emunix.emich.edu>
Editor for this issue: T. Daniel Seely <dseelyemunix.emich.edu>
bucknell.edu>I read with interest Professor Shaumyan's comments on the relation of grammatical function to lexical meaning. I am pleased to discover that we have come to approximately the same conclusions in our research. I must, however, take issue with two of Shaumyan's contentions. First, he claims that grammatical morphemes are often fraught with semantic content. I have argued vigorously that this is not the case; that the difference between semantic and grammatical categories is sharp and clear and, if we define the terms we use in discussing morphological (functional) categories, we may tidily define how one is mapped onto the other. Consider Shaumyan's interpretation of this example: >DEVOCHK-A CHITA-ET KNIG-U >girl reads book > >`The girl reads a book' > >In the transliteration of the Russian sentence the hyphens are used to >present in a simplified form an analysis of the words into grammatical >and content morphemes. The first word consists of the content morpheme >DEVOCHK `girl' and the grammatical morpheme A. The grammatical >morpheme A denotes a bundle of grammatical meanings: 1) nominative >case and simultaneously subject, 2) feminine gender, 3) singular. So far as I can tell, the case ending -a marks 1) Nominative case 2) declension II, the first of which is a syntactic relation while the second is a purely arbitrary lexical category containing bereft of any intensional or extensional significance of any kind. It is not clear that -a denotes singularity or whether we deduce that from declension II, which is a singular lexical category (a point which I will address in the next Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics conference in May). _Devochka_ also possesses feminine natural gender but that must be deduced from the meaning of the lexical item, since _sobak-a_ 'dog', _knig-a_ 'book', and _zavodil-a_ 'busy-body', which may refer to either sex ,all contain the same ending. Therefore, when one uses a vocabulary of carefully defined terms, the semantic relevance of grammatical morphemes fades rapidly. The other claim made by Shaumyan which does not bear up to scrutiny is: >Every morpheme is a bilateral entity consisting of sign and meaning. What is the meaning of the morphemes -at and -al in terms like _dram-at-ic-al_? And, on the other hand, what bears the meaning of Agency in _cook, guide, cheat_? On the one hand this claim is not strictly true; on the other, even if it were, given the prevalence of zero (omissive) morphology, ever were this claim true, it would beg the question. Morphology has to study more than phonological realizations of grammatical functions if we are to understand grammatical categories for grammatical categories are conveyed far more often than they are phonologically expressed. Asymmetrical mapping of some kind is involved here, mapping which is not accounted for in any of the major current syntactic theories. I do agree with Shaumyan's conclusion that: >The grammatical morphemes belong in grammar, while content morphemes >belong in the lexicon. If this assumption is correct, then we must >replace the opposition GRAMMAR/SYNTAX VERSUS SEMANTICS by the >opposition GRAMMAR/SYNTAX VERSUS LEXICON. 'Lexeme-Morpheme Base Morphology', SUNY Press, 1995 is the theory of just how that works. However, in that book I demonstrate that there must be a grammatical level distinct from the lexicon, phonology, syntax, and semantics. I further demonstrate how the grammatical level, i.e. the level of morphological categories, is mapped onto the remaining four. Such mapping must be carried out by algorithms which are equivalent to the functional parameters of language. The distinction of grammatical and semantic level is evident in a long series of asymmetries between the two levels. For example, at the semantic level POSSESSION is a two-place predicate: POSSESS(XY). However, at the derivational level this function turns up in most languages in adjectives. Now, since adjectives take only one argument, in languages around the globe we find two adjective derivations, the possessional and possessive adjectives, e.g. Serbo-Croatian _brad-at brat_ 'bearded brother' vs. _brat-ov-a brad-a_ '(my) brother's beard'. The same split is found in the Genitive case where we find possessive and possessional Genitives: _the honor of the woman_ vs. _a woman of honor_. In each instance _of_ marks the Genitive, but different arguments of POSSESSION(XY) in either instance. The functions of possessivity and possessionality are marked by too many different kinds of morphology across too many different languages to ignore. We can't conclude that the suffices -ov and -at in SC and the Genitive marker in all languages are themselves semantic operators. (See LMBM for many more such examples.) If we claim that grammatical functions and lexical sense are both 'meaning', then that term itself becomes meaningless. I agree with Richard DeArmond that we need to more closely define these terms and hope that I have at least taken the first step towards such definition in LMBM and the subsequent articles and papers. However, if the definitions I suggest are as robust as they currently seem to be, lexemes are (1) only N, V, and A stems, (2) have sense and reference, (3) derive, (4) can neither be empty or nully realized, and (5) all belong to open classes. Grammatical morphemes are none of these. - RBeard - --------------------------------------------------------- Robert Beard Bucknell University Russian & Linguistics Programs Lewisburg, PA 17837 rbeardMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
zedat.fu-berlin.de>Regarding a contribution from Jack Aubert in 7.535: > I have always wondered the extent to which older movies accurately > reflect contemporary speech patterns. People in older movies seem to > speak more rapidly, but there is also something different that is hard > to put one's finger on. A kind of intensity, perhaps. Have > filmmakers simply learned to do more realistic dialog or have things > like speed and intonation of speach really changed? I believe the former is the case. Even if it is true that earlier film dialogue was not acted according to realistic turn-taking patterns (as was suggested on this discussion before), this does not mean that people didn't have their turns overlap until "Citizen Cane" came around! What a highly artificial art form early movies were is proved by the way verbal and body language interacted for a while after sound was invented: actors continued to use surreally exaggerated body movement, facial expression etc., just like they were used to from the old silent films. (Obviously, no-one would want to suggest that that is how people moved in real life in those days.) The actual amount of spoken language also continued to be noticably small (in German films at any rate, e.g. "M" and other classics from the early 1930's). It seems to have taken directors and screen-play writers quite some time to trust spoken language enough and reduce body language to a level more in accord with our idea of realism in communication. Could it be that this tradition lived on for a good while in the training and practice of many actors and directors? Torsten Leuschner (Freie Universitaet Berlin)Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue