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.
30
One of the striking features in modern Newari noun phrases is the wide usage of a set of affixes found in combination with the various elements that may expand a noun into an endocentric construction. At first sight such affixation would appear as a linking device by which the subordinate constituents of a noun phrase are tied to their head noun. Closer investigation, however, reveals a more complex picture which I have attempted to outline in the following paragraphs. The results of this inspection lead to the conclusion that the pattern of affixation displayed in Newari mirrors the close interaction of two converse functional principles: both the syntagmatic function of nominal determination on the one hand and a paradigmatic function – the formation of certain types of lexicalized expressions in Newari – formally tie in with each other by the application of one common technique.
67
The present article is a crosslinguistic discussion of the distinction between a word class of nouns and a word class of verbs in the UNI TYP framework of the dimension of PARTICIPATION (for a first overall sketch of PARTICIPATION see Seiler 1984). According to this framework the noun/verb-distinction (henceforth N/V-D) must be regarded as a gradable, continuous phenomenon ranging from the stage of a clear-cut distinction with no overlap to almost a non-distinction. Although there is no question that most, if not all, languages do differentiate between nouns and verbs, it is also quite apparent that the languages do so to a different degree and by different means, and that it only makes sense to use the terms "noun" and "verb" in different languages when one actually has a common functional denominator in mind (see below). After a general introduction to the notion of a noun/verb-continuum (chapter 1) the reader will be presented with a survey of languages as diverse as German. English, Russian, Hebrew, Turkish, Salish. and Tongan (see chapter 2) in support of the continuum hypothesis. In chapter 3 the facts are coordinated in an overall pattern of regularities underlying the Increase or decrease of categorical restrictions between the respective word classes. Also, chapter 3 raises the issue to what degree a N/V-D can be considered a matter of certain lexemes or a matter of the morphosyntactic environment of certain lexical units. Lastly, we shall seek for an answer to the question why it is not a necessary requirement for languages to draw a sharp distinction between a word class of nouns and a word class of verbs.
76
This is a survey of the development of the model of PARTICIPATION (P'ATION) with reference to the postulated sequence of the techniques on the dimension of P'ATION. Along with a brief explanation of the techniques this article contains a discussion of the major claims with regard to the sequence of the techniques and the possibilities of subjecting the claims to empirical verification.
57
Innerhalb der Dimension der PARTIZIPATION werden Valenz, als die minimale sprachliche Signalisierung des Vorhandenseins der RELATION der PARTIZIPATION (Seiler 1984:95) und Gerichtetheit, was wir als Orientierung bezeichnen, [...] als getrennte Techniken behandelt, die zueinander in einem implikativen Verhältnis stehen. Orientierung setzt sie VALENZ voraus, ist aber bei dieser selbst "noch nicht 'aktuell'" (ebd.101). Bei VALENZ handelt es sich um das, was "im Partizipatum selber über die Anwesenheit von Partizipanten sowohl quantitativ (Anzahl der Partizipanten) als auch qualitativ (in Bezug auf ihre strukturellen Eigenschaften so entschieden wird, daß die sprachliche Signalisierung minimal, d.h. ohne weitere Kennzeichnung insbesondere an den Partizipanten erfolgt." (Seiler 1984:97f) Ein Verb wie 'töten' beinhaltet demnach sowohl, daß zwei Partizipanten beteiligt sind, als auch, daß beide in unterschiedlicher Weise beteiligt sind. [...] [D]ie Zuordnung: Subjekt-Agens ist nicht universell vorgegeben. Eine Handlung kann als vom Agens ausgehend beschrieben werden, es kann aber auch der Patiens als Ausgangspunkt gewählt werden. [...] Die unterschiedlichen Darstellungsrichtungen bezeichnen wir im folgenden als Orientierung. [...] Den Vorgang vom Agens her darstellen heißt, diesen - syntaktisch gesehen - als zentrale Einheit des Satzes zu enkodieren, während im anderen Fall der Patiens die zentrale Einheit ist. Wir werden im folgenden die beiden unterschiedlichen Betrachtungsrichtungen als A-Orientierung bzw. O-Orientierung bezeichnen. Orientierung wird dabei als Überbegriff verwendet.
