Pattern iind Process
eeltman ( ocfMiivE: proce sinc Ls li foniiii \or intordisdpliniiiy reiearch on the nature nd organization
their relationship to other domains of human cognition, including general conceptual or knowledge systems and processes (the language and thought issue), and other perceptual or behavioral systems such as vision and nonverbal behavior (e.g. gesture). Cognition1 should be taken broadly, not only '
including the domain of rationalityh but also dimensions such as emotion and the unconscious, The series is open to any type of approach to the above questions (methodologically and theoretically) and to research from any discipltoc, mciudiN ;huL not restricted to) diEkTcni Ije mklIil of psychology, artificial intelligence and compntei' science, cognitive anthropology, linguistics, philosophy and nemo science. It takes li spccki] interest in research crossing the boundaries of these disciplines. Editors
Marcelo Dascal (Tel Aviv University) Raymond Gthbs f University of Laiitornia at Santa Cruz) jan Nuyts [ University of Antwerp) jan Nuyts, University of Antwerp, Dept of Linguistics fG£R)h Universiteitsplein 1, B 2610 Wilrijk, Belgium. E-mail:
nuytsC uitUia cbe
Editorial Advisory B<jard
Melissa Bowerraan (Nijmegen); Wallace Chafe (Santa Barbara, CA); Philip R. Cohen (Portlandn OR); Antonio Damasio flowa City, IA); Morton Ann Gemsbaeher (Madison, Wl); David McNeill
(Chicago, 1L); Eric Pederson [Eugene, (.)R); L'ran ois Recanati [ Paris); Sally Rice (Edmonton, Alberta); Benny Shan on (Jerusalem); Lokendra Shastri (Berkeley CA); Pan Slob in (Herkcley, C-A); Paul Thagard (Waterloo, Ontario)
Volume 6
Pattern and process: A Whiteheadian perspective on linguistics by Michael Eortcseuc
Pattern and Process A Whileheadian perspective on linguistics
Michael Fortescue
Uh ivc rsi t y o f' Cope n h ago n
db
John Benjamins Publishing Company A ins t erdain / Ph ilade I phia
T The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences- Permanence
of Paper for Primed Libi iii y Materials, ansi z39.4S-1984.
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'
y m)\
John Ik-niaiiiins B.V.
No jiaft ai this book oiay be leproduced in any form, by print, photoyivint, inicioiiJn ora]iy other means, without written peirmisjjion from the puhhshet.
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Table of contents
Chapter I
Why Whitehead? i 1 1 fireachins; the divide in linguistics today i 1,2 A cogii itive in terp retiU i an of Wli itehea d 1s1 ph i I nso phy f>f organ i sm1 .
1.2.1
1 2 .
2
.
Actual occas i ons a n d th ci r con crescence
NexCs
&
10
Htemal abjects 11 1 2.4 Perception and causality 13 1 2.5 iypes of prehensions 14 1-2.6 SymbolLsin and language 16 Complementarity 21 1 2.3 .
.
"
.
1.3
Chapter 2
A Wliiteheadian approach to natural dialogue 25 2 a Speech acts and intentions in a world in process 2 2 Twenty Questions revisited 32 2.3 Inference as suspended judgment 45 Summary 50 .
26
Olm;1, [ ] : ei
The language system: Language as systematized expression Tf
.
i
}2 .
The nature and deployment of the linguistic sign
S3
Embodied rules 63 3-2.1 Phonological and morphosyntactical regularities "
3
.
2
2
.
Summary
Th e i u ean i 11 g o i sy max, th e s yn tax of ft el i n g 7S
53
67
63
5
Table of contents
t H A E3 I H R 4 -
The content side of language Si 41 Propoiitions and presuppoptions .
Si
z Catego t\es, p ro totype s u nd nie t ap ho r 4,3 The roots of meaning 96 4
.
Summary
103
Chapter 5
Language processint; and fhe mind/brain 51 Cognitive assumptions 108
107
.
.
.
3
Lan guagp wi thout rep e son ration 117 Modularity versus intentianal states 124 r
51
The mind/brain as the organ of novelty Summary 1 6
5.4
129
,
Chapter 6
Un d erst a nd ing wr itten texts: I m a ginary wo rid s 139 6 1 Information unit and topics 139 6 1 The coherence of prose 142 6.3 Referential cohesion and figurative language iS7 6.4 E 'h e poetry of i n coh e rc nee 162 .
.
r
Summary
J67
C;hatter 7
The historical tr nsniission of langtiagc 171 7 1 Language acquisition 172 7 2 Language charge 186 7,2-1 CirammaticaIi ation and semantic change 72 2 Structural chunge 191 .
.
.
.
Summary
195
Chapter 8
a ngu l l1 u s o i ga isi n o r 0 tornal object ti.l Typology and teleology 199 H 2 Language as social object 207 ft.} r Ih e evol utio n I a ngu age 211 1
.
.
Summary
225
19 9
1S6
Chaf J tR 9
VVhitehead and Unguistic metatheory
227
Appendix I: Whitehtad's positloi wiiiiin modern philosophy Ap pend i x 2: The con cres cence of a n tngl ish 11 ttci\i nee Notes
255
Reforences Index
307
291)
151
Chapter 1
Why Whitehead?
Tht cx)i1an
ry purpose o 'phiIf sf phy is often misunderstood. Its business is to txpiam the emevjicnce oNhe more iibstrati things jmm the moie conLittc things.
"
"
[Whitc-hcrtd 197 :20)
it |isj impo ibk to attribute 'chaiige' to any attuul entiry. Every jctual cntily iii whil it iii, and is wilh its dolinilc stalu in ihe uiuversc A niiiiiul i ils ir.iL1 1 ivkuiui lu oilu'j juu-i. L'LittLiuH. l< Change1 wthc description of the adventures of eternDI objects in the evolving universe of actual things/
"
...
[Whitehead I97S:59)
What on earthH one might well ask, has the complex- and sometimes obscure -
philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (born 1861, died 1947) to do with
the situation fcdug linguistics today? He wrote, after all> rather little that was specifically about language. The whole rnison d etre of this book is to show that Whitehead's 'philosophy of organism1 has a good deal to offer that is relevant to cognitive science in general and to contemporary linguistics in particular. It should he understood from the outseL Lhat this is not an attempt to set up yet another platform or school of linguistic thought. The purpose is rather to apply White head s ideas - interpreted in a certain light - to problems concerning the nature of the content of language, problems which all schools of linguistic thought face today as new ideas and approaches flourish within the cognitive sciences. My strategy is to enquire how these matters, understood in much greater detail today than in Whiteheads time, tit into the holistic framework provided by his scheme of things The emphasis is on metatheory, not on linguistic theory as suchn Especially linguifits embracing a functional orientation to the discipline could well benefitf it seems to me, from seeing the manifold phenomena they deal with in a piecemeal manner subjected to a common philosophical perspective that allows them to cohere without falling into one or another fashionable form of reducttonism. What they don't need is yet another narrow and dogmatic research program, which is precisely what functionalists object to in the arcane incantations of initiates of lthe other camp'. This would also be '
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1
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anathema to Whitehead, whose philasophical system can he characterized in a nutshell as coherence-Ui-process- What I would like to do is simply invite the reader to a Whiteheadian adventure o fide as one whose theme u language. 1
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1
1
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Breaching the divide in linguistics today
It is my contention, then, that Whitehcad's 'philosophy of organism1 is uniquely '
auited to the emergent '
view of language and of mental activity in genera!: '
regardless of whether one s approach to cognition is via the
'
nativisf route or
the 'functionalist1 route.1 it embodies a cell-theory of actuality, whose seif'
creating quanhi are relatable to neurology [ Whitehead ] 978; 239) and can he applied to network models embodying feed-back and feed-for ward architecture for exam pi e> although, being emergentn it is not reducible to such things. It represents, nnjreover, a bridge over the age-old dichotomy between the empiricist and the rationalist views of the way things are - the tendencies to '
'
reduce aJI form to matter (n on-re pea table actualities) or the reverse (reducing all actuality to repeatables - i.e. forms or universals). This apparently unh reachable cbasm persists to this day fin one of its many guises) in the antagonism between the functionalist and generative for nativist) approaches to linguistics - though of course this is a considerable over-simplification of the complex situation within linguistics today where methods and allegiances
depend to a large degree on particular areas of specialization. Nevertheless, the dichotomy he twe en these two stances may reflect the contrast between two fundamental human 'mind sets1, a matter of taste or character rather than of
substance - it is at all events one that has very rarely been satisfactorily bridged within philosophy.2 Amongst linguists one thinks of lakobson, who was both a
true empiricist, interested in all aspects oHanguage use, yet at the same time concerned with the abstract and universal aspects of the language faculty {e.g. in his theory of distinctive features). His approach to language is compatible to a considerable degree with Whitehead s emphasis on process and organism; they shared the conviction that language is multidimensional( its functions including more than just the communication of proposition a I content, for ejcample the expression of affect. They were both anti-atomists f and, one might add, anti-autonomists) for whom everything is related to everything else, the '
more complex layers of reality building upon more basic ones! from which they '
emerge, rhe multifarious phenomena towards which they directed their analytical acumen was guided always by a synthesizing instinct. In Jakob so n
WhyWhitchead?
case this manifested itself in hii striving towards an integrated account of
vowels and consonants, of the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes of language, of universals and acquisition, of phylogeny and ontogeny. Whitohoad s svivthosis combines a rationalist attitude towards Jicience with '
an enipiiicist s insistence on the grounding of speculative philosophy in experience, Applied to linguistics, it allows us to combine the strengths of both major Schools : the essential Chomskyan insight of the creativity and abstractness of language plus the concern with detailed studies of specific language 1
structures, their meaning and typology, on the part of the functionalists. At the same time it does not fall into cither of the major pitfalls protagonists of these camps are susceptible to: a certain cavalier lack of respect for empirical facts on the part of generativists, and a tendency to regard all linguistic structure as directly reflecting functlona] purposes on the part of functionalists. My own leanings are towards the functional approach, hut my intention should by no means be taken as aimed at attacking the opposite camp - I too share the 1
l
belief that some 'design features' of language are deeper and more instinctive than others requiring only partial guidance by learning (the question is which}. The generativists had their philosophical pedigree charted out for them at an early stage by Chomsky - the arch-ration a list - in his book Cartesian "
Linguistics" published in ] 966, The functionalists still have not got around to producing their Humclan counterpart. They had their chance with Wittgenstein, but having landed his appeal to meaning-as-use (inherited from the '
1
pragmatists) have found little else to nourish them amongst his pithy apothegms - apart from a general concern with 'language games' and 'family resemblances among word-meanings. The nearest thing is perhaps Lakoff and johnson (1999), but this falls rather narrowly within the program of (.Cognitive Linguistics, polem idling as it does for the replacement of conventional wisdom concerning the nature of mind and language (especially the Neo-Cartesian viewpoint which they see as riddled with metaphor) by the authors'1 own '
approach. There is, needless to sayH not a single reference to Whitehead in its although if anyone in this century represents a thorough-going philosophy of '
'
embodied mind it is he.
The present work cannot make up for the book that was never written (and
which, given the anti-theoretical nature of pure empiricism, perhaps never could be written). It is written more in a spirit of conciliation. It seems to me that the time for polemics has passed - the functionalist viewpoint cannot '
subsume*
the generativist one anymore than the latter can the tbrmer what we
may have to accept is that both are radically incompatible except in terms of
3
complementarity. 1 shall try to flesh out in the present hook the kind of complemcntarity 1 have in mind, one con formal with WhiteheacTs vicws on the relationship between the rationalist and empiricist approaches to philosophy. In the process 1 shall 11 lust rate how such a perspective can illtiminate certain
general topics within linguistics that are of concern to functionalists and generativista alike- in particular as regards the procedural and/nr oncological interpretation of the categories they seek to formalize in their various grammatical meta-languages. It will be seen that die Whiteheadiaii approach also bridges the gap between the 1 psychological1 and the 'social1 approaches to language, which partially cross-cuts the principal dichotomy. As regards the sparsity of Whitehead's writing on language, this is in part illusory and due to the level of generality at which most of his discourse is pitched: once the relevance of his key terms to more familiar linguistic {and
general cognitive) reality is recognized this will become apparent. 3 -
In facth there
is a common thread mnning right th rough the varied phases of his career, from
his earliest work as a mathematician to his later writings on culture and history, namely his concern with the nature of symbolism. As I shall attempt to showh his thinking casts new light on the notions of'meaning', 'intention, 'representation and the general uature of the relationship between the linguistic sign and its content within a framework of unceasing cognitive and social process. '
'
This will take us far from the safe shallows of the static structuralist universe,
Connectionism, opiimality theory emergent grammar, prototype theory, fuzzy logic and embodied meaning, are all notions in the air today that Whitehead would have relished.
[n contrast to Chomsky's 'Cartesuin1 view of language, a Whiteheadian perspective docs not distinguish any determinate deep1 structure from linguistic surface forms (apart from the dynamic, pre-linguistic 'prehensions that may be ingredient in both the aunpreiien ioiKimi the prnduclion ol sentences). Nor are the processes of which he talks to be equated with, for example, linguistic transformations. Transformational processes arc descriptive generalizations across iinguistic patterns. Autonomous Linguistics (whether described as static pattern, dynamic transformations or sets of eternal objects ) has little to do with process in the (causal ) Whiteheadian sense - although its patterning may reflect the historical results of such process. 1 Thought' does indeed have its internal for in and categories, but these are arguably not limited to the 'language '
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faculty1. The latter operates with its own specitic categories (such as NP, verb. etc.), but these may be seen as emergent super;ects of more primitive (e,g, perceptual) categories. The key to grasping the difference between the two
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1
4
porripecEivei i*; in Whitehead s notion of the potential as opposed to Chomtiky s concoption ot the kUenl UolUnvin Chomsky Jyhh:fv . i innate' nature of such categories. These terms ought to correspond, but do not: the crux liejj in the concept of Vmergence which Chomsky does not appear to condone U or him it no doubt smacks of empiricism}. Both are Vealists (what is 'reaF for them is not limited to the actual but embraces the possible and die '
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1
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KL/LL aiv aUo'. Ill LkI Giom
lalo ihai Uil1 >Jll[ i of OLLL
p l't. i ll l a 11 y
towards T-languages1 within generative linguistics in recent decades represents a shift towards realism (Chomsky 1986:27). I shall return to this in the final chapter. However, whereas for Chomsky, as rationalist, innate1 categories '
(whatever their uise in his latest writings) are Veal1 and necessary in a law-like '
1
sense (as part of competence ) for Whitehead such emergent realities reside in the realm of possibility alone - anchored in actual occasions fe.g, of language use by a speaker) .Thus Chomsky s abstract and grammar-intern a I parameters and principles, by being detached n priori horn direct outer manifestationn must remain obscure from a White he ad ian viewpoint, their acceptance - for the ,
1
'
'
time being - a matter of pure faith in their deductive value. What the two thinkers nevertheless share is a central concern with the 'novel', the 'creative
in linguistic (and other symbolic) processes. For W'hitehead creativity is the principle of the ultimate each individual act of creativity representing "the many becoming one and being increased by one Taking Whitehead as the starting point for a personal overview of the field h
'
H
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of linguistics today may be likened to taking a step back - in time rather than in space - in order to attain a broader view than that afforded by any strictly contemporary standpoint, namely to a hypothetical viewpoint before the
generative and functionalist approaches began to drilt apart from more or less common structuralist beginnings towards their ostensibly incompatible positions today. This poiol cliu he taken as preceding the stage where opposing tendencies to red net ion ism of one type or another set in across the discipline; reduction to pattern alone in the geiterative case (albeit under the guise of dynamic' rules), and to process alone in the I unctionalist case (albeit under the guise of static templates ot" functional choices). The hope is thus to avoid falling into the pitfalls mentioned above attendant upon taking either position lo its logical extreme - it should of course not be taken as an appeal for a '
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1
return to rigid structuralism, which isolated pattern from process altogether
l
i
2 A cogni tive inXe rp retati on o f WhitcheacTs ph 1J osop hy oi organ ism
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.
As empiricist, Whitehead saw the world in terms of experiential 'atoms', which in his later writings he called 'actual occasions' or (more generally) 'actual entities, the ultimate stulf of a universe in perpetual process. He followed '
'
Hume in seeing 'ideas* as derived from actual facts. As rationalist he nevertheless talked in terms of 'eternal objects" , 'forms of definiteness1 redolent of Platonic ideaSj that refer hoth to the internal structure of actual occasions and
to the relations between them, The means whereby he achieved a synthesis was his decision to treat 'eternal objects1 as pure potential, with no manifestation apart from Their ingression or embodiment in actual occasions. Actual occasions areh as we shall seeh both socially transcendent one from another and socially immanent one within the other - such apparent paradoxes run throughout his major works, and all of them reflect the same basic complementarity of the world as 'experienced from within (by individual actual occasions as subjects) and as experienced from without (as the objectified 'superject1 of '
1
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actual occasions).
By interpreting Whiteheads philosophy in a cognitive rather than a metaphysical light I shall also be employing the key term eternal object in a way that should be acceptable to even the most down-to-earth empiricist, namely to refer to concepts and percepts stored in the mind/brain {] shall even lave something to say on how they might be stored there> following up certain ideas gleaned from Whitehead). Klore accurately - since I do not subscribe to '
'
the simple reduction of concepts to neural states - 1 should say that it is their reflection that is thus stored, since in themselves they are merely patterns
implicit in existing things (including human societies). These 'forms of definiteness we largely share {via social transmission as well as common physical inheritance) with our fellowsf although our understanding of them is determined by shifting individual perspective on their immediate relevance. My understanding of eternal objects is essentially Aristotelian in so far as they represent universals that are there to be read off reality (some of which correspond to conventional word meanings in individual minds), but with a Platonic (or rather White he ad ian) twiat, since they are both abstract fin so far as they can be experienced at all) and may be felt' apart from any specific '
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sensory experience.
The present context permits only the most sketchy treatment of a rich and subtle system of thought. For a sketch of his position within modern philosophy see Appendix L 1 shall here simply highlight those central aspects of White-
heads (later) philosophy that cast light on the nature and function of language
in paiLiL-tihi- t>n tho con tout ide of language, the meanings that die language '
code aitkuJates out ol
the stuff of experience. In the next chapter J shall be
using the Whiteheadian framework to discuss die nature of at least one kind of '
mental model
1
that speakers set up and modify in the course of their linguistic activities (here the course of a verbal guessing game). Hie Whiteheadian '
perspective facilitates mobility back and forth between the micro- and the macro-approaches to linguistic analysis, since at all societal levels we rind the '
'
same basic processes at work. In the case of language the relevant levels can be taken to be that of the minds of individual users and that of the evolving patterns of the languages they use. So in die penultimate chapter 1 shall consider
the possibility of treating languages themselves either as evolving organ is eiis or as complex eternal objects in Whitehead s sense, in other words I shall address the question of the I i in i tat ions of analogy between the two levels. In the intervening chapters 1 shall successively discuss the nature of grammar and of lexicon language processing in the brain, understanding written texts, and the acquisition and historical transmission of language, all in the light of Whitehead's system of thought. At the end of each of these chapters I shall summarize what I see the Whiteheadian perspective as bringing to these areas of linguistic investigation, and - although 1 am not directly concerned with specific theory -
suggest ways in which this approach may be applied to contemporary-
problems within them- In the final chapter 1 shall bring the various threads together again in considering the overall synthesizing role his philosophical framework can play in a contemporary metatheory of language.
A theme that I shall follow throughout the book is the possibility, suggested by Whitehead's special treatment of the notion 'proposition', that the human language capacity is not innate as a whole, but represents a culturally transmitted super-structure erected upon a deep propositional instinct (amongst others)k which has its roots in perception and which we may share with other higher animals. One should not equate Whitehead s use of the term proposition with either the logical atomism of Russell or the attempt (later abandoned) by the early Wittgenstein to analyse language in terms of logical propositions alone; with Whitehead context and intention were inseparable from propositions right '
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from the start The perhaps surprising result of consisteaitly following this Whiteheadian track will be the recognition that what would appear to be innate in language (the result of classical evolutionary processes} is not full adult language but some much more primitive 'protolanguage' while everything
beyond that stage is the result of cultural transmission and learning alone.
K
PaCCem and Process
But first to some key notions and definitions. Technical terms introduced for the firsit time ire put in italics. I must crave the itwdei s indulgence at this "
stage; it Whitehead's centi al concepts appear vague and his abstract terminology bewildering, 1 can only repeat that Whitehead himself hardly began to apply them to language him self/ They will all he ilhtstrated in a much more concrete way as the book progresses. The reader may need to refer back to these i Litber elaborate definitions' later - the relevant page numbers are also marked in hold in the index for easy cross-reference. The glossary in Sherburnc (1966:205) and especially Figure 4 in Kraus {1979:118), which graphically shows the successively more elaborate kinds of prehensions within a concrescence, should also he of us although one should not expect to find there more concrete deli nit ions or exemplilkation than my own. Both these book*; are to be recom'
mended as
'
easier
'
ways into Whitehead's major work than ''Process and
Reality" itself.
1 2 .
1
Ac 1 u a 1 occasi<) n s a n d t hd i co n c rescc n cc
.
The bask elements of reality in Whitehcad's philosophy are tictml occasions (or entities), i.e. individual occasions of experience. These each enjoy one quantum of time but are not themselves things or points situated 'in1 time. "Ibese 'drops of experience come together bom the data of their immediate past - accumulated from the entire universe in which they are set - then 'perish1 at once to become objective data tor subsequent occasions. They range from simple 1
1
inoi-ganic occasions to complex ones capable of consciousness, all depending on '
'
their social
setting and inheritance {e.g. as part of a living 'nexus1 - see 1.2.2 below). They are experienced privately but are conditioned by (an immediately preceding state of) the publicly shared worlds Hach consists of a process of concrcsmitCt whereby multiple objective data are absorbed through what Whitehead calls ptehcusioni (or 'feelings') and successively integrated according 1
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to a swi fcrrvcrtiFif * This aim is partly determined by the occasions perspective on relevant
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1
eternal objects and partly by the inherited data itself. It strives
towards the stitiifaction of the occasion (the achievement of maximal unity and intensity of integration of its prehensions}. Hvery prehension has an inherent subjective form, conscious or unconscious, which maybe complex (e.g. contain an element of belief as well as of wishing). The subject1 of a concrescence is the '
actual occasion it selfH coordinating and integrating whatever prehensions are involved in its realization - in other words, concrescences create their own
subjects. Put somewhat differently, an actual occasion is a concrescence of
prehensions; it is a processh not an Aristotelian subsUnce. its essence consists solely in it being a ichcnding thing {Whitehead 197 4!). It should not be confused with the everyday sense of tcasion a whole event potentially involving any number of'actual occasions1 in a shared context (for this see '
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1
rather Nexus' below under 1.2.2). '
Iho subjeclivo .urn iifo cona-cicom nroa 'i suivos ui ]-n-ohond LHJTttnsis
between those eternal objects that are currently {felt as) relevant by 'conceptual reversion (see 1.2.5 below), maximally highlighting the contrasts involved. In its higher fmental pole1} form as a 'conscious purpose1 it mediates between conceptual and physical feelings. Such a purpose determines, for instance. which potential implications of an utterance are currently relevant for the hearer. Prehensions within a concrescence are ordered during its 'supplementary stage (between the initial response and the final satisfaction) into two logical phases the aesthetic phase of intensification and adjustment of the input data according to the emoiional/valuaiional nature of the subjective aim, and f where and when it emerges) the ensuing intellectuar phase whereby the arising tensions are integrated through prehensions of relevant propositions and eternal objects. The internal temporal order alluded to here should not be equated w ith objective time, since a concrescence is a single quantum and any '
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1 stage
within it presupposes the whole occasion.7 The category of'subjective
harmony' applies between a subjective aim and the conceptual prehensions integrated into its satisfaction, thereby ensuring that the 'same1 eternal objects can be prehended by different actual occasions. Translated into more everyday parlance, we can say that the reality experienced by sentient organisms consists of successive processes of absorption ofand reaction to - new data acquired through the prehension of relevant patterns that they sense about or within themselves, t-ach such process whereby new data (whether perceptual or conceptual) is assimilated and passed on to a new phase in the organism s continual becoming is an actual occasiont no what we call a thing or a person is actually a constrained succession of occasions, not a static substance A single actual occasion consists of a single concrescence or coming together of data towards the fulfilment of a unitary subjective aim, but it may contain multiple prehensions, all of them coordinated by that common aim. In terms of language and communication, an actual occasion is best 1
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regarded as one moment in a speaker-hearers life line1 that is actively engaged in negotiating meaning and expression (either to itself or to another); multiple felt motivating factors are selectively integrated into the on-going concrescent process via prehensions of various sorts (according to the relevant subjective
io
Pattern and PmcuiS
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aim) This is emphatically not a simple relationship of input meaning and 1
output expression
.
Actual occasions are 'socially transcendent1 in the sense of being uniquely individual and closed off in the present from the direct influence of other occasions in unison of becoming1 {they do not overlap, though the regions they occupy may do so). They are socially immanent in the sense of being them1
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selves the result of the objectificaiion of otherf prior actual occasionsThis takes place in the final stage of a concrescence by what Whitehead calls the JtV rtJri, the cutting off of all but one possible 'output objectificationn limiting this to 1
one determinate reaction of ad- or aversion. In this sense a concrescence is
internally determined hut externally free. Harlier stages of a concrescence {its initial subjective aim in particular, which grows more differentiated as the integrational work of piehensions proceeds) may be prehended as data for later
stages on the way towards its satisfaction (a kind of internal feedback) - hence 1
the 'self-creating
l i 2 .
.
.
nature of actual occasions.
Nexus
What we see as enduring 'things' and 'states of affairs1, thenh are not individual actual occasions but species of nexus, an organic unity of actual occasions all affecting - and reflected in - each other. [The term is not to be confused
with tliat used by Otto Jespersen to refer to the clausal combination of a '
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subject and a predicate). They are public matters of fact and 'historical routes of occasions Persons, enduring objects, events and societies are all types of nexus/J Persons, for esamplen are purely temporal nexus of actual occasions that form causally related routes {or life lines) that provide the experience of '
.
individual continuity as an 'ego1 or 'self' Note that the dichotomy inside vs. outside the individual body/mind is replaced in Whitehead by that between inside and outside the individual occasion' 'outside1 also containing the 'rest' of the embedding nexus. The component occasions are only (potentially) conscious by virtue of being organized within a personally ordered nexus/ '
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society characterized by high- rade mental activity.Ltl Other kinds of nexus may spread spatially as well as through time fe.g, a particular chair or a mental '
image1 of such a chair j. Nexus maybe more or less 'corpuscular1 (analyzable
into strands of individual enduring objects). 'Societies1 in White bead's technical sense are nexus organized 'socially that is, sharing a common form and self-re product ion by virtue of this common form, and they only display lie if the purposes of the individual components are coordinated towards a
Why Whiiebead?
common end (lite inEroJuoes novelty of fujictioning to meet novelty of circumstances). No single occasion is alive on its own. There are societies within societies within societies (all functioning simultaneously at diffej-em levels)h from atoms through molecules and celis (including neurons and neural aggregates) to living bodies and to human societies beyond that, in a continually emergent relationship: all social order is layered. The mind/brain is thus a
hierarchically organized 'society of societies, coordinated in such a way as to serve long-term as well as shorter term common goals (Whitehead 1947:264)"
All living nexus - lhat m ' oiganisms - contain subordinate inorganic
nexiis {i.e. internal physical structure). A living person is furthermore charac'
terised by the transmission from occasion to occasion of hybrid' prehensions of eternal objects (see below). Strictly speaking, the mind {if abstracted from the mind/brain) is not a society but an entirely living nexus lacking the genetic power of a true society- its hypothetical function is not j>elf-re production so '
1
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much as the origination of novelty fWhitehead l97S:l03f,). It requires the protection and support of a living body to provide the necessary environment (the whole living system) to which it reacts. Personally ordered societies are embedded in still othe collective kinds of {human} societies or communities.
Societies arise out of disorder by manifesting laws that determine their selfreproduction, and in turn decay back to disorder again - all order is social and statistical in nature.
t 1.3 .
Elernal objects
EtenitiJ objttti are general forms of potentiality - rekuionst universal, classes
principles, patterns, types of qualities and intentions, etc. - abstracted from the prehensions f = feelings) of actual occasions and corresponding in part to the natural seams in the real world. Like 'things1 and "bodies'" {as opposed to actual occasions) they should not be envisaged as ultimate realia (by the assignment of what White he ad calls misplaced concreteness J but simply as Lforms ot definiteness'. Any entity whose conceptual recognition does not require reference to any dehnite actual entities of the temporal world is called an eternal object (White head 1978:44). They stand outside of time, then, in a purely passive, non-causal relationship to actual occasions fas essentially negative constraints on what maybe experienced by entities at particular times and places), and require actual occasions for their iugfesiian into the work.. This they do via the 'mental pole1 of actual occasions {which arises by 'concep'
1
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,
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1
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tual valuation - see 1 2 5 below -- from the physical pole of experience, .
.
i]
iz
Pattern tind Prncess
linking the occasion's idea of itself to the physical data it prehends). It should be emphasized that this pole terminology does not conceal a hidden dualism: the mental pole (indivisibly onej is merely the forward-facing aspect and the physical pole the backward-facing aspect (divisible into multiple components) of the same concrescent process, tternal objects play an essential role in relating the 'physical pole of an actual occasion to its objective data fits subjective form must conform to the latter}, and in relating an actual occasion s mental pole' to an 'objective lure that will satisfy its concrescence. This attention a I ure' orders the eternal objects relevant for the concrescence according to the occasion s own internal structure (its prehended data) and introduces thereby an element of novelty or freedom into its satisfaction - its unique perspective '
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on the otherwise unordered infinity of eternal objects. Conceptual prehensions of eternal objects during a concrescence enable the physical data of the latter to be felt in terms of patterns and contrasts, The essential thing about eternal objects is that they are Tepeatable whereas actual occasions are not Like actual r
'
occasions they have a dual nature hoth public {as universals ) and private (as Yornir uf ddniiu-jions1 nt' indh Ldiul cv j-jclko':. On my cognitive interpretation of Whitehead, eternal objects are essentially concepts and/or perceptual types internalized and stored in memory, although strictly speaking it is their transmuted instantiations in enduring objects that are so stored. They are not separable from the nexus in which they hud ingression, but are required as the datum of pure conceptual prehensions {e.g.
defining the 'feel1 of a symbols meaning)/2 "['hey arc infinite in number some lying beyond our imagination and some mutually incompatible with others. Without eternal objects there would be no action or unfolding at all in the Whiteheadian scheme of things. It should be apparent that Eternal object is actually a much broader notion than 'concept1, one which Jinds its justification even within a cognitive interpretation of Whitehead s thought. The ingress ion of eternal objects corresponding to goals of purposeful action may fluctuate between on-going involvement in a particular conscious concrescence and mere latency in the course of succession from one occasion to the next [as suspended or long-term predispositions that recede until relevant again}. In other words, the lure may persist, but the perspective of successive occasions upon it (their subjective aim ) may vary, In so far as eternal objects are shared by all human beings they arise from the4 way the world is aiuh more specifically as regards a n on-synthetic1 class of such objects, from the way the human mind/bra in is organized. Whitehead distinguishes between eternal objects of the objective1 and the Subjective' type. 1
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Why Whitehead?
1 he former correspond to the universal forms mathematics deals with ftiiangl etcj whieh rind ingicssion in the: physical universe (as data) independently
of the intern ah intentional structure of experiencing subjects, whereas the latter are ingredient in the subjective form of prehensions by actual occasions (e.g, secondary qua ha ) Eternal objects of the first typo only occur (-find ingies'
1
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sion) in objectified nexus, while those of the second type may also be ingredient in nexus as prehended by a subject ( via transmutation1 - see below)- One might further wish to subdivide subjeetive eternal objects (though Whitehead does not specifically do so into institutional objects (socially inherited normss rules, goals, rituals, etc), types of observation al/perceptual pattern (including experiential frame types), and subjective feeling types {including purely biologically determined needs). They are embodied in the internal structure of personally ordered nexus/societies in a species-specific way such that they tend to encourage certain types of action {including inferential processes) which in turn serve to maintain the structure (or overall pattern).
1
.1*4 Perception and causality
There are two modes of perception, prescmntiaiinl immediacy1' and ajusal efficacy, both nyipliei.] to d.iui ir.neriled from ihe subiecl s immedmle pusf. I he former is the traditional subject of sensory perception, the assigning of secondary qualities to clearly delineated spatial regions {Whitehead analyses such regions in terms of spatial prehensions of projected bodily 'strains'). The latter mode is causality directly felt in terms of emotionally charged appropriation and resistance. It allows actual occasions to experience the past-in-the-present as embodied memories -and to project purpose into the future' it provides '
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the corporeal feeling that binds successive actual occasions as organisms positioned in space and enduring in time. This continuity is determined by the Conformity of subjective form1 pertaining between successive occasions (and
their respective aims). Presentational immediacy in higher organisms presupposes causal eficacy {it adds to perception the precision afforded by pure 1 conceptual prehensions). 1 Awareness of the contents of the deeper levels of cognition (experiential schemata) may be via causal eficacy alone (by vague ,
Teel' without imagery, let alone words). 'I he causal efficacy of a percept is the '
reactions it evokes in the subject s memory (for instance what it can be used for, how it feeis to use, etc.). Perception cannot be abstracted entirely from feeling
(note again that Whitehead uses the latter term for any positive prehension, not just its 'emotional form1).
ij
14
I'acteni and Prticess
Perceptual data is literally objectilied for a pie bending subject by trtwsmutiiuori) a process of simplification involving negative prehensions (see 1.2-3) whereby a multiplicity of actual occasions f e.g. all those contributing data to the
preheniion of a given table) prehended as sharing tbe same conceptual feeling is abstracted from the data and summed up as a single nexus or 'enduring objectqualified by one or more eternal objects (e.g. as constituting a table ) This is the process whereby 'qualia1 are experienced as adhering to objects and tokens of a conceptual 'type are recognized in terms of analogy between the in embers of the relevant nesus and allowed to enter a concrescence in objectified physical form - in a word! it is our usual {vague) way of experiencing the world. In this way the organism designs its own contrasts' Conceptual feelings derived by 'reversion' (the source of novelty - see the next section) may be transmuted so as to be felt by the subject of a conscious perception as if they had been physical factors in the nexus perceived thus allowing concepts to become physically embodiec. 1
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i .2,5
Ty p es of preh en s i ons
There are numerous distinguishable types of prehension, physical versus
conceptual being only the most basic distinction. The former type involves data presented to the subject by its immediate paath whereas tbe latter type involves the recognition by the subject of the graded relevance to it of eternal objects [patterns and relationships in the data), the subjective form being in that case ore of valuation Every concrescence has a mental and a physical pole, the former involving conceptual the latter physical prehensions, which it integrates. Obviously mental pole involvement in non-organic nexus is pretty minimal. There are also hybrid prehensions whereby an actual occasion is objectified for some subsequent occasion by one of its own conceptual prehensionsh thus allowing the continuity of inheritance of an eternal object from one actual occasion to the next, either within the same life line1 of the personally ordered society it is embedded in or (by empathy) in another s 1"1 Propositional 1
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prehensions link the physical prehension of a logical subject (on the part of the actual occasion) to an eternal object as predicate. They belong to a later, 1
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comparative stage within complex concrescences. Note that a logical subject '
may be a thing or a person or an event or situation involving several entities, lb some propositional prehensions consciousness may adhere as the subjective form. The " predicative pattern' of a proposition is derived from the 'physical recognition the physical basis of the former {via conceptual valuation and/or 1
,
Why Whitehead?
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1
reversion - see below). Actual occasions whose actual world includes the
logical subject of a proposition are lin its locus' (the proposition is prehensible '
to them). 'Logical subject must be carefully distm uished from prehending subject (the actual occasion itself).
One sub-variety of propositional prehension is the 'imaginative prehension which predicates an eternal object of an actual occasion (or nexus of them) from which it has not been derived - it integrates the prehension of a predicative pattern with the indicative1 prehension of a logical subject that does not actually display that pattern. In other words, it imagines1 the logical subject in some other situation than that prehended in the immediate 'physical recognition It always involves conceptual reversions and introduces novelty into a concrescence. The other sub-variety is the 'perceptive prehension' in '
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which there is no integration of two distinct prehensions since the logica. subject prehended already displays the predicative pattern in question {the indicative feeling and the physical recognition are the same). Aniicipatory prehensions link present d ta to future potentiality. The most complex, highest grade of prehensions are 'intellectual prehensions which integrate propositions with further 'indicative prehensions' of the nexua from which they (the propositions) partially derive. Nexus' here should be understood as stretching through space-time, the overall organic embedded1
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ness of a situation or event in its actual world. Their datum is a '
contrast
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generic
between these two elements (which share the same logical subject, hut h
at different levels of abstraction namely the contrast between what is anc what may he They fall into two categories, 'conscious perceptions1 and '
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intuitive judgments' (involving the two sub-types of propositional prehension
respectively)/ Both are conscious and involve an extra 'layer1 of contrast whereby the full propositional potential of the logical subject apart from its actual involvement in a proposition is prehended and juxtaposed fhence the
short vertical line through subject LS on f igure I on page 20, linking it to other known propositional propertie s/associations tfmt define its broader contextual nexus). Their principal role is to heighten importance1 - i.e. relevance - by '
contrast (with what is, might or may be, or is not), as a lure
1
for conscious
attention, thus altering the subjective form of a con ere see nce Also negative prehensions play an important role in concrescences, e.g. in abstracting from the initial data the objective data relevant lor the hdlilment of the subjective aim in the early conformal stage of a concrescence. Though only positive prehensions of a selection of (other) actual occasions are drawn into the internal concrescence of a given actual occasion as subject all others in '
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15
]6
PaCCem and Prmzess
its actual world that arc specifically excluded contribute their own Reeling' to it
(if only vaguely no), in the case of a negatively preh ended eternal object. although it does not form part of die objective data, its exclusion nevertheless contributes its own subjective form (however remote or trivial) to the complej; of feelings to be resolved.I
patterns of interacting negative and positive prehensions. Especially the former play a key role in modulating the flow of human thought at both its physical and mental poles. Various combinations of prehensions result in the actualization of eternal objects/concepts for subjectSj most importantly in the twin processes of conceptual valuation and conceptual reversion (actually categorie;; of obligation involved in the later, conceptual stage of concrescences). The former produces a conceptual feeling from a physical one. it corresponds to Piagctian assimilation (of new tokens to old types). Conceptual reversion, on the other hand, '
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produces a new conceptual feeling (one neither physically nor conceptually piehcnded before by the subject but relevant to its perspective), thus introduc-
ing novel actuality from pure potentiality. In other woiLds: it produces conceptual diversity {as determined by the subjective aim), and in doing so plays a crucial role in determining the subjective aim of a conciescent occasion. Living nexus are dependant on this process in order constantly to adapt to novel circumstances- It corresponds to Piagetian Accommodation (of new or modified concepts that emerge to adapt to novelty). U is also involved in '
deriving higher order generalizations out of I owe]- order ones, and is thus crucial in the emergence of symbolic reference (alsoj as we shall see in 7.1( in language acquisition). Conceptual valuation and transmutation together result
in feelings of ad- or aversion that may activate relevant concepts (and words associated with them) in connection with presented data. In this way enduring objects (the as
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stuff1
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of memory including lexical memory of words) may persist physical purposes and act as unconscious attractors for the opposite) until 1
they become attenuated or modified by incompatible data that need to be
integrated with them. 1.2,
6 Symbolism and language
Whitehead's use of the term 'symbolism' fas elaborated in his short book of that title and recapitulated in hLs magnum opus Process and Reality") is very '
Why Whiiehead?
ba largely become automatic by the suppcession of intermediate associative links between percepts and 'meanings'. Symbolic rcfcrctKC combines the perceptual modes of presentational immediacy and causal eficacy (see 1.2.4},
and usually transfers patterns from the former (where symbols typically arise by 1
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virtue of being more precise and manipulatable ) to the vaguer but more meaning-laden experiential world of the lattei1 (as laid down in personal mem or y It is the mode of interplay between the two pure perceptual modes and represents our usual mixed mode of perception of the world, in which causally felt1 entities f meshing with the 'feeling tones1 Jeft by past experience) '
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are aligned with the clear-cut estensional regions provided by presentational immediacy. The relationship between percepts in the two modes may range from relatively isomorphic (iconic) to arbitrary (as with linguistic symbols}.
Words as token linguistic signsn tor example! are percepts of a certain delimited kind (phonemich orthographic, etc.) serving a socially determined functionality. As types they are 'species' of sounds (or written symbols, etc.) - when we
recognize the sounds we have heard the word. In principle, however, the direction of reference may go the other way a pre bended nexus summoning words conventionally related to its type. Thus for instance the meaning1 of the '
1
word forest
might be the vague recollection of forest scenes once experienced,
but walking in a forest can also evoke tbe word. The associations between the word and its meaning(s) form a loosely structured nexus that is the core of the linguistic sign. Arbitrary/conventional linguistic symbols {once learnt) are subject to automatization and represent the result of reflex action suppressing the intermediate links between causal efficacy and presentational immediacy. In
the process the symbolic enhancement of the former may be discarded and the '
reference revert to pure detached1 presentational immediacy. Symbolic reference presupposes 'direct recognition1 [of icons and indices,
if you will) in so far as it requires satisfaction of certain criteria provided by the latter in order to he trustworthy - it is a synthetic activity necessary to attain imaginative freedom but it may also introduce error. It meshes sensory data with feelings of enduring bodily reality. Thus the sound of a car hooting may [as index) 'refer' to the immediate causal reality of an approaching carN but it may {as symbol in the narrower sense of arbitrary sign) also be used by drivers as a
conventional signal tor getting absent-minded philosophers crossing busy roads to watch where they are going. Symbolic transfer allows expression of (and sensitivity to) distant environments. The meanings of symbols are our '
*
potential reactions to them, e.g. evocation of a certain type of experience. In
17
ift
Patrem and Pmccis
fact, symbolism i.s involved in all perceptual processes find reactiojis to them)
by virtue of translen ing the subjective tbrm of experiences in the mode of causal (bodily) efficacy to the more elaborate mode of presentational immediaL
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cy, the object of the latter (a projected, transmuted thing ) being experienced as if it possessed its own ehicacy. 1 he re is also symbolic transfer of emotion most obviously in music, where it is the principal content, but also in everyday language. Symbols - including words - have their own history of accreting affect and connotation super imposed upon their purely referential potency. A proposition is the abstract possibility of a nexus realising some simple or complex eternal object that may or may not be verbally expressed; cither way it '
is the result of a subject's aim at integral clarity of experience {cf. the 'proposition al prehension in 1.2.5 above)- Propositions are integrated into concrescences by discrete, stage-like processes as are the data of any prehension. Truth' is a relationship of Jit between nexus and the purely potential patterns predicated of them by a proposition. Whitehead s treatment of induction is in terms not of rational infeience but of a kind of divination of patterns (eternal objects) in communities of occasions. White head s emphasis on relationships '
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rather than things (all properties of things being relationships within a system) should be familiar territory for structurally versed linguists, as should his insistence that words shaped into an utterance are not just chained by associations and probabilistic weights, but permit the inti oduction of radical novelty. His recognition of the essential role of contest of situation and intention-incon test in assigning meaning to words and utterances aligns him, on the other handh not only with the British functionalist tradition leading from Fifth (and Malinowski) through Ha II id ay but also with the later Wittgenstein (cf, Wittgenstein 197 :2-I2).ly l:or Wh itch cad meaning is always relative to actual world Observe his broad notion of functional ism as expressed in the following: "
...
Ltif eotKqilmn of ihe world here jdopted
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ihjL erf functionj I iieLivity. Hy
this 1 mean thai every uciual thing i$ somtihing by reason of its activity; whencrhy its nature etinjiistji in iK relevjnce tt) olher I Kings, and its LndivLdudity t(msists in ilii synthesis of other things in so far as thty arc relevant to it, (Whilditad 1928:31)
This reflects the 'social immanence1 complementing the Social transcendence' of individuals as formal' existences, i.e. seen as the unity of their own experi'
ences. In the realm of language, '
social
1
social immanence1 would be a matter of its
'
as opposed to its 'psychological1 reality, More importantly, every sentence displays for him a subjective form as well
fact, symbolism is involved in all perceptual processes (and reactions to them) by virtue of transfei nng the subjective form of experiences in the mode of causal (bodily) efficacy to the more elaborate mode of presentational immedia'
*
cy, the object of the latter (a projected, transmuted thing ) being experienced as If it possessed its own efficacy. There is also symbolic transfer of emotion -
most obviously in music, where it is the principal content, but also in everyday language. Symbols - including words - have Lhcir own history of accreting affect and connotation superimposed upon their purely referential potency.
A proposition is the abstract possibility of a nexus realising some simple or complex eternal object that may or may not he vci'bally expressed; either way it
is the result of a subject's aim at integral clanty of experience (cf. the lproposi1
tional prehension in L2.5 above). Propositions are integrated into concres-
cences by discrete, stage-like pTocesses> as are the data of any prehension, '
Truth' is a relationship of fit between nexus and the purely potential patterns predicated of them by a proposition. Whitehead s treatment of induction is in terms not of rational inference but of a kind of divination' of patterns [eternal objects) in communities of occasions. Whitehead s emphasis on relationships '
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"
1
rather than things (all properties of things being relationships within a system) should be familiar territory for structurally versed linguistSj as should his
insistence that words shaped into an utterance are not juat chained by associations and probabilistic weights, but permit the introduction of radical novelty. His recognition of the essential Kile of context of situation and intention-in-
con text in assigning meaning to words and utterances aligns him, on the other handh not only with the British functionalist tradition leading from birth (and
MaJiilowski) through Ha Hi day but also with the later Wittgenstein (cf. Wittgenstein 1974:2-J2).ly bor Whitehead meaning is always relative to actual '
world
1 .
Observe his broad notion of functional ism as expressed in the following: tht1 coLieqnion oftht: world here ddupted is ihiil
...
this 1 mean that L-vcry Licuiti] ihin
funetiojid Jttivily. By
nuthing by r
on of its activity;
whereby its nature consists in its rdevjnce to other Ihings and Us individuality
consists in ils synthesis of other things iti so kir as they are relevant to it. [Whitehead 192 31}
This reflects the 'social immanence1 complementing the 'social transcendence1 of individuals as
'
formal' existences, i.e. seen as the unity of their own experi-
ences. In the realm of language, '
1
social
'
1
social immanence would be a matter of its
as opposed to its 'psychological1 reality.
More importantly, every sentence displays for him a subjective form as well
'
as a proportion cil con tent, i.e. an intentional attitude acting as psychological incitement1 (another species of eternal object). Kc argues specifically against simple assodationism when he discusses the passing on ol the suhieetive form ot intentions in the production ot utterances. These may be 'suspended'h but their ultimate outcome is the activation ofthe body (the speech organs) to react in a particular 'conformal1 manner (Whitehead I947:234f}. Language is organized hierarchically because human beings are teleologically orientated they have intentions, and intentions are intrinsically hierarchical, organized and deployed under the superordinate control ot persisting subjective aims. "
Intentions are embodied in actual occasions.
The diagram below sketches graphically some ofthe basic Whiteheadian abstractions relevant to language. They will be exemplified in a more concrete way as the book progresses. PS is the subject of the prehension itself, LS the logical subject(s) of a prehended proposition, and HO is 'eternal object' (the predicate ofthe prehended proposition). The vertical arrow through the causa.. efficacy pole of symbolic transfer indicates the temporal flow of causality (contrasted with the non-temporal, non-causal nature of presentational immediacy).
White heads essential view of language is that it 'systematizes expression1, shaping complex, largely indeterminate content into determinate, socially shareable form. This harks back to the Stoics (and Plato) rather than to
Aristotle, by relating truth, for example, to the 'hidden* sphere of thought (read Whiteheadian 'feelings1) rather than directly linking sentences to the real world. The approach contrasts with formal model-theoretic logic (represented by Russell) and harmonizes with more recent attempts to develop a cognitive
and/or discourse-based semantics. The following extracts from Whitehead (1968:31-41) sum up his position; Thf cwicntc ul'km Liagc ifi lhal it utili s Lhmc clLimrnls in L-jcptricnde moil easily abslutttxl lor tonsoous entertainrntnl, jnd mosl tasily reproduced in esipencnte. Uy I he long u age cil humjnily, the e elements art aajioeliated wilh their meaning which embrace a lar e variety of human experiences Each
language embalm* an histtirLt." tradition. l:ach language is the civilisation of expression in the social systems which use it. Language is the systematical ion of expression. Lau uj e hjs Livo [unctium. It k tnnveise wilh another, and it is converse with oneself. The lalter fnnetion is toti tiftcn c}verlciokedh so we will L{>nsider it firs I.
Language is expression from tine's past into ones present. It is the reproduc-
tion in the present ofsensa which have intimate association with the realities of
zo
P-aCCem bi]i<J Prot-esti
Types of prupojiiliohiil picheiuion
LS
PS
ptrctplive preht nsiion
iiiiEi injlivf: prchttiaion
mluilivt: juti mi.Til Symbulic Iran lLT
,
:
:::
cju.sjt efficflty Hit lire L
Why Wh itch cad?
the pusL
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I hLii
Lhf L pcricncu of ihu pj.il iii rondcrcJ distiiici in the proitnL with j distinctness bormutid I rom the well-dulined sensj. In this way, jq artieuljled memory Ls ihc itL tiJ lanj ua c, eonsidered as an expression I rum '
untsclfin I he pas I ro tmeiietfin the p res en I.
[91 Lhe prodlielion oI" sound, the lun s and ihrnal jre br[>ij hl into play. So that in speech, while a superlitial, mjna eahk- express it] n is LiiJlnseds yet I he sense
of the vague intimacies of organic existence is also excited Thus voice-prdJuecJ so Lin d is a miUirjl symbol for the deep experience of organic existence. Let it be admitted then that language is not the essence of thought, iiuc ihis conclusion must be carefully [imitetl. Apnrl from hin un d the ret en I ion of
1 ho ugh I, the easy ret: nil of thought, the interweaving of though I into higher complexity, the communicjlio]] of tliou ht. are all grjvcly limited. Ilutnjn eivili Jtion is an oLil niwlh of IjiiKua e, and lan ua e is the product of
advjntinj LLVilizalLtjn.
The following passage (Whitehead 197S;264) gives an idea of his view of the
specific function of propositional language {as well as his somewhat primitive grasp of phonetics[}; LanynagCs as usujIt k always amhiguous as to the exact proposition which it indicates. Spoken language is merely a series of squeaks. Its function iii (a) to arouse in the prehmdingsuhieut ionic physical leetLny indicative of the logical
subject!; of the proposition, [b) to arouse in the prehendin suhjeel some physical feeling, whith plays the part t>l the physitLil reeognilirin (c) to '
1
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:
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promote the sublimation of the physiLLi] recognition into the eonceptuai predicative feeling (d) to promote the integration of the indicative feeling and the predicative feeling into the required propositional feeling Hut in this to the eLLVmuiimenl oJ the LompLw iuiLLi.iiM] there is .iKvlivs a d l 1 1
,
-
.
.
occasion of utterance.
It is this aspect of his perspective on language, together with his conception of
the intentional nature of speech acts and the semantic underpinnings of linguistic forms and categories that I shall be focitsshtgupon in the following chapters.
1
.3
Complenfientarity research seems to approach the boundary between mind and matter ever
closer from both sides (with psycholinguists talking more forthrightly of neurons and neurolingtiists directing their investigations up to ever higher levels of nciiE'.d functiomn 'i, ii is kmptini; lo make speculative leaps Ixtck and
21
ii
Patrcm and Process
fnnh between the two sidesN on the assumption that the boundfijy will eventually vanish. More and more linguist;; today are beeoming affeL-ted by thi opti-
mism, Things look rather different from a Whiteheadian emergent perspective. h<swevierT where societies of neuron s have their own level of organization within the super-societies of persons (human bodies housing brains), Neural activity and mental processes are two aspects of the same reality, namely that of actual 1
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occasions each with their physical and mental poles, but the one is not reducible to the other. The relationship between the activation of particular neural aggregates and specific mental activity on the part of a super-society at the personal level could never be one-to-one from this perspective. It is of the essence that actual occasions concresce from radically indeterminate data (data that is distributed, weighted as to relevance( and available according to the 1
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occasion
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s total past, present sit nation and future possibilities) to determinate,
objectified output in the form of behavioural or mental responses. It is reasonable to suppose that the ob)ectitled knowledge1 which the individual possesses and deploys can vary from closely homologous conformity to incoming sensn '
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(quasi-spatial perceptual 'objects ) to complete arbitrariness (neural aggregatess if you wilh that just happen to have a particular 'feel1 to their subject and are active in certain types of responses). What neurolinguists are homing in on step by cautious step - is the underlying neural architecture which affords different kinds ot' mental activity. They have little to say (yet?) concerning the possible location of specific thought-chains or the involvement of particular neural aggregates - as opposed to broader zones - in particular processes. The Whiteheadian approach that I espouse is content to analyse the internal structure of specitic kinds of mental processes in terms that are conformal with what is known generally of neural underpinnings and leave aside the question of specific location. Nevei,theless3 it can be said that the logic' of individual neurons is ultimately the same as the 'logic' of thought, Le, the logic of con crescent actual occasions in general - notice that this is not a reductionist claim since the relationship between the two planes is complex and non-linear. They represent two different levels of societal organization, of which the higher displays emergent properties not assignable to individual neurons or their aggregates. Emergent properties in general can be said to arise from the re coding of relationships by higher-order learning processes. Vet there is something structurally in common between con crescent occasions at all societal levels: multiple input is integrated to produce unitary output as, for instance, when the individual neuron requires the simultaneous firing of several of its afferent dendrites for its single efferent axon to fire in turn, '
1
Why Whitehead?
Something simiLir occui s at the level of the personally ordered societyN but at i far higher level of complexity. Now complcmemarity' can be observed at every level of societal organization- As Niels Bohr surmised, it pervades all levels of Nature, from elementary particles- of which quantum waves may be the inside1 view - to the human, where the Whiteheadian \jiwF?fn of actual occasions are the renfm of human experience seen from within (cf. Bohr I94fr 318)- Viewing an animate being as alive is thus complementary to viewing it as a physical congeries of atoms, etc. Bohr also speaks of the complementary relationship between feeling and thought. Consciousness (of the kind we know anything about} only adheres to ,
'
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'
1
the human level and then on Iv some of the time. The neural level is thus not '
simply the Vmtside view of the experiential level of individual 'personally ordered society the two are set at different levels altogether. Both have their inside and outside perspective - on the 'personal* level outward behaviour as opposed to inner experience, on the neural level concrescent activation within the individual neuron versus its objective participation in the outward-facing activities of whole neural aggregates. Kven if the relationship between the two levels is brought eventually into much finer focus, the 'boundary1 between the inside and outside perspective on the level of the individual human being can never just vanish, since there is no boundary, )ust two sides of the same surface, if you will N 03 is there a clear-cut boundary between societal levels in so far as a higher level of organisation emerges from a lower one. Complementarity (though this is not his own term for the relationship) is the way White head, like Bohr, avoids conflating and confusing these matters. '
But enough of abstractions and generalities. Let us see now how this all translates into the concrete world of speech behaviour with which functionally orientated linguistics is concerned.
zs
Chapter 2
A Whiteheadian approach to natural dialogue
No linguist has, to my knowledge, ever followed up the lead offered by Whitehead & work on symbolism to apply his general 'philosophy of organism' to
language behaviour's An excellent area to begin with in order to see its continuing relevance for contemporary linguistics is Speech Act theory. This can conveniently be illustrated with data from my 1978 PhD thesis based on the game Twenty Questions (and published in condensed form as Rjrtescue 1980). This investigated a clearly circumscribed arena of language production and comprehension, in the context of which certain questions; of a general nature concerning the cognitive underpinnings of language were addressed. More specifically, this game 'mimics1 a quintessential kind of cognitive behaviour, the attempt to understand 03- guess at something as yet hidden to ones knowledge but known to someone else. In doing so it exemplifies the 1
cardinal Whiteheadian process of step-wise concrescence guided by a determinate subjective aim that weighs at each stage the maximally differentiated relevant contrasts - and contrasts of contrasts - for its satisfaction, i.e. the '
most promising way forward towards its goaf The eternal object
'
that consti-
tutes the set of game rules defines this goal and constrains the means of re aching it, thus acting as all eternal objects do when integrated into higher cognitive processes, namely heightening and clarifying the subjective aim in a state of balanced complexity. The subjective aim in turn selects those concepts for
prehension that are highlighted as maximally relevant to its fultrlment, as determined by the twin processes of conceptual valuation and reversion
elaborated in \.2:y. The game also highlights the continual monitoring and '
updating of discourse partners internal models of each others current state of knowledge, something essential to all communication. Two of the central concerns that inevitably enter into any discussion of speech acts arc, on the one hand, the nature of the inferential processes leading
up to - and resulting from - successive speech acts (particularly relevant to '
1
guessing games such as Twenty Questions), a]idt on the other hand, the nature
26
Pattern and Prciccsii
of the intentions behind such chained speech acts. I shall start with a few remarks concerning the former.
ia
Speech acLs and intentions in a worid in process
I have argued elsewhere for a Whiteheadian 'calculus of feeling' approach to ULUural inference {Fortescue 1999], one which is both more complex and more flexible thiin context-free logical inference of the type dear to computer simulation designers- This is compatible with the mental space approach of '
'
l:auconnior (1985), for which see further under 4.1. It is also akin to Poircean nhduULon :uf uIlUl in rc will he viid uiuSlt- 7.1jJ' lau 'hiLchctdiLUi '
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'
divination1 is considerably more fu zy and 'polyadic1: it allows multiple
premises as input and introduces the possibility of radical novelty through 1
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conceptual reversion guided to a determinate end by the overall 'feel1 of ,
matching prehensionsn Inference seen in this light is largely a matter of matching prop ositional for other) prehensions with nexus types ('frames1) with whkh they are compatible and from which further propositions can be read off Ladi '
1
real-life inference involves the participants in a unique blend of genera] patterns of Viable
'
linguistic behaviour and the application of short-cut heuristics
applicable to the type of situation concerned. I suspect that any computer
simulation of a real-life dialogue situation capable of generating the relevant inferences - and only them - would require such complex world knowledge (including personal background) that an exponential explosion would result. A majoJ pun of rational hLunan a niuon mny ;ie in hiei in ihe i oLrieiijui i:k>l:.lof logical pruning rather than in positive inferences according to general '
'
logical templates.30 This, 1 have su gested: can only be done efficiently by selective (but largely unconscious) abstraction from the virtual cloud of potential inferences potentially gen era table by a given utterance of those '
'
inferences that are relevant to the situation at hand. Note that Whitehcad '
lim self considered the negative variety of intuitive judgment1 (see 2.3 below), recognizing what a phenomenon is not, as the high-point of human mentality ( White he ad 1978:273). This would apply also to the propositional deductions 1
4 read off from a Johnson-La irdian "mental model" (John son-Laird 19 3): the
number of analogical relations which could in principle be applied to such experiential constructs to produce a set of natural inferences must surely
remain open-ended without the constraints of immediate relevance.21 Although the nuinher of distinct4feelings1 the mind/brain can distinguish
A W lii trh ca d um a ppiro ach to iwit u ral di a logue
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1
may well be in tin it e, the calculus of feeling is by no means necessarily vague.
The mental processes it carries out may act on rich, heterogenous mental '
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objects but this it does via the holistic feel of such objects to the experiencer font? can envisage them as being rekited by associative strengths rather than by labelled nodes and branchings). What 1 had in mind in my article was a highly ,
tlexible and effective capability that has evolved from pre-verbal roots into a formidable instrument of thought hand in hand with the development of languago. I is deployment should be taken to cover all the modes of rational
thought - deduction, induction and abduction - that logicians occupy themselves with, Even in the most abstract chain of reasoning affect is not entirely outside of the picture. The integration of any prehension has some affective colouration for the expenencer, in so far as it is of relevance to him or
!ier at all '["h is is not a surprising claim! given the roots of language and thought reflected in ontogeny - one need only think of the pleasure children derive from playing with newly learnt words and constructions and in unearthing new
patterns in their environment in general. Language for them is bathed in affective meaning long before the fine-tuning of referential meaning is mastered. The affective component is at the very least an 'extra dimension available to guide such central cognitive processes as lexical recall and natural inference. In the same article [ suggested a possible way in which one could start to formalize the kinds of operations I have been discussing. In the schema below PI and P2 represent respectively a speaker's prehension of his interlocutor's response to his own utterance plus his [subsequent) prehension of the relevant implications of that response; 1
a
a
P
i
....
t>...,
4
a.bl lfii
Here V is the perceived linguistic signal fthe phonological form of the utterance )t y the set of possible literal meanings of that signal (its propositional content or referential potentials and V the set of possible reasons why the interlocutor might have uttered it fits 'subjective aim1 - or 'intentional form1). a and (i together represent the context of the utterance fas reflected in the 1
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1
27
i8
Pattern
Pi'ocess
speaker s own menial stile) and ovcr the immediate commimicfitive frame%vt>i-k (a) and general background knowledge (p) respectively. The effect oI this context on the hearer s comprehension of y and V is to inhibit all but sub-sets a and 'b' respectivelyf which are correspondingly reinforced or highlighted (this is the meaning of the lines from [a, p} to 'a c and
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1
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accordingly to a2 (which now includes V and b ) ready for further integration in the on-going dialogue. The important thing to bear in mind is that what is '
,
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1
represented here is a momentary cross-section of a eon tinning process, with successive input (prehensions) producing output {expressions} which are in UirEi input tor further concrescent processes.
The same gene fill kind of representation of linked prehensions could be used lo reflect the grasping for producing) of metaphorical meanings according to Johnsonian 'image schemata' (Johnson 1937). This can be seen as the result ofprehending successively both the literal (sens orimotor-based) meaning of a word or phrase and a relevant metaphorical extension into another, less experientially immediate domain (by conceptual reversion). The V and b abstracted and preh ended as P21 would in such cases represent the metaphorical meaning relevant to context a I and sanctioned by background knowledge '
1
<
p (the literal meaning of V would be incompatible). What is stored consequently in memory fit anything) will be specific word or image triggers (or incipient gestures towards them)h not the procedural image schema' itself that
is ingredient in the metaphorical inference, although specific words in semantic memory may be more or less conventionally associated with such a schema [this will he developed further in 4,2). Metaphorical cross-domain extensions could '
1
be indicated on the leftmost vertical arrow.
Hie vvmm small Roman letters on the diagram could be replaced in theory by specific verbal labels or descriptions but these would of course have to be understood as belonging to a descriptive metalanguagCn The formalism coulc also he extended to characterize more general patterns involving particular types of V and b elements or structures. The conditions relevant to their <
'
disambiguation in specific types of contextual conditions (the as and ps) could be formalized in an appropriate metalanguage of 'scripts1. * frames1, 'plans1, social schemata or the like.13 Among the most general patterns of prehensionchaining that would emerge would be such well-known ones as woilm poaciu and itioJus TollcftS, etc. (abstracted from the embodied image schemata1 on which they are based), all of which could be seen as minimally contextualized variants of the more general operation of a basic human calculus of feeling '
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1
.
A W li i 1
rii d irtn a ppro u cli to nat u rn I di a lf>gue
[;urthermore, the format can he adapted tf> more loojiely chained sequences of prehensions by alternating partners in an on-going discourse (so P2 could he the hearer s prehension of an intervening utterance expressing the speaker s reaction to his prehension of the preceding utterance, PI). In my thesis 1 discussed this in terms of'uptake1 moves associated with particular discourse '
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act demons1 fcf. Austin 1952, who under the former rubric stresses the fact that
usually more than one participant is needed for a speech act to l>e successfully
esecutedln Obviously this is knowledge shared by the two participants (and part of mutual knowledge (3 for them both}. This building up of probabilistically expected response sets associated with individual discourse acts is essentially a matter of the iul hoc tinkering together of more basic conventionalized response pairs to produce new skills - here communicatory skills, verbal strategies buiit up heuristically by hricolage in a world of continual tlux and novelty. JVly model allowed for discourse acts* that are blends/overlaps of 1
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simpler ones - also for the results of competition a la Bates & McWhinney
f 1982), whereby new act types can arise spontaneously The problem with this approach is the apparent profligation of discrete discourse acts -just how many such acts are needed to attain descriptive and explanatory adequacy? And how is illocution to be distinguished consistently from perlocution if 'discourse acts' are to cover a continuum from acts tightly associated with linguistic fillocutionary) choices to much more indirectly1
'
expressed intentionsrihese are problems, of course, for all approaches to speech
act theory. Whereas Austin (1962) appears to have assumed - unlike Wittgenstein - that the number of illocutions was finite and determinate for a given language, dehnable in terms of hnite 4felicity conditions', Searle f I976) distinguishes a small set not of speech acts but of abstract speech act types, five in all
[directives, assertives. expressives. declaratives, and cominissives). One may regard these as default prototypeSj at tractors to which actual complex discourse acts may be drawn under interpretation and/or production - interference between default and n on-de fault acts maybe assumed to occur all the time, But if one dispenses with the rigid distinction between illocution and perlocution the lid of Pandora box seems, at first sight, to have been well and truly lifted. For Searleh the distinction hinges around his notion of the 'essential condition adhering to illocutionary speech acts - the other 'satisfaction conditions (sincerity and preparatory) being also relevant to less linguistically direct perlocutionary intentions {desired effects on the addressee). The Essential condition is simply a form/intention pairing associated with the speech act 1
1
1
(such that a given linguistic expression founts as1 a token of that act), which
19
Hi
Pattern im3 Process
reflects the conveTHionalised/grammaticLilized nature of illocutionary fas oppu cd Lo pcrlocutioiwy) force. Conventionalized i I locutions correspond to perlocutiojwy aims {thcii1 sQiirce). I simply assume that an illocutionary act links a peilocutionary aim with a detei minate, conventionalized linguistic tbrm for rcalmng it. What is important from a Whiteheadian perspective is the '
'
subjective form associated with any sentence> the feel of the overall intention
behind its utterance. In real discourse there is always a fu zy middle area; my '
thesis specitied sixty different discourse acts represented each by a demon1 with input conditions (contained in and brgcly determined by an overall discourse frame in which Starleian sincerity/preparatory conditions adhere directly to roles) and output realization possibilities (usually a default construction, but with allowance for less direct overlapping realizations). Also indicated there
were typical preceding and following act types. The speech act
demons' could
'
thus be defined in terms of four parameters, two of input and two of output: expected response pair settings plus realization rules for specific verbal intentions triggered by specific contextual conditions. Clearly an approach to the pragmatics/gram mar interface in terms of grammaticali zed femic) distinctions vs. multiple (etic) deployments in discourse of ihese distinct categories would not be out of place here, since languages typically only distinguish a handful of basic illocutions as discrete expression types. 4
1
Itkonen (1983:177) undermines the whole Searlian approach to speech acts as defined in terms of rules by replacing the latter by rationality principles that '
'
tie together intentions with sentence meanings to produce utterances deployed in specific situations. These are 'norms of rationality1 (rather than of'correctness ) 1 hey are 'objects of common knowledge', internalized as 'reasons1 for actions, and resemble sentences rather than rules, being indefinite in number '
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[op.dt.:74). They are generated from a potential stock of abstract valuations that may change over time, just like (perspectives on) Whiteheadian eternal objects. Such social norms do not derive from observation aloneN although they are leamt by observing human behaviour; once learnt they valuate observations. I'his is consonant with mv own view of these matters,
As regards all the less direct kinds of speech acts (on a continuum leading to peilocutions so remote from grammaticalization as to require complex heuristics to attain interpretation), one may link the most common possibilities of expression to sincerity and preparatory conditions in the manner of Sear I e [ 1969) or of illocutionary'conversions' in the manner of Dik (1997:2401 .), but this will only take one so far. Ultimately one reeds something like my 'discourse demons1, which can in principle inter quite indirect linkages between intention
A Whileheadian approjch Lo ]iaturiii dialogue
and CTtpreAsioii. In fact, the processes these reflect are re minis cent of Whitehcadian concrescences with multiple input conditions and they can he defined in terms of eternal objects that deline patterns of in put/output correlations guiding the specific on-line prehensions activated on the way towards their satisfaction. Conceptual reversion fcf. Section 1.2.5) must speciiicrtlly be involved in prehensions of meanings further removed than the direct 'surface1 one.1. The means required to crack indirect speech acts are multiple, including general conversational implicatures (cf. Grice 1975)t but it is also necessary to consider the broader context to interpret specific speech acts of any kind '
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1
1
(cf Goifman 1974 on social 'frames
)
.
On my model this was done by associat-
ing certain chained discourse demons1 under the umbrella of the 'game trainer1 Both hottom-up (calculated/infer red) and top-down (frame expectation) approaches are needed - for instance in the form of different types of prehensions drawn into one and the same concrescence - in order to reflect the complex intentions behind speech acts. Moreover, short-cuts are always possible given a rich enough con text N so in reality Sea rles nine proposed steps for finding the ultimate illocution behind an indirect speech act can usually be curtailed {cf. Scarle 1979).
Types of discourse intentions fas subjective aims) and frames (relevant to
ihoif imerprouiioir: am he viewed as species of Whitd-ieadian eternal objects. Thus my discourse act 'request rephrase1 is an eternal object with prototypical input and output conditions, in turn put together from lhe combination of the more basic acts of
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asking (simple interrogatory illocution), requesting action
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(more specifically 'requesting information1) and 'objecting'. The (prototypical) input and output conditions of those in ore basic acts are generally compatible, so its verbal expression may often reflect an overlay of elements from expression
types associated with them {cf. Fortescue 1978; 89ff). One possibility is for the guesser to suggest a rephrase himself, introducing it by do you mean - V '
(which reflects the further involvement of the prototypical 'request confirmation
'
acfh The conditions on 'request rephrase' become more fine-grained
when occurring within the frame of Twenty Questions - here it will largely be motivated by the (answerers recognition of the) questioner asking a question
that cannot be answered by a simple yes/no on the part of the answerer as required by the game rules. The prehensions involved in realizing this act type f apart from on-going entertainment of the game frame) will include recogniz-
ing the impossibility of a straight yes/no answer to the question. This involves '
anticipatory prehensions and the intuitive judgment1 of the implications that a positive or negative answer might evoke {their non-compatibility with the
31
3i
Pattern Lind Process
actual game object}. The details are undoubtedly com pi ex> individual and - by virtue of the degree of novelty introduced - indeterminate. Abo the roles invoiwd fTwenty Questions " gucsscr and 'answerer1), which may be assembled
through exposure to the game from more basic discourse roles, are species of '
'
eternal objectn elements within the broader patterning of the game frame eternal object.
Such complex Whiteheadmn prehensions each have their own subjective form
contributing to the concrescence, which corresponds to a Searleian intentional 1
state
(Searle 1983}. These Scarle analvses in terms of combinations of more basic
beliefs and desires plus negative and possibility operators, just as Whiteheac. distinguishes between (complex) subjective forms of prehensions {which may include belief and desire} and the actual operations performed by prehensions*
such as performing positive, negative or suspended judgments. There is no prehension that does not have an accompanying subjective form, below we shall see how this works out in the analysis of a particular game episode.
2
2 Twenty Questions revisited
.
The following game token (from my thesis) can be used to illustrate the way in which Whiteheadian notions of concrescence, prehension, eternal objects, etc.. apply in a straightforward way to real-life diaiogue. It is one of the simpler games that I recorded, hut nevertheless it abounds with novel thoughts anc their expression. The game rules provide a clear-cut reference frame of question-answer sequences to which the analysis can easily relate the intentions behind the more complex individual utterances. I shall concentrate on the chaining of intentions and corresponding speech acts rather than on the form of utterances (a matter to be dealt with in somewhat greater detail in the next chapter)- Of particular interest is the unearthing of specific inferences anc, presuppositions and seeing how these manifest some of White he ad basic notions. The whole dialogue ill List rates (as any text does) the production of a novel - but determinate - linguistic event out of only partially determinate ingredients. The participants A and R are, in Whiteheadian terms, two Individual entities, or nexus of successive actual occasions (each causally cohesive and enduring in time) in mutual unison of becoming : much of their past is sharec owing to common inheritance and they are situated in spatio-temporal proximity to each other. Their aims or perspectives on this shared data are, however, unique to each of them. What I shall be looking at is what may be assumed 1
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A WJiitchcadian Lipproiich to itatiJirLiI dialogue
'
as a minimum - to be going on 1n the heads of both of them as the game
unfoldJi. Such an analysis of natural dialogue was never undertaken by Whitehead himsselfin his writingsj it should be noted. A; O.K.s U's mineral. li: Minerhit melal?
A: For ihu ]n(>si par{.
Bj Du yuu use it? A: Is lhal jn impLTsonjl 'you*? lij Duts tint: luc it - is il Lin ob
l whic-h isi u cJ?
A; Yes.
[I; I >( it's on c use i t i ndof3 ca, ? A; No.
li; In lKl iireei, tis [ippo ed lo the oiiiiirysidt.1? In ihu street? A; Mo...
Nut in the street, in itu1 garden? A; No.
hUhe countryside? A; U i in the cti Lin tryside. EJ; ll in Lhe toutiLrynide. h it stdlie? A; Ves.
K: Us Atatit. U\ nnt something lila: an elettricity pylon? A; VVhiU do > >u mc n like an electricity pylon? l : K :l .in . k'l li u ily pylon? A; It isn'U no, "
Bj
... il does n' l tno ve... Li i l soin e fo r i n oJ
hcl icr? o r hull din
A; A Iniiidih certainly - in the sense of a sLmeUne.
Bj Yesij that's what 1 was trying lo cL ji with iht e3eelritity pylon. It's a St rue tun; but doesn
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t give any shelter.
A; Yes.
H;
I he l:0!lli I ilI
A; Which one?
B; Ok well, when I was a sehootbciy - the oni1 voll painL inees anlly... I suppose it s [he new tjni.1. '
A: No, its (he other one. t ; it's (he old onts is it?
The initial step in applying a Whiteheadian analysis to such a dialogue is to decide what span of speech to take as corresponding to a single 'actual occasion As a first approximation I shall simply equate utterance and occasion. Let 1
.
us proceed theti with an informal characterization of the genesis for concrescence) of successive utterances in the chosen dialogue, treating each one as the
a
Pattern bind Process
supcrjcct {or objectified product) of an individual actual occasion. Half of them are chained together along tho A nexus {or answerer/object-poier) route, halt" 1
L
along the
l
Bh
nexus (or quest ion er/guesser) route. I shall concentrate on the
initial exchange to illustrate the basic approach, then J shall jump to the final moves in the game. But first a further word about die just i tic atJon of creating '
each utterance as a distinct occasion '
Whitehead was rather vague about the
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exact temporal duration of an actual occasion as it relates to the successive experiential tjunntti of a personal subject (or nexus). He suggested in one passage '
-
where he discusses human nexus - that it is 'somewhat less than a second but
in another he talks of the production of a two word phrase as being borne by several successive occasions of the same speaker (Whitehead 1 $M7:233f.). The duration of occasions at other societal levels {e.g. the atomic or the planetary] must of course be envisaged as correspondingiy much shorter or much longer.
It is interesting to compare McNeill's concept of the growth point1 in which a '
gestural image and a verbal category1 coincide as the germ of an individual unit
of thought! gesture and language being in a complementary relationship (whether or not they are manifest in outer speech)-"6 He estimates the average length of such a unit of self-organisation' as about one and a half seconds [McNeill 1992:242). Concrescent occasions can certainly take complex input (say gestures and speechn or icons and symbols) simultaneously, as long as they '
are bound1 hv a unitarv subjective aim. Note also Chafe's notion of'intonation
unit
1
corresponding to a single focus of consciousness and which he estimates as lasting between one and two seconds (Chafe 1994:66). My 'cognitive' interpretation of tite Whiteheadian 'occasion1 is that the span of one experiential occasion is indeed roughly the span of immediate conscious focus> more specifically that of a unitary perception plus interpretive integration {of an utterance) resulting in a unitary reaction - e.g, a single cllji LLi.l ydc correspond i ng to u Mnglc in Leo I ion imnicdiately acted upon. '
,
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1
This may be smaller or larger than a grammatical sentence, but a single sentence is the usual default length - this reflects the functional underpinning of the ncniencL in the first place (cf Ochs et al. iy%j. Such an aci has both afferent and efferent aspects {involving comprehension and production in different -
.
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proportions). According to White head s definition of an actual occasiom this unitary event must he closed off to further input from contemporary occasions until its satisfaction and consequent decision1. By the category of Objective '
identity one concrescent actual occasion can only refer to (or prehend) a given entity - actual occasion or eternal object - once [though many different
entities can be referred to in the same concrescence)/ tach such entity plays a
A Whileheadlan approach to natural dialogue
determinate mle in the overall concrescence.
Since the actual occasions constituting an enduring person' are embedded in a hierarchical structure of societies, the actual locus and duration of the total
ingredient activity in the production of an utterance may be indetcrminatej but it is only the level of the f potentially) conscioui personally ordered society that concerns us here. This should not be seen as denying that complex intentions can be broken up into sub-intentions, each met separately en route to the overall satisfaction of the occasion! nor that low-grade cognitive kicking over can till the gaps between high-grade (organized and conscious) intentional acts, but in so far as such sub-routines are summoned precisely as a means towards meeting the initial aim of the concrescence (and do not constitute further impinging daUi Trom without ) 1 feel justihed in my decision to equate utterance and actual occasion (at least as a norm), especially as the natural divisions are so clearly suggested by the linguistic data itself "y This is further equal able with JHymes conception of the verse in natural narrative, marked off by a combination of tntcination, pt ngmiitk .ind v.iruais ivpe. of sein.irLiii.indications of Jakob so nian 'equivalence1. He specifically points out that one turn in dialogue corresponds to one 'verse' in this sense (Hymes 1994:332). Later, when I discuss wriUen texts in Chapter bt where1 verse structure1 is largely replaced by paragraph structured we shall encounter limits to the plausibility 1
1
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of this procedure.
What are the principal data forming the 4input' to As formulation of his first statement? Obviously the combination of the rules of the game plus the knowledge that the object he is posing for B to guess is the forth Railway Bridge. The latter information he has been given in written form - as a proper name that he has probably stored in phonological form! although it is potential-
ly linked to various sensory and propositkmal forms of information. The output is a declarative statement (following a let's start1 marker) that qualifies the object-to-be-guessed ( it' - the tacitly agreed topic of the game) as belonging to the category mineral But how does A get from this multiple input to the linear output? The first step in a Whiteheadian concrescence is the abstraction from the initial data - the entire Input* inherited by 'objectification"' from the immediate past - of the objective data relevant for the actual occasion, This in turn is determined by the occasion's initial 'subjective aim1. One may characterize the latter as a hybrid prehension' linking an 'eternal object1, the "objective lure1 that corresponds to l he goal [or rather the potential attainment of the goal) for the occasion prehending it, with the immediate physical reality of that occasion. 1
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Pattern i;nd Prdttss
In other words, the in age of achievement1 of verbally characterising the game '
objecf according to the general tripartite division of animal, mineral or vegetiiblc a pR L-ribod by l\\c ganit1 rule!i.,,<J According to my c&gnitive 1
,
interpretation ot" White head! sketched in the preceding chapter an 'eternal 1
object is a concept, n potential for reaction embodied in a neural aggregate '
tuned by learning. Here it is part o a larger complex corresponding to the '
'
entire rule set both players have atqutied for this particular game (how rules mLiy he L-inhodicd vvill he Letumed lu in t uipicr :>,' . Ihis activated potential
then represses all of the initial input that does not mesh specifically with the attainment of the goal in question. This leaves (in j simplified world) just the
imperative to produce an utterance that will satisfy that initial lawful goalh plus 1
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the knowledge of the specific object out there which is to be characterized in the inLinner prescribed. This initial subjective aim determines the 'subjective form' ot the actual occasion - here the intention to produce a declarative speech act, So far, so good. How does the actual occasion now go about realizing its 1
'
specified goal? This process can be broken down into several different kinds of 1
'
prehension, some referring to eternal objects some to physical elements in the ,
objective data - including earlier stages in the concrescence itself. Others are '
imaginative' prehensions. 'I'hese logically defined stages progress in a hierarchical but not necessarily chronological order f everything within a single concrescence functions as it were,
'
in parallel'), guided by the 'subjective form' of
striving for the satisfaction of the goal, i.e. the attainment of maximal integra1
tion and intensity of the concrescence, which will become 'objectified
d
-an
at the same time perish and transcend itself-- in the resulting output (verbal behaviour). Among the ingredients drawn into the concrescence in achieving
this goal are pure conceptual prehensions of the various experiential qualities embodied in As concept of the bridge in question - in particular its metallic
substance - and comparison of these with the requirement of choosing between a characterization of that object as 'animah mineral or vegetable1 (part of his physically prehended objective data ) This complex process is one of holistic 'matching" land the corresponding'feel1 of recognition) rather than of linearizable logical stages. Note that the three superordinate categories are '
.
themselves concepts tor A [obtainable via pure conceptual prehension). The difficulties players sometimes have in matching these categories to specific
objects (especially complex ones) is evidence enough that prototype eftects adhere to such abstractions derived from experience. The inal stage of the concrescence will be the 'decision to produce a f
3
communicatively well-formed utterance that satisfies the subjective aim. This
A Whiteheadian approach to natural dialogue
requires the prehension of relevant lexical items and grammatical rules to express the meLmin intended. How this informlUion may be stored and accused will be discussed further in Chapter 5h Kor now let it suffice to suggest that activity corresponding to the expansion of a topmost declarative sentence S node (with an NP node corresponding to the pro positional subject and a VP one corresponding to the eternal object predicated of it) is in conformity with die further expansion of the VP inio a eopula a [id Lin adjeetive eorres ponding to the quality chosen as characterizing the game object (the predication to be expressed) 1 Note that this syntactic information can be contained in predicate frames (or lemmas*) attached to the speciiic lexical items drawn into the concrescence. Redundancy is of little importance here - formulating phrase structure rule expansions simply generalizes over such constructions/patterns, The elaborated crystallization of the utterance is the result of the n on-linear interplay of semantic needs and syntactic constraints under a guiding i)locution ary aim. The word mineral associated with the concept it corresponds to willh in particular, have been potentially activated in ihe flogically) preceding stage of matching the concept of the Porth Railway Bridge to the (forced) trichotomy between animal, mineral and vegetable Other determinate '
1
1
'
'
'
elements of this object ihcation will include the choice of pronoun it' to refer to the tacit topic of the game dialogue (as subject of the proposition); the attachment of the copuia as an enclitic C-s ) to that topic; the agreement of the verb '
"
with its 3rd person singular subject (the preh ended conformity of match between a particular form of the verb and its subject); and the prosodic packaging of the utterance (which can in turn embody very subtle nuances of meaning thrown up during the concrescence and not fully realisable by the proposition alone). This whole concrescence is represented highly schematically on the top left of the diagram below, which covers the tirst few exchanges of the game. Note that the game rules themselves, constituting a blueprint of a certain kind of dyadic behaviourh act for both A and B as a coanplex eternal object upon which
they each have their specific perspectives, in the role of object-poser and guesser respectively The search set is the accreting property list B builds up for the '
'
initially unknown game object - it corresponds to the box marked Vibj.' in the shared game space (which for A is of course filled by some representation - or
shifting representations - of the fully sped lied object)/ The game space itself "
L
1
should of course really be doubled, one accreting mentaJ model for each player regard this as shorthand for overlapping 'mutual knowledge' The thick vertical line simply represents the (causal) time axis.
-
yj
jrt
L lIULEIJ lLJIU J J
LL ft
GAML RULLS A M V tvcon.
gami-; 1
I
I
It j; inineral -
[5 it metal r
known
For the mil t pa it mincriil; L
md.u
Do you u.sc it?
o-
Is that an impersonal 'ynu -
:ttiiiii;j;L:
1 Do fl one use it?
tisane 2.
rt
lo figure 2
*
data concrc-ice]it occasion
subjective aim ingression
concr.'intennal prchcnsicLi
tttmaJ -object search set 1
A M V
decision
AnimaJh MineraL Vegetable
Let as now shift our attention to how B comprehends this utterance and reacts u> u accordingly. Baiiically, what li dot1*; is to fed for the compatibility of the objective data relevant to the game situation (As utterance as objectified tor him in the form of incoming acoustic information) with his expectations at that point. If A had said something unusual or inappropriate a search for the reason for this mismatch would have been initiated. There is presumably no reason for
B to abstract anything more from the initial data than the word 'minerali one 1
of the three he is set to expect. B s comprehension of As first utterance fas indkated by lX4 on die diagram) can be represented by a schema of the type introduced in 2.1, only here Pi is B's prehension of the phonological form of
As utterance V, plus its literal meaning 'a1 and assumed reason for uttering it '
b
1
These are narrowed down front wider potential sets V and V according to actual context aT and (tacitly) shared background f>\ Note that b (the intuited subjective form of the concrescence behind A's utterance) can! by default, be directly 'read1 from the shared game context since K expects this intention on the questioner's part to predominate in that context. But it does not have to be so - probability merely weights this interpretation most highly. .
'
'
'
1
The subjective form couldn for example have been non-communicative musing on As part as he endeavoured to find a suitable description of the objects status
within the artificial anhnal-minerd-vegetable taxonomy, and thus not have been intended as marking the start of the game. Intonation and body signals may play an important role in the actual weighting. P2 represents [Vs prehension of the reading of A s utterance compatible with his own subjective aim [and not eliminated by negative prehension), i.e. the information abstracted; 1
from that utterance as relevant data for the concrescence as a whole which wil
40
I'atterrt ii]id Process
1
end in ihc decision for further action.
The next step is an integration of this information m to the highest qualitative category to which the game object has been aligned with Bs own goal at that point determined by the intei nalized game rules). In other words, B\
concrescence aims at satisfying bis goal of narrowing down the search set by asking an appropriate utterance, thus initiating the guessing process- This must
he done in two (temporally overlapping) stages before the 'decision' as to his reaction (the expression of the utterance produced) can be achieved, namely (]) finding a conceptual category contained or subsumed by the activated initia, '
eternal object minerar that maximally advances B towards the overall goal of the gameh e.g. by maximally reducing the search set; and (2) expressing this in
an appropriate interrogative utterance.-33 This will typically include some key '
word (a) standing in a hyponymic relationship to miner af - i.e. labelling the
conceptual category chosen under (I). The causal link between the two 'stages' is in conformity with the internalized game rules. In general the respective roles and goals defined by the rttles are '
'
inherited' from successive occasion to occasion within A's and Bs separate 1
(since the complex eternal object the rules represent functions as ongoing objective lure for their successive subjective aims, which conform to it)- Before b embarks on this process however, he gives himself some 'thinking room by echoing As initial utterance with a rhetorical request for confirmation I shall not analyse this any further here (it would presumably have to be treated as a separate actual occasion, since its subjective aim is not identical with routes
'
'
1
-
that of the main1 concrescence that follows). '
The satisfaction conditions (-maximally intense state of integration) of the whole concrescence at this point, combining both stages beyond the initial comprehension phase but before the terminal decision [i.e* V on the diagram), can be summarized as follows, where means cis compatible with1; '
1
1
-
SiHitfiicthH conditions -
-
mineral - best possible reduction of remaining search set > production of legitimate game question
This should tie interpreted as meaning that the concrescence will be satis!led by
the production of a legitimate game question (a yes/no question patently relevant to the goal of the game at hand and therefore counting as one of the LiUowed twenty) it and only it the properly Linked ahoul I here metar) i> compatible with the property list at that point (namely the property minerar( to which it indeed stands in a hyponymic relationship) and the resulting '
H
Fatten And TrtKCjis
'
end in xhc dot: is ion1 lor fun her action.
The next step is an integration of this information as to the highest qualitative category to which the game oh feet has been assigned with tTs own goal at that point (as determined by the internali/ed game rules). In other words, B s concrescence aims at satisfying his goal of narrowing down the search set by asking an appropriate utterance, thus initiating the guessing process. This must '
be done in two (temporally overlapping) stages before the 'decision' as to his reaction (the expression of the utterance produced) can be achieved, namely (]) finding a conceptual category contained or subsumed by the activated initial eternal ohiect mineraF that maximally advances B towards the overall goal of the gameh e.g. by maximally reducing the search set; and (2} expressing this in '
an appropriate interrogative utterance,- This will typically include some key '
'
word (a) standing in a hyponymic relationship to miner ul - i e labelling the conceptual category chosen under f I). The causal link between the two 'stages* is in conformity with the in tern a.ized game rules. In general the respective roles and goals defined by the rules are inherited1 from successive occasion to occasion within As and Us separate jvuIlV (since the cuinp]e\ etcuul object lhe tides represent functions .. ongoing objective lureh for their successive subjective aims, which conform to .
.
