Iconicity versus frequency in explaining grammatical asymmetries
MARTIN HASPELMATH Max-Planck-Institut fr evo lutio nre Anthro po lo gie
1. Introduction
"the intuition behind iconicity is that the structure of language reflects in some way the structure of experience" Croft's (2003:102)
(1) Iconicity of quantity Greater quantities in meaning are expressed by greater quantities of form. Example: In Latin adjective inflection, the comparative and superlative denote increasingly higher degrees and are coded by increasingly longer suffixes (lo ng(-us) 'long', lo ng-io r 'longer', lo ng-issim(-us) 'longest').
(2) Iconicity of complexity More complex meanings are expressed by more complex forms. Example: Causatives are more complex semantically than the corresponding non-causatives, so they are coded by more complex forms, e.g. Turkish d!(-mek) 'fall', causative d!-r(-mek) 'make fall, drop'.
(3) Iconicity of cohesion Meanings that belong together more closely are expressed by more cohesive forms. Example: In possessive noun phrases with body-part terms, the possessum and the possessor are conceptually inseparable. This is mirrored in greater cohesion of coding in many languages, e.g. Maltese id 'hand', id-i 'my hand', si""u 'chair', is-si""u tieg#-i [the-chair of-me] 'my chair' (*si""(u)-i).
these three types of iconicity play no role in explaining grammatical asymmetries of the type lo ng(-us)/lo ng-io r, d!(-mek)/d!-r(-mek), id-i/is-si""u tieg#-i. such formal asymmetries can be explained by frequency asymmetries: In all these cases, the shorter and more cohesive expression types occur significantly more frequently than the longer and less cohesive expression types, and this suffices to explain their formal properties. Iconicity is not only not necessary, but also makes wrong predictions. I make no claims about other types of iconicity, such as iconicity of paradigmatic isomorphism (one form, one meaning, i.e. synonymy and homonymy are avoided; Haiman 1980, Croft 1990a) iconicity of syntagmatic isomorphism (each form has a meaning, each meaning has a form, i.e. empty and zero morphs are avoided; Croft 1990a) iconicity of sequence (sequence of forms matches sequence of experiences; e.g. Greenberg 1963:103) iconicity of contiguity (forms that belong together semantically occur next to each other) 2 iconicity of repetition (repeated forms signal repetition in experience, as when reduplication expresses plurality or distribution). explanation vs. observation:
"The traditional view of language is that most relationships between linguistic units and the corresponding meanings are arbitrary... But the cognitive claim is that the degree of iconicity in language is much higher than has traditionally been thought to be the case." (Lee 2001:...)
What I am denying is that iconicity is playing a motivating role and should be invoked in explaining why the patterns are the way they are. some authors (e.g. Givn 1985, 1991) seem to use the term "iconicity" as a kind of antonym of "arbitrariness", so that almost anything about language structure that is not arbitrary fals under iconicity.
2. Iconicity of quantity
2.1. Advocates and examples
(4) Greater quantities in meaning are expressed by greater quantities of form.
Jakobson (1965[1971:352]) and (1971), three examples: (i) In many languages, "the positive, comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives show a gradual increase in the number of phonemes, e.g. high- higher-highest, [Latin] altus, altio r, altissimus. In this way, the signantia reflect the gradation gamut of the signata" (1965[1971:352]). The higher the degree, the longer the adjective. (ii) "The signans of the plural tends to echo the meaning of a numeral increment by an increased length of the form" (1965[1971:352]). The more referents, the more phonemes (e.g. singular boo k, plural bo o ks, French singular je finis 'I finish', plural no us finisso ns 'we finish'). (iii) In Russian, the perfective aspect expresses "a limitation in the extent of the narrated event", and it is expressed by a more limited (i.e. a smaller) number of phonemes (e.g. perfective zamo ro z-it', imperfective zamo ra$-ivat' 'freeze') (Jakobson 1971). (see also Plank (1979:123), Haiman (1980:528-9), Anttila (1989:17), and Taylor's (2002:46) Cognitive Grammar textbook).
2.2. Frequency-based explanation
Any efficient sign system in which costs correlate with signal length will follow the following economy principle:
(5) The more predictable a sign, the shorter it is.
Since frequency implies predictability, we also get the folloiwng prediction for efficient sign systems:
(6) The more frequent a sign is, the shorter it is.
