Part II: General linguistics

Theoretically all languages will come

within the purview of our exploration

1
 Part II
Topics:
1. Duality theory (with Doctrine of Arbitrariness, Iconicity)
2. Treachery of language and Design Features
3. Linguistic relativity (with Cryptotype)

2
Topic 1. Duality Theory

with the following subtopics embedded:

1.1 Saussure’s Doctrine of Arbitrariness
1.2 Iconicity
 Both are structural linguists

Double Articulation Theory (André Martinet 1955)

=Duality Theory (Charles Hockett 1956)

Q. Why are all languages learnable?

A. Because of their super-quality called duality.
----------
Modest statistics: There are 4000 languages in existence on the globe.
 Learnability is…

an incomparable advantage of human language as

compared to animals’ communication means
Any language consists of two layers

Upper layer
Lower layer
duality 二重性
 Upper layer: (unlimited number) (meaningful)
-the language you are exposed to on a day-to-day basis

Reducible
Expandable

Lower layer: (limited number) (meaningless)

-26 letters1) (a, b, c, d, e, f, …)
TEXTBOOK

-44 phonemes2) ([æ][b][d][f][k][ð][ɳ]…):

12 vowels, 8 diphthongs, 2 semivowels ([j][w]), 22 consonants
-vocabulary3) (a limited number of words)
-grammar4) (a limited number of rules)
Start of Footnotes
 1) Alphabet letters

English alphabet - 26 letters

French alphabet - 26
German alphabet - 30
Russian alphabet - 33
Latin (or Roman) alphabet - 25
Greek alphabet - 24
Phoenician alphabet - 22
 2) World languages have 10 - 70 phonemes
音素

=smallest unit of
language sound

Malayo-Polynesian languages 10-15 Hawaiian (12)

Japanese 20
Italian 27
French 36
German 40
English 44
Caucasian languages 60-70 Georgian
Chechen
 “English now has the
richest vocabulary in
3) vocabulary the world.”
(S. Potter, 1950)

English (BrE + AmE): 500,000 words

German: 190,000 words
French: 100,000 words
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
“Most native speakers of English are estimated to have a
vocabulary of 40,000 to 60,000 words.” (Elly van Gelderen,
2014, p. 4)
“Some researchers have estimated the passive vocabulary
of an average English-speaking university student at about
40,000 words” (Guy Deutscher, 2011, p. 110)
Start of 1st subtopic

Saussure’s Doctrine of Arbitrariness:

3) Vocabulary, 4) Grammar

しいてき

arbitrary 恣意的
=chosen for no good reason/meaninglessly selected
 Doctrine of Arbitrariness
Ferdinand de Saussure, 1916

There is no intrinsic, motivated relation between a

word and its referent☟. What exists between
them is an unmotivated, arbitrary relation.

☞referent:
what is referred to by a word
 “There is nothing treeish about a tree.”
(Saussure, 1916)

There is no reason beyond convention why should be

expressed as [trí:] and not, for instance, [sí:gʌl]. The lexicon
(=words) of a language is the aggregation [=sum total] of arbitrarily
conventionalized☟signs.
-----------------------------------
☞convention: ‘social agreement’
Arbitrariness and convention put together explains

why is called [d-ɒ-g].

Let’s stop calling this
beast a hund. Hereafter,
Yes, let’s. let’s call it a dog.

Any name is the right name provided it is

supported by a convention.
Easy to sever the tie of word and its referent

husband wife
(word) (referent)
 OE speakers ate flesh!!!
OE speaker ME speaker

(referent)

FLESH (word) MEAT

CONVENTION in OE CONVENTION in ME
Q1. What did meat mean in OE?

The word mete (later, ‘meat’) existed in OE.

A1. food, meal (in OE)

-One man’s meat is another man’s poison.

-Reading is meat and ( Q2 ) to me. -BrE
(=a source of pleasure)
-sweetmeat (=old-fashioned. sugared food)
A1. food, meal (in OE)

-One man’s meat is another man’s poison.