'
'
'
it). Before B embarks on this process, however, he gives himself some 'thinking 1
by echoing As initial utterance with a rhetorical request for confirmation I shall not analyse this any further here fit would presumably have to be treated as a separate actual occasion, since its subjective aim U not identical with room
-
that of the main1 concrescence that follows). '
"
'
he satisfaction conditions ( = maximally intense state of integration) of the whole concrescence at this pomt( combining both stages beyond the initial comprehension phase but before the terminal decision fi.e. 'Y1 on the diagram), can be summarized as follows, where means 1 is compatible with'; [
1
1
'
'-
Srttitffiction wtidititynt ~
mineral - best possible reduction of remaining search set > production of legitimate ame question
-
This should be interpreted as meaning that the concrescence will be satisfied by the production of a legitimate game question (a yes/no question patently relevant to the goal of the game at hand and therefore counting as one of the allowed twenty) if and only if the property asked about {here metal ) is compatible with the property list at that point (namely the property mineral to which it indeed stands in a hyponymk relationship) and the resulting 1
'
'
'
,
42
Pattern and I'mcess
Elements that could hiive been drawn into the early jitage ot B1s concrescence include (besides the eternal objects already mentioned): knowledge of different strategies that are useful in connection with Twenty Questions; knowledge of when it is iippropnate to make a 'wild guess1 at some concrete esemphr rather thLtn continue to narrow the held of re levant abstract qualities; knowledge that in the given situation there are in fact still twenty guesses to go; knowledge of'prototypical' exemplars of the category 'mineral1 and of prototypical exemplars of sob-categories such as metal etc.; some kind of under1
'
,
Standing of a quasi-technical nature as to Vhat counts as mineral (this may include dictionary definitions, knowledge gleaned from school chemistry, etc.); and clues from the actual situation - e.g. A\ intonation and facial expression, coupled with B s general knowledge of As typical behaviour and attitudes (perhaps he is going to enjoy misleading him, perhaps he is a stickler for playing by the book1, perhaps he can be expected to bend over backwards being helpful, etc.), all of which may a fleet B's strategy. These disparate elements may be 'represented1 [Le. somehow internalized} for him in a rich variety of ways, accessible via prehensions of different sorts - including imaginative prehensions whereby novel combinations of concepts may be generated from already imernali eJ ones. What guides them all, suppressing what is not relevant, is the '
*
'
subjective aim, whose satisfaction, as we have seen, is a feeling of maxima.. integration and intensity - intense enough to trigger the decision" to respond in a certain determinate fashion.
This brings us to (2), the closing phase of the concrescence, after the concept metal has been highlighted as maximally 'relevant'. Now B must produce an interrogative utterance to achieve the satisfaction of his present subjective aimN as defined above. The syntactic frame for this is largely determined by As preceding utterance fand his own recap), but could be generated '
1
'
from scratch' in conformity with illocutionary intention and grammatical 4
1
possibility - this time around the content word metal an adjective fas well as a noun), it is unnecessary to envisage a declarative sentence being generated and then having its subject and verb inverted as in early generative models. The illocutionary intention will itself initiate a suitably inverted sentence template under a certain type of intonational contour - for further elaboration as the ,
-
'
1
content demands (there is no such need here). The causal potency of the
actual occasion will exactly lie expended (-perish) when the utterance Is
articulated and produced via the relevant efferent pathways of speech production. Only then, as product, is it fully determinate and unmodifiable,
A Wh itchcadian a ppiro a cli to nat u nil di a loguc
My analysis of the following exchanges can be cm1 tailed, since the basic nature of the alternating game moves involves conerescent processes similar to those already described for the first coupled exchange. In genera each succesaive question-ansu'LT pair k assimilated by B so as to revise his search set 1
optimally, sometimes to I lowing the same line of thought in order successively to narrow down the set. sometimes making an intuitive leap to ask another kind of question altogether - one that he may realize from experience represents a
fruit till game strategy/5 He is guided, much as a chess player is, by a continual assessment of the
'
feel1 of the projected decrease in search space and concomitant increase in intensity of integration of data and overall subjective aim that an answer to each new question -as opposed to any other he can imagine and test out at this point - would reap. At certain points, where for example disambiguation is required before the game can proceed! the players may interject other speech acts than simple yes/no questions and answers - this is the meaning of the loops marked request clarification and 4 re formulate1 on the diagram. A sub-goal must be satisfied here before the main goal can be returned to. At times li avails himself of clues of a non-linguistic nature, as for instance in his registration of amusement on the part of A when he asks whether the '
'
'
game objecL can he used indoors. The empathized subjective form of amusement [leached via a hybrid prehension) was presumably ingredient in B's 1
1(1
subsequent choice and formulation of question, finally B makes the daring intuitive leap to 'the l-orth bridge1 and virtually closes the game by doing so. l:rom mostly metal structure, useful and static. located in the countryside' (the integrated positive properties of the object at that point) to the Forth Bridge the way can not be purely deductive. Jt is an informed guess, judged by B to be worth taking at this point since if it were '
'
'
correct the game would be {as far as he knows} won. The concrescence of the occasion to this point of release must surely include the highlighting of one or more prominent objects that fit that description in b s memory during the 1
ongoing search process, combined with the suppression of all potential objects that don't. The objects thus highlighted must be so few by now that he can test them out individually for degree of Jit Perhaps he leaps at the first one that meshes perfectly with the known properties. In fact the game is not quite over. B does not realize - or has perhaps forgotten - that there are actually two forth bridges. This A now demands to know before granting B s success- b understandably supposes that it is the famous one, the one about which one hears in school that it is always being 1
.
43
44
Pattern ind IVcifessi
painted (because it ia so large, a new coat being already needed at the i f rst end by the time the other one is reached). Hi a jt tempt to make this dear is rather
disjointed - perhaps he is surprised to hear that there are two, He quickly drops his introductory'framing1 remark about when he was a schoolboy, and jumps to the main attribute oi the bridge he can recall then, realizing that a concrete choice is being forced on him (between a known bridge and a relatec but to him unknown one), he makes a wild guess at the 'new' one, assuming '
that the difference between the two is one of age. In itself this is not an unlikely assumption, since he recalls only one being in existence when he was young, so the Esther must be newer {and often a newer and an older bridge at the same 1
'
site do bear similar names}. 1 suppose (X) is the usual way of introducing an 1
'
overtly acknowledged supposition (setting up a mental space of this intentional type), and this is the frame he chooses for his utterance. Again h one could call this a distinct variety of speech act (it is in fact linked to a fairly conventional linguistic form), but it could also be said to represent an ordinary declarative illocution, one that moreover conceals the indirect act of asking another game question (a fact not deducible from its form but from its con tent-in-con text). Prom a Whiteheadian point of view it is once again the overall intentional complex that defines the subjective form of the utterance;
direct and indirect speech acts share the same initial aim, the latter being derived from that aim by 'conceptual reversion1, it is their iatkfactlon in the
ater phase of the concrescence that produces the formal linguistic differences, Ingredient in the choice of form is the assumption of a shared understanding of the linguistic code and of the ability of the listener to make the same inferences implied by the titteran ce produced as the speaker would himself make. Nothing precludes the possibility of satisfying two
'
discourse acts' at once, for instance '
asking a legitimate game question and expressing one s supposition of a fact, as long as the utterance concerned is compatible with both acts. [ Iil- liucv. proves lo he wRmy i ihc uhicci l> ihc vie. railway bridge), hut .
since the search is by now reduced to two and B still has a couple of questions
left, the game is truly over. His final request for confirmation fit's the old onet is it?') fully satisfies the game rules even though it is not a canonical Twenty Questions yes/no question {we are definitely in the realm of the fu y interpretation of rules as well as of fuzzy logic here!). This is because it cannot really be
conceived of as a true question anywayh the answer already being implied by As 1
preceding reply fno, its the other one ) If he were a stickler, A could demand the exact name of the bridge, as written on the piece of paper given him at the .
beginning of the game, but he tacitly concedes victory short of that- the object
A Whitchcadian approDcb to njitLiiTLiI dialogue
has been idemilieJ in sndi a way thai there Ls no un eruinty of reference remaining. The fact that the old bridge is (apparently) called the Forth Railway bridge is purely contingent. '
2
Inference as suspended judgment
There is a wide literature on discourse processing and inference, but my
purpose here is limited to illustrating how such matters may be handled within the less familiar Whiteheadian framework. Of particular relevance here is the concept of everyday pragmatic - as op posed to logical - inference {see Brown and Yule 1983:34 ), for it is this kind of context-dependent inference involving meshing with tacit background knowledge that the Whiteheadian approach '
'
1
1
seems the best suited to elucidate.371 shall illustrate this and the more deductive *
variety of inference involved in making bridging links1 in a more concrete way
in 6.2. (abduction is further discussed in 7.1 in connection with language acquisition). Inference in general can be seen as the drawing of conclusions> n otic i ng similar it iesj analogies and connections on the basis of earlier experience, and in Whiteheadian terms all such forms of inferential activity reflect the
same basic striving of concrescences to match incoming patterns of data as nearly as possible with known or uncover able patterns (eternal objects) in the process of integrating them into their internal satisfaction.
Consider again the Whiteheadian 'intuitive judgment1, as described in 1.2.5. This, it may be recalled consists of an imaginative prehension (predicating an eternal object of an actual occasion from which it does not derive) integrated with an indicative prehension of the nexus from which it partially derives. The predicative pattern of that objectified nexus may be identical with that of the proposition contained in the judgment or not: positive, negative, and Suspended' forms of judgment are distinguished, assigning respectively a positive or '
'
negative truth value or merely entertained possibility to the proposition. The latter is especially relevant here: in a suspended judgment the so-called 'proposition a I imagination is derived by integration of an indicative prehension (of the nexus that is the logical subject) with the conceptual imagination which 1
'
'
in turn derives from the 'physical recollection (or recognition)\ i.e. from memory. The suspended judgment is the domain of logical possibility and necessity, and of cpisiemic and d eon tic modality linguistically expressed by
choice of mood (e.g. the subjunctive) or other means of expressing subjective
attitude towards - as opposed to objective veriliability of- a proposition/
H
43
46
Part cm
What varies is the subjective form adhering tf> the propositions a judgment is a '
dLYi itm'' [o( ftvlingj and [[IlIilJl j LlllicL lL \. Unwi
iiuciuiono] sLuk . It
also requires knowledge of the actual entities (the logical subjects of the proposition) presupposed. The indicative prehension of the background nexus in which these are embedded is rarely completeh however - most iudgments are what W- hitehead '
calls 'derivative1 (White head 1H7& 192), largely ignoring or
taking for granted some aspect of the background embedding and thus prone to various kinds of error.
The kinds ofjudgment Wh it eh ead deals with aren incidentally, all 'categorial1 {or 'experiential1) as opposed to4 the tic1 (or'perceptual1 or'presentational1), i e the propositions they contain predicate an eternal object of a presupposed or pre-existing nexus (prehended via an indicative prehension1), as opposed to introducing a new nexus out of the blue as logical subject Shibatani {1990:267 ffj .
.
'
illustrates how one language - ) a panes c - distinguishes grammatically
between the two in terms of the choice between topic marker wa and subject marker £rth the former being typically used in categorial and the latter in thetic judgments. Categorial judgments directly reflect the subject -I- predicate form of propositional prehensions, whereas the proposition of thetic judgments is more holistic in the sense that a particular property of the logical subject - namely its newness or contrast in context - is focussed upon in the context of that proposition (judgments for Whitehead are a species of comparative feelings, recall). In Whiteheadian process terms, the latter could be said to combine an ordinary intuitive judgment with prehension of the contrast between the remoteness of relevance of the subject up to that point and the present context 1
establishing il as focal (as in the sentence type a lion sprang out ofthe shadows )
.
The 'history' of the logical subject in the given propositional context - how it arose into relevance - is highlighted in a way that that of a categorial judgment (typ ica I ly defi n i te or gener i c) i s not.' I 'h is diffe ren ce bein g essential ly linguis tic (a
matter of discourse management), it is not surprising that Whitehead did not '
'
specifically discuss this matter( but observe that the extra indicative layer (or historical depth1) of the intuitive judgment compared to the ordinary imaginative proposition is parallel to the 'extra layer of the thetic judgment, where contextual pragmatics has entered the picture. This could he said to reflect the '
1
cognitive substance prior to linguistic expression, Note that in general there is no reason why a single Whiteheadian proposition should not be expressed as two clauses according to the exigencies of on-line discourse management - for instance for highlighting focal material in cleft constructions. 1
A WJiitchcadian approLidi to Batumi dialogue
Whitchead eUboi'at
on the nature of the iUipended judgment as follows
(Whdtehead 197K:274): '
i hc '
SLis|.-K:ndL'J jud mcnl tku tt>nii ts tit' I he inlir rLilKJil t>l'lkc: i marina Live
fteEin wilh I he 1 nd it n live I eel i 11 , in ihe cuse where the imn mi'd pretiitJEe fjib 10 [ind i dent ill L-iUion in the ohjettifyiny prfditnttt or wri
hut docs find compntiliic contrast wilh it. [I is (he feeling of the tontrajil
between whaL ihc logical .subjects (.'vidcnLly are and what ihu iamciubjecls in add i Lion miv l>e.
A suspended judgment, then, is the feel of compatibility between present reality and its imagined extension into possibility, and forma the basis tor most kinds of practical inferences.40 It disregards truth and falsity' and is the source of all (conscious) inugination, although cumulative 'confirmation1 by further experience is always possible at some subsequent stage (at which time its subjective form - the subject s intentional attitude towards it - will alter accordingly). Otn knowledge of the world is adjusted by such judgments thanks to them our concepts are not fixed once and for all, but maybe continu'
ally expanded and line-tuned by conscious experience and cogitation. Inference tries, where it can, to convert a suspended judgment into either belief or disbelief (in the process of attaining the 'satisfaction' of a concrescence}. Compare LcKcke's definition of 'judgment' (that is Inferential judgment') as '
presuming something to be the case without perceiving it [discussed in White he ad 19 78:274). This may operate below the level of consciousness. 1
As regards which possible inferences of a sentence are relevant to a given judgmental process (the grading of eternal objects relevant to the subjective aim), this is determined by the urge of the subjective aim to prehend the maximal number of eternal objects in order to intensify the concrescence, subject to the restriction that they must fall under the condition of balanced '
1
'
1
contrast
,
thus avoiding those objects that would inhibit that intensity by non-
compatibility (Whitehead op.cit.:277ff,). In other words, only those eternal objects (and their propositional patternings) are prehended - by conceptual valuation and reversion - that contribute to the intensity of balanced contrasts
that is the 'satisfaction1 of each successive concrescem process;11 Let us look at j cofMvie exji pk1 uf how thesf highly ahstr aci pfocedttral relate to the notions - in particular that of the suspended judgment inferences made by our players of Twenty (Questions. The questioner in 2.2, in his ongoing attempt to narrow the search set, may be assumed to have made a '
'
-
specific inference at the point where he hears the answerer s rcpiy to his own
47
"
question fDoes one use it) in ihe coileiIi v iJc]?1, mimcly 'It is in the eountryside The imaginative prehension which is integrated here with the indicative '
.
'
teeling o the logical subject of the judgment (the object-to-be-guessed) is that '
lIll-luju:\i ; heivariL ijic ;>LL LLp; (. jli(. L] of ihe reply .u id of the pr-LVoding question, i.e. tlie Eternal object m concept of 'being in (the countryside)' ( ?: .
1
*
rather than
being used (in the countryside)1, as predicated of the logical subject
fherc identical with that of the whole judgment). Retail that the principal '
purpose of such intellectual prehensions' is precisely to highlight and enhance '
'
contracts between what is
and 'what might be1. They are higher order propositions taking ordinary propositions as part of their input for the purpose of
establishing contrast or identity with other propositions. Now the function of ihe extra cuntrasiive emphasis on 'in' i!> to draw attention to the possible negative inferences that could be drawn despite the identity oJ the pre positional phrase in the question and the answer. It draws attention to the part of the question that was implied (not repeated from earlier), i.e.
'
to be found;
does one use it?' Here there is indeed a relevant negative contrast what might be is the suspended judgment as to the truth value of '
'
"
the question whereas what the answerer implies 'is is the conjunction of the afirmed ( in the countryside1) with an alternative to the predicate 'be used in namely the is* of mere location supplied by the answerer himself. The answerer can not deny that the object is in a sense used in the countryside but he is '
'
1
'
,
also aware of the misieading information a simple positive reply would produce fsince the relevant sense of
'
1
use
is very peripheral, not the proto-
*
typical 'default sense of using an instrument or tool). Hence his use of a strategy available in tinglish for such situations, namely his repetition of the part of the question he can give an unqualified positive answer to( but with
special emphasis suggesting contrast with something elsewhere implied by the question which he cannot so affirm. Notice that this explanation is actually equivalent to one in terms of Gricean 'conversational implicature1, only it circumvents the problems attendant on deciding which particular maxims - and in which weighted combina-
tion - were central in this concrete instance. The maxims of quantity quality. manner and relation all seem to be involved fGrice 1975). Specifically, in answering it is in the country1, A followed the maxim of quality, not to state '
'
what he knows is false {this has put him in something o a quandry though, '
since neither a clear yes
'
or a clear 'no' - the choices open to him - would be
*
the whole truth )
'
and the maxim of manner to avoid ambiguity (this conflicts with the preceding and adds to A s quandry since a yes or 'no1 would indeed be ,
'
'
'
unambiguous - but also misleading). As regards the maxim of quantity, u> supply neither too much nor too little information, this led him to bend the gaino rules by supplying somewhat more thiin the prescribed yes/no1 response in order to avoid being misleading but limiting himself at the same time to as little extra information as possible to convey this (stress on one of the questioner s own wordsf repeated), since he obviously did not want to give too much away. But note that all of these maxims have a particular jscope of application within the framework of the overall game situation! what counts as too much or oo little1 hercf for ejcample, is different from the criteria applying in a lcosy1 chat between friends. The maxim of relation - to limit oneself to what is relevant to the on-going communicative situation - is on the other hand so general as to be barely relevant. In a sense however, all the other maxims derive from this: they are open to negotiation and highly sensitive to social/cultural context, whereas being relevant1 lies at the very heart ol 'mutua knowledge, the sine qua non of any kind of conversational exchange, and can only be suspended for very special purposes fcf. Sperber & Wilson 1986 l6Jtfp whose general undeistanding of relevance1 is both broader and more explicit *
'
'
1
"
'
than tirice's) "5 Relevance is> as we have seen, also of the essence in the interpretation of symbolically transferred information for Whit eh ead.,: Conformity of subjective form by ensuring that the subjective form of what an actual occa'
,
'
sion prebends from its initial input' must be in harmony with its own subjective aim (which in turn is defined by eternal objects accessible for all actual occasions4in unison of becoming ) lays the ground for understanding what is 1
relevant for another in terms of shared situation, shared goals and sharec knowledge, trom this point of view, Gricean maxims need only operate negatively, pruning anything from a concrescing message that does not fit with them (or with more culturally specific norms of politeness ) But the * maxim1 that was flouted causing 3 to make the inference we are concerned with was more specific than those named so far, namely the rule of Twenty Questions limiting answers strictly to 'yes1 or lno' It was the conflict of '
'
.
more general conversational conventions (all relatable to the basic one of relevance) with these more immediate constraints that triggered the search for an explanation on B s part. We must therefore consign general conversational '
maxims to the (tacit) Background, from which they emerge into consciousness and/or overt behaviour only when flouted or in conflict with more local '
4
expectations (e.g. those falling out from the Twenty Questions game frame )
.
In this kind of linguistic setting, in natural di3course> we witness some ot' the most sophisticated and specifically human modes of deployment of
50
PaCCem tiiid Prnccss
propositioua] behavioi In later chapters 1 shall enquire into the psychological stauiA and source in more basic forms of cognition of the underlying proportional imtinct that is manifest he re. But before doing this we need to look in '
1
greater detail at the systematic expression of this instinct namely the language system itself,
Summary
I have attempted to illustrate In dtis chapter die use fulness of the Whiteheadian notions concrescence actual occasion and 'subjective aim' in describing the processes involved in the attainment of specific communicative purposes within one particular type of discourse frame. These processes I have analysed in terms of sequences of discrete prehensions By taking the individual unit of Ehe analysis as the actual occasion, a self-organizing cycle of goal-cons trained concrescence similar in spirit to McNeill s growth point one has a basis for linking abstract input/output conditions to complex intentions) which can in turn be shown to guide the eon ere see nee towards maximal intensity of integra'
'
'
1
,
'
'
.
'
tion (or
'
'
satisfaction ) utilizing the means available {here linguistic). The '
'
basic
unit is thus teleologically organized, constraining the largely indeterminate input1 to what is relevant for the attainment of its purpose and resulting in a determinate, unitary output, which may uol salisfy the aim entirely but will objectify it maximally tor future occasions along the life line of the individua.. subject concerned by integrating it into their inherited aims. These units combine both afferent and efferent processes and may thus reflect psychological processing rather more realistically than models which divorce comprehension and production from each other and do not allow for their interlinked overlap '
in actual discourse. This is done in an inherentlv n on-linear wavthat allows for
parallel and/or distributed processing. The way the subject of an actual occasion (here a speaker at any one moment in time) sets about trying to attain the satisfaction of his or her aim is through combining relevant varieties of the basic experiential process of prehension which ranges from simple physical perteption up to highly abstract acts of judgment How particular aims trigger particular types of prehension to attain their ends has been illustrated through a constrained game situation in order to simplify the demon strati on, but the principles involved can be extended, it is relatively clear in such a framework what information the participants need to absorb in order to keep their respective mental models of '
'
'
1
,
'
1
.
the on-going situation updated from utterance to utterance. Two types of prehension, the intuitive judgment' trnd the 'hybrid prehension (of another's subjective aim) have been particuLirly useful in this analysis, Whiie die first provides 3 useful way in to natural {non-syllogistic) inference guided by feeling' or intuition, the latter reflects the ability to empathise with others (modelling their intentional behaviour) and to share mutual knowledge anc. presuppositions with them. Both reflect essential aspects of discourse behaviour and yet have proved difficult to com bine in the past. The same is true of the relationship between the rule- and condition-based approach to speech act theory {associated with Searle) and the more 'on-line inference-based approach to it typified by the work of Sperber and Wilson. The Whiteheadian perspective again combines both aspects by linking process (here inference in terms of'prehension ) and pattern (rule-I ike conventions - including Gricean conversational maxims - falling under his category of eternal objects } The former draws upon the latter in order to constrain what is relevant for achieving specihe rational purposes, e.g. to limit the potential inferences generated by a proposition or situation to those which are relevant for the on-going subjective aim. The felicity (and well-formedness) of utterances can then be described in terms of felt prehensional matches rather than o! rule-gen crated conformity. This is something not so easy to achieve following monoplanar approaches which do not regard social norms or conventions and the working out of individual on-line purposes as conceivable input to one and the same process. This perspective contains the further potential benefit to speech act theory of allowing the limited array of illocutionary acts available within a given language (as reflected in its systematic coding) to be placed within the broader field of intentional language use. where communicative purposes may be achieved by very indirect means, both heuristic and conventional. Indirect speech acts in context can be analysed in terms of hybrid prehensions' fbasec on shared norms and expectations as well as physical contiguity) plus specific conceptual reversions1 afforded by the given situation: what is called forth from a vague shared background' to solve isd hoc communicative needs is in most cases a blend of known patterns of behaviour and novel insight. In fact, this suggests that not only language-as-pat tern but also logic is emergent: what we see in the game token analysed in this chapter is an ongoing process whereby player B is learning from experience, abstracting useful strategy types from heuristic attempts to fuliil his game-defined purpose. The general approach could fruitfully be extended into other specific areas of discourse analysis and modelling. An investigation of a variety of different '
'
'
'
1
,
'
'
1
.
'
'
'
$2
Pattern iiid l 'ocess
discourse types (in one language or across scvei al) could he undei-taken in order tn unearth the particitkr combinations of types of prehension that - to some dogrce - constrain them.. The chaining and ;iLi;i pens ion oftuinplox intemion;v. aims doubtless interacts with specific discourse-relevant frames1 (abstract '
nexus types), within which the limited il locution a a given language provides acquire more specific function alii y. Natural logic in action, rational algorithmic reflecting the type of inference and judgment that takes different situation a I frames, can be investigated from this angle witlmuL I he help of the kind of diagramming I have proposed in this
but not place in with or chapter.
What this should result in is a typology of prehension types in particular varieties of interactive communicative situations, Highei level patterns emerging would reflect the {pattern of) communicative competence that constrains the individual speaker s use of his or her language. It would also help counterbalance the tendency to over-aim pi ifv the logic of discourse, to see it in terms of monoplanar input/output links, a vieiv that still seems to be presupposed by many an artificial computer simulation of natural dialogue. 3 It may be time to bring the metatheory of such endeavours {not just the theoiy J abreast with the advances hi non-linear connectionist modelling of recent years. '
'
Chapter 3
The language system Language as systcmalizcd expression
Je is oftKc nature of symbols to associate fixed but moro or less arbitrary signs
(e.g. strings of syllables consisting of phonemes) with heterogeneous conceptua.. aggregates. Although theh' meanings may he highly context-dependent {and organized in soft prototype arrays), their forms are distinct enough to distin'
1
,
guish them from virtually all other symbols (at least in context) within a coherent system like a human language, This is what White head meant when he stated '
that language is the 'systojnati/LUion of expression. Symbols arc islands of relative certainty in a sea of meaning - although determinate in shape and "
1
extent themselves, their coastlines
are infinite (to invoke a Chaos Theory
image). They are the hard currency of thought. Above alh they are available for conscious singling out and attention by the mind/brain, and thus, in a sense,
represent the least mysterious aspect of the mind/brain to itself. Linguistic signs may not only activate various kinds of images and schemata, they may also be replaced by other words or paraphrases at various levels of abstraction or speeifieity. In the following sections 1 shall concentrate on the systematic relationship
between the levels and units of linguistic codes as such, and their relationship to the broader Whiteheadian world of nexus organized in societal levels.
3
.
1 The nature and depJoymenL of the linguistic sign
Systems of symbols form codes. In the case of linguistic symbols, the system consists of more or less arbitrary signs that stand in a determinate (if fuzzyedged) relationship to a broad array of meanings for which they may b«
substituted in mental processes. This is possible - and efficient - because of their digital relational nature (they consist of combinations of a limited set of contrasting units). The meanings' to which they refer are mental entities far more protean than themselves, standing in turn in an analogue relationship *
'
1
however tenuous - to perceived or conceived external reality, There is gooc reason to distinguish between real codes or languages - systems of signs
54
PaECem and Process
stun ding for conceptual rculities other than dicina elves, where hoth the signs and those realities ate expei ientially accessible to the user - and other uses of the word code or 'language1 where that is not the case, Thus the genetic code" (where DNA strands do not 'stand for1 any particular external reality hut issue rather very indirect instructions for its const ruction) and any purportedly universal brain code' inaccessible to its users fall outside this definition. Iking opaque, such a cbrain code could not consciously be used by its users at all, it would just operate at some inscrutable level: like genes. In an early article (Fgitescue 1979} I pointed out some of the reasons (referring to the well-known design features' listed by Hockett 1960) why such a 'language of thought1 '
1
'
'
1
'
'
then popular in the guise of 1-odor s Mentalese'- is not a real language. This '
'
may be somewhat of a dead horse these days, but infelicitous uses of the words code and "language1 still slip batk into use. especially among non-linguists, and 1 may cause confusion/ - Any such brain code1 would have to relate conscious experiences to states of neural activity! which is not a relationship of the one standing for the other, but of causally correlated processes on di(Cerent levels of societar organization. These Whitehead would never have conflated in terms 1
'
'
'
'
'
of symbol ism. Let me focus tor a while on the 'form' side ol the classical Saussurean '
structural notion of the dual coding of the linguistic sign - strings of phonemes corresponding to strings of meaning-bearing morphemes (composed of the formei-) on the content side. I shall endeavour to show how this slots into a
White headi an 'pattern and process1 view of language as regards phonology and then morphology. In 3.2.2 I shall turn to syntax separately. One important difference should be pointed out immediately however, and that is; whereas the Saussurean 'sign1 combines 'sigiufic and 's mfrm?1, both being static, formal or structural notions, the two involve quite different modes of perception in the Whiteheadian scheme of things, irnv both Saussure and Hjelmslev everything outside of this autonomous domain of the sign is amorphous substance but it is precisely the intrinsic structure of'substance1 that interests Whitehead the realist- language alone is not responsible for the cutting up of substance,4*' But nor does it simply copy the natural seams of reality; it builds on the latter; '
'
,
1
'
rendering them more precise and hue-grained and introducing its own conven1
tional overlays. He certainly viewed 'causal efficacy as more course-grained than presentational immediacy (the latter being an emergent prerequisite of symbolic behaviour), but course-grained is not equivaient to amorphous. The eclectic kind of functional linguistics practised in Denmark (dubbed Danish ITtnctional Grammar1 in Hngberg-Pedersen et ak I99t], which almost alone of '
'
'
The Ijingua i system
contemporary brands oflinguistics retains tlie iit met lira list expression/content dichotomy as central, is a cut ally rather close in spirit to the Whiteheadian perspective on language and meaning.471 shall have more to say on the semantics oft he content side (and on Hjelmslevian content form ) in Chapter 4. J '
'
should emphiuiize once again that in both chapters (but especially in the present one) I shall be presenting my own interpretation of Whiteheads basic ideas as applied to the arena of language: he did not spell very much of this out in detail himself, let alone relate it to contemporary linguistics as such. First I must jump the gun somewhat and state that in Chapter 9 I shall be '
claiming that the Saussurean dichotomy between hingue (linguistic system) and
*
parole (the deployment of that system in actual speech) finds its natural counterpart in Wh itch cad s philosophy. However, unlike for Sa us sure - and indeed for Chomsky, whoso original 'competunco1 concept is re la table to that of Ititigisc - the two aspects of language can for White head never be isolated one '
from the other4 The system is only 'real' in so far as it finds 'mgression* in actual instances of .speech (external or internal)h which is of course deeply enmeshed in impermanence and change. In this he is closer in spirit to Jakobsont for whom linguistic synchrony (reflected in hiugae) is not a static but a dynamic reality (one that contains a multiplicity of sub-codes or styles K and for whom the phoneme - by virtue of its meaning-distinguishing function within morphemes - is itself a functional dynamic unit, whose abstract invariance nnt st always be seen against a background of variation f jakobson 1985; 371 ff.). Also his objection to the Saussurean insistence on the linearity and arbitrariness of language and his wide semiotic/teleological concerns (taking parole in all its
varied aspects seriously) ring a Whiteheadean bell. Bear in mind> however, that VVhitehead was no linguist and did not talk about language in quite such terms. It can nevertheless be stated that language viewed as a system of structural oppositions or contrasts harmonizes well with Whitehead s view of how eternal objects relate to each other (another matter I shall return to in Chapter y). Their ingression in actual instances of use corresponds to the Jakobsonian view '
'
1
'
of the interdependence between laugue and parole. The question of immediate interest here is the status of phonological units and rules from an extrapolated VVhitehead ran perspective. Now, n> is well known, jakobson aimed at an acoustical-auditory analysis of the speech signal. as opposed to the prevailing articulatory approach to phonetics (and emerging phonology). This he did in terms of distinctive features' the Atoms' of which its more abstract phonemic molecules consist. From a Whiteheadian process viewpoint, both the acoustical-perceptual and the articulatory-motor aspects of '
5
56
Pattern and Processi
phonological coding are essential and complementary ( lust as speech production and comprehenMon in general) they are not just mirror images the one of
the other, as generalivists tend to view the relationship). They represent aspects of the input and output data of concrescent processes each of a spec ilkkind, In 'comprehension' mode> a concrescence aimed at integrating new linguUtic data involves the prehension of abstract Objects1 (read: jakobsonian phonemes) from the total speech signal analysed by the relevant sensory pathways. The context (as circumscribed by the subjective aim of the concrescence) will successively remove by negative prehensions all aspects of the signal that are not relevant to that abstraction process. One is reminded here of buhler's 'principle of abstractive relevance1 fBtihler 1934:40 ff.). In production
mode, the phonological representation of the utterance to be produced (using the same phonemic coding as lexical representations in memory) will activate
the relevant articulatory motor agendas for its production Irrespective of the acoustical nature of the signal (which the hearer must in turn analyse). The acoustical signal may in turn be monitored by the speaker as ongoing feed back fin order to fine time production). Spoken words - or rather the individual morphemes of which they consist may be regarded as societies ol phonemes, which can be defined in terms of distinctive features (a species of eternal objects that can hardly themselves be regarded as constituting a still lower form of society ) Bear in mind that ] am talking here of tokens rather than the corresponding types. Kor Whitehead fas for Jakob son) the role of context - the relational essence of linguistic form is critical If he had specific a My addressed the question of the speech signal, he would quite probably have talked in terms of vowel-plus-consonant combinations (i.e. syllables) as being the most central societies (or Enduring objects ) in speechh mutually effecting their lower level realization in articulatory chains of motor activity, and in turn entering into higher level societies of words and of sentences intonationally packaged/ 1" Phoneme types (as well as distinctive features) he would doubtless have considered to be eternal objects, co-present and ingressant in actual chains of speech fvia co-articulation). They are thus both abstract and psychologically real, which is just what the generativists would want - but this is also what Sapir already claimed for his general phonetic elements1 (Sapir 1921: 54 ff.). 1 do not wish to suggest that the notion of the phoneme has been resolved once and for all - on the contrary, it clearly interacts with other levels fnotably the morphological) in complex ways that are to some degree language-specific f not to mention sociolinguistic variation and diachronic changes in progress). More than one level of abstraction may be
-
'
'
H
1
'
'
psychologically relevant ioi hingijagei with highly complex phonologies (like
Danish), but speakers of all languages must surely abstract relevant phonetic contrasts-in-contexts across nil manner of variation on at least one approximately equivalent level of analysis.
Moving up a level in our brief purview of kinds of linguistic generalization! thenj we leave the societal level of phonemes and reach that of morphemes (or words), which linguists call morphology. Whether it makes sense to speak of a
distinct societal (sub-)level of morphemes which are organised into whole words at a still higher societal level depends on language type - obviously it is
not particubrly relevant for thorough-going isolating languages
'
At the
interface between this and the preceding phonological level there is a special type of generalization that can be made about relations between the two levels (levels, note, not autonomous modules), namely morphophonological ones. These state the alternation in phonemic form of the morphemes ingredient in the words of the higher level, according to context (phonological or otherwise). Also purely phonological rules may depend on lexical information from an entirely different level1, for example the stress-assignment rules for English distinguish between native Anglo-Saxon and borrowed 1 Latmate1 words. They may also be affected by discourse context (cf allegro style elisions of schwa in l:rench, etc.). The distribution of the hnglish plural marker /s/ or l7jt for example, is usually regularly determined by the preceding final phoneme of the 4
'
'
stem, except in some words ending in voiceless fricatives like
'
roof, which have
to be learnt as lexical exceptions (at least by those speakers who have the unexpected voiced allomorph /z/ here). The general rule can he abstracted from sufficient exposure to data by conceptual valuation and reversion {or abduction if you will) in the usual way, but the exceptions need to be marked in as social ion with the lexemes concerned. In fact it is not always such a clear either/or matter; morphophonologicaJ rules may be of any degree ot synchronic productivity and may be limited to a variety of types of context (semantic grammatical or pragmatic as well as phonological). They may al o he in a slate of diachronic flux, in which case there maybe widespread redundancy between abstracted generalizations and representations of individual lexical variation. Redundancy of this kind in any case no problem for a Whiteheadian approach since it does not seek to separate strictly the synch ionic from the diachronic; both kinds ofgeneralization ('rules' and historical processes leaving their residue in synchrony) can coexist within the same complex 'society-of-societies'. In the actual generation or comprehension of speechH however, it follows from the Whiteheadian framework that processes at the various stages of '
'
"
5
Partcm iiitd Pi'octss
produL-uon on analyiis of a speech signal cannot bo clearly isolated one from ttw other, although the difterent societal levels1 jnvoKred are distinct enough. This '
is because higher level context is almost always oing to be relevant to lower levels and we vcrw - and all levels ultimately leak1 and interact.51 The intermeshing of top-down (conceptual) and bottom-up f physical) processes simultaneously within a single concrescence is perfectly acceptable in the
Whiteheadian world. Processes leading to the recognition of chains of phonemes in a speech signal, for example, cannot he seen in isolation from processes leading to the recognition of meaningful units - morphemes - behind such chains, or indeed from still higher level processing. One can envisage following such chains of processes through the speech organs- the output ( decision') of a concrescence at one societal level being inherited by ( = objectified for) another at a higher level as part of its data. This can he reiterated at successively more abstract levels f from phoneme to syllable to word, etc.), each forming the context for that below. Thus at the level of the phoneme, variation of pitch anc. volume and speed in the overall packaging of the utterance has to be allowed tor in order for the crude signal to he "digitalized1 into phonemes and at the ensuing morphological level such higher level phenomena as the occurrence of a word boundary adjacent to the phoneme in question will effect the analysis and what is passed on to the next level of abstraction. In speech production, in turn, one can easily envisage forward planning at the highest level in the form, for example, of a rough sketching out of an overall syntactic template around a predicate frame (or lemma1), which is gradually rilled in and modi tied as the chain of speech is elaborated at lower levels. All sub-routines do not have to be completed before overall plans to produce an utterance can be sped he d: we typically start speaking before we have completely '
*
worked out what we are going to say. Continual monitoring to ensure thit what we say does indeed match our intentions {by subjective form) maybe assumec on the Whiteheadian model, At lower levels, approaching the actual activation of the speech organs, smooth transitions must be produced between vowels and consonants, liven though their phonemic realities are distinct their phonetic realities overlap - they must be de-digitalized1 in order to activate the syn'
chronized coordination of the numerous muscles involved (a matter of com-
plex parallel control). As for the meshing of Whitehead's system with an overall theory of semiotics, there are suitable places for Peircean indices and icons as well as for symbols in various blends in the complex semiotic web that is language from a
Whiteheadian viewpoint." This is because his conception of'symbol1 (broader
The lungLJjgc system
than Peirce's) involves varying reUtions to perception (see 1.2.6). Another important Peiicean notion that finds its natural counterpart in Whitehead's system is that of the Intej-pretant tlie conceptual meaning mediating between sign and referent (complementing the basic Saussurean dichotomy at signific and sigtufiatit). A iign stands foi something m a certain respect The interpretant represents the thought generated in the mind of the recipient of a signs and more generally concerns how signs give birth to further signs {for Peirce also thoughts are signs). This is particularly important in the case of symbols sin e they are dependent on social convention- Symbols may be interpretants of indices, which in turn may be interpretsnts of icons. For Whitehead, 'symbolism1 (in its broad semiotic sense} always involves reference to 'eternal objects1, forms ofdefiniteness that mediate the symbolic transfer concerned; they ensure that the same symbol type is recoilnized as having the same or analogous meaning (by social convention), for both sender and receiver. The transfer or replication of symbols from occasion to occasion [whether inherited by successive occasions in the same subjective time line or by other speaker/ hearers ) is one aspect of the general principle of'conformity of subjective form1. Both philosophers lay emphasis on the contextually determined interpretive processes involved (i.e. the dependence of the meaning of a sign on the recip1
,
l
1
.
1
'
.
ient's reaction to it),
In particular, the iconic 'diagrams' (in the sense of Peirce ]9Rfi: 10) which language may present in the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes of its structur-
ing are readily interpietable in terms of the patter nings of eternal objects/"1 The stages in the emergence of symbols from indices and icons [into which they can be 'unpacked' or 'collapsed1) is parallelled in the emergence of Whiteheadian symbolic reference from more basic perceptual prehensions. The relationship between the expression and content planes of language in the structuralist
tradition (especially as elaborated by Hjelmslev), can be in various degrees arbitrary or iconic" (it is not just a matter of arbitrary signifie-signifiant linkag"
'
es), but there are at least two distinct senses of iconic' hereh namely the Umagis1
tic
and the 'analogy-based1 varieties of diagramming relationships, where only the latter involves metaphor-1 ike analogical extensions on the content plane which are then given isomorphic expression (sec Kngberg-Pedersen ] 99fi:4f))/ Both varieties may have paradigmatic and syntagmatic manifestations. A degree of imagistic' iconicity in language is to be expected if the same LpropositionaI instinct' lies behind the perception of images and the verbal expression of propositional relationships. Reading' propositions olf mental models {-prebend ing proposition a I relations in objectified nexus] should presumably reflect -
J
l
'
59
60
Pattern and Process
something of the structure o\ the model itself, whatever its predominant modality. As regards \inalopy-based iconicit the processes whereby analogies between nexus are registered and objectified' in Whitehead s theory of symbolic transfer represent a natural way of looking at this (language being the systematic expression of prehended content). To summarise the three-way distinction in While he ad Kin terms: grasping an icon is a matter of recognizing a similarity to some pattern previously 1
experienced, as achieved by an imaginative prehension, say - essentially a negative matter of precluding other possible (but less salient) similarities but not resulting in any funher interpretation. The relationship to simple conceptual valuation is still rather close. Grasping a sign as an index, on the other handt involves the funher stop of recognizing that a token of a conceptual type [grasped as iconically similar to the type) is metonymically associated with some
other referent (type) - this builds on the repeated correlation of signs and corresponds to a Whiteheadian intuitive judgment, which involves the recognition of contiguity or a part/whole relation between signs (e.g. between tokens of '
1
smoke and
re').
Finally, grasping a sign as a symbol involves recognizing an arbitrary standing for relationship - essentially metaphorical - between the sign and the intended referent. Symbols fall into mutual patterns amongst themselves [their 'sense1 according to Krege Ifi92) largely independent of their referential potential for denotation )- As types ('species of sounds') they relate to Whiteheadian eternal objects, which can be directly prehended by conceptual prehensions or be read off nexus [e.g. events) in which they find ingress ion. Their stepwise origin in indexical-iconic perceptual reality is now 'shortcircuited as it were. Note that the existence of allomorphy requires the typetoken distinction also at this level; the 'same morpheme (or word) can be '
1
'
L
1
'
,
'
ivpiT-.-ior.u-d hv uUterent token .iliomoip]
iv,iri,ir;l Umnsj. .iccordin
to
context. Words as symbols have achieved a degree of conventionally sanctioned stability that transcends the great individual variety of specific indexical ossociLilions derived [mm pcE'c Hual cxpcricjiLL- iihc iiikl- uf' rcUnL-lv unambiguous communicability being a high level of abstractness and vagueness}. There is also psycholinguistic evidence for the centrality of the word: it represents the basic level1 of linguistic signs, reinforced again and again by constantly repeated useh whereas higher level units are much more extempore and creative and lower level ones arc not even necessarily activated in comprehension [MacKay 19fi7; I23f.). It is at the level of the word for lexical stem) that maximal interaction with n on-linguistic content (imagery) converges and '
'
The Lmgijagc system
'
1
H>
priming may occur from many different directions/
As sign units of'content form\ words also have an intioite combinatorial potential for matching an open-ended number of situational contextsh and this is the essence of syntax. Learning a language is learning the systematic relations between words, not just their individual reference (indexical bundle;! of '
'
similar
experiential patterns) - it involves higher-order reflexion {via concep-
tual reversion) on what has alreadvbecn learnt in the form of indexical relations. Reference in the narrow sense of denotation, on the other hand, is a matter of the
indicative prehension of logical subjects in higher propositional prehensions. Reference in the broader sense relevant to any kind of sign (icon, index or symbol) could be said to reflet 1 their genesis as specific products of transmutation i.e. the recognition of'thing' and 'situation types (forms of definiteness) from tokens to which they have been associated [in the case of symbol sn by social convention alone). This may be further projected onto analogous enduring objects {objectified nexus) presented by experiential data. Such referents may be *
'
'
'
of any degree of absti actnessH from the physical to the social/ethical. Hut
sym-
bolic reference1 introduces a higher-order world-creating tool largely freed from external perception - in fact the multiple indexical associations leading to it must in a sense be forgotten' or repressed (cf. Deacon 1998; %f.). The diagram below sketches the most basic 'societal levels1 on which grammars of individual languages pattern. Each level is defined in terms of its 1
'
'
own formal units, and each has its own content as indicated within the
pyramid. This is distinct from the data1 to which each level is sensitive {in particular the content of the next level down objectified for it) - its own content is to be understood rather as the content-bearing units of which the level consists. This is in a sense the inverse of the Functional Grammar layered '
1
'
"
structure of the clause
model, which concentrates on levels of content built up
from basic predicates and in which form is consigned to a final level of'expres1
sion rules
(often taken for granted in actual analyses).>7 Note that 1 do not
adopt the jakobsonian conception of the meaning of the phoneme as being its denotation of 'otherness" within the system of phonological contrasts fcf. Andersen 1973:7 9). That is a matter of form and purpose, not content in the present sense. The level of texts refers of course to the products of discourse in all its modalities, including the spoken. The diagram as a whole represents pure potential pattern and should not be understood as saying anything directly about processes, either top-down' or 'bottom-up The '
'
'
1
.
hierarchical arrangement simply reflects the simultaneous organization of
61
*5i
Parrcm iind Process
different love Is ul" paitenung suck thai ike broader-scale onei are logiLMlly
dependent on the liner-grain ones lowei- down.
A
/ /
'
sodeLi! level ul :
plLl JlUtk [leaning tmisLruelionai
meaning lexical me tun
(ieo n ic Wiling*onomaiopoia, etc.)
sentences (clause* & phrases)
words {stems & iimjces)
phoseines (vowels ik tonsonanls)
Figure 3.
The apex, corresponding to I he overall conimnnicilional intention of a speaker/ hearer utilizing the gram mar, is represented with broken lines to reflect the indeterminacy of the link between individual contextually embedded intentions and their precise expression in language. It is here that - in terms of process -
the speech sigral is modulated for attitude and subtle perlocutionary ends (often by intonation and other prosodic means)- Strictly speaking, only the rule-1 ike, socially sanctioned aspect of pragmatics belong here (in the language system). The same indication of indeterminacy is shown at the base-line, where the involvement of specific neural populations in speech organ activation can likewise be taken as at least partially indeterminate. I have not marked intermediate levels of organisation that may or may not be relevant to the description
of specific language types - for example the distinction between *
'
word1 aod
morpheme1 levels touched on above h or the sub-levels of syllables and/or norae (units of syllable weight) between the levels of phonemes and words 1
(both are necessary for a satisfactory description of Japanese, for example).5*1 In general, the Whiteheadian framework is perfectly compatible with the si mult ai:cmis iii e iicc of patterning at dilTn-vm iittermedisUe or jvirallel levels assignable to a single stretch of speech, e.g. of Firthian sup rase gmental ros-
The knguagt system
*
otlies
or the autosegmental and metric 'tiers' of more recent times. I assume* by the way, a separate lexicon cross-referencing the (potential) contents of the various levels.
3
.
2
Embodied rules
But ivhat of synchronic rules operating on phonemes and morphemes- are they equally real in the sense that we have attributed 'reality' to the static units defining the linguistic sign? Like all regularities in Whitehead s world, these '
1
'
must also he species of eternal objects, forms of definiteness1 potentially abstractable by conceptual valuation and reversion from concrete data. I hey are '
'
"
1
not real in the sense of'actual1 here and now in the manner of actual occasions -
but nor are phonemes: they are only real in the sense that patterns that are '
manifest in and between actual occasions are real
1 .
Let us start with dynamic
regularities on the societal levels of the phoneme and the morpheme {or word),
3
.
2
1
.
Phono logical and morphosyn tactical regular ilies
Whitehead had nothing at all to say concerning specific linguistic rules - as regards phonology in particular he displayed a broad take care of the sense and '
1
the sounds will take care of themselves
attitude. One can nevertheless readily
imagine how he would have discussed such matters in terms of potentially meaningful patterns in the speech signal, Some such patterns are general across ail productions in a given language, namely absolute rules like final consonant devoicing in German or Russian, while others are limited by context, either purely phonologically determined (as with the lengthening of stressed vowels before voiced consonants in British English) or morphologic a My/lexically determined (as with the elision associated with clitic auxiliaries in English). There are also purely distributional regularities, but these too may have a certain synchronic dynamism1 in so far as they may need to be applied to new lexical items (like loan wrords). The question as to whether any such rule displays 'psychological reality1 must surely be answered in terms of specific concrete psychological processes in which they might or might not be directly ingredient - e.g. by {co-jdetcr mining the output of the concrescence at hand. The fact that linguists can draw such generalizations as those stated above has no direct bearing on this quest in 11: gene rali nations from without1 need not be ingredient in the phenomena seen 'from within1 {the 'rule1 that to stav alive '
'
63
64
PaCCem and Process
you hare to breathe does not require tlm the indrndrnJ human being has somehow to internalize that rule, as opposed to merely aa in the appropriate way, like any aniniLTl). Now, as it happens, the rules mentioned above do have a direct bearing on verbal productions in so far as Mure to act upon them would lead to ill-formed speech stringi. But their mode of involvement k not directly causal fin White-
heads sense of causal eficacy), it proceeds via 'ingressiom specifically by concrescent suhiects prehending diem as relevant for the maximal satisfaction
of their immediate communicative or cognitive aims. This is not necessarily '
or usually - .1 conscious matter, hut involves the Teel of conformity of the data with the relevant eternal objectfs). Such 'rules1 can vary in productivity, i.e.
generali ability, with the most gen era Unable being the least accessible to conscious manipuJation (i.e. being thoroughly automatic), and the least
generalizable having to he learnt in ajisociation with individual lexical iteniii. For White he ad, the chain of prehensions involved in recognizing and/or summon-
ing a symbol for production may he curtailed if it is completely automatized in context, as much speech production and comprehension evidently ish so in a given situation the relevant phonological {or other linguistic) generalization may or may not attain psychological reality - as opposed to mere latency for the concrescence concerned. Both from this perspective and from that of linguists of a lexicalist persuasion there i no reason why such generalizations fat least those of the no n-absolute kind) should not be redundantly distributed lJu\HL h [hi.- k-xicor. well in liio connectivity of the speech production regions of the mind/braim The fact that a speaker can apply a particular rule to brand new productions is irrelevant: the eternal object, the rulet is potentially there to be summoned whenever needed [automatically or otherwise). On my cognitive interpretation of eternal objects this means simply that the rule has somehow/somewhere become objectiiied in the connectivity ot the areafs) of '
1
the cortex involved in speech production and comprehension,1 There is no reason to believe tlun ih p>>vvlio3oL;LLid reality mu>A he nuuufcslcJ physically in
exactly the same way in every speaker of a language. The approach to linguistic rules sketched above is a n on-modular one
(although it is compatible with a modular approach it is also compatible with '
1
radical conneciionism)h and the Isolation of phonological and 'morphological'
rules should not be taken as suggesting corresponding autonomous modules [1
shall return to this matter in 3,3), It proposes rather a multi-level societywi thin-societies framework, as on the diagram above, where a considerable
degree of redundant distribution is not only possihle but organizationally
The lang ua e system ,
probably desirabk and where phonological Miles are relevant for (and partially ingredient in) morphology, moEphalagical ones for sentence syntax, and so on. E-Ach level1 operates with its own basic categories (vowek and consonants on
the phonological levelh stems and afiixes on the morphological level, phrases and clauses on the sentence level, etc.) and its own mode of conjoining elements in the lillCLll, chain, hut the actual patterning has much in common on all levels fas X-har theory recognises as regards syntax and morphology at leastThis
reflects the similar prehensional piocesses that integrate all such static patterns of eternal objects into the on-going activity of actual speaker/hearers. The question as to the nautiv of the relationship between static pattern and dynamic process will be a recurring theme in toll owing chapters.
It is important to recognize that particular phonological means, such as tonal distinctions, for example, do not necessarily adhere to the same societal level in all languages. Thus only in some languages do tones contribute to the distinctive shape of individual morphemes, as in Yoruba and Chinese, whereas
the use of intonational tone patterns over larger syntactic units to express
distinct illo cut ions is more universal. ' In tone languages the latter kind of patterning is superimposed upon morpheme-level tone shapes at a higher level of tonal modulation, so pitch and other prosodic parameters may be utilized
independently on more than one level. In Yoruba tone may also serve a grammatical {syntactic} purpose, for example in marking a subject noun before the verb - this it does by superimposing a high tone on the preceding syllable s own lexical tone, with which it combines. The tact that tone is inherently prosodic in so tar as it adheres to whole syllables for larger units), does not affect the fact that it may ingress at different levels by virtue of the ditferent kinds of meaning distinctions it can support - one must distinguish means of expression and societal level. The function performed by any particular means may be specific to a particular societal level but no such level can be isolated from the meaning of its ingredient units. Form and content are two sides of the same linguistic unit at any societal level The proof, by the way, that supra'
'
-
!
'
'
segmental features have psychological reality on their own independent level and may yet be meaning-distinguishing on the level below - can be seen in such phenomena as tone survival in languages like YorubaN where vowels may '
be elided when two words coalesce, but a trace of the tone of the elided vowel is
left in the following syllabled' lor languages like this one may posit a societal level of prosodic word-forms above - or parallel with - that of individual morphemes, but this is again not necessarily universal Prosodic packaging into clausal units is probably controlled by the non-dominant hemisphere of the
65
66
I'aCCem tind Prnc-ess
brain fbm correlated to the societal level ol-"sentences organised in the dominant hemisphere) and a,s such is doubtless universal whereas the ingress ion tonal phenomena may have within a particular grammar is not. Though mherently
more closely linked with causal efficacy and the direct modulation of feeling, prosodic phenomena may be grammaticalbed and thus drawn into the functional orb of the segment al gram mar system fas has happened in tone languages). When we move up from phonology to the level of rules restricting the '
ordering ot successive morphemes within wo Eds, these begin to resemble syntactic rules in their incipient {and for some polysynthetic languages highly developed) recursivity although typically they are more rigid and lexically bound than the latter A typical morphological rule is derivational in nature (in
functional Grammar terms, a matter of 'predicate/term formation1), tor example the kind of rule relevant for many languages that produces causative
derivatives of basic verbs by attaching to the stem a causative af¥ix/>:i in fact such rules cover both lexical (derivational) combinatoriality and the addition or
change of grammatical (inflectional) elements, or a combination of both thus causative formation rules often further require changing intransitive to transitive inflections on the derived verb (or at least increasing the obligatory valency of the verb). Whereas purely derivational rules are largely a matter of the societal level of morphemes (words), rules referring to inflections can be regarded as belonging to another interface, this time that between the level of morphological words and the level of sentences (which organizes clauses and pbiases and referential and/or agreement relations between them under a potential illocntion) More obviously belonging to this interface1 are morphosyntactic rules that cover for example the sentence-level scope of specific word-internal mor-
phemes (again most evident in highly synthetic languages), and those linking specific sen fence-level constructions to particular morphemes, whether
independent or bound/14 Another phenomenon that may require analysis in terms of an
'
1
extra
intermediate societal level concerns languages with pronomi-
nal and function-word clitics like French or Serbo-Croatian. In both cases this
is superordinate to the societal level of morphological words and subordinate to the sentence level articulation of phrases and clauses. However, there are differences: as regards Iron eh, the scope of the phenomenon is the verb phrase. as in i! y-en-a timj there are five of them1 (duinmy.s object tb ere-ofit-have five) or donne-ie-Iui give it to him fgive-it-him), since the successive enclitics are strictly ordered relative to the verb, regardless of other constituents. In SerboCroatian it is a matter of position within the whole sentence (typically following '
'
1
the first word in a fixed position relative to each ntherK as in dn-li-stc-inu M\i iwliv-pcrof have you given him the fountain pen? (with dummy clement dn fallowed respectively by interrogative, subieet and indirect object enclitics). The 1
result in both cases is a mismatch between morphological and syntactic units fwith word-level units corresponding to functional VPs in French hut not necesriarily - or usually - so in Serbo-Croatian). Such phenomena form the core ofantolexical syntax (Sadock 1991). In the above the reader may have noticed that I have not been entirely consistent in my application of the notion Wkny-of-M>cietics to language, sometimes using it to refer to the hierarchical levels of grammar, sometimes to 1
'
the organization and social embedding of individual speakers. Is the 'social' organization of grammar inherent in its own internal relationships feternal objects) or does it merely reflect that of its users? 'This is an important question, which I shall leave open until Chapter 9, where it will be a central concern (although ingredients in the answer will be discussed t'u route in Chapters 5 and 7). "
'
3i .
.
i The meaning uf synLax, the syntax of t eeling
In this sect ion 1 shall dwell further on the societal level of sentences - that of
syntactic rules dealing with clauses and phrasesh which in recent decades have been taken to be prototypical of all linguistic rules. We shall see that these represent from a Whiteheadian viewpoint merely a special case of the phenome-
non of the Ingression of eternai objects relevant to language. Note that in so far as linguistic rules - like any others - are obviously repeatable (this is their essence) they must indeed be aligned with eternal objects rather than with actual occasions (or even societies of actual occasions) within the Whiteheadian
scheme of things. What ia special about syntactic rules - their maximal recursivity and productivity - is sometimes erroneously taken (especially by
generativists) to characterize all levels of the society-of-societies which makes up the subject matter of grammar. Another mistake that is sometimes made fthis time by linguists of a functionalist inclination) is to include under the
rubric of syntax matters that do not belong to grammar at all but fall out rather from interaction between grammar and processing constraints (although the
latter may well have an indirect effect on the former historically). Linguistic rides are stable patterns to which actual speech more or less accurately conforms {attractors aimed at, so to speakn but often not quite reached). Syntactic onesn in particulan determine that only speech chains that are readily interpretable are produced, thus discouraging such con lign rat ions
6&
Pattern and Process
1
as internal embedding and the breaking of island constraints, etc. (which would over-burden the ability of the mind/brain to suspend high level processes while dealing with embedded sub-routines). The ingress ion of syntactic rules into an on-going process that is to result in a we 11-formed and successful
utterance requires (amongst other things) complementation by referring words suitable to the context and intention of the utterance plus a
H
tit1 with
world knowledge (including the social conventions of communication)- They are thus not isolatable from semantics and pragmatics. Such rules are probably embodied in frontal motor routines of the cortexf specifically in the dominant hemisphere, but it is unlikely that anyone would want to call them representations' in the same sense as the meanings of chains of symbols U shall return to this in Chapter 5). '
1
1
The categories that syntactic rules refer to are abstract! relatively few in number and common across languages (though not all present in all languages and not always serving exactly the same functions). Thus the category subject may vary in meaning from language to language.'l:,ri What is essential as regards tnglish, for instance, is that it has a particular 'feel1 to the user of that language. That isH it is defined by conditions whose sal is diction we can recognise when we fill a subject NP slot in an accreting syntactic template with an appropriate expression. The feel' of the match may be quite complex, involving different components> primarily semantic agentivity, but also structural lirstness' amongst the arguments of the verb, and pragmatic topichood, in differing degrees of prominence in differing contents even within the same language, but always distinct from the feel off sayf a direct object The reason we can recognize such abstract categories need not be anything to do with their inn a ton ess, but does undoubtedly have something to do with our perception of how the external world functions. This could be in the form of the general match between, say NIPs and 'things out there' (at whatever level of abstractnessK or between 'subjects1 and the referents of NTs standing in a certain relationship (e.g. of agentivity or control) to the action referred to by prototypical action verbst and so forth, fcxtensions by analogy are kept in check by the more arbitrary conventions of (adult) language. The notional source of basic syntactic categories - by extension from sensorimotor prototypes - is what is at issue here; how exactly these correlations are learned is still the subject of considerable debate. At all events! the prehension of an NP, for example, is the prehen1
'
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'
'
'
'
1
.
sion of a purely linguistic entity, not of its potential referents (though of course r
recognising the pattern as an NP activates expectations of a referential fit1),
The Linguage system
How might Whnehead have dealt with linguistic categories, say that of noun ? In his terminology, wc recognize tokens of conceptual types via the processes of conceptual valuation and 'transmutation1, whereby the same ingredient eternal object (simple or complex) shared by discrete tokens is grasped by the same kind of conceptual prehension, whatever the token. For example, tokens of nouns are recognized as sharing the same particular eternal object (prototypical nouniness ) and what counts as a noun is whatever data produces that - or an analogous - feeling in the prehending subject, Note that such a transmuted feeling can have different subjects scattered throughout a single coherent nexus, e.g. the same person experiencing 1 noun in ess1 on distinct occasions in his/her historical roitte ihroagh time. Transmutation produces vagueness, since the necessary grounds for the prehension of a particular eternal object is the recognition of only an approximate tit, one better at least than the potential fit with any competing candidate. Therefore it results 1
'
1
'
'
1
,
'
in prototype effects, which is precisely what cognitively orientated grammarians would want to see for linguistic as well as general conceptual categories. Similar effects would be expected for other word-class categories, in so far as they reflect specific prehensional processes findicative and conceptual) ingredient in producing or understanding propositions. Let us turn to syntactic rules as suchH at the same time keeping our VVhiteheadiar spectacles on. As mentioned aboveh there is considerable variation '
amongst the world s language as to where exactly the cuts between morphology and syntax and between syntax and pragmatics should be made, especially in more exotic non-configurational languages, but also in ones like japanese where pragmatics determines numerous basic choices in clause structure (and where inference from context plays a much more central role than in English, say), l-or present purposes we can limit the discussion to phrase structure rules in Hnglish, as uncontroversial a species as one can Hnd within autonomous syntax {and one with which even cognitive linguists with a general aversion for rules as such should have no quarrel if understood as mere distributional pattern h specifically within bnglish}.ClH Consider the most general kind of phrase structure rule, as exempli he d in the sentence 1 suppose it s the new one1 from the game in 2.2. First, the sentence consists of a noun phrase fT) plus a verb phrase (the rest), con formal with the initial S - NP -I- VP rule for the expan'
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1
'
'
'
sion
1
ol' a declarative sentence in English. The VP is in turn expanded by a
further rule whereby a noun phrase can be represented by a whole sentence
(here the object of the verb of the matrix sentence), 'I'he relevant phrase
69
jo
Pattern tind Process
'
structure rule (NP vS) is iirtrinsically recursive, The prehension ot tin NP will always contain the possibility of such a further unpackingh since thLs is part of the potentiality of what an NP Is1 to the language uier: the kind of linguistic unit which when activated may expand in this deteiminate way [amongst others), Choosing the appropriate sub-routine ( start a new sentence S } results in the embedding of one proposition within another. The expansion of die new lS1 ichema again produces the concatenation of an NP and a VP, to correspond to the felt1 content at an abstract ievelj and the VP can in turn be expanded/rep laced by the activation of the copula 'be1 plus another nominal phrase, etc. The copula (like any verb) must appear in the correct tensed form and in the correct form according to number agreement with the .subject (i.e. is), which may be phonologically reduced in actual production (to enclitic s ) These processes can be described either in terms of syntactic rules or of procedural sub-routines potentially activated every time a finite verb is processed in the production of an tnglish sentence (i.e. whenever a verb appeal's in an accreting syntactic template}. Hither way, they correspond to Whiteheadian prehensions of specific eternal objects (patterns) with which the output ofthe concrescence concerned must be conformal if the communicative intent ofthe subjective aim is to be satisfied. Now one of the hallmarks of syntactic rules is their close parallel to other hierarchically organized cognitive processes, whereby higher order * routines' maybe suspended while relevant sub-roiKines are carried out. This is seen every time discontinuous distribution of constituents within the same syntactic level occursn as with the French negative /it7,,, pas, or in English phrasal verb constructions, as in he heard his angry neighbour out1, where the VP contains a bipartite verb of which the adverbial element must be 'suspended1 until the ob|ocl XP l> ojab jLiled. J his suggests another good reason lo cqLiate as Mr as possible the sentence-length utterance with a single Whiteheadian concrescence: prehensions within a single concrescence arc only logically, not necessarily temporally ordered, and one of them can easily be 'suspended4 pending the '
1
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1
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-
.
'
result of another that it triggers, but this is not so between two or more successive concrescences each of which must result by definition in a complete. determinate output satisfying the initial subjective aim. Some approaches to syntax are less embarrassed by the notion of the
redundancy of distributed syntactic information than others, concentrating as '
they do on lexeme-specific constructions or lemmas1 (syntactic templates or predicate frames associated with individual verbs or verb types in the lexicon cf. Levelt 1989:11).
Pi Mm ore's construction grammar4 approach specifically
The language system
relates syntax to iemantics/pragmatics via conitmctions associated with individual lexical items or fane Lion words fef. l illmofe 19%). Note that for
generativists constructions are mere epiphenomena resulting from the interaction of the fixed principles of UG with parameters set one way or the other, A phenomenon such as eauiativization can lie examined in its morphosyntactic guise acrosi languages (as in (.iivcm ] 990; 5?ft, in the broader context of a "
typological overview of complementation types). At a still 'deeper '
level of
'
generalization, a physical causation construction type can he examined for English in terms oi its extension from concrete situations of physical causation to more and more abstract forms of causatJon (as in Grnsh & K4andelblidt
1997}. Such schemata are grounded in pre-linguistic experience, ontogenelically prior to learning about Constructions or * lemmas1. The correlation between linguistic constructions and categories and the cognitive realities beneath them - in particular Went frames - has been '
'
characterised by Croft fin a manner harmonious with the VVhiteheadian
perspective) as one of flexible interactionh the relationship being obscured by language-specific conventionalization of particular alternative construals of similar event types (Croft ]99!i)/(l 'The cognitive domains1 that typolo gists descry beneath linguistic expression often reflect universal types ot" process rather than static categories; the static patterns themselves (overlapping and multidimensional) are merely eternal object is abstractable from the symbol '
systems - e.g. words and constructions - used to refer to experiential nexus and their components- What appears to be universal across languages here is rather a matter of similarity than of identity - whether It be causative constructions or subjecthood, for example - for what is indeed common to af.
speakers is the cognitive (semantic) parameters themselvesh variously accessec by individual languages. This viewpoint underscores the necessity of taking indlviduLd lantuuges and theh consiruciium as th basis i\>\ \\ polo , noi die abstract formal categories of some Universal tnammar. What is universal behind such a fuzzy but widespread linguistic category as 'subject1, for example, must from a Whiteheadian perspective he related to the pre-linguistic process ofprehending the logical subject of a proposition (a nexus of actual occasions related by an eternal object). Construction types seem to form (for some languages) intermediate societa. levels between individual lexical items and sentence syntaxh in so far as they bear their own inherent array of thematic role types but are empty of specific lexical content/ l- or example in Semitic languages: where particular abstract vowe templates applicable to bate consonantal verb stems produce various derivec '
7]
7a
Pattern and Process
predicates, according to voice and tense, etc. (cf. junger 19 5 for Hebrew). These 'binyanim' may in theory be extended to new verbs. Their Content1 is the derivational or mflectional function they bring to beai1 on the neutral item (e.g. causativizationK Although English has covert classes of verbs according to voice T mid die' 'ergative' 'antipassive', ranticausative\ etc.) no 'extra' level of description is needed there ince the patterns are precisely not overtly ex-
pressed. Also gender classes of nouns in the lexicon appear to represent a '
potential societal level1 intermediate between the societal level of words and Lhat of sentences (cf. agreement phenomena). Even for the generativises such lexical matters can presumably be learnt from input. They are at all events simply patterns there to be recognized- Note that there is great variation amongst the world s languages as to the nature of the linkage between grammar
and lexicon; Wakashan languages such as Nootka are at the opposite extreme front Semitic languages, their non-configurational, pragmatically controlled syntax displaying a notoriously loose linkage with the lexicon, where most morphemes can occur as nouns or verbs or adjuncts in a variety of predicate frames', according to context. Let its pause now to look more closely at the type of syntactic rule (or principle) that generativist claim to be so deep and inaccessible to consciousness that they could not he iearnt at all from input. What can a Whiteheadian '
make of these? Bickerton (1990:72} discusses such a rule in terms of constraints
on the extraction of question-words from subordinate clauses. Here NT and VP
boundaries appear to act as barriers to extraction so that, for example> "'Where do we know the boy who comes fromT, which extracts the wh-wnrd from the embedded relative clause modifying the object argument, is ill-formed. The structural regularity concerned is the limitation on extractability of this kind to clauses immediately subcategori/ed by the matrix verb - which excludes the embedded relative clause (it may be dropped from the original sentence We know the boy who comes from {Texas}' without affecting its acceptability}. A Whiteheadian explanation for this constraint would involve the nature of intellectual prehensions {in particular intuitive judgments), which arct as we have seenH central to linguistic behaviour. They are also involved in categorization, for example highlighting meaningful contrasts in a two-tiered framework (e.g. hyponyms on the same level under a superordinate nominal concept). These complex prehensions can apparently only handle two levels of structure '
at oncet e.g. a superordinate one and a single subordinate one> since intellectual prehensions consist of a linkage between precisely two overlapping lower-level prehensions t a propositions I and an indicative one (compare figure I where the
Th« language system
propositions] one corresponds to the embedded ekiusc, the indicative one to the matrix clause). Moreovei; the link between the two prehensions must be one of at least partial derivation of the subordinate proposition from the nexus in which it is embedded [corresponding to the mat fix one), which is not the case
in the starred sentence above. Being !non-subcategorized' can be equated with not being derived from the matrix nexus {the subordinate clause is an 'extra1 '
1
'
proposition tacked on rather than deriving from the matrix). Trace1 relations that stretch over two propositions not so linked (or over more than two mutually embedded propositions) are thus likely to be much more difficult to
sort out and less natural to produce/" Similar explanations can probably be '
presented for all such eep structural regularities, Concerning another aspect of autonomous syntax taken by generativists to be universal, namely Binding Theory, Chomsky (1986:8) illustrates with the following two sentences his contention that our knowledge of the reference conditions of pronouns has nothing to do with extension (our knowledge of the outer world): i
.
The: men expected to see them
ii. 1 wonder who 1 ihc men cxpirttcJ to -hmj- them
.
His point is of course that no surfacy linguistic for ex tens ion al semantic) explanation can explain why the reference of the same pronoun is different in these two cases. From a Whiteheadian perspective the answer neverthless must lie {as always) in context, albeit local context, rather than in purported innate knowledge: unlike in the firsts independent sentence, the referents in the complex embedded clause of (ii) belong to a different in tension a I world (or menial space ) from that of the superordinate clause of the sentence (as reflected in the additional societal level the outermost matrix clause imposes on '
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1
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the embedded structure),' Pronouns are variables whose raison-d'etre is their 1
ability to adjust to contextuaTfit with the worlds in which they occur, but the default1 reference conditions of non-reflexive pronouns in simple main clauses namely that they should refer to objects in the same world as that of the subject but are not identical writh it - do not apply in the multiply embeddec. const]-net ion here, If they did there would be no potential referent in the superordinate clause structure with which the pronoun could hind at all - it can not refer to the object of the immediately superordinate verb expect '
-
'
(which is the innermost embedded clause,
1
see Y\ itself) and it can not refer
to the subject of its own clause since that is not supposed to be identical with a non-reflexive pronoun (and it could of course not bind with the subject of the
73
74
Parrcm ind Process
intransitive highest clause verb 'wonder1, already spoken for), The possibility that 'them
1
refers To some referent completely outside the sentence Ui discourse topk already set up, say) Js excluded - at least in my dialect. But this is not so much a ivkiiilt of binding condiuons uiI ium .is of the uso her-L" or the iunr.iii\v Tto1 complement) form of the innermost clause, which presupposes identity of subjects of the two clauses or (as here) identity of the embedded subject with the extracted relative pronoun, {Compare the situation when one replaces "to with will and binding with an external antecedent suddenly becomes possible.) '
1
1
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'
The blockage here leaves only one alternative interpretation for the hearer, '
'
namely the reflexive one, in which the antecedent of them is the subject of expect {i.e. The men1), which is possible precisely because it lies on a different 1
'
societal level from that of the innermost embedded clause and therefore is
exempt from the default conditions described above.
Societal levels in cognition are not hxed, limited to the levels of particular '
grammars, they arc negotiable/creatable at will in constructing Text This is what Mental Space4 theof y is all about. It is also ultimately the motivation for the recursivity of syntax. This is not to deny the reality of the knowledge of the underlying rcferential power of pronouns that Government and Binding .
'
Theory characterizes - there is a regularity involved in the above example, not just an tid inference. Chomsky is surely right in insisting that analogy from more basic (main) clauses to embedded ones is not enough to explain such 1
phenomena, My alternative proposal is simply an attempt to anchor that knowledge more deeply in general experience - and to suggest a reason why
the regularity concerned could have arisen and become absorbed so naturally into grammar in the first place, Now different types of rule may seem to overlap in scope as applied to a
given speech chainn e when a syntactic domain defined by a phi-ase structure rule appears to cut right across a unitary morphological sequence of stem plus afixes or clitics (as occurs with the French clitics and the Hskimo modi tied '
incorporating1 structures mentioned in the previous sect ion), In such cases we are simply seeing, as I have suggested, eternal objects as potential patterns
applying at different societal levels {that of words and that of sentences, say) juxtaposed on the only actual reality that is at hand: the linear chain of linguistic signs itself. Actual occasions - and it fortiori nexus - have internal structure, and that structure may be organised hierarchically without the boundaries of entities on lower levels necessarily falling neatly within those of higher level h
units. The 4oci
occupied by actual occasions may overlap though the occasions
themselves do not.
The liiiijiULagL1 system
As regardi regulariti i at the 'interface1 between iyjitax and pragmatici (i.e. between those two societal levels)h these can often best be described in terms of
the multiple 'etics of deployment of the 'emici1 of the gmmtmukal iystem/'1 1
The tormer are drawn from an assumed universal pool of such communicatory functions, while the latter is a language-spec ilk iniUer. An e imple {within the h unctionai Grammar frameworh) clui he found in my analysis of the way the grammaticized focus system of Yukagir works in actual discourse contexts '
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1
(Fortescue 1996a). It also illustrates the way in which grammars can 'capture' otherwise loosely articulated pragmatic functions. The actuiil focus system is a
matter of morphological choices, but the three construction types - subject, object and so-called verb focus- are expressed through whole constructions that mark both verbs and their nominal dependent*;. Moreover, word order is drawn into the broader system of 'pragmatic function' choices fa matter of pre posing and postposing of dependent NPs, Emphatic locus, for example,
being realized by postposingK Now it turns out that the bask 'emic' coding chokes of Yukagir in this area are. to use the labels employed within FG, New
Topicn Given Jbpich and hscus (in turn divided into Emphatic and Predicate locus] - also 'I Tame1, hach of these are expressed in just one for possibly two) distinct waysH hut the etic timetions they may serve in discourse context are multiple* thus New Topic marking {the Object or Subject focus construction) may be used to signal a braird new referent, completive focus contrastive focus. relative importance of a new referent for the situation or event described, or surprise associated with the introduction of that referent. In any one context one or more {even all) of these etic features maybe involved - but not all must
necessarily be present to trigger the construction concerned. This approach could call forth the objection that the 'emics1 chosen by the linguist to describe the grammar of a given language may be circular: he could
simply select them to (it any grouping of
!
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etic
functions he finds expedient,
However, such objections can be avoided if one strictly limits ones emic
categories to discrete coding choices and then seeks to see how these are deployed in actual discourse situations (it is in the description of the latter that
one may run up against more severe terminological problems). This is not to deny that a given means ffor instance gender distinctions) might be used for
other functions than its basic one (e.g. for reference tracking}. The
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interface*
regularities that can be descried here reflect strategies whereby speakers of
particular languages dispose of the limited morphosyntactic means available to them to perform a wide variety of pragmatic functions. Until or unless they
achieve emic status in the grammar, via full absorption, the etic functions
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76
Pattern and Pi'octss
concerned are best regarded as potential triggers on a supeiordinate societal
level (no single one of them either necessary or sufficient on their own) which may accuniulate beyond some threshold point in a given discourse situation. Thus - as Whitehead would have foreseen - they may act as part of the complex simuitaneous da I a resulting in an actualized, determinate utterance. subtly articulated according to such contextual factors ai foregroundings backgroundiii£ and framing. From a Wliiteheadian perspective, then, syntax cannot be divorced from meaning and context (though the formal patterns can certainly he talked about in that manner in a metalanguage). In fact, despite residual aspects of arbitrari-
ness (reflecting earlier functionality), it is more iconic and rationally functional (reflecting the creativity of individual purposive behaviour) than most other
levels of language.7(1 It is a matter of semantic 'combinatorics, of syntagmatic as well a paradigmatic - choices guided by an overall aim and constrained by the more local requirements of lexical items as they are drawn into the concrescent elaboration of the production of an utterance con formal with that aim.
This is reminiscent of the way jespersen (!%5:45ff.} viewed syntax, namely as the study of how general meanings are Externalized in form, the common link being the 'functions1 of language-specitic categories of inflection or word orders etc. Thus although such a purely syntactic rule as dative raising in Hnglish, whereby a sentence like He gave him the money4 is produced/transformed from 'he gave the money to him' is for autonomous syntacticians simply a formal pattern fdescribable in terms of such categories as 'thematic roles' and '
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traces')H the construction nevertheless bears its own meaning in terms of
topical Nation, The most topical NP is namely treated as direct object (Givon 1990:762) - but this of course involves context, and autonomous syntax is not concerned with context, onlv with sentence structures. It determines what goes with what at some 'deeper' logical level of interpretation of sentences, and captures the scope relations between individual constituents. In fact, these relationships are to a large degree iconic {thus Behaghers law1, whereby entities that are closer together by meaning or function tend to be coded by elements in close proximity to each other), and the whole rahou-d ette of scope relation'
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ships is of course semantic in a broad sense
Syntactic 'rules1 are a variety of eternal object, and eternal objects have a definite relationship to the subjective form of prehensions accessing them. which they partially determine. Moreover, such prehensions always bring with
them a specific (contextual} perspective on that object. This suggests that we should not be surprised if syntactic abstractions can be
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felt1, i.e. add deter mi-
The language system
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nate meaning tf> a speaker/hearer s utterances. In fact, acceptability judgments
(which define what syntax is all about for generativists) are in Whiteheadian terms no more nor less than the feel of con formal meshing of general patterns of language behaviour (eternal objects) and the potential meanings intended [one or more propositions applicable to a particular state of affairs/nexus referred to)/a Concrescences can integrate all types of prehended input1 conceptual, physical and hybrid - on the way towards their satisfaction. In short, grammar from a Whiteheadian perspective must, in contrast to generative gram ma r be holistic and non-modular - akhough the individual mind/brain utilizing such a grammar is organized tn a modular fashion, and the grammars of individual languages do roughly follow th same Societal divisions into layers. It is more language-specific, less abstract than the genenttive conception of grammar (especially the latest formulations of UG in terms of principles and parameters), in this respect it ean be seen as more like a systemic grammar (e.g. of EnglishK a network of top-down choices linking subjective aims (illocutions or other functions) to their potential expression, h accepts that some languages (like Japanese) rely more on on-line inferences than others with more overt grammaticalized encoding {like EnglishK and that some languages (like Aleut, or - even more so- Nootka, with its notoriously '
1
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indirect relationship between grammatical word classes and lexical items) are more directly controlled by discourse-pragmatic factors than standard European languages, where lexemes are more rigidly linked to types of States of affairs, each with their typical sets of arguments. The common patterns that generativists see behind all grammars can - in so far as they hold at all - nevertheless in theory be 'read off1 or 'prehended1 from the intersection of individual grammars and the universal architecture ol the human mind/bra in capable of entertaining a grammar. As regards tormali/ation, this approach suggests that
one theoretical framework may fit some types of language better than others for example, dependency grammars of one sort or another may be better suited to capture relevant generalizations in non-conftgurational languages than an X-bar
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1
generative grammar/ Moreover, although its patterning qua eternal '
object is static and unchanging for any given actual occasion, a Whiteheadian grammar thus conceived (not as a single determinate metalanguage but as a multiple layering of potential pattern) should be convertible into procedural terms in so far as it does tind ingress ion in the minds/brains of individual ipeiikejx, who. in striving to conimnnicale, Lippjv iis Riles 10 tho constt uction and analysis of utterances. It should not be seen just as a set of abstract constraints but as the form of definiteness1 of the very vehicle of realization of -
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comamiiiiciitive and cognitive intentions. The vehicle and its contents are in a complementary relationship.
Summary In this chapter 1 have argued that the central stj ucturalist notion of the linguis-
tic sign should not he lost sight of in contemporary linguistics, in particular as regards the uses to which systems of signs are actually put in communicating symbolically both with others and with oneself Whitehead emphasized the systematic nature of linguistic codes as means of expression, and his distinction between pattern and process (or 'eternal objects' and 'prehensions ) corresponds in language to the distinction between emic coding choices and the etics of their deployment in the expression of complex communicative intentions. The two stand in a complementary relationship! the abstract patterning of grammar emerging from language use and in turn constraining rather than contributing directly to the teleological processes of communication, and thu suggests that attempts to integrate the one into the other on the same descriptive level may be misplaced. We have seen that Whitehead s conception of symbolism - and in particular the process of symbolic reference - is broader than linguistic symbolism alone and is related to the unsystematized world of perceptual events and things in a way that one does not find in Peirce, for example, whose universe is nothing but semiosis. It anchors language in bodily and social reality as well as in universal forms of definiteness1 (there Is nothing mysterious, note, ah out his "conceptual prehensions which are not necessarily any more abstract than perceptual ones). The Whitehead ian picture of actual occasions interrelated within 'nexus' at successively higher levels of organization fsocieties-within-societies-withinsocieties) suggests a useful way of looking at linguistic layering - both as regards why language should he layered at all, and why it should be layered only roughly the same way across languages (into societies of phonemesj words, sentences and textsL with considerable variation in detail. Thus the recurring '
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*
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problem for theory of linguistic levels that
leak1 from above finds a natural
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explanation within this framework, since the ordering of constituents at any one level is in part determined by the context at the next level up, That languages can vary on this parameter - some languages tolerating considerable overlap between for instance, the levels of the word (morphology) and the sentence
[syntax) - is not surprising from a perspective that sees higher level 'subjective
TtK LmguDgc system
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Aims
governing lower level realizations of ilieir expression according Eo available means. Discourse-pragmatk factors can thus be reflected deep inside sentence grammar
Meaning and (niorpho-)syntax cannot be divorced, since all linguistic rules arc Tclt eternal objects of a certain relational kind - as are the categories to which these patterns apply (subjects, nouns, etc.). This is compatible with the 1
view oflinguists like Langacker who regard syntactic roles as simply the most general patterns abstract able from specific constructions or con figurations that however indirectly - reflect underlying event structures. The Whiteheadian view of creativity provides a broader view of linguistic recursivity than that of most syntactic]ans, since what is produced by conceptual reversion is new content - e.g. the construction of novel propositions or whole mental worlds, in which the role of syntactic recurs ivity plays a rather small role. The emphasis in this chapter has been on individual grammars rather than the still more abstract generalisations of Universal tirammar; the relationship between the two las been left open for later chapters. Grammar from this point of view - as a system of relationships - is hardly modular, although the modularity of mental processing utilizing the template provided by a grammar is not precluded. Whitehead did not work out in any detail his theory of symbolism as -
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applied to specific languages. This leaves a rich field of investigation open for anyone who might wish to elaborate its application to the subject matter of core linguistics. This does not presuppose adherence to any particular school or theory - the endeavour is compatible with much work thai has been done within generativist as well as functionalist theoretical frameworks. The application of Whitehead s metatheoretical perspective to language in no way constitutes an attempt to set up yet another theoretical approach to linguistics. It canh on the contrary, contribute to enriching specihe theories by spelling out their broader ontological assumptions. As briefly illustrated, such an application is '
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nevertheless capable of providing specific explanations tor what have until now often been regarded as purely linguistic constraints. Itiese can be analysed in terms of prehensions and their combinatonality in higher cognitive processes (processes, note, that are experiendally accessible). This kind of procedure can no doubt be applied to a wide range of syntactic phenomena. Another area of potential application that suggests itself is in working out a typology of types and degrees of inter-level leaking in particular of the language-specific impingement of discourse-level factors on lower level linguistic coding. Implicational relationships cutting across levels of structure would no doubt emerge. 1
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79
Chapter 4
The content side of language
We have s cn how 'meaning1 pervades a\\ levels of Imguistic stmctui'e, from '
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societies
of phoneme strings, through 'societies1 of wo ids to those of syntactic
sentences and beyond. The notion content form - or better content structure - within Danish Kmctioiul Clmmnw fas inherited and reinterpreted from Hjelmslev} reflects the emphasis that this approach lays on the way in '
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which the formal cat ego lies and constructions of individual languages
caive
1
meaning space for 'substance1) and recombine the resultant elements to produce new meanings (cf. Hjelmslev 1963:52 and Lngboi -Pcdcrsen et a.. 19%; viifj. Content structure is the way meaning is organized at every level of express ion j from the morpheme to the complete utterance and beyond We have also seen how prototype affects fdue to the vaguet abstract, and highly context-dependent nature of words-as-symhok) are to be expected in the relationship between Whiteheadian eternal objects { types } and prehensions linking these with nexiis of actual occasions T tokens'): this reflects the essential analogical nature of the process of transmutation The main question 1 shall turn to in the latter part of the present chapter attempts to relate these two matters by asking how the lexical categories of a particular language reflect Whiteheadian 'eternal objects' their organization and manifestation. Much of what 1 shall have to say will be seen to apply also to the grammatical meanings out
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discussed in the previous chapter, What we will arrive at finally is a suggestion concerning the ultimate underpinnings of word meaning in the world of physical and mental reality as experienced through the lfelt' mode oPcausal '
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efficacyBefore proceeding however! we need to look somewhat more closely at the Whiteheadian proposition since this is the crucial means whereby linguistic meaning is articulated and understood in its natural context.
4
1
.
Proposkiorus and presuppositions
As should be clear by now, the notion of the 'proposition" is central to a W'hiteheadian
approach to language - in fact this is the level at which White-
8a
Pattern ind l roc
s
head himself stopped short in his treatment of language; he never discussed
their concrete manifestation in individual grammars, although he illustrated them sometimes with English sentences. The proposition for Whitehead is not, however, to be conceived of as the usual cut-and-dry unit of traditional logic to
which binary truth values are assignedH nor does it have quite the same meaning as in functional Grammar (or in other linguistic
necessarily come in linguistic garb at all/11
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schools ), in fact it does not
Whiteheadian propositions are
structured according to subject-predicate relations between {nexCis of) actual occasions (including whole events} and eternal objects which only take on truth values when integrated into higher order judgments (where, as we have seen. the choice is not limited u> true or false but also includes suspended ) One may say that the basic propositional structure of language, expressed by verbs with valency slots to be filled by argument types, is natural precisely because it reflects the relational nature of eternal objects (concepts relating or qualifying nexus; types). Negative prehensions are also an essential ingredient of proposi'
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tion al feelings in so far as they are required to eliminate incompatibilities of '
both the indicative prehension (the irrelevant 'definiteness' of the logical subject) and the predicative pattern (its open-ended anyness ) If literally read from a sign, tor instance {say one verbally labelling a cage at a zoo in the mode of symbolic reference), the physical sign itself has to he eliminated to get at the proposition expressed. Propositions may be integrated into complex prehensions involving a variety of intentional states1 and various kinds of modal relations as well ipoKsibilitr. eiMoreover, they m:iy ih nselves be romplex (ninln-levell and maybe polyadic as regards internal valency, that is, their predicates need not be limited to single arguments - there could, for instancet be three in the case of events involving giving (see Whitehead 197 :194 on triple' as well as double1 relations between a predicate and its logical 'subjects1). The term '
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logical subject1 is in fact best envisaged as the congeries of referent entities (type or token, 'real* or merely imagined) potentially linked to a predicate as its
arguments). Cirammatical subjecthood is something that maybe assigned in many (but not necessarily all) languages to one particular argument at a higher levd of organization. Which of the set of logical subjects will normally be
treated as grammatical subject (as opposed, say to object) will depend primarily on the semantics of the predicate concerned, although this may be overridden by higher level syntactic and pragmatic modulation. A complex sentence uttered in a specific context will correspond to a layering of Whiteheadian propositions, each individual layer of which is organised according to the
logical subject-pre die ate dichotomy, and which may be further modulated l:br purposes of pragmatic highlighting. The surface clause structure may thus be compacted and linked imd rearranged in various ways (by ellipsis or word-order variation or clause intertwining, for example) to reflect this secondary structuring in terms of tt>pic-comment {or themt-rheme) articulation - in so far this has not already become obligatory as part of the conventionalized syntactic '
patterning required by the language
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However, this is not something that
VVhitehead, unconcerned with 'fine1 linguistic distinctions, went into in any detail with. With this cavern in mind, Whiteheadian propositions can be said to correspond rather well to Strawson s basic ubjtct-predicLUc comhiiutum {cf. Strawson 1974). In fact Strawson's 'perspicacious grammar approach to the step-wise building up of the underlying logical form of language (not intendec as a historical scenario, but suggestive of the evolution of real grammars) can be regarded as a possible missing link between Whitehead s propositions and real "
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grammars constraining their expression. Though I do not have the space to follow this suggestion up in detail I can at least sketch the general compatibility here (I shall return to the matter of the evolution of language in 8.3).
Strawson, representing Oxford 'Ordinary Language' philosophy, sees the basis of grammar in two linked processes which he calls Substantiation1 anc complementary predication Their source lies in the basic binary propositional form consisting of a primitive linkage between an individual spatio-temporal particular and a general concept indicating some property of that particular. 1
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This subject-predicate form happens to be particularly well adapted to ma Icing judgments (assigning predicates to particulars and judging the combination to correspond to what is so in the real world). Verbs fas predicates) are central in so far as they indicate the overall propositional assignment as well as specifying li'lkiI amnjpi:-, o - one tuijju add - it i:-. no wonder ikn Ltbs take
sentential mar leers (e.g. of argument cross-reference, negation, modality of illocution) in morphologically more synthetic languages. The basic distinction between general concepts (expressed by predicates) and particulars (expressec by noun phrases) is explained in terms of incompatibility and contrast between the two categories, which is strictly one way (concepts come in incompatibility and involvement groups vis-h-vi< particulars, but not the other way rounc. compare the collocation restrictions on verbs but not on basic NPs). Strawson 'basic combination1 is then extendable by abstraction to a higher level with non-particular subjects (where relations of time/space, etc., can occur). By gradually extending the model a more and more sophisticated perspicacious grammar begins to approach the real grammar of English. '
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The cnnte n t side of 1 a nguiijy
logical subject-pre die ate dichotomy! and which may be further modulated tor purposes of pragmatic highlighting, The surface clause structure may thus be compacted and linked and rearranged in various ways (by ellipsis or word-order variation or clause intcj twining, for example) to reflect this secondary structuring in terms of topic-commtm {or themo-rhemo) articulation - in so far as this lias not already become obligatory as part of the conventionalized syntactic 1
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pattern!Jig required by th language" However, this is not something that .
