Claudia. 1998. La lingüística en México 1980-1996. México: El Colegio de México.

Cifuentes, Bárbara. 2002. Lenguas para un pasado, huellas de una nación. Los estudios sobre lenguas indígenas en México en el siglo XIX. México: CONACULTA, INAH y Plaza y Valdés.

Guzmán Betancourt, Ignacio. 2000. Bibliografía sobre historiografía lingüística y filología de las lenguas amerindias. México: CONACULTA/ INAH.

Guzmán Betancourt, Ignacio. 1994. “Para una historia de la historiografía lingüística mexicana”. Dimensión Antropológica, 2:95-130.

Hernández de León-Portilla, Ascensión. 1988. Tepuztlahcuilolli, impresos en náhuatl: historia y bibliografía. México: UNAM.

Hernández, Esther. 1996. Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana de fray Alonso de Molina. Estudio de los indigenismos léxicos y registro de las voces españolas internas. Madrid: CSIC, Colección Biblioteca de Filología Hispánica.

Lope Blanch, Juan. 2004. “De historiografía lingüística mexicana”. En De historiografía lingüística e historia de las lenguas. Ignacio Guzmán, Pilar Máynez y Ascensión Hernández (coords.). México: Siglo XXI y UNAM.

Máynez Vidal, Pilar. 2002. El calepino de Sahagún. Un acercamiento. México: UNAM/ENEP Acatlán y FCE.

Máynez Vidal, Pilar. 2011. “Ignacio Guzmán Betancourt. Su labor en el ámbito de la historiografía lingüística mexicana”. En Homenaje a Ignacio Guzmán Betancourt (1948-2003). Pérez Luna, Julio (coord.) México: INAH.

Pérez de Ribas, Andrés. 1992. Historia de los triunfos de nuestra santa fe entre gentes las más bárbaras y fieras del nuevo orbe. México: Siglo XXI (Serie los Once Ríos).

Pimentel, Francisco. 1862. Cuadro descriptivo y comparativo de las lenguas indígenas de México o tratado de filología mexicana, 2 tomos. México: Imprenta de Andrade y Escalante.

Olmos, Andrés de. 2002. Arte de la Lengua Mexicana. México: UNAM.

Urbano, Alonso. 2000. Vocabulario trilingüe español-náhuatl-otomí (1605).Thomas Smith, Yolanda Lastra, et al. México: Biblioteca Novohispana de Lenguas Indígenas, Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos y Literarios, COLMEX.

Villavicencio, Frida. 2013. Lenguas indígenas en el México Decimonónico. Ecos, pregones y contrapuntos. México: CIESAS.

Yáñez, Rosa. 2002. Guerra espiritual y resistencia indígena. El discurso de evangelización en el obispado de Guadalajara: Guadalajara: UAG.

[1] Véase: http://lingmex.colmex.mx/

[2] Desde sus orígenes, esta Sociedad contó con el apoyo de varias instituciones, entre las que están, el Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas de la UNAM, la Dirección de Lingüística del INAH y el Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos y Literarios del Colegio de México.

[3] En el año 2000 se celebró  el Primer Congreso de Historiografía Lingüística. Así mismo, se han organizado cuatro encuentros internacionales, el último en mayo del 2011.

How to cite this post:

Balderas García, Ana. 2014. La historiografía mexicana en el contexto de los estudios lingüísticos actuales. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2014/04/09/la-historiografia-mexicana-en-el-contexto-de-los-estudios-linguisticos-actuales-4

Society for the History of Linguistics in the Pacific SHLP4

The fourth biennial conference of the Society for the History of Linguistics in the Pacific will take place in Alice Springs, Australia, 22-23 September 2014.

Papers on any aspect of the history of linguistics are welcome, especially those relating to the history of linguistics in Australia and the Pacific. Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to David Moore (moored03@bigpond.com) by 31 July.

Piers Kelly
Australian National University

Describing the preeminent Filipino national hero Dr. Jose Rizal as a linguist is a little like referring to Thomas Jefferson as a horticulturalist. The statement may be true, but the many other talents that Rizal developed in his short life have tended to overshadow his extraordinary flair for language. After all, it was not for his linguistic achievements that his statue stands in every town plaza of the Philippines, nor was it the motive for his execution at the hands of Spanish authorities in 1896. Rizal is renowned as a legendary defender of civil and democratic rights, and parenthetically as a political scientist, historian, novelist, poet, sculptor, journalist, linguist and eye surgeon. It is for this last accomplishment that he is always conventionally known as Doctor Jose Rizal (a distinction he shares with another great civil rights leader, Dr Martin Luther King).

Dr José Rizal. Source: Pinoy Etchetera

Born in 1861 to wealthy Tagalog-speaking parents in Calamba, a town situated 50 kilometres south of Manila, Rizal was to be educated in Spanish—a language that less than ten percent of native Filipinos would have access to in his lifetime.[1] In fact, it was only as late as 1863 that a royal decree mandated the establishment of a universal primary school system with Spanish as the sole medium of instruction.[2] In the linguistically diverse Philippines it was the policy of Spanish missionaries to communicate in the language of the region in which they were stationed. Educational reforms issuing from the motherland were ignored, resisted or poorly implemented since universal literacy and linguistic competence in Spanish threatened the mediating role of the friar orders.[3] For this reason, among others, the Spanish language was never to diffuse widely across the Filipino population in the same way that it did in Latin America.[4]

For elites like Rizal, Spanish was the language of power and a necessary stepping-stone to other opportunities. As a secondary student at Ateneo de Manila he would also study Latin and Ancient Greek before pursuing law and medicine at the University of Santo Tomas, an institution that is incidentally older than Harvard. In the 1880s, he left for Madrid to complete a Licentiate in Medicine and then to Heidelberg to undertake a specialisation in ophthamology. It was in Germany that he completed writing Noli me tangere (Latin: ‘Touch me not’) in 1887, a Spanish-language novel that exposed and satirised the abuses of the Catholic orders in the Philippines.[5] Of the many injustices that Rizal fought, monastic corruption was his cause célèbre. The Spanish crown had granted a handful of Catholic orders extraordinary governance powers in the Philippines, and they exerted the full extent of their influence to protect their interests against reformists. Rizal’s novel, and its 1891 sequel, was to incite more popular support for Filipino self-determination than any of his substantial political prose.[6]

After practising eye surgery in Hong Kong he returned the Philippines to found La Liga Filipina in 1892, a progressive reformist movement and mutual-aid society. An increasing aggravation to the authorities, Rizal was first exiled to the southern island of Mindanao and later arrested en route to Cuba, on charges of rebellion, sedition and conspiracy. He was to be executed by firing squad on 30 December 1896. The execution instantly became a landmark event in the Revolution that Rizal would never witness. In the final years of the century, an armed nationalist movement with assistance from US forces removed the Spanish from power. But despite having declared independence, the nationalists would have to wait another 47 years before the US administration released its grip on the islands.

