The Motivated sign: iconicity in language and literature 2

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The Motivated Sign

The Motivated Sign Iconicity in language and literature 2

Edited by Olga Fischer Unil•ersity of Amsterdam

Max Nanny Unil·erJity ofZiiridJ

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA

TM

00

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences - Pcnnancncc of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Ubrary or Congress Cataloging-ln-PubUcaUon Data The Motivated sign : iconicity in language and liter.ature 2/ Wiled by Olga Fischer. Max Nanny. p. em. Includes bibliogro~phical references and index. I. lconicity (Linguistics). 2. Semiotics. 3. Linguistics I. Fischer. Olga. II. Nanny. Max P99.4.126M68 2000 401'.41-...dc21 00-046827 ISBN 90 272 2574 5 (Eur.) /I 58!111 003 6 (US) (Hb: alk. paper) CIP 10 2001- John Bcnjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint. microfilm. or any other means, without written permission from lhe publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam •Tile Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O. Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

xi

List of contributors

xiii

lntrOOuction: \'eni, l'idi, l'ici Max Niinny and Olga Fischer PART I

General Semiotic foundations of iconicity in language and literature Winfried Nritlr

17

The semiotics of the mi.w?-en-ahyme Jolm J. Whitt•

29

Good probes: Icons, anaphors, and the evolution of language William 1. Herlofd:y

55

PART II

Sounds and beyond The sound as an echo to the sense: The iconicity of English gl- words Piotr Sadowski

69

On natural motivation in metaphors: The case of the cucurbits RalfNorrman

89

Old English poetic texts and their Latin sources: lconicity in Ca=dmon's Hwm1 and The Phoenix Eurl R. Anderson

109

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART Ill

Visual iconicity: Typography and the use of images Iconic punctuation: Ellipsis marks in a historicaJ perspective Anne C. Henry

135

Iconic functions of long and short lines

157

MaxNiinny

konicity in advertising signs: Motive and method in miming 'the body' Robbie B. H. Goh

189

Iconocla.o;m and iconicity in seventeenth-century English poetry

211

Lorelta lnnocemi PART IV [conicity in grammatical structures

Structural iconicity: The English -S- and OF-genitives C. lac Conradie The position of the adjective in (Old) English from an iconic perspective

229

249

Olga FiJdrer

Present participles as iconic expressions

277

Frank }amen cmd Leo Lelll:.

Of Markov chains and upholstery buttons: "Moi. madame. votre chien ... "

289

Jean-Jacques Lecerc/e PART V

[conicity in textual structures lconicity and rhetoric: A note on the iconic force of rhetorical ligures in Shakespeare »hifgmrg G. Miiller The emergence of experiential iconicity and spatial perspective in landscape descriptions in English fiction Wemer »hlf

305

323

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ix

Iconic dimensions in Margaret Atwood"s poetry and prose Christina Lj111rgberg

351

Author index

367

Subject index

377

Acknowledgements

The editors would like to thank the contributors, who with their studies collected in this volume have helped to extend the range and depth of iconic studies. We wish to express our deep gratitude to the institutional sponsors without whose support neither the second symposium in Amsterdam nor the publication of the papers given there would have been possible: the Konhrklijke Nederland.fe Akademie mn Weteusdwppm. the Faclllteil der Geesle.fWetemdwppell of the University of Amsterdam. and the Hcx·luchlll.{tifttmg des Ka111om Ziirich. We should also like to thank Kees Vaes of Benjamins Publishing for again helping us to sec this volume through the press. In the essay by Anne C. Henry all illustrations are reproduced by permission of The Syndics of Cambridge University Library. With the following e:~tceptions: Figure I is reproduced by permission of The Dean and Chapter of Salisbury Cathedral: Fgure 2 by permission of The Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College. Cambridge: figure 4 by permission of The British Library. shelfmark C. 34.e.26. We deeply deplore the all too early death of one of the contributors to this volume. Ralf Nomnan. who died on 21 March 2000. Ralf was one of the keenest and most active participants in the first two lconicity conferences. to which he made highly important and original contributions. He once said that the !conicity group of people offered a scholarly home to him. We shall all miss his warm and gentle presence as well as his inspiration and insights very much indeed. We are happy that with this publication, which is dedicated to him. we can posthu· mously offer Ralf Nomnan a memorial of our love and respect for him.

O.F. and M.N.

List of contributors

Earl R. Anderson Department of English. Cleveland State University, Euclid Ave at East 24th Street. Cleveland, Ohio 44115. U.S.A. sf [email protected]

C. Jac Conradic Rand Afrikaans University, P.O. Bo:t 524, 2006 Auckland Park, South Africa. [email protected] Olga Fischer Department of English, Universitcit van Amsterdam, Spuistraat 210, 1012 VT dam, The Netherlands. [email protected]

Am~tcr

Robbie B. H. Gob Department of English Language and Literature. The National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crcscenl. Singapore 119260. [email protected] Anne C. Henry Emmanuel College. Cambridge CB2 3AP, United Kingdom. [email protected]

William J. Herlofsky Center for Foreign Language Education and Research, Nagoya Gakuin Kamishinano, S~to-shi, Aichi-k~n. 480-12 Japan. [email protected]

Univ~rsity.

Lorena Innocenti Dipartimento di studi linguistici e l~u~r.ui ~uropci e postcoloniali, Universitii. Foscari di Venezia, Zauerc, Dorsoduro 1405, 30125 Venezia, Italy. [email protected] Frank Jansen Faculteit der Lett~ren, lnstituut lands. [email protected]

Ned~rlands,

Jean-Jacques L.ec~rcle 14 Clos Per.tult. 91200 Athis-Mons, France.

1350

ca.

Tr.ms 10.3512 JK. Utrecht, The Nether-

xiv

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Leo lentz Oll-OTS, Trans 10, 3512 JK, Utrecht, The Netherlands. [email protected] Christina Ljungberg Bergstro:L~se 29c, 6045 Meggen, Switzerland. [email protected] Wolfgang G. MUller lnstitut flir Anglistik!Amerikanistik, Friedrich-Schiller-Universitiit Jena, Emst-AbbePiatz 4, 07743 lena, Gennany. Wolfgang.Mueller@n:.uni-jena.de Max Nanny Englisches Seminar, Universitlit ZUrich, Plattenstrasse 47,8032 ZUrich, Switzerland. [email protected] Winfried NOth Univcrsitii.t Kassel. Fachbercich 8.

Georg-Forster-Stra.~se

3 . .\4109 Kus.-.cl. Gennuny.

[email protected]~~l.de

Ralf Nomnant Depanment of English, University of Tampere. P.O. Box 607. Kalevantie 4, 33101 Tampere. Finland. Piotr Sadowski American College Dublin, 2 Merrion Square, Dublin 2. Ireland. [email protected] John J. White Depanment of German, King's College, University of London, Strand, WC2R 2LS. United Kingdom. [email protected] Werner Wolf Abteilung ftir Englische Literatur und Algemeinc Literaturwisscnschaft. Kari-FranzensUniversitii.t Gra. HeinrichstroL~se 36, A-8010 Gra. Austria. [email protected]

Introduction veni, vidi, vici Max Nanny

Olga Fischer

Unil·er.tity ofZiirich

Unh·ersity of Amsterdam

I confess that not without overcoming a deep repugnance can I accept that the relation between soond and meaning is, as Saussure and his disciples maintain. a result of an arbitrary convention. My distrust is natural: poetry is born from the old magical belief in the identity between a word and what it denotes. (Octavio Paz, "Reading and Contemplation... 13)

This volume offe~ a selection of papers given at the second international and interdisciplinary symposium on lconicity in Language and Literature held in Amsterdam in 1999. 1 It is a sequel to Form Miminf? Meaning. /conicity;,, Language and Literature (Benjamins 1999). which gathered papers offered at the first conference on iconicity in Zurich ( 1997). The purpose of both conferences. and of the papers presented at them. was not primarily of a theoretical nature although semiotic. linguistic and literary theory aJso had an important role to play. The overriding aim was to present case studies of how iconicity worh on all levels of language (phonetic. graphemic. syntactic. lexical. etc.) in literary texts and in all kinds of verbal discourse. In a manner of speaking. the symposia and the papers were meant to challenge what Roman Jakobson has called .. Saussure's dogma of arbitrariness" (Jakobson 1960:357), a dogma poetically expressed by Juliet (Romeo and J11liet, 2.2.43-4) in the lines: What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell a.<> sweet.

In the "Introduction" to Form Mimi11g Mea11i11g (pp. xv-:uxiv). the reader will find an explanation of what its editors and the authors of the papers contained in it unde~tand by the term 'iconicity' .! The reader will also find there (pp. xxitT.)

MAX NANNY AND OLGA FISCHER

the criteria that allow a differentiation between the main types of iconicity. especially the distinction between more concrete and perceptual 'imagic' iconicity and the more abstract and relational type of 'diagrammatic' iconicity. But this division. let it be said, cannot always be drawn clearly. and the two fonns of iconicity are often fused in both language and literature. At the Amsterdam conference, Winfried NOth (in this volume) introduced a further dilferentiation. namely one between 'exophoric' and ·endophoric' iconicity. two concepts that a number of contributors (e.g. MUller. White) have found to be very useful. Wherea" 'exophoric' iconicity consists primarily in form miming meaning (thus establishing an iconic relation between the sign and its referent in the world, or rather our perception of the world). 'endophoric' iconicity refers to form miming form (thus being purely intra-linguistic). 3 However. we would like to add at this point that. although cndophoric iconicity is concerned with resemblances between signs, and not between the sign and the signified. it too involves 'meaning'. The miming of one form by another (repetition) is only noted when it is in some sense meaningful. Thus. the mere repetition of the article in the following phrase. 'the king of the cats'. should not be considered an example of endophoric iconicity. It is clear that a repetition only becomes meaningfully iconic when it rises above conventional expectations. For this reason. the difference between endophoric and exophoric iconicity may be less clear in practice than it is in theory (as Wolfgang MUller. this volume. also argues), because even endophoric iconicity consists of a structure (form miming form). which. combined into a new sign. then mimes a third clement {a signified) in the world as we perceive it.

Veni, vidi, vici In order to avoid repeating what we have explained in other places. let us. by way of introduction. illustrate some iconic uses of language in a nutshell by means of an example that shows most types of iconicity to perfection. namely Julius Caesar's famous phrase l'elli. 1-idi.l'id ('I came,l saw,l conquered'). This Latin dictum has. since Roman Jakobson first had recourse to it. been a stock phrase for scholars who wished to illustrate iconic features:' According to Jakobson. the chain of verbs in the Latin phrase "informs us about the order of Caesar's deeds", for the temporal order of speech events mirrors "the order of narrated events in time" (Jakobson 1960: 350). When primarily considering the parallelism between the sequence of verbs and the temporal order of the events they represent. we rel.:ognise that not the individual verbal signs themselves arc of an iconic (imagic) nature.lt is their sequential order. their tempor.tl relationship

INTRODUCTION

that is iconic: for this relationship is similar to the one that connects the historical events the verbal sequence refers to. In other words. Caesar's dictum represents an iconic diagro1m. As Johansen writes: ''A diagram is characterised by depicting relations analogous to those of the represented object. A map. for instance. is a diagrum. because the relations between the different parts are analogous to those between the parts of the geographical area it depicts" (Johansen 1993: 98). In NOth"s terms, Caesar's phr.tse illustrates 'exophoric' iconicity. However. as MUller (this volume). who takes the rhetorical form of the utterance l't>ni, 1·idi. 1·ici into account, ha.'i shown. its iconic force goes beyond chronological iconicity. Calling its use as an illustration of merely diagmmmatic iconicity a misuse of a quotation. he demonstmtes that its asyndetic syntax (i.e. its lack of syntactic links) mirrono the swiftness of Caesar's actions. MUller also demonstrates that the repetition of first-person-singular verb forms. apart from their endings contributing to the sound effect. particularly convey an emphatic subjective verve ...a sense of the personal triumph of the speaker... In other words. the abrupt sequence of brief verbal forms in Caesar's phrase may be said to be exophorically iconic of the swiftness of his military action that led to victory. And it may be. as MUller (referring to Tabakowska 1999) adds. interpreted as mirroring Caesar's subjective view of the whole military experience. Now let us also briefly review some intm-linguistic or endophoric features of the Latin dictum. As Johansen has pointed out. what is peculiar to it is ..the internal organisation of the sound pattern·· (Johansen 1996: 48). First of all. and more diagrammatically. the increasing assonance of the three verbs ()i:) occurs once in \"elli but twice in \'idi and \'id) may be considered to reflect the growing momentum of Caesar's military operations. This vocalic emphasis is reinforced on the consonantal level: as Johansen has also pointed out. there is a gradual loss of sonority (from In) to (dl to (k]) in the sequence ... suggestive of hastened progression with a final punch in victory"' (Johansen 1996: 48). In addition. further endophoric features are noticeable in Caesar's dictum: its three words consist of two syllables. each containing a consonant and a long vowel. and they alliterate on )v). Rhythmically. the phrase consists of three spondees. which lend the short words weight and impact. These similarities and repetitions may semantically imply that the three actions were the same. not only equally swift. equally ea.-.y. but equally momentous too. whereas the alliteration highlights the initial sound of the phrasal climax. vid (a kind of Churchillian V-sign Cl\'tlllf Ia leflre so to speak). The iconic import of all this has been summarised by Jakobson to whom the .. symmetry of three disyllabic verbs with an identical initial consonant and identical final vowel add splendour to Caesar's laconic victory message: Veni. \'idi, \'ict" (Jakobson 1960: 358).

MAX NANNY AND OLGA FISCHER

Of course. the iconic features discussed here. be they imagic or diagr.1.m· matic. exophoric or endophoric, all occur in a medium. namely (wriuen) language. whose sign system is. in semiotic tenns. symbolical or conventional. that is. basically arbitrary. But as Johansen has rightly emphasised, there may be a ··friendly cohabitation of iconic and symbolic features (or similarity and conventionality) within one and the same sign.. (Johansen 1993: 227). And. referring to the iconic use of sounds in particular. he adds: ''The iconicity of linguistic sound. which plays a minor part in language as a system. plays a leading character in literature. especially in poetry.. (Johansen 1993: 227). The pervasive presence of iconic features in poetry or literature in general is made evident in many studies collected in this volume. illustrating iconicity of a visual (eg. Nanny. and to some extent White). an oraJ (Anderson. Norrman). or a more clearly structural kind (Ljungbcrg. Mtiller and Wolf). It is therefore not surprising to find that the great Mexican poet Octavia Paz sees iconicity as the es..o;ence of poetry. whose roots he discerns in ancient magic beliefs and practices (see the epigraph above). It is interesting to note that Paz refers to ancient practices. A number of studies in this volume are also concerned with the iconic foundations of language and the evolution of iconic features into symbolic ones (e.g. Fischer and Herlofsky). and. likewise. with the preservation of iconic features (Sadowski) or the rearrangement of features to preserve a basic iconicity (Conr.tdie).

The seventeen studies contained in this volume approach iconic aspects in language and literature from such various angles (semiotic. phonetic. graphemic. syntactic and textual) and from such different kinds of discourse (from cookerybook to poetic texts) that it is somewhat difficult to put the essays into welldefined sections. In a similar way. it is not reaJiy possible to divide up the studies according to types of iconicity. not only because most studies. based as they are on actual texts. deal with a variety of iconic types simultaneously, but also because the types themselves (as noted above) are not dear-cut and run into one another. Thus. Nomnan's study. for instance_ deaJs both with metaphoric (i.e. diagrammatic) and phonological (i.e. imagic) iconicity showing. in fact. how even the metaphorical may be imagic. while Anderson is not only interested in syntactic but aJso in onomatopoetic aspects of iconicity.

Part/ contains papers that are of a more theoretical or general nature. In the only purely semiotic study of this collection, Wi"friecl Niith draws our attention to a

INTRODUCTION

number of facts. For instance. he emphasises that Peirce's theory of signs. with its classification into icons. symbols and indexes. and into object, interpretant and representamen. was triadic and not dichotomic as often assumed. NOth aJso points out that iconicity represents a scale running from pure or genuine icons to hypo-icons. A second. already mentioned. point NOth makes is that 'form miming meaning' does not cover all forms of iconicity because 'form' may also mime 'form'. He distinguishes.therefore. between 'c:tophoric' and ·endophoric' iconicity. the latter standing for 'form miming form'. As we noted above. in order for form to mime form in such a way that we notice it.the miming needs to be significant. i.e. some referential meaning is needed to make any repetition of form meaningful: a mere repetition is only very abstractly iconic. In other words. iconic significance in an endophoric relation can only be found if there i.{ a relation between the repeated forms in question and some 'object' in the mind of the reader. The study by Joh11 White is a historical investigation devoted to an importunt liter.uy device. namely the miJe en abyme. Ranging through American. French and German literature. White discusses whether the mi.{e en ahyme may be seen as an example of iconicity. His analysis of the various uses of the device starts with Paul Auster's novel The Mtuic of Chance. in which a scale-model of the 'City of the World' occurs. He analyses the limited nature of its iconic isomorphism. its synecdochic quality and its synchronicity. White then describes the chequercd history of the term. which he traces back. through Morrissette and Datlenbach. to Gide's mirror analogy and its origin in heraldry, 'the shield within the shield'. By means of literary texts drawn from the works of Gide. Borges. Huxley and Jean Paul. he analyses examples of deferred iconicity. infinite regress or unending duplication. the similarity between embedded and embedding work. the double iconicity of exophoric and endophoric functions.ln a more theoretical part White. dr.1wing on such semioticians as Sebeok. Eco and Greenlee. discusses the Peircean context for the literary mise ell abyme. its location in the process of scmiosis. He finally studies a few literary uses of the mise ell abyme. its degrees of isomorphism. its endophoric and exophoric a.-.pects. especially in Kafka's The Trial and in Mann's The Magic Mou111ai11. By way of conclusion, he summarises the variety of functions of the device. from didactic. prophetic and cognitive to mystifying and magical. A possible scenario for the gradual evolution of language from a presymbolic system (where mimicry and iconic expressions play a primary role) to a system which began to make more and more use of arbitrary and purely grammatical signs is provided by William Herlofsky. What makes this attempt so interesting is the way in which he applies this conceivable evolution to a

MAX NANNY AND OLGA FISCHER

particular case. He shows how Chomsky"s so-called Binding Principles (which account for the way in which anaphora and referential expressions behave with respect to their antecedents within a certain linguistic domain) may have arisen out of real-world-space referential associations. In other words. he tries to explain how symbolic (i.e. arbitrary) anaphor.1 and their linguistic behaviour arose out of iconic and indexical 'ancestors'. Part II deals with one of the most basic iconic phenomena. namely iconically motivated sounds and onomatopoeia. Piotr Sadow.{ki is.like Herlofsky. interested in the role played by iconicity in the evolution of language. but his concern is the lexicon rather than syntax. He takes the group of words beginning with gfin English for his case study. He shows that these words fonn a coherent group referring to closely related semantic fields. According to Sadowski, this grouping cannot be accidental and suggests some sort of iconic motivation. In order to test in how far the g/-sounds are motivated by the meanings they convey. he considers the same sounds and the same semantic fields both diachronically and crosslinguistically. His findings are that in English the group of g/-words has dwindled in the course of time (from Old English to Modem English) so that their iconicity has become less pronounced. On the other hand. it is also interesting to see that foreign g/-words on the whole assimilated to the existing iconic semantic grouping when these words were borrowed into Middle English. He also finds that these gf-icons are to some extent language-specific. Even though they do occur in other Germanic and Celtic languages. they do not occur to any extent in the Romance languages. Quite likely.language-specific phonological constraints play a role here too. and these may have undermined an original iconic base. Essentially, Ralf Norn"a" is interested in the relation between the tenor and the vehicle in metaphors. He shows by means of the plant family of the cucurbits that the metaphorical use of the cucurbits in a large range of cultures and languages. both in modem and classical times. is remarkably similar. He indicates that there is a very strong iconic relation between the tenor and the vehicle. This appears not only in the fact that the cucurbits are used as symbols for life and death (which links up well with the fonn. the substance and the general nature of the cucurbits) but also in their phonological iconicity. In other words. the names for these plants are phonetically remarkably similar across different languages: the common core of velarity. labiality and reduplication that characterises the words used for cucurbits resembles their shape and fast growth.5 Both these points are supported by lavish illustrations from the literatures in a number of languages.

INTRODUCTION Earl A11derJo11 investigates a number of types of iconicity that he has found

in medieval English literature. showing how pervasive iconicity was from the very beginning of literary history. He first of aH notes that there are quite a lot of Middle English data where scribal substitution has produced iconic forms. Most of these are of the onomatopoeic variety. He next analyses the use of syntactic iconicity in Cacdmon's Hym11. This is of a more clearly artistic nature and it is both of a chronological (i.e. word order mimicking temporal order). as well as of a purposefully achronological kind. the poet manipulating the word order in order to provide a boundary between (human) history and (divine) eternity. The main part of Anderson's paper deals with the Old English translation of the anonymous Latin poem Carmen de m·e phoenice into what is known as Tire Phoenix. While the Latin poem is barren of any sensory experience. its Old English counterpart is full of it. For. as Anderson demonstrates, the translation makes elaborate use of all kinds of iconic sound-symbolic devices: such as the usc of high versus low vowels to contra<;! height. brightness and lightness with lowness, darkness and heaviness; the use of repeated heavy consonant clusters to indicate extreme contrasts: the use of phonacsthemes (e.g. words beginning with gr-} in what Anderson terms 'horizontal iconicity'; and. finally. the use of liquids and nasals on one hand and fricatives and plosives on the other to contrast curvilinearity and softness with angular and jagged shapes.

Part Ill assembles a group of essays that deal with iconicity on the visual. especially the graphemic level. Thus. Anne C. Henry investigates the iconic value of punctuation, especially of the ellipsis mark. She demonstrates how over the last four hundred years the variant graphic forms of ellipsis have evolved historically in direct response to changing litemry and linguistic preoccupations as well as economic conditions.6 Starting from the medieval use of marking omissions in manuscripts by means of blanks and asterisks, she traces step by step how the ellipsis marks developed from an iconic image or sign of absence. indicating a gap in the text. to the more or less conventionalised three dots of the present day. After briefly touching on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century phonetic theories. Henry investigates ellipsis marks in the age of print when they were used to mark direct speech and indicate pauses. She shows that especially in seventeenth-century drama. asterisks, points. long or short rules. hyphens. dashes became interchangeable visualisations of spoken omissions and intratextual stage directions. She also discusses the idiosyncratic use of ellipsis in the eighteenth-century novel (Fielding. Richardson. Sterne) and the Gothic novel. After pointing out that in the Victorian age the variant forms of ellipsis marks disappear from the novel and that the dash had become the preferred mark of ellipsis for British printers from then on, she states that this wa<; mainly done for

MAX NANNY AND OLGA FISCHER

economic reasons: that it was due to mechanised typecasting on one hand. and the Victorian preoccupation with completion and connection newly provided by the inventions of the railway and the telegraph on the other. After a brief look at modernists (Conro~d. Ford). who began to destroy the controlling force of the dash by replacing it with three points, Henry refers to the iconological aspects of ellipsis marks and pleads for a detailed and pragmatic ana1ysis of punctuation. Another typographic aspect is investigated by Max Niilmy, who analyses the iconic use of the visual length of a poetic line by such seventeenth- and eighteenth-century poets as Milton, Dryden and Pope. His study lirst looks at the iconic functions of the visually long line: as an iconic image it may indicate length. distance and lengthy objects (such as snakes, weapons - arrows and spears - . hair and streams). He also shows that by a metaphorical process the long line may suggest vastness (strength and growth). great height, tallness and width. In relation to its immediate context the projecting long line may further be used as a diagrammatic icon of swelling, spreading. stretching or of protrusion (tongue. peninsula) or. by metaphorical extension. excess (rhetorical excess) and surplus (abundance). Nanny then subjects the visually short line to a similar iconic scrutiny. which reveals that it may function as an iconic image of smallness. slimness. narrowness or, considered in its immediate context. as a diagram of contraction. If the white space that the short line leaves on its right is considered. this becomes an iconic emblem of blankness. vacuity or. metaphorically. loss and singularity. In addition, he analyses the contrast between long and short lines. He shows how it may function diagrammatically a.<; an indicator of duration. and how the staggering of gradually longer lines may serve as a diagram of growth or increase. In a similar way. gradually shorter lines may mirror steady shrinking or decline. Finally. the contrast between gradually longer and gradually shorter poetic lines may also be used as a diagrammatic icon for the notion of reversal. Taking the visual aspects of advertising as his field of iconic investigation. Robbie Goh shows how in it symbolic. sometimes indexical but especially iconic signs mark 'the body'. the material world. He illustrates how the physical shape and orientation of an advertisement may. for instance. suggest an upward movement. which at the same time conveys socio-economic aspirations. He points out that advertising tends to use more 'iconic body' than most texts. which is especially noticeable in the manipulation of printing fonts by means of lay-out. colour and texture. while at the same time making decreasing use of conventional. symbolic signs. This is true in particular when the consumer appealed to is less abstract and rational, less conventional: the bodily sign increasing. for instance. when the consumer is the 'youthful body'. Finally. Goh demonstr.ttes how the characteristics of the 'youth body' as shown in films and videos. which

INTRODUCTION

primarily centre on physical activity. frenzy. noise. is mimicked by the iconicity of advertising directed towards the youth market. Loretta Innocenti's contribution is concerned with the visual in a rather different sense. or even. one could say. in a 'negative' sense. dealing as it docs with the absence of visual imagcs.lt studies the conftict between iconoclasm and iconicity in seventecnth·century English poetry in the larger context of the theologkal controversy over the usc of images. a conflict in which the iconoclastic position of the Reformation was opposed to the iconophile attitude of the Counter Reformation. As Innocenti shows, the dispute was based on two different exegetic models: one considered the sign to be literal. whereas the other saw it a'\ based on figurality. characterised by meaning on muhiple levels. Innocenti investigates the rejection of figurality by both Milton and Donne: she shows how in Paradise Lnsr allegory is seen as negative and how in ''A Nocturnall upon St Lucies Day" metaphor is considered to be inadequate. However. according to Innocenti. in both texts verbal iconicity is employed and stands out against an iconoclastic trend. To Innocenti this demonstrates that when images and visual representation are rejected or distrusted. poetry still tends to represent immuterial objects by having recourse to iconicity. namely to conceptual or verbal iconic forms.

Parr IV is devoted to questions of iconicity in grammatical structure and is especially interested in how far conventional word order may have an iconic background (in terms of language development) or how word order may be varied or manipulated so that it becomes iconically meaningful. lac Conradie's specific aim in his study on the use of the .~-genitive versus that of the of-genitive in Present-day English is to find out in how far the particular form of the genitive reflects a natural or iconic word order. He suggests that the s-genitive mirrors S(ubject) V(erb) O(bject) word order. SVO can be seen as a structurally iconic order in that it mirrors an activity-bused narrative or temporal order. which he terms the Event Model. The s-genitive can then be said to be the result of the same narrative strategy a~ the SVO order. It is also typically found with a human. agent-like genitive noun phra~e. expressing a possessor. a causer or some other agentive subject. while the head noun following the genitive NP expresses the goal or the effectlresuh of an activity. This 'NP's N' order is thus in accordance with the typical SVO Event Model, showing also a beginning a process - and an end. The relation of the ,f·genitive with the Event Model can also be seen to have been strengthened diuchronically, for the s-genitive became restricted in English to the subjective and possessive functions of the genitive after the language had developed from a basic SOV language (in the Old English period)

10

MAX NANNY AND OLGA FISCHER

into a basic SVO language (in the late Middle English period). The Old English objective-genitive is now usually expressed by an iconic of-construction, which places the object of the activity behind the head noun - i.e. NP (objcct)'s N > N of NP(objcct) -. in accordance with the new SVO basic order. Another syntactic issue is addressed by Olga FiJcher. who shows that the position of the adjective. when variable. may be iconically motivated in that the linear order of adjective and noun determines the meaning of the noun phrase. When the adjective precedes the noun. it forms. as it were. a compound with the noun. denoting in its totality a particular category, which is different from the category presented by the noun when it occurs by itself. When the adjective follows the noun. however. it indicates only a particular aspect of the noun since. following the noun. it cannot change the nature of the noun. In the latter case the adjective is more verbal. whereas in the former case it is more nominal in nature. She supports this meaning difference by showing that in Old English. where adjective position was still variable. postnominal adjectives were indeed more verbal in that they combined with prepositional phrases. adverbs etc. in a way that prenominal adjectives do not. In modem English. adjectival position has become fixed and therefore conventional. i.e. meaning differences can no longer be conveyed by it. Phonological iconicity (i.e. stress) has now taken the place of the earlier linear iconicity. However, it is interesting to observe that. when postnominal adjectives are occasionally used in modem English poetry. the ·old' linear iconicity still plays a decisive role. A more pragmatic issue is dealt with by Frank Jt~men and Leo I..em::. who have looked at which options are available to writers of (Dutch) cookery books when they want to convey that two acts in the process of cooking have to be performed simultaneously. They first note that instructive texts are highly iconic in that the order of the written instructions in general strictly reHects the temporal order of the acts that have to be performed. Since simultaneity cannot be expressed in the exact linear order of language. there are two options available to the writer. There is the so-called lexical option. in which the reader is told explicitly that the two acts have to be done at the same time. But this option has a drawback in that the second half of the instruction may come too late. it being placed after the first act. Another option. which Jansen and Lentz term the iconic option. is to place the simultaneous act within the expression of the first act. The best way to do this is by the use of a present participle construction. This is so because. first of all, such present participles can more ea.
INTRODUCTION

II

iconically reflect the status of an act that is usually subordinate to the main instruction. which is given full·fl.edged morphological and syntactic status. Starting with a French colloquial sentence that expresses an indirect threat and whose syntaJt mirrors strong emotions, Jean-Jacq11es Lecerde first attempts adequate but ultimately impossible translations of it into English. He then analyses its emotional or iconic syntax.: ''the construction of meaning that generates at the .wmre time the predicative core of the sentence and its iconic

'distortion'··. After a general discussion of some rhetorical distorters (e.g. hyperbaton. asyndeton. tmesis. synchisis), whose syntax of emotion plays with and against the syntax of information and communication, Lccercle turns to the French sentence again. He investigates its syntactic structure in terms of iconic distortions: the spatial iconicity (dislocation) and temporal iconicity (rhythm) of its syntax. Lccercle describes the sentence as the site of two inverse movements: one looking forward. the other backward. The results of this are the semantic emptying of the predicative centre of the sentence and the accumulation of meaning at its end. He considers the French sentence to be an example of imagic emotional iconicity as the emotion is not just expressed but inscribed in the text. Next, Lecercle discusses the reflexive or (second-degree) diagrammatic iconicity of the French sentence in which the order of words exemplifies and also denotes the constitution of the linguistic sequence. its linearity. Finally. he states that the linguistic sequence as exemplified and denoted by the sentence is and is not a Markov chain. For on one hand its meaning is progressively constructed along the Markov chain of increasing determination while at the same time it is only achieved with the end-focus that projects it retrospectively along the chain (Lacan's "upholstery button"). Part V cannot be neatly separated from Pan IV since the majority of essays in both deal with textual structure, the linearity of words on the page. In Part IV. however. the structures are conventional and a regular part of grammar, while in Part V the emphasis is on structures in literary texts, which make more striking use of the possibilities in the patterns offered by the grammar (e.g. in the form of repetitions, inversions. etc.). They also show a more conscious use of form and order on a larger textual scale. which are often of a more clearly visual nature (such as would be impossible in spoken or everyday language). In a way. the study by Leccrcle provides a neat transition from IV to V, as it is less concerned with conventional syntax and thus offers an entry into the rhetorical structures that Wolfgallg Miiller discusses in his study. Starting with Caesar's dictum l't'lli, vidi, l'id, MUller demonstrates how its iconic force goes beyond chronological iconicity. which is due to the phrase's rhetorical form (for this see above). He then discusses how rhetorical iconicity may mirror perceptions and

12

MAX NANNY AND OLGA FISCHER

conceptions of reality. how rhetorical figures. e.g. hyperbaton and aposiopesis. imitate emotional states but that other figures. such a.'i syllogism and enthememe. reflect logical operations. After discussing 'autoiconism' and distinguishing between 'exophoric' and 'endophoric' iconicity. Miillcr. by mainly concentrating on examples of exophoric iconicity broadly understood (including emotions. acts of cognition, attitude. point of view and world-picture). then proceeds to analyse the iconic implications of a number of rhetorical figures. Using various passages from plays by Shakespeare. he analyses examples of ellipsis and repetition. anaphor.t and epistrophe. anadiplosis and climax. paronomasia and polyptoton. Mtiller also investigates figures of order such as syntactic climax or gradation. the law of the growing length of the parts of the sentence, hysteron proteron. parenthesis. anacoluthon and finally chiasmus. Taking a historical stance and working on a larger textual scale. Werner Wolf deals with the developing iconicity in landscape descriptions in English fiction. He analyses the way the verbal signs imitate the manner in which landscape has been perceived in tenns of thematic focus and discursive sequence. He shows that landscape descriptions before the mid-eighteenth century did not tend to imitate patterns of perception. but were instead inHuenced by other. logical and conventional. constraints. Thus. the landscape objects were usually listed from an omniscient. external and static point of view. Wolf demonstrates that when literature became more subjective. more 'natural' in the Romantic period. landscape description began to be presented a-. paintings. Creating the illusion of reality, presenting itself as 'real' not as fiction. such verbal landscape painting emanated from a personal and involved viewer. a character in the work itself. taking up a (dynamic) position in the fictional landscape. Christi11a Ljwrgberg's discussion of the iconic dimensions in Margaret Atwood's work is the only other study devoted to one single author. Looking both at her poetry and prose. Ljungberg investigates how Atwood uses iconicity in two poems and the novel The Robber Bride. She shows how in "Pas.toral Elegy'' Atwood. in order to suggest the idea of metamorphosis and rebirth, uses the device of the pattern poem by making the outlines of the text mirror the shape of a butterfly. In "This Is a Photograph of Me". she demonstrates how the themes are carefully distributed over the text. the middle lines functioning as a kind of divider mirroring the surface of the lake. the second half being submerged so to speak. She also shows how the poem by its use of pronouns enacts the transformation involved in the reading process. Turning to the novel Tire Robber Bride she then discovers that its frame narr.1tive contains diJTerent but tempordlly parallel narratives ('box sets') by each of the three main womencharacters. the whole fanning a kind of 'palindrome' in time and space. She

INTRODUCTION

13

shows that the narrative structure conforms to a symmetrical pattern of inversion of temporal space and that Atwood uses other fonns of palindromic mirror symmetry, such as reverse names and reverse language.

We hope that the studies presented here are a further convincing testimony - if need there be - to the pervasiveness. great variety. richness and subtlety of verbal iconicity. and that the investigations collected in this volume may be instrumental in stimulating further research into the motivated sign in language and literature.

Notes I.

For more papen> given at the Amsterdam conference that deal with language and litemture in the light of iconicity see the special number on lconicity of the £rUYJI1f'
2.

A brid dclinition of terms. an excerpt frum the "Introduction" IUld the abstracts of papers given at both conferences may be found un the website hup:l/es.unizh.cMconicityl.

3.

J.D. Johan.~en (1996:49-51), who seems to have been the ftrst 10 make a tenninological distinction here. calls the two types 'first degree' and 'second degree" iconicity or 'representational' and 'intro~.~ystemic' iconicity.. F'1r a critici~m of !his tenninology see Niilh (in !his volume).

4.

See his "Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics" (1960: 3511) and "Quest for !he Essence of Language" (1971: 350). Sec alSP Goh and MOller (this vnlume). 1be latter offers a lis! of scholan. that have made usc of Caesar's phro1.~e so far.

5. For !he idea that reduplicatinn functions as. an iconic sign of intensity and plurality (growth). see Kouwenberg and 6.

LaCharit~

(fnrtht."(lming).

It is interesting to nbserve in this respect that the iconicity of these written signs decrea.~es due to et."Onomic cnnditions pertaining to the pnnter's tmde. In a similar way. it has often been noced that iconicily and ecnnomy are linked in spoken language: greater cnmmunicative speed lwding to the lo,;.~ of iconicity in forms (cf. especially Haiman 1983).

References Fischer. 0. and M. Niinny. 1999. "Introduction: Iconicity as a Creative Force in Language Use"". In M. Nanny and 0. Fischer (eds), xv-xxxvi. Haiman, J. 1983. "Iconic and Economic Motivation". Language 59: 781-819.

14

MAX NANNY AND OLGA FISCHER

Johansen, J.D. 1993. Dialogic Semio.,i.t. An E.{.fU)' on Sign.f and Mew1ing. Bloomington &

Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Johansen, J.D. 1996. "lconicity in Literature". Semiorica 110: 37-55. Jakobson. R. 1960. ''Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics". In Style ill Lat!guage. Th. Sebeok. (ed.). 350-377. Cambridge. M:m.: M.l. T. Press. Jakobson, R. 1971. "Quest for the E.-.sence of Language [1965r. Selected Writings. Vol. II: ru,,J and Wt!guage. 345-377. The Hague: Mouton. Kouwenbcrg. S. and D. LaCharite. Forthcoming. 'The Iconic Interpretations of Reduplica-

tion: Issues in lhe Study of Reduplication in Caribbean Creole Languages" (to appear in Euro~an Journal of English Studies). Niinny, M. and 0. Fischer (eds). 1999. Form MimiiiR Meaning.lnmicity in Lang11age and Lilerumre. Am:>~erdam: Benjamins. Paz. 0. 1996 ...Lectura y Contemplaci6n··. Sonrhras de ohra.f. Ane y Lileralllra. Barcelona: Biblioleca de Bolsillo (1983) (our tr.mslation). Tabakowska. E. 1999 ... Linguisti~; Exp~ssion of Perceptual Relationships: Iconicity a.-. a Principle of Text Organization (A Ca~e Study)". In M. Niinny and 0. Fischer (eds). 409-422.

PART I General

Semiotic foundations of iconicity in language and literature Winfried Noth Uni\'er.{ity of Kauel and Catholic Uni\·ersity of Sdo Paulo

I.

Introduction: arbitrariness vs. ic:onicity

In his Course in General LinRuistic.~. Ferdinand de Saussure formulated his famous ..first principle of the nature of the language sign... which states: "The linguistic sign is arbitrary'' (1916: 67). According to this principle. there is nothing in a horse or in our mental image of a horse that explains why the English speDking world designates a mare or a staJlion as horse and not us chel•al. Pferd or canllo. For generations of scholars. this principle of arbitrariness had been a dogma of linguistics. However. this volume of collected papers, on The Motimted Sign and other recent research testifies to a new research paradigm. More and more iconic features are being discovered in language and literature at the levels of phonology. morphology. word fonnation. syntax. the text. and in the domain of language change (8ouissac et al.. eds. 1986: Waugh 1992: Hinton et al. 1994: Landsberg. ed. 1995: Simone. ed. 1995: Anderson 1999; Nanny and Fischer. eds. 1999). My own contribution to this volume deals with the semiotic foundations of iconidty in language and literature (see also NOth 1990a. 1990b. 1993. 1994, 2000). After all. iconicity is a semiotic concept. and it was Charles Sanders Peirce who introduced it in the fmmework of his general theory of signs. What did the founder of modem semiotics mean by iconicity. how did he define the iconic sign in contrast to other signs. and to what extent is Peirce's theory of iconicity relevant to the study of language and literuture'! These arc some of the questions I would like to discuss in Section 2.

18

WINFRIED NOTH

Section 3 will be dedicated to my own argument that iconicity in language goes beyond the principle of "form miming meaning". as Olga Fischer and Max Nanny put it in their Call for Papers. In addition to ··fonn miming meaning". we have to consider an essentially different kind of iconicity in language which is based on the principle of "fonn miming form". After this linguistic extension of the scope of iconicity. I want to conclude. in Section 4. with remarks on the ubiquity of iconicity in language and show that iconic signs are. to a certain degree. omnipresent in language and verbal communication.

2.

Iconicity according to Peirce

In the framework of Peirce's semiotic typology. the icon is defined according to the relationship between the sign and its object. What does Peirce mean by the object of the sign. and how is the iconic sign related to this object?

2.1 Icons. indice.f, and s)'ltrbo/.~ Iconicity has often been defined in contrast to arbitrariness. and the opposition of the iconic vs. the arbitmry sign has frequently been associated with the dichoto· my of the natural vs. the conventional sign: the icon is the natural sign. which is similar to its object of reference. while the arbitrary sign is the conventional sign. which evinces no similarity to its referential object. Such dichotomic classifications are not in the spirit of Peirce's theory of signs. which is essentially ba.-.ed on triadic classifications. Thus. the cla.-.s of icons is not only opposed to the class of arbitrary signs. which Peirce calls symbols. but at the same time to the class of indexical signs. This triad of signs is defined according to the criterion of the relation between the sign vehicle and its referential object. In the case of the icon. the sign vehicle ··resembles" its object or "partakes in its characters" (CP 3.362, 4.531 ). Pictures. portraits. and realistic paintings are the prototype of iconic signs. In the case of the index. the sign vehicle evinces an existential connection with its object. There is a relationship of cause and effect, or a temporal. local or physical link between the sign and its object. The so-called natural signs. such as weather signs. symptoms of diseases or Sherlock Holmes's clues are typically indexical signs. In language. deictic words. such as/, here. and trow, exemplify the class of indexical signs.

SEMIOTIC FOUNDATIONS OF !CONICITY

19

Finally. the category of symbol.f consists of arbitmry and conventional signs. A symbol. according to Peirce (CP 2.249) "is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of law. usuaJiy an association of general ideas". Icons. indices. and symbols are by no means mutually exclusive categories. Every language sign. even an iconic or an indexical word is a symbol. In this respect. deictic words are indexical symbols. and iconicity in language is iconicity in symbolic signs.

2.2 Icons ami llypoicons in relation to their objects The criterion of iconicity generally adopted in language studies is the similarity between the verbal sign and its object. Similarity. however. is not really Peirce's central criterion of iconicity. Peirce distinguishes between the genuine or pure icon a.'i the ideal and at the same time unattainable borderline ca.'ie of iconicity and the actually iconic sign, which he calls hypoicon (CP 2.276) and which he defines as a degenerate. i.e., an imperfect, or derived kind of icon. A gen11ine ico11 is more than merely similar to its object It fulfils its semiotic function "by virtue of a char.1cter which it possesses in itself', so that the genuine icon ''does not draw any distinction between itself and its object"' says Peirce (CP 5.73-74) and concludes: the genuine icon "is an affair of suchness only"'. Sign and object merge in one (Santaella 1995: 143), and the genuine icon turns out to be its own object. referring to nothing but itself (cf. CP 2.230). We are thus confronted with an autoreferential or self-representing sign (Ransdell 1979: 57). Peirce summarizes these characteristics of genuine iconicity when he states that the pure icon is a sign "by virtue of its being an immediate image. that is to say by virtue of chardcters which belong to it in itself as a sensible object, and which it would possess just the same were there no object in nature that it resembled" (CP 4.447). In contrast to the genuine icon. the l1ypoicon is only similar to its object. and it shares only some of its features with its object. There is thus a scale of iconicity from hypoiconicity to pure iconicity. ranging from hypoicons which share only few features with their objects to genuine icons which are no longer different from their objects. but at the end of this scale. the genuine icon is a mere abstraction. No actually produced icon can be a genuine icon. This volume on iconicity in language is thus actually a book on Hypoiconicity. Of course. I do not seriously want to suggest a change of terminology. but on the other hand. the concept of hypoiconicity in language is useful in so far a.'i it draws our attention to the fact that every verbal icon is not only an icon. but at the same time also a symbol. sometimes also with indexical elements.

20

WINFRIED NOTH

2.3 The llllfllre of the object The sign vehicle and its object are only two constituents of the sign. whose definition is a triadic one according to one of Peirce's descriptions: A sign. or represt•lllamtm, is .~omething which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. II add~s:.es somcbody.that is, create:. in the mind of that pcn;on an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the imerprettiiU of the Jirst sign. The sign stands for something. its obje('t. It stands for that obje<:t. not in all respects. but in reference to a son of idea. (CP 2.228)

What is the nature of this object that is represented by similarity in an icon'! The object of a sign, according to Peirce, is no object of an external reality. no object that exists independently of the sign. Peirce says nothing about the 'reality' of this object at all and describes it
SEMIOTIC FOUNDATIONS OF !CONICITY

21

Since the dynamical object remains ultimately concealed to our cognition even though it ..determines.. it (CP 4.536). it is evident that judgements of iconicity. i.e .. of similarities between sign vehicles and their objects can only have the immediate object as their correlate. 2.4 Three types of icmridty

We now come to Peirce's subdivision of iconic signs. whose relevance to language studies was. first discovered by Roman Jakobson (1965. 1977). Today. the three subclasses of the icon are well known to specialists in linguistic iconicity. According to the first. called 'imaginal iconicity'. the sign evinces an immediately perceptible similarity to its object of reference. as for instance in the onomatopoeic words c11ckoo or ping-pong. In the second category. called 'diagro~mmatic iconicity'. the similarity between the sign and its object is only a struciUral or relational one. as in the case of a narrative told according to the ordo nawralis of the events: the sequence of the propositions of the narrative is the same as the sequence of the events represented in this narrative. Finally. 'metaphorical iconicity'. according to Peirce. is mediated iconicity. The ideas conveyed by the sign and the idea of its object are mediated by a third idea. the tertillm comparatio11is between the tenor and the vehicle of the metaphor. Let us briefly illustrate the second and the third kind of iconicity with the English proverb March comes i11 like a lion and goes 0111 like a lamb. This proverb evinces both diagrammatic and metaphorical iconicity. The sequence of the two main clauses A (Marc:JJ come.~ i11) and 8 ([Marcil/ goes 0111). linked by the conjunction. reflects the temporal sequence of A and B. The word order conveys the idea of a temporal world order which is otherwise only implicit in the semantic structure of the proverb. This is the principle of diagrammatic iconicity: a correspondence between a structural pattern and its meaning. At the same time,the proverb also evinces metapJJorical iconicity. Although there is no metaphor in the sense of rhetoric, but only a simile in the comparisons of the month of March to lions and Jambs, there is nevertheless metaphorical iconicity according to Peirce's broader definition. which describes a metaphorical icon as a sign ..which represents 1... 1 by representing a pamllelism in something else" (CP 2.277).

J.

Exophoric and endophoric iconicity

The examples of iconicity discussed so far comply with the definition of iconicity as ''form miming meaning": words. according to this principle, serve as

22

WINFRIED N6TH

icons of the world. and iconicity consists of a signans-signatum relationship. However. there are two basically distinct principles of miming in language: form miming meaning and form miming form. which occurs in verbal repetition or more generally in symmetries in language and discourse. as we will see below. I have called the first principle exophoric and the second principle endophoric iconicity (NOth 199Gb). The term ex.ophoric reminds us that the verbal sign relates to something beyond language. while the term endophoric has to do with relations of reference within language. The distinction between these two types of iconicity has also been recognized by Johansen ( 1996: 49-51 ), who differentiates between 'first' and 'second degree iconicity' and defines the former a..; 'representational' and the Iauer as 'intrasystemic'. The terms chosen by Johansen are unfortunate for two reasons. One is that the distinction between exophoric and endophoric iconicity differentiates between two modes of reference and not between degrees of iconicity. The other is that endophoric iconicity is intratextual and not intr.uystemk (according to Hjelmslev's distinction between text and sy.ttem (cf. NOth 1990a: 2000: 79-80). 3.1 ExopJwric iconicity in language a11d literature Exophoric iconicity has been the center of interest in the study of linguistic iconicity since Roman Jak.obson.ln the present volume. the potential of language to depict the world by means of verbal icons is being explored by many others so that I do not need to give a more detailed account of this kind of iconicity in language in this paper. As far as literature is concerned. exophoric iconicity ha..; been studied a..; a feature of literary texts or a characteristic literary device. but the much stronger thesis has also been put forward that iconicity is the very essence of litemture. The origins of this thesis are in the ancient theory of litemry mimesis. Literature should be like a mirror that faithfully depicts the structures of the world. said Socmtes in Plato's Republic (X. 596). and Horace compared poetic mimesis to painting in his Arspoetica (361). Lessing. in 1769. wrote: ''Poetry must necessarily seek to mise its signs from arbitmry to natural ones [ ... ).The means by which it achieves it are the sounds of the words. word order. length of syllables. figures and tropes. comparisons. etc. All these things bring arbitr.1ry signs closer to natuml ones" (Letter to F. Nicolai of 5-2~1769). Three hundred years later. it was Jurij Lotman. who developed a theory of literary iconicity. Based on the premise "that signs in art are iconic rather than conventional", Lotman's thesis is that in literature. there is ··a semantization of verbal signs with the result that signs become the model of their own content" (Lotman 1970: 21).

SEMIOTIC FOUNDATIONS OF !CONICITY

23

3.2 Emloplwric iconicity in language

Let us now tum to endophoric iconicity in language and literature. There are two directions in which a language sign can be iconically mapped within language. One is along the syntagmatic. the other is along the paradigmatic axis of language. Syntagmatic iconicity is iconicity within the linearity of text or discourse: repetition. pacaJlelism. alliteration. rhyme and meter are various modes of syntagmatic iconicity. The most primitive instance of this type of iconicity can be found in the reduplicative word formations mama and papa. where the second syllable repeats, and is thus an icon of the first. Pamdigmatic iconicity is iconicity within the language system. It is mostly of the diagrammatic kind. Paradigms of grammar and word formation arc parudigmatically iconic in this sense: the singular/plurul opposition which we find in catkats is the result of an iconic mapping of a form prescribed by a morphological rule to hundreds of nouns like cat/cat.{, rat/rat.{, or pet/pet.{. The word formations of child language mama/papa or mammylpapfJy!natmy illustrate a different type of paradigmatic iconicity. which occurs at the submorphemic level. creating a paradigm of words designating close relatives of the infant. 3.3 Symmetry as the Rt!llt:ralmodel of iconicity in laiiRIWf:t! The most general model of iconicity in language is symmetry in its broader geometrical sense, according to which three main types of symmetry can be distinguished. namely mirror symmetry. the symmetry which we find between lowercase p and q. translative symmetry, which is the symmetry of mere repetition (p p p ... ) and antisymmetry, which is a symmetry of two forms which differ with respect to one striking feature. as for example a black p and a white p. or a black p and a white q, In syntagmatic iconicity in language. we find parallelisms. reduplicative word formations and mere repetitions as genuine instances of translative symmetry. Mirror symmetry occurs in rhetorical figures such as chiasmus (e.g .. day by night a11d 11iglu by day) or anadiplosis (e.g .. my .~ill is great. greCII is my .~ill), there is translative symmetry in repetitions and parallel· isms. and antisymmetry is best illustr.ned by pairs of opposites. llllppy or .md. come and go. in and out.lion and lamb. as in our proverb March comes in like a lion and ~:oes mil like a lamb.

Both translative and mirror symmetry can be found in the beginning of the famous tongue twister She sell.{ sea shei/J . .. The sequence of the initial canso· nants evinces mirror symmetry, since J-s in the first half of this line is inverted as .f-J in the second half. The vowel pattern. by contrast. is one of translative symmetry: the vowel pattern i-e in .file .ndl.\· is the same a" in sea .{helk

24

WINFRIED NOTH

Sire

sei/J

shells (mirror symmetry) (translative symmetry)

We thus have two conflicting principles of iconicity in one line. and it seems to be precisely this conftict which is responsible for the phonetic difficulty of the tongue twister. 3.4 Literary self-reference and iconicity

After

e~tending

the scope of iconicity from exophoric to cndophoric iconicity.

we can now reconsider the theory of literary mimesis. The thesis defended from Socrates and Horace to Lessing and Lotman was that the essence of literature is in exophoric iconidty. i.e .. in the principle of form miming meaning. This line of argument seems to be in conflict with a different tradition of literary aesthetics, the theory of literary autonomy or self-reference. This theory states that the essence of literature is not in its exophoric way of depicting the world. but in its endophoric way of referring to itself. Alexander Pope, for example. had the literary ideal of the "poem per .{e [ ... J wrillen solely for the poem's sake", T. S. Eliot postulated that we should "consider poetry[ ... ) primarily as poetry and not another thing" (Abrams 1953: 27). and Archibald MacLeish's argument was: "A poem should not mean I But be". Roman Jakobsen's theory of literariness follows this tradition. His thesis that the essence of poetry consists in the "reiteration of equivalent units'' (Jakobson 1960: 358) is a thesis of literary self-reference. Self-reference. however. does not exclude iconicity. it only excludes exophoric iconicity. Selfreference is in fact inherent in the principle of endophoric iconicity. according to which language is only related to language. and not to the world. Self-reference, as we saw above (2.2). is also inherent in Peirce's concept of the genuine icon. This means that the principle of iconicity is in fact the common denominator of the seemingly opposite theories of literary aesthetics. the theory of literary mimesis and the theory of literary autonomy.

4.

Ubiquity or iconicity in language

We began our paper with a discussion of the essentially arbitrary and symbolic nature of language according to Saussure and Peirce. and we now conclude with the topic of the ubiquity of iconicity in language. Docs this mean that the results of research in linguistic iconicity justify a rejection of the Saussurean dogma and

SEMIOTIC FOUNDATIONS OF !CONICITY

25

require its substitution by a new dogma of iconicity in language? The answer is no: arbitrariness and iconicity ace not a matter of either-or; one principle does not exclude the other. Language is both iconic and arbitrary. and it is our task to specify to which degree and in which respect language consists of iconic and of symbolic signs. As far as the ubiquity of iconicity in language is concerned. I do not wish to give a summary of the many forms and types of iconicity in language at this point.lnstead.l want to conclude with a brief account of three more fundamental ways in which iconicity is omnipresent in verbal communication. The first has to do with the omnipresence of mental images in thought and hence with iconicity in cognition in generaL the second concerns the necessity of iconic signs in creative discourse, and the third is the topic of iconicity as a prerequisite of mutual under5tanding in communication in general.

4.1 kmriciryofcogniritm The reason why cognition in general involves iconicity has to do with the essentially semiotic nature of all cognition according to Peirce. Anything immediately perceived in its "suchness'' evinces the iconicity of a genuine icon in the sense discussed above (see 2.2). even before the perceptual phenomenon is related to anything else. and when the interpreter of a sign relates it to an object of reference. this process involves another kind of iconicity, which is due to the iconic nature of the immediate object. The immediate object of the sign. as we have seen above (2.3) presupposes n prior acquaintance with this object, and this prior acquaintance meuns that the sign evokes an image. i.e .. an iconic sign. of this object in our mind. This is the reason why both icons and immediate objects are related to the pa.;t, and this relatedness to the past distinguishes the iconic from the indexical and the symbolic as follows: "An icon ha.; such being as belongs to past experience. It exists only as an image in the mind. An index has the being of present experience. The being of a symbol consists in the real fact that [ ... [ it will influence the thought and conduct of its interpreter. [ ... ) It serves to make thought and conduct rational and enables us to predict the future" (CP 4.447-48). It is not possible. in this paper. to say much more about the specific differences between icons. indices and symbols. Let it suffice to recall that icons are not a separate class of language signs besides indices and symbols. In fact. every word is a symbol. but. a.; Peirce emphasizes (CP 4.447), "a symbol may have an icon or an index incorporated in if'. All nouns, verbs. and adjectives. for example. are iconic. insofar as their interpretation involves "the calling up of an

26

WINFRIED NOTH

image" (ibid.). and Peirce concludes that "the most perfect of signs are those in which the iconic, indicative. and symbolic characters are blended as equa11y as possible'' (CP 4.448).

4.2 /conicity as .m11rce of crealidty Icons are thus omnipresent in language. We need icons to evoke mental images of past experience and therefore. ''the only way of directly communicating an idea is by means of an icon" (CP 2.278). Since we cannot say anything about the world without evoking mental images. Peirce concludes that "every assertion must contain an icon or a set of icons" (ibid.). But iconicity is not restricted to

the familiar images of the past. Icons are also necessary to create new ideas. since the only way of conveying new ideas is by means of ··a complexus of [ ... ) icons". We can only create new ideas by transfonning existing images. Only by means of a conjunction or a disjunction of icons can we arrive at ..composite images of which the whole is not (yet] familiar'' (CP 3.433). 4.3 /conicity as a prerequi.~ire ofmutuallmder.rrandi"g The last facet of the ubiquity of iconicity in language has to do with the necessity of some kind of pardllelism between the speaker's message and the hearer's interpretation of iL The latter must be iconic of the former to a certain degree if verbal communication is to be successful. Peirce gives the following account of this kind of iconicity between a producer and the receiver of a message: The deliverer [of an assertion) makes signals to the receiver. Some of these signs( ... [~ supposed to eltcite in the mind of the receiver familiar images, pictures( ... ], reminiscences of sights. sounds, feelings, tastes, smells, or other sensalions. now quite detached from the original circumstances of the lirsl occurrence. [... ] The deliverer is able to call up these images at will [ ... ] in his own mind: and he supposes the receiver can do the same.[ ... ] The image which it [i.e .. te sign) is expected to excite in the mind of the receiver will likewise be a sign - a sign by resemblance, or. iLo; we can say, an icon - of the similar image in the mind of the deliverer. (CP 3.433)

The successful communication of an idea from a speaker to a hearer thus involves three levels of iconic sign production. The first and the second occur in the speaker's and hearer's minds. where .. familiar images'' are evoked. The third is due to the parallelism between these two images. which makes the hearer's image an icon of the speaker's image. Notice. however. that this iconicity in the parallelism between the speaker's and the hearer's interpretations of the sign." is

SEMIOTIC FOUNDATIONS OF !CONICITY

27

by no means a perfect symmetry. On the contrary. the speaker can only suppose

or perhaps hope that the hearer evokes the same images. but actually there are always differences which remain and give rise to a dialogic "sequence of successive interpretations" in the process of unlimited semiosis. which is the necessary prerequisite of the growth of signs.

References Abrdms, M.H. 1953. TheMirrorandtlleUtmp. London: Oxford University Press. Ander.;on, E.R. 1999. A Grammarofkoni.fm. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press. Bouissac. P.. M. Herzfeld and R. Posner (eds). 1986. /cmJiciry: E.ua_\'.f 011 the Nature of Cullilre. Tiibingen: Stauffenburg. Haiman, J. (ed.). 1985./conidt_\' in S_\·nta:c. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Hinton, L., J. Nichols and J.J. Ohalla (eds). 1994. Sound Symbolism. Cambridge University Press. Jakobson. R. 1960. "Linguistics and Poetics". In T.A. Sebeok (ed.). 350-317. Jakobson. R. (1965) 1971. ''Quest for the Essence of Language". In Roman Jakobson. Selected Writing.f II. 345-359. The Hague: MoUion. Jakobson, R. 1977. "A Few Remarks on Peirce, Pathfinder in the Science of Language". In Roman Jakobson. Sefecud Writings VII. 248-253. The Hague: Mouton. Johansen. J.D. 1996. "lconicity in Literature". Semiotic·a I 10: 37-55. Landsberg. M.E. ted.). 1995. Syntactic lco11id~· and Umguage Free:es: 171e Human Dimension. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. lotman, J. M. (1970) 1972. Die Strukmr literariscl!er Te.tte. Mi.lnchen: Fink. Niinny. M. and 0. Fischer (eds). 1999. Form Miming Meaning: lconicit)' in LanguaRe and Uteramre. Amsterdam: Benjamins. NOth, W. 1990a. HandbookofSemiotit's. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press. Ntith, W. 1990b. "The Semiotic Potential for lconicity in Spoken and Wrinen Language". Kodika.f/Code 13: 191-209. Ntith, W. 1993. "(conicity of Symmetries and Asymmetries in Syntactic Coordination". In Von der Sprache :.ur Literamr: Moti\·inheit im spradliif·l!en und im poetist·hen Kode, C. KUper (ed.), 23-36. Ti.lbingen: Staulfenburg. NOth. W. 1994. "Symmetry in Oral and Written Language". In Writing \'S. Speaki11g, S. Cmejrkova. F. Danes and E. Havlova (eds), 97-110. Tilbingen: Narr. Niith. W. 2000. Handbucl! der Semiotik. 2. Aufl. Stuttgart: Metzler. Pape. H. 1996. "Object and Final Cause in Peirce's Semeiotic". In Peirce:f Doctrin of Sign.f, V.M. Colapietro and T.M. Olshewsky (eds). 103-117. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Peirce. C.S. 1931-58. Collected Papen. Vols. 1-6. eds C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss, vols. 7-8, ed. A. W. Burks. Cambridge. Mass.: Hantard Univ. Press. (Quoted as CP. Reference is made to vols. and pardgraphs.)

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Ransdell, J. 1979. "The Epistemic Function of lconidty in Perception' . Pdrn! Studies 1: 51-66. Santaclla, L. 1995. A 1eoria gaul do.~ .fiJ:IIO.f. Sii.o Paulo: Atica. Saussure. Ferdinand de. (1916) 1959. Course;, General Lillt:uistics. eds C. Bally and A. Sechehaye. trans!. W. Ba.-.kin, New York: McGraw-Hill. Simone, R. {cd.). 1995. /co11icity itll...oiiJ:IIUge. Amsterdam: Bcnjamins. Waugh. L. 1992. ''Let's Take the Con out of lconicity: Constraints on lconicity in the Lexicon". The American Journal ofSemiotic.f 9: 7-48.

The semiotics of the mise-en-abyme John J. White King:f College, London

1.

WiUie Stone's ''City of the World,.: The microcosmic model as mise en abyme

In Chapter 4 of Paul Auster's The Mu.~icofCirance, Nashe and Pozzi.the novel's footloose protagonists. are the recipients of a guided tour of the lavish mansion at which they have arrived in order to take part in a mammoth poker-playing session with Flower and Stone. two aflluent recluses living on a remote Pennsylvanian estate off the proceeds of a lottery-win. The episode's highpoint occurs at the moment when they are introduced to Willie Stone's prize possession: ··a miniature scale-model rendering of a city. with its crazy spires and lifelike buildings, its narrow streets and microscopic human figures .. (Auster 1992: 79). WiJiie's ..City of the World". as the model is caJlcd. is destined to play a major role in the ensuing action. For after Pozzi has surreptitiously removed a pair of miniature figures from it. the fortunes of the two visiting gamblers take a distinct tum for the worse. with them eventually losing the entire game. forfeiting all lheir remaining possessions and spending many months. as reparation for outstanding debts. engaged in the Sisyphusean task of erecting a vast and purposeless wall. That Willie's City of the World is a magic microcosm becomes clear from the fact that interfering with it is equated with "tampering with the universe" ( 138). As a consequence an ''evil spell" is assumed to be ca.,t on the intruders. one which will only be exorcized when the stolen objects have been ritually given up as a burnt offering ( 140f.). 1 A. A. Moles regards the scale·model a.<> one of the most faithfully replicating examples of iconicity conceivable (Moles 1981) -a claim which might lead one to expect more interest in literature's various appropriations of model railway

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JOHN J. WHITE

layouts. dolls' houses and relief maps than cultural semioticians have so far shown. Yet in the majority of the instances I will be exploring. aesthetic effect tends - for good reasons - to derive from a limited degree of iconic isomor· phism. rather than from any large-scale fidelity to the object being replicated. In the particular case of Willie's ma.'ilerpiece, what we have is far from being the simple scale model that Na.'ihe and Poui at first take it to be. What had initially looked like nothing more than the replica of a specific Pennsylvanian location also stands for the world ;, toto. Not the contemporary world where the novel's characters live and move and have their being, but a utopian realm of poetic justice in which good eventually always triumphs over evil and where virtue. when lost. can be "recovered through hard work" (80). "It's the way l"d like the world to look". Willie confides. adding cryptically: "Everything in it happens at once". What these two seemingly incongruous statements hint at is the fact that Willie's model has been designed to synthesize the diachronic and the synchronic. largely because such a configuration is able to bring out the causal nexus between evil and retribution. on the one hand. and the interplay between chance and preordained occurrences. on the other. As far a.o; the mi.~e en abyme's semiotic status as a potential iconic device is concerned. Rower's assertion that the City of the World is no more than "an imaginary place" (80). notwithstanding its copious realistic detail. could even be seen a.o; an illustration of C.S. Peirce's point that "an icon is a sign which would possess the character which renders it significant. even though its object has no existence" (CP 2: 304). Another important feature of this particular model is the way in which it combines biogrdphical ingredients from its maker's life with the epic sweep suggested by its title. "Willie's city is mo~ than just a toy··. Aower said. "'it's an artistic vision or mankind. In one way it"s an autobiography. but in another way. it's what you might call a utopia - a place where the past and future come together, where good finally triumphs over evil. If you l(l{lk carefully. you'll sec that many or the figures actually represent Willie himself. lbcrc. in the playground. you see him as a child. Over the~. you see him grinding lenses in his shop a.~ a grown man. There, on the comer of that street. you sec the two or us buying the lottery ticket. His wife and parents are buried in the l"Cmetery over here. but there they are again, hovering as angels over that house. I[ you bend down, you sec Willie's daughter holding his hand on the front steps. That's what you might call the private backdrop. the personal material, the inner component. But these things are set in a larger context. .. " (79[.)

But of course. it is not only "the World". understood in one particularly idiosyncmtic sense. that Willie's ingenious model ultimately reflects: there are also

THE SEMIOTICS OF THE MISE EN ABYME

31

points of similarity with the novel in which it is being described. Model and

work of fiction share various characters. settings and thematic interests, in particular they are both concerned with what the title calls "the music of chance''. Thus. Willie Rower's microcosm of the world functions at the same time as a mise en abyme of Auster's novel. For all Rower's euphoria. Willie's replica-project is presented a-; being ''only about half finished" (79). which may at first come across as incompatible with our knowledge that the area Willie has left empty amounts to only one small portion of the platform on which his City of the World has been erected. Yet gradually we come to appreciate just what he means: viewed synoptically. the model may create the impression of being well advanced. yet it still remains little more than half-finished for a very specific reason. "'I'm thinking of doing a scpardte model of this room" [Willie declares]. "Td have to be in it. of course. which means that I would also have to build another City of the World. A smaller one. a second city to fit inside the room within the room."[ ... ] "But if you did a model of the model"", Na.~he said. "then theoretically you'd have to do an even smaller model of that model. A model of the model of the model. It could go on forever."" (pp. 80f.)

Willie concedes that it would be ··very difficult to get past the second stage". adding: "I'm not just talking about the construction. I'm also talking about time" (81). "Time", which here above all means creative time. may be interpreted as a modest gesture towards the challenge - as much spatial as temporal - of embarking on such an infinite construct. That is to say: at the same time as the designation "City of the World" suggests a topogr.tphical microcosm whose representative significance extends outwards from city-paradigm to encompass the entire planet viewed sub specie aeternitatis. the tantalizingly vacant space on the layout has been left deliberately free for a Chinese box-like construction of the room in which the characters are standing. one conceived of as having the ability to replicate itself in ever-diminishing versions in a process which could continue. in theory at least. to the point of infinity.2 "MiJe e11 abyme", in the words of one of the leading authorities on the subject. "is not only an iconic relation. it must also be a .{ynecdoche' (Ron 1987: 430). a truth which Willie's model illustrates particularly vividly. For while the word City in the title Willie gives his project is a pars pro toto sign for the World. the actual room the characters arc assembled in to look at the model is. as we have seen. planned to generate a continually shrinking series of reftcctions contained in the model of the room within the room etc. Hence. the reader is confronted with an embodiment of two interlocking principles: that of a simultaneously expanding and infinitely shrinking iconic universe. Added to which. Willie's construction

32

JOHN J. WHITE

represents the diachronic through a synchronic model. much in the manner of certain medieval paintings. However. the process of signification here is more complex than even this suggests. for the model's synchronicity must. at lea~t hypothetically.embrace the future as well as the past. This future-oriented aspect is touched on at one point: Sooner or later. Nashc thought, there would be a new section to represent where he wa.~ now, a scale model of the wall and the meadow and the trailer, and once these things were finished, two tiny figures would be set down in the middle of the field: one for Pozzi and one for himself. The idea of such extrava~:~ant smallness began to eltcrt an almost unbearable fa.o;cination over Nashe. Sometimes. powerless to stop him-.clf. he even went so far a.<> to imagine that he was already living inside the model. Aower and Stone would look down on him then, and he would suddenly be able to see himself thmugh their eyes - a.~ if he were no larger than a thumb, a little gray mouse darting back and forth in his cage. (178)

This forward-projecting aspect of the mOOel's synchronicity (what has elsewhere been e1tplored as mi.~e en abyme's potential for ''the prophetic in narrative" (Jefferson 1983: 196)) is brought out much more unequivocally in the film version of the novel. as the wall and effigies of Nashe and Pozzi toiling away at its construction are later found to have been incorporated in the meantime. The story "Partial Magic in the Quixote" in Borges's Otras ltrqlli.~icimre.f (English: Lllhyrimlu) contains an analogous imaginative sequence. one with a bearing on the thoughts going through Nashe's head as the "invention and elaborateness-· of Willie's mOOel (Auster 1992: 79) slowly begin to dawn on him: The inventions of philosophy arc no less fanta~tic than those of art: Josiah Royce, in Volume One of his work Tile World and 1he /ndi1•iduul (1899), has formulated the following proposal: "Let us imagine that a portion of the soil of England has been levelled off perfectly and that on it a cartographer truces a map of England. The result is perfect: there is no detail of the soil of England, no matter how minute, that is not registered on the map: everything has there its correspondence. This map, in such a ca.~e. would have to contain a map of the map, which would have to contain a map of the map of the map, and so on ad ilifmiwm." Why should it disturb us that the map be included in the map and the thousand and one nights included in the book of Tile Tltmmmd and One Ni~:llt.~? Why does it disturb us that Don Quixote is a reader of Don Qui:cnle and Hamlet a spectator of Hamlet? I believe I have found the reason: such inversions suggest that if the characters of a fiction can be readers or spe~o1ators, we, its readers or spectators, can be fictitiou.<;. (Borges 1989:47. my tmnslation)

THE SEMIOTICS OF THE MISE EN ABYM£

33

According to Borges's narr.llor. the more blurred the perceived demarcation between what is sign and what object, between fiction and reality. the more

destabilizing the ovemll effect will become. in epistemological tenns. To be sure. while not all liter.uy mises e11 abyme display such philosophical potential. they have in most ca.'ies been inserted to ra.ise questions about the world itself. not just a.'i an incestuous fonn of aesthetic reflexivity. I would therefore argue that the device can be of considerable interest to scmioticians as a further example of iconicity as an aesthetic effect, and one displaying more complications and layers of semiosis than one finds in many of literature's more familiar

iconic effects. Nevertheless. before such features can be explored. we shall have to consider: (i) just what mise en abyme is and (ii) whether it is legitimate to see it as an example of iconic signification. as defined by Peirce. r.tther than just an instance of similarity between two kinds of literary constituent. 3

2.

Mise en abyme: The device and its critical reception

The term miJe etr abyme owes its existence (albeit by devious routes) to an entry in Andre Gide's Journal for 1893. "In a work of art", Gide writes. "I rather like to find. transposed, at the level of the characters. the subject of the work itself. Nothing sheds more light on the work or displays the proportions of the whole [... ( more accurately"' (Gidc 1967: 30). This entry's various interlocking assumptions - according to which the mise e11 abyme (a miniature version of the work within the work, or an image which reflects certain key features of the whole) helps illuminate "the subject of the work itself' and such mirroring takes place primarily "at the level of the char"J.cters" - have by no means met with unanimous approval. On the other hand. Gide's subsequent recourse to a succinctly explained heraldic image to elucidate what he had in mind did evidently strike a chord with many: ... what would explain beuer what I'd wanted to do in my Cal!ier.f, in in La Temutil't" (later he could have added l.L.f Fuw.:-Mmma_\'be a ~:omparison with the device from heraldry that involves putting a second representation of lhe original shield "en abyme" within it.

Nun·i.ue and L'IIn]. would

(Gide 1967: JOf.)