VVhitehead, unconcerned with Lline1 linguistic distinctions, went into in any detail with. With this aivenl in mind, Whiteheadian propositions can be said to correspond rather well to Strawson s basic subject-predicate combination (cf, Jitrawson 1974) In fact Straws on s 'perspicacious grammar1 approach to the step-wise building up of the underlying logical form of language {not intended as a historical scenario, hut suggestive of the evolution of real grammars ) can be regarded as a possible missing link between Whitehead s propositions and real grammars constraining their expression.11,1 Though I do not have the space to follow this suggestion up in detaii I can at least sketch the general compatibility here [1 shall return to the matter of the evolution otTanguage in S.3). Strawson, representing Oxford 'Ordinary Language' philosophy, sees the basis of" grammar in two linked processes which he calls Substantiation1 and complementary predication I heir source lies in the basic binary propositional form consisting of a primitive linkage between an individual spatio-temporal particular and a general concept indicating some property of that particular. This subject-predicate form happens to be particularly well adapted to making judgments (assigning predicates to particulars and judging die combination to correspond to what is so in the real world). Verbs fas predicates) are central in so far as they indicate the overall propositional assignment as well as specifying general concepts! so - one might add - it is no wonder that verbs take sentential markers (e.g. of argument cross-reference, negation, modality or illocution) in morphologically more synthetic languages. The basic distinction between general concepts (expressed by predicates) and particulars (expressed by noun phrases) is explained in terms of incompatibility and contrast between ihe two c:.u oi ion. which is strictly oneway [concepts come at incompLUtbilih and involvement groups wWa-Wi particulars, but not the other way round compare the collocation restrictions on verbs but not on basic NPs). Strawsons 'basic combination1 is then extendable by abstraction to a higher level with n on-particular subjects (where relations of time/space, etc., can occur). By gradually extending the model a more and more sophisticated perspicacious grammar begins to approach the real grammar of Hnglish, 1
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that lack a unitary
pioblem is compounded by the Lick of articles (to distinguish definite from in definite/so rtal referring expressions) and of adjectives (as a j'eflection of general sortal words used as secondary modifiers). However, such languages ar not really any embarrassment to Strawsons program, since the object in such cases are typically either pronominally marked m verbal 'holophrases' {in ensit by cross-reiereiice to an external object NP or by incorporation) or casemarked as functioning in object role (before constituent scrambling}. The particular stages in the development of a real grammar mayor may not involve specific word classes such as adjective1 or article Stmwson was just illustrating general principles: the details of substantiation in real diachronic terms must inevitably be tailored to specific language types. More important is the subjectpredicate distinction the ability to distinguish the subject from the rest of a sentence - but remember here that children learning English also go through a holophrastic stage of expressionh and in the subsequent stage they produce two-word combinations of either subject +- verb verb -h object. This does not mean that the hnglish child - any more than the Eskimo one - is not capable right from the start of distinguishing particulars (as potential subjects) from propertiesh relations and actions (potential predicates). Let me now return to the way linguists have used the term 'proposition' within particular functional-cognitive frameworks and see how this relates to 1
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Whitehead's and Strawsons uses of the term. In one such framework, namely
functional Grammar, it plays an important role. The proposition in Ri is a higher level entity referring to possible facts. It is not the most basic clause leve!i unit: this is the predicate with itstermsH as in the first order predicate calculus.
The proposition is situated hierarchically between the predication {=predicate '
plus its terms and grammatical operators such as those for aspect and objective modality) and the clause (- speech act/illocution), and takes its own operators such as those for subjective modality (cf. Dik 1989:202ffj. It is thus a predica'
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lior. sl-i in hn - Lir.d .-ipiuv -uu-h th.n it iiin k: snid :n Ivivea imih Viilue from that
perspective. Dik links the notion of predication closely to that of affairs
' -
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states of
corresponding to basic predicate frame types, each with their
prototypically associated case roles. In so far as these can be regarded as eternal objects {prototypical event types, etc.) this is compatible with Whitehead s view of propositional prehensions linking a conceptual prehension (of an eterna, object, here a sit it at ion type) with a physical one (e.g. of a nexus in which that '
eternal object finds ingress ion, i.e. an actual token situation).Hj However,
ail
86
Pattern iiid Process
mipu] iLuU dilkTciKv L-mc] L\s wliLti one li io lu ichyc ilu- pIivml I prdici ion to the deepest clause structure level of FCi within the predication. Dilca predica-
tions directly reflect their basis in first order predicate calculus, in the manner of, for instance, Quine, whose formalism has no singular terms at all at baseh only open predications on variable and is thus rather remote from actual language-in-use. [Ki does repaid personal pronouns and names as basic terms, but all other terms are produced by variable binding (Dik 1989:55). This is dificult to square with Whiteheadian indicative prehensions4 (whidi can hardly link eternal object predicates to variables as opposed to actual nexils). Strawsons individual particulars are not to be taken as variables any more than VVhitehead's indicative prehensions are - they start with the act of referring. He advises expressly against introducing quantifiers and variables at the most primitive level of linguistic analysis where they do not belong; they are to be introduced only at '
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ligher levels of abstraction {Strawson 1974: N 7). Real languages do have variablesh of courseh but these are expressed specifically by pronouns. Nonetheless, the hierarchical levels of 1 G do accord in a general way with Strawson's notion of second degree1 (and higher) propositions (accessible to VVhiteheadian intellectual prehensions/judgments}. They superimpose further functional layers on basic predications, e,g, that of pragmatic function beyonc the syntactic one and before the level at which illocutionary type is in turn chosen. Presumably this re fleas the hierarchical and potentially self-referring structure of the mind/brain itself-which has fuelled the tendency for layers to profligate in both Kl and TG. Now Strawsons treatment of substantiation am. concomitant grammatical subjection (generalization of candidates for subjecthood) is [loth hierarchy ally reiterative and akin to metaphor, each step in the process leading to a higher level of abstraction (thus NPs of universals, proposi1
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tions/tacts, or non-substantial particulars such as
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water
may become the
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subject of a sentence), lire drive to subjectify general concepts reflects the drive towards second-degree reflection. When one shifts perspective from categories and levels to procedures and acts, the basic' subject-predicate dichotomy see ins to slide over to one of topic-comment or theme-rhemeh but this is really the same distinction seen in another (behavioural} light, arguably more primitive than the logical one. The standard l;Ci treatment of such pragmatic matters as locus and gm.'n/new topic tissigmnenl as a distinct inlormediale level is son-el
thing else, a matter of pattern rather than process. Fti - tor better or for worse combines a decontextualized logical basis with a pragmatic overlay, falling -
somewhere between a static grammar of choices and a dynamic discourse model.
Tht contclit side of]angud c
Let us consider finally the concept of'proposition' as potentially relevant to out-and-out cognitive models of language. The term is not in vogue in such quarters, but would jseem to be tacitly understood as a major unit of discourse/
cognition nonethelesSn Thus it would not seem beside the point to askn tor example, whether proposition a I structure could not be equated with Lakofian
image-schematic structure. One could indeed argue to this effect - note his genera] inclination, mentioned in 2,1 already, to explain traditional logic in terms of metaphorical extension from a basic domain 10 a more abstract one
fjust like Strawson's 'metaphoricaT extension of substantiation). On the other hand( bodily routines and relations would appear to be too 1bolistic> to form a clear-cut bisis for the binary subject-predicate form of propositions. In fact l akoff does mention that proposition a] structure (as in Fi Urn ore s notion of Trames' 1 is dislincl from imaL - hcmaiK sU ucluro [this incideiUaliy ako tl c '
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.
view of Dik
and of Paivio 1986)
He names both types among the four
basic kinds of structuring principle behind his Idealized cognitive models1 (the
other two are metaphoric and metonymic mappings respectively - Lakoff ]9H7:6fi)H At all events, one is led to the question as to bow propositional structure (however understood) could be the essential unit of logical thought 1
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at allt not only as manifest in linguistic expressions but also in the pies opposition 3 behind such expressions. As regards expression what is {pragmatically) presupposed by an utterance may after all be realized through all manner of
devices {e g. word order, stress and special syntactic constructions), not necessarily covering whole semen cos. Nevertheless, in some contexts at leaat> such presupposed information must itself be propositional in structure - the 'background knowledge1 shared by participants in Twenty Questions", as discussed in Chapter 2, is a case in point. "
In this highly verbal game 'propositional prehensions' abound (but as we saw, can hardly be the only kind involved). This does not necessarily mean that they are stored as such in memory - John son-Laird s mental models for example, '
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are structures from which propositions can be read oif but do not necessary consist of propositions themselves (their psychological status will be discussed ,
further in Chapter
where also Sea lies conception of'Background1 will be
compared). Of course, we need to be a bit more specific about what we mean by presupposition! We thus need to distinguish between presupposition proper '
and entailment or - more broadly - implicature (a matter of forwardprojec Lion of possible implications in contextt of the kind we saw in connection with the inferences and implications of wrhole utterances dealt with in Chapter 2). There is the type of information 'presupposed' by lexical items
S7
Sfi
Pattem and Process
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which are pan of their meaning - flomething like meaning postulates (if propo sit ionaHy expressed) or dastcrs of general perceptual properties (eternal objects) adhering to prototypical reieienti of the item. Certainly this kind of information can be 'propositionaT in structiiTe [with the potential tokeii as subject } but it is not a matter of1 presupposition proper1, belonging as it does in the static lexicon rather than deployed in discourse. What then of other kinds of presupposed information, such as the mere '
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existence of an entity referred to by a definite referring espression? This is a matter of the pinpointing or setting up hy discourse participants of referents in mutually understood worlds rather than of simply assigning a property (say of existence ) to subjects. {Recall the Whiteheadian 'indicative prehension' defined in 1.2.5.) Still other areas in which the concept of'presupposition has been used in slightly different ways include the 'presuppositions1 of quest ionword questions (which concern facts and states of affairs as well as the existence of referents), and the analysis of speech acts (and factive verb constructions) in 1
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terms of the 'felicity conditions that such acts 'presuppose1 for their successful '
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pi'csupposition are linked by what the speaker and hearer tacitly take for granted as 'being so1 in their shared world of discourse [cf the discussion in Lyons 1977:5 92 ft ) Fauconnier has proposed a procedural approach to presupposition in terms of space optimalization (cf. Fauconnier 1985 - also Fauconnier & Sweetser 1996). This is essentially a matter of the default downward spread of structure (in terms of referents and their relationships set up in mental spaces) from achievements as discussed in 2.1. All of these senses of
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base1 level space {that of the discourse participants )h and of 'presupposition
floating' upwards from sub-spaces towards base level (until overtly blocked). Blending of two spaces (and/or background knowledge) may occur to produce a new one. In tact the principal function of words and sentences can from this viewpoint be said to prompt us to evoke appropriate scenarios through blending their individual contributions. This whole approach is broadly compatible with Whitehead s own process treatment of such 'background' matters. '
'
Recall that for Whitehead there are two types of proposition, namely perceptive and imaginative, and that both of these maybe ingredient in higher level 'intellectual prehensions1. Every proposition presupposes some general nexus within an indicative relational system, i.e. some entity to which it maybe
as signed. and that presupposition (concerning the logical subject and the pre bending subjects access to it) is pan of the proposition itself (Whitehead 197S; 195). A judgment (positive, negative or suspended} presupposes knowledge not only of the logical subject of its embedded proposition, but also of the '
1
The cnntc n c side of 1 a nguage
complex social nexus embiiicing both it and the actual occasion entertaining the udgj ent fits concrescent subject). This layered background of societieswith in-societies corresponds to embedded Fauconnien an spaces The basis of induction (i.e. probahiliiy judgments concerning societies of actual entities) is analogy between an environment presupposed and one directly experienced and assumed to he enduring. A judgment about the future, for instance, is hased on an analogy between a present society tor nexus) and some future society as projected hy a Whitohoadian imaginative prehension. We can thus see that presupposition for Whitehead subsumes 1 mental spaces1 between which mutually understood background information can he mapped and kept track of hy discourse partners, but it is of a more general nature, since the hierarchical ordering of fiiiccessivc worlds applies beyond any given discourse '
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.
1
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situation, hack through successive sodeties-within-sockties/" This is the background without which actual occasions would have no reality at all: it reflects the historical embeddedness of conscious agents running on parallel paths through time and space- As background' in the broadest sense, it embraces both individual experience and physical ontogeny, Access to this information does not have to be via proposition a I prehensions - it can also be directly, intuitively felt. But it can only be entertained for higher forms of cognitive manipulation via proposition a I organization, and this is what language provides '
the quintessential means for
4
2 Cat egories, p rot oty p es a n d m et apho r
.
As a way into the subject of "embodied meaning1 I propose a brief dip into Chaos Theory' as applied to the organization of conceptual memory in the human mind/brain, 'l e relevance to Whitehead will emerge. According to this way of thinking, the neural aggregates corresponding to category types (concepts) maybe tuned in such a way as to act like multi-lobed strange at tractors displaying the kind of fuzziness associated with prototypes. 'Muh-types' of such conceptual types (even individual token experiences) could be containec. '
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1
within them in the form of individual lobes1 - thus a 'locomotion1 at tractor '
may contain separate lobes for walking, running, etc. (Calvin 199ft: 122). They may unfold in time as well as being reproducible { clonable ) in mental space. According to Calvin they may be built up by successive overlays of distributed feature patterns as these are copied back and forth across the mind/bra in. Useful - or otherwise stronglv weighted - new combinations persist, while al '
'
fi 9
others vuiiLsh again as the tide recedes. Multiple u(tractors - potential patterns of activation - may thus be captured and integrated into individual neural aggregates (especially at associative border zones). The meaning borne by such aggregates are emergent properties of patterns of neural connectivity and not necessarily in any determinate iconic relationship to primary sensory input. Concepts' are on this view not so much universal 'brain code' units as the results of the tuning, pruning and extending of neural aggregates in idiosyncratic ways by every individual according to their sensori-motor and secondary conceptual experience. The patterns stored are co-opted by the evolving individual as attractors for recognizing and responding to repeated experiential configurations. Only an approximate fit is required to activate them. '
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*
Regardless of the ultimate fate of this particular "cloning1 model, what this way of looking at neural activity provides over and above any code approach to concepts is the possibility of assigning meaning to largely arbitrary neural aggregates, meaning, that is, for the individual experiential subject, their p be no me no logical feel1, and this brings us close to the Whiteheadian universe of prehensions. Doubtless there is a broad isomorphy between the concepts entertained by individual subjects (especially within relatively homogenous societies) h but there is no guarantee of determinate, communicable meaning at least of the propositional sort- until language enters the pictureh that ish until such concepts are associated with phonological words, This is not because '
1
'
-
that step ensures identical representation of meanings in the minds of the speakers of a given language, but because these meanings are embodied in a socially sanctioned code. How such code units come to be associated with just the 'right concepts for an individual speaker is a crucial matter I shall return to in Chapter 7.1 in terms of semantic bootstrapping and 'abduction by analogy from known patterns, as applied to the contextfs) of use to which the 1
'
learner is exposed.1 Language opens conduits between individual monadic subjects, [t can only do so by virtue of belonging to a higher societal level than the individual speaker. There would hardly be any need for inheritance from individual to individual at all if its 'content structure1 were innate as opposed to socially transferred.
Howh then, are lexical meanings organized in the individual's menta lexicon? Much interest has been shown in recent decades in a 'prototype' approach to lexical categorization (cf. Rosch 1975), and this forms a centrepiece
of cognitive linguistic theory. Prototype concepts can be envisaged as clusters of potentially activated images/action schemata/frames, etc., to which various '
perceptual elements may fit" more or less centrally and with which word labels
Tht contcat side of]anguagc
an be iiisociated, alihougk the exact modality of the component elements and/or degree of abstractness remains somewhat indeterminate. Lakaff paints out the fallacy of seeing concepts simply as internal representations of external. reality (l.akoif 1987:370ff.)- [:or him, as for Whitehead, the creative imagination is a crucial ingredient in ino t thought processes. The basic conceptual unit he discusses is the "idualized cognitive model1, oI" which he distinguishes vanous '
'
'
types, including the commonly encountered 1 radial category which is tbrmec around a prototypical instance,*9 One example he gives of the latter is that of ,
'
1
"
1
iho concept mother where the central instance is a female {and has always been one), has given birth to a child, has supplied half iti genes nurtured it, is ,
married to the father, is one generation older than the child and is its lega., guardian (Lakoff 1987:83), Any of these features can in fact be overridden in less prototypical instances of motherhood, but the central instance has a special culturally sanctioned status. The actual representation in the individual mind/ brain of the information contained in the concept (propositional? imagistic?) is not discussed. Ail that clearly unifies it is the label mother attached to the category as a whole. Now the prototype' instance at the centre of radial categories can be replaced by a loose]- array of tokens linked by Wittgensteinian famiJy resemblance1 (Lakoffwould associate such tokens by 'instance of links to the word) u basic level1 words- those most directly related to sensor!-motor experience and most common in actual discourse - maybe associated with specific arrays of perceptual and functional features, weighted according to experientia '
1
,
H
*
frequency or salience. But much of the information relevant to the core '
1
me ailing of words referring to entities other than natural kinds is not of a perceptual kind, but involves all manner of abstract and prepositional information, concerning for example social relations (compare some of the features of mother above). The question then arises as to whether Whitehead - with his emphasis on propositional prehensions - would have attempted to describe lexical meaning (if he had discussed such matters) in terms of propositional meaning alone, for example in terms of meaning postulates? I believe the '
'
answer is a clear no.
A WhiteheLuiian propositional prehension is precisely not a static representation storable, say, at a lexical address It is a process of a kind also active in perception. Symbolic transfer1 can occur between percepts (transmuted nexus) or concepts [eternal objects) of any degree ot abstraction and in any modality. Thus 'cognitive models' (including radial categories} can perfectly well be convergent way-stations for processes linking phonological words as well as '
.
'
'
y]
oth lt percepiimlly bused symbols. Specifically prop ositional in formation could be encoded in the aisocLition of word symbols findividual 'labels1 or proposi-
tion al chains of more than one) pointing to other word-labelled cognitive models. The Whiteheadian and the Lakoffun vkws agree on the cssejuial role "
of analogy and context in determining the meaning ol lexical itemi. Contextual features must be built in to the core word meanings of' lexical 'representations' in order to ensure easy access directly from and to specific types of experience and this amounts to radial structures around prototypes {among other con(igurations, some fuzzier, some more clear-cut).9L This approach circum-
vents the
'
hypernym problem' facing any attempt to model lexical access (Levelt
1989:201 if.)f i.e. how to suppress the activation of hypernyms (such as animal ) when accessing a basic word (such as 'dog'). Tor if every word has a 1
'
distinct semantic 'core every word also has a distinct 'feeF binding that core; this is accessible to the speaker/hearer in the mode of causal efficacy, Lakoffs abstract 'instance of and 'similarity1 links in underlying lexical schemata (also his lhas a link for part-whole relationships) can be replaced in a dynamic view of lexical organization by imaginative prehensions linking labelled concepts to individual nexus. "Ilius 'instance of1 is the recognition of a [sufficient degree of felt) 'match' between a nexus and the overall 'am actor' pattern constituting the conceptt whereas similar to is the recognition of only a partial fit or overlap of features, perhaps amongst a number of competing attr actors and rhas a1 corresponds to the recognition of a coherent sub-pat tern within the overall pattern. Also the trajectors and landmarks of cognitive 4
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1
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inguists such as Langacker (1991) can be interpreted in these terms., specifically involving kin aesthetic bodily image schema types that match {and onto which can be mapped) incoming data in the form of token nexus (entities preh ended within their social framesKinaesthetic image schemata are presumably also
utilized in production to access a word one is struggling for (if the conceptual pattern associated with a basic verb is analogous to that of the more abstract event one is trying to describe). Clues as to the psychological reality of such entities are seen in the physical gesturing that accompanies verbal descriptions '
1
of events. The basic process of approximate analogical matching of new data with embodied patterns objectified in memory from past experience has a White he ad ian ring to it - it allows for the kind of'semantic emergence' which
Grush & Mandelblit (1997) describe in terms of 1 ending1, '
Space blending1 has in fact recently attracted much interest within mental space theory. While it is undoubtedly true that some such process is widely-
responsible for the flexibility and novelty of which the human mind is capable,
it ii kss clear that die nation can be tisetiilly constrained within a theory of language, even ono in which metaphor is central. Anything can be blended with just about anything else - what constrains such 'reversions' in Whiteheadian terms is relevance for the individual occasion, something in principle indeterminate. \Space blending is from this perspective part of the broader matter of the production of novel combinations of enduring objects (or nextis)! which, via transmutation are experienced as "realm (for however brief a duration}. Whitehead [ Jy78:317) discusses the link between transmutation and metaphor. The ground/figure diagrams of cognitive linguists (and Who rfbefore them) can in general be interpreted as representing internal gesturing. However, one must beware of misplaced concreteness" here: these schematic diagrams are all -
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*
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necessarily representations in the mode of presentational immediacy {sensor imotor images), whereas the reality they are meant to represent is surely only '
1
accessible in the Whiteheadian mode of '
under svmbolic reference '
'
l
causal efficacy (see 1.2.4), which
links the bodily sense of causal involvement with the
world to sensori-motor symbols such as phonological words [we L2.6). Such diagrams are not necessarily closer to underlying experiential reality than are generativist tree structures: they still require interpretation. Central to LakotTs view of categorization is the notion of metaphor, but the generalization ofthe term metaphor to cover all sorts ofanalogical relations may '
'
'
be unfortLmate '1 Metaphor is just one of the means available tor renewing and redefining the meaning of words already used in connection with some bask1 semantic domain - it applies words anchored in one domain {e.g. of perception) to the substance of a less accessible one (e.g. of internal mental activity). Metonymy, on the other hand, shifts the meaning of words already referring to one sub-section of a domain to other parts of that domain or its whole (by association rather than analogy). Sometimes it may extend beyond the boundaries of the domain, however, crossing into some contiguous domain, in which case it is difficult to distinguish from metaphor except by the historical gradualness of tire process that produced it, Taylor sees metaphor as largely grounded in metonymy { contiguity within a semantic field - Taylor 19S9:139f ) Traugott '
'
1
.
,
fforthcoming} further stresses the intimate role of metonymy in semantic
change - especially via constructional association and invited inference' in her view metaphor represents a general 'frame' limiting the directions in which metonymy is likely to proceed (one might ulso say that metaphors are more culturally specific than metonymy which reveals the natural seams in underlying conceptual 'substance1 more directly). tSut metaphor can itself be seen as '
'
1
having its source in 'frame1 metonymy Metonymic extension may proceed
94
Pattern and Process
fmm a 'cott1' meaning to an implication of that meaning (Taylor 1989:126 gives '
the example of the two principal senses of English leave ) It is at all events a central source of polysemy. The primacy of metonymy may well reflect the nature of perception and symbolism as such. As White he ad puts it, symbols .
'
'
arise by the linkage of percepts derived via presentational immediacy
to
experience in the mode ot causal efficacyn i.e. from indices and icons. They are
socially sanctioned and conventionalized abstractions from their original narrow context. Indices are the source of metonymy, while icons represent the principal source of metaphor. The basic relationship of standingfor) is common to both metonymy and metaphor- It is no wonder that Pehcean iconsj indices and symbols can not always he clearly distinguished, but may often overlap and combine in single signs, at ail societal levels of expression. Now Lakoff also discusses 'metonymic models1, for example ones where a place (say the White House) stands for some person or persons associated with that placL1 (e.g. the president of the USA). At the core of such models lie specific cultural stereotypes But in some domains where metonymy (as well as metaphor) abounds such cultural stereotypes are not easy to discern. That of mental activity verbs, for example, is characterized hy part/whole andH more <
'
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.
miportantly, cause/effect relationships, so that words referring to more peripheral (sensory) areas may be extended to refer to the core (e.g, French penser '
think, earlier 'weigh') (but also words referring to the core may less frequently be extended to cover more peripheral senses fe.g. Hnglish 'think (to)' coming to 1
mean remember (to do s.th.) ) '
.
'
certain natural
They are organized cross-linguistically along
'
(e.g. 'knowing1, 'understanding1, 'remembering and thinking itself, often subdivided into 'thinking - believing1, 'thinking = judging and 'thinking - general mental activity'), and their meanings tend to seams
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1
,
encroach upon those of adjacent sub-do ma ins by essentially metonymic
processes of extension, resulting in polysemy.
Whatever metaphors might '
1
once have been active in deriving basic words for thinking in particular, they are usually no longer so. That is because thinking is a unique kind of activity that does not (necessarily) display any external manifestation, In some respects it resembles the domain of bodily feeling, where 'the physical effects of an emotional state may stand for the emotion' (Lakoff 19K7;3S2K hut here a whole metaphorical folk theory1 of the emotions is at work, There seems to be little trace of whatever Yolk theory1 may once have existed for English in the domain of basic mental verbs, however, and that is my point: metaphor as a productive, synchronic device needs to be distinguished from the fossilized and conventionalized remains of earlier metaphorical processes (no longer real '
'
The conte n t side of J a nguaj e
metaphor)1 whereas metonymical senses of words may remain transparent as long as polysemy peisists.
It is only active, productive metaphor and metonymy that Whitehead can throw any light on. From this perspective these processes are best seen as a matter of imaginative prehensions of a certain kind! as suggested in 3.L I hey involve a mixture of conceptual valuation and - most importantly- reversion. These paired processes for categories of ohligation ) are grounded in bodily realityh as all thought ultimately is, but together they relate physica. experience to conceptual patterns (derivable from it)h which may in turn be "
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1
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transferred by analogy to novel domains for nexus types) These relations may be verbally articulated through 'symbolic reference', and may further become conventionalized at a higher level of societal organization (that of the linguistic community), in which case the original individual creativity of the process is
lost, replaced by automatic association between the nexus type and the lexical item concerned (its extended meaning is 'objectified1 for all speakers!. lo conclude this section, let me reiterate that the Whiteheadian approach to semantics is by necessity a procedural one, although the lexicon itself is a matter of static relations.9* Although the abstract relationships with which semantics is traditionally concerned are themselves eternal objects (i.e. part of language pattern rather than process!, these abstractions - or potentialities are only accessed by the individual speaker via specific kinds of prehensions. It is expedient to think in terms of potential procedures associated with lexical entries, procedures in which their meaning is embodied. This applies both to full lexical words, to 'function1 words, and to bound morphemes (affixes). With '
full lexical words it is easy enough to see how this would work: activation of a phonological TabeT (or of any associated allomorph) can be taken to activate fpotentially) two kinds of associated information. First the eternal object or concept which the word denotes (and helps shape into a discrete if fuzzy unity)h the ''type aggregate of perceptual and conceptual schemata corresponding to expenentiallv meaningful token prehensions that may be projected from it '
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(and from which it may have derived). And secondly the syntactic lemmas' relevant to its integration into a sentence. l:or bound morphemes (the end product of grammaticalization processes) we must wait until 7.2A, where the diachronic aspects of meaning will be returned to. Let me confine myself here to a few comments on intermediate cases, function1 or " operator1 words like the adverbial stilT or the English modal verbs. A typical formal semantic analysis of the aspectual word 'still1 might be in terms of underlying temporal and expectation graphs which together indicate '
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1
95
that a state or action .starting in the past is (still) proceeding now (at some '
reference point in time) but that the speaker s expectation of its continuing stopped at some time before the present. Transforming this to procedural
Whiteheadian terms, we can think of the word 'still1 being associated with two 1
types of prehension that should 'fit any situation to which the word correctly applies; one linking a nexus in which a process is on-going to the time-frame of the speaker s present con cue scent occasion, and one linking such a nexus to a negative judgment as to the continuation of an earlier prehension s subjective '
'
form of Lexpcctaiion beyond that reference point." Conjunctions and sttbordinators such as nd1 or 'but4 correspond in a more simple way to basic perceptual prehensions applicable to nexus in general {summating, highlighting natural contrasts, etc.), but above their function as purely logical operators there is usually an overlay of pragmatic idiosyncracy of usage (just as word meaning involves more than just referring to natural kinds ) Similarly with modal verbs, whether in their root or Vpistemic1 senses: they need to be associated with specific combinations of prehensions, in particular with '
1
.
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1
suspended intuitive judgments. The latter, it will be recalled recognize contrasts between 'what is1 and 'what may be'. The 'epistemic1 sense of a modal like 'may' is in these terms not so much a 'metaphorical1 extension from the domain of physical activity to that of mental activity (as suggested by Sweetser 1990), but a matter of the societal level with reference to which the contrast is entertained. In the case of the 'root' or deontic' sense of'mav' the contrast concerned is that r
between a propositional prehension deriving from a nexus {referring to its present state) and an anticipatory proposition deriving from the embedding of that nexus in a social (or quasi-physical) setting sanctioning some potential action whereas in its epistemic sense may is predicated of a proposition contrasting with other potential propositions fe,g. beliefs) entertained by the speaker.I<jn The processes and types of judgments are themselves domain independent' and are not 'basically1 bound to one societal level or the other, at least not in synchronic terms'
1
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4.3
Th e roo ts of mea 11 ing
As discussed above, many cognitive linguists - Lakoff in particular - see
metaphor as the basic process whereby meaning is projected from categories of simple bodily experience to more complex and/or abstract meaning. At the deepest level that may well be the case - although metonymy also steps in as
'
["h c cont-e n C side o f J a nguage
soon as contest becomes relevant.Et" Thist
aj> we have seen, may mean right from the Mart, as regards semantic change. The metaphorical underpinnings lie at a pre-linguistic level however - still deeper than that of such Lakofian metaphorical eouplingi of bask meanings as UF is GOOD1 -and thiii cm best be illustrated by considering what the meaning of some of' the most basic roots of the Knglish language once were etymologically, and how these basic meanings can be expressed non-linguisticallyh i.e. by gesture and mimicry. Specifically. lot us consider the 205 in do-Europe an roots in Watkins f I985) which occur £
the most widely in Hnglish cognates.10" The meanings given for these items by Watkins refer overwhelmingly to basic physical actions, in fact the proportions are as follows; 112
[Ihys.iLLil qualilifii Kjtuni] phcncirrurna
2:
timtitions nnd co nilivt activities
i:
13 hi eels (including animals and humans) Abstratt concepts (inclLidiug n am burs) iioJy ParU Social ptu-Liomena
11
19
11 i
-
Directions
Subilances
Some of the meanings given are vague (rather than abstract) or involve more than one gloss (e.g. an action and a shape as with gel- foitn into a ball, compact mass or wel- 'tear, woof}, but one can assume that a more specific or concrete meaning came first, in general verbal meanings would seem to be earlier than corresponding nominal ones. Only occasionally is there uncertainty as to which of the above categories a particular root should he assigned Lo. Ontogenetically there is evidence from acquisition studies that the first verbs and their containing constructions grammatically encoded by children cross-linguistically are vague general ones like do1, 'get1, 'go1, and 'put', corresponding to what Slobin has called1 prototypical scenes' fcf. Goldberg 199Sh also Tomasello 1992 on the primordial nature of the verb), and this is unlikely to be irrelevant to the phylogenetic scenario. Recall that symbolic transfer tor Whitehead involves the setting up of symbols through the linking of images in the mode of presentational immediacy (e.g. a visual or auditory icon or - at a later stage - the arbitrary visual or vocal shape of a written or spoken morpheme) to actions and things experienced in the mode of causal efficacy. The roots we are talking about here '
1
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1
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1
yS
PaCCem and Process
correspond to the latter, irrespective of how they may be symbolized in a particular language. They correspond to what cognitive linguists presumably mean by embodied meanings idealized cognitive mod els1 and the like. But what exactly are these meanings or 'images1 like, and how exactly do we experience them? Most criticallyh how could we express them to others? We need to look moic closely at some typical casesh in particular those concerning physical actions. A pfioti one might imagine that iuch items present minimal difficulty tor their unambiguous expression by gesture, but the close]- one looks the more it becomes apparent that the expression of even these most basic of meanings require reference eithei to some external frame or to some intentional state (or both). This is precisely what a Whiteheadian approach would lead us to expects all symbols are contest-dependent and are intentionally (teleologically) orientated. Hiink of how you might convey to someone the meaning of, say, the root bheT- 'cany1 without using words. Of course one can mimic carrying something but what exactly? One is forced to be rather specificn How can one mimic a general type of action covering a whole range of specific actions related only by family resemblance1? Hither one mimics carrying a bowl, say, or a baby, or a backpack, and in each case the physical movements and placement of the limbs are quite different. Many languages have different words for carrying things on one s backj in one s aimst in one handj etc.N and with objects of different sizet shape, weight and/or animacy. And if one is to distinguish between merely '
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holding something and carrying it in a direction should that direction be
towards the listener (or somewhere else)?103 And how can one distinguish the intentionality of merely carrying something somewhere for ones own fiiture benefit and that of'bringing1 it to someone else? Such problems are familiar to anyone who has ever played the party game of charades Many of the clues the adroit mimer may throw in to help his audience guess are culturally specific, indices of common frames of reference. Tluts a gesutral representation of a characteristic movement cones ponding to the root ug- drive' might on its own 1
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be highly ambiguous {depending on what exactly it is one is supposed to be '
driving1}, but add an indication of cattle to the appropriate action of driving livestock with a switch, say. and any latter-Jay Indo-European ought to be able
to guess what is going on. Note that such indices are by nature metonymic, juxtaposing an action with a representation of the object of the action (say of horns or a mooing cow]. What is essential to the grasping of the original sense of c? - is precisely the economic Ira mo of livestock hording within which this
historical root needs to be seen. It brings with it its own teleology [the intention bd-Lind Lj-il: iK lion}.
Consider the fallowing; dek- 'take, accept1 (how to distinguish volunury uiking iVoin a donor (mm mere grasping, IL gker-?)', deik- rihow (by '
h
action e.g. pointing! by words, or more complex exemplification? and to what '
1
purpose? how to show showing in general?); deuk- 'lead' (an animal or a person? where? why? how?); ghc- release (what? how?); wedi- 1secL (how distinguish from intentional watching, It
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'
1
that is discarded?and fer- 'rub, turn, drill, thresh (what - a substance or a '
thing? to what ends?). Already among the meanings given for individual It mots such as the last one one suspects metaphor and metonymy at work surely one particular sense is more basic or ancient than the others, but which? If it were 'drill' (say with a primitive string- or palm-twirled stick-like instrument), how did this extend to threshing? If it were just turn (or 'twist'), was this through 360 degrees or more, or just partial in any one direction fas opposed to, sayh kwel- revolve, move around which was metaphorically'
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1
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extended to
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dwell in an area1)? At very least one needs to know more about the
types of threshing and drilling processes that might have been known to the original Jndo-Europeans. Not only the relevant cultural frames', but also the '
boundaries with meanings of other roots expressing similar sorts of activity need to be considered - the emergent semantic system of relationships between lexemes.
The kind of ambiguity illustrated above is precisely what motivates further derivational combination (with affixes or in syntagms} within the pro tolanguage itself or in its various daughters. But let us stay with basic roots. Some are of course rather easier to mimic (and thus to represent mentally to ourselves) than others - among the two hundred or so roots under discussion '
'
here one thinks> for example, of deph- 'step', gcrebh- 'scratch hop- 'grasp1, po'
drink1. hven heret howeve:; it is surely the fact that these roots tones pond to ioleoiioiiLT! naions within particulatiy salieol Irume ol nctiviiy ih.u renders '
them so readily recognizable, namely basic bodily movements - moving on ones own feeth scratching an itch, grasping an object, quenching om s thirst by imbibing a liquid, etc.. in other words, some of the most basic things a child has
tn karn to df> (ov at least to fine-tune). They all conjoin a type of action with an intentional itance. So hand in hand with a dawning understanding oi" shared intention a I ity such words (or the 'modem' ones cones ponding to them) may well represent a key to semantic bootstrapping; once their association to spoken or signed symbols is mastered, trans ferial of the process via similar (metaphor-
like) associations to more complex images (involving more specific frames) maybe rather easily projected.Im Kote that also in sign languages the basic meanings are verb-like actions, and the most eommon way of deriving nouns is by repetition of an action sign in a more restricted space i McNeill ] 992:45 fit ) Such "
.
languages differ from spoken language principally by not completely 'short'
cutting intermediate iconic representations in the process of symbolic transfer. When we move away from basic actions to natural phenomena and
qualiiies, direct iconic miming becomes less useful! but many of these roots are nevertheless easy enough to represent by jjestiireh only now the mimer must rely much more on metonymy - Jeictic metonymy if you will. Thus to indicate akwa-
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'
water
one need only indicate some property of water - its wavy '
surface, say - or mime doing something typical with it like cupping it in one s hands and drinking. A root like gkwer- 'warm, heal' could be portrayed by miming the wiping of sweat from one s brow plus a suitable facial expression, and one like ren- thunder' by pointing skyward, making an explosive sound and jumping back as in fright. The metonymy here is obvious, but it never theless presupposes common (socially shared) frames of reaction to or utilization of the phenomenon concerned. There is, however, a residue of roots that are virtually impossible to mimic '
'
these are perhaps the most interesting of all, for how can we even begin to experience and represent them (apart from by later cultural conventions)? They
-
include mental activity verbs such as men-,:think1, and emotional terms like
leubh- love1, but also roots expressing potency such as ftmgh- 'be able, have power and purely social objects and activities, such as wadh- 'pledge1, dhesreligious observance wrr- 'true1 and pek- 'wealth1, it is hard to sec any of these in terms of embodied 'idealized cognitive mod els1, yet basic they certainly are in the Indo-Huropean lexical stock The most widespread approach to characterizing the meaning of words - also of such 'abstract1 items as these - has in the past generally been in terms of compos itionality, either of semantic components expressing more basic (physical activities and things, or in terms of meaning postulates expressed in strings of more basic words.H h'om a Whiteheadian viewpoint both of these approaches miss die point especially egregiously with the kinds of meanings we are concerned with here. They can neither be mimed 1
1
'
,
,
Th c cont-e n t side o f J a nguage
nor even imagined unambiguously (though all may evoke imagery by association). They nevertheless cohere as detei minate units of eiin eiicy of communication thanks to two factors: on the one hand the frame within which the
activity or relationship concerned finds its unique plaee, and on the other the teel' to the speaker of the 'correct5 f socially sanctioned) use of the root within that frame. The question is not ow are such meanings represented in the '
1
mind? but rather 4how are the social frames within which utterance of such ,
words takes on a determinate value (with specific social consequences} repre1
sented in the mind?
.
The Whiteheadian answer to this is an answer to the wider question of how nexus types are represented in the mind of the individual speaker/thinker, and this is a matter of the Causal efftcacy end of the relationship for rather process) of symbolic reference; the type{s) of experiential situation within which the 1
meaning of the word is grounded. In paTt> such frames may he quite literally spatial representations homologous with real places as experienced and moved around in and the disposition of their contents - but these contents may also include verbal action types, specific intentions and expectations on the part of the act ants involved, and other associated social' iteinj>. Here the process of transmutation
'
1
is relevant, whereby certain complex types of perceptual data
(from relevant external 'nexus') are inter-related and transformed into a 4
conceptual contiguration treated by the subject as if it were a real thing
'
Such
kinds of enduring objects may be Hxed {i.e. provide ihe basis for determinate communicative values) by virtue of the words associated with them. They are
holistic in themselves, evoking specific social expectations and other elements of feeling, although their implications can ill so be described by strings of other words and thus be expanded, converted, and integrated into general verbal
thinking processes, l or Whitehead the meaning of a word or a construction is the sum of die prehensions to which it affords access (potential propositions in context as well as the core
feer).
"
Meaning is feeling, but feeling specifically
of eternal objects (by pure conceptual prehensions) or of ob-iectified nexus of occasions, including enduring objects (by physical prehensions) - or of more complex combinations of (or relations between) both of these. How social
frames get into the individual mind in the first place is essentially a matter of the interplay of observation and abduction, mediated by internal imitation (a
factor vastly underestimated by the generativists). As regards such 'pure1 abstract roots as es- 4be1 and nc- 'no, not1, these can from the White he ad ian perspective be said to reflect certain basic mental processes (prehensions) involving very general eternal objects. Rather than say
ioi
im
Paccem ii]it3 Process
1
that being is a possible property to be predicated of an entityh however, it would be more in the processual/pro cdund spirit to see existendal verbi (used
in thetic/piesentiitional sentences, say) as instructions to the hearer to set up a new entity in the relevant nexus or mental space (as a limiting case, his or her whole actual world). In other words, part at least of the meaning of such a word for rather of a sentence containing it) is pragmatic: the inducing in the hearer of a hybrid prehension eoneerning the speaker s sll It ice live aim in uttering it in '
the given context. When the hearer of a sentence containing such an item prehends its intended meaning he or she will act upon it accordingly, The negative existential corresponds in turn to the instruction not to search for an
entity (it will not be found}. Like the existential and universal quantifiers of ]ogict itis literally a matter of Operators'.107 Note that 1 am not claiming that word*; (apart [rom f unchonal operators) fall into two classes! those whose meanings correspond to sensori-niotor schemata and those whose meaning can only be learnt and represented in terms of verbal fdictionary-like) dehnitions. lake a word like 'paradox1: though I know perfectly well how to use this word [ doubt very much I have actually looked the word up in a dictionary and retained the words that 1 found there [or those of some teacher who, in the mists of time t Hrst explained the word to i class in which 1 sat as a pupil). On the other hand the meaning of the word lor ihe average speaker of English is certainly not a simple s en so ri-motor action '
schema, let alone an insight into the original Greek etymology of the term (though the more erudite of us may well have associations with this: 'parallel with - or besides - orthodox opinion ). Surely what is central is the association of the word with concrete examples of what constitutes a paradoxal situation or pronouncement that one has come across in a text or has had pointed out verbally One or two such tokens - clear enough to distinguish the 1
essential parameters and/or circumstances from other possible constellations are probably sufficient to recognize or generate in the future other exemplars with a similar overall eel or 'tension' to them. In the pTocess> one or more situation a I token fs) has been turned {or transmuted) into a symbolic type, expressed by a word. Most words probably fall somewhere in between scratch and paradox linking associations of a simple sensori-motor kind with more complex social situational patternings, each with their iiniqne cxpcfiential feel1. All the meanings that we have discussed m this section, however disparate, illustrate the same basic principle of symbolic transfer: inner experience in the mode of causal efficacy is linked to symbols in the (sensory specific) mode of presentational immediacy. These symbols are common social property; without '
1
'
'
1
1
,
'
The conttnt side of language
social validation they would he without meaning - or at hest just solipsistic indict o!' priv.uo Ilclings. The way wo huild up word meaningsN then, is hy a combination of intellectual1 prehensions producing stable, recognizable conceptual types (i.e. linking experiential 'tokens1 to eternal objectsK anc learning to asjiociate these with socially transmitted words and patterns for their combination into (complex) propositional expressions. The process is mutual: concepts anchor the words in experience, and the words help consolidate the concepts. In the followEO chapter we shall consider how these public meanings '
'
could actually be embodied in the individual mind/brain.
Summary In this chapter we have been concerned with the 'causal efficacy1 end of the chain of symbolic referenced i.e. the meaning oi linguistic symbols expressed hy signs in the perceptual mode of'proseLUational immediacy1, '['his forms the basis of all lexical (and grammatical) meaning: it is how using that symbol, in a socially validated context, feels to the subject. It contains the sum of his or her potential reactions to that word and the potential prehensions to which it provides access. The conception of meaning-as-use brings Whitehcad s thought close Lu that of the later Wittgenstein here, although he attached far greater importance to the 'feeling1 of a word's use than did Wittgenstein. He also emphasized the experiential reality of the proposition. Kor him, as we have seen. the latter consists of the combining of an 'indicative prehension' of a nexus that forms the Iii Ilm] uhiecuM uf the proposition wiih a concepULiI prehensloji of the predicate that binds it all together. Although this structural entity is phylogenetically anchored more deeply than language itself it is nevertheless only through the propositional organization of linguistic expression that the higher forms of cognition are possible. There is an interesting meeting point between White he ad's understanding of the centrality of the proposition and Stiawson's step-wise attempt to build a 'perspicacious grammar1 on the basis of the propositional 'basic combination via a process he calls csubstantiation similar to Whitehead s transmutation Propositions for WhiteheacU howreverh are never entirely separable from their background context, reflecting the total historical embedding of the subject of their prehension. Presupposition and the kind of semantic emergence going today under the name of'space blending' '
'
*
'
'
was discussed in this light.
'
103
io4
Parcern and l rocess
It has been argued by cognitive linguists that central to lexical meaning are '
1
with White he ad s own view of embodied '
(or rather socially 'embedded') meaning, In fact there seems no compelling reason to set any limit to the richness of sensory or propositional information to which words give access. Though further analysable in terms of content-in-context, word meaning is for
Whitehead essentially holistk-! the more or less distinctive feeling itself allowing direct access to the word and vice versa in various kinds of cognitive process, This approach to meaning provides an expei ientially accessible alternative to the ad dress-pi us-label led-pathway approach that still holds sway in many
quarters under the influence of the digital computer analogy of thought. But once again, complementary process and pattern perspectives need to be
distinguished: lexkal items are organized amongst themselves, whether in binary or more complex relationships, in order to maintain optimal contrastivity in those concrescent processes in which they are ingredient, but that organization is only potential in the sense that any complex eternal object is only potentially structured. When it comes to the deployment of wo ids in rea..
occasions using them their semantics appears by necessity more or less fuizyh '
'
since the nexus to which they apply do not stand still their mutual configurations are in permanent flux. This is reflected in the apparent organization of lexical meaning around 'prototypes', which act like the 'attractor wells' of t haos Theory- Meaning Is radically affected by context, Hut abiding patterns can be recognized in changing contexts too, and these are emerging eternal objects that may be drawn into the lexicon, together with propositionaJ and perceptna.. associations, [ he basic approach to meaning here is procedural, with function words specifically triggering procedures for organizing or interpreting symbolic ,
"
'
bearers of le kal content.
Metaphor and metonymy play an undeniable part in the organization of lexical meaning, although the degree to which these represent living processes as opposed to nu longer transparent historical residues obviously must varyL
Internal mimicry, directly anchored in felt 'causal efficacy1, and projection via analogy are at all events more basic from the Whiteheadian viewpoint. The schematic diagrams that cognitive linguists draw to represent the meanings of words and propositions should be understood for what they are: precisely that. diagrams, albeit of real experiencesh but they remain by necessity representa-
tions in the mode of presentational Immediacy. A number of applications and extensions of White he ad's perspective on meaning suggest themselves here. First, the nature of the relationship of the
'
k k-al subjecf to the grammatical subjeci aaid oiher 'polyadicN argujuents aubcategorized by verbs, etc., needs to be fleshed out. I he reason for wanting to '
do this is not to rediscover the linguistic wheel but to complete the links in a chain akin to Strawson s prokvi of retrmting a perspicacious grammar that abstracts all the way t rom individual particulars to abstract nominalizations. The purpose would be to demonstrate in detail the feasibility of const meting a grammar capable of natural logic on the foundation of the experientially 1
'
1
'
accessible proposition as opposed to the abstract schetnas of the logician (anc. many a linguistic semantician)) which typically involves open predications on variables and the like. Mismatches between logical structure and linguistic sn ncture Libound. hut ono noeds to agree on [he lo iail startLEig point in order to begin to generalize sensibly. Another area that calls out for application of White he ad's ideas on meaning is the analysis of systematically organized
semantic fields. These may on the one hand be defined by eternal objects of relation, and yet on the other hand they represent the outcome of historical processes (including metaphor and metonymy) which link system-internal.
contrasts to shifting contexts of use, producing polysemy and prototype ejects in the process (much as [ have suggested for verbs of mental activity) " Front this
'
biperspectivisf viewpoint the artificial isolation of the synch ionic from the diachronic aspect of semantics can be avoided.
Chapter 5
Language processing and the mind/brain
We return now from linguistic product to lingiustic production and the mind behind it. As mentioned in 1.4, Wh itch cad adopted a Spinozan attitude to the
relationship between mind and matter, namely that the two are complementary views of the same reality. What can be examined from without as organized ucuml matter is experienced from within as mind. Throughout the present book 1 have consistently used the compound phrase 'mind/brain' in this spirit. Now it is time to spell out some more specific consequences of this assumption in terms of notions current within the cognitive sciences today that harmonize well with Whitehead s approach to these matters. These are ideas that are in the air in the related disciplines (though not all of them are accepted by all practitioners) and which any linguist who takes the cognitive aspects of his or her area of study seriously must come to terms with one way or another.One airaTr before proceeding, however: one should not equate Whiteheads concept of process directly with 'neural processing1 of the type psychologists and '
"
'
1
Artificial Intelligence modellers are concerned with and whieh generativists '
'
such as Jackendoif equate with performance as opposed to 'competence1 fjackendoff I983:4fif.). Whitehead, as n on-reductionist and realist, cuts the
cake somewhat difierently. The processes central to his philosophy (the prehensions integrated into the concrescence of actual occasions) occur at all societal levels, not jusi the neural (just as there is patterned structure relevant to nexiis at all levels of organization}. However the relationship between pattern and process on one level is not necessarily isomorphic with that distinction on another. Thus the pattern of firing of a neural aggregate, involving both spatial and temporal organizationh may correspond to what is experienced as a holistic static image at a higher level, and conversely a single choice of pattern type on a higher level - say of a specific linguistic construction - may produce a cascade of unconscious neural activity, resuiting finally in complex motor activity in the speech organs. The more or less conscious prehensions performed by speaker/hearers in order to give expression to their intentions involving selection and matching and self-monitoring, etc. -are unlikely to be '
1
'
1
'
'
lOJJ
PaCCern ii]nJ Process
even roughly paralld to the pioceiiei mainUiiiung homeostasis in the I'clev nt neural aggie gates Jiiiing such higher level activity.
5
Ct>gn it ivt1 a ssn m pt ions
Some iippn idics to linguistics fit better with the 'new1 picture that is emerging from Cognitive Science than othersf but my purpose here is not to polemidze about which these might be. None of ihem, I would elaim, have yet come to terms with all of the consequences of the emerging paradigm Let me simply state the following assumptions (as previously presented in I ortescue m ) without arguing for them in detail and without attempting to cite the wide experimental literature that supports them individually. Ratherh 1 shall suggest how Whitehead dealt (or might have dealt) with each of these points, in preparation for the following sections There ] shall develop them in two crucial directions with the aim of gaining a dearer understanding of the procedural nature of linguistic content 1
'
.
'
1
.
Mind is an emergent property of complex, self-regulating neural systems, i.e. embodied brains displaying operational closure (their output being simultaneously treated as new input - see Bateson 1973:380).] 10 The associated brain processes operate, it would seem, with (to some degj-fc) distributed iiuumuuinji their speed and parallel nature rather than any special type of coding is the principal factor responsible for their opaqueness to immediate introspection. Consciousness adheres to certain activities and states of such 'chaotic1 systems. 1
'
-
There is no mentality without process and process means feeling: the brain cannot directly feel itself, only the body housing it {via biochemical interfaces) and - in the widest sense of feel
"
- the patterns it entertains conceptually
.
For Whitehead, mind is the 'mental pole1 of an actual occasion, inextricably bound up with its physical pole1: it is the occasions 'window1 on relevant eternal objects {available to conceptual prehension) and hence to novelty. The borderline with organic physieal reality is not clear-cut, however - it depends on which emerging properties you define as criterial lor mind Not all actua. occasions display conscious mind, only those organized into personal nexus of 1
'
.
'
4
a certain type of iniernal compJexiiy mLiy noleniialiy dispkty lhal Libieclive form, l ull human consciousness {as opposed to sheer bodily awareness) is a
propositional matter for Whitehead - this is not the same as equating mind
Language jM'cjc cssi g inJ [ he ]ni [id/\s i a ici
and language (as for example Bickerton 1990 218), since it presupposes a far
braader conception of' 'proposition* L'] b
All cognition is to some degiee abstract and hierarckically organized fas reflected in what we know of the transforms operating along specific sensory input channels to the cortex and ot'the hierarchical stratification of the latter}. '
.
Abstract' in this sense does not contrast with 'concrete1 but with Tully speci-
f ed so an abstract 'thought1 could well consist of no more than a vague i intentional gesture towards a very concrete object or (potential j image, as long as to the experiencer it is still distinct enough from any other possible thought that could have been entertained at that point as to be unambiguous in context.
Only at a high level of abstraction can two 'thoughts' be said to be logically identical (and therefore appropriately expressed in the same propositiona] fornij i.e. coded by an identical sequence of symbols), I or Whit eh cad, the rdata1 of an actual occasion, whether physical or conceptual, is always abstracted from its immediate past in accordance with the principle of conformity to the occasions subjective aim {which is towards its satisfaction ) In another sense of 'abstract eternal objects are patterns abstracted from nexus {if actual occasions (by conceptual valuation 1
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.
'
c
.
'
Be i ng opp ort u n ist ic [ a nd h avi ng limited ce n t ra I p roce ss ing space) h the m i nd/
brain functions in large measure by learned fogwttive sisort-cuts. These include the use of mnemonic tags (internal 'key words, etc.). Imagination is akin to abbreviated perception and may function at any level of abstraction, as defined under fb}. It can be viewed as the gestalt filling in1 of partial patterns by 'best fit' with relevant - and competing - eternal objects activated at least potentially in memory This replaces the patterns perceived in the outer world when the sense channels are fully openl1 Hmpathy {otherwise 'intuition1 or 'structural coupling1 with the outer world) - i.e. putting oneself into someone or something else s position by displacement and/or analogical embodiment - plays an important role in cognition and often provides an elfective short-cut tostepwise logical deduction. Successful communication in particular is largely a matter of combining '
'
'
empathy with ostensive behaviour, of feeling what it would be like to be on the '
receiving end of one s own utterances tind hence how ones interlocutor is likely to respond. The ability to empathise is probably innate and enables one to copy and model one social environment and to meet changes experienced within it with appropriate measures. ITom a Whiteheadean perspective,
toy
no
Pattern
l 'occss
'
empathy functions by way of hybrid prehensionji1 of an other's conceptual intentions [behind their expression) and is ensured by the 'social immanence' of monadic experiencing subjects as superiects ot causal efficacy - although their experiences are unique they partially overlap with those of others f involving the same eternal objectsK d
Human th oi igh T is typic a I ly in th e li ngu is t ic mode, a n abbreviated ve i s ion o f external speech, one that maximally civiuJi/c on context egocentrism and presupposition, but there are also other modes of thought specihe to sensorimotor channels and to internally registered body states, each with Lheir own .
'
logicVIJ It acts in conjunction with the manipulation of schemata and/or
'
mental models
1
(as under (1) below). There is rapid, largely automatic transla-
tion back and forth between sensori-motor modalities (in so for as the informa-
tion processed by them is compatible , and also between levels of abstraction in the same modality (e.g. between lexical words and their hyponyms)h according "
to task. Paivios 'dual coding approach to the relationship between propositional and sensory representations reflects this assumption rather directly [Paivio lyKft). Thought is multi-planar, involving complex associative ramiheations, only one (or a few) of which are followed up immediately according to
some on-going (and modulating) superordinate
'
theme 113 The stream of '
'
'
thought is an emergent property of brain state disequilibrium and self-regulation - it is the result of the perceptually or internally guided constraining of the infinitely bl anching associations of activated memory traces (including those for individual word svmbols).
Thoughts for Whitehead are types of'prehension1, including 'propositional prehensions and their integration into higher level 'intellectual prehensions' (see J .2.5), but these never occur in isolation. As with all prehensions, it i their feel' in relation to the whole experiencing organism that holds them together as unitary experiences (compare the role of limb ic structures in both dealing with emotional contents/responses and recognizing their situational context). In principle there are as many distinct prehensions available to the individual mind/brain as there are experientially distinguishable patterns of cortical connectivity. Thoughts are not limited to linguistically coded propositions: perceptual abstractions may also be pro posit ion ally prehended. The stream of thought may pass through various experiential modalities, successively or simultaneously, as actual occasions are objectihed passing on transforms of 1
'
1
'
'
'
,
their own internally manipulated data to their successors.1 Thought proceeds causally from physical feeling to physical feeling through the intermediary of
Language process]ng and the mind/brain
eternal objects, e.g. in the case of a pro positional thought from the physical feeling of the logical subjects) (the 'indicative feel ins1) to the 'physical recognition of the predicate (the eternal object it contains gives Vie lint ten ess' to that 1
feeling). So propositional thought can talce place by 'feeling alone, without necessarily involving any accompanying images or words. c
Long-tenfi ffiewwyh embodied in complex aggregates of neurons f"hyper-
.
1
neurons
) that are organized/inter-connected according to accreting personal
experience and defined by excitory/inhibitory properties such that classes of incoming signals (sensory transforms or internally stored patterns) will cause all or
part of the aggregate to initiate specific classes of responses.
"
The assumed locus
of most higher level LTM is in the secondary sensory areas of the cortex, crucial
in the recognition of complex objects, and in the tertiary areas inter-associating them. The vertical, columnar organization of the cortex, with horizontally extending association layers, forms the basic architecture."0 Actual memo retraces are probably fixed' in the synaptic connectivity of such columns, which remains modifiable throughout life (compare PribranVs hypothesis that memory is specifically embodied in the patterns of junctural micropotentials associated with neural aggregates - Pribram 1971: i Iff,). Perhaps the most basic principle of storage of any kind of information in the brain is 'Hebb's law1, '
whereby interconnected assemblages of neurons that are activated Simultaneously tend to reinforce their mutual synaptic connectivity (e.g. distributed visual, auditory or kinetic images* associated with the same perceived object), and this applies at various levels of hierarchical organizationh from the specific to the abstract.117 Memory traces luv way-stations for initiating particular kinds '
of activity, including imaging and exploring {cf. Bartlett ] 932 and more recent 1
'
correspondence models of memory based on his approach). Jvlemory (in a static, potential sense) is not directly addressed within Whiteheads pro cess-based system, but is implied in the inheritance of experiential d iLi by r.ULCe ivL- ACau)] oll,l>kh :j.l', n>ai kwA p.n ikilk in nii-formUy wilh their immediate predecessors), and in the unique perspective on eternal objects every actual occasion enjoys. It is only mental when involved in concrescent processes. An individual subject s memory consists largely of enduring objects Le. transmuted nexiis of actual occasions interrelated in time and space, that come into being and are inherited from state to state down the time-line of .
'
'
1
'
1
,
occasions of which that subject consists. In my cognitive interpretation of Whitehead, the (relative} permanence and commit nic ability of the contents of memory lies in the eternal objects potential in the merely enduring nexus of
in
Piilt rn iHd I'i'octss
experience objectified for the individual mind/biain. This may include knowledge of one or more languages, f
Input piebended as in (d) may arise, as it were, out of a vast pool of tacit
.
background knowledge and need not necessarily have 'got there1 via on-line processing of specific sensory input from the outer world. Kor does it have to be fully "unpacked1 [made fully manifest) in order to be activated and in turn influence the ongoing stream of thought. It may arise from any combination of genetically hard-wired' kni>iv-liowh personal or cultural experience, and the integrative control of goal-driven reflection and imagination, in fact it may not be stored at all, merely implicate1 in our imernalization of the outer world (in the sense of Bohm 1980); it may be present in a 'cloud of virtual meaning *
'
around some already manifest memory trace {as a potential for relevant activity). New data from without or within might summon it forth into
accessible manifestation (say during processes of seeking or mferencing). Helie knowledge, fear, wishing, hypothetical entertaining and other intentional states
[cf. Searle 19S3:3 t',) are possible reactions of the whole mind/brain to incomf
112
ing or recycled informationJtfi For Whiteheadh the environment of an actual occasion is double-layered first the immediate relevant background presupposed by all the pro positional prehensions of its subject, then the more remote background of only trivial
immediate relevance, ikrth layers come to bear in principle on any cognitive action or state f Searle speaks in rather similar terms). An animals body is just
the most organized part of the environment of its dominant actual occasion at anv one moment. r
g
.
What renders a proposition ally (or otherwise) encoded thought unique and
allows it to be accessed again with relative ease amidst a plethora of stored
informatiojin is its rekvaiicc to the experiencer with all his or her individual needs, plans, preferences, etc rather than its sub-pro positional semantic components.-1 MJ The experiencer acquires thereby a unique perspective on the
potential content of the thought. This may be related to the sub-cortical connectivity of the cortex, but is not limited to positive/negative emotional
responses {which may or may not be involvedh via limbic system interfacing with the bodily emotions). Relevance is relative to the on-going situation and is distinct from the permanent 'alfect tone1 associated with specific long term memories. K4y use of the term here is not quite the same as in the relevance theory of Sperber & Wilson (1986), though it subsumes the matters they '
1
LritngLLfigc
praratti n g and the m: nd /biain
disciiis. It is what constrains the thinker's unbounded associations fas in (d))
into goal-orientated thought, As commented upon in I.IK rc levant e {or 'importance1) is a key notion in VVhitehead's philosophy of organism, where it supplies the actual occasion's unique perspective on eternal objects (grading thenit as it were), This determines the subjective aim and consequent activity aimed at attaining its satisfaction- the subjective aim in turn determines what partfs) of the inherited data to
highlight for further elaboration and which to ignore, h
.
Phms of action are formulated and stored as the association of already
partially specified sub-routines (presumably in the frontal lobes, active in the
transfer of learning sets from one learning task to another). They may be '
organized as images of achievement' (cf, I'ribram I97l; 250ff.). These are not images in the traditional sen so rial sense, but can be regarded as feed-forward
loops to the satisfaction conditions (the goal) of any type of activity extending over tinie.L:tl They act thus as links between intentions and available means of
executing them. They do not consul of lists of concepts (though they may
contain reference to these via symbols and signs}, but essentially model the holistic4 feel1 of the satisfaction of their goal to the subject, which may berealizec in a variety of ways and modalities. A complex assemblage of routines and subroutines deployable sequentially in motor activity may be called a schema (compare the notion of kin aesthetic 'image schema' in John soil 1987:25). The '
*
1
notion of Schema in Neisser (1976:52 If.) also covers such entities, but is more
inclusive: his tei"mH like a Kantian schema, is to be understood as referring to the basic procedure for generating images and actions from a concept. Plans are best envisaged within the Whiteheadian framework in terms of eternal objects, though this may at first sight seem strange, since plans are so closely tied to the notion of an individual subject s active goals and their attainment. The key lies precisely in the Whiteheadian treatment of subjective aims: these are the dynamic lures that orientate actual occasions towards attaining their satisfaction through determinate decisions and they consist of lhei>ccLilion s llokillc perspeclivo on releviint/Livailable etern.il ohjecls. This can '
1
1
,
'
be 'translated' in cognitive terms into agendas/plans/scripts/rule-like behaviour, or any kind of goal-oriented activity stored, say, as a it ractor suites embodied in frontal lobe connectivity, that the decision1 concerned will trigger i
Central t'ognitivepracesses&ct, then, upon the output of neural aggregates as in (e) or their further transforms as in (d) and not upon modality-neutral .
113
Parrem and Process
encodings, which would not have any experiential mean in g/re leva nee for the '
organism employing them. This Is Jiot to deny that the tertiary
1
cortical zones
(those cntical tor specifically human abilities such as speech} are less dependent on sensory modality than the primary and secondary regions (cf. Luria 1973; 731'). These higher association ar as are simply more 'abstract' in the sense defined in (b) above, their principal function being to associate modally specific
signals/signs with others of JifVerent modality. There is a battery of basic cognitive operations (especially ones to do with spatial relations, movement and causality) that is widely deployable across sensorl-motor modalities, such as focussingh scanning, hgure-ground reversal, superimposition. sorting, comparing and the like. Tliere are also for Whitehead certain general cognitive activities that can be applied to a wide variety of data in different modalities, namely the various types of prehensions mentioned in L2h5. The eternal objects ingredient in mental activity cover a spectrum of perceptual modalities {including the kinaesthetic and bodily/emotional), but they also include the 'objective1 eternal objects of mathematics that do not depend on individual experiencing subjects at alL They may be situated at any level af abstraction from raw sensory data upwards. This is obviously not the same as claiming that the eternal objects the patterns recognized and manipulated by such prehensions - are necessarily at the same uniform level of abstraction. Although the relationship of any mental pole experience to the underlying neural activity leading up to it maybe largely 'arbitrary1 and individual, as argued above> this is another matter entirely, one of distinct societal levels '
'
'
.
j. Concepts (and the percepts that they associate and label with reference to a symbol) are not statically stored entities1 available to perusal by some equally distinct and enduring 'homonculus1, but aref rather, relatively .stable circuits of activation linking transforms of incoming signals from the senses (or fed back from memory/imagination) via sub-cortical way-stations to cortical association aggregates. An important ingredient in these conceptual aggregates is functional '
information on how 'entities1 (of any level of abstractness) may be used or manipulated in connection with plans fas under (h)), including social/cultural schemata. This reflects the established close connectivity between the body '
1
image and motor centres of the brain. Concepts may be laid out in various
kinds of arrays around {clusters of) prototypes and may be accessed in various '
'
ways, including via their most abstract general Type1 level or via any specific episodically stored token they are associated with. A useful contemporary way ,
'
'
L ngLLiiye proccssing and the mind/bi min
of viewing tluTii i*; in terms of Cliaoi Theory
'
attracEors
1
1 1 -
.
In Whiteheadian terms, concepts f'eternal objeets ) are pure potentiality; '
inside the head1 or Vmit there' in reality - including social reality embodied in other persons - to be read oft from {nexiis of) actual occasiosis by a suitably '
1
'
organized subject. As reflected within personally ordered societies (subjects), they are patterns of excitement that both determine what may be preh ended and the form and type of pre hens ions themselves, i hey are passively in ressant in the attainment of definite forms of'satisfaction1 of successive conceptual or hybrid prehensions, 'i'hey ensure continuity in wrhat is othc3r visc an endless flux of becoming, guiding - but not fully determining - the associative cascade of mental activity. The term eternai object emphasizes that concepts can only be accessed through prehensions! i.e. processes, not that they inhabit some '
'
'
'
disembodied realm.
The principal symboh which the mind/brain operates with and on are linguistic symbols (i.e. words standing for concepts)- Unlike pure signs and icons (classes of percepts), these consist of largely arbitrary couplings of concepts {in the sense defined in (j)) with phonological patterns (in tarn associated via motor cortex connections with patterns of activation of the vocal organs). The latter are probably organized by syllable (-like) units, and stored in the secondary temporal region of the left hemisphere). Symbols are a highly context-sensitive and specialized sub-class of signs (phonetic, written, etc.) here 1 follow Pr lb ram's terminological usage. Being by social convention of relatively fixed function in a given context (although vestigial ambiguity mayremain) and yet ranging across the full range of conceptual abstractness phonological words are ideally suited as symbolic tags, both in memory and in 1
'
"
active processing. They may readily summon fand be unpacked into) the concepts1 to which they apply, i'hey are organised amongst themselves by '
mutually reinforcing contrasts and associative redundancy (including shared covert semantic features) and may stand in a many-to-many relationship with the token experiences out of which they arise. Symbols are noth however, a '
1
prerequisite for drawing conclusions (most animals do that without them As discussed in 1,2.6, 'symbol' for Whitehead has a broader 'semiotic1 sense than linguistic symbols alone: a symbol links patterns in the perceptual mode of presentational immediacy (e.g. phonological representations) to embodied patterns experienced in the mode of causal eficacy Symbols - including '
1
'
'
words - have their own history of accreting affect superimposed upon their purely referential potency (this results in their unique complex feel' to the '
experiencing subjet t).
115
116
Pattern iiid Process
L The principal working memory 'screen1 oji which signs and symbols play is probably located in the tertiary parietal regions of tbe cortex, involved in spatial
(bodily) orientation and object-manipulation as well as fin the left hemisphere) in assessing and manipulating 'abstract' logical relations between entities ftbough still broader regions of tbe neo-cortex may be involved). This may function as a kind of mental 'note pad' for logical, quasi-spatial thinking
processes {cf. Luna 1977:151 (f.) and is presumably the locus of the conscious 1
'
manipulation of mental model analogues of the outer world by frontal lobe activity as under (d)> and of general Johnsonian image schemata', the source of metaphorical extensions in language. Mental imagery as .such, however, is '
probably tbcussed around the primary sensory projection regions (where sensory inputs are projected in more or less homologous form). Activity throughout the cortex is in constant flux, coordinated by attentional devices involving fronto-limbic circuits (cf. Luria 1973:189) that allow, for instance, a given cognitive content to echo {e.g. in a 'phonological loop') for some finite diirationh facilitating further processing, Whitehead has little to say on cerebral organization, but his theory of strains for example, does account for the projection of spatial coordinates by personally ordered societies, complex feelings presupposed by all perception (Whitehead 197 31 Off.}. The actual 'cresf of activity within a (thinking) nexus of successive occasions is presumably itself the locus of all high-grade1 mental activity. In other words, such activity, however distributed in terms of the i in mediately 'preceding1 societal level of neurons, is a super) ect of actual '
1
1
'
,
'
occasions, subjectively experienced by each successive spatio-temporal quantum of experience but objectively passed on to its successors, [n general it would not be incommensurable with Whitehcad s framework to regard memory as the (distributed) potential for projecting or registering experience of the overall connectivity of the cortex (tine-tuned by experience) - i.e. as the '
'
'
pattern
m
.
as opposed to the process' aspect of the cortexn'
Rules are plan types or schemata that have proved to be viable in fu I tilling
intended results. They are largely regulative/inhibitory in effect and can be defined in terms of 'satisfaction conditions1". These conditions are not them'
selves representations, however, but akin to images of achievement1 as under (h), which when appropriately selected according to the communicative context '
will cause the organism to feel a Tightness
of fit between intention and
execution. By being abstract and general they ensure massive redundancy and stability in social behaviour The distinction between regular behaviour as such
Langiiiiyc processing and the miiid/bfiin
and the in tern a libation of symbolically coded rules ii not always clear and
indeed the subject of much debate that centres around corniectioTiiflm. Rules maybe instantiated in the coupling ofspecijic input patterns to neural aggregates with specific output patterns of activity fas fine-tuned by experience), Syntactic rules are specific sorts of rnies related to speech production, possibly embodied in the connectivity of Broca s region of the dominant hemisphere. The crystallization of a full syntactic template and the rilling of its 'slots' or nodes by activated lexical items is assumed to take place through largely simultaneous interplay with semantic information activated (principally at least) '
'
'
in the vicinity of Wernicke s region in the dominant temporal hemisphere.I2J hi WhueheadiLUi iLTms. rules - including linguistic unes - luc h species of eternal object i.e. patterns of pure potentiality inhei ent in the interaction '
of the experiential environment and the (hierarchical) organisation of the mind/brain, patterns that can be felt, drawn out and highlighted, associated
with the satisfaction of a subjective aim, and reinforced and modulated through time according to contextuali/ed input. They are means available to plans. n
In the ] ight o f all th i s t a n 4 i ns t r u c t io nal1 o r p roccdi tm / sc f ? ?rt m ics wo uld sc e m
.
'
to be the most us etui way of looking at the mind/brain s handling of meaning, ie .
.
as a matter of process rather than of static configurations of ingredient
atoms of meaning that presuppose stable mental representations corresponding to them (cf. Winograd 1976 and Harder 1996; J07-118). Semantics can be
defined as that part of a broader pragmatics or semiotics that deals with the abstracted con text-free aspects of linguistic expressions, that is, the referential
potential of open class words and theii component morphemes (and the mtitual relationships they enter into), plus the functions associated with the
closed elements of the grammatical system (including syntactic structures, in so far as these are not functionally arbitrary). Semantic primitives are unnecessary from such a viewpoint, since words as such (alongside non-linguistic cognitive routines of an essentially sensori-motor, perceptual nature) are the essential
tools of thought' For White head, the 'meanings1 of symbols are our potential reactions to them and symbolic reference is 'what the world is for us, as that datum in our experience productive of feelings, emotions, satisfactions, actions.. / (Whitehead 1927:21)- It is a dynamic relationship between different modes of perception as under {kj above, so a procedurally-based approach to semantics is perfectly natural within this framework. There are no absolutely fixed meanings
in a world in flux; they attain a degree of (relative) permanence only through the ingression of relevant and re pea table eternal objects in them.
117
ntf
Part cm And ?r
,
.
2 Lanpuape without rep resent iition
In recent years a reaction can be said to have gradually set in against the rednctionistic notion of a unitied
'
language of thought' (cf. Fodor I975n anc. Jackendoft 1983:19 f.)n and the digital computer metaphor of the mind that lies behind it, although that mode of thinking still persists in certain quarters "
(following bodor 1983)J-:J Alternative models have been proposed and supported with vigour within the broad field of Cognitive Science, models that have largely abandoned the notion of a monolithic, modality-free system of mental
representations upon which central cognitive processes are supposed to act. Starting already with Pribrams holographic metaphor of brain function fPribram J971:250If.)! these include Paivio's dual coding approach (Paivio 1 98fiL Johnson's 'body in the mind" {Johnson ] 987 - cf. also Vaiela, Thompson & kosch 1992 for their perspective on embodiment and enaction".), 1
'
Johnson-Laird's 'mental models' (John son-Laird 1933), 'neural Uas'winism1
(Kdelman 1987) and the whole thriving new field of connectionism {see Elman et al 1997), Chaos I heory is beginning, moreover, to alter our overall picture of howthebrain/mind may function1 at the edge of Chaos' (cf. Robertson & Combs '
1995).
Perhaps the most signihcLmt aspect of this on-going shift of perspective is the replacement of the notion of a digital computer-like 'address standing {in an arbitrary mental ode ) for some absent 'content4 in various algorithmic tasks, by the notion of patterns spreading out over large general-function 1
,
1
memory areas until a maximally stable W or
'
'
resonance
with some storec
coil figuration results. According to Calvin, who has developed his own variant of neural Darwinism, this is specifically a matter of cloned patterns em bed dec in the connectivity of cortical cell columns resonating with the attractors of other columns that the wave of cloning passes over (Calvin 1996:36ff-). The same basic process could be involved in memory-search and in the triggering of action schemata appropriate to a given situation. Within a linguistic framework this could be the search for the meaning of a word heard in a certain context or of the activation of a word (or syntactic pattern) appropriate to expressing a particular illocutionary intention. Rather than envisaging cognitive activity as a kind of unified abstract machine language working on a plane of empty labels( such 1new'N embodied and distributed approaches see content units directly interrelating with com out units. The notion of'address1 is not eliminated but is equated more directly with the actual signs and symbols which we knew all along that the mind employs {for example words) and which are no '
'
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1
"
1
L tLigLing? proHssilig and the mind/brain
doubt crucial in various 'ihortcut' me ntnl processes Language and den crip live
metaLingua e are no longer so readily confounded. This view of cognitive activity obviously makes simulation on existing computers a much messier (if more realistic) matter hut mueh progress has nevertheless been made hy recent connectionist-inspired research.
Linguists arguing over their specific brands of structural or semantic representations tend to take it for granted that such things have been - or will eventiuilly be - pinpointed in the human brain. A common attitude is that
meanings of sentences must obviously be represented there somehow, since we can recall them and/or apply further logical processes to them; the labels we use to represent iheii meaning are merely shorthand abbreviations for whatever neural reality may lie behind their instantiation This applies to the representations of functional and cognitive VLirieuo-i o[ liii uistics as well lis general]vists. Some linguistic approaches are more specific here than others, but even within one and the same overall school1 there may be considerable variation. In '
Kortescue (1999) I suggested - in a provocative vein - that there iust is no 1
'
such thing as a representation in this static sense, only processes and potentials for acting in various ways upon recognized patterns of excitement in complex neural circuits. The nearest thing to modality-free brain activity may lie in the deeper structures of the braim where a high level of creative 'chaos1 is present And where there is no coding in the linear informational sense at all. Rather* there is neurotransmitter-mediated stimulation of various kinds (excitory or inhibitory), which modulates or biases cortical activity - experientially a matter of cloudy feeling tones' that reflect the individual's needs and expectations interacting with the evolving conceptual attractors of the cortex to produce semi-guided thought cascades. 1
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1
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The common notion that the production of an utterance proceeds in a
linear fashion from the formation of an 'idea' that needs to he expressed, which in turn is converted through a number of discrete recoding stages into a
grammatically well-formed and pragmatically lelicitous structure shunted on to the vocal organs (and the reverse in comprehension) may in fact already be outdated, despite its contimiing appeal. Even heading oh a proposition from li picture is far from a strictly linear process- parallel higher-level processing "
typically starts after activation of the very first word (and '
1
1
'
"
activation itself
presupposes a more diffuse priming stage). Taking the assumptions listed in 5 2 seriously entails reformulating the general characteristics of speech production in terms of an initialh situationally determined instability in the mind/ brain of the speaker (inherited from his or her immediate past), which is .
119
brought back into temporary homeostaais by the activation of certain ruleconstrained motor actions resulting in the production of an appropriate utterance, fin comprehension the utterance is matched rather to the modelling of a coi'responding unstable stale that would have produced it if the hearer were himaelt /herself to have uttered it. J What particular imagery or symbols "
may accompany this process for the esperiencer is largely irrelevant to its communicatory success: it could have triggered numerous images and propositions, partially or fully realized, but its determinate integrity is ensured rather
by the unique 'feeT of the initial state to the experiencer (his or her 'prehension of the particular internal or external state of affairs involved). Through '
experience and skill with various short-cut routincsh the speaker will tacitly know how to satisfy the 1 image of achievement' associated with this intentional
state by activating specitic sub-routines that will result finally in the production of a well-formed and felicitous utterance,
There may be no ultimate stopping point where sonic fully determinate reprcseLilLUum is produced and stored as j representation (as opposed to j. lelt potential tor further expression). From a Whiteheadian perspective (Whiteheac. being an anti-iepresentationalist) one should rather envisage information 'felt' by the various sensory channels f and/or internal imagination) being passed on under the superordinate guidance of the relevant intentional state [the subjective aim whose goal has been prehended by an anticipatory prehension ) to the visual cortex for example. Here the data is in turn Yelf and passed on in another form, less homologous with the sensory inpLit {and therefore more abstract ) which is passed on to the secondary and higher association regions of the cortex, each feeling1 the preceding expression in turn until the chain of activation finally loops back into funhei potential action (mental or physical). The famous double articulation of language may be only a special case of a "
'
,
1
'
,
'
more general characteristic of mental activity, one where the relationship between predominantly 'analog1 input and a predominantly 'digital" output has been attenuated and conventionalized to the point of arbitrariness. As already stated, according to Whitehead language is the systematization of expression [ Whitehead 19f>S:3SL Other forms of mental activity lack this systematic it y ot expression (i.e, its combinatorial cod ability). At highei levels of functioning including the laying down of long term propositional memory traces - the neural pattern corresponding to the output of a given concrescence may be '
'
'
: .
n
"
ge]v nrbilmry
non-iconicj: il is just ih.M pLin rn ot iictivation irial is
associated with (and felt by the experiencer as corresponding to) such and such a complex pattern of input.
L t LigLing? proHssi li g and rhr mi nd/bra in
What remains in a speaker i or hearer1*; memory of a particular u iteranceill-context, ibr instanceh may be no more than a hierarchically 'bracketed1 chaster of phonological represeaitations of the essential cnntem words for at east of intentional gestures towards them), plus die ted of the motivation that '
'
'
'
lay behind iLL How much of the utterance actually remains in the form of phonological bits and pieces may well be radically indeterminate and depend in large part on the nature of the wider embedding of the utterance in a discourse which is itself embedded in a schema of the relationship between the interlocu-
tors (if the ntteaance occurred during a dialogue}. Some of the content words may have been replaced by others (e.g. more general ones of which they are hyponyms) or converted into other than verbal modality. In fact, all that a apeaker/hearer may have stored in memory of an utterance content could be some more or less faithful memory of the prehension of the context of its
utterance, i.e. its motivation from which one could at least reconstruct the gist of what was actually saidN since this complex motivation was what determined
what was said in the first place.In a sense, to understand a sentence is to 1
annihilate it. to absorb it into 1felt
background equilibrium leaving nothing behind but a vague taste. The only essential thing in order for the meaning of the utterance to have been remembered at all is that whatever it added to the
on-going development of the situation was of relevance to the hearer By its being retained (through some form of fine synaptk tuning of the embedding neural matrix), actions arising from the reactivation of the relevant schema in the future will be potentially somewhat different. Consider as a concrete example( the answerer's utterance !It is in the countryside from the game of Twenty Questions1, as analysed in 2.3. How might the questioner have stored the information contained in it? In principle it could have been retained in his memory as anything from the verbatim words uttered to just the context plus intention for even just the updated context) at the moment of its utterance, or perhaps some intermediate representation of the keyword(s) of the predicate (in the) countryside, regardless of what the underlying neural reality might have been in terms of adjusted attractors embodied in neural aggregates or the like. In fact the proposition might not have been stored in long term memory at all {after the questioner had repeated the answerer s words verbatim K as opposed to being absorbed into some further proposition, or superseded by some more specific feature of the game object that, once guessed, rendered it redundant. This must remain indeterminate. In fact, when you look at the ensuing stages of the dialogue {as presented near the beginning of 2.2)t the information derived from this utterance was '
,
'
'
'
'
'
'
ixi
nz
Pattern iind Pi'occjis
apparently not very relevant for the further progress of the game. At most it let:. the questioner to infer that the object was not located in a town {and> second'
'
arilyh was not used in the prototypical sense). His representation of the search set containing the object could from that point on have consisted of both a iviLher rapid lv Ending repte iULUum ot ihc actual phonolo icLil key -ord.-i of the utterance pins some feel' of the countryside outside Edinburgh - perhaps in the form of a mental map -which he needed to scan mentally for some f large and presumably well-known) metal object. The direction in which his ensuing '
questions actually led him was towards narrowing down the type of metal object in terms of function. The fading memory of the utterance in question (or its keywords) could presumabiy haw been reactivated during internal recap-
ping or when trying to assess new information received, but this is again indeterminate past hoc. The point ish this indeterminate conception of how the information may have actually been stored is sufficient to meet objections by lepre -iuauonali: thai sejUejKL> j:ui>1 be aboul soEnolhin lhat can be represented (i.e. its meaning) and that such representations must be determinate for inferences to be possible, based on its content. What repiesentationalists often forget is that logical operations on logical strings of symbols are not the only kind of inference humans go in for. In this concrete case %ve need only assume that enough was retained {the fading memory of the phonologica. '
'
form of at least some of the utterance) to reactivate the information derivable
from the utterance, given the overall contextThe specific inferences probably derived from it by the hearer could simply have perished once their 'result' the update of the 4 feel of the search-set and the consequent initiation of a search for a new question - had been effected. Logic on the fly does not need to leave traces other than its transformed results, txactly how context is stored, is a more interesting question, but this would take us back to experiential frames1 in general and the relationship between tokens and types within conceptual aggregates, matters already touched upon in the preceding section. The Whiteheadian 'process1 perspective on mental representation is actually quite compatible with that of connectionisnu which is often characterised as operating entirely without representations, only radically distributed information between input and output nodes. Specifically, it is a token-based approach 1
'
l
'
1
'
to language learning, and the emergence of types from tokens is of the essence in White he ad
world. However, the intermediate 'hidden nodes' of connec'
tionist networks do constitute a kind of re presentation f and simple recursive networks for example> contain a kind of inbuilt memory feedback loop connecting these to certain input (context) nodes. From an outside viewpoint '
1
lzz
PaCCem bind Pmctss
apparently not very relevant for the further progress of the game. At most it led the questioner to infer that the object was not located in s. town {and secondarily, was not tiscd in the prototypical sense). His representation of the search L
'
set containing the object could from that point on have consisted of both a rather rapidly fading representation of the actual phonological keywords of the utterance plus some TeeT of the countryside outside Hdinburgh - perhaps in
the fonn of a mental map - which he needed to scan mentally for some (lar e and presumably well-known) metal object. The direction in which his ensuing questions actually led him was towards narrowing down the type of metal
object in terms of function. The fading memory of the utterance in question (or its keywords) could presumably have been reactivated during internal recapping or when trying to assess new hi formation received, but this is again indeterminate past hoc. The point is, this indeterminate conception of how the information may have actually been stored is suficient to meet objections by representationalists that sentences must be bout something that can be 1
represented (i.e. its meaning) and that such representations must be determinate for inferences to be possible, based on its content, What representationalists often forger is that logical operations on logical strings of symbols arc not the only kind of inference humans go in for. Jn this concrete case we need only assume that enough was retained {the fading memory of the phonological form of at least some of the utterance) to reactivate the information derivable
from the utterance, given the overall context/i'he specific inferences probably derived from it by the hearer could simply have perished once their 'result' the update of the Teel1 of the search-set and the consequent initiation of a search for a new question - had been effected. Logic on the fly does not need to leave traces other than its transformed results, txactly how context is stored is a more interesting question, but this would take us back to experiential frames1 in general and the relationship between tokens and types within '
"
'
'
'
conceptual aggregates, matters already touched upon in the preceding section. The Whiteheadian process1 perspective on mental representation is actually quite compatible with that of con nee t ion is mh which is often characterized as operating entirely without representationsh only radically distributed information between input and output nodes. Specifically, it is a token-based approach to language learning, and the emergence of types from tokens is of the essence in White he ad's world. However; the intermediate 'hidden nodes1 of connec'
tionist networks do constitute a kind of representation, and simple recursive networks for example contain a kind of inbuilt memory feedback loop connecting these to certain input [context] nodes. From an outside viewpoint '
,
'
1
Ij n u li
pj ol u.ssi 11 y Li»d the mi nd/b ra in
'
'
these are nevertheless arbitrary (indeterminate), deriving their meaning t rom their distributed mediation between input and output. On the Whitebeadian model, one can envisage processes whereby lexical words, in particular, are homed in on during both comprehension and production processes from various prehended meaning elenient progressing from the broad to the specific and gitided by the unifying subjective aim of the overall ctmcrescomie.
This would gain in intensity and richness of differentiation as more and more prehensions are integrated towards its satisfaction, Once the specific lexical item aimed at (its phonological representation) is activated, it will in turn be objectified for - i.e. trigger - further processes. The point to bear in mind is that what is experienced by the concrescent subject as distinct representations e.g. words -- is, at a lower societal level fthat of neurons), largely indeterminate, both within a Whiteheadian and a connectionist perspective on human '
'
-
cognition.
By contrast, models based on a unitary 'Mentalese1 language of thought
perpetuate the error of conflating the mo dally rich experiential viewpoint with the objective neural 'substratum1 one level downh where everything is experientially opaque (and arguably non-modal). This way the experiential level is reduced to inaccessibility to its own subjects and the neural substrate itself appears to communicate via digital encodingsh something proper only to actual interpersonal language (symbolic communication through a linear 1
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1
channel )
.
Pinker is as specific as anyone as regards Mentaleseh which he sees as
being both simpler and more complex than surface language fwith no articles. no indication of pionunciationh but with additional differentiation of concepts
underlying ambiguous, polysemous words). He argues that it must be the same '
1
or very similai behind, say, English and Navajo in order for reasoning of the same kind to be carried out by speakers of those languages (Pinker J994 SI).
But this is premised on a preconceived -computer analogy-based - notion of what to
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1
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reasoning entails. As will be discussed in the next section, questions as where central coding/Mentalese begins and the auiomatk neural processing 1
of input systems end (as if contiguous on the same level) are doubly misconceived - on the one hand, these are phenomena belonging to two different societal levels and, on the other, coded information on any level could hardly be
divorced from some kind of neural vehicle (although some varieties of lower1
'
grade thought may not involve coding at all). Luckily there are alternatives to the computer-wired neural model {with its basic and or and 'not1 gates) as '
1
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1
,
the substratum of language, ones in which absurdities such as the 'one neuron 1
= one feature
assumption are avoided.