(well known at least since Horn's (1921) and Zipf's (1935) work) 3 universally comparative and superlative forms are significantly rarer than positive forms of adjectives, and singular forms are significantly rarer than plural forms (see Greenberg 1966:34-37, 40-41) for Russian, Fenk-Oczlon (1990) has shown that there is a strong correlation between length and frequency of a verb form: in general, the more frequent member of an aspectual pair is also shorter. the principle of iconicity of quantity makes many wrong predictions (as was also observed by Haiman 2000:287): that plurals should generally be longer than duals, that augmentatives should generally be longer than diminutives, that words for 'ten' should be longer than words for 'seven', or even that words for 'long' should be longer than words for 'short', or that words for 'elephant' should be longer than words for 'mouse'
3. Iconicity of complexity
3.1. Advocates and examples
(7) More complex meanings are expressed by more complex forms.
some quotations from the literature that describe this principle and refer to it as "isomorphic" or "iconic":
Lehmann (1974:111): "Je komplexer die semantische Reprsentation eines Zeichens, desto komplexer seine phonologische Reprsentation." Mayerthaler (1981:25): "Was semantisch "mehr" ist, sollte auch konstruktionell "mehr" sein." Givn (1991:2.2): "A larger chunk of information will be given a larger chunk of code." Haiman (2000:283): "The more abstract the concept, the more reduced its morphological expression will tend to be. Morphological bulk corresponds directly and iconically to conceptual intension." Langacker (2000:77): "[I]t is worth noting an iconicity between o f's phonological value and the meaning ascribed to it (cf. Haiman 1983). Of all the English prepositions, o f is phonologically the weakest by any reasonable criterion.... Now as one facet of its iconicity, o f is arguably the most tenuous of the English prepositions from the semantic standpoint as well..."
often iconicity of complexity is described as a kind of "iconicity of markedness matching":
(8) Marked meanings are expressed by marked forms.
Jakobson (1963[1966:270]): "language tends to avoid any chiasmus between pairs of unmarked/marked categories, on the one hand, and pairs of zero/nonzero affixes...on the other hand" Plank (1979:139): "Die formale Markiertheitsopposition bildet die konzeptuell-semantische Markiertheitsopposition d[iagrammatisch]- ikonisch ab." Haiman (1980:528): "Categories that are marked morphologically and syntactically are also marked semantically." 4 Mayerthaler (1987: 48-9): If (and only if) a semantically more marked category C j is encoded as "more" featured [=formally complex] than a less marked category C i , the encoding of C j is said to be iconic." Givn 1991: "The meta-iconic markedness principle: Categories that are co gnitively markedi.e. complextend to also to structurally marked." Aissen 2003:3: "Iconicity favors the morphological marking of syntactically marked configurations." see also Matthews (1991:236), Newmeyer (1992:763), Helmbrecht (2004:226)
"formally marked" = "expressed overtly"; typical examples of such markedness matching:
(9) less marked/unmarked (more) marked number SINGULAR (tree-) PLURAL (tree-s) case SUBJECT (Latin ho mo -) OBJECT (ho min-em) tense PRESENT (play-) PAST (play-ed) person THIRD (Spanish canta-) SECOND (canta-s) gender MASCULINE (petit-) FEMININE (petit-e) causation NON-CAUSATIVE CAUSATIVE (Turkish d!--mek 'fall') (d!-r-mek 'fell, drop') object INANIMATE ANIMATE (Spanish Veo la casa Veo a la nia. 'I see the house' 'I see the girl.')
These universal formal asymmetries have been known since Greenberg (1966) (who did not invoke iconicty to explain them!)