The phrase mi.fe enabyme does not. of course. explicitly figure here. In fact. it was first proposed in Claude-Edmonde Magny's Hi.ftoirec/11 romanfranrai.fclepllis 1918 (cf. Magny 1950:269-278 and Dlillenbach 1989:20-26 and 195). Thereafter. it mpidly mdiated outwards from the confines of Gide-scholarship to

34

JOHN J. WHITE

establish a nodal place for itself. above all in critical litemture on the French 'new novel'. To this day. the classic study of the device remains Lucien Dtillen· bach's 1977 Le ricit .fpiculaire (English translation, Diillenbach 1989), an impressive piece of scholarship promising its readers ..both a lexicon and a gr.1mmar of the miu en abyme·· (Oallcnbach 1989: 2). while a concluding section ("Diachronic Perspectives", 117-163) explores in some depth the use made of the device in French fiction since the Second World War. There exist a number of further significant discussions of the phenomenon (most notably, Bal 1977 and 1978; Fliredy 1989: Morrissette 1971; Ricardou 1967 and Ron 1987), all inclined to view the mise en abyme as almost exclusively a fonn of literM)' reflexivity. as Dti11enbach himself had tended to do:~ Already the author of a study of the device in Michel Sutor's fiction (Diillenbach 1972). Diillenbach had concentrated mainly on French examples of narmtive duplication in the no11vea11 roman and the subsequent nouvetlu IIOU\'e(lll roman. As a consequence. some of the device's earlier functions tended to be ignored. I am thinking. above all. of the possibilitiy of presenting the world in tenns or a microcosm/macrocosm relationship or using duplication ror satirical effect. or as prefigumtion (i.e. textual prophecy). or in order to create a sense or magical control. or. perhaps the commonest of all earlier runctions. for didactic purposes. In heraldic terms to be en abyme is a matter or position. not content: a device placed en abynre would be vertically and horizontally at dead centre or an escutcheon. However. what the Gidean metaphor has often been taken to imply is more specifically "the image or a shield containing. at its centre. a miniature replica or itself' (Diillenbach 1989: 8). But literary mi.~e en abyme and the heraldic analogue posited ror it do differ in a number of important respects: and even Gide's alternative image - that or a picture in which "a convex (... ] mirror reftects the interior or the room in which the scene or the painting is taking place" (41) - suggests something perspectivally very different rrom heraldry's miniaturized raithful duplication or the larger shield. As envisaged by some commentators. the mi.~e en abyme in a coat·or-arms would be an instance of total iconic isomorphism in all respects except size and context. At the same time. it has been argued. a duplicate heraldic device inserted e11 abyme might. seen figuratively. look like the equivalent of a hole in the inronnation-bearing sign system. According to Diillenbach's The Mirror ill tire Texl: it is easy to show. by a simple reference to heraldry. that [any[ proliferation of figures within the figure is pan of the very logic of the ubymt'. Let us suppose a shield B. placed t•n ab)·me within a shield A. and mimetic of it:

THE SEMIOTICS OF THE MISE EN ABYME

35

The diagram reproduced above shows: that A's acceptance of the ability to be reproduced pmduces a lacuna within the identity of A which is partially lost (in the abyss) through the shield that is added to it - in other words, the addition of B to A in fact subtracts from it: from then on the only way 8 can adequately represent A (which by its presence it has spoiled) is itself to include in its I."Cntrc a shield (C) which in tum .... An infinite illusion, as one sees, or an unlimited interplay of substitu· tions. since ca~:h term in the series ( ... ] can only take on the form the previous shield prescribes for it by incorporating a new shield, which, in tum, makes a hole in it. (Oiillenbach 1989: Ill)

Fortunately, there are good reasons for literary scholars not to be unduly daunted by such a notion of a subtraction from the information-bearing ground in which

some miniature element is embedded. For a start. the mi.w! en ahyme would only constitute a subtraction in textual terms if there actually was an unused space behind the area of the text where the device occurs (as if this were some act of over-writing. in word-processing terms) and provided that the en abyme material were in fact. as Gide's mirror-analogy might also lead one to expect. a mere duplication of the embedding fiction. Yet, literary mise.~ e11 abyme seldom. if ever. simply duplicate the outer work - or even a part of it. Thus, it is worth reminding ourselves that the image from heraldry is no more than a metaphor. and. what is more to the point. it is not even one derived from heraldry proper. despite Dtillenbach's evident confidence that his diagram can easily be justified by what he refers to as "a simple reference to heraldry". It wa.o; not until three-quarters of a century after Gide's diary-entry that Bruce Morrissette charged the whole concept of mi.~e en ahyme with being based on a ftawed metaphor. a defective analogy (Morrissette 1971: 128). For all his interest in heraldry. Gide, it wao; alleged. had by and large got his facts wrong. Precisely what the implications of this discovery are and just what the contentious image at the centre of the controversy was meant to represent have continued to remain unclear. Gide himself was never to return to his early metaphor. not even in his 1926 Jmmral de.\· Faux-Momwyeur.\·. But the fact remains that. pace Morrissette. one might. as a matter of principle. have expected

36

JOHN J. WHITE

a critical concept to be evaluated on the criterion of utility (as Ron 1987 does). rather than on whether it is predicated on a defective analogy. In the aftermath of Morrissette's dramatic revelation. there was a widespread move to abandon the term altogether. More differentiated responses came in the form of diverse attempts to fine-tune the Gidean nomenclature: compmition en abyme. cmutrucrion en abyme or stmcwre en abyme (the Iauer being the preferred term in Genette's influential Figures//[). At the same time, moves were also afoot to privilege other metaphors: embedding (Filredy). duplication (Morrissette) and mirroring (D'.illenbach). Yet. although Diillenbach appeared to show eminent decisiveness in choosing to call his authoritative study Le ridt .fpiculaire. he still could not resist sub-titling it Essai sur Ia mise en abyme. It seems obvious that a number of the proposed panaceas themselves introduce further difficulties. Metaphors of mirroring and duplication risk being taken too literally and hence arousing expc<:tations of a high degree of iconic isomorphism (also one of the main drawbacks of the way Gide presented his original heraldic metaphor). What is more. they both fail to suggest the phenomenon of subsidiarity. which is at least present in the distinction between embedding and embedded texts. The idea of mirroring may also be overly compromised by connotations of textual narcissism (cf. Hutcheon 1980: passim. and Morrissette's suggestion [ 1971: 129] that Narcissus is ''the Gidean character par e.n:elletu·e"). The other connotation of abime (now in the modem French spelling with an "i' instead of a "y") is that of the abyss. hence Ron's playful reference to "the abysmal metaphor" (1987:417). As my opening illustration from Auster's The Mu.fic of Chance suggests. those who have toyed with analogues of Gide's shield-within-a-shield often become unduly captivated by the hall of mirrors-like regress which the image conjures up or by what Jefferson sees as the figure's threat never to complete (1983: 198). Strictly speaking. a shield within a shield implies a shield within a shield within a shield within ... and so on ad infinitum. Thus. in Aldous Huxley's Point Coullter Point. the fictive novelist Philip Quarles ruminates with comparable results on the aesthetic advantages of putting a writer into the novel he is planning. Such a device justifies aesthetic generalizations .... Specimens of his work may illustr.Jte other possible or impossible ways of telling a story. And if you have him telling parts of the same story a.o; you are. you can make a variation on the thenlC. But why dmw the line at one novelist inside your novel? Why not a second inside his? And a third inside the novel of the second? And so on to infinity. like those adveniscmcnts of Quaker Oats where there's a quaker holding a box of oats. on which is a picture of another quaker holding another box of oats. on which etc .. etc. (Huxley 1928: 409)

THE SEMIOTICS OF THE MISE EN ABYME

37

In a similar vein. Michel Leiris recalls in his autobiography. L'Age d'Jwmme: I owe my lirst actual contact with the notion of infinity to a tin of Dutch cocoa. One side of the tin was decomted with an image of a farm girl in a lace cap. holding m her left hand an identical tin. decorated with the same image of the smiling. pink girl. I still get dizzy imagining this infinite series of an identical image endle~sly reproducing the ~arne Dutch girl who. tlleoretic·u/ly .d1rinkinx withow e1•er di.mpfJeuriiiJ:, muckingly ~tared at me, brandishing her own effigy painted on a cocoa tin identical to the nne on which she her~clf was painted. tlciris 1939:33, my translation and emphasis)

While the mi.w• e11 abyme effect on the cover of the British Quaker Oats packet Wa.'i eventually abandoned in favour of a simpler design. the self-duplicating design (creating what is known in Holland us the "Droste-eiTcct". Figure I) continues to be used by the Haarlem manufacturer on its tins and packets. In both cases. we have evidence of an astute advertising strategy having left a seemingly indelible mark on the literary imagination. In some perceptions. mi.wt e11 abyme is virtually synonymous with a fictive work within the main work. And

Figure I.

38

JOHN J. WHITE

while the sense of vertigo in L.eiris's recollection seems very akin to the emotions both Auster and Borges invoke when depicting similar instances of potential infinite regress. unending duplication is less centml a feature of the mise e11 abyme than might be assumed from the fascination that this particular possibility has generated. from childhood memories some of us have of a particular illustration in Dr Seuss's The Cal i11 tire Hm come.~ back to Dubonnet advertisements and Mickey Mouse seaside buckets and spades.ln the case of Tile Music of Chance, the presentation of Willie Stone's City of the World model merely toys for a brief moment with such a possibility. One could say that the incomplete model becomes an indexical·iconic sign of an infinite possibility. Similarly, the doorkeeper in the parable about the man from the country told in the Cathedml chapter of Kafka's The Trial tells Josef K. ''I am only the lowest doorkeeper. From haJJ to hall. keepers stand at every door. one more powerful than the other. The sight of the third of these is aJready more than even I can bear" (Kafka 1993:229. my tr.mslation). But no sooner has the possibility of infinite regress been suggested than the priest's parable confines itself metonymically to the relationship of the man from the country to the first doorkeeper. Duplication. or triplication. is sufficient to conjure up the possibility of infinite regress (it becomes the sign for a possibility only conceivable in the mind's eye).5 but whether or not such a disturbing dimension is subsequently foregrounded depends very much on the requirements of the specific narrative. As we saw in the case of Auster's The Music of Chance. the principal function of Willie's model was not to dwell on infinite regress (which is why he hesitated to try to develop this a.<>pect of his model any further for the time being). Rather. it is mentioned mainly in order to reinforce the sense of mystery and the uncanny which binds Willie's work-in-progress to the world in which the novel's two protagonists Jive. However. the extent to which recent thinking about the mise ell abyme has been conducted with reference to the French nolil't:all roman has resulted in too much emphasis on the device's reflexive dimension and insufficient attention to the way in which it relates to aspects of the work's fictive world and. by extension. our own world. When. in Part Twelve of Jean Paul's Fle~:eljahre. Vult. brother of Walt. arrives at an inn called 'The Inn' (the Wirtshau.t :.11m Wirt.duuu (Jean Paul 1969: 62)), he encounters an inn sign on which is painted "another inn sign with a similar sign on which the same thing was repeated once more" - conceivably. one might facetiously assume. shrinking down until nothing is left but a packet of Quaker Oats. But that would be to impose an end-point on the chain of semiosis and not do justice to the patterns of mere duplication near the startingpoint of the sequence. In fact. in lieu of infinite regress. what we encounter at

THE SEMIOTICS OF THE MISE EN ABYME

39

the outset are merely two forms of duplication: one verbal (Wirt.~lw11.~ ::.w11 Wirrshall.{) <:~nd the other visual (an inn sign depicting the very inn to which it is attached). Any further duplications beyond that are implicit rather than explicit. Usually, such acts of foreclosure on the proces.<> of infinite regress arc not simply a means of containing a potentially disturbing form of mannerism (a1though both Jelferson and Fliredy rightly emphasize the narratological importance of such containment). they at the same time enable the internal duplication to become iconic of something beyond the text itself. This is the case in my illustration from Jean Paul's Flegeljahre: Vult )contemplated] the things immediately around him, for example. the innkeeper, a member of the (Pietistic Moravian] Herrcnhuter community who had nothing painted on his inn sign except another inn sign with a similar sign on which the same thing was repeated once more: it is just like the contemporary philoM'Iphy of wit which, when the ,.imilar wit of philosophy makes the first-person )I.Ubjcct into an object and l'ice n·r.fa, likewise allows the subject's ideas to appear sub-objective: for example. I am profound and intellectual when I declare: I am reviewing the review of a review about reviewing reviewing or when I reflect upon reftccting upon the reHcction of a reflection about a brush.] ... ) indeed. perhaps it is only the person who is able to repeat the same infinitive of a given verb a number of times in sequence that is able to say of himself: I am philosophiLing. {Jean Paul 1969:63, my tran~lation) In this passage, we can see the inn sign grudually assuming the function of a satirically iconic metaphor. 6 The seemingly gratuitous allusion to the innkeeper's pietistic Herrenhuter background inevitably brings with it associations of intense. and possibly debilitating introspection. und the subsequent reference to contemporary German thought (above ull Fichte's ideal philosophy. Jean Paul's bete 11oire) allows the inn sign to be not just a memorable self-referential conceit. but also the retluctio ad ab.mrdum of features of Jean Paul's real-life targets. Under such circumstances. what we have is not primarily the litemry equivaJent of what Winfried NOth refers to as linguistic 'endophoric iconicity' 7 (<:~!though endophoric iconicity is certainly in evidence in the way the two names WaJt and Vult appear to have been constructed, the one out of the other)x. To be sure. the referentinl image of the inn sign on the inn sign may initially come across as no more than endophoric, but the thoughts it gives rise to relate the iconicity exophorically to what Vult dismisses a..; intellectual fashions of the moment. Thus. in a process that might be termed 'deferred iconidty', Inn sign B (to use B to refer to the embedded device, in the manner of the relationship of B to A in Dallenbach's diagr<~m reproduced on p. 35) first refers to Inn sign A. but this relationship in tum mimes solipsistic structures of thought. which Vult and his creator associate

40

JOHN J. WHITE

both with Moravian Pietism and German ideal philosophy (this particular juxtaposition no doubt also polemically intended). A sign (painted) becomes the token of an object which bears a proper name. one which would under normal circumstances distinguish it from other examples of the category yet in fact merely asserts its belonging in the category. omd at the same time. pamdoxically. the name Wirt.{lwtu :m11 Wirt.\'hcws becomes a distinguishing marker. because it is highly unlikely that there is more than one Wirtsluuu :.tmt Wirt.{lrau.\'. Jean Paul's image boa.,.ts more layers of semiosis. in other words. than the surface relationship of iconic similarity between painted image and object. Clearly. a number of important patterns of semiosis have been in evidence in the material just examined. First. one where iconic signs strike an imaginative chord not simply because the sign bears a resemblance to the immediate object it reflects but because of the thought processes it consequently triggers off. A second, one where an initial relationship of similarity between embedded and embedding work often invites thoughts about certain aspects of the world beyond the text. Patterns of chance and predestination link Willie's City of the World model both with Auster's The Mtuic of Clta11ct! and our own world (where lotteries. card-games. debts that have to be paid off and conditions imposed and evaded are all familiar experiences). Thus. we encounter a double iconicity: both endophoric and by extension, exophoric. And because certain forms of mise e" abyme (the model within the model. the inn sign containing a picture of a fun.her inn sign. the map reproduced on the map). stimulate the reader's imagination to conceive of further extensions of the pattern. the device also imitates seemingly infinite patterns of semiosis which. a<> we shall shortly observe, have played such an important part in modem investigations of processes of signification in general and iconicity in particular. To appreciate the ramifications of this particular form of iconicity. we would do well to return to Peirce's thoughts on the subject. As SchOnrich (1991) has demonstrated. the very image of the map contained in the map which so fascinated Borges had been used by Peirce as "the precise analogue of pure self-consciousness" (CP 5: 71) and hence as a diagrammatically iconic sign of the self's relationship to both itself and to the world. That is to say, it had for Peirce both an endophoric and an exophoric a<>pcct.

3.

A Peircean context for the literary mise en abyme

Peirce's semiotic writings rarely occupied the ground that would nowadays be thought of a<> the territory of Literary Semiotics. Nevertheless. one finds passages in his work which do have a distinct bearing on the present consideration of the

THE SEMIOTICS OF THE MISE EN ABYME

41

iconicity of the mi.~e e11 abyme. Thus. in his 1903 "LeciUres on Pragmatism" he offers a by now familiar illustration of iconic embedding: Imagine that upon the soil of a country. that has a single boundary line[ ... ). there lies a map of that same country. This map may distort the different provinces of the country to any extent. But I shall suppose that it represents every part of the country that has a single boundary. by a pan of the map that ha..~ a single boundary. that evrry part is represented as bounded by such parts as it i~ really bounded by, that every point of the country is represented by a ~inglc point of the map, and that every point of the map represent~ a single point in the country. Let us further suppose that this map is infinitely minute in its representation so that there is no speck on any grain of sand in the country that could not be seen represented upon the map if we were to examine it under a suftkiently high magnifying power. Since, then. everything on the soil of the country i~ shown on the map. and since the map lie~ on the soil of the country. the map itself will be ponraycd in the map. and in this map of the map everything on the soil of the country can be discerned. including the map itself with the map of the map within its boundary. Thus there will be within the map. a map of the map. and within that. a map of the map of the mup. and so on ad infinitum. (Pranmati.m• a11d Pra~:maticism. CP 5: 71)

An accompanying footnote refers readers to the map-illustmtion in Josiah Royce's Tlte World am/ the hrdh·idual which so stimulated Borges's imagination in "Partial Magic in the Quixote". Thus, a trail. which for most modem readers is likely to have begun with Borges. once hailed as "that great connoisseur of the abyss". in the sense of abyme (Ron 1987:434), leads one back to Royce and. eventually. to Peirce. For (according to CP 5:71) Royce had attended Peirce's lectures invoking the same image long before publishing his own deliberations on the ontological implications of the map contained within the map. In all three instances. a non-literary iconic sign. a map. is offered as an example of processes of duplication. embedding and regress which. a.'i we have seen. have implications for our consideration of the iconic status and function of many litemry mise.{ en abyme. In fact. what these various rehearsals of semiosis at least reveal is that a number of the people with very different interests in mise en abyme effects had a sometimes intuitive, on occasions more theoretical. grasp of the unending semiotic process, which meant that they were able to perceive the device as more than just a further incidence of 'form miming meaning' and could place it within a wider framework of sign-generation. In an argument which has a bearing on this particular contention. Peirce was to return to his example of the map in the map in a 1910 paper entitled "Meaning". where he comes at the illustration from a different angle. "On a map of an

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JOHN J. WHITE

island laid down on the soil of that island there must. under all ordinary circumstances. be some position. some point. marked or nol. that represents qua place on the map. the very same point qua place on the island" (Elements of Lngic. CP 2: 230). This time. the map-image is invoked to support two fresh theses. First. that it is an over-simplilication to think of signs as possessing but one object ("In what follows and often elsewhere, Signs will be treated as having but one object each for the .mke of dil>iding diffimltie.{ of the .\·tudy" (CP 2: 230, my empha.o;is)). And second, that an iconic sign can contain within it a reference to another iconic sign. and not just refer to what Peirce elsewhere terms its 'immediate object' .9 An illustration from Thoma.'i A. Sebeok's Cmlfributio11s to the Doctrine of Si!:'JS may help contextualize and illustrate the argument that follows. It could even serve as a gloss to Peirce's contention that "the entire universe ( ... ) is perfused with signs. if it is not composed exclusively of signs" (CP 5: 448) and that any human being "is a sign himself' (CP 5:314 and 6: 344). Sebeok's starting-point is Mieczyztaw Wallis's controversial claim that in most examples of iconicity "the relation of representation is nonsymmetrical: an iconic sign( ... ) represents its representatum but not vice versa" (Wallis 1975: 2). Sebeok responds to what he sees as an unwarranted generalization by arguing from the counter-evidence. Implicit in Sebeok's whole approach is a recognition of the fact that one cannot simply freeze-frame the ongoing process of semiosis and make one phenomenon into the sign and the other into its object. as accounts of the iconic sign's relationship to its denotatum sometimes appear to. Virtually all forms of semiosis generate a variety of potential relationships. not just a single (referential) one-to-one relationship - which may be one reason why the mi.w! ell ahyme so often conjures up thoughts of a potentially infinite regress and are not just confined to the relationship between the embedded and the embed· ding work. Here is the way Sebeok illustrates iconicity's ability to become part of an ongoing process of signification: As for the vertiginous problem of regression, let it be illustrated by the following: An infant daughter can be said to be an iconic sign for her mother. if there is a topological similarity between her. as signifier. and her mother. its denotatum. However. the little girl can likewise. though doubtless to a lesser degree. stand as an iconic sign for her father. every one of her siblings. all of her kinfolk. and. further. for all members of the human race, but also for all primate~. and, further still, all animals. all vertebrates, and so forth, and so on, in unending retrogression to evermore gcneralizcddenotata. (Sebeok 1976: 130)

The pattern of"retrogression" (or seemingly infinite semiotic regress) highlighted here relating to the little girl's status as an iconic sign is analogous to the way in which Willie's model fans out. as it were. to encompass iconically not just

TilE SEMIOTICS OF THE MISE EN ABYME

43

episodes and figures from his earlier life. but the city he and Stone lived in before they won the lottery. and the world of which that city is a part. Despite its idiosyncrasies. the iconicity of Willie's model is psychologically more plausible than the possibilities near the end of Sebeok's inventory. As Sebeok admits. it is unlikely that the little girl (qua icon) would ever be read primarily a.<> a sign for the entire human race or for all animals. even though such a taxonomy is not illogical. However. if we pause at one of Sebeok's earlier, more acceptable links in the iconic chain of regress (her relationship to her siblings). we can observe a feature which ha<> implications for our understanding of the iconic process informing the mise m abyme's function.lt is axiomatically the case that an iconic topological similarity would make it possible for the little girl to be read as a sign of one of her siblings, and by the same token. that sibling could be read as a sign standing in an iconic relationship to her. In fact. within such a family. the possibility exists for any one member to be iconic sign or denotatum in a large number of eonfiguro~tions. These are not. it must be stressed. mutually exclusive sign-roles: on the contrary. they co-exist. As we have seen. and will observe in the ca<>e of further examples. it is often possible for a mi.{e etJ ahyme to refer iconically to the embedding work in which it appears and to refer iconically both independently and in collaboration with the entire work - to the world of the reader. In fact. if the containing work were the sole object of the mi.~e en abyme's referentiality. it would indeed be closer to the examples of the kind of Nard,{,{i.wic Narrmil•e which Hutcheon (1980) analyses. But because signs beget signs which beget signs (etc.). iconic sign-object relationships at the same time form part of larger patterns of signification. some of which also display iconicity. Or. as Umberto Eco puts it, "a book is made up of signs that speak of other signs. which in their turn speak of things" (Eco 1980: 369. my translation). E.co's notion of signs that speak of other signs is. of course. centml to Peirce's conception of semiosis and of the effect of iconicity. "'By 'semiosis' ", Peirce writes. "I mean[ ... ) a cooperation of three [factors): a sign. its object and its intcrpretant. this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs" (CP 5: 484). Peirce's distinction between a sign's object and its interpretant (CP 5: 474 and 8: 179) - at other times expressed as one between the sign's immedime and its dyt~amical object (CP 4:536 and 8: 314. cf. Greenlee 1973: 65Jf.) - may have been infelicitously expressed. but the principle underlying it remains of crucial importance to our topic. Indeed. Greenlee. who refers disparagingly to a widespread, yet "uncritical form of Peirce's principle that every sign represents an object" (Greenlee 1973:71), has even suggested that "possession of an interpretant [is[ the essential condition of signification" (Greenlee 1973: 18). There may be contexts. e.g. the figured poem

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JOHN J. WHITE

or iconic sentence structure, where such a differentiated notion of semiosis would be of little help. But in the case of the mise e11 ab,\·me, we have already seen occasions on which it is pertinent. Willie's City of the World model may not represent a reality and hence has no (dynamical) object. but it is still able to ..create in the mind of (al person an equivalent sign'' (i.e. in our case the iconic sign's ''immediate object" or interprctcmt): and in l."ertain literary contexts this process of semiosis can become extremely significant. Jean Paurs self-duplicating inn sign foregrounds a process of duplication. an interpretant which the narrator then relates to other indexical-iconic signs of self-absorption {reviews of reviewing or reflecting upon a reflection of reflection etc.). By the same token. the model within a model may create one obvious interpretant (the hidden smaller version which we cannot see). but this interpretant will in tum create the further interprctant of continuous regress. Such patterns, already noted in Tire Mu.fic' ofCirance. Poim Coumer Poilll and "Partial Magic in the Quixote". might themselves be read as iconic of the ovcrnll process of ongoing semiosis. "with the interpretant becoming in tum a sign. and so on ad infinilum" (CP 2: 92 and 303). Greenlee (1973: 107fT.) has explored the ramifications of the suggestion that "the function of the interpretant is to interpret a sign to another interpretant. so that the interpretant too functions as a sign" (108). He concludes: I propose to part company with [Peirce[ on the question of the triadicity of signification. The insistence on this triadicity is arbitrary even on Peirce's own grounds since Peirce maintains that the series of interprctants is unlimited. Accordingly, it would be better to describe the sign relation as polyadic with the number of relata being unlimited - rather than triadic. Peirce's semiotic should have insisted (a) simply on a differentiation nf the sign from the dyadic causal relationship and (b) on the continuity of interpretation. (Greenlee 1973: llllw

Yet without abandoning the concept of 'iconicity', Greenlee's empha.,.is on the "regress of interpretants" (112). which was a principle also informing Sebeok's exploration of multiple fonns of iconic sign within the context of family relationships. captures more convincingly the process of semiosis underlying some of our examples of literary mise e11 abyme than Peirce's often elided sign-objectintcrprctant model does.

4.

Semiotic perspectives on further mises en abyme

It should be evident from the above section that it is likely to be more fruitful to examine the degree of iconicity in the mi.fe en abyme or to privilege that aspect

THE SEMIOTICS OF THE MISE EN ABYME

45

of the sign than to approach the device a.'> being an exclusively iconic sign. lconicity is always ··a matter of degree" (Sebeok 1979: 117).1n contmst to the metaphors of mirroring and interior duplication. which have the disadvantage of suggesting a high degree of iconic isomorphism. treating the mi.{e ell ab)·me as an e:~tample of iconicity can direct attention more effectively to the role played by both similarities and differences between the embedded and the embedding text. At one stage in ''Partial Magic in the Quixote'', Borges's nanator declares of the play within the play in Hamlet that an ''imperfect correspondence of the principal and secondary works lessens the efficacy of this inclusion'' (Borges 1989:46. my translation). The findings of research into the mi.~e en abyme to date would. however. appear to be pointing to a diametrically opposite conclusion. In his discussion of the first of ''Nine Problems in the Theory of Mise en Abyme". for example. Ron offers a sceptical exploration of the "requirement that what is reflected in mi.{e en abyme should in some sense be 'the work as a whole'" (Ron 1987: 422). It is true that there are certain pieces of fiction where a mise en abyme does appear to refer to the embedding work in its entirety: for Gide. Navalis's Heinrid1 mn Ofterdingen remained the classic example of such total reflection (on the centra] mise etl abyme's pivotal place between recall and prophecy. deduction and induction, see Diillenbach 1989: 67-fl9). and the same holds true of the two novels I shall shortly be examining: Kafka's The Trial and Thomas Mann's The Magic Mmmtaitr. But as Ron argues (1987:423-425), even when a miJe etr abyme refers to the entire work. the degree of iconic isomorphism can still vary greatly and there are often likely to be as many differences as equivaJences. Bat (1978) and Van Zoest (1977) have done much to draw attention to the hermeneutic value of such discrepancies. And. as our example from Jean Paul's Flegeljahre has already shown. in works where the mise etr abyme does not refer to the embedding work in its entirety, then its endophoric function may well be less important than an (exophoric) referential element. In the case of the inn sign. the referential target is helpfully identified by a supplementary gloss from the namllor. These two factors - the role played by differences as well as similarities within a seemingly iconic device and the importance of referentiality as well as "narrative narcissism" (i.e. exophoric as well as endophoric iconicity) - will now be investigated. using The Trial and The Magic Mmmlllin as illustrations. There are a number of miseseiJabyme in Kafka's The Trial. The allegorical paintings which the artist Titorelli shows K .. the dramatic presentation of the conditions which the accused buyer Bloch suffers at Advocate Huld's hands and many of the labyrinthine buildings that make up much of the novel's terrain all function as mise.{ en abyme. But most commentutors have been in no doubt about

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JOHN J. WHITE

the paramount role played by the par.1ble told to Josef K. by the prison chaplain

in the Cathedral in the penultimate chapter of the novel. There are various striking similarities between this mise en ab;rme and The Trial in its entirety: both

are about the Law. both depict the frustrations of trying to reach the higher authorities. both spatializc this sense of frustration and both attempts end in death. However. there are also important differences between the pamble and the

encompassing novel. The man from the country goes to the Law, K."s realms (home and bank). on the other hand. are invaded by the Court's representatives. The man remains humble, K. is often arrogant. The man sits patiently at the door seemingly daunted by the frightening ta<>k of gaining access: he even solicits help

from the fleas in the doorkeeper's fur coat. while K .. by contmst. rushes hither and thither arrogantly demanding help to bring about his acquittal. The man in the legend appears to accept the Law's authority, while K. is often dismissive. And so on. Almost all readings of The Trial recognize the significance of the Doorkeeper pamble a..o; a mi.fe t'll ab.vme and consequently find themselves obliged to confront the limits of the ta1e's iconicity. Kafka's Doorkeeper legend illuminates by dint of its limited i.wmorphism. The reader may conclude that the apparent difference between K. 's frantic stmtegies and indefatigable searching and the pamble-hero's lack of movement may be deceptive. given that neither makes any rea] progress. And the contrast between the aura of power and authority that radiates from the doorkeeper and the decrepit buildings inhabited by the minions of the Law is interpretable more as a reflection of divergent attitudes on the part of Josef K. and the man from the country. K .. having been told by the priest in the cathedral that he is to hear a story about deception (Tiill.\"dllmg). proceedo; to interpret it as evidence that the doorkeeper has deceived the man from the country. reading tiiusche11 as if it can only be understood in a purely transitive sense: but it more probably alludes to the man's own selfdeception. But. of course. K.'s assumption that this is a story about one man deceiving another is itself an act of self-deception on his part. Clearly. our attempts at positing interfaces between the mise en abyme and the surrounding novel will be coloured by the extent to which we either share or reject K.'s own self-justifying interpretation of what is happening. In Kafka's hands, the mise en abyme makes considemble play with differences between embedded text and surrounding work. If one were to apply the rej/ectioll metaphor here. one would have to make substantia] allowances for elements of refraction and distortion (two of Kafka's favourite metaphors). The account of the experiences of the man from the country as he comes to the Law is in no simple straightforward sense a tautologous duplication or didactic resume of what is happening to K. in the rest of the novel. But it is worth remembering that Kafka not only integmted the

THE SEMIOTICS OF THE MISE EN ABYME

47

story of the man from the country as a mi.w? en abyme into Tile Trial. he aJso published it separately in September 1915 in the Jewish magazine Selbstwehr and four years later in his collection A Coumry Doctor, in both instances entitling it

"Before the Law". Published independently. it of course changes its semiotic status. Such iconicity as it retains is no longer a function of essentially endophoric para11els (or contrasts) with the fictive Josef K.'s situation. goals and behaviour. Instead. the focus is on what similarities the reader can detect between the pardble and the world he or she inhabits. But of course those parallels were also present, in the form of 'deferred iconicity'. in the mi.fe en abyme version in Tire Trial. The subsequent integration of "Before the Law·· into the Cmmtrv Doctor collection of stories creates a further fonn of intertextual (endophori~} iconicity (on which. see White 1985:94f.). 11 My second and concluding example of a mi.fe en abyme. the effects of which again derive from limited iconic isomorphism. is the dream-like vision which Hans Castorp experiences in the "Snow" section of Thomas Mann·s The MaRie Moumain. It is a vision which points in two directions: to the experiences which the novel"s hero has so far had up at the Berghof Sanatorium and at the same time. particularly in some of its images of regression and violence. to the trench warlare with which Mann"s novel ends. As well as recapitulating features of the narrative in which it occurs. it also refers to both the dangers and prospects which confront the Europe of Mann"s early readers in 1924. Thus. it is both "prophetic". in Jefferson"s sense. and as much a recapitulation as the parable in Tire Trial was. While lost in the snow. Castorp has a double vision. First. he experiences a scene of ugliness and cannibalistic barbarity. a vision so dark and disturbing that he ha.'i no wish to linger in such a world but quickly tries to follow the beckoning young man who conducts him to a more seductive Arcadian realm. Iconically, the first of the two visions recapitulates and refonnulates Castorp's obsession with death and disease. a fascination which has been with him from the very first day of his arrival at Davos. However. the barbaric vision not only re-enacts the experiences the protagonist ha.'i undergone. it also transfonns them into such an unattractive presenting vehicle that it takes him a while to realize its implications. It is this relative Jack of obvious iconic isomorphism between miJe en abyme and preceding narrative which is its most striking feature. Hans was bewitched by Clawdia Chauchat. who. aJthough a symbolic representation of death and disease. had more in common with Tannhauser's Venus than with an allegoricaJ hag cracking open the bones of a baby. Yet. as was the case with Kafka's The Trial. what superficiaJiy appears to be a contra'it-imag.e possessing. only limited iconicity. turns out to illuminate the truth of what ha.'\ been happening. in the novel more revealingly than surface duplication would ever have done.

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JOHN J. WHITE

Towards the end of the novel. the reader realizes that Ca.,torp's cannibalistic nightmare also functions as a prefiguration of what the concluding episode refers to a.., the "World Feast of Death.. : i.e. the front-line carnage of the First World War. Like Willie's model. the vision has both a biographical dimension. symbolizing Castorp's seven bewitched years up in a realm of disease and deathfixation. and a further epic designatum: Europe's impending barbarism (which in 1914 will also engulf Castorp himself). When. in the novel's final pamgro~.ph. the nanator asks "Will love rise up one day. even from this World Feast of Death. even from the dreadful heat of fever which ignites the rainy skies all around?'" (Mann 1946:572. my translation). he has left Castorp's world behind in favour of the world the reader inhabits. a place that has all too recently known horrors as harrowing as those in the first part of Castorp's vision. Thus. Janus-headed. the mise en abyme points in equal measure both back to Castorp's early experiences and forward to his fate at the front. but even beyond to the reader's world. which it also rcHects iconically. And this is also true of the second part of Castorp's vision: the Arcadian idyll. The images of harmony. serenity and mritas which characterize this second part are intended as a counterbalance to the bestiality of its predecessor. In this sense, they also stand in a relationship of endophoric iconicity to one another. But what we are in fact being offered are not two autonomous alternatives: anachronistic barbarism or civilization. To borrow an image from Nietzsche's The Birth of TraJ:edy (a crucial intertext for this passage). the behaviour of the happy people in the Arcadian realm is essentially a ''bulwark" against barbarism. "Were they. those children of the sun. so sweetly courteous to each other. in silent recognition of that horror? It would be n fine and chivalrous conclusion they drew. I will hold to them. in my soul" (Mann 1946:230, my translation). It would require a much longer interpretation of this complex miJe t'IJ abyme to do semiotic justice to the patterns of contrast. limited isomorphism and indexicality which interact under the umbrella of its dominant iconicity principle. Mann rightly regarded this epiphanous episode as the core of The MaJ:ic Mountain: he refer.. to the italicized insight to which it eventually leads - "For Ihe Jake of ROodness and lm·e. man shal/mJtlet death ha1·e dominimr O\'er hi.f thollghls" (232) - as the ErJ:ehnissat:.. the distillation of the entire work. Once more. the sentence. like the one with which The Magic Mmmtaill concludes, transcends the fictive domain tn point iconically outwards to the reader's world. Again. function is not just confined to metafictional reHexivity. The reason for this being the fact that Mann was painfully aware that while the world of the early twentieth century was quite capable of reflecting the ugly vision of a hag devouring an innocent child, it had yet to find its way through to the modem equivalent of the

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Arcadian vision. In Peircean terms. we once more have an example of an interpretant for which no real object yet exists. That is the ethical challenge with which the work confronts its readers.

5.

Conclusion

Moshe Ron concluded his invaJuable critical investigation of "Nine Problems in the Theory of the Mise en Ab_wne" with the declaration that "any diegetic segment which resembles the work where it occurs is said to be placed en abyme'' (Ron 1987: 436), aJthough he still felt constrained to add "a brief

glossary and two provisos" (436f.) to even such a seemingly incontrovertible conclusion. The more semiotically oriented discussion of the mi.fe en abyme in the present paper does not.l believe. invalidate the central findings of either Ron or Oallcnbach. The mi.w: e11 abyme is a work within a larger work, it resembles - or refers iconically to - the outer work. (or to parts of it) in ways often peculiar to the individual example and it can have a variety of functions, from didactic. prophetic and cognitive to mystifying and magical. In other words. while status and context may be relatively simple to define, the parameters of the relationship of similarity and its specific function can diverge substantially from instance to instance. Whereas Gide's original heraldic analogy and Diillenbach's preferred metaphor of mirroring both suffer from the marked disadvantage of appearing to concentmte too exclusively on similarities and shared features. what our examples have revealed is a creative interplay between elements of similarity and dissimilarity. Such fluctuations are something which the concept of 'iconicity' would seem best able to cope with. Yet whereas Bal and Ron each view the mise en abyme as an 'icon'. both are more concerned with the icon as an absolute category. rather than an aspect of a sign - a sign which may at the same time differ from its object (the outer text) in a number of vital respects. While Ron ( 1987: 422-426) argues persuasively that a mise en abyme does not necessarily resemble "the work as a whole". and Bal is as concerned with difference between the mise en abyme element and the larger text that it is said to resemble. neither chooses to exploit the advantages of seeing the device a.<> an example of iconicity. nllher than a.<> an icon. and of monitoring the extent to which iconicity can involve elements of (graphic) codification as well as direct similarities. It is the mise 01 abyme's circumscribed iconicity. not its categorical status as an icon. which semiotics has tended to neglect. In a few of the examples considered in this paper. duplication was sufficient to suggest the kind of infinite regress which so fascinated Peirce in some forms of sign-production. Moreover. allowing

50

JOHN J. WHITE

for the possibility of both endophoric and exophoric. as well as 'delayed'. iconicity in such a device. we can see that in certain examples. including the one from Jean Paul's Flegeljahre. a local mise en abyme effect (the inn sign on an inn sign), far from being merely an example of aesthetic narcissism, as it was for Dallenbach (1989: 37f.). at the same time points outwards, exophorically. to phenomena subjected to criticism by the narrator. Indeed. the less myopically endophoric the device becomes. the more its exophoric referentiality will be likely to be exploited. And given that iconicity always prefers a generic object (unlike indexicality. which is usually signally a single object). it is not surprising that the mise en abyme - the map within the map. the microcosmic model or the story within the story - habitually points via the embedding work to the world beyond the fiction. In this respect, it invariably combines elements of endophoric and exophoric iconicity. Far from being merely another ··one of the major mOOes of textual narcissism.. (Hutcheon 1980: 4). the mise e11 abyme retains an important referential component. And. as we have seen, because of the complexities of the multi-layered proces." of semiosis involved, it demands substantial interpretive creativity on the reader's part.

Notes fonn.~

of K:onic s•gn,

s~ Walli~

I.

On the magic power of certain

2.

N(l doubt. Tilt M1uic of Chum·t is in part indebted to Edward Albee's 7iny Afi•·t. As FUredy ( 1989: 753) point~ out. Albee's play "has a cha101t:ter ddibero~tely and explicitly stop the recursions". i.e. when the butler says "You don't suppose that within that tiny model in the model there. there is ... another roum like this. with yet a tinier model within it and within .... Julian ''uls him short with: " .. and within and within and within and ...., No. I ... ro~lher doubt if' (Albee 1971: 26). The empty spoce on Willie's platfonn. on the other hand. k~ps the hypothetical pos.~ibility of infinite regression intact a.~ an idea. even though its creator is understandably sceptical that the pn1ject will ever be completed.

1975: 14-19.

3.

The mist tntlb)mt ha.\ seldom been treated a.\ a type of litero~ry iconicity: Bal 1977 andl978 approaches it within a Peircean conceptual fr.unewort of iconicity largely indebted to van Zoest (1917). wherea.~ Ron. in an explor-.ation of the device as "an iconic ligurc peculiar to niiiT.Itive" (19117:436). refrains from doing .w within a rigornusly semiotit matrix. During the 1999 'Second Symposium on konicity in Language and Liter.ature'. an objedion wa~ made to the assumption that the mise en ubymt could be legitimately treated as a form of iconic sign on the alleged ground that it wa.~ an example of mere ,{imilarity betw~n one sign-system tthe mist en uhyme) and ;u,mher (the embedding work of liter.atu~) nather th11n an iconic relalion.'ihip between ~ign and object. A compansble charge wa.~ levelled again~! the linguistic com:ept of 'endophoric iconicity" (see Winfried NOth's "Semiotic foundations of iconicity in language and literature" in the present volume,especially Section 2). NO!h ha~ sinte pleaded for an expanded 'iconicity'-concept in his Symposium report for the Zeiurhriftfor Stmimik ("Da.~ Prinzip 'Form Miming Meaning' !lolle durch da.~ Prinlip 'fonn Miming Fonn" ergiinzl werden, darnit auf diese

TilE SEMIOTICS OF TilE MISE EN ABYM£

51

Weise auc:h Formen dcr lkoniritit erfaBI werden. die in Rclationcn der Ahnli~;hkcit zwischen Elcmentcn inncrhalb cines Tc:ues begriindet ~ind" NOlen 1999: 254-255). In Section 3 of the ~sent paper, I will argue that viewing mi.tt' t'll ubyme a.~ a fonn of iconicity is nut inconsistent with Peircean semiotics. 4. 11M: key exception is Dlillenbach's analysis of Michel Butor's misrs rll ab_\'mr, mainly bccaiL~ Butor him.~lf is seen a.~ e;~;ceptiona.J in one particular respect: "By laying gn:at stress on (the] relationship between the work of an and the extmlingui.~tic reality ouL~ide it, Butor'', Dilllenbach argues. "presen-es the rden:ntial role of literary discourse. thus di~tan~;ing himself from ~nds of thought that say !hat litera!Ure is only concC'I'I1ed with itself. For Butor. the novel is not entirely enclosed within the worid of lenen. Like a linguistic sign, it must 'stand for'. or be ·equivalent to'. something else. and in the final analysis it can only be defined by iL~ ability to represent what is set out IUUUnd it. 1101 pa:o.~ively, of coun;e. like a ~;opy. but in a re1·elotory· way, using il~ undeniable 'detective' power" (Diillenbach 1989: 122). 5.

Ftlredy (1989:751!.) makes a useful distinction between "recursion" and "repetition" yet appellrl! to blur that distinction in the case of the so-called "Dro.~te-effect" on the "famous cocoa tin em which is painted a girl holding another such cocoa tin, on which~~ painted a girl, and so on''. In reality. the factor of scale makes the effett appear doser to repetition than recursion. In many context~. including Wtllie's City of the World and the Quaker Oats packet, simple duplication is sulf~~;ient to conjure up the possibility of infinite regression in the receiver's imagination. Hence, duplication might be thought of a.~ an iconic sign for recul'!iion.

6.

Since metaphor is one of Peirce's three cla.~-.es of icon. it would be possible to tmlt the mi.u tn ab)·mt within this more specilic conceptual framework. The dillkulty is. however. that Peirce seldom returned to his original notion of the metaphor as icon and semiotics ha~ not taken up and refined his suggestion.

7.

See Ntith: "Semiotic foundations of iconicity in language and

8.

In IICiual fa~:t. in keeping with the family's pious Chri~tianity, Walt had been given the nume Gottwalt and his brother Vult, who came in pla~.-c of the girl his father had e:..pected, is a~iated with the idea of a girl "or whatever God wished": "Quod Deus vult" (Jean Paul 1969: 32!.). As Gouwalt becomes known a.~ Walt and the MJn Vult receives his name from the phr-o~.o;c "Quod Deus vult". the twins' names make them into the Gennan onoma.~tic equivalent of Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

9.

Peirce's distinction between the "immediate" and the "dynamical" object (d. CP 8:314 and 4:536 and Greenlee 1973:651f.) makes untenable any simpk distinction between sign-sign relationship.~ tq11a similarity) and iconic sign-object relationships, unless, that is. one di:~eounl~ Pdrcc's point thnt all such one-to--one models are not mort than a shonhand misrepresentation (CP 2: 277).

10.

Greenlee ( 1973: 52) contends that Pein:e "never developed his e<1ncept of n:presentation in such delllil a.~ to se1 forth ex.plidtly how it would apply to apparently non-referential signs". In contra~tto Peirce, Greenlee (1973: 59 and 82) empha.~izes semiusis a.~ signilkation ro~ther than reference and bencc privileges the sign-interpretant. rather than the sign-object rrlationship. For Greenlee. "the minimal description of the sign rrlation requin:s taking into account sign. interpretant and interprrtant's interpretant'"; he adds: "Notice in this n:construction, or critical rrvision. of Peirce's po.~ition on triodidty. the rejection of lUI 'object' stood for a.~ one of the three correlates" (Greenlee 1973: Ill).

litero~ture" (present vol.: 17). EgJ;ins (1994: 96f.) and Halliday (1994: 312-315). The closest analogies in Eggins' scheme to the literary devices being deS~;ribed in the present paper would be to the "anaphoric" category ("where the referent ha.~ appeam.l at an earlier point in the text" (97). and the "tatophoric" ("when the referent has not yet uppean:d. but will be provided subsequently" Iibid.!.)

52 II.

JOHN J. WHITE Altht1ugh sc:ltlom resorting to the tc:nn.

mo.~t ~-ummenliltor.;

offer interpretations of the par.ablc

as the cenlf',li misr e11 abymr element in the novel Thr Trial. though for all the difference: it Yrould make they might just as well he offering an e:.oegcsis of the St'fb.uwtdlr or Cmmtl)' Df1f·tnr versions of Kal'ka's paruble.l.e. the majority of readings tend to empha.~iu the story's furu;tion !1.\ an ell.islential pantble. thus highlighting elements of exophoric. ruther than ils entlophoric iconicity. Although Kallr.a may conceivably have been awill'e of lhe divergent reading~ the dilfcn:nl context~ ought ideally to gcncrute.lhe whole question of misr l'll abymt and intentionality is a \'CXed one (see Ron 19117: 427!.).

Rcfc~oces

Albee E. 1971. Tin)· Alice, Box and Quotation.t from Chairman Mao T.fe- T!UJg. Hannondsworth: Penguin. Auster, P. 1992. 17te Mu.fic of Chance. London: Faber. Bal. M. 1977. Narrato/ogie. Paris: Klincksi~ck. Bal. M. 1978. "'Mise en abymc et iconicih~··. IJrtirature 29: 116-128. Borg~s. J.L. 1989. "'Magias parcial~s del Quijote". In Obra.f completas. Vol. 1: /952/972: 45-47. Ed. Carlos V. Fria.'i. Barcelona: Ema.-t. (first edition: Otras Jnqui.ficioneJ. 1952. Buenos Aires: Sur.) Dlillenbach. L. 1972. U liw"t' et se.f miroir.f dat/S J'r?UI're romane.fque de Mit·l!e/ Sutor. Paris: Minard. Dlillenbach, L 1977. U ricit spiCIIIaire: £uai sur Ia mise en abyme. Paris: Seuil. Diillenbach, L. 1980. '"Reflexivity and Reading'". New IJterary Hi.ftory II: 435-49. Diillenbach, L. 1989. The Mi"or in the Text. Trans. Jeremy Whitely and Emma Hughes. Oxford: Polity. Eco, U. 1980. llmmtede/la rosa. Milan: Fabbri-Bompiani. Eggins, S. 1994. An /mroduction to Systemic Fwtctional lJnguistics. London: Pinter. Filredy. V. 1989. '"A Structural Model of Phcnom~na with Embedding in literature and Other Arts". Poetic.f TodCI)' 10: 745-769. Genette, G. 1972. Figurr.f Ill. Paris: Seuil. Gide, A. 1967. }ourna/.f /889-/949. Translat~d. selected and ~ditcd by Justin O'Brien. Hannondsworth: Penguin. Greenlee. D. 1973. Peirc·e"s Concept of Sign. The Hague-Paris: Mouton. Halliday. M.A. K. 1994. An lntmduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold. Hutcheon, Linda. 1980. Narci.ui.ftic Narrati••e: The Mrtafictional Paradox. London and New York: Methuen. Hu:dey. A. 1928. Poim Counter Point. london: Chatto & Windus. Janvi~r. L 1975. "La Population des miroirs". Poitique 22: 196-215. Jefferson, A. 1983. "'Mise en abyme and the Prophetic in Narrative". St)•le 17: 196-208. Kafka, F. 1993. Der ProujJ. Ed. Malcolm Pa~ley. Frankfurt: S. Fischer. Leiris, M. 1939. L'Aged'homme. Paris: Gallimard. Magny. C.·E. 1950. "La Mise en abyme". In Hi.ftoire du romanfranrais dep11is /9/8, 269-278. Paris: Seuil.

THE SEMIOTICS OF THE MISE EN ABYME

53

Mann, T. 1946. Der'Zlmberberg. 2 vols. Stockholm: Bennann-Fischer. Moles, A.A. 1981. L'lnwge: Conummicurionfunctionelle. Brussels: Castennan. Morrissette. B. 1971. "Un hCritage d'Andrt Gide: Ia duplication intCrieure''. Comparative Literalure St11dies 7: 125-142. NOth. W. 1999. "Spro~chlichc lkonizitiil''. 'kitschrififor Semintik, 21.2: 254-55. Paul. Jean (pseud. Johann Paul Friedrich Richter). 1969. Werke in drd Biinden, ed. Norbert Miller, Munich: Hanser. Vol. 3: Flegeljahrr. Eine Biogruphie. 7-380. Peirce. C.S. 1931-59. Collected Parwrs. Vols. 1-6 cd. Charles Hartshorne, and Paul Weiss: vols. 7-8. Ed. Arthur W. Burks. Cambridge. Ma.<>s.: Harvard University Press. (Quoted as CP. Reference is made to vols. and paragraphs.) Ricardou, J. 1967. ''l'histoire dans l'histoire''. In Prohli!me:r du nmm:au roman. 171-189. Paris: Seuil. Ron. M. 1987. ''The Restricted Abyss: Nine Problems in the llK:ory of mi.te·etJ-abyme". Poetics Today 8: 417-438. Royce. Josiah. 1976. The World and the lndil·idual. Gloucester. Mass.: Peter Smith. SchOnrich, G. 1991. ''Sclbstbewu8tsein in semiotischer Analyse". In Dimen:rionen des Sefhst: Selb.ttMII•J,PI.fein. RejlexiJ•itiittmd die Bedingun~:m wm Kommunikation. B. Kienzle and H. Pape (eds). 311-354. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Scbeok. T.A. 1976. Contributimu to the Doctrine of Sign:r. Bloomington: Indiana Univen.ity Press and Lisse: Peter De Ridder. Sebeok. T.A. 1979. nte Sigt• and it:r Moster.f. Austin: Univen.ity of Texas Press. Van Zocst. A.J.A. 1977. "Le signe iconique dans les textes". Zagadnienia Rod:_aj6w Literac·kicll. 20: 5-22. Wallis. M. 1975. "'On Iconic Signs". In Am and Signs (Indiana University Publications Studies in Semiotics 2), 1-19. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. White, J. 1985. "'The Cyclical Aspect of Franz Kafka's Short Story Collections". In Poth.f and Lab).·rinth:r: Nine Poper:rfrom a Kojlul Sympo:rium. (Publications of the Institute of Germanic Studies, 35), J.P. Stem and J.J. White (eds), 80-97. London: Institute of Gennanic Studies.

Good probes Icons, anaphors, and the evolution of language William J. Herlofsky Nagoya Gakuin Unil'ersity

I.

Introduction

A number of recent works by linguists. such as Steven Pinker's (1994) The

Language 111.{/inct. have attempted to provide plausible scenarios of the gradual evolution of language. cognition. and the human brain. Researchers in related fields as well. such as Donald (1991). utilizing both external and internal evidence of evolution. have posited the existence of an early mimetic culture, in which mimesis (including action metaphors and iconic gestures) was fundamental. and biology and culture began to coevolve. Others. such as Deacon (1997). have focused on cognitive processes.examining internal clues that suggest that the emergence of language signalled a par.tllel emergence of a new mode of thinking - symbolic thinking. which triggered a coevolution of language and the brain. In contrast to this continuity approach is the perspective that considers discontinuity a more accurate description of the evolution of language. One of the persons most often identified with this approach. linguist No01m Chomsky (although, to be fair. this is more an association forced upon him than one he would claim himselO. for example. suggests that the innate human language faculty might more accurately be depicted as a fluke of nature. or other sudden emergence. and that it wao; not directly determined by the forces of natural selection. The present paper. related to both of these approaches. utilizes the notions of 'icons· and ·anaphors· as probes in an attempt to provide the beginnings of a formal model of the evolutionary tr.msition from pre-symbolic thinking to symbolic thinking and language. The location of this model will be in the area of

56

WILLIAM J. HERLOFSKY

real-world-space referential associations. an area identified long ago. and clarified over a hundred years ago by Charles Peirce (1978) in his work on signs. as the

overlapping referential associations of 'icons'. 'indices', and 'symbols'. A reformulation of the definitions of these terms so that they pamllel the definitions of 'anaphors', 'pronominals' and 'referential expressions' in Chomsky's ( 1981) Binding Principles. and the similarities discovered therein. will be the focal point of the final sections of this paper. where there will also be an attempt to answer the following two questions: (I) How did symbolic thinking and a triadic system like the Binding Principles come into existence?, and (2) What (if any) tr.ansition can be identified

from the pre-linguistic. mimetic culture to symbolic culture and language'?

l.

The Binding Principles

Once. when Noam Chomsky (1982: 83) was asked about why he devoted so much time and effort to an explanation of anaphora phenomena. a seemingly minor part of language. he replied. ''there are certain phenomena. like anaphora. which have been extremely good probes; they've raised questions that have to be answered". Chomsky's (1981) answer to the questions raised by anaphora took the form of the Binding Principles. part of the innate language faculty that Chomsky calls 'Universal Grammar' (UG). The discussion in this section will focus on a simple illustration of the Binding Principles. 1 For our purposes. the Binding Principles (Chomsky 1986: 166) can be expressed as follows: (A) (8)

(C)

an anaphor is bound in a local domain a pronominal is free in a local domain an r-expression is free

These principles can be summarized. respectively. as follows: {ss .... X, ... (55 ... YJ ....AN. 11, .... ( ... } hs·· ..Xi. --Iss-·· Yr ...PR 11 .r .... (.... } <ss· ... Xi ... (ss· .. Yi ....RE·v•j· .... (.... } Where X and Y are possible antecedents AN is an anaphor (himself in (I)) PR is a pronominal (him in (2)) RE is a r-exprcssion (the referential expression Jolm in (3)) ( 55 ... ( is the loca1 domain (SUBJECT 2) in the embedded syntactic space {s5 ... } is the matrix syntactic (c-command) space The above summaries can be illustrated by the following sentences:

ICONS. ANAPHORS. AND THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE (I)

57

John(X) 1 thought (Bili(Y)J blamed hinm.fj{AN), 11J (i.e .. Bill. not John)J.

(2) John(X) 1 thought (Biii(Y)J blamed him(PR)11 ,J (i.e .. John. not Bili)J. (3) John(X) 1 thought (Biii(Y)J blamed Jo/m(RE). 11 ,J (i.e .. a different John. not Biii)J. In (I). the anaphor lrimself can only refer to Bill. That is. as Principle (A) predicts. the anaphor him.~elf (lacking referential independence) must be bound to an antecedent (binder) in its local domain (the embedded syntactic space). Bill. and cannot venture outside its local domain to lind an antecedent (being blocked by SUBJECT). In (2). the pronominal him cannot refer to Bill because. as Principle (B) states. the pronominal must be free (of antecedent binding) in its local domain (the embedded syntactic space). and therefore. in this case. must look outside the clause for an antecedent. i.e .. Jo/111 or someone else.ln (3).Jo/m in the embedded clause must be a different Jolm than the one who is doing the thinking, because. as Principle (C) predicts. the referential expression must be free of antecedent binding. These Binding Principles are posited by Chomsky as part of Universal Grnmmar, the genetic language endowment that human beings are born with. and which aids them in acquiring language. One of the consistent criticisms of Chomsky's UG model has resulted from Chomsky's suggestion that this genetic language endowment did not gradually evolve like other organs. but somehow suddenly emerged. in some sort of readystate. as a fully operational language organ. Many consider this discontinuity stance to be a major problem. Steven Pinker ( 1994: 355-357). for example. in his book. Tire LLmguage lnslillcl. rarely accuses Chomsky of faulty reasoning. but does state that Chomsky is "wrong"' when implying that the "language organ" evolved in a process different from that proposed for other organs of the body. and goes on to claim that Chomsky was in error ··when he dismissed natural selection as having no substance" So while Pinker maintains the continuity approach and claims that the unique human language ability evolved gradually over time. Chomsky suggests a more sudden, 'big-pop'-like emergence for the origin of this uniquely human ability. If. as Pinker and many other gradualists claim. the evolution of language was gradual and continuous. then we would expect to lind evolutionary antecedents of present-day syntactic complexity. some less evolved hints of the "language organ" and its components (such as the Binding Principles) in our primitive ancestors. It is the purpose of the remaining sections of this paper to suggest a scenario for just how symbolic culture and the syntactic complexity of human language may have gradually emerged from non-linguistic. non-symbolic mimetic culture.

58

J.

WILLIAM J. HERLOFSKY

From mimetic culture and mimetic words to symbolic culture and language

During a period that commenced long. long

<~go

(since there is still considerable

disagreement about the dates of the different stages of hominid evolution, no attempt is made in the present paper to fix dates or provide a chronology of this evolutionary process). our human ancestors began to develop what now appears to be the beginnings of human culture. Donald ( 1991) uses the term 'mimetic culture' to refer to the period when imitation began to appear. and culture started

to cohere with biology and coevolve. At some stage long after this distant beginning. more recent hominids were able to re-present certain simple objects and events and reflect on them. with the re-presentations being further developments of culture. and the reflections the beginnings of cognition. These re-presentations. of course. often included the usc of the human body itself. in the action metaphors of rituaJs and other mimesis, as well as the use of facial expressions and vocalizations. phenomena particularly relevant to the emergence of speech. the outward manifestation of the cognitive development that led to language. It was probably sometime during this mimetic period that some vocal mimicking of animal sounds began. Vocal mimicry can serve a number of functions. and in the beginning it may have been merely for the simple pleasure of the mimicry itself that early humans began to imitate the sounds made by the animaJs around them. These kinds of iconic vocalizations. along with other handcrdfted icons that gradually came to be made in the shapes of certain revered creatures. were an important part of the evolving mimetic culture. a culture which also included imitation in the making of tools and other crafts and arts. such as music. dance. and other ritualistic activities. Along with icons (shapes. sounds. movements. etc .. intentionally crafted to resemble their referents in some recognizable way). there were at the same time the beginnings of the recognition of correlations between the natur.tl signs unintentionally left by other creatures (such as footprints and odors) and the creatures themselves. Early hominids. after observing numerous repetitions of the contiguous occurrences of the creatures and these signs (as with. for example. numerous associations between other natural phenomena. such as fire and smoke). began to correlate the signs of the creatures with the creatures themselves. The footprints and the smell of a bear would therefore eventually be taken as signs that the bear had passed that way. The early humans might have also begun to make their own references to the bears. with imitative bear-like growls. when they saw the footprints or smelled the bear. and this would be another link in the referential chain. combining iconic vocalizations with indices. on the path to symbols:1

ICONS. ANAPHORS. AND THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE

59

At first. as suggested above. these vocal imitations most probably only occurred at the place where the bear, or bear prints and odors. were encountered. But it is possible that at some later time. and at some different place. the early humans would recall the bear and the sign." and reflexively let out a bear-like sound. not yet having developed the necessary control to suppress these voc<~l reflexes. Done alone. this was perhaps the beginning of the cognitive reflection that eventually led to language ubility: done in the company of others. this displaced reference was the beginning of social communication und language perfonnance. The experiencing of icons and indices in real-world space4 had activuted some form of mental representations that. echoing through the neural circuitry of the cognitive cave of the primitive human brain. at some point. came out sounding like word'i. To recapitulate. if the early humans imitated the growling of a bear with a growl-like sound of their own. then this was the seed of a motivated iconic expression. a mimetic word. that resembled the actual growl of the bear (within a certain acceptable resemblance range). If these early humans. after many repeated sightings of bears and their footprints. were at some point able to understand that the prints were left by the bears at some previous time. then they were able to recognize a natura] index. which does not resemble its referent as such (as an icon does. although there may be some partial resemblance, as when a footprint resembles the shape of the foot of a bear). but which is connected to the referent physically and/or temporally (White 1999). A hem ha.'i to ph_nically pass a cert<~in way at some time for there to be 41 trace. like a footprint or odor. left at that place. The stimulus for the next stage. that is. what brought early hominids to the stage of symbols und symbolic communication. is controversial. Whether it was warning calls (Cheney and Seyfarth 1990). gestures (Armstrong et al. 1995). grooming (Dunbar 1996), memes (Blackmore 1999). the lowering of the larynx and syllable structure (Carstairs-McCarthy 1999). or some combination of these and/or other factors thut caused the human species to make the giant leap to symbolic communication will perhaps never be known. 5 What we can be certain of, however. is that human beings did somehow make this leap, and are now able to use symbolic language. At some point. some group of individuals must have started to conventionalize some of the vocalizations and gestures they used to refer to animals or other objects. or perhaps this conventionalization occurred when some group or clan began to use drawings of bears, or drawings of bear paws. as symbols for bears. and perhaps later. a.'i symbols for their bear-hunting group or clan itself. That is. gradually. certain names/drawings may have become preferences of the group.

60

WILLIAM J. HERLOFSKY

then pan. of the customs and rituals to be taughl and learned. and eventually. these names and visual representations entered the realm of conventionalized symbols. somewhat distant from their motivated origins. This is the stage. the stage of creating and using conventionalized symbols for communication. to which other animals have never advanced. Why did only human beings evolve cognitively to the point where they could create and usc symbols and language? Although the question 'Why'!' will not be answered in the next section. a model of 'How?' will be proposed.

4.

The principles of referential association binding

Once again. icons are signs that share some inherent feature similarity with the phenomena in the real world to which they refer (an imitation of the growl of a bear. or a dr.1wing or carving of a bear). Indices are natural signs that. through repeated observations. have been recognized as having physical or tempoml correlation to their referents (footprints of animals. or the smoke of a fire). For a symbol. there is some formal rule or other conventionalized link between the symbol and its referent (using a vocalized name. or drawing of a bear paw. to represent a bear. or to represent a clan). These relationships can be summarized as follows: icons share some similarity with the object to which they refer indices arc connected physically and/or temporally to the object they indicate symbols are not similar to the object they refer to. nor are they neces..~arily connected physically or temporally. but instead they are connected by means of formal rules or conventions These definitions are vaguely reminiscent of the triad of definitions in the Binding Principles in Section 2. in the sense that icons and anaphors. at one extreme. lack referential independence. and thus must not be too distant (syntactically for anaphors. metaphorically/conceptually for icons). from their referents, while symbols and r-expressions are referentially independent. In fact. the definitions above can be reformulated to make them resemble the Binding Principles a bit more:

Principles of Referential Association (A) (B)

an icon must resemble its referent within a certain resemblance range an index does not resemble its referent within a certain resemblance range. but must be connected temporally and/or physically to its referent

ICONS. ANAPHORS. AND THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE (C)

61

a symbolic expression is free from resemblance or necessary physical and/or temporal connection with its referent

Finally. these principles can be made to appear almost identical to the Binding Principles after the creation of a few technical terms. As mentioned above. both icons and indices lack referential independence. Stated another way. their reference is dependent on the pre-existence of entity/event referents in real-world space. and they exist as icons and indices only as the resuh of the recognition of the referential associations with these pre-existing entities/events (parallel. perhaps. to the relationship of anaphors and pmnominals to their syntactic antecedents). We will call the real-world space of this necessary erc-~xisting !(:ferenHconl!ndex relationship the 'peri-scope' and we will label the entity that the icon closely resembles the OBJECT (the object. shape. sound. etc .. with which the icon shares certain similarity features (of sound. shape. etc.) within a necessary resemblance rdnge). An icon must be bound within the local domain (dose resemblance in the metaphorical sense of Lakoff and Johnson (1999)) of its OBJECT. while an index's referent must be outside the OBJECT domain. Symbolic expressions ace abbreviated to s-expression.~. We can now reformulate the principles as follows: The Principles of Referential Association Binding an icon is bound in a local domain (A) (B) an index is free in a local domain (C) an s-expression is free These principles can be summarized. respectively. by the following: {RWS""X1 .... (RWS""YJ ... .IC.,,J' ... )

... }

{RWS""XI'"''RWS"''YJ ... .JN,,.J .... ) ... } {RWS .... X ..... (RWS""YJ ....SY.11 .J' ... ) ... }

Where X and Y are possible referents IC is an icon IN is an index SY is a symbol IRws ... ) is the local domain (OBJECT) in real-world space {Rws ... } is the wider real-world (peri-scope) space In this scheme, the iconIC can only refer to the referent Y, some entity in realworld space (as opposed to the syntactic space of the Binding Principles). that it resembles within a certain necessary resemblance runge. Referent X is outside the acceptable resemblance range (blocked by OBJECT). and therefore cannot be a referent of the icon IC. The index IN cannot be an index for Y because it is

62

WILLIAM J. HERLOFSKY

within the resemblance r<mge that would make it an icon. It can. however. be an icon for Y, but only an index for X. The symbol SY cannot be an arbitrary symbol for either Y or X because it closely resembles Y and is physically and/or temporally necessarily connected to X. Of course. exceptions to these principles. as well as other complications related to the overlapping categories of the nonstatic referential processes may exist (as indeed Chomsky discovered many complications with anaphoric reference in syntactic space). but these complications must be left as topics for future research. since the objective of this paper is merely to suggest the beginnings of a forma] model for one aspect of the evolution of language.

S.

Concluding remarks

What the above discussion has anempted to illustrate are the parallels between Chomsky's Binding Principles (BP) and the restatement of the definitions of icons. indices, and symbols. In fact. the hypothesis presented here is that these Principles of Referential Association Binding (PRAB) may have been the semiotic predecessor. in real-world space. to the Binding Principles in syntactic space. Primitive human beings advanced from the recognition of icons and indices to symbols, and this progression provided for the integration of discontinuous real-world-space entities and events. as well as the eventual integration of disjointed cognitive categories. with this integration helping to put in place a structural fmmework that was eventually useful in the synthesis of other similarly related information. In other words. once primitive humans were able to make the cognitive connections between the diverse real-world space experiences of icons, indices. and symbols. they were eventually able to project this categorical triadic framework into other conceptual areas as well. as. for example. in the similar categorization of anaphors. pronominals. and referential expressions in syntactic space. What the PRAB and BP triadic concepts have in common. then. is: (I) a category of referentially dependent forms very closely (within the SUBJECT domain of syntactic space for anaphors, and within OBJECT domain of realworld space for icons) identified with a referent: (2) a category of forms that indicate or point to a referent more indirectly. from a distance (but still within the c-command scope of syntactic space for pronominals. and the peri-scope of real-world space for indices): and (3) a category of referentially independent forms that exist free of necessary connection (syntactic or real-world) to a referent. These categories can be abbreviated and illustmted as follows:

ICONS. ANAPHORS. AND THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE

close identifiers distal pointers freeexisters

PRAB (RWS)

BP (SS)

icons (OBJECT) indices (peri-scope) s-ex press ions

anaphors (SUBJECT) pronominals (c-command) r-expressions

63

And so, as suggested throughout this paper. the development of the triadic referential associations of icons. indices. and symbols provided early humans with a means of gradually integrating many of the disjointed entity/event categories they had recognized. and also provided them with a structure that blended non-linguistic and linguistic components. This integration of non-linguistic and linguistic categories. as well a.o; the triadic fmmework used for this integration, may have also been useful in the synthesis of other conceptual information. including the syntactic information that eventually found its way into Chomsky's Binding Principles. principles that are claimed to be pan of an autonomous linguistic system. But is it possible for language and syntax to be autonomous of other cognitive faculties? Is it possible for language to have evolved discontinuously from other aspects of human cognitive heritage'? To indirectly answer these questions. consider the following quote from Ted Hughes ( 1977): The speciaJ kind of excitemenl. the slightly mesmerized and quite involuntary concentration with which you make out the stirrings of a new poem in your mind, then the outline. the mass and color and clean final fnrm of it. the unique living reality of it in the midst of the general lifelessness. all that is too familiar to mistake. This is hunting and the poem is a new species of creature, a new specimen of the life outside our own.

Could it be mere coincidence that even Chomsky uses metaphors like movemellt and trace when he discusses the search (hunt'?) for syntactic antecedents? I think not.There may have been some evolutionary discontinuity in the external manifestations of the triadic structures discussed above, coinciding with the leap from real-world space to syntactic space. but there was continuity in the evolution of human cognition.The rules of the hunt stayed generally the same, it was the hunting ground that changed.

Acknowledgments I would like tn express my debt ami gr.1titude to Prore~)o(lr Masachiyu Amano, or Nagoya Universil)', and Professor Olga Fischer. of the University or Amstenlam. ror their many valuable comments on earlierversionsofthispaper.

64

WD..LIAM I. HERLOFSKY

Notes I.

When Chomsky fonnulaled the!IC principles. he included the notion.~ of referenlial dependence/ independence and synloclic scope. nolion.~ that were nol an explicil part of most common definitions of the tcnns ·rene:ooive/r~dprocal' (anaphon; in Chomsky's framework). ·pronoun' (pronominal), and 'noun' (rderenlial expression), il!'i illustrated in the dcfinitioJL~ below. from lhe Amrrican Hrritat:t Dictitmary (1992): rrdprtKal - Expressing mutual oction or re\alionship. Used of some verb.~ and C(lmpound prunoull!i rrjfrxi,·r - or. rela1ing 10, or being lhe pronoun used as the di~t object of a renexivc verb, :u hrrlrf[ in She drt.ut'd hrrsrlf. pronoun - 01\t' of a cla~s of word~ that function a~ substilules for noun.~ or noun phr.1ses and designate penoons or things a.~ketl for. previously specified. or undel'!itood fn1m

cuntcu. -A word that is used to name a person, place, thing, quality. or action and Cilll function M the subject or object of a verb. the object of a preposition. or illl appositive. Chomsky'~ reformulation of these delinitions into the Binding Principles wa.~ a con~iderable shift in foc:us. It will be shown in the linaltwo sections of the present paper how the reformulation of the definitions of the semiocic nocions 'icon'. 'inde11.' and ·~ymbol' (al~o relat~ to referential dependence/independence, but in real-world space ]see oote 4. below]. as opposed to syntactic spoce) cilll also result in principles with a focus similar to that of Chomsky's Binding Principles.

2.

A thorough e11.planation of the notions of SUBJECT and c-command are beyond the scope of the ~sent discussion. For our purposes. it is sufficient to state that SUBJECf (specified subject and/or lenr.e) is tbe banier that makes anaphor binding local, and c-command is a neccs.~ary quality of the antecedents of both aniiphors and pronominals. Somewhat purullel notions will be developed for icons and indices in the linal sections of this paper. For those Willlting to know more about SUBlECf and c-comnwnd.. pleuse consult the work.~ by Chorru~ky li~ted in the reference section.

3.

lbere is no claim being made here !hut icons preceded indices in the evolutionary process, or vier versa. only that they both developed before symbols. (In fact. it is almost certain !hut production uf indices, or symptoms, in the fonn uf grunts and groans. a.~ well ~ the footprint~ and odors. ~ceded the production of icons.) Nor is it being claimed that icons and indices were the unly factors involved in the evolution uf lilllguage (gestures, warning calls. etc .. were alw probably involved). But because of space limitations. illld the focus of the present paper. icun.~. indices, and symbols are the only factors that concern us here.

4.

1be tenn 'real-wodd space' is used throughout this paper to refer to the space in the real world where concrete icons. indices. and symbols are encountered, but this notion is also linked to some primitive conceptualizations aboot these real-world uperiern:es, and the notion could also be e11.1ended to include reference to a perceived world. or phenomena of an imagined or mental world ~ well (as in mythology lllld religion). or other embodied. conceptual/cognitive/mental spaces {see, for uample. Fauconnier 1985 and Lakoff and Johnson 1999). lbese abstfllCt innerspace notions OlR recogn~ed as possibilities. but are not dcl!ll with in detail in the presc::nt paper. c11.cept to suggest that the integration of notions arising from relll·world-spoce uperiences may have also eventually led to innrr-~p;u:e concept integration.

ICONS. ANAPHORS. AND THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE S. Since gestun:s and spoken language leave no

65

fos..~il

cvideJK:e, when ~ Whel'l: the tr.msition matle must remain speculative. II is beyond

from real-world-spa~.~ experience to symbols wa.~ the S~;ope of this paper to 1ry to provide a de!~!:ription of this complicated tr.msition or an explanation for why it happened. but in the abllence of a fossiltr.lil. of panicular relevance to the present analy~is an: observations of existing visual/spatial sign languages (!hat are perflups less conventionalized than rrnany spoken languages). A.~ suggested by Jackem.lolf ( 1993), for example. pronouns in sign languages provide evillence for the spccilkation of reference in a spatial mode thai seems consi~1ent with the discussion of anaphorslpronominals and icons/ indices in thi~ and the previous section. as well as with lhe diS~;ossion in the next section. Taub ( 1997) a.~ well. Slates that pointing (it~elr a form of index) to certain signing spaces in American Sign Language in elf~t makes the indices represented by the subscript numbers in the previou~ ~lion visible. In Japan Sign Language too tKazuyuki Kanda, personal communication), pronouns arc located in and intlexed to spccilic visible signing spaces. and reflexives. formed with certuin iconic gender cla.~sillcrs (the thumb for male, and little linger for female), are also indexed to specific signing spaces. There arc also struCiural aspeCis in spoken/written language~ linking anaphors/prononimals and icon.'i/indices. relationships which seems to suppo11 the analysis in the following section. Relluives in many languages. for example, oonla.in references to the body (PicrR Pica. personal communication). as with the Japanese relle:tivcs ji-shi11 ('selfbod)'' for animate beings) and ji-tai ('self-body' for inanimate objects). This common usc: of body metaphors i.~ perbaps. a.~ Keller ( 199H: lo..) suggest~. due to the fact that everyone ha.~ a body, and so body metaphors arc good "starting points for associative inferences". And since, a.~ Keller ( 1998: 206) continues. metaphors can be seen a.~ "pictures painted with linguistic symboh", the body metaphors in reflexives can be seen a.~ metaphorical icon.~. Additionally, rcllell;ives (and pronouns) in some languages. such a.~ Engli.~h. must share common agmment features (number, gender, person) with their <."Oindcxed antecedents. features that indicate a kind of lillRUiJtic US(mblullce. perhaps counterpun.~ to the similarity features mentioned in the definition of OBJECT in 5eetion four. Allhough intercsting,thcse a.~pccts of the kon/anaphor n:lation.~hip and their connection to the evolutionary model pn:sc::nted above will 1101 be dealt with in this paper.

References Armstrong. D .. W. Stoke, and W. Sherman (eds). 1995. Gest11re and the Nature of LonRuafle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blackmore. S. 1999. The Meme Machitle. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carstairs-McCarthy. A. 1999. The Origins of Complex l..at1guaRe: An Inquiry• into the Ew)lutionary BeginninRS of Sentences, Syllables. and Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cheney, D. and Seyfarth, R. 1990. How Monkeys See the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chomsky, N. 1981. Ucrures on Go~·ernment and Binding. Dorrlrecht: Foris. Chomsky, N. 1982. The Gt'nt'rative Enterprise. Dordrecht: Foris. Chomsky, N. 1986. Knowledge of Language. New York: Pracgcr. Deacon, T. 1997. TlleS}·mholic Spedes: The Co-e,•olution ofl..atlguageand the Brain. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

66

WlLLIAM J. HERLOFSKY

Donald, M. 1991. Origins of the Mndun Mind: Thrl'e Stage,, in the Emlmion of Culture and Cognititm. Cambridge: Harvard Univer.>ity Press. Dunbar, R. 1996. Grooming, Go.uip, and the Emlutimr of Longuagt'. London: Fllber and Faber. Fauconnier, G. 1985. Mental Spaces. Cambridge: MIT Press. Haiman, J. 1998. Talk is Cheap: Sarm.fm, Alienation, ami tlte El·o/mion of Language. Oxford: Oxford Univer.;ity Press. Hughes. T. 1977. "Poetry in the Schools". American Poetry Rel'it'll', SeptemberiOt·tober 24:45-51. Hurford. J .• M. Studdert·Kennedy. and C. Knight (eds). 1998. Approaches to the Emlution ofl..allguage: Social and Cognitive Ba.fe.f. Cambridge: Cambridge Univcrliity Press. JackendofT. R. 1993. Pattem.f ill the Mind: Language and Human Namre. Heme! Hempstead: Harvester Wheat-.heaf. Keller, R. 1998. A Theory of Ur•guistic Signs. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson. 1999. Philosophy i11 the Fle.fh: The Embodied Mind and Ju Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books. Peirce, C. 1978. Collected Papers. Vol.//. Elemems of Logic C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss (eds). Cambridge: Belknap. Pinker, S. 1994. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. New York: William Morrow. Taub. S. 1997. Language and the Body: lconicity and Metaphor in American Sign Language. PhD Dissenation, University of California, Berkeley. White, J. 1999. "On Semiotic Interplay: fonns of Creative Interaction Between lconicity and lndexicality in Twentieth-Century Litemture". In M. Niinny and 0. fischer (eds). Form Miming Meaning: lmnicity in Language and literature. 83-108. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

PART

II

Sounds and beyond

The sound as an echo to the sense The iconicity of English gl- words Piotr Sadowski American College Dublin

I.

Introductory remarks

The object of this paper is to examine the sound-symbolic. or iconic. value of English gl- words in the light of a proposed evolutionary cla..~sification of linguistic signs. The cl<~ssification is based on the assumption that language contains instances where there exists a natural, non-arbitrary connection between the form of the linguistic sign and its meaning. and that the natural phonosemic motivation is rooted in the genesis of language. At the same time it is well known that the main thrust of post-Saussurian linguistics strongly supports the essentially arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign, and the etymological and semantic creativity of the living speech communities is usually disregarded or marginalised. However. such linguists a.'i Olio Jespersen ( 1922: 396-411 ), Edward Sapir (1929), or Roman Jakobson (1979) have turned their attention towards the immediate and autonomous elements of the sound shape of language. in which the significance is prompted in a direct and spontaneous way by the very nature of the sound pattern (Jakobson 1979: 177-178). Despite the insistence of main· stream linguistics to treat language a.'i a closed semiotic system. without reference to extmlinguistic reality. the seemingly contradictory claims about the arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign on the one hand and about linguistic iconicity on the other hand can in fact be reconciled within a functional model of the evolution of language. As Earl R. Anderson ha'i also recently observed. the structuralists were "right to insist that all linguistic signs are arbitrary, but wrong to leap to the conclusion that no linguistic signs are nonarbitmry'' (Anderson 1998: 29).