\ 13
5 3 Mo dul ar ity vers intent ional s\ates The iime arguments apply to the 'modular1 picture promoted by many
mainstream gene rat ivists today. Despite its priim /nffV psychological plausibility this viewpoint is really no better in this respcet than the monolithic syntactic one which it has replaced. Clearly the mind/brain is organized to some degree into broad (if overlapping) modules, but these may well be no more specific than the divisions into primary and secondary sensory and motor cortex, etc., already rather well known.t;<J Indeed the evidence from aphasia has king established at least half a do/.en distinct types of deficit associated with such regions and these can be quite specific as to linguistic level and al o langLia e (cf. Jakobson 1971; 124). The extension of this kind of division of labour, however, to a. separate semantic module, for instance, is of highly dubious validity, since semantics involves information distributed widely over the cortex and cuts right across grammatical levels {although the lexicon1 coordinating such infovination with phonemic representations is probably specifically located in the dominant temporal lobe). Non it seems to me, does sub-dividing speech production into, say, separate autonomous modules -as opposed to interrelated levels - for morphology and syntax, advance our understanding of the actual neura underpinnings of these aspects of language one iota, although they may have their own gram mar-internal justification. Recent Chomskyan generative grammar goes much further than this in its modularity in fact - each of its sub-theories such as bin ding N predicate argument structure, and bounding, constitutes a module with its own autonomous principlesJ10 That any of these has any psychological reality at all remains to be demonstrated. Some of the non-linguistic modules suggested by Pinker as working hand-in-hand with '
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1
1
linguistic ones such as 'instinctive mechanics' and 'instinctive biology, menta.. maps, etc. (Pinker 1994:420), are plausible enoughh but differ in nature from purported linguistic ones by being holistic, not having to work in tandem like
modules for, say, syntax and morphology in order to produce any experienceable or overtly detectable output at alh Fodor himself relates his 'cross-modal1 view of central thought processes to
Aristotle's notion of 'common sense' (which correlates the various sensory inputs). The central f'unencapsulatcd1} system can be viewed as Vorrecting' the representations received from specific (vertical, opaque and hard-wired) input modules to make them accessible to it (Todor ! 9R3h in2).] u But this presupposes that the central system does indeed recognize the codings of individual "
La ngai e prcic cssi li y and the mi nJ/b rj in
modules (sSO why doe* it need its own?). Moreover, such
'
"
correction must
logically result in clusters of Corrected representiiti<sns'J not just ono m0dally neutral oneh since the type of information from each module is by definition different and largely non-compatible. His central system 'fixes belief1 by mediating between input and memory, and this assumes that me mo lies are not stored in the same format as the in formation which the input systems yield, [ he latter will already have transformed raw sensory input into tor ins recognizable to themselves, note. But rendering modally specific input into a form recognizable by the central system is not the same as rendering it non-modaL tiven if the central system docs function on a more abstract plane (thus enabling it to recognize and work with analogy), this need only reflect partial de-modalization of in put r it may be simplified but still modally specific. More importantly, the input must include phonological words in order to introduce fin symbolic guise} the most abstract concepts ofalL Lumping language together with sensory perception as a natural class of input modules1 seems to me to be fundamentally misconceived. What is common for central processing is surely not the kind of representations involved but the common processes themselves - the various kinds of prehensions involved. I'odor is pessimistic about ever knowing anything about central processes (except by dubious analogy) because he cannot countenance seeing language itself as the (principal) language of thought,]JZ He does not approach cognition stratally. i.e. in terms of the complementarity of inner experience and externally observed neural activity - and it is only the latter that seems to interest him as being Vhat cognition is all about, Much of his argument hinges on the 'iso tropic1 nature of central processing, whereby any fact may be relevant for the conlirmation ot any other (Fodor 1983: ! 05). He contrasts the free1 isotropic nature of central thought processes (cutting across modality) with the modally specific, hard-wired nature I'mpui modules, citing as evidence the universal connectivity of association regions of the cortex. But richt multi-modal representations may also be isotropic, given the necessary processes for translating representations in different modalities back and forth, Such 'machinery1 is supplied by VVhiteheadian 'symbolic transfer which operates (as described in L2.6) between die two modes of "
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*
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1
,
perception, presentational immediacy and causal efiicacy. Only there are limits to such translatability - one cannot visualize a smell or such a social concept as relate dues s (although one can of course generate associative visual images). '
1
It is precisely for that reason that rich, non-reduced multiple coding has an '
advantage over any neutral Mcntalcse'. Common processes cutting 'horizontally' across modality of coding is another matter, one quite compatible with the
115
lz6
Pattern and IVcicfiss
rich modal view. What is fundamentally at odds with the Whiteheadian scheme
of things in l:odoi i notion ofmodularilyj howrver, is the picttnc it suggests of the separation of pattern and process as 'components at the same ontological level, hor Whitehead the two aspects aie complementary at all levels of functioning of self-regulating organisms. '
A more flexible - and to functionalists perhaps more palatable - variety of modularity is displayed by Levelt (1989 - sec especially the diagram on p. 9). This model of speech production divided into modular 'specialists' called by I eve It the Concept ualizer'n the 1 Kormulator', and the 'Artie ula tor1 (also a speech comprehension and an auditory component on the comprehension '
.
aide} is at all events tied ir more closely to empirical evidence and testing. Of particular interest from the present perspective is his account of what may go on at the lower end of the motor control hierarchy (within the
'
Articulator', which
is organized ivith the higher level of syllable structure situated above - and affecting - that of successive phonetic segments, the stream of vocalic syllable peaks upon which consonant articulation is superimposed). Here self-organmng context-adapted coordinative structures with their own inhei ent periodicity are seen as taking over from context-free executive control of articulation with the help of feedback from the vocal organs (Levelt op.cit.:447ft".). The relationship is anothe:' example of Bohrian complementarity, The first of his by and large autonomous components, the message planning unitH the locus of higher-order '
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attention, corresponds to Fodor s central processing module. It is theonly non'
encapsulated component, with the possibility of conscious access to lower-level outputs. The model is in general not as literally autonomous and serial as Coder s '
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conception allowing as it does for overlap pin gh parallel incremental processing
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1" "
.
Various 'buffers1 compensate for the temporal disjunction of simulta'
neous sub-routines { working memory is in fact the internal buffer of the '
Conceptual izer)* Moreover it allows for the reality ofconscious 'internal speech1 (for Levelt a matter of central monitoring ofthe phonetic plan1 - the output of the Formulator). There is still at least one major theoretical problem with this model, however, namely the transition from abstract intentions in the Conceptual uer - e.g. my discourse acts' - to syntactic structures corresponding to '
specific illocutionary choices available in the grammar [within the formulator). Thus he characterizes the link between the intention of speaker S to inform someone (H) of something (P) and the illocutionary form-type he deploys to realize that intention as follows {op.cit.: ] 25}: \V the goal stale is KNOW {H INTtKDS {S, BELIEVE {HTP)))n THHN tneude mt-ssagc nUCl. (F)
What exactly do the capitalized words here correspond to for the speaker?
Concepts? If so, how do they mediate between the intention and the action by association But all sorts of non-linguistic factors to do with the communicative setting and background may intervene between the intention and the expression, resulting in sub-goals that suspend or cancel any such automatic
association. This boils down once again to the problem of specifying the nature 1
of the internal Representations available to the higher-level cognitive processes responsible for the deployment of complex intentions for these are compatible with a wide range of sy mac tie expression. There can surely be no question of ever being able to unearth a grammar of weli-formed messages such as Levelt sets his (distant) sights on - as opposed to a largely unordered array of grammatical and lexical means which speakers during on-line message-formulation can utilize in conjunction with satisfying a Whiteheadian intention (a subjective aim ) A totally diherent approach to representation, one that focuses on the inside' experiential viewpoint, is tbund in Searle (1 3:1 Iff.). For him, representations of intentional states like belief consist of various types of conditions of satisfaction analogous to speech acts {whose sincerity conditions are intentional states, note). These are not to be equated with pictures, say, but they consist (usually) of propositions which must somehow be represented in 1
,
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the mind/bra in. In fact, for him an intentional state with a direction of fit (to or
from the world) is a representation of its satisfaction conditions: it consists of an item of piopositional content in a particular psychological mode. This is compatible with A Whiteheadian perspective, although 1 preter to regard intentional states as the 'feel* of that state to the subject (its Whiteheadian subjective form ) Its potential satisfaction can be stated in terms of the relevant eternal objects forming the objective lure that correspond to Searle 'conditions of satisfaction (and to an 'image of achievement' for Pribram). So an intentional state' can be equated with a (propositional j prehension having its 1
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particular subjective form. Kote that the object (as referred to) and the (propositional) content of, say, a belief are two different things for Searle, hir Whitell cad this is li distinction between the indicative feeling of an intellectual prehension (which may refer to a nexus of any ontoiogical status, i.e. imaginary as well as real ) and the eternal objectfs) predicated of that nexus; we are back at the fundamental propositionaF form. White head s conception of propos'
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ition' is simply broader than Searles (or most peoples). On the other hand, Searle s concept of'intention' is in turn much broader than WltiteheadY
lift
rnttem and Jtocc s
Another distinction made by Sea] le is that between an intention to represent and an intention to communicate - the latter presupposes the former (Seark 19 S3:160 If.). Hejc the para lie] with VVhitehead drifts fu]-theraparth since it is doubtful whether an Intention to tvprescm1 is a distinct type nf'subjective torm' in the Whiteheadian worid of prehensions, except perhaps in the case of voluntary attempts to memorize something, Nan-communicative intentional states like believing something or wanting something to happen do not have such a subjective form (as opposed to believing1 and "wanting' tout court). The proposition towards which the intentional state is directed is already represented for the subject of the prehension (in terms of potential reactions towards '
'
1
the nexus concerned), and does nut need Lo be lre)c[-eateii
Searle has little to say about 'neural underpinnings1 or the like, sn his interest to hard-core cognitive scientists may be limited. He does see causality
as functioning on two parallel planes, however, the neural and the intentional (Searle 19 3:269}, and for him intentionality is ultimately a biological matter f 1983:230). One way or another, the two approaches represented by Searle and I odor {or rather his computationally-minded followers) need to be reconciled
if linguists are ever to attain a common understanding of the psychological '
reality of the contenf of language in both its static and its dynamic aspects, Modularity needs to be linked to intentionality. Let me conclude this section by suggesting at least one likely linguistic module (besides those handling auditory input and artidilatory output) for which there is actual empirical evidencej namely that controlling intonation '
1
[and other prosodic matters) J-1'1 The evidence shows that this is dealt with by a coiuralateral region of the brain distinct from those left-hemisphere centres associated with phonological, lexical and grammatical aspects of language, a region analogous to - and perhaps recruited from - that controlling innate vocalizations in primates (cf Deacon 1997:313 ,418). Its manner of manifestation - and probable neural basis - is also clearly of a different nature than that of the latter. Intonation operates in an essentially analog manner as
opposed to the digital nature of grammar with its largely binary contrasts and choices. This is important for its basic function of indicating (and integrating) multiple intentional nuances simultaneously, line-tuning the linear information package put together by the dominant hemisphere. This 'module' interacts with "
the 'grammar module1 in a flexible but predictable manner: the choice of syntactic template corresponding to a declarative or interrogative sentence type restricts the available range of appropriate intonational patterns, and the choice of an intonation pattern corresponding to a complex communicative intention
I iin;ipi .
ng and the mind/biain
will in turn limit the appropriate range of syntactic patterns to express the content. Only by default do intonational and syntactic clauses Co 1 respond. I he one can be said to mould to the other at their mutual interface - they are in a Bahrian relationship of complementarity. This is possible because the same illocutionary intention presumably initiate!; parallel but distinct processes in '
both. Neither fully determineji the other however! aji child language acquisition data further suggests; young children learn to copy and experiment with varying intonation patterns independently from (and starting well before} their acquisition of grammar and lexicon. Whether such functional distinctions are best treated in terms of'modules1 or of levels1 is a moot point
4 Them ind/ b rai n a s t h e o rgan of novelty One of the major barriers still preventing functionalists and generativista from agreeing upon the object of their respective fields of study is the question of the
relationship of linguistic abilities to cognitive abilities in general or, in evolutionary/developmental termst of the inn at en ess as opposed to the immanence of the language learning capacity. This in turn reflects wry different conceptions of the relationship between mind and the brain - understandably so, given the chasm between the empiricist and rationalist approaches to this central concern, which it reflects. The major insight of the generative approach was the recognition of the recurslvity and abstractness of gi ammai', whereas the
functionalist approach sets language within a wider setting of (potentially prelinguistic) goal-orientated behaviour and concomitant cognitive organization. Both insights are captured in the Whiteheadian notion of mentality' (read; the mind/brain) as the organ of novelty (Whitehead 1929:26h and compare also 1978:108}, It is what infuses an element of creative Chaos into the rigid functionality of bodily organization. '
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Like the generativists of our day, Whitehead was well aware of the 'special5 status of the language faculty but would not have dreamed of calling it an organ in the manner of Chomsky.1- J;or him it is the mind/brain as a whole '
1
that is the relevant organ, i.e. a special type of personally ordered society.
Generativists - insisting as they do on a Cartesian-I ike dichotomy between competence and performance - are not greatly interested in the deployment of language in actual usage, as opposed to its formal nature and how that formal nature is learnt. Functionalists, on the other hand> are of course much more
interested in the first aspect and far less in the formal description of language
115
130
PaCCem and Process
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abstracted from use (the question of learning a language is i or many simply part of the broader field of learning in general). Whitehead has little to say that would satisfy linguists primarily interested in an autonomous description of the farina I nature of the 'language organ1 (whether in terms of formal rules or of abstract principles and parameters), despite beii as one of the founders of the modern philosophical treatment of mathematical logic, well versed in the handling of formal symbolic systems. He does an the other hand have much to
offer the linguist who is interested in haw language is deployed in a variety of tasks, both logical trnd communicative. But his focus on the question of novelty and its explanation in terms of'eternal objects' should ring a chord also amongst generativists. The generativists conceive of syntactic rules in a manner which reflects the infinite creativity (in the mathematical sense) of language. They operate with recursive speech-string-producing formulae of a general nature that can be isolated from any specific semantic content. One of the problems of harmonizing this aim with that of penetrating the actual workings of the mind/brain is that the patterning captured by syntactic rulei (whether expressed as recursive phrase structure rules or in any other format) may well be redundantly distributed across not only the syntactic production centres of the brain (including broca's area) but also specific lemmas' and/or general constructional configurations stared in close proximity to lexical semantic information (e.g. in the dominant temporal lobe) .The mind/brain simply does not work in the maximally efiicient way that Chomsky s minimalist program assumes (Chomsky L993) - it is a multi-purpose organ and narrow efficiency in one area (like language) could well interfere with its efficiency in others. One alternative way of regarding syntax that avoids the worst pitfalls of presupposing precise cerebral location and may well prove fruitful in the future is in terms of its fractal nature After alh the essence of syntax - simple principles that result in '
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infinite iterative variety - is in harmony with the emerging picture of neural '
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activity in the chaotic mind/brain. The self-referring property of syntactic systemsh undermining the Law of lypes, is in fact the hallmark of higher-order systems with emergent properties (see Goert el 1995;! 46). Calvin (1996; I67ff.) speculates on the non-linear and chaotic 'strange attractors emerging from cortical connectivity as the source of menial novelty (stable 'point' and 'cycle limit1 at tractors are not sufficient on their awn). New attr actors may be created by combining old ones embodied in columnar structures with new ones spread by expansion. Syntactic lemmaassociated with lexical items [e.g. the three arguments associated with give') can specifically be '
1
ULigLLfige proc ssiag and the mind/bMm
described as multi-lobed [i.e. Strange1) attractors in or no r Wernicke i iirta. linked by coitico-cortical pathways to general phia.se structure generation '
routines in LI coca s
area. The latter correspond to the argument structure into '
'
which specific lexical lemniiis can be momentarily cloned to fit. When we turn to Whiteheads * propositions I prehensions (the fleeting meanings grasped '
behind declarative sentences, for instance), we find that these too can recur-
sively build up embedded output1 via higher level intellectual prehensions1. Cone res cent generation of complex utterances by successive integration of prehensions has been exemplified in Chapter 2. The generativist will nevertheless want to know what specific constraint!; curtail such open reeursivity. As far as the Whitehead approach is concerned, the answer must lie in the graded array of eternal objects potentially brought to bear on satisfying the subjective aim of the speaker at any given point, t his is determined by the conjunction of the complex of eternal objects thai defines interpret able utterances in the language concerned fin turn constrained by the general internal sirnctnrc of the mind/bra in) and the specific data brought to the illocution at hand by the actual occasion and its subjective aim. In cognitive terms: the set of stored procedures triggered must mesh with the specific (types of) meaning '
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elements activated as data for the utterance about to he svnthesjied. The r
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constraints
1
are thus situated at the interface between 'lawgue and 'paroie, a viewpoint not so distant from that of the generativials after all, A Whiteheadian would simply go further and state that what can be expressed and Vhat a speaker might want to express are mutually dependent; that is why language '
1
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has to be creative, not just syntactically but in all other respects, reflecting the functional needs (both external and internal) that carved it out from a world of
changing environments and needs in the first place. It is worth dwelling for a moment on the notion of'organ' alluded to above t
since Whitehead characterizes his own philosophy as being one of organism
1 .
Another brief departure front my attempt to avoid polemicism is warrantee here, since the belief that Chomsky's use of the word Vn'gan1 reflects a fundamental biological interest in the nature of the language faculty on the part of
generativists is both widespread and questionable [largely thanks to Chomsky own tergiversations on this point). There is really nothing biological about Chomsky's analogy - how could an entity that is completely abstract and mental, cut off from all outward behavioural manifestation be biological'? What Chomsky must mean < in order to make sense) is that this abstract faculty is similar to an 'organ1 in so far as it develops v ithin an actual biological organ '
(the brain) h whose potential modes of activation it reflects,156 Jt is a bundle of
131
ill
Pattern and Pmccss
rationalist
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rules
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or pnnciples1 for describing and explaining the regular unfold!Jig of the faculty in the individual human speaker. Such analogies with biological organs can be appliedh note, to the regular manifestation of all manner of organized Societies not just language (e to the social entities with which history is concerned) l but unless one is a Hegelian one would hesitate to call those actual organs Regular behaviour may be the result of hidden internal 1
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factors on a quite different level of organisation than the regularities themselves. Thus walking behaviour is regular and learned, chough hardly a matter of1 rules1 or principles - it does not require postulating an internal 1 walking organ 1
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independent of the brain's coordination of the activities of the relevant limbs. One of the most influential popu la risers of the notion of the 'organ of grammar Steven F inker, suggests that this organ is located in Broca's pi its VVernicke's areas and perhaps other adjacent areas around the Sylvian Jissure (Pinker 1994:307), hut these are of course in a biological sense only parts of a largei; unitary organ, namely the brain (which in turn has extensions throughout the central nervous system). Chomsky s more Cartesian and abstract notion of organ is somewhat closer to Whiteheads view of the brain as the 'organ of novelty Deacon spec i fit ally ascribes the search for novelty and alternative solutions to the pre-frontal lobes of the brain, which are continually on the 1
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ook-out for new criteria for attention - damage to these areas result in '
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stereotyped repetitive behaviour and the inhibition of alloccntric thinking that
requires taking the perspective of another (Deacon 1997:263 ff.).,:57 As regards the part played by Broca's and VVernicke's regions. Deacon points out that this is more indirect than previously thought (it is rather the circuitry connecting them to each other and to other regions of the brain that
is crucial to speech). The distribution of grammatical patterns in the brain may to some degree be dependant on language type - thus speakers of hnglish are apparently more affected by damage to Brocas region than are speakers of more
synthetic or inflectional languages. The synchronization of parallel processing is probably necessary to keep decoupled sub-processes 'in touch' during the comprehension and production of speech. He suggests - based on the results of new bra in-scanning techniques - that linguistic processing is organized on a concentric, tier-Uke manner across the dominant hemisphere, with rapid, more or less automatic phonological processes near the core (close to broca region) and the slower, more complex processing of larger units - words and then sentences and finally whole texts - at successively more peripheral 'tiers '
(Deacon op.cit.:290ff.).l3d hach tier has both anterior (motor) and posterior [semantic) components. Connectivity between the relevant anterior and
Language prcicessing and the ]nind/brain
posici ior R Lun> i< siron sr on tliL1 wmv tilt, where the associated processes are synchronized (e.g. ft si-to-fast). The hierarchical structure of gramma]1 may help distribute linear signal!! over parallel levels to assist analysis, separating uut what needs most (conscious) attention from what is automatic. The relation'
ship to the Whiteheadian view of language as nested societies-wi thin-societies freflected in l igure 3 in 3.!) should he evident. It will become even more so if one imagines a vertical line through the diagram dividing encoding from 1
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decoding' functions on each level, for every Whiteheadian society consists of
occasions that combine afferent and efferent aspects. Let me tentatively propose now how the architecture of the brain might reflect its specialisation for some of the Whiteheadian processes the present
book is concerned with. Damasio & Damasio (1992) have suggested, tor instance, that the dominant temporal lobe association area may be divided into posterior, medial and frontal sub-regions for, respectively, perceptual features non-unique entities and unique entities. In Whiteheadian terms one couki
speak of a parallel gradient from eternal objects of the purely objective type towards aggregates of a more and more specific subjective type, on the way to [transmuted) individual 'enduring objects1 in memory. So this region uf the brain, specialized for object recognition mayh by virtue of its tine-grained
population of neurons and their mutual kinds of connectivity with other largescale functional regions (including the primary sensory regions), be particularly receptive to being tuned la react to these ordered types of patterned input. This, one could say, is where such concepts find ingression most naturally anc
usefully namely in certain kinds of objectifiedn enduring nexus - those to 1
which phonological labels can readily be associated thanks to the proximity of adjacent auditory processing pathways. Novelty enters the picture every time a selection is made among relevant conceptual labels (words stored in the vicinity of the dominant temporal lobe) by frontal1 planning processes in judging a 'nearest fit1 with a particular nexus being referred to during an actual occasion of the mi nd/b rains symbolic functioning. *
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Consider also the 'dual motor route1 (between Wemicke's and Broca's
areas) involved in speech production and learning according to Uamasio & Damasio (1992:67). The sub cortical route (involving the left basal ganglia and corresponding forward regions of the thalamus) they associate with habit '
earning while the cortical one they see involved in more conscious
'
associative
earning i:S9 In Whiteheadian terms this could be discussed in terms of the distinction between processes of symbolic transfer that have become habitual and automatic (involving physical or hybrid prehensions, felt* rather than '
,
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1 3
[3-1
Pattern An Pi'occss
consciously entertained) and those that still involve step by step conceptual peehensiojis. In both cases the transfer links symbolic patterns in the mode of preientatEoiiial immediacy (centring around Wernickes area?) with corresponding expression routines in the mode of causal efficacy [centring around broca's area, with its strong limbic connections?), [his may be part of a broader distinction between deep regions of the brain concerned with seqnentiality and the sense of time and the superficial cerebral regions concerned essentially with spatial or simultaneous patterning (Whitehead hinted as much when speaking of the evolution of presentational immediacy' from causal eficacy). However, I would not want to push this sort of localisation of the two modes too far; there may, for instancef also be a hemispheric preference as regards the predomi'
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nance of the one or the other mode.
Finally, the controversial question of the Ventral1 monitoring of speech production (and more broadly, the separation of production and comprehension) can be related to the Ye el of prehensions {including linguistic ones) upon which Whitehead laid such emphasis. The two principal approaches to selfmonitoring discussed by Levelt (1989:460ff.) are the autonomous Editor and the integrated Vonnectionisf theory. The latter is exemplified by MacKay s nod a I structure' theory (MacKay 19 7, esp. 16 5 ft'.), which is implemented in a conneetionist network capable of both production and comprehension {its mental nodes all have afferent as well as eiferent properties). Self-monitoring during production is handled on this model by4backward priming4 that spreads up from level to level (as in perception), li instantiates layers of pro posit ion ah conceptual, lexical, syllabic, phonological, and (distinctive) feature nodes, similar to the levels I propose for the Whiteheadian model Levelt, who sees this kind of moniionng as rather too automatic {attention being selective and del ayable in human speakers), inclines towards the first theory himselfh which presupposes an editor distinct from the production components. In fact his sees that editor as equivalent to the speech comprehension component of his mode, (hence his 'perceptual loop1 theoryK although he admits that there is as yet little empirical evidence one way or the other. 1
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A third possibility suggests itself from the Whiteheadian perspective, one in
terms of successive societal levels monitoring the level immedialely below.
'"1
Since the contents of the lower level are 'objectified1 for the superordinate one
lis part of its own data> it has direct access to them. Thus the morphological word-level, for example could easily be envisaged as conlinuously monitoring the phonological one, being alerted at once to any mismatch between an intended word and a phonological form activated to express it - namely by the
La ugua
processitf g aiid the mi nd/b t a in
4
feel' of such a mismittth within its own data. That the highest level of menage organization (that of a speaker/hearer engaged in discourse) can nevertheless register mismatches at levels lower than the immediately adjacent one below (say a spoonensm on the level of phonemes') is no great embarrassment just as the data of one actual occasion is inherited not just from the immediately
preceding one, but from the data objectified in that from still more remote ones, all the way baek through the history of its nexus (and the nexus it in turn is embedded in), so a mismatch at a lower level could filter up to all higher ones. The likelihood of noticing a mismatch at a much lower level - pitched at
a much higher speed of succession - would simply be reduced, it being H
1
correspondingly less easy to capture on the fly than a more immediate one. If such upward hltering had to work in a strictly serial fashion there would indeed be more severe problems with the notion. What would such an organization mean for the separation of production and comprehension? It wo id d mean that a largo part -but not necessarily all of the internal structure of the mind/brain involved in producing and comprehending speech would overlap, with only the lowest level modules 1
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specialized for the one or for the other, namely the auditory and the articulatory ones
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This picture combines certain virtues of both the other models: as in
the connectionist theory there is no need for reduplication of the same hierarchical structure of layers for both types of process, but as in the editor theory monitoring may he selective at any level, including the highest (according to the subjective aim). Such a system could be utilized to analyse the speech of others as well as to monitor one s own internal speech - the difference from the editor theory being simply that the same system can operate in either a production or a comprehension mode {or indeed in both together, at different levels, since monitoring is to be understood as partitioned out across all level bound'
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aries). This would harmonize with Deacons view of Tiers discussed above.
whore every level links an etferent and an afferent region {anterior versus posterior).34- It is also consonant with the aphasic evidence referred to in 53, which shows that deticiencies can be found limited to either the efferent or the
afferent aspects of any of the parallel societal levels shown on Figure 3. After allh the function of a monitor is not just to register mismatches of input (intention) and output (expression) but to initiate corrective behaviour accordingly; so it seems to be an oddly inefficient arrangement to have an entirely afferent monitoring module of the type Levclt suggests. Ultimately, however, this is an empirical matter, for which evidence may eventually accrue.
135
136
Pattern i;nd Proems
As we shall see later, Whitehead was hesitant nat only about applying the word organ to the language facility fas opposed to the brain incorporating that facility) but also about applying the word 'organism1 to individual languages or 1
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even to historical iocietiea speaking them. What was central for him in this connection was the
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personally ordered society the organic unity of the
individual speaking and thinking human being. But in order to try to resolve this interpretive issue we shall need to address certain important broader aspects of language, namely language acquisition and change: only from this historical1 perspective docs it begin to make sense to argue for or against the notion of language as organism Before doing so. 1 shall take up the processual '
1
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tliEead developed in Chapter 2, for language as process is not only verbal
discourse and psychological activity, it is also the production of enduring objects
1
such as written documents.
Summary In this chapter I have attempted to spell out the non-reductionist, complementary relationship between mind and brain presupposed by a Whiteheadian approach to language-as-process. While taking both neural and experiential reality seriously this approach maintains a strict separation of their respective onto logical levels. The interplay between the two is what is of interest, lor it is here the Whiteheadian perspective can contribute to on-going attempts to 1
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integrate psychology, neurology and linguistics - an endeavour that is both fascinating and full of episte mo logical pitfalls. Thinking, memory, concepts, symbols, mtentionsh rules and representations have all been considered from this perspective. I have argued that it is compatible with the emcrgentist assumptions of connectionist modelling of mental activity, although implementations of such models of course lack higher level Sear Man intentionahty- they are not embodied. On the other hand, I have argued that it is not compatible with I odor s conception of a central processing language nor with the associated notion of modularity (understood in odor s sense), so popular amongst geiierativists today. In the context of distinguishing between Whiteheadian immanence and Chomskyan innatcness, also the notion of an 'organ of grammar (as advocated by Pinker) has been rejected in favour of the Whiteheadian view of the b rain itself as the organ of noveltyl The language faculty is definitely not an organ from this point of view - pattern can simply not be process. '
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Language pracessJng and the mind/bfain
[ have advanced some tentative suggestions about localized links between the levels of (experienced} cognition and ncurul activity - which could presumably be taken a lot tui tbei by knowledgeable neurolinguists - but this
is not essential h>r applying White he ad's ideas here. It is nevertheless at the interface between neurology and cognition that Whitehead s process terminology and his liiycred society view of things really come into their own; he has much to say about the self-regulatory funeti oning of living h thinking organism!; 1
(including how they monitor their own inner workings). This is in general not an area where independent research in the Whiteheadian spirit can readily be undertaken although it can certainly be applied to interpfetijig the results of psycholinguistic investigations of various fiorts. Its
principal relevance here is in constraining speculations about the relationship between language and cognition to directions that make overall sense and can be related both to neurology and to individual experience.
137
Chapter 6
Understanding written texts Imaginary worlds
The hajiit; WhiteheadUn oppaailian afproL-ess ;uid pattern is not to be equated with the distinction that is sometimes made between language a£ process and language as product. Pattern is something more abstract: it is reflected both in the spoken made ot discourse and in the written mode, where the array ot linguistic forms is much richer and where we at first si ht would appear to be at a considerable remove from dynamic White head i an processes. We shall be concerned with determinate linguistic products rather than the production of speech on the fly Nevertheless, it will be seen that the approach to language unfolded in the previous chapters has its natural application here too. In particular, imaginative literature - through its general context of nuuiiiesiaiion inhibits the formation of afirmative judgments that propositions formed of words normally incite us to. No hearer/reader can understand a proposition unless the logical subject of the proposition is part of his or her actual world if it is no such a world must be created. So imaginative literature incites us to the construction of imaginary worlds, and here, as with the kind of inferences we examined in Chapter 2 (but for quite a different reason), suspended judgments are again the order of the day. Specifically, the writer is luring us, his readers, to build up a mental model more or less homologous to one he himself has imagined. This he achieves through the skilful alternation of elements of both surprise and expectation and the exploitation of the full potentiality of the language to induce in us rapid shifts of perspective on the way to resolving suspensions in the concrescent integration of the new information. If he achieves his endh we slid I - as willing subjects of a very literal procedural semantics - have experienced, from within a virtual world the author himself first created and expcriencedh by feeling our way into its characters and placest '
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-
*
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its successive tensions and resolutions both in the basic causal flow of the
lurraUvc
in Jlvclmou:- kviding from and back to it.
14"
Pattern and Process
6
1 Information unit and topic;;
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The fiiAt prerequisite tov a Whiteheadian analysis of the readers comprehen1
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sion of written narrative is to establish once again the span of a single occasion What could this possibly mean in the context of the continuous process of .
building up a 'mental model1 of a story as the reading progresses from start to finish? More ao than in the case of the oral dialogue in 2,2) equating a single sentence with a single occasion would he somewhat arbitrary, in fact almost
certainly wrong in the sense of corresponding to psychological reality,143 Wh
ose
reality? The ideal readers? We cannot simply apply the criterion of
H
no further
input from without' to define the discrete concresccnt process of comprehending flet alone producing) successive sentences, since there is more or less continual absorption of new data from without1 {from the pages of the book) on the part of the leader. 1 suggest rather that we take the information unit' as the relevant span here, that stretch of text whose comprehension can be equated with a unitary procedural instruction to update a mental model in the sense of '
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johnson-Laird (]9S3)h However, unlike the latter I shall not assume that the
result of this on-going processing is the construction of a determinate mental object in any particular modality of representation. The key notion will again '
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be that of the Whitebeadian 'prehension and the substance of the 'mental model
1
corresponding to the reader s comprehension of the story will be an elaborate fbut simplified jnd abstracted) objec tillcation of successive prehensions in the form of a structured bundle of potential reactions -some in the form of mnemonic symbolsh including phonemic 'words1. These can be assumed to be reactivated as data for later reconstructive recall {but only rather approximately and with some creative effort), Let us define 'information unit1 a little more precisely in terms of the relevant cognitive processes, l-or Halliday {1985:275) the information unit is de lined as consisting of an obligatory new element plus an optional given one.
In English at least it is reflected in intonation patterns. But in so far as we are concentrating on written language here intonation units - outside of actual direct speech passages - are of little help, any more than the potential division into 'speech acts' (the whole text being arguably the result of one narrative
speech act on the part of the author). Moreover, we can reckon with deviations from simple linear reading from one determinate unit to the next, both as regards beginning to analyse a new item already before the previous one is
completely comprehended and as regards the occasional repeated reading of the same item, One must also alhjw for skimming (and in general guessing ahead),
6
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1 Iniortn-Alum unit and Lopics;
The first prerequisite for a Whitdieadian analysis of the reader s comprehen'
1
sion of written narrative is to establish once again the span of a single occasion What couid this possibly mean in the context of the continuous process of building up a 'mental model1 of a story as the reading progresses from start to finish? More so than in the case of the oral dialogue in 22, equating a single sentence with a single occasion would Ke somewhat arbitrary, in fact almost .
certainly wrong in the sense of corresponding to psychological reality m Whose '
1
reality? The ideal reader s? We cannot simply apply the criterion of no further input from without' to define the discrete concrescent process of comprehend-
ing (let alone producing) successive sentencesh since there is more or less 1
continual absorption of now data from without (from the pages of the book) on the part of the reader. 1 suggest rather that we take the information unit' as '
the relevant span here> that stretch of text whose comprehension can be equatec with a unitary procedural instinct ion to update a mental model in the sense of Johnson-Laird (1933). However! unlike the latter, 1 shall not assume that the
result of this on-going processing is the construction of a determinate mental object in any particular modality of representation. The key notion will again be that of the Whiteheadian 'prehension and the substance of the 'mental model corresponding to the reader's comprehension of the story will be an elaborate fbut simplified and abstracted) object idea lion of successive prehensions in the form of a structuied bundle of potential reactions - some in the form of mnemonic symbolsh including phonemic "words1. These can be assumed to be reactivated as data for later reconstructive recall (but only rather approximately and with some creative effort). '
'
1
Let us define information unit1 a little more precisely in terms of the relevant cognitive processes. R>r Halliday {1983:275} the information unit is delined as consisting of an obligatory new element plus an optional given one.
In English at least it is reflected in intonation patterns, But in so far as we are co it cent ra ting on written language here, intonation units - outside of actual direct speech passages - are o Hit tie help, any more than the potential division into Speech acts1 (the whole text being arguably the result of one narrative speech act on the part of the author). Moreover, wc can reckon with deviations from simple linear reading from one determinate unit to the next, both as ro Lird.-; he Lnmn to nnniysL-- a view- it m iiltoadv Ix orc ihe ptevums one is
completely comprehended and as regards the occasional repeated reading of the same item. One must also allow for skimming (and in general guessing ahead),
(Jnd erstand Ing wri ccer. texts
'
1
and ff>r the fact that there are various degrees and types of textual newness So an analysis of a written text into discrete information units' is going to be somewhat of an idealization strongly biassed by its division into grammatical ,
'
units.
As an approximate expedient, I shall nevertheless equate 'information unit' with Chafe s intonation unit which is deiined in terms of piosodic packaging and/or unitary foci of consciousness, and obeys the one new idea per unif constraint. As Chafe points out, id though direct indication of prosody is obviously lacking in a written text, punctuation often gives a clue, and at least '
'
'
in certain types of narrative the writers articulation of successive clauses may '
'
reflect the protagonist s point of view and thus indirectly obey the one new idea per unit constraint (Chafe J994:288l:f.)J I suggest that we treat as an informa'
tion unit a stretch of text containing a (single)
'
1
new
element this 'newness'
being defined in terms of information that must have been incorporated into the accreting 'mental model for relevant inferences to have been available for '
on-line comprehension and for the rest of the surrounding text (that which is '
not essential
1
) to have been felt as uninterestingly compatible with the whole
and thereafter
'
forgettable'11'' 13y 'relevant1 I mean relevant to the current
'
topic 1 Of courseh whether information was actually recognized at the time as
new and (potentially) relevant is another matter, one that is hardly determinate after the event.
But what do 1 mean by 'topic' exactly? For Chafe a 'topic1 can stretch over any length of discourse/text and may be embedded hierarchically within other topics, so sentence and topic arc not coterminous (although the former is properly contained in the latter). They are, moreover, not to be understood as equivalent to the units stored in memory, reflecting on-line decisions about units of closure The topic at any point in a narrative context is the information. that is most active and highlighted for conscious perusal by the reader '
'
'
1
.
[Chafe 1994' \37ft
'
]At should be seen against a background of'semi-activated1,
.
latently relevant material,Mi This is a large subject beset with terminological problems. Let me just suggest that it is perhaps best not to regard this as a linguistic category at all: the relevant 'topicsT at any point in a text is a matter of the organization of the worlds and sub-worlds of the current state of the corresponding mental model It is this that determines the reader s perspective at that moment. As Lambrecht puts ith a high degree of activation is a necessarycondition for topics (in order to achieve interpretability at all) but not a '
'
'
sufficient one - current relevance or interest is also essential fLambrecht
1994; I64ff.). He stresses that the pragmatic relation to the proposition is a
141
I'atCem and Process
sepflriitt factor, in fact his distinction between the designation of topical reference (establishing a topic) and 'role1 (saying something about that topic) exactly parallels the Whitcheadian distinction between the indicative and propositional prehensions ingredient in judgments. Individual langaages h ve 1
'
available specific means of inducing the addressee tn search for relevant topics e.g. by the choice of definite versus indefinite (and other types of) referring expression in English.146 Given the finiteness of grammar and the infinitude of
-
possible mental models it is not surprising that such means on their own are not enough wiijumi pedfiv conu i - ihev iitv not used solelv \or lub purposes but may be recruited into various other tasks. Let us see how all of this applies to a specific passage from a novel, and attempt to answer the question as to how precisely we can determine what is 1
'
to the ideal reader at any point during their reading of it. Right from the start we shall be reminded howheterogenous and vague existing conceptions of new information actually are when written texts are looked at in detail. The kind of 'newness1 that we need to isolate includes material presented in all manner of intentional/illocutionary guises and the kinds of procedures they inilkilc mny j3mj Ik1 very heleroyenou Alierwards we Clio [cUilji lo the mattCE1 of inding a more precise definition of information unit' in VVhiteheadian terms. new
'
'
'
f
142
6
2 Th e co heren ce o f pro ie
.
The following passage is taken from Hann O'Briens masterpiece of black humour "TheThird Policeman11 (O'Brien 1974 73if.). It occurs at a point in the narrative where the narrator has just been introduced to a curious version of
Atomic Theory by Sergeant Pluk of the local police station. He is returning to the police barracks with the narrator after locating a missing bike belonging to a certain Michael Galhaney, who reported it as missing and accompanied them until it was found. Asked bv the narrator for an answer as to how on earth he
found the bicycle so easily the Sergeant has admitted that he himself stole a [id planted the bicycle. On being pressed for further explanation of his odd behaviour he grumbles about the County Council being to blame, then asks the narrator - out of the blue - whether he has heard about the Atomic Theory. He fiifther surprises jiim by giving as an example of the dLingers of this ihe-ory the 'fact that Michael Galhaney was 'half way to being a bicycle himself1 after riding his bicycle round the rocky roads of the parish so much. He adds that things would be worse if he didn t have his bicycle stolen every Monday (so we '
know at least that the theft nf the bicycle may have been Tor the owner's own good ) The Sergeant has just asked the nanator (who still hasn't figured out what the Sei'geant is getting at) U he knows what happens to the atoms in a bar 1
.
'
of iron if you keep hitting it: "
rkal is a ktird ciLLcat Ask j hkcrkilnilh Jur I hi: i ru ll answ-er and he will ItU y{>u ihtil ih-L1 lur will '
dissipaU' ilsclJ'away by JtgrfL-s if you persevere wilh ihc: hjrd wjflops. Sci]nc tiJ" ihf attim* «f the h r will $u inlti tht bammcT and the utho- half in Uj I he tabkor the stone or the parkcuiar item thali i untkmealh (hi; hot torn (if I he bar. IhiU i.s well-known,11 Lijjreed. Ihe m and nei result ot il is Lhatpcoplt who sipt'nd [nosl of their nauti al 1
"
"
'
livLis riding iron bkyek-s ovtT thu rocky roadsteads of ihis parish gtl their p Tsonalities mixed up with diu jiersonalides ol Lhek bieyele as a resuh of ilu1 inlerehangint; of tke alums cii'ea h [jflhem and you would be surprised at itu; number of people in tkese parts who nearly are hjlf people and hjli biLyeies.' 1 lei [j a j asp t>l astonish me nl I hat made a sound in the air like a bud "
puncLunc. '
And you would be flabbLT asted at the number of bicycles that are halfhuman almost h iif-man, ha If-partaking of humanity/ Alifwi'inly tftav i* tip limit, ]c>c remarked.Anything can he mid m ihis
plitccand it will be true and will have to &e h'iwvaL I would not mind heiny working this minute on 2. steamer in ihc: middk ol
"
the sua, 1 said, eoilin ropes and doing ihe hard manual work. I would like lo he far away from here.
i lookud ea re fully around me. Urowh bogs and blaek brigs were arranged neatly on LJtk.sidc of ihf rt>ad with rcetangular brjxca earved oul [jftkcm hi-re and there, eaeh with a tilling til yellow-brown hrown-yelltiw water. Far away near the sky tiny people were stooped at their turf-work, cutting oul preeiselyshLiped sods with their pa ten I spades and building them into a tall memorial twite (he height of a horse and carl. Sounds came from them to che SergeLin( and myself, delivered to our ears without charge hy the west wind, sounds of
laughing and whistling and hits of verses from the old bog-son s. Nearer a house stood attended hy three trees and surrounded by the happiness of a eoterie of fowls, all of chum picking and rooting and disputating loudly in the unrelenting manufaeture of their eggs. The house was quiet in itself and silent
hula canopy oflaay smoke had been erected over the chimney to indieak thnt people were within engaged tin tasks. Ahead til us went tke road, running Swiftly across tke Hat land and pausing sli ktly lo climb slowly up a hill thul was waiting lor it in a place where there was tall grass, grey boulders and rank stunted trees. The whole overhead was occupied hy the .sky! serene, impenetrable, ineffable, and incompnrabk with li fme island of clouds anchored in the '
calm Iwo yurds lo (he right of Mr arvis s outhouse.
144
P-aECem a]id l 'ticcss
At the point where the passage starts, the reader has set up an overall 'mental si pace1 for the imaginary world of the book The Third PolicemanhH - let us call it WJH This includes specific background properties (or rather objectified traces of the feel of the prehension of these properties) such as the fact that it takes "
Mace in (an imaginary) Jrish village. These may be linked by the reader to actual background knowledge he or she has of such things in the 'real' world (this outermost level can be taken as equivalent to the blank surrounds of the
diagram below). Within Wj the reader is now acquainted with the main actors, including the first person narrator TN1), the Sergeant (V), and Michael Galhaney CMC1), and is familiar with certain characteristics, opinions, and
motivations of these actors, including their relationship to each other and to certain events forming the main narrative line of the earlier parts of the book. More specifically, the reader knows at this point in the narrative that a dialogue,
supposedly about a stolen bicycle (let us call [his Topic lh T,) is taking place between S and N - let us call this sub-worlds covering the whole scene in
which the two walk along a country road in conversation, Wr
Within this sub-
1
'
world, S has just been holding forth on the atomics The reader - tike N expects that this must be leading up to some kind of explanation of the sergeant s strange claim that the County Council is responsible for the theft of *
'
MCVs bicycle which has been proffered in reply to N's question a little before as to how he found the bicycle so easily (let ujs call that Q . This expectation
derives from our familiarity with normal conversational practice (the experienced reader will automatically assign the appropriate speech acts to the narrative dialogue within W?) How 'the atomics1 gets into the picture \s .
obscure, and if the reader is expecting their introduction to be leading up to a '
rational explanation of the Sergeant s remark about MC being almost half a bicycle' - as some kind of figure of speech, say - he or she is going to be as surprised as the narrator (though the reader should by now have realized that rational expectations are liable to be flummoxed in W !). i or the 'figure of speech js going to turn out to be meant - in a typical O'Brien ploy - quite literally. The connection of this in turn to the culpability of the County Council is never staled explicitly - the reader is left to make the necessary "-bridging ,
*
inference himself
So within sub-wo rid Wj we know there is a character S talking on the topic of Atomic Theory (and a sub-topic within it, atoms ) -let us call this T2 with the assumed intention of explaining his reason for mentioning a purported '
1
fact (let us call it about MG being * half bicycle which in turn is part of his reply to N js question as to how he found the stolen bicycle so easily {F2 is the '
Und crstand in g wri tLen lexts
purported fact thiit he did find it easily). The passage hegins, then, with the response by N to S s question, Q:h as to whether lie knows about what happens to the atoms of a bar one hits repeatedly fa question quite compatible with ongoing topic T;), Now N's response {within Wj) is an indirect statement of his inability to comply; what is new here (for the readerJ is precisely that speech act and is nothing much to do with piopositional contenth let alone the actual words used. It is their implication (found by trying to feel back to why N would have uttered them in that contest) that updates the 'mental mode] here by registering a negative answer on N s part, So his expression of ignorance can as a whole be regarded as the information unit in question(sparking off a specific update to the model. At the top of the diagram below, this first update of W is represented within W Note the immediate context of Ss queition (the topic: T,) and '
1
1
'
7
.
L
N s continuing desire to uncover S's motive in stealing the bike {'Go' for 'goal1), in their respective solid (activated) boxes. Characters MG and | hover in VV but are not directly involved in W, except through reference to them by S and N respectively. Such Toei of information can be assumed to fade in and out of prominence according to the ongoing narration, but are not lost unless speciiically negated or changed later, further updates to Wj [one per 'actual occasion', as dedned) are indicated, expanded out of the initial situation and down to the bottom of the page> to cover the first seven paragraphs of the text What follows is more interesting, In his following response, which consists of two long sentences, S continues within the context of T: towards the fulfilment of his somewhat inscrutable purpose, but in two discrete stages with slightly different aims and results as regards updating the model, so we are justitied in analysing it in terms of two successive [but tightly bound) occasions, L
1
each bearing a kernel of new information. The first sentence { = information unit) gets N - and the reader - to set up a hypothetical world-withm-a-world (let us call it W ) in which a blacksmith (any token of this type - X,) answers the question for him.1111 What is new for N in Wp here {overlapping with what is new for the reader in Wj) is both the prompting to set up such a hypothetical sub-world and the information attributed to X| within it Together these stages
fill the waiting answer Lsloth still suspended from S s unanswered question. So we can regard i\v: whole of this fit i senionce as constituting a unitat y instructional information unit' aimed at causing N (and the reader) to update his model of the situation by setting up a sub-wo rid in which the required answer is supplied by a hypothetical authoritative answerer, namely the information that an iron bar will gradually dissipate if you keep on hitting it. So far this does
145
i
-
.
Parrem and Process
Wi
Wj
(Wj) Go: Vtht did S itval
bine Hir?
iHirf:i7
0-® ...
«k plain
elaborate
0
r - - '
i 77:
Figurt' 4.
0 ®
comment
Und cmand in g wri rrcn 1 cxts
not aiy anything ibont the p lfticlJl ll, wards chosen to bear this
1 informj-
L
new
tion- The contribution of the individual words varies in importance: some '
1
obviously trigger more significant results thim others. Some of them are given in the iense of corresponding to - or being more indirectly compatible with -
elements already in the updated mod eh and thereibre can be suppressed (by negative prehension) once they are felt to be coherent with the latter. l:or instance, 'the bar1 already mentioned by S is not new, and nor is the information conveyedj more indirectly, by the words 'hard walloping plus 'persevere' which correspond to keep on hitting1 in the preceding text The nuance in meaning is tin important except as a styiistic element affecting the subjective 1
'
form of its prehension, The second occasion fcorresponding to the second sentence) shares the frame already set up but adds new information of its own elaborating that of the preceding one The specific information that needs to he abstracted from the sentence in order to update the model can he summed up as; some of the atonvs will go into the hammer and some into the support beneath (this r
1
'
meshes
1
with the information absorbed in the preceding concrescence and
further satisfies the original question being responded to). The new information is distributed throughout the two sentences and their close inter relate dn ess is graphically reflected by their presentation as a single paragraph, but their function differs. The part of the new information concentrated in the hrst sentence sets the frame for understanding fully the second more detailed one. which specificaily links it to T, and the preceding in Ik of atomics There could have been a pause - or extraneous material - between the two, but they complement each other as individual procedures directed towards the same sub-part of the model, All comprehension involves abstraction according to '
1
.
Whitehead. What is essential is that the information abstiacted enables maximal '
fit' between the on-going text and the accreting model, thus satisfying the
fictional aims of the individual characters and in doing so satisfying at the highest level (above W ) also the reader's ongoing goal of comprehending and enjoying - what he or she is reading. Note that the characters within W j
,
form n social nexus, and that what the individual leader knows of such nexus in 1
general is compatible with NTs understanding of S s reply here as being relevant to his overall goal in the situation. N understands S s reply as (part of) his attempt to answer the question N was unable to answer himself - why else would he have offered this information at this point in the narrative? As to what readers may have 'stored1 in their model after leading these two sentences, the answer must remain indeterminate and individual depending on '
147
i S
Pattern and Proc-ess
how they read it. But an important ingredient for the averagef not too hasty reader, will doubtless he the feeling of expectation of an answer {to a question
posed by a specific character within W,) being eventually fulfilled, There will also be a reinforcement of
c
1
fS s atoniics ) as somehow still relevant for
another broader expectation not yet ful tilled, namely an explanation by S of the relevance of all this to MG being in some sense 4half bicycle These 'feelings1 1
.
and their dynamic interrelationship within the model of Wj may well he supplemented in the reader s long- (or medium-) term memory of the book s '
'
content by (association with) specific symbols or images that were positively activated during the comprehension process (e.g. key' words).149 '
What immediately follows {N s response 'that is well known1) is also 'new' '
as a whole to the reader, although some kind of back-channelling1 comment upon S s exposition on N s part is expected, so the illocutionary slot it fills is not '
'
new in
scn e of ivholly imc pecTc-d. Ono.1
im it is rho L-iinkmi (iho
ascription of a quality to the foregoing exposition) plus the indication of the speech act function in which it is embedded ( l agreed-') that constitutes a single information unit for the reader, However( the comment is hardly newsworthy1, and once comprehended (and enjoyed as slightly ofl-beat1. l
*
'
reflecting N s spineless acceptance of everything and anything) it may well he forgotten as not likely to have provided any useful implications for the further tin folding of the narrative. The continuation of >S's exposition that follows links the matter of what happens to atoms when iron is heaten to the still unclosed matter of the man who is almost a bicycle The reader fas well as N in Wj) knows it h a summingup from the introductory words Tthe gross and the net result of it is that.-, ) All of it is in a sense new to the reader (as well as to N). The question is whether '
'
'
,
'
all of S s words here constitute one or more 1
'
new
'
information unit1. Is a unitarv
element extract able from them? 1 would suggest there are actually two
information units here: the essential new in form a Li on of the first is that human
beings riding bikes on the rocky roads of the parish exchange their atoms and therefore their
1
'
personalities - with the bikes they ride on {like the atoms in the preceding analogy of the hammer and the heaten har). This information
is organized as a single proposition, with a 'new' subject (a certain class of '
1
people) set up in front of a new predicate ascribing a certain process to them (all embedded within the introduction of the 'result' oi his elaborate explana-
tion).150 Notice that this at once explains why MG could be referred to literally as
'
'
almost a bicycle The fact that the explanation is pure nonsense in our 'real' world is quite irrelevant to the inner coherence of W Ol course individual .
C
fnd ertfaud in g wn t Lfn lex is
_
elements in this
'
'
information are 'giver' in the immediately preceding context { the words 'bicycle and 'iron, and the whole matter of"-interchanging lioms ) but what i;; both new and newsworthy here is the integration of these elements - as part of plus the preceding matter ofMG - into an overall rational explanation (though poor N appears still hopelessly confused over what exactly S s topic is here). This cannot be further broken down into new
'
.
1
.
'
,
1
1
coherent information units since it is the information as a whole that both fills
the expectation of an explanation still outstanding and provides the basis for further inferences relevant to attaining a cohesive grasp of the on-going story. Abstracting the essential information is a matter of suppressing the less relevant details (those that do not contribute to the satisfaction of the concrescence -
the maximal integration of its data). The rest ofS's explanation (following'and1) is of subordinate importance, it morelv embellishes the essential information just given, it further strengthens its coherence with the comment on MG being 'almost a bicycle1 by setting it in a wider context of bicycle-riding parishioners, Both the introductory conjunction and the framing clause ('you would be surprised at.,, } which sets up a new hypothetical sub-worlds suggest that there is some kind of break here. The unitaay purpose of this second information unit is the instruction1 to the reader 1
,
'
'
(and N} to integrate the new 'fact1 - namely that the 'given1 phenomenon it refers to (people who are half bicycle) is surprisingly wide-spread in the local
population - to the on-going model. It is nevertheless marked syntactically and visually on the page - as highly coherent with the preceding part of S s '
utterance.
At this point let us dwell a little longer on the internal nature of a single concrescence as defined in terms of
'
information units', namely the last one
described above. We can do this by considering the reader's prehension of the actual sequence of words on their way towards their satisfaction of the concrescence in question (i.e. the object iiication of the preh ended in formation). This takes the form of a determinate action of updating the on-going model of the story in a certain way, The reader s continuing aim of understanding (anc. enjoying) successive chunks of the story, meshing with the actual w ords as analysed through the sensory channels and association pathways concerned, will abstract - by negative prehension - only the information that is congruent with that aim (the objective data ) This process of abstraction must involve a variety of specific prehensions, both physical (as in the initial analysis of the written word forms) and conceptual {in comprehending the syntactic pattern'
'
1
.
ing and the semantic interrelationship of the words). These are probably only
14?
partially ordered sequentially, with complex self-monitoring and weightings of
d Lor natives [and possible interruptions or rest a its) en jrn f tothe'deciiion eo respond to the abstracted in formation in a certain way [updating the model). Amongst the ingredient prehensions must be a hybrid one of the meaning h hmd ijic [LiiiUL\hj.u'v pjLVLdiEi 1.01:1 cxi \'[ ac. oif
-L
the on-going contest within which the present information unit needs to hod attachment (however tenuous).151 At the same time feedback' of this sort from the on-going model will limit the inleieiices generated in the present concres'
cence to those that have a prehendible relevance for the inherited subjective aim
of the reader (comprehension of the story). The end point of the concrescence ia, a;; stated above, the point where the
propositional link integrated within the model by the prehension of the preceding information unit is reinforced by the content of the present one [no maximal integration will be expenenced). The relevance of specific words such as you would he surprised at the number of1 is exhausted by the (conceptual) prehension of the assignment of the qualitative predicate surprisingly many to the [conceptual prehension of) the class of'people who [like MG) ride around '
'
h
the parish a lot on bicycles and therefore ate part bicycle themselves
1
1
.
In
so
far as this is the case, such words need not be stored at all Possibly some of the
keywords reflected directly in the relevant abstracted proposition are already stored as mnemonics at the appropriate ite on the model [as well as in '
'
1
memory). Another ingredient will be the limiting (by negative prehensions) of the inferences gen era table from this new information to those semantic
that are expected - or at least possible, given the known motivations and goals of the speaker of the words (which clarify why he may have uttered them, for instance as part of the explanation he still owes N from the preceding context). In other words, only what is relevant to the updating of the model is abstracted
through an interplay of contest (the modelJ, general espectations about narrative tests and the nature of dialogue, and the new inputAs to how the model itself is updated, I can only reiterate what was
suggested above concerning the nature of mental models, namely that the important thing is how it Teels1 to the reader, i.e. as a definite esperiential space or region [much as one feels the space that the physical book or any other object occupies) with an internal structure mueh like those that physical things one is familiar with have. Its neural location1 may well be distributed and is in any case not particularly relevant. This space (W ) may even be '
L
labelled' with the title of the book and the name of the author and other
Understanding wricLen itxts
mnemonic tags (phonological symbols} attached to sub-parts within it These hierarchically organized and inter-related sub-parts constitute the internal structure of the modelj and include (minimally) individual foci corresponding to the major characters in the story. It has an inherent temporal aspect to it such that the linear plot-line of the narrative can be generated by Vanning it through from starting situation to conclusion. The individual relationships between sub-pa its, their goalsn qualities and actions could be stored - in so far as these are felt to be essential to the model s coherence - either as symbolic tokens of the eternal objects/concepts concerned (or, rather the recurrent neural patterns that happen to be so experienced by tbeir subject), or as the objectiheation of the prehensions experienced en route in the form of a cumulation of their successive subjective forma (i,e- their Teel1 to the reader). At all events they would be interconnected by directly preh ended links of causal eficacy (the same glue1 that binds an individuaFs sense of personal duration - and the duration of other nexus - through series of occasions), such that the potential direction of unfolding in time between successive stages of the model is stored along with it. Updating1 such a model would be a matter of integrating the new information abstracted by the decision1, matching the structured feel of the former to '
'
'
'
'
'
'
the feel of the latter. This could involve not only adding new propositions or qua lilies? or motivations to sub-parts of the modei for relations between more than one of them), but also the integration of secondary implications generated in the earlier (comprehending) stages of the concrescence and recognized as relevant. Some of the resulting update may involve annulling or removing
elements of the model as well as adding to it or reinforcing existing links. AL these possibilities should bethought of in terms of the corresponding 'objectified feelings1 (i.e. potentials for reviving the original on-line experience, in however a watered-down and altered guise). These correspond to the prehension of propositions and qualities, etc., in so far as they are to be stored on the *
'
model, rather than to abstract packets of information as such (e.g.
'
propos-
itions1 in some form of Mentalese)-
Having reached this point, then, the reader has enough information to nuke Lho connection between S s claim that the County Council is to blame for the theft oJ the bicycle [the ultimate 'unexplained question within suspended TL concerning the stolen bike) and the on-going talk of atomic theory, namely that the council must be responsible for the bumpy state of the roads of the parish. This is in turn the reason why so many of M(Ts atoms have been exchanged with aloms of his bike and therefore by stealing his hike the Sergeant '
'
151
must have been doing him a service by slowing down the process (as already
hinted at before the start of the passage). The 'di resiion' about atoms suddenly falls into place as a causa] link between S'a two 'odd1 statements and the known fact that he stole MG i bicycle him self- once it is seen, that is, that the 'danger1
of atomic theory claimed by S {resulting in people gradually turning into bicycles) lias been transferred by him from the reality the theory describes to the liiLViy ibdL i Ufw-L-wr. ihc lxmCl-- do s ]iot iK essaril> ni kc iJlls J uIia-
bridging inference at this point. There is no indication as to whether N in W, made it or not (he is so confused it is unlikclyK although as we shall see in a likmucjU jk1 uudcLsUnH; llic paj Uni aHiclL io]! - Anna how y \pk Jike MCS t.lui
have become 'almost half bicycle1) well enough to be amazed at it Hut let us say the leader did make the inference at this point: how did he or she do so? Consider the way the premises and conclusion!; are logically linked. Premises a
,
b
.
S stole MG bike himself, but
(S claims) the County Council is to blame, {S claims j MG is 'almost hall bicycle1, and "
c
.
d
e
.
.
Tiding bicycles around the rocky roads of the parish leads to an exchange of atoms between bicycle and rider and there are many people in the parish who are half man, half bike.
Condiisiotis
f
MG is the way lie is because he rides his bike around the parish a lot, and
gL
many people of the parish arc part bicycle because they ride around over bumpy roads all the time like MG, and S must have stolen MG hike in order to retard this undesirable process, and finally the instance responsible for the poor state of the parish roads - he. the County Council - is ultimately to blame,
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h
k
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Now consider the way in which the relevant questions and (expected) answers are organized in the dialogue up to this point (as reflected on the model): N s [and the reader s) attempt to find out the reason for (a) is unanswered until (h)
is reached, whereas his attempt to fathom what (c) really means is satisfied by ff). The latter is encapsulated within the former, which cannot be solved ttntil (f) is reached. The narrative sequence thus derives {at least in part) the order of
logical conclusions from premises, Notice that it is not necessary for the reason for fh) to be elucidated at all for conclusions fg) and fh) to be reached. But it is
Und crstand in g wri tLen texts
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the latter that answers N s -
original question put to S> Q, ( Why did he do it?1)
let us call tliis conclusion (now assumed reached by Nr) Pj, Conclusion fi) is
a bonus spin-off tbi a little more cognitive work, tying up the1 loose end that (b) reprcsoiUs {and which was slipped in very casually). Recall that the purpose of any concrescence is to obtain maximal integiation of the input data consistent with satisfying the in ilia! aim. In so far as the irritating 'loose end' was registered and passed on, it would still be there after all other elements of the data of the final concrescence had been integrated into the objectified model. If (i) is indeed reached at this point by the reader I would
suggest that a separate occasion fwith its own concrescence) is involved one 1
that takes as its data the loose end
plus the updated model at this point, It is not necessary for the comprehension of the continuing story (apart from the ironing out of the 'glitch1 itself). It can he reached at some later time, and is not a direct consequence of reaching (h) - although the lattei; by solving the major
outstanding tens ion s> may well spark of the concrescence towards f i), since (b) is thereby revealed as (still) left unintegratec, [he curlier conchmui c;ui W ditvcih iiiu r.ued tun nf ihc premises and the present on-going case provided by the narrative. Thus (f) is the result of integrating (d) with the new information provided by the portion of the text '
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just read that includes (c), updating the model so as toJeave only those interences that are in harmony with this integration and relevant to on-going intentions, but the leap between (g) and (i) involves an 'intuitive judgment' which, via conceptual reversion hlls in or 'bridges1 the missing link between (b) and S's motivation in uttering it {note that searching for answers to such why questions is a continuing attitude on the part of the attentive reader). In other words, it retrieves a potential proposition (from relevant eternal objects) that meshes with the on-going model but is not directly derived from the concrete data already integrated into the model itself. It matches a pure potentiality to one or more (linked) propositions - here (b) plus (gj as joint premises 1
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(the latter, note, is not a conclusion of the former, nor vice versti), that ish it
abstracts an imaginative proposition fa further conceptual pattern) from conceptual patterns already extracted from the actual situation. The judgment involved is of the 'suspended' variety since Ltruth' in the reader's actual world is irrelevant (and inhibited for the duration). We could perhaps nevertheless talk of relative truth - logical consistency of propositions within the model of W j Here it involves the reader's cumulative knowledge of the (fictional) logical subjects concerned and their inferred {or assumed) potential for action. '
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i;4
Pattcm iiitd l 'occss
Now that 1 have illustrated the basic kinds af pi-ocesses involved in compre-
hending the selected passage, 1 shall return to my earlier topic of justifying breaking it down into successive occasions (for the reader). The next two sentences present no difficulty The description of NTs reaction to S s concluded explanation clearly represents a single information unit', which attributes the '
reaction of surprise to N within Wr And S1s following statement is merely an elaboration or reformulation of his preceding utterance (focussing on the bikes rather than the people}, and represents again a single information unit. Its main
justitication appears to be the opportunity it allows the author tor adding a pun 1
on hajf ind pan '
1
in Mil- fonn ul piinir.anicau word 'half-paftaldng1, The remark that follows on the part of Joe (N's soul) is interesting as regards the wo rids-within-wo rids structure ot O Brien's narrative universe, but let us restrict ourselves to considering whether it represents a unitary informa.
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tion unit for the reader.1 &3 Since the fact that Joe uttered it is an essential new
part of the whole remark (broken into two sentences), it would be natural to
regard it as a single unit - something like Joe said X.\ where 'X' is his com'
ment on the present situation being experienced by N. ] prefci; howcvei; to analyze it as two (corresponding to the two sentences) since the function of the first is different from the second. It sets up the sub-world of NTs dialogue with
joe (let us call it W|) and provides some content for it> whereas the seconc. builds on this and introduces information that is partially independent of the content of the first, loe s mention of no apparent limit could be taken a referring to S s exaggerated repetition (from surprised to 'flabbergasted1), but is just as likely to refer in general to the lack of limit to 'what can happen1 in W The second sentence is harmonioLts with this reading - it shares as 'given1 the '
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reference to W overt in the second sentence but 'understood' in the first {'in Jh 1
this place ) All that needs to be 'stored1 of its contents by the reader - if anything - is a potential (objectified) prehension of the attribution of a wonderland quality to (this he or she will no doubt already have made!) plus the association of this sentiment to Joe1 within the model. Exactly the same reasoning can be applied to the following paragraph consisting of two sentences that represent NTs inner reply to Joe s remark (T would not mind... ) The first sentence (and information unit) sets up a frame with the words T said reminding us that he is engaged in dialogue with loe as if he were an independent, external being, and gives the frame some content. It meshes with Joe's preceding remark by setting up in contrast to lthis place1 .
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some other place/situation (working on a steamer) that he would quite like to be in, but it requires a further inference to establish the exact nature oMts
EJnd crstand in g wri rtcn icxts
relevance. The second Ls in Fact the esiential new information that can be
interred from the tirst sentence! namely that N would rather be in some other place. Depending 011 whether the reader makes the inference unaided during the first occasion or not. the consequences for his update of the model after the
second will difter (hlling the awaiting
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response1 slot with N s intended mean-
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ing> or just confirming that meaning), In the long descriptive passage that follows we have no speech act chaining at all, no dialogue, to help break up information units. We do, however, have '
the author s
punctuation and the specific linking of clauses as either coordinate
or subordinate. The function of such signals arc precisely to manipulate information units {i.e. help the reader Lu understand the text). A written sentence does not automatically correspond to one such unit, but this is very often the case (as discussed in 6,1 above)- Again the criterion of the unitary purpose each unit serves in terms of updating the model can he applied. Thus it can be claimed that the paragraph's eight sentences correspond to exactly
eight - or perhaps nine - information units. They are marked off as a unitary paragraph, as a higher unit of coherence that describes a unitary situation [sharing physical setting and time reference, expressed in the past tense) and
stands in contrast to the preceding commented dialogue, it is to be added to the model as a wholen charactemingthe highlighted part ofWj at that point One can abstract the essential information conveyed from each successive unit thus: the first sentence describes an action on NTs part (a new predicate is
applied to a given subject), which sets up an expectation in the reader of seeing through N s eyes some details of the surroundings. The second sentence fills in some of this detail (certain kinds of hogs). The third sentence introduces some
people in the distance and describes impressionistically what they appear to be doing. The fourth describes the sounds emanating from the now given people. The fifth {beginning 'nearer, a house...1) introduces a house surrounded by trees and chickens. The next sentence adds that the house {now given) was
silent but that people were within it, as signalled by the smoke from the chimney. This is a point where an analysis into two successive information units within one sentence is possible. The conjunction but1 clearly links two con'
trasting hut closely linked units of information, and though the first could in
theory stand alone the second only makes sense by following close upon it.-114 However, notice the words 'in itself - this phrase within the first half forestalls the following contrasting half, so it would alter ali have been odd not to have it followed by qualifying information of the kind the latter provides. The cohesion here is particularly strong and the interlocking new information is distributed
155
Piatteni iind IVokss
across both halvesh so one would be justified in analysing it as a single unit after jll: thi; IleM hLijfj [luieEUirelv indfjvndent of the second.
The nojet sentence of the paragraph dearly introdticei a unilied in formal ion unit concerning die road S and N are walking along, and the last one, although
rather longH likewise provides a single unit of internally-stmctiiTed new information to the mod eh namely a description of the sky with clouds floating in it, This summary has of course abstracted from many of the most interesting and enjoyable stylistic details provided by the words, but this is the point of abstraction. What doesn t immediately affect the updating of the model can be savoured on line hut may perish imstored. That is not to say that some readers will or can not store such detail - I am merely abstracting the mimmal information that needs to be kept track of for understanding the reference '
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siluaiion and the broad causal flow of the narrative.
At the point where the text cuts off the model will have been updated in
such a way that the three purported tacts> F]H FT and t\ have become reconciled; '
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the first two, respectively about Michael Gilhaney s being half bicycle1, and the Sergeant's having found the latter's missing bike easily have been integrated into W thanks to i , namely the explanation that the Sergeant stole the hike himself in order to retard MCTs rapid descent into bicycle hood. The dialogue about atomic theory (T2) - and indeed the whole of Wk (the world of the hypothetical blacksmith) - can he forgotten, its purpose as regards the forwarding of the plot having been exhausted {though the reader is likely to remember it anyway for its delightful zaniness[). It has been satisfactorily reconciled with Tp the original topic about the stolen bike. Ns question about how the bike was found so easilyH has now been answered, and Q , S s ,
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question about N s awareness of what happens to the atoms of a beaten bar (answered by himself), has long been absorbed into the elaborate answer of Qr so it is no longer relevant and likewise can readily be forgotten.
We are now ready to return to my earlier question as to how to define an information unit on the basis of unitary1 new content. Let us take the final
sentence in the large descriptive paragraph (The whole overhead../). What is '
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new in this sentence is the series of predicates ascribed to this given part of the model (the sky), and the introduction of a new sub-part of it, namely a group of clouds, but are these predicates { serene ineffable1, etc.) and the introduction of the clouds all part of a unitary "new* element, or are there in fact several? '
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What is 'new' seems to be distributed in a rather complex way throughout the sentence ll seems to me that much of the problem in dividing such a sentence up into a new part and \\ given part' (as one is tempted to do within the '
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Und erstand in g wri rrcn (cxts
[Viluc S i K)! lUkI ] iallidayan fLUKiionLd Lippr id ;1 is luollIcJ 1>y oskiny whcthei1 the new in format ion - however distributed - corresponds to a unitary Whiteheadian decision' to update the accreting 'mental model'' in a determinate manner. The answer to my question in relation to this particular sentence, for example, miiit he ycst for this is a single information unit in so far as it highlights a particular part of the model (the sky in the scene being described) and initiates a single (though complex) procedure to be carried out upon it, namely the addition of a certain bundle of descriptive features.115 The syntax of the sentence as a whole helps underline the procedural integrity of the unit. Simple sentences or clauses - parallel roughly to propositions - may be well suited to descriptions ot settings and events precisely because they mirror percepts and actions iconically. The extension of descriptive narrative in the hands of skilled writers to encompass structures far more complex than simple '
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senleEices is another matter.
There is still one loose end: what of sentences whose content is entirely given [albeit with elements giver so far back that reactivation may be necessary)? Do these not break the one new item per unit constraint and, in procedural terms, suggest concrescences where nothing is changed on the ongoing model? R-om the Whiteheadian perspective argued for above, the '
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minimal procedure initiated by a single occasion in the reading of text must be '
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the simple registering of a conform a I mesh between a text sentence and the on-going model - also this is a determinate procedure requiring specific kinds of prehensions, although it does not result in any change on the model.
6
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& Ref ei eutlai co h esion and figurative la n g uage
We can further use the descriptive paragraph beginning 'I looked carefully "
around me
in the O brien passage to grasp the nature of some of our on-line prehensions of the finer details of texts a little better. Let us concentrate on referential coherence and the comprehension of figurative language. Hrst, a general point, however: notice how the narrator s previous words to himself l would like to be far away from here., , are echoed in the third sentence of the paragraph: the Tar away he is drawn towards is merely the enclosing periphery of the here-and-now world (W ) that he wishes to escape. Both irony and crossworld textual cohesion - heightening our own awareness of the higher' worlds in which W is embedded - is served by this device. j '
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Pattern And Pratesa
In the second Aentenc
obsei ve the definite article in 'the road1: the reader
is being instructed to find the most prominent token of the concept 'road1 within W;. As is usiutl with sudi singular definite referring phrases, there is only one obvious candidate, here the road the protagonists are walking on. The indefinite referring expression further into the same sentence ('rectangular boxes.. /) requires more work - inference of the pragmatic kind - to underitand. To grasp that the reference is to the holes where blocks of peat have 1
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been removed requires integration of the preceding setting (the surrounding bogs) with the entire descriptive expression. The reader must find a match with his/her own knowledge of bogs and the activities likely to be associated with
them in Ireland. Once this amusing little exercise is carried out (and its recognition integrated into the ongoing concrescence) it can be assumed to be of no great importance any longer and dropped. Note that the distribiuive expression each finds its natural interpretation here as referring to the boxes individually '
1
[and not to the bogs) by a prehension of, on the one band, its nearest possible antecedent phrase (a process associated with such a word) and, on the other, of the greatei likelihood ol unken bo\-Jiapes having a TlIIljuV gathered liquid '
than an entire expanse of bog. This represents a more or less simultaneous integration of grammatical form and semantic interpretation with background information (something a Whiteheadian concrescence can easily handle). In fact, in the next sentence the sods removed from these holes are actuallymentioned (in an indefinite NP, since they are themselves new items here) and the exact complementary fit between the two can be preh ended by the reader in his or her continual attempt to mesh new data with the old. This allows th
sensible strategy of minimal effort to apply to updating the model. Once mentioned, the sods can be referred to a little further into the sentence by '
anaphoric pronoun them' - they are the nearest candidate antecedent (a plural NP) of compatible semantic content, given the context [people building
them up into piles)-i5& It could not thus refer to 'spades', for example> the i in mediately preceding NrR although the syntax alone does not preclude such a reading. This reading would not mesh smoothly with what the reader knows
for can imagine) of the activity of sod-cutting. The referent of 'them1 in the following sentence ('sounds came from thein... } is still more ambiguous syntactically. The correct assignment of them to the antecedent, 'the people' (now several phrases back), must be achieved by the reader (with minimal effort ) by purely semantic compatibility: only people, amongst the referents of the recently named referring expressions, could produce sounds. This is confirmed a moment later when the sounds 1
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become specified as hughtej- and song. We might say that the prehension of them1 in this sentence results in an initial, strongly Favoured or weighted hypothesis as to the referent, one thut could have been cancelled before the end '
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of the concrescence but was in fad confirmed rather. In the case of all of them
in the next sentence the antecedent could again syntactically have included both the three trees1 and the '
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coterie ot fowls* {as well as either of these finite
collectives), but the first possibility is immediately squashed by the words picking and rooting f...), which are only semantically compatible with the second NR Ascertaining this involves matching the concepts of picking and '
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rootingn etc,n against those for trees and chickens [the prototype of fowls') respectively; only the latter would produce a positive prehension of meshing. Once a deli] nte 4 ho use ha*; been set up in the model as the main part of the objectifi cation of this last sentence {introduced as new by an indefinite NP}, the sub-topic the chimney can be introduced in the following one by a definite NPh since the prototypical house (at least in the Irish countryside) has at least '
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one {and usually just one) chimneyJ
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Note also that the adverb 'within1 in the '
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same sentence can only be understood as within the (particular) house - the comprehending reader will continue to treat this sub-part of the ongoing model set up at the beginning of the sentence { the house ) as in some sense the 'topic' of the sentence. Also the whole overhead and lthe sky5 in the iinal sentence refer to sub-topics but this time not of'house' but of the still wider setting being described by the narrator, in other words the scene he sees when 'looking carefully round {cf. the first sentence of the paragraph). We expect this outdoor scene to include the sky above fin fact it was named already, not as independent topic but in a locative phrase, in the third sentence). What the use of the definite NPs does here is to minimize processing effort for the reader. He/she need do nothing besides registering the match between these phrases and the part of the model being concentrated on (unlike the case with indefinite phrases, which require an updating of the model). Having seen some of the means of marking textual cohesion at play here in terms of prehensions of matches (at both 'global and more local levels}, let us now look at a few examples of figurative language in the same paragraph. Whereas the former tends to compact and minimize the information expressed by the words of the text, the latter expands the readers experience beyond the literal meaning of the words. Much of the enjoyment of the book is gleaned at this level. As with the sudden incongruities and colourful, off-beat expressions of the dialogue passages, it is the contrast with expectations [kept within the limits of overall cohesiveness) that is the major source of this enjoyment.'1 1
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Thus, tho phrase lnear the sky1 hi the third sentence is perfectly understandable in the context (that of describing the position of some distant people in the landscape), bnt hardly involves the prototypical use. of the word 'near'. 'I'he slight registering of clash initiated by prehending this phrase whilst trying to make it mesh with the ongoing model will not necessarily lead to anything else beside the aesthetic experience itself since a no n-pro to typical extension of the basic meaning of'near1 to the current situation {e.g. as if applying it to physical distance on a flat picture rather than to a real scene) allows a 'good enough1 lit for purposes of overall comprehension. In the same sentence, the mention of the tall memoriar into which the extracted sods were being piled is again unexpected, the humour residing in the contrast between the solemn grandeur associated with the word monument and the down-to-earthiness of a pile of sods. Taking it for granted that the author is not speaking pure nonsense»the reader, registering the clash here, nevertheless tries to make it mesh with the model and has no diIficully equating the end-product of piling up sods with '
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the tall memorial '
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they are being built up into. The 'non-fitting"' residue or '
overlap (the grandness associated with memoriar and the historical person or occasion a memorial usually aims at commemorating) is itself now high lighted for further potential prehensions - specifically prehensions of the non-fit ting parts of the concept memorial These are contrasted to the preceding prehension of the relevant part of the model at that pomt> i.e. the in congruence of the phrase is entertained by the reader through an 'intellectual prehension1. In the following sentence we read that the sounds of the people working are delivered to our ears1 (that is N's and S s) 'without charge by the west wind1. 1
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What is humorous here is not so much the incongruous use of an expression '
('deliver to one s ears
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is a perfectly conventional - if poetic - expression for what the wind is doing here) as the association of the tonvcntional metaphor of delivery1 with an unconventional addition, namely the phrase 'without charge! '
This is compatible with the basic, non-metaphorical sense of'deliver* (e.g. a letter) but not with the metaphorical one, What this sparks off in the mind of (at least some) leaders is the ludicrous image of the wind as postman. The grasping of metaphorical expressions can (as suggested in 4d) be analysed in
terms of an initial prehension of the literal meaning of the expression followed by a linked prehension of the metaphorical reading sparked off by the recognition of a mismatch with context on the part of the first oneN i.e. as a reflex of the general strategy of trying to make sense of texts. If the metaphor is completely conventionalized, the first stage can be circumvented (context immediately meshing with the figurative sensed but this is not so if the figurative usage is
(Jrtd erstand ing wri tten (fxts
more ad hoc. In the present case, it would ieem that the reader could go straight to the tigtirative meaning but then a mismatch due to without charge forces a return to a prehension ot the literal meaning otherwise skipped oven The resulting difference1, i.e. the presence of a 'deliverer1 {more specifically a postman, associated with the literal sense of the verb deliver') overlaid on the corresponding agent in the figurative frame (here the windK can then itself be piehendcd (via conceptual reversion). It will be clad in a concomitiint subjec'
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tive form, namely one of'amusement 59 Similar analyses can be applied to the use of 'attended by (three trees), 'a coterie [of towls) manufactured (their eggs) and '(smoke) erected over (the chimney) in the following two sentences - perhaps my readers would like to try this for themselves, A more extended example of this kind of stylistic trick is found in the sentence beginning 'ahead of us went the road, ,.\ This begins again with a conventional metaphor ( the road went... ) but by degrees this basic metaphor is developed with more and more sptciticity, through 'running1 to 'pausing until we have been led beyond the bounds of convention - at which point (the road seeming fully animated) we further read of it climbing up an equally animated hill that is 'waiting tor it\ Animate behaviour predicated of inanimate things is of course a standard ruse of tongue-in-cheek comic writers as well as poets - we can still make sense of such figurative passages by seeing the sustained parallelism (similarity of abstract form) between the literal and the figurative readings. Ultimately the literal one must he suppressed - but the writer lets us suspend it until halfway through the sentence by mischievously starting with a conventional figurative senseh and leading us up the garden path until we are forced to make the missing literal prehension, as described 4
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above in the
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postman - wind
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case. That is, he forces us to become aware of the
discrepancy-and enjoy it. Consciousness is in fact an essential ingredient here. Another such extended parallelism of a literal and a figurative reading is found in the final sentence, where an 'island of clouds1 is seen anchored in the 1
calm
Now islands being anchored in the sea is a rather conventionalized image, liable to go by unnoticed (although calling a tight group of clouds 'an island' is somewhat less so), but it is still the sort of thing one expects in 'poetic' descriptions (note that it requires the matching of sky to sea> as well as of cloud .
to island). The last part of the sentenceh however, extends the metaphor well beyond the bounds of convention, indicating not only that the cloud/Island is '
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anchored somewhere (like a boat - a cloud being figuratively anchored is in itself a fairly conventional image), but that the 'somewhere1 is specifically located Ltwo yards to the right of Mr Jarvis' outhouse1. Up to that point we may
161
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Pattern and Process
have been ohkis Uifd by the welter of convejitional poetic imagery', but now the CLirpei is pulled .uviiy by tniisMvc kithos: why exactly (and so little lis! uvo yards? Why specifically to the right of Mr farvis s outhouse? And who the hell is Mr Jarvis anyway?? Gricean maxims are scattered to the winds. The dash '
between the poetic/figurative mearning dwelt upon and the sudden introduction of con crete elements from the immediate surroundings forces a prehension of the literal down-to-earth reading which we experience as sheer lunacy. Not random lunacy - but lunacy that can be made to ht perfectly well with the ongoing model! The two types of process we have looked at reflect the skilful balancing of cent]1]petal coherence and centrifugal expansion of imagination on the part of the author. Between the two! the reader is able to construct a simplified mental model of the book s worlds-with in-worlds and keep track of the plot unwinding within themj at the same time as being able to enjoy ephemeral flights beyond j ground-hugging literal adherence to the succession of events described. '
6.4
Th e poet ry of incoheren ce
Up to now 1 have taken it for granted that the regular updating of 'mental models of some sort is central to the comprehension of written texts. When we '
move from prose to poetry it becomes clear that this can no longer be upheld. The process of reading a poem cannot build up and modify a determinate model step by step in the way that can be envisaged for reading a novel. Not only is the result of different readers reading of a poem liable to be extremely subjective and variable, the poet s own intention is generally not fully determi'
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nate as regards its meaning The concept of a chain of discrete units of comprehension, actual occasions corresponding to discrete Information units' becomes attenuated in the extreme - and virtually impossible to put on any objective footing. Does this negate the applicability of the notion actual occasion to the comprehension (let alone the pro due lion) of poetry? 1 believe .
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not- in fact one needs to envisage a highly attenuated and fleeting kind of actual occasion also when discussing other language phenomena, less artificial and literary than poetry, namely those adhering to internal thought. Although '
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neither poetry nor Jleeting chains of thought have much to do with accreting inentiil modol.-i of a LiotermmiUe. aiherenl kind, th y both havi? m drown lode. describable in terms of process types if not analysable in detail - our particular associations to the words of a poem may vary enormously even if we share the
EJnd errand in g wri tt cn 1 cxts
%sroids iind the core concepts they encapsulate, so they cannot be said to constitute a mental model which will be extended or altered in a determinate
way during the reading process. 1 shall illustrate this briefly using the first fifteen lines of the first 'movement' of TS, Bliot's "Burnt Norton11, the first of his hour
Quartets (Eliot 195S).I6C> Time present and time pusl '
Ar-L1 l>olh pcrhtip;; prustrnL in limt.' I LLUirc:, And tiirn: JuIll] c tonlLiinird in UinL' pLi l. [f jll iime is elemnlly proenl AH lime is unredeemable.
WIkiI inighL hiiVL" bi n \s an ab trjctitni kcmjinin li pLTpunn] pi> !iibiLUy Only in li world oftipeculation.
Whit might have buen and whai has been PriinL lt> one i:ndh whi-Lh ]s jbvayi present. Footfalls etho in iht memory Down the passLi c whith we did nol lake Tuwards the door we never opened
Into ihc niae-garden. My wurds eeho Thus, in ytiur mind.
This is not the place for a detailed analysis of the structure and content of hliot's masterpieee - others have attempted that with greater or lesser success. All that I am comjerned with here is the question of what is 'determinate' from the experiencing reader s viewpoint and what isn t Obviously the pattern of words is itself completely determinate (the phonological structure of stressed and unstressed syllables in carefully balanced graphic lines), although the structure is stylistically very flexible and close in fact to certain registers of the spoken '
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language. The 'meaning however, consists in large part of a host of associations and resonances rather than representing a coherent propositionally structured whole: there is no single (for instance allegorical) meaning. The individual
sentences do have their own partially determinate meanings (limited by a certain deliberate referential vagueness) and one can follow the development of '
certain rational '
chains of thought, but much of the overall meaning can only be grasped in the context of the entire poem. This is particularly so as regards
the variation and development of certain recurring images and ideas.1(11 One can point out certain overriding themes relating to general human experience, e.g. the nature of memory and conscioitsncss, and one senses the contours of a particular place
163
1*4
Pattern and Pi'ocess
and of a conciete mament experienced there, pei hapi a glimpie of forgotten
childhood. But whet he v the memory belongs to the house, to the pt>etN or to someone else, is indetermiiiate and not particularly crudnl to know. There is no real coherence of a broad, semantic kind (distinct from the purely musicaU formal one), only the juxtaposition of abstract propositions and particulari that '
harmonize with them but do not stand in a referring or even a clearly exempiifying relationship to them. Definite noun phrases and pronouns may be ambiguous as to reference - they set us looking in vain for referents The same Ls true of the 'topics' which certain definite lsub-topic1 terms presuppose Tthe he rose-garden1, etc.). It is a matter of radical 'metonymy1 of ideas passage and images that illuminate each other but do not stand in a determinate relationship (that isn before the poet brought them together in this poem). In so far as the meaning and resonance of individual details depends on the whole context of the poeinN the meaning lies in the reading of the words, and is not abstractable from them 4for storage The search for isolatable information 1
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is pointless: every reader brings his or her own different experiences and
sensibilities to bear in reading it. The only
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of the poem which could be
memorized is precisely the surface words defining it; you cannot just drop (most of) the words, as for prose, and still be left with a coherent memory as opposed to a resonant ha e of associations. Take an individuaJ word from the poem, such as 'unredeemable1 in the fifth
line, Its 'meaning' in this particular context is surely quite unique; it consists not in just one or more of the meanings to be found in a dictionary {though some of them are certainly more relevant than others), but in li certain negative
pruning of the total possible array of meanings and associations of the wore afforded by the specific context, most immediately the subject time of which 1
f
it is predicated. The particular juxtaposition here also adds a quite new nuance to the senses of the word, one which may remain limited to this poem, but
which could in theory find its way into general usage, by becoming accepted as (yet another) metaphorical extension of it. The most common sense of the word unredeemable is probably that referring to human beings so sinful as to be beyond any hope of divine forgiveness. That is certainly inappropriate literally in con function writh the abstract notion 'time' One needs to unravel the stem redeem from its derivational elaboration - than add it on again - to find a more appropriate reading, namely that of'redeeming1 a pawned item. Why is that more appropriate? Because it is conformal with the overall context of this meditation upon the nature of time: it provides an image1 of a process that by definition must extend in time - depositing an item in a pawn shop, 1
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LTnd erstand in wri rten texts
receiving money for it and a receipt which one later will need in order to redeem the item. The poet has just stated that all time may be eternally pre sent h ergo it cannot be metaphorically deposited {in the past) nor redeemed (in the future). And yet the first freligiously tinged) meaning is not entirely '
1
irrelevant - in fact the 'resonance' it leaves will later be picked up and harmo'
nized with the poet s continuing metaphysical musings, Other potential meanings and associations {including the registering of something odd about the usage here} will be spontaneously and largely unconsciously 'graded by the sensitive reader as to its relevance, and the combination may well have a slightly different'flavour1 for each individual reader Context is everything. One could say that words-in-context have a life of their own - in Whiteheadian terms they arc like living nexus in so far as they form part of an ordered system of relationships embedded within some highe 1-order society (the reader with his or her whole background); they are self-reproducing and adjust according to circumstances, and novelty may certainly enter through their deployment. However, this is of course also pure metaphor: words lack the crucial quality of being mutually coordinated in such a way that their individual purposes serve a common end {recall what was said about living JiexOs under 1.2.2). Words do not have purposes but uses (and associations); their users have purposes, and it is their users1 experience which provides their meaning. Now if one ignores for a moment the elaborate verbal surface of the poem, there is much here that is reminiscent of private inner thought or revery - the content in both cases is vague but nevertheless of a goal-aimed, teleological l
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nature. Thought can be characterized as consisting of chained sequences of polyphonic concrescences that partially resolve them selves only to be absorbed as ata1 in further processes as ideas and sensations (not necessarily clad in '
words) compete under the partially guiding purview ot shirting higher-leve.. '
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topics (compare the 'themes1 of a poem), hver seeking for 'meaning1 in the flow of experience, the mind/brain applies a kind of natural Hjehuslevian m etas emio logy1 on its own con ten ts whether it be randomly generatec imagery or the motivation behind its own or someone clse s utterances; as Peirce would put it, anything experienceahle contains the potency of signalling something other than itself. A completed and objectified concrescence is only a momentary eddy in the constant flaw of thought. The principle of defining a single actual occasion as oiie con ere scent process with no new data entering from without and with a single exhaustive output' can hardly be applied to such a stream of thought any more than it can to the reading of poetry. The reason why this should be so is important to grasp in order to see how the daily 1
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166
Pattern and IVocess
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experiences we eall thoughts woi k. It is because all
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nevertheless fit into the Whiteheiidiun frame-
ideas and images drawn into the stream of thought
new
are internal, all part of the same chained sequence of prehensions under shifting, competing goals So in a sense they belong to long drawn-out concrescences that overlap and hlend into each other without drawing on new fXlernjl JiiU Uis opposed lo novel concepts prebended hv loolcpLll I L'evision ) I'his is where the -quantum' ot" Whiteheadian experience is attenuated along the edge of Chaos and looks as if it may have to be abandoned altogether. '
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Nevertheless, for White he ad not all reality is filled with high-grade Veils1 of ordered activity - between such occasions there mav intervene under-deter-
mined, low-gnule or even ehaotie lacunae.]<'J On this formless mental lava' 1
(where the only actual occasions active are those at lower - eHg, neural levels), there may'float up1 determinate mental products such as sentences and other completed propositional patterns, which can indeed be related to individual concrescent occasions as normally defined. I'hev can be seen, in other words, as the objectiftcations of concrescent processes satisfying specific 1
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internal goa]sh whether conscious or othenvisen It is in fact quite possible that 1
the 'event unit
of internal imagination - prepositional and narrative in
essence - may also be linguistically determined, superimposed on or parallel with imagery. If a 4frame plus goal-defined event1 format is the normal perceptual mode of experiencing the world in waking states, dreaming states. uncoupled from sensoiy inputs may represent the result of removing the frame component. At all events, the strength of subjective aim may wax and wane
during successive occasions, from intense to virtually non-existent in low 1
grade experience. In so far as a poem is a single complex product, built up gradually with much revision it is of course not the product of a single actual occasion but of 1 complex nexus of (discontinuous) occasions through time. This is equally true .
as regards its reading by an individual reader. Clause-sized units - orh perhaps 1
more to the point, individual lines or couplets - can perhaps be analysed as they come in\ much as in reading prose, only their comprehension will not necessarily result in a determinate change in an on-going mental model, only in the reader's fleeting aesthetic experiences. Poetiy is, after all, there to be felt (as patterns of images and ideas captured in words) rather than fully 'comprehended1. fhis i.i '.vivu LikohMsn : I i: ivilmoi by the ' poeiiL function1 of '
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language (observed in word playH sound symbolism, etc.K which is of course not limited to poetryf and can indeed be seen in the 'poetry of grammar1 as well as
in the grammar of poetry1.11"1 Rather than incoherence then, it is perhaps better
[Jnd l Lslj]k3 ing wn t ten lex in
to speak ofpartial - tantalizingly partial- coherence. Hvery poem is a lure to seeking out turthei; infinitely regressing layers and levels of coherence. Because of the way metaphor kal/ana logical thinking works you can always read further
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hermeneutic* meanings into such a text, indeed you can 'knead'
the very process of interpretation into a n exegesis of its meaning in the manner of the deconstructioniits. But any such attempt is at the risk of losing touch with the authors actual intentions (by too much conceptual reversion, too little straight valuation!). As often as not one probably does the poet - and oneself as reader - a service hy attempting only minimal interpretation of his or her motives and intentions. But even a mini mar interpretation requires reference to a vast wealth of potentially relevant shared cultural background: the more one knows of this background the greater one s appreciation of the work. Texts as aesthetic objects are open-ended both to interpretation and appreciation the potential novel patterns discernible within a skilfully woveil text are myriad. The WhitdRMdian principles 1 have brought to bear on the analysis of written *
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texts suggest that it is especially information that does not automatically
mesh
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with one s
own background expectations that will be highlighted and abstracted for further cognitive processing and conscious enjoyment. This has repercus-
sions also for the question of how language is acquired by infants as language ii transmitted from generation to generation: if it is novelty rather than conformity that drives the process, it is difficult to see how innate predisposition could be (let alone need be} involved, 'ib this we turn in the nest chapter.
umiman
Starting with a somewhat different application of the Whiteheadian notion of the suspended judgment than that employed in Chapter 1,1 have shown howliterary works can be regarded as sequences of i list ructions for creating, altering and enjoying imaginary worlds-with in-wo rids. To do this, 1 had to be more precise about the extent of the actual occasion5 forming the basis for an analysis of the processes involved. 1 proposed that the information unit' (close to that defined by Halliday and also Chafe) was the most suitable candidate, as it can he '
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equated with Whitehead s own concept of the unitary con crescent process that absorbs no further data
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from without1 until reaching its culminating point of objective decision'. Since the notion of information unit is generally restrictec. '
to the introduction of a single item of new informatiom a more refined definition of 'newness based on the necessary updating of the readers on-going
1 7
Pattern and Proc-esii
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mental model
[no longer a mutual process with a dialogue partner] was proposed. How exactly such a model could be updated, and whether any constraints could be seen on what information is necessarily stored in it as 1
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successive sentences are processed, was considered. I argued that much depend1
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ed on whether the content of the sentence meshed
with on-going expectations or not. It was also necessary to redefine the concept of topic1 (to which the definition of an information unit is bound) in a procedural manner, relating it to the relevant woiid(s) at any given point in a narrative. In the process nf interpreting literary products the 'objectified feelings' of the writer are inherited or revived by the reader. The kind of empathy required of the reader is supplied by continual hybrid prehensions of the writer s intentions (understanding of what tftuner calls the 'n a native mode of though f being shared by both writer and reader). The skilled writer in turn knows how to manipulate the reader s expectations, balancing centripetal and centrifugal tendencies in the text, thus inducing particular kinds of prehensions fi.e. feelings1 in the widest sense), A particular prose passage was analyzed to illustrate the different kinds of prehensions needed to interpret it and to follow its unfolding logic {natural rather than syllogistic). The Whiteheadian approach to understanding texts like this forces us to think in terms of processes of comprehensiom not just its products. Likewise, it requires rethinking the nature of in formation units' and newness in procedural terms. This was followed by a brief analysis of part of a poem, where the relevant unit oTactual occasion is much more attenuated and the role of overall context concomitantly emphasized. Tliis led me to compare poetry with thought itself as it ranges freely along the edge of Chaos (where experiential quanta appear to be quite indeterminate in duration). Maximal association a I novelty [through conceptual reversions ) emerges during both '
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kinds of activity.