3.2. Iconicity of complexity: frequency-based explanation
Greenberg (1966): frequency asymmetries explain formal asymmetries: "less marked" forms are more frequent, and "more marked" forms are less frequent across languages the English preposition o f is not only the most "semantically tenuous", but also the most frequent of all the English prepositions. not only sufficient to account for the relevant phenomena, but also necessary, because iconicity of complexity makes wrong predictions:
(10) less marked/unmarked (more) marked number PLURAL SINGULAR Welsh plu 'feathers' plu 'feather' case OBJECT CASE SUBJECT CASE Godoberi mak'i 'child' mak'i-di (ergative) person SECOND P. IMPERATIVE THIRD P. IMPERATIVE Latin canta- 'sing!' canta-to 'let her sing' gender FEMALE MALE English wido w- wido w-er causation CAUSATIVE NONCAUSATIVE German ffnen sich ffnen
in all these cases, frequency makes the right predictions! often: "markedness reversal" "unmarkedness" = 'frequency': "Marked" means "rare", and "unmarked" means "frequent". Cf. Haiman (2000:287): 5
"...what is fundamentally at issue is markedness. Where plurality is the norm, it is the plural which is unmarked, and a derived marked singulative is employed to signal oneness: thus, essentially, wheat vs. grain o f wheat."
what is fundamentally at issue is frequency, not markedness! (see Haspelmath 2005 for further arguments why a notion of markedness is superfluous in linguistics) Lehmann (1974) and Haiman (2000): grammatical morphemes are universally shorter than lexical morphemes, and this iconically mirrors their more abstract or less complex meaning. But again frequency and economy account for the same facts! Iconicity makes the wrong prediction that lexical items with highly abstract or simple meanings should be consistently shorter than items with more concrete or complex meanings (as noted by Ronneberger-Sibold 1980:239). It predicts, e.g., that entity should be shorter than thing or actio n, that animal should be shorter than cat, that perceive should be shorter than see, etc.
3.3. The causative-inchoative alternation: Economy instead of iconicity (Haspelmath 1993) puzzle: the apparent counter-iconicity of anticausatives: Russian o tkryvat' o tkryvat'-sja 'cause to open' 'open (intr.)'
Observation in Haspelmath 1993 (cf. also Croft 1990b): different verb meanings behave differently across languages: preferably coded as causatives: 'freeze', 'dry', 'sink', 'go out', 'melt', etc. (spo ntaneo us) preferably coded as anticausatives: 'split', 'break', close', 'open', 'gather', etc. (agent-caused)
Saving the iconicity hypothesis: "Iconicity in language is based [not on objective meaning but] on conceptual meaning... Events that are more likely to occur spontaneously will be associated with a conceptual stereotype (or prototype) of a spontaneous event, and this will be expressed in a structurally unmarked way." (Haspelmath 1993:106-7)
Simpler explanation: Spontaneous verb meanings tend to occur more frequently as inchoatives; agent-caused verb meanings occur more frequently as causatives. Due to economic motivation, the rarer elements tend to be overtly coded.
cf. Wright (2001: 127-8): % transitive freeze 62% more causatives dry 61% melt 72% burn 76% o pen 80% break 90% more anticausatives
Observation (Blansitt 1973, Comrie 1981, Bossong 1985, 1998, etc.): The higher a direct-object is on the animacy scale, the more likely it is to be overtly coded (i.e. accusative-marked).
Comrie 1989:128: "...the most natural kind of transitive construction is one where the A[gent] is high in animacy and definiteness and the P[atient] is lower in animacy and definiteness; and any deviation from this pattern leads to a more marked construction."
Aissen 2003:3 proposes a constraint subhierarchy involving local conjunction of a "markedness hierarchy" of relation/animacy constraints with a constraint against non-coding (* CASE ):
*OBJ/HUM & * CASE >> * OBJ/ANIM & * CASE >> *OBJ/INAN & * CASE
"The effect of local conjunction here is to link markedness of content (expressed by the markedness subhierarchy) to markedness of expression (expressed by *). That content and expression are linked in this way is a fundamental idea of markedness theory (Jakobson 1939; Greenberg 1966). In the domain of Differential Object Marking, this is expressed formally through the constraints [shown immediately above]. Thus they are ICONICITY CONSTRAINTS: they favor morphological marks for marked configurations." (Aissen 2003)
Simpler explanation: Inanimate NPs occur more frequently as objects; animate NPs occur more frequently as subjects. Due to economic motivation, the rarer elements tend to be overtly coded.
4. Iconicity of cohesion
4.1. Advocates and examples
(11) Meanings that belong together more closely are expressed by more cohesive forms
Haiman (1983:782-3): "The linguistic distance between expressions corresponds to the conceptual distance between them."