31
Ich möchte für das Folgende annehmen, daß ein Paradigmenwechse1 in den Wissenschaften sich als Wechsel der methodisch leitenden grammatischen Sätze rekonstruieren läßt. Oder mindestens möchte ich behaupten; die Betrachtung eines Paradigmenwechsels als Wechsel der grammatischen Sätze sei wenigstens bei einer Wissenschaft zwingend: bei der Linguistik. Daß die Linguistik längst keine vorparadigmatische Wissenschaft mehr ist, läßt sich bereits daran erkennen, daß sie sich stark genug fühlt, nicht abseits zu stehen, sondern ihrerseits mit einer linguistischen Definition von Wissenschaft aufzuwarten.[…] Daß es inzwischen Untersuchungen über die Sprache der Physik gibt, die linguistische Ergebnisse berücksichtigen, hat sicherlich unter anderem damit zu tun, daß die Linguistik seit der Jahrhundertwende, seit Ferdinand de Saussure, selbstbewußt und sehr vernehmlich im Chor der Wissenschaften mitgesungen hat, bisweilen so laut, daß viele Wissenschaften, besonders in der Abteilung Geisteswissenschaft, sich gezwungen sahen, die Melodie der Linguistik zu übernehmen, wenn anders sie nicht gänzlich übertönt werden wollten. In dieser Situation ist es also auch für andere Wissenschaften von einigem Interesse, davon Kenntnis zu nehmen, daß in der kräftigen Stimme der Linguistik ziemlich genau um das Jahr 1957 ein etwas abrupter Melodiewechsel nicht zu überhören war: Noam Chomskys Buch 'Syntactic Structures' kündigte weiteren Kreisen eine wissenschaftliche Revolution, ein neues Paradigma an. Das heißt […], daß die Wissenschaft der Grammatik, die ja insgesamt nur aus grammatischen Sätzen besteht, das System ihrer methodologischen, […] rein-grammatischen Sätze gegenüber ihren empirisch-grammatischen Sätzen über einzelne Sprachen gründlich veränderte. Der Linguist würde sagen: die Vorstellung von den linguistischen Universalien änderte sich radikal gegenüber derjenigen, die in dem paradigmatischen Lehrbuch der strukturalistischen Epoche entwickelt worden war, dem Cours de linguistique generale Saussures von 1916. Diese Revolution vom Jahre 1957 möchte ich nun zum Gegenstand einer näheren Betrachtung machen.
59
Ausgangspunkt dieses Beitrags ist die Beobachtung (cf. Seiler 1984), daß komplexe Sätze, insbesondere Komplementsätze, einerseits die Dimension PARTIZIPATION 'abschließen', andererseits aber auch über sie hinausgehen. Hier treffen offensichtlich zwei Dimensionen (im Sinne von UNITYP) aufeinander: die Dimension der PARTIZIPATION einerseits und die Dimension der NEKTION andererseits, deren generelle Funktion etwa bestimmt werden könnte als die sprachliche Darstellung von Relationen zwischen Sachverhalten bzw. Propositionen (bzw. den entsprechenden Konzeptualisierungen der Relationen zwischen Sachverhalten). Die 'Nahtstelle' zwischen den beiden Dimensionen soll hier anhand von einigen Beispielen aus dem Baskischen diskutiert werden.
47
The approach outlined in the present paper is based on observations made with African languages. Although the 1000-odd African languages display a remarkable extent of structural variation, there are certain structures that do not seem to occur in Africa. Thus, to our knowledge, an African language having anything that could be called an ergative case or a numeral classifier system has not been discovered so far. It may turn out that our approach can, in a modified form, be made applicable to languages outside Africa. This , however, is a possibility that has not been considered here. The present approach is based essentially on diachronic findings in that it uses observations on language evolution in order to account for structural differences between languages. Thus, it has double potential: apart from describing and explaining typological diversity it can also be material to reconstructing language history.
42
In this study I want to show, above all, that the linguistic expression of POSSESSION is not a given but represents a problem to be solved by the human mind. We must recognize from the outset that linguistic POSSESSION presupposes conceptual or notional POSSESSION, and I shall say more about the latter in Chapter 3. Certain varieties of linguistic structures in the particular languages are united by the fact that they serve the common purpose of expressing notional POS SESSION. But this cannot be their sole common denominator. How would we otherwise be able to recognize, to understand, to learn and to translate a particular linguistic structure as representing POSSESSION? There must be a properly linguistic common denominator, an invariant, that makes this possible. The invariant must be present both within a particular language and in cross-language comparison. What is the nature of such an invariant? As I intend to show, it consists in operational programs and functional principles corresponding to the purpose of expressing notional POSSESSION. The structures of possessivity which we find in the languages of the world represent the traces of these operations, and from the traces it becomes possible to reconstruct stepwise the operations and functions.
44
Possessive constructions are grammatical constructions which contain two nominals and express that the referent of one of these nominals belongs to the other. The kind of relationship denoted by possessive constructions is not only that of ownership (1), as the term "possessive" might suggest, but also that of kinship (2), bodypart relationship (3), part/whole relationship (4) and similar relationships [...]. The following investigation will start with possessive constructions on phrase level, i.e. possessive phrases, and then deal with possessive constructions on clause level.
43
The basic question is whether POSSESSOR and POSSESSUM are on the same level as the roles of VALENCE, two additional roles as it were. My research on POSSESSION has shown (Seiler 1981:7 ff.) that this is not the case, that there is a difference in principle between POSSESSION and VALENCE. However, there are multiple interactions between the two domains, and these interactions shall constitute the object of the following inquiry. It is hoped that this will contribute to a better understanding both of POSSESSION and of VALENCE.