Grammar
Grammar
Grammar
LANGACKER
DYNAMICITY IN GRAMMAR
1. O RIENTATION
Figure 1.
ing lexical items show increasingly greater schematicity: poodle > dog >
animal > thing. The theory’s central claim is that lexicon and grammar
form a continuum consisting solely of symbolic assemblies. More specific
assemblies are traditionally assigned to lexicon, and more schematic ones
to grammar, but any particular line of demarcation would, it is claimed,
be arbitrary. All grammatical markings (‘function words’, inflections, etc.)
are attributed some kind of meaning, generally quite abstract. Grammatical
patterns (‘constructions’) reside in complex symbolic assemblies that are
partially or wholly schematic. Moreover, counter to received wisdom, it is
held that basic grammatical constructs (e.g., noun, verb, subject, object)
are susceptible to semantic characterization.
The viability of a symbolic account of grammar has been demonstrated
in a large body of published work in which classic problems of syntax
have been shown to be straightforwardly and revealingly accommodated
(e.g., Achard 1998; Israel 1996, 1998; Kumashiro 2000; Langacker 1982,
1995b; Maldonado 1992; Manney 2000; van Hoek 1995, 1997). The sym-
bolic nature of grammar can however be recognized only by adopting an
appropriate view of linguistic meaning. Required is a conceptualist se-
mantics with certain properties strongly motivated on the basis of both
semantic and grammatical evidence. For one thing, conceptualization has
to be broadly understood: it encompasses both established and novel con-
ceptions, not just intellectual ‘concepts’ but also immediate experience
(sensory, motor, kinesthetic, emotive), as well as full apprehension of the
context (physical, linguistic, social, cultural). Moreover, a conceptualist
semantics cannot be adequate without acknowledging the fundamental im-
portance of the imaginative capacities alluded to earlier. Finally, it has to
accommodate construal, i.e., our multifaceted capacity to conceive and
portray the same situation in alternate ways.
As a first illustration of construal, consider the following examples:
Figure 2.
profile (not its overall content). Admire is a verb because it profiles a par-
ticular kind of relationship, whereas admirer is a noun because it profiles
a thing.
2. DYNAMICITY
Figure 3.
correlates with (and is induced by) the order of words, it is the conceptual
ordering per se that concerns us.
An initial case, already illustrated in (1), is the direction of mental
scanning through a scene. Another example is given in Figure 3, where
T stands for processing time.
Both expressions describe exactly the same objective entity, a line. The
two linguistic encodings correspond to two different ways of accessing,
or building up to, the full conception of the situation in question. The full
conception is the same, as shown by the identity of the final configurations
at T5 . How that configuration is arrived at is nonetheless quite different,
being prompted by the contrasting expressions. In accordance with the
word order and the choice of prepositional objects, the conceptualizer
either traces a mental path starting with A and terminating at B, or does
the opposite. While the end result is the same from a truth conditional
standpoint, the path of mental access is one facet of the conceptualization
evoked by the linguistic expressions and constitutes a subtle difference in
their meanings.
Also quite apparent is the contrast between two variants of what I call
the nested locative construction:
DYNAMICITY IN GRAMMAR 13
Once again it is clear that the experiential effect is very different, despite
the identity of the objective situations described. In contrast to (4a), which
simply ascribes a location to the subject, (4b) employs a distinct concep-
tual strategy to serve its ‘presentational’ function: it first ‘sets the stage’
by directing attention to a particular spatial location. The stage being set,
it then specifies what is found in that location, thereby establishing the
subject as a new discourse participant.
The data in (5) confirms that the two sentence types are not merely
stylistic variants but do in fact contrast conceptually in the manner indi-
cated. The pronoun I refers to the speaker, who is always presupposed as
a discourse participant and therefore does not have to be introduced. Thus
(5b) is semantically infelicitous, since the presentational function of the
construction conflicts with the discourse status of the subject. The same
holds for anaphoric pronouns, e.g., it in (5c).
14 RONALD W. LANGACKER
(6)a. Upstairs, in the bedroom, in the closet, on the top shelf was his
missing camera.
b. ??On the top shelf, in the closet, in the bedroom, upstairs was his
missing camera.
The ‘zooming in’ construction is compatible with the stage setting strategy
of locative preposing. In both cases the strategy is one of first evoking an
encompassing location as a starting point for mentally accessing some-
thing found within it. On the other hand, (6b) is rather marginal, since
locative preposing and the ‘zooming out’ construction are less than fully
consistent in their conceptual dynamics. The strategy of locative preposing
is to first establish a location and then introduce a participant found within
it. By contrast, the ‘zooming out’ construction begins with the specific
location of the subject, which is subsequently expanded until an accessible
global setting has been specified (e.g., upstairs). There is a certain awk-
wardness in first evoking the specific location of a participant that has not
yet been introduced.
Contrasts in acceptability like those in (5) and (6) indicate that the
conceptual differences I am positing do in fact have grammatical con-
sequences. The alternate word orders are not merely a matter of stylistic
choice, or something that linguists can ignore. The grammatical con-
structions in question incorporate particular ways of mentally accessing a
complex situation. The conceptual ‘flow’ they embody is viewed in cogni-
tive linguistics as an inherent facet of their meanings. It is one aspect of the
construal the constructions impose on the conceptual content of particular
sentences.
I would next like to mention the pervasive tendency in language to-
ward iconicity between the form of expressions and their meaning (cf.
Givón 1991; Haiman 1983, 1985a, 1985b). Especially prevalent is icon-
icity between the order of words in a sentence and some kind of ordering
of the corresponding elements at the conceptual level. This iconicity may
be conventionally established as part of an expression’s intrinsic semantic
value, or it may just be inferred in the process of interpreting particular
expressions. Either way, the tendency for the temporal ordering of words
DYNAMICITY IN GRAMMAR 15
Figure 4.
It is clear that in both passages the events are mentally accessed in the
order presented. This is the first, essentially automatic kind of iconicity.
The second type of iconicity – correlation of this sequencing with the
actual temporal order of the events in question – is observed in (8a) but
not in (8b). Yet even in (8b) the order of event conceptions is significant.
The passage reflects the conscious strategy of taking the reader step-by-
step through the major events of this life, but in reverse order, starting from
the end and working backwards to the beginning. As shown in Figure 4b,
this strategy is counter-iconic in the sense that event time and processing
time run in opposite directions. But it is still iconic in the sense that the
sequencing of events is maintained, apart from this inversion. The same
life is portrayed, only it is mentally accessed in the opposite direction.
I take it as evident that both discourse strategies exploit the conceptual
ordering of events, as induced by their order of linguistic expression.
Examples like (8b) indicate that conceptual dynamicity – order of
conceptualization – is independent of the temporal order of the events
conceptualized. Still, event order offers itself as an obvious basis for con-
ceptual order, and it is both natural and cognitively efficient to make them
coincide. Certainly a passage like (8a) is easier to process than one like
(8b). Intuitively, in going through cases like (8b) I find myself engaging
in a reconceptualization at every stage. That is, after conceptualizing each
new event described, in the order presented, I find myself mentally scan-
ning through them in their actual temporal sequence, as a means of fixing
DYNAMICITY IN GRAMMAR 17
Figure 5.
Figure 6.
(9)a. Do you see that boat out there in the lake? There’s a duck
swimming right next to it.
b. Do you remember the surgeon we met at the party? His wife
just filed for divorce.
(10)a. the boy’s shoe, Jeff’s uncle, the cat’s paw, their lice, the baby’s
diaper, my train, Sally’s job, our problem, her enthusiasm, its
location, your candidate, the city’s destruction
b. the shoe’s boy, ∗ the paw’s cat, ∗ the diaper’s baby, ∗ the destruc-
∗
tion’s city
DYNAMICITY IN GRAMMAR 19
non-human, whole > part, concrete > abstract, visible > non-visible. They
are respectively exemplified by the metonymies in (12):
Bear in mind that these factors are only general tendencies which can be
overridden in particular circumstances. In (13), for instance, the metonymy
reverses the usual asymmetries favoring human, concrete, and visible enti-
ties. One can easily imagine, however, that in a hospital setting the surgical
procedures performed might be more accessible to the nurses than any
other information which might identify the patients who undergo them.
Figure 7.
(15)a. Sally fed the cat [before she [antecedent precedes, in main
left]. clause]
b. [Before Sally left] she fed the [antecedent precedes]
cat.
c. [Before she left] Sally fed the [antecedent in main clause]
cat.
∗
d. She fed the cat [before Sally [antecedent follows, in
left]. subordinate clause]
(17) The Linguistics Hall of Fame is across the piazza, through that
alley, over the bridge, and around the corner to the right.
The relationship between a whole and its parts constitutes another na-
tural path of access. Conceptually, a whole has priority, for a part is usually
characterized with respect to its place or function within the whole. The
whole has greater conceptual salience, in that we tend to think of the world
as comprising whole objects which can (if useful) be further analyzed into
parts, rather than consisting primarily of parts which organize themselves
into wholes. Usually we cannot even list all the parts. What are all the parts
DYNAMICITY IN GRAMMAR 25
of the human body? Or a house? Parts are often not discrete or distinct,
there may be alternate ways of dividing things up, and, since parts can
generally be divided into smaller and smaller parts, perhaps indefinitely,
it is not evident what sized elements we should even consider as basic
constituents. Nor could we necessarily even identify a part except in the
context of the whole in which it functions.
Whole-part relations often form hierarchies, as in (23). A partonomy
functions as a natural path.