(12) Haiman's (1983:782) cohesion scale a. X wo rd Y (function-word expression) b. X Y (juxtaposition) c. X-Y (bound expression) d. Z (portmanteau expression)
7 "cohesion" preferable to "distance" (cohesion ! contiguity!); Newmeyer (1992:761-2) and Givn (1985:202, 1991:89) conflate cohesion and contiguity) examples:
(i) Possessive constructions: Inalienable possession shows at least the same degree of cohesion as alienable possession, because in inealienable possession (i.e. possession of kinship and body part terms) the possessor and the possessum belong together more closely semantically (Haiman 1983:793-5), e.g.
(13) Abun (West Papuan; Berry & Berry 1999:77-82) a. ji bi nggwe 'my garden' I of garden b. ji syim 'my arm' I arm
(ii) Causative constructions: Causative constructions showing a greater degree of cohesion tend to express direct causation (where cause and result belong together more closely), whereas causative constructions showing less cohesion tend to express indirect causation (Haiman 1983:783-7; cf. also Comrie 1981:164-7, Dixon 2000:74-8).
(14) Buru (Austronesian; Indonesia; Grimes 1991:211, cit. after Dixon 2000:69) a. Da puna ringe go sa. 3SG.A cause 3SG.O be.good 'He (did something which, indirectly,) made her well.' b. Da pe-go sa ringe. 3SG.A CAUS-be.good 3SG.O 'He healed her (directly, with spiritual power
cf. also English cause to die vs. kill
(iii) Coordinating constructions: Many languages distinguish between "loose coordination" and "tight coordination" (i.e. less vs. more cohesive patterns), where the first expresses greater conceptual distance and the latter expresses less conceptual distance (Haiman 1983:788-90).
(15) Fe'fe' Bamileke (Hyman 1971:43) a. k gn nt%e n! njw%n lw' he PAST go market and buy yams 'He went to the market and also (at some later date) bought yams.' b. k gn nt%e njw%n lw' he PAST go market buy yams 'He went to the market and bought yams (there).'
Wlchli (2005): noun phrase coordination ("accidental coordination" vs. "natural coordination")
(16) Georgian a. gveli da k'ac'i 'the snake and the man' snake and man b. da-dzma 'brother and sister' brother-sister 8 According to Haiman (1983), "conceptual dependence" also correlates with cohesion ("The linguistic separateness of an expression corresponds to the conceptual independence of the object or event which it represents."):
(iv) Complement clause constructions: "The more integrated the two events are, the more likely is the complement verb to be co-lexicalizedi.e. appear contiguouslywith the main verb. The less integrated the two events are, the more likely it is that a subordinating morpheme will separate the complement clause from the main clause." (Givn 1991:95-6; cf. also Haiman 1983:799, Cristofaro 2003)
(17) a. She let go of the knife. b. She made him shave. c. She told him to leave.
4.2. Iconicity of cohesion: frequency-based explanation
The cohesion scale is also found elsewhere in language structure:
(18) X Y X-Y Z comparatives more arid dri-er worse past tense play-ed went negation doesn't see has-n't won't gender lady doctor actr-ess nun diminutive young elephant pig-let puppy
Explanation: The items that show greater formal cohesion are simply more frequent. High frequency is known to be a favorable environment for phonological fusion (e.g. hasn't vs. *knowsn't) preservation of older patterns (e.g. actress vs. *protectress) preservation/creation of suppletion (see Osthoff 1899, Ronneberger-Sibold 1988)
(i) Possessive constructions: With inalienable possessed nouns, possessive constructions are of course much more frequent than with alienable possessed nouns (cf. Nichols 1988). Preliminary figures (from IDS Goethe corpus):
unpossessed possessed Grtner 'gardener' 24 0 Jger 'hunter' 48 2 a l i e n a b l e
Pfarrer 'priest' 12 0 Schwester 'sister' 32 58 Tante 'aunt' 47 22 i n a l i e n a b l e
Tochter 'daughter' 46 53 Table 1
What counts is relative frequencies, not absolute frequencies: The percentage of possessed occurrences of inalienable nouns will always be significantly higher than the corresponding percentage of alienable nouns.
Different predictions of the frequency-based explanation: 9
(A) Frequency predicts that the pronominal possessor should tend to be shorter in inalienable possession, whereas this is not predicted by iconicity.
(19) alienable construction inalienable construction a. Nakanai luma taku lima-gu (Johnston 1981:217) house I hand-1SG 'my house' 'my hand'
b. Hua dgai! fu d-za! (Haiman 1983:793) I pig 1SG-arm 'my pig' 'my arm'
c. Ndjbbana budmnda ngyabba nga-ngardabbmba (McKay 1996:302-6) suitcase I 1SG-liver 'my suitcase' 'my liver'
d. Kpelle "a p#r#i m-plu (Welmers 1973:279) I house 1SG-back 'my house' 'my back'
(B) Iconicity (Distance matching) predicts that the additional element in alienable constructions should occur in the middle between the possessor and the possessum, as seen in the canonical examples: Maltese is-si""u tieg"-i [the- chair of-me] 'my chair', Abun ji bi nggwe [I of garden] 'my garden'.
But the extra element may also occur to the left or right of both the possessor and the possessum:
(20) alienable construction inalienable construction a. Puluwat nay-iy hamwol pay-iy (Elbert 1974:55, 61) poss-1SG chief hand-1SG 'my chief' 'my hand'
The frequency-based account makes no prediction about the ordering, so this is expected.
(C) Some languages show overt coding of alienable nouns as well:
(21) Koyukon unpossessed possessed alienable te& se-tel-e' socks 1SG-socks-POSSD 'socks' 'my socks' inalienable k'e-tlee' se-tlee' UNSP-head 1SG-head 'head' 'my head' 10 (ii) Causative constructions: Indirect/direct causative is difficult to study in corpora verbs like kill, teach, put, give, send, show are all direct causatives!
*make have: give *make see: show *make be: put *make learn: teach
Morphological causatives must be more frequent than periphrastic causatives (but no data available).
Frequency-based account makes a further prediction: markers of indirect causation should not only be less cohesive, but should also tend to be longer (cf. Dixon 2000:74-8)
(22) indirect causative direct causative a. Amharic as-blla a-blla (Haiman 1983:786, CAUS-eat CAUS-eat Hetzron 1976:379) 'force to eat' 'feed'
b. Hindi ban-vaa- ban-aa- (Dixon 2000:67, be.built-CAUS be.built-CAUS Saksena 1982) 'have sth. built' 'build'
c. Jinghpaw -shangun sha- (Dixon 2000, from Maran & Clifton 1976)
d. Creek -ipeyc -ic (Martin 2000)
Dixon (2000): more semantic contrasts that are associated with longer/shorter markers: (23) longer marker shorter marker action state transitive intransitive causee having control causee lacking control causee unwilling causee willing causee fully affected causee partially affected accidental intentional with effort naturally
Not all of these can be subsumed under "less conceptual distance", but they can be plausibly related to frequency asymmetries.
(iii) Coordinating constrictions: "Natural coordination" is presumably more frequent... ("natural" = "frequent") 11 (iv) Complement-clause constructions: [I discuss only same-subject vs. different-subject 'want' constructions here; cf. Haspelmath 1999b]
Givn 1990: 560: the degree of finiteness is an iconic expression of the degree of integration of the main and complement events "Given a hierarchy of degree of finiteness (or its converse, degree of nominality) of verb forms found in a language, the more integrated the two events are, (i) the more noun-like is the complement verb likely to be, and (ii) the less finite verbal morphology such as tense-aspect-modality and pronominal agreement is the verb likely to display." (1990:561)
Cristofaro 2003: "At this stage, an iconic effect is obtained: states of affairs which are semantically integrated, or conceptually close, are coded by morphosyntactically integrated structures."
Different predictions of the frequency-based account:
(A) Complementizer may be shorter in same-subject constructions:
(24) Hopi (Uto-Aztecan) (Kalectaca 1978:170-71) (SS) Pam as ns-ni-qe naawakna. he PTCL eat-FUT-SS want He wants to eat. (DS) Pam as nu-y ns-ni-qat naawakna. he PTCL I-AKK eat-FUT-DS want He wants me to eat.
(B) the verb 'want' is sometimes shorter in same-subject constructions:
(25) Samoan (Oceanic) (Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992:710, 714) (SS) e fia sii e Leona Iosefa GEN want carry ERG Leona Iosefa Leona wants to carry Iosefa.
(DS) e le manao le teine e fasi ia le tama GEN NEG want ART girl [GEN hit she ART boy The girl doesnt want the boy to hit her.
5. Conclusion
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