70

PIOTR SADOWSKI

In the simplest definition verbal iconicity.or sound symbolism. is "a naturdl correspondence between sound and sense'' (Jespersen 1922: 396). "an inmost. natural similarity association between sound and meaning (.{igtrans and siRnatum)", in which we can talk about the "expressive values in the sounds of language" {Jakobson 1979: 178).1n this sense sound symbolism is a kind of 'popular etymology' based on 'expressive' or 'impressive' phonetics. felt and instinctively recognised as valid by mass agreement within a given speech community. especially by its more language-sensitive members such as children or poets. As is now fully recognised (Hinton et al. 1994b: 1-12; Anderson 1998: 21-27). verbal iconicity extends far beyond the small class of onomatopoeic words. and constitutes a separate linguistic dimension referred to by Roger W. Wescott as "allolanguage", denoting those aspects of language that are alienated from conventionally structured speech. so-ca.lled "microlanguage" (qtd. in Joseph 1994: 222). Allolanguage includes non-human communication systems, child language. interjections. language play and the like. characterised as expressive, affective. connotative - generally iconic. This is obviously not to say that all linguistic sounds carry natural signification. although a sizeable category certainly does. even if particular sounds are symbolic only in some words and not in others.

2.

Verbal iconicity and the origin of language

While the existence of both iconic and arbitrary signs in language seems to be an empirical fact. the apparent contradiction in their formation and communicative function must be resolved within a comprehensive model of the origin and evolution of language as a system of communication. Of primary importance here are relations between semantics and phonology as area" most relevant to iconicity of speech sounds. Considering some geneml facts about the evolution of the human species in its interaction with the natural and social environments. it is possible to talk about three main categories of linguistic signs: emotive. iconic and arbitrary. 1 2.1

Emoti~·e .~ignJ

The emotive language is the most archaic. non-iconic and non-arbitrary system of auditory communication. expressing the emotional or physical states of the speaker. and consisting of such vocalisations as interjections. grunts, moans. cries. whistles. clicks. coughing. hiccuping. expressive intonation and so on?

THE !CONICITY OF ENGLISH GL-WORDS

71

These vocal signs have arisen in the course of evolution as communicative responses to typical life situations such as survival, sexual behaviour, search for food. group integration and so on. The selective pressure must have favoured

first of aJI various warning signaJs used in situations of crisis and emergency, demanding speedy and accurate communication; for example. during group hunting. in moments of sudden danger from predators. from elemental forces or human foes.ln such situations adaptive success clearly depended on the speed of comprehension and appropriate reaction. which means that the sound-object connection must at this stage have been emotive. automatic and spontaneous. that is. without the delaying mediacy of conscious deliberation. Emotive auditory signs are therefore related to the deeply-rooted human (and probably mammalian) neurology and cognition, and fonn the most archaic 'physiological' or 'symptomatic' language. common to all humans and shared with our animal ancestors. Emotive signs arc non-iconic in the sense that the vocal pattern bears no fonnal relation to the referent, as emotional states have no tangible 'fonn', and they are non-arbitrary in that the connection between the sound and the corresponding emotional state is not learned but innate. For this reason the same emotive language must be common to all members of the human species, and will be expected to reveal cross-cultural intelligibility: e.g .. cries of fear. anger or joy will be correctly identified as such everywhere. regardless of rnce or culture. Emotive signs are the stuff of animal communication. and still play an important role in human intercourse. especially in situations characterised by thre
On the other hand the iconic. or sound-symbolic signs are non-arbitr.try and representational. in the sense that the sound pattern bears a fonnal analogy to the physical properties of denoted objects. states and phenomena. The most obvious type of iconic sounds are onomatopoeic expressions.3 in which sound patterns imitate the environmental sounds: e.g .. bang, cough. cuc-koo. murm11r. rat-a-tat and so on. Unlike the majority of emotive signs onomatopoeic sounds are often conventionalised into linguistic fonns, and are referential in function - a kind of primitive name for an object in the fonn of an imitation of the sound produced by it.

72

PIOTR SADOWSKI An important type of verbal iconicity are synaesthetic signs. the result of an

"acoustic symbolisation of non-acoustic phenomena.. (Hinton et aJ. l994b:4: Anderson 1998: 191-223). the process whereby certain vowels. consonants and suprasegmcntals are intuitively perceived to represent visual or tactile properties of objects. such a.'i size. shape, brightness. softness, texture. temperature. movement, weight and so on. Synaesthetic sounds arc even more conventionalised than onomatopoeic signs. which accounts for a less direct relation between sound and meaning in these signs. Synaesthetic iconicity represents a significant tendency in languages throughout the world: for example. in almost ninety per cent of the languages that have diminutive marking. the diminutive is symbolised by high front vowels (Hinton et al. 1994b:4). Jespersen (1922:400-401) and Jakobson (1979: 188) also argued the existence of sound and colour palterns. whereby back vowels tend to denote dark colours (as in gloom or glum). and front vowels tend to be 'bright' (gleam, gliller. glimmer etc.). For Jakobson (1979: 188-192) the entire vowel system displays "almost the same fundamental properties as the chromatic colours". as well as other physical properties referring to different senses. Thus it is pos.<>iblc to talk about high vowels as being 'bright'. 'sharp', 'cold', 'hard', 'light in weight'. 'quick', 'narrow' etc .. and about low vowels a..; being 'dark', 'blunt', 'warm', 'soft'. 'heavy', 'slow', 'wide' and so on. Similar sound·symbolic qualities can be argued for consonants with. for example. stops characterised as 'hard' and sibilants as 'soft'. or the liquid (r) described in sound-symbolic experiments as 'rough', 'strong', 'heavy'. 'bitter' etc .. and (I( as 'tame'. 'peaceful'. 'smooth'. ·Jight·weight'. 'clear'. 'weak' and so on:~ The universality of emotive and iconic sounds (including synaesthetic sound symbolism). now proven in psycholinguistic experiments (Priestly 1994: 237). speaks in favour of an iconic Ur.~prad1e, a kind of archetypal phonology consist· ing of natural sound·object associations. deposited in the deep layers of phylogenetic memory as part of human evolutionary legacy. As argued by the anthro· pologist Andrzej Wierciflski ( 1981: 87-95; 1987). articulated speech as an advantageous tool in social communication must have arisen from intricate instrumental relations between early humans and the natural environmenl. with the sound shape of language re8ecting those complex relations in a natural and direct way. lconicity as an analogy between the phonetic properties of speech sounds and the physical. including acoustic. properties of different objects. phenomena and states is then a logical consequence of human evolution. and can be seen as an adaptive advantage allowing for quick identification of relevant elements of the environment. The benefits of spontaneous sound·symbolic communication have been demonstrated by experiments in which reaction·times of making correct judgements about the meanings of words were proven to be

THE !CONICITY OF ENGLISH GL-WOROS

73

much shorter for sound-symbolic words than for arbitrary words (qtd. in Hinton et al. 1994b: 11). In the human and non-human world alike. speed and accuracy

of communication are usually to the benefit of the speaker and hearer. and are greatly enhanced if the form of vocalisation is tied directly to meaning in a nonarbitrary way. In fact. as Leanne Hinton ( 1994b: II) shrewdly observes. it is the evolutionary value of arbitrariness that must be explained. 2.3 Arbirrary ,{igtrs While the emotive signs appear to be inherited by humans from their animal

ancestors. and the iconic signs came from the archetypal Ursprache shared by humanity at an early stages of evolution. the much-celebrated arbitrariness of the

linguistic sign must have resulted from the subsequent socio-cultural evolution and the gradual isolation of linguistic communities from the immediate adaptive pressures of the naturo~l environment. This and another factor. the dispersal throughout the globe of nomadic hunting-gathering communities with their independent linguistic developments. have eventually given rise to the present diversity of ethnic languages of the world. The diversification of lexicons and phonological systems must have been aided by. and in itself encouruged. the gmdual loss of iconicity of the linguistic sign in favour of arbitrariness, which has led in time to the situation in which there may practically be as many different names for the same object as there are languages. The loss of the iconic Unprache shared by all humanity in favour of multiple non-iconic ethnic languages. brought about by separate cultural developments. is vividly illustrated by the well-known Biblical story of the Tower of Babel and the Confusion of Languages (Getle.\'i.f 11:1-7). According to the account. before the building of the tower and the city. which represent urban civilisation. "the whole earth was of one language. and of one speech" (Ge11. II: I). which I take as referring to the archetypal. emotive and iconic Ur.\'prache. The liberation from the constraints and stabilising pressures of the natuml environment brought about by culture boosted and accelerated ethnic diversification and separate socio-culturnl developments. In linguistic terms. the transition from a nomadic. more natural lifestyle to the life of settlement and urbanisation precipitated a transition from a predominantly emotive-iconic language to one dominated by cultur.llly-driven arbitrary signs. Once the natural link between the sign and the referent was snapped.language 'broke loose'. so to speak. triggering rapid multiplication of ethnic languages with their diiTerent grammars and vocabularies. This is exactly what happens in the Biblical story: jealous of human progress in civilisation. God confounded the people's common language.

74

PIOTR SADOWSKI

.. that they may not understand one another's speech,. (Getr. 11:7). Lack of communication caused the building of the city to be abandoned. or at lea~t temporarily delayed: as we know, despite the present linguistic and cultural diversification. humanity always manages to find some panethnic lingua franca, be it medicva1 Latin. post-Enlightenment French. or present-day English. to coordinate multicultural and multinational enterprises. As a result of the evolution outlined above. language at the present stage must present a three-tier structure. as far as the relations between phonology and semantics are concerned: the bulk of speech sounds of any language consists of arbitrary signs. a smaller class of sounds can be described as iconic. and an even smaller class includes emotive sounds. From a diachronic perspective. however. the proportions are reversed. in that language started as a system of emotive communication growing gradually iconic and finally arbitrary. as illustrated in Figure I. synchronic

diachronic Figure I. nu· relatiom between the 011d synchronic perspet·ti~·e

emoti~·e,

iconi£·, and arbitrary Jign.s fmm a diad1ronic

The main conclusion to be drawn from the above evolutionary classification of linguistic signs is that languages tend to decreao;e in their emotive and iconic quality over time:s that is. the general tendency is from non-arbitrary to more arbitrary signs. from more universal to more language-specific. It is, however. unlikely that emotiveness and iconicity as the more archaic features of language will ever disappear completely: they are too much a part of human neurophysiology. As long as emotions. instincts. intuitions and analogising thinking exist. language will continue to express this emotive and intuitive behaviour in child talk. religious ('mantric') language. colloquial word-play, comic strips. verbal advertisements and oral poetry.

THE !CONICITY OF ENGLISH GL-WORDS

J.

75

The gl- cluster

In the analytical part of the paper I will examine the sound-symbolic quality of English words beginning with gl-. a consonantal cluster consisting of a voiced velar stop and the lateral liquid (I(. In particular. I want to address the following questions: I.

2.

3.

First of all. are the gl- words iconic at all: that is. is the semantic field denoted by word-initial gl- a resuh of non-random and non-arbitrary il'isociation between sound and sense? Are there any developmental patterns in the iconicity of gl- words from Old to Modern English? Is the postulated iconicity of g/- words language specific or more universal?

3.1 Tlte iconicity ofgl- words The g/- cluster consists of a voiced explosive consonant articulated with the back of the tongue at the rear of the mouth cavity. followed by a continuous. sonorant lateral sound produced with the tip of the tongue pressed against the alveolar ridge. that is. towards the front of the mouth cavity. The phonetic properties of the cluster illustrate therefore an abrupt and definite start of a process: a decisive beginning from a single point followed by a smooth. gliding movement away from the starting point and continuing in time. The energic, explosive quality of (g] in sound·symbolic contexts has already been noted by scholars (Jakobson 1979: 201; Reid 1967: 24), as was the light. smooth. buoyant quality of the [I] sound (Jespersen 1922:399: Reid 1967:4, 24). As observed by Jespersen (1922: 400) for example. (I] often appears in words denoting 'light movement', as in flow, flake. fluller. flicker. fli11g. flurry, slide . .flip. slithel' or glide. David Reid (1967:24) in his impressionistic but useful study of consonantal sound symbolism draws attention to the presence of [I) in nouns denoting 'light objects': a la11ce as a light weapon. a latch as a light fastening./at!Jer as light foam. a lilt as a light song./u11ch as a light meal and so on. In brief. the (I] sound seems to reveal an observable tendency to denote lack of size or substance. and the uncertain. repeated. light and sudden movement (Crystal 1995: 251 ). It is not SUfllrising therefore that the combination of an abrupt beginning with a light. smooth movement. present in the phonetic features of gl· cluster. is ideaJly suited as a sound·symbolic. or analogical representation of. for example. immaterial light shining away from its source. As the examination of the relevant lexical set from Modem English illustrates. this indeed is the main connotation of gl· words. at least in the English language.

76

PIOTR SADOWSKI

Methodologically speaking, an informed judgement about the iconicity of certain sounds or clusters of sounds can only be made after examining the ell/ire lexical set. however tempting it may be to select only those words that support a sound-symbolic claim and ignore those that do not. I have therefore examined the entire set of etymologically unrelated English gl- words. choosing one item from every semantic group. usually a noun or a verb. less often an adjective, containing the main root. Thus according to the OED ( 1989) there exist 47 independent Modem English gl- words, which can be arranged into the following semantic groups (Table I): Table I. Modern No

En~:li.fil

gl- ll'orc/.f

Meaning

Lexical hems

Light. brightness

glad. glade, glailc. glonce. glare. gla.u. t:leam. glee. glud. gl~g. glen/. glimmer, glisten. glitter. glow

Number

2

Looking. seeing

glance. glart. glen/, glint. gloat. gloom, glower. glut

3

Moving lightly

f.:lact'. glail·e. glance. glenl.f.:lidt', glint. gli.uade

4

Deceiving

glaik. glover. gleelr.. glib. glo:e

5

Dark ligh1

~:lmmrilrg.

6

Smoothnes..~

f.:/aborou.{, gleg. glib.f.:lo.uy

gloom. glower,

~:lw11

7

Slimy substance

glair. gleet. glm:

8

Joy

glad. glee

9

Splendour

f.:/amour.glor.v

Miscellaneous

glack. glen. gladimor. gland. glean. glebe. gleg (prudence), g/o.u, x/m•e, KfllltOny

10

IS

10

Only ten words (21 per cent of the total set) do not appear to be related in a direct way to any of the distinguished semantic groups. which means that nearly 80 per cent of the etymologically unrelated gl- words fa] I into clearly distinguishable clusters of meaning. a percentage high above what one could expect from a purely random and arbitr.uy distribution of meaning. Not only is there to be identified a number of distinct semantic groups. but there also e~ist connections and overlaps between the clusters. ensured by polysemantic link-words (printed in bold type in the table). as visualised in Figure 2.

THE !CONICITY OF ENGLISH GL-WORDS

SMOOTHNESS

77

DECEIVING

Figure 2. Tile semmllic jield.f of Modem English gl- word.f.

In the constellation of meanings denoted by gl- words the sound-symbolic nucleus is fanned by the largest group denoting 'lighl'. naturally connected with 'looking' and 'seeing' by means of such link-words as glance. glare and g/ent, as well as with 'moving lightly' by means of glance and glem. Glim in tum ensures a logical connection between 'sight' and 'quick. light movement'. The a.o;sociation of 'light' with 'joy' and 'splendour' on the one hand. and with 'dark light' and 'slimy, shiny substance' on the other hand requires no additional ex.planation. but the sizeable group denoting 'deception' is curious. It is linked with 'smoothness' through glib. and with the nuclear 'light' by means of glaik, a r-dre word of obscure origin, denoting a mocking deception and a fla
It should be instructive to see what developmental patterns exist in the iconicity of gl- words over a thousand years of recorded history of the language from AngloSaxon to modem times. AnA11glo-Sa.ton Dictionary (Bosworth 1976) lists 24 main gl- words, which can be ammged into the following semantic groups (Table 2):

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PIOTR SADOWSKI

Table 2. Old E11gli.fh gl- word.f No

Meaning

Lexical Items

Lighl. brighlness

glred (adj.). ~:lad (n.). gltt!m. Klll'r. gl«s. gleaw. gled, glisia11, gli.micm, gliti11itm, gl;tnian, glnwcm

Joy

glcrd (adj.), xleam. gleo,

Splendour

glwm. glellf(. glitnian. gloria

Dark ligh1

~:lemm,

Moving lightly

glida, glidcm

Miscellaneous

gle.fiiiR. xiof

Number 12

~:fig

glom

There are only two non-iconic words in the Old English set (listed as 'miscellaneous'), which comprise about 8 per cent of the entire set. as compared with 21 per cent of unrelated words in Modem English, a discrepancy that would suggest a decrea-.e in the proportion of sound-symbolic words over time, as earlier indicated in the model of the origin of language. Within over 90 per cent of iconically significant words in the Old English set more than a half consists of words referring to 'light'. 'brightncs.'i' and 'shining'. compared with 40 per cent for Modem English, suggesting a slight but probably insignificant decrea'ie in the nuclear meaning of 'light'. An interesting feature, however. is a complete absence of gl- words denoting 'sight' - the second largest cluster in the Modern English set. Of course Old English is not lacking in verbs meaning 'to look'. 'to see' (e.g .. lm·ian, seon). but there are none linked to 'light' in a direct. iconic sense (except perhaps for the Jlj sound in lodan). testifying to a possible lack of awareness expressed in language of the physical aspects of visual perception. in which 'light' and 'sight' are the two sides of the same process. Also absent in the Old English set are clusters. quite sizeable in Modem English. denoting 'deception'. 'smoothness' and a 'slimy, shiny substance'. Another interesting difference is only a tiny presence in Old English of gl- words denoting 'light movement'. the meaning looming so large in the Modem English set: except for a r.tther isolated glidan, 'to glide'. here more linked with glida, 'a kite'.than with 'light'. there are no sound-symbolic words suggesting a perceptual association between 'light' and 'movement'. These absences. however. are compensated in Old English by rel
THE !CONICITY OF ENGLISH GL-WORDS

79

(adj.). 'bright, shining. joyful", while 'splendour' is linked to 'light" through glll!m. meaning 'brightness. splendour'. and glitnia11, 'to shine, to be splendid'. A fairly uncomplicated picture of the semantic fields of Old English g/- words is shown in Figure 3.

SPI .F.NT>Ot IR Figure 3. Tile semumic fields of OM E11gli.fh gl- word,,,

For the Middle English period the MED (Kuhn 1963) lists 46 independent gJwords. the same number as in Modem English and twice as many as in Old English, the enriched lexicon due no doubt to numerous French. Norse, Latin and Gaelic borrowings in the period following the Nonnan Conquest. The semantic breakdown is ao; shown in Table 3. TO STRIKE

Figure 4. Tile semalllic fields of Middle E11glisll gl- word.f.

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PIOTR SADOWSKI

Table 3. Middle English gl- word.f No

Meaning

Lexical hems

Light. brightness

glad {OE), glade {QE), glllir (OF). glonn (MDu), glas (OE). glede tOE gled). gleg (ON). glem tOE).

Number 21

glenten (ON), glien tON). gliffen (OE). glimere11 (MDu), glimme {ON), glimsen (MLG). glisen (OE). glisnen tOE). gfisrerm (MDu). glirene11 tOE). glileren (ON). gloren tMDu), glollell (OE)

2

Looking. seeing

g/oren {MOu). glenten (ON), glien (ON), gU.ffen tOE). glimsen (MLGJ. glisnen tOE). gloren (MDu), gfouen (Scand.). gloumen (ON)

3

Moving lightly

glacen (OF), glllive (OF). glenchen (Of). glenten (ONJ, gliden (OE). glilfen (OE). glocken (ME dial.),

To strike:

g/ocen (Of). gloiw (Of). glede (OE glida). glenchen (OF). glenten (ON). gliluen (ON)

5

Slimy substance:

glair (OF), g/as {OE), gleimt>n (01), gld (OF), gleu (OF)

6

Earth

glebe (l), glt!n (01), glenen (OF), glet (OF), globbt! (l)

4

7

Splendour

gle (OE). glem (0E). glorie (l)

8

Joy

glad (0E). glom (ON), g/e (0E)

9

Sadness

g/ocken (ME dial.). glopt!n (ON). gloumen (ON)

10

Noi~

glom (ON). gla\·eren (01)

II

Miscellaneous

glondt>le (l), gleu (OE). glotonie (OF), Rlm·e (OE)

Only 4 words out of 46 (over 8 per cent) do not appear to fit into any of the groups in a direct way, although it is tempting to offer indirect, figurative links: glandele. 'a gland'. may belong to the group describing 'slimy. shiny substance': gleu. meaning 'wise. clever, prudent'. seems to fit the military context of 'to strike': and glol'e seems naturally linked with a 'light, gliding movement'. But over 90 per cent of ME gl- words reveal clearly distinguishable iconic properties (compared with about 80 per cent in Modem English). mutually interconnected by means of polysemantic link-words. The interrelations between the existing semantic fields can again be visualised as in Figure 4.

THE !CONICITY OF ENGLISH GL-WORDS

81

A striking but predictable feature of the Middle English set is that. while it is predictably above the Old English gl- words as far a.'i semantic complexity is concerned. it is also richer than the Modem English sel. suggesting that after the initial intake of foreign vocabulary after the Nonnan Conquest the iconicity of gl- words began to decrease gradually. 'Light' remains the powerful semantic core of the Middle English set (nearly SO per cent of all the words). with the associated and derivative meanings revolving like planets around the Sun. The big clusters describing 'sight' and 'light movement' appear to be well established after their virtual absence in Old English. comprised for the most part of French. Norse and other borrowings. Thus 'sight' is strongly linked to 'light' by means of such polysemantic words as glom1 (MDu). glen/ell (ON). gli.ffen (OE). g/imsen (MLG). gli.fll£'11 (OE) and gloren (MDu). all meaning both 'to shine' and 'to look', in intuitive recognition of the two inseparable aspects of visual perception. 'Light movement' is also prominent. linked to 'brightness' but not as strongly as 'sight' by means of gle111e11 (ON) and glijjf!ll (OE). The Norse word gle11te11 also provides a link between 'light movement' and 'sight'. Related to these two groups and the core meaning of 'light' is a fairly large group of verbs meaning 'to strike', evoking a military context including 'daylight' (links through glelllen and glitere11. both from Old Norse). 'keen sight' (links through glemen), and a 'swift movement of the weapon' (links through the French borrowings glacen. 'to strike, to glide'; glaive. 'a lance' and glencllen. 'to strike. to dodge'). An interesting offshoot of the core meaning of 'light' is a group of foreign words describing 'shiny. slimy, half-liquid substance',like glair (OF), 'the white of an egg': gla.f (0E). denoting also any 'crystalline. transparent substance'; gleimen (01). 'to smear, make slimy'; glet (OF). 'slime'; and gleu (OF). meaning 'glue' or 'bird-lime' Glet also means 'the human body' and can therefore serve as a tigunttive link with a group of words denoting 'earth', 'soil'. 'gleaning', 'valley' and 'the globe'. It is also interesting to observe that in the large input of borrowed words (56 per cent) in the Middle English period. half of the Joan words support the central meaning of light: these are mostly of Old Norse provenance (gleg. glenten. glien, glimme, gliteren. gloue11), Middle Dutch (glaren, glimeren, glisteren, glom1). the Old French glair and the Middle Low Gennan glim.fen. It is interesting because there was no shortage ofOE gl- words denoting 'light'. as evidenced by the following continuities from Old English through Middle English to Modem English: gltt•d >glad> glad; gla:d > glade > glade; gla-m > glem > gleam; gla:s > glas > g/a.u·; gled > glede > gleed; gli.tian > glisen >

82

PIOTR SADOWSKI

glisten; gli.micm > glismm > gliJten: glom > gloumen >gloom. gloaming: and glowan > glouen > glolt'. Could it be that the foreign lexical borrowings were facilitated by the sound-symbolic connotations already present in the language, as the phonetic shape of the words to be assimilated was intuitively perceived by the speakers to be naturally cognate with the native lexicon?

3.3 Ltmguage specific or unira.wl? The involvement of the phonetic criterion in the assimilation of foreign borrowings may testify to sound-symbolic intuitions at work within a speech community. but the question arises a.o; to whether specific intuitions about the iconicity of certain sounds are local or universal. The best way to answer this question is to examine the relevant sets in other languages. both those historically related and unrelated to English. For example Icelandic (Cleasby and Vigfusson 1975), another Germanic language which lent several light-related g/- words to Middle English via Old Norse. possesses an interesting runge ofvocabulary that considerably extends the meanings identified in English. Thus we have the following series related to 'light'. 'brightness' and 'sight': glaiJr. g/ampi, glas, glap. gler. glit. glja, gloa, glod. glora, glygg; words denoting a related meaning of ·illusion·. 'hallucination'. or 'image': glap, glamr. glika: words meaning ·joy' and 'merriment': glaumr, giedi, gleyma, g/i.u-a. glotta. g/y; 'jest', 'banter' and 'idle talk': glamn, glanni, glen.~. g/etla, glopr. glosa. gilmdra: and a large group extending the meanings related to warfare and fighting: glom. 'a cla.-.h of weapons': glapp. ·a chance shot': glma. 'to slay': glepsa. 'to bite': glima. 'wrestling': g/jufr. 'dangerous': gl11mru. 'to rattle': gl11pna. 'to become sad': gl)psa, 'to snap'. In short. the relevant Icelandic words correspond closely to the meanings identified in English. In fact. semantic distributions for gl- words similar to English are also to be found in Dutch. Norwegian, German and Danish. Old Irish offers an interesting opportunity of comparison as a non-Germanic language with a history of interaction both with English and Latin. It is. however. a different Indo-European language, with sepan1tc historical etymologies unrelated to those of English. Still. out of 40 gl- words listed in the Dictionary of the Irish Wng11age (1983) about 30 (75 per cent) appear in distinct semantic clusters. of which the largest (II words, 27 per cent) is comprised of words referring to 'light'. 'brightness' and 'clarity': glain, glan, glas, gle. gleid, gleoir. gleue, glethach.glicc, glor, gl11air. The second largest group (8) includes words denoting ·noise' and 'shouting': glat•d. glaidem. glaim, glom, glegrach, gligar. glimnach,gloimm. The third group (6) includes words referring to "sharp weapons'

THE !CONICITY OF ENGLISH GL-WORDS

83

and 'violence': glaede, gleec. gleo. gletell. glifit, glmrd. while another small group (4) refers to 'holding something with the hand': glac, glas, glettamon, glitme. The last three clusters also describe 'loud noise'. 'shouting', 'holding weapons' and 'violence'- all elements of primitive warfare. paralleling the semantic complex of 'light/sight/light movement/to strike/noise' of the Middle English series. On the other hand Latin. the language that lent some of its gl- words to fit the iconic clusters of Middle English (glalldele. glebe. globbe, glorie, glose), in a set of 15 (Lewis 1947) has only two words referring directly to 'light": glaesum. 'amber': glaucus. 'bright'; three more of related meaning: glaber. 'smooth': glacie.f, 'ice': gladius, 'sword': while the largest group denotes the 'ean.h'. 'soil' and 'growth'. a meaning of only marginal impon.ance in the English gl- set: glaeba; glarea, 'gravel': glans, 'acorn': glisco, 'to grow': globus; glomero, 'to collect': and glmen. 'glue', 'beeswax'. Similarly. there is little in the way of sound-symbolic connotations of gl- words in Romance languages: French. Italian and Spanish. derived as they are from Latin. In Slavonic languages the choice of gl- words appears to be even narrower. possibly due to phonological constraints. and apart from a few German borrowings includes only such instances of light-related native vocabulary as Russian g[a~et', 'to stare': gla;;. ·eye. eyesight'; glanet'. 'gloss. lustre'; or the famous gla.most', 'openness' (from 'to make visible') (Falla 1995). In Polish in tum there seem to be no gl- words referring to 'light' or 'sight' (except for such German borrowings as glmu. 'sheen. lustre'). but there are interesting extensions of the sm<11l semantic cluster. found also in English. of words referring to 'soil'. 'earth' and 'slimy substance': gli11a. 'clay'; glista. 'earthworm'; or gla:.. 'a rock' (Skorupka 1974). The few Hebrew gl- words include gleedah. 'ice cream'. and glee.fltalt. 'sliding. ski' (Baltsan 1992) a.'i the only examples coming anywhere near the main meanings identified for English. while for example Persian or Chinese have no [gl[ sound in their phonological systems at all. In short. while some meanings associated with gl- words seem to extend beyond English into other Germanic languages and also into Old Irish. my limited survey does not seem to support the universal distribution of the g/- cluster in iconic contexts. For Leanne Hinton et al. language-specific iconicity belongs to "conventional sound symbolism" (1994b: 5). rather a contradiction in terms. implying in effect the lack of natural motivation and an arbitrary character of phonosemic associations within this category. The absence of absolute universality does not necessarily support the argument of arbitrariness: it can also mean that iconic. naturally motivated linguistic sounds are potentially available to all languages. but their use is modified by specific language requirements and restrictions.

84 4.

PIOTR SADOWSKI

G/- words in medieval alliterative poetry

Sound-symbolic collocations are frequently used in poetry. especially in tntditional metrical verse relying on such vocal devices as rhyme, assonance. puns and alliteration - all ways of bringing together similar-sounding words in a poetic line. Most typical for early English verse is allitenttion (rhyme being a late medieval French borrowing), which is normally regarded as serving only a metrical and a semantic function: to hold a line of verse together as a kind of internal rhyme. and to group words carrying important meanings or themes (Spearing 1970: 18-31: Turville-Petre 1977: 70-83). But given the postulated iconicity of certain sounds it is possible to argue that the metrical and semantic functions are in poetry inseparably connected with the phonetic one. in that certain meanings are attached to certain sounds and words in a predictable and non-accidental way. It would mean that in traditional alliterative poetry we are dealing with a two-way interdependence between sound and sense, whereby the need to group together thematically related words brings out a sequence of phonetically related words. and conversely. the choice of the alliterating sound provokes and predetermines specific meanings in a poetic line according to sound-symbolic collocations. The gl- words strung together in an alliterative line will predictably produce meanings relating to the semantic fields discussed above, but it should be pointed out that. technically speaking. gl- words will also alliterate with other words beginning with !g). as alliteration concerns til'5t of all the initial sounds in metrically prominent syllables.Jn this sense g/- alliteration can be treated as u subcategory of the larger class of g- alliteration, which includes, among other possible combinations.an equally interesting ca.'ie of sound-symbolic words beginning with gr-. such as grab. graft, grain. grape. grass. grate, grcn·e. great. green. grim. grind. grit. groan. groo\•e.grmmd. grow, gmel and so on. which all form interconnected semantic fields referring to the theme of death. sorrow and the renewal of natural life (Sadowski 1999a). and in many respects contmst and complement the brighter and more positive gl- words. creating powerful poetic effects. For example. the fire-dragon with which Beowulf has to fight his la.'it combat is described in the poem as "'grimlic gry!refah) gledum besworled" (Jack 1995: 1.3041 ). 'fierce and terrible. scorched by its own flames'. The same gr-/glcontrast is exploited with great effect in another story of heroic and supernatural adventure. the alliterative Sir Gawain and tire Green Kt~ig/u (Cawley and Anderson 1988). which has such evocative lines as the one referring to the Green Knight's green gems glinting about him: "That ever glemered and glent al of grene stones" (1.172). or another describing the bright. glittering greenness of the

THE !CONICITY OF ENGLISH GL-WORDS

85

Green Knight's horse: "As growe grene as the gres and grener hit semed.!Then grene aumayl on golde glowande bryghter'' (II. 235--6). Elsewhere the tmppings of Sir Gawain's horse ··a( glytered and glent as glcm of the sunne'' (I. 604). and the positive emotions and merriment evoked by f?/- cluster arc conveyed by ··such glaum andc gle glorious to here" (1. 46) at King Arthur's court. In more overtly religious poems the gl- words are predictably employed in contexts describing divine splendour and heavenly light. as in God's "glowande glorye" from Patience (Cawley and Anderson 1988: I. 94). or in God's verbal

injunction to the displeased Jonah: ''Goddes glam to hym glad that hym unglad made" (1. 63). (The unfortunate Jonah soon finds himself thrown overboard and gliding through the slimy tilth of the whale's gills: "He glydes in by the giles thurgh glaymande glette". I. 269). In Tire Adoration Play from the York Cycle. the nativity of the Son of God is compared by one of the shepherds to the lifebringing light shining through glass: "In that gude thurgh grace of thy godhede.l Als the gleme in the glasse gladly thow glade" (Happe 1985: 307). The imagery of light is also conveyed by means of gl- words in Pearl with its spectucular poetic visions of Heaven and the Other World (Sadowski 1999b). In the poet's initial vision the resplendent rocks shine with gleaming glory: '"The glemande glory that of hem (the rocks( glent" (Cawley and Anderson 1988: I. 70), and precious stones at the bottom of the stream glow and glint like light coming through gla<>s: ''Als glente thurgh glao;; that glowed and glyght" (1. 114). Then in the final ecstatic vision the Pearl-poet depicts the city of New Jerusalem. all of bright gold. burnishing like gleaming glass, and adorned with noble gems: "The borgh was al of hrende golde bryght/ As glemande glas bumist broun.!Wyth gentyl gemmes anunder pyght" (II. 989-991). The streets of the Heavenly City were decked with gold as lustrous as glass. with the wall of jasper that glinted like the white of egg: ''The stretes of golde as glasse al bare .I The wal of jasper that glent as glayre" (II. 1025-1026). The poet finds himself walking in great joy with his beloved in the golden streets of the New Jerusalem that glinted like glass: "Wyth grct delyt thay glod in fere I On golden gates that glents as glassc" (II. 1105-1106). and at last the ultimate source of divine light is revealed in the vision of Christ's countenance n1diating glory and happiness: "So wern his glcntes (looks] gloryous glade" (1. 1144). The visionary pa.,.sages from Pearl, full as they are of celestial light and divine splendour. employ lavishly the gl- words denoting 'light' and 'joy', strung together in alliterJtive patterns to produce powerful sound-symbolic effects, offering aesthetic enhancement to the doctrinal significances of the visions described. As Rosemary Woolf pointed out in her study of medieval religious lyrics. similarities of sounds in different words were used as a rhetorical means of

86

PIOTR SADOWSKI

revealing underlying thematic correspondences. and as linguistic indicators of the intricate unity of the divine plan. Far from being used for mere aesthetic or comic effect. sound similarities. including homophonic words, conveyed the most august doctrinal subject-maller by pointing to hidden symbolic connections between otherwise different things. as in \"irgol\'irga. 'rod'. i.e. of Jesse (Woolf 1968: 85).

5.

Conclusions

The paper set out to discuss the sound-symbolic. or iconic. quality of English g/words in the light of a hypothetical model of the evolution of language. involv-

ing a three-tier system of linguistic signs referred to as emotive, iconic and arbitrary. Emotive signs consist of physiological vocalisations which are noniconic (that is. non-representational) and non-arbitrary in character, expressing emotive and physical states of the speaker in typicaJ adaptive situations. Iconic signs on the other hand are non-arbitrary but representational and referential. analogising in their phonetic structure the physical properties (brightness. size. shape. weight. texture. movement and so on) of the denoted objects. FinaJiy. arbitrary signs. which have arisen as a consequence of the multiplication and diversification of ethnic languages. link the linguistic sign with its referent in an entirely conventional way. All modem languages consist for the most part of arbitrary signs. but some speech sound can reasonably be interpreted as iconic and emotive. While the involvement of the latter in verbal communication has decreased over time. they are still present in such speech acts as children's talk. language play. religious language and poetry. The analysed English words containing the initial gl- segment have revealed semantic affinities far above what could be expected in a set of etymologically unrelated words. thus testifying to the iconic. naturally motivated quality of the gl- cluster. The central meaning of a significant number (around fifty per cent in ME and ModE) of gl- words is that of 'light and brightness'. related to the derivative meanings of 'sight'. 'light movement'. 'smoothness'. 'joy'. 'splendour'. and also 'to strike' by means of polysemantic link-words. The identified meanings reveal considerable consistency over time. and are found to affect linguistic borrowings (especially evident in the Middle English period). in that assimilated foreign words tend to fit into sound-symbolic connotations already existing in the English language. However. the slight but noticeable increase in miscellaneous unrelated gl- words in the evolution from Old to Modem English seems to indicate that the iconic quality of the gl- segment tends to diminish in time.

THE !CONICITY OF ENGLISH GL-WORDS

87

Notes I.

1be division of linguistic signs into emotive, iconic and arbitrary presented here ha:o been inspirrd by Andl'U'j Wierciiiski'~ cla.~~ilication and description of symbolic signs. pri11111rily visual. rdem:d to as archetypal. lliUllogising and arbitnuy (Wierci(iski 1983: 33-44).

2. 1be cmolive sign.~ a.~ here defined tion of Hinton el Ill. (1994: 2).

~'UfRsponcJ

to "corporeal sound symbolism.. in the

cla.~sitica

3.

In the cla.•;sification of Hinton cl al. ( 1994: J-..4) onomatopoeic rxpressions belong to ''imitative sound symbolism''.

4.

CL E~perimenL~ by I. F6nagy (19631 ami M. Chastaing (1966) discussed by Jakobson ( 1979: Ul7).

S. Otlo Jespersrn (1922:4111 argued to the contrwy: "languages in tnursc of time grow richer and richer in symbolic [i.e., iconic, P.S.J words'', While it is true that new iconic words r;an always appear lhrough word-formatioo or borrowing. !he general evolutionlll)' tendency seems to be the one indicated in lhe presented model: a~ long a.~ the progre.'i.~ of civili~ation wntinue.~ to separate humaru; fmm the immediate adaptive pressures of the natural environment, lhe relations between sound and sense will on the whole be getting: II\OK and more arbilrllry and le~s and less iconic.

References Anlknon, E.R. 1998. A Granunar of /eonism. Madison-Te~k: Fairleigh Dickinson Universily Pres!ill...ondon: Associated University Presses. Baltsan, H. (ed.). 1992. Hebrew Dictionary. New York-London: Prentice HaJI. Bosworth. J. (ed.). 1976. All A11glo-Saxon o;,·tiotlary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1898. Cawley. A. C .. and J.J. Andenon (eds). 1988. Pearl. Cleanness, Patience.SirGmminand the Grem Knighr. London: Dent. Clea.~by. R. and G. Vigfusson (ed~). 1975. An /celandic-Engli.th Dictionary. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 1874. Crystal, D. 1995. The Cambridge Encyclopeditl of tile Englis/1 Longuage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dictimlary·ofthelrishLanguage. 1983. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. Falla. P. (ed.). 1995. The Oxford R1mian Dictionar~·- Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press. HappC, P. (cd.). 1985. Engli.fh Mystery Plays: A Selec·tion. London: Penguin Books. Hinton, L .. J. Nichols and J. Ohala (eds). 1994a. Sou11d Symbolism. Cambridge: Cam· bridge University Press. Hinton. L.. J. Nichols and J. Ohala. 1994b. "Introduction: Sound-Symbolic Process". In Hinton, L. et al. (eds). 1-12. Jack, G. (ed.). 1995. BeowJdf: A Studem Edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jakobsen, R .. and L. Waugh. 1979. The Sound Shape of Longuage. Brighton: The Harvester Press.

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Jespersen, 0. 1922. Language: /u Namre, Dew!lopmrm and Origin. London: Allen &

Unwin. Joseph. B.D. 1994. "Modem Greek t.t: Beyond Sound Symbolism". In Hinton. L. ct al. (cds). 222-237. Kuhn, S.M. (ed.). 1963. Middle Engli.d1 Dictionary. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Lewis. C. T. (ed.). 1947. An Efe11umtary Latin Dictiot~ary·. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 1891. OED. O:rford Eng/i.tll Dictionary. J.A. Simpson, E. S.C. Wiener (eds). 1989. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Priesliy. T.M.S. 1994. ··on Levels of Analysis of Sound Symbolism in Poetry. with an Application to Russian Poetry... In Hinton. L. ct al. (cds), 237-255. Reid, D. !967. SmmdSymbolism. Edinburgh: T. & A. Constable. Sadowski. P. 1999a. ''The Sound-Symbolic Quality of Word-Initial xr- Cluster in Middle English Alliterative Verse''. Neuphilolo!{isdre Mirteilrmgen (in print). Sadowski, P. 1999b. ··sound-Symbolic Vocabulary or Light in Pearf'. Paper presented at the 17rird Middle Engfi.fh Conference. University College Dublin, 1-3 July. Sapir. E. 1929. "A Study in Phonetic Symbolism"'. Journal of Experimt>11/al Psychology 12: 225-239. Skorupka. S. (ed.). 1974. Moly Slownik Je::yka Polskit>go. Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. Spearing, A.C. 1970. The Gawain-PMt: A Critical Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Turville·Petre. T. 1977. TlreAffiterorivl? Rt>\'i1·al. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. Wierciriski. A. 1981. ''Geneza i Ewolucja Mowy Artykulowanej" ('lbe Genesis and Evolution of Articulated Speech"). In WierciOski. A. Alllropogene:a - Ewolucja Cywifi:.acji, 65-95. Warsaw: Warszawskie Centrum Studenckiego Ruchu Naukowego. WierciRski, A. 1983. "Symbol and Symbolisation"". Emologia Polona 9: 33-44. WierciRski, A. 1987. "'On the Notion of UrJprache". Paper presented at the lnternarimwl Th!!alre Symposium. Lublin. Woolf. R. 1968. The Ellf?lisll Refigio11.1 Lyric in tire Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Pres.~.

On natural motivation in metaphors The case of the cucurbits Ralf Nomnan Uni1·ersity ofTampere

1.

Introduction: 'signifier', 'signified' and •rererent'

This paper is concerned with the interrelations between three concepts: 'signifier', 'signified' and 'referent". I am going to argue that in the case of the cucurbits. the relationship between 'signifier' and 'signified' is not entirely arbitrary. and neither is the relationship between these two and the 'referent'. First (in Section 2). I shall draw attention to some cases of phonosemic correlation in the names of the cucurbits. The phonetic and morphological features in the linguistic 'signs' used for the cucurbits are remarkably similar across many different languages suggesting that these signs are motivated scmiotically by the nature of the object they refer to (the 'referent'). In other words, these phonetic 'metaphors' (d. FOnagy 1999: 19-21) evince an intrinsic semantic significance. The presence or such phonetic iconicity is naturally linked with the way the cucurbits are used metaphorically, again in a wide variety of languages. The main part of this study will be devoted to these cucurbitic metaphors and will investigate their intrinsic motivation (Section 3.2). It will be shown how in widely different cultures (both geographically and chronologically) the cucurbits stand for the same ideas (they are used as symbols for life and death), which ideas are again most closely related to the physical properties of the cucurbits. Of course. metaphors are always in some sense motivated (they provide an instance of semantic diagrammatic iconicity (cf. Fischer and Nanny 1999: xxii-xxiii). but it is not often the case that tenor and vehicle are so strikingly similar across so many different languages. The cucurbitic metaphors in my opinion constitute

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perhaps the clearest proof that in metaphors the rule of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign does not apply (eXL"ept in the case of 'dead' or 'faded' metaphors). In fact it could be said that the cucurbit metaphor is no longer an instance of 'mere' diagrammatic iconicity, but comes much closer to the imagic or more direct type of iconicity (also because of its phonetic iconicity). This sense of a 'direct' relation between the cucurbit and its metaphorical use could be said to find its 'apotheosis' in the Nuer sacrifice, where. a.'i will be shown in Section 3.1. the cucurbit is occasionally substituted for the sacrificial ox. showing that to the Nuer, indeed, the tenor and the vehicle. or the sign and its metaphori-

cal referent (i.e. the life of the sacriticer) have become one and the same. The cucurbit metaphor therefore shows the essence of the nature of all metaphors. i.e. that. even though the meaning of a metaphor is transmilted from speaker to hearer via language. the same met<~phoric meaning is derived from an interpretation of reality.

2.

Phonosemk correlation in the names of the cucurbits

In the names of the cucurbits there are a large number of phonetic. phonological and phonotactic (and also morphological) features which can be suspected of carrying intrinsic semantic significance. but only three features will be deal! with here. These three features are: 'reduplication'. 'velarity' and 'labiality'. Reduplication is widespread in the names of the cucurbits. beginning with the designation c.·llcltrbiw itself. Other examples are cocomem (ltaliun). cm1courbe (Occitanian). £'/ICIWJber (English). mcwllis (Lat.). komkommer (Dutch). and so on. Reduplication is usually thought to be a phenomenon with semantic significance. In this case it would be the fast growth of the vines and foliage. and the bulging. often enonnous fruit which could be taken as the cause for the frequent occurrence of reduplication in the names of the cucurbits. 'Labiality' and ·velarity'. each on their own or combined. ')abio-velarity'. have similarly been thought to carry intrinsic meaning. and labiality. velarity and labio-velarity are amply represented in the names of the cucurbits. The bilabi<~l clusils band pare abundantly present in the names of the cucurbits. Examples are ca/abtuh: Port. calttbara; Fr. caleba.~.~e: Sp. calaba::.a: Genn. Kiirbi.~; Lat. pept' (with variants and cognates): ctmtalollp etc. In particular they occur together with the bilabial nasal m: c/lcllmber. p11mpki11. M on its own we encounter in melon (mu.\·k-melmr), marrow. Velarity. either on its own or combined with labiality. can be observed in Gurke (Genn.) and corresponding words in other languages; sq11ash. and so on.

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We are here dealing with emotive language. with sounds and sound sequences which humans use in words for phenomena which they relate to with strong feelings (cf. Sadowski. this volume). Thus these phonological features and

phonotactic combinations typically occur in derogatory terms or laudatory terms, terms of endearment. and so on. The labial consonants m. band p seem to be used in words denoting. for instance, massive roundedness; but also. in the combination mp for instance. movements that come to an abrupt hall. Above all they seem to be used in words denoting phenomena that the speaker approaches with strong feelings. When the cucurbitic term occurring in a text was one of those that do not have the combination of double labial consonants ('cucumber', 'pwnpkin') this desirable sound combination. carried by some other word. would often try to sneak into the immediate neighbourhood. preferably into the same sentence or the same line. In Keats's poem ''To Autumn" the cucurbit in question is the gourd. but. since the verb used about the gourd is "swell" (a highly frequent verb in the vicinity of names for a cucurbit). the poet puts in the word ''plump" in order to get the desired combination of labial consonants even though he attributes "plump" to the nut.

To swell the gourd. and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel: .. (Garrod fed.) 1958:273: my empha.o;is) Or take a case of the inverse order from Christina Rossetti's poem "Goblin Market" where. in her enumeration of various kinds of fruit, having mentioned "plump unpecked cherries". her imagination is then presumably unconsciously alerted by the "-mp-" so that she puts "melons" into the next line: Pflmlf' Mt.'fmu

unpecked cherries. and ra.o;pberrie:.. (Ros:.etti 1904: 1: my emphasis)

Sylvia Plath. thinking of melons. longs so yearningly for the '-mp- • sound that she even coins new words in order to get the desired labial consonants into her poem "Fiesta Melons". She coins such new words as "thumpable". "bumprinded". etc. (Plath 1971: 14-15). I really think this is extraordinary. There are forces at work here which we are not normally aware of. Thump and bump are existing English words. but thumpable and bump-rinded are poetic neologisms. In the following example. where the theme is corpulence, the word bump occurs in the vicinity of a cucurbit and a word "quimpe" (which is not to be found in the OED):

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RALF NORRMAN Her mehm1ormetl ht•utl and double chin were lo~t in what she called a q11impe: ... Wheeling round, ~he had the trundle and rotundity of a well-hooped por1er cask: and from betwixt her brawny shoulders issued a bump, which threw otf her robe above the elbow, and so enlarged the circle around her, that no one would either wish or endeavour to circumvent or to circumvolatc this tower of frippery. tT/ie Hnmit ;, Londo11 1819: 170: my emphasis)

These examples may suffice.

3.

On natural motivation in metaphors

3.1 The cucumber-sacrifice amo"g the Nuer In Nuer Religion Evans-Pritchard relates in detail how the Nuer. who normally - or at least ideally - sacrifice an ox, will sometimes sacrifice a cucumber instead. if an ox is not available (Evans-Pritchard 1962: 146. 184.205. 298, 128. 133. 141-142.203 and passim. particularly Chapters VII, VIII. X and XI). When a cucumber is substituted for an ox. the sacrificial ceremony is nevertheless carried out as if the cucumber were an ox. and the fruit is spoken of as 'the ox' - or, strictly speaking. 'the cow'. )'OIIfi!, which is the standard term on such occasions (Evans-Pritchard 1962: 203). I believe that Evans-Pritchard's analysis of the meachanism of signification involved in the custom gives a valuable insight into this type of phenomenon. I wish to make a further contribution to the picture of Nuer sacrifice by considering briefly one specific detail in the sacrificial ceremony. namely the nature of the cucumber as a sign. My thesis is that the cucumber is an intrinsically appropriate symbol in the context: that it has natuml suitability for its role as a sacrificial victim, specifically as a substitute for an ox - and ultimately, above all. as a substitute for the life (or lives) of the sacrificer(s) (Evans-Pritchard 1962: 272-286). 1 My view of the cucumber-detail in Nuer sacrifice derives from a gcncrnl theory of naturally motivated signs. which can be found presented at length in the study Nature and Lllllfi!llllge. which I wrote at the end of the seventies in collaboration with Jon Haarberg (see Nomnan and Haarberg 1980: 27-32). Our view is that there exists an area of overlap where nature and language meet. This is the case, for instance. when something from nature is used as a sign in a metaphor. On such occasions it could be said that nature become.~ laiiJi!llliJ:e. Such signs arc special in that they have a double allegiance: they function as language. but derive their meaning from nature.

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In the normal referentiaJ relationship between nature and language the two can be studied separately. and linguistic signs are thought to be arbitrary. Whether you suy 'What an absurd pumpkin!' about a pumpkin, or 'What an absurd man!' about a man. depends on which you want to talk about. the pumpkin or the man. Then the words 'pumpkin' and 'man' function a'i nonnal linguistic signs, which means, among other things. that they should be arbitrary.

But when you say 'What an absurd pumpkin!' about a mall the case is radically altered. The cssentiaJ thing about the pumpkin-sign is in that case no longer its function as a linguistic sign in the narrow sense (a sound sequence) but its function as a sign in a much wider sense. When a sign which is normally employed to refer to something else is chosen for a link with a new referent in a metaphor. the choice is not random: it is guided by the principle of suitability. Although in a metaphor of this kind the relationship between the syntagmatic expectation (the expectation of some degree of similarity. or some other connection between the links in the syntagmatic chain) may stay the same. the choice of paradigm from which to pick a word for a certain slot in the syntagm has been manipulated. and a drastic need for a new decoding has been created. The recipient (listener or reader) ba.~es this decoding on the assumption that there ll'i/1 be some similarity-in-dissimilarity. or dissimilarity-in-similarity. despite the initial shock and puzzlement. This mechanism explains why metaphors are understood the first time they are used. It also explains why some metaphors are more apt than others. The listener's (reader's) decoding of these metaphors turns into an exercise in Realsemiotik. In other words. to get to the bottom of what one's interlocutor has meant. it is no longer sufficient to stay within language as a system of conventional and arbitrarily assigned meanings - as we usually do even in the cao;e of one category of metaphors, i.e. that large number of metaphors which have 'faded' or 'died'. and thus re-entered the category of the arbitraire (and the thesei-framework).lnstead you have to contemplate and analyse the interrelation of actual real-world items. In a volume on iconicity. 'faded' or 'dead' metaphors should not be accorded any privileged status in our investigation. On the contrary. it should be our task. if I have understood this correctly. to study that smaller area of language (such as the case that I am interested in). in which metaphors are constantly being born. live. but do not really ever 'die', because the meaning is intrinsic. and can. if need arises, be deduced forever anew. not from human mastery of language. but from human perception of nature. Thus some metaphors may be more apt than others; also. there may be variation in the expressivity of such metaphors. Further there may be (as in the

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ca"e of the cucurbits) latently in existence a perfect semiotic matrix. with connotations which have not accumulated arbitrarily through the ages, and differently in different places. but connotations which are (in the main) intrinsic and inevitable. because of the physiology of the plant family. and the similarity in human perception of these physiological features. Thus the main and overall hypothesis is that the semiotic role of the cucurbits a.o; a symbol may well be the same through all ages. and everywhere in the world.~ In the metaphor 'The man is a pumpkin' there is a bisociation of two systems. that of fruit and that of men. and there is an allegation of identicality (which is short for similarity) between two elements. one from each system. In other words it is alleged that the man is to other men as pumpkin is to other fruit. The metaphor will be expressive of meaning to the same degree as pumpkins differ from other fruit not only in language but i11 reality. If pumpkins. as compared with other fruit. are excessively swollen (as they are). the analogy demands that the man be excessively fat. as compared with other men. If pumpkins are absurdly ridiculous (as they are). it is alleged that the man is ridiculous too. and so on. In all of Shakespeare the word p11mpion occurs only once. but then it is well applied. The most prominent feature of the pumpkin fruit which the metaphorizers seize on in this passage is its water content: We '11 usc this unwholesome humidity. this grosse watery pumpion. (Oliver {ai.] 1971: 35-36)

Falstaff is not only a heavy drinker {which provides the connection to "watery" and ''humidity"). but also ridiculous, fat and absurd. and is at this point in the play. Tlte Merry Wh•es of Wi11d.wr. trying to seduce some women. All of these connotations: wateriness. swollenness. ridiculousness and lasciviousness are part of the intrinsic semiotic matrix of the cucurbits, and particularly of the pumpkin. and this will be illustrated with further examples later. The thesis is that metaphorical bisociation of two systems usually takes place because there is an intrinsic rea...,on for it. This reason is to be found in the suitability, one for the other. or both for each other. of the two elements. one from each system. which are the focus of the bisociation. Thus. when nature becomes language. the signs derive their meaning from the nature they are borrowed from, and the development of meaning of such signs is therefore to a large extent predetermined and inevitable. It will be the same in all ages and all countries insofar as the nature that the sign." stem from remains the same. provided that human perception, thought and communicative needs remain

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which in this context is a reasonable assumption. at lea"t

with the example we have chosen. When the Nuer metaphorically call a cucumber an ox (or 'cow') during the sacrificial ceremony, and in general when they metaphorically use a cucumber to

stand for an ox, there should thus. according to the theory, exist an intrinsic reason for the usage in the suitability of oxen and cucumbers for each other (or at least of the cucumber for the ox); as occupying anaJogous positions each in its

own system: the ox in the system of domestic animals and the cucumber in the system of fruit-producing plants on the ground. In my opinion - and against the

background of the material analyzed in Haarberg's and my investigation of the plant family Cucurbitaceae - such a suitability does exist. In the following I shall restrict myself to the one connotation of the cucumber which I think provides the main argument for the existence of intrinsic appropriateness. That is the connotation life and death.

3.2 T11e cmmotatioll life and det1th Though Evans-Pritchard points out the economic and social importance of ox.en to the Nuer. he also repeatedly stresses the point that what is given up is not only \'alue but life. ''What goes to (God( is the life ... In the etymological sense of the word 'sacrifice' it is the life which is made sacer by the consecration". Evans-Pritchard sums up his view as follows: Fundamentally. however. if we have to sum up the meaning of Nuer sacrifice in a single word or idea. I would say that it is a substitution, l'itcl pro l'iw. If it were not so it would be difficult to understand at all why olferings to God should be immolated. (Evans-Pritchard 1962: 281-282).

Thus the basic nature of Nuer sacrifice. according to Evans-Pritchard. is substitution: the life of an ox. is substituted for (a) human life: In their piacular sacrifices to God. which I am now discussing. they give something to get rid of some danger or misfortune. usually sickness. We found that the generul idea underlying such sacrifices was that of substitution, the life of a bea.'it being given in exchange for the life of a man. (Evans-Pritchard 1962:276. See also the whole of Chapter XI for the full details of this argument).

In fact. Evans-Pritchard's comment could be taken further so as to include the cucumber as well as the ox. ('the life of a beast (or a fruit( being given in exchange for the life of a man'). Throughout world literature. in different countries and continents. and during different centuries and millennia. cucurbits have been used as a symbol of life. 3

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3.2.1 Example.~ of the life-death comwtalio11 tu-ro.u a wide mriety of l'llilllres In Russian a person of ruddy. healthy appearance is called orjps.HK. affectionate diminutive of orypel.{. With a sort of syllogistic reasoning the metaphorizers have

observed: (I) that a cucumber is something intensely alive. and (2) that a certain man is intensely alive. and have proceeded to draw the conclusion: (3) the man is a cucumber. Writers on etymology during earlier periods have thought that the very names of the cucurbits reveal vitality and fertility. Athenaeus mentions that

''Demetrius lxion, in the first book of the 'Etymologumena', says that the word it is a stimulating

aiKliOt comes from aci!()pUI. 'burst forth' and Kiw. 'move'. for

plant''. (Athenaeus III 74 b; Athenaeus also draws attention to the rapid growth of the plant). It seems that the ancient Greek used the vitality of the cucurbit proverbially: VytWrcpOv 9qv cart KlMm.-Uvrar :roJ.i1, 'It is truly much more wholesome than a pumpkin'. i.e. better than the best (Athenaeus II 59 c). When authors wish to symbolize life. their thought of death is usually never far off. because life is so very much bound up with its opposite, death. and humans often think in antitheses. Cucurbits are peculiarly suited not only to be a symbol of life, but specifically a symbol of life in its interconnection with death. They grow very rapidly: but also die very easily - none can tolerate frost. They therefore become a symbol of short-livedness. as for instance in the tradition of Jonah's gourd (cf. Jonah JV.6 in the Septuagint or the Vetus Lati11a; but not. for instance. the V11lgate) (see Norrman and Haarberg 1980: 27-32). The life of some insects is proverbially short in many languages (cf.e.g. Swedish dag.~liinda. or Eng. ephemera), and since authors often double their symbolism for good mea.o;ure. the cucurbits are found in literature or pictorial art in the company of flies. another symbol of tnmsient life: We should have been but as an Ephemeron. Man should have li'•·ed the life of a Ay. or a Gourd. the morning should have seen his birth. his life have been the term of a day. and the evening must have provided him of a shroud. (Taylor 1649:21) In the Australian film Walkabom by Nicolas Rocg a father takes his daughter and son out into the desert on a picnic and tries to shoot both them and himself. Some of the bullets hit some melons spread out on a blanket and the scene ends with a photographic shot of Hies swarming over the slaughtered melons - i.e. two symbols of ephemeral life. Melons are often found in still lives. One of cezanne's still lives is called nature morte au melon. II is natural that the symbol of life should be found in a still life. but since one meaning of 'still' is dead. the melons often have slices cut out of them.

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When cucurbits symbolize life it is thus often a life which is about to be dcstroyed.ln the thriller The Dayofthelackal. about a man who tries to assassi· nate General de Gaulle. the murderer uses a watermelon as target in his shooting

practice with the special gun that he intends to use as the murder weapon. The melon symbolizes the life which is to be destroyed. If you wish to depict destruction and death the most dramatic way is to show the Vergiinglichkeit of the symbol of life itself. the cucurbit. This explains why the withered gourd is such a lining image in literary works describing destruction and death. a..; in the following verse from Blake: And all the mountains & hills shrink up like a withering gourd (Keynes (cd.] 1966: 78-84)

Since. on the one hand. the cucurbit is a symbol of life. and since blood, on the other, is the vital ftuid of human beings. authors come to see the shedding of blood and the shedding of the juice of watennelons as analogous activities. See for instance William Styron's lie Down in Darkneu:

A railroad trestle arched over the creek nearby, and long tables had been set up in its shadow: they sagged with food. and around them the juice from discarded melon rinds r.m like blood in the sand. (Styron 1952: 392) Furthennore. since the melon is a symbol of life. it follows that a destroyed melon becomes an appropriate symbol of destroyed life. In the final scene of lie Down in Darkness. Styron uses a melon rind to recall to mind the lost life of the female protagonist Peyton who has committed suicide: La Ruth let the melon rind drop from her fingers and began to moan. 'I don't

know.' she said, 'comin' around to thinkin' about all dat time an' ev'ything. po' Peyton. po' little Peyton. Gone! Gone!' She thrust her head in her hands and sprud out her legs. snuffling into the wet sleeves of her robe. 'God knows. I don't know .. .' (Styron 1952:400) In Ouida the meaning has a cyclical dimension since the subject is the King Carnival who reigns supreme for a while. is then killed a.'i a scapegoat but rises from his ashes in a new shape again and again:

And the old King would speak sadly aright: for his name is almost emptiness. and his eanh-swaying orb is but now an empty gourd in which the shrivelled beans of the world's spent pleasures arc shaken in fruitless spon and sound. (Ouida 1873: 6) And indeed the cucurbit very often specifically symbolizes c:\'clicallife a... opposed to eternal or enduring life. which is more often symbolized by e.g. evergreens.

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The idea of cyclicity is found in the litera] sense in the tradition of emblems and monoes of the sixteenth century: So wiihlte man z. B. zur Beziehung dcr Kilrze des dahin cilenden Lebens und dcr schndlen Vcrg3.nglichkcit seiner Freuden und Geni.isse ein Rad, an welchcm ringsherum Kilrbisse her.abhingen: zum Bilde dcr Nichtigkeit und dcr Tiiuschungen des Glilckes und seiner Gun.~t. sowie alkr scheinbaren Giller des Lebens. nahm man einen durch cine majestiitische Fichte gesttitzten. auf deren Gipfel stolz ruhenden und dartlber hinwegrankenden Kilrbis, und gab ihm folgende Jnschriften: "cito nata dto pcreunC, "brevis gloria", ''in momcntancam fdicitatem''. (friedrich 1859: 146-147) ('for instance, a ring from which hung a good many pumpkins was chosen to signify the brevity of fleeting life and the ephemerality of life's joys and plea.-.ures; a pumpkin supponed by a great spruce. rising over the top of the tree with proud tranquillity, was I.L-.ed to ponray insignificance and frustrated joy a.~ well as the seeming possessions of life. the following inS(.Tipitions aCl.'Ompanying the pumpkin: "cito nata cito prreunC, "brevis gloria", "in momentaneam felicitatem" ').

Amateur gardeners in England (and Northern Europe gcneraJiy) often plant a pumpkin on the compost-heap of their garden in spring.Jn this rite. in recognition of rejuvenation. new life grows on the rotting remains of old life. It is true that the rotting compost gives the plant the good start it needs. but such factualist truths must not obscure our recognition of the essential symbolic meaning of the rite. because usages where there is little or no factual foundation exhibit the same pattern. Thus for instance in Albertus Magnus: Repit (cucurbita) autem anchis sicut vitis, et crcscit subito. ita quod Hermes dicit. quod si cucurbita in cinere ossium humanorum oleo olivae inigato plantetur in loco umbroso. infra novcm dies habebit florcm et gennen. (Aibenus Magnus VI. 312) (')A cucurbit) in fact creeps like grapevine. and grows quickly: Hermes thus says that if a cucurbit is planted in the ashes of human bones in a shady place and watered with olive oil. it will have flowers and seeds within nine days'.)

There are many such cases of interconnection life -death or death- life. I have not looked into the matter. but I suspect that with many of the ca.'ies of cucurbits found in graves - as sacrifice to the dead (beginning in Ancient Egypt). decorations on sarcophagi and the walls of sepulcres etc. - one should not only look for prosaic factualist explanations (i.e. cucurbit. good as a viaticum: gourds as containers: cucurbit-vines as repoussoir etc.) but also for symbolic ones.

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Important evidence of the semiotic role of cucurbits in symbolizing life and death can be found in such occurrences in litemture where cucurbits are part of an antithesis or a juxtaposition of opposites and the meaning of its partner is known. The lily for the Greeks was the flower of death. The proverbial juxtaposition i]KoAm.;iwr1Ji]/':pivav. 'either a pumpkin or a lily' is preserved in fragments by the comic poets Diphilus and Menander (Kock (ed.] 1888: Vol. 2. 573 and Vol. 3. 242). Since the lily stands for death.the antonymic symbol, the pumpkin. must stand for life. Tennyson also contrasts lily and melon: No liule lily-handed Baronet he, A great broad-shouldered genial Englishman. A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep. A miser of huge melons and of pine. (Ricks led.] 1969: 834-844)

Deserts and cucurbits. as semiotic elements. are perfect natural antitheses. Deserts are sterile. dry. deathly: cucurbits arc fertile. watery. life-giving. When authors think antithetically in extremes. the perfect opposite of desert is cucurbit. and the perfect opposite of cucurbit desert. Therefore cucurbits and deserts tend to co-occur in literature. in antithetical juxtaposition, which, however. it should be remembered, is nonetheless a cmmection. In Num. 11.5--6 the Jews are tired of their monotonous diet of manna. and being in the sterile Sinai their thoughts antithetically go to the fertile Goshen. where the menu was more varied: Will no one give us meat? Think of il. In Egypt we had lish for the asking. cucumbers and water-melons, leeks and onions and garlic. Now our throats are parched: there is nothing wherever we look except this manna. (NEB)

The passage predictably contrasts desert and cucurbit. The desert - cucurbit antithesis is also relevant in the controven.y over the translation of Jonah IV.6. In Villle Patrum 111.50 we are told how a Christian monk in the desert hung a tempting cucumber in front of him (Patro/ogica Lillirw LXXIII. c. 767). In Henry Rider Haggard's novel King Solomon's Mines ( 1885) the narrator and his party are at one stage trekking through an African desert. and the expedition is in a very bad shape indeed: at the limit of thirst and exhaustion. The hot merciless sun beats down on the party, who fear that the end is close at hand. They can see no escape from the hostile desert, which is sterile. dry and deathly. Since, in a work of this nature_ effect is sought by maximization of the function of the device used (in this case contrast). and the extreme opposite of the desert is the cucurbit - which is fertile. watery and life-giving - the inevitable happens: they discover a patch of melons (Haggard 1965: 83-84).

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The antithesis cucurbit -

desert is panicularly likely to occur in the

literature of dreams, and in stream-of-consciousness prose. where the logic of the

text is dependent on •free association'. Cf.e.g. Christina Rossetti: While with sunk eyes and fading mouth She dreamed of melons. as a traveller sees False waves in desert drouth With shade of leaf-crowned trees. And bums the thirstier in the sandful breeze. (Rosscui 1904: 5)

Since sex is neces. mry for the continuation of life. it is to be expected that the cucurbits should be particularly rich in sex-connotations. So they are; both in sex-connotations generally. and in connotations of any specific connection with sex that can be thought of. Poets use cucurbitic names to describe a beloved woman. cf.e.g. Theopompus: "f.uxX'aKwTi:pa 1Tk1Tovoc; rrt.Kl.ICJU ..,_oL -yi:yove", 'she is more yielding than a melon to me': Athen. II. 68d) or C. F. Ruxton: "Afore I left the settlements I know'd a white gal. and she was some pumpkins" (Ruxton 1845:266). A slightly hedonistic and eclectic attitude to life. and its chief pleasure love. can be likened to the arbitr.uy knife of the melon-vendor. cf.e.g. Aleman's Gu:.man de Alfaraclle: No sC si lo haze. q nuCa yo quiem par querer, sino por salpicar, como los de mi tierru: soy cuchillo de melonem. undo picando cantillos. mudundo hitos: oy uqui, mufiuna en Fr.mcia. (Aleman 1661: 250) ('I know not how it is with others. but my loue is not so feruent. as to loue for loue. but for fashion sake to laugh and be merry, and to muke spon. a.~ they u~ to doe in my countrie. I am like a Melon-mongers Knife. cutting here a slice and there a slice, now at this comer. then at that. changing and altering my markes, muing sometimes at one. sometimes at another, here to day (as they say) and to morrow in Fmnce' (The Ro1:11e: or the Life of GII:JIIQII de Af/rache. Written in Spanish by Mathea Aleman. Seruant to his Catholicke Muiestie. and borne in Scvill. London: printed for Edward Blount. 1622. Part Second. p. 59. Trdns. Mabhe(.) Cucurbits and maniage or courtship are persistently connected in literature. In a novel by Ken Kesey the male hero gets his wife from a city in Colorado. known as "The Watermelon Capitol of the World" (Kesey 1976: 156-169). A pumpkin figures in Perrault's version of Cinderella - the Cinderella who is courted by the prince. The connection courtship--cucurbit is made irrespective of the attitude of the writer. The attitude is negative in Tolstoy's The Kreut:.er Sonata where the

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narrator regrets having been lured into marriage and says that he was brought up

in a milieu which produced enamoured young men as cucumbers are forced in a hothouse atmosphere. Similarly in Dickens's Nichola.{ Nickleby the mad gentleman next door declares his passion for Mrs Nickleby by throwing cucumbers and vegetable marrows over the garden wall (Slater [ed.j 1978: 567. 620 and passim). Since it is almost obligatory to have the connection courtship-cucurbit. the logical solution for an author is to make U..'ie of the difference between one cucurbit and

another. Thus, in the positive cases, the species is usually melon or watennelon. and in the negative cucumber. vegetable marrow, gourd or pumpkin.ln Alemcin's G11zman de Alfarache. this system of discrimination is spelled out: Picnsa. que los casamicntos, que son sino acertamicntos, como el que compra vn melon. que si vno es lino. lc salen cicmo pcpinos, 0 calabac;a."? (Aleman. 1661: 397) ('Consider marriage; what is it if not a gamble, just as for one who buys a melon: for each good one there are a hundred gourds or pumpkins·.) When Edward Lear. the British laureate of nonsense. begins his nonsense poem "The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-80" with the lines: On the Coa.'il of Commandel Where the early pumpkins blow. {Jackson led.] 1947: 327) this merely goes to prove that his nonsense is far from being devoid of sense. In fact it is obvious that the cucurbit is likely to occur in any context related to sex. The attitude of the writer may vary: it may be positive: or it may be negative so that the cucurbits are regarded as sinful plants. as in Tennyson's "The Vision of Sin" (Ricks (ed.(l969:718-719). The cucurbits are naturally used in folk-medicine in connection with sex. Pumpkin seeds are eaten for virility in Greece and Roumania, and are often thought to induce sexual appetite. On the other hand they are sometimes thought to restrain it. (Cf.e.g. Chapter xxi of Boorde's Dietery. "cucubers. restrayneth veneryousnes or lassuyousnes. or luxuryousnes. Pepones be in maner of lyke operacion".) The use of certain species of cucurbits as a contraceptive is ancient and widespread (note how the symbolic value suits thi..; life -death connection). and they may also be used e.g. in pregnancy tests in folk-medicine. (For the occurrence of otKilrJ and Ka.l..iM.""I.IV'ir in this connection in antiquity. cf. LittrC 1861. Vol 10, 543.) The cucurbits are persistently connected with pregnancy in literature, cf.c.g. Vergil: " ... tortu.-.que per herbamlcresccret in venb"em cucumis ... " (' ... and (howl the gourd. winding in the gross. swells into a belly .. .', Georgie~ IV, vv. 121-122).

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RALF NORRMAN

They are also connected with pregnancy in folk·beliefs. Pliny says: ''putant conceptus adiuvari adalligato semine (cucumeris), si terr·am non adtigerit" ('it is believed that conception is aided by (the woman) carrying a (cucumber) seed, if it has not touched the ground', XX.3.6). The fertility symbolism of this usage is blatant. As the cucumber seed longs to be planted in the earth and grow and produce fruit. so will the body of the woman am:alogically long for conception. Columella warns that custodiendum est. ut quam minime ad eum locum. in qua vel cucumeres vel cucurbitae consitae sunt. mulier admittatur. Nam fere contactu eius languescunt incrementa virentium. Si vem ctiam in menstruis fucrit, visu quoque suo novellos fetus necabit (Columella XJ.3.50) ('One has to be one'" guard l'O that a woman is admilled a.o; little as possible to that place in which either cucumbers or gourds are sown. For almost by her contact will the shoots of the young plants wither. If. however. she on top of it has her period. she will kill the young plants even by looking at them'.)

Not only by touching, but even by looking at cucucbit-patches a woman will attract all of its fertile potential. Cucucbitic names for the sexual organs or other relevant parts of the body are widespread. They may be helped by iconic appropriateness. cucumber usually occurring for the male organ and the more rounded fruit for parts of a female body. l"L)'}'Oipt in modem Greek means 'stiff'. Cuwmi.~ is used for the male organ in Plautus (Ccui"a 907-913). The phallic garden-god of fertility, Priapus. says: "cucurbitarum ligneus vocor custos" ('I am called the wooden guard of pumpkins', Priapea 63.12). This may be interpreted as a pun. Sex is naturally linked with life. and life with death. and therefore we find this triple interconnection expressed in literature in such passages where. at the death of a person. a bodily organ connected with sex is linked not only to a cucurbit, but to a dying or a dead cucucbit. In Sembcne Ousmane's novel Les bouts de bois de Dieu a passage in which a woman is killed likens her breasts to calabashes that have been left for too long in the sun during the hot season: Houdia M'Baye n'eut pas Ia mCme prCsem:c d'csprit ct le jet l'attcignit au visage ct. tel le coup de poing d'un gCant, lui rcjeta Ia tCte en arriere. Elle ouvrit Ia bouche pour crier, l'eau s'y engouffrd. Dans le giclement brutal on n'cntendit pas le petit bruit derisoirc des cartilages brisCs. Houdia M'Bayc battit des bras comme pour s'accrocher a !'air ainsi que font les noyes. puis scs mains s'agrippCrcnt a sa camisole qu'ellcs dCchirCrcnt. elle Iomba sur lc cOte a moitiC nue. scs maigrcs scins scmblables a des gourdes oubliCcs au solei! pendant Ia saison chaudc. (Ousmanc 1971: 193-194)

ON NATURAL MOTIVATION IN METAPHORS

103

('Houdia M'Baye did not have the same presence of mind and the jet hit her face knocking her head back like a blow from a giant's fist. She opened her mouth to cry out but the water plunged into her throat. In the mar of the hoses one could not bear the ridiculous little snapping of the cartilage in her neck. Houdia M'Bayc flapped with her arms as if trying to get hold of the air. as drowning people do: then her hands seized at her blouse tearing it to pieces, and she fell on her side, half-naked, her shrivelled b~a.-.ts resembling gourds left in the sun in the hot season'.)