(23)a. body > arm > hand > finger > knuckle
b. house > door > hinge > screw
(24)a. the knife’s blade, the tree’s roots, the professor’s beard, the
girl’s elbow, the table’s top, the house’s roof, the banana’s peel,
the tire’s tread, the dog’s tail
b. the blade’s knife, ∗ the roots’ tree, ∗ the beard’s professor, ∗ the
∗
elbow’s girl, ∗ the top’s table, ∗ the roof’s house, ∗ the peel’s
banana, ∗ the tread’s tire, ∗ the tail’s dog
What counts as a whole-part relation is locally determined. That is, the first
element of the compound can occupy any level in the hierarchy (and can
thus be a part relative to higher levels), but the second element has to be a
part with respect to it, at the next lower level. Skipping levels is generally
not permitted:
The last natural path listed in (16) pertains to what linguists call gramma-
tical relations. Linguists of many theoretical persuasions have found
reason to posit the hierarchy subject > object > other to capture the relative
accessibility of nominal expressions for grammatical purposes. That is,
subjects play a role in more grammatical phenomena than do objects, ob-
jects more than obliques, and so on. Across languages, for instance, verbs
agree with their subjects more often than with their objects, and seldom
agree with anything else. Or consider relative clauses (Keenan and Comne
1977). It is usually possible for the subject of a relative clause to be rela-
tivized, i.e., to be the element interpreted as coreferential to the modified
nominal; often it is realized as a relative pronoun, as in (27a). There are
somewhat fewer languages in which an object can also be relativized, as
in (27b), and considerably fewer allowing the relativization of obliques or
possessors:
only one participant – the relation holds, not between two distinct entities,
but rather between facets of a single entity.) But what exactly does it mean
to characterize a nominal element as a primary or secondary focal par-
ticipant? Let me suggest a working hypothesis that seems quite plausible
given the central importance to linguistic structure of dynamicity and paths
of mental access.
A relationship cannot be conceptualized without conceiving (at least
schematically) of its central participants. A relational conception (e.g.,
throw, above, admire) presupposes the conception of its participants –
without participants to ‘anchor’ the relationship, there is nothing to relate.
By virtue of providing mental access to the conception of a relationship,
the participants function as reference points with respect to it. The parti-
cipants corresponding to the subject and object nominals are hypothesized
to be the first and second reference points in a chain whose target is the full
conceptualization of the profiled relationship. Their role as first and second
reference points on this path of mental access constitutes the primary and
secondary focal prominence characteristic of subject and object status.
I will mention just in passing that Chafe has reached a similar conclu-
sion about the characterization of subjects based on his careful investiga-
tion of discourse phenomena: “. . . The function of a grammatical subject is
to express a starting point to which other information is added” (1994: 92).
There is a considerable amount of additional evidence for the characteriz-
ation of subject and object status in terms of focal prominence, as well
as the explication of this prominence in terms of dynamicity (sequenced
mental access). Here I can only sketch a portion of it (for fuller discussion,
see Langacker 1998a, b, 1999a).
A certain amount of experimental work, carried out by other investi-
gators for other purposes, can be cited as bearing on the issue. The most
directly relevant is a series of experiments which examined how syntactic
production is affected by the focusing of attention on a single participant
in an observed interaction (Tomlin 1995, 1997; Forrest 1996). It was hypo-
thesized that a speaker would choose, as the syntactic subject of a sentence
produced to describe the interaction, the participant in focal attention at
the time of utterance formulation. The strong empirical confirmation this
hypothesis received can be interpreted as supporting the proposed char-
acterization of subject as primary focal participant. Other investigators
have found that, under certain conditions, the agent in an interaction is
mentally accessed more rapidly than the patient (Verfaillie and Daems
1996). They relate this to two linguistic observations: that an agent is
prototypically chosen as grammatical subject, and the overwhelming ten-
dency in the world’s languages for the subject to precede the object in the
28 RONALD W. LANGACKER
clause (but not conversely), and the object for all other nominals except
the subject.
Although both sentences in (30) identify the same two nominal referents,
they are not semantically equivalent. They would be appropriate in dif-
ferent discourse contexts. Thus (30a) would be used in a context where
the uncle is the topic of discussion, and (30b) when the mayor is being
discussed. This goes along with Chafe’s description of a subject as the
starting point for accessing the information presented in a clause. In other
words, topic and subject – as reference points at two different levels of
organization – tend to coincide.
Next consider the examples in (31):
These generic statements do not refer to any particular tiger or any par-
ticular feline. In my own analysis of nominal expressions (1991, 1999c),
they profile arbitrary instances of the tiger and feline types, i.e., imagined
instances mentally evoked for the specific purpose of saying something
about the categories in question. The implication that tigers are a proper
subset of the class of felines follows, in my analysis, from this notion of
arbitrary instances together with the characterization of subject as starting
point. Sentence (31a) indicates that, if we start from an arbitrarily chosen
instance of the tiger category, it can always be equated with an instance of
the feline category. This accords with our knowledge of the world, or the
category structure normally assumed. On the other hand, (31b) indicates
that, if we start from an arbitrarily chosen instance of the feline category, it
can always be equated with an instance of the tiger category. Because this
conflicts with our knowledge of the world, the sentence is infelicitous.
6. C ONCLUSION
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