-Reading is meat and A2. ( drink ) to me. -BrE
(=a source of pleasure)
-sweetmeat (=old-fashioned. sugared food)
 The word o-shougatsu remains unchanged

 In Lunar calendar days  In Solar calendar days

Referent = February Referent = January

This explains why we still

write in New Year cards:
Happy New Spring!
The word asagao remains unchanged

NARA period (794) HEIAN period

桔梗（ききょう） 朝顔（あさ
がお）
referent= a bellflower referent= a morning glory
「今日の朝顔は平安初期に中国より伝来。土
着の朝顔より美しかったため、朝顔の名を
奪った。」（岩波古語辞典）

“Today’s asagao was introduced from China in early

Heian period (794-1192). As it was more beautiful
than the indigenous asagao, the latter gifted its
name to the newly imported Chinese flower.”
(Iwanami Classical Japanese Dictionary)
------------
Later, Nara-period asagao was renamed kikyou.
 Romeo and Juliet
(W. Shakespeare, 1594)

”What’s in a name? That

which we call a rose Juliet’s soliloquy 独白
By any other name would
smell as sweet.”

「名前になんの意味があるっていう
の？バラと呼ばれているものは他の
どんな名前で呼ばれても同じ芳香を
放つっていうのに。」
 Upper layer: (unlimited number) (meaningful)
-the language you are exposed to on a day-to-day basis

Reducible
Expandable

Lower layer: (limited number) (meaningless)

-26 letters1) (a, b, c, d, e, f, …)
TEXTBOOK

-44 phonemes2) ([æ][b][d][f][k][ð][ɳ]…):

12 vowels, 8 diphthongs, 2 semivowels ([j][w]), 22 consonants
-vocabulary3) (a limited number of words)
-grammar4) (a limited number of rules)
Just as words keep changing semantically,
so too grammatical rules keep changing.

All this is because of the unmotivated, arbitrary

relations lying between words and reality as well
as between grammatical rules and reality.
 4) Old convention, New convention

EModE (16th and 17th cents.) ModE (18th - 21st cents.)

If it pleases you. (vousvoyer)
If it pleases thee. (tutoyer)
What do you read?
-The more one sickens, the worse
at ease he is (Shak.)
-When one climbs a high tower,
the higher he mounts, the less
does everything appear which is
below him. (1607, OED)
”Tense sequence is among
(Manfred Görlach, Introduction to Early Modern English , 1993)
[If you] please.
What do you read?
What are you reading?
-One must do what one’s own
nature prescribes. (1886, OED)
-It gives one a great thrill to
harvest one's own produce. (2000,
the
OEDtransfers
) from Latin.”

Ex. I know he is ill.  I knew he was ill. (ModE)

present present past past
Q. See the following PDE (=Present-day English)
examples. Which one is grammatically
wrong?

1. I have stayed in Oshawa for a week.

2. I have visited Amsterdam ten years ago.
3. X: Have you been to the Kingdom of Tonga?
Y: No, I never have.
3.
X says:
Have you been to the Kingdom of Tonga?

Y answers: (1) No, never. ( ✓)

(2) No, I never have. ( ✓)
(3) No, I have never. ( X )
(4) No, I have never been there. (✓)
Ans. The 2nd sentence is wrong.

1. I have stayed in Oshawa for a week.

The two underlines can’t co-occur!

2. *I have visited Amsterdam ten years ago.

(I visited Amsterdam ten years ago.)
3. X: Have you been to the Kingdom of Tonga?
Y: No, I never have.
 “Before 1800, it is possible to say I have
seen it yesterday.” (Elly van Gelderen, 2014, p. 219)

Can you believe?

 Before 1800  19th – 21st cents.

co-occur

(✓) I saw it yesterday. (✓) I saw it yesterday.

(✓) I have seen it yesterday. (X ) I have seen it yesterday.

Old convention New convention

French and German speakers of English often say…

*I have eaten fish yesterday.

 In French, the following is grammatically acceptable:
“*I have eaten fish yesterday.”
(J’ai mangé du poisson hier.)

Modern French
Modern English
Simple past Past
(Je mangeai.) formal (I ate)
Past
Compound past Perfect/ive
(J’ai mangé.) informal (I have eaten)
“We recognize a valuable distinction at present
between the past (killed, worked ) and the
perfect (has driven, has killed ) but may have
ceased to do so at some point in the future.”

