Arbeiten des Kölner Universalien-Projekts : akup
Institut für Sprachwissenschaft, Universität zu Köln. Hrsg. der Reihe: H. Seiler
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66
Ziel dieser Arbeit ist eine möglichst ausführliche Bestandsaufnahme der ganzen "Bandbreite" (in später zu erläuterndem Sinne) kausativer Konstruktionen im Arabischen […]. Es versteht sich, daß die Darstellung eines solchen Gesamtspektrums auch die These und das Zugrundeliegen eines formalen wie inhaltlich funktionalen Gesamt- Z u s a m m e n h a n g s impliziert, ohne den sie ihren Sinn verlöre. Der formale Ordnungszusammenhang ist durch die variierende Komplexität der Ausdrucksmittel gegeben (hier bezogen auf den Ausdruck der kausativen Gesamtsituation) und in erster Annäherung aus dem Inhaltsverzeichnis der Arbeit ersichtlich; dies soll besagen: Die Präsentationsweise der verschiedenen Arten kausativer Konstruktionen richtet sich zunächst nach empirisch näherliegenden Entitäten, den grammatischen Strukturen. Funktionale Korrelate und Übergänge sollen im Zuge der Arbeit sukzessive eingeführt und erläutert werden. Zu den Übergangszonen gehören solche, die als kausationsintern zu betrachten sind (und verschiedene Ausprägungen von Kausation bzw. ihren konstitutiven Parametern betreffen […]) und solche, in denen marginal Kausativierung stattfindet, dementsprechend aber gleichzeitig "angrenzende" Funktionen in den Blick kommen […].
60
Als eine der grundlegenden Systematisierungen im Bereich der Kausativität und damit – aus der Sicht des Kölner Universalienprojekts – der Technik KAUSATIVIERUNG – hat sich meines Erachtens die von Comrie (1981:165ff) eingeführte – und von H. Seiler wiederaufgenommene (1984:67) – und als Kontinuum angeordnete, Dreiteilung in analytische (= periphrastische), morphologische und lexikalische Bildungen erwiesen. Im Mittelpunkt des folgenden Aufsatzes steht der Versuch, im Tagalog, der wichtigsten philippinischen Sprache, diese drei Erscheinungsformen der Kausativierung zu untersuchen und systematisch aufeinander zu beziehen. Dabei ist von besonderer Relevanz, daß in diesem Zusammenhang der semanto-syntaktischen Eigenheit des Tagalog als Vertreter des aktiscischen Sprachbaus wesentliche Bedeutung zukommt. Weiterhin ist zu berücksichtigen, daß aus der Sich der Gesamtdimension PARTIZIPATION Phänomene aus anderen Techniken (z .B. aus der TRANSITIVIERUNG) nicht unerwähnt bleiben dürfen. Auf diese Weise führt die vorliegende Arbeit letztlich dazu, Zusammenhänge zwischen TRANSITIVIERUNG und KAUSATIVIERUNG in Form von kontinuierlichen Übergängen aufzuzeigen.
73
Le but principal de notre essai est de poser des problèmes. En résumé de ce qui a été proposé jusqu'ici, ces problemes peuvent être formulés comme suit : 1. Comment le principe de l'iconicité intervient-il dans la tâche de la représentation de nos conceptualisations par les moyens de la langue ? 2. Quelle est la place de l'iconicité dans le cadre d'un modele dimensionnel qui réunit les trois modes de représentation que Peirce a dénommés "icon", "index", "symbol" ? 3. Quelle est 1a fonction de l'iconicité et quels sont les facteurs qui font alterner l'iconicité prédominante avec la prédominance de chacun des deux autres modes de représentation ? Certes, ces problèmes sont de portée très générale et de solution difficile. Il ne peut s'agir ici de donner des solutions définitives, mais plutôt de montrer la direction vers où s'orienter.
65
The aim of this contribution is to embed the question of an antinomy between "integral" vs. "partial typology", inscribed as the topic of this plenary session, into the comprehensive framework of the dimensional model of the research group on language universals and typology (UNITYP). In this introductory section I shall evoke some cardinal points in the theory of linguistic typology, as viewed "from outside", viz. on the basis of striking parallelisms with psychological typology. Section 2 will permit a brief look on the dimensional model of UNITYP. In section 3 I shall present an illustration of a typological treatment on the basis of one particular dimension. In section 4 I shall draw some conclusions with special reference to the "integral vs. partial" antinomy.