Let us now finally consider a few examples where cucurbits are directly used not only as a symbol of life but explicitly in connection with dealh, i.e. of life coming to an end. In Stephen Crane's shon story "The Blue Hotel'', when the Swede is murdered. the author says the knife cuts his body a.-. it would have a melon. There was a great tumult. and then wa~ seen a long blade in the hand of the gambler. It shot forward. and a human body. this citadel of virtue. wisdom, power wa.~ pierced as ea~ily a.~ if it had been a melon. The Swede fell with a cry of supreme astonishment. (Gulla.~on [ed.) 1913: 505)

A melon, like a man. is a prominent example of life. but a melon is insensitive. The difference between cutting human ftesh and cutting a melon, i.e. the material of two varieties of life, one sensitive and the other insensitive. is therefore a cliche which is utilized in litemture particularly in connection with ideas of callousness or cruelty. In a thriller by Edgar WaJlace there is a female character who is supposed to be the epitome of cruelty. One of her acts is to slash the hand of an admirer to teach him that his attentions are not welcome. Cutting one variety of life (melons) or another (men) is aJI the same to her: ''Jean gels no pleasure out of hurting people any more than you will get out of cutting that cantaloup. It ha~ just got to be cut. and the fact that you arc finally destroying the life of the melon doesn't worry you." "Have cantaloups life?" She paused. knife in hand, eyeing the fruit with a frown. "No, I don'tthink I want it. So Jean is a murderess at heart?" (WallaL-e 1962: 113)

The following passage in Don Q11ijote II. xxxii. is similar: " ... Eso juro yo bien ... dijo Sancho: ... cuchillada le hubiemn dado. que le abrieran de arriba abajo como una granada. o como a un me16n muy maduro." (de Riquer (ed.) 1950: 804) ('") will be sworn it would." quoth Sancho, "they would have undone him ( ... J and have cleft him from head to foot. as one would slice a pomegranate, or a ripe musk-melon, take my word for it."' {Cervantes. Don Q••ijnte. Pan II. :u.xii, p. 206. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions 1993))

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RALF NORRMAN

Against the background of this it is natural that the cucurbits are particularly suited to symbolize states of 'death-in-life', i.e. life which still goes on, but has become so worthless that it could as well be death. In the next example an insurgent captured by the authorities realizes that his body has become only an encumbrance. He decides to confess so as to be executed more quickJy. Summary justil-c= meanwhile Wa'> being deal! in Aorrnce. Jacopo da Dial-ceto, on being put to the torture, unhesitatingly confessed: 'I wish to rid myself of this pumpkin of a body: we intended to kill the Cardinal." (Villari 1842: 355-356)

Politicians in favour of euthanasia avoid calling the people they think should be killed pumpkins. because although pumpkin is a symbol of useless life. it is yet a symbol of life and thus unsuitable for tactical reao;ons. The standard vegetable term is instead 'cabbage', which is purely negative. But doctors and humorists usc cucurbitic terms: "Of course.the people that doctors refer to as squashes." paused Fletcher. "the invertebrates. you might say. just lie there like vegetables." (Thurber 1962:45)

Similarly if the vegetable existence is described from the point of view of the vegetable itself the term occurs: Je ne me tejouis ni nc m'auriste. Je vis a pcine. Je vegete. allonge toutle long du jour. pareil a une plame rampante. Parfois. pour parfaire Ia rcssemblance, il me semble que des feuilles me poussent, ici et Iii., que falleins objets qui m'environnent avec des vrilles plutOt qu'avec mes mains. Ma tCte enfle comme une coloquinte. (Prou 1971: 121) ('I am neither happy nor sad. I am scarcely alive. I vegetate, stretched out all day long like a \.Teeping plant. Sometimes, to complete the resemblance, it seem.~ to me that leaves shoot out of me. here and there. that I reach for the objects around me with tendrils roo~ther than hands. My head swells like a gourd: I reflect: I study the present and the past.')

4.

Conclusion

The cucurbits are used ao; a symbol of life and death in literature because the physiology of the cucurbitic plants. and the similarity of men's perception of it, ensure that the development of the meaning of the cucurbit-sign is to a large extent predetermined. Obviously. for good symbolification of the interconnection life -death. that which is killed should be something intensely alive. so that the drama of the immolation is enhanced and the symbolism foregrounded.

ON NATURAL MOTIVATION IN METAPHORS

105

The essential symbolic kernel of Nuer sacrifice, according to EvansPritchard. is life, and the killing of it: Now Nuer sacrifice is clearly a gift of some sort. They say that they arc giving God a thing, a girt. But it is a gift which is immolated, it is that which makes the offering a sacrifice. And the gift must be a life or something which stands for a life. (Evans-Pritchard 1962: 276)

Against the background of the material that Jon Haarberg and I have studied it seems quite clear to us that not only the ox, but the cucumber too. is eminently suited to function ao; ··something which stands for a life". I hope there may be some methodologicaJ implications of geneml interest to be found in a specific case like this. When anyone who studies systems and meanings is confronted with signs that are as yet not ex;plained or fully understood. it may be a rewarding strategy to consider first what the nature of the signs may be in each case. The signs may be arbitrary. but they are not necessar-

ily always so. If the signs seem to play a role in metaphorical thinking. it may be of interest to investigate whether the signs are, or may be, naturaJly motivated.

Notes I.

In his anicle ··Pour une nouvelle pn1blc!ma1ique du sacrifice", Luc de Heusch (1976: 19)

wrile~:

Rc!examinons dans celle pcn.pcctive le probl~me particulier pose! pur Ia substitution possible au boeuf d'un fruil saUV!lJ;e: Curumi.r pmphnarum (Cro~wford). En ~;a.~ de denuemenl, celte espece de ooncombre couven de noeuds peul Ctre "sacrific!c:", en lieu e1 place d'un animal. Evans-Pritchard nc nous foumit malhcurcusemcnt uu~;unc indkation qui pcrmeumu de comprendre pourquoi l."et!C plantc csl le scul reprtsenlanl du monde vc!gi!taJ (Sauvage OU ~;u]ti\lc!) 3 possCder le pri\lili~ge de "reprtsentcr" le boeuL ('let us reexamine from this persf'C'ti\le the spcdal problem posed by the pos.~ibility of subslitUIIDg a wild fru1t for an ox: Cucumi£ pmpht-tarom (Crawford). If !here: is a shortltge of food, !his nodulou~ cucurbitic spcdcs ~;an be "sacrificed"" inSiead of an animal. Unfortunately. Evans-Pril~;hanl dncs not gi\le any indication pcrmitt1ng us to undcDiand why !his plant is the only representative of the \legelable kingdom (wild or ~;ultivatedJ !hat hiL~ !he pri.,.ilege of "representing"" !he ox.')

h

L~

predscly !his question that I hope my article will

an~wer.

2.

Haarberg and I rc~tri~;led our chuice uf c.\amples mainly to the Occident (except in the ca.~e of folklore). But judging from Girardot (19K3). the pi~;turc: does not seem to be m~~<:h dilferent in lhe0rien1.

3.

Sceptical readeD migh1 here mise the objectiun lhallhe cucurbitic Sf'C'ie~ in question is of such ins1gnifkant si.~:e !hat bnnging in species of lhe family Cucurbitact-al' with b•ucr fruit is irrclc.,.anl.l do not agree.

RALFNORRMAN

106

Haatberg and I found that usually it wa~ lite connotations of the whole plant family which were relevant. A funhern:ii..'\On, pointed out to me by Professor Ivan Karp of Indiana University. is that the as.wciation between caltle and cucumber is metonymic as well a.' metaphoric. Tbe cucumber used by the Nuer a' a ~ubstitute for caule in sacrifice grows in lhe dung heaps of caU\c in kruals. Thus. the cucumber sacrifice woulll have both metaphoric and metonymic ··mmivation . and the Nuer sacrilicing a cucumber would be a doubly appropriate a~:l.

References Albertus Magnus. De Vegetabilihus VI. 312. Aleman. M. 1661 (fin;t pub. 1599]. Primna y Jeg•·nda parte de G1·::man de Afjaraclle. Mrulrid. Atbc:naeus II. 59 c; II. 68 d; Ill. 74 b. Columella Xl.3.50. de Heusch, L. 1976. ''Pour une nouvelle probiCmatique du sacrifice··. In Systemes de pensle e11 Afrique noire, cahier 2. Le Sacrifice I (Ivery: C. N. R. S.]. 7-22. de Riquer, M. (ed.). 1950. de Cervantes, Miguel Saavedra. Don Quijote de fa Mcmdw. london: Harr.1p. Evans-Pritchard. E. E. 1962. Nuer Religion. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Fisc~r. 0. and M. Nanny. 1999. "lnlroduction: Iconicity a.~ a Creative Force in Language Use". In M. Nanny and 0. Fischer (eds). xv-xxxvi. F6nagy. I. 1999. "Why Iconicity?". In M. Nlinny and 0. Fischer (eds), 3-36. Friedreich, J.B. 1859. Die Symbolik und Myllwlogie der Natur. WUrtzburg: Verlag dcr Stachel'sc~n Buch· und Kunsthandlung. Garrod. H. W. (ed.). 1958. The Poetic·af Works of Jolm Keats. 2nd ed. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Girardot. N.J. 1983. M)·th and Meaning ill Earl).· Taoi.fm. Berkeley. Los Angeles and london: University of California Press. Gullason. Th.A (Ct.!. and introd.). 1963. The Complete Short Srorie.f & Sketches by Stephe11 Crane. Garden City. N.Y: Doubleday. Haggard. H.R. 1965. King Solomon's Mines. London and Gla.-.gow: Collins. Jackson, H. (ed. and introd.). 1947. The Complete No11Se11se of Edward Uar. london: Faber & Faber. Orig. pub. 1877 Lauglwhle L)·ric.f: A Fourth Book of No11se1ue Poem.f, Song.f, Botcmy, M11.fic- & (', Kescy. K. 1976. Sometimes a Great Notio11. London: Magnum Books. Keynes, G. (ed.). 1966. Complete Wrilings of William Blake: With Varialll ReadingJ. Jemmlem: Tire Emanation ofThe Giam Albion [1804]. London: Printed by W. Blake Sth Molton St Written and Etched 1804-1820. Kock, Th. (ed.). 1888. Comicurmn Atticomm Fragments. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. LittrC, E. (ed. and trans.). 1861. Oel"re.Homplere.f d'Hippol'l'tltt'. Vol. 10 (Courges). Paris: J.B. Bailliere et Fils.

ON NATURAL MOTIVATION IN METAPHORS

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Nanny, M. and 0. Fischer (eds). 1999. Fonn Miming Mem1ing./conidry· in Language and Literalurr!. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Nomnan. Ralf and Jon Haarberg. !980. Natllre and LAn~:uage: A Semioric Smdy of Cut·urbits in Liierarurf?. London. Boston and Henley: Routledge & Kc:gan Paul. Oliver. H.J. (ed.). 1971. lbe Arden Edition of the Works of William Shake:.-peare. 'The Merry Wives of Windsor... London: Methuen. Ouida (De La Ramee). 1873. Pas(·art?l. Only a Story. Vol. I. London: Chatman and Hall. Ousmane. S. 1971 (first pub. 1960). Usbout.uie hoi.{ de Dit'u. Paris: Prcs~s Pocket. ParroloRia IAlina LXXIII. c. 767. Plath. S. 1971. Fiesta Melons. lntrod. Ted Hughes. Exeter: Rougemont Press. Plautus, Ca.fina 907-913. Pliny. XX.3.6. Priapeu 63.12. Prou, S. 1971. Mlchammt'nl /e.f oi.{eOILt. Paris: Calmann·l...Cvy. Ricks, Christopher (cd.). 1969. Tile Poems of Tennyson. London & Harlow: Longmans. Rosscni, Ch. 1904. Tile Poetical Worh ofChri.ftina Georgina Rossetti. Memoir and notes William Michael Rossetti. london: Macmillan. Ruxton, G. F. 1849. life in the Far West. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons. Slater, M. (ed., introd. and notes). 1978. Dickens. Charle.o;. Nicholas Nit'kleby.(First pub. 1839]. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Styron. W. 1952.lie Doll'n in Darkne.u. london: Hamish Hamillon. Taylor, J. 1649. The Great Etemplar of SatJctiry and Holy life et<". london. The Hennil in London:orSketdJe.f of£ngli.fh MumJer.f. 1819. London: printed for Henry Colburn. vol. 3. Thurber. J. 1962 ...The Cane in the Corridor... 11Je Thurber Carnival. Wrinen and illus. James Thurber. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Verg:il. Georgic.f IV. vv. 121-122. Villari, P. 1842. 71Je life and Ttme.f of Niccolo Maccial·elli. Linda Villari (trans.). Vo1.2. london. Wallace. E. 1962. The Angel of Terror. london: Pan Books.

Old English poetic texts and their Latin sources lconicity in Credmon 's Hymn and The Phoenix Earl R. Ander.;on Clewdand Stare Uni\·ersity

1.

Introduction

When I first promised this paper. my intention was to emphasize the problem of establishing 'empirical foundations' for linguistic iconicity - a topic that I had presented in a recent publication (Anderson 1998) - so I must confess at the outset that I have abandoned that emphasis in favor of aesthetic analysis. The problem of 'empiricaJ foundations' is. of course. a big nuisance. The reality of our academic world is such that iconicity studies still represent a renegade departure from the cla.;sical structur.dist approach to language, which insists upon its conventionality and the arbitrariness of linguistic signs. One of the referees who reviewed my book manuscript wrote to assure my editor that A Grammar of /eonism wa-. "not a crackpot study by any means". a remark that I welcomed as a most positive one! Others who have written about iconicity have reponed encountering the same skepticism about the validity of the subject. especially from the linguistic establishment. Hans H. Meier discusses the "image problem" of ideophones and their researchers ( 1999: 146--149); Wolfgang G. MUller suggests that literary critics are likely to be more receptive than linguists have been to the concept of iconicity (1999: 393--94); John Frankis. in the title of his article about iconicity in the A11cmre Wis.H', refers to ideophones. rather deferentially. as the "lunatic fringe" of language (1991). Raphael Simone. whilst characterizing the current renewed interest in iconicity a'\ a revival of the "Problem of Cratylus". pursued. sometimes polemically. as a challenge to the established ''Aristotelian-Saussurcan Paradigm". deftly shifts the burden of proof.

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EARl R. ANDERSON

arguing that this renewed interest stems from a realization that linguistics requires .. a semiotic foundation .. (Simone 1995b: viii). Research on iconicity. according to this view. is inevitable. In the past, I have used the term 'iconism' to mean what my symposium colleagues have called 'iconicity'. Finding myself in the minority on this point. and in view of the fundamental conventionality of language, I shall use the term 'iconicity' in this paper. In A Grammarof/coni.wll. my presentation of 'empirical foundations' depended mainly on translinguistic comparisons, variously in the fields of anthropological. historical. typological. and area linguistics. and aJso upon psycholinguistic experiments of various kinds: in other words. I undertook an eclectic review of the linguistic literature across specialties. I want to go beyond that now, and mention two approaches to the problem of 'empirical foundations' that I wish I had taken up more explicitly then: the phenomenon of scribal substitution in early English texts, and the occasionaJ possibility of comparing early English poems with Latin sources.

1.1 lnmidty and scribal.wb.uitwitm First. there is the phenomenon of scribal (or sometimes artistic) substitution. for which data can be found in the many Chaucer manuscripts. in the several manuscripts of Awntyrs off Anhure at the Terne Wathelyne. in the two surviving Owl and the Nightingale manuscripts. or in the authorial revisions of William Langland's Piers Plowman. John Frankis ( 1991) has explored this phenomenon in the manuscripts of the Am·rene Wiue. I have found that when an expressive or iconic word is substituted by some other word in a variant manuscript. the changeling-word is almost always also expressive or iconic. In the early thirteenth-century Cotton Caligula manuscript of The Owl and tlte Nightingale (ed. Stanley 1960) for instance. the Nightingale protests. Me luste bet speten pan singe Of ~ine f ule 303tlinge (Lines .39--40; I would rather

.~pit

than sing about your foul hooting),

where the late thirteenth-century Jesus College manuscript has "howelynge". Native speakers of English would immediately recognize both words as transparently onomatopoeic. Modem English howl. along with yowl, ,{cowl. prowl, and others. arc among the examples cited by Dwight Bolinger in an influentiaJ article about word-groups that are horizontally "related" by means of rhyme, assonance and consonance, shared features of which mark a word-group for potential iconicity {Bolinger 1950). The poet's original word,303elinge. is onomatopoeic. and

!CONICITY IN CAEDMON'S HYMN AND THE PHOENIX

I II

has at least two morphological features that mark it for (potential) iconicity: reduplicated consonantalism in the ba~e. and a faux-frequentative verb structure. implemented by the addition of a pseudo-suffix -el-. _;o_;elinge and howelp1ge. a'\ faux-

frequentatives. arc morphologicallook-alikes compared to writelinge 'chattering'. a true frequentative, which appears eight lines later. when the Owl responds. We[n)sl pu pat ich ne cunne singe, 1'1:3 ich ne cunne of writelinge? (Lines 47-48: Do you think that I cannot sing. just bccaiL'iC I know nothing of chattering?)

Writelinge presupposes *write/ian. a frequentative variant of writian-wreotian 'chirp, chatter' (Atkins 1922: 6-7). Another iconic frequentative in the poem is

drauringe (560. 576. 744) manifest also in the feminine agent noun chatere.flre (655). a scurrilous epithet that the Owl applies to the Nightingale. Modem English chauer. clauer and (piuer-1 parter are transparent onomatopes that suggest high-pitched repetitive sounds. Among their synaesthetic cousins are .~matter and scalier (suggesting small things or fragments of things in disorderly motion). and splatter and shaller, which are polysemously onomatopoeic and synaesthetic. Another fau:~~:-frequentative is the nonce-verb chokeringe 'choking', formed by analogy to verbs like chateringe: the Owl says of the Nightingale. Ac pipesl also do~ a mose Mid chokeringe mid steune hose. (Lines 503-4: But [you! pipe just like a mouse. choking with your hoarse voice.)

303elinge. howelynge and chokeringe. then. belong to a small family of fauxfrequentatives whose polysyllabic structure. on analogy to writelinge and chilleringe. illustrdtes the role of conspiracy in the formation of words. Conspiracy rules are "formally distinct rules or conditions on rules (that! seem to work toward the same target structure" (Kenstowicz and Kisseberth 1977: 144-145: cf. Kisseberth 1970: Linell1979: 102-103). Thus. writelinge and chateringe achieve their forms derivationally. by adding a frequentative suffix .ef.- -er-: chokeri11g. a nonce-variant of choke. is formed by analogy to derivational frequentatives: _;o:,elinge is an onomatopoeic word modeled on the same target structure: and Jwwelynge achieves the target structure by lengthening the root (howl) to two syllables. Four distinct morphological processes are used to create this cluster of five onomatopoeic verbs. Of course. many other examples could be added: flt~ller is formed derivationally by adding -er tofteotan 'tl.eet':flaller. according to the Oxford Engli.~h Dictionary. has an obscure etymology as well as an unhistorical

112

EARL R. ANDERSON

-er ending. Swuggeri11g. George Chapman writes in Achilles' Shield ( 1598) ... is

a new worde... and rounde headed custome giues it priuiledge with much imitation. being created as it were by a naturall Pro.sopopeill without etimologie or deriuation.. (OED s.v. swagger): Meier is probably right to suggest that. mther than ''Pro.wpopeh,.., Chapman meant to write the word .. Onomotopoeia'' (1999: 136). which from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries usually meant any sort of word-coinage. Frequentative verbs often are iconic. and conspiracy rules often

have the elfect of introducing new iconic word-groups into a language (Anderson 1998: 77-86). The iconic characteristics of frequentatives and of conspiracy

converge in this little group of verbs from early Middle English. In addition to its role as a faux-frequentative._::;o_::;elinge is an onomatopoeic pun. suggestive of jugelinge 'jesting'. The changeling-word. howel~·11ge. substitutes another ambiguity. suggesting both 'howl' and IJule 'owl.' Howelynge calls attention to the onomatopoeic char.tcter of the word for 'owl'. Both the original word. _::;o_::;elinge, and the changeling-word. Jwwelynge. then, contribute to the most appealing characteristic of The Owl and the Nightingale: the poet's explomtion of the comic eccentricities of words. The substitution of one iconic word for another is quite common in medieval manuscripts. What often happened in the process of copying. I imagine. is that the scribe came upon a word that he did not recognize. but he did realize from the word's context and form that it was iconic or expressive. and so he substituted the rejected word with a more familiar one that was also iconic or expressive. But that must be a topic for another time.

I .2 konicity in Old English text.f compared with Latin .wuras Second. there are vernacular literary texts that are based upon Latin sources. In poetic texts that display iconicity. we can sometimes gain some insight about it by comparison to Latin sources. That is the problem that I would like to discuss here. with reference to Credmon's Hym11 and The Phoenix. The first of these, Ca:dmon's Hymn, offers a simple case of syntactic iconicity. but its relationship to its Latin counterpart. in Bede's En·lesiastical Hisrory. is problematic. In the cao;e of The Phoenix, the Old English poem's relationship to its source is unquestioned. but the nature of the iconicity in the poem. based on morphological and phonemic elements in language. is complex and subtle.

!CONICITY IN CAEDMON'S HYMN AND THE PHOENIX

2.

113

Syntactic iconicity in Cirdmon 's Hymn

Syntactic iconicity is universally present in language in a wide variety of forms. At the presentational level. subject precedes object (50) ao; the dominant sentence type in ninety-nine percent of the world's languages: ninety percent of the world's languages favor a subject-initial syntax. 'Subject+ predicate' constructions give gr-.1mmatical expression to a semantic preference for the order 'topic+ comment' or 'theme+ rheme' (Gruber 1967. 1975). These phenomena illustrate the importance of presentational iconicity in language. Then. in particular texts and contexts. syntactic iconicity appears in myriad forms. Parataxis and coordination might iconize diagrammaticity (Simone 1995c: 166), tumult or disorderliness (MUller 1999: 397-400) or simplicity (Anderson 1998: 288-889): ellipsis might iconize uncertainty or physical obscurity (MUller 1999: 394-397) or ineffability or incompleteness (Anderson 1998: 299-300). In general, research on syntactic iconicity discloses its ubiquity and its variety (cf. Haiman 1980. 1985a, 1999; Simone 1995b. and the studies collected in Haiman 1985b: Lansberg 1995: and Simone 1995a). Particularly frequent and obvious are preferential (often hierarchical) series and sequences ("Romulus and Remus' but not *'Remus and Romulus': 'Castor and Pollux' and Latin 'Castorpollux' but not *'Pollux and Castor' or *'Polluxcastor') and chronological or events-ordered syntax, illustrated by Julius Caesar's Ve11i. l'idi.l'id. an example that ha" been repeated often in the linguistic liter.tturc. ever since Roman Jakobson first presented it as an exemple of syntactic iconicity. which. he argued, pertains to the "essence" of language (1965: 21 ). C<£dmon's Hym11 survives in Northumbrian and West Saxon versions. inscribed in the margins in seven Latin manuscripts of Bede's Ecde.~icutical Hi.ftory. and incorpomted into the text in five copies of the Alfredian translation of Bede's History (Dobbie 1937). The 'hymn' as it has come down to us. consists of two sentences. The second of these provides an obvious example of chronological syntactic iconicity. inspired by the poet's Latin source. The first sentence. for artistic reasons that I hope to clarify. avoids chronological iconicity but provides a subtle example of hierarchical iconicity. Nu sculon herigean heofonriccs weard, meotodes meahte und his modgepanc. weorc wuldorf:rder, swa he wundra gehw~s. ecc drihlcn, or onstcalde. He :rrcst sceop eoroan beamum heofon to hrofe. halig scyppend: pa middangeard moncynnes weard. ccc drihten. :rfler teodc firum foldan, frca :rlmihtig.

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(Krapp and Dobbie, 6: 106 (West Saxon vcn.ion): Now we must prai~e the Guardian of heaven\ kingdom, the power of the Mca.~urer, and hi:. council. the work of the glorious Father, because he, the eternal Lord, established the origin of each of wonders. He first made. for the sons of earth, heaven as a roof. the Holy Creator: then the Guardian of mankind, the eternal Lord. afterward made the middle-earth as a home for men. the Lord almighty.)

In the second sentence, an example of chronological syntactic iconicity. events are mentioned in the order in which they occurred. reinforced by temporal adverbs (tl!Te.fl, wfter): first. God made heaven as a roof for the sons of earth. and afterward he made the middle-earth as a home for men. This translates Bede's ''qui prima filiis hominum caelum pro culmine tecti. dehinc terram Custos humani generis omnipotens creauit .. (Ecclesiastical History iv.24.1969:417: and lsc. 'who'l first created the heavens as a roof for the children of men and then. the almighty Guardian of the human race. cre<1ted the earth). where we find exactly the same sort of chronological iconicity reinforced by temporal adverbs (primo. de/rim·). The ultim<~te source is Genesis I: I: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". Thanks to the architectur-dl metaphor of the cosmos as a building. chronological iconicity in this case has considerable thematic interest. since it presents an impossible carpentry. Only God could build the roof first. the foundation afterwards. Such was the miracle of Creation. The sentence. both in Latin and in English. iconically re-enacts primordia] Creation. such that Ihe unerance of it represents a ritual renewal of the world and time. in the m<~nner of cosmogonic epics (Eliade 1969). l<~gree with Kevin Kiernan (19'XI) that Credmon's Hymn
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The Old English poem and the Latin prose have two-part structures. but the major grammatical break divides the content differently in each text. The first live verses of Credmon's Hymn correspond to the first half of the Latin prose: Nunc laudare debemu~ auctorem rcgni consilium illius. facta Patri:. gloriae:

caele~tb,

potentiam Crcatorb et

(Bede. Eccle.fiastiml Hi.~tory iv .24. ed. Colgr.IVe and Minon. 1969: 416: Now we mu~t prabe the Author of the heavenly kingdom, the power of the Creator and his coun:.el, the deeds of the Father of glory:)

The remaining thirteen verses of the Old English poem correspond to the second half of the Latin prose: quomodo ille. cum sit aetemus Deus, omnium miraculorum auctor extitit. qui primo filiis hominum caelum pro culminc tecti. dehinc terram Custos humani generis omnipotens creauit. (Bede, ihid.: how He. since he is the eternal God, was the Author of all wonders and first created the heavens a~ a roof for the children of men and then, the almighty Guardian of the human race, created the earth.)

In the Old English poem. the second sentence begins with the ninth verse (at line 5), corresponding with "qui prima" r.llher than with ''quomodo" in the Latin. such that the two parts have almost equal length. Thus. while the two parts of the Latin prose have the ratio of 14:25 words. or approximately one-third to two-thirds. the Old English poem distributes its contents almost evenly. with a ratio of 8: 10 verses. or 20:22 words. Is the Anglo-Saxon departure from the Latin prose just the result of some exigency of translation? Or it is artistically meaningful? The second sentence in Credmon's Hymn speaks of God's creation of the world, which marks the beginning of time: this is iconized by the sequence "cercst... refter". The first sentence speaks of God in the realm of eternity. beyond time. and progresses achronologically from the present (Ia: "Nu") to the beginning of time (4b: "or"). Eternal God. "cce drihten", appears in both sentences (in the Latin source. "aetemus Deus" is used just once). symbolizing. through syntactic distribution. that God is present in eternity and in time. The Anglo-Saxon poet's distribution of the contents into two sentences, an achronological one followed by a chronological one. provides a syntactic boundary between eternity and history. The first five verses of Credmon's Hym,, and its Latin counterpart. exem· plify preferential iconicity in their catalogue of four things that we now must pmise: the Creator. his power. his thought. and his creative work, viz. heaven

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and earth. For there to be a building. there must be a Master Mason. material resources. an architectural plan. and a purpose or end: the list is suggestive of Aristotle's four causes. although. of course. Bede would not have had direct knowledge of Aristotle. The four-part catalogue gives priority to the Maker. ends with the final product. and. in between. cites the physical and intellectuDI powers required for creation. (I)

Audorem regni caclcstis

heofonriccs weard

Nunc laudare debemus:

(2)

Polenliam Creatoris

meotodcs meahte

Nu sculon herigean:

(3)

Consilium illius

his modgettanc

(4)

Facia Patris gloriae

weon: wuldorfiEder

In Credmon's Hymn. the versification pattern is based upon alliteration with 'h' in the first line. ·m· in the second line. and ·w· in the third. The Anglo-Saxon poet. following the same sequence as the Latin prose, reinforces its iconicity by means of a chia.<>tically alliterated catalogue of the four things that we mu.">t praise. "weard- meahte- modge)>anc- weorc", the (accusative singular) direct objects of "herigean".

Agent Creatire powers Result

weard meabte

modgeiJanc weor<

set forth in a pattern of tnmsverse alliteration that is independent of the poem's regular versification pattern. As we have seen already. the poet encloses this example of chiasmus within the framework of an achronological movement from the present ("Nu") to the beginning of history ("or").

3.

The morphophonemic basis of synaesthesia in The Phoenix

Turning to the Old English Plroenix. we encounter an artistic enigma of a different kind. I really can't think of a less promising idea for a poem than a 386·1ine description of a bird followed by a 29l·line allegorical explication of it. Minimal plot. no characterization. static description. Yet. over the years. I have returned to this poem often. drawn to the beauty of its language. curious about the way the poet exploits the eccentricities of words. how by degrees. through certain stylistic maneuvers. he teaches the reader to read the poem aesthetically.

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3.1 Fragrance 011 the frontier ofla11g1wge We begin with just a hint of mystery about the unique land of paradise: its fragr.mces: Wlitig is se wong eall, wynnum geblissad mid !Jam fa:grestum foldan stencum .. (Tile Plloe11ix (cd. Blake 1964) 7-8: the whole= land is beautiful. blessed with joys and with the world's most pleasant frdgrances)

forgetting, for a moment. that fragrances. odors, and smells almost never arc mentioned in Old English poetry. The sense of smell is not fully lex.icalized in Old English: .mrec( ce) can translate mloratu.f but also gustu.~: xwac- .HI't'C( ce) can translate gusl/u but also odoratus; ..'Eifric at one point writes "swrec on ~am mutle", clarifying that he means taste rather than smell (Lh•es ofSaims. 1: 22. 19b-200). The notion of five senses is a learned Roman idea. which. when translated into Old English prose. can be done so only by means of inconsistent word-choices and awkward periphrastic explanations. The Alfredian translation of Augustine's Soliloquies alludes to the five senses twice. with variations in word choice: first, "we ne magon lichamlice ongytan. nat>er ne mid eagum. ne mid swcce. ne mid earum. ne mid smecce. ne mid hrinc" ( 1.6.6: we would not be able to apprehend with the body. not with eyes. nor with taste. nor with ears. nor with smell. nor with touch); a second time. "na3er ~Jam eagum. ne ~Jam earum. ne )>am stennce. no dam swece. no dam hrinunge" (I. 18. 18: neither with eyes, nor ears, nor smell. nor taste. nor touch). This text has smecce and .{fem·ce for odoratu.{, and /trine and hrimmge for tactU.L The anonymous translator in the Old English Heptateuch (ed. Crawford) translates the verb tangere variously as a'hrinan (Gen. 27:21. 32:25 etc.). onhrinan (Ex. 29:37), and llreppan (Ex. II: I); odor is translated as ste11c (Gen. 27:27; Lev. I :9) and swa'c (Lev. 1:13 and 17); .nwn is also used to translate gu.mu (Ex. 16:31). Tac:Jus often is translated periphrastically. as in IEifric's Nativitcu- Domini 110.{/ri /esu Chri.{ti, "tactus . hrepung 003e grapung . on eallum limum . ac t>eah gewune· licost on ~am handum" (U\•es of Sait1U, 1:22. 199-200: tactuJ, touching or feeling with all the limbs. but most usually with the hands). Then. where a penitential text has "per quinque sensus corporis mei uisum, auditum, gustum. odoratum & tactum. in cogitatione mala" (as to the five senses of my body, vision, hearing.taste. smell. and touch, in contemplation of evil), an Old English translation reads ''mines lichaman. on gesihl>e. on ahiringe. on swccce & rethrine. on yfele gc~Jance" (FOrster 1914). The Old English translation lends itself to three possible interpretations: (I) that the translator recognized only four senses.

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viz. sight. hearing. swecce (meaning either/or la.'ite or smell). and touch: (2) that the translator originally wrote ''gesihl>e, on ahiringe. on .muecce. on swecce & oethryne. on yfele ge~ance". while on smll!cce dropped out in the process of

copying. due to its similarity to

011 S\\'ecce:

(3) that the translator in fact listed

five senses. viz. sight. hearing . .m·ecce which refers to both gu.fllml and odorallim. touch. and gejJance 'thinking'. In Pier.f P/olt'man. the five senses are allegorized as Sires Sewel. Herewel. Saywel. Worche-wel-wyth-thine-hande. and

Godfrey Gowel (8, IX, 20-22: sc. sight. hearing. speech. working with hands. and walking). These varying interpretations are possible because the taxonomy of five senses had not yet established itself firmly in the language. Somehow. then. the Phoenix-poet has led us to the frontier of language.

3.2 MorphophouemicjeatureJ and .{)'IJae.{tlresia This is but a small part of the poet's fourteen-line expansion of a laconic twoline introduction in the poet's source. the pseudo-Lactantian Carmen de m·e phoettice (Baehrens 1881: 247-262: Blake 1964: 88-92) which is barren of sensory experience: "Est locus in prima felix oriente remotus.!Qua patet aetemi maxima porta poli" (1-2: There is a remote place in the fertile distant east/ Where the greatest gate of the eternal heaven stands open). The Anglo-Saxon poet adds sensory details in such a way a.., to develop a synaesthetic poem. in theme and in rhetorical stn&tegy. such that Neorxnawang ('Paradise') is apprehended through sight. smell. hearing. and touch. Old English wlitig means 'bright' a.<> well as 'beautiful', and focuses on sight (the noun wlite means 'countenance' or 'form') and on the nco-Platonic identification of beauty as daritas 'brightness'. divine essence that radiates a material form (Eco 1986). The word wlitig eludes Modem English translation. with respect to its meaning and its iconicity. Among the words used to translate wlitig in dictionaries and glossaries, beautiful and comely capture only one aspect of its meaning:jair only hints at brightness (at least in contempomry American English): delightful is not focused on sight: and none of these words offer phonetic equivalents for the repetition of high front vowel (1). which suggests brightness and lightness. in contr.lst with darkness or heaviness. in languages around the world. Modem English pretty offers a phonetic equivalent. but suggests something sma11. and will not do to describe the spacious plain of Ncorx.nawang. There is a hint of synaesthesia in the repeated vowel-rounding (o-u) of lines 11-12: "Drer bi3 oft open cadgum togeanes/onhliden hleo~ra wyn. heofonrices duru" (There is often open for blessed ones, opened. the joy of songs, the door of heaven). expanding "Qua patet aeterni maxima porta poli" (line 2). which has

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the same synaesthesia. iconizing 'openness' by means of rounded vowels (Anderson 1998: 186--189). The more unusual rhetorical feature in this case is the

poet's use of asyndetic parataxis. with wytt and dum serving as co-subjects of the verb phrase bit) onhliden. Next. and here we follow along with the poet a.'IO he teaches us to read his poem aesthetically: anaphoric repetition. end-rhyme. and onomatopoeic and synaesthetic oce~~putio. in a catalogue of sounds not heard and sensations not felt in paradise: Ne mzg prer rcn ne snaw ne forstes fnzst ne fyres bla=st nc h
As speakers of modem European dialects, we take end-rhyme much for granted, forgetting that it is really quite peripheral in Old English. just as a lexicalized sense of smell is. In the Latin source, we gel the idea without the experience of it: ''Nee tamen aestivos hiemisve propinquus ad ortus,f Sed qua sol verno fundit ab axe diem" (3-4: Moreover. neither summer nor winter approaches this source (paradise(. but. rather. the sun pours the day from a spring sky). By way of contrast with these verses. the late tenth or early eleventh-century Prose Phoenix has the same thought. for the most part without iconicity: "Nis ~rere (in neor.nrawang] nader ne dene ne dune; ne prere ne bye} ne forst ne snaw prere nat\er ne hagel ne reign" (Blake 1964:94).1n this passage. the only iconicity I would recognize is the synaesthesia apparent in the rise in vowel values from mid front to high back in dene ·valley' and dwre 'hill. mountain', in the alliterative fonnula "ne dene ne dune". The poetic and prose versions of this material allow us to look more closely at some linguistic aspects of onomatopoeia and synaesthesia. Consider the following counterpart phrases:

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EARl R. ANDERSON

Prose Phcwniz

Poetic: PhtHmix

ne forst

ne forstes fna:st nc fyres bla:st ne hcegles hryre ne hrimes dryre ne dcne ne dale nc dunscrafu I hla:was ne hlincas

ne hagel ne dene ne dune

What makes the verses iconic'! Five linguistic features come to mind offhand. (I) Repeated consonant clusters. especially triple clusters (fo~es. dun~afu) and/or sequences (forstes rnrest ne fyres blas_j/ge ha:gles hryre ..

hrime~re)

mark these verses for potential iconicity: consonant clusters are ''linguistically comple:~t configurations". difficult to process cognitively and physiologically. such that "rules eliminating them or avoiding them are accordingly highly natural and occur frequently in the languages of the world" (Kiparsky 1972: 218-219: cf.

Peinovich 1979: 45). (2) There are consonant repetitions of various kinds: consonance and lwmoeoteleuton (repetition of endings. as in 'forstes ... fyr~ .. h<£gl~ ... hrim~ ... hl.ew~ ... hlinc~'),lromoeoteleutoll with consonant clusters (fof!t ... fn<e~ ... bla:~. and (3) the juxtaposition of homorganic consonants (anterior /f-b/ in forstes fn.est... fyres ~1<£st): (4) statistically and alliteratively privileged clusters that had become phonotactically recessive in English a continuous history as an onomatope in English. and is joined by blow. bluster. bli:;:.ard. blare. blit~. bluff. and other words that begin with projected, bilabiaJ consonant clusters. "Fyres bl.est". it is true. might mean 'blaze of fire'. referring to the heat of the sun or the fires of hell (Blake 1964: 65-66). rather than '(firy·( hot wind'. Maybe the poet means to imply that Neorxnawang is unlike hell. where frost and fire are experienced simultaneously. as we learn in Judgment Day II 191-3 (Krapp and Dobbie 6: 58-67). However that may be. the line participates in a series of contmsts

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between heat and cold, seen also in lines 17 ("'ne sunnan hretu ne sincaldu") and

18 ('"ne wearm weder ne winterscur"), where one verse refers to something warm, the other to something cold, thereby indicating. through syntactic iconicity

mther than through direct reference. that unlike Neorxnawang, our fallen world has two seasons. sumer and lt'illler, one hot. one cold (cf. Anderson 1997). F11a:Jt,

with an a
'breath' or 'puff of air emitted by an animate being': related words are fneslm. v.. 'sneeze'. fneosung. fnora. n.. 'sneeze'. Fna:st. as an onomatopoeic pun meaning both 'blast of wind' and 'aspiration', then. names the physiological feature that makes the word iconic. Part of the 'meaning' of hla'st and fna'.~t is their horizontal relationship to each other as a pair of (etymologically unrelated) rhyming words that are near-synonyms. The Phoenix poet. by bringing them together in a rhyming vel'5e-pair. exposes and e;~~;ploits this linguistic eccentricity. Another such rhyming set is hryre and dryre (derived from verbs hreosan and dreosa11 ·fair). near-synonyms that mean something like ·fall. downpour' while implying 'downfall, ruin. destruction'. Other members of this horizontallyrelated 'family' of words are lyre 'loss, damage. destruction' (from /o.~ian 'lose'), and gryre 'terror, terrible power', a Germanic word of unknown derivation (Old Saxon has gruri). Fyr 'fire'. with a long vowel. sometimes gets drawn in as a near-rhyme for gryre: the Daniel poet collocates these words twice in his account of Nabochodonossor and the three Hebrew youths in the fiery furnace (Krapp and Dobbie I: lll-132.1ines 437-38. and 462a "frergryre fyres" 'the dire horror of fire'). Rhyme is used to collocate three members of this word group in Gwhlac B. where the poet describes Adam's life "on neorxnawong" (827a). where he knew nc lifes lyre ne !ices hryre. ne dreames dryrr ne deades cyme (Gmhlm· B 829-30 (Krapp and Dobbie 3: 72-88]: not loss of life. nor dedine of the body. nor loss of mirth. nor the coming of death).

In The Plwenix. too. paradise has "ne lifes lyre ne laJ>es cyme" (53: 'no loss of life nor coming of the evil one (the devil]'), and the poet of Judgment Day II imagines a new millennia! world in which there will be "ne hryre ne caru . biiJ j:la:r wredl ne lyre ne dcalles gryre" (262a. 266: no ruin nor sorrow ... nor will there be poverty nor loss nor fear of death). In these passages. gryre and hryre, words of moderate frequency, are kept away from each other. and arc collocated. instead, with the comparatively rare words lyre or dryre. In the Old English poetic corpus. gryre appears as a simplex 23 times. as a first compoundelement nine times. as a second compound-element eight times. and in the

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adjective Rryrelic 3 times: hryre appears as a simplex. nineteen times and as a second compound-element three times: lyre appears as a simplex thrice (and as a second compound-element thrice. only in prose): and dryre appears as a

simplex twice. and as a second compound-clement once (Bessinger and Smith 1978). Lyre and clryre arc older words. separated from their verbal roots (losian. dreo.m11) by i-umlaut and rhotacism. and are relatively peripheral compared to

the newer analogical formations

/or.lo.~ 'loss', and dreor 'blood'. all of which have greater frequency than lyre and dryre. The rhyming collocation of gryre and hryre.then. with relatively peripheral lyre and dryre. is unexpected and exciting. whereas the rhyming of gryre and hryre would seem ordinary, rather like the rhyming of eorl and ceorl. or offriiJ and wirJ. two words of moderate frequency meaning 'peace'. The rare words lyre and dryre are. as it were. dmwn out of the closet by gryre and hryre; thus. the rhyme patterns themselves are peripheral in the language. What makes gryre, hryre, dryre and J.vre iconic words? Mainly their horizontal relationship to each other as words that convey a sense of loss or the danger of loss. This feature. 'horizontal iconicity' (see also Sadowski, this volume), appears also in modem groups like prowl. growl, howl. foul. cowl. scowl. which share a connotation of something 'sinister', or .fcramble. ramble. bramble ..\·hmnbleJ which share a connotation of 'awkward sprawling', or dri:.:.le . .~i::.le. swi::.le. fi:.:.le. pi:.:.le which suggest the action of liquid on a surface. Gryre. with initial cluster (gr-1. shares semantic space with kinesthetic granitm. grammg 'groan. groaning·. grennian. gremumg 'grin'. grimetan. grinuian 'rage. roar'. gri.wn 'shudder·. gnomian, gnormmg, ~:rym 'groan' and. in Beowulf. the name Grendel. Initial [gr-] has a continuous history in English as a phonaestheme that has negative connotations and often is associated with a tightened jaw as in grin. grimace, groan. grumble. grouch. growl, and then. in the affective domain. grim. greedy. grumpy. Marie Nelson ( 1973) has explored the aesthetic contributions of words in (gr-1 especially in the fourteenth-century Alliterative Morte Arrlmre. As for the synaesthesia in llryre and dryre. motion is iconized by repetition of (r). Repetition of phonemes. and also of syllables and words. is a common form of iconicity in languages around the world. and may be variously onomatopoeic; synaesthetic, iconizing motion, iteration. or frequency; or phonaesthetic. iconizing intensity. pejoration, familiarity. or some other aspect of affective experience (Anderson 1998: I 10--116 and 208-213). The rhyming collocation of hryre and dryre (in line 16) reinforces a pattern of repetition that already exists in each word separately. Having said this much. we are still some distance from understanding the artistry of this passage. for we should want to know why the poet amplifies one

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line. "Nee tamen aestivos hiemisve ... " into a catalogue of ten verses marked by anaphora with sentence negation. II is true but not enough to say that this sort of amplification is usual in Old English poetic treatment of Latin sources. Blake. in the introduction to his edition. points out classicaJ and biblical precedents: the description of the Elysian plain in the Odyssey - "No snow is there. nor heavy storm. nor ever rain'', etc. (Ody.uey 4.563 ff.). and John's vision of the New Jerusalem as a place where "there shall be no more death. neither sorrow. nor crying. neither shall there be any more pain" (Rev. 21:4: Blake 1964: 13-14): in other words. paradise is described in terms of a catalogue of unpleasant things that are not present there. But the Phoenix poet would not have known the Ody.uey and was not thinking of Rewlatiotrs. which focuses on human sorrows ruther than climatory extremes. We will never be able to identify a specific literary source. but Bruce Lincoln ( 1991: 23-32) has collected Greek. Irish, French, Old Norse. Iranian. and lndic descriptions of paradise in terms of catalogues of bad things not present there, to support his proposal that this is an Indo-European theme. This theme is barely audible in De m·e plwenice. but clearly present in the Prose Phoetri:r:, and embellished with the rhetorical devices of onomatopoeic and synaesthetic occupatio in The Phoenix. and also in Glllhlac 8 (825b-33a) and Judgmelll Day II (254-71 ). poetic passages that exemplify the Indo-European way of describing paradise. The poet follows this with a bit of synaesthetic occupatio in his description of mountain peaks and cliffs not found in paradise: Beorga.~ )'.rr ne muma~ steape ne stondai'l, ne standifu hcah hlifiai'l, swa her mid us, nc dene ne dalu ne dunscmfu. hlrewa.~ ne hlincas, ne )'a:r hleonad oo unsmej)Cs wiht. ac se .rj)Cia feld wridad under wolcnum wynnum geblowen.

(Phoeni.t 2lb-27: Neither hills nor mountains stand steep there. nor do cliffs tower high. as here with us. Neither glens nor dales. nor mvincs. nor mounds. nor hills tower there. nor anything rugged. but the noble field flourishes under the douds. joyfully blooming.)

The poet's source is just two lines: "lllic planities tractus diffundit apcrtos./Nec tumulus crescit nee cava vallis hiat" (5-6: There the plain spreads over open tracts.! For not a hill exists. nor does a hollowed valley gape.) For fllllllllll.{ and cam Willi.{ the Anglo-Saxon poet gives series of terms for hills and valleys. Is this just ampli.fimtio by habit'! Maybe not. Notice that in the sequences of words

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for hills or height. the stressed vowels repeatedly swing upward. from the midback diphthong of beorRas to the high back vowel of m1mta:r; from lhe mid-front diphthong of heah to the high front vowel of 11/ijiaiJ and again in hltt•waslrlincaJ, and then there is a sort of vowel shock, with low and high front vowels juxtaposed in the compound srmrdifll. Vowels move in the opposite direction. downward. in line 24 where valleys arc mentioned: from mid front to low in dene-dall1. from high back to low front in dunscrafu. an opposing twin compound. as it were. of stwrdifu two lines earlier. The patterns might have been suggested by the contrdsting high and low vowels of twm1ltu and ca\'ll vallis, but the Phoenix poet often manipulates vowels to achieve synaesthesia. Of course. the Latin source does not match the Anglo-Saxon poel"s use of the takete-factor. as I have called it elsewhere: the association of unvoiced stops and fricatives with the jagged edges of a mountainous terrain (.fteap, l'tandifu. heah hlificu}, lrlinca.f), and. in contrdst, the ma/unw-factor. the association of liquids. nasals. and perhaps voiced stops with a smooth or low terrain (delle. da/11. dun-). Takete and maluma (earlier baluma): these terms are familiar in iconicity research as the nonsense words that were used by Wolfgang KOlher in psycholinguistic experiments. in which informants of differing linguistic backgrounds were asked to match nonsense words with angular and curvilinear geometric shapes. In an early experiment, most of his informants matched takete with a pentagram. and baluma with a spirdlly shaped curve formed by three overlapping teardrops ( 1929: 242243). In later experiments, KOhler substituted malunra for btllumu in order to avoid association with English ballooll, with the same results (1947:254-255). A number of follow-up studies confirmed KOhler's claim that for speakers of various languages. unvoiced stops are associated with angularity, while nasals. liquids, and bilabial voiced stops like [bJ are associated with curvilinearity (Tarte and Barritt 1969; Tarte 1974; Tarte and O'Boyle 1982). One aspect of the anistry of the Phoeni.t poet. then. is his sensitivity to these translinguistic iconic associations. The poet's description of the phoenix is a tour-de-force of synaesthesia used to support a theme that has no basis in the Latin source: the poet conveys the idea of the uniqueness of the phoenix by describing him as a work of art mther than as a natural creature: Is sc fugel fa:gcr forweard biwc. bleobrygdum fag ymb ~a breost foran. Is him Jxrt heafod hindan grene wra:tlice wrixlea wunnan geblonden. Ponne is se lima fa:gre gcxla:led. sum brun sum ba:>u sum blacum splottum

!CONICITY IN CAEDMON'S HYMN AND THE PHOENIX

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seamlicc= beseted. Sindon pa fi):m hwit hindanweard ond se hab grene niopoweard ond ufeweard ond Pa:t ncbb lixcd swa gla:s oppc gim, geaftas scync

innan ond ulan. Is seo eaggebyrd stcan: ond hiwc stanc p:clicast. gladum gimme, pone in goldfatc smiJ>e orponcum biseted weor}led. Is ymb lJ<me sweoran, !>Wylce sunnan hring, beaga beorhta.'t brogden fedrum. (Phot>ni.t 291-306: The fair bird, foremol>t in bcaUiy, i:. adorned with a variety of colors in front, around his breast. His head is green behind, splendidly variegated and mixed with purple. The tail is beautifully variegated, partly brown. pal1ly purple, and partly covered artistically with bright spots. The wings arc white behind. the neck is green above and below. and the beak gleams like gla.~s or a jewel. the jaws brilliant inside and oul. The eye is piercing and in appearance most like a stone. like a brilliant gem when into a gold setting it ha:. been placed with the skill of smiths. Around the neck. like the sun's halo. is the brightest of thmat-plumages. inlaid wilh fealhers.)

The association of high front vowels with brightness or light colors is heard in "ti~u/ hwit hindanweard" (297b--98a). "~a:t nebb lixel}/ swa gla:s o~l>c gim. geaftas scyne innan ond utan" (300-lb) and in many verses elsewhere in the poem. The translinguistic a.'isociation of high and front phonemes with bright and light colors. and of lower or back phonemes with dark or cool colors. is. of course. a familiar concept in iconicity research (cf. Cha.'itaing 1960. 1961. 1962). But the most noticeuble form of iconicity in this pussage is the association of consonant clusters with variegated color: "bleobrygdum fag" (292a: ornamented with variegated colors), "wn£tlice wrixled wurman geblonden" (293: artistically blended, mingled with purple), "sum blacum splottum" (296b: partly with bright spots). Then. in addition. variegated color is iconized through syntax using (maphora with s11m ("sum brun. sum basu. sum ble1cum splottum''. 296) and using homoeoteleuton with -weard ("hwit hindanweard.. nioJ:>oweard ond ufeweard". 298-99a). Multiple repetition of words and syllables iconize a multiplicity of spots. The association of multiple consonant clusters with variegated color, a.'i a species of chmmaesthesia. has not been investigated fully in the litemture on iconicity; its synaesthetic counterpan would be the association of multiple consonant clusters with twisted or knotted shapes and contours. for which the exemplary Old English word would be wrretlic. usually translated e1bstroctly as 'wondrous. curious; excellent. beautiful'. but often implying something more

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physical: a complex. intricately designed surface. The dragon killed by Sigemund is a "wrretlicne wynn" (Beowulf 89Ia: intricately-shaped worm): the Brosing necklace that Wealh):leow presents to Beowulf is a "wnrtlicne wundurmaMum'' (Beowulf 1173a: intricately craflcd. wondrous treasure). Similarly synaesthetic words arc wrixltm- wrixlilm 'change. exchange', wrtt'.motr, wri/wn 'twist', wr(l'Stan ·wrest. twist', wruxlian 'wrestle'. wra:stlere 'wrestler'. wringun 'wring'. hwearfian-llwearjliatl- hweorftm 'tum about". hwerjlung 'error'. fm:ttwe 'ornament. treasure' .fra:tlewian 'adorn, decorate'. The basis for iconicity in such cases could be either kinesthetic or cognitive: multiple consonant clusters are complex articulations. difficult to process cognitively. and thus have the potential to iconize complex or asymmetrical shapes. rough terrain. complicated, intricate surfaces, and variegated color. The verses "bleobrygdum fah" (292a) and "wrretlice wrixlea wunna geblonden" (294). then. display a fonn of iconicity that we may compare to the Ph_\'Jio/ogu.~ poel's description of the panther, whose intricate coloring is compared. in a simile. to the coat of many colors that Jacob gave to his son Joseph: D;rt is wr~rtlic deor, wundrum scyne hiwa gehwylces: swa ha!led secg.W. g~sthalge guman, ~;rUe Iosephes tunece wa:re telga gehwylces bleom bregdende, ~ara bcorhtra gchwylc a:ghwrs a:nlicra o~rum li:\le dryhta bcarnum. swa ~a!s deorcs hiw. bi~N brigda gehwa:s. beorhta and scynm wundrum lixed. ~a:ue wr~rllicra
Like the phoenix. the panther combines claritaJ with variegated color. Clariws is iconized through the collocation of high and front vowels in passages referring to brightness: "wundrum scyne/hiwa gehwylces" (19b--20a). "scynra/wundrum lixell" (25b--26a). ''fregerra frrewum blicall" (29). Variegated color is iconized by

!CONICITY IN CAEDMON"S HYMN AND THE PHOENIX

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means of multiple consonant clusters in words and verses that I have boldfaced in the passage above: ··wnetlic(ra)" (19a.27b). ''bleom bregdende" (23a). "blorc brigda" (26a). "fra=twum bliced" (29b). Throughout this extraordinary sentence.

a rare instance of simile in Old English poetry. the poet alternates between iconized clarita.{ and iconized variegation. sometimes merging the two in vel1'ies that have both high or front vowels and multiple consonant clusters. The Panther poet's chromaesthetic description of Joseph's coat of many colors is the result of

an iconic sensibility that is quite different from the simple reference to his "hringfage tunecan" 'coat ringed with colors' in the anonymous Old English Heptateudr (Gen. 37:3 (Crawford 1922: 171 ]), lr'.mslating "tunicam polymitam''. Then again. to return to the pao;sage from The Phoenix that is under review. the intricate circle of bright feathers that surround the phoenix's neck is described using liquids. na,.als and mostly rounded vowels. and voiced rather than unvoiced stops: "~ne sweoran... sunnan hring.J beaga breorhtast brogden fedrum" (305--6). Association of curvilinearity with rounded phonemes. liquids. nasals. and voiced a.o; against unvoiced stops in the world's languages contrasts with the association of angular or jagged shapes with fricatives. affricates and unvoiced stops. Malunw versus rakeu. The Latin source for this concentrates on similes using learned a.'\tcological and mythological allusion: the phoenix's forward color is that of pomegranates under the constellation of Cancer... when Flora spreads wild poppy petals over the reddening soil: the god Iris marks her feathers from above just as daylight paints the clouds. Neither extended similes nor classical allusions are much at home in Old English poetry. The poet. suppressing these, substiiUtes a different but equivalent artistry. In place of simile. the Anglo-Saxon poet provides submorphemic iconicity reflecting variegated color. brightness. and curvilinearity. In place of ao;tcological and mythological allusion. the poet provides a submerged metaphor according to which the phoenix is a unique artistic creation. This is implied in the adverb and verb "wrretlice wrixle!J" (294a). "searolice beseted" (297a). in the simile likening the phoenix's beak "swa glres oJ>J>e gim" (300a). and finally in the superlative simile describing the phoenix's eye: Is sco eaggebyrd stearc ond hiwe stane gclicast. gladum gimme, J>one in goldfate smi~ orJ>oncum biscted weor(3eil. (Phoe11i:r 301b-4: The eye (by its noble] chantcter is hard (as stone! and in shape-and-color most like stone. a bright gem. when it is set in goldfate by the

ancient artifice of smiths.)

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Here the poet departs somewhat from his source: lngcntcs oculi: crcdas gcminos hyacinthos. Quorum de medio Iucida Hamma micat. (De Ol'e plwenin.' 137-40: She has cnonnous eyes: you would believe them to

be twin jacinths, from the middle of which a clear flame sparkles.)

The poet's departure from the Latin sense may not always be intentional. The hapax legomenon. eaggeb.vrd 'nature of the eye'. for example. probably is based on confusion of ingemes ·enormous' with geJIS, genlis 'family descent' and by extension 'nature'. The poet's substitution of general words stane and gimme for the more specific hyucintho.~ 'jacinths' is consistent with the Old English treatment of gem-names which are classified as 'stones' according to color. rather than by names of species or names derived from geographic sources as is the case in Greek and Latin. One grammatical change may be significant: where the Latin source refers to the phoenix's eyes in the plural. the Anglo-Saxon poet substitutes the singular. probably because the poet is thinking of a metal sculpture of a bird in side profile, which would have only one eye. This, in Anglo-Saxon sculpture. usua1ly would be a red garnet in a sening surrounded by a circular trench that act historians call an 'eye-surround'; perhaps this is what the poet means by goldfcl'l. Although Bosworth-Toller trnnslate "in goldfate" 'in a bracelet' based on the gloss braaia or lamina aurea 'thin plate of gold', most commentators are content with something more gener.dized like ·in a gold setting·. The OE Datriel has "Godes goldfatu" (755: 'God's golden vessels'). The word lends itself to a variety of interpretations and might very well have had a technical artistic meaning alongside more general senses. Then. too. the Anglo-Saxon poet suppresses the Latin poet's detail of the phoenix's gigantic size (145~6), perhaps because that would be inconsistent with the image of a meta1 sculpture. Another aspect of iconicity in The Phoetrix is synaesthesia of motion. Here. the Latin poet emphasizes the gigantic size of the phoenix.larger than other birds and bea.'its in Arabia. yet light. swift. and graceful. not sluggish like other large birds: Magnitiem terris Amburn quae gignitur ales Vix aequare potest. seu fera seu sit avis. Non tamen est tarda ut volucres. quae corpore mag:no lnccssus pigros per grave pondus habcnt. Sed levis ac velox. regali plena decore. (De Ul't' p/wenice 145-49: Scarcely can any winged creature born in Arab lands, whether bird or bea~l. compare with her in size. Yet she is not sluggish like the birds with large bodies which have slow gaits because of their great weight. Rather. she is light and swift, rich with regal grace.)

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The Latin poet is weighed down by concepts, which the Anglo-Saxon poet soars above with simplicity of thought and lightness of language. contrasting the

phoenix's quick movements to the slowness of other birds: Nis he him.lcrweard ne hygeg;clsa, swar ne swongor swa sume fuglas. ):Ia pe late ):lurh lyft laca!) fi)lrum: ac he is snel ond swift ond swipe leoht. wlitig ond wynsum wuldre gemearcad. (314-18: Nor is he slothful nor light-minded. nor heavy nor sluggish like some birds, which fly lazily through the air with their wings: but he is nimble and swift, very light, and he is beaUiiful and winsome with glorious markings.)

Earlier: swa sc haswa fugel beorht of Pa:t bearwiL~ hearne gewited. farct1 feprum snell Hyhtc on lyfte, swinsaa ond singei'l swegle toheancs. ( 12lb-24: The bright bird depar1s from the forest, from a lree, goes quickly on wings in flight through the air, makes melody and sings toward heaven.)

If the language in the Latin source seems weighted by concepts. like some passages in Dante. the language of The Phoenix is characterized by 'lightness', as ltalo Calvina calls it. comparing the poetry of Dante and Cavalcanti (Calvino 1988: 10--17). In both pa.-.sages. high and front vowels iconizc the phoenix's fleetness of feather: "ftyhte on lyfte/swinsai\ ond singe(\" (123b--24a) ... "he is snel ond swift ond swi~ leoht.lwlitig ond wynsum" (317-18a).ln the passage contrasting the swift phoenix with other, slothful birds. the slowness of the other birds is iconized by a concentration of lower back vowels: "swa ne swongor swa sume fuglas" (315); the focal word . .nmngor, with two consonant clusters, is characterized by prolonged duration as well as lower back vowels.

4.

Conclusion

Tire Phoe11ix presents some of the most extended examples of synaesthesia and is unique in Old English in that regard. although other poems also come to mind: The Dream of the Rood with its dark colors. darkly heard in low and back vowels; parts of Beoi\'U/f: the 'Doomsday' poem that we once called Chrisll/1. )conicity is a linguistic resource that is generully available to poets. but poets

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differ in their uses of it. Iconicity thus makes an imprint that differentiates the work of one poet from another.lt is a sort of linguistic fingerprinting. except that some are better than others, and the Phoenix poet. it still seems odd to say. is among the best.

References A:lfric. 1881-1900. Uw.'.iofSaims. &I. W.W. Skeal. EETS os 76, 82,91 and 114. London: Oxford University Press. Alfred. 1969. Kinx A/.fred:f Ver.fiOII of St. Augll.ftineS Soliloquie.L Ed. Th.A. Camicelli. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univel'5ity Press. Anderson, E.R. 1997. 'The Sea...ans of the Year in Old English... Angln-Scu:on England 26: 231-263. Anderson, E.R. 1998. A Grammar of /coni.m1. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Atkins, J. W.H. (ed.). 1922. The Owl and the Nighti11ga/e. Cambridge: Cambridge University P~ss. Baeh~ns. Aemilius (ed.). 1881. Ponue l.Ati11i Milwre.f, vol.3. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. Bede. 1969. Bnie:f Ecde.titt.ftical Hi.uory. Ed. and tmns.B. Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors. Oxford: Clarendon. Bessinger. J. B .. Jr.. and Ph. H. Smith. Jr. 1978. A Conmrdam·e to the Al•glo-Saton Ponic· Record:t. llhaca. NY: Cornell University Press. Blake. N. F. (ed.). 1964. The Phoem:r. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bolinger, D.L. 1950. "Rime, Assonance, and Morpheme Analysis". Word 6: 117-136. Reprinted in his Fom1s of En~-:lish: An·em, Morpl1eme. Orda. I. Abe and T. Kamckiyo (eds), 203-226. Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press. Calvino. I. 1988. Six Memos for the Next Miflenium: TI1e Charles Eliot Norto11 l.Lctures 1985-86. Trans.P. Crragh. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chastaing. M. 1960. "Audition color&: un enqm?te". Vieetlangage 105:631-637. Chastaing. M. 1961. "Des sons et des couleurs". Vie et langage 112: 358-365. Chastaing. M. 1962. "La brillance des voyelles". Ardli\'11111 LinRui.uimm 14: 1-13. Clemocs. P. 1995. lmnactions of TIIOIIf.:llt and Language in Old EnRii.fh Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crawford, S.J. (ed.). 1922. Tile Old Engli.fh Venion of the Heptatellch, £/fric:t Treati.fe on the Old and New Te:ttamem and hi.t Prefaa to Gene.ti.t. EETS os 160. London: Oxford University Press. Dobbie. E. Van Kirk. 1937. TI1e Manusc-ript.tofCa·dmon:t Hynmand Bedr
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FOrster, M. 1914. "Die altenglischen Beigaben des Lambeth-Psalleni'. Archil' 132: 328-335. Frankis. J. 1991. "Middle English ldeophones and the Evidence of Manuscript Variants: Explomtions in the Lunatic Fringe of Language". In Language Usage and Descrip· lion: Studies Prese11ted roN. E. O.uelton on the Occa.fion of his Retirement, 1. 1iekenBoon van Ostade and J. Frankis (eds). 17-25. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi. Gruber, J.S. 1967. "Topicalization in Child Language··. Fmmdati(m,f of Umguage 3: 37-65. Gruber. J.S. 1975. "Topicalization Revisited". Foundations of LD11guage 13: 57-72. Haiman, J. 1980. 'The lconicity of Grammar: Isomorphism and Motivation". lAnguage 56: 515-540. Haiman. J. J985a. Nawral Synta.L /conicity and Ero.fion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haiman, J. (ell.). 1985b. /conicity in Syntax: Proa~ding.f of a S,\'mposium on /conicity in S_wllax. Stanford, June 24-6. 1983. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kenstowicz, M. and Ch. Kissebenh. 1977. Topit·s in Phonological Theory. New York: Academic Press. Jakobson, R. 1965. "Quest ror the Essence or Langllilgc:". Diog~ne.f 51 (Fa11): 21-37. Reprinted in R. Jakobsen. Sdect~d Writing.f. 2nd, e:tpanded edition, 7 vols. The: Hague: Mouton. vol. 2. 345-359. and in his Ltm~:uo!-l~ in literature, K. Pomorska and S. Rudy (eds). 413-427. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1987. Kiernan, K.S. 1990. "Reading Ca:dmon's 'Hymn' with Someone: Else's Glosses". R~p"sentatiml.f 32: 157-170. Kiparsky. P. 1972. "Explanation in Phonology". In Goa/.fojlillft:lli.ftic nteory. S. Peters (ed.), 189-227. Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prentice Hall. (reprinted in P. Kiparsky 119811. £rplanotion in Phonology, 81-118. Dordrtcht: Cinnaminson.) Kisseberth, Ch. 1970. "On the Functional Unity or Phonological Rules"'. linguistic· Inquiry· 1: 291-306. KOhler. W. 1929. a~.fta/t P.f.rchology. New York: Horace Livc:right. Kohler. W. 1947. Ge.ualt P.f_whology, 2nd ed. New York: Hore~ce Liveright. Knapp. G. P.. and E. van Kirk Dobbie (eds). 1931-1953. Anglo-Sawn Poetic R~,·ord.f. 6 vols. New York: Columbia University Press. Langland, William. 1886. Th~ Vi.fion of William cot/cerning Pi~r.s th~ P/oll'man in Th"" Parallel Texts,togetht'T with Rit·hard th~ Redelt'U. Ed. W. W. Skeat, 2 vols. Odortl: Oxford University Press. Lansbc:rg. M.E. (ed). 1995. Synra,·tic /conicity and lingui.ftic Free:_es. Tilt' Human Dimemion. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lincoln, B. 1991. Death, War. atld Sacrifice. Chicago: University or Chicago Press. Line!!. P. 1979. Psychological Reality in Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meier. H. H. 1999. "Imagination by ldeophones. In M. Nanny and 0. Fischer (eds), 135-154.

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Miiller. W.G. 1999. ''The Iconic Use of Syntax in British and American Fiction". In M. NliMy and 0. Fischer (cds), 393-408. Nanny. M. and 0. Fischer (cds). 1999. Fonn Miming Meaning: lt'Onidty in Language and lilt>ralure. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Bcnjamins. Nelson, M. 1973. ··submorphemic Values: their Contribution to Pattern and Meaning in the Marte Artlmre". Lan~:uage cmd S~·le 6: 189-296. Peinovich, M.P. 1979. Old Engli.fh Ntmfl Morphology: A Diat·hmnic Study. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Simone. R. (ed.). 1995a. /conicity in Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Simone, R. 1995b. '"Under the Sign of Cratylus". In R. Simone (ed.), vii-lti. Simone, R .. 1995c. "Iconic Aspects of Syntax''. In R. Simone (ed.), 153-169. Stanley, E.G. (ed.). 1960. Tile Owl and the Nightingale. London: Thoma.~ Nelson & Sons. Tarte. R. D. 1974. "Phonetic Symbolism in Adull Native Speakers of Czech''. Language a11d Spuch 17: 87-94. Tarte. R.D .. and L.S. Barriu. 1969. "Phonetic Symbolism in Adult Native Speaker of Engli..~h: Three Studies". Studies in Lo.ng11age and Language Beha1•ior, Pro~:reu Report VIII, February/, /969. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health. Education and Welfare, Ollke of Education. Reprinted in Ltmguage and Speech 14 (1971): 158-168. Tarte. R.D .. and M. W. O'Boyle. 1982. "Semantic Judgments of Compressed Monosyllables: Evidence for Phonetic Symbolism".Jm1rna/ of P.f)'cholillgui.ftic Re.uarch II: 183-196.

PART

III

Visual iconicity: Typography and the use of images

Iconic punctuation Ellipsis marks in a historical perspective Anne C. Henry £mman11el Colh.>f:e, Unil·ersity of Cambridge

1.

Introduction

My aim in this paper is to draw attention to the iconic value of punctuation. Punctuation is largely ignored. not only within discussions of iconicity. but also within the broader domain of literary criticism. I am particularly concerned here with ellipsis marks. When we pick up a novel. or a poem or a play. we arc usually confronted with ellipsis marks in one form or another: they might appear as a series of points. or a series of hyphens. perhaps a dash or a line of asterisks. Although much work has been done on the development of alphabetic forms. it is less common to a"k how marks of punctuation have come about. nor how any particular variant might relate to its signified meaning. In this study I demonstrate that over the last 400 years these variant graphic forms of ellipsis have evolved alongside changing historical periods. and in direct response to changing liter.1ry and linguistic preoccupations. And. I believe, it is only by looking at ellipsis marks within this broad historical context that we arc able to recognise their full iconic force. Simon Alderson in his essay 'lconicity in Literature: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Prose Writing' similarly argues that discussions of iconicity should be undertaken with historical awareness. He describes the "flexibility" of the term 'iconicity'. but argues that "its merit is that it helps open up the age·old litemry ideal of form/function correspondence to serious linguistic investigation at a number of different levels" (Alderson 1999: 110). The rarity with which punctuation is discussed within this "age-old" litercll)' debate of form and

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ANNE C. HENRY

function. itself justifies an employment of the term 'iconicity', even in its broadest sense. and in this paper I will examine ellipsis marks as 'icons' in two ways. Firxt. I will examine how each graphic form provides information about its immediate verbal context. in some way visualising the concerns of the particular book in which it appears. engaging with what Alderson describes as ''the beliefs about language and reality circulating at the time" ( 110). Second. I will demonstrate that ellipsis marks have twer time developed a semantic system of their own. That is. as they have evolved and been transformed along broadly iconic (amongst other) principles. their iconic resonance comes in pan from their relation to each other. Ellipsis marks can therefore often be employed lo contradict ostensible verbal meanings or at lea'\1 contribute secondary levels of meaning within particular verbal contexts. II is also often possible. solely by examining the form the ellipsis marks take. to place a work within a specific historical period or literary genre. To demonstrate this. my argument follows chronologically the history of ellipsis marks. beginning with a description of how the first marks of ellipsis came into bcing. 1

2.