Rizal’s linguistic legacy

It is easy to forget that the concept of the ‘nation’—a sovereign geographical entity whose citizens have a shared history and destiny—is a relatively new notion that only began to achieve widespread popularity in the second half of the 19th century.[7] The ideology of nationhood has been widely theorised but one of its signature innovations is the idea of a monocultural national identity, or as a slogan of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco put it: ‘One flag, one nation, one language’. For this formula to make sense national languages needed to be codified, standardised and elevated above competing varieties, allowing the multi-dialectal populations of Europe to be recast as the French-speaking French or the German-speaking Germans, and so on. Within Rizal’s lifetime, for example, there was no such thing as the ‘Italian’ language—this linguistic fiction would first need to be constructed from a minority dialect of Tuscany.

From this perspective, Rizal’s celebrated multilingualism and cosmopolitanism make him an unlikely figure of national unity. In fact, Rizal was never an advocate of Philippine independence from Spain, demanding only autonomy and fair representation in the Spanish court. What he desired most for his people was recognition. Rizal took the prevailing European narrative that Spain had brought enlightenment to a a benighted and barbaric population and turned it on its head. In his scholarship on Philippine pre-history—based largely on the chronicles of early Spanish visitors—he argued that Spain had, on the contrary, interrupted the development of a thriving network of trade and cultural exchange.[8] And while the Spanish friars considered linguistic diversity and multilingualism to be evidence of political disunity—and one among many justifications for Spanish rule—Rizal was inclined to see it as a blessing. “Man is multiplied by the number of languages he possesses and speaks,” he wrote in 1888 and he himself was a fine examplar of this ideal.[9] It is typically claimed that he was conversant in as many as twenty-two languages, namely: Spanish, French, Latin, Greek, German, Portuguese, Italian, English, Dutch, Japanese, Arabic, Swedish, Russian, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew and Sanskrit; and the local languages Malay, Chavacano, Visayan, Ilocano and Subanun. In his home town of Calamba a monument in his honour was constructed to stand twenty-two feet tall, symbolising each of these languages, but like much of the mythology surrounding Rizal, the true extent of his linguistic mastery is debatable and subject to a certain amount of inflation over time. Although he was an undeniably skilled translator of German into Tagalog, and his letters and diaries are replete with switches between languages, he himself was quick to acknowledge the limits of his own linguistic expertise.[10]

Rizal’s published linguistic scholarship makes up a small proportion of his overall oeuvre. In his political writings he used linguistic analysis to support hypotheses about the past migrations of Malay peoples and to advance revisionist historical arguments. For example, in order to challenge a recurrent Spanish claim that gambling was an indigenous vice that early Christian missions took pains to eradicate he noted that the many Tagalog terms within the semantic domain of gambling were all Spanish borrowings and were unlikely to have replaced native equivalents, suggesting that gambling was a direct Spanish import.[11] Though his inductive approach might demand more rigour from linguists today, Rizal’s treatment of borrowed vocabulary as a source of historical evidence was innovative in the Philippines at the turn of the 19th century.

Biding his time as an exile in Dapitan, on the southern island of Mindanao, Rizal wrote a sketch-grammar of Tagalog, becoming perhaps the first Filipino to produce a grammatical description of a native Philippine language.[12] Like earlier grammars of Tagalog published by missionary priests, Rizal relied on the grammatical categories of European languages to explain Tagalog structures, and his text includes multiple comparisons to Spanish, English, Latin and German. As a work of grammatical description it is unremarkable, and his cross-linguistic comparisons sometimes demonstrate a shaky analysis of European languages. However, Rizal’s accurate inventory of Tagalog phonemes and his use of a feature-based orthography of Tagalog was both groundbreaking and controversial. A few years earlier, in 1890, Rizal was already advocating the abandonment of the irregular Hispanic spelling conventions for Tagalog in which certain consistent sounds were represented with a variety of different letters depending on their adjacent vowels. Following the Spanish spelling system, /k/ might be represented with either a ‘c’ or a ‘qu’, the sound /s/ with an ‘s’ or a ‘c’, the sound /h/ with an ‘h’, ‘g’ or a ‘j’, the sound /w/ with an ‘o’ or a ‘u’ and the sound /y/ with a ‘y’ or an ‘i’. Vowels were also variable with the sound /i/ represented with ‘i’ or ‘e’ and /u/ with ‘o’ or ‘u’. Today, the old Spanish-style spellings are still seen in placenames like Cantuandes, Marinduque and Bicol, and in the titles of popular legends such as Hari-sa-Boqued (hari sa bukid, ‘The King in the Mountain’).[13]

To demonstrate just how ill-suited Spanish orthography was for writing Tagalog words, Rizal took the word katay (‘to butcher’) as an example. Using the Spanish system this would need to be spelled catai, but in its past-tense form the word was wholly recomposed as quinatai (‘butchered’). In effect, Spanish spelling rules had ‘butchered’ the morphology of Tagalog. Rizal proposed the introduction of the letters ‘k’ and ‘w’ into the Tagalog alphabet, and outlined a more consistent representation of Tagalog sounds. Thus the verb catai would be spelled katay while its past form would become kinatay, faithfully revealing the morphological structure of the word.[14]

Rizal was not the first to recommend reforms to Tagalog spelling. By his own admission he had taken inspiration from the prominent Filipino intellectuals Trinidad Pardo de Tavera and Pedro Serrano Laktaw who were already using elements of this new system. Indeed, the latter had gone so far as to revise the spelling of his own family name from ‘Lactao’ to ‘Laktaw’. But it was Rizal’s scientific formalisation of the new rules, and his existing fame as a novelist, that helped advance the reformist agenda. He was not without his opponents. While his new orthography had the effect of clarifying the sound system of Tagalog, it also disguised and indigenised Spanish loanwords. Critics writing for the Catholic Review considered the foreign letter ‘k’ to be an unpatriotically ‘German’ imposition and an affront to mother Spain. One went so far as to sign an article with the provocative pseudonym hindí aleman (Tagalog: ‘not German’).[15] Ironically perhaps, the so-called ‘foreign’ letter ‘k’ was soon to become a powerful symbol of a national and distinctly Filipino identity. The letter was emphasised in the name of the armed revolutionary movement that swept the north of the country following Rizal’s execution: the Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (Tagalog: ‘Highest and Most Honorable Society of the Children of the Nation’), or KKK. Among the various flags flown by the revolutionaries some displayed the letter K; others bore the symbol ‹ka›, resurrected from the indigenous baybayin writing system widely used in the north of the Philippines until the 18th century. Recently, the Filipino communist insurgent group known as the New People’s Army celebrated its 45th anniversary with a lightning demonstration in Quezon City, Manila, wearing bandana masks with this symbol.[16] The distinctive letter ‘k’ also found favour with a staunch nativist community of Bohol that developed its own unique writing system for recording local folklore in the early twentieth century. In the ‘Eskaya script’, as it is now known, many syllable characters ending in a /-k/ sound, bear a resemblance to that infamous ‘German’ letter.[17]

baybayin letter ‹ka›. Source: Wikipedia

New Peoples Army activists with bandanas showing the baybayin letter ‹ka›. Source: ABS-CBNnews

Eskaya letter ‹kik›, featuring ‘k’ shape. Source: Piers Kelly.