“(…) This has largely happened in popular French

and German, where the difference is stylistic
rather than functional. The preterits are more
literary or formal in tone than the perfects.”
-E. Sapir, Language, 1921, p. 78
End of the lengthy footnotes
1), 2), 3) and 4)

Not just the letter and the phoneme, but

also the word and the grammatical rule
are meaningless (in the sense that they
are arbitrarily conventionalized signs).
 One additional point on
arbitrariness

Absolute arbitrariness vs Relative arbitrariness

-Saussure,
1916
Absolutely arbitrary (totally unmotivated)
Relatively arbitrary (internally motivated)
Absolutely six eight ship herd omen
arbitrary
words
Relatively sixteen eighty shipwreck shepherd ominous
arbitrary
words
LANGUAGE

Relative words

Absolute words
(building block)
 Duality Theory is the contention that language can
create infinite expressions with finite resources
無限の 有限の

Upper layer: (unlimited number) (meaningful)

-the language you are exposed to on a day-to-day basis

Lower layer: (limited number) (meaningless)

TEXTBOOK

-26 letters (a, b, c, d, e, f, …)

-44 phonemes (/æ//b//d//f//k//ʃ/…)
-vocabulary (a limited number of words)
-grammar (a limited number of rules)
 UPPER LAYER
sentence: She’s a scientist, I hate math, They’re jogging
discourse (=any coherent succession of sentences):
dialogue, speech, conversation, presentation, interview, essay,
novel, editorial, report, dissertation, newspaper article, etc.

By combining meaningless (i.e., arbitrarily made) small units

(e.g., letters, phonemes, words) and by changing combinations,
we can create any number of meaningful sentences and
discourses.

LOWER LAYER
Word: dog, cat, do, you, etc.
Letter: d-o-g, c-a-t, d-o, y-o-u
Phoneme: [j]-[e]-[s], [l]-[a]-[i]-[k]
Grammar: syntax, morphology, tense, etc.
Taking this opportunity…

The sentence: a member of the upper layer

(…because there are no dictionaries of
sentences)

The word: a member of the lower layer

(…because there are dictionaries of words)
 To conclude the subtopic (the doctrine
of arbitrariness), …
Psychologist Piaget (1896-1980) interviews a child aged 9.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Piaget: Could the sun be called “moon” and the moon “sun”?
Child: No.
Piaget: Why not?
Child: Because the sun shines brighter than the moon.
Piaget: But if everyone called the sun “moon”, and the moon
“sun,” would we know it was wrong?
Child: Yes, because the sun is always bigger, it always stays
like it is and so does the moon.
Piaget: Yes, but the sun isn’t changed, only its name. Could it
be called “moon”?
Child: No…because the moon rises in the evening, and the sun
in the day. (D. Chandler, Semiotics, 2002, p. 70)
 Piaget is trying to teach:
moon (word) ≠ (referent)

divorceable
husband wife
この写真 の作成者 不明な作
成者 は CC BY-SA-NC の
ライセンスを許諾されていま
す

The child believes and insists:

moon (word) = (referent)
 Ancient Hebrew thinkers and ancient Greek
philosophers are like Piaget’s 9-year-old interviewee

 Hebrew thinkers suggest  Greek philosophers assert that

that God-given names are
unchangeable
-God names the major
objects: day, night, heaven,
earth, seas (Genesis 1.5-1.10)
-Under God’s guidance, Adam
names the animals and birds.
(Genesis 2.19)
etymology was all-important
-Every referent is tied up
with one true [έτυμος ‘etymos’]
word. (=Every word is tied up with
one etymologically correct referent.)
Cf. wicked: very bad > very good
informal
fast: inaction > action

Every referent is tied up with one God-given name:

Ex. (raven), (serpent), (sheep)

End of 1st subtopic (Doctrine of Arbitrariness)

Ferdinand de Saussure is the first thinker to

reject Hebraism (the Old Testament) and
Hellenism (Greek philosophy) …
=stops following
”in that he breaks with the basic assumption:
each REFERENT = one God-given name [Hebraism]
each REFERENT = one true (έτυμος) word [Hellenism].”

inseparably tied up with

(Roy Harris, 1987)

Start of 2nd embedded subtopic

Iconicity 写像性

any reflection (or imitation) of reality

found in language
 Iconicity
猫： 擬音語（ネ）に接尾辞（コ）を添えたものという
neko: A theory says that it is derived from onomatope NE
with the appendage of diminutive KO.
(S. Ohno et al., Iwanami Dictionary of Classical Japanese, 1981)

ニャー

nyā + ko > nieko > neko ‘cat’