The history of ellipsis

2.1

Medie~·al

tue: omissions in manuscripts

When copying from defective exemplars. medieval scribes would often leave blank spaces to indicate places which were lost. tom. worn or otherwise illegible. The following is an example from a twelfth-century manuscript from Salisbury Cathedral:

ELLIPSIS MARKS IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

137

~.nn.mi7Pt1'!n.u·U{Umt"~ niub·,fiAcW Jul•nrr .tuclmaf.fcim

~~~~~-~~~~~~ri"~C:~ o~)l~~~~r ~~h"c;:r.:=-~~~~~'!fl (''u;:l:r;.t"~r~~dtt':.fund'C-'f·n~l'i••udu:t'""'nui f~r;n- ,;.'ill-' ifC!rtmRli~yn:a·

~.:.\MIIfiTIUI"'t"frltl11'1"t'ChW\'nlr (\ltT'II diTroJif1'1"f1t)'t"4..tnlni_ (nff'Lctrt'dt~i",.L\m-'bl~f·'flll"tn"'a;;.\111:.f.\llt'" Jo;tncnnnnqutr.tr r•-mn1'J.Irt'·.t· ~· r-.tm.:tt rii ttTJ"!n(,...~rr tJbn~lmJ" • nan1ir'"}'~,·t~.tbhumJ.n.t tTTrk"'t'~J,rmmur 1.argtn"' tjj:~...w '='"~ n:n .:mn•nnf'hmt d&ct1·t .sdutrtnm 'l.f•,ri rw( .:l~nra· 1 , ·!rm~( 'Tuyummtf :runu1.1 '"'!):uurrr n."T('If r.:rf. I( r'Tr\ ~.\IIIITt' •1111 J,,n,IO:J.illl .:.nnnnlir h..-macJdol1UI'J\.l.:l tfi( .\lit" .tdu!ttr nommd,~ri'"JIIi.l .1dulmoia vn·ri'n'.UI!'t" • nf'\1.

O.~.~.nn~" i1'9l' hai~ mn.,ch ,,,nuu•l" rt"uf

''~•ft11i,;ot1U11rto mdt-f l"tfr.-mdto ·•1'\"

t' -~.' \'111-ul(rtd.tdh!r 1l1"' .:!~,·· md1uf i1dl' '1":' r.m.,nt

tn•m -~· ""'mli '111' tr.:t•ml"n- tTrlT '!lt f!~ ct11G'i· •1ut hft' f'OUL~7tf

Figure I. Reproduced in Webber: /991, plate H. Blank spaces served a practical purpose. Due to the minimal circulation of manuscripts. scribes were unable to consult even a fraction of the various copies of a work. therefore the blank space allowed later readers, who had consulted other. more complete versions of the texl. to till in the blanks. Yet here the blank space also took on an iconic significance. as it visually replicated the missing parts of the copy-text: absence denoted absence. However. scribes. from the tirst century AD. and probably earlier. would also usc a mark often known as the a.~leri.\'C/1.~ to indkate omissions.

138

ANNE C. HENRY

p <Jbmu ollllJlllllllj •IU.)'IL'!II 0<1(fi\li(.
:.~.·~~~ ml~\ Qlll'•lnglm~ rucirrmr ?.,rtf'fmr ~·l]••frnt ~ 114\1111'11 pl"fflmt rlr.pmliflt ~~~~· 11~ ~mdcnf"'ncllt'll'l'Wl'. , •.•,nmf.

"{<\

~·uq: mcnfib: lT!Jllt\ill ~Mhfm111Chllt'.lll( .

.yll.llf. tu111J. fm,\.m .•lhcl'l'-f' mrrrfiof.' 1gl.\from,\'bd,)f •l hto!nl hnnlhlno olb~c. fq1drr: [J,I chn·~ur fl"ftu•fm•rgmi' fhr rtif!r.1•l fri; tl?o~ne ohcllt~!·o lnlungrt' llllll' n.·r.1>' wnfwauiii.f •r · / ~ llllll.llmr,yl!r.\\.,.IH.ni'rh<'!.lr\'11 ·.· ; ftf,ltrhtrllr ·JicrttliF ~~~~~hnnl•m• li1'<'1ilfnnull,\ qnc ~i~ r.\1ii-,11cffr)•lf~ f'S't\~0 1\'!_TI •lll)tiO!II t'On'bo f,~du;tn''

mr.mniiditl'dl,\dul n·nucnii-. u.lq111111-.\ />,)lllr•l thqll',)'~l'lllCJL (~n •llll<~ii· Figure 2.

Tl!i.~

fu1•f<' l'l'!ll'(nlo\u,·nllH:

mtmi/SITipt t!Utl'.t fmm hetll'l!t'll J/64 am/ 1175. Corpu.t Chri.ui Collef.w.

CtJmbridRe. MS Bf.J: 85, mrd iJ nfared to in Parkes( /992: 09/.foomote 94.

The corrector of this twelfth-century manuscript added three stars or crosses to indicate omitted material. The marks act as Jigtlf!J de renmi directing the reader to the material at the bottom of the page to be inserted. whilst the proliferation of stars and their placement within the left margin and the intercolumn as well as in the blank space within the column of text. also serve to facilitate the reader':- easy return to the text. and highlight the lacuna.~ One might argue for various ways in which the appearance of such a nola has iconic significance: in other instances. perhaps it was once meant to approximate visually the tom edges

ELLIPSIS MARKS IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

139

of a fnagmented manuscript. Isidore of Seville. writing in the seventh century. comments upon the iconic motivation behind the mark's name and form: •The asterisk is placed against [verses[ which have been omilled in order that what seems to be omitted may shine forth. For in the Greek language a star is called OOTlJp. from which astcriscJ.Lo; is derived (Lindsay 1911: I. 08'; translated Parkes 1992: 173).

However. it was not until the advent of print that asterisks proliferated as common textual symbols. With the rate of book production increasing by means of the printing press, multiple versions of a work were easily available to scholan;: therefore. if there was no known text with which to complete the gaps in a fragmented work. the gaps could be printed into the text to mark conclusively its incomplete nature. The asterisk was generally chosen for this purpose and it maintained. to a great extent. the same form as seen in earlier manuscripts: SNptr Ifill tr~itltntrm

rrijnr

Dlrt4M ,.,.,...

rrid'm u; pUlld'rio,.Jitmll rftMitiiHft M~it»foif. i4 ts,.P.ltm i&rurr"ffi.c. v •lrritu414Jitc

p,n~.c

.

.

rltJII:xit.Cit Artfl.,;lflllff C•rHli,& L111pi4ni,tr lim nllrr,fTd'Jir A ptnnilfhllf sri.Wtrf fotr-'lt• Figure 3. 2.2

Lil'ill.{

£1/ipJi.~

f 1521-33:5, U' J

in prim: direct.\pet?dl

Ellipsis comes from the Greek £11.AeL"TT£LV. 'to come short' and has been used throughout its history alongside or interchangeably with BtcXeL1T£LV, 'to leave out'. Both terms gradually began to be used by rhetoricians and grammarians to describe linguistic omissions - the elision of a word. or words. from a phr.:1se - powerful in oratory. but also inherent to. according to Apollonius Dyscolus. 'everyday speech' (Householder 1981:215). The term EtcAeufn•.; was primarily used, however, to describe an astronomical eclipse. providing an interesting counterpoint to the O:aTi)p. the asterisk. which was used to light a dilferenttype of textual obscurity. 3 In George Puttenham's 1589 The Arte of Engli.fh Poesie 'eclipsis' is described as "the Figure of default", a grammatical or "auricular" figure of omission used commonly in poetic speech (Puttenham. 1589: 136). The omission. although unmarked. is unden;tood by the reader or listener. and can be completed without any oven instruction. However. around the same time that Puttenham was writing. the ellipsis/eclipsis began to be marked typographically

140

ANNE C. HENRY

in representations of direct speech, and the new possibilities for marking omission. as suggested by the use of asterisks. soon led to innovations within the

gmphic presentation of discourse. The iconic possibilities of language were central to late sixteenth-century linguistic discussions. Print. and its adoption of the vem<:~cular. created new anxieties regarding the nature of written English. and a great number of commentators called for its complete reformation. commonly on phonetic principles. John Hart for instance. in his 1551 The Ope11i11g of tire U11rea.mlwb/e Wriring of Our lngli.~h Totmg and then again in the 1569 Orthograplrie, argued that we should ··write as we speake", as the existing wrillen forms were too far removed from spoken language (Hart, 1569: 6•). He complained, for example, about the deficiency, or superfluity, of leiters in words, in relation to the syllables articulated. He wrote that the oral and the visual should correlate. and the alphabet be reformed to become "the image of the voice" and reading a process of "seeing voices" on the page. From here, analogies from the visual arts quickly followed: "(b]etter can not a writer be compared, than to a Painter" (28'). In spite of such attestations however. Hart's mode of thinking was not what we might call imagically iconic. that is. he was not overly concerned with the particular visual representation or image: he refers. for instance, to finding a ''figure" which he thinks "the readiest for the hande" (33'), as opposed to that which somehow might be appropriate to the sound. In addition. Hart's aim to reform written language on the ba.
In 1582. in response to works such as Hart's, Richard Mulcaster aimed to disprove that graphic forms could in any way replicate the sounds of language. Rather. he argued. the letters of the alphabet were chosen upon arbitrary principles. and relate to sounds merely through convention: Whereby the peple that vl>Cd them lin.t. agreed with those, that found them first. that such a sound in the voil:e should be resembled by such a signe to the eie: and that such a signe in the eie should be so returned to the ear, as the aspectable figur of such an audible .m1111d (Mulcaster 1582:65).

ELLIPSIS MARKS IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

141

Mulcaster also picked up on the analogy between art and language. but only to demonstrate that the visual arts too. are based upon cmll'elllions of ''likeness" ruther than actual replication: ''letters ca expresse solids withal! their ioynts & properties. no fuller then the pecill di the form & lineamCts of the face. whose prnise is not life butlikenesse" (99). Yet. even Richard Mulcaster wa.; not totally averse to innovations within the wrillen form of language based on phonetics. and he suggested. in particular. the use of accents to provide information about intonation. Mulcaster was however. unlike John Hart. a pragmatist. and he recognised that economic factors restricted the possibilities of substantial changes within language: "bycause the printing charact being once cast in metle. what difficultie is there afterward?". he exclaimed (107). This point is extremely important, for when assessing the iconic value of ellipsis marks it is necessary to recognise that their form was. from the outset. determined by pieces of type that existed in the printer's ca.'ie. Until the eighteenth century. British printers depended upon imported matrices from the continent in which to cast their type. and to create new typographical marks. particularly for literature. one of the Jess remunerative forms of print work. was simply out of the question. It is unlikely that the first marks of ellipsis were a direct result of phonetic theories such as Hart's or. to a lesser degree. Mulcaster's. but were most probably influenced by them. The first appearance of ellipsis marks which I have been able to discover. is in a 1588 translation of Terence's Andria by Maurice Kyffin (Figure 4). Whereas the asterisk primarily marked textual or transcriptional gaps. the marks used here act as a visualisation of the linguistic principle of ellipsis. a spoken or syntactic omission. In the first and third examples. the series of hyphens indicate the interruption of one character by another and in the second instance they indicate a character's interruption of himself. in order to call his slave. Dromo. So why, exactly, do these marks appear? In the Preface to this play the translator Maurice Kyffin writes that his "cheefest care hath bin. to lay open the meaning of the Author J... J in such apt. plaine, and familiar words, as are most meete, for this low stile and Argument" (Kyffin 1588: Aiii•). The visualisation of ellipsis is part of this desire to present "plaine and familiar" language. or in a'i he says elsewhere.the "common speech" of Terence's characters. to reveal that in real life sentences are not always produced in complete syntactical units. Second. as in the final instance. the marks act as a form of comic censorship. actually preventing Sima from uttering his "euill language", words that might be construed as too familiar. Third. his marking of linguistic incompleteness had a specific pedagogic function. Kyffin wrote for students of Latin. and by marking where sentences were left unfinished. students would not have to Wa.'ite time seeking complete syntactical structures in the original language.

J.n

A~NE

•s;,.,('_,u, ,.~,{,;,,,J;.,,

n'h'!''"~

(14111/.

C. HE:-.IRY

s..

..,..IJolD~ , Dromo, Dromo. ~~ It tbe mattrr 1 Jl>Jomo. D•- Sbp, btre 1111 fir • s.. !If tbo~ fprake one lDOlb mo:r- --- :JI'Omo, D-•· J beftrb pou litre me. D"· lillbat IDaa!b pau (Jane Or 1 S•. !i}~pre bp tbhf knaae oa tO! badl, anD c.vy 111m Ia •• faa aa t!Joa c~na. ~

Dr<>,

S•.

:<2 ~caUu 1111? ~

J 1D11Inllalll, ills

.:mrfat!lfr. · ,lSi. f!lil(latraitartaa? tbaa arranD- ·- • · Chr. .fi• , sa to lbUIWtcr , 11111 nafc roar rallllanouagc. S•. pea u I!Jool~ time roaiD be 411? name to ill fol!bi1 fdlaiD •jllatu area, 11m raa Ll! t!Je fame ll» 1 J• Gll'ccric fr& bone of 1~11 ctitl& 1. l'amph. .,o il is rrpo)tro. Figurl"

~

A"vftm I 1588: //iii'. /m'. /ms'!

ELLIPSIS MARKS IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

143

And finally. by foregrounding the ellipses. the meaning of the characters' words is made more immediate and dramatically present. The marks therefore act a'i an intratextual stage direction. revea1ing dmmatic motivation and aiding delivery. But how far can we describe the marks as ·iconic"! As George Punenham pointed out. the sixteenth-century reader was familiar with the grammatical figure of ellipsis and these marks carry out the same function as the understood grammatical ellipsis. transforming the grammatical omission into a graphic presence. But is there a correlation between the particular graphic form of a series of hyphens and the cessation of the spoken voice? One might perhaps argue for the voice stuttering out. the fragments of utterance heard through the interruption; however. a1though this does become a common use for ellipsis marks. it does not seem an applicable interpretation for such particularly abrupt interactions as in these instances. But. although we might not hear the remnants of the omitted phra.'ie. the ellipsis marks create a space into which we can l'i.malise them. each individual mark suggesting an unarticulated word. At the thematic level, the iconic force of the marks becomes explicit when we place them within the broader literary context of the play. In the Introduction. Kyffin refers to Terence's work as one of contraries: "he opposeth severall speakers, of severall natures. and contrary condicions. one to another" (Kyffin 1588: Biii'} The marks of ellipsis therefore might be understood a.'i a visualisation of Kyffin's interpretation of the play a.'i centred around opposition and con8ict. It is not one continuous rule or da'ih, stretching fluidly out across the page that marks the interruptions in the Andria. Rather short. broken and disrupted lines act as an iconic representation of the divisions and broken relationships that characterise the play. 2.3 Ellipsis marh in primed drama From 1588 on. ellipsis marks are used in almost all dmmatic texts printed in Britain. The different types of ellipsis marks used were considerable. and hyphens or short rules (as in the Andria). points. continuous rules or da.'ihes and asterisks were. to a great extent. interchangeable. It is impossible when looking at texts from the early modem period. to attribute the choice of marks. or the iconic motivation. entirely to the author. who was. as already indicated. dependent upon whatever marks were available in the printer's fount. Nor can all marks of ellipsis employed during this period be interpreted as having clear iconic significance. We could spend a very long time discussing the iconic motivations behind this 1667 edition of Dryden's The Indian Empero11r. in which both dashes and discontinuous rules are used side by side:

144

ANNE C. HENRY

Ifl could Love you, with a ~arne Co tr\IC I could forget what hand my Brother flew ?---· --Make outthc ren,-Iam diforder'd fo I know not farther whano fay or do : ···-But anfwer me to whot you think I meant. Figure 5. Dryden ( /667: .l9J

Or. one might argue that a syntactic distinction is being indicated. in that two ditferent parentheses arc marked out. However. it seems more likely that here. as often. the explanation for the different marks could be pragmatic ralher than conceptual: perhaps there simply weren't enough identical marks available for the printer's use as these lines were being composed. Yet. as the seventeenth century drew to a close. it is possible to trace a movement away from combinations of variant marks of ellipsis such as those employed in Dryden's play. as the dash started to become the preferred mark of British printers.-1 In William Congreve's Un·e for Lm·e. a single continuous rule is used with great frequency throughout:

Mifs Pr•. Look you here, Madam then, what Mr. Ttutl< has giv'n me--Look you here Coufin, here's a Snuff-box; ~ay, there's Sncff in't;--hcre, will you have any---Oh good! how fweet it is--Mr. Tattle is ali over (\\•eer, his Per· rukc is fweet, and his Gloves arc fweet,--and his Handkerchief is fwcer, pure fweet, fweeter than Rofes--Smell him Mother, Madam, I mean-- He gave me this Ring for a kifs. Figure 6, CmiJ,:rel'e ( 1695: .WJ

Although Miss Pru's sentences are not in fact incomplete. and each dash could be replaced by a full stop. the dash gives the impression of incompleteness: as if Miss Pru could say more. but instead jumps to another train of thought. The fact that the marks arc continuous. also contributes to our sense of abrupt or hasty speech. That is. if we compare the dash with the broken rules used in the Andria for instance. the eye does not falter and stop as it moves from one short rule to another. rather it is carried along a solid. smooth and unbroken continuum to reach r.1pidly the next verbal comment. It is also of significance here that all the dashes are of roughly the same length. giving the passage a strong sense of

ELLIPSIS MARKS IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

145

identity and confidence. In this particular example then. the dashes stand as icons of Miss Pru's character, her energy and forcefulness: but also, through comparison with previous marks of ellipsis. of the new confidence. control and vitality in the theatre following the Restoration. 2.4 El/ip.\'i.1· murh· ill the

ei~:lueemh-

and llilleteeuth-cemury mwel

The newly popular eighteenth-century literary form. the novel. borrowed the dash from drama for its presentation of direct speech, as is shown in Henry Fielding"s Amelia:

• Upon my Word, Madam, cries AIM· c lia. 1 am extremely concem'd at what " you tell me. I knew the poor Serjeant c from his Infancy, and always had an • Alfdlion for him, as I think him to be • one of the bdt-natur'd and hondtdt: " Creatures upon Eanh. I am ·Jure if I c could do him any ~rvjct-,- but of • what Ufe can my going be 1-- · • Of the bigbcll: in the World, anfwer'd • Mrs. Atki•foot. If you knew how ear• -' neiJ:Iy he entreated it, how his poor • broaking Heart begged to fee you, you .& would notnfuCe.---

c " • •

• N•y, I do not abfolutely rcfufr, criet~. .dme/i4.-Something to Cay to me ot C'onfequmce. and tha~ h~ cou!d not die in Pt:~ee, unlefs he fa>d tt-D1d be fay that, Mrs. At ki"fo" 7

Figure 7. Fif'ltlill}: (1752:4. 1721

Yel. the aspirations of the novel were ostensibly towards completion and exhaustiveness: Samuel Richard'ion was one writer famous for his desire to leave out of his novels: his heroine Clarissa urging her friend Anna Howe: ··1 would have you write your whole mind" (Richardson 1748: I. 53). However.

tlotltillf:

146

ANNE C. HENRY

writers also began to use unusual marks of ellipsis specitkally to contradict such claims for the novel. The most notorious example is. of course. Laurence Sterne. who employed multitudes of asterisks. dots and variant lengths of dashes. amongst other unusual typographical devkes. to challenge the concept that art can present an absolute picture of experience. The asterisks used in direct speech visualise Sterne's belief that language in daily life is often inaccessible. and speech can be comprised of more ellipses than words:

but my uncle To~ took hi:s pipe out of his mouth, and !hook his hnd; and as foon as the chapter was finifhed,. he beckoned to

the corporal [0 come dofc to his chair, to :afk him the following queftion, -ajide.--• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •. It was at the liege or Limtrick. an• plcafc your ho~ nour1 rtplied the: corpora), making a bow. Figure 8.

St~:nu•

f 1760-67:5, 117}

At another point. the reader is urged to draw his or her own conception of the Widow Wadman onto a blank page:

ELLIPSIS MARKS IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

[ ·~7 -And poflibly,

147

1

g~ntlc:

rcadu, ·wid! fllcb a temptation-fa wouldll: thoU: For never did :hy cyu ~hold, or thy roncupifcence covet any thing i!' this world, more cancupifciblc than widow

ll'adm11n.

C H A P. XXXVlll.

TO conceive this right,-call

fo~ ~n

and ink-here's paper ready to your hand.-Sit down, Sir, pJint her 10

your own mind-as like your mitlre:li QS you can-as unlike your wife is

your conK:icoce will let you-'Us all one to mc-pleafc but your owo faaq in it.

Figure 9. (6. 146--7!

By making such demands Sterne highlighted the discrepancies between the real and the depicted. as well as the discrepancies between the depicted and the reader's mental image of that depiction. The blank page. therefore. paradoxically stands as an icon of Sterne's very opposition to the concept of iconicity: comically representing on a large scale. the gap between representation and meaning. It was not long after Sterne was writing that the Gothic novel came into vogue. in which unusual marks of ellipsis pmlifenllcd in order to challenge the novel's claims to full knowledge or representation. The Gothic Wa.'i less preoccupied. however. with the ability of writing to represent reality. but wa'i concerned with reality"s failure to acknowledge the inherently mysterious in life. and in consequence.lines of asterisks. dots. and dashes penneate the pages of the genre representing the gaps and fissures that can tear apart the everyday world. Such unusual marks of punctuation across the pages of prose fiction (in spite of works such as Tri.~tram Shandy) have an iconic correlation with the unusual and abcrmnt events that arc represented in the Gothic genre. In Me/moth the Wanderer. for example. asterisks accompany every appearance of the immortal Melmoth. and come to signal for the reader his supc:matuml and malicious energies:

148

ANNE C. HENRY

The last lines of the manuscript that were legible, were sufficiently extraordinary.

•

•

" I have sought him every where.-The desi, of meeting him once more, is become as a bun~ing fire within me,-it is the necessary condition of my existence. I have vainly sought him at last in Ireland, of which I find he is a native.-Perhaps our final meeting will be in • Such was the conclusion of the manuscript which llfelmoth found in his uncle's closet. Figur~

10. Malurin I /810: I. J.J.J-5!

And in the following cxampl~ frnm Ch
ELLIPSIS MARKS IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

149

-oh! might my blood but Bo'" at thy feet- I would glut on mine own anguish, and my eyes fixed on thee W the last, bhould regard thee amid Ute languor of c.lcath, with all the fire of undiminished passion.

All tl1en is delusion!-hllSt thou not pronounced it such?-\Ve are im~ mersec.l in crimc!--its black waves roll over o\11' heads, and close upon us. Figure II. Dacre(/811:3.47) This passage is a dear example of how ellipsis marks. isolated from their immediate context. can provide us with information regarding the work from which they are taken, as such a choice of unusual or excessive punctuation provides immcdi<~.te information about the verbal context. without the reader having to assess a single word. In the Victorian period such variant forms of ellipsis marks disappear <1lmost entirely from the novel form. and arc replaced by the dash. Looking through the works of Scott. Austen. Trollope. Thackeray. Dickens. Gaskell, and Anne. Emily and Charlotte Bronte - just to name some of the best known writers of the century - the dash is used, in general, consistently, in moderation and as a standardised length. In assessing the reasons for this choice of mark. again economic factors cannot be ignored. Over the course of the nineteenth century. printing houses grew considerdbly in size and financial gain. largely because of the geneml mechanisation of the industry. Mechanised type-casting meant that all the type printers needed was readily available. which in tum meant that printing houses were able to introduce and maintain house styles. As it was much easier and more cost-efficient for compositors to handle single pieces of type such as a dash. rather than several small marks such as hyphen..;, points or asterisks. such

150

ANNE C. HENRY

broken rules became unacceptable. In 1825 the printer T.C. Hansard instructed

compositors who had no access to a single rule of an appropriate length, to "endeavour to dress the shorter pieces. by rubbing them on the stone. so as they may appear as one length" (Hansard 1825: 442). Yet. the choice of the dash also reflects larger cultural and literary concerns. The compositor 'dressing' hyphens, trying to remove gaps and chinks within the

solid black line. is a powerful image of the century's preoccupation with completion and connection. Grammarians. who throughout the eighteenth century avoided. if possible, even mentioning ellipsis marks, began in the nineteenth to

discuss the uses and advantages of the da.~h. In 1829 an enthusiastic Justin Brenan wrote: The introduction of this stop is a most important acces.~ion. It completes the system of punctuation. removes all its doubts and difficullies, and leaves its study unembarra.~scd by subtillies. It puts simplicity in the place of mystery. gives decision in lieu of hesitation. divest-. ignorance of its imposing mask, and strips artifice of its deceptious solemnities (8renan 1829:65).

Two great inventions that revolutionised nineteenth-century society were the railway and the telegr.tph. Like Brenan's description of the dash. both of these brought information where there wa'> "ignorance" and communication where there had only been silence. In 1854. T. P. Shaffner writes of the telegraph: But what is all this to subjugating the lightnings. the mythological voice of Jehovah.the fearful omnipotence of the clouds. causing them in the fine agony of chained submission to do the offices of a common messenger - to whisper to the four comers of the earth the lordly behests of lordly man! (Czilmm 1982:9)

Shaffner here evokes the common Gothic tropes of "'lightning" and "chained submission". yet. electricity's immense and mysterious power is subdued by man in the simple act of channelling it through wires and cables. In contemporary visual representations of the telegraph. lines stretch out, ·uniting' the disparate and bringing together the distant:

ELLIPSIS MARKS IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

I5 I

Professor Morse's Grea.t Historical Picture.

·,_,:-.,.~t: Dr:.uriL_r. e.tpre~sed Jr~played m thrs grf.,.\

•lc":;n

hif!l&ei! much _plea..oterl with the unity of na110nal hLetoru;:Ll work of, art.

Figure 12. Yankee Doodle. I. 01·toher, /846. Repmd11ced i11 Staiti ( /989:231 ).

Morse's "great historical" picture was in many ways replicated in the novels of the Victorian period. There is a distinct movement away from the Gothic obsessions with the unfamiliar and absent. and instead a preoccupation with the

histories and complex interactions of individuaJs in specific social networks or communities. And at a ba.~ic stylistic level. the first person-testimonies of the Gothic. a.'i in Charlotte Dacre's The Pcu,{iom. are replaced with third-person narnttors overviewing and synthesising narrative events. in a way that minimised the possibilities or narmtive gaps. In Dtll•ic/ Copperfield. Dickens describes what is. in many ways. a common Gothic motiL that is. the seduction and Hight of Little E'mly. David meets her guardian Mr Peggotty. rollowing her disappear.mce. yet rather than employing pages of unusual typography to mark Mr Peggotty's extreme emotional crisis. the dash holds his speech together: \\"c wnlkcd nn, farther tlmn we hnd "'nlke(l ~·rt, before he ~poke ngnin. Jle \\"<J!I nnl rr~·in~ when he made the pauses I ~hall cxpreu by lines. Jlc mr.rcly rnllcctinp: l1im9clf to ~penk ,·cry plainly. "I Jo,·r,J hrr-nnd I lore lhc mem'ry of her-too deep-to he nhle to lr:ul her lo bdirrc or my own self liS I'm il happy m:m.

wa~

Figure 13.

Dicken.~

( /849-50: /7, 523}

152

ANNE C. HENRY

II is the dash that facilitates his ability to ··speak very plainly'' l""dther than cry. as well as providing a connection between the past and painful present: "I loved her - and I love the mem'ry of her". Like those other nineteenth-century lines, the dash - the line across the page - acted as a powerful force of cohesion and communication.

2.5 Ellipsis mark\';, mvdernist wrilitlg.f Because we take the da~h so much for granted in contemporary writing. without knowledge of the pre-Victorian history of ellipsis marks. we are often blind to its cohesive significance llS we read Dickens or Trollope. However, post-Victorian punctuation reveals that writers at the end of century were extremely conscious of the significance of this seemingly inconsequent mark of punctuation. Modemism has long been discussed in terms of its attack on the normative v<~lues of the Victorian period. Yet, it is less common to suggest that this att<~ck was also carried out at the level of punctuation. as writers such as Conrad and Ford Madox Ford sought to destroy the controlling force of the dash. in what could be described as an act of iconoclasm. Conmd and Ford collabomted on the novel. The/nheritor.f, published in 1901. in which they describe Victorian society taken over by a mysterious mce. the ''third dimensionists". Ford wrote of the book: "It was received by the English critics with a paean of abuse for the number of dots it contained .... One ingenious gentleman even suggested that we had cheated Mr. Heinemann and the public who had paid for a full six-shilling novel with words all solid on the page" (Ford 1924: 149). Conmd himself had written to Ford following the publication of the novel: "Note The Scowmm :f review. Obscurity! Do you see what's the matter? It is the typographical trick of broken phrases: ... that upsets the critic. Obviously. He says the characters have a clijjiculty of e:r:pre.uing themsel1·es; and he says it only on that account" (Karl 1986: 340).5 The difficulty that the characters have "expressing themselves" is fundamental to Conmd's and Ford's work. Ford wrote: "We both desired to get into situations, at any mte when anyone was speaking. the sort of indefiniteness that is characteristic of all human conversations. and particularly of all English conversations that are almost always conducted entirely by means of allusions and unfinished sentences" (Ford 1924: 135). Their aim was to challenge Victorian representations of direct speech. to replace those Victorian characters who only. to use Dickens's term. "speak very plainly". Victorian printers might sometimes be forced to use points instead of a da.o;h in cases of extremity. such as when they had no rules at all to use (sec Hargreaves: 1981). Modernist writers. on the other hand. adopted the makeshift. the improper. the disconnected. by deliberately adopting points:

ELLIPSIS MARKS IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

153

1 rlnn't knnw. Fot' mo lhnt whito fij!uro in t.he ~<JI"f' hi~~; I1C'R-d, tho strip ol AAn
Figure 14. Conrad ( /900: 362)

Here Conrad used a series of points to express not only the trailing away of Marlow's voice. but to visualise the darkness that engulfs the character Jim; to visualise the world as a ··vast enigma" in which all certainties have disappeared. The decomposed dash becomes an icon of a decomposed world. In contr-dst to the unpredictable and extravagant lines of stars or points that burst across the pages of Gothic fiction. the three points have a discretion and a subtlety that highlight the very ordinariness of such dark perspectives at the end of the nineteenth century. And as the three points became increasingly common in the work of early twentieth-century writers - T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf. to name but two - the networks of symmetrical lines connecting one speaker to another and another that chan1cterised Victorian fiction, are transformed into · .. :.a new icon for a new generation.

3.

Conclusion

Ellipsis marks can be described as 'icons' in that their forms. a.'i developed throughout litenuy history. can rarely be divorced from an interpretation of their 'meanings'. Although each form becomes subject to standardisation within a historical period. this paper demonstrates that the standard and the conventional can have greater iconic implications than we perhaps realised. The term 'icon' in the analysis of ellipsis marks is appropriate. not only in the broad linguistic sense of the non-arbritariness of the relationship between the sign and its signification. but aJso in the etymological connotations of the term. The Oxford Engli.~h Dictionary provides the first definition of 'icon' as: .Ei.KWv . .Ei.Kov likeness. image. portrait. semblance. similitude. simile (... ) I.a. An image. figure. or representation; a portrait; a picture. ·cut'. or illustration in a book". Such an awareness of the materia] aspects of the iconic sign has also been fundamental

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to this discussion, as my concern has been to draw attention to the practical and the technical printing work involved in 'cutting' a punch to create a piece of metal type. on which a writer's choice of punctuation is dependent. In Meanin~: and the Vis11al Arts Erwin Panofsky describes the 'iconological" interpretation of a painting as the discovery of its "intrinsic meaning or content'" (Panofsky 1955: 30--31 ). What he means by this is the discovery of the specific contexts - the sociaL historical or psychological contexts - that determined the choice of images within a visual represenlation. I believe that the analysis of punctuation is also 'iconological', for although we may examine ellipsis marks outside their immediate verbal context. they can never be separated from the social and historical conditions that brought them into being. Nor can they be divorced from the highly practical •art" or printing. It is for this reason that I believe that we must check our impulse towards abstract or ahistorical discussions or iconicity in literature. and ground our readings in detailed historical and pragmatic analysis.

Notes I.

-·

Any ellipsis mark~ introduced into my own text will be distinguishet.l by I am gr.ddulto Dr Tim Groham for his comments on this manuS~;ript

crotchet.~.

3.

John l..enmutl (1991) creates a further link between punctuation and the heavens with or Emsmu.~·s tenn ·tunulae' (linle moon.~) for the mark of parenthesis. '( )'.

4.

See for in.~tance a 1694 ed1tion of the same play in which all the replaced with da.J\es (DI)·den, 161M: 31 ).

S.

Letter from Joseph Conr..U hl Ford Mado'O Ford: II July 1901

~s

hi~

use

of hyphens ha\'e been

References Alderson, S. 1999. "Iconicity in Litemture: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Prose Writing". In Form Miming MecminJ.:: /conit'iry ill Lat~RIICJge a11d Litl'ratllrt'. M. Niinny and 0. Fischer (eds). 109-120. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Brenan. J. 1829. "Punctuation''. In Composition and P11nct11ation Famifiarl,\' Erplait~ed. London: by Maurice. Congreve, W. 1695. l.o•·efor Lwe. London for Jacob Tonson. Conrad, J. 1900. Lord Jim. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons. Czitrom. D.J. 1982. Media and the Amaic·w• Mind: From Mor,{e toMd..ltlwn. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Dacre, C. 1811. Tl1e Pauion.r. London: forT. Cadell & W. Davies.

ELLIPSIS MARKS IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

I 55

Dickens. C. 1849-50. The Per.~onal History. Atfl·emures. Etperiellce, and Obun·mion.~ of Dm·id COfJp.-rfidd. London: Bmdbury and Evans. Dryden, J. 1667. The Indian Empnrmr. London: J.M. for Henry Hc:rringman. Dryden. J. 1694. The Indian Emperour. London: T. Warren for Henry Herringman. Fielding. H. 1752. Amelia. London: for A. Millar. Ford, F.M. 1924. Joseph Conrad: A Per.wnal Remembrance. London: Duckworth Hargreaves. G.D. 1981. "Signatures and Dashes in Novels printed by T.C. Newby in the Eighteen-Forties... Studie.t in BibliograrJhy. 34: 253-258. Hansard, T. C. 1825. T.lpographio: An HiJtorical Sketch of the Orixin and Progre.t.t of the Art of Priming. London: Baldwin. Cradock. & Joy. Han. J. 1551. The Opening of the Unreasonable Writing of Our lngfi.th To11ng. In John Hart's Worh oil E11gfi.th. B. Daniclsson (ed.). In Stm:klwfm SmJies in E11gli.tll. IV, 1955. M. T. LOfvenberg and A. Rynell (cds), 109-164. Stockholm: Almquist and Wikscll. Han. J. 1569. An Orthographie. London: William Seres. Householder, F. W. (trans.) 1981. Apollonius Dyscolus's The Syntax. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Karl, F. R. and Davies L. 1986. n1e Cnf/eetr>d Letter.t of Joseph Conrad. Volume 2. /898-/902. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kyffin. M. (trans.) 1588. Terence's Andria. London: T. E(ast) forT. Woodcocke. Lindsay. W.M. (ed.) 1911. Isidore of Seville's Etymofogiarum.ti1•e origilmm. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lennard, J. 1991. Bill I Digre.u: Tile £rp/oitmion of ParemheuJ in Engfi.d1 Printed Verse. 0Jtford: Clarendon Press. Livius, T. 1521-33. HiJtoria. Venctiis: in aedibus hacredum Aldi Manutii. et Andreae Asulani soccri. Maturin. C. 1820. Me/moth tile Wanderer: A Tale. Edinburgh: for Archibald Constable. Mulcastcr, R. 1582. The First Pari of tire Elementarie ~t"lrich entreatetll ,-hefdie of the right writing of our English llmg. London: T. Vautroullier. Panofsky. E. 1955. Meaning in the Vi.mal Art.t. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books. Parkes. M. B. 1992. PauJe and E/fet·t: An lntrodut·tionto tile Hi.uory of Punctuation in the WeJt. Aldershot: Scolar Press. Punenham, G. 1589. The Arte of EngliJh PoeJie. London: R. Field. Richardson, S. 1748. Claris.w, Or, the History of a Young Lad.\': Comprehending The mo.tt Important Concern.f of Prh·ate lJfe. London: for S. Richardson. Staiti. P. J. 1989. Samuel F. B. Mor.te. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sterne. L. 1760-67. The Life and Opinion.f of Tristram Shand,\·. London: for R. and J. Dodsley: [v. 5-9:) forT. Becket and P. A. Dehondt. Webber. T. 1992. Scribes and Scholar.t at Sali.~bury Cathedral c. 1075- c. 1125. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Iconic functions of long and short lines Max Nanny Uni•·erJity of Zurich

1.

Introduction: Line-length as icon

Since at least the Renaissance. poets who have tried to mime meaning by textual form have had recourse to the poetic line. the basic rhythmic and visual unit of a poetic text. In the following I shall focus on the iconic use made of lineation as discovered in mainstream poetry. leaving modernist. experimental or pattern poetry by the side. 1 I shall not deal with the line-break and enjambement, which offer an important iconic potential of lineation but on which well-known critics such as. for instance. John Hollander and Christopher Ricks have commentcd.2 I shall chiefly concentrate on •·i.ma/ rather than aural line-length. hence mostly leaving out the auditory aspects of meter and rhythm. We must be aware of the fact that ever since the introduction of writing in ancient Greece and especially since the advent of printing in the West in the 15th century. the line ha.'i also had a visual reality in poetry as seen and not just an auditory reality in poetry a.'i heard. So what we are confronted with is a fundamental duality of the line. and of poetry: it appeals both to eye and ear. it is both seen and heard. Due to this. each and every printed poetic text is also subject to a kind of vi.mal prosody. As I have discovered. one important iconic potential of lineation in traditional poetry may be descried in the typographic length of lines and, if more than one line is taken into account. in the gradual change of line-length. be it increa.'iing or decreasing. Now, the length of a line in aural terms is first of all the result of its number of syllables. However. whether a line is perceived to be long when

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MAX NANNY

.{poke" also depends on the length of vowels. on the clustering of consonants. on the particular rhythm of the line and on the syntax. The ~·is11al length of a line both derives from its number of syllables and from the number of letters it contains, which in tum is subject to the specific words used. Monosyllabic words of one or two letters like ·a·. 'to' or 'of' do not contribute to the visual (and acoustic) length of a line us much a~ such monosyllables of six (e.g. 'threat") or even nine leuers ('screeched'). And of course. the use of polysyllabic Latinate words lengthens a line. In the context of iambic pentameters. visually long lines are. metrically speaking, often hexameters or hendecasyllables. i.e. pentameters with an extrametricaJ feminine ending. In short. the length of a line is nf a complex nature depending on hnw we view it. It is also a relative tenn. Thus. whether a line seems long or short depends on its immediate context of verses. But as soon as a line noticeably detaches itself from its adjacent neighbourhood of lines. it may. I argue. function as an icon. Let us not forget the important fact that. of course. not all conspicuously long or short lines acquire iconic force: it is the meaning of a line {or of a passage) alone that detennines whether we may interpret it in iconic terms at all. It is essential to remind ourselves that iconicity is not a necessary. geneml phenomenon but of an optional and. hence. occasional nature. However. when I was visually scanning thousands of lines. I came across a very large number of conspicuously long and short lines with the same or related key-expressions whose meanings turned the lines into icons. This to me seems to be more than just accidental. 3 Now. whereas a long or short line may be. broadly speaking. an 'imagic icon'. the change of line-length. be it in the form of gradually longer or gradually shorter lines. assumes diagrammatic qualities: the relationship between the changing lengths of single lines as signs reHects a similar relationship of change between their semantic referents. My paper is based on the scrutiny of the collected works of mostly English poets:' Finding visually conspicuous long or short lines I examined the semantic content of such lines with the aim of discovering formal iconicity, i.e. linear mimings of meaning. Thus I perused the poetry of important seventeenth and eighteenth century English writers (such as Jonson. Donne. Milton. Dryden. Herrick. Marvell. Herbert. Pope. Gr.ay. Collins. Goldsmith). of the Romantics {Blake. Wordsworth. Shelley. Keats) and of some other nineteenth and twentieth century poets {Arnold. Tennyson. Dickinson. Auden). In terms of the iconic use of line-length. the seventeenth and eighteenth century poets. particularly Dryden and Pope. proved to be the most rewarding for in their works. ico11ic long or

ICONIC FUNCTIONS OF LONG AND SHORT LINES

159

short lines are found most frequently. This is probably due to their conscious adherence to a mimetic view of the world and of the arts which was dominant at their time.

2.

The long line as an icon

A long line may serve as an imagic icon of length. distance. duration or, more metaphorically. of vastness. great height. swelling. spreading. stretching and width. Its projection beyond the surrounding line-ends may serve as an icon of protrusion. excess, surplus and surpa..;sing.

2.1 Length and distance In a passage of John Dryden's play AllforLLn•e (1. i. II. 233--237) the length of a line offers a direct icon of the lengtlr of an outstretched body: Of all forsaken. and forsaking all: live in a shady Forrest's Sylvan Scene, Stretch· d at my length beneath some blasted oke: I lean my head upon the Mossy Bark. And look just of a piece, as I grew from it: My uncomb'd Locks. matted like Mistletoe. Hang o ·er my hoary Face .

In its immediate context of the previous and succeeding lines. the long line .. Stretch'd at my length beneath some blasted oke'' (1. 235) iconically reHects stretching and length. The clustering of consonants and long vocalic sounds also add an auditory suggestion of length. A similar iconic effect by means of conspicuous line-length is achieved by Emily Dickinson in the first line of her poem 764 that metaphorically refers to the premonitory, long shadow ca'\t by the setting sun on the lawn: Presentiment - is that long Shadow - on the Lawn Indicative that Suns go down 1be Notice to the startled Gmss That Darkness - is about to pa.~s -

Already in a passage of his early poem ..To the Memory of Mr Oldham" (II. 7-12) Dryden uses the icon of a long line to suggest greater distance: To the same Goal did both our Studies drive, The Ia.~ I ~I out the soonest did arri\'e.

MAX NANNY

160

Thus Ni.w.f fell upon the slippery place. While his yuung Friend perfonn' d and won the Race. 0 early ripe! to thy abundant store What could advancing At:e have added more?.1

In the race between the older Nisus and the young Euryalus at the funeral of Anchises {Aenid 5). ''Ni.ms fell upon the slippery place" (I. 9). whereas Euryalus mn the full length of the course. According to this epideictic analogy. the younger Oldhwn. ··o early ripe!" (I. II). outran the older Dryden in the race of life and achievement. The line "While his young Friend perfonn'd and won the Race" (1. 10) mimetically outruns the previous. much shorter line in which Nisus falls.

2.2 l...enghty objecu: snake.f,

weapmr.~, sceptre, hair and .~tream.f

The long line has been often used as an icon of the lengthiest animal. namely the .make. Alexander Pope's famous passage from ''An Essay on Criticism··. a poem that is rich in examples of iconic strategies. comes to mind (II. 354--357): Then. at the fa.ft. and oil(\' Couplet fraught With some llllltlecming Thing they call a TIWIIRIII, A 11eedless Afexo11drit1e ends the Song. That like a wounded Snake. drags its slow length along.

The above sequence of iambic pentameters ends in the long (hexametric) alexandrine "That like a wounded Snake. drags its slow length along" (1. 357). whose meaning is formally or iconically mimed by the line's dmgging length as well as by the phonetically long syllables. In his "Mont Blanc" (II. 98-106). P.B. Shelley iconically stretches the line that compares glaciers to "snakes" (1. 101} so that this line. the longest of the whole poem. creeps beyond the right-hand boundary of the whole text: And tlli.f, the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, Slow rolling on: there. many a precipil'C, Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power Have piled: dome. pyramid, and pinnacle, A city of death, distinct with many a tower And wall impregnable of beaming ice.

In D. H. Lawrence's poem "Snake", especially in its passages that describe the moving snake which the speaker discovers and observes with ambivalent feelings

ICONIC FUNCfiONS OF LONG AND SHORT LINES

I6I

near his water-trough in Sicily ''fo)n a hot. hot day.. (1. 2). the poet aJso iconic-

ally lengthens the lines to suggest the long shape of the animal. as these two passages (II. 5-9. 54-64) demonstrate: I came down the steps with my pitcher And must wait. must stand and wait. for there he

wa.~

at the trough before me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom And trailed his yellow-brown slackness sofa-bellied down. over the edge of the stone trough And rested his throat upon the stone bottom . (

... (

I looked round. I put down the pitcher, I picked up a clum.<>y log

And threw it at the water-uough with a clatter. I think I did not hit him. But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified ha.
Writhed like lightning. and was gone Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front, AI which. in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

In both passages. the longest lines (II. 8. 58) refer to the snake's trailing of its long body or tail (with obvious sexual overtones in the second passage). whereas the shorter lines are reserved for passages (II. 5. 54-57) that concern the speaker himself: "I came down" (1. 5). "I looked round ... I picked up" (II. 54-55). "I think" (1. 57). Again. an analysis of the long lines in tenns of phonetics (e.g. long vowels in I. 8). vocabulary (compound adjectives) and of syntax (relative clause in I. 58 and unusual word order in I. 8) shows how these linguistic aspects contribute to the over-all impression of length. Lengthy weapons, that is. swords. spears. javelins and arrows are frequently mentioned in noticeably long lines by both Dryden and Pope. especially in the latter's translation of the /Jiad. To give just three illustrations of linear icons of long weapons, here are passages from Dryden and Pope in which a spear. javelins and arrows are given iconic long lines. Thus in ''Horace. the Second Epode" (II. 45-53). Dryden lengthens. and thus points. the line containing the words "pointed spear'': But when the blast of Winter blows. An hoary frost invens the year. Into the naked Woods he goes And seeks the Iusky Boar to rear.

162

MAX NANNY With wdl-mouth'd hounds and pointed Spear: Or spreads his subtile Nets from sight With twinckling glasses, to betray The Larkes that in the Meshes light. Or makes the fearful Hare his prey.

In Book XVII of his Iliad (II. 815-820) Pope iconizes both the length of javelins and their projecting trajectory: But if the Savage turns his glaring Eye. They howl aloof. and round the Forest fly. Thus on retreating Greece the Troja11s pour. Wave their thick Falchions, and their Jav'lins show'r: But Ajcu: turning, to their Fears they yield. All pale they tremble, and forsake the Field.

In Dryden's ''Palamon and Arcite" (Book III. II. 219-224) we find. apart from expressive consonantal onomatopoeia. an aJexandrine as a telling linear icon for Goddess of Maids, and conscious of our Heans. So keep me from the Vengeance of thy Darts. Which Niobe's devoted Issue felt. When hissing through the Skies the fealher'd Deaths were dealt: As I desire to live a Virgin-life, Nor know the Name of Mother or of Wife.

In this connection it is interesting to note that by way of metonymy the words 'piercing' and 'through' are often embedded in excessively long lines by both Dryden and Pope. Let me add examples mentioning three further long objects. namely .~ceplre. hair and .~/reams. which. especially the latter two. frequently occur in long lines. An example for Jceptre is offered by Dryden's translation of "The First Book of Homer's Iliad''. In two passages (II. 19-24. 515-520: see also II. 359. 394) an identical long line occurs twice. In my view. this excessively wide line iconically reHects both the length and importance of the royal sceptre. Let me just quote the first example: Suppliant before the Greda11 Chiefs he stood: Awful. and arm'd with Ensigns of his God: Bare wa.~ his hoary Head: one holy Hand Held forth his Laurel Crown, and one his Sceptre of Command. His Suit wa.~ common; but above the rest. To both the Brother-Princes thus addrcss'd:

ICONIC FUNCTIONS OF LONG AND SHORT LINES

163

Hair, whose length dmstically exceeds its thickness. is sometimes mirrored by a

long line. for example. in Dryden's fable "The Flower and the Leaf' (II. 348-355): Attir"d in Mantles all the Knights were seen. That gr.ttify'd the View with chearful Green: Their Chaplets of their Ladies Colours were Compos'd of White and Red to shade their shining Hair. Before the meny Troop lhe Minslrels play"d: All in their Masters Liveries were array"d: And dad in Green. and on their Temples won: The Chaplets White and Red their Ladies bore.

In addition to reflecting the length of hair. the visually highly conspicuous long line ··compos'd of White and Red. to shade their shining Hair" (1. 35)) also suggests the high visibility or conspicuousness of "shinint: Hair''. Under the category of lengthy phenomena also a Jlream of water (or of any liquid. e.g. milk or tears) must be mentioned. Sometimes the word 'stream( sf is put in a long line by Marvell. Milton and Shelley but much more frequently by Dryden and Pope. In Milton's Paradi.~e Ltm (Book V. II. 303-307) we lind: And Eve within. due at her hour prepared For dinner savoury fruits. of taste to please True appetite, and not disrelish thirst Of nectareou~ draughts between, from milky stream. Deny or gr.:1pe: to whom thus Adam called.

One illustmtion is offered by Dryden's ··cymon and lphigenia" (II. 104-110): The fanning Wind upon her Bosom blow:.. To meet the fanning Wind the Bosom rose: The fanning Wind. and purling Streams continue her repose. The Fool of Nature. stood with stupid Eyes And gaping Mouth. that testify'd Surpri~. Fix.'d on her Face, nor cou'd remove his Sight. New as he wa.<; to Love. and Novice in Delight:

A final example from Pope's Iliad (Book XXI. II. 233-238) concerns streams of tears that course along and cannot be kept within bounds: If Jove have giv'n thee every Troja11 Head. 'lis not on me thy Rage should heap the Dead. Sec! my choak'd Streams no more their Course can keep. Nor roll their wonted Tribute to the Deep. Tum then, Impetuous! from our injur'd Aood: Content. thy Slaughters could amaze a God.

164 2.3

MAX NANNY Va.~me.~.f

The extreme length or horizontal size of a line has also been used as an icon of spatial vastness generally and. metonymically derived from it via the inherent concept of the sublime. as an icon of importance. royal magnificence or divine grandeur. In Paradise Lml (Book VI. II. 201-207) John Milton uses a long line to indicate size and distance: Presage of Victory and fierce desire Of Baltle: whereat Michai.>l bid sound

The Arch-Angel trumpet: through the vast of Heav'n It sounded. and the faithful Armies rung Ho.fUIIIIll to the Highest: nor stood at gaze The advcrs<: Legions. nor less hideolL'> join'd The horrid shock: now storming fury rose,

The line ''The Arch-Angel trumpet: through the vast of Heav'n" 0. 203) distinctly exceeds the surrounding lines in length. It offers a linear icon of the sublime vastness of heaven and of the long distance (across the enjambements) the sound of the "Arch-Angel trumpet" has to travel. 6 Dryden offers further illustrations of long lines suggesting vastness. One is found in his Ae11eis (Book IX. II. 880--885): This is the: Way to Heav'n: The Pow"rs Dh·ine Fmm this beginning date the JJdia11 Line. To thee. to them. and their victorious Heirs, 1be conquer"d War is due: and the va..~t World is theirs. Tro_\' is too narrow for thy Name. He said, And plunging downward shot his radiant Head:

In addition. note the relative shortness of the line "Troy is too narrow for thy Name. He said" (1. 884) after the long line. about which more below. Shelley has an iconic long line that combines both the referents of "stream" and "va.o;t" in "The Witch of Atlas" (stanza XXXVIII): And down the streams which clove those mountains vast Around their inland islets. and amid The panther-peopled forests, whose shade ca.~t Darkness and odours and a pleasure hid In melancholy gloom. the pinnace pa.~t By many a star-surrounded pymmid Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky And caverns yawning round unfathomably.

ICONIC FUNCTIONS OF LONG AND SHORT LINES

165

Again. the relative shortness of the second line. "Around lheir inland islets. and amid'', which follows the long first line. is iconic of the smallness of islets, another form of linear iconicity to be discussed later. At one more metonymic remove also vast strength and large growth may find their icons in long lines. as. for instance. in Pope's An Es.wyojMa11 (Epistle II. II. 250-254: see also I. 136): A master. or a servant. or a friend. Bids each on other for a.~sistance ca11, 'Till one Man's weakness grows the strength of all. Wants. frailties, passions, closer still ally The common int'rest. or endear the tie:

Similarly.laTKe increa.w! may be mirrored in a long line as in Dryden's "Virgil's Georgie.'>" (Book II. II. 303-308): Is fit for feeding Cattle, fit to sowe, And equal to the Pasture and the Plough. Such is the Soil of fat Campa11itm Fields. Such large increase the Land that joins Vt>.{Ul'i/1,{ yields: And such a Country cou'd Acerra boa.-;t, 1ill Cfa11i11s overflow'd th' unhappy Coa.~l.

2.4 Grelll height and wllness However. also great height and tallness are indirectly connected with the notion of size. Thus. a linear icon of height is offered by Millon in Paradise Lost (Book VIII. II. 452-456): Hee ended, or I heard no more, for now My earthly by his Heav'nly overpower'd, Which it had long stood under. strain'd to the highth In that celestial Colloquy sublime, As with an object that excels the sense.

Tallness is iconically rendered by a long line in a passage from Pope's The Dmrciad Variomm (Book II. 21-26): All who true dunces in her cause appcar'd, And all who knew those dunces to reward. Amid that Area wide she took her stand. Where the tall May-pole once o'verlook'd the Str-.t.nd: But now, so ANNE and Piety ordain. A Church collects the saims of Drury-lane.

MAX NANNY

166

2.5 Swelling. spreading, :'Otrett·hing and width However, long lines may a1so be used as icons of swelling, spreading. stretching and width. Thus Robert Herrick offers an example for S\l'elling in his sonnet

about a painter's iconic imaging. ''To the Painter. to Draw Him a Picture". in which he asks the painter "To paint a Bridgeman to the life: I Draw him as like too. as you can·· (II. 4-5): His cheeks be pimpled. red and blue: His no.~e and lips of mulbrie hiew. Then for an easie fansie: place A Burling iron for his face: Ne:\1. make his cheeks with breath to swell. And for to speak. if possible: BUI do not so: for feare. lest he Sho'd by his b~athing. poyson thee.

Here the line ''Next. make his cheeks with breath to swell" (I. II) is an execs· sively long or swollen line relative to its neighbouring lines. It iconically renders the swelling of the bridgeman's cheeks when breathing out hard (II. 7-14). Dryden often uses the iconic long line when writing about swelling.ln ''The First Book of Ovid's Melamorplwses'' (II. 537-543) he even subjects the word "swell'd" to a syllabic swelling by repeating it in its present participle fonn: The Stones (a Miracle to Mortal View. But long Tl"ddition makes it pass for true) Did first the Rigour of their Kind expdl. And. suppl'd into softness. a.<> they fell. Then swelrd. and swelling. by degrees grew wann: And took the Rudiments of Humane Fonn: Imperfect shapes: in Marble such .m seen When the rude Chizzel does the Man begin:

Alexander Pope also uses the linear icon for swelling in The Iliad (Book XV. II. 714-719): The Sire of Gods. confinning Theti.~' Pray'r. The Grel'ian Ardour quench'd in deep Despair: But lifts to Glory Trn.v's prevailing Bands. Swells all their Hearts. and slrengthens llll their Hands. On Ida's Top he waits with longing Eyes. To view the Nll\'}' blazing to the Skies:

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And even John Keats reenacts swelling and fullness by means of a long line in his Endymion (III. II. 798-802): Delicious symphonies. like airy Howcrs. Budded. and swcll'd, and, full-blown, shed full showers Of light. soft, unseen leaves of sounds divine. The two deliverers tasted a pure wine Of happiness. from fairy-press ooz'd out.

The length of the line "Budded. and swell'd, and. full-blown. shed full showers" (1. 799) is an appropriate icon of the idea of swollen fulness which is reinforced by the repetition of "full"'. In a passage of '"To the Right Hon'ble Hierome. L. Weston" (II. 12-18) by Ben Jonson we find an example that illustrates the use of a long line as an icon of spreading: Because the order of the wlrol~ is fain:! 1be very verdure of her nest. Wherein she sits so richly drcst. As a11 the wealth of Season. there wa.~ spread: Doth show. the Graces. and the Ho11res Have multipli'd their arts. and power.;. In making soft her aromatiquc bed

The line ""As all the wealth of Season. there was spread.. (1. 15). apart from being indented. is the longest line of the poem and thus iconically suggests a .. spread ... In "The Twelfth Book of Ovid's MelamorplroJes.. (II. 579-586) Dryden uses a distinctly long line for spreading: Six Lion's Hides. with Thongs together fast. His upper part defended to his Waist: And where Man ended. the continued Vest. Spread on his Back. the Houss and Trappings of a Beast. A Stump too heavy for a Team to draw. (It seems a Fable. tho' the Fact I saw:) He lhrcw at Pholon: the descending Blow Divides the Sku11. and cleaves his Head in two.

Pope has numerous examples. such a'l the one from The Iliad (Book XVI. II.

683-688): The Chief who taught our lofty Walls to yield. Lies pale in Death. extended on the Field. To guard his Body Troy in Numbers flies:

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MAX NANNY 'Tis half the Glory to maintain our Prize. Haste. strip his Arms, the Slaughter mund him spread, And send the living Lydan.f to the [kad.

It is worth noting that frequently the word '(a)round' occurs in a long line as if to suggest the length of a circuit. Even Keats uses a clear linear icon for spreading in "Fancy.. (II. 1-12): Ever let the Fancy roam. Pleasure never is at home: At a touch sweet Pleasure melleth. Like to bubbles when rain pelteth: Then let winged Fancy wander Through the thought still spread beyond her: Open wide the mind's cage-door, She'll dan forth, and cloudward soar. 0 sweet Fancy! let her loose: Summer's joys are spoil! by use, And the enjoying of the spring Fades a.-; does its blossoming:

Frequently a long line is used when (spread) wing.t are mentioned. In Herrick's satirical short poem ··upon B/a11ch". Blanch's bleary-eyed and bald husband is said to have "wilde cares" that are "like Lethem wings full spread" (1. 3): Bl..a1u·h swears her Husband's lovely; when a scald Has blear'd his eyes: Besides. his head is bald. Next. his wilde cares. like Lethem wings full spread. Flutter to nie. and bcare away his head.

In order to make the third line more iconic of its meaning. the spaces between its words are wider than in the other three lines in J. Max Patrick's edition. In his translation of "Ovid's Art of Lo1•e. Book I" (II. 708-709) John Dryden offers an example of the iconic use of both a long and a short line to indicate the peacock's spreading his tro1in and then its pulling it in again: Pr.tise the proud Peacock, and he spreads his Train: Be silent. and he pulls it in again.

Milton also makes use of linear wing-icon in Paradise Lo.ft (Book V.ll. 53-57): Much fairer to my Fancy than by day: And as I wond'ring lookt. beside it stood One shap'd and wing'd like one of those from Heav'n By us oft seen: his dewy locks distill'd Ambm.fia: on that Tree he also gaz'd:

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The iconically long line "One shap'd and wing'd like one of those from Heav'n" (1.55) is also reinforced by the word "Heav'n'', a frequent line-lengthening word in the poetry of Dryden and Pope. In Book XI of Paradise Lnsi (II. 6-9) we have a similar case that combines

wings with the word ''Heav'n": Unutterable, which the Spirit of prayer lnspir'd. and wing'd for Heav'n with speedier night Than loudest Oratory: yet thir port Not of mean suitors. nor important less

'Winged' long lines occur in Dryden's work too, such as in "The Cock and the Fox" (II. 427--432): For Day-light now began apace to spring. The Thrush to whistle. and the Lark to sing. Then crowing. clap'd his Wings. th' appointed call. To chuck his Wives together in the Hall. By this the Widow had unbarr'd the Door. And Chantick~r w~nt strutting out before, With Royal Courag~. and with Heart so light,

In Pope's '"To Mr. Addison, Occasioned by His Dialogues on Medals" (II. 19-24) there is an iconically long. i.e. stretched out, line (1. 21) that suggests immense .~!retching: Ambition sigh"d: Sh~ found it vain to trust The faithless Column and th~ crumbling Bust: Huge moles. whose shadow stretch'd from shore to shore, Th~ir ruins ruin"d. and their place no more! Convinc"d. she now contracts her vast design. And all her Triumphs shrink into a Coin:

The opposition between "stretch'd from shore to shore" (1. 21) and "shrink into a Coin" (1. 24) is iconically rendered by the opposition of the longest and the shortest line in this passage. There are several examples of a long line standing as an icon of width in John Milton's Paradi.~e Lo.~t. Let me just choose one example found in Book VI (II. 73-81): ... as wh~n the total kind Of Birds in orderly array on wing Came summon'd over Ede11 to receive Thir names of thee: so over many a tract

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170

Of Hcav'n they march'd, and many a Province wide Tenfold the length of this lcrrcnc: at last Far in th' Horizon to the North appear'd From skirt to skirt a fiery Rcp:ion. strctcht In bauailous aspect, and ncau:r view

The conspicuously long line "Of Heav'n they march'd, and many a Province wide" (I. 77) is the 'widest' of this passage. It fonns an adequate icon of the size of the heavenly "Province" which in the following line is declared to be "Tenfold

the length of this terrene''. Finally. let me add one of several examples in Dryden's work. It occurs in his "Palamon and Arcite'' (Book 1,11. 219-224): The Garden, which before he had not seen, In Spring's new Livery clad of White and Green, Fresh Aow'rs in wide Pcm~rr~.f. and shady Walks between. This view'd. but not enjoy'd. with Ann.~ across He stood. reHccting on his Country's Loss: Himself an Obj~cl of th~ Publick Scorn, And oft~n wish'd h~ n~v~r had been born.

Again lhe shoner lines following the long alexandrine "Fresh Flow'rs in wide Partare.~. and shady Walks between" (1. 222) iconically mirror such diminishing notions as "Loss" (1. 224) and "Scorn" (1. 225). 2.6 Pmmuion Sometimes a long line that protrudes beyond the line-endings of its immediate context may be used as an icon of something that breaks the contour of a text. of something peeping out. reaching or sticking: out. A protruding long: line is, of course. visually highly conspicuous. Let me stan with an example of a line whose protrusion breaks the textual outline: It speaks of and perfonns what it says at the same time. It is found in John Dryden's poem "To Sir George Etherege", from which I quote the relevant passage (II. 26-44): But you hav~ made your Zeal appear. Within th~ Circle of the B~ar: R~gion of the World so dull, That is not of your Labours full. TritJtolenl/u, (so Sing the Nine) Strew'd plenty from his Cart Divine: But {spight of all those Fable-maker..)

What

ICONIC FUNCfiONS OF LONG AND SHORT LINES

I7 I

He never sow'd on Almainc Acres; No. that was left by fates Decree, To be perfonn'd and sung by thee. Thou break'st thro' Forms. with as much Ea.o;e As the French King thro · Aniclcs: In gmnd Affairs thy days are spent, Of waging weighty Complement, With such as Monarch." represent; They whom such va.o;t Fatigues attend. Want some soft minutes to unbend. To shew the World. that now and then Great Ministers are mona! Men.

The line "Thou break'st thro' Forms, with as much Ease" (1. 36) is a striking perfonnative icon of what it says: like "fates Decree" (I. 34) it is "perfonn'd and sung" (1. 35) at the same time. As the longest (and rhythmically rather irregular) line of the eighty-one line poem it patently protrudes or breaks through the contour fonned by the line·ends that define the visual shape of the poem. Robert Herrick in his brief poem ''Upon her feet"' uses two protruding lines as icons of a lady's feet sticking 0111 under her gown: HEr preuy feet Like snailes did creep A liule out. and then. As if they started at Do-peep. Did soon draw in agen.

As we can see. there is an indented line. "Like snailes did creep" (1. 2). which protrudes. and a long line. "As if they started at Do-peep" (1. 4). to indicate creeping "tal little out" (1. 3) and peeping out of a lady's "pretty feet" under her long skirt. And the fact that they ")d)id soon draw in agen" (1. 5) is also mimed iconically by a much shorter line that looks drawn in below the preceding line. The tongue has been rendered by a protruding long line by several poets. In a passage from John Milton's Paradise LoM (Book VI. II. 151-159) a long line iconically protrudes from the body of blank-verse: ... first sought for thou retum"st From flight. seditious Angel. to receive Thy merited reward, the first assay Of thir. right hand provok'd. since first that tongue lnspir'd with contradiction dur.;t oppose A third pan of the Gods. in Synod mel Their Deities to a.~sert. who while they feel

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MAX NANNY Vigor Dh·ine within them, can allow Omnipotence to none.

The long line "Of this right hand provok'd, since first that tongue" (1. 154) in my view fonns a linear icon of the tongue. In addition. the fact that this tongue dares to contradict. dares to be in opposition and hence different is also given diagrammatic force by its having a different length compared to the neighbouring lines. And in Milton's "PsaJm V" (II. 25-30) we aJso find a passage in which the longest line of the poem presents an icon of the tongue: For in his fall'ring mouth unstable No word is firm or sooth: Their inside. troubles miserable: An open grave their throat. their tongue they smooth. God. find them guilty. let them fall By their own counsels qucJrd:

A passage in Dryden's translation of ''Virgil's Geor~:in" offers a telling linear illustration of a protruding tongue (Book IV. II. 739-745): The Rocks were mov"d to pity with his moan: Trees bent their heads to hear him sing his Wmng.~. Fierce Tygers eouch"d around, and loll"d their fawning Tongues. So, dose in Poplar Shades. her Children gone. The Mother Nightingale laments alone: Whose Nest some prying Churl had found, and thence, By Stealth, convey'd th" unfeather'd Innocence.

The line "Fierce Tygers couch'd around. and loll'd their fawning Tongues'' (1. 741) in linear tenns also 'lolls' over lhe wavy right hand margin of the surrounding passage of at least sixty lines. By the way, the line "The Mother Nightingale laments alone" is one of those iconic short lines that suggest the notion of singularity or aloneness that will be discussed below. In a passage from his translation of "The Eleventh Book of the Aeneis" Dl)'den combines tongue and a snake's tail (II. 1105-1114}: So st(X)ps the yellow Eagle fmm on high, And bears a speckled Serpent thm · the Sky: Fast'ning his uooked Tallons on the Prey: The Pris"ner hisses thro" the liquid Way, Resists the Royal Hawk, and tho" opprest, She fights in Volumes, and erects her Crest: Tum'd to her Foe, she stiffens ev'ry Scale:

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And shoots her forky Tongue, and whisks her threat'ning Tail. Against the Victour all Defence is weak: Th · imperial Bird still plies her with his Beak:

The long line "And shoots her forky Tongue. and whisks her threal'ning Tail"' (I. 112) protrudes or. like the snake's tongue. "shoots'' out from the typographic body of verse and simultaneously "whisks" her conspicuous tail-end. Alexander Pope uses the same iconic device in "Windsor-Forest" (II. 269-274). reinforced by the idea of a streaming How of lines ("Numbers" .I. 272): Led by the Sound I roam from Shade to Shade, By God-like Poets Venerable made: Hen: his first lays Majestick Deflllam sung: There the last Numbers now'd from Cowle)···s Tongue. 0 early lost! what Tears the River shed When the sad Pomp along his Banks was led?

Also in William Blake's poems, which generally make rather a mre use of lineicons. we find the same protrusion icon in "To Thoma"' Butts. 22 November 1802" (Poems in Leuers liil 1802-3, II. 5-11}: With trees & fields full of Fairy elves And little devils who fight for themselves Remembring the Verses that Hayley sung When my heart knocked against the root of my tongue With Angels planted in Hawthorn bowers And God himsdf in the passing hours With Silver Angels across my way

John Keats. who like Blake infrequently used line-icons, has also recourse to the line-icon for tongue in the third stanza (II. 21-30) of his "Ode on Meluncholy": She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die: And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu: and aching Pleasure nigh. Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: Ay. in the very temple of Delight Veil'd Melancholy ha.~ her sovran shrine. Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's gr.:1pe against his palate line: His soul shall ta.~te the sadness of her might. And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

The noticeably projecting line "Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue" (1. 27) is the longest line of the poem. given more protrusion by its

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indentation. By prominently sticking out of the whole printed text it seems to me an obvious icon of a tongue whose muscular mobility is indicated by the adjective ''strenuous". Headlands and peninsulas are geographic protrusions. In Emily Dickinson's poetry we discover the iconically suggested protrusion of a headland or peninsula by means of a long line. In the first stanza of her poem 76 we read: Exultation is the going Of an inland soul to sea, Past the houses - pa.~t the headlands Into deep Eternity -

And a similar line-icon of a projecting peninsula is found in the third stanza of Dickinson's poem 661: With no Police to follow Or chase Him if He do Till He should jump Peninsulas To get away from me -

A protruding line. of course, is highly dis(.:emible on the page. Hence. it sometimes becomes an icon of high visibility or visual disclosure.

2.7 Etce.u. surplus or surpt1.uing A long line or an iambic hexameter (alexandrine) or heptameter in the context of tetrameters or pentameters may also be used as a diagr.tmmatic icon of exce.u or going beyond - it is diagrammatic because it involves comparison. In Milton's Paradise Wst (Book XII. II. 474-478) occurs a passage with a long line ao; an icon of overabundance: Wheth~r I should repent m~ now of sin me~ done and occasion'd. or rejoice Much more. lhal much more good thereof shall spring. To God more glory. more good will to Men From God. and over wrath gmce shall abound.

By

The repeated ''much more" in the line "Much more. that much more good thereof shall spring" (1. 476). once used adverbially and once as an adjective. powerfully suggests great abundance which the long line reinforces. In ''Virgirs Georgics" (Book I. II. 72-76) Dryden uses a telling linear icon to indicate an excessively rich harvest:

ICONIC FUNCfiONS OF LONG AND SHORT LINES

I 75

That Crop rewards the greedy Peasant's Pains, Which twice the Sun, and twice the Cold sustains, And bursts the crowded Barns. with more than promis'd Gains. But c're we stir the yet unbroken Ground, The various Course of Sea'iOOS must be found:

Here the long line. by exceeding the length of its adjacent lines. diagrammatical-

ly reflects the bursting of the ..crowded Barns". In "Psalm IV" (II. 31-41) John Milton also uses an over-long line as a linear icon of abundance: Into my heart more joy And gladness thou ha.o;t put Then when a year of glut lbeir stores doth overdoy, And from their plenteous grounds With vast increase their com and wine abounds. In peace at once will I Both lay me down and sleep. For thou alone dost keep Me safe where'ver I lie:

The awkward syntax of the set:ond-longest line otthe poem. "With vast increase their corn and wine abounds" (I. 36), together with the idea of vastness. additionally contributes to the impression of length because the nonnal syntactic order is reversed and one wails for the verb to appear. Pompous grandiloquence (often associated with the poetry of Pindar) consists in rhetorical exces.f. In Dryden's "The Medall. A Satire against Sedition'' (II. 91-98) we discover a long-line icon of such excess: Almighty Crowd. thou shorten 'st all dispute: Pow'r is thy Essence: Wit thy Attribute! Nor Faith nor Rea-.on make thee at a stay. Thou leapst o"r all eternal truths. in thy Pindarique way! Atlrem. no doubt, did righteously decide. When Pllocio1r and when Socrates were try'd: As righteously they did those dooms repent: Still they were wise, what ever way they went.

Imitating the notorious turgidity and bomba'it of the Pindaric style that goes beyond accepted rhetorical nonns. the Alexandrine "Thou leaps! o'r all eternal truths. in thy Pi11dariq11e way" (1. 94) exceeds. leaps over the boundary fanned by the endings of the surrounding lines.

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An abundance of words is also suggested by a long line in a passage of Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism'' (II. 305-310): Others for Langtwge all their Care express, And Vllluc Boob, as Women Men, for Dre.u: Their Praise is still ~ The Stile i.~ exceflent; The Sense. they humbly take upon Content. Words are like Lea1'es: and where they most abound. Much Fruit of Seflse beneath is rarely found.

The long line ""hrds are like Lem•e.{; and where they most abound" (1. 309) is itself a line in which words "most abound" for it contains nine instead of seven to eight words as do the preceding lines. In addition. the surpassing length of this line (created by the iconically supernumerary ninth word ''abound") is a perfect icon of verbal abundance. The successive line, ''Much Fmil of Sense beneath is r.trely found''. stands both "beneath" the previous line and is much shorter. indicating Jess "Fmit of sense''. A final example offen; an icon of surpa.uing. In the Ja..,t stanza of Emily Dickinson's poem 611 we read: What need of Day To Those whose Dark - hath II deem it be - Cominually At the Meridian?

~o

- surpa:.:.ing Sun -

The iconic function of the "surpassing" or excessive length of the second line in the quoted stanza is obvious: it also goes beyond all the other line-ends of the poem (not quoted here) by at lea."t an inch.

3.

The short line as an icon

3.1

The

.~hort

line as em icon of.mmllnes.~. contraction, slimness and narrowne.{.\'

Like the long line. but much less frequently. the noticeably short line may also assume iconic functions. These are based on its shortness but also on the gap of blank space it leaves within a block of longer Jines. One iconic function of the short line is to suggest smalltJe.u. In John Milton's "On Time" (II. 1-11) we discover two short lines as icons of smallness: Ay envious Time. till thou run out thy rJ.ce. Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, Whose spet=d is but the heavy Plummet's pace:

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177

And glut thyself with what thy womb devours, Which is no more than what is false and vain, And merely mortal dross. So little is our loss. So little is thy gain. For when as each thing bad thou has cntomb'd. And, last of all,thy grttdy self consum'd, Then long Eternity shall greel our bliss With an individual kiss:

The conspicuous shortness of the two parallel lines "So linle is our loss" (I. 7) and "So little is thy gain" (1. 8) provides a perfect icon of what they express. If Milton had had no intention of using a linear icon here. he could have put the two sentences in one (hexameter) line. The last quoted line expresses singularity ("'an individual kiss") by means of its shortness. of which more below. Something similar is found in Alexander Pope's "Moml Essays: Epistle Ill. To Allen Lord Bathurst" (II. 279-282): Of Debts, and Taxes, Wife and Children clear. This man posses! - five hundred pound-. a year. Blush. Gr.mdeur. blush~ proud Couns. withdraw your blaze! Ye little Stars~ hide your diminished rays. While the ''blaze .. of "Grandeur" and "proud Courts" finds its iconic cqui valent in a prominently long. highly conspicuous line (1. 281). iconising blinding majesty. the weakly shining "little Stars" with their ''diminished rays" are adequately represented by a much shorter one (1. 282). In a passage from John Dryden's AllforUn•e (Act II, i.ll. 401-406) we again discover an example of how the notion of smallness and slight value is iconically rendered by a short line: And yet you leave me~ You leave me, Amml)': and, yet I love you. Indeed I do: I have rcfus'd a Kingdom. That's a Trifte: For I could part with life: with any thing, But oncly you. Oh let me dye but with you! Cleo.

In its line-context. the very brief line "That's a trifle" (1. 403) graphically mimes its meaning. Shortening a line also offers a perfect icon of comracticm or crampi11g. In a passage from Dryden's All for Love (Act I. i.ll. 175-185). Ventidius laments Antony's shrinking due to the influence of Cleopatra:

178

MAX NANNY Can any Romcm see. and know him now, Thus aller'd from the Lord of half Mankind, Unbent. unsinew'd, made a Woman's Toy, Shrunk from the va.'>l extent of all his honors,

And cmmpl within a comer of the World? 0. Anion_,·! Thou bravest Soldier. and thou best of Friends! Boumeous as NaiUre: next to Nature's God! Could~! thou but make new Worlds, so wouldst thou give 'em, As bounty were thy being: Rough in Battel. As the tirst Romatls, when they went to War:

The shrinking of Antony "from the vast extent of all his honors'' (I. 178) and his cmmping "within a comer of the World" (I. 179) is perfectly rendered by the most shrunken of lines. "0, Antony!'' {1. 180), which is also cramped into a comer of the surrounding sequence of iambic pentameters. On the other hand. the contrasting bounty or largesse of Antony's nature and gifts is iconically rendered by the long line "Couldst thou but make new Worlds. so wouldst thou give ·em" (1. 183). which is bracketed by the expressions "Bounteous" (1. 182) in the preceding line and "bounty" (1. 184) in the succeeding one. The short line as an icon of .flimlles.{ is found in Andrew Marvell's "Aeckno. an English Priest at Rome" (II. 59--65): ... forelse so thin He stands. as if he only fed had been With consecrated Wafer..: and the Host Hath su~ more flesh and blood than he can boast. This Ba.uo Relie1·o of a Man. Who as a Camel tall. yet easily can The Needle's Eye thread without any stitch,

The line "This Basso Relievo of a Man" (I. 63). which is the shortest of the 170 lines of the poem. is a perfect icon of Flcckno's extreme thinness. Due to its relative shortness. it may be seen as a linear 'bas-relief' in the context of its surrounding lines for it projects relatively linle from the left margin or its base. It especially contrasts with the preceeding line. whose length offers an icon of the ironical boast that even "the Ho.ft" (1.61) is bulkier than Fleckno becDusc it has "sure more Hesh and blood" (1. 62). In his "Letter to Cromwell" (II. 22-25) Pope suggests ttarrow11e.u by means of a short line:

ICONIC FUNCTIONS OF LONG AND SHORT LINES

179

and Lanes arc Terms too vile and base, And give Idea's of a narrow Pass: But the well-worn Paths of the Nymphs of Drury Arc large and wide: T,vdcomh and I a~sure ye. Allye.~

In addition. the fact that ''Paths of the Nymphs of Drury" (I. 24). like all paths of sin and vice. are "large and wide" (I. 25) is mirrored by the contrdsting length

of line 24. 3.2 The Jhortline a.f an ico11 of lo.u. 1•ocuiry and singularity Sometimes the empty space left after a brief line within a block of longer lines iconically suggests a /o.u. A striking example can be found in Shakespeare's Othello (3.3.442-449): Orh. 0, that the slave had forty thousiUid lives! One is too poor, too weak for my revenge. Now do I sec 'tis IIUc. look hcre.lago: All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven. 'lh gone. Arise, black vengeance, fmm thy hollow cell! Yield up, 0 love, thy crown and hearted throne To tyr.tnnous hate! Swell. bosom. with thy fraught, For 'tis of a.'ipics' tongues!

As can readily be recognised. the space after "'Tis gone." (1. 453) stands for the gap that is left when Othello blows his "fond love ... to heaven" (1. 452). 7 In a passage of All for Lim! (Act V. i. II. 141-145) John Dryden imitates Shakespeare's iconic device of marking loss: Alex. Ah me! I hear him: yet I'm unprepar'd: My gift of lying's gone: And this Court-Devil. which I so oft have rais'd Fon.akes me at my need. I dare not stay: Yet cannot far go hence.

Again the blank left by the loss of the Egyptian eunuch's "gift of lying" (I. 142) is mirrored by the blank space left behind the brief line. In addition. the shortness of the last quoted line. "Yet cannot far go hence" (I. 145). is also iconic of its meaning: it does not go far as a line either. In Ad I of All for LiJVe (i, II. 170-174) the Roman general Ventidius even uses the word "blank":

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MAX NANNY Oh, she has deck'd his ruin with her love, Led him in golden bands to gaudy slaughter. And made perdition pleasing: She ha~ left him The blank of what he wa.;: I tell thee, Eunuch, she bas quite unman'd him:

The typographic blank after the short line "The blank of what he was" (I. 173) is an exemplary fonnal icon of the line's meaning. John Milton oJfers a short-line icon of vac11ity in Paradise Lost (Book II, II. 930-935)o As in a cloudy Chair ascending rides Audacious, but that seat soon failing. meets A va..;t vacuity: all unawares Auu'ring his pennons vain plumb down he drops Ten thousand fadom deep. and to this hour Down had been falling. had not by ill chance

The short line "A vast vacuity: all unawares" (1. 932). the shortest line of Book II. leaves a linear vacuity between the much longer lines before and after it. Singularity is a social form of vacuity and is often suggested by an iconic short line. John Dryden offers a fine illustration in a passage of his Religio Lctici (II. 80-88)o Those Gyant Wits. in happier Ages born, (When Arm.f and Arts did Gref'Ct' and Rm11e adorn) Knew no such Systf'mc: no such Piles cou'd ro1ise Of Nutural Wonl!ip. buill on Pray'r and Pmise. To 011e sole GOD: Nor did Remon;e, to Expiate Sin, prescribe: But slew their fellow Creatures for a Bribe: The guiltless Victim gman'd for their Offence: And Cruelty and Blood was Peflitel/ce.

The extreme shortness of the line "To 011e sole GOD" (1. 84) iconically reflects the exclusive singleness of God around whom there is existential vacancy. Similarly in Pope's "Ode for Musick, on St. Cecilia's Day" (II. 96--105): No Crime wa.~ thine, if 'tis no Crime to love. Now under hanging Mountains, Beside the Falls of Fountains, Or where Hebm.r wanders. Rolling in Maecmder.r. All alone,

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Unheard, unknown,

He makes his Moan: And call her Ghost For ever, ever. ever lost!

The dimeter line "All alone" (I. 101) perfectly mirrors the drastic reduction of being alone or by oneself. Incidentally. the right-hand contour of the first six lines mirrors "under hanging Mountains" (I. 97). and the wavy lineation of the whole passage iconically reflects the rolling "Maeanders" (!. 100) of the wandering Hebrus.

4.

The iconic contrast between long and short lines

Sometimes. long and short lines are collocated in iconic contrast to suggest long and short dumtion. The first example is taken from Ben Jonson's Cary-Morison Ode (II. 65-74)' It is not growing like a tree In bulke. doth make man better bee: Or standing long an Oake. three hundred yean::. To fall a loggc. at la.o;t, dry. bald. and ~eare: A Lillie of a Day lsfairerfarre.inMay. Although it fall. and die that night It was the Plant. and ftowre of light. In small proportions. we just beauties see: And in short measure. life may perfect bee.

The growing length of the first three lines (II. 65-67) of the quoted stanza iconically represent the process of growth, "growing like a tree/in bulke" (II. 65-66). ending in the longest line of the passage. "Or standing long an Oake. three hundred yeare" (1. 67). lls visual length. which is phonetically reinforced by long vowels and consonant clusters. iconically reflects the impressively long life of an oak tree. "three hundred yeare" (1. 67).1n contrust to an oak's longevity. a lily's ephemcrullife. "A Lillie of a Day" (I. 69), and its "small proportions" (1. 73) are adequately expressed by means of a very short line. which later is punningly referred to by the expression "in short measure" (1. 74) - "measure" also meaning a metrical group of poetic feet. Typically. the short vowels and words strengthen the idea or temporal briefness. The combined iconic use of short and long lines for contrdsting lengths of duration is also shown in John Dryden's brief epitaph "Upon Young Mr. Rogers of Glostershire" (II. 1-8):

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MAX NANNY Of gentle Blood, his Parents only Treasure, Their lasting Sorrow, and their vanish'd Plca.~urc, Adom'd with Features, Virtues, Wit and Grace, A large Provision for so short a Race: More mod'r,ue Gifts might han prolong'd his Date. Too early tilted for a beuer State: But, knowing Heav'n his Homc,to shun rklay. He kap'd o'vcr Age, and took the shortest Way.