Had he lived, Rizal may well have been ambivalent about the nation-building project of creating the Tagalog-based ‘Pilipino’ language, developed and redeveloped between 1937 and 1973. As a non-nationalist cosmopolitan sympathetic to Spain, who wrote almost all of his work in Spanish, there is every reason to believe that Rizal would have preferred Spanish to live on in the Philippines and to fulfill its expected destiny as an islands-wide lingua franca.

But for all his fame as a linguist, it was Rizal’s reformulation of writing, as opposed to language, that had the most lasting influence. His new orthography of Tagalog gradually took hold in the two decades following his execution, and its basic principals have been extended to all other major languages of the Philippines. Efforts have occasionally been made to improve the orthography further, by, for example, eliminating ‘e’ and ‘o’, but these changes have not found wide acceptance. Another curious venture has been creation of the Rizalian Alphabet or ‘Abakadang Rizaleo’, by Marius V Diaz in 1994.[18] A scholar of Church history, Diaz was inspired by the writings of Rizal to establish an institute for the promotion of indigenous Filipino knowledge and spirituality. On the face of it, his Abakadang Rizaleo appears to be an imitation of the native baybayin script, a syllabic system which makes use of an inherent vowel. In reality, Diaz created a one-to-one cipher for a Roman alphabet, taking cues from the shapes of baybayin syllables and introducing new symbols to represent alphabetic letters, including stand-alone vowel characters for ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’ and ‘u’, the non-native consonants ‘f’, ‘r’, ‘v’, ‘x’ and ‘z’, the digraphs ‘sh’ and ‘th’, and common Tagalog lexemes like ang (determiner) and mga (plural marker).

The Abakadang Rizaleo in various typefaces. Source: Kristian Kabuay

The many meanings of Rizal

It is something of a cliché to assert that Dr José Rizal’s thought is as relevant as ever to the Philippine nation, but it can hardly be denied. His brilliant essay ‘On the indolence of the Filipino’, can be read as a devastatingly witty rebuke to every foreign tourist who complains about poor service or a lack of initiative amongst locals, unaware of the long shadow of colonialism they are projecting.[19] But it was his unflinching critique of the friar orders and their oppressive governance of the Philippines that continues to resonate with such force, despite the freedoms won by the Rizal-inspired independence movement. Today, outsiders may have difficulty making sense of the extraordinary interference of the Catholic church in contemporary Philippine politics, especially if they are unfamiliar with the long history of friar dominance in the islands. Although the powerful landholding monastic orders, or ‘friarocracy’ as they became known, were officially divested of their authority by the Revolution and US occupation, the Catholic church has continued to be a strong presence in civil political life. In 1956, the Church even attempted to block the teaching of Rizal’s life and works in the Philippine national curriculum, going so far as to argue against the reading, owning, selling, translation or republication of his novels.[20] More recent tensions arose on 30 September 2010 when the activist Carlos Celdran dressed himself in Rizal’s signature overcoat and hat and raised a sign with single word ‘Damaso’ during Mass in Manila Cathedral. The protest, calculated to invite a comparison between the autocratic priest Fr Damaso from Noli me tángere with the present obstructionist attitude of the Church — particularly in matters of reproductive health reform — led to his arrest on charges of “offending religious feelings”, something that Rizal was notorious for.[21]

Carlos Celdran as Dr José Rizal. Source: Filipino Scribbles.

As a non-violent moderate, Rizal is a complex figure lending himself to multiple and contradictory interpretations. It is ironic that his very moderation was to exploited by both the US authorities and the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who appealed to Rizal’s peaceful example to warn against armed resistance to their own tyranny. A confirmed secularist and advocate of science over faith, he has been reinvented as a secret Catholic by eager Filipino historians disappointed with Rizal’s apparent lack of deference to religious authority.[22] A fascinating parallel can be drawn here with the recent efforts of US conservative politicians to reinvent America’s founding fathers as uncompromising Christians, as opposed to the secular humanists they actually professed to be.

It is the fate of all great historical actors to yield to the popular imagination and to live on in alternative histories. Perhaps the greatest paradox of Rizal’s legacy is his elevation as a mystical folk hero and the agent of countless miraculous events. There are those who maintain that he is an immortal who survived his execution and is still alive and among us today.[23] Numerous religious sects, collectively known as Rizalistas or Rizalians, claim him as the incarnation of Christ.[24] One can only imagine what Rizal—whose most famous sculpture is titled ‘The Triumph of Science over Death’—would have made of his mystical mythologisation. For Rizal, the friarocracy was to be destroyed not by force of arms, but with knowledge. Access to literacy and the languages of power was a weapon against Church obscurantism and ignorance. But mystery has many applications, whether it is used as a veil to protect the interests of the powerful, or a talisman to embolden the downtrodden. Among the Filipino peasantry, who could not easily conceive of the social empowerment of universal education, Rizal’s literacy and multilingualism had other meanings. One folk story tells of how Rizal rescued a gigantic bird who rewarded him by placing a small white stone in his mouth. The stone made him instantly conversant in twenty-two languages and also granted him the ability to understand animals, the songs of birds and the hum of bees. Rizal’s magical literacy is memorialised in another tale of a miraculous book that could guide anyone in the role of a doctor: upon opening this book the written words transformed into a moving image of Dr. Rizal who issued medical advice to the reader.

Dr José Rizal still speaks to us from the page, but the content of his message will resonate in different ways depending on the spirit of the times and the needs of the reader. After all, to be “multiplied by languages” means to resist the  orthodoxy of a single view, and to enjoy the blessing of human diversity.

With thanks to the baybayinista Kristian ‘Special K’ Kabuay for access to a rare copy of the Aklat Sanayan ng Abakadang Rizaleo.

Notes

[1] United States Philippine Commission. 1905. Census of the Philippine Islands, 1903, 3 vols. Washington: Government Printing Office.

