Proverbiallinguist Emails 1 2004

On “Traditional Theories and Structuralism” and Analysis of

Proverbs: A Ka:rmik Linguistic Review 1
Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar, CIEFL, Hyderabad

I. INTRODUCTION
Proverbs are a complex genre of language. They are formed, acquired, applied,
and comprehended as composite structures with formal, functional, cognitive,
and dispositional (svabha:vik) linguistic properties fused together in them in the
manner of chemical compounds. As a result, they cannot be described
comprehensively in a single theoretical framework of formal, or functional, or
cognitive linguistics. It is also very difficult to describe proverbs eclectically
combining all these frameworks for the following reasons: first, proverbs are not
formed in the manner of chemical mixtures which can be separately described
componentially; second ,these frameworks are fragmentary and biased in their
goals and scope; third, in such eclectic approaches, the inherent contradictions in
the theories disfigure the underlying unitary basis of the genre; finally, they
serve only to expose the missing links but fail to hit the nail of description on the
head. In such a complex situation, we need a unified theory – somewhat similar
to the problem of integrating the classical and quantum theories in physics - that
integrates the formal, functional, and cognitive linguistic branches of linguistics
to provide a coherent and comprehensive account of proverbs. Such a theory can
be The Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory inspired by Sri: Samkara
Bhagavatpu:jyapa:dah's advaita siddhanta. In the Karmik Linguistic Theory,
FORM is considered an expansion (or projection or an embodying) of a
PATTERN which further embodies a MEANING to constitute a single object, a
state, or an action. This form is further considered to be another level of
expansion of a FUNCTION embodying a DESIRE born out of SVABHAVAM
(disposition) in the case of humans and other sentient creatures. This svabhavam
is again considered to be a product of an individual's KARMA earned as a result
of his actions performed in the past. Therefore, FORM - PATTERN - MEANING -
FUNCTION - SVABHAVAM - KARMA are all interlinked and interdependent in
the evolutionary production of any action in the physical, mental, or vocal
planes. Accordingly, this theory can be successfully applied as a unified theory of
Form - Meaning - Function - Svabhavam of language as KARMIK ACTION.
All these terms will be explained in detail later.

In the next section, let us make a brief review of the formal, functional, and

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cognitive linguistic theories and point out why they are inadequate by
themselves or eclectically to provide a coherent and comprehensive account of
proverbs. Then, we will see how the ka:rmik linguistic theory avoids the defects
of these fragmentary and isolationist models with limited scope and
comprehensively describes the various properties of proverbs.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

Extensive research has been done on proverbs in various languages across the
world. Mieder (2001) lists 7,368 such references in his monumental annotated
bibliography of proverbs - still this is not a complete list of the existing work on
proverbs; for example , I have listed more than 250 references in my bibliography
of Telugu proverbs which are not yet included in his list . Among them, there are
numerous articles on the semantics, syntax, and lexicology of proverbs and a few
more on their phonology and discourse analysis. Notwithstanding such a huge
corpus of research on the linguistics of proverbs, it appears that no work on a
linguistic theory of proverbs has been attempted so far. We have yet to come
across any significant attempts on the part of paremiologists to analyse proverbs
in a particular school of thought such as the formalist, or functionalist approach.

The linguistic theories in the western tradition can be grouped historically into
two branches: 1. traditional; 2.modern. The traditional grammars are those based
on the Latin models and are widely used throughout the world in teaching
English. The modern grammars are those which have the influence of nativist
and functional theories about language. Let us make a brief review of these
models and see how they can be applied to the analysis of proverbs.
a) Traditional Theories
The traditional grammar of English is simple and easy to use even though it has
its own defects, one being its concentration on " grammaticality ( ie, on telling
you how to form granmmatical phrases and sentences )" ( Radford 1995 :4 ) and
its neglect of "ungrammaticality (ie, on explaining why certain types of structures
are ungrammatical)" (ibid.)as in the Chomskyan paradigm of transformational -
generative grammar. Traditional grammar is mainly concerned with devising a
grammar (ie, a principled account) of a particular language within the discipline
of descriptive linguistics unlike its modern counterpart of T-G whose main
concern is devising a theory of grammar itself.
The greatest contribution of the English traditional grammar - although based on
the grammar of Latin - is in the field of functional categories such as the noun,

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the pronoun, the adjective, the verb, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction,
and the interjection and the classification of sentences. Nonetheless, there was
less focus on phonology and no motivation of the functional categories and
sentence types and classes such as the declarative,interrrogative,imperative,and
exclamatory,and the simple,complex,compound,and complex - compound
sentences.This is also the case with T-G. Among the modern grammars, we find
that there are two distinct schools : formal; and functional.In the formal linguistic
tradition, we have the behaviourist,the structural and the nativist schools of
thought.The Behaviourist Tradition is followed by Skinner and his associates
while that of the American Structuralism by Bloomfield and his followers. In the
Nativist School of Thought, Noam Chomsky is very popular with his
Transformational - generative Grammar. In the Functional Linguistic School of
Thought, Michael Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Model is very
popular. In addition, we also have the cognitive linguistic tradition.

b) American Structuralism
Bloomfield is the pioneer of structuralism and this school of thought is mainly
derived from Language written by him in 1933. The main focus of Bloomfield
was " a) to delimit the role of linguistics in relation to other sciences, and b) to
develop the principles and concepts of linguistics into a well - balanced and
unified structure ." (Stern 1999 :138).
According to structuralism , " the task of the linguist is to study the corpus of
utterances and to discover regularities and structures, in other words, the langue
in the specimens of parole." (ibid.).Even though such a severe restriction in the
field of enquiry helped linguists to establish itself as an autonomous field and led
to much etailed and accurate linguistic research, many linguists such as Pike
(1960) believed that such a language analysis that abstracts too severely from the
social context cannot be sustained and is unprofitable.What is more, even the
semantic component of language has been omitted in structuralism.

Structuralism fails to offer a model that can give a principled account of proverbs
simply because they are inherently contextual in their structure, ie, a
decontextualised proverb ceases to be a proverb. For example," Don't look a gift
horse in the mouth" can be an ordinary imperative sentence if it is viewed only in
terms of its structure. There is no clue - such as the cultural confirmation or the
contextual application - whatsoever to say that it is a proverb. Mere structure
alone cannot tell us that "A chicken in the hand is worth two in the market." is
not a proverb since it is similar to "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".

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A theory of grammar that attempts to provide a principled account of proverbs

should incorporate not only structure but also context and culture into its
framework, without which it is impossible to do so. So also is the case with the
meaning of proverbs, since the referential meaning of a proverb is different from
its prototypical and contextual meanings (cf. Bhuvaneswar 1998 - 2004).

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