The shortness of Mr Rogers's life (again expressed in tenns of a race), which Dryden laments here. is rendered by the relatively short line "A large Provision for so short a Race" (1. 4). This line is preceded by conspicuously longer lines that represent Mr Rogers' "large Provision··. The succeeding. markedly longer line. "More mod' rate Girts might have prolong'd his Date" (1. 5). suggests a longer life. And whereas the description of the "large Provision" needed three lines. "More mod'mte Gifts" are now mentioned in just a half line. The idea of the shortness of Mr Rogers's life is taken up again by the briefest line of all. "Too early fitted for a better State" (1. 6).

S.

Gradual change of line-length as a diagrammatic icon

The gr.tdual increa-.e or decrease of length in a sequence of lines may. though mthcr rarely, function as a diagrammatic icon of change of one sort or another.

5.1 Grad11ally longer line-length as a diagram of gro...,.th and im:reaJe Thus. a sequence of lines that grow longer and longer offers a perfect diagrammatic icon of increase or growth. A noteworthy illustration is offered by Dryden's satirical characterisation of Sir Fopling in his "Epilogue to The Man of Mode .. (II. 19-22): His bulky folly gathers as it goes, And, rolling o're you. like a Snow-ball growes. His various modes from various Fathers follow, One taught the Toss. and one the new Frt>nch Wallow.

The increasing length of the lines iconically mirrors the snow-balling of Sir Fopling's "bulky folly" (1. 19) steadily gathering weight and "rolling" (1. 20) down the lines.

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A short passage of Alexander Pope's "The Temple of Fame" (II. 469-474). where it is maintained that '"The flying Rumours gather'd as they roll'd' (1. 468).

provides an illustration of a similar linear diagram of the notion of progressive increase: Scarce any Tale was sooner heard than told: And all who told it. added something new. And all who heard it. made Enlargements too. In ev'ry Ear it spread. on cv'ry Tongue it grew. Thus Hying Ea.~t and West, and North and South. News traver d with Increase from Mouth to Mouth:

This passage shows how gradually longer lines may mime adding, enlargement. growth. unlimited spreading or increase. a miming that also occurs on the level of rhyme: we find an additional triplet rhyme at the beginning of the passage (II. 470-472). In Pope's translation of the Iliad (Book XVII. II. 428~31) there occurs a

staggered passage that offers another diagrammatic icon. this time of gradually stronger and expanding light: Unclouded there, th' Aerial Azure spread. No Vapour rested on the Mountain's Head. The golden Sun pour'd forth a stronger Ray. And all the broad Expansion flam'd with Day.

The expressions "Azure spread". "stronger Ray" and ''broad Expansion Hamed" tum this .sequence of increasingly longer lines into a linear icon of increasing brightness. 5.2 Gradually shorter line-lellf:llt as a diagram of gradual sJrrinkiiiR and decline In contrast to gradually longer lines. gradually shorter lines may function as iconic diagrams of processes of decrease. shrinking and decline. In Book Ill of Pope's The Dunciad Variorum there is a sequence of verses (II. 349-353) that enacts the process of shrinking by means of shorter and shorter line-lengths: Philosophy.that touch'd the Heavens before, Shrinks to her hidden cau~. and is no more: See Physic beg the Stagyrite's defence! See Metaphysic call for aid on Sence! See Mystery to Mathematicks fly!

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MAX NANNY

Let us look at a passage from Dryden's Allforl...tn•e (Act I. i.ll. 216--223). where

Antony. addressing himself. laments his fate: Am. HcH•ing thmll'fl l!im.fef/ down.

Lye

the~.

thou shadow of an Emperor:

The plat:c thou presses! on thy Mother Earth Is all thy Empire now: now it contains thee: Some few dayes hem:e. and then twill be too large. When thou'rt contrdcted in thy narrow Urn. Shrunk to a few cold Ashes: then Octlll'ia (For C/eotmtra will not live to see it). Ol·tal'ia then will have thee all her own,

Dryden not only uses a long line to express an excess of size here. "too large" 219). but he also has recourse to gradually decreasing line-lengths (II. 219-222) as a diagrammatic icon of steady contraction. ''contracted in thy narrow Urn'' (I. 220). and ultimate shrinking. ''Shrunk to a few cold Ao;hes" (I. 221 ). In his Prelude (1805, Book Ill. II. 10-12) William Wordsworth uses a shortening of lines to indicate the sucking or contracting force of an eddy:

(1.

Th~ place, as we approached. s~~mcd more and more To hav~ an ~ddy's force, and sucked us in More eagerly at every step we took.

The gmdual. ··at every step" (1. 12). and ever stronger. "More eagerly" (1. 12). sucking force of the eddy is iconically rendered by the gradually shorter lines whose contour on the right resembles the oblique waH of a whirlpool. (II is interesting to note that in the 1850 version of the Prelude we no longer find this iconic linear rendering.) Robert Herrick's short poem "Divination by a Daffadill" illustrates perfectly how decreasing line-length may function as a diagrammatic icon of dedine: WHen a Dalfadill I see. Hanging down his head t"wards me: Guesse I may. what I must be: First. I shall decline my head: Secondly. I shall be dead: Lastly, safely buryed.

The gradually shorter Jines of this text (II. 2--6) iconica11y mirror the insight conveyed by a daffodil "lhJanging down his head" (1. 2), namely that man's life is also subject to decline: from sorrow to death and finally to burial. By choosing the daffodil for his "Divination". the speaker has chosen the proper Hower for the daffodil was the tr.tditional symbol of short-lived. quickly withering beauty.

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as Herrick writes in another poem. ''To Daffadills'': "FAire Daffadills. we weep

to see/You haste away so soone" (II. 1-2).

5.3 Iconic contrast between gradually /o11ger and gradually shorter li11es

Let me end this study with examples in which a poet makes the most compre· hensive use of iconic lineation. namely of the contr.tst between gmdually longer

and gmdually shorter lines. An illustration of a double diagrammatic reversal of line length can be found in Dryden's ''The First Book of Ovid's Melllmorplwses" (II. 461-468): A thin Circumference of Land appears: And Earth. but not at once, her visage rears, And peeps upon the Seas from upper Grounds: The Streams, but just contain'd within their bounds. By slow degrees inlo the Channels crawl. And Earth increa...es. as the Waters fall. In longer time the tops of Trees appear; Which Mud on their dishonour'd Branches bear.

The gmdual appearance of the land due to the sinking of the water first is iconically indicated by gmdually longer lines whereas the simultaneous regression of water. ·•as the Waters fall" (I. 466), is then suggested by increasingly shorter lines (II. 464-466). In a passage of his "Ode for Musick. on St. Cecilia's Day" (II. 12-21) Alexander Pope uses increasingly longer line-lengths as a diagrammatic icon of the growing loudnes.o; of the music to a maximum of "wild Musick" (1. I 7). only to reverse the process by gmduatly decreasing line-lengths that indicate "a dying. dying Fall" (I. 21 ): Hark! the Numbers. soft and clear, Gently steal upon the Ear: Now louder, and yet louder rise, And fill with spreading Sound~ the Skies: Exulting in Triumph now swell the bold Notes, In broken Air. trembling. the wild Musick noats: Till. by degrees, remote and small. The Strains de<:ay. And melt away In a dying. dying Fall.

The grndual increase of volume. ''Now louder. and yet louder rise" (1. 14) of the swelling .. bold Notes" (1. 16). which "with spreading Sounds" (1. 15) fill the

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skies. is iconically rendered by the increase or wider spread of line· lengths (II. 13-17). In addition. the "bold Notes" (1. 16). the ''broken Air" and "the wild Musick" (1. 17) are rendered by an irregular or 'wild' meter. In the second half (II. 17-21). Pope uses progressively shorter lines as a diagrammatic icon of a gro~dual. "by degrees'' (I. I 8). decline. Thus, the step-by-step shortening of lines in the passage mimes the "decay"' (1. 19) of the music. its continuous dying away. Like the musical ''Strains'' (1.19), Pope's lines also "melt away" (1. 20).

6.

Condusion

By means of my selection of representative examples I hope I have been able to show that there is substantial evidence that poets. especially in the 17th and 18th century. have made frequent use of the iconic potential inherent in line-lenglh. Now. due to the fact lhat the number of lines whose length is iconically irrelevant to their meaning constitute the vast majority. the e~istence of numerous iconic lines seems to have gone unnoticed and readers mostly have not been consciously aware of it. But once our attention ha.'i been drawn to the manifold iconic uses of long. short and staggered lines. we will read poetic texts with an increa..,ed appreciation of. and a greater insight into. the poets" superb craft of lineation.

Acknowledgments I woult.l bke to thank Prof. Olga Fischer fur her can:ful reitt.ling of my paper ant.! her highly percepth·e ant.! helpful suggestions.

Notes I.

For a stut.ly nf some iconic functions of lineation in tenns nf shape. relative position ant.! mntion especially in texts by motlemist writer.; (En-.t Pountl, T.S. Eliot, E. E. Cummings. W.C. Williams) s1:1: my essays "Iconic Dimen~ions in Pnetry". "Imitative Fnnn: The Motlemist Poem on the Page". "!conicity in Literature" anti"Functions of Visual Fonn in T.S. Eliot"s Poeuy··.

2. Stt John Hull:mder. "Sense Variously Drawn Out". in his\li.fion mrd Nr.wnancr: Two Sl!"n.ft".f of Porti•· Form. 91-116: anti Christopher Ricks. Till!" Fon:rojPtlt'tf)·. 3.

Simon Alderson discusses the iconic relcvan~-e of "'chance fonn.~·· to the poets anti critics of the late 17th ant.! early 18th centuries in his fine study "Chan<.-e ant.! Imagination in Liter-.uy )conicity'".

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4.

llleally. in the ~earch for visually long lines one ought to consult find editions of texts. Where available, I have had recourse to modem critical editions that retain the spelling und the typogro~pby of lir!il editions. My ~;omparison of the flK'simile-te:o;ts of first editions with later critical editions showed that the length of lines is not mlllkedly different.

5.

llnlics in the quolations are the authors'.

6. 1be supreme emblem of VII.!IIJlcss. absu!Uie strength. in short. divine sublimity, is fount.! in the word 'Heaven'. Of all the ptJets under consideration, Dryden makes most fn:quent use uf the long line when the word 'hcaven(ly)' occun;.

7. Most modem editions of Otllrflo put the phr.L~e "'lis gone:· in a separ.lle line - with the uceptinn of the Variorum edition and Wells' and Taylor's new Q,.ford edition. Fnllowing the 1621 Quano and the Folio these editions reatl: ''AJI my fond love lhu~ do I blow to Maven 'ti$ gone". 1bt: later typographic iliT.mgement of giving the phra~e a separate line of its own must primarily have been lhr result of metrical coruiderutions. However. to lhr modem rt'ader of the phay the typogruphic gap left by 1hr brief "'Tis gone." enhances 1hr nolinn of lo.~s iconically.

References Alderson, Simon. 2001. "Chance and Imagination in Literary Iconicity". In the special number on 'Iconicity' of the European Journal of Engli.fh Smdie.t (EJES), forthcoming. Blake, W. 1982. Tlte Complete Poetry and ProJe of Willitlm Blake. Ed. D. V. Erdman. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dickinson, E. 1970. The Complt?te Poem.f of Emily Dickituon. Ed. Th.H. Johnson. london: Faber. Dryden, J. 1958. The Poem.f of John Dry·den. 4 Vols. Ed. J. Kinsley. O:dord: Clarendon Press.

Dryden. J. 1984. ''All for love". Th,. l\brks of John Dryden. Vol. XIII. Eds A. Roper and V.A. Dearings. Berkeley: University of California Press. I-III. Herrick, R. 1963. The Co1nplett? Poetry of Roben Herrick. Ed. M.J. Patrick. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books. Hollander, J. 1975. "Sense Variously Dmwn Out". In his Vision and Re.tmtance: Two Senses of Poetic· Form, 91-116. New York: Oxford University Press. J01uon. Ed. W.B. Hunter. New York: Jonson. B. 1963. T11e Complete Poetry of Doubleday Anchor Books. Keats, J. 1978. The Poems of Jo/111 Keats. Ed. J. Stillinger. london: Heineman. lawrence, D.H. 1977. Tire Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence. Eds V. de Sola Pinto and W. Roberts. Hannondsworth: Penguin. Marvell. A. 1927. Tl1e Poenu and Letters of AIJdrew Marw/1. Ed. H.M. Margoliouth. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Milton, J. 1977. John Milton. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. M.Y. Hughes. Indianapolis: The Odyssey Press.

g,.,

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Nanny, M. 1985. "Iconic Dimensions in Poetry". In On Ponry and Poetic.~. Richard Wa.-;wo (cd.).SPEU 2 (Swiss Papers in English Language and Litcr.tture): 111-137. Nlinny. M. 1986. "Imitative Fonn: The Modernist Poem on the Page". In Poetry· and Epist~molo~:y. R. Hagenbiichle and L. Skandcra (cds). 213-231. Regensburg: Friedrich Pustct. Nanny. M. 1986. "Iconicity in Literature". Word&: lmagt' 2.3: 199-208. Nanny. M. 1992. ''Functions of Visual Fonn in T.S. Eliot's Poctry".Jn TheFirecmdthe Ro.fr!. NewE.uayso11 T.S.Eiint. V. Sena and R. Vcnna (cds), 98-116. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Pope. A. 1963. The Poems of Alexander Pope. A One Volume Edition of the Twickcnham Pope. Ed. J. Butt. London: Methuen. Pope. A. 1967. Alexander Pope. Tile Iliad of Homer. Vols. VII & VIII. Ed. M. Mack. London: Methuen. Ricks. Ch. 1984. 111e Fora of Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Shakespeare. W. 1974. Ri,•erside Shakespeare. Ed. B. G. Evans. Boston: Houghton Miffiin. Shakespeare, W. 1986. William Shake.fpeare. The Complete Worb. Eds S. Wells and G. Taylor. O:tford: Clarendon Press. Shelley. P.B. 1977. Slrdley's Poetry and Prose. Eds D.H. Reiman and S.B. Powen;. New York: Norton. Wordsworth. W. 1995. William \furdsworl11. The Prelude. The Four Texts (1798, 1799, 1805, 1850). Ed. J. Wordsworth. London: Penguin.

n,e

!conicity in advertising signs Motive and method in miming 'the body' Robbie B. H. Goh National Uni\·enity of Singapore

1.

Introduction: the semiology of advertising

Advertisements (especially those in print media) rely in various ways on the poetic function of language - that "focus on the message for its own sake" which Roman Jakob son ( 1960: 356) identifies as the crux of such language. Their textual component tends to foreground language. promoting the "palpability of signs" that Jakobson speaks of. by spectacular modifications of word-arrangement (line breaks. spacing. the usc of columns. the creation of word-shapes. and related means). Mary Cross (1996: 2) argues that advertising relies on techniques of "peeling verbal signs off their tmditional associations in attention-getting wordplay and fragmented syntax", which is a sort of"linguistic vandalism".lt is thus very tempting to make comparative analyses of advertising and poetic language. as some theorists have done. 1 If advertising signs employ language in fundamentally poetic functions, then - as scholars like Max Niinny ( 1986: 199208) and J0rgen Dines Johansen ( 1996: 37-55) have shown - this crucially involves iconic processes; poetic language conveys meaning through many concrete and formal features of words themselves which are much less easily manifested in realist prose. In genenll. however. advertising theory ha..; been dominated by nco-Marxist approaches. which are less concerned with the sign-properties of advertisements. since it is assumed that they function as abstrdct. symbolic ·commodity signs'. The implication of this symbolic function is that the commodity-sign is seen a.; highly arbitrary (but in an ideologically-loaded way). inasmuch as it has reference

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only to a set of consumerist values and ideas characteristic of the capitaJist market. For Judith Williamson (1978: II. 13). the characteristic semiology of the

advertising sign is a substitution or "transference" in which the ostensible reference to the "material medium" (the featured object, the world in which it e~ists) is replaced by a reference to a constructed idea of the self - advertisements ultimately "are selling us ourselves". This "consumer self' which is the referent of advertising signs. is a composite dmwn from the various notions of the middle-class consumer propagated by different media signs. To what extent. then. is iconicity possible or significant within the semiolo-

gy of the advertising sign'! The disparity between the abstract and symbolic functions insisted upon by nco-Marxist advertising theory. and the iconic functions of advertising signs which resemble poetic language. suggests that advertisements are complex signs which may rely on differentiated signifying processes. incorporating the iconic, symbolic and even indexical (although this la.'il seems to be les..'i common). While advertising signs are doubtless commodity signs. if only in the sense that they function within an overall system of market motivations and significances. the recurrent role of iconic functions in many advertisements suggests that the semiology of such complex signs is not limited to the mere symbolic reiteration of consumerist codes. Iconicity in advertising marks the place of 'the body' in the sign - the material world. particularly the ··everyday bodily and perceptual experiences" which constitute our central domain and perspective (Gibbs 1994: 79) - which will not simply be effaced and overwritten by the abstractions of commodity meanings. This is not to say. of course. that symbolic meanings are always or obviously at odds with iconic or cognitive ones. Some advertisements seek a happy coincidence and agreement of all such semiotic processes, in their attempts to offer 'concrete' proof of the truth of their claims. Thus, for example. many advertisements for financial products (insurance. loans. credit cards. and the institutions which back these) often use iconic elements to ground their claims about the happiness. security and high social esteem which comes from buying their products. The obvious way this can be indicated in advertisements is in the use of 'upward' oriented ligures which. according to the cognitive theories advanced by Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 22). draw from one of the "most fundamental concepts" which cuts across different cultures. Since so much of our somatic. emotional and thus semiotic experience associates an upward orientation (in posture. facial expression. limb movements and the like) with positive states such as success and power. this is reflected in our figurative expressions (e.g. 'the height of ecstasy'. 'buoyant with happiness"). Andreas Fischer ( 1999: 252) ha.'i shown that such an upward-downward orientation in

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advertising signs breaks the ''primary (horizontal( direction of writing", and often indicates "positive notions" or their opposite.

2.

Iconic marking in advertising signs

2.1 Mtn•ement, perspet'th·e and orielllation The field of meaning centred around being 'up' ('upbeat', 'upwardly-mobile', etc) can be conveyed iconically. in the layout. fonnat. physical shape and orientation of iUl advertisement: thus. for example. the advertisement in Singapore's main English newspaper The Strait.{ 7ime.~ for Credit POSB. a Singapore bank, which represents the happy home-owners as being located in an upwardoriented series of balconies in what appears to be a looming apartment tower (Figure IJ. This is not an accidcnta1 structure dictated by conditions of photographic representation. or the newspaper format in which the advertising sign appears. or any similar factors: in fact. it would have been as easy or easier to represent the grandeur of the property in a horizontal orientation (i.e. 'good is breadth/width/expanse'). given that in this case the advertising space is a rectangle whose breadth is longer than its height. Instead. the entire advertise· ment iconically mimes this upward orientation. a.~suming the form of three signifying 'towers' (reading from left to right: the photogmph. the caption. and the text in smaller print with the face of a friendly loan officer at the top). In each of these signifying towers. the reader not only reads vertically. but docs so in a gesture of repetition which is like the movement of an elevator up and down a tower (or the movement of the eye as a viewer 'reads' a tower in the urban landscape). and is in a sense prevented from reading horizontally. from 'jumping' off each tower. For example. the caption not only breaks up the sentence to build a tower (two or at most three words per line in a stack of six such Jines). but also hahs the linear and downward trend by having key words ('"easy". "best". "loans") in a venicalline of larger typc. 2 Read as a sentence. the caption moves across and uhimately downwards. but the larger type also picks out a collocation which is supposed to register visually with the reader. moving up and down (as the reader considers this message) independent of the expected horizontal and downward orientation. Interestingly. the home·owners arc not placed right at the top of the tower. but lower down: we still look up to them. which is crucial, but with the stack of balconies above them. the photogmph mimes not so much the fait accompli of social climbing. but its potential. The mised hands of the home·owners may also point the direction of their upward

ROBBIE B.H. GOH

igurc I .

.ocio-economic aspirations. Thus. what is depicted as a positive value in this tex.t s upward orientation. mimed in a number of ways. rather than the absolute 1cight of the human figures (which is also in danger of connoting remoteness md inaccessibility - as it is, the figures arc small enough). A similar mimetic movement is created in the sm;lll-print text. whose content concludes in the final paragraph with the key notions of "fast, friendly

highly-professionaJ service'', which makes the choice ''easy". For Peirce (1955: 106), the photograph was a typical icon. its resemblance to the object so

clear that it could supply "truths ... which suffice to determine (the object's] construction. Thus. by means of two photogn1phs a map can be drawn. etc.". Yet it is not so much the photogn:aph's ..resemblance·· or ·physical connection' to its depicted object (this bank officer, who is typical rather than distinguished. who in turn synccdochally represents the bank ro~ther than is identical with it) which conveys meaning through an iconic function. but ro~thcr the placement of the photogn:aph within the orientations of the advertisement. The content of this rightmost 'tower' is made to refer back upwards to the photogro~ph of the smiling bank officer. which is supposed to justify the bank's claims - it is the officer.

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the (synecdochal) face of the bank. who is "fast. friendly ]and] highly-professional" (and. in an unsurprising sexual sub-code. also "eao;y''), if anything at all is. Yet this friendly accessibility (mimed also by the ease of repetitive movement

structured in the text) is. perhaps paradoxically. also 'high': the highly-efficient bank officer must connote power: to confer loans. to make home-owning dreams come true. which is why her photograph is placed at the top of the column when

it could easily have been placed at mid-point or at the bottom. Yet there also seems to be a degree of anti-iconic force in the meaning of the text. While many value-orientations in the sociology of the building may in fact be aligned with the cognitive field of 'up is good', and not necessarily only in congested urban spaces (private family areas in the house tend to be upstairs. public areas downstairs: houses on a hill are generally more desirable: an office on a higher ftoor usually denotes a higher rank than one on a lower ftoor). other meanings having to do with the economy of the building in fact run counter to this field. Credit POSB. as a creditor financial in.~titution. is fundamentally concerned with the 'bottom line' of a consumer's credit worthiness (including how 'rooted' this is. in collateral or job security), interest rates. and other 'down'-orientcd factors. This is spell out quite paradoxically in the right-most column. where the fact that they "keep )their) rates low" is placed quite high up in the priority of claims the institution wishes to make. The connection between upward-orientation. icons of the same. and financial 'truths'. might be seen more clearly by comparing the Credit POSB mortgage advertisement with the Standard Chartered one for fixed deposits. which also appeared in The Straits lime.~ )Figure 2). Here. again. there is some degree of iconic correspondence between the formal properties of the sign (its extreme vertical orientation. the floating. looming effect of the r.tte-sign "3% p.a.") and the claim that this high rate is cause for 'happiness· (and. incidentally. cause for choosing Standard Chartered). Considered from the point of view of iconic resemblances. the text is problematic: the huge intervening blank space (between the rate-sign and the bottom of the text) may compel the reader to look upwards (thus miming an action litemlly suggested by the figure of speech "something's looking up"). but it also causes the reader to look downwards. to find the explanation or anchoring point for the floating sign above. The upper sign could. after all, refer to a mortgage rate or the interest rate on a credit card (for both of which. 'down· rather than 'up' would be good), or any other rate for that matter. and it is only by looking down that the explanation can be found. The empty middle space thus mimes emptiness and insubstantiality - it corresponds at the level of content to the uncertainty of interests rates (which. the small print at the bottom warns, are ··subject to change without notice"), to the

94

I. ~; rsomet

gurc 2.

ROBBIE B.H. GOH

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lack of any concrete. easily-gr.tsped guarantee or base upon which this promise can rest. The te:u as a whole reminds us that 'up' may often be good. but may also be 'airy' and impracticaJ ('castles in the air', 'head in the clouds'). The fonnal features of the text. like that of the Credit POSB advertisement, seem to refer iconically to concrete experiential notions, and yet there are slippages in these signs which invoke quite opposite meanings. These slippages are the places where symbolic fields overwrite iconic particularities: in the Standard Chartered advertisement. the blank space creates a minimally-intrusive text which allows different readers to read different needs and desires into the text, where a specific sign would have appealed more to some readers and less to others. In the Credit POSB text, the bao;ically iconic meaning (emotional 'upness'. elation. 'ease' of process) is overwrillen by more specifically financial meanings which are also more arbitrary: socio-economic mobility (which can go both upwards and downwards).the tendency for interests mtes of all sorts to fluctuate suddenly and violently. the vagueness of what the 'best value' in a loan would constitute ('Best' to whom? What kind of 'value'? What is lost or compromised in this bargain?). It might be said that despite the sort of decontextualising manipulation of the advertising sign that Cross ( 1996) speaks of. in many respects such signs also rely on fairly conventional textual features in order to appeal to a geneml readership (and market)- whose constituent is the 'rational. abstract consumer'. Such a consumer. in cla'isic economic theory. is assumed to make rational choices to maximise the fulfilment of needs in conditions of limited resources. These calculations - involving, in Marxist terms. the 'exchange value· which reduces material differences to the fungible tenns of symbolic exchange - are accordingly represented through semiologies which ultimately refer to (as it were) conventions of mtional choice. Such serious and weighty considerations as mortgages, insumnces. vehicle purchases, and related 'adull. daily life decisions' are often reflected in advertising layouts which use regularly-sized. evenly-spaced and evenly-textured type fonts. in terms of colour. shading. even in some ca'ies third-dimensionality. Variation within such 'serious' messages is relatively minor. and usually confined to adding relative emphasis on certain words or ideas through greater (both larger and thicker) font size. The Credit POSB advertisement is typical. the larger and bolder words ("easy". "best". "loans") creating a sort of acrostic sub-text within the larger text of the caption. However. apart from this the font of the caption is generally unifonn: all letters are in lower case (perhaps suggesting infonnality, although even here the elfcct is mitigated somewhat by the mechanically-uniform quality of the type). all with serifs. and all relatively evenly-spaced.

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2.2 The ico11ic 'body' It is when advertisements are less concerned wilh general products appealing to the abstract and ro~tional consumer. and more with a specific and smaller market defined by a 'body' with particular characteristics, that a greater degree of

foregrounding of the materiality of the text takes place. Icon icily in font manipulation - not merely changes in size or departures from linear horizontal layouts. but the manipulation of the colour. texture and solidity of the font as well seems to feature more prominently. when the advertising sign needs to represent (in particular) the body and its experiential meanings. Symbolism. it would seem.

is the preferred sign-function where the abstract and intangible meanings of socio-economic standing and choice are concerned: a nco-Marxist thinker like Baudrillard (1994: 15. 92-93) would insist that this is due to the "sorcery of social relations'' to which all commodity signs contribute. Yet this is also due to the semiotic property of symbols themselves: for Peirce. the "genuine symbol" has a "general meaning". and refers by virtue of "a contract or convention" ( 1955: 112-113). including the conventional notions of social power and prestige which a society propagates. The body and its associated meanings, being grounded in direct experience. is often the point of resistance of such complex abstractions, and its place is correspondingly marked by iconic functions: Peirce says. Given a conventional or other general sign of an object. to deduce any other truth than that which it explicitly signifies. it is necessary. in all ca!'es. to replace that sign by an icon. (1955: 106)

Of course. in the case of complex and composite signs like advertisements. the icon can function side-by-side with the symbol rather than 'replacing' it. Yet it is this iconic function which mimes the 'new knowledge' of the body. where it tends to stand outside of conventional notions. This is quite noticeable especially in age-specific advertisements. for example those aimed at the elderly. The advertisement for life and health insurance from NTUC INCOME I Figure 31 uses greater variety in fonts: it lists a variety of serious illnesses. with the more tr.aumatic or damaging ones (e.g. the predictable stroke. heart attack. cancer) given emphasis. both through larger and thicker fonts. but also more spacing between letters of the word. and around the word separating it from other words. "Stroke" is the most prominent. in this respect. apparently because stroke is one of the deadliest diseases in Singapore. The formal features of the advertisement thus become an icon for bodily pathology. the size and prominence of certain words corresponding to the size

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and importance (in tenns of pathological disruption) of the diseases they represent. The diseases are not listed in any particular order (such as alphabeticaJiy, or in ascending or descending order of seriousness). so that one encounters a sudden looming word much as one would unexpectedly encounter a deadly disease. the disruption to the expected orderly format resembling the disruption to one's life that such an illness (in one personally, or in a family member) would prove to be. To the extent that this advertising sign mimes the pathological body. its semiotic function is chiefly iconic. However. as a complex sign it also ha.o; other referents, of course, and it should be remembered that health insur.mce is a financial instrument as much as a mortgage or credit card are. Despite this degree of iconic reference to the ageing body. the 'serious' business of life and health insurance is also 'adult consumer' business - it is not only old people who face such problems and need such products. Whatever its mode of advertising itself. one insurance company or brand competes against many others offering much the same products. to much the same sort of clientele. its stylistic modalities confined by the sense of the 'sameness' of the underlying realities of purchasing power. premiums. capital gains. incomes and annuities - all reducible. in tum. to the lowest common base of the dollar. Thus the sign of the body in the NTUC INCOME advertisement - the iconic chart of potential pathologies - is literally based upon a more abstract and symbolic text below. which discusses the quite-unsomatic details of ··annuities"" ... savings"". "'premiums"" and "'bonuses"". Symbolic representations can take many forms in advertising signs. of course. but they have in common techniques of dc-registrdtion of differences and particularities. of which the body proves the most threatening: abstmct and symbolic representation is thus also the de-corporealisation of the sign. removing from it any trace or resemblance to bodily difference. Thus in the famous Gatorade television advertisements. featuring basketball star Michael Jordan. the viewer is invited to "be like Mike"" regardless of how far short our physical attributes are of Jordan's famous six and a half foot. two hundred pound frame. Some of the ways this abstraction of the viewer from his or her physical reality is effected include the almost exclusive use of child models in the advertisement. emphasising potentials and future states (which can be anticipated through imagination and desire), rather than present and actual physical limitations. This imaginative identification is reinforced in the jingle's use of rhyme. so that the identification (viewer= Jordan) is persuaded through a verbal identification: Sometimes I dream that he is me You've got to sec that"s how I want to he

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The invitation to the reader to project imaginatively his or her identity into an abstract. plausible and general space, is the essential strategy of symbolic exchange semiotics. At one extreme is the blank space and its variations. where particularities almost disappear altogether. and an almost endless range of possibilities are invoked - one example is the advertisement for The Peninsula hotel in Bangkok. which uses slightly mised. white-on-white letters to spell out ''YOUR ROOM IS READY'', with the hotel"s name and crest at the bottom:' The deictic possessive "your [implicitly, 'this'] room", but without the expected accompanying photos of the room. other parts of the hotel. reception personnel or guests. leaves blank both the actual physical room as well as the nature and particulars of the guest. The reader is invited to take this unopposing. unparticularised blankness (much as a hotel guest is welcome to take the ever-serviceable hotel stationary. which the advertisement's embossed leuers and crest invoke). and to tit himself or herself into this picture. Even in less strikingly innovative advertisements, the forms of symbolic exchange semiotics depend upon creating an abstract space for an unspecified. undifferentiated genero~l consumer to imagine himself or herself. Typically. this involves minimal text (within which there is minimal reference to biographical particularities of readers and potential purcha.,ers). the emphasis on the commodity itself (usually abstracted from any particular background or context. or else placed in a fantasy context such as on the wrist of a famous personality). and inter-referentiality between logo and commodity (so that the 'meaning' of the commodity is explained or justified by the bmnd name, and vice versa in circular fashion. Advertisements which sell the youth body tend to rely less on this symbolic exchange semiotics, or at least tend to mix this mode with an iconic mode which resembles the physicality of the youth body. This physicality is figured in severed ways: typographically, it often involves the creation of a rough, unfinished. uneven (in colour, spacing. outline, size) font. The link between the ·rough' texture of the font. and the physical roughness it mimics, is clearly seen in the lsuzu truck advertisement which ran recently in TheSirail.~ Times I Figure 41. The caption, in the form of a direct quote (supposedly spoken by the young man in the adjacent picture). is a phmse in a Chinese dialect. Hokkien - this has one of the largest linguistic communities among the various dialect groups in Singapore. but (due in part to Government policy promoting Mandarin instead of dialects) lacks 'legitimacy· as an official language spoken by 'educated" individuals. As such. the common perception is that it is the dialect spoken by (among others) manual labourers. soldiers in the army. and many working-class families. The phrase. rendered in English as "bo beh chao". literally means ·no horse run'. and idiomatically means 'exceedingly fast/strong/powerful", especially

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a physil.:al sense. Yet one need not understand anything of Hokkicn or the dnlogy of Singapore dialect:. to read the charactcrbtir.:s of the buzu truck. ur the young man who i:. linkctl to it. Thc!>C charaetcrbtir.::. arc embodied in the pography, with it~ dclihcratcly humpy outline~ and uneven :.ilc among all three Jrds (with the fir:.t. ··oo... :.tanding out as the large~! by far) which ~uggcsts a 1istcrou:.ly exuberant proclamation. almost a shout of rough joit· dt• l'iln'. Even (or especially) in the absence of particular knowledge of the language culture. the sign mimes a physicality characterised by size. roughness. tim shed or unpolished spontaneity. cxdtcdly uneven pcrformam:c or behaviour. d related ICillurc:.. The !etten; somehow ·took like' the sort of word:. the rough d boisternu:. young labourer would :.peak in every a:.pcct (performance and lonation. coment. but
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left 'rough' - bad haircul. uneven shave. pockmarked and uneven complexion. exuberant grin and all. Figur.uion (the associations between the young man's physical and behavioural traits and his presumed occupation. between the man and the truck.the analogical notion of vehicular 'toughness' and 'strength' which finally emerges) rests in large part upon the "direct communication" (in Peirce's terms. 1955: 105) of the typographic body. Youthful exuberance (etymologically 'ex 11bercm.> - copiously. overflowingly fertile) can be embodied in other ways. as the advertisement for Nissin noodles shows in unabashedly sexist tenns ]Figure 5]. There is in fact little or no link between noodles and female sexuality (or specifically here. breast size). except for the conventional pun linking "cup" noodles to bra "cups" - a thin link. since the pun could have been played out in a number of other ways ("cup' as the action of cupping or craddling something. references to coffee or tea culture. or to a trophy and popular sporting events like soccer). Yet there is a fundamental link. which is not merely the cheap sexist sensationalism of using a beautiful and scantily-clad girl to attract attention.ln fact.the conventional and arbitrary link is strengthened by all kinds of experiential meanings. The girl is not only physically well-endowed. but is 'luxuriant" in many senses. with her thick and lustrous long hair, dark eyebrows. and full lips. Her comprehensive fullness and luxuriance thus embodies the rich texture of the noodles that she represents - as not only psychoanalysts would argue. orality is sexuality. and one can luxuriate in the texture of noodles in one's mouth just as easily as one can luxuriate in the feel of soft thick hair or the experience or sensation of other physical contact. The typography of the caption - "All cups are not created equal" - strengthens the link-by-materiality. The font used is a variation on the style commonly known as 'chequebook', with lines that are thickly swollen in some parts, but left thin elsewhere, particularly at the joints. The modified font in this advertisement is not as mechanically unifonn as chequebook (which is often used to simulate electronic data, for example as subtitles which are supposed to be computer entries especially on science fiction progmmmes like Star Trek: TIJe Nexl Generario11). In the Nissin advertisement. the swollen parts of the fonts are made to look spontaneous and unpredictable. swelling some parts of letters but not others (the angular letter "L'', for example. is left thin). What is swollen. conspicuously. are the concave curves of rounded letters like "C" (repeated at the start of "cups" and "created"), "0". "U". "Q" and "0". The fact that all these letters are upper-case adds to the sense of fullness and expansiveness, since the volume and swell of the rounded parts of these letters are inevitably maximised in the upper-case as compared to their lower-ca"e forms. Figurative a"sociations - Nissin noodles are a" desirable (and. in a sexism

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familiar from the Credit POSB advertisement and elsewhere. as 'ea... y') as this beautiful girl - play up to marketing and demogrnphical strategies. Instant noodles are favoured by younger consumers, who are not bothered by nutritional considerations. who appreciate the speed and availability of the snack. und who are always or unpredictably hungry. Yet the crude sexuality of the advertisement is not perfectly justified by this demographic consideration. since (unlike. say. a female celebrity endorsement) the blatant sexual availability of this unknown girl appeals only to the male half (albeit the hungrier half) of this demographical group. Once again. figurative meanings and demographic intentions are based upon more fundamental.less arbitrary or exclusionary. codes of meaning. which cut across the values of sub-groups (e.g. of race, gender, age) even as they cut across particular advertisements. That is to say, iconic mimicry of the youthful body agrees with our understanding or experience of this body, even if we arc not (or no longer) part of that actual demographical group. The rambunctious. overt physicality of the young labourer in the lsuzu advertisement. despite being an opposite set of meanings in many ways (not least of which is the obvious gender opposition). thus reully forms a significant puir with the blatantly 'healthy' and physically-luxuriant girl in the Nissin advertisement. Both signs mime (in various aspects of their form and structure) the physical exuberance of youth - its barely-containable. unexpectedly full and luxuriant body. with its energies and appetites which are always threatening to manifest themselves in unexpected appetites and behaviour (whether this be shouting. laughing. stripping. sexual intercourse. eating. or other antics). Reading these lesser-known examples in some detail helps us compare this semiology with that of better-known examples. such ao; MTV narratives. which mime in various ways the spontaneity. haste. bro~.shness. crude and unpolished munner. and daring and loud behaviour, of the youth body. Clearly many more iconic parameters can be encoded in a moving. television narmtive: time and duration (the 'pace' of MTV segments. particularly those between music videos. mimes the frenetic activity - or, perhaps more uncharitably. the short attention span and flighty mental processes - of a typica1 teenage viewer). appeamnce and layout (colourful. quirky, eye-catching. but always informal and seemingly 'unfinished'), and a range of physica1 and cultural attributes such as the physical energy. social stature (or lack thereof). dress and behaviour. However. many of these parameters arc also captured in print advertisements. for example in the advertisements for the Discovery Channel. which (particularly in its adventure programmes) caters to a similar youth market. The advertisement featuring white-water kayaking (Figure 6) features not only a striking photograph of a river-bed seen (as it were) by a canoeist underwater: in its typography. it also

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mimes the physical sensations of such an experience. The text. like that of the lsuzu truck adven.isement (with the exception that quotation marks are dispensed with here). uses relative font size to mime a certain vocal performance - the

excited. almost incoherent babble of a person in the frenzy of an adventure like white-water kayaking (or the watching of the Discovery programme which is supposed to be identical with this).ll is not only that certain words 'shriek' due to their relative size. and that this swelling of size follows no logic other than the sudden spurts of fear and excitement experienced by the kayaker - thus the sensation of "spinning in a washing machine ... the ''white chaos'', are the crisis points in the body of the text. as well as to the body of this hypothetical kayaker. In addition. the failure of alignment at these points in the text. resulting in 'forced' contact between the 's' in "washing", the 'e' in "white" and the 'c' in "chaos" with letters in surrounding words. mimes the actual physical swirling and bumping of the kayaker. Thus the r.1ther dubious leap of the imagination which equates watching a programme with actually performing a dangerous physical activity - an equation which must certainly require a considerable "willing suspension of disbelief", as Coleridge would put it - is actually based on the less arbitmry identification of the performative agitation of the text, with the sensation of said physical activity. This format is not merely an anempt at an eye-catching variation from standard. predictable orthography (although it also works at that level). but also an iconic representation of a certain rambunctious physical activity and the sensations that must accompany it. The youth body is not always so positively viewed - after all. social value systems are likely to be more important in symbolic representations than in iconic. since the experiential meanings referred to by the latter are less subject to cultural mediations. Another aspect of the youth body is the physical stigmata of acne. menstrual changes, and other marks of a body in a state of undependable flux. The advertisement for Whisper feminine pads !Figure 7). which appeared in a youth-oriented Singapore publication (Go magazine. whose title also evokes youthful energy). refers to seveml potentially-embarrassing marks of the youthful body. One young girl. obviously still unused to the feminine business of periods and how to deal with them with composure. anxiously tells her friend to check her for stains. The reader is unable to actually sec 'menstruation' as such. of course. nor even the stain that would be a metonymy of this. However. menstruation - or rather. the young girl's internal discomfort and anxiety arising out of her body's unaccustomed responses to this process - is marked elsewhere. in the pink blush on her face. in the picture of the Whisper package (which. stmngely. floats in a thought balloon unconnected to anyone and

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hovering in the vicinity of her derriere). and in the red type in the words ''check'' and "whisper ultra thin" (which contrast with the black of all the rest of the dialogue and thoughts)." In one sense. these marks are metonyms. stigmata which are caused by menstruation. Yet they also resemble. if not menstruation per se. then the physical and emotional state which the girl is in a<; a result of her physical embarrassment. This is evident. firstly, in the redness of the highlighted text. so that. if the word ''check" in its context is merely a euphemism for 'slain' (the metonym). with its significant colour it stands out a.; an icon for menstruation. a startling red stain on the otherwise evenly black body of the text. They also resemble the effusive colour of the blush. the unconcealable fact of a disturbance or agitation in the expected textual and bodily order. This iconicity accords with the particular marketing strategy of this advertisement, of course. since it is precisely such pronounced female stigmata which the product (and this product alone) can replace and thus conceal. Hence the fact that the product name is linked by typography to the stigmata. and that the picture of the product conceals the girl's derriere. A similar iconic ''palpability" is used in the ubiquitous advertisements for skincare products. particularly of the anti-blemish variety. where disruptions in the body of the text emphasise the threatening and unpredictable disruptions that acne poses to the normal skin. Thus the advertisement for Sanctuary Spa [Figure 8[. for example. uses a great deal of 'textured' fonts. using words of different colours (black. blue. white. and two shades of pink). layering these on backgrounds of different colours (including one which looks like a stylised Rower), and eschewing right-justification for the list of skin 'irregularities' it lists (so that the list is itself 'irregular'). Facial products and services are in a difficult position. of course: on the one hand. they inevitably refer to the body. and to the unpredictable and threatening blemishes which erupt from it. The reminders of thili underlying bodily threat must thus be present, and yet not dominant in the overall text - in this example. this is served by the small photos (tucked discretely away in a comer) which iconically 'map' a pattern of blemishes and invoke the threatening body. and also by fontbackground manipulation which suggests a great degree of layering. the textured surfaces of skins. 5 On the other hand. however. such advertisemenlo; must also persuade the potential ClL'Itomer that these blemishes can be covered up quickly and elfectivcly. They must thus also invoke another. dilferently-valued texture. namely the beneficial applications of salves and cosmetics which promise to remedy the texturing caused by natural blemishes. An iconic texturing of the advertising text can convey something of this runbivalence. without the more univocal valuation of more explicit means of signification.

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Conclusion

The constant iterations of the 'body' in such texts suggest that cenain cognitive domains return in ways which are governed. not merely by commercial logic and values (although these are inesc<~pable). but also by the reference to a certain

basic, shared knowledge of the physical domain. The purpose of a semiotic analysis of such advertising signs is not. however, simply to revisit the old contest between 'arbitrary' and 'natuml' signs. or symbols versus icons. Clearly such complex signs rely on a variety of different semiotic functions. and if symbols (as Peirce suggests) are somehow limited in their meaning-making and can convey no 'new knowledge' without icons, it is also true that icons cannot function in social teJtts without the greater generality and the reference to abstrnct meanings which symbols provide. However. the analysis of the particular strategies of this differentiated semiology reveals much about a culture's fundamental cognitive notions. and how these interact with the commerciallyfungible symbolic representations.

Notes I.

See. for namplc. Waller Cummins' essay. "Lwc and Liqueur: Modernism ami Posunodemism in Advenising and Fiction". and Michael B. G01Mlman's "Bunuugh.' and Advertising: Fractured Language. Fractured Time. Fr.tctured Image as the Univer.;al Language". The ad\·ertising function of language is abo 1mplidttn the oft-discu)o.'C'd cumple~ 'Veni. Vidi. Vid and 'I Like Ike'. which use poetic features In promole a particular image a.~sociated with an individual.

2.

A~ Max Nilnny pointed out to me (private communication, 26 March \999), this heightonentation i~ aiMJ l.'Onvcycd phonetically: 1n the caption. wunb with high vowel sounds ("'ea.~y". "see'') arc plal.·cd high up in the middle 'tower'. while middle-to-lower and back vowels are found 1n words placed lower down ("best". and even lower. "home" and "loons").

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1s pari of a sene~ of print advertisements for the Pcnin.•ula hole] cha1n. featunng dtfferent particular locations. but all using the symbohc means of the white-on-white. embossed layout.

4. This advcrlh.ement actually r.m in fullt:olour, although for cust reasons it is n:pnxlut:cd here in hla~:k and white. In the origmal. all dialogue in the ~pecch balloons appeared m black tnt. e.\cept for the words "check" and "whisper ultra lhin" uM:d by the two girls.

5. Again. this figure, originally in colour, is reproduL-cd here in black and white for reasons of cos!. In addition to the use of full colour in the photographs to the lcft.the original aiM) m1mcs the ambivalence of textures (u.~ both blemi~h. and appliqucd treatment or concealment) in the usc of colours for the script on the nght: the words appear in tive d11fen:nt colours. on four dilfcrently-cnloured backgrounds.

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References Baudrillard, J. 1994. Simulacra cmd Sim11la1ion, S.F. Glaser (trans.). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Cross, M. 1996. "Reading Television Texts: The Postmodem Language of Advertising". In Ad1·ertiJing undCulmre: nu!oTf'tical Perspectin•s. M. Cross (ed.). 1-10. Westport. Connecticut: Praeger. Cummins, W. 1996. "Love and Liqueur: Modernism and Postmodemism in Advertising and Fiction''. In Adwmising and Culwre: Theorrtical Per.fpeclil't'.f, M. Cross (ed.), 61-74. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. Fischer. A. 1999. "Graphologicallconicity in Print Advertising: A Typology". In Form Miming Mea11ing: /conicity inlA11guage and Literature. M. Ntinny and 0. Fischer (eds), 251-283. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gibbs, R. W. 1994. The Poetin of Mind: Fixuratil·e Thought, Lanxuage, and UtJder.ftanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodman. M. B. 1996. "Burroughs and Advertising: Fractured Language. Fractured Time. Fra~o.1ured Image as the Univer.;al Language". In Adl·ertiJin~:andCulture: Theoretical Perspectives, M. Cross (ed.). 85-90. Westport. Connecticut: Praeger. Jakobson. R. 1960. "Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics". In S~·le inl.attguage. T. Sebeok (ed.), 350-377. Cambridge: Technology Press of MIT. Johansen. J.D. 1996. "Iconicity in Literature". Semiotim 110-112: 37-55. Lakoff, G. and Johnson. M. 1980. Metaphon We Li\'f' By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nanny. M. 1986. "lconicity in Literature". Word a11d lmaxe 2 (3): 199-208. Peirce, C.S. 1955. Philmophical Writings, J. Buchler (ed.). New York: Dover Publications. Williamson. J. 1978. De,·oding Adl·erti.femenu: Ideology a11d Mea11i11g i11 Ad1•erti.~i11g. London: Soyars.

Iconoclasm and iconicity in seventeenth-century English poetry Loretta Innocenli Uni1•ersity of Venice

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Visuality and iconoclasm To adore, or ~l-orn an image. or protest, May all be bad; doubt wbely: in stmn1JC way To stand inquiring right, is not lo stray: To sleepc. or runne wrong. is (Grierson ed. 1912:157.11. 76-79).

In these lines. from his third "Satire", John Donne reveals his sceptkal position in the Refonnation debate on images. Rejecting both idolatry and blind iconocla,.m, he prefers doubt and painful enquiry after truth. This self-same idea is expressed very clearly in one of his sermons: "Vae Jdololatri.f. woe to such advancers of Images. as would throw down Christ rather than his Image: But

Vae /conocl<wis too. woe to such peremptory abhorrers of Pictures j ... ) as had ruther throw down a Church. then let a Picture stand" (Pouer and Simpson eds. 1953-62: 7. 433). In Donne's times. the theological controversy over the use of images opposed the iconoclastic position of the Reformation to the iconophile one of the Counter Refonnation. But. at a deeper level than that of either prohibition or prescription. two conflicting exegetic models were at stake. One considered the sign as literal: the other. based on figurality, searched for meaning on multiple levels. As James Baumlin ( 1991) suggests, in his interesting study on John Donne and the rhetoric of Renaissance discourse. a merely "significative" power wa.'i opposed to an effective - what he calls "performativc" - nature. attributed to

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theological. but also to poetical. language. Therefore. in the world of the Counter Reformation, the word could indulge in a visual and carnal richness, thus tending towards the rhetorical precept of enargeia (el'identia). a figure which makes it

possible to convey a vivid image of inanimate things or still concepts. At the same time. the sign was feh to stand for its referent and even become of the same substance. just as the bread and wine in Tnmsubstantiation are believed by the Catholics 10 be Christ's body and blood. But in a Protestant culture, which denied a divine presence in the Eucharist. and intended the sacrament to be a sign endowed only with commemorative power. the word was believed to have a metonymic relation to its referent. II did not totally substitute it; it only referred to it. thus refusing all metaphoricity. Even its relation with images became one of conflict. and no longer of desire and attraction toward figurality. which was felt to be idolatry. The verbal. since it was to abandon all attempts to symbolize and visualize. had to come to grips with abstraction. The lengthy discussion on iconae was not limited to the field of theology. even if it had remarkable outcomes there. both religious and political: it considerably affected the artistic representation as well. According to Ernest Gilman ( 1986). who has studied the relation between iconoclasm and poetry in the English Renaissance. after the Reformation poetry presented a double tension: to think per imagines and. at the same time. to remove figurality as misleading. as corruption. and sin. 1 The utopian degri :.iro of a neutral mimesis and symbolic representation cla.<>hed but. at the same time. were linked in an uncertain balance. There are cases in which the conftict is, as it were. staged: in which icons. that is to say. signs or texts showing a kind of resemblance to their objects. seem to offer the tr.msparent literalness the Reformation was looking for. The display of iconic devices can be found throughout the history of poetry. as is shown by the thousands of examples - from the more explicitly visual poems to a sort of hidden iconicity - given by many scholars. and particularly by Giovanni Pozzi in his fundamental books on word and image (Pozzi 1981. 1984). Yet iconic poetical artifices have been given special functions. or ideological or aesthetic meanings. in definite cultural contexts. For instance. Herbert's pattern poems are not formally different from ancient teclmopaegnia - Simmias· of Rhodes or Theocritus' poems - and yet they are totally different in their intent. Puttenham thought pattern poems to be only a pleasurable pastime. "fittest for the pretie amourets in Court to entertaine their servants and the time withal!. their delicate wits requiring some commendable exercise to keepe them from idlenesse" (Puttenham 1589: f. 75). Unlike Puttenham.l think Herbert's "Easter Wings" or "The Altar" are not verbal games. They are similar to the medieval poems by Rabanus Maurus. or Porphyrius Optatianus. where

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pmyers or epigrams were interwoven in the text. appearing in the geometrical shape of the cross. or even in the fonn of human figures. To Herben. a.~ to those religious poets, iconicity was a way to retrieve the original knot which tied together word and thing; his wit was a prayer addressed to the Maker. But this was not the ca.o;e with other texts. where poetical skills and wit were not in the service of spirituality. I shall give only a few examples. out of the many possible. In one of Davies' sonnets ("The sacred Muse that first made love devine"), the God of Love is clothed by the poet ('"But I will cloth him with this penn of myne'', 3). and his garments are listed from the top of the head (the ''hat of hope" of I. 5) to the tip of the toe (the ''socks of sullenness" of I. 14). In the exact middle of the sonnet. the anaphoric repetitions of "his" are interrupted. and so are the symmetrical alliterative divisions of the Jines: His halt of hope. hi~ bande of bcautye line His clnakc of crafte. his doblctt of dcliyrc Grcifc for a ginlell. shall about him twync His pointes of pride. his llctholes of yre His hose of hate. his Codpiece of conceite (Woudhuysen, ed. 1992: 251, II. 5-9).

Line seven corresponds to the waist. the central part of the 'body' of the poem. and is marked by words suggesting roundness - "girdle", "about", and "twine" - and by a ehiastic pattern of sounds -"grief for a girdle"= (g)[rl ltllfl[r)[g]. The eye moves in reading as it would do in beholding a human body from top to toe. The whole sonnet is like a complete portrait. with all its parts arr.mged. vertically. in space. A similar device is adopted by Herrick in his ''The Descripcion: of a Woman" (Martin ed. 1956:404-406), a verbal portmit beginning with "Whose head befringed ... ".and ending with "thus I kiss thy foot" The poet's dexterity here comes to the foreground. offered as a gallant homage. It is the same kind of skill we find in Herrick's "Wounded Heart" (Martin cd. 1956: 10-11 ), where the last lines. in their varying length. assume the form of a drop of blood. What are Rabelais' lists. his typographical whims. and the poem in the form of a bottle in the "Cinquieme Livre" of Garga1111m a11d Ptmtagmel? Are they mere games. or a burlesque key to decipher the world's great hieroglyphic. a parody of theological and academic erudition? The enormous amount of different iconic experiences range from bizarre artificiality to a more overtly 'serious' function. as in Herbert and Herrick (HesperideJ. Noble N11mbers). If I seem to attribute a 'serious' function to the cases which are in the service of spirituality. the rca'ion is that the search for a 'motivated' word. a sort of prelapsarian language. expressing a necessary and intrinsic connection between

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fonn and meaning. is somewhat chamcteristic of religious poetry. Here. as in the profane poetical experiences which adopted the models of theology, iconicity becomes particularly interesting, when. both cullurally and morally. images and visuality are rejected or merely distrusted. The seventeenth century is marked by epistemological and semiotic doubt and by opposing theological views, but also by the explicit search for signs and language tit to speak about reality. and for a poetic expression to communicate doubt.

2.

The rejection of figurality

A metapoctic reflection on the instruments of poetry is charucteristic of Donne and of Milton; the )alter wonders what language can be used "to justify the w<~yes of God to men'' (Darbishire ed. 1958:6. Paradise Lo.n. I, 26). More generally. all religious poetry has to face the problem of the semiotic and linguistic means at its disposal to communicate the transcendent. and to communicate with it. In particular. rejecting figumlity or trying to set it aside and find a better word. free from the symbolic. means explicitly rejecting two rhetorical figures: allegory and metaphor. The latter. by asserting the essential equivalence between the signifier and the signified. recalls idolatry, in which the icon is loved as a substitute for its denotatum. On the other hand. allegory. even if it is the product of a symbolic culture which tends to sinfully think through images. was nonetheless recognized to have a strong didactic function. and to be a fit instrument to communicate to uneducated receivers lofty matters. or metaphysicul objects, too strong for reason. I shall consider two textual instances of this rebuttal of figumlity. In the first - a pa-.sage from Book II of Milton's Paradi.~e Lmt - allegory is shown as negative. while in the second - Donne's "A Noctumall upon St Lucies Day"metaphor is set aside a-. inadequate. And yet. in both verbal iconicity is employed and stands out against an iconoclastic trend. This is exactly the point I would like to make: when images are rejected and visual representation is distrusted. poetry still tries to represent immaterial objects by resorting to iconicity. namely to a conceptual or verbal one. 2.1 Di.wnissing allegory In Milton's epic poem. there are many iconic instances. In Book II. 1021-22 (Darbishire ed. 1958: 52). the uselessness of striving is rendered by the circularity of the signifiers in a chiastic pattern - "So hee with difficulty and labour hard I

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Mov'd on. with difficulty and labour hee" - where the wheeling movement is pivoted on the central verb ''mov'd on". A similar example can be found in what the Son tells God in Book VI, 732-33 ("Thou shalt be All in All. and I in thee/ For ever, and in mee all whom thou lov'st", Ibid.: 44. italics mine) where the chiastic position of pronouns indicates God (''thou'', "thee'') as the beginning.thc end. and the center of all things. and the Son himself ('"I", "mcc") as a mediator between God and creation (''All"). A last example comes from Book IX. which opens with "No more", and ends with "without end". These negative expressions. which seem to contradict their place in the text. serve as a fr.tmework to the fundamental negative event recounted in the poem. namely. the Fall of man. which implies the loss of a blissful state ('"no more") and his future sinful condition ("'without end"). In the poem. however. there is a still more interesting case of iconicity. which is highlighted by the contrasting presence of allegory. Paradise Lmt is pervaded with materialness. God is anthropomorphically represented. and spiritual essences have bodies. and yet the only allegories we find in the text seem incongruous. The two monsters. Sin and Death. whom Satan meets at the gates of Hell. and the whole Court surrounding the throne of Chaos. namely Disorder. Chance, Confusion. Discord. and so on. rather than characters of a baroque religious drama seem personifications out of an ancient morality play. The two encounters with allegorical beings provide a framework for Satan's voyage through Chaos. that is to say. through uncreated matter. the original void. the "wilde abyss" (Ibid.: 49, II. 910), which he has to cross in order to get to Eden and to his victims. Representing what has no form. no order. what is-notyet, constitutes a remarkable challenge for the poetical word. In between the ''impetuous recoile and jarring sound" (Ibid.: 48. II. 880) of Hell's gate opened by Sin. and the meeting with the allegory of Chaos. personified as "the Anarch old/With faultring speech. and visage incompos'd" (Ibid.: 51. II. 988-989). Satan's voyage is not described visually. through images. On the contrdl')'. it is a progressive moving away from the sense of sight. in a circular journey through the other senses. Standing in front of the gate Sin has opened for him to pass. Satan and his menstruous compeers see inside Chaos as in a large furnace: Before thir eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoarie Deep, a dark Illimitable Ocean without bound Without dimension. where length. bredth. and highth. And time and place are lost (Ibid.: 48, 890-894).

Having drawn near the edge of the abyss. Satan again looks into it. but this time he also hean the frightening noise coming out of it:

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LORETIA INNOCENTI Into this wilde Abys~ the warie Fiend Stood on the brink of Hell and lookd a while, Pondering his Voyage; for no narrow frith He had to cross. Nor wa.o; his care Je.o;s peald With noises loud and ruinous (lo compare Great things with small) then when Bellona storms {Ibid.: 49. 917-922).

At the end or his crossing. the meeting with Chaos is introduced by hearing first. and then sight. which in mirror fashion come back to the foreground. Satan hears: At length a universal hubbub wilde Of stunning sounds and voices all confus'd Born through the hollow dark assaulls his care With loude~t vehemem:e (lbid.: 50, 951-954).

Then he sees again: .. When stmit behold the Throne/of Chaos, and his dark Pavilion spred/Widc on the wasteful Deep'' (959-961). In the middle. where perception is neither visual nor aural. there is Satan's body. which. by occupying it. and moving through it. gives space dimension. Once the fiend has plunged into the void, only his movements are recorded. and they seem to have no human gravitationaJ logic. They are represented a.'i directionless. subject to chance and to the continuous vcuying density of what surrounds him. But, what is more interesting. they are represented with a masterly example of iconicity. Three lines, almost exclusively composed of monosyllables. mime the rapidity of the metamorphosis around Satan. and his difficulty in proceeding. And they mime all this through a sequence of clashing consonants. which do not allow the line to How fluently. and through the repetition of the conjunction "or", which phonetically and semantically separates rnpidly successive actions. all different: so eagerly the Fiend Ore bog or steep. through strait. rough. dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings. or feet persues his way. And swim!> or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or tlyes (947-950).

This episode. so insistently iconic. stands out against the aJJegories which precede and follow it. as a different sort of representation. That these allegories are connoted negatively is revealed by the fact that they symbolize negative concepts. but also by the fact that the whole episode is set in a metapoetical framework. where the limits of representation are considered. Before Satan's meeting with Sin and Death is recounted, hell has been described with sublime tones in a crescendo. until language has paused to consider its limits in representing monstrosity. Before starting his tale. the poet hints at ineffability and at the

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fictions of ancient fables. the fables that have made evil and heirs horrors concrete. i.e. that have created allegories and visible monsters. It is almost a way of pointing to what will follow in the text. namely the creation of allegorical monstrous figures to represent evil: through many a dark and drearic: Vale They passd. and many a Region doloroos. Ore many a Frozen. many a Fierie AI )X'. Rock.~. Caves. Lakes. Fens, Bogs. Dens, and shades of death, A Universe of death. which God by curse Created evil. for evil onely good. Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds, Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable. inutterable, and worse Then Fables yet have feignd. or fear conceiv'd, Gorxmu and H,,·dra's. and Cl!imera:f dire (Ibid.: 42. 618--628).

After Satan has reached his final destination. at the beginning of the third book. the invocation to Light is counterbalanced by the explicit reference to the poet"s blindness. who can sing the invisible. just because he cannot see: So much the rather thou Celestial Light Shine inward. and the mind through all her powers Irradiate. there plant eyes. all mist from thence Purge and disperse. That I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight (Ibid.: 54--55. Ill, 51-55).

Visuality is censured. and exhibited as the means fit only to portray evil, and. in the very core of the episode of Satan's voyage. the representation of the uncreated resorts to verbal iconicity.

2.2

Di.~carding

metaphor

A similar process can be noticed in John Donne, whose poetry Hagstrum thought to be characterized by a "tendency to be unpictorial. conversational. and witty" (Hagstrum 1958: 113). Metaphysical wit in fact is defined by the critics also a~ the opposite: a-. the use of far-fetclred, extended images, which assail the reader with a sense of wonder and require him or her to make an effort of interpretative participation. In "A Noctumall upon St. Lucies Day", a poem whose object is the immaterialness of death, Donne explicitly rejects images and looks for a nondescriptive expression, which does not apply to the sense of sight nor appeal to the inner eye of imagination. and yet attempts to be iconic.

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Ancient Sophists already knew that neither being nor attributes could be ascribed to something which has no referent nor existence. except through the via negath·a. which later mystics would consider as the only way to speak of the infinite and of nothingness, of God and of not-being. So. how is it possible to speak of death. of the 'not being any longer'. which constitutes one of the 10poi of the seventeenth century and. like Nothing. opens up a void and deletes Vitruvian measures and proportions. when the concept of death is not given an allegorical body. nor is rendered through metaphors? In Donne's poem an exegetic way is pointed out to the reader. and it has the clarity of a watermark. subtly illuminating the text: Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes. Lucies. who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes. 1be Sunne is spent. and now his flasks Send forth light squibs. no constant rayes: The worlds whole sap is sunke: The gener.dl balmc th 'hydroptique earth hath drunk. Whither. a~ to the beds-feet. life is shrunkc. Dead and enterr'd; yet all these seeme to laugh. Compar'd with mee. who am their Epitaph. Study me then. you who shall lovers bee At the next world. that is. at the next Spring: For I am every dead thing. In whom love wrought new Alchimie. For his an did ex.presse A quintessence even from nothingnessc, From dull privations, and leane emptincssc: He ruin'd mee. and I am re-bcgot Of absence. darlmessc. death: things which arc not. All oChers. from all things. draw all that's good. Life. soule, fonne. spirit. whence they bceing have: I. by loves limbecke. am the grave Of aJI, that's nothing. Oft a flood Have wee two wept. and so Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow To be two Chaosscs, when we did show Care to ought else: and often absenL'ts Withdrew our soules. and made us carcasses. But I am by her death. (which word wrongs her) Of the first nothing. the Elix.er grown: Were I a man. that I wett one,

10

15

20

25

30

ICONOCLASM AND !CONICITY IN ENGLISH POETRY I needs must know: I should preferre. If I were any bea~t. Some ends. some means; Yea plants, yea stones detest, And love: All. all some propcnies invest: If I an ordinary nothing were. As shadow, a light. and body must be here. But I am None: nor will my Sunnc renew. You lovers, for whose sake. the lesser Sunnc At this time to the Goat is runne To fetch new lust. and give it you, Enjoy your summer all: Since shec enjoyes her long nights festivall. Let mee prepare towards her. and let mcc call This houre her Vigill. and her Eve, since this Both the yeares. and the dayes deep midnight is. {Grierson ed. 1912:44-45)

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35

40

45

1be opening. apocalyptic, images of a "'spent"' sun. of a dried and thirsty earth. of a life ..shrunk" "'lO the beds-feet". are all denied. 1be concrete imagery. first military. then organic. is rejected with a conscious gesture. at once scornful and ironic: all the~ seem to laugh. Compar'd with mec. who am their Epitaph (8-9).

The metaphors of a universal death. which involves "The Sunne. the world. the earth.life" itself. no longer suffice to communicate the sense of loss. of absence: they seem aJmost light-hearted when compared to their epitaph. In the poem this corresponds to a shift from the almost visual materiality of a dark universe without life-sap to the metalinguistic consciousness of a representation made of words (the epitaph), which is valued as an exemplary piece of writing ("Study me then". 10). These three lines (8 to 10) show the readers ("you who shall lovers bee") the place where the meaning of the text must be looked for and divert their attention from the opening metaphors where the four elements seemed to contribute to the general disease turning it to the subject himself. identified with a sepulchral ituaiptioll. Let us see then how the subject (the structures his presence in the text. First. contrary to all other grammatical subjects. who are attributed different actions. the I is subject only of the verb to be. through which he tries to find an identity. to verify his essence. Every time he appears, the I is something: "[I[ am their Epitaph" (9): ··1 am every dead thing" (12): "I am re-begot" (17): "I am [... [the grave/Of all" (21-22): "I am [... [/Ofthe first nothing, the Elixer grown" (28-29): "But I am None" (37); to say nothing of those lines. from 30 to 36. that

n

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present hypotheses ("Were I a man ... ". ''If I were any beast. .".and so forth). where identities are proposed and rejected, and where the only actions ("I needs must know; I should preferre''. 31) are conditional. showing an absurd and negative possibility which is immediately rctmcted. As the first "I am'' (9) identifies the I with writing. with the verbal signs of an epitaph and with the refusal of images. so. symmetrically, the last "I am None" denies all the preceding hypotheses. which attempted to find a place for the I in the Chain of Being. from man down through animals. plants, minernls, to "an ordinary nothing", the shadow projected by a body. Once again, what is refused is the materiality both of a real body and of its image as the shadow, for Plato and in Neoplatonic thought. is the sign of something. an anamorphic, distoned image which refers to reality (cf. Gilman 1978: 168. and Innocenti 1995). Yet. a different type of materiality is focused upon: that of words. and panicularly of poetical words, which are given a meaningful form. The poem. in its structure. reproduces two distinct movements interacting at the level of meaning: the circular motion of the stars and of human time. and the linear one of alchemical transformation. These two dimensions. or semantic levels. also correspond to. or are revealed by. two neologisms present in the text.

2.2.1 The icons of cirndarity The first neologism is in the title. The term 'noctumall'. according to the O.E.D .. appeared in the English language with the meaning of 'night-piece' for the first. and apparently the only. time in 1631. in Donne's So11gJ a11d Sonet.f. It recalls the word 'noctum·. a night office according to the Catholic ritual: something similar to that "Vigill" or "Eve" of the penultimate line ("Let mee call/ This hour her Vigill. and her Eve". 43-44). The word. newly coined by Donne. is first of all an existing adjective which becomes a noun. But the term 'noctumall', besides being a neologism derived from the substantivization of an adjective. had a funher meaning a'\ a noun. which I do not think has ever been pointed out in analyses of Donne's poem. Curiously enough. a 'noctumall' wao;; a kind of ao;;trolabe. a scientific instrument devised to calculate the time of night according to the position of the stars. The O.E.D. registers 1627 as the first entry. but the British Museum owns a specimen built by Humfray Cole much earlier. and in time for Donne and his contemporaries to have known it. Dr Johnson in his Dictionary (1755) defined it as: "An instrument by which observations are made in the night". It is not by accident. then. that the poem open.~ with a remark on the hour of the night. in a line repeated circularly at the end. In the term 'nociUmall', Donne fuses the semantic areas of astronomical

ICONOCLASM AND !CONICITY IN ENGLISH POETRY

observation and literary genre. two kinds of representation of the

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unive~e

-

geometrical and verbal. The whole poem is structured by means of parallelisms and repetitions. It

is actually a circular text. It opens and ends with the same word ("Tis", "is") and with the same dark midnight of the year and of the day: time rewinds in a circular fashion to recover the winter solstice. St. Lucy's day. the darkest, and the same central night hour. In a symbolic way, death appears a..; a ouroboro.f, the snake whose shape, rolled in a circle. indicates eternity but also. paradoxically. the coincidence of first and last ('") am Alpha and Omega. the beginning and the ending'', Re~·elation. I. 8). In the same way. other levels of the text have a circular structure and their elements face each other as in a mirror, going back to the starting point. This happens with the two connected dimensions of personal pronouns and time. Thus. the beginning is marked by the present tense and by the third person (the neutral "it" of the opening descriptions and the "she'', referring to Lucy): in the second stanza. the lovers enter the stage as "you" and the reference is to the future ( 10-1 I) and next we find the ")" and his alchemical transfonnation again in the present. In the exact centre of the poem the pronoun "wee" (23) shifts the attention to an irretrievable past. Only after revolving on the pivot of memory and around this union ('"wee two"f'us two", 23-24).2 can the following stanza explicidy declare the occasion of the poem and the cause of such annihilation. revea1ing the event which until now has not been mentioned: "her death". The inverse way leads back to the alchemical transformation of the "I'' and to his present: then. in the last stanza. to the future of "you lovers" and eventually to the same present of the beginning. That past time referred to in the centre of the poem is almost a midday hour opposed to the dark midnight of the first and last lines: or it is a summer solstice along the circular orbit of the year. On both sides we find the centrifugal symmetry of the three stages already analysed: the present situation of the "I". resulting from an alchemicaJ distillation: the future of ''sublunary" lovers enjoying a human time dimension made of seasons and marked by "the lesser Sunne" ('"at the next Spring". II: "Enjoy your summer a])". 41): and lastly the dark. sullen present of absence and death. At the centre there is a lost unity. impossible to recreate. as is shown by the separo1tion of "wee" into a "shee" and an")". Every other plural fonn - the "you" of living earthly lovers. or the "others" ( 19-20). alive too- refers to beings belonging to a different world. away from the unity of perfect love.ln particular. these other beings are denoted as "all" ( 19. 34 twice -, 41). as the very opposite of what the poet declares to be: "nothing": I, by loves limbcckc. am the gr.m: Of all. that's nothing (20-21).

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The future earthly lovers can enjoy their summer. provided the poet is allowed to reach his dead love (""Let mee prepare towards her. and let mee call/ This hour her Vigill. and her Eve ... ", 43-44) and to call this moment. dedicating it to her verbally. This word, ..call", belongs to the semantic field of metaJanguage present in the te~t. with its references to writing. to words. which arc all to be found in the sections of the poem centred on the present. Once again. symmetrically. the prayer at the end. to be free to use terms, give names. choose them and comment on their inadequacy, as in line 28, where a sentence in brackets admits the impropriety of the word "death", corresponds to the epitaph which is to be studied. at the beginning. The present. the place of writing. is characterized on the one hand by these metalinguistic allusions. a.'i if they were pointing to something to be studied. to be discovered in the text: on the other hand it is marked by the alchemy that ha.-. distilled the subject. reducing him to a negative essence. Yet the verb used to denote the process carried out. "expresse" ( 14). selected in preference to the synonyms 'distill', and 'extrdct'. also denotes a verbal representation. an utterance in words. What then if the text should require the reader to pay attention just to this distillation? What if the process of the subject being tmnsformed into words. into an epitaph. were the solution to representing death and Nothing? 2.2.2 The imaRes ofnorltingneu Alchemy works as a womb r·t am re-begot/Of absence. darknesse. death; things which are no!''. 17-18) and as a romb ("1. by loves limbecke. am the grave/Of all. that's nothing". 21-22).~ Both nouns. linked by their similar sounds. denote the 1·as alcllemicwtl, or 'vessel'. the container where chemical tr.msformation used to take place: according to L. Abraham. "the events that occurred within it were a dramatic representation in microcosm of the happenings in the macrocosm" (Abraham 1990: 121 ). Once again. then. we find images of beginning and ending, in two lines where positive and negative are reversed. but with the same annihilating result: rebirth grows out of darkness and death. while the tomb contains ''all". Positiveness is made of negatives and negativeness encloses everything. that is to say. all that is positive. Yet the real pan1dox this poem achieves and insists upon. is to speak of Nothing through affirmative statements. In only one case a verb - not by accident the verb to be - is present in its negative form. and that is at the end of the second stanza. in line 17: "absence. darknesse. death: things which are not". The/. on the contrary. i.L Not only is he alive, notwithstanding her death ("which word wrongs her") and his wish to reach her. at a deeper level. the I

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cannot but assert his own being. because. in order to speak about Nothing. one must exist and use words. full and not empty forms. This is why Nothing. absence. and death can only be represented concretely: the aspiration that the object and the instruments of communication can coincide falls short. In spite of all polysemy, ambiguity and abstraction. words go on living as present objects and language cannot but signify its own presence at the same time as it intends to communicate a chasm of sense. As Donne wrote in The Broketr Heart: Yet nothing can to nothing fall Nor any place be empty quite (Grierson ed. 1912:49, II. 25-26).

Well aware that words are paradoxical instruments. and that they are endowed with a form and a materiality through which even the immaterial and non-being must be expressed. Donne played the verbal game to its extreme consequences. up to. as it were. an essentialization or. to keep the alchemical metaphor. a distillation. What alchemy does to the subject. sublimating him into a quintessence. or elixir. is exactly what takes place in the text at a verbal level. with Donne's second lexical creation. "nothingness". which ha'\ been more successful. having been adopted in standard usage. but which. as far as I know. has escaped the attention of scholars. I hope its being commonly used will not prevent us from recognizing its innovative significance and realizing its importance to my argument 'Nothingness' is. for the O.E.D .. another tenn that appeared for the first time in this poem. and was given the meaning of 'non existence. that which is non-existent': that is to say. it denoted the absence of existence. while a little later it would mean 'absence of value' as well. What seems remarkable. however, is that in this case. too, the operation is a substantivization. carried out on 'nothing' through the suffix ·-ness', a suffix which is generally tagged on to adjectives to 'extract' or 'express' from them a nominal essence. The tenn "nothing" appears in the poem three times: the first time as a quantifier to mean generically 'nothing' (22); the second time the presence of the article makes it "the first nothing", the primeval emptiness which was the origin of Creation: and the third time. in decreasing stages. just as the "I" descends the Chain of Being. it becomes "an ordinary nothing".like a shadow. "I am None". in line 17 refers to all the preceding hypotheses in order to reject them all as identities for the /, but the capital letter seems to give "none" the meaning of 'no one', nobody. thus specifically answering the first of those possibilities ("were I a man"). Just as in "Lovers Infiniteness" Donne deals with the infinite and ironically makes the concept of "All" relative ("All was but All. which thou hadst then",