(iconic in part)
 partial iconicity
glare, gleam, glimmer,
glitter, glass, glory, gleam,
glance, glisten, etc.
(A sudden burst of light is
denoted)
flee, flea, flow, flight, fly,
influenza, flu, fluent,
fluorescent, etc.
(Flowing quality is denoted.)
slide, slip, slither, slick,
slope, slim, slime, slur, etc.
(Slipperiness is denoted)
bash, clash, crash, mash, hash,
dash, flash, wash, smash, squash,
splash, thrash, etc.
(Q1. What is denoted?)
twinkle, sparkle, tremble,
grumble, mumble, fumble,
startle, dazzle, stumble,
jumble, fondle, etc.
(Q2. What is denoted)
 partial iconicity
glare, gleam, glimmer,
glitter, glass, glory, gleam,
glance, glisten, etc.
(A sudden burst of light is
denoted)
flee, flea, flow, flight, fly,
influenza, flu, fluent,
fluorescent, etc.
(Flowing quality is denoted.)
slide, slip, slither, slick,
slope, slim, slime, etc.
(Slipperiness is denoted)
Ans.
bash, clash, crash, mash, hash,
dash, flash, wash, smash, squash,
splash, thrash, etc. (Destruction or
violence is denoted)
twinkle, sparkle, tremble,
キラキラ パチパチ ブルブル
grumble, mumble, fumble,
ブツブツ モグモグ モタモタ
startle, dazzle, stumble,
ギョギョ クラクラ ヨタヨタ
jumble, fondle, etc.
ゴチャゴチャ イチャイチャ
(Repetition is denoted)
 =exceptions
“Two objections may be mentioned which
might be brought against the Doctrine of
Arbitrariness.” (Saussure, 1916)

1. some onomatopes (thud, bang,

chirp,
twitter, etc.)
iconic☟words
=imitative
2. some exclamations (ah, oh, ouch,
etc.)
------------------------------
☞iconicity: any imitation of reality found in language
 Arbitrariness is a better approach to language
than iconicity
(Triumph of arbitrariness)

vast majority of words

arbitrary signs

a handful of iconic signs

 Recently experts on iconicity linguistics
have been broadening the concept iconicity

 Conventional, narrowly defined iconicity:

Any phonetic imitation of reality found in language.

(Ex. bang, thud, chirp, twitter, bowwow)

 Innovative, more broadly defined iconicity:
Any imitation of reality found in language.
(See the next slides for examples of grammatical
iconicity.)
 (=syntax)
“Aspects of word order may also be iconic, as in the
sequence Susie went to Paris, London, and Rome, where
the most natural reading is that she visited the cities in the
order listed.”
-Brinton and Arnovick, 2006, p. 17

REALITY (=What actually happened): Susie first

visited Paris, then London, and finally Rome.
LANGUAGE (=The italicized sentence above): imitates
the order in which the three cities were visited by
Susie.
 OE: a paratactic period
(Hypotaxis is underdeveloped)
Linguistics Learning grammar Examples
OE parataxis simple -I behold a rainbow in the
等位構文 construction sky. My heart leaps up.
(coordination)
Always iconic!

compound -I behold a rainbow in the sky

construction and my heart leaps up.
Always iconic!

ME hypotaxis complex -My heart leaps up when I

従位構文 construction beholdNot
a rainbow
alwaysiniconic!
the sky.
(subordination)
OE – parataxis:
1. I know that (demonstrative); she is in love.
2. Were I you? I would dismiss such an idea.
3. Spare the rod and spoil the child.
(Cf. See Naples and die/Live and learn/Marry in haste and repent at leisure, etc.)

ME – hypotaxis:
1. I know that (conjunction) she is in love.
2. If I were you, I would dismiss such an idea.
3. If you spare the rod, you will spoil the child.
[subordinate clause] [superordinate/main clause]
------------------------------------
☞IF: appears in the history of English in the 9th cent.
 Q. Masters of Parataxis or Hypotaxis?
[Two men are masters of parataxis; two men are masters of hypotaxis]

Parataxis (simple and Hypotaxis (complex

compound constructions) construction)

Choices:
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
Henry James (1843-1916)
Edward Gibbon (1737-94)
John Bunyan (1628-88)
A. (Q. Masters of Parataxis or Parataxis?)

Parataxis (simple and Hypotaxis (complex

compound constructions) construction)

E. Hemingway and Henry James and

John Bunyan Edward Gibbon are
(+King James Bible) great masters of
are great at hypotaxis
parataxis
Parataxis is easier to use as it is
always iconic syntactically
(=in construction)

called Caesar’s Principle

(Guy Deutscher, 2005)

Q. Why is it called ‘Caesar’s Principle’? Why

not ‘Napoleon’s Principle’?
A. In BC48, Julius Caesar left Egypt for
Asia Minor where Pharnaces was in revolt.

When he defeated Pharnaces in less

than five days, Caesar said ‘Came,
saw, won.’
Paratactic
(=iconic)!
Famous!