[2] Caroline S Hau and Victoria L Tinto. 2003. Language policy and ethnic relations in the Philippines. In Fighting words: Language, policy and ethnic relations in Asia, edited by M. E. Brown and Š. Ganguly. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 339

[3] Rafael, Vicente L. 1988. Contracting colonialism: Translation and Christian conversion in Tagalog society under early Spanish rule. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

[4] Ernest J Frei. 1959. The historical development of the Philippine National Language. Manila: Institute of National Language.

[5] José Rizal. [1886] 2008. Noli me tangere. Barcelona: Linkgua ediciones S.L.

[6] Megan C Thomas. 2012. Orientals, propagandists and ilustrados: Filipino scholarship and the end of Spanish colonialism. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

[7] Benedict Anderson. [1991] 2003. Imagined communities: reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing.

[8] José Rizal. 1972. Political and historical writings, vol. 7, Encarnación Alzona (trans.). Manila: National Historical Institute.

[9] José Rizal. 1889. ‘Los viajes’, La Solidaridad, 15 May.

[10] See for example, José Rizal. [1888] 1972. Ma-Yi. In Encarnación Alzona (trans.), Political and historical writings, vol. 7. Manila: National Historical Institute.

[11] José Rizal. [1890] 1972. On the indolence of the Filipinos [Sobre la indolencia de los filipinos]. In Encarnación Alzona (trans.), Political and historical writings, vol. 7. Manila: National Historical Institute.

[12] José Rizal. [1893] 1961. Nueva ortografía del lenguaje Tagalog. In Elmer Wolfenden (ed.). A re-statment of Tagalog grammar. Manila: Summer Institute of Linguistics and Institute of National Language.

[13] Resil B. Mojares. 1974. The myth of the sleeping hero: Three Philippine cases. Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society. (2) 3: 156-162

[14] Paul Morrow. 2010. ‘José Rizal and the Filipino language‘, Pilipino Express, 1 June.

[15] Op. cit. Meghan C Thomas. 2012.

[16] LLanesca T. Panti. 2014. ‘Government asks NDF for clear sign on talks‘. The Manila Times, 29 March.

[17] Piers Kelly. 2012. The word made flesh: An ethnographic history of Eskayan, a utopian language and script in the southern Philippines. Canberra: The Australian National University PhD dissertation.

[18] Marius V Diaz. 1994. Aklat sanayan ng Abakadang Rizaleo. Manila: Katipunan Gatrizal.

[19] Op. cit.

[20] John Nery. 2011. Revolutionary spirit: José Rizal in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

[21] Mark Merueñas. 2013. Church critic Carlos Celdran convicted for raising Damaso sign in cathedral. GMA News Online, 28 January.

[22] Op. cit. John Nery. 2011.

[23] Alfonso P Santos (ed.). 1974. Rizal in life and legends. Quezon City: National Book Store.

[24] Ruth Ailene Roland. 1969. The Rizalista cult in Philippine nationalism: a case history of the uses of a national hero. Michigan: New York University PhD dissertation.

How to cite this post:

Kelly, Piers. 2014. Dr José Rizal and the making of a modern linguistic Messiah. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2014/04/23/dr-jose-rizal-and-the-making-of-a-modern-linguistic-messiah

Els Elffers
University of Amsterdam

1. Introduction

In most Western European grammars, sentences such as Hurrah!, How very curious!, or Vienna is so dull! are categorized as exclamatory sentences or exclamatives. Next to declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives, exclamatives are usually regarded as a separate sentence type.

However, as a grammatical category, exclamatives are more problematic than other sentence types. More often than other sentence types, exclamatives are omitted from grammars, or they are dealt with very succinctly, and/or in a rather ambiguous way.

During the last decades, there has been a cry for more research into exclamatives. This is mainly due to a growth of interest in themes such as “language and emotion” and “the expressive function of language” (cf. e.g. Foolen 1997). Below, I will briefly discuss the history of thought about exclamatives. Special attention will be paid to some early insights into the problematic character of the category. I will argue that, despite some theoretical improvements, the category has remained problematic up until the present day. Solutions are within reach only if two long-standing ideas are given up: (i) the idea that exclamatives constitute an independent category, (ii) the idea that research of exclamatives exclusively belongs to the “language and emotion” area.

2. Where do exclamatives come from?

Exclamatives are not among the categories that can be found in the earliest Latin-oriented grammars of European vernaculars. In these 16^th and 17^th century grammars, functional sentence typologies are still lacking. However, the very idea of sentence functions was already present, if only through the general adoption of Latin modi of the verb (indicative, conjunctive, imperative). Moreover, some notion of exclamatives must have been present, because all grammars of those days deal with spelling and punctuation. Among the punctuation marks, the exclamation mark is discussed. For example, the 17^th century Dutch grammarian Leupenius claims that this wonder-teken (his Dutch equivalent of Latin nota admirationis, “mark of surprise”) has to be added after an exclamation. His 18^th century colleague Moonen applies the term “mark of complaint, joy or surprise”. He distinguishes the exclamation mark and the question mark from other punctuation marks, because they imply that sentences are pronounced “in a different tone”.[1]

Only in the course of the 19^th century did functional sentence typology become a separate subject of systematic linguistic reflection. This was mainly due to the rise of psychological linguistics, especially in Germany. The earlier view of the prototypical sentence as a the two-membered embodiment of a logical subject-predicate judgment was gradually abandoned. Sentences with quite different functions and quite different forms (especially many kinds of one-membered sentences) became focuses of interest. A question was raised, which, actually, has never disappeared from the linguistic agenda: how many and which functional sentence types should be distinguished?

In this discussion, exclamatives played their part from the very beginning, but this part was soon becoming controversial. Already around 1900, several linguists noticed the category’s problematic character; some of them refused to recognize exclamatives as a separate category. Despite these troubles, the category has been vindicated until the present day. For example, Quirk et al. (1985) distinguish exclamatory sentences on a par with declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives.

3. Problems with exclamatives

Which properties of exclamatives were thought problematic? Formal as well as semantic properties appear to play a crucial role. In the first place, there were demarcation problems: boundaries with other sentence types turned out to be unclear. I will discuss some insights into these problems in the work of, respectively, the Dutch grammarian Cornelis den Hertog (1846-1902) and the well-known German linguist Hermann Paul (1846-1921). In the second place, there were conceptual problems with the alleged “emotion-expressive” character of exclamatives. Early signals of these problems are presented by the German linguist Georg von der Gabelentz (1840-1993). I will discuss his ideas in combination with later elaborations of the issue by the Hungarian-Dutch psychologist Géza Révész (1878-1955).