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Grierson ed. 1912: 17. I. 13), here he speaks about "nothing" offering all possible variations, and showing the approximation of the language used to represent it. But at the same time he creates a word to signify an absolute. essential nothing: a neologism. not yet corrupted by use. a noun to express (also with the meaning of 'distill' or 'extract') the essence of the denotafllm. The fact that the term was used by Donne only once. in this poem. renders this linguistic creation all the more important. Either as a device to exorcize Nothing. or as a painful admission that words cannot express the void except with their cumbersome fullness, in Donne's poetry the verbal prevails over the image, even over the metaphysical, far-fetched images of Wunderkommer objects. It prevails with its argumentative constructions. but also with its mctalinguistic. self-referential twistings. The verbal triumphs in miming the cyclical returns of time and in neologisms. in the word that extracts the essence not just of reality. but rather of another word. More than in other poets. iconicity here exemplifies how abstract and transcendent topics are iconoclastically rendered: how death, and God. and Nothing. belong to the realm of the Logos and of its expression as a word. and are transubstantiated into it. by progressively losing corporeity. In other word'i, to poets such a.o; John Donne. verbal iconicity can reproduce dematerialization and abstraction. but no human image could ever lawfully and adequately represent either metaphysical objects or the material substance of a divine body. That is why I think we have a fitting definition of this process, when Donne's alchemy succeeds in transforming the body of the subject into the words of an epitaph. in a metamorphosis which is the exact opposite of the Word which, as is well known. "cam factum est."

Notes I.

On the one hand we lind the Neuplatonic. Ficinian belief that man\ power to create ima&es is a spark of divine intellect. or Bruno's idea that thinkmg b equivalent to speculating through images. On !he other hand, Rami.~tic logic. i.e. Petru~ Ramus's 'mc:thtxl' of memorizing without the usc of tmages through the dialectic dtsposition uf elements in gr.tpht~; diagrums. seems to suppon it.-onocla,m. especially in Protestant countries (cf. Yate~ 19801. On Ramus's in11uent.-con konidty. see alMI the works both of Rosemond Tuve ( 1942: 365-400) and of Walter Ong (195M. 1959, 19821.

2.

In '"Elegy: his Picture"' the same pattern occurs: tlilferent pronominal positions confront each othc:r. but in the middle of the poem the pronouns tt"l'l' and 1u appear. For the function of similar patterns in Donne's poetry, cf. Rullni 1992.

3.

Alchemy i~ here referretl to not a~ a static symbohc s\"slrm. matle of analogical substitutions. but a~ a sublimatmg pmcl'ss; words do not replace lheir •mmaterial referent. but. iL\ through a 'distillation'.they iL\SUmc its immateriality. its emptine~s. its non-existence.

ICONOCLASM AND !CONICITY IN ENGLISH POETRY

225

References Abraham. L. 1990. Mun·elf and Alchem)·. Aldershot: Scolar Press. Baumlin, J. S. 1991. John Doll lit! cmd the Rhetoric.f of Renai.uana Di.fCO/IT.ft!. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press. Oarbishire. H. 1958. The Poeti<·a/ Worb of John Milton. London: Oxford University Press. Gilman. E. B. 1978. The Curiou.f Perspectil·e: Literary and Pictorial Wit ill the Sel·emeenth Century. New Haven and London, Yale University Press. Gilman, E. B. 1986. lconoda:mr and Poetry in tire English Reformation. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Grierson, H.J.C. (ed.) 1912. The Pnt'ms of Jolm Donne. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hagstrom, J. 1958. The Sistn Arts. The Tradition of Literary Pictoriulism and £11glish Poetry from Dr;.·den to Gray. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Johnson, S. 1755. A Dictionary of the Engli.fh Language. In two volumes. London: W. Strahan. Innocenti, L. 1995. '"A Lecture upon the Shadow': Truth and Representation··. In Counting and Recomuing: Meo.furing Inner and Omer Span!;, tl1e Re11aissal/ce. P. Boualla and M. Calderaro (eds). 129-148. Trieste: La Mongolfiera. Martin, LC. 1956. Tl1e Poetical Works of Robert Herrick. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ong. W. 1958. Ranuu. Method and the Decay of Dialogue. Cambridge, Ma.~s.: Harvard University Press. Ong, W. 1959 ...From Allegory to Diagram in the Renaissance Mind". Tl1e Joumal of Aesthetics a11d Art Critidsm 17: 423-440. Ong. W. 1982. Orality o11d Uteracy. The Technologi:i11g ofthl' Word. London: Methuen. Potter, G.R. and Simpson. E.M. (eds) 1953-62. The Sermon.t of John Donne. 10 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press. Poui. G. 1981. Loparoladipinta. Milano: Adelphi. Poui. G. 1984. Poesia per giom. Prontuurio di figure artificiou. Bologna: II Mulino. Puttenham, G. 1589. The Arte of the English Poesie. London: Richard Field. Rufini. S. 1992. Scritture anamorfotiche. Napoli: Edizioni Scitmtifiche ltaliane. Tuve, R. 1942. "Imagery and Logic: Ramus and Metaphysical Poetics... Journal of the Hi.ttory of Ideas 3: 365-400. Woudhuysen, H.R. (ed.) 1992. The Pt>llgllin Book of Re11t1i.t.tam·e Vern• /509-1659. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Yates. F. 1980. Tlte Art of Memory. Chicago and London: Univen.ity of Chicago Press.

PART

IV

Iconicity in grammatical structures

Structural iconicity The English S- and OF-genitives C. Jac Conradie Rand Afrikaans Unil't'r,{it)•

I.

Introduction

One of the diachronic forces which not only helps maintain certain constructions but also shapes the basic structure of an entire language, is structur.d iconicity. It will be argued below that the basic Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) sentence structure of a language such as English iconically reflects the How of time in terms of events experienced and reported upon. The relationship between SVO structure and structural iconicity will be considered more ex.tensively in Section 2. To account for the way SVO and other structures are causally linked to 'events' as basic formative units. an 'event model' is suggested in Section 3. One corollary of structural iconicity is that pa.'\sives. as far as a sequence such as agent-action-goal is concerned. are in fact anti-iconic and require case marking (if available) or verb marking to remain on a dynamic par with actives for the purposes of textual versatility. The replacement of BE by HAVE as an auxiliary also of the mutative verbs after the loss of the dynamic or process passive. which may be construed as an isomorphic strengthening of passive marking. constitutes indirect proof of structunll iconicity as a factor in language change. This matter will be returned to in Section 4 below. While the replacement of BE as mutative auxiliary might be a somewhat negative and indirect demonstration of structural iconicity as a language factor. a far clearer demonstration is found in the development of the prenominal S-genitive in English, which will be considered in Section 5. The textual preference for -S as against for instance Of. and in certain instances for Of a.'i

230

C. lAC CONRADIE

against -S. is motivated to a large extent by aspects of the Event Model. This will be illustmted in Section 6 with reference to the distribution of S- and OF-genitives in a limited corpus. ("Genitive' is to be understood here in a periphrastic or phrao;al sense rather than the morphologically marked case.)

2.

SVO structure and structural iconicity

Structur.ll iconicity occurs when the structure of linguistic elements. as manifested in their ordering in particular. may be shown to reflect a process or state of affairs in extralinguistic reality or our perception of reality. and is violated when the ordering of linguistic elements may be shown to run counter to extralinguistic reality. Structural iconicity is a special case of diagrammatic iconicity. being related not only to the way the order of words corresponds to the order of events (Haiman 1994a: 1630). but also to word order characteristics of specific grammatical constructions. The gntdual drift of many languages towards a basic SYO order and the fact that most creoles have come into being and persist as SYO languages, is likely to be an important manifestation of structural iconicity. Danchev (1991: 115-116) mentions the possibility of the change to SYO order in English being part of a "common continental European shift" towards SYO order. This is explained a.<; a Sprachb1111d feature. where the contact as such is seen a." the primary motivation for change. Danchev. however. also states the possibility that ''the SYO order should be regarded as simpler./ess marked a11d more icmric" (my emphasis - CJC) than SOY (and other constituent orders). In what sense. then. could an SYO structure be regarded as iconic? Given that entities/things and actions/activities are conceived of as a basic distinction in perception. two universal but complementary strategies of sentence construction come to mind a'i possible ways of dealing with the relationship between them: (i) a clas.fificatory strategy of grouping together elements similar in status. viz. the entities vs. the action. as would be exemplified by SO-Y or Y-SO structures, and (ii) an actil'ii~·-based strategy with the action in the centre (not only figuratively. but also literally) and entities relegated to the periphery. Though it is to be expected that any universal trait of language is iconically motivated in some sense. the present claim in regard to iconicity docs not apply to the former or other conceivable strategies, but only to the latter. i.e. the relation between SYO structures and activity. While 'activity' is related. on the one hand.to abstractions such as 'process' and 'time'. a basic perception of how things 'happen' in everyday life. on the

STRUCTURAl !CONICITY: THE ENGliSH S- AND OF-GENITIVES 23 I

other hand. would be that they consist of discrete occurrences. incidents or events. usually with a beginning and an end. Language as such may be consid· ered as having the reporting of events or incidents. i.e. narrativity. as one of its primary functions. Thus. in as far as verbs eltpressing activity have non-verbal entities as 'borders'. SVO structures may be said to be iconic of events.

3.

The E"ent Model

The narrative unit. schema or template on which SVO (and other) structures are modelled and of which they are iconic. will be referred to here as the Event Model.

In the cognitive theoretical sense in which ''linguistic structures are the reflection of the world not as it is. but as it is perceived by a cognizant human being" (Tabakowska 1999:410), however. the match between an SVO sequence and the 'event" is not perfect. While the Agent is not identical with the beginning of an action (and may be present before. during and after the action. strictly speaking). it may be causally usso(_·iated with the beginning of an action as the initiator or controller or the entity taking the initiative. In the same way the Patient, or the Goal as the target of the action. if present. may be cu·soc:iared with the end of an action. This association is strictly from the point of view of the route of physical (and metaphorically extended) action. Although the Goal may well be the first thing a speaker has in mind in forming a sentence strategy (thus. in giving someone a gift. people normally don't go about looking for possible receivers of an object they procured. but only procure it when they have a receiver in mind). this and every other 'experiential" order is explicitly excluded from the model to restrict its predictions. The iconic relationship between a linguistic construction and its 'source' may be expressed schematically as follows: Table I. The Erent Model

Structural icon:

Beginning ..

action ...

end.

Agent, controller

transitive verb

Patient, goal. theme. etc.

More than as a mere syntactic sequence. the Event Model should also be understood to include the full illocutionary force, and the normal information spread (i.e. from 'given' to 'new'} and truth value of a statement. The sequence expressed in the model. however. remains a basic trait and deviations from it should be accounted for. While an SVO main clause in the active is directly

232

C. JAC CONRADIE

compatible with the Model. the relationship between the Model and the genitive is such that all S-genitives (and only a small subset of oF-constructions) are characterised by presuppositions compatible with the Model. While the Event Model is at all times available to speakers of whatever language, the diachronics of a given language will probably be characterised by a gradual conformity with or deviution from the model. In the Germanic family. English. for instance. moved gradually from a fairly free word-order language with mixed SVO/SOV char.acteristics towards a strict SVO language.ln languages such a.~ German. Dutch and Afrikaans the development of SVO struciUres characterises main rather than dependent clauses. Main clauses are in general the principal carriers of a narrative. Models similar to the Event Model have been posited in connection with the origin of the possessive. an important element of the genitive, which will be dealt with below. Heine (1997:47-50. 74). who ha.•; shown that possessive constructions in the languages of the world originate from a small set of "Event Schemas", points out that the "Action Schema" (X takes Y > X has/owns Y. etc.) was the source of possessive constructions as they arose independently in several lndo·European (and other) languages. While the Event Model. as intended here, differs from the Action Schema in being an ever-present force mainly affecting the usage of constructions already present in the language rather than an 'action verb' giving rise to a possessive construction, what the two have in common is a propensity for a dynamic model in certain languages. Before considering the part played by the Event Model in the selection and interpretation of English S- and OF-genitives. we will take a brief look at a diachronic development which may provide evidence for the existence of a construct such as the Event Model.

4.

Mutative verbs

In order to handle perspective in discourse. as in She .mil" the di11o.mllr a11d wa.~ co11vinced. many languages have a process or dynamic passive at their disposal to match the active. which is by nature -or by the grace of the Event Model dynamic and process oriented. Characterising the Dutch worden pa.-'isive as a dynamic process. Comelis (1997:95. 257) observes that this worden plus pa.-'it participle construction "profiles a process. which is caused by an external causer ... ".and adds: "Because of the dynamic character of the process (towards a final state) that worden contributes to the construction"s meaning, the causer of that process is always and necessarily implied. In bel:.ij11. however.the process is less

STRUCTURAL ICONICITYo THE ENGLISH S- AND OF-GENITIVES 233

dynamic ... However. being essentially anti-iconic in terms of the Event Model. the passive requires formal process marking to highlight its anti-iconic sentence perspective. In as much as this isomorphic passive marking is threatened through language change in a particular language. it is predictable that such a language would try to compensate for the loss of passive marking in some way or other. A parallel but unrelated change which was completed in two languages. viz. English and Afrikaans, during the course of the nineteenth century. may be readily explained as (partial) compensation for the loss of dynamic passive marking and therefore serves as indirect confirmation of the iconic edge the active has on the passive because of the Event Model. This change concerns the replacement of BE by HAVE as auxiliary for verbs of movement or change. such as come. the so-called mutative verbs. in the periphrastic tenses. The verbal string in I am come. for instance. was aligned to the passive. as in I am o1•ercome (by). By means of the change to I llm•e come this verb was brought in line with the active present (I come) and preterite (I came). This meant the loss of the mutative category as a fonnal category stmddling the active and pa-.sive. In the case of English. after the disappearance of weorj,an 'become· as dynamic passive auxiliary in Old English, beon 'be' served both as the marker of (statal) passives and (non-passive) mutative verbs in the periphrastic tenses. Through the loss of its mutative function. BE subsequently became more isomorphic with the p<~ssivc. be it a st<~tal passive. Meanwhile other mechanisms have arisen of rendering the passive more dynamic or process-oriented. as in Tile house is being .wid. Denison (1993: 344. 366) states that "[t)he history of the BE perfect in English ha-. been one of continuous retre
234

C. JAC CONRADIE

While an SVO sentence in the active reflects an event perception of extralinguistic reality. a construction such as lhe English S-genitive in its tum reflects this SVO structure. The oF-genitive, however, also has certain chamcteristics in common with the SVO structure (cf. Section 6.1). Why, then. select the S- above

the OF-genitive in any particular instance of usage'! The reason is that in the preference for -S not only the ordering of clements in an SVO structure plays a part but also a presupposition that A indeed has B. has createtl B. etc. as would be presupposed in a main clause SVO structure used with full illocutionary force. An S-genitive, in shan. is iconic of a full-Hedged main clause, while an OF-gen-

itive isn 'I. While this iconicity detennines the selection of -S above OF. one should nevertheless not lose sight of the fact that the S-genitive. in view of the absence of a verb in its structure, is not to be equated with a full clause. The likeness between an S-genitive and a fully functional SVO main clause will next be considered.

5.

The development of the S-genitive

According to Greenberg's (1968a:78) second universal. namely, [i]n languages with prepositions. the genitive always follows the governing noun. while in languages with postpositions it almost always precede~.

English (like French) should be or should have moved towards a head+ genitive language. Barham Strang (1970: 204), however. states that the post-position of the genitive became obsolete in the period 1370-1570. Several developments point to an ever more intimate connection between the S-genitive - rather than an OF-genitive - and a human initiator or controller. Rosenbach. Stein and Vezzosi (2000: 186) found that in the period they analysed. viz. 1400-1630. the initial NP was predominantly (+human(. In view of there being "cross-linguistic evidence for animate NPs to occur before inanimate NPs" (p. 15), the rise of the preposed S-genitive in the fifteenth century after the near demise of the genitive case as such, a "u-shaped development" according to them, is not surprising. Fischer (1992: 226) notes that the genitives of "proper names and personal (human) nouns" prevalently preceded the head noun in Old English. and that these nouns "still occur most frequently in genitive fonns today'', the possessive function possibly playing a pivotal role. This may be an instance of what Garcia ( 1997: 42) refers to as a reinterpretation of the context ruther than a change in the fonn itself: "IN lot only forms. but environments too. change value in the course of time." When the S-genitive had become restricted

STRUCTURAL !CONICITY: THE ENGLISH S- AND OF-GENITIVES 235 to prenominal position after the Old English period. one and the same function had become doubly marked. viz. by S-morphology as well a..'i attributive order. Thus the prenominal context. in becoming the sole environment for the S-genitive. had adopted a new value. (Subsequent developments will be deal! with in Section 7 .) The humanising tendency referred to above is borne out by several observations made by Jespersen (1954: 312-330). It is also extended to entilies which may take on a human perspective. such as cmmtry and world. Jespersen's examples suggest that the S-genitive is preferred to the OF-genitive for

divine and human beings and 'higher animals' vs. 'lower animals' and inanimate entities personified vs. non-personified non-human entities proper names with animate reference or personified inanimate reference vs. common names active, agcntive or controlling vs. passive or objectified entities. e.g. the teller or copyright owner vs. a character in a narrative. or the social controller vs. the socially controlled in a friendship relation. etc. Considerations such as these have lead Hawkins ( 1981 ) to propose a hiemrchy: [HUMAN)

<

[lflJMAN ATTRIBUTE) '

<[

NON-HUMAN ANIMATE

l

< [

NON-HUMAN INANIMATE

l

with the function of ··a semantic strategy which detennines the acceptable linear precedence of Nouns in the possessive construction in English" (Hawkins I 981 : 260) and which accounts globally, i.e. irrespective of functional directionality. for the fact that Mary'J cat. The cut:~ basket, and !he c·mnpany:~ mr are preferred sequences. while the ship:~ funnel and !he funnel of the .\"hip. and the doctorS brother and the brother of the doctor. arc equally possible. The fOot of the mountain is preferred to tire motmtain:~ foot. since. according to Hawkins (1981: 259). the latter would lead to the unintended personification of mounlain because it precedes a body-part tenn. (In tenns of the present approach. the S-genitive is blocked as foot. being a relational \'is-iH·is mmmtain. is not suitable as a head following mmmraifl but would typically precede it. cf. Section 6.1 .) The Event MOOel differs from the animateness hierarchy in being actionrather than .mbsrance-based. The two hierarchies run parallel. however. in as far as agentivity is chamcteristically predicated to humans: the more human an entity is. the more likely it is to be agentive (or active) in a proposition. The action hienm:hy thus implies the animateness hierarchy. thereby removing the duality inherent in either high animatenes..'i or high agentivity as qualification for

236

C. lAC CONRADIE

inclusion in an S-genitive. Thus. Mary's cat and tire eat's baJket are both acceptable not because the more animate/human term precedes the less animate/ human. but because both examples entail possession and are thus in keeping with the Event Model. I wish to propose that the S-genitive is modelled on or iconic of the basic SVO propositional structure of English of which the Event Model is a construct - in the sense that genitive + head "reflect.~ (my italics) the Old English sentential order in which the subject appears normally before the object"' (Fischer 1992: 227), and of the survival of the subjective genitive into Middle English "because it too reflected (my italics) the Middle English sentential word order" (ibid.). DiachronicaJly. the pattern seems to be for genitives following the SVO model to be strengthened and for those following the SOV model to disappear (cf. Section 6.1). It is the purpose of this paper to explore the concept of 'reflection' as far a'i the genitive is concerned. If the S-genitive is modelled on the basic propositional structure of the language as a speech act and infonnation bearing unit. i.e. iconic of the Event Model. a definite and typically human initial NP. which is topical in relation to the whole implied proposition. is predictable. However. what does 'modelled' imply'! In a sentence such as. The Tour de Fnance ha.~ a glorious history- think of Eddy Men:kx's winning all three jer.~eys in 1969. Louison Bobet's heyday in the 1950s,lhe epic battle between FraniJOis Fa~r and Octave Lapize (Nell".fl\"eek, July 12. 1999. p. 4),

(i) reference is made to the substantivised actio"s of four agents. two of whom feature as the first term in S-genitives; (ii) the S-genitives seem to derive from propositions in a kind of subordination. rather than merely expressing semantic relationships. and (iii). since they have the same iconic orientation as main clauses. the S-genitives ea.. ily merge with their context. compare think of Eddy Merckx's winning all three jerseys with think of how Eddy Merckx won all three jerseys. and. finally. (iv) a kind of syntactic hybridisation between the expression of 'event' and 'entity' is achieved which enhancespenpecmaljlexihilily. Functions such as these suggest that S-genitives should first of all be evaluated from a propositional rather than a semantic point of view. Compatibility with the Event Model. of which the proposition is a central characteristic. is most Ca'iily confinned if the head noun is verbally derived as in ''winning" above, but also seems likely with a causal relation between the two nominals or the

STRUCTURAL !CONICITY: THE ENGLISH S- AND OF-GENITIVES 237

possibility of casting the elements of the S-genitive in the mould of a

HAVE

construction which. in spite of its semantic vagueness. is always propositional in

nature. viz. Louison Bobet had his heyday in the 1950s. Next, the part played by the Event Model in the selection of S-genitives in Modem English will be demonstrated with reference to a limited corpus. The Event Model. of which the S-genitivc is iconic. will be understood to be a fullfledged proposition serving as a speech act or narrative unit. and thus subsuming

characteristics of a human. topical and definite subject (which imply one another). Testing the Event Model by way of a corpus of texts is in keeping with the speech-act characteristics and narrative features posited for the S-genitive. Rather than concentrating on the semantics of the relationship between NP and N, this approach will focus on degrees of approximation between a given instance of the S-genitive and the dynamic Event Model.

6.

The S-genitivc vs. the OF-genitive in a limited corpus

It is hypothesised that each S-genitive is convertible to an OF-genitive, but not vice versa: in other words. the S-genitive is a subset of the OF-genitive. While the OF-genitive is a construction representing a very general semantic relationship (as will be indicated below). the S-genitive in addition iconically approximates the Event Model. At the same time. there is also a subset of the OF-genitive which is confirmed a.<> such by conforming to the Event Model in other respects. The present situation will be probed through an analysis of a limited corpus. viz. the July 12. 1999, edition of the international magazine Newsweek (South African edition. including advertisements and footnotes; page numbers are appended to examples below). Certain problem cases from the literature not appearing in the corpus. will be discussed afterwards. The following aspects of the corpus will be considered in tum: the semantic relationship between the two NPs of the oF-genitive: the conformity of the S-genitive to the Event Model. and the overall role played by the Event Model in determining the selection of either the S- or the oF-genitive. 6.1 The Event Model and tile OF-genith•e In what might be considered to be the constructional function of OF. the second NP has the constant but vague function of identifying the first or head NP.

238

C. lAC CONRADIE

distinguishing the head NP from any other head or specifying the content of the head - which may be considered to be aspects of one and the same function. Thus the second NP's function varies from a detailed specification of content to that of merely distinguishing one head from another. In general. the function of Of NP is one of spedjicatiotl, and the NP following OF will be referred to as

'specifier'. The head NP generally moves on a cline from quantifier. qualifier or

categoriser. via nominals with relational characteristics. to non-relational nominals. This route from non-nominals to nominals will be traced below. For present purposes. however. the focus will be on nominals. Beyond the nominal. and not considered further. quantifiers extend to non-nominal lexemes such as. most ..mme,any.many, n111ch, enough. SO percent, one, all, etc., as in during much of the 1990s. The first element may also be an adjective. as in fearful of ... debt write-down.~ (p. 38) and leH toleralll of the machismo (p. 21 ). The first NP as such varies from a bleached quantifier (viz. a lot of 01her coM.~. p. 33) through various kinds of overlapping categorisers. to nominals. One should bear in mind that nominalisation - or even the substantive as such - is a fonn of categorisation. If one follows the cline from the non-nominal to the nominal membership of the head NP. it seems that quantification blends into the 'part-whole' relationship. which itself represents a whole family of overlapping types. e.g. a jug of cha jua jua (p. 55) (head = container as quantifier): a swirl of irresponsible lending (p. 38). driftsofwild-rme petals (p. 40) (head= format); Anwar lemon of rhe American Museum (p. 55) (head = member. employee. specifier= organisation): alllel'ei.f of the .wciery (p. 39) (head= aspect): glimmers of the infinile (p. 49) (head = sign or index): weekend.~ offine French Witte and golf (p. 38) (head =period. specifier= activity). and the last independence day of the millennium (p. 17) (head = point in time. specifier = period). While quantifier-like nominals provide a kind of format which requires further specification. there is a category of nominals which. though semantically independent. nevertheless invites further specification. Words such as .mn (vs. boy) and wife (vs. woman). for instance. are inherently relational and therefore referentially incomplete. In the grandptlrellts of modern Europeans (p. 50). the specifier NP completes the reference. Substantives such as product. idea and prospect are implied relationals in that they hint at a content. This content is supplied in a producl of the undemocralic regime (p. 32), the prospect of money (p. 33) and lhe idea of a11 open .mciety (p. 33). As against these. substantives such as sociologist, de sen or God arc not even relational by implication, and yet may be further specified by an NP. e.g. in D(wid Marlin, a .mdologist of religion

STRUCTURAL !CONICITY: THE ENGLISH S- AND OF-GENITIVES 239

(p. 49). the de.~erts of Mongolia (p. 54) and the God of dcusical We.{/t'rn thei.mr (p. 52) and compare. once again. Anwar Janoo ofthe America11 tmueum (p. 55). This is the other end of the cline, where the semantic category expressed by the head NP is nothing more than the nominal category itself or even a proper name with unique reference. Certain head NPs have a categorising function in that they display predicate characteristics or contain predicates. cf. the carnage of World m1r I (p. 49) (i.e. World War I was a carnage): a surprisi11g ... burM of energy (p. 34) (i.e. the energy is or comes as a burst). while a predicate may be derived from the head NP in tire wild beauty of the Yorhhire moon (p. 51) (i.e. the Yorkshire moors are wildly beautiful). Metaphors contained in the head function as categorisers in a hotbed of tire four e1·ils (p. 39). tire ElDorado of dinosaur fossils (p. 54) and a "doud ofunk1101dng" (p. 53). To what extent may OF-genitives be tmnsformcd into S-genitives'! The limited amount of material analysed would seem to suggest the following: (a) The closer a head NP comes to being a quantifier or relational. the more an S-genitive is prevented. However. as against Anwar Janoo of the American Mtm!lllll (employee: organisation). mentioned above. we find possibly as a form of journalese - NEWSWEEK'S Joseph Colllrera.{ and Daniel Klaidman (p. 28). (b) Certain members of the predicate type. e.g. the wild beauty of tire Yorhhire moor.{ (p. 51). may be recast as an S-genitive. viz. the Yorhllire moon' wild beauty - but then with the HAVE presupposition. 'The Yorkshire Moors have a wild beauty' which. as will be claimed below. is a requisite for a clao;s of S-genitives. (c) The syntactic 'heaviness' of the specifier NP may be a prohibitive factor (cf. Section 6.3). There remains a type of OF-genitive which has become firmly established in that it - partly - meets the Event Model and is therefore structumlly iconic in its own right. viz. objective genitives such as the disco\·ery of systematic doping (p. 4) or instances with the relationship of verb - prepositional object. as in the original re.{idents of the Americas (p. 25) (i.e. they reside in the ''AmCricas"). Though only the VO part of the Model is reHected. this is the part with the stronger semantic coherence because of selectional restrictions between verb and object (cf. Taylor 1994: 227). Diachronically. Fischer (1992: 227) observed that the objective genitive as a case form "was early on replaced by the of-phrase following the head word" when English wao; developing towards an SVO structure. The Event Model is fully met in an example such as Lee's alleged transfer of nuclear codes (p. 5) in that it reflects a full transitive proposition in SVO order. Phrases such a.;

240

C. lAC CONRADIE

these. of which several were found in the corpus. merge naturally with the predominantly SVO discourse of English. The type represented by the fast growth of Latino families (p. 14), i.e. with underlying intransitive verb + subject (= mostly theme). is ambiguously related to the Event Model in that subject follows verb anti-iconically. but theme follows verb iconically. Rosenbach and Vezzosi (forthcoming. p. 9) mention examples where 'subject' is not identical with 'agent", or where a noun ''could be classified as both objective .. and as subjective", e.g. the tina) noun in the lack of mainieflance. This leaves a small residue of instances where an arbitrary choice for OF has been made in spite of the fact that they would have qualified for S-genitive status in terms of lhe Event Model. though not necessarily in terms of other (e.g. discourse) factors. These include cases such as the miracles of science (p. 2) (causal: 'Science produces miracles.'), the \'ery /llture of orgm1ized faith (p. 3) (HAVE presupposition: 'Organised faith hal\ a future.'). the m11Jt dangerm1s e11emy of Israeli .wdety (p. 27) (superlative) and the bloodless coup of 1992 (p. 25) (point in time). Nex.t the compatibility of the S·genitive as such with the Event Model will be considered. 6.2 The El·ent Model and tire S-ge11iti1·e The extent to which the S-genitive conforms to lhe Event Model (or not) may be described with reference to the following types from the corpus: I. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Camoustie's challenge (p. I) people's lives (p. 2) Chemin's promotion (p. 45) Nietzche's madman (p. 52) the Knesset's powerful and secretive foreign-affairs and defense committee (p. 27) lhe world's tallest building (p. 34) this year's ... voting (p. 26)

(I). a 'subjective genitive' read as 'Camoustie (a famous golf course) challenges x.', meets the Event Model as far as order is concerned and partially as far as content (agentive subject+ transitive verb) is concerned. (2). read as the subject +verb sequence 'People live', while still meeting the Event Model. differs from (I) in that the verb liw is intrdllsitive. and people is theme ralher than agent. A more agentive interpretation of people is, however. implied by a ha1·e paraphrase. as will be indicated below.

STRUCTURAL ICONICITYo THE ENGLISH S- AND OF-GENITIVES 241

(3). an 'objective genitive' read us 'x promoted Chemin'. conforms to and (2) -

and to the Event Model -

(I)

in that the head noun is a morphological

derivate of a semantically similar verb. In sequence. however. the preposed object or theme goes against the grain of the Event Model - a problem which will be returned to in Section 7. Though no verb underlies madman (a character created by Nietzsche) in (4). this type will be considered to be in agreement with the Event Model by virtue of the causal relationship between the preposed NP and head and the sequential pamllel between preposed NP and head. and cause/source and etfectlresultltarget. respectively. (5) may be pamphrased as 'The Knesset has a powerful and secretive foreign-affairs and defense committee'. A proposition of the form ·x ha.<> y' not only subsumes scvcraJ semantic relations (such as possessor - possession. whole - part. person - relative) but is also in keeping with the full Event Model: it is fully tnmsitive, containing both subject and object (in most cases agent and theme. respectively). and implies an affirmation of the proposition. Note that (2). people:f lit·es. may also be paraphrased as 'People have lives' and (3) Chernin:\· promotion even as the assertive statement, 'Chemin had promotion'. In connection with possessives, Heine (1997: 231) observes that the English 'have' construction is derived from the Action Schema and has retained the main properties a.'isociated with this schema. namely a tr.rnsitive dau.'ie structure where the possessor is encoded a.'i the subject and the possessce as the direct object. HAVE

is here understood in its vague or general meaning a.<> main verb. and not

for instance in more specialised meanings such as are exemplified by had my car stolen. had him di.n11i.ued. had a beer. I won't ha~·e it. had a Iefler from him. etc. (examples from Allen 1992. under HAVE). It is hypothesized that if a particular instance of the S-genitive clearly presupposes a HAVE proposition in a nonspecialised sense of HAVE or is paraphra.<>able as such. such an S-genitive may be assumed to be in agreement with the Event Model. As this assumption relates directly to the general iconicity hypothesis. the precise semantic relations between preposed NP and head do not seem to be relevant. (6) represents a type with a superlative in the preposed NP. Though a direct HAVE paraphrase is ruled out (e.g. *'The world ha.<> a tallest building'). a IMVE proposition may be obtained through a negation of the comparative. viz. 'The world docs not have a taller building.' The type with the preposed NP referring to a 'point in time', as in (7), though not verbal or causative, may be related to the Event Model in several ways. (i) From a speech-act point of view. an existential statement. such a<> 'This

242

C. lAC CONRADIE

year there was voting' or 'Voting took place this year'. resembles an event statement. (ii) The Event Model may be considered to be a narrative unit. The fronting of temporal adverbs or phrases is a common cohesive technique in narrative texts as a means of anchoring events in the temporal plane. The Event Model is thus seen to link up two of the three "guiding principles of sequencing" in tex;ts distinguished by Enkvist, as quoted by Tabakowska (1999: 410), viz. the ··action oriented'' and "time oriented" types. (iii) In as far as the Event Model itself is iconic of BEGINSING - PROCESS - END. as stated earlier. a temporal preposed NP (such as thi.f year) may reflect the initial temporal element, viz. underlying the agentive subject. as argued in Section 3. The view of the 'point in time· genitive espoused here. is that of the extension or even an aberration of the Event Model. rather than a new kind of experiential iconicity. This is not only in keeping with the relatively late development of this type of S-genitive (cf. Jespersen 1954: 330). but invites speculation on how far the limits of this construction can be stretched. If the object-verb type (3) is left out of consideration. the following instances may be said to be iconic of the Event Model to a smaller or greater extent: BEGINNING.

Table 2.

S-~:tmilives

Subject-verb (a.~ pan of a subject-verb-object sequence. i.e. where the subject is agentive): Subject-verb. where subject is agentive: Subject-verb, where subject is thematic: The pre-NP produces/creates the head N. i.e. causal: The prc-NP expresses a point in time: The head N contains a superlative: HAVE proposition presupposed (not overlapping with the aboveJ:

15 17

II 18

10 142

222 Total number of instances of S-genitives: Iconically motivated instances of S-genitive

240 93':1

It is not only the S-genitive. however. which reflects the Event Model. In the sense that any string of linguistic elements may be iconic of the ordering of elements implied by the Event Model. the OF-genitive may also reflect the Event Model. e.g. when the head NP derives from a transitive verb and the specifier NP is related to its object. This was pointed out in Section 6.1 with reference to examples such as. Ilre discm·ery of l')'slematic doping (p. 4). The role of iconicity in both types of genitive will be considered next.

STRUCTURAL ICONICITYo THE ENGLISH S- AND OF-GENITIVES 243

6.3 The Ewmt Model and the :reJection of genitive type A token comparison between the S- and the OF-genitive yields the following results: Table= 3. S-

1·.~.

OF-gellitiW;>.f

I. SV vs. VS where S is agentive: 2. Causal relationship: 3. Head contains superlative: 4. HAVE proposition implied: 5. Point in time expres~d: 6. SV vs. VS where S is theme: 7. OV vs. V (prep.) 0:

S-gcnitive {240 tokens)

OF-genitive (555tokens)

86~ (32) 76~ (18) 62'k (10)

14% (5) 24% (9) 39'k (90) 501ft (9) 74% (31) 92'k (86)

61~

(142)

50'k

(9)

26~

(II)

8
(7)

38~

(6)

(I), (2) and (7) show strong iconic text preferences - (I) and (2) because the S-genitive reflects the sequence SV. i.e. agent + verb and cause + result. respectively. and (7) because the oF-genitive reflects the sequence verb + (prepositional) object. In the case of intransitive verb + thematic subject. as in (6). the fact that the OF construction of thefa.~t growth ofLatinofamilie.~(p. 14) predominates. would suggest that the distinction agent/theme determines the selection of an appropriate construction to a larger extent than subject/object does. This might be explained by the fact that while agent is prototypically a subject, theme is prototypically an object mther than a subject (personal communication. Olga Fischer). In the case of underlying HAVE (4), which might be expected to pattern with (I). there is a slight preference for the S-genitive. The instances containing a superlative (3). though too small in number to force any conclusion. seem to pattern with the HAVE cases. The fact that a combination of nouns which is potentially iconic in an S-genitive construction nevertheless manifests as an OF-genitive. is not in itself a falsification of the hypothesis as there may be other factors guiding construction preference. Thus Taylor (1991:60). in his discourse perspective on English genitives. assumes the genitive nominal "to have 'given' r-dther than 'new' status" and deems it "clearly more economical to offer as a reference point an entity presumed to be already in the hearer's focus of consciousness". In as far as structures consonant with the Event Model are full-fledged statements (see Section 2) and in as far as the latter presuppose an unmarked information spread from 'given' to 'new'. and S-genitives in particular are iconic of such statements. the prcposed NP may be expected to reflect a 'light' subject. This is corroborated

244

C. JAC CONRADIE

by the present corpus in that only seven preposed NPs in S-genitives contain a prenominal extension apart from an article. e.g. baby in the baby boomer.{' senescmce (p. 25}. In contrast, both NPs in an OF construction may be 'heavy'. as in the w1.mpen·iud use of 11n.mitable drugs (p. 4),

neither does a relatively heavy first NP cause an imbalance. viz. the democratkally elected government of Sierra Leone (p. 12)

7.

Conclusion

An impon.ant problem that remains for the characterisation of S-genitives suggested above. is how remoteness from the Event Model may be quan1ified and what 'distance' is pcnnissible. Referring to the example the king:,· a.~sauina timr. Fischer (1992:227) states that the objective genitive is found "when only the object interpretation is plausible". Taylor (1994: 202) points out that S-genitives with a head such as de.uruc:Iion a.<;; in Ihe ci1y:\· deslruclion. without further additions of of- or by-phrases, as in Ihe ci1y:f de.\"trllction ofil.\' re.wmrce.~. show a preference for an objective mthcr than a subjective reading. Taylor (1994: 225) seeks an explanation through the concept of infonnativity: as patients, the king. the city. etc. would provide more "reliable and effective cues for the identification of the target" than agents. He refers (p. 227) to Keenan ( 1984). who argues that the 'semantic bonding' (in lenns of selection restrictions) between an action and the affected entity is tighter than between action and actor. This would mean that. although 'actor'-·action' and 'action·-·affected entity' are both partial reflections of the Event Model, the fanner is in fact u more fragmemary reflection of the entire event than the latter. what with the more essentiul affected entity being left unmentioned. Thus, though from the point of view of the Event Model. lhe des1mctio11 of lhe cily, lhe a.uassina1io11 of the king, etc .. with V-0. ure better approximations of the Event Model. the objective interpretation of the S-genitive at lea.'it represents the semantically more cohesive portion. i.e. V + 0 mther than S + 0. of the Event Model and is thus a more faithful rendering of the action implied than a subjective interpretation would have been. As mentioned above. Jespersen ( 1954: 330) cites this e\'ening :\·paper. a good day:~ work. etc .. which contain temporal expressions as first tenn. a.-. recent developments in his time. Expressions referring to a 'point in time'. as in this evening:f paper. may be related to narrative and existential aspects of the Event

STRUCTURAL !CONICITY THE ENGLISH S- AND OF-GENITIVES 245

Model. as argued above. However. S-genitives expressing 'duration·. as in tl Rood day:~ work. are clearly quantificational in n<~ture. For" bottle of Arxemine wine (p. 18). also with the order quomtifier- quantified. the S-gcnitive "Arxentine wim<{ bottle is ruled out: a propositional sequence introducing an entity (wine) for the sake of (partially) cancelling it by quantification (a brmle) is selfrefuting. In no sense does the Argentine wine 'have'. 'cause' or even 'entail' a bottle. In a goi}d day·.~ work. however. though day is by no means agent. a paraphrase such as 'That day had us working hard' or 'entailed a lot of work' seems appropriate. In this way durational S-genitives may qualify as approximations to the Event Model. However. the moment x's y equals x of y (cf. mtmy years' hard work vs.many yearsofhardll;ork, i.e. when syntactic bidirectionality has arisen), the S- and OF-genitives have become meaningless templates and the categorial relationship one of mere association. Haiman (1994b: 1633) refers to this a.'i rimali:ation. a process which "mumcipates forms from whatever motivation they once may have had". He claims that ritualization is "the driving motor of language change". Finally. a few more examples of testing the limits of the Event Model may be mentioned: (a) In Woolll"orth:~ (shop named after owner). Sl Margarel:f (church named after patron saint) and John's (as in They left it at John's referring to John's house), the prcposed NP functions independently, i.e. detached from its head. The personal proper names in these expressions ipso facto refer to humans and therefore potential agents. What these types have in common is their loosening of the bond between sequence and morphological marking. ao; the head noun no longer follows. (b) A plwlo of Peler:r - the socalled 'double genitive' - combines an agentive Peter with an indefinite pholo through deviating from the iconic order of the Event Model while retaining the morphological marking. This a1so amounts to a loosening of the bond between genitive marking and prenominal position in which one of the two is redundant. and in fact constitutes a return to the situation in Old English. in which the order of genitive and head was not sequentia1ly restricted. (c) In the so-called group genitive. the preposcd NP is extended more and more in syntactic scope. particularly in the spoken language. e.g. those people li1·ing lhere:\"[riend. The Is/ thus becomes a detached morpheme with a general separating function. indicating a shift in focus rather than any clear-cut 'constructiona1 meaning'. This deviates from the ·given - 'new' information spread - and therefore from the Event Model a.o; well - ao; a characteristic of full-Hedged statements. In the S-genitive, morphological. syntactic and iconic factors have conspired to produce a useful construction with overtones of control and activity. The Event Model has been shown to come close to a definition of a geneml 'constructional

246

C. lAC CONRADIE

meaning' for the S·genitive. Judging by the same Event Model. however. it seems likely that the S-genitive is destined to undergo certain mutations which may - or may not - be beneficial to communication in the long run.

Acknowledgments This paper ha~ benelitcd greatly from commcnl!i by Olga Fischer; for the n:maming errors I lake full responsibility.

References Allen, R. E. (ed.) 1992. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. London: BCA. Asher, R.E. (ed.) 1994. The EncydopediaofLongllageand LinguiJtio. Oxford: Pergamon. Cornel is, L. H. I 997. Pu.ui~·e and Per.fpu·til't'. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Danchcv. A. 1991. "Language Change Typology and Some Aspects of the SVO Development in English". In D. Kastovsky (ed.). 103-124. Denison, D. 1993. EngliJh Historical S_\'ntax: Verbal Cmutruction.f. London: Longman. Fischer. 0. 1992. ··syntax". In The Cambrid~e History of the En~fi.flll..anxuage. Vol. II: 1066-1476. N. Blake (ed.), 207-408. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garcia, E. C. 1997. "Grd.~ping the Invisible Hand''. In Language Change and Functional £rplonation. J. Gvozdanovic' (ed.). 21-52. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Greenberg. J.H. 1968a. "Some Universals of Grammar with Panicular Reference to the Order of Meaningful Elemems". In J.H. Greenberg (ed.). H-113. Greenberg, J.H. (ed.) 1968b. Unil·er.wll.fofLtmRUOge, 2nd cd. Cambridge, Ma.,.s.: MIT. Haiman, J. 1994a. "lconicity". In R.E. Asher (ed.), 1629-1633. Haiman. J. 1994b. "lconicity and Syntactic Change".ln R.E. Asher (ed.). 1633-1637. Hawkins. R. 1981. "Towards an Account of the Possessive Constructions: NP's Nand the N of NP". Joumal of Ling11istics 17: 247-269. Heine, B. 1997. Po.ue.uion. COKIIitil't' Source.f. Force.f and Grammmimli::otion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jespersen. 0. 1954. A Modern Eng/i.d1 Grammar on Historical Prindple.f, Pan VII. London: George Allan & Unwin. Ka... tovsky. D. (ed.) 1991. Historical El11;1ish S_\'ntax. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyler. Keenan, E. 1984. "Semantic Correlates to the Ergative/Absolutive Distinction". Lingllistic.f 22: 197-223. Rosenbach. A .. D. Stein and L. Vezzosi. 2000. "On the History of the S-Genitive". In: Generatil't' Tlreory and Corpu.f Srudies: A Dialo~ue from /0 JCEHL. R. BennUdezOtero. D. Denison. R.M. Hogg and C. B. McCully (eds). 183-210. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

STRUCTURAL !CONICITY: THE ENGLISH S- AND OF-GENITIVES 247 Rosenbach, A. and L. Vezzo.~i. Forthcoming. "Genitive Constructions in Early Modem Engli.'>h: New Evidence from a Corpus Analysis... To appear in: Stability und Variation in Word Order Pauerm m't'T 1imt', E. Poppe. A. Shisha·Halery and R. Somicola (eds). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Strang. B. M.H. 1970. A History of Engfi.fll. London: Methuen. Tabakowska, E. 1999. ''Linguistic Expression of Perceptual Relationships. lccmicity as a Principle of Text Organisation (A Case Study)''. In M. Nlinny and 0. Fi!>Chcr (eds). Form Mimi111: Mt'aning. [conicity in lAnguage and litt'rature, 409-422. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Taylor, J.R. 1991. ''Possessive Genitives in English: A Discourse Perspective". Soutll Afrimn Journal of Lingui.ftic.t 9: 59-63. Taylor, J.R. 1994. "'Subjective· and 'Objective· Readings of Possessor Nominals". Cognith·t! Lingui.ftics 5: 201-242.

The position of the adjective in (Old) English from an iconic perspective Olga Fischer Unirenity of Atmterdctm

I.

Introduction

I have often wondered about the ditTerent positions adjectives can take in Old English. They can occur both before the noun and after it as in. ( I)

a.

b.

/XI

forlet he f}(me l~mnan o/11 dte.~ mamniscan lichomatl then left he the clay oven of-the human body (Manl.l01) 1 . .. het heonric /Jam .H: fa:der becwtl'd ger.wnum was-called Henry to-whom the father left treasures unaleallendlice uncountable (Chron2.1086.59)

whereby it is interesting to observe that the postnominal adjectives arc almost invariably adjectives of the so-called strong declension. declined as in (2a). while the prenominaJ ones follow the weak declension (see 2b) when the noun phrase is definite. and they arc strong when the noun phrase is indefinite.

250

OLGA FISCHER

dedemio11 of OE strong

(2)

adjectives

deden.~ion

of OE weak

adjectives

neuter

fern -1-u

-/-u -1-u

-a/-e

nom. sg.

b.

neuter

fern

ace. sg. gen. sg. dat. sg. nom. pl. ucc. pl.

-e

gen. pl. dat. pl.

-al-e

-an -an -an -ra/-ena -ra/-cna -ra/-cna

II appears then that in Old English definiteness and the strong/weak distinction

is also closely linked with position. In this study I would like to find out why this is so. what the link is between these three features. and how position is further linked to iconicity. In the course of the Middle English period. the strong/weak-adjective distinction was gr.adually lost. There are still some vestiges of it in Chaucer but they do not play a distinct grammatical or semantic role. This loss was a result of the genera] phonetic attrition of most of the inflectional endings, but it was also due to the development of a determiner system, which already in Old English began to take over the function of the e~pression of (in)detinitenes..'i. In Old English. definiteness was already usually marked with the help of the demonstrative pronoun .{t!. seo./Jll't.lndetiniteness usually remained unmarked (the use of iin 'one' or sum 'a certain', as an indefinite article. was still rare). and here the strong/ weak adjective distinction still played an important role. In how far adjective position in Middle English was also affected by these changes. is something that still needs to be looked into, but which I will keep for another occa.'iion. I became intrigued again by the question of the different positions adjectives can take when I was looking for an appropriate poem to adorn a speech I had to give on a particular occasion. The poem I selected was by the Dutch poet. Judith Herzberg. and began like this. (3)

~illnr ~wijgen bij mijrr bed my father had a long hour sit be-silent by my bed 'My father had been sining silently at my bedside for a long hour' ('Ziekcnbezock'. Herzberg 1968: 52)

Mijn racier lrad ee11lang uur

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 25 I

The first time I read it aloud to practise. I automatically read. "Mijn vader had een uur lang zitlen zwijgen bij mijn bed". Only when I read it out wrongly in this way. did I realise that the order of adjective-noun in the phra.~e "een lang uur" wa~ highly unusual. and I suddenly realised what a difference position can make to the meaning of a phrase. 'A long hour' is definitely not the same as 'an hour long' .In the usual order 'an hour long'. we indicate simply that the length of a particular occurrence was an hour: ·an hour long' then means ·an hour in length'; in the other order we say something about the kind of hour that it was. it was a 'loooong· hour (to put it iconically), intimating possibly the heaviness or tediousness of that hour. In other words. the hour itself is qualified and becomes a different kind of category of hour. not just a neutral sixty minutes. Nowadays in Dutch (and also in English) adjectives nonnally precede their nouns. so this case is rather exceptional in that the syntactically natural order is the more striking one. But this is. of course. just what poets do. they change what is the rule (in Lecercle's (1990( words. they play with or violate the rules of grammar) but always according to some other rule system. One could say that there are two rule systems operating in language: conventional or grammar rules on the one hand. and expressive rules on the other. Plank ( 1979) refers in this respect to the symbolic and the iconic poles in language. and F6nagy ( 1999) distinguishes between the primary and the secondary cOOe. whereby the first is conventional and usually language-specific. and the second motivated, and therefore much more universal. It is this latter code which is iconic in nature. reflecting in its form the shape of the world as we experience it. The difference in meaning in the Dutch phrase started me thinking whether the adjective position in Old English was ruled merely by the arbitrdry conventions of grdmmar. or whether it could also have been iconically motivated in some way. The fact that Old English shows variation is in itself interesting and needs to be explained. When the adjective position is fixed (as it is more or Jess in both Modem Dutch and English). the likelihood that this position is purely gmmmatical or conventional becomes greater. However. like Dutch. English has its exceptions too. as the following examples show. (4) a. b.

the responsible man the man responsible

Bolinger (1967:4), who discusses more "almost unambiguously 'trustworthy'··. blame'". In what follows I will make us as to what causes the difference between

such pairs. remarks that (4a) means whereas (4b) "is unambiguously 'to of Bolinger's very perceptive remarks these two expressions.

252 2.

OLGA FISCHER

Iconic motivation in the positioning of adjedives

When we are looking at the possibility of meaning differentiation of adjectives by means of difference in position. it is most fruitful to start with those languages where both pre- and postnominal position is used regularly. such as for instance the Romance languages (Spanish, Italian). Modern Greek. and aJso Old English. When we consult the handbooks of Old English gr.1mmar. however. we do not become very much wiser about what the 'meaning' of the adjectiva1 position may have been. Grammars note the variety. but usually not more than that. Most often they explain the variety in position as follows. given here in the words of G.L. Brook (1955: 82): ''(t]he order of words is less rigid in Old English than in Modem English because the Old English inflectional system. much fuller than that of Modem English. made it possible for a writer to make clear the relation of a word for the rest of the sentence without making use of word order for this purpose". Similarly. SPrenscn (1956: 262-263) writes: "Anyhow it is tempting to assume that the widespread usc of the construction adjective + substantive + adjective in OE. was supported by. if not a direct outcome of. Jaj gener.tl tendency towards looseness in construction". Even Mitchell. the 'Bible" of Old English grdmmar. remains vague. He notes (1985: ~172) that the reason for poMposition may be Latin inftuence.z a desire for emphasis. rhythmic and stylistic variation. meter etc. In an earlier paragraph(~ 160). Mitchell remarks that it is not always clear whether with an ··auibutive adjective in postposition". "we have to do with an attributive. predicative or appositional. use". It seems that Mitchell himself believes that these adjectives are still altributive. witness his remark in §168 that adjectives after the noun ··may seem predicative to some readers" (italics added). Although Quirk and Wrenn ( 1955) give more details about the kind and number of adjectives that appear postnominally. an explanation for the position itself in syntactic or semantic or in any other terms is not given in any of these grammars. The difference between weak and strong adjectives. which is also of interest here because there is. as I said above. some relation with position. is usually explained in terms of a '"principle of economy" operating in Old English. As Barbara Strang (1970: 301) put it: "so long as a preceding word carried the full differentiae the adjective could appear in a less highly differentiated form". In other words. when there is no other defining element. the strong adjective ending is useful because it is more distinctive of case and gender (unlike the weak adjective. see 121). while such a distinctive ending in a weak adjective is less useful because case and gender are usually clear from the preceding demonstrative pronoun. This principle. based as it is on the functional interdependence of article and adjective ending. provides also an explanation for the rise of the

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 253 article system in Middle English. or. so one wishes. for the disappearance of the weak/strong distinction in Middle English. Because the two are interpreted as clearly linked. the increasing presence of the one (the article) obviates the need for the other (the strong/weak adjectival distinction).

However. some linguists. such as. for instance. Karl Brunner. already remarked that a deeper eJtplanation must be sought for, i.e. that one must consider what the weak and strong forms of the adjectives in themselves stand for.ln this he is inspired by the evidence coming from Old English poetry. where both types of adjectives could still be used without any determiners. And. as we will see shortly below. I have also found examples in Old English prose where a weak adjective is used after an indefinite article (iinls11m), and examples where the postponed adjective is weak rather than strong (the strong adjective. according to Mitchell)l985: §126). is the rule postnominally when the determiner is not repeated). In other words, it seems that the weak/strong distinction may well be independent to some extent of article use. Brunner ( 1962: 53-54) writes. Die schwachen Formen sind daher individualisierend. gegenilber den allgemeinen starken. Sie werden zuerst wiederaufnehmend verwendet . . . Die schwache Form steht daher auributiv wenn eine hl..-stimmte Einzelpcrson beschrieben wird . . . AIs der bcstimmte Artikcl zur Kennzeichnung von Einzelpersonen oder Dingcn in Aufnahmc kam. wurde nach ihm die schwache Form des Adj. Verwendet. Daraus erkltirt sich auch. daB die ebenfalls individualisierenden Komparative und Superlative meist schwach flektiert werden .. (The weak forms arc therefore individuating. in contrast to the generalizing strong forms. They are at first used to refer back to an already mentioned entity ... The weak form is therefore used attributively when a l."ertain individual is described ... When the definite article was on the increase to characterize individual persons or things.thcn the weak form of the adjective continued to be used arter it. This also explains why the likewise individuating comparative and superlative forms usually carry a weak inflection). (My translation.)

It is clear that for Brunner. the prime distinction between weak and strong adjectives is that the weak adjective conveys 'given' information. and is individuating. and that the strong adjective is generalizing. I do not think that 'individuating' vs. ·generalizing' is the most useful distinction. but the idea that weak adjectives convey 'given' information (forming the 'theme' of the utterance) is something that seems supported by other studies, which I will discuss below. Weak adjectives would then contrast with strong ones in that the latter arc 'rhematic'. i.e. they provide 'new' information. Before we move to the question of adjective position. I would like to make two general introductory remarks. which touch also on my theoretical position.

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OLGA FISCHER

First of all. I believe with linguists like Haiman. Giv6n. Hopper. Thompson. Dressler and many others. that "questions of the relationship between language and the mind can be approached only by considering language in its natural jimctional colltext" (Hopper and Thompson 1984:747-748, italics added). and that. more specifically. the cognitive strategies underlying language systems (or the theory of grammar) have a strong perceptual basis (cf. also Hopper and Thompson 1984: 747): i.e. diagrammatic iconicity plays a very imponant role in the way the rules of grammar are formed and maintained. Or. in the words of Dressler (1995: 22. see also Dressler 1990). in a study where he lists some tenets of the naturalness approach in hmguage theory: "It does not assume an autonomous module of grammar. but attempts to find cognitive and other extralinguistic bases[ ... ) for grammatical principles and preferences". I therefore believe that it would be worthwhile to find out whether the variation in the position of the adjective in Old English may be iconically or perceptually motivated. Secondly. I think it is important to realize that the category of Adjective is not a universal category. unlike those of Noun and Verb (cf. Dixon 1977; Thompson 1988). In many languages. the property characteristics which are in English typically expressed by the category of Adjective are exprcs.'ied by means of verbs or nouns or ·verbids' and ·nounids'. i.e. items that share many chamcteristics with verbs and nouns. It is not surprising. too. in this respect that in a (binary) feature analysis of the category Adjective. the Adjective is characterized by the features )+N) and [+VJ. Below I will show that the category Adjective in Old English has clearly nominal and verbal characteristics (much more so then in Present-day English). which can be linked up with the distinction between weak and strong respectively. and to some extent also with position.J With these ideas in mind. let us now brieHy look at what has been said in the literature about the position of adjectives. Bolinger has written two seminal articles on adjective position which touch both on the iconic (perceptual) as well as the categorial issues I referred to above. as is clear from their titles: .. Linear Modification·· (1952 )1972)) and "Adjectives in English: Attribution and Predication·· ( 1967). Bolinger ( 1972: 31) writes: "ITJhe linear geometry of the sentence imposes certain relationships upon the elements that compose it'". The principle that he uncovers is perceptual in that whatever comes first in a linear sequence determines to some extent how the next element is to be interpreted (p. 32). Linear sequence is of course more likely to be meaningful when the elements concerned can occupy more than one position. This is the case with adjectives in Modem Greek (see below), and also in Spanish (Bolinger's examples are from Spanish). but much less so in Modem English because adjectives are on the whole fixed to prenominal position. Bolinger schematizes his idea as follows:

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 255

(5)

a.

A

r·----------------

Nl

b. N

-----------------

~:::::::::::::1

A

The diagram expresses that the element that comes first (A or N) modifies the rest of the phrase. Thus. in Spanish 1111 hermo.w edi.fido (A-N}. refers to a building that has beauty as an inbuilt characteristic: in other words the topic of the sentence is a 'beautiful building'. When the adjective follows - un edificio hemwso -.the adjective as it were splits up the noun. the topic: 'building' is now colllra.~ted with other buildings that are not beautiful. Stavmu ( 1996: 83-84), basing herself on Bolinger's work. makes a similar distinction for Modem Greek. She writes ... the prchead AP IAdjective Phr<~sel denotes a pre-existing ... or defining property, whereas the post-head one a.liserts the (perhaps temporary) possession of a property". She likewise, very interestingly. notes that the (in)definiteness or the noun phrao;e is also involved in this distinction. When the noun phrase is indefinite. both orders are encountered in Modem Greek: (6)

a.

Kalhari.W!

em1 milo kokino

he/she-peeled an apple red (cf. Stavrou 1996: 80)

b. Kathari.w!

ena kokino milo

he/she-peeled a

red

apple

When the noun phrase is definite. only prenominal position is possible: (7)

a.

Kathari.~e

to kokino milo

he/she-peeled the red

b. *Kathari.n!

apple

to milo kokino

he/she-peeled the apple red (cf. Stavrou 1996: 80) She notes at the same time. however. that postnominal position with a definite noun phmse does occur when the postponed adjective functions as a small clause (what in tmditional tenns would be called an object complement). (8)

theli

Ji

hira pagomeni

he/she-wants the beer cold (Stavrou 1996: 86) She then relates the difference between (6a) and (b) to the dilference between (7a) and (8) arguing that the postnominal adjective in the indefinite noun phrase

256

OLGA FISCHER

(6a) functions like a pseudo-small clause. i.e. like a secondary predicate. implying that it has predicative rather than attributive force. While the prenominal adjective is "'an intrinsic part of the reference of the NP', or the set of properties interpreting the NP. the posthead AP ·a..,serts' a property for some referent. which exists independently of this property; it gives a continuntive description of the referent"' (Stavrou 1996: 107-108). This means in effect that the postnominal adjective phrase receives a more restrictive interpretation, and as such it can be used to express a contrast. That this is so can be made clear with the help of Bolinger's example quoted in (4). An utterdnce like 'He is a responsible man' cannot be followed by an utterance which generally denies his trustworthiness, because the adjective refers to an inherent characteristic of the man. Responsibility in 'He is the man responsible'. however. can be contrasted with 'non-responsibility'. because the man's responsibility is only relevant for one particular case. not for all cases he is involved in. In other words. a contrast is possible in the latter but not in the former; this is also made clear by the dilference in stress of the two adjectives. Hopper and Thompson (1984) refer to this difference as follows: they would say that in (4a) the adjective is incorporated into the noun phmse and therefore cannot be manipulated further in the discourse. In (4b). however. the adjective can be further manipulated because it has not been thematized. These differences. which in Modem Greek are expressed by position. are expressed in Modem English by differences in stress patterning. such that ·a rCd apple' corresponds to the Greek example in (6a) and 'a red Upple' to the one in (6b). Similarly 'give me the cold beer', without any stress on 'cold'. corresponds to (7) and 'give me the beer cOld' to (8). 'The cold beer' can also be uttered with double stres.-. but that is not the usual pattern. and it always expresses contrast. We have seen above that Bolinger claims that the position of the adjective when variable is iconic in that the meaning is determined by the linear order of the elements: what is perceived first, colours the interpretation of the rest of the uttemnce. Langacker ( 1997: 22) notes that stress is iconic too but on a different level. The focu~ is a conceptual constiiUent. II is not a classical constituent based on valence linkli, but rather one reflecting an abstmct similarity. namely degree of interest or infonnativeness. The grouping formed on this ba.~is cross-cuts classical constituency. symbolized by linear contiguity. The focus is however symbolized phonologically. namely by a phonological grouping based on unreduced stn:J>J>. This symbolic relationship is clearly iconic, as stress level (salience in regard to amplitude) bears a natural relationship to degree of interest (discourse salience).

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 257 Similar differences. a~ far as position is concerned have been noted for Spanish

(see Bolinger 1952 (1972] referred to above) and Italian. Writing on Italian. Vincent ( 1986: 192). who also provides a good overview of the studies that have appeared on this topic. shows that a common denominator can be found for each position in terms of thcme/rheme (or ·given/new' infonnation): L'aggettivo prc=posto, c=ssendo parte inseparabile della testa, non puO avcre un valorc indipendente, mentre l"aggcttivo postposto e semprc rematico rispeno al

nome che modifica, anche se Ia sua posizionc sintattica gli conferiscc il ruolo di rema sccondario. (The prcposcd adjective, being an inseparable part of the head, cannot have an independent value, while the postposed lldjectivc is always rhcmatic with respect to the noun that it modifies. even though its syntactic position confers upon it the role of a secondary rheme) (Vincent 1986: 192. my tmnslation)

He further shows how the structure of the Adjective-Noun phrase resembles in linear terms the structure of existential clauses. which have only a rheme. while that of the Noun-Adjective phrase resembles a predicative clause. which has a theme as subject and a rheme as complement. suggesting the similar order thcme/rheme for the noun and adjective respectively. and their independent 'value' with respect to one another.

3.

Adjective position in Old English

It is now time to have a closer look at Old English. I believe that the differences noted above for Modem Greek and the Romance languages. can also be found in Old English. With a dead language it is of course more difficult to prove the meaningfulness of the variable position conclusively. but it seems to me that it can be shown that indeed the Old English postnominal strong adjectives act very much like secondary predicates: they are rhematic. and as such belong to an adjectival category that is very close to the Verb category. Their postnominal position. in other word-;, can be seen as iconic (because the meaning of the adjective is not incorporated into the noun. cf. 15bl). When strong adjectives occur in prenominal position. they tend to be rhematic too (which is not surprising because they only occur there in indefinite noun phrases. which tend not to be thematic).'1 Here. however. phonological iconicity takes precedence over linear (syntactic) iconicity. When the adjective is rhematic in this position it is presumably stressed. when it is not. it is presumably unstressed. It would be nice if this difference was also expressed by means of the weak/strong distinction. This is

258

OLGA FISCHER

not so. the adjective is generally strong. but there are exceptions that may indicate that weak form and thematic function were allied even here (see below. Section 4.6). As far as weak adjectives are concerned. they arc placed, almost without exception. before the noun phrase, and are always part of a definite noun phrusc. i.e. a noun phrase that tends to be thematic. These adjectives therefore function attributively. their position is iconic in that they modify the noun: they. as it were. change the noun into a new 'compound' noun. a new noun token (cf. 5a above). II is not surprising. therefore. that these weak adjectives, unlike the strong ones. are much closer to the noun category. The strongly nominal and verbal (predicative) nature of the weak and strong adjectives respectively, also accounts for the fact that in Old English adjectives cannot really occur in a row as they do in Present-day English. In a previous study (2000) I have already suggested that weak adjectives function like adjuncts or denominal adjectives (the term used by Quirk and Greenbaum 1973) of the type. 'a stone wall', 'a Shakespearian critic'. Such adjectives cannot be modified. Thus. just as one cannot say in Modem English 'the very Shakespearian critic', in the same way one cannot modify an Old English weak adjective. neither by an adverb nor by another adjective. as is possible in Modem English: cf. 'this beautiful young girl'. In Old English two adjectives are either connected by tmd or dmped around the noun. If strong adjectives are indeed predicative. it explains why they. too. cannot modify one another. just as one cannot say in Modem English. 'the road was long tedious'. When more than one strong adjective is used in Old English. they also need to be separated from each other. either by having one adjective in prcnominal and the other in postnominal position. or by using the connector and (there are some exceptions to this rule. which I have discussed in Fischer 2000). In what follows I will concentrate on the verbal versus nominal characteristics of the two types of adjectives. hoping to give more evidence for their very different nature. This qualitative difference between the adjectives is. in tum. linked to position. By showing that prenominal weak adjectives arc nominal or attributive (which entails that they change the meaning of the noun they modify). and that postnominal adjectives are verbal or predicative (thus, typically giving new information about the noun they modify). it follows that the position of the adjective in Old English obeys the perceptual linearity suggested by Bolinger. as sketched above in (5).

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 259

4.

Evidence for the verbal nature of strong adjectives

In this section. we will have a look at the way adjectives are used in Old English (their position, but also the strong/weak inflections) in the following circumstanc-

es. which are all associated with strong 'verbalness': I. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

modification with prepositional phrases frequency of past participles in postnominal position modification with adverbs such as .fwipe and .m·o

their use as 'subject/object complemenl' incorporation of negative element discourse manipulability and distinctness in inflectional endings use with empty or anaphoric head nouns (which makes them 'functionaJiy' predicative. Cf. Thompson 1988: 174)

We will see that the strong postnominal adjectives score positively on all these points. whereas the weak adjectives score negatively on precisely the same points. Additional characteristics which may tell us more about the difference between the two types of adjectives are provided by the fact that

8.

a number of adjectives. such as the -weard class. show differences in behaviour

It is also interesting to observe that postnominal adjectives in Present-day English are still strongly predicative. In Section 5 we will have a brief look at how postnominaJ adjectives are used in poetry. 4.1

Use of prepositional plrru.fe.~

Whenever the adjective is modified by a prepositional phrase in Old English_ the whole adjective phrase follows the noun. as shown in (9). In other words, Modem English constructions such as 'a suitable for nothing person' or 'a larger than life expericnce'simply do not occur. The most frequent adjective to occur postnominally with a prepositional phrase is the adjective full. and quantifiers like eu/1. In this respect there is clearly continuity with Present-day English: (9)

a.

. .. milrte fanm tifer his rice mid his bosumfuU could travel through his country with Iris body filii go/des (GEN]ungederad tif-goltl unmolested (Chron2.1070.6) a man

260

OLGA FISCHER

b.

. .. and

htPbbe hire 00 syringe ealle butan dres and )she) may-have for-her the buttermilk all excepT the

hyrdes drele herdman :f part (Lawr. 16)

c.

seo .fiXte yld /Ji.fsere womlde .fl)'nl fram criste astreht

the sixth age of-this-world

runs from Christ stretched-out

oft

domes d«g eallum mannum ungewiss . . (on the cross I until doonuday /o-a/1 men tmcertain (1Ele14.1185) d. God c>a fimJ Cllealr of l>a•re moldan «lce.f cymre.f 'God then forth pulled from the lreow ft1!ger on gesyluJe

earth

of-each kind

(a I tree be willful i11 sight' (lEI. Old Test.! 1.2.9)

swide f:eleafull wer welig

on Cl!htum

(a) very faithful man weallhy in good.f

(1Ele14. 1.737) The use of the prepositional phrase makes clear that the adjective is not attributive; the usual position for attributive adjectives is awkward here too in Modem English cf. 'a wealthy in goods man' or 'a wealthy man in goods'. I have found no examples of full (or any other adjective for that maller) with a genitive positioned before a noun in Old English even where the same phr.J.se can have prenominal filii in Present-day English.5 (10)

feJtellda:g.~ie

giflritclmme

Jelle

mo11wege c:a:su

am/

if it then

[a) fast-day be, let-give one 'wey' of-cheese and millan Julne honiges of-fish and (a] mea.mre filii o[-lro11ey (0oc12a.16) (Cf. PdE also 'a full measure of honey') ... fin·e.f

and

Examples such as these are nicely contra.~ted with instances like (II). where the same adjective used prenominally and without a genitive. clearly conveys a different meaning. as still nowadays: (II ) a11d be.ftl!lf

fume ccutel abutall

mit/

.m·ide mycele lrere

and besieged the castle all-around with (a] very large Julie six wucan full si.r weeks (Chron2.1087.54)

army (for]

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 261

Also very frequent are participial adjectives with a prepositional phrase. which is not surprising since they are highly verbal. ( 12) selle him J>onne . ettm ... pistil/ nftlur-nda anti gesodena on give him then [to) eat peas overmoistened and boiled in ecede . l'inegar (lch2.2.2.1)

4.2 Frequency ofptut participles in postnnmitwl position Quite a few of the postnominal adjectives in the above category and also in the other categories discussed below (cf. [12). [13).[15J.[I6a,b), [17),[20c)) are deverbal adjectives. such as participles. Thus. these adjectives are already more verbal by their very nature. Used postnominally. they indicate that the quality e:llpressed is not inherent but th
Other deverbal adjectives which show more of the trappings of adjectives. such as (Em)ge.{ewenlic in (14). also show a higher tendency to appear postnominally/' ( 14)

/Ji.uum mom>e gesceop god cl'lmilrtig ealle gesceaf/a gesewen/ice in this month created God a1mighty all creatures \'i.{ihle and ungesewenlice and in\'i.{ihle (Bynn2 80.15)

011

4.3 Modijkmitm with adl·erb.f One of the more interesting observations is that the prenominal weak adjective does not occur with adverbs such a'\ swipe 'very' and .nm 'so· (and other less

262

OLGA FISCHER

frequently occurring adverbs such as lliwall in 1151). while they very commonly modify verbs and predicative adjectives (including strong pre- and postnominal

adjectives). which are close to verbs. In Fischer (2000) I have shown that a phrase like 'a very old man'. or 'the man is very old' is extremely common in Old English. but that a phrase like 'the very old man' does not occur at all in the complete body of materia] that we have of Old English. All this again shows that in Old English. the weak adjective is more nominal in nature. and like a noun cannot be modified by an adverb. There are also some interesting uses of swtl with a postnominal adjective, which seem to emphasize the temporariness of the adjectival property concerned: ( 15) }>o1111e se .~wile gewynmed wbyrst nim gale meo/uc swa wearme when the .n,,..e/Jing fe.{tering bursts take goat:{ milk tllll.{ warm niwan amolcene sele drincan newly milked give (il) (toJ drink (Lch2.20.1.1)

In (15) .nm wearme clearly indicates that the milk must be given while it is still warm. When we compare this situation to Present-day English. we not only find 'very' used before an anributive adjective in a definite noun phrase ('the very old man', cf. Fischer 2000: note 9), but 01lso more elaborate adverbials in this position 4lS in these examples from Mmkus ( 1997): 'the normally timid soldier', 'this by no means irresponsible action' (slightly adapted). 4.4 Use as .w!cotrdary prediccue An example like (15) also makes clear that the difference between an adjective that is linked to the noun phmse and an object complement in which the adjective functions as a secondary predicate separate from the noun phrase. is much more difficult to make in Old English. It is quite possible to interpret swa wearme in (15). for instance. as an object complement. In Present-day English the phrase in (15) would normaJiy be translated a.'i 'take warm. newly milked goat's milk'. as if indeed the adjective is attributive. whereas the grammatical function of the adjective may well be more correctly tmnslated by an object complement: 'take it (while still) warm'. Other such structumlly ambiguous instances are given in ( 16).

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 263 (16)

a.

gijh1m his rihl«we lifigendeforla:te and on oVran wife if anyone his lawful-wife lit·ing leaves and another woman 011 unriltt gewijige unlawfully marries

(lawNorthu.64) b. eft

c.

wid gefigmt sceapes hohscancan unsodenne 1obrec then against cimosis (1) {a] Jlleep:f leg unetmked break gedo /Jtr!t mearh . put the marrow (Lch1.2.23.6) wi/J bryce fearres gor wearm lege 011 pone against ja] fracture oxen dung warm place on the bryce fractured-limb (Quad. 743)

d. gifmon

twyhyndne

mon unsynnigne mid with (a)

if one {a/ nm-hmtdred-shillingworrh man innocent lr/ode of.~lea troop-of-robbers kills (LawAf 1.29)

In an example like (16c), a translation into Present-day English with an object complement (i.e. with an adjective following the noun) seems still possible. but this is hardly the ca.o;e in (16a.d): we can no longer say 'break a leg uncooked'. It is quite pos.<
4.5 Jncorporatim1 of a negatil•e element The use of a negative element is very closely connected with the predicate. i.e. the verbal element of the clause. Adjectives used predicatively are close to verbs. as stated above. and therefore can also be easily negated. Nouns as entities are not normally negated. because even in a clause like 'there was no man left alive'. it is not the category of man itself that is negated but the existence (expressed by the verb to be) of members of this category at a particular point in time. Note also the oddity of a negated attributive adjective as in 'the non-black sheep· vs. the normal. but predicative 'the sheep is not black·. It is striking in

264

OLGA FISCHER

my data that strong. negated adjectives occur much more frequently after the noun than adjectives without negation, and that, when there ace two strong adjectives (when. in other words. one of the adjectives IIJU.fl follow). then it is usually the negative one that follows. 7 possibly because the most predicativc adjective is preserved for the most predicative position: ( 17)

/Jll'r mihttm ge.{eon winceaslre leodan rancne here there could see (the) of-Winchester people fa/ proud army and unearlme wtd dawuleJs (Chronei.I006.28) b. .{e ilea da11id ... monigne forsende ~wr he ymb the same David many-a-man sent-to-destruction where he for his getreowne degn unsynnigne sierede his loyal thane imwcem a-plot-laid (and see also 16d) (CP 3.37.7) c. mid sotJum ge/eafan untweogendum with true faith .~tlllmch (Conf 3.2(Raith Y(23) a.

It is also interesting that deverbal adjectives with 1111- tend to occur relatively more often in postnominal position (see e.g. lm(aJtellendlic in note 6). The same is true for adjectives. in which 1111- is somewhat unusual when used auributively. such as unlyllel. This adjective occurs twenty-six times in the DOE. one of which is prenominal. twenty postnominal and four are straightforwardly predicative. One example is. ( 18)

to miclan bryce to (a) great breach micltm bryne big conHagration

saal mice/ bot nyde and to must need'i (go) (a) great remedy and to (a( wreter unlytel gif man fm:t fyr scealto allte water fJOt-liu/e if one that lire shall at all

extinguish (WHom 4.17) Here the predicative use of 1mlytel is further empha.'iized by the fact that it is modified by an adverbial clause (that the adverbial clause modifies the adjective mthcr than the whole clause is clear from the fact that the expression to a/ue balances the litotes lm(rtef).