The kind of analysis oJ" prose passages into successive 'updated world1 crosssections that I have illustrated could be applied to a variety of text types. The
interpretive processes involved - in terms of linked prehensions - and the means available in a given language for inducing such processes in readers could further be typologized (as can the means at the disposal of the writer for
the centripetal and centrifugal elaboration of a text}.
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would amount to an
extension of Mental Space theory to whole literary works {and genres), and would add the readers own teleology {his/her intention to comprehend and enjoy) to the setting up of interrelated spaces and the tracking of purely logical 1
relations between them and the entities thev contain. Hie link to aesthetics, in '
Und cvstand in $ wri rLen tests 16$
rcrnu o( the maintenance of balanced intensity of contrasts, was mentioned en passmtt (Whitehead having much to say of a general nature on the subject), and this too could be tbllowed up.
Chapter 7
The historical transmission
of language
At the core of the generativists1 argument for the 'innateness1 of the language faculty is the question as to haw a child could learn a language from 4imperfect data {presented positively only)- One might expect Whitehead, as Platanist, to agree with Chamsky that all learning is in same sense remembering {i,e- of innate1 ideas). But recall what was said in Chapter 1 abaut Whitehead's crndal twist to the Platanic canceptian of'ideas or Eternal ahjects'; these are pure potentialities far him, patterns ingredient in {and only in) actual occasions. His position here differs alsa fram that of the em pi ri cists h note, by regarding these universal patterns nat simply ta be the result of induction (by association and generalisation alone), but actually resident in the things and relationsbips experienced by the subjects of actual occasions. The manner by which language is learnt by individual children is also crucial in explanations of how languages as a whale change as they are passed on from generation to generation (although later changes introduced by - and spread between - adults further com plicate the process of course).J Jakobson caii be credited with the important discovery of the link between the {quasi-) universals of language acquisition and historical language change. He further implied a causal relationship between the order of the individual child's acquisition of the elements of his or her language and the implicational universals unearthed by cross-linguistic comparison. Ibis goes well beyond lakobsons own applications to phonology {cf. Jakobson fi ff-)* We shall look more closely at the relevance here of universal processing constraints later, From a Whiteheadian perspective the most interesting aspect of lakobsons work on the order of appearance of phonological distinctions (and their breakdown in aphasia} is its nice illustration of how the successive ingression of eternal objects (inherent patter nings of contrasts) is constrained by the nature of the (nexus of) actual occasions in which they find ingression. They are universal and yet dependent on the latter - their vessel - as regards the order and manner in which they can emerge into actuality '
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PaCtem bind iVcicess
7-1
Lingu age o cqvi i si t i o n
The consequence of the viewpoint expressed above for tht1 learning and lea in ability of language by young children i.s as follows: children do not simply induce linguistic categories from the data they are presented with in empiricist fashion, nor is the role of external data limited to sparking off innate categories (Switching on' certain universal parameters, switching others off.). The Whitcheadian framework suggests that the child learns the categories and regularities behind the data he or she is exposed to (whether it be syntactic rules or the meaning of individual words) by the1 linked processes of conceptual valuation and 'conceptual reversion1, introduced in IJ.5. Recall that the former produces a conceptual feeling [or prehension) from a physical oneh whereas conceptual reversion produces a new conceptual feeling, thus introducing novel actuality from pure potentiality. Their combined effect, media led by the relevant kinds of prehensions (conceptual, hybrid and imaginative}, amounts to a Peircean process of abduction (hypothesis-forming on the basis of albeit imperfect and only positively presented data).'6(1 Also negative prehensions play a role here in abstracting from the initial data the objective data relevant for the fu I til mem of the subjective aim - Le. recognizing what counts as a speech signal liable to contain extra eta ble meaning and parring all else a way. In gcneraL forming hypotheses1 about language is from a Whitcheadian viewpoint not (necessarily) a matter of sudden insight, but may involve '
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fluctuating stages of partial comprehension en rowfe to stable mastery. Lot ns L ur.sii- T lh:: iwn pnuvvi sopiH nlHv iirst. " [Y(V\Ktin ' eUTnnl objects flet us say - following my cognitive interpretation of Whitehead concepts already in the mind/brain of the learner) are actualized1 or made real '
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for the learning subject through various types of prehension (and combinations '
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thereof). By conceptual valuation an eternal object is recognized as ingredient in the data of the actual occasion by its subject. Thus, for example, a child might recognize the quality of nouniness1 in a word it hears from an adulth it' it '
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already has' that concept, But what if it does not yet - and the eternal object '
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concerned is only potentially there to recognize? This is where the second process, conceptual reversion, steps in, specifically in the form of recognition of
the categorial pattern intended by the speaker in producing the noun concerned, Thus the child, for instancen might divine1 that the potential quality of '
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nouniness
adheres to the word in question - i.e. that it may represent the logical subject of a proposition. Note thai that quality does not derive by
conceptual valuation from the word itself on its own: it represents the coming
Inch islon cal Its nsiiussH) n o E J a nguage
together of something internal [determined by how the mind/brain Ls already organized to recognize propositions) and something external (the specific instance of data) h in other words a 'blend1 of the two sources. It may seem that we are still left with the problem of explaining the internal part: where does the concept of nonniness itself come from? l;rom the Whiieheadian perspective this is no leal problem. If the mmd/hrain is already organized at that point in such a way as to allow this particular correlation to he made, we need only show how the concept in question (nouninesi) is latent in concepts that have already been expe lie need by conceptual valuation, for example the concept of'thing i'
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Now it is true that not all nouns correspond to 'things' in the adult languagen but knowledge of things is surely a prerequisite in learners for the recognition at a later stage of the concept of noun in ess1. This is where semantic ness
1
bootstrapping can take place. Now the recognition of a linkage between nouns and verbs on the one hand and between things and action/state types on the other {in White he adian terms enduring objects - recognized via transmutation - and eternal objects
predicated of them) is something acknowledged by generativists and functionalists alike. The importance for the child of being able to recognize such things and express them in connection with specific illocutionary intentions is obvious. The generativist may prefer to speak of an innate categorization instinct however (with nouns representing natural1 taxonomic categories) and will in any case probably raise the general issue of the induction problem1, which requires some kind of (innately) constrained learning to reduce the otherwise in finite hypotheses that can in theory be made about a finite set of data (cf. Gazzaniga \992: But of course not all hypotheses are equal in the child s world - certain objects and events are far more relevant and salient than others - and induction is not the only process whereby he can get at generalizable patterns. Similarly; fro in the same White he adian perspective, all the other basic categories of language can be learnt from the interplay of new data from without and accreting objectihed concepts within, as they emerge from prelinguistic abilities, Piagetian 'concrete operations1 becoming 'formal operations if you will, as already learned and/or innate skills are extended anc s
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transferred from objects to propositions.167 Of course if ones theoretical 1
coiKepiuin of ihe kvil deep L.uegOE'ies uf Im n.i .- is >\Kh ..is ta disqu.iliiv
anything that is not completely specific to language, one may choose to discount this type of explanation altogether, but in that case it can be countered that such highly abstract categories are not in themselves sufficient to account
173
174
Pattern iiid Process
far demonstriibk 'appearances1 (including structural parallelism!; between
perceptual and syntactical patterns} and one should refrain from attributing to them theoE y-independent psychological reality, Given the fluctuating status of what exactly these deep1 categories or parameters might be through successive variclics of generatiw theory one shoulJ main lain a healthy scepticism about the ultimate depth of any such determinate set. If these elusive entities should indeed prove to be unlearn able we should not be surprised. Let us concentrate on what we know is learnt, a,s manifest in actual language behaviour on the part of learners as well as adult users. We know in fact quite a lot about the basic '
,
functions (in White he adian termi, 'subjective aim1 types) brought to bear on the language learning process by children, and on the way adults simplify these functions, abstracting a small number of'macrofunctions1 expressed as illocutionary choices (sec Halliday 1973 34ff.). Notice that I am not claiming, as orthodox empiricists would, that pushing
such explanations back in time one is left with nothing in the way of linguistic ability that needs to be explained as innate' at all in the sense of latent within '
the mind/brain. What I am saying is simply that from the emergent perspective that I espouse, learning has to be based on something one has learnt earlier all the way back to the underlying1 architecture of the mind/brain as a whole> which one does not have to know4., simply use. At least since Kant it is widely accepted that this is far from a tabula rnsa. The interesting thing is to see which earlier concepts learnt by the child or simply known' by it (as deriving from '
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the mind/brain s internal architecture) could be the source of the later cate-
gorial hypotheses specific to the human language faculty. The relevant architectural features wouldn one might suppose, include the hierarchical structuring of neural layers and the ability of the mind/brain to build up recursive activity routines (as well as the particular organization of the sensory pathways to facilitate recognising 'things1 and qualities ). Nothing in the experimenta' data 1 have seen suggests to me that this basic architecture contains anything that is solely related to the language faculty from the start (although the '
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activities associated with B roc as and Wernicke s areas of the dominant
hemisphere of the adult cortex is obviously highly correlated with specitic linguistic activity). That faculty is certainly very special and species-specifich but there is no reason not to regard it from an emergent perspective as the result of a particular muiual organization of more basic faculties. It is potential in that architecture, as White he ad would put ith but it is not 'innate' (potential and already pre-specified), Let us consider in greater detail how a child learner might bootstrap '
Tht h istori cil tra nMiiijision c f J a riyudgf
himself/herself via the two Whiteheadian processes mentioned to the beginning; stages of a functioning grammar of hnglishT one that contains rules as well as categories. The whole process can be regarded as one long abstraction of eternal
objects (patterns) as the language faculty (amongst others) emerges out of the overall architecture ol the mind/brain, signs heard in use by the child learner becoming associated with already experienced and 'objectified1 enduring objects in order to produce a gramma]" embodying the specific words and constructions "
of the language they are exposed toJ )S '
Imagine that a child N, just beginning to understand English, hears a stream of speech sounds from one of his caretakers like the following, where there is a 4
noisy
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stretch marked with x's;
wnxx jqopLH niAiiki:
This uttc ranee is packaged within a questioning into nation pattern and set in a physical context where the child lias previously been playing with a toy monkey that is now out of the caretaker s sight, Let us assume that the child is already capable of dividing this signal up into discrete speech sounds (phonemes), and that he recognizes {has an objectified representation of) the words you and Monkey1, the latter associated with his internal knowledge of a particular furry toy, but does not recognize any of the other constituent words. We can then say that N can abstract the following phonological 'object from the raw speech signal, here arbitrarily spelled according to adult conventions to indicate a '
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partially phonemic representationr16,9 W H ER Exsjt-YO U- PUT-MO NK EYf
The questions 1 want to address are: how might N be able to bootstrap his way to (a) understanding the overall intention of the utterance, fb) dividing the rest of the speech stream into words, f c) guessing at the role ol the unstressed noisy stretch remaining, and finally (d) forming a hypothesize as to the syntactic st:1 net ure of interrogative sentences in English? Not that he is likely to achieve all this at one go upon being confronted with a single such instance of imperfectly heard data - my purpose is just to illustrate in principle how each of these things could be done within the simple Whiteheadian learning framework sketched above. The kind of bootstrapping involved can be termed semanticopragmatic : the introduction of the notion of'empathy'with pragmatic intent (subjective aim) replaces the need for the linkage of conceptual categories to l
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innate' syntactic ones in the manner of Finker,170 As regards (a), note that the very utterance of the name 'Monkey' in a
175
f?&
Pattern and Prncess
situation where N has been playing with the object thus named will alert him to direct his attention towards it and the caretaker may well take such a direction ot attention as a reply1 to his/her question. What is in question is whether the '
child recognizes the intention behind the utterance and acts accordingly. The 1
anchoring of roto-speech-acts in pre-linguistic behaviour is not really what is at issue between gene rat ivists and functionalists when interpreting acquisition data, so let it sufice to suggest that N will (eventually) come to recognize that
a certain kind of response is expected of hi in to a verbal utterance of this (interrogative) type. No doubt the intonation acts as a formal 'bootstrap' relaung the utterance to the situation and its expected response; what he needs to prehend is the reason his caretaker might have uttered such an uitcranee in
such a situation. This requires a hybrid prehension linking a prior objectihcation of the situation type (one where someone is asking about the whereabouts of some known object) and the intentional purpose (or proto-illocutionaiy force) behind an utterance with just such an interrogatory intonationa., profile. In other words, empathy with the speaker's intention. If this is the first time such a situation has been experienced, conceptual reversion must be invoJved; shared knowledge of pre-linguistic intentionality -and recognition of analogy between such causal situations and the present one - is all that is '
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presupposed The result Is recognition of another person s intention behinc their expression of a symbolic production (which must ultimately be extendec from token to type). This is in turn will become linked to readiness for a certain kind of socially expected response to satisfy that intention. Recall that a hybric. prehension is con formal : its 'subjective form1 (here that of intending to elicit a reply) must match that of the prehended occasion (the speaker at that point in time), as objectiiied for the subject {the hearer/learner). The speaker's subjective aim (as appetition to action) is transferred in the process anc. integrated into the hearer's own. No doubt role-playing in games of various mh Is is the framework most conducive ro such prohensious and iheiefure necessary for the child to lea i n what it is like to be another. 1
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With (b) we are approaching more controversial turf. But iSi's association '
of name-tag Monkey1 with the familiar object it refers to already provides a useful bootstrap for his analysis. Let us assume now that N has indeed heard utterances beginning where..before, but does not yet grasp their in ten dec. '
force. According to what was said above concerning 'abduction N does not '
need only to induce1 this force by generalization from a number of concreteh contextually situated utterances. What he needs to associate is not simply a word with a 'meaning* but an enduring object (however transient) - the '
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The historical transmission of language
1
phonologkil form where ahstricted jnd tranimuted from the speech stream with an eternal ohject. the illocution behind itttei ances starting with words of this shiiptn asS under (a). Let us further take it that he can independently recognize the intentional category of someone wanting him to indicate the whereabouts of something (by ostenMon), By an imaginative prehension he may make the intuitive leap to the hypothesis that the two are causally associated, i.e. that the meaning of the word 'where' is here an enjoinder to indicate the whereabouts of something. What he is on his way to mastering is a con'
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struction - or rather a set of related constructions based on the word where -
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for conventionally realizing that speech act. (This process, whereby rote
formulae are generalized-, is nowadays often referred to as 'schema abstraction' by psycholinguists.)
AJI that remains to complete this analysis is for N to recognize by negative prehension that it is precisely the first syllable of the speech stream that contains c
this meanings not the rest of the material between it and Monkcy1. In 1.2.5 it was pointed out that such prehensions (and others) may enter as ingredients,
logically but not necessarily temporally organized, into one and the same complex concrescence (here resulting in something ntrw being learnt about the target language). The hypothesis that the relevant unit is jnst where (or possibly wherexxx ) goes logically hand in hand with his recollection of other utterances beginning with where that continued with different {though '
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unanalysed) material with his knowledge of the meaning of the word you already, and with the unlikeliness that the further unknown element put is part of that meaning, since it is separated from Vhere by partially known material. The latter would seem to presuppose some recognition of BehagheTs '
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principle on the part of the child, at least as a most likely first hypothesis (it could be overthrown if the adult language actually had a discontinuous mor-
pheme for this meaning). Translated into White he adian terms, one might propose that the simplest, most salient patterns (eternal objects) - those already anchored in more basic learnt behaviour - are generally prehended
before more co 311 pi ex ones in any learning/abduction process. The hypothesis 1
that the single stretch 'where (or Vherexxx1] corresponds to the situational
meaning abstracted is simpler than that involving a discontinuous morpheme.1'1 This constitutes reasonable grounds - though not final 'proof - for the hypothesis corresponding to the negative prehension concerned. Only repeated condicimg data would force its revision (otherwise it would just be reinforced
thereafter). N is actually left at this point with at least two hypotheses, most importantly that 'where1 hears the meaning just 'abducted1 from situation-plus-
177
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PaCtem and Proc-ess
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memory, but also that put has some other meaningh yet to be extracted (he may have heard the phonological stretch ut already, hut have only the 1
dimmest of ussoc in lions with it of the relevant situation type). In f.ict he may have a whole bundle of such potentbl hypotheses, the one just more highly weighted than the others. It may be some timeh for exampleh before he fully 1
realizes that VheresxT!: (or Vheredid1} is not the relevant unit to attach the
prehended meaning/intention to in all circumstances. He must await other combinations of not only Vhcre + Y (which maintain the constant meaning as 1
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abstracted) but also other occurrences of xxjc (
did1) in connection with
other types of questions in order to finally reject this subsidiary, less weighted
hypothesis. What he finally must achieve for it to be said that he has fully learnt the meaning of'where' is the stable linkage of any token of4where' fits type) with thai meaning - the process of trmsmutiUion fcf. L2.4j will consolidate this as an enduring pathway of symbolic reference.
As regards his learning of the meaning of the action verb !put', once this is analysed as a unitary
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word
1
(by a combination of positive and negative prehensions of actual scgmental pej mutations and of contexts provided in the input data) it needs to be limited to association with a certain type of action. This action N will know how to perform himself from a pre-linguistic stage. So he has an obfeetilied 'concepf of it which can be prehended as predicate of a pi opositional prehension applied to a subject, By this I do not mean grammatical subject in the linguistic sense, bm the logical sub jet t, the nexus prehended as undergoing this jclum - lor instance another person or himself liy imaginative prehensions he will be able to generalize this concept to other subjects perceived or imagined, a prerequisite for be in able to apply the verb to other situations analogous to the one in which he first began to understand it. Moreover, N must also learn that this verb in tnglish needs to go with two nominal arguments, a putter and a 'put thing1, plus obligatory indication of '
'
'
1
the location where the latter is put (its 'predicate frame ) 1'2 If the utterance we 1
.
have been discussing is indeed the first where he has comprehended what 'put* means in terms of type of action, the presence of material in it potentially referring to the two arguments plus a location expression ( where ) represents a potential pattern (eternal object) which he will eventually learn to extract as a whole and apply to his own linguistic productions - that is, when his mean '
1
l
length of utterance1 (cf. Brown 1973) has developed to the point of being able to handle such stretches. He is unlikely to meet negative data suggesting otherwise, but that is not the point if abducting potential patterns as meaningful is the basic process. '
1
The h istori t:al L] nsmi.ssion c f J a nguage
The hypothesis will be entertained as reasonable (i.e. unchallenged from within or without K and gradually attain the status of rule-like objectifi cation as more and more instances of confirmation of the pattern comes in with new
language data he is exposed to (and in the form of the apparent comprehension by others of his own productions). Stability of the linkage is attained, as before. through 'transmutation1, whereby any token of 'put' will be symbolically associated with the meaning concerned. As with where and 'Monkey' there is '
L
at least one non-linguistic eternal object that is pre requisite to learning the correct usage of the corresponding linguistic term put namely a particulaE type of physical experience. More abstract and figurative usage may gradually '
*
expand its n-iCLining luvliv jioni this starting point. By the time N is really capable of grasping the meaning and grammatical conventions involved in the utterance he will be able rapidly to feel the fit1 of the speech signal with his accumulated past pit hens ions {and their object ificat ion in memory including '
his accreting knowledge of the grammar and lexicon of Hnglish). He is now ready for (c) - folining some hypothesis about the noisy bit of L
the signal corresponding to didh in written English (but probably just |d | in the spoken chain). Let us assume he now understands that the speech signal represents some kind of injunction to provide information on the whereabouts of the monkey toy he has been playing with. Let us further assume (taking a leap forward in his development) that he by now realizes that any English sentence apart from imperatives (i.e. direct orders) require indication of time
relative to the here and now. Reaching this conclusion is itself a protracted business of course, but can again be treated in terms of conceptual valuation
and reversion rather than of induction although it nevertheless requires flike induction) exposure to a wide range of English sentences before the hypothesis
generated will obtain stability through repeated confirmation. Where does the relevant eternal object come from in this case, the idea that is captured by the
label * past1 and which needs to be associated with the marking of past tense on English verbs? The answer must once again be: in the pre-linguistic experience of the child,
Fastness is a category of experience explicable within Whitehead's framework as due to the direct experience of causal efHicacy: the data of any (present) actual occasion is derived from its immediate past (and is aimed via - its
subjective aim - at the future). How does N learn that it is obligatory to include an indication of'pastness' in an Hnglish sentence about the past? Note that he would probably continue to get by for some time without doing so as regards his own prodik lions. It must be by way of recognition of a contrast
179
iflo
Pattern iind Process
between interim ces heard that do or do noi contain some extra, as yet unco inpre bended element ft be noise in our example). This contrast can be 'abductively grasped as consistently marking some important element in the situation reft:1 red to - and, witbin a broader context, it can bo further aligned in a subsystem of contrasts with otber such initially obscure elements marking the 1
'
1
present continuous and future tenses. In the given situation,
'
'
pastness is an
import a Jit element for potential express ion N since its consequences are the possible invisibility of the object of the putting action, as opposed to its '
presence (if present tense were meant). Thus a ratber abstractt intangible 1
'
concept like pastness can be hypothesised {by the same kinds of prehensions described aboveJ as adhering to some part of the speech signal that is more ditficultto segment out than the content words. All N needs to have learnt to recognize this element of coded meaning {and to be able to manipulate his own productions accordingly) is the Yeel of recognition of its 'fit' with situations/ propositions of a certain kind from his experience where causally anchored '
'
'
pastness
can be prehended.J?l By the time its use is automatic in the correct 1
'
adult contexts, the pastness
need not be directly prehended as relevant to the immediate situation fit could for instance be within a story being told). It is by then objectified in the grammar as a convention (part of the complex eternal
object that is English). The child will have mastered one of the major
shifters
'
'
fin Jeapersens sense) crucial to adult language. The final step, as in {d), learning to recogni/o and produce syntactically well-formed interrogative utterances, with obligatory do' support and subjectverb inversion, again involves the prehension of a potential pattern in the data presented to N as the basis for a hypothesis, this time as to the correct sequencing of words of different classes fin eluding the obligatory presence of a purely formal auxiliary) in sentences of this iHocutionary type. Such patterns can be over-generalised or under-generalised at first fapplied to too broad or too narrow a range of clause types in the adult language). The latter case can be corrected through later experience by simply adding the extended sub-types to the relevant construction type in so far as N believes that what he hears from adults is generally correct {on more to the point, produces results when he wants to be comprehended correctly!). '
1
'
1
'
'
As regards over-generalization! we need not assume 'negative evidence (i.e. correction from without) to see how he could adjust his productions, If he starts for example to overgeneralize interrogative inversion to subordinate clauses in utterances of the type l know where did 1 put it1, this will sooner or later come l
to clash with another, more general construction he must learn, namely object
Tlie h latovi dal Em niiniisio n c f J a riyuigt
clauses of verbs like
'
kfiow, which may be either an ordinary nor-interrogative
finite clause (possibly preceded by a conjunction like 'that' or 'if), or - if it contains a Q-woid like 1 where - an ordinary finite clause following that word, 1
but in neither case involving inversion. He will he able to distinguish the two cases when he realizes {by hybrid prehensions) that the illocutions are quite different (one an interrogative speech act, the other a declarative). He may also
by then have come to recognize the headless relative clause type 'Q-word plus finite clause1 used to describe a location, for example. At all events, he will at some point have to deal with the clash between these new constructions he has
learnt (which continue to be positively reinforced) and the over-generalized one from earlier, which ought to harmonize with a certain combination of more widely applicable new ones - i.e. a declarative utterance containing main verb '
know1 and an object clause corresponding to a 'he adJess' iocational relative '
clause - but doesn t
The recognition of such a clash is achieved by a higherorder Whiteheadian prehension of the non-fit of two prehensions (namely of the old over-generalized pattern and the new one), perhaps during the concrescence of a single novel utterance he is trying to make, His safest bet (the strategy he will eventually adopt as a sensible little pragmatist) is to abandon the earlier construction and use the neweE; continually reinforced ones he has by now.
learnt In fact, since it is never positively reinforced from outside, the overgeneralized construction will in all likelihood
'
r wit her
away from his produc-
tions on its own accord. Seen from this perspective, much of the force of the generativists arguments about lack of negative evidence to correct overgen era 1 izat io ns d i sap pe a rs,L 74 What is presupposed at this stage (besides knowledge of the meanings of the words) is knowledge of the word classes involved (as internalized object types), h
'
*
of the relevant illocutionj and of the syntactic constructions to which it is
associated. This knowledge may be - and generally is - quite tacit (and even
automatic), since the speaker is basically just feeling the tit or lack of lit of the incoming data with categories already objectified for him or her, These are couplings of patterns registered with suitable responses, momentary waystations on the way to satisfaction of the concrescence as a whole, which cs where attention is focussed, But what of the recursivity of syntax, one might ask? Given that asking is associated with inversion and 1 do-support', how can '
'
this knowledge ever lead to more complex sentences involving subordinate clauses, for example? My answer once again is to point towards a general capacity of the mind/brain, here to produce (and comprehend) hierarchically organized action routines involving sub-goals embedded within overall goals.
US i
IS!
P-aCCem and I'rcic-es
The 'initial nim associated with the speech act concerned may he indefinitely expanded as the expression of the meaning-bearing data in the input to that speech act crystallizes out and is tin ally exhausted (and the act thereby \satisfied ln in the same way that attaining a physical goal can he hroken up into subgoals that must he iulfilled before the overall goal tan be fulfilled. From a Whiteheadian viewpoint language is not really all that special in this regard. What is special is the ability of the linguistic code to channel multiple layers of meaning dirt) ugh a single linear channel. This N will have learnt how to do when such syntactic patterns as the one illustrated above have become automatic for him and can be drawn into complex utterance productions along with sundry semantic and pragmatic data needing co-satisfaction in that concrescence. Let us compare this approach with the 'standard' generativist picture of language acquisition as presented by Pinker (1994), For him the only reasonable way to explain the rapid acquisition of language despite the imperfect and limited input the child is exposed to (and the lack of negative evidence in that input) is to assume that the universally shared set of linguistic principles the child learns is actually innate fas also supposedly reflected in the similarity of ha.sic m-jUlLc-jc (.M am/Liuon ir. ail ad Lilt ku ua i I'hc iu hliglniny of the importance of acquisition on the part of the genera tivists [following Jakobson's lead) is no doubt laudable and has had a lasting effect on the way theoretical linguistics is conducted today, but for functionalists there is a fundamental problem with any approach where children are seen as expecting - or being predisposed to look for - the appearance of specific grammatical elements such as suffixes for tense, aspect and person, ek., in the data, or the specific abstract categories of X bar* syntax (as in Pinker 1994:2B5}. it just seems irredeemably implausible to rhem. Compare the highly indirect way that undeniably innate faculties reflect genetic inheritance, i.e. the individual genome. The relationship between the genes determining the construction of an eye, say, and the eye itself is not even parallel to that between innate UCi and the individLKi: speaker1 kno Jet e uf the uunmai of his oj Iki pai LicuLu Lin'
'
1
.
.
'
'
'
-
gua ge(s): whereas environmental input (adult language) can be said to select or allow only certain combinations of principles and parameters of UG on the part of the child, environmental input can hardly be said to select from a set of possibilities in the relevant part of the genome only those that correspond to the
fully-formed eye-lyj Patterns controlling the construction of the eye or of an adult grammar are not the same as the potential patterns in the input the eye or the purported linguistic organ are designed to recognize and analyse. The principles relevant to the construction of an adult grammar must lie at a much 1
The hislorical transmission n['language
more abstract level than the actual categories any such grammar formulates and manipulates. A more palatable alceniiUm.' ilut Joes unl mix eternal objects on different
societal levels in this manner mi ht seek to explain such acquisition phenomena as the gradual narrowing down of sub-classes of tinglish verbs subject to causal ivizat ion in terms of overlapping mental attractors [one per sub-class) that emerge from the absorption of environmental input {utterance tokens). How these could arise ontogenetically is o!:'course an interesting line of thought in its own right, one that could be pursued within a Whiteheadian framework that treats attractors lis emerging properties of nexus of a certain internal structure. Such a univei-sal feature ol"adult language as the distinction between derivation and inflection (derivational affixes tending to be positioned nearest the stem) can, on the other handh be linked to semantic form-con tent linkages and to the processing play-off hetween lexical and syntactic means of expression rather than to any innate predisposition to recognise such a distinction tih ovo. In Whiteheadian fas well as generativist) terms one would want to analyse such matters in terms of the limits to the kinds of hypotheses a child might make as regards kinds of similarities and differences perceived between tokens of perceived speech (e.g. derived/inflected forms of the same stem). But the Whiteheadian - like the functionalist - would insist on describing these differences and similarities in terms of function and meaning. A Whiteheadian analysis would specifically relate this to the 'object of relevant types of prehension, pointing out that one and the same object - e.g. lt hound morpheme - can have different functions from different contextual perspectives and on different societal levels of grammar. Thus inflectional morphemes will come to be recognized by their form-content linkages at the 1
'
1
'
'
"
'
'
'
1
societal level of the sentence (or clause)n whereas derivational ones can only (or at least usually) make such linkages at the level of the individual word,57*" The particular environment they occur in - and their relative productivity - will cJearly play some role here. The question is how the child comes to recognize distinctions in societal level in the hrst place. In the bnal chapter of the book I shall further pursue this line of thought in an attempt to anchor linguistic levels in broader experiential ones. Now I would not want to deny that the details of how languages are acquired by children show great variation across language type (compare for example Tortescue 1983 for West Greenlandic and Mithun 1989 for Mohawk)h but what I would like to focus on here is one particular ingredient common to all tirst language acquisition - one that philosophically is perhaps the most
162
]&4
PaCCem and Proc-ess
interesting of nil namely the instinct to form propositions 1 have already pointed out the centrality of this concept in Whitehead s system of thoLjghth where its roots go much deeper than language and logic, namely hack to perception and motor activity. This corresponds to the view of Givon f 1995; 426f.)3 who discusses the profound (even pre-human) proposition al nature of percep'
tion. U would appear from the acquisition data that signs of such a 'propositions I instinct
1
can be found in the earliest stages of the acquisition of any language, whether analytic or extremely synthetic for indeed signed as opposed to spoken - cf. McNeill 1992:49). This can be seen at work in Tomasello s process of symbolic integration mentioned above! whereby sentences are constructed out of already constituted {pre-linguistic) symbolic structures ant I categoriesj in order to produce larger proposition a] wholes whose core is the veil) (or preposition or anything constituting a predicate for the child learner before the more specitic word classes of the adult language are internalized and recognized). Vor Tomasello all language acquisition is epigenesis which builds on cultural learning (e.g. of event structures), Le- is emergent in the Whiteheadian sense. Yet ] have suggested myself that the 4 two-word1 stage of the kind children learning English pass through may not be typical of learners of polysyEithetic languages (Fortescue J9K5: J05). Such an early bipartite stage of grammar does arguably reflect rather directly a proposition a T format! where one of the words typically indicates some object (or nexus') to which a predicate expressed by the other (typically an action word) is to be understood as applying under some illocutionary umbrella or another.E77 The structure of '
*
'
,
"
"
L
*
'
'
spontaneous signing by deaf children also typically consists of pointing towards '
'
a subject fas in VVhitehead s indicative prehension') followed by a gesture representing the predicate (White he ad s predicative pattern ) So why then is such a stage apparently lacking among young learners of Greenlandic, who develop multi-morpheme 'hoiophrases1 of considerable complexity before moving on to multi-word utterances? Perhaps it is there after all. Consider the fact that before the two-word stage also future English speakers seem to pass through an initial holophrastic stage. When one looks in detail at such 'ho I oph rases1 h becomes clear that the single word of which they consist - in so far as it does not si an ply express an emotive response or '
'
'
.
function so as to direct attention towards an object - usually presupposes an understanding on the part of the addressee (say the caretaker) of the missing
part of a more complete proposition, however rudimentary.U(! in Gestalt terms, the gaps in the coherent 'field1 are filled in by the hearer: language, like perception, merely presents clues to understanding larger wholes. The child may
Tilt h istori cil tra nsmiittio n o f J j nyuj c
simply not yet he capable of expressing both parts of a proposition in one utterance - or dse expresses half of it in the form ol gesture (cf. Greenfield & Smith ]97b). The part that the dtild at thi*; stage typieally doei express is that which Ls new aa opposed to given in the situation. So A piopositional inatinct may in fact already be active behind the surface organizing linguistic expression tind comprehension well before the first signs of recursive! adult-like syntax '
'
*
hegins to emerge. Now young learners of Greenlandic also go through a 1two1
morpheme stage (where the MLU hovers around 21 but many of their utterances at that stage consist of single, bipartite verbal forms. When one looks at the form of such words one sees at once that one part indicates a predicate. namely the stem, and the other - the inflection - indicates the transmuteel nexus that is the subject of that piedicate.'7 In other words, they form a complete proposition. In fact the limited memory span of young child may actually be advantageous for the initial stages of learning language - by starting small with single proposition-siKed holophrases learning potholes1 owing to interference from higher-level patterns can be avoided {cf. Deacon '
1
1997:136 ).
What one is looking at here, then, is just one stage in the elaboration of deeply anchored perceptual and motor skills (in which the self is the tacit subject) as they are raised to higher and higher levels of abstraction, via imaginative prehensions to 'intellectua] prehensions1. A crucial stage maybe reached when the child becomes capable of expressing things or persons other than itself as the subjects of predications. The highest forms of prehension link an indicative feeling referring to a {transmuted} nexus to a proposition a I feeling with its own subject that may 01 may not be identical to that nexus fit may only partially derive from it). They come in two essential varieties, recall, namely conscious perceptions and 'intuitive judgments1, linking respectively a perceptive prehension or an "imaginative prehension" (the two types of propositional feeling) to an indicative feeling1, An imaginative prehension specifically predicates an eternal object of an actual occasion (or transmuted '
1
'
'
1
'
lickus oC OL\ s[onsj from which ii Jol-.-h not derivv
Lis in the
is ufthednld
learning to predicate properties or actions of things other than himself (or whatever the subject of his first recognition of the predicate in question was). Of course the subjective aim of a subject other than oneself may also be preh ended (by hybrid pre hens ions) h and this is reflected in the child s spontaneous creation of hypotheses about the illocution. the ultimate purpose behind the grammatical structures of the language he is learning: the aim is always to comprehend - and be comprehended by - others, another deep instinct. '
i flg
Langu age th n ngc
7.2
Let me now return to the connection between language acquisition and language change mentioned at the start of this chapter, in Whiteheadian termsh a linguistic rule as eternal object is prehended by a subject fa speaker/hearer) through a conceptual prehension, whereby a purely conceptual feeling of a pattern is recognised (tacitly) as relevant in the present context and integrated into the concrescence of the actual occasion as a factor shaping its data into an expressive objectification (an utterance). A new learner hearing others manifest that rule in their speech will in turn be able to abstract the corresponding conceptual feeling by conceptual valuation and/or reversion in the manner I 4
'
have sketched, rlhis is no more nor less than the process of abduction discussed in 7J, U is the focus at which historical process and individual psychological processing converge. The type of changes such processes may result In may be syntactic or semantic phonological or morphological, but since meaning constitutes the kernel of Whiteheadian symbolic referenced that is where I shall start in considering language change, with grammatical as opposed to lexical meaning fas briefly addressed in 3,2)> and more specifically with the diachronic process of grammatical ization '
'
7
.
2
1
1 GrammaLicaiination and seraantk change
.
The meanings involved on the 'one-way tracks' of grammatical] sat ion processes from independent lexical words to affixes (or tightly organised paradigmatic sub-systems) - are not necessarily fully grammaticalized in any particular language (i.e. integrated as discrete Lemic1 choices in its grammar). Position along such tracks may vary (see Hopper Sc Traugott 1993 for an overview of the whole phenomenon). A given meaning maybe expressed as an inflection, a derivational affix, a function word1 or a full lexical item, depending on language, example, whereas the grammaticalization of tense and modality in English is largely a matter of tracing the roots of its 'modal verbs' in independent verbs {the subject of numerous studies), an investigation of the same semantic areas in polysynthetic languages like West Greenlandic hskimo and Chukchi nw involve tracing the source of bound morphemes f affixes) expressing these meanings no further than to other, less grammaticalised affixal precedents fas
-
'
'
"
undertaken in fact in Fortes cue t996b). Unlike the case with
'
classicaF gram-
maticalisation. these can never be traced in Kskimo all the way back to independent lexical stems. Chukchi shows far more traces of classical crammatica Nation
than West Cireenlnndic does, but wliat both types liave in common ia a general tendency for iudi marking to drift4 from proximity to the k: idea I item {e.g. as '
derivational aiirtsj towardfi the periphery of the verbal complex (e.g. as imlectional affix), much as on the broader clines of grammatiealization discussed by Hopper and Traugott (1993'103ff.) and Heine et aL (1991).
Clraoioiaticalization can be regarded as a particular kind of'drifts one in which more peripheral or independent elements or categories move towards integration with in the tiVAtemati ed grammar - and this is reminiscent of what Whiteheadian concrescences do. Like the latter kind of process> it is in a sense telcologicalp aiming at maximal internal integration oi' its hi stone a I ' input1. '
1
and, like it, may contain overlapping residues from earlier stages. It proceeds from the concrete towards the abstract, just as in the individual 'personal' concrescenee; the direction k from a>lk>eations in usage process ) towards 1
integration with the abstract system ('pattern1 K Moreover, it can be divided into phases of re ana lysis and extension, the former presupposing processes fon the '
part of speaker/hearers) of abduction or intuitive judgment1 - recall that the
latter ciucially involves context, the nexus in which the logical subject is embedded. At the initial stage of any eon ere sec nee, elements in the initial data irrelevant for the 'subjective ainV at hand (here read 'grammatical attractor) are
eliminated, At the later, more abstract phase it is maximal distinctiveness vh-ti1-7*
other
adjacent items and categories of the grammar system that it is essential to uphold (there is rapid loss of the morpheme concerned once that function disappears), The analogue of personal 'prehensions' can be seen in the way in which morphemes are subject to change according to their association with particularly frequent situation types (accessed via implications and inferences on the part of individual speaker/hearers), hvidently such quasi-teleological drift is only possible in a pieeeEnejl fashion within a multidimensional system ,
that has to operate through a linearized channel - the whole grammar is far too complex and multi-face ted to be channelled all at once. However, one should not push this claim of teleology too far: the drift concerned may only be
goal-orientated in an indirect wayH by reflecting the general communicative pressures brought to bear on individual acts of communication that cumulatively nudge diachronic development in certain universal directions. This is
precisely the view of Bybee et al. {1994:297fif,), who see the underlying mecha-
nisms as metaphor, generalization, harmony and absorption of context. Related to grammaticalization [or a subsequent itage of 'degrammaticaliat ion
'
) is lexical Nation, as in the combination of'child1 plus 'hood1 (originally meaning kind, quality1) to produce modern Lnglish 'childhood1 and in German '
i&8
Part cm iind Process
henre 'today1 from OHG Itin plus tagu. Here too one can enviijge a historka concrescence towards maximal unity and contraative apecihcity fuelled by the need to refer for example to a qualitative eternal objeet ingressiint in the nexus of all daildivn : This is accessible by individual p roe esses of coneeptual reversion and transmutation followed by socially reproduced symbolic transfei ral (of "
'
the lexical combination to the eternal object), in the usual Whitebeadian manner. The
4
new
'
lexical item will in turn stand in contrast to other related
items and draw its own contextual associations into further elaboration of its
meaning. The relationship between lexicalization and grammaticalization is one of
'
feeding1 from the latter to the former -- Le, as data inherited by new
historicai concrescences from ones that have reached their maximal 'satisfac-
tion in grammaticalization [and must perish, one way or another). The results
of relatively rapid lexicalization - essentially a matter of word-formation (not inflection, which generally goes on to zero, perhaps via paradigmatic reanalysis first) - go T>ack' to join the broader pool of lexicon and syn tag malic construc-
tions from which gradual grammaticalization processes proceed. The net result is maintenance of an approximate homeostasis between input and output to these processes. Hut what are the meanings that typically are subject to grammatical Nation proper? Obviously the meanings that do wind up as grammatical categories in the world s languages. That these should include tense and modality, for example, is what the Whitebeadian perspective predicts: as I have already '
mentioned in Chapter 5, these categories are quite central within the fundamental Whitebeadian scheme of higher prehension types and the contrasts they grasp. A deeper analysis would doubtless be able to show that all the meanings that tend to get grammaticalized in languages around the world correspond to a small kernel of such processes anchored in perceptual and motor experience. These processes represent the core of human teleology, so it is not surprising that it is precisely in this areo thai ihe most teleologicar aspect of language l
change is manifest -they represent some of the major
at tractors1
l
guiding such
cbange, Of course they are not the only attractors for change - the general tendency to maintain form-meaning parallelism, eliminating allomorphy and irregularity, is another well-known one affecting both language change and
language acquisition. Grammaticalization processes are natural pathways of concrescence involving whole languages - the categories concerned can at all events easily become incorporated into a grammar in terms of simple {e.g.
binary) choices of maximal generality. Further aspects of grammaticalization of interest here are its link to
'
metonymy and aubjectiticatian as discussed in Traugott (faithcoming). Although she recognizes both metaphorical and metonymical processes behind grammatic ali nation, unlike a n umber of others working in this field she stresses metonymy as the major factor at work. Slit1 means by this especially the absorp-
tion of contextual implications into more basic meanings of words (eventually even replacing themh which results in the continual differentiation of new contextual variants (e.g. constructions involving the words concerned in
particular contexts).IS1 This emphasis on the role of context in teleological "
processes has a very Whiteheadian ring to it, Sublectiiication1 refers to the drift towards more subject-orientated meaning, e.g- epistemic as opposed to root modality - a drift that is in evidence oven in a language like West Cireenlandic
with no complete grammaticalization chains discernible. This is again parallel with the teleological straining of a Whiteheadian concrescence towards its own maximal self-integral ion and satisfaction {i.e. state of dynamic balance). One could further add that whereas gram mat icalization starts with discourse-specific collocations (i.e in process ) it leads - via increasing abstract ion H as in the individual personal1 level concrescence - towards maximally contrastive integration in the grammatical system (i.e. in the 'pattern of the language). Nowgrammaticalization is just one aspect of semantic change, one particu'
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1
larly conducive to generalizations because of its 'one-wayh trajectories and openness to causal explanations in terms of metonymy, metaphor, and contextual inferences, etc. When we turn to the wider arena of semantic change things
seem for less orderly. This is due to the protean nature of word meaning and the multiple paths of development it can followt pulled constantly towards one neighbouring conceptual attr actor or another and a fleeted by one kind of '
1
diagrammic 'analogy1 or another when it is not 'channelled1 by grammaticalization towards more orderly ( closed class or paradigmatic) patterning.11'" Meanings can expand centrifugaily, contract centripetally, or make sudden 'sideways leaps' by metaphor or metonyniyH in tact these processes may combine simultaneously in such a way that the centre itself shifts and/or a loosely linked array of meimings related by family resemblance results, often with wider or narrower meanings persisting for a time alongside newer, shifted ones. Not only the denotation a I scope of a word s meaning may change, but also the extent of its fine-grained internal sense relations and implications - the composite process could be called conceptual elaboration reflecting as it does the extraction of fur the]- potential patterning from eternal objects (by conceptual reversion ) as the perspective upon them shifts on the part of evolving communities of speakers. Of course meanings arc also highly sensitive to changes in the .
1
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1
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'
1
,
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1
Pattern iin<] PnKC-ns
general surimtnding cultliraL technological and social framfiwork-133 Novelty is always going to be an ingredient in such multivariatc chaotic Adrift So can scan antic change in general be 'foreseen1, in the way that the direction oi grammaticalization can at least in broad outline be foreseen'? For example could the future development of an Indo-European root meaning approximately Yeel {*Tojig-ssee Pokorny 1959; 10f58) into English 'think1 have been foreseen? Obviously not in any detail, given the multiple potential extensions of the original meaning- metaphorical and metonymical - and the different degrees of polysemy that the word s descendants could maintain. However, the basic processes involved are the same as we saw behind grammatical ization - only the end point not integration into a tight system of emic contrasts. This is drift that has precisely not been captured by the powerful semantic attractor categories underlying grammar. The processes concerned in both cases seem to involve analogical {'metaphorical1} extensions from more basic'' (perceptually salient) meaningsh and the related extension to more general and abstract meanings. This is counterbalanced - in parallel - by the differentiation of contextual variants (e.g. constructions) specific to particular conk ls sUkI ihc nhsorplion [by metonvmyl uf conlcxUkU iinplinj.uioi s jjUo more basic meanings, eventually even replacing them. As we can see from the 1
.
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1
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*
actual history of think1 (as delineated in the Oxford English Dictionary), neither one of these dominates entirely or precedes the other in time. The actual way they manifest and intertwine will depend on the ssemantic domain concerned fand its position m-ri-mits neighbours). Both centrifugal and centripetal tendencies are there from the start, pulling in different directions. Thus the tendency towards generalization, one of the most powerful forces behind semantic change, gradually draws more and more inclusive contexts into the scope of the meaning of individual itemsh hand in hand with in creassing token frequency hut in doing so opens the way for more and more specific influence from diverse contexts on the meaning of that item, encouraging polysemy. One could in general imagine that the lexicon of a given language is, from a diachionic point of view, built up of successively more nebulous sheathes around the dense comet-like core containing the categorial attractors of grammaticalization: nearejit to that core belong words of basic corporeal movement, possession and sensory experience expressing meanings like go come stay put have1, 'keep' 'see1, 'hear1, 'be1, 'give1, 'take', etc., and body part terms, all subject to - and the source of further - metaphoric processes. Surrounding this may be envisaged a penumbra of somewhat less central items but still firmly anchored in spatio-temporal, experiential reality, and strongly '
1
!
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L
,
h
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,
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,
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drawn - by analogy - to the one-way trajectories of the core. Perhaps 'think" hclongs hero. More peripheral layers would then be increasingly culturally deter mined and idiosyncratic in associative pathways of change, but they may
nevertheless be liable to be drawn - however faintly or slowly - towards the reflected teleology of the core. In this they would be facilitated by late
1
mcto-
nymical forces of constructional and textual context through which the meaning of a lexical item is extended towards more broadly 'useful1 situational type as culture itself evolve sJ 1 To take the 'comet' analogy just a little further, one could then see lexicalization processes as momentary 'sparks from the core into more peripheral layers, seemingly reversing the one-way trajectories of the core zone. What this again reminds one of in the Whiteheadian framework is the way in which concrescences work themselves out by integrating, discarding anc reorganizing their initial data on their way towards maximal harmony and intensity of overall 'satisfaction' Within such a single 'duration' reference can be made back to earlier stages, juat as earlier meanings of a word can stick around in lexical change long after new developments have overtaken its core meanings. Of course general lexical drift* never does reach any final determinate state of satisfaction - it is far less teleological than grammaticalization Still, one could say that the historical pressures for diange upon a given word are resolved in any given synchronic state of the Janguage concerned by achieving maximal communicative clarity and conceptual differentiation fat the same time). Any such momentary satisfaction1 will of course be ingredient in further processes of change-, owing to the inherent instability of embodied linguistic codes (caused in turn by the necessity of packaging multiple dimen'
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1
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sions of meaning into a linear chain of mutually contrasting signs). 7-2-2
Structural change
Similar points could be made about purely structural, morphosyntactic and phonological change (in fact it is quite artificial to separate the various aspects
of language change). This might involve, for instance, the well-known
'
compen-
sation for loss of inflectional distinctions (through phonological attrition) in modern western European languages which resulted in more stringent syntacti-
cal ordering. Here we could talk about the new pi ay-off between available '
'
means of expression as a solution or 'satisfaction. As is well known, a simpiificatory change in one area will often lead to increased complexity in another a further example of this is seen in Aleut h which has lost its crucial case distinctions and has become much more syntactically rigid than related Lskimo
1 2
Pattern iind Process
languagei, at the same time as becoming loss morphologically synthetic.183 This kind oi" balancing oif, ultimately reflecting the tension between ease of expression for speakers and transparency' of comprehension for hearers, again .suggests teleology for at least Sapirian drift') at work. As Anttila puts itt the driving force behind all language change is the iconic pi inciple of like meaning, like '
form' (Anttila 19fi9; 106), Here he specifically includes the (morphosyntactic) '
rules of grant mar, since such rules are iconic in essence and grammars exist to convey meaning This may be somewhat less easy to see in ure' phonological change h but only bee a use desenbing such processes in isolation from concomitant meaning-hearing structural change is quite artificial. As an example of phonological change, then, consider the parallel origin of tones in Swedish and Norwegian and glottal creak ('sfW) in Danish. Old Norse, the common anceston it is generally agreed, lacked both tonal distinctions and s70£i, as witness Icelandic and Taroesc still today, and a rapidly falling intonation con torn- following the initial stressed syllable can be reconstructed 1
.
for common Nortb Germanic. The tonal distinction between monosyllabic and
disyllabic stems (the latter with a tonal peak on each syllable, of which only the first was stressed) arose in the other Scandinavian languages, where it would only have made a difference in connection with inflectional/derivational extensions of monosyllabic stems. Syncope and inflectional attrition vjs-n-vis Old Norse presumably played a role in its genesis, and in the compensatory balancing of consonant and vowel length to maintain syllable weight distribution. Danish st&d may in tact have arisen in conjunction with the loss of consonant length distinctions, heavy syllable weight becoming by necessity compacted into the (irst syllable vowel or ion or ant (Basboll 1998). This only disturbed the original stem-type distinction in so far as not all monosyllabic stems could take smrf, since a long vowel or a sonorant following a short vowel is needed for it to manifest itself. A look at the broader dialect situation in
Denmark today reveals many clues as to how the crucial change from a tonal to a 5r -based system (or rather the parallel emergence of both from a common source) may have taken place in the central Danish dialects. In some southeastern parts of the kland of Funen, for example, where st0d is capturing the remaining tone enclaves and various overlap phenomena persist, many monosyllabic words have a falling tone contrasting with a rising Tone 2 (compare the falling tone 1 and double peaked tone 2 of standard Swedish), and this may well be a reflection of the original situation. This is consistent at least with the typological association of abruptly falling tone with creak/glottal Nation, The essential contrastj however realized, is one of abrupt curtailment { iconically' 1
'
The h Ulori cal tra nsiinission o fJ a n uaj e
diagi amming monosyllabic Atoms) as opposed to suspended continuation {diagrajiiniing disyllabic stems). Successive extensions and redistributions (owing to vowel shorteningn etc.) have resulted in considerable complexity here, obscuring the original condition of monosyllabic versus disyllabic stems. Danes who have sWin their dialect are nevertheless capable of assigning it correctly to new foreign words. Why do future speakers of the standard language bother to learn it at all when it is so functionally limited as to be dispensable and when it can hardly be callec. phonetically salient? Let me suggest that the answer here lies with the notion function'. In its 'individual intentional choice1 sense functionality presumably plays little role in learning phonological systems. Ihe pattern is simply there to be recognized and copied by children exposed to Danish. Children and languages are both highly conservative in holding on to no longer fully functional patterns (I shall not discuss here the related question of prestige dialect). The point that concerns us here is that the synchronic pattern is extremely complex distribution ally (as, to a lesser degree, is the distribution of tone in Swedish/ Norwegian}, and ready, as it weret tor something to 'give'. This is where the synchronic and diachronic perspectives converge: upon acquisition processes. The complejtity involved can be divided up into a productive part, where correctly hypothesized rules can assign sf to new forms not (yet} heard, and a non-productive part. The latter - all forms containing non-productivcp nonpie die table iW - may simply be internaliaed by the individual learner as a '
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4
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1
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exical matter, though he or she may also detect certain fossilized generaliza1
tions that could be useful in consolidating the lexicon. Such 'psychological variation is presumably a highly individual matter, one cross-cut by dialect and substratum considerations. At a higher, societal level however, the IXanish stpdf non-yftfcf opposition may in fact be undergoing a major shift to a state where the function of sttfd in marking productive segment ability is taking a more centra
role (J, Rischeh pers- comm-). Such functional restructuring represents a kinc of
'
invisible hand'' process, produced by human action but not intended by
individual speakers, as discussed by Keller (1990).tSh The diachronic picture of the gradual emergence of the complex distribution of Danish stod is not so different after all from that we have seen under the rubric of
'
1
grammaticalization and of 'semantic change1 in general. As with
these other phenomena of linguistic change, the development is organic. characterized by the continual renewal of the relationship between form and content, which thus co-evolve. One thinks of rose bushes, part deadwood, part
live, the relationship always changing as they grow and get pruned hack, with
193
I li c h t uj] ] cdl
diagram mi
mnnojiyllablc Atems)
[is]ii] s.s] [] n «t J l3 ciyu-dgt.-
opposed to sujipended continuation {dia-
grammirg dissyllabic sStenLs). Successive extensions and redistributions (owing Lo vowel shortening etc J
have resulted ir considerable complexity here, obscuring the original condition of monosyllabic versus disyllabic stems- Danes who have sft in their dialect are nevertheless capable of assigning it correctly to new foreign words. Why do hiturc speakers of the standard language bother to learn it at all when it is so functionally limited as to be dispensable and when it can hardly be called phonetically salient? Let me suggest that the answer here lies with the notion function' In its'mdivEdual intentional choice Lii fujRlKfO jiLv pic.-nii[]ial>iv plays little role in learning phonological systems. The pattern is simply there to be recognised and copied by children exposed to Danish. Children and languages are both highly conservative in holding on to no longer fully functional patterns (I shall not discuss here the related question of prestige dialect)/I he '
1
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point thai amcem.-i
hore is th;U tho synchronic pattern is e tiemely complex
distribution ally (as, to a lesser degree, is the distribution of tone in Swedish/ Norwegian), and ready, as it were, for something to 'give". This is where the
synchronic and diachronic perspectives converge: upon acquisition processes. The complexity involved can be divided up into a productive part, where correctly hypothesized rules can assign stad to new forms not (yet) heard, and a non-productive part. The latter - all forms containing noo-productive, nonp re die table >W - may simply be internalized by the individual learner as a lexical matter, though he or she may also detect certain fossilized generaliza1
'
tions that could be useful in consolidating the lexicon. Such psychologicar variation is presumably a highly individual matter, one cross-cut by dialect and substratum considerations. At a higher, societal level, however, the Danish stsd/ non-s/tj opposition may tn fact be undergoing a major shift to a state where the
function of st&J in marking productive segment ability is taking a more central role (J, Rischel, persn comm ). Such functional restructuring represents a kind of invisible hand' process, produced by human action but not intended by '
individual speakers, as discussed by Keller (l99U).t!i<' The diachronic picture of the gradual emergence of the complex distribution of Danish st0d\s not so different after all from that we have seen under the rubric of
'
1
grammaticalkation and of 'semantic change1 in general. As with these other phenomena of linguistic change, the development is organic, characterized by the continual renewal of the i elation ship between form and content, which thus co-evolve. One thinks of rose bushes, part deadwood, part live, the relationship always changing as they grow and get pruned back, with
i
ty i
P-aCCem tiiid Prcic-ess
residual stems reflecting earlier stages of development. Jn the case ofi J, we are looking at phonological processes where reference must be m de to morpholo-
gy on the next level up, whereas in semantic chaiige, we are dealing with phenomena on the societal level of the word where reference must he made to clausal contexts on the next level up - grammaticalization in particular crosses over into sentential territory (and its end point is often the inflectional para-
digm). The historical processes behind them are not unrelated however The level at which the analogy is evident is simply rather abstract, namely that of
concrescent processes in general, where oppositions and contrasts are maintained and optimalized within systems despite (and even because of) being
embedded in a multi-dimensional world in flux. Both language change and language acquisition depend on the dimension of time, but this can also be said
of the actualization of abstract grammar in speech* synchrony and diachrony are bound inextricably together in all aspects of language. This is because human
memory (and its reproduction} lies behind its every manifestation * One can, in sunit imagine a language at any point in time as a kind of super-nexus of actual occasions of use with its own kind of (unconscious) teleology, moving towards ewr tighter integration of its patterning, at all levels of structure. But we must wait until (Chapter K to tackle the question ofwhether one can speak of a societal
level where whole languages undergo teleological drift - and whether one can discern some analogue to 'subjective aim' in concrescent processes at this level. Let me round off the discussion by returning briefly to the second quotation from Whitehead at the beginning of this book- Many readers may be uncomfortable with the idea of language change as the description of the adventures of eternal objects in the evolving universe of actual things Actually, '
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.
all Whitehead implied here is that patterns (e.g. linguistic ones) change as they manifest in the speech of successive generations of speakers. What the quotation emphasizesj and what I too would like to emphasize, is that language change is not separable from language acquisition, a point of view associated
with the generativists, but actually accepted by many functionalists.
Incre-
mental changes may accrete within a language community throughout the
lifetime of any given speaker (e.g. as regards lexicon and the 'markedness1 of particular processes and structurea but any change of system - in particular
ones involving re interpretation - must involve the transmission process, and there we are dealing with the abstraction by new learners of patterns (eternal objects) potential in the adult speech behaviour they are exposed to, within the constraints set by their cognitive structure. We have seen more or Less familiar
examples of semantic change and grammaticalization, of syntactic shift and
resStriictiiriTig and of phonnlogica] change in the diMrihntinn and systematbation of segments. All of these can he seen as evolving patterns of eternal objects
that follow theii own fascinating and sometimes obscure
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adventures and are
only tenuously related (though assuredly so) to the human purposes and functions of the communities of speakers on whose activities their manifestation depends.
Summary
I have argued in this chapter for a view of language acquisition that is emergent fin the sense of Tomasello as well as of Whitehead) and does not entail innate-
ness {in the sense of Chomsky or Pinker), i.e. one that sees the language faculty
as something latent hut not pre-determined,
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i
he pre-linguistic roots out of
which it emerges ontogenctically include the well known Pi age ti an sen sort motor concrete operations hut also what I have tailed the 'propositional '
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instinct-, hypothesising a species-specific propensity towards Whiteheadian propositional prehensions. These link indicative to conceptual prehensions not only in the course of linguistic hehaviour but [embryonically) in pre-linguistic perception and action too. In discussing how the early holophrastic1 stage of '
first language acquisition can he squared with the 'propositional instinct' hypothesis I referred to the expression of propositions as holophrases by adult speakers of polysynthetic languages. Language acquisition was analysed in terms of 'intuitive judgments'
[involving the linked processes of conceptual valuation and reversion) plus hybrid prehensions of the communicative intentions of others. The result is the equivalent of Peircean abductions hut with the internal 'laws' of the latter directly abstractable from the patterning of the token utterances absorbed as ata This would seem to reflect rather better the gradual and fluctuating 1
,
1
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nature of the learning process. Learning from positive data alone was assumed (following tfowcrman), as was the importance of early recognition of relevant nexus (context) types. The narrowing down of over-generalizations was regarded as a matter of the clash between prehensions of new and old patterns leading to the withering away of the older generalization as the new one is fui1 ther reinforced by data abstracted from input. The Whiteheadian notion of transmutation1 was applied to the general establishment of pattern types (words, constructionst etc.) from token utterances, the outcome being prototype 'attractors around which further input can cluster. The general approach '
1 6
PaCCem and Prcuzess
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was illustrated through a thought experiment with a child learning something about English from a single utterance he is exposed to. The tind orsemanticopragmatic bootstrapping involved was discussed in terms of combinations of different types of prehensions. A dost1 link between language acquisition and language change was emphasized, for example in the phenomenon of reanalysi.s [intuitive judgment on the part of the individual learner, plus further social transmission). The Whiteheadian approach was shown to be compatible with Keller's notion of the invisible hand4 (changes produced by individual actions but not intended as such). What it adds to such discussions is a natural framework for talking about multiple causes - both in acquisition and change - that lead to discrete results; this can he done by applying the general notion of concrescence to phenomena at both levels. At the historical level of organization {that of societies of speakers through time), gramma Realization phenomena could be seen as merely a special case of general semantic and structural drifts namely change involving those areas of experience thai reflect the teleology of individual speakers most directly - the expression of mood and modality, aspect, polarity, tense, etc. {all corresponding to essential objects of prehension for the individual speaker). Such a higher level concrescence appears to 'aim1 towards 1
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integration of its historical 'input' into the grammatical patterning of the languagen combining communicative clarity with conceptual diiferemiation in the production of stable categories of maximal generality (e.g. inflectional paradigms), rrom the Whiteheadian perspectives linguistic synchrony and diachrony are inextricably interwoven, and linguistic change (process) can he "
seen as the Co-evolution of form-and-content units - but at various societal'
levels and not necessarily taking place at the same speed. The most promising area tor the application of the ideas presented in this chapter is indeed grammatical Nation theoryh for which it holds out the possibility of extension to a general theory of semantic change, one that is anchored in the basic processes seen at work in language acquisition and use. What the framework suggests is that the basic principles that determine the one-way direction of development of lexical elements on their way to grammaticalization
can be extended through successive layers outwards towards more and more peripheral zones of lexicon, via concrete action verbs, say, towards more culturally relative verbal meanings (and from concrete nominal entities via location expressions to more abstract nominals). At the more abstract and arbitrary periphery almost any kind of change may occur, but it is nevertheless '
1
hypothesized that the quasi-teleological one-way trajectories of the 'core'
categories will have some indirect influence {via metaphor and/or analogy tor example) as distant attractors that affect which directions of change are more likely to be followed. This could be tested across languages. Shared contexts of use {and lexkal organization of the individual language) will of course also play a role - tn particular n.-i regards explaining exceptions to otherwise unidirectional paths of change through lexkalization (short-cuts, as it were, to more peripheral levels of lexical meaning). For teleology from a Whiteheadian perspective is, as will be seen in the following chapter, a gradable matter, with distinct manifestations on different societal levels. Specific semantic fields and
their inherent tendency to change in given directions need to be investigated across as many languages as possible with a sufficient historical depth of description, working outward from the kinds of lexical meanings alreadyinvestigated by grammaticalization theorists- A first step might be to look at motion verbs and their constructions from this angle (not only those that do get
drawn into grammaticali/ation pathways), then at mental and perception verbs, and so forth, looking tor common functional attractors of change and defining the manifestation of the twin goals of "naximal integration and distinction of contrasts at each successively more peripheral layer. 1
Chapter 8
Language as organism or eternal object
We jrc now ready to ecLui h In the question I posed earher as to the place of
lanpuage within White he ad's philosophy: is a language best regarded as an organism or as a complex eternal object? This is a question that has been asked again and again in different gaiies since the earliest dayjs of linguistics and has
been directly relevant to the on-going battle between the arrayed troops of functionalists and generacivists in recent times- it boils down in essence to the question of teleology. Given that speakers of languages arc teleological boingiu using language for specifich often novel purposesh is this teleology not reflected
in the behaviour of language systems as such through time? The discussion of historical language change and transmission in the preceding chapter led us to consider the role of the individual learner in the historical process. Let us take one step back before proceeding and turn the teleological question around by asking whether linguistic typology - the results of language change reflected in the structural variety of language - also stands in some causal relationship with the uses to which the individual speaker puts his or her languagefs). In other words, is tliere an in-built teleology in any given language that affects the use speakers may make of it?
8
1 Typology and teleology
.
To begin to speak about variety and differences between the world's languages one needs to be reasonably clear as to the phonological, grammatical and lexical categories shared by them. It is the principal role of typology to uncover thu common ground - especially as regards the closed classes of grammatical
functions and their possible exponents - with minimal appeal to the special pleading of particular theoretical approaches. Explanations of the facts functional or otherwise - represent a subsequent stage. The process maybe circular unless one has in advance some kind of independent operational definition of the category being compared. A continual hej meneutic interplay
ioo
Parrcm Lind Process
between overt but iU-defined grammatical categories and invisible but presumably universar cognitive categories {such as those discerned by Whitehead) '
must bolster the endeavour, Consistency between the two can at least be
demanded. What the question posed at the end of the previous section concerns [he jcmJiic fcn-iainiog Jmm w-ih lt LLnivcrsal niLipping belwccci language anc 4
1
cognition, in other words the possibility of underlying cognitive differences between languages of varying surface type. A positive answer to the question is implied by adherents of so-called '
Whoriianism1.1'his in its full-blown form (associated with the names ofSapir
and Humboldt as well as Whorf) is not widely shared by linguists today. Whorf can be accused of over-analysing the meaning of complex words m
Amerindian languages without paying Enoch attention to the nature of'basic forms', lexicalination, and pre-linguistic capacities. Nevertheless, a cautiously mitigated variety of Neo-WhorfiamsnV is making a come-hack these days, as espoused by some anthropological linguists and psycholinguists. Slob in [who would probably hesitate to call himself a Neo-Whorfian. however) has thus introduced the concept of 'thinking for speaking1, which has led him to investigate specific n-line' tasks across languages. These studies have produced 1
rather clear evidence for some degree of influence from language type to the contextual deployment of language by speakers (see SI obi n 19% on the performance differences between verb-framed1 and. 'satellite-framed1 languages as :
regards narrative path descriptionsThis is a more subtle approach than that of Whorf himself, who speculated upon the direct influence of a given language's type upon what can or cannot he thought or uttered by its speakers. A speaker describing a sequence of events in a verb-lramed language like Spanish, for example, will tend to divide a complex trajectory along a path into individual verbal clauses with verbs of motion that incorporate directiont but with manner expressed adverbially if at all, while an English speaker will typically combine a
single {non-directional) motion verb that may incorporate manner, but with a sequence of satellites indicating the precise stages of the complex trajectory, These tendencies are in themselves just a matter of 'packaging' differences between language types, but the deeper point is that they are reflected in nonlinguistic behaviour too e.g- in the attention paid to certain types of features fmanner, path, etc.) in visual displays to be described, or in the gestures ' accompanying a narrative. They may also have an observable effect on seconc.
language acqmsitionh specifically as regards those categories that cannot be experienced directly in perceptual, sensorimotor interaction with the world f Slob in op.cit.; 9J). As Whitehead would put it, our whole past (as individuals
and species), including our language, biases us to perspectivizc experiences and their expression within certain limits.
Whorfianism not only raises important questions as to how the overt form of a given language may effect its employment by speakers/thinkers, it also asks the same questions of the covert categories of laiiguage, Whorf s cryptotypes (Whort 197-1:93}r This represents perhaps his most lasting contribution to modern linguistics (alongside his insistence that the way a language systematically divides up1 reality, whether overtly or covertly, may have an effect on the similarities that its speakers maybe tuned to notice between different types of actions and things). It is certainly true that not all cognitive categories relevant to a grammar are overtly represented as 'emic elements of that grammar, yet they may heighten the speaker s (tacit) sensitivity to that category. V\nimacy is such a feature, overt and elaborate in some (e.g. American Indian) languages but covert or only peripheral in others (e.g. Hnglish, where it not so much animacy hut prototypical human that affects the choice of third person pronouns, for instance). Does this necessarily mean that speakers of Athahaskan languages, for example, are more sensitive to the distinction between animate and non-animate entities than English speakers? Possibly so, but if such categories are so deeply embedded in the gramma]1 of a language thai its speakers are quite unconscious of the choices involvedM why should this effect their conscious chains of reasoning? If one is discussing a matter where animacy is of importance [e.g. traces on the ground that could be interpreted as made either by animals or by natural weather phenomena) one can presumably do so just as well in Knglish as in Koyukon - in fact not being forced to make a choice one way or the other might facilitate keeping an open mind. But one can '
*
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surely express anything one can express in one language in all others although not necessarily as succinctly or naturally. Such covert categories tend to function indirectly by entering into tacit hierarchies1 that determine the choice of one construction over another Other
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crypto types of this kind that may predispose speakers of specific languages to pick out certain patterns in their environment for on-line expression more readily than others include control> topicality> and 'transitivity (see Givdn ] 981:139If. as regards some consequences of the topicality hierarchy, for example). Sometimes historical reconstruction may uncover cryptotypes no longer functional - this appears to be the case with the person hierarchy discernible behind the historical 'inverse' forms ingredient in the composite transitive verbal paradigms of Chukchi for instance (cf. Comrie 19 0). The '
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inverse' forms (which display affixes with originally passive-I ike function} are
found in just those cases where the object is higher on the hierarchy thun the subject. ThciiL1 pamJigms haveh however, long-since been grammatically generalized and contain all subject/object person combinations in the same syntagma tic framework, with no trace of passive/inverse meaning. Obviously in such cases at least one would hesitate to ascribe any synchronic on-line significance to the patterning. From a Whiteheadian perspective, cryptotypes, whatever their historical sourcen are simply patterns (eternal objects) that may
potentially be recognized by a speaker/hearer of a given language, but which function quite automatically in triggering off particular expression 'choices1 at the relevant level. Their integration within the wider patterning of the grammar concerned may he tighter or looser. [n re res ting though such obscrvLitions Lite, they cieailv h ve little to say about the way by which individual languages attained their typological profile, and hence about whether that development was blind or guided by some kind of internal logic or purpose. What they point towards is the way speakers use whatever possibilities the language at hand affords them for attaining their communicative/functional goals. They are more likely to follow certain welltrodden ruts (usually the most economical), although they are not bound to do so. (The ruts may even turn out to be tenuously related to cult oral parameters.) Language is adapted to- and provides - creative flexibility. So to return to our initial question: do languages for language in general) display teleological properties apart from the teleology of its speakers? Some linguists of a function-
alist orientation at least are willing to allow language systems and indeed language universals a certain inherent teleology in so tar as they can be said to '
1
aim
at fulfilling communicative needs or at overcoming difficulties of p erformance in order to facilitate communication and cognition (thus tiivon 19S2:117 and Dressier { 94'. 95 .). Also Andersen sees teleology at play behind certain types of phonological change, namely adaptive changes involving external '
*
factors such as borrowing from a prestige dialect, and deductive innovations, 1
the ' main spring of gradual, language-internal Evolutive' changes, that produce acceptable deviations from old norms - not however in changes due to abduc-
tion/reinterpretation (Andersen 1973:7H9 f.).1 yu His concept of teleology (like Jakob sons) is in terms of function in a system rather than individual 'intent' The Jakobsonian linkage between typology, language universals, language acquisition, and teleology is quite natural within this context. Lass, however, a repentant teleologist who now regards historical 'drift1 as essentially blind and unpredictable, follow in g large-scale statistical laws in a manner best treated in terms of the attractor wells of Chaos Theory (Lass 1
language as arga]iLsrn ar eternal object
1997; 293if.K eschews 'simple' functioruil explanations in historical linguistics altogether. Korhim language change may spread from speaker to speaker within societies for functional reasons, but hy the time a change ends up as being accepted as part of the cadi tied norm for a whole community it is (typically) bleached of its original function. He nevertheless points out certain similarities between languages and organisms: like the latter a language can either leave alonet throw out, or xapf (i.e. re-use for new purposes) residual junk from its earlier stages. This looks a lot like teleology booted out through the front door relurmng through the back one. However, his Enetaplun is evidently not to be taken in this spirit. The point hinges on the word 'like Organisms are self-reproducingn self-organizing systems> but there are many kinds of complex system, some of them more and some of them less Organism-Iike A language, as a complex system, has indeed a numher of general features in common with an individual organism, a fact which was picked up and exaggerated by linguists 1
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under the influeiice of the national Romantics in the last centurv.]<Jl But it also
differs in numerous ways - most notably as regards teleology and 'purpose1, This behavioural 'similarity' is parallelled by the 'evolutionary1 development of such systems, as we shall see in the following section: the historical development of languages does share certain general characteristics with the evolution of species, but egregiously lacks any obvious form of natural selection The only possibility Lass descries for the latter {not very enthusiastically) is a vague involvement of'social1 factors (op.cit.; 376ff.). Now Whitehead's philosophy of organ is in is permeated by teleology in various modes. Rjt him an actual entity is1 the whole universe in process of '
1
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attaining a particularized satis fact ion n so any activity actual entities are engaged in is inherently teleological - including language behaviour. Yet it is by no means clear that he would regard any particular language or language in general as ike an organisin let alone one partaking of the kind of prototypical, potentially conscious teleology one associates with the individual human personal nexus 1*2 bor Whitehead there are only two types of organism. h
n
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namely actual occasions on the one hand and nexus of occasions on the other
(the latter may be complex, consisting of 'organisms of organisms1). These display teleological causality at various levels from the cellular to the conscious teleology of complex nexus of occasions organized as 'personal societies 1
.
Whether he viewed the whole universe, the vast macrocosmic society-ofsocieties displaying massive efficient causality and lacking any outer environment as an organism is less clear (see Christian L9S9J66), but in at least one place he claimed that it is just that {Whitehead I97f!:215). At all events, a '
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1-03
Language cannot be an organism as such if it is regarded as a pattern of recurrent behaviour displayed by societies of personal nexus in other words as a complex eternal object, in fact, language in the sense of huigue - i.e. a patterning of potential behaviour publicly accessible to ltII who speak a language but abstracted from its use by any one speaker - is a prime exemplar of the l ontological category of eternal object h;t3 It" a language is to be regarded as an organism (i.e. as a type of nexus) it must at least be shown to combine both process (in some sense teleologically oriented) and pattern (i.e. internal strueturet relating its components), as with any other kind of organism. 1
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Compare Lambrechts notion of grammar as 'ecological system1 (Lambrecht
] 994; 340} - his 'interactive' view of grammar integrates various inter-penetrating components of language some of which (e.g. discourse pragmatics) can
clearly be called teleological while others (e.g that part of syntax that is nonfunctional) clearly cannot.
How is the 'eternal object1 view compatible with that of language as a society-of-societies developed in 3.1? And how does it fit in with the historical
view of language, whereby a given language is seen i!S the result of all its preceding history? Note at once that language as eternal object (however 1
specific or umvernal ) cannot become actual without ingression in the mind/ brains of individual speakersh whose persona] histories will in turn affect the precise way in which the language is deployed in actual use. The solution should h
be clear: a language-as-eternal-object looks like a society-of-societies (a complex nexus) because it is realized in a certain actual kind of socicty-of-societies. namely in speaker hearers. The internal structure of the mind/bra in - the vessel - cannot help but shape the potential patterns of behaviour that emerge from it and are ingress ant in it. And surely no one doubts that that structure has come about largely to facilitate such emergence. The historicity of a language is the historicity of the uses to which its speakers have put it. Notice how this combines both the generative and the functionalist viewpoints: on the one hand a language constitutes a lure for subjective aims
(for patterning verbal behaviour) by virtue of consisting oi a graded set of eternal objects (compare the nco-Cartesian/generative mode of explanation). But these eternal objects are only effective {and real) for the individual speaking/hearing subject through their ingress ion in that individuals memory, which
is anchored in past experience and its mode of causal eficacy (compare the functionalist mode of explanation). Individual speakers have goals they aim at when they use language, but usually have no idea of the overall drift1 of the language they speak over time (see Sapir 1921: 147ff.) - or else they have a '
Language as organism or eternal object
false, pTosmptive o3ie- Although 'drift' as Sapii describes it has a direction, which individual vamtiou docs noiH the individual speaker (or some suh-group
of speakers) may nevertheless unconsciously choose those variants in their speech that load cumulatively hi a certain direction. As Jtkonen (1983-219) puts it, linguistic change creates situations of varying rationality and speakers (collectively) tend naturally to 'choose1 the more rational ones. Like White head. lie allm\-s kn tdeologica] -or al leas) 'rational1 - processes l eiinv the level of consciousness, lb put it another way, drift can he systematic, in so far as it
tends to resolve tensions between functional needs of expression (only partially corresponding to the content form of the language system) and specific
language type {which defines natural avenues of'potential innovation It can only become manifesto however, in transmission of norms of usage from generation to generation of individual speakers. Sapir distinguishes between 1
overall drifts
,
such as the gradual shift from synthetic to analytic within the
individual Indo-European languages, and particular drifts (e.g. the reduction of case distinctions in individual words or word classes). The latter mav move
independently at different speeds and with varying cpotency> so the net effect is hard to foresee in detail Amongst large-scale drifts are those between
morphological types The concept of drift can be used to explain how unrelated languagesj far removed one from the other, may nevertheless share a common submerged -
form-feeling1 (Sapir 192I; H4). Sapir hints at the type of teleology he has in mind here when he talks of compensation1 and '
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balance1 (e.g. (ixed word ol der
making up for loss of inflections). The well-known eases of parallel but independent drift1 within different languages of the same family - such as ( rassmanns law restricting successive syllables containing aspirated consonants '
independently in Sanskrit and Greek - as well as the whole phenomenon of grammaticalization are instances inierp ret able as obscure teleological manifestations. However, they are also analyaable in terms of impersonal attractors "
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capturing parallel causal pathways from similar initial conditions. Ultimately such phenomena need to be explained in terms both of common functional factors and of the architecture of the mind/braim in so far as they do not just
reflect the chance results of random change. 1 shall return in the following section to the question as to whether it makes any sense to consider language in this sense [or in the sense of'populations of speakers) as subject to Darwinistic evolution - and to whether a language in its aspect pa rale (populations of '
utterances?) can really be separated from language as Vnn ucf [eternal object). 3 1
l:or the moment just bear in mind that eternal objects do not evolvet nor do
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106
Part cm and Process
they hiivc purposes, they merely find ingrcssion in sueh times and places and combinations as actuality [nexus of occasions in the actual world) allows. Let me return to the question t>f typology and whether there can still be tenuous causal links between language type and the intentions of a user of that language, given the somewhat negative answer suggested above as regards the teleology of language change as a whole. 1 shall follow up the idea that common typological configurations may act as hidden attractor wells {e.g. SOV order and all that usually - Le, statistically - entails). In so far as such features hang together by universal implications that do not just reflect chance spreads due to founding effects or areal expansions, there must surely be processing and/or functional reasons fas reflected by 'performance frequency1) behind their common associariom as Hawkins claims, e.g. ease of production or maximalization of communicative clarity (cf. Hawkins 19 3 and 1994 on head-first/last and early immediate constituent placement principles for example). This need not be interpreted, however, as implying that the conscious purposes of individual speakers have actually shaped the typology of the languages concerned: constraints on how languages can change without overstepping the design limits of speakers1 mind/brains can also be seen as eternal objects, as can the'rules of grammar, "['hey are potential forms of accommodation immanent in the way speakers' mind/brains are actually organized - including their 1
internali ation of external social norms,
There is, in fact, nothing in the eternal object1 approach that goes counter to the view of languages as self-regulating, aemi-chaotic systems, only partly
pie die table as to direction of change (e.g. as regards tendencies towards iconicity and 'one-way1 paths of gram ma Realization - natural bifurcations' of such systems).That is, if the patternings of language are understood as being merely manifest in systems of this sort. Reorganization of complex systems
under constantly changing environmental and internal pressures is inevitable at certain points according to Chaos Theory {although relatively stable equilibrium may be maintained for a while). Once the pressure of flow continues beyond a certain point the system seeks a new bifurcation and more efficient equilibria urn, and this is, in a sense, a kind of teleology, albeit one that acts blindly1 (but not in the Neo-Grammarians sense of * blind necessity'). As typolo gists would rather say, change follows the easiest way forward as defined by implicational universals. The systems {or language s) overall complexity may remain roughlyconstant, just becoming redistributed somewhat differently among sub-sys'
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tems.'9' In the process, initial conditions are lost - the future is unpredictable but there is no going back. All of this can he described in terms of eternal objects,
they have purposes they jnerely lind ijigression i:i such times and places and combinations diaotiuility f nexus of occasions in the actual world) allows. Let me return to the question of typology and whether there can still be
tenuous causal links between language type and the intentions of a user of that language, given the iomewhat negative answer suggested above as regards the teleology of language change as a whole, 1 shall follow up the idea that common typological configurations may act as hidden attractor wells {e.g. SOV order and all that usually - i.e. statistically - entails). In so far as such features hang together by universal implications that do not just reflect chance spreads due to
founding effects or areal expansions, there must surely be processing and/or functional reasons (as reflected by 'performance frequency') behind their common association h as Hawkins claimsj e.g. ease of production or maximalization of communicative clarity fcf Hawkins 1983 and 1994 on head-first/last and early immediate constituent placement principles for example). This need not be interpreted, howevcij as implying that the conscious purposes of
individual speakers have actually shaped the typology of the languages concerned: constraints on how languages can change without overstepping the design limits of speakers1 mind/bra ins can also he seen as eternal objects, as can the 'rules
1
of grammar. They are potential forms of accommodation immanent
in the way speakers' mind/brains are actually organized - including their intern a I Nation of external social norms.
There IS) in fact, nothing in the 'eternal object' approach that goes counter to the view of languages as self-regulating, semi-chaotic systems, only partly
predictable as to direction of change (e.g. as regards tendencies towards iconicity and 'one-way1 paths nf grammatical Nation - natural 'bifurcations" of
such systems), That is, if the pat tern ings of language are understood as being merely manifest in systems of this sort. Reorganisation of complex systems under constantly changing environmental and internal pressures is inevitable at certain points according to Chaos Theory {although relatively stable equilibrium '
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may be maintained for a while). Once the pressure of flow continues beyond a 1
certain point the system seeks a new bifurcation and more efficient equilibrium, and this is, in a sense, a kind of teleology albeit one that acts blindly' (but not in the Neo-Grammarians sense of'blind necessity')- As typologists woulc rather say, change follows the easiest way forward as defined by implicational univeisals. The systems {or language s} overall complexity may remain roughly constant, just becoming redistributed somewhat differently among sub-sys"
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tems.197 In the process, initial conditions are lost - the future k unpredictable but the re is no going back, All of this can be described in terms of eternal objects>
it a turn I po ten tiaii ties whose speeitic ordered ingress ion is eonst rained by
the
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way things ai e in the world at the moment, independently of the uses to which individual speiikei apply their knowledge of the language system. The main point here is this: different societal levels of nexus display
different degrees - or rather kinds - of teleology. Mostly it is iinconstiou and merely lawful', as when the firing of neural aggregates falls into well-worn '
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tor wells
*
or when planetary systems follow the same cycles over vast stretches of timej undergoing only the slowest of changes. Thus von Wright allows for qiutsi-teleologicar and quasi-causaT explanations besides purely causal/nomic and teleological/intentional ones (von Wright 197i:84ff.), the '
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former typically applying at the biological level (e.g. the involuntary feedback conditions whereby accelerated breathing accompanying exertion serves to maintain the chemical equilibrium of the blood), the latter typically on the level of social history (e.g. the non-nomk chain of events leading from the shots at Sarajevo to World War die). Personal nexus of embodied minds are presumably the one level of societal organization where conscious teleology dominates. This implies the possibility of applying the lessons of the past and projecting
novel solutions of functional goals into future activity. The consciousness emerges from the (type of) societal complexity, the LtnamsciuLts teleology (or rive } of lower levels of organisation being inherited by higher level nexus, which organize it in a new way, with emergent properties, as data in their own successive concrescences. Could one not say, then, that language systems as eternal objects display their own teleology by proxy, as it were? Recall from 1
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72 .
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1 how a complex process of conceptual elaboration' seems to work itself out
in long-term semantic changes, selectively highlighting potential contrasts of
contrasts in the service of specific needs and goals of speech communities, Perhaps it is only in so far as the functional needs of individuals passing on and
receiving language from one gene ratio]! to the next do affect in some way the direction a language system changes through time that we can retain the notion
of teleology at that level, but before adopting a tinal position on this matter we need to look more closely at the relationship between language and society on
the one hand and language and evolution on the other,
8
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1 Langu age as s oci al o bj ec t
Language - for the functionalist at least - is a social phenomenon. It is not
just a matter of individuals with grammars and intentions, but an essentially
zoS
PaCCem and I'rcicess
cultuml matter involving conventions of a symbolic sort thjt introduce and maintain meaning and facts that simply are not there without such public validation. l:or Whitcheud culture is a ci of lIlthliI objects {of which language is a crucial elemem) distinct Wom - 1 hough of course not fulIy detachable from the actual occasions partaking of it. It does not completely determine the actions of individuals in the community, and depends upon them for its ingress ion in the world (the relationship is one of mutual dependence, if you will). Every individual within the community has a slightly different perspoctive 1
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on the relevant eternal objectsh and this will affect his or her actionsh introduc-
ing the possibility of freedom and novelty at every step. As regards the part of culture we call language, this is reflected in the individual variation that sociolinguists are concerned with. Any one speaker has access to various
linguistic personae [induding choice of registers, jargons, etc.), and can produce his or her own unique blends of the means available to (ill their communicative goalsn1 Siich variation may be 'centripetal1 or 'centrifugal1 vis-a-vis one standard or another (these act as complex attractors ) It may also he 'exploited' v
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diachronically. becoming integrated into the grammatical system of the language - this is of course not the language as sLtch deciding anything but of
tacit agreement among its speakers that distinctions once purely indexical should henceforth bear a fixed symbolic value. But how are such agreements madeT Huw can communities of speakers rather than individuals make Agreements in the first place? Searle {1995} has much to say on this subject under the heading of'collective intentions, i.e. cooperation in the production of meaning (Searle 199 5:23 ft ) '
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This cannot be reduced to individual intentionality. 9 The capacity for collective behaviour is almost certainly biologically innate, bor Searle language (oi; rather, symbolism in general - something conventionally standing for something elsej is the source of all institutional facts. It is the original institutional fact itself (a sub-type of social fact), and unlike pre-linguistic behaviour it is aelf-identifyingly and unambiguously symbolic in nature, for this reason tr has a special status-assigning function essential for the creation of institutional/ cultural objects and facts: it is constitutive of them (they only exist within a system of constitutive - as opposed to merely regulatory- rules). Symbolism must enter the picture when some phenomenon gets special (conventional) 1
status of the form X counts as Y1. We cannot talk or even think about institu-
tional facts without language. Now for Searle functions are always observer-related {especially 'agentive' ones involving individual intentionality) "11 So it is problematical to speak of
i-Lmguage
as (irganLftm or eternal object iog
language change (including grammaticalization) a,s being fnnLTional apart from the purposes of its users. Neveriht s. collective iniemianaliiy can produce
agentive ilinctions (op.citJ:39X for they may be taken up by individuals for their own communicative purposes. Social objects such as languages arc the result of social acts and continue to exist only as potential for further acts (op.cit: 36) in other wordsh they are a species of Whiteheadian eternal object Knowledge that is 'public and yc: requires the individual mind to become manifest (e.g. In speech or written texts}, is precisely what eternal objects [at least those of the subjective variety) are all about. They are not only in themselves unchanging, they aie re pea table in a way that actual occasions are not. That is what renders 1
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them communicable.
Keller (1990) also stresses that'function' for a group is not necessarily the same as function1 for the individuals making up the group. For him language '
changers a social phenomenon, comprises a blend of final and efficient causes and can never be fully predtaable: social rules and conventions (including linguistic ones) fall somewhere between individual intentions {short term} anc. instincts {long-term)> being less risky than the former and less rigid than the latter. Language is neither natural phenomenon nor artifact - it is the result of intentional action but not directly intended per se and is subject to its own invisible hand' kind of evolutionary development, For Popper language belongs to a 'third vodd of cultural artifacts (albeit as '
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an unconsciously evolved tier of that world h along with, for example! myths) '
this he opposes to the 1firsf world of objects and the 'second of subjective experience. But the existence of such objects depends on being borne by physical World V objects {e.g. books), whose meaning they represent. They are potential in these widely distributed containers and depend on World 2 experience by human individuals for their interpretation. They are real anc. relatively autonomous - like Platonic ideas, but unlike the latter each has a history behind it. They thus (like Kellers 'phenomena of the third kind') form '
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a sub-type of eternal object these too being dependent on the World I objects '
1
or occasions
that bear them. They may be integrated into the internal world of the individual experience! (via Whiteheadian prehensions1), but (unlike Chomsky s hypothetical I-gram mar) may not emerge from that world - or its World 1 underpinnings - without the causal involvement of World 3: the full circle of interdependence of the worlds must be closed. Language, as Popper puts it, is a tool belonging to World 3 for changing World 1 by way of World 2 (Popper 1972:117f.).
zlo
Pattern and Pmccss
Let us consider now how communication between two nexus of actual '
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occasions is possible at all in tho Whit eh cadi an world of socially transcendent monads. For White he ad communication presupposes that interlocutors have partially shared immediate pastsn including their perspectives on a common language (it also presupposes the ability to intuit or empathize with the intentions of others and to project their con seq nonces into the future). This rellects the counterbalancing social immanence of actual occasions which is anchored in their overlapping causal pasts (at their physical poles) and their shared perspectives on eternal objects (at their mental poles). Because of the social transcendence of the individual occasion the conceptual intentions of other occasions can only be grasped through hybrid prehensions of their symbolic 1
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productions, furthermore, the communication of rcicfence to the same institutional objects/facts can only be mediated by symbolsh of which language is the most elaborately developed and flexible system. As we saw in when considering the prehension of linguistically relevant categories, the ability to recognize the same eternal object is not an either/or matter of recognition of correspondence but only an approximate fit1 (as long as its Yeel1 to the subject is sufficiently distinct from all others to trigger its recognition)h hence the prototype effects displayed by words and other linguistic categories. Illis is true '
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not only of a single speaker recognizing the same word or regular linguistic pattern on separate occasions, but also of the recognition of the same word or regularity on the part of two different speakers. All that is necessary for mutual
comprehension is that the sameN rep eatable symbolic conventions are recognized as pertaining. The sameness is in fact reconfirmed every time a communication is exchanged that results in a meaning that is compatible with the overall situation.
One interesting theoretical question remains to touch upon here: the (indirect) relationship between genetic populations (of societies of actual
occasions bearing the language), languages as siichh and the cultural environment of their speakers- hor Whitehead the ultimate elements of reality are actual occasions organized into nexus at various societal levels of increasing complexity. If one takes the community of actual contemporary speakers ot a particular language in unison of becoming1 as the 'evolving' nexus concerned it should be reasonably clear that the relationship in which the language (and '
the general cultural environment which includes that language) stands to it is that of an eternal object to a nexus in which it is ingressant It is moreover a '
1
social fact with no existence outside of the communitv of actual occasions
bearing it. Recall Searle's argument concerning institutional facts and their
Lm uagc as organism or eternal object
dependence on language:, as discussed above. There is ro reason why a given historical nexus of actual occasions {i.e. a conmutnity of speakers of a given language) should stand in a permanent determinate relationship also to eternal objects of a cultural nature {which may of course change in time or vary from sulvcommunity to sub-community). Noi; crucially, is there any reason why the
physical bodies of in dividual speakers of that language* each with their own {in principle) determinate genetic history, should have anything specific in common. In other words, the speed at which languages change may vary, and Lhis may wl1!! uui he m lep wiih changes in the genelic niLike-up of the population speaking them or with the culture borne by them, [n reality there does indeed tend to be a rough overlap between these things of course, but this merely reflects the fact that languages are passed on from generation to generation within communities sharing some degree of overlapping past history,
although the edges of communities are always frayed, new inputs always undermining their homogeneity. In fact, there is hardly ever a one-to-one match between the linguistic, genetic and cultural basses of populations.
S h3 Th e evoJ u ti on o f la n g uage We are now ready to return to evolution itself The question of how like classical Darwinian evolution language change is (if it is like it at all} is still far from resolved, though supporters of a strong resemblance would seem to be on the retreat. As we have seen* it is certainly similar in some respects - language can, for instance, be seen in terms of linguistic lineages that endure through generation after generation of transmission with cumulating variation. However, there are grave problems with pinpointing analogies in language to some of ihL: central elenicnts of evnlutionarv iheory In pariicular concerning the selective pressures that might supply the teleological final causes' for change. The least problematical approach may well be to regard both language and evolution as special cases of a broader, more abstract field, that of the dynamics of self-reproducing systems (as suggested by Lass amongst others). '
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Now for Whitehead there is reproduction {with the intervention of varia-
tion/novelty) on all levels of actuality, from the most basic quanta of matter to
enduring objects like cells and personal societies organized out of them (e.g. luman speakers) and beyond that to language communities. Only eternal objects do not evolve and reproduce (although their ingression in actuality may appear to do so). Reproduction from occasion to occasion is ensured by the
in
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principle of conformity of subiective t orm (cf, \ .2A), And the evolutionary reproduction of species and linguistic re production - not to mention the neural Darwinism of competing iliougln trains - arc indeed just special eases in this radically quanticized process. But what is the relevant evolving unit at different levels? I'his is still a debated question within classical evolutionary theory - is it solely the genome, or the individual organism bearing the genome, or the species as a whole! This is closely tied up with the twin questions as to the level at which the crucial selectional pressures can be seen to apply and as to the role the environment plays in the overall process, l rom a White he ad ian perspective the answer will depend upon which level of society (which 'population1) it is that one is discussing, All levels have their own characteristic environments and teleology: in the case of neuronsj for instanceh the individual society that the individual neuron represents is aimed at firing' when it can, within an environment of other such cells> and in doing so passing on its own pattern of firing as objectified data for other concrescences, hi the case of the individual organism there are more complex aims of self-nourish1
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ment and self-assertion (also in the sexual arena)1 etc,n within a more fluid
environment of other organisms sharing a broader physical environment. As regards the genome contained in sets of chromosomes, the aim is self-replica-
tion when the conditions are right, namely in the environment of (sexual) mitosis. None of these involve consciousness of goal fas opposed to immediate feeling of purpose}. The principal selection pressures relevant at these three
levels could he said to be, respectively, competition from other neural liring patterns, competition for food and mates, and competition from the genetic material of other genomes. In all cases, however, the pressure is rather indirect '
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and/or delayed, looping through various levels of the environment in the course of self-regulation, so that, for instance, genomes don t themselves compete directly, only their bearers do. as they struggle for food and mates in niches of the broader environment/1
But what of language? Here too it is natural to speak of'populations' in an environment, namely language users in social interaction, but any selection pressures brought to bear on deciding which patterns win out are still more '
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tenuous. Darwin himself spoke of languages being like organic beings1 or species, which never return once extinct (Darwin 1874:106). Schleicher already in the ]#6(Vs spoke of the parallel between language change and evolution and
many other linguists of the time followed himh speaking blithely of Adaptive '
radiation ,
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extinction of species and 'competitive struggles1 between languages ,
:
.ill;'
OT;' ;
.. ,
,
ir.i-:n <. : <.:<.: .i.il -..[.i-.-.:
where some produced dcsomUnts and others did not etc. (cf. the discussion in C
ireenbejg 1959:65). " Hymos {J961) has suggested as possible selective -
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pressures on language such things as the sodo-eultnral and natural environ-
ment (including tactars of taboo> of prestige Wf-n-vis neighbouring languages and the positive valuation of %vord-play and rhetorical skills in specific societies), As the evolving units concerned he suggests rsets of speech habits' as chariK'teristk of populationflj and these he sees as adapting to specific sociocultural envirtninieiits. Pelikeli iaUer-day supporter of a strong language/
evolution parallel, goes still further, describing language differences as being due to three main factors, each parallelled within general evolution: variation (compare mutation)h learning (compare heredity), and isolation (compare migrations, ete.; Pinker 1994:24If.). He also appears seriously to believe in specific grammar genes - even though he admits himself that the action of such things would have to be indirect (op.dt:297if.). '
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The fate of a language, however, is dependent on the fate of its speakers, and this typically has rather little to do with the language they speak. Of course there must have been a major survival advantage for mankind in the initial step of developing a full-blown language at all, but that is not what is at issue: once the level of sophistication of even the most culturally 'primitive existing modern languages was reached fsay by the middle of the last Ice Age if not earlier), the typological configuration of a particular language could hardly have contributed significantly to further competition between languages. The particular kind of language that happens to be spoken by groups that gain '
political ascendancy over their neighbours is probably quite arbitrary {why else "
should such a morphologically irregular language as Latin have been selected for'?). Every language is potentially capable of improved adaptation, providing opportunity for flashes of insighf into novel meaning, but at the price of hcconimy furUKT osMfjcd, its categories confused wilh llmIllv'. None has any special evolutionary edge over the next in the long run. The role of environ'
ment can be exaggerated. Environments come and go (as does relative prestige), and languages may change to meet the challenge. The good enough will do for most practical purposes (like conquest). Where there is selection is in live societies, including in brains {populations of live neurons). Selection, where it applies, is a kind of negative pruning, as we have seen in connection with the '
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ontogeny of the child s brain - compare the action of Whiteheadian negative prehensions in isolating the relevant data for a concrescence from its undifferentiated initial data. Just as there can be natural selection without reproduction
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214
Pattern ind Process
in the usual sense (as in geological 'land sculpturing' by erosion, etc.): so can
there be reproduction without natural selection in the usual sense, as arguably in language transfer and change. An impressive recent aEtempt to (it 'lin ui iic evoluiiun1 within a modified Darwinian evolutionary framework (one allowing lor socially-transmit ted Baldwin effects1) ia presented by Deacon (1997). In his scenario for the '
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symbiotic co-evolution of brain and language, language is stcn as 'like' an evolving organism parasitic upon its host, the brain, but one that is subject to the biological constraints and demands of the latter (op.cit; 112), It is seen as subject to intense selectional pressures to adapt to the predispositions of the (co-evolving) child brain, such that only those language conftguratioJii well '
adapted to fitting children s natural guesses at their structure will survive. Evolution thus continues beyond the purely genetic evolution of the human vessel of language with the evolution of socially transmitted language 4 Rom this viewpoint there is no need for language itself to be mernes innate; only the necessary mnemonic and processing biases of the brain and suitably formed speech organs plus the general cognitive predisposition to use symbols are required - speciiic universal*; of language are the convergent '
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results of the same selection pressures. This is a coherent and, one might even add,
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Whiteheadian1 flavoured approach to these matters. The capacity for symbolic reference as de lined by both White head and Deacon, must certainly have represented a major breakthrough in evolution. However once symbolic anguage of the simplest protolanguage kind had appeared and memes took over further development - permitting the accelerated intrusion of novelty there would seem to be no compelling reason to believe that the physical brain needed to evolve any further. Biologists naturally see evolutionary pressures everywhere, but describing the later, socially transmitted phases of the development of language within the same general framework might suggest to those who prefer their emergent ism raw a kind of mem ic inertia. Specific symbols 1
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unlike icons and indexes - can only exist as socially shared property of a community, llic urge to see symbols in all and everything may (as Deacon '
suggests) well be part of our common genetic heritage, however.
One can adopt a different approach altogether in order to attempt to bring language closer to the canonical evolutionary situation (involving speciationX by taking utterances rather than speakers as the basic population units, in the manner of Croft ny%). However, while the anchoring of language in actual occasions of deployment of speech is attractiven the notion of population of '
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utterances
makes little sense in Whiteheadian terms: collections of individual
Language as organism or eternal object
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utterances do not constitute an organic society or 'nexus1 at all, but a simple multiplidty LangiLiigo as imiltiplicity oi" uttoran LVs onJ language a set of '
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rules and form-con tent links f= eternal objects) are two very different things; any statement about a language as a multiplicity is a disjunction of statements about its individual members. While the embodiment of language in nmiti-level
cortical functioning (phonological, syntactic, etc.) may indeed be regarded as a matter of complex organic embedding of societies -within-societies {change at one level affecting all), this is not die same as a population of coneiele utter'
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ances. Jt represents rather the neural underpinnings of a dynamic language-inuse with its specific rules and lexicon. These may arguably be learnt from exposure to concrete utterances and function so as to facilitate the comprehension and production of utterances, the grammar itself being just1 a set of templates and relationships constraining concrete linguistic activities Individual utterances are of course the product of very complex integrations of such constraints and individual speakers goals, and one can indeed talk of'competi'
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tion
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and even 'survival of the tittest1 (in terms of maximal satisfaction of the
communicative purpose) at this level but it is not the level of general language transfer and change which Croft is talking about. Utterances, the products of
the interaction of grammar and individual intention during actual occasions of speechh are no more subject to evolution themselves than are proteins, the products of DNA interacting with its environment/ What is common to all the types of reproduction mentioned so far is that in all instances they involve societies of individual occasions aiming at attaining maximal integration and intensity of satisfaction fin the case of speakersk ihroLi h communication). They thereby become objectified for further occasions that carry the relevant pattern further - with variation, in so far as no Uvo sLK'cessLv;' .KUkil o casjun can ever he emirely identical No one occasion need be aware of the overall long-term direction in which its satisfaction wiU '
1
participate, even if conscious prehensions are involved {do mating humans let alone other animals - always think in terms of producing offspring?). Because of the partial analogy with classical evolution, it is easy to think of the
way a language is passed on from generation to generation in terms of a genotype/pbenotype relationship, and this is in fact what Chomsky and his adherents tend to do - although Chomsky himself hesitates to fur the]1 draw
natural selection into the picture.
It is as if some innate kernel of T- (internal-
ized) language' (i.e. the Universal Grammar principles that generates it) is passed on genetically from parents to offspring, an inheritance which only comes to surface as a fully specified I-language (i.e. the set of all possible well-
215
formed sentences) through the child's exposure to a society speaking a particular H- (externalized) language. Note that one can speak {as Chomsky 19S6:27 does) of an individual 1-language, such as Knglish. The I-grammar principles are the re' to allow the new speaker to crack into the E-language he or she is exposed to, to access the I-language hidden hdunJ it, so to speak, functionalists sceptical of these analogies would claim that while the predisposition to attend to speech obviously is innate1 (after only four dayi the child can narrow that attention to one particular language), the various in-built mental faculties that allow the child rapidly to learn a specific language are of a general cognitive sort, and though the particular combination of faculties found in our cortical 4
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architecture may be specific to our specks, the individual strands can all be traced hack to auch general sources,2"-' The problem with the notion of t- versus I-language is that the latter has nothing to do with Vygotskian internal speech fVygotsky 1962). This is after all something we all experience directly and which is typified by the same kind of ellipsis as in chummy social speech where speakers Lake for granted most shared background information. Yet there would in fact appear to be no place for it in the strictly modular generative world, except as an internalized kind of 1
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E-languagfi
perhaps- and for Chomsky L-language is merely an artifact and of no significance to linguistic theory at all (Chomsky 1986:26).
A suitably synthesizing Whiteheadian response to this clash of viewpoints would be to suggest that neither the explicit set of 1-grammar principles and parameters (the universal template for constructing any possible human grammar) nor loose bundles of general cognitive predispositions are what is actually reproduced or 4handed down1 through language transmission, but rather the disposition to attend to certain complex types of eternal objects, namely human languages. These aie only manifest in the child s world through the speech co mm unity he or she is exposed to. That disposition or knowledge need only be potentiaJJy present in the actual architecture of the child s mind/ brain. In other woids> he or she need not have any knowledge at all - tacit or '
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otherwise - of the principles and parameters of grammar [let alone have inherited cortical architecture specific to grant mar alone) as opposed to having the ability to recognize speech signals as meaningful and to apply to their analysis natural experientially anchored hypotheses as regards symbolic formmeaning links. The result of applying such hypotheses successfully will be precisely to tease out certain reliable patterns f eternal objects ) from the actual perceptual data presented to the child from the social environment. The general hierarchical, recursively functioning circuitry of the cortex, as shaped by genes. '
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,
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Language as organism or eternal object
will both predispose the child to do thii and at the same time constrain the "
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types of regularities/patter ns/rulea that may be l eco nized (e.g. those that map onto WhiteheadLin propositional feelings ) lliese will correspond (however 1
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indirectly) to the emic categories of speciiic languages such as English, which have '
a graspable link with language-external notionaF categories via universal- but
fuzzy - "functions' fin Vespers en's s,iense)> generalizeable across languages This may yet amount to a type of abstract Universal Grammar but it is a UG which would be unlearnahle if it were not anchored in the ability to discern concrete form-meaning linkages. Potential function -and hence meaning comes along as part of a package deal ( symbolic reference ) There is no genotype/phenotype relationship since the two phenomena (the disposition to 1
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recognize certain types of patterns and the data in which those patterns are manifest) are on two different ontological levels, that of eternal objects and that of the actual occasions making up the social environment respectively. From this vantage-point, the question posed earlier as to whether *parole (H-language) might evolve but Inugue {I-language or the I-grammar behind it) noth appears misleading. I he former has no actual status as a society capable of evolving {as opposed to the people who speak it, or the multiplicity of utterances they produce whereas the latter (as eternal object) simply cannot evolve, '
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only find ingress ion as and when actual circumstances allow. Note that this language as eternal object1 perspective is not a static one. open to Lass1 criticism ol Platonic abstract object views of language [Lass 1997; 377 - and compare '
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also Chomsky I9S6:33 f. for a criticism of Katz 19R]}. It is a dynamic one in so far as actual speakers in applying the complex eternal object concerned to realize their aims may extend its domain and mode of ingression. In fact the
relation between eternal object and speakers must change to keep up with usage and language in turn provides potential 'space1 by which novelty may enter for the individual speaker. Although eternal objects cannot be abstracted completely from the actual world without rendering them undifferentiated nonentities {Whitehead 1978:257). a language as an eternal object, a system of patterned contrasts, maybe legitimately abstracted from actual occasions of use for certain specific purposes - such as learning or describing that language. The
-
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Whiteheadian view, recallH is a grounded form of Platonicismt one which as regards grammar actually allows you to have your cake (an I-grammar abstracted from individual psychology) and eat it too fas social object only manifest in individual speakers and their products), tternal objects of the subjective sort (to which languages belong) are relational displaying a two-way functioning: they determine both the objective data (the forms or patterns recognized as realizing
217
zifi
Pattern and Process
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a symbolic purpose) and the subjecti form of any prehension ofsuch data (their intended moaning). Languages as symbolic systems bind form and content.
Let us now return to the question as to the part lan ua e did actually play in the general evolutionary development of mankind. From a Whiteheadian perspective. Nature can be said (metaphorically) to face a continual mini-max problem : how to produce societies structured enough for higher order sat is faction amongst its members and at the same time not too specialized. While flexibility is clearly an advantage and 'highly flexible' can be equatec with a high degree of adaptability/durability, it also tends to remain coupled '
1
with a certain simplicity of structure (Whitehead ]y7K;T lOffO The first stage '
1
of solving this problem was the emergence of corporeal bodies, with large-
scale overall objectiheation of nexus and maximal conformity amongst their members, The second was the emergence of life, of self-regulating, self-
reproducing systems, and finally from some of these emerged thinking societies of neurons (mind/brains), aimed at maximalizing mental pole appetitiom-ril? Novel aims could thereby be deployed to match novel changes in environment. The latest evohuioiwy stage of that mental 'revolution1, which honed the mental pole of experience to its fullest perfectionh undoubt-
edly involved the development of language; Speech in itsemhryonit zlagi:, astscmpiified in jnimai and bumim behaviour, vnries b el ween e [not ion ul expression mid sig] Kilting, and in the course of such v ark Lion il rapidly heeotnes j dnixture oflxnh. (WliiUfhcaJ 1%8:37j
The key 'event' (one doubtless spread over many generations) may then have been the linking of gestures (capable of mimicking contrasts in the mode of presentational immediacy) with vocal signals (expressing emotional reaction in
the mode of causal efficacy )/3C> Presentational immediacy is in general phylogenetkally anterior to - and abstracted from - perception via causal efficacy it serves to enhance the prehension of relevant eternal objects. In the case of language this enhanced mode of perception combines with the feeling-laden
mode of causal efticacy in affording symbolic relerence> whereby a limited array of coding choices can refer to an infinite array of relevant experience. It is the iimplificatory, abstracting process of transmutation that affords the evolution of symbolic reference, and transmutation presupposes organised nexus - the pre-linguistic seams1 of nature. Transmuted prehensions, by their very repeti*
tive n ess and utility call out for symboli7ation by words, which can be integrated, into still more complex intellectual prehensions. In internal thought, where
causal efticacy prevails H simple un systematized gesture can attain far greater
co nit ie mileage, unhampered by tronvention, thaii in exteina] amiEnuinoUion because so much context can he taken for granted fas immediately felt) compare McNeills no don of gesture as n on-conventional] mi expression
mentioned in 2.2 and recall Whiteheads characterization of language as systematized expression fku as soon as that context needs to be specified for 1
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the benefit of others social convention*; are required - he. a code of sensori-
motor-based symbols in the mode of presentational immediacy, Gesture on its own does not become systematized just by being externalized; it has to attain
socially sanctioned recognition, which is something the vocal medium is more closely associated with in species related to ours. The two may have co-evolved thereafter until actual pro tolaJigu age emerged.
Progress was from the start along the 'border of chaos1h however, not from one hxed kind of order to another.""
The 'order1 of language integrates various
modalities, including spoken and signed [and now written) forms. In sum, language perpetuation and change displays the abstract patterning of all selfreplicating systems since it is borne - as a superject - by living organisms that
are indeed subject (or have been until recently) to the general teleology of the evolution of species. That is by no means the same as claiming that language itself, as an abstract set of potential activities, evolves in the usual sense. And yet, the actual first appearance of language was indeed something new and emergent in evolutionary terms, namely the novel 'mixture' in the quotation above.
There has been renewed discussion in recent years as to the original selection advantage of language, and - a directly related matter - as to whether full1 language as we know it today developed gradually or suddenly and in one place and time or in several One enthusiastic supporter of the Big Bang1 theory is Bickerton k who has argued repeatedly for the suddenness of the transition from protolanguage (no higher in sophistication than the speech of '
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pre-syntactic children) to full syntactic language (cf. Bickeiton 1990: Ifi4ff-).
2L:
There is, however, considerable difference of opinion aa to when and how esLictiy protolanguage shifted to full-blown language. Hid ith for example, go hand in hand with a transition from pine ostensive gestures to a symbolic. structured sign language system, or between such a system and spoken language, or did the two develop in parallel? Givon (Givon 1999:91 f,), closer to the gradualisl position. suygoU;* IjkiI I be essenlLil diMmLtion beUvecn full language h
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in the 'grammatical mode1 and protolanguage/pidgin in the cpre-grammatical mode
1
is the relative automatization of the former and stresses that the adaptively beneficial interplay between this mode and the slow, detailed attended processing of the latter mode is a continuing matter with parallels in other, pre'
1
1995:4351?. for A more detailed functional/cognitive account of the stages involved based on the hypothesis of the gestural-visual origin of language}. Of particular interest from a Whiteheadian viewpoint Ls the role inference may have played heren since it seems to replace grammar in the pre-grammatical mode, and indeed to represent its phylogenetic source - one can easily envisage a gradual process of automat icization or ritualization of the advanced forms of prehension used in suspended judgments and other forms of inference. Bicker ton. by contrast, has suggested that a crucial mutation1 fused thematic roles (Agent, etc.) and lexicon (both rooted in protolanguage) with X-bai hierarchical syntax (Bickerton 1990; \ Somehow this is to be correlat'
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H
ed with the quasi-simultaneous developments in the vocal tracts of early hominids that allowed speech as opposed to gesture in the first place. 1 cannot go further into the details of this controversy here, but observe that Bicker ton has recently proposed that specifically sexual cheating/deceit - both the perpetration and the detection of it - was the key sociological factor in the linguistic arms race' around the lime of the transition to full syntactic language '
(Bickerton 1998)-2IJ One can also approach this same question from an 'inside' viewpoint that of the architecture of the mind/brain itself, as Calvin does with his suggestion that the two-way cortico-cortico link between Wernickes area, where verbT
specifk argument structures (lemmas) may be concentrated, and Broca s areah where recursively embedding syntactic patterns may be found, represents the essential ingredient for full-blown language to have arisen out of pro tola ngu age fCalvin 1996: l%fj. The lateral asymmetry implied can be traced back to earliest Homo sapiens and probably much earlier. The interesting thing from a functionalist point of view is what earlier general functions may have been exaptated in reinforcing this particular cortical connectivity - analogous '
1
(non-linguistic) functions residual in these areas (and the functions carried out by the cones ponding non-dominant temporal lobe legions} would appear to have some relevance for the answer. The mind/brain is structured so as to be
responsive only to certain types of input, i.e, to a certain range of variation, as the generativists remind us. 13ut the reason we entertain concepts to which language can refer at all is because the mind/brain is attuned to recognize percepts, i.e. patterns matching object-types [transmuted nexits) that it can recognize as recurring and thus act upon consistently The evolution of abstract thinking (in language} from imagistic thinking as proposed by Lakofif (1990) is compatible with this Whiteheadian perspective.
Language as tirgiinisrti or ecernil ubiect
Surely the selective advantages of language as such ai e reasonably clear {and
have been foi" a loiij; time). As disciissed in 8.2, language is situated within a soda! fi'amework where it functions for communicative purposes (as we]] as frir solitary thmking). It is easy enough to imagine its role in eonneetion with
cooperative hunting and the iike following the shift from a forest to a savannah environment at the dawn of human time, say with the appearance and spread '
ol
Homo erectus, as liickerton proposes for his 'piotolanguage 1'1 The advan-
tage of brains capable of projecting into the future and analysing the past skills if not associated solely with language at least vastly increased by il - is *
also obvious One may argue that full' human language also presupposes the basic design feature of (syntactic) recursivity, whereby the ability to model and manipit!ate the outer world is greatly expanded. However, there is no compelling reason to believe that this had to be 'wired in1 to the individual mind/brain beyond the protolanguage stage - it could lie just socially inherited, full ]anguage having emerged historically again and again from the pro to-stage, just as it still does ontogene tie ally. This is what biekerton himself suggests in lactt
only in connection with proto- rather than full language fop.ck.: I5l )Jt seems perfectly reasonable to me that natural selection should only have played a decisive role up to that stage, i.e. until a level of cerebral development sufti-
cient for conjectural reasoning and the planning of coordinated action was reached. This
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proio language stage, capable of signalling bask pro positional
relationships as well as il locutions, could -probably via gesture - have gone f literally!) hand in hand with the possibility of (metaphorically] indicating past and future and some crude degree of (evidential) modality, just as with pidgins and the language of children at the two-morpheme stage. It would also have hid ode d the ability to organise the world into eftieient labelled categories
(highly differentiated names of 'things* related hierarchicaHy as well as by horizontal' association). Thereafter cultura] learning of more sophisticated syntactic language would be necessary> repeated from generation to generation
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and always facing the possibility of reversion to protolanguage if the social framework were to fall away [ai with so-called feral or Vild1 children). Even
Pinker argues for the language faculty being only partially innate and hardwired, note, pointing out the advantage of tins arrangement in terms of increased flexibility and adaptability ( Pinker ] 994; 242 f.). [f protolanguage may be said to articulate thought (including images and feelings) into manageable concrescence-si ed units compatible with determinate goals within a contextual frame - i.e. propositions - the origin of full language may be traceable not to some physical mutation of the kind Bicker ton
ill
222
Pattern iind Process
suggests, but to the learning by a community of sufiliciently clever or Enotivated
individuals that this powerful innate capability could be used not just for cxprtsiiin and annprch ending single pro positional units fand .stringing them
loosely together). It could also be harnessed to their growing ability to utilize their highly developed forebrains for planning complex (recursive, hierarchically organized) action. The re stilt would have been complex sentences linking several propositions into organized wholes according to repeatable and expand-
able rules to reflect multi-level mental spaces.2'15 It may have taken numerous '
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generations before such smart individuals and communities came to prevail also physically, hut prevail they inevitably did, no doubt after many partial successes and many defeats (and even total reversion to the pro tola nguage stage). The development could nevertheless have been rather fast once the
linking of single propositions into complex syntactic structures (with conditional purpose and other subordinate clause types) became established. allowing logical thought and scheming to take off at post-evolutionary speed. '
1
Such a scenario can surely hold its own as an alternative to the popular lHig bang1 theory of the genesis of language. Not only does it propose that die evolutionary transition from protolanguage to lull language could not have taken place suddenly it claims that it never did take place - except as an institutional, cultural fact, which is on a different ontological plane front physical evolution altogether. The fact that the human skull stopped expanding '
with earliest Homo sapiens (perhaps at the stage of protolanguage, which the Neanderthals might well have attained) suggests that developments after that stage were not evolutionary: man s physical vehicle was already prepared for the '
further cultural elaboration of full language. That individuals and small coin muni tics can be shown to have made the leap between protolanguage and full language in a short length of time (like the isolated Kicaraguan signers mentioned by Pinker 1994; 3 (if} is beside the point iftheleapis between innate communicative skills Tprotolanguage ) and the establishment of socially 1
Uviji l-tlU (.h- lkviLl-l: ji uULimjiar tKjrm.s. : I Iil- ciLlw jji ihe case I'inket
discusses was precisely the formation of a community that could agree on and '
share communal norms of natural
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signingJ Cultural/institutional objects do have their own typical form of self-reproduction analogous on certain dimen-
sions to those of classical evolution. Hrom the VVhiteheadian viewpoint full language can still be said to have 'evolved1 from (say) early sign behaviour as something emergent and novel - as long as it is understand that this is more accurately a matter of the relevant institutionalized' eternal objects being able '
1
to attain ingression only after the 'real evolution of the human body and mind/
brain had developed suficiently, guided by specific communicalive ant. cognitive goals. The eternal objects could then manifest themselves in behaviour of a specific kind. [n fact Darwin himself believed - in contrast to the view of linguists like Mas Muller - that language developed out of'germs1 already found in animal behaviour (Darwin 1874: 105). More recently, Gould, attempting to allow greater social input to evolutionary processes than Darwin, has introduced the concept of the spandrel into such discussions (Gould 1979). This is a more or less chance by-product of natural selection processes - like the n on-functional triangular gussets of that name that were there to he filled in one way or the other between the arches functionally supporting the domes of cathedrals, it may prove to have a certain advantage {at least aesthetically!} after the event, as if it were itself functionally ielected for fro an the start. Like Ghoiniky, Gould is '
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1
sceptical about natural selection being involved in the origin of language. In tact he specifically suggests that language is a kind of spandrel deriving from some 1
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more genera] computing device (this is also Deacons view - cf. Deacon 1997: 137). Notice how this still falls within the
tacts enter the picture areN according to Gould, not limited to
those originally selected for. Whether the language faculty itself can be regardec, as a complex structure or not is another matter. Natural selection and emergence in the Wluteheadian sense are not incompatible, but any attempt to apply natural selection to emergent processes on all his societal levels is reductionistie '
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and therefore ill-advised.
Whiteheads own views on evolution hardly support the linguistic lBig
bang1 theory either,216 He was specifically concerned with the anti-emropic function of Reason - which flies in the face, as it wcreh of the gradual thermodynamic running down of the universe -and its role in final causation {in this he reveals himself as a true rationalist). For him Reason is a kind of second-
order appetition, a complex integration of mental and physical appetition. It is self-regulative mentality that canalizes its own operations by performing judgments (White head 1929:! Sffn), He developed a whole theory of the 'way of rhythm whereby a determinate alternation of heightened contrasts in the higher level prehensions of personal nexus fcf. 1.2.5) can counteract the irreversible physical fatigue/entropy of the universe. Such processes occur cyclically and reflect the backward-eddying of thermodynamic entropy, in 1
224
PaCCem and Prcicesii
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which complexity can develop at the edge of Chaos (to put it in more up-todate terms), Reason (whose main vehicle of expression for hum an hcings is language) clutches at - and introduces into the world - 'relVe hing novelty1.
It is a Selective agency' (op.cit: 18) guiding the upward trend of evolution - it may also operate at the level of animal bodies as simple appet it ion. In a sense, then, Whitehead incorporates classical evolution into a broader picture of universal upward deveiopment whose common 'selection principle' is Reason 1
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understood let it be stressed, as natural teleology that is blind on most societal levels, and only potentially conscious on the human level of personal nexus. Eternal objects, as potential, reproducible patternings in and among
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actual occasions, may be innate1 in the genetic sense or simply reflect broader '
physical causality. The origin of symbolism he sees in the instinct of pure causal eficacy (logically prior to perception in the mode of presentational
immediacy1).-217 Bui this is in turn anchored in the physical world ol"inanimate objects and forces and so can hardly be subject to
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natural selection in the
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classical sense (Whitehead 192K:92f,). in the same context he also refers to the world as a
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community of organisms which again suggests the larger picture in which classical evolution is just one aspect (at the societal level of individual organisms) of a broader universal upward process. Languages - or language in general - note, do not in themselves constitute such communities, Eternal objects (including languages) do not literally co-evolve with nexus of actual occasions; they are on distinct ontological planes. '
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As regards the part played by language he stales succinctly that 'the mentali1
ty of mankind and the language of mankind created each other (Whitehead i%8;40f). Furthermore;
Lanyu u was developed in response lo I he excitements of practical actions. It ii concemfd wiih the prominent faeln. Such fatli arc those seized upon by e(m>eiou>iiL-hK lor tk-Liik'd fxalninjtimi, w.-h [[i-j vi w o:
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joillI Les oii>c Jl'lKjLlijj Ui :Ln]]leL]l L L, pm-po-sekil -LLion. i VVhilutu'jLl J -l7:2lJ :
Let me end this section on a most un-Whiteheadian note by posing a question; if some devastating social disaster were to strike us all tomorrow, removing all trace of institutionalised grammar, would reversion to the protolanguage stage be ruled out by our genetic make-up? Let us hope that this ltwenty-lirstl question may never receive an answer.
|jLiguas;c- is (ir a]iifim or eternaL object
Summary Since teleology - a notion not in great favour among linguists today pervades Whitehead s philosophy, I have spent some time in this chapter '
explatEiing how this aspect of his thought needs to he interpreted in the context of langiiagen namely as something rather different at varying levels of societal organization. In doing sf>j 1 related it to linguistic typology fin eluding hidden Vryp to types'), which indirectly reflects the end product of communicative needs and pressures coining to bear on individual speakers, i.e. their teleology.
Despite Whitehead's emphasis on 'organism1, I have shown that a language as '
1
such cannot he one. Rather, every language is (as pattern or Innguc) a complex eternal object, i.e. a set of relationships that is repeat able1 and socially transmitted. This is in turn reiatable to Pop per s conception of a third world of 4
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cultural artifacts'
t Dawkins' 'memes* and even to Chomsky's '1-language1. o The argument linked back to the discussion of'drift1 and its goal1 of maximal,
izing communicative clarity in the preceding chapter. This can be seen as a matter of Searlian collective intentionality or of teleology 'by proxy'. The organism view was shown to he mcompLilihle with what is known of the general '
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n on-match between the linguistic, genetic and cultural basis of populations. The evolution of language is after many ye a is of being taboo now again in the foreground of linguistic interest; it is a subject upon which Whitehead s views CLtn cast some light, lor him there is reproduction from occasion to '
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occasion
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on all societal levels at once, from the neural {and below) to the
linguistic and cultural community, but the relevant population and spec I Ikkinds of natural selection required tn talk of language itself as evolving seem to be lacking. There is only a non-organic 'multiplicity' of utterances. l:rom a Whiteheadian perspective I took issue with the widespread view - held also by Deacon, whose picture of the evolution of the human capacity for symbolic reference I otherwise share - that language continued literally evolving after the protolanguage stage associated with the transition front Homo ei ectus to early sapiens, when the human brain reached its maximal si/e. Beyond that stage, I suggested, the development of full syntactic language' was a matter of '
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purely cultural transmission, since its patterning cannot be equated with the internal organization of organisms at all. Whitehead's own rationalistic views on evolution were presented, and they were seen not to support any sudden ig Bang1 theory of linguistic development of the kind advocated by Bickerton. The possible 'key event (probably a long drawn-out, fluctuating business in fact) was seen in the association of vocal calls and gesturing (the former '
115
ii6
Pactem ii]nJ l tuzess
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closely tied to emotional expression in the mode of causal efficacy
1
,
the latter
*
potentially capable of producing discrete symbols in the mode of presentational immediacy ) Th relevance of White he ad's thinking to the 'big picture1 of the origins of language (whether evolutionary or post-evolutionary) k at a level of generality that do not seem at first sight to have any immediate bearing on practical research applications. Hr>weverh as ] have hinted at in 8.3, the evolution of grammar from pre-grammar could well be modelled in some detail from the specific types of prehensions involved in Whiteheadian suspended judgments 4
.
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and other forms of natural inference, which certainly has its loots in prelinguistic behaviour and perception. Hierarchical structure, recursivity and a
degree of residual iconicity come with the basic pro position a I package since propositional prehensions are of actual nexus: it is a matter of the expression ot specific fonm of natural (pragmatic) inference heunning systematized and ritualized and thus ultimately automatised. This is a process highly reminiscent of grammaticalisation whereby the means at hand - the linguistie wordsigns of the pre-grammatical stage - are recycled for use at a higher level of abstraction. This perspective may also serve to restrain the more outlandish '
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speculations that flourish in this area today [n particular, the consequences of
the idea that the development of full human language has by and large been a post-evolutionary matter of social transmission should be seriously considered.
It is not a viewpoint that one often hears in the ongoing debate.
Chapter 9
Whitehead and linguistic metatheory
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Has the Whiteheadian thread wo have followed through the jungle ol theunes and fa as that modern linguistics embraces actually brought us any closer to an overall understanding of the object of that heterogenous field? lor many linguists the umbrella theory that unifies their field goes under the name of
Universal Grammar. Hor 'mainstream1 generativists today this is seen in terms of principles and parameters, the latter in particular reflecting their growing interest in typological variation, which brings them ever closer to the research interests of functionalists. Laudable though the endeavour ist there is as yet little agreement as to the exact nature or extent of the relevant principles of this theory, nor even the right level of abstractness at which to describe them and assign them ontologies I status L Chomsky s own view of parameters is that they '
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are a matter of lexicon (cf. Chomsky 1992; 419), so there is only one language apart from the lexicon (though properties of the lexicon - e g, word classes are also part of UG). They are particular settings of universal principles (like the theta criterion for Predicate-argument structure, suhadjacency for Bounding, and the principles of anaphora, etc,> for Binding). As an example uf the kind oI arguments made for the psychological realiiy 1
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of such principles consider what Bickerton has to say concerning the binding of 1
anaphors in Hawaiian Creole (Bickerton 1990:169f.). In the sentence 1 gotta go hire one carpenter e go fix the form1 {='[ have to hire a carpenter to fix the form1) V is an anaphor bound to the matrix sentence obiect rather than to its subject - as would be the case if the sentence were intransitive e.g. They wen go up there early in the morning e go plant (i.e. to plant crops). This he '
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explains as reflecting the universal principle that the matrix clause argument with
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Patient1 role controls the empty category when this is the subject of a complement clause. This purely structural constraint, whatever its universal validity, is open to other, functional kinds of explanation, however; notice the proximity of the matrix clause object fas opposed to subject) to the anaphor, "
not to mention the semantics of the whole sentence.
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Hiring' presupposes '
someone other than oneself that one hires for a purpose (whereas going
somewhere for a purpose does not imply anyone else).-|S
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The structural
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Pattern and Vmnc
conliguration could in fact have a more general status than the purely Imguiitic one: the special position of the subject in hnglish {and Hawaiian Creole) at least as a higltor, external node of the overall symat: tic tree than the object within the VP ft he subject 'c-commanding nodes of the latter) - may reflect a general principle of hierarchical plan organization in the cortex, namely the subjectpredicate propositional relationship, relevant also at the level of motor action and perception. The attempt to delineate a psychologically real (and innate) Universal '
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Grammar within mainstream generative linguistics appears, however, to have reached a state where its defining parameters and principles have become so abstract and so specific for language as to have very little conceivable connection with the neural architecture of the broad areas of the cortex known to be
involved in speech, it can be argued that the only overlap between the principles of UG and the processes and architecture of the mind/brain is in the hierarchical organization of levels and the recurs ivity and abstractness from input of the processes they reflect. Itoiti a functionalist perspective all that needs to tie regarded as innate to account for the language faculty is the neural connectivity necessary to link a vocal or manual sign (a gesture} with intentional states in a manner constrailiable by abstract but interpretable
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rules
1
(socially
sanctioned regularities of behaviour), Specific universal for at least common) syntactic configurations may fall out from the interaction of universal communicative needs for instincts) with general principle*; of cortical organization, in
which case they may reflect a species-specific linking and adaptation of originally non-linguistic functions fa Gouldian 'spandrel1)- Owing to the common sensor imotor basis of syntax and phonology and the adaptability to universal communicative needs shared by all languages, accommodation Loand translation between any two human languages is always possible (at least approximately). Expressing such things in a purely linguistic metalanguage seems to many functionalists superfluous - especially since the structural principles of UG are so abstract as to undermine any hope of linking them to actual function and deployment in speech. No wonder they bridle at what lor them are pure '
1
sophistries. Talking about alternative parameter settings they argue, says little ,
more than that a child learning a language actually does learn that language. How could he oi she fail in the long run to set for instance, the parameter 'head before/after complement1 (as in VO versus OV word order) in the way that happens to fall in line with the adult target language {i.e. by choosing one of the two logical possibilities - or free variation between them)? It says, little more than that all human languages must be linearized one way or the other fhardly
Whitfhea-d anJ linguistic iiictatheory
sui prismg given the linear initure of the speech signal), l-urther consequences
for the organization of the paiticular grammar may of course result from inch *
basic choices1 - there aref for example tlie well-known im plica tional consequences for other aspects of grammar that follow from the head-first or headlast linearization 'setting" the adult language leads the child to adopt If one wants to know what UG really looks like, it has been suggested by generativijjts and functionalists alike: one need only look at the spontaneous signed productions of deaf children brought up in a speaking environment and thus cut off from external linguistic input: typically they develop like speaking children through one morpheme and 'two morpheme1 stages, linking ostension and iconic gesturing in proposition-like unitat and may even reach, on their own accord, amongst themselves! a fully recursive system of complex Via uses1 involving coordination, temporal sequencing and subordination [c£ McNeill 1992:4yff and compare the Nicaraguan community mentionec under 8.3). This is at all events the level of generality at which universal parameters cry out for 'internal1 explanations of one kind or another. By far the most interesting ' principle' of UG from a Whiteheadian viewpoint has been broached above: the possibility of seeing the ultimate source of the pi op osi tional structure of human language (also reflected in X-bar syntax) in the architecture of the relevant regions of the cortex. One need not stop at characterizing this structure in terms oft say the universality of the expansion of S to NP + VP for its more general X-bar equivalent, or indeed a semantic/ pragmatic equivalent in terms of theme and rheme). The possibility thai this 1
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has to do with the nature of perception and bodily movement, the 'prehension' of objects by experiencing subjects and the carrying out of discrete motor actions by active agentsN etc., is surely worth following up. in Whiteheadian terms, a * pro positional feeling' arises from the integration of a physical feeling indicative of the logical subject1 [or theme) with a conceptual feeling indicative of a predicative relation (or rheme}, independent of expression in language as such. It is the innate1 propensity to have such feelings - or 'prehensions' '
that I proposed in 7.1 calling the prop osi tional instinct
This corresponds to
'
the middle circle of ClivoiVs three concentric 'functional realms namely '
propo si tional semantics organized around prototypical event structure
[Givon 1984:30f,); the other two are (innermost) 'lexical semantics', corre'
sponding to the instinct1 for symbolic reference, and f outer most) discourse pragmatics corresponding to the communicative instinct (involving empathy for and projection of social intentions). The question of'innateness1 is for "
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,
Whitebead a matter of 'social immanence' (reflecting shared/overlapping
izy
zjo
Pa teem and Process
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origins and common aims between occassions in unison nfbecoming1). It is this that allows the 'same
'
eternal object to he aecessible to different actual occasions
whether along the same liJ'e line or on parallel ones. It also makes empathy between individual conmumicatorii such a natural thing, Universal Grammar can best be understood from this perspective as delimiting the eternal objects to which any given language by needs must conform (whether for historical functional or processing reasons) En other words* linking this back to the argument in Of as innate constraints on protolanguage inherited by lull culturally transmitted language (with further
-
emergent consequences). However, it should be stressed that the corresponding eternal objects represent pure potentiality and have no psychological or physical location at all apart from their ingresskm in the system of contrasts of actual nonages internalized in the mind/brains of speakers. Grammar as such does not xist (apart from in grammar books) in any other way than through the production and comprehension processes in which individual speaker/hearers engageh and there can consequently never be just one true way in which the generalizations across words and construction types which make up a grammar can be captured, only more or less economical a]id comprehensive ways of '
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doing so, more or less compatible with other areas of cognitionEternal objects, not being causally efficient themselves, only attain causal efficacy in goal-orientated activity on the part of the individual actual occasions in which they find ingress ion as forms ofdefiniteness' The same applies to implicational universals: these are relationships abstracted from concrete facts about particular languages and are not necessarily located' in speakers (apart from linguists}. As Itkonen puts it: implicational universals are not causal but reflect 'nonnomic rational purposes of efficiency and economy interacting with expressive needs (Itkonen 1983:217). J3ut what is truly universal for Whitchead is of course not uniquely linguistic at all: the bottom line is rather the universal '
1
nature of pro positional prehensions - and more specifically of judgments, which combine proposittonal prehensions with indicative prehensions of the social emheddedness (as at least presupposed) of their logical subjects plus a subjective form expressing the percipients (or speaker/hearers) intentional stance. A matter, then, of universal cognitive processes. One recent approach to the universals of grammar that would appear
potentially to have much in common with this VVhiteheadian perspective is Optimality Theory (seeGilbers & de Hoop 1968 for a concise summary). The Wl constraints1 of this theory arc good exemplars of Whiteheadian eternal objects, since they are intrinsically unordered and may indeed be mutually
W It itehead and li nyu i st i c mctathcory
incompatitile, bosoming ardereJ tJirough L'ompetition for maximal LkArmonyl
in their {complex ingress ion in individual grammars. They can be applied to both synchronic variLition aaid to diachrony (where conflicting constraints can be resolved in ere men tally and differently at different times, as usage evolves)t
and they may also relate to language acquisition {where constraints deriving from the structure of the child's mind/brain can delimit grammars that are con formal with input to varying degrees). Process and Pattern mutually determine one another in a manner reminiscent of the satisfaction of concres-
cences {aiming at maximal harmony of integration of contrasting input) at both the level of teieological language usage and thai ol 'blind language change. '
"
Clearly such constraints are not constitutive of grammatical rules, bnt merely organize their emergence with maximal internal harmony. The actual basic constraints that can be regarded as universal in this theory and agreement on their status as
'
innate1 or 'emergent1, has yet to be reachedh however. In general
the possibility of interpreting them in terms of real psychological processes or strategies seem rather far-fetched, as is also the case with the more absolute '
principles of Chomsky s Minimalist Program, which likewise stresses const: aims rather than rules. Although the latter now dispenses not only with transformations but also with the deep w surface structure distinction, it still relies heavily in its strategic interpretation on the dubious equation of economy of description and psychological plausibility. This stubborn insistence on a 1
'
Process as well as a Pattern interpretation for tergiversation between the two) seems to me the last major flaw in that approach to U t that must be excised for it to become meaningful to functionalists. Both these 'constraints1 approaches harmonize potentially with the Whiteheadian 'Pattern' perspective but fall foul of his notion of
'
Process Giving up the Process interpretation of UG means, of
course, giving up all attempts to locate a biological Language Acquisition Device and at pinpointing innate UG strategies (as opposed to template-like - and
ultimately functionally motivated - constraints). It is unlikely that Chomsky himself will take such a step. What is needed is a parallel Tunctional Minimalist Progranfj which would pare the processes needed to explain communicative
behaviour down to the bone - say to a set of 'prehension1 types, Perhaps it would even turn out to be complementary with a Pattern or constraint interpretation of UG.
Linguistic codes - i.e individual languages- are at all events embedded in the activity of speakers9 mind/brains, as part of a wider range of symbolic activity of which such personally ordered societies are capable, all with their roots in {and their routes from) a long and complex evolutionary background '
1
231
iii
Pattern and P],rfccss
which audully involved functionality and purpose at every turn. We cannot expect all that functional history to be preserved and packaged - at least in legible form - in the psychology or in the social exchanges of the individual speaker: early him:lions are lost or transformed as new ones exapt their l
h
'
residue. By cutting itself oft from these functional roots> Universal Grammar as envisaged by many generativists seems to exclude from its purview some of the most interesting areas of linguistics of all h those dealing with the ingress ion of the constrained patterning of grammars in actual deployment by speakers. Trom whatever side of the linguistic fence one looks, the overall patterns persist though their bearers perish. On Figure 5 below I have attempted to show how the levels that a language typically displays in its patterning (as on Figure 3 in 3.1) relate to societal levels in the 'actual' ('esternal1} world. The fact that I have indicated a similar number
of levels tor both s hoy Id not he taken as suggesting that the respective levels are
somehow ontologically equivalent The external social levels simply indicate the context presupposed for the deployment of the corresponding linguistic level. My point here is simply to show that grammars - by virtue of being used by communities of thinking/speaking persons with mind/brains organised in a certain hierarchical fashion - necessarily reflect the societal structure of the
world. Language and society come as a package deal to each new learner. The diagram should be taken as reflecting how communities of actual speakers using
a language aifect the eternal objects defining its grammar and vice versa, The higher levels impinge upon the Whiteheadian 'mental pole1 of actual occasions involving the inieiutonal use of language, while the lowest levels match the subconscious physical underpinnings of speech. Hach level can be further associated with the specitic innate instincts that I have proposed previously These are cumulatively involved in producing emergent higher-level linguistic faculties. The static pattern contained within the linguistic 'pyramid1 on the left is a complex eternal object abstracted from actual processes represented in the rightmost column - the prehensions concerned are of course specific kinds of the general type indicated (those relevant to symbolic transfer in a linguistic medium). It should be borne in mind that there is an a lie rent and an efferent
side to cone res cent actual occasions at all societal levels and that the Borneo1
self-organization of organisms - including speaker/hearers - depends on the coordination by higher levels of the lower levels on which they in turn depend and from which they emerge. Observe that words - or morphemes, i,e. conventional linguistic symbols static
-
stand roughly at the centre, mediating between the two poles. They are, as
level
:
latls
sl-iUl-eil h
Hoctcty of;
reflected in instinct for;
proccists of:
absiracted frnm
ccunmu ni ty of spen kers
ctkminTin ical m n
tiyhrid prctierrtin n Kubjt-ctL
i nd iviJunl sjiCLikcr /
airn
prthpoii tions
prnptisttJoiul \\ i hcns 1 :1
symbflJkm
symbolic [mnsfcr
k ihblbnp
phyikal prehension
thinker
iViLem
-:-
|
,.
.i
-n.-
neyr L n re .ilcs
-
cu-ntroLl i riy i}>ccch
Kigurt 5.
Searle would put \xt the key to collective intentionality and iustitntioua] i cts ira]tending the individual mind/Uuim. Words the principal means of Whiteheadian symbolic reference bur in their very flexibility and contextsensitivity they are also prone to introduce error and deception. Without them
the majority of our concepts would not even be entertailiable - whether to use or to abuse. As types they rehte to (complex) eternal objects i.e. concepts, and are themselves re pea table forms of detiniteness of classes of perceptual tokens that count as that type. What is 'repeatable1 is actually the whole causal chain: token-type-eternal object. More accurately, one should perhaps say that the '
'
eternal object is not the end-point of the symbolic reference chain here but merely mediates or shapes (by negative constraint, as it were) the specific shape or
'
feel' of experience in the mode of causal efficacy that is the actual meaning
of the word: both the expression and the content of the symbol is defined In terms of (different) eternal objects. For example, when a hearer registers the
isolated word token 'bridge1, what is abstracted out of the raw speech signal is j sei.|uen eof plumcint-s ot ani/ed as a single syllable about ihoshoj t vowel /I/.
This palpably matches the word type of that form associated in memory with a complex concept. The eternal objects defining the phonological form are those
that specify the configuration of phonemes evoked, in turn detined within the phonological system of hnglish by relations between the vocal gestures concerned (themselves re pea table and shareable). The eternal objects defining the meaning of the word, on the other hand, are presumably ingressant in a highly malleable array of token images of bridges (and parts of bridges) actually
234
I'lHtLTll iinO J'],(KL>S
experienced by the hearer and out of which a general schema has to some degree been abstracted. The.se correspond to pimicnbr perceptual and functional feelings1 that are relevant to deciding whether the word 'bridge1 Hts a '
given object or nol?22 If a word refers to an event type, its me in a specific utterance relates the eternal object detining that type to the relevant event itself as its meaning. The token use of the word and its intended meaning together form a species of nexus, note, namely a linguistic act in a con formal context. The principal process whereby word types accrete in memory from tokens (e.g. concrete strings of phonemes in speech) is that of transmutation | he types are 'socially reproduced {and reinforced) by way of tokens and in turn mediate the symbol1
'
L
"
.
1
ic transfer to the conceptual meanings involved. This recognition that both words and the concepts they stand for and also the contexts in which they acquire more determinate meaning and the intentions conventionally associat-
ed with their use (not to mention sped lie grammatical rules and universa., generalisations across grammatical patterns) are all definable in terms of '
combinations of forms of Jefiniteness1 of one sort or the other seems to me to
represent the essence of the special Whiteheadian perspective on language, which allows one to correlate substance fas process) and form (as pattern) on both the content and expression 'planes1 without reducing the one to the other. This may be what Hjelmslev was hinting at with his proposed cmetasemiological' analysis of both substance and form in terms of ultimate ' figurtic fas mentioned under 3.1), although he stopped short of describing substance as
process fa term that he reserved for the syntagmatic dimension of form). Figure 5 can he interpreted as showing how the Veal world" of societies of actual occasions imposes its dynamic organization upon the static templates of grammars (and, incidentally, allowrs us to translate1 them back into dynamic. generative rules). From this perspective one can understand iconic relationships between grammar {pluslexicon) and external 'reality1 as the fpartial) matching of certain eternal objects of the subjective and objective varieties, both of them genera of contrasts (cf. 1.23), in a manner that is in harmony with Whitehead's overall realism. Compare the relationship between the eternal objects of the subjective type defining the meaning of an individual word like 'bridge1, for examplej and those of the objective type that actually define 'bridges1 as spatial objects out there i it is one of internalized, simplified representation fvia transmutation) supplemented by functional associations (further subjective eternal objects) acquired through experience of the socially sanctioned use of the word in the context of such objects. A similar, but more abstract relation'
'
'
'
1
l
'
> > 1J I LC
EC ciU
LiJ lU
LJ [
LI L
L J L.
IJ
L-:L L I J CIJ L V
ship pertains between syntactic clauses and pmpositional potentials inherent in externaJ states of affairs! We can then say that a language represents a kind of complex eternal object of the subjective kind containing conventional symbolic relationships and also certain relevant types of communicative subjective forms1 {illocutions and/or perlocutions), Though it conforms to the objective muure of its vessel (the structure of the individual mind/hrain) it is essentially an internalized institutional object' derived from physical data (contactualized verbal input) provided by the relevant society- or community- of speakers The 'natural seams' in external spatio-temporal reality with which it roughly '
'
'
'
correlates reflect eternal objects of the objective kind, defined in terms of form '
and location and further endowed - by transmutation - with qualia (themselves eternal objects of the subjective kind). In this way language can impose relations and qualities and taxonomies on 'outer reality' that are thoroughly dependent on human purposes and experience. Like all eternal objects, a language has a private and a public aspect There are more specific ways in which the 'societal1 organization of a ianguage parallels the Societal structure' of the individual speaker and his/her actual world even if the language itself is a complex eternal object and not a nexus of actual occasions. A socially organized nexus is characterized by (usuallyjust) one'regnant nexus1 and several 'subservient' nexus. The regnant nexus within a living society is the lite line1 of actual occasions which displays original reactions> Le, introduces novelty at their mental poles> and acts as the highest node of'control1 of the concrescences in which the nexus is involved. The hierarchical organization of language reflects the hierarchical organization of the mind/brain of the speaker, the illocution.iry apex of figure 5 thus corresponding to the regnant nexus of the speaker's intentions, to which all choices further down the hierarchy are subservient. Moreover, the regnant nexus of a living society {in particular of a personally ordered society) is not "
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,
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"
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"
1
1
strictly speaking itself a society {see 1.2.2) but depends tor its very existence on
the supporting environment of a socially organized body. It inherits its data from the body sustaining it. So just as the mind is not autonomous from the body, a language is not autonomous from its environment of use, The match between 'things1 and 'events1 and levels of organization in the external world and the things and 'events1 and levels of language is, however; very approximate and the layering of grammar can in any case (as we saw in 3.1) vary in detail of subdivision from language to language, it is approximate for good reasons; tirst because it is socially transmitted (and may thus contain the "
1
residue of historical accidents '
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and reorganizations), and secondly because
236
I'attem tind Process
constant creative adjustment by both speakers and hearers is required to meet constantly changing circumstances that call for verbalization for verbal response). The availability of multiple alternative ways of satisfying a complex
communicative goal - including shifts of level of abstraction or of hypothetical Vorld1 - has an obvious advantage over a rigid system of one-to-one mapping fif such a thing were even a theoretical possibility). The specific in tent ions and
general communicative maxims coming to bear on any given instance of speech activity may stand in various relations of conflict or competition amongst themselves. As the
'
"
organ of novelty the mind/bra in is constantly producing new syntheses of known patterns, producing new tid tan; solutions to immediate communicative needs and. in the process, weaving experiential indices anc. icons into higher level symbolic groupings. Recall ffrom 5.4) Deacons description of the essentially centrifugal process '
'
of language comprehension and the centripetal one of language production through successive 'tiers' of the dominant hemisphere of the brain- Bach such tier has its own characteristic speedy the phonetic level functioning at a faster rate than the syntactic one for ex3mple> just as lower societal levels in genera.. (for instance the society of neurons} function on a much faster time scale than higher level ones (for instance the society of individual human bodies), hvery level has its natural baseline periodicity, so just as the larynx has its own natural vibratory rhythm there may well be an equally natural pulsation to the successive production of syllables and, at a still slower rate, to communicative behaviour as such (and in a more diffuse way to verbal thought - compare what was said in 2.2 about the periodicity of utterance and growth point 1
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units). Thus there is an alternation between diffusion outwards from the
incoming speech signal towards 'representations' of wider and wider intentional context (eventually involving also the contralaterai hemisphere), and the
opposite movement, from tar-flung context to concrete realization in a suitable '
verbal response. One is back at White head s conception of the natural rhythm of successive cone res cent occasions operating at any societal level to maintain maximal contrasts, as sketched in L2.5.
If the 'tiers1 of outer reality - reflected in the organization of our concepts and the 'tiers1 of grammar corresponded exactly there would be no modal contrast between what is' and 'what might be', there would be no possibility of
-
1
'
reformulating an utterance in such a way as to subtly influence a hearer s presuppositions, nor of cheating or pretending (or of recognizing it on others). And, however sophisticated our intentional life, we would not be able to learn
Whitehead and Linguis-tk metith-eory
'
oli]- kliv out u] ijic illusion since the
'
'
map
woulo
Jways cor respond in ,1
determinate way tf> the purported 'territory1. If they didn't correspond at all however, we would hardly be able to learn the necessary associations between words and thingi and between sentence types and slates of affairs in the first place. As it is, human cognition is capable of recursive extension of its layerec. nature it can create worlds as well as reflect them.
All societal levels in Whitehead's system are self-reproducing and thus have their own brand of teleology {although this is much more diffuse and statistical at lower levels and perhaps also higher ones than that of the personally '
'
ordered society ). One may also say that each level of grammar reflects its own kind of teleology fas well as its own kinds ofelements, con tent/form relationsh rule types and logic) - there are, for instance, specific kinds of linguistic act adhering to each. However, all White he ad ian teleology lies squarely in the societies of actual entities thems-elves (here read speakers ) not in the eternal objects ingressant in them, so our conclusion must indeed be that language as '
1
,
such is only teleologicalby proxy, Grammars (whether individual or
'
1
universal )
Are not nexus of actual occasionsf so they must, by default, be eternal objects. Thus a Whiteheadian grammar is an eternal object, latent (socially immanent) but not innate or universal - it corresponds to a specific i-language, it is a set
of behavioural norms integrating phonological, morphosyntactic, semantic ant. pragmatic elements, aimed at but seldom exactly matched, This is not far from Itkonen s 'biperspectivist1 conception of'non-causal1, autonomous linguistics fas opposed to the 'causal1 nature of the intentional deployment of language). as discussed in 1.3 - a matter of potentiality as opposed to actuality. Grammar as pattern is autonomous in the sense that it defines socially sanctioned types of
expression completely general (Le, abstracted) across tokens of use.22 J Compare also Itkonen s claim that individual acts of behaviour (i.e. process) are merely observed whereas intentional pattern is understood fltkonen 1978: lOfif.). He sees the task of general linguistics as the integration of the norm and spacetime aspects of language (op.cit.: 300). Pattern is more than the sum of its parts and is not reducible to individual acts. I am thinking here not only of generative grammar but also of such essentially static functional and cognitive approaches to grammar as Construction Grammar, which are of course not 'autonomous in the sense of being isolated from types of pragmatic context or from cognition in general. One could say that lan uage-as-pattern guides language-as-process in actual thought and communication Just as eternal objects guide the maturation processes of germ cells at a lower societal level: in both cases they form a '
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1
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237
23fl
Pattern inid Pi ctss
field of potentiality ordered with respect to each m dividual occasion within the relevant nexus. I:or a concrete exemplification - the generation of a single utterance in English - see Appendix 2. Can an individual language such as tnglish, undergoing contimial change, seriously be called an eternal object ? Certainly. It is a potential system of contrastive patterns in the behaviour of a sub-set of personally ordered societies/nexus of actual occasions (speakers which may or may not be perspectivized for a given human being hut is 'real1 in the only meaningful sense of that word: it is a system of patterns that is there to be prehended by new learners. Being an extremely complex object (although fractally organized in so far as rather simple recursive rules describe much of its potential expansion) it cannot be piehended all at once, and its objectification for successive generations of '
'
'
'
learners is going to vary according to exposure (and to intervening changes in the communicative environment of adult users). Thus English appears to evolve, while in fact it is its users and the society in which they are embedded
that do so. Each new learner has a slightly different perspective on that complex potentiality that is English, as does each new generation if one makes a broader cut across successive states and abstracts across a wider nexns of speakers. That potentiality for change is open-ended, only constrained or guided by the graded likelihood of direction of change, as determined by the complex interaction of '
'
pragmatic and cognitive factors and the overall coherence of the system (as a type if you will). 'Die 'eternal object1 we call English is what relates all the words recognized as belonging to that language together as a system, linking forms (conventionalized perceptual symbols) to meanings (other nexus experienced in the mode of causal efficacy) in all their combinatorial potency for expressing complex and novel communicative intentions. Perhaps the replacement of the word eternal by 'potential' will make this perspective more intuitively grasp able for empirically-minded functionalists. Note the difference between this position and that of the generativists: what remains in some sense eternal for them is abstract UGT whereas individual languages (like English) change, hor a Whiteheadian only speakers and societies change, while eternal objects - including individual grammars - do not and cannot, But here we meet a paradox; how can we reconcile Whitehead's view that eternal objects are intrinsically unordered (see 1.2.3) with the clearly ordered patterning of language if it consists itself of eternal objects? In fact Whitehead only claimed that eternal objects are unordered when abstracted from actual occasions prehending them (cf. the discussion in Christian 1959; 258 ft.) -the actual occasions particular perspective automatically orders them (i.e. grades '
1
,
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'
them for relevance to its subjective aim).1M Does it help then to distinguish '
sharply between Competence (the purely potential intrinsically unordered 1
'
patterns of language as eternal objects) and performance (language ordered by ingress ion in actual usage by speakers), to use the terminology of the generativists? Tho trouble is that Competence1 on anyone's definition does have its own intrinsic ordering, even if consisting solely of innate constraints - individual grammars have mutually ordered rules and Uti principles apply in modular fashion, each module being related to the others in a determinate fashion. '
'
Notice, however that the reality of'inhabiting1 a human body already narrows down the possible eternal objects that may come to bear on the language faculty1 in terms of their graded relevance for constraining such activity, htcrnal objects are never detachable1 from the actual occasions in which they find ingress ion, so there is always order (and ordering) imposed on eternal objects by the nexus of actual occasions in which they manifest. It is no contradiction tn state that the natural constraints on grammar (whether fully or only partially innate) are not ordered apart from their ingression in actual language behaviour. f :ull languages f on the other hand, are more than general const rain tsN they also display content form and content form fas reflected both in lexical and grammatical organization) is ordered. The lexicon of any language is ordered both by virtue of the natural 'seams' behind percept ion-based concepts and by "
'
1
,
conventionalized relations of hyponomyh implicationt etc., that reflect the
universe organized according to purely human goals and values. Grammatical rules are by necessity ordered since they organize the transfer ral of hierarchical. multi-dimensional information through linear channels' they also reflect to some degree the historical order of their integration into the grammar con-
cerned They are inherited patterns regulating behaviour by coordinating multilevel intentions and linear expression in such a way that individual linguistic acts {processes) within a social nexus match conventional expectations as a means to achieving com muni cation a I ends. 7 his ordering is simply potential, emergent in actual occasions of use. For eternal objects themselves are emergent; they emerge from potentiality as conRgurations of actual occasions permit, but the potentiality has always been there. '
The Whiteheadian alternative to Pinker's 'language instinct' which I have '
1
proposedn the propositional instinct allows access to the eternal objects that UG also aims at uncovering, f rom both viewpoints the basic parameters of syntax arc only partially learnt, being based on certain innate predispositions, only in the case of the propositional instinct what is innate is not purely structural, language-specific constraints at ail, but a quite straightforward and '
1
Parrcm iind Process
general constraint on the expression of com mimic utivc nced one based on more primitive kinds of prehensions (both physical and conceptual) than those
involved crucially in linguistic behaviour. 'I he 'proposition a I instinct* de tines '
the basic design of protolanguagen upon which the superstructure of full1 language can be built by cultural learning, [t is responsible both for the subjecipredicate logical articulation of language- including sign language- and for the more context-dependent theme-rheme one, to which it may or may not correspond directly fas discussed in 3 2,2. and 4-1)- It U broader than just linguistic in its scope, however: the propositioiiiil 'template1 results from the coupling of any physical prehension with any conceptual prehension. Note that all higher organisms- not just man - recognize and react to patterns in their
environment, i.e. have simple conceptual prebensions, In the case of fproto-) language, the physical prehension corresponds to a subject referent in an
intellectual prehension (which links an Indicative feeling' to a 'propositional feeling'K and the conceptual prehension corresponds to a predicate. The quintessential kind of intellectuai prehension1 involved in the deployment of language is the 'intuitive judgment1 (which specifically contains a propositional imaginative prehension') - and this term nicely underscores the tacit side of the complex phenomenon of language that has so fascinated generativists; '
'
language does indeed function largely at an intuitive level. Although the proposition provides the basis for conscious thought at the highest level h its roots lie deep in pre-linguistic behaviour then. As hinted at in 7 1 the holophrasis of early child language (and perhaps even the 'signing' of .
,
chimps} conceals a binary propositional template in which context contains {or
gesture indicates) the presupposed subject of some highlighted symbolic predicate. In the most primitive propositional prehensions of all ( perceptive prehensions cones ponding to the simple recognition of figuie/ground relationships)! the logical subject of the proposition is tightly bonnd to the '
1
,
'
predicate in a unitary prehension, whereas by the time of children s
two-
morpheme stage of linguistic development we are already dealing with imaginative prehensions These provide the capability of transferring the same '
predication to different subjects, so that predicates and their subjects can be separately considered. This reflects in turn the growing awareness of the child of the difference of societal level between its own egocentric world and that in which it is but a part. With the dawning ability to make intellectual prehensions children wilJ be able to abstract still further from the here-and-now and
entertain and express propositions with a modal or tensed meaning contrasting with immediate appearances. They will at the same time he able to extend their
W h itchcid sind li ngu isri c nicuthco tr
natural ability to empathize {via hybrid prehensions) to Linderstanding the
intentions behind corresponding complex expressions on the part of others. I;nll communicative competence will have emerged. Naturally, the more primitive kinds of propositional prehonsion do not then disappear, but persist in all manner of linguistic as well as no n-linguistic activities.
This suggests that actual gram mars are not only ordered but - afl institutional objects - also individually learnt, one language at a time, from scratch in the case of ones lirst language. How could that be so, given the basic structural similarity of all known full1 languages? The answer must be: because of their common starring point in the innate propensity towards protolanguage. plus the basic similarity of human cultural environments and communicative needs. This applies a fot non to the structural similarity of all pidgins. That these can rapidly shift to institutionalised Creoles passed on to following generations is not surprising- in doing so they simply re enact the original emergence of full language, just as every ehild learning its irst Janguage does today via conceptual valuation and reversion. As opposed to the proclivity for pro tolanguage - which is probably innate and ordered solely by the inherent interaction of such simple principles as the 'propoiitional instinct1 and the capability for symbolic transfer with concrete communicative needs and goals l ull, syntacrically recnrsLve k-mgnages CLin hi/said lo cunsist of eternal objects hierarchically ordered by virtue of the shared mental pole perspective of their community of useri. This k because they are social objects and not just the sum f
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-
total of the grammars embodied in each speaker - individual variation and '
'
usage must be seen against this background. Whereas the order of pro tolanguage is determined by the structure of the mind/brain alone, that of full language involves the further interaction of that fundamental organization with
purely institutionalized facts and goak These have emerged bom the natural '
world by individual flashes' of imagination meeting particular communicative challenges, extending the means already at hand to patterns of greater, synthetic complexity. Once they have caught on they are perpetuated from generation to generation in the manner of all cultural 1memea The phenomenon of language straddles both the abstract patterning of symbols (or the eternal objects de lining them) and actual occasions of their use, both psychological and social reality, it is a matter of human action and of human imagination, not of the immutable consequences of physical law, although physical law of course determines the preconditions for iti appeariir.ee. Language cannot just he Process, n v.-. not lust a ueascless struggle between competing functional force s it must also be rep eatable, relatively stable Pattern '
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.
241
i i
Parrem and Proms
[abstracted from Process)h in order tor it to be tranjiterred at liII from generation to generation. As eternal object, potential tbrrru langnagc docs not changes hut
in dividual languages encapsulate the history ni'the never-ceasing flux of actua.. occasions that produced them- In terms of the still on-going rule-versusanalogy debate adumbrated in 3.1, rules can be seen as a suitable way of looking at language-as-pat tern {like any other set of social conventions) as long as they are not mistaken for actual procedures: when one discusses the psychologiai.
processes behind language use one must shift perspective to the recognition of -
and extension by - analogy, the stuff of higher Whitcheadian prehensions.
Synchronically the one perspective does not take precedence over the other. Analogies, however, may get transferred and integrated into grammars and lexicons through gramma tic alization and other broad diachronic processes, acid thus achieve the status of rules. This is close to the spirit of Givon s recent plea for the 'both/and* nature of linguistic rules, in which a non-reductionistic
symhesis of the generativist (categonal, Platonic) and emergemist (indeterminate, purely functional) approaches is advocated ftlivon J999). But one should "
also recall vSapifs words long ago Wherever we go we are impressed by the fact 1
that pattern is one thing, the ultilization of pattern quite another {Sapir
l Jrfil). Rules are not inherent but inherited socially through successive generations of learners. Psychologically, the pattern aspect of language is something felt, it does not come with labels attached to its categories - the latter are there to be abstracted or inferentially 'read off actual experiences of language use stored in memory (in however abbreviated or filtered a form). [ his is perhaps the central point of the present book: linguists today woulc do well to Like Whiiehead s insistence on meaning-as-feeling seriously. Tor feeling is surely what 'really* lies behind the various metalanguages that linguists apply to breaking down meaning, to describing syntactic patterning, to analysing how language is used in social discourse, and so forth. It is the tee lings involved in symbolic reference, the prehensions involved in producing and understanding language and in using it to infer and project logical con sequences h that guides us in making rapid matches between complex communicative intentions and the symbolic means available to express them. It is the feeling of '
"
words and constructions used in the contexts that sanction them. l:or every
word, every construction type has its specific feeling that allows us to access its
meaning far more rapidly than any digital sorting through of a tinite set of '
'
recognition features could ever manager the influence of context is critical If contexts are only approximately definable in terms of types their flexibility producing prototype effects at all levelsh then the holistic grasp of the approxi'
Whitehead and linguistic metath-eory
mate match of feeling between prehension of the word and prehension of relevant contexts is - given our nature as symbol-toting organisms - a far more likely psychological mechanism than the linear analysis of lists of com pone ntial traits or the like in the manner of digital computers. The process aspect of language niusL surely be based on something like the Whitelieadian prehension. The pattern aspect in terms of eternal objects is less problematical - the same data can be seen to support analysis into a variety of competing forms of definiteness including traditional grammatical descriptions. If we look inwards at out own trains of inner speech we can surely all sense directly the causal eficacy of language at work: the rapid alternation of embryonic propositions and gestures (set amidst a wealth of barely registered imagery) h held together by the feelings that they express and linked, as Whitehead would put it, by conformity of subjective ibrm as the one goal-guided aim merges into the next. '
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Thought is not either propositional {say verbal} or non-propositional (say imagistic), it is bothn with language - culturally transmitted - in a sense parasitic upon more primitive experience, rationally bridging' hicuunc in its causal flow, precisely as we would expect from a broader evolutionary perspec'
'
tive. Need we somehow he ashamed of this as 'scientists ? '
It is always teEnpting to follow one simplistic extreme or the other and one
may choose to regard grammar as the only
real
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1
aspect of language and actual
language use as illusory and purely statistical - or the other way round. The
inevitable conclusion the Whiteheadian approach leads to is that hoth are equally real. The central problem for a linguistic mctatheory delimiting the Linilicd sLudy o( innyun e cntially [iw bkvuu. ujk1 KuAL-d l>v PLiiu jmJ taken up again by Whitehead: how to integrate permanence with non-permanence, Pattern (here read grammar ) with Process (here read 'language as becoming1), how to root the two perspectives mutually in each other without reducing the one to the other? This is why linguistics, unlike disciplines that fall more centrally within the natural sciences, appears so protean in its scope and allows for the co-existence of so many bewilderingly varied approaches. A satisfactory metatheory today must allow for emergence, a key notion in White he ad's process ual philosophy of organism, and not limit itself to a static conceptual framework. Hot language is simultaneously - and inextricably '
hoth Pattern and Process.
1
243
Appendix 1 WhiteheacTs position within modern philosophy
This is not the place? to attempt to go in depth into Wh itch cad s position within the history of tumpean philosophy - nor am I qualiiied to do so. Never theless, a lew hriet' remiirta are in ordei-, since not many readers will be familiar
with the context and background of his work. In fact, he appears (or in any years to have been ignored by mainstream philosophy fat least in England), his speculative philosophy having since his death largely been handed over to the theologians-"3 This seems to me a shame since theology is only one aspect a relatively un elaborated and su spendable one at that - of his all-em bracing system, as presented in his major works Science and the Modern World" (1925), "Process and Reality" (1929) and "Adventures of Ideas" (1933). Anglo'
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Saxon philosophy in the latter half of the twentieth century has retreated from
such ambitious metaphysical projects andn following the rising star of Wittgenstein, focussed on detailed investigations of safer, more restricted areas of language and log it, whether in the Speech act1 approach of Ordinary Language philosophers like Strawson and Austin, or in the lormalistic behaviourism of Onine. One might say that Whitehead dared to proceed in his endeavour to
integrate a holistic view of Nature with the upheavals science was undergoing in the early decades of this century while most of his contemporaries (including Russell) turned away from metaphysics altogether. Wh it eh ead's reputation has fared better in America, where a 'realist1 predisposition towards philosophy was more strongly anchored - Peirce, another mathemalician by training who had done important work in symbolic logic> and whose work Whitehead valuedH can
be seen within that context.' ' Whiteheadlast academic position, note, was as Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University - he never held such lt chair in Britain, Whitehead also influenced hangers feeling-based approach to symbolism (Langer 1967). Tor an excellent biography by a syin pathetic agnostic - one '
which also contains useful summaries of the contents of Whitehead s successive
philosophical works - see Lowe (1985/1990).
The drifting apart of Wrhitehead and kussell (Whitehead's ex-pupil and collaborator at Cambridge on the
"
Principia Mathematical reflects this
i S
Appendix I
development well. The younger philosopher admitted after White head1* death UtiU metaphyskaJ sp ubtions werL1 'somewhat strange1 to him - one
senses in tact that he did not really understood what White he ad was getting at in his later work at all (Russell 1959*297), In turnh Whitehead consideiec
Russell later in life as 1the greatest logician since Aristotle but in matters ontologkal completely mistaken (Lowe ] 9 0; 205). Yet both Russell and 4
Whitehead represented in the early decades of this century the 'New Realism' that arose in Britain in reaction to the excesses of continental idealism. New
approaches to the object of science were essential if philosophy was to keep pace
with the rapid changes in world view that advances within science itself (notably relativity and quantum theory) were affecting, and in their cooperation on the Truiopia Innh men wore centrally concenicd with mteardun the universal logical basis behind mathematics! the principal theoretical tool of science! now "
being stretched far beyond the limits of direct conceptualization. But this same impulse was ultimately to lead Whitehead in a very different direction from
RusselL His interest in mathematics was always more on the process than the product. Russell remained closer to the basic analytical and scientific cast of British philosophy and the practical concerns of matching - if not equating the logical world of mathematics and science with everyday experience (hence
his association with Logical Positivism)- His logical atomism' was as is well known, influenced by Wittgenstein in the hitter's early phaset although he was to grow estranged from the later, iconoclastic Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations1' During his long career and numerous shifts of perspective "
Russell can be said to have moved across the spectrum from (qualified) rationalist to fqualihed) empiricist, but unlike Whitehead he never synthesized the two approaches, ending rather at a point where, pessimistic about the possibility of such a thing as complete, exact knowledge he continued to enquire into the minimal general principles necessary to extend pure empiricism into a satisfac-
tory philosophy of science. Again unlike Whitehead, lie was a reductionist who reduced both mental and material phenomena to sense data and physiology: there was for him no complementary Inner and 'outer' view of reality (hence his purely external, materialistic view of nature - a pure abstraction seen from Whitehead'a viewpoint), Russell's theory of types, whereby recognition of the logical type of a '
proposition [tirst or second orde etc.) can be utilized to avoid the logical absurdity of making propositions about propositions in general (which would then have to be a class including itself), led him to doubt that surface forms of sentences can directly reflect their underlying logical form, a point of view
Appendix ]
shared hy Whhehead, who repeatedly warned against equating propositions and their expieiiion. Uut whereas Russell, ever the a to mist, was led in the years
following his cooperation with White he ad towards Frege and his own truththeoretical perspective on denotation and linguistic ambiguity,1- Whitehead s '
initial concern with the foundations of mathematics and science led him to a '
polyad ic non-linear view of logic (not limited to two-termed relations
between substances or qualities} and a processual view of mathematics, His realism was also qualified: the philosophy of organism is in a sense an attempt to right the prohlem of vacuous actuality1 endemic to realism - this he did through his introduction of the 'actual occasion as the ultimate basis of reality. Of perhaps crucial importance for his later philosophy was his growing interest in hiology and psychology, as mediated by pragmatist (and arch1
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empiricist) William lames. Hspedaily the notion of the unitary experience
1
as
1
the basic unit of reality (as opposed to static 'substances } held by American pragmatists i;uch as Dewey must have been congenial to him. Other important
influences on his thought were Bergson's conception of a universe in continual Heraclitean flux experienced by free monadic occasions (though he rejected the Trench philosopher's streak of irrationality}. Like Husserl and the other
continental phenomenolo ists {but quite independently} Whitehead did not limit 'experience' to perception but sought to approach 'things in themselves' via intellectual intuition'."9 Closer to home, he greatly admired Samuel '
Alexandei; another New Realist systcm-lnLilderN whose ideas on emergent evolution
"
and the complementarity of mind and matter (as foreshadowed by
Spinoza) he readily absorbed. He was also influenced by idealist Bradley in his emphasis on feeling as the basis of knowledge and experience. In his later work
(notably in "Adventures of Ideas'
general concerns with the social and
cultural history of mankind became more and more prominent. Ultimately, Whitehead saw the only 'proof1 of his whole system of thought as lying in its
general success in application to experience {Lowe 1990, vol.2: 267). He was the most broadly humane of twentieth century philosophers. If one were to suggest a parallel for his basic ideas concerning the nature of
language within modern Philosophy of Language reference could be made to Itkonem whose distinction between the 'causal' and 'non-cansal1 perspectives on language corresponds more precisely to Whitehead distinction between social nexus (e.g. oI speakers) and eternal objects (e.g. grammars) than other "
familiar dichotomies within linguistics such as 'paroW versus langue', 'performance versus 'competence, or 'diachrony1 versus 'synchrony' For both thinkers the two perspectives stand in a complementary relationship; language '
1 7
24 ft Apivtuik I
'
as a set ot social
1
norms, and language as intentional behaviour exhibited by
individual speakers distributed through the spiitio-tempoial world---5" They both defend rationalism but oppose fneo-)Cartesian nativism with a kind of descriptive1 (Le. empirical) rational is mh in effect an attitude of well-balanced realism condoning a synthesis of intuition and observation of social causality as the correct methodology for the study of human rational behaviour fltkonen '
] 9 3: 51 .). The essence of rationalism thus conceived is a concern with human
ends and means (not always predictable! rather than with merely spatiotemporal causes, and speculations over innateness1 merely confuso the central '
issue. There is no conflict between the 'social1 and the 'psychological1 view of language from this position of Pipers pea ivis m1 {op.dt.:34 and 53), [tkonens insistence that language cannot be approached in the same way as the natural sciences needs to be set in the context of Chomsky and his reductionist followers, against whom he directs his attacks. For Whitehead, in the scientific climate pie vailing at the beginning of the century, it was more a matter of arguing
(against the Positivists) that natural science itself could not be pursued without finding a place within it for human rationality and purpose, hor both of them holistic causalitv1 is of the essence for the human sciences - the causal
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influence of whole social systems for nexus) on their individual membersh which cannot be reduced to intrinsic" causation of the type applicable to purely physicaJ systems. "
As regards Whitehead s position vis-a-vis the great philosophical figures of the past, I have mentioned already his acknowledged debt to Plato (only qualified by his insistence on avoiding misplaced cone idleness in the interpretation of forms/ideas/eternal objects). He was more reserved in his references to Aristotle, although he certainly shared the latter s central belief that forms or UL jckUm v'm ihc w rld Luu! wa.- a u iic Al LiunduiK re.ili i in [vfusm collapse the form/matter distinction (either in an empiricist or a rationalist manner). Also Aristotle s emphasis on the tchs residing in objects finds a parallel in the Whiteheadian relation between actual occasions (atomic siilv '
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if you will) and subjective aims. He pointed out, however, that the excessive concentration on final causes (as opposed to eficient ones) which stances
long dominated Luropean philosophy was due to Aristotle, who too was not innocent of 'misplaced concreteness1 (be upbraided 'modern1 Newtonian science in turn for excessive concern with efficient causes at the expense of final ones). In Whitehead * system the two major forms of causality are more evenly 1
balanced: there are two types of process, macrocosmic ones (involving efiicient causality) and microcosmic ones (involving final causality). He also argued
Appendix ]
249
'
repeatedly against the tiad it tonal Aristotelian notion of Hxed substances (linking individuals to the unchanging 'essence' of their species) - for him '
time and change is central to actuality and it is
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form' rather than substance that
is enduring/33 Among later philosophers still obsessed with this notionh he took "
Descartes to task for his dualistk doctrine oi
distinct mental and physical substances. At the core of Cartesian dualism he saw ihc UUil LTror of associating menial activity solely with perception in die mode of presentational immediacy,
ignoring causal eficacy, which grounds mental activity in bodily reality and '
allows direct access to other entities fin the subject s immediate past). He also *
argued against his notion of representative perception1 (as regards perception !te was himself an anti-representationalistK Leibnitz he was more in harmony '
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with: he shared the latter s view of persons as 'colonies of monads1 fhis actual 1
occasions are Vindowless
too. but, unlike monads, they are extended in time
and space and perish). However, unlike his great mathematical predecessor he insisted right from the start of his career on distinguishing between thinking and using a calculus (cf. Lowe \9&SmA97}, His affinity with Spinoza 1 have already mentioned, but it should be borne in mind that, unlike Spinoza, he is an ontological pluralist. His position with regards to the British empiricist tradition was nuanced: it is notable that he often cited Locke in a positive manner, and approved in particular of his notion of power (corresponding to his own 'causal efficacy'). His 'eternal objects' are aiso reminiscent of Locke's 'ideas9 (abandoned by Hume). His attitude towards Hume was more complicated: though he agreed in the necessity of basing knowledge of causality on experience he repudiated Hume's actual theory of causation as giving tar too much emphasis (like Descartes) to perception in the mode of presentational immediacy to visual experience in particular. Like Hunte he saw the personal self as a sequence of perceptual experiences (taken in the broadest sense), but he disapproved of his thoroughgoing sensationalism - Whitehead was, 1 repeal, anything but a reductionist himself. The most important notion that he took over from the Huineian tradition was that of the emergent nature of thought, whereby he transcended Cartesian dualism. He argued extensively, on the other hands against the bifurcation of Nature1 in the empiricist tradition (which only sees quality-less scientific objects out there whereas all qualities are 'inside1 the observing subject). His thinking here has an almost Buddhistic flavour. One could say that he was u subjectivist (following Descartes) in so far as his doctrine of actual occasions takes personal experience as the basis of philosophy, but an objectivist in his doctrine of eternal objects, real patterns of 1
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ago Appendix I
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rekuioEiship out there Jn general his baUnired portion vh-A-vis such tradi-
tional dichotomies withtii philosophy prevented him from falling into extreme positions - e.g. of pushing his realism into full-blown idealism. He had, one might say, absorbed the Kantian critiques, but his final system is the inverse of
Kant s transcendental is mN taking as it does the causally transcendent 'Dif? ah sidt - his own actual occasion '
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1
in one of its aspects - as the starting point for his philosophy. However, his system is holistic and, as explained abovet although the actual occasion when seen from without - in the present instant -
is indeed socially transcendent, when experienced from within it is, as the
locus of all phenomenological experience, socially immanent in all other occasions immediately preceding it. Rsr White he ad tho subject is a superject L
emerging from the world (not the reverse as for Kant).
h
Appendix 2 The concrescence of an English utterance
The foliowing is a schematic fepresentntion of the production {'decision1) of the utterance
"
I wouldn't have thought it was possiNe", that assumes only that
chunks {or all} of it were not pre-fabricated - although the conceptual prehensions involved may well have been automatized. The initial state of the speaker is taken to be the activation of an undilferentiated potential response to a complex state of affairs prehended in the {holistic) mode of causal efficacy and experienced as appropriate for the immediate discourse situation. Subjective aim here covers spec ilk * sub-strategies1 summoned in the process of the satisfaction of the overali aim of vStage L The eternal objects drawn into the concrescence refer specifically to the internalized grammar and discourse '
*
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1
conventions of English. Hach stage is to be understood as involving the '
prehensions indicated: these integrate the data' more and more closely with the subjective aim in a manner con formal with the grammatical rules of English. The precise number of stages is of no great consequence and they can be assumed anyway to overlap in actual temporal realization. The progression is
from undifterentiated, intent ion-driven early stages to more and more differentiated, constraint-driven ones. One should envisage gradual lexicalization and linearization of the data, with indeterminate adiustments and suspensions tvJ route between intention and expression, rather than step-wise algorithmic expansion. Continual feedback' and 'feed forward" from la Lei1 to early stages '
and vice verw can be assumed for the on-going assessment {by conformal feeD of the results of successive prehensions and integrations. '
Note that if at Stage 2 the subjective form had been more emotionally charged this aspect of the discourse-embedded stale of affairs could have been judged worthy of special highlighting and an expressive iJ locution rather than '
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a declarative one would have been chosen> its propositional content moulded accordingly. This could in turn have been realized by a (positive) rhetorical question such as Who would have thought it was possible". The initial (focal) position of the Q-word would follow automaticallyh in conformity with the M
patterning of English. If, on the other hind, some temporal feature of the
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7:.
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111
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II
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till
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Appendix 2
holistic P had been felt as wo 1 thy of highlighting (iay by contrast with sonw
i in mediately previous proposition), the adverbial expression corresponding to this - for example five years ago - would have been assigned an appropriate initial Anchoring' position as soon as syntactic etonul objects began to be summoned at Stage 3 {S -» SAdv + NP -I- VP then being the relevant expanded version of the phrase structure rule),
153
Notes
"
esscjice of en rjjejitisjin in relation to Itingijagi1 is the rcengnition that oit kith the outogenetie level of luj ungt acquisitio]i and the 'phylogenetLC1 level ofh iguajje change wholly new patterns imy ht abiitraeti J or extrapolated frojn (coitibinatioiis of) old, txisiting ones Uiot ne ssLu ily pmtly li[]guiilLe thtfjnselvt.s) us beij y R vant Ut eoci njiiitativtf in- L'ujjitatioiial nwds. The timdtlioiis ast thuruby nh-angud, pitparijij; tl e way linr tht lj iiL-i ein: of till furthe l1 new patterns to be recognized. Ai Polanyi puli it, opeti iyitems (lihe u llaioe) tend to itabilize any r
i
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l hc
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improhable evcj t tbal .server Lo elicit thejiu this LeadiJig by cumulative .steps towards Itigher levels of orjjatii/ation (t olanyi 19S&:3&4]. Hopper has pjiopoted an approauh to einergenl gi'anninar that jjoes further in its downplaying of the pattern aspect of grammar than many funttkmalist-s would care to proceed. Grammar in hu view Ls built up on the fly fduring actual discourse) out '
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of utterances already accumulated In memory, it is what results when formulas are re-arranged, or dismantled and re-assembled, iti dilferenl ways 'Hopper 1987:145} lirammar may well be Intrlnsieally unstable and indeterjnlnate', but syjicbronlcally this is a matter of degrees of aeceptable variation - there Ls iurely always a eore of prototypical normativlty that ensures a[ip]OxiirLate cotnpithensibility while at ihi' sajne time allowing for the express lot] of novtl "
.
thoughts See MacWhinjiey
for a balanced H rervtew of what cat] 1>e expected of aji
emergent a ceo u tit of grammar. It is not by chance that philosophers adopting the rationalist position tend to be well versed in mathematics, while those of empiricist leanings are more likely to be at home in biology or psychology. This can be transferred to a certain degree to the generative vs. functionalist split In linguistics today too. The dichotomy goes back within the turopean tradition at least to the Milesians versus the Pythagoreans, but in the ancient world the contrast between Aristotle las empiricist) and Plato (as idealto) li often taken a its prototypical manifestation, although both le !.-lllai t LL JJes L.'.j Ll uLll iLL l l epJ lsL"JlI,1LiV(.s uL ':il:-;. U pes. Tjle Ilj I'l.M L j L IMf le moved away front the Soeratic eoneeplion of pure ideas' or 'fonn.s4 to j eloser lijtking of the latter to the predicates of human language and their role in iudgments, and in doing so helped lay the '
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basis for Aristotle's catejjorJes. 3.
Mote, as a cunoatttt, that Chomsky introduced his book with a quote from Whitehead's Science and the Modern World" which suggests that all modern Western thought lives on the intellectual capltol accumulated Irom the 17th century genius hu1 Chomsky this primarily meant the period of continental rationalism, to which he assigned Cartesian linguistics', but it should be borne in mind that the tbinkei\ of this period that Whitehead was thinking of included Spinoza, Leibnitz and empiricist Locke., as well as Uescartes. LibojiLsky poijits out that the ideas lie "
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ia> duv.Ji LMli: tills tc
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:l lol: d'v IlK t-ii.-. \oi
iilJlji ' I Vsc,lilL>' ( .vIl, ImL jiidudi eJeJOent-S oJ
a later, kismantic-idealist period I due t[5 !vLhlej;el and. etpeciaJly. Huji boldt - fo]" example the latter's fan ou;; pronouncemej ts concerning the 'aitistic creativity' of language!. Whitehead himself saw his cosmology as repladng both that of the ancient world (Plato 'fleshed out1 by Aristotle) and that of [7th century (post-Newtonian) 'subjective reductionism1.
4
Wh iteliead s rel uc taJice to s-pea k mtire fu lly about language was no tio u bt d ue to his Sceptic ism
.
c ncoi-Jiing the directness- of the relationship between vei bal expiession and the propositions it appioKijiiately expresses. This arost- t rojn his recognition that linguistic meaning is thoroughly contest-dependent [a point heot ten repeated and that words and phrases... remain metaphors mutely appealing for an Imaginative leap1 (Whitehead I97fi:4). HLs ntathematical backgroutid miy also havre played a role here (the difficulty mathematicians have in expressing the imagery of their thinking in plain language hasollen been remarked upon), it may be said that this background saved him from being ensnared by current philosophical language iLowe lWi):267'\ - he started IS an Outside]- to professional philosophy. As a man he wis certainly less verbal than the loq uacio us Russell.' la king ord i nary language the starl i n g p oin t for philosophy - the d ireciion mainstream philosophy, t ollowing the later Wittgenstein, was to take in Britain after his time was at all events, a notion quite alien to hitn, despite his aflinity with the Wittgensteinian bind Buhlerian view of the soclal/actional basis of meaning. He would have thoroughly endorsed Polany is position as regards the indeterminacy of meaning of all descriptions, according to which we can never understand all the iLnplicalions of a statement nor say all we know about a state of atl airs iPolanyi ]95k95). '
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One should bear hi mind lus constant struggle to marshal old {philosophical) terjus into new meanings to reflect the rapidly changing view of the physical wo ltd presented by idence in the early decades of this century. The terminological dilillciilties one encounters with his work a a whole are due in large measure to the two different registers1 he employed: the stringent technical one that dominates in Process and Reality'1 h and the looser one he often reverted to in books aimed at a more general readership. Hor example, the technical expression conformity of subjective form in ''Process and Reality" {see 1.2.4 below; i.s referred to in Adventures of Ideas" as the doctrine of conlbrmation of feeling 5
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Whitehead chose the word 'prehension1 with Leibnitz's 'apprehension1 in mind fWhitehead 1947:300)h though he also mentions Descartes1 rather similar use of the term fWhitehead
6
.
]975:411. It is preferable to 'perception* or 'apperception' since it covers both. Et does not '
presuppose consciousness, nor is it limited to emotional feeling1. It refers to 'the general way in which the occasion of experience can react to or include, as part of its essence, any other entity so each prehension is a concrete fact of relatedne.ss both private and public at once (as subjective '
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form and datum respectively). A prehension 'appropriates elements of the universe which in themselves are other than the subject, and absorb these elements into the real Internal constitution
of its subject by synthesiidng them in the unity of an emotional pattern expressive of its own subjectivity fWhitehead 197*1:275). Prehensions are the sole cojicrete facts in his system. Feelings for prehensions] are vectors wriLh in cone rescentprocessest not states. In his broad use of the term feeling' as equivalent to 'prehension' Whitehead was doubtless influenced by William James. '
This is in accordance wicb Vhitebead's 'epochal1 conception of time, whereby time is created thsiougb the successive coming into bethg *wd perishing of actual occasions into their successors, 7
.
The category of 'subjective unity1 ensures that the various prehensions entering into a single occasion are compatible for integration by virtue of the unity of tbeir subject (with its unitary subjective aim;, even before1 they are actually integrated. E-or Whitehead the common notion of '
time as mere succession (for which he upbraids both Hume and Kant) is an abstraction due to '
misplaced concreteness
' .
Note the Cartesian term borrowed for this relationship - here it refers to the 'reitkation1 of the satisfaction of an actual occasion u data for a subsequem one. Altbough causally indepen dent one from another, actual occasions share overlappinj; causal inheritances from the past. 8
.
Notes
Thii, iIk-l]- iOL'iil imniiiiotn;
is in tji'j gfihundud in Iht p]iiiCLpk' of'tonforjnity ofsjhjtL-tivc
fctfin1 [iee below). '
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notion of'enduring objecf ihoutd be carefully diit3Jij;u3ihed from that of'eternal object*. There are four biiiic types ofobject of prehensiont in 'biteJie.id'N sv.-.iL'jo, namely eternal obfects, 9
.
[ hn
'
which neitl er be iu, cliati e or pasi awayh propositions fmatters of tact in tbeir potential determinatiotr of dieKiis), obitctifitd actual ocirasions, which be ijt and pa s (thty de\reiop i nter naljy b ut do not ch a nge Land nexus, whi ch heginn change and pas,*: aivayr' tnd uring ob;et t s' area variety of nexus with a certain internal complexity- they include on-going mental models "
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of situations and general knowledge stfnctures in memory fin whicb various eternal objects find ingress km and defme the structural relations involved), Thuj: they may or may not be purely material bodies reflecting wbitehead s fundamental realism, they can both be objects out there and their reprejientation within the individual mind. The mind itself can be regarded as the (wandering) higbent 'node' ofa complex structure of many enduring objects. '
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1
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10. Only personally ordered nexiis/iiodetie.s display cotudnusneis of their own goals. ConscioiisileSS is for Whitchead an emergent quality ari>ini; frotn the Conjunction of fact (physical reality) atid supposidoni about facts (eternal objetls entertained conceptually by the mental pole of high-jjrade occasions}, a quality inherent in the contrast between the two elements ofa proposition (see 1.2.5 on Tntellectuai feelings'). It arises from linking the unconscious physical '
1
'
prehension ofa nexus with a propositional prehension - originating at the mental pole of the occasion con-cerned - about that Jiesus. it involves prebendinj; the contrast between what a nexus actually is and what it (negatively) might otherwise behand is the subjective forn of certain high-
grade mental activities for their prebend ing subject. It is a mode of attention (the extreme form of selective attention}. It ts not, however an eitber/or matter but can be of any degree of intensity within a given person s experience, from the merely Latent to the full intensity of self-reflecting mental clarity, and typically flickers1 between the,He (Whttehead was probably influenced here by James" rhythmic theory of consciousness). '
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11. This should not be equated with the reduction title mind a .society view of ArtiCidal Intel licence theoreticians such as Minsky (l W}, which ii a matter ofa multiplicity of neural specialists all at the same 'modellable' level. A 'society' in Whitehead's sense is characterised by ihc coordination of all its elements into a whole according to a shared purpose that determines at least in part the subjective aim of successive actual occasions within it. Rather than divide up the '
1
mind/brain into a multiplicity of spatially unique ajjents1 under the hierarchical eontrol of other such agents (or conglomerate agencies l Whitehead breaks it up temporally into individual holistic occasions (each constituting its owrn 'subject1 but limited to only a fraction of the whole contents of the mind/brain, as highlighted by immediate relevance). These may indeed recruit "
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*
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4
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more specific specialist information or sub-routines Uome quite automatic and not normally penetrable to consciousness) towards fulfilling their aims. The crucial difference lies in the concept of the unique subjective aim inherent in every occasion, thanks to whach recruited 'sub - agencies' are held synchroniy.ed In subjective harmony '
1
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:
r
"
12, I nsttad of1 find
ingrts.sioj 1 in 1 shal I ot ca s io 1 lal ly us c t he titpression 'are iny reisant i n", w b id 1 docs not miilejdingly suggest entry Trorn somewhere else1, although this was not Whiltbead own usaye. *
13. Just as PolanyTs ai'ticulate thought presupposes pre-verbal 'tacit' thought. It juay well correspond to the role in perception of the neo-cortex vis-A-vii the causal efficacy1 of older or deeper levels of the mind/brain. Through it -and the relevant eternal objects inherited fa'om our '
"
157
agfl
Notes
pusr - we may fee] the votej tja] efficacy of otherji (i.e. Jiexus of contejiiporary occision ) by piiojeetihj; fivrni oii] <] ]i ex erietiCL1 ofciiusal efficacy,
14. hi cithtr worJs, it is prfrliaisioii of iai actual occ mii jM'ciiboJytiifr an tteroa] object, hi line with jity \Mgiutive Lfiti?j prt!UtLon kSL-liuxv]!!}; [Lie uioinphysKj]}, 1 shnll largely limit thi uaeofthe term 'hybrid pKhensloii to the phenomenon of empathy U.e. to the reeojjnitioo of analogy buiwi n ntLii ilestitions of the "sajite" eternal objects in one's owo direct eonceptual pKhensioiu and in those attrihutahle to other perjions behaviour More speeifiailly I shall lijitit it to prehensjons of the fujl ective aims of other subjects (personally ordered nexus/jioeietiejiK m opposed to just any kiiuiof proposition a) preheiisioji (ortooneof ( fod's conceptual prehensions; in tlie manner of Whitehead himself). It may be involved in a variety of'comparative feelingji' ranging from simple perceptive ones to complex conscious judgments ( shared eternal objects are essential in all casesA h rid prehension is {like physical prehensions) conformal; it subjective form conforms to that of another occasion's conceptual prehension, hut it may be adapted to the prehending occasion s own perspective. '
n
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15, So on Hguret the second, oblique line from Pft to LS in absent In the conscious perception A judgment1 in for Whitehead the 'decision1 to admit a proposition into {Intellectual! belief liokinj; a concrete nexus of occasional to a proposition. Whitehead specitiej; the steps in the origination of an intuitive judgment as foliowi fl97ft!272): (I) the {prehension of) the physical recollection and the indicative feeling (2) the predicative feeling derived fwm the physical feeling: {3j the imaginative feeling derived by integration of the predicative feeling and the indicative feeling; and $4) the intuitive judgment derived by intenratitm of the imaginative feeling and the .
indicative feeling (note the extra layer of abstraction in such a complex mental act compared to an ordinary propoflitional feeling). The boundaries between these different kinds of piopositional prehension are not absolutely tixed. so for example consdoiu perceptions jrade into 'intuitive judgments See K-iraus [1979; 121 f.) for a perspkidotK inaly is the pi opniitioji correspojidijij; to the onteKtULiUy en bedded words I ltis apptars to be a platypu.s1', involvij g Lhe imegratioj of the con plex eternal objetl furj yh duek-billed, ovipai ous (etc.)', inro on lhe one hand a conscious '
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"
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perception and on the other an intuitive judgment. What distinguishes the latter ii revealed by the *
nature of the this,
whkh associates the indicative prehension {of a particular platypus I to a physical recognition [linking it to the conceptual prototype conrerncdi rla an imaginative prehension of similar physical recognitions in the subject s past (other token platypuses or propositions about the type from which Lhe eternal object has been grasped). '
'
One ]S reminded lie re both of .Saussure's cardinal structuralist principle 'ii ify a quc tic '
"
tiiffewtfees itws lerrtu's posilifs[ and of Hrth s notion of the negative force of contextual elimination the successive narrowing down of expected following events {including further words) as a discourse unfolds (Hrth 1957; 31 f.). This complements the positive force of what is actually conveyed in words.
17- The point at which Whitehead djif cd mc t egreginusly fr m the later Wittgenstein wew probably his strong belief in the independence of undurlying piopositiojial loeatiing from '
expression In any particular Language (compare Wittgenstein s almost
Wborfian insistence on the
interdependence of language and world-view). i& Although 1 did myself some years back introduce some of his ideas in an article in which 1 argued for an alternative to the digital computer model of thought and language, in it,s heyday at the time [Fortescue 19791, See also Fortescue {! 999) mentioned below,
Nates
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19. AtnluLtimi savt-s ippL'ar.Ltiirui liy titakij y JiypolJiLiUi, I'oi L LtmpJi: l>y dtsolvijij; problen i ot' '
non-lilera]
nf liisiguaye in concrete iitutmons. It goes horn j.
reiiill'
(e.g. Mmc 'siii prLsiiig5 nbitrvtd phenomenonj ajid an ij voked. Lw icy;, a relevant Wltiteheadiiiii etet-] al ohj ct already prehei ded conceptually by the prehendingi subject) to arrive at a hypothesis (i,e. ait inference), '
Jiuluctkm and deduction arev 'ayfl oftesrmj; iind validating auch hypotheses, ic. -Conipai'e C rtUibafher 0997] for tht1 in portance af itpr sicm ij in rential protei-sev
KeuraLoyitally, tl e inKibitory eifeel of s-uh-cortita] it rue Lorei like [lie thal inu on the activities of the cortex may be involved Uee CulverJiiuiler &. Schumann 1 94:70). "
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1
11. Note that Whiteheadian propositintis are sead oft physical/perceptual ex rienee particular nduiing objects, nhich include snental models ) liven the 'prodkatlve pattern1 of the prtipo&ition (the eternal object ualilyijij; tlae logical subjtcl) is i iLlied vij a physical prehension (by LCoiiceptual vaiualion'}. "
-
,
21. Normally there will only be one unambiguous Literal meaning
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1
of an utterance in a given context, hut this is not i\way& so (real a imbifiuity persist in human speech, if only marginally}, a
13. ibkens ol relu 'atit 'Jjjmes1, once these hive beeji abstracted as types from the dila by '
conceptual valuation and Liajisnmlation, can berecogtiized ajid integrnled as relevant data wilhtJi successive occasions by further operations of transmutation. The latter process, recall, functions by analogy, so the 'fit' need only he approximate (cf, 1,2.4}, "
14. Their ciuE bn was apparently al&o finite for Jakobiun, whoie speech eveju wai the forerunner of Austins speech at t aJtlni'Ugb hii JesCriptioji rejiiained oji a very general level, in terms of addreasor/addressee roles, etc. (Jakobioii J frD . His refeie]iiiaI function (which encompasse-s also '
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"
,
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l
denotation) iscejitral, but note also tlte'eji otive' function (indicating the subjective attitude the speaker expresses), which linly speech act theory with the Whiteheadian notion of subjective aim
5
'
in its broadest sense. Jakobson's conception was tit turn probably derived from the 'nrganon model of Gestalt psychologist Karl BCihler, which placed the linguistic Jiign fas Gtstalt) in itj; ecological mntfltt of use fBtihler 1 34). Also Gardiner (1932) took the single ct of !ipeech the l>daii of his theory of lajiguajje. '
h
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15. i remam sceptiual Lib ut at tempts to formalize lil ier Le 'ok of diacourie ilructure - these arc often all too rigid, with little or no room for the intervention of novelty and creativity. My demons-with in-frames approach reflecfci potential expectation Jiets, not rigid templates, and these are always negotiable. Discourse can bt viewed as interaction for the purpose of creating mutual iL-ieujnce inaluraL iodal and technical}, and involves highlighting the ,same parts of the shared background knowledge of both participants to forma frame for specific interpictatioii ofsuccessive utterances. What is shared is a conibinatioji of intrinsic and constructed realities (Searle 19951. 1
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16. They cluster aroujid the highest point of communicative dynamism i.e. what is new and focal in the utterance + gesture in context, and correspond roughly to a single proposition. The loss .Hystematined gestural i-omponent retlectsitioretloiiely the persona! 'self1 of the conntiuitkaioj; 1I1 e vtrbal c< «npo n eiit j nore t he sue ial no rjii cons t raining t h e fo rj n ui th e coj ntn uiticative act. 'i'hc two elen ent.s are held together by an inherent principle of periodicity (reflecting a contmon ,
'
exp]es.sionive aim}, A growth point recruits' a linguistic category and generates a gesture around Tiie io klighted cojiceptual -geiiol Ky "bh uistic category McNeill is thinking in frame-sen antic -
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termji of such a verb as English b uy', whic h comes w ith its owit pi ed ic ate fraioe of a rg uments a nd fills a slot in a broader sttuational frame of lcommeiic ial transactions1, A compatible me imghl he a movement towards the speakei (op.cjt. S). The cycle of self-organliation goes fron disi>]dcLvd, iitdeterminate input t ordereJ, detercnijuteoutput, leavicigaciy uciutiliied fragmtnLs
259
i6c)
Notes
iliK ti up - (rilhtjr L]tiiitiiitLi: of lijijjuiilk -lor further tfiiiuing cydes,
Minn WliiifliLMJ
27. Moreover, there may be acts embedded 1] higher order discourit acli note the. iit>t yet Jinished' Hitajiitioji on some .*;ejitejice5h wltich preauntibly ntarkithetn as,embedded within sojue l
higl ef Level act). The latter nmst l>e defied m tern of higher 0]dcr intetitJoni - iUL-h as the nverall goal of guessing the gaine uestiati oh (he part nf the gues ef in 'IWnty C iteslions, for '
'
example. The-se ntay be suspended more or lejis indefinitely (=inherited from occasion to '
oecaiiiojiK varying in intensity of relevance to successive decisions until their satisfaction k reached or re\rised (as described under i.2.l). Note that subjective aims aspire to achieve ii ajiiioal ititensit>r of feeling for the subject in thereievant future (Whitehead I97fr 277). Several fll>stacleji or stages may intervene before that relevajit future allowing full satisfaction is reached. It is a matter of inherited lures (or at tractors) for the satisfaction of further occasions remaining in the persisting situation. '
zH. This k itminiicent ol
tJiale's 'onu new idea per (intonationJ unit' coostrainl, wi ich 1 .shall return to in 6.1. Note also the parallel in Lbe purely sirUiilua a] assignment of sernatltk theta role-s (only one of eatli relevant category assigned to NPs in a given sentence ivitliiji Cloverjunejit and "
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Binding theory. '
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i9r An alternative would be to treat every such sub-routine as a distinct occasion within an overall personally ordered society, which parses on the causal object iti cat ion of Its own satisfaction to the ensuing occasion. The problem then is twofold - - as regards potential consciousness on the part of the experience] and as legardn iliu overall goal: the ensuing occasion will inherit the still unsatisfied initial aim, of which only a sub-part has been satijified (and i'.k'Imi.; m;.m k .mw. biL-ctdied roiui :ll;ii; tlx 'm i;olii jK ie.sLentL1. Minielluni; Whitchead tpti-i Lie ally disallows). El .so tins much better to avoid the mbtiny of levels iiid regard n 0 L'h>LVL' sub ro uli ties as ivprcsej ni ng phasts w iihin ill L1 .same h t al I l 01 it re l ej n e. [ his docs not pnei'ludo tht (.HJisib i lity iff a pe i s ona lly ifidered stu'iet y en Le r taiji i og v arii ms mw e 1< nig- terj n jjoals {presumably in a statt! of ompetiiion') at tht; same time as striving for llie attainment of an it] ]oediateonen e.g. trying in l\\v gaine tojilexl to tit]d a suitable next queition at the same time as ainiiiig for an overall solution of the game in progress - as lon as there ii eoinpatibility of subjeiitivc aim. llie 'overall' aim is inherited from ocua.sion to Oiicasion with a i,eleva]it eternal ob;ei:t aetijigas objective lure1 this eterjiaI object is ingredient in deterjninijig the immediate ain '
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(towards fornung tht initial Ljueslioiii,. hut it does not constitute the initial aint of the occasion itself. The difference is that in this case there is not a singje determinate expression corresponding '
to the sutn of
sub-acts but several independent ones, while there is only one such expression
corresponding to the sat is faction ofau occasion containing several
'
sub-routhiey as defined above.
If this is circular, It is at least hermeneutically so! '
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30. Note that this division is far from a natural one, since the way we divide up and classify the
animal and vegetable worlds whether in terms of hierarchical folk' or scienlitiL taxonomies) is Jnlertnt from thu way we categori/c man-made things which display various non-hierarchically organ iifJ functional para meters. The category minerafin particular neai'ly always n?fers to things iihapijd for a purpott; by jnan (but this is also trm1 of vegetable aitd aniitial produ Ls produced acid utiii/ed by man). Not only are human artifacts not i ategorizable in the same hierarchical fashion as living things' (though they may enter into various overlapping mini'hierarchies)h they typically involve more than oni? basic 'ingredient1 front the three possibilities. This artdiciality, far from undermining tKe relevance of the gime t or natural reasonings actually sei-ves to highlight the '
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Nates
muki-dimensHmiil i ture of mental catcjjoriKiUioiu It nilso adds to the intrinsic interest of the game, which is anything t>ut mechanical, 31. II iiuiuld riot ]>u jssunn'J ilul tht setting up dfj toptin i yt]tactic S noJe i> iicCL'iisarily lli-sl tliit g llul hj|.i[i(:t]s in iJiu gLinjiulion ol'an uUtr iiLU - in fid, wliIilii llu-duralioci dfa iicigli; cnncit ejice jnu-ch parallclistn juJ competing -fit iu.spLiiidiid pro«9Jes is to be expected. The inilLition of a imuti phtase conesptmJing to an aelivated lopk iiiighl for example have greater weight in the initial deployment of resources than the initiation of aaupeiordinate S Generally, "
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the speaker must assess (through hypotheses mediated by hyh]id prehension the potential activation alatui of relevant referents in the addressee s mind in order even Lo decide on the topic '
of the sentence he or she U about to utter - conciescences leaduij; to utterances are complex and
may involve imultlple prehension ] strands Here the expectations and convent ions associated with the jarne content happens to render the hypothesis that the addressee will be able to find the intended referent of topic It' superfluous. ji. iShne ch ji the diagram i& an example ofwhat Itkonen describes (and advocates] as a &yjithetic model within his programme of'descripike rafioilalism' llkojiecl lS> 3:2!l6l'f.)j it coinbitiesaji JLll J L L JjiLkjsljodioe nl uiul i> --Ji; U'LtEl IdgLCal JlUkIlIIjIL li- it ( ji a mii::: Jt!.j 11I p]-ocesses that could have generated the observed behaviour. The logic' itself Ls far more itituitive h
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and e.vperiemial/holistic than the lijiear algorithms a Turing machine is capable ofn however. 33, llie straref>r applied to reduciiig the search set will depend in part on l s experience with the game, but creative imagination could also do most of the work
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on line
.
$4, (Jonsciousness is another matter - the Condi [ions for conscious subjective form would only have been present if discrete stages of the process could have been prehended in such a way as to link the initial physical conditions of the concrescence with eternal objects corresponding to those
stages. Most players of Twenty Questions presumably do not have (easy) access to such eternal objects [and the cost in terms of time and processing effort is likely to preclude thi. possibility in the heat of the moment). The overall goal of guessing the object would presumably swamp all other potential concerns. 35. Tkih acc rcli ng p ro per ty list ad her ing to the u nknown object may be assumtd to be represen t cd for S by a bundle of keyword possibly simplified or reformulated from the words actually produfed by A, but imagery and other potential reactions aroused by the interaction of the properties and objects cotiL-eiiied iJould equally well be iiU'otveLl. Whai is essential is tile leel' of the associated properties, th ir contiibution to the complex subjective form of prehensJoiu guidijig B s I urtber search. '
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$6. At all events, it is by empathy that he is able to sense the reason why A might have answered the way he did: seaj ching for it why behind unexpected behaviour is a largely automatic respond in a dialogue situation and is part and parcel of the general on-going monitoring of the assumed rational coherence of the behaviourof a dialogue partner. '
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37. Compare Lyons < ] 77:5 1(.} on the distinction between the theological Gricean icnplicature' and stiict truth-functional implication, and von Wright < 1 71:%ff.) for a discussion of the practical syllogism The latterh lying at the core of human rational intentionality is perhaps the kind oi' ijiference closest in spirit to Whitehead. 'i'his takes the canojiical form; '
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1
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A intends to bring about p A considers that he cannot bring about p unless he does a Therefore A sets himself to do a
261
ifci
Notes
Thii irestuiatea strangly with ihe essejitial ingredient [if the Subjective aijin' in the ivorkingout nf the Bilisfactioji of any icittllentual pifhejision (ijicluJing intuidve iuJjjintaiti) in Wliitehead s LtiLJiiL1 di lhiiijji. Liln; tht snsptuJi.-J intuitivu judgmont ihi? pfi tkal iyllogisin inv ku timvJly find eniersenceh being heurutic and hemtneutic' rather than namic. kkonen (1978:49(f0 discusiet thii '.seeking ii d finding1 approach to logic fin particular the gante-theoreticil logic of Lorenzen and Lorenz with its "defend and iittack: sli ategy). As he puti iu logic is, like philcwophy, j hujitaii jicitj e prtu iiud mi Mttjal norms, it was itoi suth a Ijij; si up, aiW aJl lloiti Wl itehead the mathet atician who nought for the grojndtj g of n athfitiitjcji iti logit:, to the later, 'humani stic Whiteheadh who snuyht the .ftiutiding of Utgic in direct lunmn expeHenire. Note that hi;, '
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L
s
.
us.pej ded jLtdgn ent
-can
be -equated hroadly with the 'hypothetiiMl inleiej ce' or abductioji (as '
opposed to deduction, wlikli ii J inatlur oi positive or nuj tLve udgmunii). 3 ItiLjJejitally, tlw reaiitui why thu JiiiguistiL c piesiion of cpiiileinic modality, tens*1 and negation overlap and cohere aji a rather distinctive seowntk dojuatn could bejiatd to be becauK they all relate to the whiteheadiati iiUuitive judgments i,er the manner in which propoiitionsare '
1
prehended and assigned truth aiid/oi- credibility values. Deonrk aitd other kincLs of root anodaiity
is more closely related - Like aspect - to the predicate alone, and tnood a the 'proceis' aspect of modality inter faring with lite communicativt coittext, ii Jitore closely associated with illocutionary categories involving entire utterances. West Green la lulic happens to reflect these relationships in an iconkally tratisparejit loaniter, with sentential affixes {eiobracing episren k intidality. tense and negation) cmcurring after any root modal or aspectual affix and before obligatory mood inileetionii. In this languagv, cnorpliejiiui iL'lacing to the inodulatimi of judgnienis art thus positioned between the extended predicate Oitcm pluj; internal' aftixes) and the inflectional category expressing relevant illocution type. '
1
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35. The link between the two Ls wrhatfihibatani is poijititigat when he claiiins that the predicate of a thetic sejitejice in Japanese can he analysed a a whole pro position fit was Xthal V where Y Ls the propoiilion), as opposed to the itmpltr eategoriai sentence Via for X, V, wltere V is sojne proposition relevant to Xl.Eltere is typologkah'ariatton in how strktly languages le u ire distinct constructions for rhetie sentences - English Whitehead s language happens to allow ordinary SV seitteitces introduced by indeiinnL XI k as iji a n an appeai Ld fas opposed lo- say, nanishh which requireji djinmy locative subject j/ltiji such se]itejicesj. Latnhrt'dit includes uitde]" his sentence focus' ty both thetic sentvitcesiitmtducin ]tew ] elei-etils; and the holistic) re wi'ting ofeveitts, in both of which Papanese is involved, aiid contrasts this with his 'predicate focus' type, '
k
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expressing topic-continent structure (Lantbrecht ]994:137f.) for him thetic sentences iticlude the '
case of pure existentialily, and he points out that this j urther presupposes a relevatit wtH'ld in current discourse {again with the world in general as the limiting case). One could say that the relevant background nexus is taken as the flpeaker/hearer s whole actual world (unless spatiotemporal ly more narrowly specified, e.g. in a locative sentence). Note that a proposition for Whltehead has a locus (that of the nexus of its logical subjects l - in copular sentences of location and existence that loiuscan it self be the predicate of the proposition, in identifying and calegoryassigning sentencej; (also typically copular in languages like Knglish) the predicate is respectively a description of a nexus (e.g. hy location or functlonl or a nexus type (i.e. an eternal object). None of these are necessarily thetic! A further distinction ci oss-cutting sentence types which Whitehead does discuss is that between 'singular' 'general' and " universar varieties of proposition (White'
l
heitd 197S:166). '
40. AJthoug this may sound like a thoroughly proposttionar riew of inference, it is not incompatible with Lakotif s suy estion that the basis of all abstract thinking may in fact be
Menc.i
jn lii iiL iljimgliL - cf. LaI (J f (! !>!>(f)hi]i wl'iich lie di>i:uist;3 the Simriaci e hypthtliL'sisi whoi cby melapl Qt-LiraLesLttftisiDJi pruitives itie oveiall typo l(]gy/st rupture of the itiurce dojnaiti so t hit also -
inlereiicea from tht latter tire iranst'erable, and typica] syllogiinis iuch as thai iionceriiiiig Socrates' mortality can he wcw as bas d the ontaiiier n etaphoi1. t oiopaie the baidc VVl Jteheadiaji insijjlit tltat t or actual entities all ahitract concepts {eternal ohjects] derive fron physical and '
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-
i
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hodily experience via conceptual valuation and reversjon. Metaphor is the result of various n
es
of thejie two piocessefl (plus transmutation, i,e. recognition of analogy). Specificallv, recognition '
1
of maLches
hctvi'cen patterns in different objectified nexus (for example in a 'source domain1 and a metiiphorh M donial] ) arc an essential funtrion of'intellectual prehensions' such as the intuitive judgment. '
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41. t lo tnpa ru 11 rown and Vule (1 ;t3 257 lif. | js wgarda t he role of inference in tnainla ininj; te.vt ual cohesion (in terms of bridging aisumptjons that are Jiol purely autonnalic}. tknn pare also t ivoji ; I d: j. iljf. ! on the two types of inference involved in text/Jiscour-se coinpjeliej aioii, the rapid, autoioatixed grajionar-driven type ajid the more priinitive (fine-graijied ajid slowl vocabularydriven type, Hoth of these can be discussed in terms of Whiteheadian prehension types - and the maintenance of balanced complementarity between the two channels is precisely of the essence during the successive chaininj; of complex enncrescent occasions when linguistic behaviour U involved. Polanyi (iy5fl;S7 and 100) has a further take on this in terms of situations where the tacit and the articulate forms of thought fall apart owing to what he calls 'sophistication on the part of the speaker, and their relationship has to be u-adjuiied hy ihc tiddicssee in order to maku irense of what is hfing said. '
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42. 1 he oth e r par r, th e nexus to wh ich t he indka t ive feelijig l efers, may -- as here - he iden t ical '
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with the logiL-al subject of the embedded isoaginative propositioji. Note that a proposition may intensify, attenuate, inhibit or truncate its logical subject(s) for the prehendlng subject, acting a,s '
a lure for a concrescent decision1.
43. IJ() r ih sni it is the essential medtaiii sj n of ost ens ive- i nfeii ttial to ti iti unica t io [], and opera les hy Ijinit]tig the as>umptioni coci jiiuciicated by a speaker to those that the addressee can recogj e as fulfilltng the presuinptithti pliti aJ relevance and thui linkijig what was actually said to what was most likely to have been actually intended by the speaker. The ostensive stimulus is ' that part "
'
'
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of) the speakers utterance that would be irrelevant if it were not intended as part of the informative intention. During the comprehension process, the addressee extracts from the foim of the utterance irselfthe evidence for just what the optimally relevant assumptions conveyed by it are {and normally presumes that thus corresponds to the flpeaker's intentions). Uy concentrating exclusively on inferential communication' as opposed to rule-based language use they downplay that part ofcommunicative competence that is conventional rule-based (e.g. exchange formulae) and does not require on line inleruiaboth surely have their place in the broader 'process1 view of language, '
L
1
44. figure 1 is just an attempt to represent graphically how indeterminate cognitive input can
result - - through non-linear iutcgration - - in determinate behaviour under the guidance of structured intentions, it should most emphatically not be understood as some kind of primitive wiring instructions for a computer simulation. 1
45. Thus t alvin '
'
"
tcrebral tode
is not a code in the sense that language ist it is a hypothesis (albeit a rathor convincing one) about how information is transferred around thf cortex in terms of neural underpinnings (Calvin 1 6;. He says virtual]y nothing about how a ipt?ciJk memory
itij,
264
Nt>lcs
46.
'
I
'
liis applies lo pho-nctk s.jh t;iiice as w ll as to . ejitantic substante: obviauily pho tink (orm
is constrained by the physical nature of .sound waves produced by the human vocal orgaiu. Although Hjelmslev's sharply Jistiitguished 'iubstanw' (otl emiw'purports l>anish m&img} from the,system of linguLstk fnno and content itself, he envisaged a higher-1*vel 'n etasentinlogy which doe indeed analyse thephysiolngyof speech and the external 'thtugs' -and socia] realities - to which language refers into ultimate figiimc' (Hjelioslev 1963; tl9ffj. 'Substance' here is not meant tn be taken iti its classical Aristotelian sense, which has nothing much to do with language, butenneenu rather the teleology of individuals (albeit language userji). From theWhitebeadian viewpoint, the study of phonemes- I.e. phonology- can be taken as the (non-causal) pattern aspect eorreiponding to the (causal) .subject matter of process phonetic '
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47. Akn Kybei? cLal. (L!
h fron within grjiutJiatiealizatio]! theoi yh etnphjsize [he inipDrlatinc of txpKKSlaii/eontfiil 4:iivarlatjoji from a diaeluojiii: vLewpoLiil. According to their paralld sedu-clion hypothesii elian es in forjii undei' grajiinialicalizadoii proceiseji Lconieally reflect '
'
changes in n eauing (e.g. as regards seinajitii: compaclneis and generality). '
'
4Sr Of course there are differences between Itwgw and competence : whereas hittsuc is for Saussure a social matter, oitly partially instantiated in any one individuaVs head, Votupektu-e' i a psychological nntion for Chomsky, being innate in every individual (and containing the essential dynamic ingredient of syntax, which fifTwgwu, largely a matter of words, does not). Kote that the pattern aspect of language for Whitehead - - like ftir uf and unlike 'competence' - - is not precluded from direct access Lo consciousness. This view (shared by Gardiner in hngland at the time), has bten in edipse in mainstream generative linguistics since the advent of the all-powerful computer itietaphor of thou|Ju, '
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49. Although it Jiidkes .sonie t nse to Jetint j societii] Ic 'cl bckivv that of the phon-eme in t rjiu of articulatory featu]-esh since fhsy .art: the etttiiej ta! data' that concrtsce lo produce iibiuctLjlud '
action Lype.s {phontiO'es jji the speech chain). Hoivevej', tltey do not for10 InJependtnt ujiitJi loanifiesting as enduring objects, ai token phojiejnes can. Corresponding acoustic features are cues tn the recognition of intended action Lype.s, prehended by the hearer from the input signal, i .shall return in 3.3 tn the relationship between product inn andenn prebension. $0. Syllables may be the optimal units for the co-articulation of segments (vowels and consonants), by combining maximal perceptual distinct ken ess and minimal articulatory effort (and thus incidentally fatilitatin the pairing of aiticulalury and perceptual categories). Compare the WhJteheadtan satisfaction of the subjective aim of any actual occasion in the auainmtnt of maximal intensity of contrasts. 51. Bauer (59 ! also hints nhat thu concept1 morpheme1 if more obviously applicable to certain language types than to others. He discusses in thi.s context Hocketti i-sojiance* theory of ,
morphology (which would appear to harmonize well with the Whiteheadian approach to languageljn which analogy rather than rules for tn the basis. Hisown suggestion is that morphology is a special ca.se of resonance lor association), starting fi'om minimal fotio-meaning couplings and working outwards (Bauer 1999:241. '
'
5i. Thus, for example, (sentential) negation in many languages acts as if it were on its own semiinteracting with ntorphology and/or sentence syntax it] a rather complex way, as can be seen by the tendency towards double negatives in colloquial hnglish or by discontinuous negative morphemes in Romance languages and colloquial Arable. The idiosyncratic scope autonomous tier '
1
,
Notes
relations resulting from the interact id o of otodal verbs and OL'giition in tuiopeao languages have often been commented upon. Elteeitact positioning of negative morphemei m the sentence may I waW.i Ij l-l' -ir :Il Mth-. e - : pi ;il'i:i;iI k il' ji jdly - hIl-.I [iy -Mi|v 1:1 "ri "-i 1 l;M-.i;iy JnU adverbtals and interjections in English), fhis is not surpri-sing from a Whiteheadian perspective, -
.
.
.
'
where a negative prebends ion j.s a distinct
'
*
act
within a concrescence [e,s, oi e beii g '.satisfied' by
the production of a negative utterance). 53. Ci\ Peiiito ([ S6)talso Deacon (1997 69ffJ for in intcrcstingprcnentationof theke>rPeirceaj not ionJi within nn evolutionary fraititwork this will be returned to in Chapter ft. Note that lor Pciree the kon has an intimate link to the past (patterns of experience recognized in n emory) and with metaphor and indexes with the 1 deictic) present acid with metonymy, whuvas symbols poiht towardithc future (as pure potentiality, like Whitebeadian eternal objects). Readers familiar with Peirce lerjnij ology jnight want to note further the following approximate correapondenee.s ; t bough t be VVhi t ell ea J1 te rm s ifft?]- not j ust to st ns): Vheme' - p redk jt 1 ve pat I eici; 'die eiu s i tj projvositioj Argument's (intuiljye)}udgjiiejit; 'lugisigjV (symbol) type 'jiinisign'- (syn bol! token; ualisign eternal ol> i:i iif quality (featuo:/. Elu1 ma;or Jiflcruji e Wlweuji Whitebead antl Peirte Laii b*; summed up l>y sialinj; that whereas for PeircL: everythim; ihe buit m understanding is cJ.[ ablL, of jji a ping is MgJisf for WhilebeaJ ivb-it is basic is dyndinic pi ehensiorts, acid 1111:1 mayor Jiiay Hot expresiud with signs, feiiru tried to combijiu the process and thu pitterji aspects of lealtty icitoojie overall classiikatory systeiti - hente his .sotnewhat l>i/a]-re ontology. '
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5 . Enflectiojial paradigms - e.g. of verbs - may also be regarded as iconic Ld iagrants' in so J'ai .
as the categories inflected for fpersont tense, etc.) are isomorphic with '
L\pLi jlilLj
.Jh. j .'.. . UriL:il obiL'Lh ....
'
.
'
natural
1
cleavages iji
'
\ -m: \ :\\
\\<.:
;U ul r'. h .Oll
il" ml dli . v.. nl.-.!(-. wKick '
\ e]b> refer, but this is usually a matter of simple paradigmatic isomorphism (the one form one meaning principle}. In internally inflecting languages there may be more contentive iconic is in, as in the case of Semitic languages, where the consonants define the .static conceptual framework and the vowels - extendable in time and, unlike con,sonantst forming independent syllabic nuclei indicate the temporal or distributional deployment of the concept <ergr the tense of verbs or the plural aspect of nouns jr Also Endo-European ablaut shares this iconic ism to some degree (e.g. the 0 -grade typical of th e Ma t ive pa st pa r t i c iple). Another clear case of iconicism - th is time of mo re general distribution - is found in the linear order thfit affixes and stems tend to obey within complex verb-forms, following a proximity principle whereby elements most 'relevant' to the verb stem stand closest to it fcf. hybee E9fl5:33f.K At the most general level one may state with Anttila (1989: E7) that whereas the lexicon is predominantly symbolic, the rules of grammar are in essence iconic (specifically diagrammatic). 1
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1
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1
55. This complex rdationshjp between icunidty acid aibitraricn'ss is particularly evident when one consider-s sign languages, which contain a higher degree of arbitrariness and convenlion than is ilku iLLili/ed jus1 spoken languages L iit.'.ios more ivumaly njius licigberg iVdu ji di.- L- s ill e blend of iconic ity and arbitrariness in referent-tracking in Danish Sign Language I. An example of a diagram based on analogy in Danish Sign Language is the use of a sign whose basic meaning is one of physical po-stui* to express the abstract meaning 'ethos' (the relationship is not directly between the abstract content and the signed expression). Diagramming 'importance* by Jirst position in the sentence is an example from spoken language. Temporal semantic priority expressed by syntactic priority in the expression chain is an example of a straightforward Nmagistic' diagram. '
.
,
'
56, Words Uike individual morphemes) display varying degrees of lexical strength1 (connectedness), but also of autonomy according to iiyhee:s dynamic model of lexical representation fHybee '
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265
266
Nf>tf
19 5; 57Q> so that, for exampta (certniin) inflecttd forins of worcis in flcctional languages (but not
predictable derivationd extensions) may have i special status as anenwy tracer in terms of '
pjiychalogica] reality Hfw 'words1 manifest thcmself in memory as regardfl level of abstract ness and degree of autonomy will depend to some degree on overall language type. I'llL-k\L- IJI lllL'Rpmudd :l. J>ll-. J'' V 7! J J I 1 lI t l' n |.'lv i 11 . .k I m T.iU n l-. .-i'IlJ il. icj tht1 lutraicby affinity types frojn O (probities), through 1 [ipitial ejuities), 2 Uxmm of itfilrd)) 3 ptiiuibit facts), L« 4 (spetvh ii'ii). I his i on sponds to my '.societa3 levds1 only in a jLiilit-t ruLigJt wny second drdei cdtiiic in pji Lieultir, rtfti tu fvi-nis or peisLsiidg statosi ill wiucl firit order entttiet are involved {thLs in a matter of lies us nprtad through time, io is (irtJio ojinil in tliL limelwi pjUerjiini; of sflcitiai leveli repi stfiued hefej. Thi1 Uhwtr levels belaw nl lJll- Li: jpkui:L- .-.il- i:-:-: p.n I ul iLl- J ; i liiyei J nuidel m .!!. i-i i .'Ki-kjUs I'lIuil , i-ji iw. level ot'woids (or niDrphemesj, its 'eAiended preJjnates4 and 'propositions4 belong on the levul ul ientencea, and its claust's. - i e illocjtions - btlonii lo the levtfl of texts (discourse). VG haa inorf rucfnily iittoitiptcd kh draw s.til] bigh j- le\rels. of Coiitinunkative orgiiu/jiion of the clause ijito tl e purview of gjajTtiOar. 'i'lms Hengeveld liis proposed a level for the discour&e 4Move* whiclt contains utterances expressinj; various perlocutiojiaiy) speaker intentions that interface with jjramniar-coded Jllocutions (Henyeveld 1550). i ltis falls within my societal level td'-con JituV
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1
uitiei of ipeakera
.
5*h Syllables n>ay perhapi he uiuversaL although the notion requires some stretching in the case
of languages like Hella-dola with its long sequences of consonant sand extreme paucity erfvowek Morae typically mediate the matching of words to the ,suprasegmental prosody Iwhose units are only roughly parallel, as It were, to segmental ones). Just as the syntactic clause Ls the usual default for interdlgitatton wit) utterance-level pro sod ic units, so the syllable appears to be tl e usual default at the level ofwords when morae are not relevanl. [he degree df isomorphy between word .nl.n;' \::\ iv - : miMdi-i nUly li-Hi I.vm-.i. y UlM ta e In pii.MAli-. -.yilJik- hiiLsl.--;'-! ilmu .1 i fact it is piiobably a mistake to regard prosodlcally determined 'levels' like that of the mora a being part of the same vertical hierarchy as jiegmental phonology and morphosyntax. hach of the basic liitguLstic levels has 11$ own parallel prosodk counterpart of patteriiiiig that is roughly - but not entirely - coextensive with it. Treating such matters as part of a monolithic layering of levels has caused much confusion in linguistic theory it] the past. That there should be a certain indirectness of correspondence between the levels and units of grammar and prosody is suggested by tbdr partial disassociation in both first and second language learning {mastery of prosody is .
first to come with ch i Id ren, often last to coj ne
i f a t all
j t li ad ul U ea r i n:r.s).
'
Sg. Not that such a rule Ls much like a typical conscilutive lijiguistic rule. However certain types '
of linguistic rule with a very real role in speech production and comprehension aae of a decided] y probabilistic ]iature,. representing weighted expectations rather thaji obligatory patterns. 3 am not '
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thinking only of exchange-chaining in discourse and variaLion of a pragmatic kind, but also of such rule-like phenomena as the phonotactic structure of permitted syllables in bnglish.
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[ heseare "
extractable by normal Whiteheadian processes ofconceptual valuation, etc., from raw speech datLi which may produce both 'fuzzy' categories of a pragmatic kind and tjuite precise but multilevelled abstractions such a.s phonotactic syllable templates), '["bey can in turn be simulated by connectionist models that do not operate wnh rules as iuch Jtall.
6o, Tl is \s not Jiim ply to eq ua te - as some cogn Itlve and generativist 1 Ingu iJifci would - gi'a mma r and neural connectivity. Just as eternal objeefci aiie instantiated in (nexus of) actual occasions, so are grammatical regularities (of behaviour) resident in neural societies - but the relationship is very indirect and emergent much like that between genes and the bodies they produce ) '
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6i. Ont could say tlie hiime of sti'-ess: in hagua es lik-e ttigliih it has vario js fuiicttotis, ijicludLJtg the lexici! diifereuljitioji of woids and llie ass-igjimejit of focu.s with in sentenceit eiret-}f word can poteniiaUy be issigjied atresi 011 a certain syllable (or syJlablti). lliLs ii not £0 in other kinds of languaj where word stress playi no diiticictive role, and even the modulation of sentential emphasi.s may be jnajiaged by other faetoiii sucli ai varying piieh alotn1. [ti general, the play-off between prosody and syntax in orj ni injj inl'oi tnation tnay vary coniiderably fi tnn lat]guagt; to laitgoago. '
62. Thus itiid lat home
'
iVoin tit "ia {with high tone) and j 'Jiouse' Iwilh tit id to tie oji the unitiai ked vowel), or /Jji/ yesterday (with riiijiy lojieon the second s.y]lable fioin n{i>l before vowel other thaji Hi] pluji jj]/(wil]i low tojie tm llie tn'st syllable whicl haibeen transfeiied to and modified - tht following syllable). '
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43. O t eo u rse sue h rules are not ust forma I iionslra1 n t s, t h ey a] e niift ivated by the meani ng to be
espaewed. This Ja true of all con.structiojial (a.s well a.s metaphorical) meaningL the further away from the simple core plmnemn' Siyit' One n'loves, the L'urther behijid imc leaves pure "arbilrariJ his ihouJd Jiot be lake]! as suggestitjg that nominal compounding, for e.vaJitple, is a iies;! itiLchticiical itsattci1 of building up larger blocks of meaning frons smalllt oJie.s; an at all levels. context tconstructionalor situational) is an essential ingredient in interpretinj; the results oTsueh procefwes (whkh can iiideed be synehronleally largely arbitrary -lesicalized aj dcojwentlonal in a given language). 1
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6 Thus ike rule associated with bound verbal moiphetnes like ijui- "Iwc in West Greenlandiiv which states that auy modifiei of the head noun Incorporated by this, morpheme should stand as an external coitalituent in the instrumental case, as In tingfiitu Hik qingti-qar-putii (big-iNSTR nojie-have-2s
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.
according to rigid po itiond rule to form complex verb forma in a manner reininiscent of phrasal '
vfrhsh for e an ple, i] the sentence-level symax ot Hnglish. 69. Thus 'heavy shift1 and the general organization of constituents where there is flexible ordering according to various kinds of pragmatic weighting', etc. Grammar as eternal object for template for 'well-formed utterances1) does not calculate'weights'- this ia a matterofon-line processing. 1
J Ithe expansion of a syntactic template in the process of fitting it to a specific semantic contenr-tobe-expreased runs up a tmst processing hinitanons its course may be tipped towards another attraetor leading to a protess ofextraposition of a heavy constituent, for example. Extraposition '
1
,
may of course e\rentuai]y become absorbed into the grammar as an obligatory rule. <S6- Sub}ect-prominent as opposed to topic-prominent languagesh for example, highlight different etic ftiitctiojis ajnojig those that are typically but not necessarily m i eduent in theemic category of subject although topic and subject do tend to coincide by default (as well as semantie agent). Many languages caneombine these functions in different ways, so this is not the same as splitting all languages into either subjeet or topic-prominent onei. Japanese, as diicusied in 2.3, is arguably :
L
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,
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both topic-prominent and subject-prominent. One could say that 'subject1 (as a prototype) has a special role in most languagest acting as a pivot in at least some-syntactic rulesh because it rellects the indicative part of any propositional prehetisioji (indicalijig the relevant nexus to which the predicate applies). '
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£7. Certainly 'nouniness1 and 'verbiness: are candidates tor universaEity aitiongst the world's languages - if a language only has two parts of speech these are the two. Languages with no
Noleii
forjiuil dtstinction between nouns and verbs can nevert] ]es.s always distinguLsh nominal and vej'bal expressions according to distiiml sets ofsyn tactic cojitexlsand/odderivaticu al potential. This '
i nc lude.s languages {like Nabuatl) h where the hasic clausal organbmtioil a ppeai .s ta be one oi theme rheine rather lhan siiljjuct-pjedicale (with lexical slejru; geiierally being able to- lit either slot}. (S& For Langacker, for exantples syntactic rules - the patterns expressed by phrase structure rule.s are simply the most highly abstracted/generali'jted cfmstrjctlnn schenias, those that are nmst tirmly 'entrenched' thrnugh repetition. They compete with Inwer level, more lexically specihed contractions instant tat inj; thejn- these are probably mode directly accessible through assoclati mi with specific evejit structures (Lanjjacker 1 9 :25 1 A sunple phrase structure grammar seems adequate to describe the nutcome of most formally codistraidied syntactii: behaviour, ajidwhat it -
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t handle on ifs own can be supplemejited with jele\rant semantic and pragmatic aspects of the speaker s knowledge. I follow Dlk (t 9) in viewing all tra]i3for]oatiodial relations between
can
'
sentences In this light. Phrase structure rules can easily be fleshed out' into expaiidable construc'
tion types a.ssoctable with speciric lllocutionary ends. Notice rhat 1 am talking about the syntactic rules of individual languages hei-e, tiot of geneiativist Udiiversal tlrajiidnar to which X-bar syntax
belongs ! JackejidnJi' 1977). t hojusky does not in fact regard individual lajiguagesas i ule systems '
at all today. Rules of an individual language L are rather to be seen t rom that perspective as the LliiL:.;lo i-'L M r
:;
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pLi; jmljI. t i/.LLl ImI j. itilomsk;, I ' j:-! L 7 1. j -.n.A
jL'iiil II U- IIll- .;ui :;i .i
I lUiIl.-
ofUG in Chapter 9. fi . Lemmas - the terminal categories on syntactic trees on Levelt's model - contain both sedoantic and syntactic information, and mediate betweeji lexical word-fonos {or the cojicepts behidid rheml ajid sentences.'Ilius, for example, the association of the Hngllsh verb 'believe1 with the syntactic tejnplate S + DO + V-t ojup UO' - the direct object - Is in this case tilled by the subject of the suInordinate verb, the complement, which ds an infinitive. Other labels, joore '
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sedoaditic than structural, could be substituted. Such thematic
'
roles can in theory he as abstract nr
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specific as the adialysis warrants, e.g. believer' or lej:pedienced,: or simply ltheme: as the 'case' of the '
subject of believe'. Higher level gedieralkatiodis across lediooa types are potentiallyabstractablebut need Jiol have any psychological reality (they doay nevertheless be j'egarded as "eternal objects'). '
1
Also nouns may be associated with 'lemmas' cositatnijig inforjiiatioji oji, for example 'gesider', which may be overt {morphological) or covert manifestmg oddy in agreement codiditions>. TO, For Croft events are defined in terms of causal chains abstracted out of a hjoader causa!
network, just a,s in Whitehead. The prototypical event is teltc and involves a igure/ground configuration Un the manned-of L.an packer I of a controlling subject itctin rm an affected object ;ln the manner ofJidmy's 'force dynamics'). The)' a re basic because they are the mo si individuated and therefore doost easily abstracted from the broader causal diexus - Whitehead niild saymost contrastivel adding the greatest i]itensity to concrescent pdocessei prehending them. Sentences code odily the coditrastiwly highlighted elements to be codmoudilcated aiid float like icebergs above a doass of'hiddedV presuppositiodi that lidik them to the wider causaTbackgd'omid'. f
i6B
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71. [do not mean to imply that syntactic knowledge is stored elrher at one place (all possible expansions of an initial S expi sedhyabundle of phrase structure rule , say) or asfragiinented, distributed bit,sof the 'same' grammar attached to distributed construction types or lexical items, ftoth these possibilities may pertain (they arc i|Udte companMeu and who w to jiay that efficiency is more important than distributed availability of such continually utilised information for the mind/brain? The rules with which linguists describe their grammars are after all just abstractions over socially condoned output - their embodiment in the individual speaker is a quite different
matter, Lead'ning appropriate readiness for [ recursive J action when aiming to express a certain
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1
cotitenf
for a «rtam end (hawe\rer loosely ciuti-taiawd) is al] that ultimately initttj'fi from a
cognitive point ofvitw. 7i. This is [ht Mk alLd ubjaoency pridtiple uf yi'ii ratiw ri jiiar, i udivtrsal con.siriicH dji wJj-wtHd IbmuiHHi Clojii L tib dd d Llaus i thkiiaw pdm>{nannp x NT cir a i4?strictlvereJitive i;]aust\ iojuethini; tJiit it hiisol tcji bet1]! djinW CbiJinihl bf Jftirjit from itipul olonf. ll e Btirred stiilencoi.s jil ontifd from lius i uJ inalist vicwpoitit btciuseot violatlnji ol tJiu pritidple that only o-ne 'boiiiidijij; undc- [si it-eiiceK da use or N ) caji bt crossed by movement pi ce-Stes of thisiort '
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in English. Van Valin (lyyH) pre.seiitsanullernative f'u]ictiojtaiii( tf\pJanatlon [if the phenomtilOtl based oji the kftle ind k fereniie grammar notion of'focus dfumin1' U' iled to material directly under matrix clause nodes 1. He points out the prapsmlic contradiction that arises if one places focal elements-such as tWj-words - within clauses representmj; presupposed material., such as a restricted relative clauwr He sees the ultimate source of the
7$. Tliiscaji in turn be linked to the nature of [he iensori-motor unth-rpinnings of piopositiojul knowledges LeKtiacting' aigumecits of predieate.s Ll|-Lijiysh places, eltj from within island-likt! clauses embedded in matrix clauses corresj-vojids to teferring to thijiys or 'place.s*, etc. U.e. tir.st "
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order ejitities)h propositiojially related to actions or states {.second order entities) embedded within proposttional linkages of still higher order things and 'actions1, etc.h in other words to consider'
'
able multi-level feats of abstraction. .Some languages can indeed overcome the processing
ditificulties such extraction requiress ergr Uaniflh with its 'intertwined1 clauses of the type det Iwrte jegfw eti sow jcg ikfo husker hvem wir f*ll heard it from jiomeone that ! don1t rejnember who '
was
} It \st here a matter of the extension of a rather simple syntactic configuration to const rue.
tioits of ever greater hierarchical complexity. The prototype involves an epistcnuc nutrlx clause of a rather stereotyped form as In det iytttsjeg er rigugr l don i thij k tliiit is right ) not in itself unusual, thai could be fegaided as an alternative au cpisiemic adverbial at the anie syntactic level ah the embedded lIliusC. Danish can alford to be lilH.'fal on this store since the nature of its yiajnitiai' el 00 not leudor-extensions ifi such t-ojistru tiotis m-eily hard to interpret {and they euidtnily fulltl a L'ertatn expiessive usefulness tu do with the modulatiun of pragmatk fotus/higliligbtitiu it] cojnplex senten-cei - the extractedeleniejit is a 'topic'). Similat arguments can be applied to the fact that the extraction of subjects from suboidlnale clauses is easier in Jinglish if there is no overt conjunction, as in 'The woman that you think loves him1 as opposed to * Jlie woman that you think that loves him1 (the latter fiorcea a two-tiered .structural interpretation, each clause with its own - potentially clashing - head/topic whereas you think in the former acts more like a simple epistemic restrictor on 'loves him"). '
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H"
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74. Contrast I thought that the men expected to see them1, which expresses a quite different kind
of inrensional world embedded in the matrix one (one characterized by the subjective form of belief). Here the binding p oh si hi lilies for 'them' are 4 uite different (in particular, the reflexive leading is excluded a]id the natural antecedent is .some preceding topic). '
75. These terms, deriving from Pike s Tagmemics, can be used to refer on the expression plantT '
to the specific substance (e.g. phonetic materiaJ) that can rill a functional slot in the coding system, '
as opposed to the slot itself (e.g. a phonemelh or on the content plaoi/, as here, to the variety of
pragmatic factors that inay trigger the choice of a particular grammatical coding device,
270
Notes
76. TKi!; is. most appiii-eul Ji r giidi the rdjtivt! ordering of fiucce.sitv-e clauses, with Ciause and
condition btSore (niain L-lauaei resuiL, temporal framing clauses befort jnain ojie.s asoj>postfd to purpose clauies t o llowitig theiiih enrresponding t*> carli-cr or later phases iji concrescejil prnceiso.s within caudal nestis in general, kelative imports net. st res si tig fm groimdi l tlau ? tirst, frir '
-
example, tan up,ser this natural tendency, however. ITie ordering of object atid relative claiwe
logicsliy neither prior nor subsequent to their beadss tends to be less iconic, and word order within the clause is considerably more conventional, reflecting the static argument frame of individual verb cores (even transitive ones, although here the natural flow from agent to recipient may well be [conically reflected). All of this represents the natural deployment of the-propositionaUnstincf in express!en; pre linguistk relations through lanyuaye. Note thai the function oi the various kinds of subordijuti1 -dause mentioofJ abovt aie ptirt and paicel of ihfir ut]je .tLVL form in actual insian eii of usayu and reflect ilit vai it us lyp s nf prehunsiojb involvud - tor instance negative one.s in co-nctsiive clauses, iinaginaLLve ones in conditional clausei, etc. Relative clauses specifically reject
indicative prehensions' {cf. 5.2.51 within higher-order propositionaI prehensions, whereas object clauses are a matter of predicative patterns within complex propositional prehensions that '
*
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(recursively) contain whole propositions transmuted as objects.
77. G ivon and others have d iscussed vat io us pr i nci pies of iconic ity d i scei n ib le b eh i nd s ynta \ ihese include pragtnatic pj inciplcs of lineai- order fe.y. less predictable Jitaterial plated fnst in a string), proiimity prij iples ;including hehighers law), and the principle of quantity (more infortnation coded by a laiger chunk of code, eic.|. H aim an {] rt5) in particular disnusiesa wide j ajige of syntactic phenomena that reflect iconic motivation. '
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7fi, Compare the point repeatedly made by Gardiner that ports of speech (including subject and pred icate) h ave a d 1st iitct feel1 to them - this applies also to the who le sen ten ce un its w i t h its feel of completeness linked to Intelligible purposes (Gardiner L93Z:fi6aiid 95), '
7p. This i.s in fatt implied by Nichols {] Wb: ]07lfJ. The multiplicity of patterns (eternal objects) that according to the Whiteheadian peripectn-e can be abstracted fiom the same objective datu sets ol utteraj ces prthduced by language communities) necessarily leads to an eclectic attitude '
'
towards metalinguistic formalisms. Alternative formal descriptionsh all coherent within .selfproscribed limits, can coexist - the deciding factor will be the particular aspect of language one wishes to focus on or the particular level of generalisation being investigated. Descriptions of '
'
specific languages claiming intuitive validity should stay as close as possible to the emic surface of the configurations and constructions concerned. As [tkonen puts it, language is a Jiet of normative rules embedded within general human intentional ity and is as such atheoreticaL nonempirkal and non-falsiflable, wheivas any linguistic theory concerned with generalisations across mcb psychologically real rules is falsiliable and like other empirical sciences never completely confirmable {Ltkonen 1970:205ff ). He accuses lite getierativists of confusing the two, treating their theoretical metarules as if they could be the object ol everyday intuitions like the former '
1
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op.cit.: 1\7\.
:
\: L\si\.n\>.>\
'
a s.- iIljs L'nfj';.
n!.jaii/aii tis . .'i -u .jlkl .ukI kilsin,'.: -:
,'.
high level of abitractioji. So. This is compatible with Peirces itotion of lfirstness' ad holistic feeling and with t olanyi's emergent. Gestalt view of meaning, as wrell as with the general embodiment approach of Cognitive Linguistics. For the direct association of (all) meaning with feeling see Gendlin [1962]* who mentions pragmatist Uewey and pbenomenologist Mer]eau-iJonty amongst his precursors, but also acknowledges Whiteheads signiikance iji this con nectioj (Gendlin 1%2:94). l-'or him, as for Whitehead, it'lt t]! ] ] 1 is built up by the continual interplay between existing symhols and (in-going contextual relevance, but what Ls universal/repeatable is (types of) experiential '
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1
Motes
pfiscedurej; rather than eternal ohiectsr Any experience (type) can in principle schoniatiw an aspect1
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of any other [i
beaflource for metaphorical or inferential construalK since esperienceK
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1
are by nature multiflchematic tZojnpare also Polanyi's layered conception of intensioital word meaning, de cendingi fran) the inost determinate and tiwd to the deepest layer consisting of an indeterminate range of anticipations evoked by the wofd (Polanyi 195$: M 6); this fades into the general Whiteheadlan backgrouud' behind all actual occasions. ,
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1
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Hi. Con pare Searle s treatment of p P iitionil atlitjdeh as iJ tejUioiinil states that am 1>e e per kneed by animals as well as hnmans (Searlt iyy5:h2]. Also ftapir saw llie pro posit ion lis j psychologkal uoll (mu Jtticulatinj; tlu1 L,c]atiiniHhj[i Ucwcen subje Ls and predicates {Sapir iy2l;3 ). Tlu- in olwititntorpropositional prehtin&ionji ij percept] uj can be seen in tho Gostalt nature ofboth; givej a partial pattern etei-nal object] in its data, any concim-ent procesta will aim at dtusure { satisfacliDJi ; ulidlinjilhu whtilf pattern and linkicig it as predicate tu a subject (tht1 prerei jisite lur the L'lenta] ubjtct to b* txperiontially Entertained ) In itself a propoiiti n ii (like j;i lIlj iuI uii-iL-a. a ..i.wl- pc'ts.-ii jdijL;. A-. Imlk.iI >l:mlv1i si i> \ 1ilU links jI lu ..vUkL.ity. '
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ia. in such complex ilructures, what Is Interpretable as 'topic' at ant level (tay iji a subordijiate clause) may in facL fuiiction. as comment at another (in a superoidinale clause)h or vke versa. '
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Note that the synLacticization of multiple levels of pragmatic modulation alluded to here is a major cause of the apparent arbitrariness of muth iyntactk structure - it reflects the result of historical compromise between multiple competing communkativt needs fin the manner nf Hates & MacWhinney 1982)H3, It is not the only one, also Montague Gram 111 a r, t tegoi la I (irannuar and early Transformational Grammar could form such a 'missing link 1 shall return to the potential relationship wilh Functional Grammar below. In connection with TO- in particular, one thinks of Lbasic sentences' each an underlying proposition forming the interface between deep structure and a logical component or module (and compare the proposirlonal nature of what Chomsky sees as innatet as further discussed in Fodor ]9S3:6f.}. Relating such static metalanguages to the more dynamic world of Whlteheadian propositional procedures is problematic, however. Strawson s approach. being more act-orientated, is less problematical in this respect, but is also far more sketchy than the others. I should point out here the difference between Whitthead s essentially processual notion of the propositional prehension and Peirce's, since also for Pcirce the proposition for dkent sign1) is not necessarily a 'conventional symbol1 {Lc. expressed in language), although it usually Is. Whereas lor Whitehead propositions may be espK ed 1> syjnbihls {read SiyJis';, ol' which their l-j; pros ion contists (they st jjid fay individual referents or predicates) h for Peirce not o[]ly propositions thtni&elvei but also laigei-, more complex argujnej ts ;discourses) bull I up from them art' sigjis [do, as are the 1 thoughts1 behind them. He dejijud the valui1 of Jistinguishinjj sharply between terms, propositions and inferences and deliberatdy blurred over the disrinelioji betweeji the meaning of signs and their use. 1
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44. Verbs may refer to dynamic events as well as static relations of courses these (in the guise of actual occasions ofdiscourse) are central in die Whiteheadian scheme of things and are ultimately
a matter of causal efficacy from the immediate past into the immediate future at any level of societal organiiation. Recall my proposed criterion for defining a single actual occasion in
discourse in Chapter 1 - the occa-iion as the locus of a unitary change to a nexus {tor example to a mental map entertained by a speaker of the immediately relevant discourse context . It maybe prehended by a propositional prehension whose predicative patterji corresponds to the meaning of a verb. As always, the pattern reflects the process and viccveria. tvent types a re eternal objects, '
:
271
271
Notes
; use
as on t Lly types and t he qua lities lefened to by idj ec t ives are; tlie latter are spedtkally quaihi l
nf objects typically endui'inj; longei" in tijue thaji ewtits.
Of course this basic definition applies before language entendi the proposition to abstract jnon-Individual; jiubjectii In the fashion ofStrawson. But recall also that the process of'transmutation may present ab stiTic t c oncep t ual patterns to the siib}ec t of a cone rescence as if they were real physical entitles, *5
.
1
Ulk's 'picture theory' of n ental representations allows for the blending of mnagistlc aj d proposltional information, which is compatible with the Whlteheadlan view of thought as combining both simple perceptual prehensions and higher proposltlonal ones that involve symbolic transfer through linguistic symbols, for example when we simultaneously Imagine3 people and settings and tell ourselves stories about them, in sn far as one accepts that inner thought may i cflect outer experience (which includes both perception and language) this Is hardly controversial. There is a dilference from i)Ik s conception, however, which equates propositional thought with underlying FG clause structures, and the Wbiteheadlan understanding of the proposition, which, as interpreted above, isprocessual and based on the prehension of particulars < nexus) rather than variables, in this vein I would say that feelings and words rather than images and abstract propositions form the basis of our internal on-line representations. Note that Wbltehead does not deny that some types of prehension (e.g. purely physical sensations) are not propositional. '
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ill;. As in Mental,Space thenry, apresupposition arising Inone space maybecancelled in another, embedding space. This may be triggered by Immediate lexical or morphosyntactic meant, by broader discourse conventions, or by general background knowledge. In Whiteheadian terms it specifically does not need propositional knowledge to cancel propositional presuppositions. Of course more ibstratt concepts are doubtkw learnt and formed with the hilp of other known lexical items such a* those used in dictionary defmitioiis ollhc It. mt um -i mxl. S?. Thii Category may retlect the most conunoti way wu leai ti things ahemt tht wnrld: what isjiew ib Icamt as a tJiitiiitial variajit of vhal we aJicady kjiow. Ljkoft" furtlier proposes tim1 the futjre) a theory of sycnb-oJit1 inodfls withiti which giajiintalical consuuctions aii1 Lijikcd to uliier KIWs lLakod iyj!7;467}. All of these are .supposedly pai l a( the InacceiiSLble Vogiiitive unconscidus' thfiuyh as isugyested in 1. .4, they may well bi? accessible x'ia Whitehtadiaii causal Jilicaey J e by their bodily "letT ratlier thati any kind of imagery. '
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90. He aJ o posits sijiiilarity lijiks which associate individual scheioala/cognitive inodeli to -
,
others that resemble it io some respect - a matter of metaphor. For Searle, however, metaphor is ajichored in Backgsojnd, in bodily know-hoiv like how to T alk or ski (which may be tacitly orj ou/cd in qaitc a dift erent \,iray t rojn an image schejna1 from which propositions may be i ead u atid is therefore Jiot based oji literal similarity {iearle 19S3j 149). '
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91. The built-in fuzzij ess of categories is due to the central role of analogy in higher mental processes which involve the recognition of eternal objects (patternsl ingressant in actual occasions,
as described by Wbltehead. It is not so much that words are inherently fuzzy, as that reality is tar more many-sided aud creatively protean than fixed one-to-one coding relations can handle. The underlying propositional relationships-as expressed In sometimes ambiguous surface sentences '
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1
may be perfectly precise In terms of truth conditional status vis-tl vis the relevant world. "
92. Compare also Jalmy's Torce Dynamics' which represents complex events and actions metaphorically in terms of basic space, motion and force categories {Talmy 19SS), Concepts of action types expressed by verbs, although prototyplcally associated with schematic images and '
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Notes
kinaesthctk jjeilunes o{a cei'tain type, ntiy thus be ext-eiided to desciibe Ljuite abs-trict eventi {e.g. the cftitiple.v verb Vlnse in on1 when Lused of a lutlOn rather than an ob ett). '
93, They iiaguc foj- tlte invr>lven nt of a semiiiuic convtrgtnce area of the brain In 'blending1 absl rac t {b ut embodied | c0511 i t ive toiutruc t ion tvpes witli spec ific seina nt ic detiil cor responding to the arguments slots of sutb constructions. This they do in terms of temporalLy-ordered binding of distributed information. '
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Ajia iuyy j nay ti ppiy wilJ« n lii u >j 1 ne dajnaitl. ftoe Ortt.s ue {] for (Jximpies of" llo n/.oi) li\ ejnheddtJ mtitaphof in tskimo mites talion iyittnii operatiiig hustw Lii uik! Jinii.iiji> (ihij interior ot' thi1 Iuhusc withici thu liiidscaik1 around it]. Mdny of Ldkotif's 'liiLlL iJi t.-.' - sutli bis LivJsriL E is location-\ AUiiiis are porce th* spec [Pic is the cekppal' - represent paLalleiisms with rilli-er ibiliact notiotis on l-ilJill sideoflhteLjuatioti. titJiei e J ol t ajnpJe really a domain* of ' tocation4 at opposed to a higher 'dojnain1 of le!:isreiiee'? 'i'he maiji problem is defuiinj; 'dojiiain4 - i have never seen anythijig approaching a natural laHhooniy of the discrete dojuains beiweeji which metaphor caji be said to operate. It it, safer to taOi instead of 'vertleal' Whileheadian societal levels, a much more limited and precise set. I'or present purposes I shall nevertheless continue to use the term loosely myself, but it should he home In mind that this ass-umes universal natural seajns beyond the hounds of language. 4
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9S- Ontogeneticallyit appears typically to develop from an undifferentiated domain [words like see coverings for example, both perception and mental activity], which adults subsequently learn to split into distinct domains, as defined in terms of relevant experiential frames. L
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96. Conoerninj; polystmy in general from a Whitehtadian ptrspecti t, iTcall that vords as symbols are in the mode of presentational immediacy and th js fullv Jttercninate and their form describtible in terms of the relevant eternal objects, whereas their meaning is in the mode of causal eficacyh which is indeterminate in the sense that multiple in put that i> mordy Mmiiar to thi inherited 'core' can li iyger ofl activatioj ofthf symbol. These expmejitiai triggers are thtrmsel doL'i ilKible in terios of (other) eternal obitfts. The relationiliip is, however, one of arbitrariness aisjocialjue ieelini; is wlial binds them. The eternal objects of the fust kind define the para me 1
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teriof thecode, those of the iecond kind are those jnultil ario us factors that are relevajit to human
aims and activity. At some point - via nielaphor oi' repeated loetcmyutic sl ilL (w example -the meaning Comple.\es to which sped lie words are associated may split beyond the point of lecoilstructable similarity Being determinate and taken from a far more limited array of items than the meanings they refer to, words thus Jiaturally tend to develop polysemy. '
97. Also Jakob son sees metaphor and metonymy in very bioad terms, relating the tbrmer to the "
paradigmatic axis ot language a i d the latter to the syntagma tic axis (and heuce to the very core of symholk expression). He further relates them to the evidence of sensory and motor aphasia
respectively (lakobson 1971tS2ft). The latter statement should not he taken as implying a clash with any non-truth-conditional meaning-as-use approach. Lexical meanings mediate between concepts (eternal objects} and things {nexus of actual occasions}, so they naturally display prototype ftminess when applied to shifting configurations of nexus the meaning of words is typically context-sensitive in Lipplieation lo the actual world although their intentional1 relationship amongst themselves may be structured in a neat (e.g. binary) way. Amongst such structured relationships is that of hyponynu to some hirperocdniaie ?erm, fo] which a Whiteheadian analysis would evoke the presets of conceptual rcversiocf, whereby a higher order patterning is recognised beyond the level of individual word meanings. 3tkonenhwbo champions a social approach to meaning whereby the 1
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273
Notes
mtatimg c*f a seiUejKe liea in its veiiJibibilLly (in prbiidple the jbilily to tell a cohnvmtt aji Acceptable Story abaut wltat tiiakea it true (Itkonen \9S3: 135), .speciJiCiilly argues agaitist ti uthconditbnai approaches, Forhiin bntli t]ie caus Und non-caudal perspectiveji on language tnvolve meuiing, and semantics (beSongUig to the latter) w a matter of socially circumscriJied meaninj '
*
potential. niH ely the study of what it means to understand Jientences correctly, as opposed to using ttjen rationally (a matter of the part of pragmatical Iwlonging to causal linguistics). '
9$. Actual jipaEta-tejiiporal ]-efer4?nce L]i the Whitelicaduui ichejne ni thiiigs is handled by iln1 thtory of slraini projecLed by tndividuii subjects. Stidin delijie iKf stuidpoijil of the s-uhjei;! atid '
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forjn the basis of the projection of WHiW, experienced as objects, "outside* the body. The notion of inental space in cognitive linguislici as well as the pi'ojected 'sigjiing space1 of sign-language users could be defined in terms of the theory of strain. In which deivis and the recognition of '
L
hontologies tind their basis, in the process of'traiumutatlnn" cmnpk.-i physical 'strain feeling ' become integrated with corresponding conceptual feelings and with data from various sensory channels (inherited fron the immediate past) to result in the diffuse feel ofexterlority of sensory objects. The category of causal eficacy is important heie, situatinj; ihe subject in a directly experienced caudal flow front the pist Lo the future fas objectified in the episodic aspect of memory}. This is tin.1 framework within which a WhitLlieadian iitalyiij of linguistic lense would need to be elaborated, in terms of prehensioiii relating the relevant jjraminaiical patterjiitigji {eteriial objects of a certain type) to the 'here-and-now' frame of reference shared bycontetnpoi ary, adjace]it occaslojit. '
1
f
274
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tpo. These do the
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sanctioning in that case. Similar distinctions as to societal le el can be made as regards Phasic) coittent eplstemic and speech-act senses of conditionals (cf. Sweeper 19 0:113f.). Kote that this all leads back to the nature of the 'suspended }ud n ent3, i.e. the pn>cejis of tibduclioj fwhat may he ) contrasting with'what {logically) must be1 (as predicted by deduLtioit) aj d 'wlut is' {a> testable by indjttion). .
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101.
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I hus
It is clearly a mistake to iioagine that semantic change always proceeds from the more concrete to the more abstract via metaphorical extension - one need only think of the history of a word like sentry in Hngli.sh, This has gone from an original abstract sense corresponding to "
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sanctuary which directly reflects itfl source in Latins to deflignation of a place (where soldier s
keepsentryh to a collective sense (the soldiers themselves), to the principal meaning today of an individual performing this function. This is a purely metonynucal chain, one that incidentally goes from abstract to concrete.
102. That is, those IE roots that have the most varied reilexes in HnglLsh vocabulary today, whatever the route by which the words concemeJ were borrowed from or influenced by other
related languages and however derived and abstract the relevant forms and meanings are In English today. They are the roou chosen for rather unorthodox treatment in Kortescue (t '
fic").
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103. The problem is still worse for such roots as ei- go and 1 1- 'come' as opposed to nf wander (how L-an one represent not only directionality but also pecifiL'ity/vayjeneSi of goal?). -
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104. Also directional roots like upo- up from under and one.s symboliilng number such as ilwoL
L
two
1
are easily mimed - but on the other hand they are not unambiguously abstractable from the '
object used to make the relevant gesture, e.g. the mimer s hand or fingers (something moving up
from under something else? two fingers? two long ob}ectsT). As regards terms expressing object types (even body parts) the potential ambiguity has been discussed esttensively in the philosophical literature (cf. Quine I960).
105. C iiipoiiitionialLiy i.s ti vei y itiil - iflijiiiteJ - ispect of Intcr-lexlcfll t-e]atioii!ih bat it is '
considt ably iftore iubjenl to culluriil relativity ihdn is ofteci thought. J hus in Papuaji lajijjuujjes like Kjobun, liiih i]i 'se] ial verb* conitructimis, what to Hnglish speakers seem like simple holistiu antions such as carrying {e.g. somcthinj; across cornet hiiig) art by necessity expitssect as a sequeni-e of more basic actions {e.g. hold-take-throw across1), and a se uencu ot'coordij ale '
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clauses suiih as
knock it down [e.g. a fruit), break it upon and give it to someone' is expressed by a single i-ontplex verb { strike-break-give-it } Such facts might seem to present a problem for the relating of word meaning to unitary propositional prehensions in the Whiteheadian spirith but -
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recall that the
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eternal object predicated of subjects in sueh a prehension can be of any degree of generality and/or internal complexity: either carrying or 'holding' 'taking 'throwing across' etc., can be predicated of the same subject acting out some action on an ob;ect within a given event frame. What is notable about serial verb languages is that the expression of certain types of complex predicate require the obligatory morphological expression of their internal structure, '
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106. This Ls rsmiJiLsctnt of the enuji' ntisi vim of embuditd tntaniog unpuust-d by psycholinguists suL-b as Mat Whin city, who dltifusses four differsnt ptrsptict Ivo-taking sytitttni In the human bi aio, namely that of perceptual 'alifordances' {in the posterior irortej , that I'or spatiolemporal orientation (jitainly parietal>, and those foi eau.sal action iVajnes and fui stteial fracnes iboth frontal), "i'heie aie all itivolveJ in I he integration of Lomplex jueittal models and form the basis i'or imagining performing actions and projecting oneself into objects and situations outside i his dy]iajiiich juulti-focal perspective approach to of oneself {MacWhlnney '
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meaning amountsh in elleet, lit a neural correlate of the fluctuating but causally coherent '
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perspective which the Whiteheadian actual occasion has on 'eternal objects'. Recall that it is
through this individual perspective that novelty can enter for the individual organism. '
:
107, The funtrion of expressions like all corresponding roughly to the universal uantitier is thus an Instruction to summate - via transmutation - every Instance of an entity type and treat it aji a single nexus, '
1
ioS. i his '
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will be further touched upon under 'semantic change' and 'grammaticaliiation processes in 7.2.1; the distuiction between 'objective' and 'subjective* eternal objects is discussed in chapter y. the jmint is tlial both linguistic signs and their contexts of use can be analysed in terms of (diiferent types of) eteroal objects, and the contributions of ill u l vo major types of form of detiniteness should be distinguishable, conveotionalily and histtn ical accident characterizing the fbJTtlner otoie thaii the latter (which detine the natural seains in reality). 1
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109, t or a gjlmpse at how far neurolingulstics has advanced In the direction of being able to
specify particular routes whereby language maybe processed in the brain see Schuelle!] 997). The processing involved Is largely parallel and distributeds involving continuous transforms and looping rather than discrete digital stages and nodes. It Is described In terms of'lexical convergence units {which In the case of verbs, for example, could be further linked to kinfiesthetic action schemata). When activated In a production mode they may initiate spreading cascades of activity that result in the motor production of that word. Such convergence itone units, by coordinating information from various sources, can act as foci of association, i.e. as symbols of tht whole nggregale in which they arc embedded. '
no. MacWhin ney [1
*
:249) goes so far as to propose an eimergent frontal homunculus '
that
integrates the brain's multiple perspectives on reality with the help of language. '
Whitebead discusses the relation between mand and brain In the following terms. The reactivity of the relevant sub-parts of the personal nexus that is the mind/brain Is so extreme, '
1
27
Notts
enihling l] prul cijiioai of :uw
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preiupposet reaetioti froniajid interplay with spatial physical experienee; it is totally ij the present but canerjje.s b-oan the past, the tinal culmination of the subtle orgaaiization of bodily life. The '
presiding otcasioji with in a personally ordered society Uf there be one) is the interactioti of a complex sttucture of Jiiany endurijij; objects (nexus waindering from part to part of the brain, partially - but only partially - VJuassodated (or displatal) from the physical atoms of the body from which it is lmherited'r I take this to mean that the brain ejeperiences a kind of unitary but formless infinitude of potentiality for prehension that one may call 'mind' Cartesian dualism becomes unnecessary since conceptual feelings are constaauly passing into physical ones (via transmutation and hybrid feelings) and physical ones aie passing into conceptual ones (via conceptual valuation): the non-spatial (mental) and the spatial {physical} aav inextricably bound inconstant Interplay. 1
1
laz. Recall too that Whitehea J
s coaiceptaoai of natural iaifeaence (as distusied in 1.5) i* pren ised on processes of holistk dmnation* validated by feeliaigs of experiential 'fit*, '["he succession of preheaisiDJis-within a single concresecnt prrmess is otit of logical aather than (necessary) temporal '
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nrder and caai be curtailed by leaps towaads anaxanial iaitensity of lrit at aa y stage. nj. The (pre-)frontal lobes (more specifically perhaps that of the dominant left hemisphere) employ inner speech for the internal adulation of iattentional behaviour accordiitg to i.uria {1977:21of.}, fowea'ful prefrontal-limhic iauercoatnections (linking the control cortex with deeper emotional/subjective regions of the brain) are probably involved in all planned, sequential, goaloriented thought. Whatehead s broad useof theterata feeliaig' in connection with cognition can be related to the involvemeait in all higher cortical activities of the neurotransaoitter system ofalfect laden global attentlonartuaiing', which coj nects the frontal cortex with deep mid-ba ain structuwa (cf. Deacon oplclt.!422)J '
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114. Jndividuat chaiais of thought may presumably be distributed through parallel pathways of analysis, much as in the perception of ancoaning sensory stimuli - coanpare the so-called what versus wheie visual pathways from the primary occipital area to frontal motoa- areasef. Schnelle l
l
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]yyfi:2y2>. GivAn {]995:403) makes anuch of the pn sible utilizatioai of the u pre-esistiaig pathways i]ithe evolution of language, with the parietal where route corresponding to the qua sispatial basis of ranmiar in the iconic representation of states and events and the dorsal what '
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route corresponding to the lexicon. The possibility ofparallel analysis leads at all events to the socalled binding' problem, which, it has been suggested, may involve rhythmic periodicity acting to "
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frame' unitary experiences split through paallel processiatg channels. In Whiteheadian terms, binding' may be elucidated in terms of the amtion of'transmutation', whereby a multiplicity of a dual occasions shaaing the saatie eternal object are 'sumatiated' as enduiiaig objects (iccall also the rhythmical nature of the latter ataentioned under 1.2.5). This would cover cases where a functioaially uatitary action involving different sensory components is perceivEd, as when words heard and a mouth seen speaking at approximately the nghtdistanteaaul direction are prehended '
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Notts
1
more ot less simultaneously. Perception in the jiyiuhestoing mode of Vausal efficacy in ge fr ' hinds the analytic ohjectifications of 'preseotadonal LJnJlLediacy, into the contii uiius histoncal routci1 (transjuuted Jiexui) we experience endui ijig objects. 115. More graphicatly and melaphoricaily he el.sev 'here writes:
A thought is a tremendous mode of excitement. Like a .stone thrown into a pond it disturbs the whole surface of our being. But this image is inadequate. .For we should conceive the ripples as ert ediw in the Creation t llic plungt id the static into the water. The ripple i i-kMv iliu thdujju, ami (In; ihuujjlu nujimaiti nnd diitorU -hu j jppk'.v \\i order to understand the essence of thought we must Jitudy its iclition to the ripples iimid winch it einerge . (Whitehead ]3(5S;36) '
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This view isvery clojieto that of Vygotsky (l9<52)i who, like Wl itehead, aljio stressed the dynainics emergenth context-dependent and affective-\'olitional nafuie of thought and it.s cojinplementary relationship to language, upon which it cojiverges and with which it co-evolves. Compare also Polanyi s distinction between the tacit and the formal or ardculale coniponcnti of thought which can be equaled with WhiteheaJian perception it] the modes of causal elKicacy and presentational immediaey resptetivcly. The two, us unity held logetht-r in vtrhal lexis, may'fall apart' so that latit meaning, even when assimilated through words, may he directly ejtperienced although the exact verbal form is forgotten, what remains is tbe feel1 of the meaningr Tacit thought can he founded 0 n th e ca tegories aiid rel ati ons of a rticula te laJigu age - i nclud ing presujuably the proposition in such cases (Polanyi iy3H:S7lif.). iVtlanyi's Ltacitact of i]itegratioji:, whereby'sub.sidaryelemetits' { e.g. signs) are brought to bear upon foregrounding a I'ocils ofawa]eness out of a background of potential meaning is much in the spirit of 1 lie Whikhcadian LoncrejiCenco which is an iniegration of subsidiary 'data and relevant eternal objects under the guidance of a subjective aim. Both a re essenti ally acts of intuit ive i nfe re nee, '
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ud, i
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it (ialv i n U 99b) on t he i n terco nnectiv ity of these roughly bex agonal u n Its a nd tbe d i ffe re nt attractor states that may be embodied in themr According to him this basic unit formed by lateral rings of inhibition and excitation around cortical minicolumns of pyramidal cells, entrained with neighbouring columns in pairs) to form intersecting lhoL spots laid out in triangular patterns. Lateral resonance from column to column works its way by a kitid of Cloning acroiis swathes of cortex.. The patterns ihu.s spread will be cm d again unless resonance with ilic inherent 'attractors1 of a co-opted column is strong enough to retain the pattern there (local attractorfl can capture and modify spreading patterns). Thus memory may be distributed and new attractors themselve;, may be discontinuous in *pace. liidividua! heyag[5ns, are generally aj chored in specific features {linked to primary sensory zones Jn although they may be modiried by later spreads. Ambiguous perceptual input also produces variants - as determined in part by already exisiitig atLractor biaso id ihc mluinns over which cloning spreads - until a determinate Jeeision1 Is readied when one competing attractor 'wins out', irlexagonal [nemory unit patterns, expanding and competing, thus fine-tune the Internal connectivity' of other hexagonal cell '
1
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5
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'
Lls.- mbLJ"
::uy l'Ul uiiLi it-. ii: \VlLjl-.lv..'.i!\
i.r;.Lli..k ii-. mis h mmln \ -l
i! li T
for successive new concrescences). A given microcolumn can be activated in rious ways depending on initial conditions, reminiscent of the way causally independent actual occasiojis can play across overlapping regions in Whilehead't scheme of things. One nevertheless wonders whether the potential in Ion nation amlained by a single pyramidal minicolumn could really both be so huge and so readily copied and spread with the rapidity that the [ni>del implies. Continual reproduction and inheritance of pattern Is central to the Whiteheadian picture, note, but the '
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277
27S
Notes
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of an eterjial objecL type lji in actual token wll] alwiy's be sjb>ecc to contextual inJiuence
coyy
inodulatlng LtjispeciJic fiymbolic value. 117.