3.1 Demarcation problems

3.1.1. Problems of formal demarcation. Den Hertog

In Western European languages, specific syntactic constructions can be found that are characteristic for exclamatives. For example, in English, there are exclamative constructions such as in (1)-(3), with exclamative pronouns/adverbs or with a subordinate clause structure used as a main clause:

• (1) What a devil of a name! What a fool I was!
• (2) How very curious! How fast she can run!
• (3) That he should have left without me!

Many sentences consisting of an interjection are also typically exclamative, e.g. Hurrah!, Dammit! On the other hand, however, nearly all other syntactic sentence types can be used in exclamative sentences. (4)-(6) exemplify the exclamative use of, respectively, the declarative, the interrogative and the imperative type:

• (4) He was such a terrible referee!
• (5) Isn’t Christine clever!
• (6) Sit down!

The existence of examples such as (4)-(6) has motivated some grammarians to deny the existence of a separate exclamative sentence type. Den Hertog, in his well-known grammar of Dutch (Nederlandsche Spraakkunst 1892-1896), answers to a fictional opponent who asks why he does not distinguish exclamatives: “The answer is that this would be necessary only if language would possess specific forms for such utterances. Now, this is not the case. […] An exclamation can be regarded as a special type of declarative: The Lord is great!, which can also take the shape of an interrogative: Would he do a thing like that? (Den Hertog 1903²: 16, my transl. E.E.).

3.1.2. Problems of semantic demarcation. Paul

The general view of the function of exclamatives was always that they express the speaker’s emotion. The linguist-psychologist’s Wundt’s (1832-1920) statement “Der Ausrufungssatz ist als solcher Ausdruck eines Affekts in sprachlicher Form” is a clear expression of this view (Wundt 1922⁴: 259).

Paul, however, argued against Wundt, claiming that his approach made possible the incorporation of any sentence in the class of exclamatives. Therefore: “Der Anteil des Gefühles kann keinen Einteilungsgrund für die Satzarten geben. Er kann bei jeden Satzart stark oder schwächer oder gar nicht vorhanden sein” (Paul 1920⁵: 133). Paul therefore rejects the “Ausrufungssatz” as a grammatical category.

Formal and semantic aspects of exclamatives seem to suffer from similar inadequacies: they are unable to demarcate a restricted category of sentences as exclamatives. Den Hertog’s and Paul’s views are each other’s mirror. Both reflect the basic insight that the exclamation mark, bearing its characteristic meaning, can be put after any sentence.

3.2. Conceptual problems

The assumption that the characteristic meaning of exclamatives is “expression of the speaker’s emotion” has been challenged in various ways. In the first place, the idea of emotion expression, which is mostly conceived as an involuntary behaviour-accompanying phenomenon, seems rather implausible for many exclamatives, and the idea is, moreover, incompatible with the intentional and hearer-directed conception of language use, which gradually became more and more accepted from ±1890 onwards.[2] In the second place, apart from many interjections, exclamative sentences have a propositional content that is conveyed to the hearer as well, in addition to the alleged emotion, cf. The Lord is great! We won the game!

For scholars like Wundt and Paul, the first problem does not yet exist. They still adhere to the general view that any sentence mirrors the speaker’s psychical occurrences and that these occurrences (representations, associations, apperceptions, emotions) constitute the sentence’s meaning. The second problem is clearly observed by Wundt (be it in a psychologized form). His – somewhat artificial – solution is that, in exclamatives, “wengleich auch hier jedes Wort im allgemeinen Ausdruck einer Vorstellung bleibt, doch diese nur als Erregung jener subjektiven Gemütsbewegungen wirkt” (Wundt 1922⁴: 261).

Von der Gabelentz, a linguist contemporary of Wundt and Paul, but in advance of his time in many respects, observed both problems but could not solve them. Révész, a linguistically oriented psychologist, did propose a solution, which is, however, extreme in its denial that exclamatives belong to human language.

3.2.1 Gabelentz: confusion

For Gabelentz (1901²: 317-324), exclamatives are exceptions to the general rule that speaking involves an appeal to the listener. This appeal can take the shape of a statement, a question, or a command/request. Exclamations are mentioned as the fourth category, although they lack hearer-directedness. They are uttered when speakers are under the influence of powerful feelings. Such feelings may result in crying, laughing, applauding etc., but also in exclamative language. For Gabelentz, the other three sentence types all represent subcategories of the “mittheilende Gedanke im weiteren Sinne”. Exclamatives constitute a separate category, with its own subcategories. During discussion of formal subcategories, however, boundaries are becoming fluid, because several formal types of exclamatives entirely lack the alleged absence of hearer-directedness, e.g. Brav gemacht! Käme er doch! Exclamatory imperatives, e.g. Halt!, Hut ab! and vocatives such as Polizei! are, for this very reason, classified, not as Ausrufe, but as Zurufe, and belong, therefore, to the “Mittheilungen im weiteren Sinne”. So exclamatives no longer constitute a homogeneous category.

When discussing semantic subcategories, Gabelentz goes even further in bridging the gap with other sentence types. He admits that exclamations not only express an emotion, but also its “Grund”, the propositional content. This “Grund” can take the shape of all varieties of “Mittheilungen im weiteren Sinne”, so that the two categorization schemes, initially sharply separated, turn out to overlap. Gabelentz’s honest conclusion is that, in this area, “die Kunst der Classification” is doomed to failure (Gabelentz 19012: 324).

3.2.2. Révész: (partial) banishment to extralinguistic areas

In Révész (1946), the central theme is the origin of language, and hearer-directedness is argued to be the essential feature of human language. Radicalizing recent psychological-linguistic ideas, especially those of Karl Bühler (1879-1963), Révész rejects all theories that assume a direct development of human language out of pre-linguistic expressive cries, with interjections as the first (proto-)linguistic elements. As Révész still adopts the view that primary interjections and other exclamatory expressions are purely expressive, he has to regard them as non-linguistic. He vaguely mitigates his view of interjections by saying that it does not take into account their “sekundäre Bedeutung als Sprachmittel” and their “Eingliederung in die Sprachen” (Révész 1946: 42).

What about other types of exclamation? Quite consistently, Révész does not recognize exclamatives as a functional category, next to declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives: “Der Ausruf [..]gehört […] nicht zu den Hauptfunktionen der gegenseitigen sprachlichen Verständigung. Sie stellen sprachlich symbolisierte Ausdrucksbewegungen dar, stehen mithin mit den Interjektionen auf einer Stufe.” However, not all exclamations are of this type. Others, e.g. Unerhört!, Weh mir!, Reizend!, Ach! Hallo! Hopp!, “sind bei näherer Prüfung ungezwungen einer der genannten Funktionen, meistens dem Indikativ, zuzuordnen wodurch der Indikativ einen imperativen, optativen oder interrogativen Einschlag erhält” (Révész 1946: 152). As in Gabelentz’s exposition, the category of exclamations, initially sharply demarcated, is actually broken up.