18
Actually, the title should include intralinguistic variation along with the interlinguistic one. For variation within one and the same language is the thing which directly presents itself to the observation while it still remains to be demonstrated that phenomena in different languages can be regarded as variants to be assigned to one and the same invariant principle. There are two senses in which the terms of variant, variation are used in the following remarks: one, which has just been mentioned, concerns the assignment of variants to some definite invariant. The other implies the possibility of gradient transitions and opposes the notions of discreteness and of yes-or-no. I shall not try here to reconcile these two senses and I trust that what I intend to show will become intelligible nevertheless. Henri Delacroix (1924:126f) has reformulated an old hypothesis which seems worth exploring in connection with the search for language universals: "Une langue est une variation historique sur le grand thème humain du langage." It remains to be seen what "le grand thème" or rather "les grands thèmes" are about and what particular language-specific properties could be shown to be variants of one and the same theme. One such major theme which we shall now investigate is the interrelation between, on one side, a word or a sequence of words, and, on the other, a sentence. As this for us is not only a syntactic but also a semantic problem, we might rephrase the anti thesis as that between a term or sequence of terms and a proposition. Two alternative views on the nature of this interrelation seem conceivable: A. The interrelation is yes-or-no, i. e. an element or a string of elements either constitutes a term (sequence of terms) or a proposition. B. The interrelation is of gradient nature, i. e. we find intermediary stages. Both alternatives are appropriate, but under different circumstances.
82
Why should we engage in language universals research and language typology? What do we want to explain? It is a fact that, although languages differ significantly and considerably. indeed, no one would deny, that they have something in common; how else could they be labelled 'language'? - There is obviously unity among them, no matter how vaguely felt and for what reasons: Scientific, practical, moral, etc. Neither diversity per se nor unity per se is what we want to explain. There is no reason whatsoever to consider either one of them as primary, and the other as derived. What we do want to explain is "equivalence in difference" – cf. our motto – which manifests itself, among others, in the translatability from one language to another, the learnability of any language, language change – which all presuppose that speakers intuitively find their way from diversity to unity. This is a highly salient property which deserves to be brought into our consciousness. Generally then, our basic goal is to explain the way in which language-specific facts are connected with a unitarian concept of language – "die Sprache" – "le langage".
56
The present paper is an attempt to describe a particular semantic domain in Thai, that of local relations, in terms of a gradual interconnection of what traditional descriptions usually regard as distinct and isolated categories. It is based on the well-known observation that isolating languages like Thai typically display a high degree of 'multifunctionality', or else of syntactic 'versatility' of very many lexical items. […] The semantic area studied in the following pages yields a clear systematic interconnection of three different categories, viz. that of nouns – as the focal instance of maximum syntactic independence –, that of verbs – as, conversely, the focal instance of maximally relational concepts –, and, as an intermediary category between these two, that of prepositions which the system lexically feeds from both these opposite ends. The examples given in the course of this paper have been obtained from published grammatical literature, from Thai texts, and from informants.
24
Using Ultan's theory of descriptivity grading as a starting point, I will attempt to capture this differential utility in terms of [...] criteria of literalness, explicitness and syntactic complexity. I will first briefly present his System and investigate some generalizations which he has proposed on the basis of his study of body part terminologies in numerous languages. I will apply his theory to nouns in this and four other semantic domains, in three North American Indian languages. I will test his generalizations and propose some new ones. I will then present an alternative system of descriptivity grading and compare the results of its application with those of Ultan's system. In the final section I will suggest another methodology for quantification. An appendix at the end of the paper lists all of the descriptive lexical items mentioned, graded according to both systems.
62
As a traditional notion of fundamental importance in linguistics and philosophy (logic), "predication" is fraught with controversial issues. It is thus difficult to delimit the scope of this paper without becoming involved in some major issue. The following distinctions seem to me to be plausible on an intuitive basis. Evidence for why they are useful and legitimate will be found in the body of the paper. The discussion will focus on morphosyntactic predication […].
28
The search for universals is a tendency which is based in the structure of human knowledge and which correlates with a complementary search for individual properties. The recurrence to universals is inherent in both classificatory and deductive knowledge. Admittingly, the attempt to classify the definitorial universals of human language hierarchically meets various difficulties. In contrast to the universals of the formal systems of logic and mathematics, the universals of human language are of a heterogeneous character. Often the relation among the universals of language is not to be determined merely as a relation of logical compatibility or implication, but, additionally, as a relation of means and end. Not everything which is logically possible according to certain basic universals of language is also realized by the languages. Beyond the logical possibilities linguistics must recognize structural, perceptual and cognitive restrictions. – Universal properties have the merit that they are, presumably, more fundamental in the language system than the mere particular properties. – One of the important discoveries of the more recent investigation in language universals is that diversities, in particular certain types of interlingual inversions and gradual distinctions in the development of a dimension, are also subject to universal laws. – As a motive for research in language universals, which is also a motive for the opposed inquiry in linguistic relativity, one must ultimately consider a psycho-sociological factor. According to the level at which one seeks identification with a gruppe (ethnocentric or anthropocentric) one will be more likely to advocate a constrative linguistics (in the broadest sense of the term) or a universal linguistics.