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J he
eiiduring objects of 'episodic" Subjectively indexed) jneinofy probabiy involves a
st ronger sub-cortl cat component bu t is ocherw ise ijievLrkably in tervoven with j;e neral
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ejna nt k
nieniory (the cojiceptual t es - eternal objects.1 ab tfLicted fmnt tokeji experiences that lji turn tnatch a pai ticuiar type). They may be compared with lohjiiOJi-Lakd s notioti of niejital models structural analogues n( the wo rid w hkh may contain vai in Ui ntodali Li ei n f im ajjery ajid aru a 'ailablu to inkrencing without rules' (Johjiiou-Laiid l rti seeesp. 247ft".J. Cllenbeig's ([ 71 nuliijn iji ititLt]iory ciJJisiiitLJij; {)f ejitbodkd esperiejiliat tLajLCtoriL's that nitsh with enviroiunental input ill a relationship of mutual iiilluej f/itiodilkation is aEio jjcrniajie. Joht son Laird, iiot-t\ i cgurds propuiitional oncodiiij; {iit u n Jital language doio to suifaL-e senltJicts) atianaltomaliw fonn ofrcin citjUation con Lstinj; ofkt ord likt iuitruttioiu lor coniti-uttiny mcmal modck information stored in tpisodtc memory cin presumably foiuain both kinds oftotodinj;. Unlike '
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lohnioti-Laii'd
models (with their dose link to model theoretic semantkiiK Whitoheadhui
internal!wd 'ej duiing objects1, note, are quite linerally "real1 experiential objects. A jillgbtly different distinction has beeji proposed in recent years (and accepted by home connection tot modellers), namely that between procedural and 'declarative' memory, '["he former to supposed to be acquired in a slow, incremental manner and to be situated primarily in the neocortex, while '
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the latter, associated with the hippocampus, is seen as covering both episodic memory and fcja learnt arbitrary knowledge associations that may later be integrated into the cortical systenu for instance the matching of phonological and semantic representation;/ The cortical system to conjectured to involve distributed representations and the hippocampal system localized, non-
overlappingones. and both to be involved in lexical learning (Gupta & Dell 199?:475ft
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)
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u*. Searle distinguishes between Network11 representations of propositions relative to which a von intentional <,tate can have its conditions - in terms of beliefs and desires - satisfied) and
deeper,, pre-intentional 'Background' know-how (Searle ISflJ: 143}.. which is neither representational nor intentional, correspondinj; rather to Whitehead s perceptual mode of causal efficacy '
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{as opposed to intentional 'presentational immediacy1). !t is a matter of pure potentiality, of the capacity to act and react of the entire neural nexus, attutied by its accumulated past history Uncludini; inherited instinctsh not of represemations 'in' that nexus (or drawn from it by intentional activity) - it is responsible for generating such representations, t or both philoiOpiiLds, consciuusneiS itself is intentional' (i.e. has an object distinct from the subject}> specific kindfi of intentionality are dealt by WhiteheaJ in terms ol'Vubjective form1. -
119. According to the computer analogy it is supposedly stored like a coded string at a similarly coded address but no fact' can be stored in isolation from an Intentional perspectivet otherwise '
it would not be accessible to the organism.
110. t hese ran |ie from long-term goals - in constant tension of competition for central resources to recurrent behavioural scenarios that can be Immediately implemented in the right '
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conditions, but they are all characterised by association with a lajige of sub-routines available to attain them, in the case of linguistic behaviour this includes those for the linearized production of syntactically arranged patterm of speech organ gestures, hoi' the ubiquity of trompetition lji purposeful mental activity of this type ice liates MacWhinney (i JS ). '
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*
lii. These can be regarded as the result of Whiteheadian processes oft] ansmutat ion (cf. 1.2.4), whereby the prehension of any member of a nevus type associated with the same (complex) eternal object will produce analogous feelings in the subject. The end reiult ts an adversion/ '
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ijveriitjn, j iieiiinions.
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ctiti how a iubjtct will reiicl lo sh ilar tbti by hiiisitig the [it
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utid for futurt
The build-up ot'iiich 'jttraetors" ainiplifitii the physical piehejis-iot] of complex datLi
{but they are jI o subject tcidistorrian iaid eno]1). 122.
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latter would thej be n miittei- of more local functionality that reflects deeper, more localized fujKtLt>nal linkajjeji supporting specific routes of'causal efficacy1 that cros -cut and overlap with the layered cortical network. 123.
I he
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hi.s ii relatiible to Buhler's. notton of 'Lcenfetten'* slots fbr both semaniic a]id syntactic
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complinienrs of individual lexical itenu tbat require fUling 10 form cojnplete tiestalts Ibuhler 124. An BJHumption shared by a good many AI theoreticians Minsky (1966), for examples discusses the function of wordi as tiakij age]Us chaj e hnii other agents do' For him words (sls aldo syntactic veriul aiidnoun phra.se typts) art like peaepi lypi's ni havhi ihtirown fran e slots1 atid prtjtotypica! liller types, in lurti etlsitLv L lu higher tituatkuul franws id which ihtiy may be ujiibedded. They eiseutially ijiLtiate and mediate LJiterpretatio]Ul procedures. Also itkonen supjHi] t3 a prndedural approach to semantics - beet ed up with ejiplicit reference lo social norncs {Itkonen 1983:31 Iff,)'
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115, It should Ik- pointed out that fodor in himself critical these days of the validity of the digital computer analogy for Co [in itive Science and dubious afl to the whole Artificial Entelllgence venture (];odoi 1983: 121>/. Yft for him Cognitive Science can only make progress in terms of theob eetivc outer {[icural wiring) iewh while thu inner perspective oj the 'same' reality remains a> 'ghost in the ma hioe Wltat he does coj si tently ativLKjle - - by ujietithuiiastk default - is a nonmodular, [joji-itiodal ceotral cognitive system that Cthoidinates and utili L'S the t]iikdal]y specilliijipul from hard - wired io put modules (perceptual acid lijiguislic} fbi1 .such dungs as hJixiog belief '
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[in memoryJ aaid problent-solving '
116, Mote that there la evidence that content
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words are reprejiemed differently in LfM than function1 wordjis rhe former being a matter of rich long-distance connectkitys the latter one of local connectivity specifically within the language centres close to - or part of- firoca's regioiu where at least some syntax is embodied fPerlmOtter & Schumann ] 995 93). function words. 4Ui;h as Co no ec lives jud eonditiojials (purely pn*ceduial in essence) are unlikely candidates for cooipojients of ini ormatioo slijred hunemoi y, but are e>sejilial for guiding active logical thinking. '
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in syllogistic reasoning, forexamplt, 3 assume that real fuLi-etion words like'If' and'then' with all their quirks) do the actual work, not more abstract honed-down equivalents in some universal logical language'. Grammatical operators such as those of the Kuncfional Grammar model for
assigning tense, modality, or definiteness, etc., are also unlikely candid ales for storage in piopositionsh since they can, as we have seen in 3. L he envisaged in terms of procedioal prehensions in suspended intuitive iudumtntSs etc. This does not mean that they do not need to be stored somewhere fin jjo far aj; they have morphological manifestation in the grammar), only that they are superfluous In stored propositions thanks to the contextual embeddedness of the latter. '
12?. i assume that only what has been experienced/prebended (including abstract conceptual
1
propositions of a socialy moral natureh expresstble only in words} can be consciously recalled and manipulated in thought. So whatever a verbal utterance is analysed as meaning at the lime of *
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utterance is reconst rue table either from its own stored content words '
1
reflect! tig the procedures applied lo evtracting that meaning - or in terms of a generated 'mental m kT aLc ssibk' to quasi-perceptual exa mi nation In both ca esh background knowledge activated at the time as -
relevant to understanding the motivation behind the production of the utterance may be
2S0
Notes
reattivattd {tor tlm si]ne aeisan it was attivattd origijully). H at Lit attaintd iti itifituuy iti the forjn of i 'nienui] [i hJL-i" -will deptod im wlittl r iIil1 Ltifonmtion i;ofiL-oriiod In tudLibic at all ij torin.s of ptftoptuil Limgery (or it.s alxitrati L]itfi]ia] jojloyuo). "lypicilly, cinopltJi jimtnirics probably involve both types of encodiji . '
iiJ*. Thii may bo irut even ot imugeiy. Diitiasio ii Di[»j.sio speak iri tWn in ternm of records oi' the (hiyhly su eL-live/iuJiyiduaJ I Jieural Lurlivky tint takes place during interaction with a givoji object rather than of literal pictoiial repiesentations. of objectii ehiJ persojis. They also point out that the brain uses the tame machinery to represent language as it does to represent any other ,
*
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dnd 'M uiV.iiy ; J intiisiii lx Dajna m ]
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12$, An overtly modular viewpoint Is also held by many neuroidentLst iuch as Gai/aniga, who pinpoints an Interpretct ]n[ d LlL ]L,sLdL-]"Lt in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere- 'I hi- he iees as respojiiihle foi1 lugh-level vonstlousnesi and belief fu net ions - it is supposed to keep track of the parallel activities of otherh sub-conscious modules, its purpose Is to "make sense' all the time of input from the environment or from within via other modules, on the basis of which '
it makes infei"encesh much as Fodor's central processing module does- Apparently even isolated right hemispheres capable of normal language skills are poor at performing inferences jGazjaniga 1992: 113 and 11] If. j. More empirically well-founded modules are found in the
{non-voluntary} voealiiatlon programs of mammals (cf Deacon 1997; 235f). In humans this '
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system (involving breathing and activation of the larynx) has been partially captured by voluntary control from the frontal cortex a necessary step in fhe i f ne-tuning of speech gestures into discrete articulatoiy phonemes. '
1
130. Thefie sub-theory tnoJules of Universal Grammar should not be confused with the basic representational architecture of the extemled HTiuniard generative model as in Chonuiky (I992h which \si also conceived in a modular manner. This is a matter of the basic levels of syntactic representation of concrete sentences, namely Surface .Structure, Deep Structure (consisting of pure S-role configurations) and the levels of iiogjcal Form and Phonological Form, structure la directly associated with the lexicons for instance, while lb' interfaces with the central conceptual system {and t witb the jnotor-perceptual systems). S-structure relates all the other levels to itself via iterated application of the one generalised transformation remaimng in the system, Move a' Note that Chomsky has himself expressed his doubts about language being an 'input module' in fodor's sense fChomsky ISfifi; 14, note 10). '
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131. This view is not to be isi04:iLitiid with Al and computer simulation as iucb. Thus for Minsky a word like appltf u associated to - and may again aiMivate - specialist agents that handle thi? iklour, shape, siie, etc., of the relevant type ofobjecti i.e. those prijnai'y sensihry legi h] aespo risible foi its perceptioji/re oynilioii (Miiitky 191S 19B)/Jlw peiceived object type they thus refer to are boucid together in J rame arrays Jbr example allowijig an tibjeei to be M en fro in various angles (ajjd tbi;* could be calet]Jed Ui acLion types;, ilc sees perception ajid tnemory atid language as lightly interwoven (is does Whitebead) - - they are not encapsulated in watertight modules I all bough individual agenti aie ussumcd Uh luve discrete bouudaiies largely ijn|>eiiet fable to higher level introspection '
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132. tJtmlrasl Itkoneiu who claims that we can know our own ijiterjial rationality principles -
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precisely because they are internalized rellections of social norms ot behaviour, being consonant with external observation (Itkonen I9
internal intuition
:29jf.).
133h Levelt does not commit himself as to the nature of the internal representations of his Conceptualizer - - but this includes abstract 'propositions' ami involves a certain amount of
Notes
[aLkuidurTiat] J ajtnpdsiljuiulity. Pan of its cm-Ji ititn tu] woi'kij s I'cnatio-pbj nitig1) b. lesiji autoimtit and Lnguj ptx'iik than tht ollwr Cjiucrc>-plaimLJig ) which tnikes it rather an cidd kidd of nodule1, t aitral for the mndtL lh Wjndi's piicidpL of inci ejiwiUaliiy. which Ll'vl'Il iumnufLitv* thjs; ch iKOi isiiij; componotu will bv Lriij fitJ iJUd activity by a miiiic al an ount tifitithaMCtcriitiL- inpuf Luvdt dp.ciL; }. The rclatidnihip bL-t eo his cndduLi idiicvcrthelcs!; cotifdwd serially acid ihji he does dol entirely usfapc iIil1 problcjiiof iiLdujiiing for ijUci iiiediaii? coded represcj atidnji with oarly ssjgcied features auih as word-dtrcsd fto itiark fen-ui) !iu[ipdscd]y being passed oa ffden the Q)iice[ituJiztfr to sucteedjcig module?, fdr further pnfcessin adiustnieot to the requirements df cootoxtuj]i/ed si ceh. What kind oft n nidi tit; o\ word stress ddL-s he edvisjye being pjiised on, other than the instruaioo to apply sitress to ihe wond ibelf? The latter could i-enainly he Suspended" duriog various production sub routines that owy modify itn but is dot it.self a sign in any i ode system a.s defused in 3.L One SdlutidJi (hinted at by Levelt hinuelf) is to allow the Cooeeptuali er aetess to the iiuerioi codes of a IE other Ldrnpdiseots of the model - but why shihuld it theel nued iliowit separate i oded ivpresecitmioits in Older to liok cociteptii with phonological strings? h
t
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154. Set L veh (L*?W : 265 ft
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His ''Prosody {generator1 component tiik s multiple input (surtbice
phraseitructure, intonadonal jutaniugand aegmejital and
mtthcaJ1
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sellouts and t unctiojis
tn
parallel with phonetic spellout in his phonological .sub-component < it allows the broader context of iionnecled speech Lo ad}u.sl the output of the latter, e.j;. by resy!lahilicati(i-n>. It uoL ojily produces ijilonational contours, bur aJso adjusts rhythm, speedh ptlch legisLer ajid various other prosodic parameters. This is not to suygest that the only invnlvement in lajiyuage of the right hemisphere is prosodic the aphasia literature suggests it tnay be involved in diverse kinds of linguistic processing of a pragmatic kLidsuch as forming bridging inferences, indirect .speech acts, joking , and the expression of affect]. 155. Chomsky sew the mind/brain as a collection of organs in fact, t-odor (]9R3r7J claims that Chomsky, as a Ortesian, does not really regard language as like a bodily organ at all but a.s can
implicational stiu ture ... of .sen ntically construed propositions1 (i.e. oiganij.ed in terms of '
innately specified proposttionai content), from a faculty psychology" viewpoint t-odor argues agaitist tlie sloppy use of the term organ for nativism ofpi opositionaE attitudes. According to rhe Oxford Advanced Learner's fiictionary an 'organ1 i,s lpart of an animal body or plant serving a particular purpose while the Chambers Twentieth Century dictionary gives la part of a body '
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fitted for carrying on a natural or vital operation', and Collin.s English Dictionary defines it as la fully differentiated alruetural and functional unit such as a kidney or a root in an animal or plant, None of these seems to correspond to usajjeon the part of generativists, '
136. Et would appear that Chomsky s use of the term haji more to do with the quasi-biological speailatiooji on innate organic for in'of the Germ an idealists and poets of the Romantic era, Jiuch aj! Schlegel, Goethe, and Humboldt 'ho JspeciJically saw language as being like an organism1) than with i>escarteji. The latter uses the term in the usual senseoforganj; of speech but speaks of human reason in general as a'universal instrument that can serve for all contingencies1 fQiomsky 1966:4"&). 'lids is not incompatible with Wbitehead's characterisation of the mind/brain as the organ of novelty and is not limited to the language facility of that 'organ'. '
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137. He also ascribes liymbolk learning to the sajne regions, as opposed lo indcjdcal learning thy sensiny association), which he ascribes to the posterior, mj enionic regions of the brain. How«verh he stresses that lingoiiitic fuj tidcis dtt jkh map Jirectly onto [it'ural functional areai - they recruit rather the best suited preexisting areas. Symbolic reference he sees a.s operating by virtual sets of associations behind tokens {.sensori-motor sigjis;, symbols as such being a matter of '
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2 1
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Nt>tcs
ith!iiti(HiJi] ps bt;twt;thi] lukt is (whidi niay hfttisn ibutcJ) jjid tlms not really knJitabls'' in i uiJiL parti of the !>] ji[5 ,li all. Il ii Li do j to Whiltil ad'i uiuw of Vtfnia] objects' (whicli define (he nuuilnga symboli aim it) aw they Ldjiu to the ijiia-nal ciryntiL Ltiun of ilk' niinJ.'hLain. '
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13S. In Citt, In? suggtsti tltit ilio the rijjlil hemisphere ii involvsJ at tlie higlieiil [siow-est} levels of analysiiiof speech hi ihit ting alleiitiLUt frtu delbjiled word itid ienlejice semantics ta tlie implii-it logic behind ihem - back rouod as well is foreground int'orjiiLitioji certiijily lias to be kepi triiirk of in a holistic niajuier foi- the full uiiderstimding of texts, tior example. It may thus be crueially involved in the creation and maintenance of higher-level "mental modek:. Compare the generally '
more
holistic * -top-down' tntegrative functioning of the right hemisphere as opposed tn the
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more tine-yrained
hiJttom-up
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analytic fj]ictioning of the lefn hemisphere, crucial in the
production and analysis of speech. 133, tn th 1 s ton text they also po int out the involvemen t of the cerebellum in the fine eoorditiat jo n of speech production (including the Mpid prediction of syntactic stiuctures and word-associations that can be ntatched to novel thoughts-in-contexc)r It has strong links to the speech centres and to the basal ganglia (as well as to the motor cortex Jr The latter complex assembles the components
of complex motion into a smooth whole and may have an analogous function in connection with speech production. This is yet another f feedback) system mediating between the sensory and motor aieas of speech production, '
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Ho. Superficially this is reminiscent of Minsky i layered socjety, view . where successive layers of agents form societies down which control 'spirals1 from the ultimate overall mnnitfii,n the ti-b]ai[r, hypothesised as having access to the LA-brain' which in turn has access to the external world {Minsky l9M:92h The B-hrain may be unaware of how the lower level agents handle its requhementSs being only concerned that the results correspond to l<s intentions (it is not clear whether its coarse, holistic perspective is meant to suggest the mode of operation of the left hemisphere, or whether the whole frontal region of the cortex Is a candidate - hut it is also said to represent a kind of self-inhibiting critic ] The problem is that this could imply an infinite regress* since nothing in his model accounts for the H-hrain s own intentions - these are hi general explained in terms of'difference engines' (op.cit.L7Wf.)s which merely register discrepancies between on-going situations and goal-descriptions (the keyword here is descrtptions'ls and activate relevant agents accordingly in order to minim ijte the discrepancy. In AI simulations goals can indeed be described as lists ofsatisfaction conditions, but there is a long way between that and understanding the embodiment of such conditions in organic mind/brains. The idea of the difference engine' is in itself quite compatible with the Wtiiteheadean picture- of the subject of a high-grade concrescence preh ending 'discrepancies'1 and adjusting itself by summoning relevant sub-routines (eternal objects whose prehension may be Integrak-d into the satisfaction of the occasion). This is also true of the overall heterarehicaf nature of Minsky's model - which supposes self organl/Jtion without any single superordinate super-agent Only the subjective aim as such Is missing in his model of the mind/brain and this may require temporal, not spatial fragmentation, such ascharaeteri/es actual occasions (see 1.2.1). '
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141. This in turn w uld be dtvsely matched via something like Levelt s coordinative suueture mentioned above, just as, at the highest level, knowledge of how to realize ones own speech act inlentiuns forms the ba>ii of one's recognition of those of others (via empathy}. Note that ctni*ciuLisne.->s and *elt-monitoring are rein led nut ions hut by no means the same thing.
142. This does not conjbet with the evident partial independence of comprehension and pioduetion skills {and the more precocious development of the former in language acquisition!.
Hoth tan be mukmnod as havii j; attcsji to tltu si Tit ibsti-act patterns - the eternil objects fn r ming the gramni ar of th e langu age. ] liese do not cont rn 11 i nguistk behaviour bu t merely gu tde it aji a set of'ltd fans' iimed towajdj but not necessarily reached in spontaiieouji convtisatioit. Hotli kinds f>f pi'fKtfWiingtan presumably draw inalthts with this 'tempiate1 to the degree required by the Loii line' task at hand. Pre-fomed, lexically speeitied 'chunks1 and infonnation about lemmas' dislnbuted in the lexicon may in both cases, but to different degrees, render direct reference to the Lih.stract mastei template superfluous. '
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14$. Smuf wrillen sttilcjicts tire suilIv knigw lliaji a sintiie fucusi of coiucioui atttnticii. However, it i& not by thance that u iienttfiict typiiiilly referi to a jiingj twnt ill the wriuen as well is the (ipthkej [nedium ( f. uiidei- 3.2.2). An event a lie trim WhitelieaJ actually jittfJ eailier for an a iual ottasion } ti a nmijiiaHy cemtraativt unit within a wider tausal ne usi, Uil1 ifbje t ot'j unitaa y [inipusiciot]it! pi utiljn 1 ti. '
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144. it Jinay well be tlul tnueh of the eftbi t of itorijig what one readi jjoes itito 'forgetting [or l
lepreiiijig &u|.>er{]uous ijifnrjuatiojil ralher thaji metnorizing as suth, so the recognition of newswarthy informarion {by prehtniians of a certain type) is ol'tlie etsente heie. We miy deline newsworthy in relatioji to a written ttory as infbnmlion that is intportanL to the on-going unfolding of the plot and is not completely conforinj] with whit i.s known already or with ongoing '
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general espeaations. 145, Compa re al so l ol any1 (I Wfi; 91) on the relati onsb i p between foea I awa ren ess on wo rd s wh i le reading a test and subsidiary awareness of the test itself and of the entities referred to within it. 146. Also the division of tejJs into paragraph* linis some bearing on the setting up and shifting between discourse topics, but ad Chafe points out, this is a very jhiid matter and largely reflects manipulatiuns by the writer for spedfk effects rather than anything cognitively determined {Chafe 1 94:300). 147. Joe', whose Intersections appear in italk atript, is the j arratori,fi soul who whtsperi to hini '
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now and then, a seeptkal inner voice iounlerhalancing the naiiator s otherwist1 ludicrou.s gullibility. Joe s words here reflecL perfectly the suspension of belief we as ghustly readers must accept in order to tnake sense' of the narrative wtn kl bang spun before our eyes. '
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i4fi. I'or t-auconnier, setting up a hypothetical space is a unitary procedure in its own right, if I interpret hiin correctly, it remains to be seen how directly his view of networks of mutually accessible worlds through whicb focus shifts could be applied to whole literary works (but cf. Kauconnier Si .Swectser 1996: ] f. for mention of recent work on access and viewpoint in literary Sexts from this approach j. .Some of his basic processes, such as presupposition floating, spreading and optimipjtion etc., mentioned in 4.1 h could in theory be applied to passages such as the one here. Much less semantic 'frceltiading' from general experience is possible, however, in such purely '
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imaginary worlds {as opposed to the isolated sentences in context or brief dialogue exchanges, to which his approach is more immediately attuned). '
14?, Hear in mind that Whitebeadian feelings1 are as varied and specific as the experiential '
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prehensions rbey embody [and the sensori-motor world they reflect}. A mental model could well be }ust a complex nexus of obrectifud feelings in what 'from the outside' would look like air arbitrary neural pattern of interconnectivity, but from within1 [either 'oivline" or wben reactivatcd as data for recall, etc.} is experienced as a specific complex feeling of potential reenactment of words and images, etc. Such a complex is presumably bierarchically arranged, layer within layer or world with lit world [acid is probably much simplified when compared to the myriad processes of comprehension that led to its abstraction). '
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184
Notes
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imwr tohertcitt1 (jl'ihj.s proi-Hisiljuii is >tt-ujii;(LiL'tiLiLl Ijyllu1 tinai-ihork ruliiiotiiof tlitUvo uiejiiplitis [Uhsscis-ive pioilcruJ tbfir rtftrn itig to tht group of ptdple il'I jp is. ijbjiLl IlujJ [][)t lo ihL'it- l5ii:yL-|L:i). NtHe thil llit: alternative ijiterpielb]ti-oji of tht anleceJenC of ille tirst tlteir a s bicycleji' iii blocked/re pressed hy the knowledge that it is people itid not hkydes th.il have '
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peL'Siniallties -J>j-default la default that is Lm tiled ialely overi'iddeai In the bizarre world ofWj by tKe conlijiuatioti of the senlejKe). Hurt her down, the tnlerpretation of "each of thenV ii immedi-
ately consonant with the contrast between the two type.s of personality that get mixed up. No other reading of this expression (e.g. as referring to each of the persons con i:eniedi would be con formal with the ongoing concrescence ot the data of this integrated comprehension process. 'I'he overall "
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semantic.s and textual coherence makes such interpretations effortless
151. En general the reader li all the time making hybrid prehens na* of the writer's original conceptual intentioivs aji objectified in the actual text. This ensures that he or she understands the meaning of the text more or less ad the author intended, in the Light of the ame eternal objects. 1
A particular token of this class has already been set up at this point - for Mti. What is accomplished here is extension to the selling up of the type. l-gi
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153. Note that Joe s laconic, sceptical cbaracter is in harmony with the jiubjective form of the
utterance a,s presented - a feeling in which another feeling is embedded, if you will, '
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154. Note ihal the njunations earlitr in the paragraph (all and rather than ut" here) do not link clauses but phrasest or iidjeciives or vrrbal forms within the same clause, i.e. Jo not iriark olf information units1 in thenjnst in which ] have defined the term {as having a single integratedand iti iirindpte detertnijiaie - effect on uiidating the tiutdtflk '
155. Note that the andefinite Ml1 intrf>ducing the clouds is embedded in the bundle of features attributed to that pai l of the model. '
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156. Giv n irotionji of referential continuity and 'accessibility; maximal with pronouns (or 0-
anaphoj'a in languages where this ii possible), minimal with full Kft, is relevant here {Givon 1990:902if.}, it is unlikely, however that precise weightings of distance back to the targets of anaphoric expressions enter directly into the processes here envisnged. The limited emics available to mark Given and New Topics, etc., in a given language, plu general inferential procedures, niayr rather be supplemented by conwderation of the feel' of suth non-digital, 'etic1 parameters in reaching judgments of this nature. '
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157. This does not mean that rhe reader necessarily has a prototype representation with exactly one chimney* or rhat iiome proposittonal representation lists the properly of having at least onu chitnney associated with his/her house' concept. Et merely presupposes that the prehension of a '
chimney {associated or associateahle with the concept labelled by that wordj is objectified for the reader within his total conceptual aggregate labelled house1 {tokens that have left a trace and types abstracted from - and binding - them), [ his rich aggregate represents the sum total of his experience with houses and contains traces of myriad actual houses as well as dictionary and story d etini t i ons of su t h ob i ecu an d. above all, the feel ofseeing, entering and mov i n g about i n such fln entity (i.e. the totality of relevant esperiential responses to that label). Only a small part of It need be activated in any given context (just enough to give the feeling of'match1 or'non snatch') - in this case the parts that respond to the word 'chimney This i indeed a highlightable sub-part of the whole: the relevant functional and imagistic features with a unitary feel' to them {associated with the independent or overlapping conceptual aggregate chimney . '
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15 . Whirthetid hai Jiiuch to ay on the nature of aeslhelic en}ny3nenl, but it would lake me
btyojid mv presejit purpose to elaborate upon that as-pett of hi-s work. '
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159. ItecaEl that suh iff live frtrnf aJlicres to the rtliienive dilta ]i]j;hl]phted fron the initm] (input I
data accoiditu to the subjective ain of the actual occasion itielf, a]id tliat subjective aim is a matter of the ociraHioiVs pcripective cm particular l lTjkiI iih|ucth. Sii a Whiteheadian explanatio]! of tlte subjective form of ajimsejiieut could be with reference to hicongruitlei ij tlte Initial data je.g. a scjitence in a tesl Hj-fV v expectatitniis dei'lved frotn relevajit etei'nal objects [suclt ai tl ose that find ln|[re.sslon in the building up of a mental model from reading a test]. A }oke: typically functions by forcing a sudden reinterpretation tn one's mental model corresponding to the literal l
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Straight1 meaning 'm juxtaposed with a secondaiy "gardeji path' one. Deacon
suggests that seeing the point of a verbal joke involves both cerebral hemispheres, the left
hemisphere being crucial in understanding literal meaning and the right in keeping track of higher level narrative coherence Deacon 1997:312). Of course humour is more complex than this - the
type of reinterpretatlon has, for one thing., to be lelatlvely Innocuous for thu subject appreciating it! '
160. Bliot was apparently interested in Whitfhead s work (especially his farly collaboration with kurisel 11.' [ he ab stract ions c ons idered at the begi n n i n g of the poem seem to ha i monlze also with th e later Whitehead's key notioji of the "actual occasitin' at thecentieof a univei'se in endless process {the crest of the prL entj, cojitiastuig i ith the piehenslon ofeternal objects. Compare the tension in the poem between past and present and their future projection, between simultaneous stillness and movement, fipecilic links to Whiteheadian actuality versus 'reality1 cannot be assumed to be made by the average reader of the poem [or even -consciously - by tliot), although we can all of course relate to concepts such as time present and time past Whitehead, in turn, was always citing poetry - even In such unlikely contexts as discussions of the history of science. Thus he '
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quotes approvingly from Wordsworth and ihelley In Science and the Modern World" In order to illustrate the react Ioji of the English romanticists away from the nefarious 'bifurcation of Nature* that had increasingly alienated eighteenth century sciemre from human lvalues. t6L The development of the flymbolism of the rose-garden hinted at here in the first poem, for example, is only fully elucidated in the final movement of the whole series, i&i l or Whkeheid the univerjie is a plenum of actual occasioni, but this applies tnojit literilly only at the lowest, sub-atomic level. Above that* emergent higher-level occasion s may be more discrete, rising out of and retufiling to the lower-level plenum from which tht-y arose sui theii inner structure allows, '
163. firuner distinguishes between two dift t nt modes of thought, the narrative and the pufpoiilional or logical' which the child must learn to integrate, utilising the latter to explain uneipeaed Jevlations from caiianlcal itoi ies {Jiru[]f,r l Oi Oand Hi'tA. The lonucr, a matte 1 of the vicissitudes of hunun inlenlion ii a prime lorco helilnd the cliildV drive to acquire language aj d to fine tune their empathy with the motivations of others, it represents a kind of syntagmatic ixii (the temporal chaining ol evejits) as opposed to the paradigmatic logical one {socially/culturally determined l>aekgrou]td Tcas ns'L Without the framework provided by the on-going self-narrative the thinkfr i-* amslimLly engaged in, memory would be Iwrd to navigate through guided solely by afleci (whk-li ultijnately cnj sti-uetd it according to both Bartlett and Whitehead). 'Narrative thought1 maybe oj ly indirectly reflected in written narrative works, but it Ls the reader's familiarity with that mode of thought that can be said to facilitate empathy with the writer1;! narrative intent. <]0od literature requires the skilled - and culturally credible '
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modulation of story-line iiirifiilive rhrouyli tl e subjective perspectiviy.ing provided by tbe '
Haradigtnatic axis. Ali o tlte prose passage we esamined above can belaid to icrteet tbe tnultiply embedded stories mthlit stories that we constantly tell oursel -es, coitstructing and reconstructing our own selves through interplay with others and with our own past. '
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buy Jbiktkbsoti ibis fmiicion representj; ihn? 'printiplt1 of tquivaleHL-e4 piDimLLd Lajjii lliu
{pai'adigjuatic) a.vii of sflenlion to- tbe ! sytitjjjmaticj jxls of contbLiiatLoti, i.e. the building up of ligures of saund" by niatchitin ujiits { syllahlefi, morje, etc.). Heneath such formal p-aralliiUsjiTL in concomitant semantic parallelism (often involving metonymy or other figures of apeechl. FormaUy parallel or juxtaposed wordfl loay also result in unique blends of meaning fas with L
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above), and projiodic expectations may be exploited by bitaklng them. Suth devices all serve to highlight the nieanij -in-context of the ij dividual words employ'ed. Ajnbjgujty of rffumu is of the c&seriL-L1 in pOL/iry. jtLorJiii 10 |iilaj1)son, jnd the cuttijiy free from thi1 framework of i igid reference allows the 1'ull meanmi; poiejitijl of wtirds to emi-ijiL1 in the real ion of novel itnagery highlighted by formal means. The combination of maximal intensity of novel
contrast and maximal formal iute ration suggests the teleological strainmu of Whiteheadian '
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concrescences towards their optimal satisfaction (a further parallel will be discussed' under the rubric of conceptual elaboration In 7.2.1). '
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165. Thu! Elkonen regardi both as pail of hii causaT perspective oil language. Language acquisition for him is. a caudal pioce.si under social Luiidmoinng factors, the child making abductive hypotheses about albeit unconscious ioclal norms rathe]1 Lhan about the autonomous rules of neo-Cartesian linguistics [itkoneii 1 3: Nyi f 1 '
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166. Compare under 2.1h and see also the discussion In Andei sen 973:775). I e Vtsult1 here could bf ftOJile observed linguistic behaviour of ail aduli [ifaker and the invoked law a UG-like constraint - or pre-linguistic eternal object- already object died for the child. The hypothesis arrived ar could then be an interred grammatical 1 oi piagmatkj rule. The kind of4law Andersen "
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is primarily concerned with is phono logical, such as that constraining the child to look for binary phonemic oppositions. Abduction is for him motivated by the ambiguity of the accoustic siguaE, and is the principal means of phonological reinterpretation/restructuring, Such a process can be said to be socially caustd. though once internalized' it is not necessarily manifest in outward linguistic behaviour. By coMrasl, ensuing adjustments by deduction are a purely internal psychological matter (describable in terms of further potential cbangei of mutual ordering among the relevant eternal objects). '
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167. Compare also polanyl s subtle account of the transitional stages from tacit to articulate thought, in which all three types oflearnlngdisplayedby higher animals at the pre-Linguistic stage {Trick learning, Sign learning, and Latenl I earning, the latter the source of inference) have their part to play in the iransition {Polanyi 1 5 :74 77]. i6fi.
Ob;ecliried\ that is, in the form of- let us say - rine-tuned neural aggregates {response attractors) corresponding to the concepts concerned. Among the contents of such transmuted l
nesus/enduring objects are at least partial traces of Jinemories of actual utterances (and abstracted utterance types} and their contexts, as well as the pre-linguistic knowledge that comes to bear on the process as the basis for analogy recognition and abduction.
169. The individual phonological unit types have at this stage, then, already attained the status of being recognizable eternal objects for K- he has learnt to recogoize them from incoming speech data by 'conceptual valuation'. In reality there Is doubtless always interplay between this kind of bottom up' analysis and 'top down', meanIng/situation-driven hypotheses as to the phonemic '
Notes
tf-j;. Monkey'). '
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170, This ia not to rule oui other kijidii ofrel aut heun tk- - iiicluditi syjitattk boot triipptng which Goldberg (199S;2Trifr) discu-siie-i in rerJiis of the formal pattt-n 10to which individual verbs enter helping the child learner to zoom in on crudil aspects of the context of u,se of the '
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171. This could Ik1 addtd in J iL-l to thi1 liit of Operating principLi for the atLjuisitioji of Lcigu igL1
by children proposed by Slobin {1985:125Iff.}. Note that tirly kitguugu aL-quisitidJi typically pneeedj vij a on -word aj d ihcj a two-word {oi- two-cnoiphenw) itujju, in both ul which diiCdritinui) js tnurphujiliii uru pivd jdtfd. 172. This
what iomasdlo d-esi-ribts in terin ; of'syinbalic integrition1 {'lomiisello ]il>9lt257((.). '
For hint the verb with its individual valency is the core of the acquisition prcHieis - in fact he '
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17Haider I 1 6:327} present!; a functional leinantic4 delinitton of the n eaning of the past lense in hnglish in terms of a proLedure, namely to direct the addressee to identify a point-ofapplieaLicm P fa past situation) as that which the state-of'afl air.s in its scope applies to. [f Ls recognition of thi.s hehind tht past tejise t onn did4 that N needs to ahduiX via conceptual valuation ofthe foitn and a hybrid preheniion of the speaker s hypotheiiaed intention, liotn the Whileheadiadi perspective, noteh the past i.s quire dift'erent frojn the future in so i'ae as die former ii a tnatterof objective inheritanfe firoin the immediately preceding universe, whereas the lattei cati only be '
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prehended by anticipatory prehensions linking present data to future possibility [thus involving inference and conjeiitureof posstbilityhetc., a matter closer to modality than pure deictic tense). 174. Consider, for instance, the data presented in Howerman (1932) on the over-generalization of causative verbs by tinjjlish children, as discussed by Pinker 0?M:275). This data Cnin be interpreted in tenm of semantic bootJitrappinjj, whereby children learn to delimit the extent of the causative rule in Einglish without the aid of nej ative evidence. Ojk need only assume that the moat conservative - and simplest - hypothesis k made first, and when that proves too j ntrah not beiny confirmed by adult uisage, it Ls successively narrowed down to apply only to specific setnAntk sub'Caiejjoriei of verbs to conform with further input. These will turn out to be )ust those of change of state, manner of mot ion t and ompaiiied loco [notion [the relevant tijiijlisli). Pinter's u.se of this notion presupposes, however, iiuiate 'broad rule/ LTyptoKpe. . linkini; conL-eplual/.semajitii: categories with syntactic ones this 'narrow JuieN" t'urlher allow for Jine-tuninj; from adult input). Howernian has in mote recent work shown that repeatedly hearing causative verbs corresponding to those covered by the narrow rules is enough to account for '
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spontaneous over-generalizations on the part of children without envoking any innate linking rule at all {cf. bowerman 1996). in general Btjwerman and her co-workers have amply documented that although linguistic ability builds on presumably universal pre-linguistlc semantic categories associated with the Piagetian sensori-motor stage, language-specific adult input will
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jcquLsLtioii iji iJie (llrticiitHi o( ihc patterns of the adult latiguagt1 (livcji Itigjily tuies) at a stagif so early that active pi oJuction lias slot yet begun.
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175- Althougli it Ls perfectly reasonable to consider all learning as selection {cf. tbeehronotropk development of youttifd cortex deiLTlhed m hlnian etal. E i a kind of'neural pruning1 that contijiues rhj'fiughout life), t-or Whitehead, all snental aetivity involves a narrowing dowst of potentia! pattes'nji in the input to thojie that arc relevant to the current perspective as deternilned by the occasion's subjective aiju. ,E h(r point here is that the eye [d. the Ijnguugc Icarj erl JinOs not seltct seitisifciiiof the genonie (ajialogous Uf acj innate set of LJCj phnaples ntsd paransetcis)' ihu election a from available input. Vhe constninta imposed oji that selection by the genome are estrejilely indirect and conleKlually JiioJulaled. "
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176, Von could call this a kind of vertical modularity (reflected In the learning process), but It h a modularity not so much of the inind/braln In the manner of fridoq and t inkeq n of experience {potential function) in the complex and changing world that the mind/brain Is faced with, 177. This is of course an ovtr-simpJification; the functions of the two halves of auch utterancei jiiLiy c vl-i a s ajige that includei agesil + verb, verb + goal (objectJh agent -I- goal, and object + !ociitionh in other words. aLso cases correspojtdijtg to tliree-word jdull utteraimes, where one of "
the words appenj-.s to be omitted1 (Clai k & CJlii k 1977:307ft j Al.so poisesior -I-poase.ssum combijiatioiLS of nouns are common. Neverlhele.ss, such utteiajices are interpreted by caretaker '
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hearers as if they corresponded to whole propositions, jast as bolophrasesare fsee below 1, and we can only assume that this h what the child with its limited expressive ability Is aiming at. Some, but not all English children, note, have something like a 'pivot grammar1 consisting of pairs of pivot plib 'open' class wordji, but thiii 'stage' is no longer accepted as universal even fos leaiciers of English (Clark SiOarkop.clt.: 10}. Amongst deaf children object 4 action, object f recipient, acid jctlon 4 recipient are apparently tbt most common two-inmphemt cojnblnalionswhen one ijlesnent is suppiessed, with transitive agents almost always ,so suppressed, rellecting the ergaiive bias ofiucli sigtiing (McNeill op.cil.;4*?f.). '
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171!. These egocentsic proto-communica v finictions are lijnired to purely 'e pre.ssive' vocali?4itlons (including ititonation patterns) and gesture, corresponding to proto-speech-acts and proto-reference respectively They may be activated by the most basic kind of Whitebeadian perceptive prehension '
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179. It also indicates the illo-Lutitin being perl orjiitd by the whole uiteriiice, the veibal jiUhwJ. This may seeso coujiter to Straw.son s pes spicacious grammar approach discuistid in 4.1 > where it ii the predicate, the verb, that typically takes sentential mas kers, but we are dealing here with ves'bal '
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holophrasis and it is of course the whole verb-form, by default, that must take such markess, as he predicts, Since there is only one unasialysed word it obviously cannihi be attached to the stem alone.
iflo. Of these, tbty see metaphor as being only relevant at early {lexical) stages of grasnmaticalination and absurplinn ofc ntexUihein typical ofhile stayes, when thu meanings involved liuve a beady been cot] side rably genes ali/eJ. They argue that gsajnstsaiicLiliKatioii in getiesal acts so as to downplay - tlisough automatiitatiosi - excessive emphasis on commosi fusictional soeanlngs, thus allowisig gseater attetstiosi to be paid to propositiosial cositent. Notetliat thit is also a kind of
teleology, albeit osie that acts indepesidently of the cosiscious isitesitions of ijidividual speakers. '
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ifii. Of course not all processes of sub ectificatiosi result in changes to or additions to the grammatical codisig system as such, but may involve the pragjinatical Isiatloo of phrasal constituents that originally had purely propositioiul os spatio-tejuporaJ content {Ukt Vhile or 'actually1!, '
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Notes
161. This is paiticubrly obviojs with folk etycauik y'' mid L'ontitttinMkm wiih wui'Js ovwriapping li>rcii '.aid i]\ciii\my]..t'.£. -mYvj tiani pcmki: itmrn Ljtc Latin uppMniidittu appojniage vij i nrnth iiid notJ cig to Jo with 'house'). Si tiiiitii: cluui dfttti involves loss of Irjj [in rej y wo rd-interniJ mDrphcme bounda rkii aj id i-iisuij reinjlys is 1 h u> 'hiidal fro m bride-ale inlliienced hy hl>etfothaI,J ett K '£Oisip' from 'gmin!' 'Udoii eoitipicnon, aj J '{was irytirdcd js pluial fithtfi- than (original) iinyular iji iouJulil Ln liih. Thii is part of what Whituhcid meaj whuit talking of the loss of ijnerjncdiin: lints' hi.'iwt'tfn cjiisal offitai-y aj d preaeotationaL htnnedia y, hetwecn cneinij and form, lypical of iyenbolic L eleL ell .L . '
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1 3. A Jtlattwly sijuple example of how thijse facLoivs cttnibijie can he seen in the varioiis developmetiti of the Piolo-liikijiin wrhal root ips y--. recons-Lructabie as originally nnfiininj; iujup (is itill preserved in Alaskan Vupik). i]i Lhe two remainmj; varieties of Siberian Vupik reflexes occur meaniny respectively attack and alongside the origiiial jneaniiig) "endeavoLir to consummate mafi iage {of man claimmj; bride at her parent s house as preliminary to abdueting her)1, 'i'he latter meaning obviously presupposes a very spedfii; sodiil jiu.vus. hi iJu- ]jiuit l>t-a]-Lch of the familj,', the conlempoiary meanings (each attested in one dialect) cover; play gantes aiiiuseo]ieself witKathletics play cards play (of children) 'be jokyt giddy ajid ;in Greenland) Ldance[ fiiioultaiieous coiitiaction ajid expansion of meaning ws-ci-vfs the oi'iginal centre is discernible iji most of these developtnents (i.e. "conceptual elaboiatioji K with metonymic shift.s biit little sign of any 'domain shifting" metaphor, 'lite new meanings are at once narrower and '
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broader Lhan the original one (not all 'jumping* is 'playing for example, buL 'playing* also involves more than Ljunipi]igl). 'i'he thread that remains constant is the particularly human purpose of the jumping* activity involved - the playful and/or ritualked teleology of such physical action. The end result today then is an array of meanings in a typical Wittgensteinian '
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relationship of family resemblance'h ivhere the origmal -central* meaning- still a dim memory everywhere - is only preserved assueh in me) Vupik. Elsewhere the centre has shifted. '
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Think of the way such a cul t u ra lly h i &h ly specific word as' triigedy1 hafl i n recen t yea rs u uder the influence of the mass media taken on the meaning of any unfortunate accident involving lou of human life. The word has moved in the direction of mas Imip.ln (jits intensity of integration with l vi y.\.:\ : .\ p'. i K-1 l-l L'. i IIl .mw it nnihi :l[si los SLtdl JDiMid]!
and Minplj - o .
iul: o\\. :
1 5. Conversely, the reduction ofJiyntactic complexity may go hind in haj d with the building up of complex morphology whose source is often transparently syntactic in thejiensc ofrefleeting earlier sequences of mdepeudeot words. Thus the complex noun class agreement and thematic prefixes integrated into the Athabiskan verb complex doubtless reflect the incorporation of ear Her independent lexemes. The clausal syntax of polysynthetk languages tends to be rather simple. '
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1136. Kell er sees a n 0 ther such piocess in t be ub it uito us Cycle whei-eby phon ological attrilioji lead s to Words be4:ojni]ig shorter and shorter ujitilcompetisated t or by the additioji ifneiv e.g. material that fuies eve]itually into single larger unit.-, agaiji [op.cit.i 145ft ) E his Ls the indi]"eet result of the conflicting interplay between the niaslms of Jiiinit] al energy expendkure ajid ma i[]iL]ti co]0[]tunicalory clarity on the part id the individual speaker, but lhe resulting change in the language as a whole 11. of course not intended by the individual. He suggests that it is rather '
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the open-endt-J tower limit buL restricted upper limit to articutalory precision that biases the directioti of such changes.
187. 1 be piocess- like to rm at of early IG and, espec ially t he in put-out put condition s of generative phonology, made it a tempting step to interpret both language acquisition and language change in term s of the same pri>cesses of lule addition and restructuring. However, the plausibility of the
i&y
ajja Notes
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thrown uphy maxinwleoinomy ofdeflcriptinn being individually or hwtaricaLly'rear
1
processes
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was uat ue.stioned. as Lang as explanatory adequacy appeared lobe met. 'ITiat earlier-stages of a language can be deduced or abducted from its piesent state does not mean that individuals necessarily maintain the relevant rules in tbeir heads, '
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i£& Cf. tbe essays in Whorf {]*74). I htrt ifi jIso a link through Hucnbuldt to Kam. .Sapii 's ricw was Jiiorc mitigated than either Whorfj or Humbdldt !! - for hijn it wa a matter sijnply of wellworn thojj;ht grooves in which Lnguii s ti'iid to run (cf. Sapir ]92L;2]7fJ. 1
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1 9.
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busaiicordijii; to McNeill (1 32; speakers o],lsatL:]lite-tVamed' languages like English which
pack motion itid injime]- itito sijigle lexical verbs tend to mimic such porttnbinieaLi itiiotisai they speak, while iptakers of Spanish will apparently lend to tnimic pLiin motion wkhouL the inanner coinponei l - although the latter may be iudepeudeiuly represented by gesture ]iot tightly linked '
to the verb. For an example of a deep" packaging dirference between lajiguages see Fortescue 9y5jh where 1 discuss syntactic versus morphological {Lnldlrect speech iji West tireeiilandic
compared with tinglish. Whether such iten s are packaged iji unitary word-tbrms or not niay well have some testable coniiequence.s t'or on-line .stary-tellijig or other pjiycholinguktic tiisks. "i'he same may be true of the distinction between holistic and compositjonnlly transparent treatments of event descriptions in
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serial verb
languages mentioned in 4.3.
190. These two d i ffc re lit types of tett i ilogic al ch a uge alsi i spa t ad di lift] en i !y ada p t i ve ch a ugeji thwugh wave-like borrowiuy, evolutive ones rfj sisu-, but note that the latter may arise independently in scattered dialects of the same lauguage owing to similar starting points and languagemtemal tensions (plus universal laws of language1). '
191. Notably Schleicher, but alsi> Hujnbihldth who iaw individual languages a.s higher level organisms each embodying their own genius1 or inner organic form {tf. Humbuldt t aS). i'Or hijn, the "jr iLvr Sprachfann' of a lajiguage Was the pioduct oi'history, imly man's baiiic capacity for language as such being universal (i.e. the shaied articulalory and conceptual basis). Also Saussure tended Uy view "Iftugu?' as displaying an (organic 'supei pei sonal' nature. 192. One of the rare passages where he speaks directly of the individual language as such is in "
Process and Reality1: f l97N:rtyf.i, in the context of a discussion of the nature of'societies1 He
states that;
the lift of a man is a historic route of actual occasions whkb in a marked degree... inherit from each other. That set of occasiom, dating from his first acquirement of the Greek language and including all those occasions up to his loss of any adequate knowledge of that language constitutes a society in reference to knowledge of the Cheek language. Sui:h knowledge is a common diaiacteristic inherited from occasion to occasion along that historic route. ...
Observe that he is not stating that the tneek language constitutes a society, but rather that the society concerned is delined in terms of its members knowledge of Greek. What one ha.s knowledge of is eternal ubk-cu i pattei m, :i gressanl in nexus). '
19
Another reason for preferring to regard a language as a graded array ofeternal objects js that
for tbe individual subject using the language it has tbe ontological status of 'felt' patterns embodied in a certain type of [personal) nexus constituting that subjeefs actual world. In other
words, althougb the patterning is determinate, its neural embodiment is to some degree arbitrary '
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and individual when considered from an external
objective perspective, as maybe the case for all other kinds of symbols and indeed for concepts themselves. The eternal object notion captures the subjective nature of cognition (as well as its creativity) - i.e. the patterning of indeterminate
nejralaggregarts experienced and deployed as delenniautte ideas, ffirms, lules, SL-enaria etc. It is (anchored in our cojnmon human heritage] with the category of ubjL'Clj t liaritiony ist-e i.2.\) th t ensures tluit ll L1 Jiit1 lin uiHtit: ciei-nal dbject itiipji onto virtually the same ty m ofiyn lKjlic behaviour in all its speakers. the crnHbiiutiou of Social imn anence
1
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1 4. Lexically, drift an ay manifest 131 a language like Kjiglish in the preference for having separate lexemes to expreus difTerent but related meanrng H so that tnglisb is particularly open to loanivordj: and maintains only lather restricted sets offonm related by jnorphological derivation I i '.vird iK .r.w. , ,:\:\\ HTIilT-l; LU'h hlJ I h.h p; i::ii ill ill -iu' suspects m ijidirect (Invisible hand ! causal link to a particular aspect of the history of Its speakers the multime and colonizing background of an Insular people. Once started such un overall process cjn develop Li* (iwji nioitnmtun as the imoiL-upjed ipa c heLweej phono lo ial for ins g]Ljw unite jjid ititut rtstrkled, unponiiij; sllll tnort loaji words was one way of eheckijij; thi' exeesiive hojiiojiymy wi Lh which the lajijjua e was becoming burdcjie-d (ditferent spellings of the ,
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sajne WDrdd of rhe
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flower' versus 'tlour' kind to distinguish potyseioous jneanlngs was a more limited possibility). Hiternal factoi's may nudge overall drift in one way or another structurally as well as lexically, as for example when the No mum conquest of tiugland {with ensuing billngualism amongst at least the upper classes} accelerated the trend towards Increasing analytically already discernible In Old Ln lish. iy5. I he . .ii ui'/p jrcr/edistLtn-liot], note, ii quite ioitipatible with Whltehead i sy.slem if the fointer '
term is tiken in the sense of pure constraints on emergence [i.e. eternal objects that concern
language!. 'Luti ae' should not be taken js "Tej]' in tbe sense of 'actual' however - actual occasions producing and comprehending utterances Is rather a matter of ptiToic Its essence is *
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rather that it constitutes an institutionalised, social object, '
1 6. En tatt the earliest relerena to the Edge of Chans'1 concept that [ k]iow of is precisely lj
Whltehead when he .states that the course af history from lower to higher types of order niuit vejiture alonyL tbe borders of chaos iWhitehead ly7rt liW jj Hi), ('ompareitkonen (1 3:204), "
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whose view on language change is that it is ejoplk-able (i.e. Vationaf) within the limits set by biology and society, but not predictable, tor him the main force behind linguistic change is the arising of djssonaiice between the busiL pj Li-.djik' ufisojooi phisin ii.nd sociiti chajiges, a 'problem' whose solution (through social, collective mechanisms) is a closer approximation to the former again. Whlteheadian concrescence also aims essentially at the redressing of dissonance through novelty. The near universal pathways of grammatical Izatlon reflect maximally useful ways of dividing up and articulating conceptual space, in turn enhancing Whlteheadian Vojitrast for speakers. '
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1 7. jii J
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aMegarLh 1,'iLL ja . 'vimin j .d .\-.:>ji\ks in
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ms t mOLiiLL it;.- i.T kUv llIu.-.
sab
systems jnay be relatively stable for long periods if counterbalanced by sijnplieity elsewhere. See fortescue {iWl) for acquisition/pi-dce joj; ]ea.Mins whypolysynthetlc morphologies may persist for so long despite their apparent complexities, and compare tbe relative simplicity of English morphologys which is counterbalanced by a far larger stem lexicon than any polysynthetic language could bear. 19*1. t]f Clorthians notion of footing' - the position/persona/alignmenL of the speaker in '
uttering an expression. I or hint thii is |>arl of t]>e indesijiy4 function perfonned by speech '
fCioffman 1 741. '
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1 9. One is reminded of Wittgenstein s famous pronouncements enncerning language games' In which he Insisted that the meanings of language lie not just in the Individual mind - a view LviUirl;. dn ied h iiii-t .Ljuim uii gj .i luiguL-iv (. jupaiv :.Ui SeLitk poMtmu thai no one '
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theory of n ajt iti will ever be cfitnplete beta jse m-eaninp will always depej d to in me decree ofl coi text <w] i4:h is infinitely variablel. '
200. Non-agejuive fu net ions an he found in nature, like the pumping function1 of the humitn hear 11 b u t these ii re iteve rtheless dependan t for j n terp retation on wh at we as h u nun s regard as the goal of living, ete. '
201. Individual i;e]iei art n ittd aygieg ies (vli'uttured at cnult i|>hf Itvtls n l int ei rulaiio [Jihtp, so thi3 ]elatk)]i buiwftjji ge]U)Jiie and phe]iotypi;/vehic:](.L \* very indirect -las it isalin betweeti neuioiis and ]ne]Ua] attivityi. '
201. Even .4a >i], was not con pletely free of the Lanyuage-as-organisnt view, although his overall L
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picture wafl of laj jjua e as the niasssve, aiiojivinous work of art of unoonsdous neratiojis the expression of alknmmunicable thought its form 'contin jally I'eshaping itself, like all art' {Sapil '
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1921 220).
ici, A suednet discussion of Haldwinian evolution is found in beacon op.eit.!322tf.). In a DutaheUN this involvej; flexibility of behavioural responses to speeitie lasting changes in the environment biasing the context of evolution Jiuch that only individuals and groups choosing advantageous behaviour will survive. Such behaviours may eventually Ik assimilated into the genome by canalisation As Deatoj htL,L,s>e[i, this is not an alternative to Darwinian evolution, but ralhtr an addition, fequiring very S|K,cjal conditloju to apply fj ote that the link between the survivors yenes and the bebaviour Selected lor' is very indirect and uJipri'dictablu). Sycnbolic refui ence systems cannot, he ciaiins, be genetically assijnilated since language cbaitges loo rapidly for the iiec«ury con.standes ]equired for Baldwin eljccls to pL'rtain. "Il ough he sees the subject predicate {w operatif]- operand) modulation of uilerani'ei is the jniiiiatial cojiibitiaturial structuL'tf for the emergence ofany sy mbulk reference .sy.slejit, this is not enough on its own to allow genetic a ssJmi]atu>n, since ihtire is no nnstant link Ut surface distinctions atn s Jajiguages. He aryues that Chotnskyiui hdecp' structuru categories are for this luasou m fact th-e least likely to have attained neural fixation {op.cit.:334). 1
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204. Lf. Dawkins (1976). iVleioes are cultural entities that are reproduced, compete amongst
themselves and are passed on from generation to generation through purely instkutionally validated processes of transinission. They exist within their own cultural etosystem Note that socially transmitted behaviour as such is not liuiited to the human species - it L; in faet typilied by the transmission of spede-s-speeifk son between generation.s of song birds. Here only the roughest kind of proto-song capability Is genetically transmited - It must be tuned by exposure "
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to the lovaI adult
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dlalect1 for fu 11 adult .song Competence1 to emerge. Like Keller (197 1S4) J am "
somewhat sceptical ot the degree of autonon ous activity l>awkins attiibutes to these entities -
surely I am the arbiter as to how fai a meme (such as meme
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itself} is to be allowed to flourish in
im own mental ecosystem and its social productions. The concept is best understood stietaphorically, like words memes do not n eet Wlutehead s criteria for living' eitttties - for the same reason of lacking in t canal organisation coordinated so as to serve a common purpose '
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105. One may nevertheless speak of Select ion at the level of individual uttcraiKeproductjom in faa Keller Joes just tliat in his distinction between 'linguutic selection1 as suth and 'social selection The former is a nutter of personal choice of available means of expression to meet mdiviJuitl communicative ends, which is bused 011 - and coupled to - the anticipation oi resulting su cial selection. This in turn can contribute to at] overall invisible band type of change in a language, the indirect result - by feedback processes - of deviatinj; slightly irom established 1
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communicative norms [Keller 1970: ISWJif.).
Not.es
20ft. As opjHJiuJ Lin other tutJiaJ pr nzuiSfs invihlvitij; girtiei'al physical liwi. Hl sues language a.s j byproduct orsukvlioji foi l>rjiij si/i:, lu nLspl rit ipeciilbtation foj- ulytii1 thought, k., so his vivw Ls iJi tfifuct more Jittigt iCiit than Pinkcr-ji 0W]i <si:t ihiiikcr 1 4;3(?2l. Ik today accepts evince for bis ] mgu lsc frosn n any different sources hestdes inuivc sp Likci iLidj;iite]tts perceptual, neucDlcgical, acquijiitiojial and from Creoles and langudge dianget ultimately he aeej iill vfxhhi a.fl I'tduceahle to a itiattei1 of h ram states (Chomsky t9S ;37), '
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107, I Tfu 11 langu age fwhtTher as U G or others1 Lse; were hard w ired/1 n nate 1 n its enti rety eh 1 Id re 11
would presumably he ahle to learn a first language at any age! despite the faet that other, uiu-ojitrovfjiibly enetitilly JeterJiuaied fai-ulritii ul-Ei si ht aha caunot he learnt after a certiiin age. (lil[nd-b[>rji childien given sight later in life apparently never really learn to .see a.s sighted adults, when at 1'ophy or alternative utilization of the relevant cerebral regions have intervened cf.tJa/ aniga ]! 2;37). rhe fu]n;tlo]i]ng of perceptual faiiulllei such a sight ish however, an entirely universal ntitter for all huiHan b ing«n thtfeiid-poim 1>umg uidependent ofs-ocial envir'ifnt]ient. It in not even Ij part an inititutiotia] I'act, '
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20S. The ejiipha.sis E aju layingoji Individual grammars should not be understood as undermining ilif imporian eofextractinghigherdcveJ gunurali aiioniacross langnagui-'thiscan (ajidshould] be done from both tlw static 'pattern' ajid the dynatnie 'process' pei,speetivest produeij g respectively fornwrexpression and fujKtjojwl/intentiojwl generalizations. 'The iniateke la to relate the tVrO directly. Ilie re]atio]tship is one of mutual reflect ion not of one-way causation. Actual causality must operate via individual speakers (nexufl) acquiring and usang individual grammar f socially validated patterns ofeternaI ob)ectfi) -causality in human behaviour and e periencu is geJierally of the orgajiii\ social kind. The various higher-order implicational patttins and 1
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hierarchies of markedness arrived at by typological ijuve.stigation [e.g. the way 'anijnacy1 or agency afl'tct expiession acioss lajiguages in a principled way) do indeed reflect universal ways '
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of dividing up cogjiltive spaci] - as natural 'seajmi deriving front the human condition - but thuir interaction with foicnalCoilstuints on linguistic pattei tiing (e.g. thu langt! chf possible pails of speech ) are complex ultimately mluc ling the ij te faction of theoi anization of the mlnd/hnln and the cojitmuiticatlve needs and puj'poses of the individual speaker [which can also \>v typo]ojji?.ed in terms of overt beh avion ] : . tjenuil obiecis of the one or the other kind, at any level of generality, are potential ringressanO in the linguistic knowledge and behaviour of successive generations of speakers and may mutually affect each other and hence the way they naanifest at anyone time, i.e. affect specific choices ofexpress Ion and (indirectly) language change L
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by derining competing channels/attractor surfaces to be followed. '
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20$, Widtehead s strategy was not to enquire how higher levels of functioning miraculously '
emerge from any particular arrangement of elements at the lower level. Hte kind of-Ljuestson he asked regarding the emergence of human consciousness, for example, was rather as to the type of objects to which the prehensions of the actual occasions of more complex nexus can potentially he directed. The development of perceptive systems in the mode of'presentational iinmediacy' vastly expanded tin: rcpci loire, at did the cerebral reorganisation that paved the way for the symbolic mapping of propositional relations tbrough language. Hut awareness as such is holistic {involving closed feedback loops within a sentient organisnu if you will) and presuppojies only certain basic types of prehension. It adheres to all living systems whatever the level of internal sophistication of the tiexus. There is emergence not iust once but all the way down C ompare Polanyi's conception of the inarticulate origins of speech* whereby the operations of language ultimately rely on tacit intellectual processes which arc continuous with those of the anijnals, '
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including the active striving forgoali [Polanyi 195 95).
2y3
194
Notes
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no. This nay sti]] be reflected in ontogeny: ji dtHcnhed by Mt'NtLI] l]992:3]2fj, childrtn ji gesture jnd speech ure it first independent t>f each nther. but bttotne more iind mare closely synch rfmi/ed with aye. The latest Jitage oftbe mastery of gesturing involvej; acquiring the use of W \ :--: im..iXi:iv iM.n-.i.i iMiMtmi .Usin lIiji;,' Im Uifiii ni' -.w.A vMi n of i\:\o\ 1:1:1 tion. etc, {pualle] with the cor responding Ijnguijitk skills}. Another important dupect of this key even t as reflected in oiuoge ny i s t h e development i n children at a ro und ni ne mont hs of i&e of th e iibiLity to participate in joint attention towards objects that adult caretakers are attending to, in >
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other words when they learn to empathize with the adult intentions behind ostenstve - and later '
purely syn bnliL - activity rioinLis-ello ]992j fi7ff.i. This k ip fcuv-'Lird lo tnaJic jecognitiojiof inteJitionaljty {addingn as it were-, the 3-hel]"cean lintei pretant' to siniple lineal" signalling of refer-ents by way of signs) Ls apparently specific to our .species alone. '
m,
hor
Whitebcad there are no reglonji of absolute chaos, t>ut nor Is all reality charactered by
order. Koth for him And for Chaos Theory in ittat conditions a re ofcardinal importance, and small differences theie may Introduce types of novelty that exponentially accumulate in unpredictable way.s, What is particularly modern In Wbitehead in thte respect Is bis insistence that no two starling points of a process can bi1 identical i there Is no overlap of individual actual occislon.s a
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in. He furthe r eq uates protola n guage w tth the langu age o f pldgi n - speake rs and of Lsola ted ri glu henuspherefi after commisurotomy {op.cit,;2l4)r He assigns to it the ability to 'name' and a ho to string together verbal expressions and their arguments, but not the potential for infinite recursiv-
ity of'full' language. Kote. however, that protolanguage a,s reflected in pidgin.s and young child languitgo is noi without -eojiiblnatoiiality altogether; the simple juxtaposition of .symbols for subjects and predicates results in an exponential expansion as vocabulary Increases. Also chimps trained to W ti display a limited degree of novel comblnatorlallty. Hveti vervet loonkey are capable of najiung se\reral differeiil preditors - at least they have distinct warning calls "
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associated with each. Hut a.s Blckerton poijita out, these are not predicates that can be isolated from holistic situations. Nor does the fact that dolphins and other higher anbnals may have signals for and recognize their own 'names' indicate on its own anything more than simple 'perceptive prehensions Protolanguage may further, according to Blckerton, make basic tense and modality distinctions (which implies the availability of'intellectual prehensions'J4 but it consists of ojily single clause propositions [op.cit.: tJ f. '
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aij. Also Gazzanlga stresses the evolutionary importance of beijig able to conceal one s thoughts
by controlling voluntary facial expression (for masking Intentions - apparently a left-hemisphere controlled function). He further .suggests that the ability to conceal one s thoughts even from .
oneself may have led to the development of belief systems, bringing voluntary and Involuntary systems in line - if you believe what you do and say, so the argument goes, you will not give yo urself away to ot hers Krazza n Iga lW2:i74]. t rtai n ly this represe tits a higher level of cont rast s of Contrasts therefore involving'Intellectual prehensions'. "
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14. Lieberman 1 1 4), by contrast, does not believe language could have appeared before
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ad a n ced Homo sapiens, even Keande rthal s having lacked the necessa ry vocal t ract configui at ion to articulate a full range of phonemes. Hickerton claims that a primitive language capability {e.g. gestural? J could have developed well before full articulation was possible, the latter arising by
natural selection precisely to enhance the potential of the budding language faculty (op.cit: 144). Ueacon in turn suggests that Homo erectus may have communicated In short phrases (simple
Notts
prapoiitioii ], niiiLiily using consonaiital imd click MJjndji, with few voivtls, JiuppLeiiitiUcii hy gesture (Deafon 1997:253}. '
115- Compare this with Hkkcrton s JitcitiiriOs where the muHi ]>lirHt>e tci plitte leiitergLug fmm earl naming pnittice}, with its head-compkmtitt structure, was the pmtotypype for the further apid iiihoutiL-nn of fuLr langiiiige. suggeflls that tlie nomijial pattern was aubse uej tly extended to verbs with theii'iifiiociiited themativ rolts n inuSh forsom-e unexplained rtusnn, thfir owji subject) to form 4:lauaesh to which exteinal sub}ects couEd theji he added (EJickerton '
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195). Tl is i jioL ejitirely iinzon patLbl-e witli a 'proposititmal prehen.*;joji! approach tosucli inatler;; (cf. the appeiranci? at soitie tage of higher-order hileUtctuil prehensioni), but. note that also nanilng a]itl the productioai of noamual holoplirises) ii a propositiojial matter for Whltehead, so the iioujV before v-erb ilryjinenl soujids liketJie foired iiiswcr loa cJiicken-ajid-egg t jLVstioil. '
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216. Nor did he regard Jiiturit selection as the be-ill itid end-all rtf evolution; he points out that Diirwin's llieory wax actJilly eharaeterized by lnaJl} agenciesh natural selection being otily one, cver-einphasis on vhicli may Jta.ve led to ucjfortunate iocial cojisequesice.s (Whiteheid 1947; 44). irle insisk-d that the theory of evolution netds to lake aecouin ol'C]ealiviiy \n Lhev tniit duuge iheir environcneiit aecordiiij; U ojiuji pu]p ses itchcid 3926: ]4fl).
117. Reeili fi'om 1.2.6 tiut it is syjubolic [riitsfer from presentational immediiCy that illoWi symbolically eoj idi tiinted at t loj 1 as suth. I liis niay sp reud aLi < >s> several ij itervtiung steps, l>u I when {prDtD-}lan£U&ge JiJ ally emerges tlw intcrvonij steps arc dihpecistd witii and purely symbolic rchttions result with direct irbitrary rclationji between percepts-as-sig]ts and their jiteanuigs '
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11*. Cojnpare the aryumeni concerning ivJj-word extraLtabilily under 3.2.2 - thert it wa.s a m.'.rei ol siik: nt.'.aiL ui atignij/v.iioi:, n- . u. .vkvLv,'.> 111 lite lu m v. e 11 i> one of s«niantk coherence {Lhe semantic sulscategorl7atlon requirements ofbire '
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115. Whitehead did not use this term himself. [nslineL' for him i.s the pure reactivity that is '
displayed by inorganic matter, but it is also presupposed by higher-grade conscious mentality. It is the res ponse oforga n is ms to c ausa I efiicacy (whereas symbolic re ference adds tlie possibil ity of reflective thought via enhanced presentational iinmediacy}. He characterizes it as the mode of experience directly arising out of the ur e of inheritance, individual and environmental L
'
{Whitehead 1947:5i(j. Jn e coalescence of instinct with intelligence produces wisdom, but the diilinction between the three iiiJioteleai-cut. for Intel licence is itself'an inhei ited factO]-: - thus there is a habit of day-dream itig, and a habit of thoughtful elucidation The emergence of symbolic expression merely extends the realm of instinctive expression. This is certainly compatible with the notion of a propositional instinct lying behind human inteliigence. Also Sapir saw the essential elements shared by all languages isn on the one handh Lbasie concepts' (referring to thinj;sh etc.) and, on the other, 'pure relational concepts together forming propos i t ions (,S api r 192 h 101 f. L '
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210. The same phenomenon, say the structure of we 11-formed transitive clauses in a given
language, ean be described iji te]C]is of maximal projection from lexical heads, as predicate templates filled by suitable verbs as their head, as the outcome ofa network of functional choices, as proceJures lor generaunghuch sli ul lures Irom higher Jiodt-s, 0]asa congeries ofbasic symactiL ]L,lationsj all jnay be cojupatible wiih the facts and with each other, but none of them has any ultimate ontological priority over the others.
195
296
Notft
JJJ.
:
Imi.iki-.
iiiii 1 ;il
kh.-I-:
'
v.jikI:
m il -: . l
Imim-l
propoiitjojuil LUrtkLifiULifn of thDuylu jti the sfi viLT fifco itiRinjCithon with others Bruner 199Q),
jil ijIlI
;;il:-- ::k-
mthev with ojK df or
11a. None of them - afnirt rhapji ffojn a lowest'eo]iitnaji-denoirLi]iiAt(ir fceling of functionaJity aJlwrij to a raiscJ rncam for crossing somt obstacle - hns to be ingressant in every token object of pKhenslou to whicl it i& suitably applied. The actual itieaning of the word (a symbol in the mode of perceptual immediacy) is in the WhJteheidian framework the overall leel of its confortnL ty with a certain kind of experiej ce in the n ode of causal efficacy. This h dtar enough for simple action verbs like VratdV, which have j direct link to physical prehensions ol boJily expu iejuo also tltese are Jistij uislted frtun uth r such feelings by relevant eternal ol>)ects which act as lures1 m dUractur wells if you prefer I fo] the sobjettive aiiti nf any amcrescence aimed at cm up re liejidiny the wuid. They are lorms of definiteness ofthe feeling itself. Recall that anything that can be pi'L'hejided (conceptually or physically} contributes to thi? uj ique (iubjective i'ortn ihf thi1 piehuiisjoji cojiCi.3i[n?d and subjeetive forens are also varietieii of eternal objtct. Jl e san e applies to abstract social words like 'paradox* diM:us.scd in 4.3, to which liLtlt if aoy perceptual L5oaj;cry adheres, ajid to s-uch iiitiple jjindablL L utihty words as 'big", which require erueibil lel'ereiieu to iojiit1 noun Cbig' for such and such a type of object). All such 'institutional' factors are again delined by relevantj repeatable eternal objects. In the case of words referring to iiinple qualities |say lied' or 'square the Eneajiing would seem to be equalable with lEie relevant eteitial object itself (preliejided by pure conceptual prehensions), but even here the meaning is the eternal object as preheuded (i.e. its feel to the prehending subject). '
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,
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ii3. The implementation of grammars as. piiocedural systems can tell us nothing about psyvhologL-
ieal reality (only of what logically the Individual mind/brain somehow must accomplish J. ,since there no guarantee that economy of description has anything to do with how such knowledge is in fact internal l/edr The assumption ofthe equivalence of these two is precisely what necefwitateji the special generativlst conception of the autonomy of grammar, since the principles and parameters apparently required for the most economical and general description of gram mar are clearly not identical with those needed for describing the operation ofthe individual mind/brain »s a whole. Hor a recent rethinking of the a mono my question see Mewmeyer 0998:23 tf.), who breaks it down into three sub-partis AUTOSVN (the thesis that syntax is auto no mo us from semantics and pragmatics), AUTO KNOW {the thesis that language knowledge/competence is independent from language use), and AUTOGRAM (the thesis that grammar Is a self-contained system distinct from other forjus of human cognition). Newmeyer argues from aTG perspective for all three sub-theses. Suffice it to say here that the Wbiteheadian perspective leads to a rejection of AUTOSYN but supports a certain interpretation of AUTO KNOW where language pattern as such is distinct from language p]iocess As for AUTOGRAM, Whitehead would clearly have disagreed with Newmeyer, since cognitive process - i.e. the various types of'prehensions' _ was for him something common to all cognition Only the pattern of language is unique, namely as a symbolic CHfdc system. '
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224.. Whitehead s position on this changed somewhat during his lifetime, but he came to see *
eternal objects as a shople jiiulliplkity into which mutual ordering is introduced by the perspective ofthe (societies of) actual occasions entertaining them (thus Whitehead ty7fij 132). in Science and the Modern World" eternal objects are described as relational and analytical in essence, i.e. divisible into subordinate relationships in a hierarchical gradation of successive '
"
abstractioji from actual occasions, ranging frojn simple le.g. sensations of colour I to complex:, i.e. abstracted systems consisting of their own mutually ordered components, namely other simpler
Notts
"
eteraal objects (WliitchtJil 3926:203ft J This tJili r pcisition jji attujlly m-icv id ulito to grammar whore tl t divisibility df, fiays S into NP Lii d VF isi injuriniic to the Minmatkal system. The point of his later poskion ii, 1 suppose, to emphasinc thntt ihe hierarchical {and other] iiUL 'ielatcditCfMiofjiuch eternal objects vrithii a coti plcA hVhk-m ih nnl in dependent of tin; intcroal structure of the mind/bra ins of speakers or the broader social itexus withiit nrhich language is actually deployed. .
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115. More specifically l>y philoiophoi's ol priK ss thedlojjy iiUL-h js Hartshome (iIil1 fdinn Peiice collei-tcd works]. !>lv ILmshoriK' & Peden ( Wl) for an exposition their vie of the iteheadian legacy. '
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116. Whtthui Peirce
s notion of polyadic i' htioni {specifically triidicj was tlie source of WhiiL-hcid's ii n in- tin indepuitdfju duvckipmetit ! have not been able 10 asc min. 1±J. Whitohead wis, tis mentlotted in Clhjplti- 1, jctuilly itioit altunsJ tt) ihi? later WillgenstetJi, although he Jelt jnlipathy for Willgenstein as n nun (the latter being as jajiiLicil lel ajid l egarded the ijirtuence of his TriCtatus" oj Russell is Jiefi] ious. He aw that work as drivinj; a Jiiiguislii- wedge hetweeti t] ode] t] science aiid philosophy at large |ust a$ he hlmselt was stri ijig to uiterate theio. i his doubtless also widened the breach between die tivo previous colleagues in the years hnmediately followinj; ihe i'ii si World War. "
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aaJi. Russell sJtared Siege s abitriet view oi sense is somehow universal and Jixcd apii t from mere subjective psycholojjitaI eviiten-ce (is reflected in ordinary language), words beinj; able to pick out unk)ue leJ-ereiils iti the wtn ld hy virtue of their seilse (and their logic thus iiiirioring nature]. Uenotitig phrases do not name entities. I hLs 'theory of deseiiptions" i.s quite ctmtiary to Whitehead's view of the close association between word meaninj; and psychology (In paj'ticulajperception and feelinyj. l
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129. Put of cour&e. unlike them, he did not ultimately turn his back on science. While Husserl a method attempted to approach tli essential core oi'experience via a process of'bracketing outh sueeessive iri,ele ra]ieJes, Whitehead s approach was in a tense the ironverse: a sueecssi e!tpan.sk)Ji of the iictual occasion froiti the mieioCosmic ivorld ol uujdern physics to the j'ull richness ol hutnaj experience. Whereas primitive 'awareness' enters the picture with living nexus prebendiny {reacting to) thi ir physical environment, the development of this into full human consciousness : lb rough intellectual prehensions eliciting the feeling ofcontrast between piopositionalpotentialin and jciili/ed tattl requiies the added complejiity of iuternal structure of the personally ordered society This greatly expands the raitge of prehensions (aitJ prehensions of prehensiojis) in relat io n to the ca usal sense it( self espec ially of fut u re and hypo thet ical coj icep t ual possibil itieji. It is mtereating to note that HusscrL like WTiitehead, started his career as a mathematidam '
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130. For Itkonen the former is the subject matter of Autonomous Linguistics1 in the sense of the study of Saussurian synchronic systems (as j oresliadowed in traditional grammars as early as Panlni), but further involves semantics and the more rule-like part of pragmatics as well as morphology, phonology and syntax. .Such code systems are socially transmitted and learnt {'internalized ). They represent potential patterns of'correct1 behaviour, ust like certain types of Whiteheadian 'eternal objects'. 'Causal1 linguistics on the other hand concerns the deployment of the code in actual occasions of (rational) use, and is thus a matter of individual psychology and '
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1
intentions {within a social context). *
1 1. tternal objects, recall, are fully determinate for[nsol'defmiteness1, whereas actual occasions are not, nil though their object illcation, at the moment of decision1 is determinate - and this reverses the Aristotelian equation of form-as-actuality1 versus 'ntatter-as-potentiality1, hor '
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ic>7
igfl
Notes
WhllehtiaJ ihn 'iubiiLincc' of ati actual ocL-aiion Li its 'forjml'
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or matter (objectified actuality) alone icf. Ri>rty 19831. In terms of the mind-body relationship and the third man problem of relating unlverials to particulars one might say that both the '
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neural level nf the individual self-regulating mind/body and the mental experiences emerging from it at a highei1 level of organi?-ation aae defined by 'eternal objects' in - o far as they have definite form at all; but these forms do not esijit extept in ihe actual occasions (and nexus) in which they are ingress ant. f-vcrything in W'bitehead is both/and'. '
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Index
A
abduction
26. 172, J 77, 23S, 2S6
acLual occasion
ft, B, 33. 140, 162, J6[i,
210.271, 2 5
Aleut
77.191
Alexander
Aimilj
Austin
202,286 6,
ChifL.-uiiin
203,238
186
Clark & Clark 288
192,265
Ari.skilk'
227, 231. 248. 255, 268, 280, 281
Chukchi
247
Andersen
Chomsky 3,5,55, 73. 129-131. 171.213,
competence 55.107.264
complementarity 6.23, 107. 126. I2y
24H
29,245
Cooilie
20!
conceptual reversion 16, 25, 3 lh 44, 95, 172
B
conceptual valuation 16. 25, 9JI, 172
background 49, 89. U2. 278
concrescence 8,22, 36. 37> 149. 187, 188.
balanced contrast 47
277
Bates & MacWhinney 29.271 (27S
conncctionism
Bateson
conscious perception
Bauc]1
108 264
consdoumiL
Bella Cooh
content Ibrni
266
Bcrgson 247 Bickerton Bohm
Croft
4.52,122
14, 23, 108. 161, 257, 261
53, 6S
71.214,268
72, 219, 221. 227. 294, 295
112
Bowerman
D
2S7
1 Jama.sio & Damasio
Bradley 247 bridging inference 43, 152
Danish
262,269
Darwin
212.223
Brown
Dawkins 292
178
Brown and Yule Bruner
Biihler
13
43. 263
Deacon
168,285,296
56,256.259.279
Bybee 187,264,265
133, 280
61, 128, 132, 185.214.223,236,
265,280.285.292, 294 decision
Descartes
10,36,43.150
4, 248. 249. 256
Dewey 247,270 Dik 30, 85, 87.266. 268, 269, 272
C
Calvin
89. lift. 130,220,263,277
causal efficacy 13.54,93, 151,218,224, 233.274, 278
Chafe 34, 141,283
Chaos Theory 53. 89, I 14, 202. 206. 294
distinctive features Dressier
drift
202
187,190
55
y>8 Index
£
H
Edelraan
11S
Etmanetd.
Haiman
ll8,2Se
270
Halliday 18, 140. 174
embodied meaning 4.89, 118,275
Harder
emergenee 23, 110, 173,219,232.243,
Hawkins
255.293
117,287
Hebrew
emergent grammar 4,255 empathy 109, 175.261 enduring object 10, 61. 176, 257, 276 Kngberg-Pcdersen 54, ftl.265 eternal object 6, 11. 25, 32, 36. 37, 41. 59, 113.114, 117. 131, 172, 195.204,
Heine
206 71
187
Hengeveld 266 Hjelmslev 54,59,81.234.264 Hockfltt
54,264
Hopper 255
Hopper 8c Traugott 186
205.208.217, 224,230,233.234,
Humboldt
237.259, 271,273,290,293.2%
Hume
6, 249
Husscrl P
255,281,290
247,297
Hymes 35.212
FauLonnicr Fillmore Firth
26, M, 283
70.87
I
18.258
icon
17,58-60,265
Fodor 54, 1 IS, 124, 279. 2ftI framea 28,31,37.99
i mage of aehievement 35. 116, L 27
Fi'ege 60
i n k iv nee
Fi'cndi
ingression 6.12, 55, 64. 171. 204, 239,
66, 74
index 60,265 18.26,28,32.44,45,47. 263
257
C.
intentions
tiiiidincr
239,264.270
( .izzanijia U'lidlin
173, 280, 293
intonation unit
270,273.279.280, 286, 291,297 259
GilberserdeHoop 230
J
C.ivon
laekendoii
71,76, 184,201,202.219.229,
242.263, 270, 276,284
Qenberg 278
jakobson
31,291
2, 33, 55. 124. 166, 171, 202,
247,256,257
Japanese 46.77,267 Jespersen 76
Goldberg 97,287 Gould
107, 118, 268
23 ,273.286
James Cotimu-i
34, 141
llko ne n 30, 20 5, 230, 237.247.261,262,
270
Germbacher
19,26, 32.127.208, 260
223
graininaticiili/alion J8Cv, 194,205,206.
Johnson 28, 113. 118 Johnson-Laird 26, 118, 140,278
judgment 32.82,139,230 in tui live
Grecnberg 1\1 Giccnjicld & Smith Gri«
31.48,49
Giush & .Vtandelblit
Gupti
IH5
DdL 278
suspended 45-47, 139.262 thctic
71,92
15,26.31,133.183.2 40, 25 8
46
K
Newmevvr
296
j
Kjnl
113, 174,250
iiLXUi
10, 26, 32, 45, 60, 11 I, ISS, 210,
297
Rtiler 193, 209, 2&% 192 Kobun
275
personal 10,114,276 Nichols
270
Ncotka
72, 77, 84
L
Lakoff 37.91,94,97,263,272
O
Lakoft
o b ect ilitiitio n 10,14,22 object ive data 8,35,39,172,217
Tobnson ?
Lambrecht
141,204,262
Laiigjckci' 79 92, 26a Ljuger 245
0 rd ill li r y Lanj u jgc fi3, 2 45
longue 55, 131, 204,264
\'
Lass
i'uivici 87, 110, m
202,211,217
Leibnitz
236
parameters and prirmiples 5,200
LewJt 70, 92.. 126, 134, 26fi, 281, 2fi2 Lielicrnisn
2 4
parole 55 Peirce 53, 59, 165, 245, 265, 270, 271
lingumit: sign 4, 17, 53, 54. 259
JVi huiikT
Locke 47,249,255
pi;i sona 1 ly ordered society 10, 1 L 14, 22,
lure
12,35,113,260
Luria
. SLlumnr.n
I'ri
35,108,129, 136, 231, 235, 237, 238,
113,116
257, 258, 260,275, 276, 297
phonemni 56, 56, 63, 233, 2fi4
Lyons S&
physkjl pok 12,14 l iaget 16
MacKay 60, 134 MacWhinney 103,255,275 M aline wski
M cNeil I
Ifi
34,50.100,134.219, 25 9, 2*3.
290,294
menu I models 7, 26, 37, 59, 87, 1 IS, 140, 150,259, 27S, 2S3
mentaJ pole L), ll, 14,22, L14, 218, 232 metaphor 2fi, 9J, 96, 160, 256, 263N 2BS,
metonyrny 93. 94, 13 Minsky 257,279,280,282
misplaced ccj]i<:retc]ies!i 11, 248. 256 MirhuD
133
modality 45, 82, 35, 96, 188, 262 moiphemes 56, 57, 63, 232
1'ike
269
Pinker
123, 124, 132, 132,213, 221, 287,
293
Plato 6, 17]. 243.248,255
Polanyi 255-257, 263, 270,277, 283, 286, 293
polyadic leiations 26, 82, 84, 247 Popper 209 pred icat iv patl Lim 14 prehension 4,8,10,41,50,110,256 hybrid 102, 103
negative 147 coneeptual 9, 12, 14,36, 186, 191,25 261
conceptual prehension 14 h -hru]
1: 1. i\ \ -'. iij. m1'. V/h.
185, 240,258,284 N
Njhuatl
imagin at ive 268
indicative
15,45,86
in tellec tual
neuroli] gtiistic.s ll, 22, 275
negative
15, 5,47,178,185, 240 15, 4 S, 185, 294, 295
14, 15, 172, 213
perceptive ] 5t 1 S3. 240, 2«H1 2 4
physical 14, 86, 257, 238 propositional 14, 18. 110, 240, 25 pfcsontationjl immediacy 13, 17.93,
"
2 IS. 277, 293
Spanish 200 speech acts 29. 44, 140 Spcrber & Wilson 112 Spinoza 107, 247, 249 strains
13. il6t274
pvesuppfKition 32, Pribram 11 ls 115,115, US
Strawson
Principia NUlhcnutter 246
logical
83, 86, 2451 272. 288
subject 8
propo-iition 7, 45. ii 1, S3, 85. 127, 184, 263
14, 1 . 21, 82, 139, 178,263
prchtndinp 15, 263,2y6 subjective aim 8, 25, 35, 36, 47,113,150,
plopositionliJ instinct 7.1S4, 195,229,
172, 175. 187
subjective form 8,43, 47. 127. LM, 217,
23 .270
protolanguase 7.214 219,222, 224, 230,
235,261
conformity of subjective form 13. 55,
240.2 1
prototype 4, 29. 36, 53, 90, 273. 2S4 PulvcrmQiler & Schumann
25y
57.39,256
subjective harmony 9 Sweetser
%, 274
Q
symbol 12,17.53,58.60,115.210
Quine S6, 245, 274
symbolic leference t7, 59, 61. 93, 93, 186 symbolism 16, 224.285 syntax 37. 66, 67, 70. 76, 181. 220. 225,
R
relerence
61
relevance
15. 26, 42, 4>\ 4y, 112, 260
229
Robertson & Combs
11 *
T
Rosch 90
Talmy 268.272
Russell 7. 245, 247, 297
tense
180, 188, 262
Tomasello 97, 184.287.294 S
transmu lal ion
Sudock
67
14,61,69.81,101,103.
173, 178. 179. 185, 220,234, 239,
Sapir 56. 204, 205, 242, 271. 290-292, 295
276,278
Traugott 93. 189
satisfaction 8, 40, 127, 215, 260
truth
18,47,153
Saussure 54, 55. 59, 258, 290. 297
schemata 28 53,92, 113, 116 Schleidier 212,290 Schnclle
I
"
.
Universal Grammar 79, 182, 215, 2 17.
275
227,228.231.268
Searle 29.30, 112,127,128,203,233, 259 271,272, 278, 291 Sei'bo-CroatNin
66
Shihatani 46t262 Sbbin
V VanValin
IhV
Vygotsky 216,277
97,200,287 W
socially immanenL 6, 10 socially transcendent 6,10
Watkins
societal level 7. 10, II, 22. 56, 58, 61.134,
West Greenlandic 184. 186, 189, 262,
204.207, 232, 234
97
267,289.290
index
Wharf m290
Y
Winogra d 117
Yoiuba
Witigenstein 29 U 297
7, IS, 9lh 103, 245n 256,
ft5
Vukrtgir 75
311
In ihc iritis HUMAN COONITrVE PROCESSING
.
1
.
NING VL'i The Cofitetttpoi'aiy TUcoty qfMetaphor: A perspective fmm Chineae. 1*)9!1. COOPEK. Dtivid L.: UngtiLKtic Atimcwys. The cognitive dynamic.'i ofltinguagc acquisiiion timl i-hungt.'. WW.
3
.
4
,
FUCHS, Culhcrinc und SlcphnLH1 ROBERT feds.): Liir jjge Diversity and Cognitive Represent li ti on s. 1999. PANTHER. Klaus-Uwe and Gunter RADDEN fcdsr); Metonyruy in Uiftsuage and Thought I999.
5
NUYTS, itin: Epfatewic Af&dctlity, Lauguaye. and CofiteptuidizaUtm. A cognitive-
6
pragmarii-pet xpeciivt'. 2[K) \. R )RTHS CUE. Mk hLu;l: Pattern and Pfwess. A WtiteheadUm pLrspcwi vr vti iir uisiii .v.
.
.
200L
7
.
SCHLESINOER. [zeh k. Tiimar KEREN PORTNO Y and TiimLir P A RUSH;
Tht
Sfnicmre ofA t i unfntz. r. > . p. S
.
SANDERS. Ted. Jwist SCHILPEROORD and Wilbcrt SPOOREN (cdv):
Represersation. Linguislk: andpsycirofiitguisficaspecjs. n.y.p.
Text