4. Later developments

The above historiographic fragments lay bare the totality of problems with exclamatives as a category. As far as I can see, these problems are still largely unsolved. As to formal demarcation, however, considerable progress was made due to the rise of intonation research, during the first half of the 20^th century. Den Hertog’s futile search for formal criteria got a new chance. Actually, Moonen’s – still vague – “different tone” was now regarded as the main criterion for characterizing the various sentence types, more powerful than morphological or syntactic criteria.[3] However, especially with respect to exclamatives, ideas about a characteristic intonation pattern turned out to be largely inadequate.[4]

Only recently, Bolinger (1989: 248-249) argued that this is not surprising, because search for one exclamatory intonation pattern is useless: “Exclamations draw impartially upon the full repertory of up-down patterns. […] What characterizes the class is not shape but range: exclamations reach for the extreme – usually higher, but sometimes lower”.

This idea of “enlargement” of existing patterns appears to be a plausible alternative for the one-pattern approach.[5] Moreover, it shows us a road out of other problems, a road not taken by Bolinger and his followers, by the way. If exclamatory sentences exhibit intonation patterns of all sentences types, be it “enlarged”, why wouldn’t it be the same with the semantics of exclamatives? This would imply that exclamatives are not a separate sentence type on a par with other types: exclamatives are declaratives, interrogatives or imperatives, be it with an “enlarged” meaning.[6] This does justice to Den Hertog’s and Paul’s observation that all sentences can be used as exclamations, but without the category being cancelled. Nor is it retained, in a contradictory way, next to declaratives etc.[7] It also does justice to Gabelentz’s observation that many exclamatives convey a propositional content, just like other sentence types. This is no longer a problem, if the exclamatory meaning is additional to the other meanings. In the same vein, Gabelentz’s and Révész’s problems resulting from the assumption of a strict emotion-expressive meaning of exclamatives disappear. Exclamatives are no longer merely emotion-expressive; they are hearer-directed declaratives, questions, and commands, with an additional emotional accent.[8]

5. Exclamatives without emotion?

However, do exclamatives indeed express the speaker’s emotion? Up to the present day this is the common belief. Recent grammars such as Quirk et al. (1985) and ANS (1997) adhere to this assumption. It can be found in specialist publications such as Bolinger (1989) and Beijer (2002). It is also presupposed in recent publications about “language and emotion” such as Foolen (1997). Only once, I met with an alternative semantic characterization of exclamatives. Klooster (2001:113, my transl. E.E.) claims that the meaning of exclamatives is “vigorously underlining the message. The function of exclamatives is intensifying”.

I am convinced that the latter alternative is the better one. Not only is it more in line with the “enlargement” idea – there is not an addition of a new element, but an intensification/enlargement of what was already there: declaration, question or command – it is also empirically more adequate. This is not the place to defend this idea extensively; I must restrict myself to some suggestive examples. In exclamatives such as Don’t forget your bag! or You may leave the hospital today! the function of the exclamatory aspect (the enlarged intonation pattern) is the enlarged appeal to the listener in terms of illocutionary force: the command/warning and the declarative message are marked as highly relevant. The emotion felt by the speaker, e.g., respectively, a fellow bus passenger and a hospital physician, is, if existent at all, not conveyed. Of course, examples can be found (e.g. We won!) in which the listener “hears” the speaker’s emotion, in this case joy. However, given the earlier examples, I feel that this is an incidental pragmatic implicature, rather than an inherent meaning of exclamatives in general.

Notes

[1] Cf. Schaars (1988: 125-129) and Ruysendaal (1989: 203).

[2] This fundamental conceptual change, which regarded psychology as well as linguistics, is discussed in Knobloch (1988: ch.4), Nerlich & Clarke (1996: 4.4) and Elffers (1999).

[3] The observation that sentences such as We won?, with a declarative syntax and an interrogative intonation pattern, function as interrogatives, was made earlier (e.g. by Den Hertog 1903²). Theoretical accounts were developed only in the 20^th century. For example, De Groot ([1965]²: 49-50) argues that the “subjective layer” (of intonation) always dominates the “objective layer”(of syntax).

[4] For example, De Groot’s ([1965]²: 39) view that the exclamative pattern has only one tonal peak proves incorrect for longer exclamative sentences (e.g. Beijer’s (2002) example What a fool I was not to think of it before!). In the Dutch grammar ANS (1997), exclamatives are not characterized in terms of a specific tone pattern but in terms of a high volume. This idea can be refuted easily. Non-exclamatives may be loud due to e.g. deafness of the listener; exclamatives may uttered very softly, e.g. when the listener is nearby and the utterance is not meant to be heard by other people (e.g. Behave yourself!, uttered by a parent during a reception).

[5] Bolinger’s idea was adopted by other researchers, cf. Beijer (2002).

[6] This idea is very much in line with the general assumption that intonation is an iconic phenomenon.

[7] Quirk et al. (1985) and ANS (1997) are grammars that exhibit this contradictory element by combining the assumptions (i) “exclamatives are a separate sentence type” and (2) “all sentences (declarative, interrogatives, commands) can be used as exclamatives (retaining their declarative etc. meaning).

[8] My view implies that sentences exhibiting one of the exclusively exclamative constructions, such as What a fool I was!, also belong to one of the other sentence types (in this example: declarative). I assume that, in cases like this, the non-existence of a non-exclamatory counterpart has to be explained in terms of the lexical and syntactic content of such sentences, which does not allow a neutral interpretation. This idea has to be elaborated further.

References

ANS 1997: Haeseryn, Walter e.a. 1997². Algemene Nederlandse spraakkunst. Groningen / Deurne: Nijhoff / Plantijn.

Beijer, Fabian. 2002. The syntax and pragmatics of exclamations and other expressive/emotional utterances. Lund University: Working Papers Linguistics 2.

Bolinger, Dwight. 1989. Intonation and its uses. Melody in grammar and discourse. London etc: Arnold.

Elffers, Els. 1999. ‘Psychological linguistics’. In: Geschichte der Sprachtheorie 4. Sprachtheorien der Neuzeit. Ed. by Peter Schmitter. Tübingen: Narr, 301- 341.

Foolen, Ad. 1997. ‘The expressive function of language. Towards a cognitive semantic approach’. In: Suzanne Niemeier & René Dirven (eds.) The language of emotions: conceptualization, expression, and theoretical foundation, 15-34. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: Benjamins.