Source: Encyclopedia Americana

 In the 21st cent., we still use
parataxis when we talk casually…

…because spontaneity, which is the life

of conversation, is easily achievable if
we use parataxis.
 End of embedded subtopics

So much for the embedded subtopics

(i.e., arbitrariness and iconicity)

Now back to duality

 Duality Theory is the contention that language can
create infinite expressions with finite resources
無限の 有限の

Upper layer: (unlimited number) (meaningful)

-the language you are exposed to on a day-to-day basis

Lower layer: (limited number) (meaningless)

TEXTBOOK

-26 letters (a, b, c, d, e, f, …)

-44 phonemes (/æ//b//d//f//k//ʃ/…)
-vocabulary (a limited number of words)
-grammar (a limited number of rules)
Q: Why are all languages learnable?
A: Because they have duality

-The upper layer is reducible to a textbook-sized

lower layer.
-All that learners have to do is take care of the
textbook-sized lower layer.
 Duality accounts for…

-creativity 創造性
-economy 経済性
-versatility 多能性
-learnability 習得可能性
 Suppose our language is like (B).
(A)Duality language (B) Singularity languages
[human languages] [animals’ communication means]

I will make a cake. Camaradoriodori.

She will make a cake. Komorosugurutoyo.
They will make a cake. Baatarenogabacho.
・
・
・
・
Learnable Unlearnable
 Superiority of human language

-“Human beings can talk about anything; bees

can only talk about nectar.”
(C. F. Hockett, 1958, p. 578)
-“With most species, communication occurs only
in four contexts; 1) mating, 2) the care of the
young, 3) cooperation in obtaining food or
territory, and 4) fighting within the species or
against predators.” (C. F. Hockett, 1958, p. 585)
Structural linguistics 構造主義言語学 :
An approach to linguistic description that views the grammar of a
language primarily as a system of relations. Founded in the early 20th
century by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913).

-Ferdinand de Saussure (1916)

-André Martinet
-Charles Hockett
 Language may seem “an amorphous (i.e., shapeless)
object which is difficult to grasp.”
-Saussure, 1916

 duality  langue and parole

Upper layer Parole

Lower layer Langue

Your physical eye may not see anything,

but your mind’s eye can see many structures.
“Language consists of langue and parole.”
-Saussure (1916)

(Cf. Chomsky, performance) (Cf. Chomsky, competence)

 Parole  Langue
(muscular, with sound) (non-muscular, soundless)
Ex. Ex.
-when you sing in a karaoke -when you monologize
bar -when you pray alone
-when you make a PPT-based -when you prepare for a
presentation presentation
-when you communicate -when you think1)
verbally
1) The following two observations among others evidence
the fact that people use language [=langue] to think

(1) A metalinguistic Q and A evidences the above fact

(2) E. Sapir’s contrastive study (1931) evidences the same
fact
 (1) You are using language [=langue] to consider
the teacher’s question

A metalinguistic Q and A:
 Teacher: “What’s the difference between ぼくは
ヤマダです and ぼくがヤマダです ?
 You (as a student) begin to think, composing in
your head short sentences including は and が ,
such as あなたはタナカさんですか ? あなたがタナカさ
んですか ? こちらがタナカさんで , あちらはスズキさん
です , and the like.

uage)
sentences (=lang
----------------
METALANGUAGE: a language used to make statements about a language.
 Six functions of language:
Roman Jakobson’s typology (1960)

FUNCTIONS Use of language to do the following

referential To describe facts
expressive To describe thoughts and feelings
conative /kóunətiv/ To affect people
phatic To keep human relations
poetic To intoxicate people
metalinguistic To describe language
 A metalinguistic dialogue

What’s
I can speak
English?
Kiswahili and English.
=tongue-Swahili

A bilingual American girl A monolingual American girl

(2) E. Sapir’s contrastive study (1931) …

…evidences the fact that langue is an

indispensable vehicle for cognitive
activities (See the next slide)
 “A stone is observed moving through space
toward the earth.” (Edward Sapir, 1931)

1) -English speakers divide this event into two separate concepts:

‘a stone’ and ‘the action of falling.’
-And they describe the event by saying that the stone falls.
2) -Nootka (spoken on Vancouver Island) speakers do not break up
the same event into ‘stone’ and ‘fall.’ (Nootka does not have the verb
corresponding to English verb ‘fall.’)
-They capture the event with a single falling concept and describe
the same event by saying that [It] stones down.
------------------------------------------------------------------
 One and the same reality receives different descriptions
depending on the languages involved.
 All this is because both English speakers and Nootka speakers
use language (=langue) to think

74