Gabelentz, Georg van der. 1901². Die Sprachwissenschaft, ihre Aufgaben, Methoden und bisherigen Ergebnisse. (Reprint, with an introduction by E. Coseriu, 1984³). Tübingen: Narr.

Groot, A.W. de [1965]² [1949] Structurele Syntaxis. Den Haag: Servire.

Hertog, Cornelis H. den. 1903² [1892-1896]. Nederlandsche Spraakkunst. Vol.1. Amsterdam: Versluys.

Klooster, Wim. 2001. Grammatica van het hedendaags Nederlands. Een volledig overzicht. Den Haag: SDU.

Nerlich, Brigitte & David D. Clarke. 1996. Language, Action and Context. The early history of pragmatics in Europe and America, 1780-1930. Amsterdam etc.: Benjamins.

Paul, Hermann. 1920⁵[1880]. Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. Halle a. S.: Niemeyer.

Quirk, R. et al. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London & New York: Longman

Révész, G. 1946. Ursprung und Vorgeschichte der Sprache. Bern: Francke.

Ruysendaal, Els. 1989. Terminografische index op de oudste Nederlandse grammaticale werken. Amsterdam: Stichting Neerlandistiek VU.

Schaars, Frans A.M. 1988. De Nederduitsche Spraakkunst (1706) van Arnold Moonen. Wijhe: Quarto.

Wundt, Wilhelm1922⁴. Völkerpsychologie. Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte. Zweiter Band, Zweiter Teil, Die Sprache. Leipzig: Kröner.

How to cite this post:

Elffers, Els. 2014. Exclamatives: a grammatical category? History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2014/05/07/exclamatives-a-grammatical-category

Rolf Kemmler
University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro

A little more than 440 years ago, in September 1572, the Portuguese typographer João da Barreira printed the first edition of a quite elaborate grammar of the Latin language. Little did the printer as well as the author, the Madeiran Jesuit Manuel Álvares (1526-1583), know that this first print of Emmanvelis Alvari e Societate Iesv de institvtione grammatica libri tres would constitute a momentous event in modern grammar history world-wide. With hundreds of editions throughout the following centuries, this grammar would become the Latin grammar with the greatest overall editorial and grammaticographical impact of all time.

Following the establishment of the Society of Jesus in September 1540, young Manuel Álvares was one of the first generation Portuguese Jesuits, acquiring his vast knowledge of Humanist studies in the classes of the Jesuit College of Arts (Colégio das Artes) in Coimbra that had been founded in 1548. As soon as 1552, he began teaching Latin grammar in the Portuguese Jesuit Colleges in Coimbra, Lisbon and Évora, occupying several positions of importance during the following decades. As a result of the fame for his mastery of Classical Latin that he achieved during the course of his teaching activities, the Jesuit Superior Generals Diego Laínez (1512-1565) and St. Francis Borgia (1510-1572) commissioned in 1564 the elaboration of a Latin Grammar by Álvares, to be used by the Society of Jesus:

He was already old, full of infirmities, had for many years been Father Superior, when the obedience commanded him to compose the Arte de Grammatica. He confessed that at such a time he could not been given a more painful task. However, because this was the will of the obedience, he took it upon himself to dig into the grammar books and to arrange the work he had been ordered to make, that he made it so perfect and so complete, that in this genre there is neither anybody to exceed nor equal him.[1]

Although the statement about the grammarian’s age appears curious, given his approximate age of 40 years, this sketch by the seventeenth century Jesuit historiographer António Franco (1662-1732) provides us with a unique view of the development of Alvares’ grammar. Not surprisingly, the elaboration of the Latin grammar took considerable time, which lead the Jesuit Superior-General St. Francis Borgia to insist upon a more timely completion (Springhetti 1961-1962: 286-287).

The first result of these grammaticographic efforts is the publication of the grammar’s second book on Latin syntax. Under the title De Constructione octo partium orationis Emanuelis Aluaris Lusitani e Societate Iesu libellus this first edition “Nunc primum in lucem editus” was published in Venice in 1570 (Álvares 1570). In the following year, the same Venetian printer Michele Tramezzino printed a second edition entitled De constructione octo partium orationis liber, enriched “Cum explicationibus auctoris eiusdem” (Álvares 1571).

With censorship licenses dated September 9, 1572, the already mentioned editio princeps of the complete grammar entitled Emmanvelis Alvari è Societate Iesu de institutione grammatica libri tres was first published in Lisbon, from where it would obtain an awe-inspiring diffusion during the centuries to follow, not only all over Europe, but also in the Americas (Brazil, Mexico, USA) and in Asia (Japan, China). This edition clearly constitutes the beginning of the tradition of the author’s ars maior, in the sense that this edition contains the grammar’s complete text in its primitive version.

Shortly thereafter, in early 1573, Álvares published an abbreviated version of his grammar, omitting most of his erudite scholia. The latter edition constitutes the beginning of the author’s ars minor (Álvares 1573). Beginning with this version’s editio princeps, one finds the following paratext, directed by the author to his readers:

Auctor Lectori.

LIbros de Grammatica Institutione, quos nuper explanationibus illustratos edideram, compulsus sum Lector humanissime nudos ferè, ac luce priuatos, diligentiùs tamen correctos denuo foras dare: tum ne scholiorum multitudine impedirentur tyrones, tum vt eis non solùm ad diuites, sed etiam ad tenuiores, (quorum multo maior semper fuit copia) aditus pateret. Quare te etiã, atque etiam rogo, vt eorum tenuitatem, vel nuditatem potiùs boni consulas.

Vale (Álvares 1573a: [VIII]).[2]

This text is most significant, as it permits the identification of all of the grammar’s specimens that belong to the editorial tradition of the ars minor. We observe that the author complains about having been forced to publish his grammar anew, but this time without the explanatory comments of the scholia. In other words, the ars minor lacks most of the grammatical, critical or explanatory comments that are so typical of the editio princeps of the ars maior and its reprints. In the grammarian’s mind, the elimination of most of the scholia renders the three books of his grammars ‘almost nude and deprived of brightness’. However, Álvares explains that the reduction of the grammatical corpus serves ultimately to prevent the large amount of comments and the consequent high price for a book printed as an in-quarto format which might result in an intellectual or financial obstacle for beginners or poor students.

In the Latin-Portuguese grammar tradition, the importance of Álvares’ grammar lies not only in its national and international projection as a Latin grammar that had been written in Latin. Since the respective Lisbon editiones principes, even many non-Portuguese editions (almost) entirely written in Latin share as a common denominator the occurrence of the vernacular glosses in the chapter «DE VERBORVM CONIVGATIONE», as can be seen in the Portuguese equivalences for the Latin conjugation that can be fond in Álvares (1974: fols. 45 r – 45 v) and Álvares (1573: fols. 35 v – 36 r).

Given the grammar’s worldwide importance from the late 16th to the mid 20th century, it seems obvious that what seems to be a “simple” matter of bibliographical interest gets to be crucial for modern studies in Manuel Álvares’ grammar and its impact on Latin and vernacular grammar traditions.

As I already had the chance to point out on another occasion (Kemmler 2012: 516) the Italian Jesuit Emilio Springhetti (1913-1976) offers an overview of publishing countries and centuries in his famous paper “Storia e fortuna della Gramatica di Emmanuele Alvares, S. J.”, while self-consciously conceding the following concerning the origins of his statistics (Springhetti 1961-1962: 304): «Questa statistica, compilata sul Sommervogel, op. cit. e su ricerche personali, è imperfetta e certamente suscettibile di notevole augment».[3] The Italian researcher admits to mostly having used the special bibliography of Backer / Backer / Sommervogel (1890-1916).

Given that there exist more recent attempts of a bibliographic representation of Álvares’ grammars (such as ACL 1983, LUSODAT s.d.), Springhetti’s indication of 530 editions in 22 countries seems to fall considerably short from an adequate description of the numbers of editions that must be considered in the universe of the Alvaresian Latin grammar worldwide.[4] If I were to hazard a guess based on my own studies, I would venture a preliminary estimate of something between no less than a 700 and possibly as much as a 1000 editions that may have to be considered as being part of the editorial universe of Álvares’ Latin grammar.

While there has been an increase of research on Álvares’ grammar in the last two decades, I cannot help but state that, unfortunately, many key questions related to this crucial work of worldwide grammaticography still remain unanswered. It seems paramount that current research in HoL should undertake a special effort to find and identify as great a number of editions possible, while establishing a classification and systematization of works, all the while working towards what should, one day, become a “definitive bibliography” of the Alvaresian Latin grammar and its impact on Latin and vernacular grammaticography.

Notes

[1] [Translation RK] Cf. Franco (1719: 103): «Ja era velho, cheyo de achaques, tinha por muitos annos sido superior, quando a obediencia lhe ordenou, q[ue] compuzesse a Arte de Grãmatica. Confessou, que em tal tempo se lhe naõ pudera dar occupaçam mais penosa. Com tudo por ser assim võtade da obediencia, se deu tam de veras a revolver livros gramãticos, & a dispor a obra, que se lhe mandara, q[ue] a fez tam perfeita, & cabal, que neste genero naõ sô naõ ha, quem o exceda, mas nem ainda quem o iguale.»

[2] Cf. my English translation of the paratext «The author to the reader»: «The books about the grammatical instruction that I recently have delivered, illustrated with comments, I see myself obliged, oh most humane reader, to publish them again almost nude and deprived of brightness – although rigorously reviewed –, with the purpose of, firstly, not embarrassing the beginners by the multitude of scholia, and secondly, that with them the access might not only be possible to the rich, but also to the humblest (of which there was always much greater number). Therefore, I beg you earnestly to esteem as good their humility and nakedness. Farewell».

[3] [Translation RK:] «This statistic, compiled on the basis of Sommervogel, op. cit. and on personal research, is imperfect and certainly susceptible of a noteworthy increase».

[4] Indeed, one should correct this number to 532, as there seems to be a mistake in the addition of the editions by Springhetti (1961-1962: 304).

References

ACL (1983) = Academia das Ciências de Lisboa. 1983. Bibliografia Geral Portuguesa: Volume III, Século XVI. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda.

Álvares, Manuel. ¹1570. De Constructione octo partium orationis Emanuelis Aluaris Lusitani e Societate Iesu libellus: Nunc primum in lucem editus. Venetiis: Apud Michaelem Tramezinum.

Álvares, Manuel. ²1571. De Constructione octo partium orationis liber Emanvelis Alvari Lvsitani e Societate Iesv: Cum explicationibus auctoris eiusdem. Venetiis: Apud Michaelem Tramezinum.

Álvares, Manuel. ¹1572. Emmanvelis Alvari è Societate Iesv de institvtione grammatica libri tres. Olysippone: Excudebat Ioannes Barrerius.

Álvares, Manuel. ¹1573. Emmanvelis Alvari è Societate Iesv de institvtione grammatica libri tres. Olysippone: Excudebat Ioannes Barrerius.

Álvares, Manuel. 1974. Gramática Latina: Fac-símile da edição de 1572. com introdução do Dr. J[osé] Pereira da Costa, Funchal: Junta Geral do Distrito Autónomo do Funchal.

Backer, Augustin de / Backer, Aloys de / Sommervogel, Carlos. ²1890-1916. Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus: Première Partie: Bibliographie. 9 vols. Bruxelles; Paris: Oscar Schepens; Alphonse Picard, CD-ROM, Paris: LACF éditions, ISBN 9-782-354-9800-2-3, 2011.

Franco, António. 1719. Imagem da Virtude em o Noviciado da Companhia de Jesus no Real Collegio de Jesus de Coimbra em Portugal: Na qual se contem as vidas, & sanctas mortes de muitos homens de grande Virtude; que naquella Sancta caza se criaram. Primeiro Tomo, Evora: Na Officina da Universidade.

Kemmler, Rolf (2012): “La participación personal del gramático Manuel Álvares en la difusión de los De institutione grammatica libri tres en España”. Battaner Moro, Elena / Calvo Fernández, Vicente / Peña, Palma (eds.). 2012. Historiografía lingüística: líneas actuales de investigación, vol. II. Münster: Nodus Publikationen, 512-524.

LUSODAT (s.d.) = «Padre Manuel Álvares – Gramática – edições completas ou parciais». http://www.ghtc.usp.br/server/Lusodat/pri/02/pri02145.htm (last access: May 20, 2014).

Schäfer-Prieß, Barbara. 2011. “Os modos verbais nas gramáticas latino-portuguesas de Manuel Álvares (1572) e Bento Pereira (1672)”. Translation by Rolf Kemmler. Revista de Letras 9 (II.ª Série, 2010), 121-153.

Springhetti, Emilio. 1961-1962. “Storia e fortuna della Gramatica di Emmanuele Alvares, S. J”. Humanitas 13-14, 283-304.

How to cite this post

Kemmler, Rolf. 2014. The Latin-Portuguese grammarian Manuel Álvares (1526-1583) and his De institvtione grammatica libri tres. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. http://hiphilangsci.net/2014/05/22/the-latin-portuguese-grammarian-manuel-alvares-1526-1583-and-his-de-institvtione-grammatica-libri-tres