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 265 4.6 DiJctmr.H! mtmipulability ami itljfectiotiCJI endings Hopper and Thompson ( 1984 ). when discussing degree of categoriality in nouns and verbs. show that nouns and verbs behave most prototypica11y (i.e. with the full range of nominal or verbal trappings) when they play a salient role in the discourse. that is, when they enter the discourse as full. new participants. When they are important to the subsequent discourse, they are seen to be highly manipulable. When nouns or verbs are not salient. they are also not manipulable; they lose their nominal and verbal trappings and are often incorpor.1ted into their dominating head in the form of a clitic or inHection or as part of a compound (cf. the suggestion about incorporation made for Old English weak adjectives. above. and see also Jansen and Lentz (this volumeJ). Hopper and Thompson ( 1984: 722) write, "the more a form serves to introduce a manipulable entity into the discourse. the more highly marked it needs to be. Once it has been introduced. it is no longer manipulable. and it may appear with much less linguistic marking". It is most interesting in this respect that the inflections of the strong adjectives - which function. a.'\ we have seen. rhematically - are indeed much more distinctive for case. gender and number than that of the weak (cf. [2] above). Now, if prenominal position and a weak adjectival ending. usually accompanied in Old English already by a definiteness marker, corresponds to thematic or non-salient information, one wonders how Old English speakers would indicate that an adjective may yet be salient in that position. Or the other way around. how would an Old English speaker make clear that a prenominal adjective after an indefinite marker may still be non-salient. It could be done by stress of course. as in Modem English. but we cannot prove this without the help of a native speaker. However. although the weak/strong endings of the adjective in Old English are pretty much determined by the type of determiner that accompanies them (definite or indefinite/zero respectively). there are a few examples where this norm is broken. First of all there are the comparative forms. which are always weak. This can now be explained as follows: the comparative refers back to a positive form and as such functions anaphorically. and is thus nonsalient." The same would be true for the weak form which is always found in the vocative case. When one addresses a person (or persons) as leofan me11 'dear men'.hlafordleofa 'lord dear',stwltrajt-"gel'wise king' or goda'lmihtiga.one is using that complete phrase as a name. as a term of address; the adjective is known and gives no new information about the person. Notice that in this ca."e even the adjective used postnominally is weak. It also looks as if the weak and strong forms of self (which for semantic reasons occur postnominally") are not always according to the norm. In ( 19a) .fe/ja is postnominal but weak; it presumably has

266

OLGA FISCHER

no stress since it plays no further role in the discourse (it is not manipulable). In (19b) .w:lf is strong. but here it is salient because it contrasts with 'others': (19)

a.

b.

bt• Pam drihtenselfa cydde in/>amgodspelle about which lord himself showed in the gospel (GDPref and 31CJ 26.231.10) h11m Otl'l he self do .n\'a .{Wa Ire ot)re la~rd indeed that he himself should-do just a.o; he others teaches (CP 60.453.14)

There are other cases of postnominal adjectives, which do not seem to convey new information and it is for this reason that lhey may be. exceptionally, weak.

(20a) is from a saint's life. where a 'clean maiden' has almost become an idiomatic phrase. a term used for any female martyr. Examples (20b) and (c) seem to be instances where the postnominal adjectives do no more than elaborate the prenominal weak ones. adding no new information: (20)

a.

god a4mihtig heo Cl\'tl'O ic eom pin jJeowa cltrna God a1mighty she said I am yo11r .~er\'0111 pure (Marg. 338) b. /JiJ Jint taar }Jtrs halan magan omihlan these arc symptoms of-tile lwt .uomaclr inflammatory ungemeljtrst/ican aud ful'.\. ofen:ealdau and of-the overcold e:rce.uil·e (Lch2.16.1.1)

.. be /Ja:re geliCIIIIRt' /JCt'.{ magan /Je }HI yfelon wtrlan by the pleasure('!) of-the stomach which tire t'l'il lmmourJ sceorfendon and sceorpon lul'ftl rouglr and .{harp has (Lch2.1.1.17)

An example with an order similar to (20b-c) is the following. where we also have a determiner followed by a weak adjective and noun. but the adjective that follows is strong. (21)

[then came to his mind the words of father Egberht) se geara mid pone ilcan ceaddan iungne & lrio bege11 who long-ago with the .mme Chad {11'he11} young and they both

ginge on Jcotta ealmrde .~yndrig rmttmclif ha'jdon young on (a) Scottish island separate cloisters had · ... who long ago. when Chad was still young and when they were both young. had separate cloisters on a Scottish island'. (Chad.l.l84)

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 267 Here the adjective is strong because it is dearly predicative. St. Chad's youth is mentioned in connection with the past not as an inherent feature of lhe sainl. Another interesting contrast may have been intended in the following examples. but the differences are subtle becnusc we have to rely on contex;t. and also it may have been the case that the endings were no longer always sharply differcntiated:w (22)

a.

sum wre/hreow )STRJ demo hi,{ bodrmge adwtf.{CQII and Pa cristenan geneadian to /Jam deofellicum bigt'llcgum

t}a 1mlde egea.{

'then Egeas a-cenai11 cruel judge wanted to destroy his preaching and the Christians force to (do) those develish rituals' (IECHom. I, 38 586.31) b. Jm wa1111 him wrgecm sum wrelhreow [STRJ hentoga maxemius t:ehaten mid micclum ftrymme 1m/de him benaman l!is life.~ and his rices 'then fought against him {a/ cenain cruel general called Maxentius with lal big force (he) wanted to deprive him of his life and his kingdom' (IECHom.ll, 19 174.7) c. fm Wlt'.~ ge.~et sum Wll'lhreowaJWKJ dema agricolall.f geciged 011 anre byrig .~eba.\·tia gehaten on /Jam Iande armenia. Se fort'sada dema was swi~e arleas . 'then there was appointed a-cenain auel judge. called Agricolaus. in a place called Sebaste in the country of Armenia. This beforementioned judge was very wicked' (tELS IForty Soldiers )9) In the first two examples a strong adjective is used, the adjective which is the rule with indefinite noun phra.-.es. II is clear from the context that the information given by the adjective is relevant and saJient because the continuation of the clause indicates that further information is buill upon this knowledge.ln the third example, which has a weak adjective. the case is rather different. Here it seems that 'cruer is used as a qualifier. a gener.1lizing adjective. The context then goes on to mention that this judge is arlea.~. giving this a.-. new information. presumably because the previous mentioning of wrelhreow had not yet particularized this quality in connection with the judge's activities. It is difficult to be certain about what these subtle differences mean. but it may be interesting to mention thut there exists a similar difference in Dutch. where a weak adjective (adjectives ending in -e) emphasizes an inherent quality of a person ('een wrede rechter'. 'een grote man'). while a strong adjective emphasizes a particular quality, true only for

268

OLGA FISCHER

a particular occasion ("een wreed rechter'. 'een groot man'). 11 I have found two other cases where quite clearly a general quality is indicated by the adjective. and here too the adjective used is weak in spite of the indefinite noun phrase. (23)

a.

deal! fu sum wa>llrreowa(WK( gode lac geoffrige, m• bit) heo gOlle andfenge b11ton he hi.f wtellrreawnysse awurpe 'even lhough some cr11el(man( offers (a) good offering. this will not be well received unless he casts-off his cruelty' (AOCHom II. 37 274.58) b. fte,f an blinda(WK( mann getlll'l!ad eal mam:ymr jJe wean} ablend Jmrh adame.f gylt .

'in-this a blind man symbolizes all mankind which was blinded through Adam's guilt' (..4:CHom I. 10 154.10)

It must be clear that in these examples it is not a temporary or particular state of 'cruelty' and 'blindness' that is emphasized. but the inherent quality. To my mind this explains the unusua1 use of the weak adjective in these cases. 4.7

u.~e

1\"ith empty and anaplwric heads

In contrast to the examples in (23). the following are of interest, (24) a.

hwi ne meaht jJ11 ongitan J:uelle rek wuhtcwuces bit> innanweard lme.~co.~t and unbrocheardost ·why not could you perceive that each creat11re ali\·e will-be in-

wardly most-soft and most-delicate' (Bo3.34.92.3)

b. 11e wen jm1wjul't se yfta auht godes gestryne mid Iris yfte ')do) not you think that the evil)one) something good may-beget with his evil' (Cato 1.28) c. EaciJsumtJingdigeleonptFreda•de (tECHom 11.13 134.228) also Ithere I is some thing secret in that deed d. t>one lit·hommr ge.whte sum deaf man andfe()e/eas 'that body )of the saint) sought-out a-certain deaf man and crippled' (Mart 5(Kotzor)l924) Here strong adjectives (some in the genitive case) are combined with a head noun that is ""relatively ·non-new-information-bearing'·· (Thompson 1988: 174).

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 269

In such cases. as Thompson notes for Modem English. the adjectives function prcdicatively even though in Modem English in cases like 'he is a really nice guy' and in (24d). they are grammatically attributive. All the adjectives here are salient. (24d) forms a nice contr.tst with (23b) because in this ca.<>e the ..deaf man .. is a particular man. who happens to be deaf. and his deafness is highly salient and manipulable in the further discourse. where we learn how he lost his hearing. The genitive case used in (24a. b) indicates source and therefore points to the adverbial nature of the adjective. Note that the cases where the adjective occurs with a non-referential noun ('something. anything') still have a postnominal adjective in Present-day English. 4.8 Adjectives doinR double duty: auributil'e and Cldl·erbial

This last remark leads us to another characteristic of strong. postnominal adjectives. showing again that they arc closer to the verbal pole than the nominal. Just as adverbs and prepositions can become verbs quite easily (e.g. 'up' > 'to up'), and verbs can become prepositions (e.g. so-called serial verbs) in grammaticalization processes. similarly the Old English postpositional adjectives may be adverbial in nature. This has already been often remarked with respect to the adjectives in- weard. which in postnominal position (in contmst to prenominal) clearly indicate direction or location. ila eagan him) 011 tJam lichomanforeweardum and 'therefore the eyes are on the body at-the-frolll and ufeweardum at-the-top' !CP I 1.29.13)

(25) fortJwl

Used prenominally. they indicate a quality. (26) gifwe hine biddcu) mid inneweardre heortan 'if we him pray with fa/sincere heart'

(JEHom 16 39) But there are also other interesting minimal pairs. One of them is grene. (27)

a.

b.

genim ... grene rut/on twa hand Julie 'take ... green me two hands full' (Lch 11(2(. 32.3.3) G1j mcm .~cyle mucgwyrt to la!ceclome Jwbban Jnmlle nime /Ja readan wwp11ellma11 & /Ja grenan wifnren to lwcecrafte

270

OLGA FISCHER

c.

d.

e.

'if one must mugwort as (a( medicine have lhen take the red formen and the green for-women as (a] remedy' (Med3[Granan-Singer( 178.25) genim Pa reade net/an ufewearde 'take the red nellie the-top-par( (Lch2. 8.1.6) G)jt>ll hygrene nt~bhe. genimhydryge 'if you it gree11 (fresh( do-not-have. use it dried' (Lch IIHcrbl 30.2)

nym belonican swa grene 'take betony

.ftill green (fresh)"

(PcriD 63.45.24) II is quite clear from all these examples that grene when used postnominally has the meaning of 'fresh'. 'freshly picked' (this is especially clear in (27e) with the adverb swa, see Section 4.3 above) and thus refers to a temporary state rather than to an inherent quality. II is also clear that when the adjective is used prenominally it refers to a type of plant. i.e. to red or green mugworl. to the red nettle. and probably also to the green rue (other references in Bald's LRechbook make clear that plants that are similar to the rue have red Rowers or red milk. so presumably there is a red as well as a green rue). Other postnominal adjectives that have an adverbial element in them ace: (28)

a.

he ... Oa ciricetm ll'jJellice gefretwatle ... mid woruhllicumfr~twum oferstEwiscum 'he ... the church nobly adorned ... with worldly omamentJfromm·er.{eas'

(Manl 101) b.

gif he gemeted of>enre ll't his tl'\\'llm 12 wife betynedum dllrlllll mMe 1111der a11re remr oOc)e ll'l his dehter rewumborrnre

'if he finds another [man[ with his lawful wife behind-closed doors or under a blanket or with his da11ghter hom-in-wedlock' (Lawa 42.7)

c.

jJtl'r

sim .nt'iOe micle

merasfersce

'there are very big {mml)''!f/ake.{ freJ/r' (Chron. A. 68.11) It is clear that in the last example it is not the lake itself that is fresh. but the water in it, so the postnominal adjective is a shortened form for an adverbial phrase 'with fresh water'.

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 271

S.

Conduding remarks

It is time for a brief conclusion. and some remarks about the literary use of postnominal adjectives in Modem English. I have tried to show that adjective position in Old English is iconically motivated in that prenominal adjectives.

when they are weak and definite. convey given information: they behave typically like anributive adjectives which are closer to the nominal pole of the adjective cline. and they are therefore an inseparable part of the head: together with the noun phrase they form the 'theme' of the utterance. Postnominal adjectives. on the other hand. which are typically strong. behave like predicates (are closer to the verbal pole), and they therefore give new information about the noun phrase. i.e. they are rhematic with respect to the noun that they modify. Thus, in the latter case. the nature of the noun phrase itself is not inherently changed by the adjective. As Bolinger showed, it is the linear order of the elements that naturally leads to such an interpretation. When strong adjectives arc used prenominally in Old English. they are presumably also predicative in nature and rhematic. but this is not shown linearly. It is likely that stress. which is a different form of iconicity (i.e. phonological iconicity. see Section 2) plays a role here. but without a native speaker of Old English we have no way of knowing. It is clear. however. that the linear system that operated in Old English has gmdually given way to a phonologically iconic system. Nowadays we indicate the differences I have discussed in this study mainly by stress and not by linear order. In this context (and in the context of the interdisciplinary nature of this book). it is interesting to observe. however. that especially in poetry, linear order may still be used to express these differences. I have not had enough time to look at examples in poetry in any systematic fashion. but the few poems I have looked at nearly all seem to use Noun· Adjective order according to the 'natural" rules I have sketched for Old English. Thus. in the example that Anderson (1998: 293) gives in his recently published book. of a rhetorical figure called anaJtrophe. (29)

In States unborn and accents yet unknown (Julius Cae.mr Ill. I. 111-13)

it is clear that the postnominal adjective phrases "unborn" and "yet unknown" have all the trappings of verbal or predicative adjectives: they are both derived from verbs. they contain a negative elemenl. and one adjective is even modified by the adverb of time yet. In a book I picked up randomly. containing poetry selections from the Renaissance up till the present day (Phythian 1970). I counted a total of thiny.four instances of Noun· Adjective order. All but three are

272

OLGA FISCHER

according to the parameters sketched in Section 4. In (30) I give some examples of this. (31) shows some possible exceptions. (30) a. b. c. d. e.

We are prepared: we build our house.~ squat (Seamus Heaney. 'Storm on the Island') If rubies. lo! her lips be rubies sound: (Spenser. Amorelli. Sonnet 15) And then to awake, and the fann. like a wanderer white With the dew ... (Dylan Thomas Fem Hill) When the tired flower of Aorence is in gloom beneath the glowing Brown hills .mrrmmdi11g (D. H. Lawrence. 'Bat') Studying im•nlfimtsfine, her wits to entertain: Oft turning others' leaves. to see if thence would How Some fresh and fruitful flowers upon my sun~bum'd brain.

(Sir Philip Sidney. 'Sonnef) how Love fled And paced upon the mmmtai'u o\'erlread (W. B. Yeats. 'When You Are Old and Grey') (31) a. b.

On russet floors. by water,\·itlle, The pine lets fall its cone (A. E. Housman, "Tell Me Not Here') When I consider how my light is spent. Ere half my days in thi.{ dark world and wide (Millon. ·on His Blindness')

Thus. in (30a). the adjective "squat" behaves like an object complement (in spite of the fact that the verb 'build' does not nonnally take object complements in English) rather than an attributive adjective: it refers not so much to the quality of the houses but to the way they are built. so to the activity of building. In (30b) the poet wants to emphasize that his lady's lips are not just like rubies (in love poems all ladies have ruby lips) but that they arc rubies with an e:~~:tra quaJity. that is. they are rubies and sound into the bargain. (30c) is an e:~~:ample where the adjective is further modified by a prepositional phrase. making it more verbal. In (30e) the adjective "fine" is highly salient as is clear from the ensuing discourses. which further elaborates the notion that "fine" e:~~:presses. FinaJly (300 is an instance where the adjective itself is adverbial in nature. e:~~:pressing location (d. the -ll't!ard adjectives discussed in Section 4.8). Of course. in all these cases there are also often metrical or rhythmical reasons for putting the adjective behind the noun. but it is clear that this usc of postposition. which is e:~~:ceptional in prose, is bound to rules. Intuitively. poets realise that postposed adjectives are verbal rather than nominal. they convey rhematic infonnation. describing

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 273 qualities that are not inherent but which pertain to the activity of the moment. In other words. the way adjective position is used by poets in Modem English

shows that their choice is iconically motivated. This is what we would expect given the fact that iconic structures are by their very nature not language specific, and therefore the same 'rule' would apply whether the language is Old English or Modem English. Italian or Greek.

Adnowledgments I would like to thank Andrea.~ Fischer. Willem Koopman and Mv. Nilnny for their tarcful reading of an earlier version of this paper.

Notes I.

I have used the reference system as given in Healey iUld Venezky ( 1980). which is also employed in the machine readable \'trsion of lhe DO£. To s(m: spate I have not gin~n u gloos and translation in each ca.q:. I have been careful to give a liter.al tr.Ul.~lation of the noun and w;ljec.:tive phrases in question. while I have felt free to trnnslatc the rest of the scntcl!f;e somewhat less literally when nt(.-essary for comprehension. A da.<Ji between words in the tr.uullllion indicates that in the Old English tell.! these word.~ an: represented by one word. MjUan: brolckets indicate words not present in the Old English tell.!.

2.

I have found this to be definitely true for the glosses and also for te11.ts directly ba.'ied on a Latin tell.!. such as B~J~ and the Cura Pas/oralis. Here the authors simply follow the Latin word onkr very strictly. lliese ca..;es do not confunn to the rules that I will be presenting in the CtJUne of this ankle.

3.

Cf. also Vendlcr (1967: 175). who notes that "adjec.:tivcs an: tictl to their subjec.:ts [the nouns they qualify J in different manner", that is. some adjec.:tives, npressing naturol or inherent qualities of the thing they refer to. an: of a "substantial" nature (p. 1113). while othen; refer to an "appropriate action involving the thing" (p. 175), i.e. they an: tied to their subject verbally. 1be hypothesis I ~ putting forward here is that in Old English (and in Dutch) this difference could still be npressed by a dilfer<:Jif;t' in the fnnn and the position of the adjective.

4.

For this reason it is nut surprising that most of the quantilien; in Old English appear only in a strong form (cf. Quirk and Wrenn 1955: 31, 40). As ljUantilien they usually convey indefinite information. lbey an: also a type of adjective found \'CI)' frequently in post position. Similarly 'ilea' appear.; always in the weak form. and is always preposcd. because by its very meaning ('the same') it cannot be but definite.

5.

Markus (1997) notes in his study of adjedive position in Present-day English that adjec.:tives that are them.-.elves modified by PPs begin to occur mon: and more frequently before the noun. It seem.~ to me that this development may be due to the fact that adjective po.~ition became grammaticalized to ~nominal po.~ition. whereby the iconic function of p011ition was lost but taken over by phonological konicity. It may also be for this rca.'ltlll that so-called infinitival relatives {a.~ in Tl!i.• is an t"U.n 1·in/in tn play nn) did no1: yet occur in Old English. wlx:re the adjective t'asy. being clearly predicative. would still occur after the noun. It seem.~ ltl me

274

OLGA FISCHER theref11re that the rise uf what are now called infinitival relative:> must be lnoketl for in the filing of the adjectival po.~ilion. and that in fact infinitival relatives did already occur in Old Ellgl~~h only in a different shape (pace Dubinsky ]1997], followed by Miller [fonhcoming]. who believe there wa.~ a grammar change here involving null oper.uors).

6.

Of all the occum:nccs of ~nl'wen/ir in the DOE (93 in tolal). 34 occur prcnominally. while 25 ~ pmtnominal,the other occum:nces are either predicative or adverbial. The proportion here between pre· and postnominal is quite uceptional considering that the rule is, when there is only one adjective. for adjectives to pncetk the noun they qualify. Similarly the adjective un(a)lrllrndlic occurs in toea! ten times in the DOE. two an:: prenominal, two are poslnominal. the rest is pn:dicative.

7.

1be sume is true, a.~ we have seen with (13). when one of the two adjectives is a past participle.

II.

1bc cue may be a lillie more complicated with the superlative fonn, which is generally also weak but may be strons wben used predicatively (cf. Quirk and Wrenn 1955: 69). only. however. in the nominative singular and lhe accusative singular neuter (cr. Brunner 1962: 62). 1be rea~ons for Ibis severe restriction arc not dear.

9. When $t:/fa i.~ used pn:nominally. it is always weak.like i/ru. and it ika. 'same'. 10. This is certainly uue for !ale Old English

te~ls.

hu.~

the same meaning as

where especially the endinss -an and -um were

often interchangeable.

II. I would like to thank Carnie! Hamuns for oonfinning my own nath·e iniUitions here and for dmwing my allention to quite a larse body of liter.llure on Ibis queslion. such a.~ his own discussion (Humans 1980). and the discus.~ion in the ANSon p. 330 and Vcndler 1967. 1bc principle behind this dilference is well e~plained in Vendler. who shows that adjectives such as wrrr:d may conne<:l up both with the: noun. in which case lhey describe an inherent quality (weak ll'rrdt'). a.~ well a~ with lhe verb, in which ca.~e the: adjective qualif1es the noun only in respect to the: function it expresses (strons wreed). This second ca~e is therefore most common with action nouns such as 'judge'. 'dancer'. 'cook' elc. {cf. 'to judge. dance, cook' etc.).

12. Note that

ln<'t by itself is used for a 'rruuried woman' in Old English indicating that lt'K'f' wif can almosl be considered a compound. Also a lawful wife would be unique. whereas a lawfully born daughter could be contrasted with other daughters not so bom.

References Anderson. E.R. 1998. A Grammar nf lconi.fm. Madison. Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ANS. 1984. Algemene Nednfandse Spraaklcunst. Edited by G. Geen.s. W. Haeseryn. J. de Rooy and M.C. van dcr Toom. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhof. Bolinger, D.L. 1952 [1972J."Linear Modification··. Lang11a1:e 67: II 17-1144. Reprinted in F. Householder (ed.) Syntm·tic' Theory. 31-51. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Bolinger. D.L. 1967. "Adjectives in English: Attribution and Predication··. Lingua 18:

1-34. Brook, G.L. 1955. An Introduction to Old English. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

POSITION OF THE ADJECTIVE FROM AN ICONIC PERSPECTIVE 275 Brunner, K. 1962. Die englisclle Sprm·he. 1/rre gescllichtlidte En01'ickl1mg. Vol. II. TUbingen: Niemeyer. Dixon. R.M. W. 1977. "When: Have All the Adjectives Gone?''. St11dieJ in Language 1: 19-80. DOE. Dictiona~· of Old Engli.dt Pmje1·t, The Complete Corpus of Old EngliJh in Mot·hine· Readable Form. 1998.A. DiPaolo Healey and R. Vcnezky {cds). University of Michigan (www.hli.umich.edu/cnglishlocc). Dressler. W.U. 1990. "The Cognitive perspe<:tivc of 'Natunalist' Linguistic Models". Cognith·e linguistics I: 75-98. Dressler. W.U. 1995. ''Interactions between Iconicity and Other Semiotic Parameters in Language". In lconidry,· in Language. R. Simone (ed.), 21-37. Amsterdam: John Bcnjamins. Dubinsky. S. 1997. "Infinitival Relative Clau~s in English: An Antisymmetric Approach to Discontinuous Constituency". Proceedin~:s of the 1996 Ea.ftem States Conference on Lingui.ftics (ESCOL 1996). 82-93, Cornell University: CLC Publications. Fischer, O.C.M. 2000. "The Position of the Adjective in Old English". In Generative Theory and Corpus Smdie.f. A Dialogue from JO ICEHL, R. BennUdez-Otero, D. Denison, R. M. Hogg and C. B. McMully (eds), 153-182. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. FOnagy. I. 1999. "Why lconicity?". In Form Mimin~: Meonin~:.lconicity in l..allJ:Uoge and Literature. M. Nanny and 0. Fischer (cds). 3-36. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hamans, C. 1980. "Waarin wa.~ de gocde moordenaar goed?". In Filo.mji.u·he L.e:.ingen gehm1den op de Eer.fte Neder/andJe Filo.tofiedag 15 Septemht-r /979. 74-80. Amsterdam. Healey A.and R.L.Venez.ky. 1980. A Microfiche Concordana to Old Enxlish. The Dictionary of Old English Project. Center for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto. Herzberg. J. 1968. Beemdgra.u. Amsterdam: van Oorschot. Hopper. P.J. and S.A. Thompson. 1984. "The Discourse Ba.~is for Lexical Categories in Universal Gr<~mmar''.l..anguaxe 60: 703-750. Kytfi. M. 1991. Manual to the Diodmmic Part ofn•e Hel.finki Corpus of English Texts. Coding Cmn•entimu and Li.ft.f of Source Texu. Helsinki: University of Helsinki. Langacker. R. W. 1997. "Con.~tituency. Dependency, and Conceptual Grouping". Cognitil't' Linguisric.f 8: 1-32. Lecercle. J. J. 1990. The Violem·e of Language. London: Routledge. Markus. M. 1997. "'The Men Present' vs. 'The Present Ca...e': Word Order Rules Concerning the Position of the English Adjective". Anglio 115: 487-506. Miller. G. Forthcoming. Nonfinifl.' Structllre.f in Theory and Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mitchell. B. 1985. Old Eng/i.fh Synta.t. Vol. I. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Plank, F. 1979. "lkonisicrung und De-lkonisierung als Prinzipien des Sprdchwandels". Spraclnri.uensclraft 4: 121-158.

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Phythian, B. A. 1970. Con.fidning Poet~·. An Approach to Critid.fm. London: The English Universities Press. Quirk R. and C.l. Wrenn. 1955. Air Old English Grammar. London: Methuen. Quirk. R. and S. Greenbaum. 1973. A Uni1·ersity GromnrarojE11glish. London: Longman. S~rensen, K. 1956. "Substantive with Two Epithets''. English Studie.f 37: 261-264. Stavrou, M. 1996. "Adjectives in Modem Greek: An Instance of Predication. or an Old Issue Revisited". Joumal of Lingui.ftic.f 32: 79-112. Strang, B.M.H. 1970. A HistoryofEngli.fh. London: Methuen. Thompson. S. A. 1988. "A Discourse Approach to the Cross-linguistic Category 'Adjec· live'". In E1:plaininR l.aiiJ:Uage Uni1•ersals. J. Hawkins (ed.). 168-185. Oxford: Blackwell. Vendler, Z. 1967. "The Grammar of Goodness". In Z. Vendlcr.lJIIglli.ftil'.t in Pllilo.toplly. 172-199. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Vincent. N. 1986. "La posizione ddl'aggenivo in italiano". In Tema-Rema ill ltafia11o. Symposium. Frankfurt om Main. 26127-4-1985. H. Stammerjohann (ed.), 181-195. TUbingcn: Gunter Narr.

Present participles as iconic expressions Frank Jansen and Leo Lentz Utrecht Uni1·ersity, UIL-OTS

I.

Introduction

Present participles function as iconic signs in two ways. Firstly. their lack of verbal morphology is a reflection of the fact that the acts they refer to are of minor importance. Secondly. their preferred position in the sentence is a reflection of the fact that the act they refer to is isochronic with the act which the verb of the embedding clause refers to. These two hypotheses were tested and

confirmed in a corpus of Dutch recipes from 1514 up to modem times. There is some evidence that the same is true for English recipes. Another result worth mentioning is the fact that the usc of present participles in more recent recipes tends to be more iconic than that in older recipes.

2.

Theory

2.1

The coding of simllltaneity

One of the most salient uspects of iconicity is 'isochrony': the phenomenon that the order of linguistic elements (phra.'ies. clauses) is a reflection of the temporul order of the events they refer to (see for example Tai 1985). In other words. when un event A precedes event B in time. the unmarked description is a sentence (or a paragraph) with expressions referring to A and B in that order. Thus. when someone is reading a description of two events A and B. he will assume that the tempoml order of the events described was also A B.

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FRANK JANSEN AND LEO LENTZ

lsochmny is a major ordering principle for informative texts as stories. or reports of events. Less known perhaps is the fact that the same principle is fundamental for instructive texts. Simone (1995: 162) proposes a 'Maxim of succession by Default': "If not otherwise expressly indicated. assume that the order of clauses resembles that of actions involved". Writing about recipes. Steehoudcr (1996) had the same in mind with his 'principle of the preferred sequence of acts'. In an optimal instructive text, the order of instructive steps reflects the temporal order of the acts the user has to perform. Of course. most authors of cookery books are well aware of the importance of this principle. judging by the remark "Tell the reader immediately what needs to be done first. ruther than referring to it later in the instructions.. by Whitman and Simon in a chapter with the telling title ''No Surprises'' (Whitman and Simon 1993: 3 I). Apart from the temporal orders A 8 and 8 A. there are several other possible time relations between two events, especially those involving 'simultaneity' .1 The description of a simultaneous event is a problem for the language user. because the linearity principle of language forbids him to refer to two different events at the same time {see also Haiman 1985 for an elaboration of some other consequences of this principle). However. there are at least two solutions to code simultaneous events. The first is the 'lexical solution·. The linguistic expressions of A and B are ordered after each other. but their special relation is signalled by lexical expressions. for example 'lit the same time + independent clause' as in the example in (I), which was constructed for our purpose here: ( I) Voeg er het tomatenwater bij en coer tegelijkertijd add there the tomato water to and stir at the same time 'Add the tomato water and stir at the same time' There is a catch to this lexical option. At least some readers will read up to the conjunction en 'and'. and stop there. in order to implement the adding immediately. In doing this they will be late with the stirring part. This may be the reason why we did not find examples like ()) in our corpus of Dutch rccipes. 2 The alternative for the lexical solution is the 'iconic solution'. in which the expression of B is a part of the expression of A. suggesting an intertwined course of events. In this paper we will explore this second possibility. A first option is the incorporation of a centre-embedded temporal clause in the independent clause: (2)

vocg er terwijl je roert het tomatenwater bij add there while you stir the tomato water to 'Add while you arc stirring the tomato water'

PRESENT PARTICIPLES AS ICONIC EXPRESSIONS

279

The word order in (2) is perfectly grammatical. However. Dutch recipe-writers seem to refrain from using centre-embedded clauses like these. as is evidenced by the distribution of 'whil£' clauses' in our corpus. They prefer the sentenceinitial (3) or the sentence-final position (4) in the embedding clause: (3) ende te wijle datmen die amandele stamp. (... J so soldy and while that one the almonds crushes so will you altement een lepel wijn daer in docn (. .. ) now and then a spoonful of wine there in put 'And while one is crushing the almonds, one has to add a spoonful of wine now and again· (De keuke" wm de late middelee11wen. Text edition of a manuscript of a cookery book from ca.ISOO. edited by R. Jansen-Sieben and J.M. van Winter) bruin ( .. ). terwijl men een (4) en bak hierin de stukken kip and fry here in the pieces chicken brown while one a stukje ui en wortel meebakt. piece onion and carrot also fries 'and fry the pieces of chicken until they are brown. while frying a piece of onion and carrot with it' (Eiectm-ktmkboek. Den Haag z.j.) Presumably. centre-embedded dependent clauses are avoided because they present processing difficulties (Hawkins 1988). On the other hand, the position of the dependent clause in (3) and (4) is less than optimal in iconic terms: The sentence-initial clause in (3) suggests that the act it refers to has to be perfonned before the act the embedding clause refers to: the sentence final clause in (4) suggests that the act it refers to follows the act the embedding clause refers to. So (3) and (4) are in a way as bad as the lexical option. There is a way to circumvent this dilemma. and that is when the writer uses non-tense verbal fonns like present participles instead of full-blown dependent clauses. (5) voeg er roerende het tomatenwater bij add there stirring the tomato water to 'Add. stirring it, the tomato water' (Elisabeth, Prakti.{c/re recepteiii'UII de huislwlldschoo/ Mariakroo11. Culemborg 1930) We expect that the centre-embedded present participle is used for an act which has to be executed simultaneously with the act expressed in the embedding

280

FRANK JANSEN AND LEO LENTZ

clause. Following the same line of reasoning. we expect sentence-initial present participles to be referring to acts which start earlier than the act of the embedding clause. and sentence-final acts to be referring to acts which should be executed subsequently to the act expressed by the verb in the main clause. 2.2 Presem parridples as defecti\'e \'erbs When the present participle construction is compared with a full dependent clause. it is deficient in two ways. Firstly there is no overt subject. The agent of the present participle roeremle 'stirring' in (5), is coreferentia1 with the (implicit) subject of the imp;!rntive voeg 'add'. viz. 'you. the reader'. Secondly. there are no overt morphological markers of tense and person. On the one hand. this simplicity diminishes the internal complexity of the construction. Consisting of one word. roerende. this construction poses no processing problems for the reader. even if it occupies a centre-embedded position. On the other hand. its defective chamctcr when compared with tensed verbs can be considered as an iconic sign of some kind of defect of the act it refers to. Hopper and Thompson ( 1984), in their typology of the discourse basis of nouns and verbs, devote special attention to the absolute construction which exists in Greek. Latin and several other languages. They analyse the pan.iciple in this construction as a defective verb. something intermediate between a noun and a verb. The participle typically refers to discourse entities which are presupposed. This last claim is suppon.ed by empirical research by Thompson ( 1984) in her analysis of the use of the related detached pan.iciple construction in English texts. We would like to make an analogous claim for the cognate Dutch present pan.iciple construction: The defectiveness of this construction not only signals that the act it refers to is presupposed. but also that the act it conveys is of minor importance for the reader/user of the text. At this point the challenge is to find a methOO to assess the relative impon.ance of the act referred to by the present participle and by the verb of the embedding clause. without calling upon some linguistic feature in the text. In our opinion. it is one of the major advantages of corpus research on functional texts like recipes. that such a method can be found. In this case. we asked ourselves: what happens to the dish if we do not comply with the prescription referred to by the present participle or that referred to by the verb in the embedding sentence? In some cases we had to experiment in our kitchens. but in most ca~es the answer was mther strdightforward. Take (5) for example. The addition of water is essential for a successful creation of the dish: without water, no soup. We may call this type of instructive

PRESENT PARTICIPLES AS ICONIC EXPRESSIONS

281

act, analogous to the typology of rules by Rawls we found in Searle (1965), a 'constitutive' instruction. The stirring act, on the other hand, only ameliomtes the quality of the resulting soup - and perhaps also the efficiency of preparing it. This type of non-essential instruction may be called 'regulative' instructions.

3.

Results

3.1

Relative importance of the instmcti\·e act

There were four possible relations: (a) embedding verb constitutive. the present participle regulative. (b) embedding verb regulative. present participle constitutive. (c) both verbs constitutive. (d) both verbs regulative. As we were interested in the proportions of (a) and (b). the other options were put in a dustbin category, together with the cases where we could not decide the status of one verb or both verbs. Do present participles predominantly refer to regulative instructions? Table I gives the answer. Table I. Relativt: importance of actJ referred to by embeJJi111: \'t:rb.f ami h.\' participle.f (N

pl"f.'.W/1

= /021

embedding act constitutive present participle regulative

embedding ar..1 regulative pres. participle constitutive

rest category

62 (61C',fJ

2 (2%)

38 (37tK)

The preference for presenting regulative acts in the present participle and constitutive acts in the verb of the embedding sentence seems to be overwhelming. The present participle. being a defective verb. gives thus an iconic signal that the act it refers to is of minor importance. 3.2 l.mclmmy of sentence pmition and reference to e1•ents

Does the centre-embedded position of present participle constructions give another iconic signal in that they preferably refer to simultaneous acts? This question is part of a wider problem: does the position of present participles reflect the order of the acts they describe? In order to solve this problem we have to answer the following three questions:

282

b.

FRANK JANSEN AND LEO LENTZ

do present participles refening to preceding acts predominantly occupy an initial position? do present participles referring to simultaneous acts predominantly occupy an intra-sentential position. and do present participles referring to forthcoming acts predominantly occupy a final position?

The recipe corpus made it possible to give some answers as the present participles turned out to occupy positions at the beginning. the middle and the end of the embedding sentence (sec Table 2). Furthennorc. the participles refer to previous. simultaneous and future acts (see Table 3).3 Table 2. Po.tition of pres em purtidple.v in their embeJdinR .Vt'l/ft'lln.•.v ;, tile recipe corp11.v initial

intr-d-sentential

final position

45 (46lk)

38 t39'l)

19 (18Ck)

Table 3. 1ime relatim1 of tile ac·t.f referred to b.\' pre.~ent pcmiC"iple., ll'itll tire ac·t.f referred to by tire embeddi111: l'erb.~ previous 45

(44~)

simultaneous 45

(44~)

subsequent

12

(12~)

At first sight one may wonder that non-simullaneous present participle constructions do occur so frequently in our corpus. as it is hard for native speakers of Dutch to imagine roerend 'stirring' in (5) occupying the first (6) or the la."t (7) position: (6) ·~roerende. voeg er het tomatenwater bij (7) ·~voeg er het tomatenwater bij. roerende

And in fact, instructions with present participles in first and la."t position do not occur frequently in modem recipes. The explanation is related to the diachronic character of our corpus. Besides this type of present participle constructions with an active main verb. other types of present participles were used rather frequently in older texts. Those constructions have present participles of the temporal auxiliaries ltebbetl 'to have'. and especially ::.ijt1 'to be'. which is both a temporal and a passive auxiliary. We will coin them 'auxiliary participle constructions'. A few examples suffice to demonstrate that this auxiliary participle constructions refer to an event previous to the event of the embedding clause:

PRESENT PARTICIPLES AS ICONIC EXPRESSIONS (8)

283

Na behoren gaar zijnde. soo fruit een weinig Meel om je properly cooked being so fry a bit flour in order your Zaus te binden sauce to bind 'Being cooked properly. fry a bit of flour to bind your sauce' (Het Hol/and.f. ofNeetlerlandJ Kook-boek. Leiden 1724)

(9) De dosen verkoelt zijndc I stopl die toe the boxes cooled being shut them off 'The boxes being cooled. shut them' (Pharmada Gale11ica &Chymica. Amsteldam 1657) (I 0)

U vices gewassen en van al bet bloed gereynigd hebbende. zo your meat washed and of all the blood cleaned having besteekt het van buyte met nagelen it on the outside with cloves stick 'Having washed the meat and having cleaned it of all blood. stick cloves into it' (De Geoeffende en Ervaren Keuke11-meester. Leyden 170 I)

In Table 4 the distribution of the two types of present participles in the history of recipes is displayed: Table 4. Diachronic distribmion ofti\"O types ofpresem participle con.ftrul'tioll.~

up to 1600 auxiliary present participles other present participles

1600-1920

1920-present

42 30

30

Table 4 demonstrates that both types of construction were not popular (or did not exist at all) in the middle ages. During the following three centuries they both become possible. At the beginning of the twentieth century. the auxiliary present participle construction becomes obsolete. Now we are in a position to investigate the relation between the types of present participle construction and their position in the embedding sentence. Table 5 demonstrates that the auxiliary construction has a strong preference for the first position. while the main verb construction has a - less outspoken - preference for the intra-sentential position. According to the iconicity hypothesis we expect that the auxiliary construction in the front of the embedding sentence is used for cases where the present participle refers to a preceding event. This turns out to be the case in 39 out of

284

FRANK JANSEN AND LEO LENlZ

Table 5. Po.fition intire embedding .w:lltl!lln! oftwo type.fofpreul/l participle con.uructimu initial auxiliary pres.part. other pres.part.

intra-sentential

Jinal

34

18

37

40 cases (95%). One sentence-initial auxiliary present participle construction refers to a simuhaneous act. and two intm-sentential auxiliary constructions refer to previous acts. This construction seems to be used seldom or never in sentencefinal position and. consequently. never refers to forthcoming acts. The two cases with an auxiliary present participle in the middle of the sentence display an interesting pattern. We consider the position of the present participle construction in (II) as isochronic: (II) Ten anderen wardt de Marmelade ( ... )/ ghebroken zijnde I zwart otherwise turns the marmalade broken being black ende doncker roodt. and dark red 'Otherwise. the Marmalade crumbles and becomes black and dark red. (Pharmacia Galerrica &Chymica. Amsteldam 1657) The relative position of wardt 'becomes', ghebruken zljnde 'being crumbled" and ::.wart ende doncker roodt 'black and dark red' is a bit of a problem here. On the one hand. the order of wardt and ghebroke11 :,ij11de is not isochronic. because the process of crumbling precedes the process of becoming. On the other hand, the order of ghebroken :ijnde and :.wart ende doncker roodr is isochronic. because the process of crumbling precedes the result of being black and red. In our opinion, this problem (caused by the rule of Dutch syntax to put the subject complement in sentence-final position) is not a serious one, if we look at the difference in information value between wardt and :wart ende doncker roodt. The subject complement being more informative than the copula. we consider the relation between ghebroken ::ijnde and ::.wart ende do11cker roodI as decisive. In our opinion (II) is no counterexample against the isochronic rule. The other ca.
PRESENT PARTICIPLES AS ICONIC EXPRESSIONS

285

The position of the other present participles. with a main verb. tell quite another story, as Table 6 demonstrates. Table 6. Tl1e po.firion of main 1·erb present parridple constmcrions in tile embt'l!dillR inital

previous simultaneous forthcoming

,. 5

intra

after

2 ]()

2

8 10

• lbe numbers in boldface refer 10 isuchromc categories.

Although there is a preference to put the participle constructions in intr.t-sentential position. this type of present participle displays more variation in position and in time reference. which makes the construction a suitable candidate for an iconicity test. A look at the bold face numbers will suffice to see that intra-sentential present participles are preferred for simultaneous events and sentence final present participles for forthcoming events. A 2·test proved that the preference for present participle constructions referring to simultaneous acts to be intm· sentential was statisticnlly significant lx 2 =6.72. df= I. p=O.Ol), and the preference for present participle constructions referring to forthcoming acts to be sentence·final was statistically significant as well (x 2 =5.33. df= I. p=0.02). Table 6 reveals another fact. It seems to be impossible to implement a sentence-final present participle when referring ton preceding event: likewise. it is impossible to refer to forthcoming events with a sentence-initial present participle. In other words. the position of the present participle gives a clear iconic signal. Let us assume that isochrony is a device for enhancing the efficiency of understanding. which can be exploited by authors (but they do not have to). In that ca'ie, it is reasonable to ask another question: is there any evidence that in the course of history cookery book writers have become more and more aware of the iconic possibilities of the present participle constructions? The corpus permits us to answer this question for the main verb variant only. The corpus wa'i split into two categories: recipes published before and after 1920. As data were too scant for sentence-initial and sentence-final position. we limit our attention to the intm-sentential position. The results are to be found in Table 7. As far a'i the intra-sentential position for simultaneous acts is concerned. we see a statistically significant substantial progress: from 8/17 (47%) to 22126 (85%) isochrony. when tested with a 2-test (X 2 =6.87. df= I. p=0.009).

x

x

FRANK JANSEN AND LEO LENlZ

286

Table 7. Relation bt>twee/1 poJitioll ifl the

embeddin~o:

sentence cmd time referena. in older

and more 11!0!111 recipe,, 1600-1920

isochronic non-isochronic

4.

1910-now

22

Conclusions

It is theoretically conceivable that present participle constructions are used in a twofold iconic way. Their lack of internal structure - both less syntax (no subject) and less morphology (no tense forms) - may be considered as a reflection of the minor importance of the acts they refer to. Their posilion in the sentence may be considered as a reflection of the position on the time axis of the act they refer to. A quantitative investigation of the ways present participle constructions were used in the past and are used nowadays in recipes. demonstrated that authors of cookery books do exploit these iconic possibilities. Present participle constructions are predominantly used to refer to instructive acts of minor importance. When they occupy a sentence-initial position. they refer to preceding acts. in intra-sentential position they refer to simultaneous acts and in sentence-final position they refer to future acts. There is some evidence that the English present participle functions as an iconic sign as well. We would like to conclude this paper by presenting some anecdotal evidence taken from recipes in A passion for oyslers by S. Line (London 1995). The tendency to present important acts in the embedding sentence and minor acts in a present participle construction is found in (I 3): ( 13) Steam the oysters, shaking the pan In ( 13). it is obvious that the shaking is less important than the steaming. There seems to be no instruction in the book with the opposite order. as in ( 14): (14) '!Shake the pan. steaming the oysters As far as the word order is concerned, English has fewer options to reflect chronology than Dutch. because of the strict verb-secondness of English. which makes it nearly impossible to place a present participle construction intm-sententially. In fact, we see that most present participles refJecting a simultaneous act.

PRESENT PARTICIPLES AS ICONIC EXPRESSIONS

287

occur in sentence-final position. a.c; in (13). However, when a present participle does occur intra-sententially. it reflects a simultaneous act, for example in (15): (15) Steam the oysters. shaking the pan frequently. until they open. The present participles in sentence-final position can reflect a subsequent act as well. which is in accordance with the isochronic principle:

(16) Open the oysters. reserving the liquor. There seem to be too few examples of present participles in sentence-initial position to draw any conclusion from them. An example is: (17)

Using a good sharp knife. slit each steak lengthways to form a 'pocket'.

The initial position in (17) may be considered as a reflection of a previous act. as the cook has to take the knife first. and then slit the steak. but we think it is more realistic to see the using and lhe slitting as simultaneous acts. Another aspect of the English present participle construction is that it can be introduced by a subordinating conjunction. such as before. which creates a possibility for the lex.ical solution. This type of construction is used both in an isochronic (18) a'i well as in an anti-isochronic way (19): (18) Continue to cook over a low heat for I minute only before serving in heated soup bowls (19) Just before serving. prepare lhe garnish However. the interplay of position in lhe sentence and lhe use of lexical markers of chronology. being an entirely different matter. falls outside the scope of this paper.

Notes I.

There~ scver.tltypes (l[ simultaneity: totlli simultaneity (the evenl~ A and 8 begin ut the same time and end at the same time), panial simultaneity (8 stans before A stops). inclusion (event 8 stans later am.l stops earlier than A) and intennittent simultaneity (during A the~ is a series of short evcnl~ 8). A.~ our corpus of present paniciple constructions turned out to be too small to make meaningful solxategories. we subsume all subcategories.

2.

The resean:h reported here i.~ ba.<~et.l on a corpus of 200 recipes. consist1ng of printed recipes in the Dutch language from 1514 until 1994. We found 102 ca.<~es of present paniciple constructions.

3.

The verbs wen: coded for time reference by Ms. R. Houdijk. who was unaware of the hyputhcs1s presented in this paper.

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References Haiman, J. 1985. ··symmelry". In lc:oniciryinSynta.t. J. Haiman (ed.), 73-95. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Bcnjamins.

Hawkim, J.A. 1988. "Explaining Language Univcr.;als'', In EJ.pfaining Language Uniw!rsak J.A. Hawkins (ed.). 3-28. Oxford: Blackwell. Hopper, P.J. and S.A. Thompson. 1984. ''The Discourse Basis for Lexical Categories in Universal Grammar". Lan~:uage 60: 703-752. &arle, J.R. 1965. ''What is a Speech Act"'. In Pl!ilosopll)' in America. M. Black (ed.). 221-239. London: Allen & Unwin. Simone, R. 1995. "Iconic Aspects of Syntax". In /conicity in iAIIJ:Ilage. R. Simone (cd.) 15.'-169. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Bcnjamins. Stcchoudcr. M.F. 1996. ··ne volgorde in receptcn". Tekstblad 2. 3: 19-22. Tai, J.H-Y. 1985. '"Tempor.d Sequence and Chinese Word Order". In lmnil'iry in SytUtL'f. J. Haiman (ed.), 49-72. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Thompson, S.A. 1983. "Gmmmar and Discourse: The English Detached Participle Clause". In Discourse Perspecti\'f'.f o" S)·lllax. F. Klein·Andl't'U (ed.), 43-65. New York: Academic Press. Whitman, J. and D. Simon. 1993. Recipes into T}pe. A Handbook for Cookbook Writers and Editors. New York: HarpcrCollins.

Of Markov chains and upholstery buttons "Moi, madame, votre chien ... " Jean-Jacques Lecercle Uni\·er.rity of Cardiff

1.

Moi, madame. votre chien ...

The scene takes place in a crowded metro carriage in Paris. The participants are a man. a woman and her dog. Suddenly. the man utters. in a tone that may easily be imagined. the following sentence: (I)

Moi, madame.

mire

clrien. ,\'ira contimu.>, ce 11'e.~1 pas dans smr e11l il lui

que je \'ais le mettre, le mien. de 11ied.

The scene is observed by a linguist. to whom I would like to make my apologies. since I have completely forgotten from whose article I have pinched that extmordinary example. So extraordinary. in fact, that I suspect it is no longer genuine. that I have improved or garbled it in re-telling it for the benefit of generations of students. The reason why I have used lhe example with so many students is lhat it helps me to prove (a) that linguistics can be a glad science: (b) that gmmmar is more complex. when real sentences are considered. than the usual 'thc-man-hiHhe-balr subject-predicate structure for primers in syntax and (c) that the complexity of grammar is not achieved through the complexitication of such elementary structures. but, paradoxically. by direct derivation from the simplicity of iconicity. For my immediate contention about the sentence is that it is expressive. that it is iconic of the emotion felt by the speaker. Since the scene is suspended in motionless time.like Keats's Grecian Urn. we shall never know which perlocutionary effect the utterance did have on the lady - that it has considerable illocutionary force is both obvious and striking.

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Such is the vividness and efficacy of this highly emotional utterdnce, so subtle its use of the French language. that I have not managed to translate it yet. as I find the task impossible. Cruel necessity. however. compels me to try. I shall therefore propose two translations. neither of which is a good tmnslation. and the first not even a translation at all. The first is a literal translation. through the operation of what French grammar calls calque - word for word literal translation. Here is how it goes:

(2) *As for myself. madam. your dog. if this goes on. it's not that backside of his that I will kick with, of mine. that foot. This is too awful for words. The only thing that can be said for this non-

translation is that it respects the word order. and therefore the rhythm. of the original. a<> a result of which it eventually abandons all attempts at grammaticality, with 'of mine. that foot' (French allows me to end the sentence on the semantically strong word "pied", emphasised by the syntactic dislocation of the determiner - English does not.) And the translation is not even entirely literal. the set phrase "mettre son pied au cui a quelqu'un" (literally 'to place one's foot up someone's backside') having been replaced by the more innocuous. but more natuml 'kicking someone in the arse·. But the worst result is that the literalness, which sought to preserve rhythm in order to preserve ex.pressivity. ends up by losing this ex.pressivity: in English. when it is (with some difficulty) understood. the sentence is merely agrammatical. where the French sentence is jubilantly quaint because it abides by the constraints of the French language and ex.ploits them - not the rules of written French, but certainly the rules of standard ond French. even if some degree of ex.ploitation is noticeable. More on this anon. In the meantime. let me produce my second attempt at translation. This time. I shall go for the meaning. abandoning all hope of respecting the poeticity of the message - after all, this uttemnce is part of an everyday ex.change, not a sentence by Marcel Proust. Which means that I can provide a free glossing, in French: (3)

Madame. \'otre chien m'embt=te. et je \'tlis m'luen•er 'Lady. your dog is annoying me. and I may blow up'.

This ha.<> one advantage: it clearly marks the illocutionary import of the speechact - that it is a threat. It also marks the distance between the utterer's meaning (here directly ex.pressed in a much simplified form) and the meaning of his uttemnce (as we shall see the threat. in the actual sentence, is far from direct). It also insists. in its very difference from the original. on the role played by the computation of implicatures and by presupposition in the construction of the full

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meaning of the utterance. For we shall never know what exactly the dog has done to the man. or to his trousers. This detour enables me to suggest my semantic translation proper. that is a translation into English. keeping as close to the sentence's meaning as possible: (4)

If your dog goes on like this. lady.

rn

kick

)'OIIr

backside. not his.

This. although by far my best attempt. is still wide of the mark: the extreme vividness. and the jubilation it provokes in student audiences. are lost in what has become a plain threat. nothing but a threat, offering violence. But the contrast between the syntax of my translation and that of the French original makes it apparent that the vividness of the original (through what we might call emotional hypotyposis} follows two syntactic paths: a path of distortion and dislocation, and a path of implicitation and presupposition. For the speaker's emotion may be so strong that (a) he cannot find the words to express it and (b) the order of those words he does find is determined by the urgency of exprcssivity. not the r.llional construction the goal of which is the conveyance of information. It is now possible. I think. to understand what it is that fascinates me in this sentence. We seem to be within what Fonagy. in the first session of this conference (Fonagy 1999). has called the ""distorter" component of language (I am particularly fond of this concept. in so far as it seems to me to be not unlike what I have elsewhere called '"the remainder.. (Lecercle 1990]). This sentence is. in a way. a sentence "against grammar" it seems to operate a distortion on the "plain' sentence in which it originates (hence the fact that my first semantic translation was a translation illto Fre11ch). But it is also obvious that the sentence is (a) immediately intelligible to a French audience and (b) totally grammatical in oral French: there is not even a hint at anacoluthon. Which means that the ""distorter"". if we wish to keep the term. does not so much work against the grammatical component. as superimpose on it its own rules and constraints. This is not a case of the defeasability of syntactic rules for expressive purposes (this is the basis of my concept of a ""remainder"). this is a case of emotional syntax. that is of iconic syntax. I believe that. beneath this. there is the possibility of a non-Saussurean. or at least non-Chomskyan view of language. Not the combination of seveml modules (including. at the end of the chain. a ""distorter.. module that exploits the modules that spell out the syntactic rules). but an interweaving {the French word would be erllre/{l(·.f. an allusion to Mcrleau-Ponty) of predicative and of emotional or iconic syntax: two opposite but co-ocurrent strands of gntmmar. and a movement of production and/or construction of meaning that generates 111 the .mme time the predicative core of the sentence and its iconic "distortion' except that here the "distorter· is obviously a misnomer.

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The rhetorical distorter

That there is such a thing as emotional iconicity. i.e. that language can imitate and depict emotion. and not merely ex.press it. is no news. Here is Longinus on hyperbaton. a famous passage: Hyperbata, or inversion.' ( ... ) con~ist in the arrangement of words and ideas out of their normal sequence, and they carry. so to speak. the genuine stamp of powerful emotion. There are people who, when they are angry or frightened or irritated ( ... ) will sometimes let themselves be deflected: and often, after they have brought forward one point. they will drop in others without rhyme or reason. and then, under the stress of their agitation. they will come round to their original position just as though they were being chased by a whirlwind. (Ari~tutle

Horace longinus 1965: 131 ).

This is indeed a form of iconicity: hyperbata do not only mrry strong emotion. they reproduce it. they inscribe it in the inversions and other distortions they impose on the argumentative pattern of the text. and on its very syntax. The same occurs in the case of asyndeton. a few pages earlier {Aristotle Horo~ce Longinus 1965: 129). And the iconicity is not even diagmmmatic: it is imagic. to be read directly on the page. It is the same emotional disturbance that clouds the mind and garbles the syntax: ''Dragged in every direction by their rapid changes of mood. they will keep altering the arrangement of their words and ideas. losing their n<~turul sequence and introducing all sort of variation". In such a way the inversion of hyperbat
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Quintilian). which adds another string of words to an already complete sentence: like tmesis. which inserts an unexpected word, or string of words. into an innocuous structure (here is a morphological example. culled from a novel by Patrick Hamilton (Hamilton 1986: 16). which dcmonstrutes that the distorter can inflict an infix on the English language: 'abso-blooming-lutely!'). We may also

encounter synchisis. or syntactical digression. where an inordinate use of parentheses and embedding will indefinitely postpone the ending of a sentence -

a kind of illicit hyperhypotaxis. And since hyperbaton is a case of accumula-

tion of material at the end of the sentence. tmesis and synchisis in the middle. there is one type missing which I have failed to find in my dictionary (Dupriez 1980: 162), but which is important for our sentence: the trope that would accumulate words at the beginning of the sentence. And if I went on in my exploration of the emotional wonderland of tropes. I would meet not only tropes of dislocation. but also tropes of rhythm. like epitrocha-.m. which uses short words to express urgency of emotion. or the notoriously iconic imitative harmo-ny. where it appears that the emotional distorter distorts the sentence not only spatially. but also temporally. As I have hinted, the rhetorical distorter is obviously at work in our sentence. Let us envisage spatial iconicity first. It is clear that the sentence is an example of what Dupriez calls the trope of dislocalicm (Dupriez 1980: 236). whereby full lexical words are pushed away and replaced by anaphoric or cataphoric pronouns. Here. the prcdicative core of the sentence. "je vais le mettre". is not so much insisted upon (pragmatically. it ought to be. since it carries the threat) as cancelled: out of its co-text. it is meaningless. the constitu· tive vagueness of anaphoric pronouns blocking reference. Rhetorical di.\"lonuion is an emptying of the predicative core of the sentence, the semantically heavy words being exiled to the extremities of the sentence. Hence an impression of fragmentation. of syntactic dislocation both at the beginning and at the end of the sentence. a case. if not of epitrochasm. at least of hyperparataxis - a paro~doxi ca1 combination of the trope of emphasis (which insists on the comment through a cleft sentence: "ce n'est pa-. dans son cui a lui") and what the French linguist Pierre Guiro~ud calls 'le locutif', or ellipsis of the predicate (in "je vais le mettrc". the comment is present. but empty of meaning (Dupriez 1980: 77)). I shall soon return to this interplay between emptying the centre and accumulation at the extremities of the sentence. The rhetorical distorter is not only a spatial. but also a tempoml distorter: it introduces rhythm in the rather Hat subject-verb-object. SVO predicative structure. Our sentence is an oral sentence. composed of rhythmic groups. with implicit or actua1 pauses. The effect produced is close to that of Victor Hugo's

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famous iconic poem. ''Les Djinns", where the coming. r.1ging and leaving of a host of djinns is pictured through the rhythm. and the length, of the lines. Here we have a succession of short and long rhythmic groups ("'moi. madame, votre chien. si ~a continue" four rhythmic groups of 2. 2. 3 and 5 syllables respectively: such progression is emotionally iconic). If we count the number of syllables in the rhythmic groups for the whole sentence. we have the following sequence: 2. 2. 3. 5/6, 2/5, 2. 2. It is not difficult to perceive in this the imitation of emotion striving. even hurrying. to be expressed. as words crowd in the speaker's mind at the beginning of the uuerance. building up the tension (''moi. madame. votre chien. si c;a continue"); and such tension inevitably culminates in the explosion of a long rhythmic group immediately followed by a short one or two ("'ce n'est pas dans son cui. a lui .. and ..que je vais le meure. le mien. de pied .. ). So our sentence is indeed an example of imagic emotional iconicity. The emotion is not merely expres.~ed in the sentence. it is there. inscribed in the text. for everyone, if not to see. at least to feel: such is the perlocutionary effect it produces on the audience. And it is equally obvious that the syntax of the sentence is not governed by the necessities of communication (hence the poverty of my allempts at tr.mslation}. but by the constraints of the inscription of emotion. However. a qualification is necessary. The very mention of tropes makes imagic iconicity doubtful: is this the spontaneous inscription of emotion. as passion seeks to emerge in language. or the anful imitation. or reconstitution. of passion? Is it nature speaking directly. or art imitating nature? The question is not solved by the fact that our sentence is an or.ll everyday utterance. Indeed. I am not sure the perlocutionary effect produced is the one I just indicated. We shall never know what the lady actually felt. but I do know that the usual reaction of my audiences of French students (admiuedly in rather different circumstances) is not one of anxiety at the expression of anger. but of jubilation, at the wit and rhetorical skill the sentence evinces. In other words. my sentence is a mot d'e.~prit. in which the joke-work is at work. II brings about relief of tension as much as the expression of tension. The allitude underlying it is one of ironic or humorous distance rather than of emotional involvement - or rather, this is to my mind the main interest of the sentence. it is both at the same time. The sentence is an instance of aesthetic rc-evocation rather than of mere expression (a cry of 'God damn it. stop it!' would have been more direct. and probably more efficient). It does not mean that the sentence ceases to be iconic. it means that its iconicity is now of the diagrammatic kind: a diagram of emotion is presented. r.1ther than an image.) would like to see a symptom of this movement in the fact that the core of the sentence is more often expressed in contempomry

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French in another phrase. with exactly the same meaning. but different words I am suggesting that there is a concealed intertext to my sentence: (5)

Je WliJ \'Oils holler les fe.ue.~. 'I' II kick your backside·

Every word of this intertext is displaced. through joke-work. and yet every atom of meaning is preserved. There is cr.tft, even craftiness. in this. But what it means is that the lexical core of the threat. the expected phmse that directly carries it. is absent. with the par.1doxical consequences that (a) the threat is more controlled and distant and (b) it is. perversely. because of its very indirection. more present. more threatening. If this were a kind of hypotyposis (it is. at any rate. a clear case of enargeia). it would be a strange kind, working through indirection.

3.

Rules beneath the distorter

Let me sum up. The distance of wiuicism has made us move from imagic to diagrammatic iconicity: the aesthetic reconstruction. because of the implied distance, provides a diagram. not an inscription of the emotion it plays with (although my sentence is not merely a picture: at the moment when it plays with the expressed emotion. it also acts it out, hence the paradoxical flavour of the whole exercise). We are. in fact. within primary diagrammatic iconicity: there is still some language-independent relation that is reproduced. the sequentiality of the presentation of emotion. Bursts of emotion are not only perceptible in the intensity of emphasis. in the sheer tempo of the sentence. but in the placing of the words that represent them along the linguistic chain. In its sequentiality. the linguistic chain mimics both the motions and their temporality. We are going from the imagic iconicity of emotion to the primary diagran1matic iconicity of the syntax of information or illocution that plays with and against the syntax of predication. with its ordering inspired by purely linguistic constraints. Our sentence is a line example of this: for is it not obvious that the witticism lies in the contorted and extravagant phrasing of a predicative core best expressed in the simplicity of what I have called the text"s intertext? To speak of a syntax of information, not merely of emotion and illocution. is to speak in terms of topic and focus. And the French language has one advantage over English in this: it allows multiple topicalisation. which makes for a more obvious recourse to iconicity. Let me introduce a common sentence, of whose type our sentence is an extreme token: (6)

Moi,tonfrire ..w miwre. elle me plait pa.L

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And compare with 'your brother's car I don't like'. What we have here is three accumulated topics and a comment which is an instance of the rhetorical trope of dislocatiofl. since all nouns are replaced by anaphoric pronouns. This suggests a structure of the sentence that takes into account topicalisation. We go from the SVO canonical order to 'Topic Sequence+ Prcdicative Sequence'. The relations between the two take the shape of the syntactic dislocation of the topic sequence. and the rhetorical disloL·atiofl of the predicative sequence. Our sentence. of course. is a dear example of this. It has a fourfold topic sequem:e ("moi. madame. votre chien. si era continue.. : addressor. addressee. object and hypothetical circumstiUlce). and the entry into the predicative sequence is marked by the trope of emphasis. in the shape of a deft clause with negation ("ce n'est pa.'i dans son cui a lui"), of which more anon. There is. however. another syntactic movement at work in the sentence. the inverse movement of focalisation. It seems to me that the main characteristic of the sentence lies in the semantically unnecessary, and therefore expressively charged. right dislocation of two focuses: not "son cui". but "son cui a lui"; not "mon pied". but "le mien. de pied", with that strange use of the operator "de'' that reminds one of the category of insult J.C. Milner caJls "noms de qua1ihf'. whose prime example is "cet imbecile de gendarme", 'that fool of a policeman' (Milner 1978). For our sentence does not only have an interim focus in "son cui a lui". the focus of the deft sentence. it also has a focus right at the end. in conformity with the principle of end focus. a focus that litemlly embodies the threat by dosing the sentence on the mention of the instrument of retribution: "pied" is the word that turns the vagueness of "je vais le mettre" into actually threatened backside kicking. And the dislocation of "le mien. de pied" insists upon this by dividing the focus. turning it into two distinct rhythmic groups. Such multiplicity of focuses creates a rhetorical balance with the multiplicity of topics, as a result of which the sentence has. from the point of view of the syntax of information. a ternary structure: (7)

Topic Sequence - Predicate Sequence - Focus Sequence.

1\vo qualifications must be added. The first is that the predicate core of the sentence. "je vais le mettrc". being subject to the trope of di.docatitm, and semantically voided by the left and right dislocations of topic and focus. plays the part of an empty centre. a site where reference is indirect. through anaphoric pronouns. and presupposition and implicature are rife (the gestuml context and the emotional co-text make it clear that the gentleman is getting violent. that passion will shortly erupt into acting out). What ought to be the core of the threat (what is capiUred by the intertextuaJ origin of the sentence) is empty. as a

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resull of which the act is an indirect speech act. the threat a distanced threat which allows us to understand why the sentence is both. at the same time. an expression of passion and of wit or humorous distance. The gentleman is both threatening violence and winking at the audience. The second qualification concerns the cleft clause. As we know cleft clauses are linked to the creation of focus, in that. according to gn1mmarians. they divide the focus. If I say 'It"s Kate I intend to marry. not you', the cleft clause is used in order to front the focus. But if I say 'it's not you I intend to marry. it's Kate'. the focus, in the guise of the second, elliptic, cleft clause. is at its usual place. right at the end of the sentence, and the first. negated. cleft clause emphasises old infonnation, that is. highlights a marked topic. not a focus. I can gloss the clause as ·you believe or claim that I intend to marry you. but I deny it'. In the case of our sentence. what we have is a negated cleft clause. which calls for. but in vain. the second cleft clause that will carry the focus: (8) Ce n'est pas dans son cui

a lui. c'e.~l dans le votre.

But this focus is absent. which hao; two consequences: it reascribes the clause that is present to the topic sequence. as a fifth topic: and it introduces another void at the centre of the sentence. Because the absent focus is evoked through presupposition. the indirection of the speech-act is increa..ed. But so is the iconicity of the sentence: the sentence is iconic both of the space and of the time of the speech-act it expresses. The following diagram plots the spatial movements: (9)

TOPIC

PREDICATE

<- - - - dislocation (5 topics) - - - - -> anticipation

FOCUS

- - - - -> (absent focus)

(empty predica- dislocation tive centre) (2 focuses) VOID <- - - - recapitulation

We have two complementary movements. the syntactic movement of dislocation (left to topic. right to focus). and the inverse movement of construction of meaning in and by the sentence, as the topic looks forward. in anticipation, to the predicate. and creates expectations of meaning. while the focus looks backward in recapitulation. The topic frames the predicate. it gives the sentence its teleological tension: the focus achieves meaning. it donates it retroactively_ in the illumination of the riddle solved. of the joke understood_ of the sentence completed. What we have here is primary diagrammatic iconicity of a spatial kind: the iconicity of the syntactic movement along the sequence analogously reproducing the movement of perusal. physical or ideal, that yields meaning.

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But temporal iconicity is also involved. The movement I have just described is the movement of thought scanning, in anticipation and retrospection. the

linguistic sequence. ll is a tempor-o~l movement - the movement of delay and climax. of prolepsis and analcpsis. of cataphor and anaphor. We tind an image of this in the fourth of the topics that frame the sentence: ''si Cja continue" is explicitly temporal. a reference to the time of enunciation (Culioli 1990: 1995). Except. of course, that this temporal topic is. because of presupposition. more complex. II is the very embodiment of the temporal movement I am describing: ''!fa continue" implies ''it has already begun" (in Culioli"s tenns, the left boundary of the process has been crossed), which looks backwards in retrospection. But the conditional. ''si". envisages the crossing of the right boundary. the moment when the anger will be acted out. and therefore it looks forward: (10)

si ~a continue I I past of situation <- - - - I - - - -> conditional future of situation

Or again. this protasis looks forward to the apodosis that formulates the threat. and backwards to the conditions that it presupposes. that it treats as validated ("sit1ce it has begun ... '). The time has come to venture a generalisation. Our sentence is the site of two inverse movements. as it looks forward and backward: the result of which is the semantic emptying of the predicative centre that supposedly contains the threat. This movement. which turns the speech-act into an indirect one. is iconic (a) of the scanning of the situation of enunciation by the speaker and of the message by the addressee and (b) of the linear nature of the linguistic chain. whose two-dimensional nature restricts movement to the back-to-the-beginning and forward-to-end types. Thus. we have a ternary structure of the linguistic sequence unit. beginning-middle-end, whether in the shape of its predicative variant (SVO or any other order). or its informational variant (topic comment focus). with endless possibilities of 'distortion' (for instance the locmif trope: topic zero focus). And the movement of analysis has gone from the imagic iconicity of emotion (denied by the distance of witticism: there is no imagic iconidty of emotion. only the art of rhetoric). to the primary diagrammatic iconidty of the spatial organisation of the linguistic sequence. and the tempoml ordering of production or reception that goes with it: and lastly to the second degree iconicity of reflexivity. as the linearity of language is. e11 abyme, mirrored in the text. to be flouted and exploited by the rhetorical distorter. This last point I must now develop.

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Reflexive iconicity, or another view of language

The gradient of iconiciry goes from imagic to abstract (a natural process: see the gn1dient of metaphoricity in Lakoff and Johnson. which goes from orientational to structural to ontological [Lakolf and Johnson 1980)). At the reflexive end of such a grndicnt. language is iconic of itself: the order of words exemplifie.f. but it also de11otes.to speak like Nelson Goodman (Goodman1976),the constitution of the linguistic sequence. its linearity. Reflexive iconicity lies in this paradoxical combination of exemplification (each utterance, taken reflexively. is a token of the linearity of language) and its inverse. denotation: for each utterance not only confonns to the constraints of linearity. it represents them. in so far as it fulfils the reflexive equivalent to the poetic function of language. when the form of the message is the contents of the unerance. This interweaving of formal constraint (the three part chain) and expressive needs (the abyme retJcxivity of the exploitation of this structure) presupposes another view of language: not the two-dimensional tables or tree-like structures of structural or Chomskyan linguistics. which can be contemplated outside time in the atemporality of the structural glance (what Levi-Strauss calls .. Je temps de Ia structure .. as opposed to .. le temps de l'histoire.. ). but the one-dimensionDIIine that knows only beginning, middle and end. and the two movements of backward and forward. Here the term ..distorter" becomes a misnomer again. since its operation does not presuppose another level of grdmmatical organisation (as in the generation of syntactic trees). but only what De leuze calls an '"intensive line of syntax .. (Deleuze 1997) - from the beginning a syntactic ordering in terms of topic and focus. of Markov chain and upholstery button. We all know what a Markov chain is: a linear sequence of finite states such that the lirst state is the result of an entirely free choice. the second is determined by the choice of the first. and so on. till we reach the !alit one. which is maximally constrained. If I have managed to utter the words: "pride comes before a ... ··. the choice of the last word to end the sentence is rather limited. We also know that Chomsky's model of deep versus surface structure is based on his famous rejection of finite state Markov processes as a model for natural languages (Chomsky 1957: 20): his crucial counter-example was the phenomenon of embedding. I would like to qualify this judgement and submit that a linguistic sequence is and is 1101 a Markov chain. If we adopt Culioli's motto that enunciation consists in minimising indetermination. such minimising is a linear process. Our sentence. with its five topics. with its interim focus (in the cleft clause). and absent. but presupposed focus (in the absent cleft clause). is the site of a step-bystep location (repirage) of the referent, as each new topic brings us one step

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further towards focusing on the end-focus. With its last word. "pied", our uttemnce is at last in foclls. The sentence may be seen as a series of choices. each determining and anticipating the next. a series of proleptic moves. increasing the teleological tension towards the ch11te of the sentence. But in an important sense. meaning is not achieved till the end of the sentence is reached. The end-focus operates u retroactive and retrospective donation of meaning. The rhetorical di.~/ocation of the focus does not allow us to understand (except by guessing) the meaning of the predicative core (as expressed in the intertext) until the important word. the last one, the end-focus, has been uttered. This retroactive construction of meaning is described by Jacques Lac an under the name of "upholstery button" (poiIll de capiwn ILacan 1966: 805; Miller 1991 !): the chain of signiliers is parallel to. but independent of. the chain of signilieds. AI vantage points. gf"dphically named upholstery buttons. they are joined together. and meaning is produced. retroactively. This is a common-place experience. My distinguished colleague. Professor So-and-So. is giving a lecture. For the first few sentences (or paragraphs. or pages) I havcn"t the faintest idea what he is on about. But after a while I silently exclaim: ·so that's what he was getting at!' -you have noted the past tense.ln other words. I construct meaning along a Markov chain. but only achieve it. retrospectively. when I reach an upholstery button (this is what Lacan calls the "precipitate of meaning". a chemical metaphor (Lacan 1966: 502)). That meaning is thus constructed is obvious in the case of the reader. or hearer. But it can be argued also in the case of the speaker, in two ways: (a) If I consider that language speaks as much a<> I speak language (l..ecercle 1990: II 0- I I5 ). I will maintain that I only understand what I mean when I have said it. as words have a tendency to mean more than I mean them to mean (this is an allusion to Lewis Carroll). And (b), in the case of our sentence. the emotional iconicity is due to the fact that the speaker (who. I am sure. knows exactly what he means - he must have mulled over his witty sentence severaJ minutes before speaking) manages to delay the maximum expression of his anger (which is also a rhetorical conceit) to the very end of the sentence. which drags on as long as it can. so that the psychic energy accumulates. tension increases. before the long expected discharge and relief: my sentence ends in a climax in more senses than one.

S.

Conclusion

We understand why the linguistic sequence. as exemplified and denoted by our sentence. is and is not a Markov chain. It moves forward relentlessly. step by

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step. topic after topic. towards the ineluctable last word of the dtllt.mla, or chute, or end-focus. But meaning. although progressively constructed along the Markov chain. is only achieved with the end-focus. and projected retrospectively back along the chain. For nothing on earth will prevent me from ending my previously mentioned proverb in a novel and provocative way: "Pride comes before a vote of impeachment": so I was talking about Clinton all the time! In a sense. this text is a prolonged commentary on an intuition of Antoine Culioli's. The archetypal ·correct' sentence. 'the man hit the ball'. is. he claims. not a paragon of grammaticality. but deeply a-grammatical, in that it never occurs. except in textbooks. It never occurs because. a1though it conforms to a certain level of syntax. the syntax of predication. it does not conform to the Markovupholstery button informational structure of syntax. An acllwl sentence would sound like this: 'that man there. the blasted ball. what he did with it was hit it'. For here the interplay between multiple topic. empty predicative centre and endfocus turns the ghostly syntactic structure into a real utterance. And we may note - but we knew it all the time - that in English. if the cleft sentence divides the focus. the pseudo cleft allows the production of yet another topic. which also suggests that my iconic syntax is not restricted to the French language. From the imagic iconicity of emotion. I have moved on to the primary diagrammatic iconicity of the linear sequence of words. the famous \'eni, l'illi, \'ici sequence. and further on to the second-degree diagrammatic iconicity. or reflexive iconicity. of an informational and rhetorical syntax that the utterance both exemplifies and reflexively denotes. as the movement of expressivity (which voids the centre. and crowds the beginning and end of the sentence) conforms to and ironically represents the inverse movements of teleology (meaning is constructed along a Markov chain) and retroactive donation of meaning (at the site of the upholstery button). Here I could (but will not, for lack of space) attempt to develop this analysis in two directions: towards the narrati\·e sequence as a sentence in my sense. and towards the historical sentence as sentence par excellence. The first direction would be a commentary on a famou.'i pa.lisagc in Aristotle's Poetics. where. in apparent tautology. he defines the ''complete story" as one that has "a beginning. a middle and an end" (Aristotle Horace Longinus 1965:41). I would argue that this gives the story the ternary structure. or rhythm. of our sentence. and makes for an analysis of narratives in terms of Markov chains and upholstery buttons. expectation and surprise. boucle and clwte. The second direction would be a commentary on Arthur Danto's analysis of the historical sentence, in his Analytical Philosophy of History ( 1985: 236), where he argues that in the field of history. explanation takes the form of a narrative.

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and that this form. where expla11andlfm and explanans are linked in a narrative causal chain. has the ternary structure of the Aristotelian complete story. In both cases. l would argue. the narrative has the same paradoxical structure as our sentence, with voided middle and crowded beginning and end. I believe that this is where reftexive iconicity. the iconicity that makes language tick. reveals its interest. Some people talk about metaphors we live by. Since we live by the stories we tell ourselves. by the eltplanations we give of what happens to us. the sentences we uner in locution and interlocution. what I have tried to account for is the iconicity we live by.

References Aristotle Horace Longinus. 1965. Cla.uicalllterary Criticism. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Chomsky. N. 1957. SyntacticSrructiiiY.'S. 1bc Hague: Mouton. Culioli. A. 1990. Pour 1111e ling11istiq11ede l'inonciation. Gap: Ophrys. Culioli. A. 1995. Cognition and Representation in Linguistic Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Danto. A. 1985. Narration and K1ww/edRe (includinR Analytical Philo.mpky of History). New York: Columbia University Press. Deleuze, G. 1993. "BCgaya-t-il". In Critique n cliniqlle, 135-143. Paris: Minuit. Dupriez, B. 1980. Gradll.f." le.f proddb lilllraiiY.'s. Paris: UGE. Fonagy. I. 1999. ''Why lconicityT'. In Form Miming Meani11g: /mnidly in Lnnguage and Literamre. M. Nanny and 0. Fischer (eds). 3-36. Amsterdam: John Benjamin..'>. Goodman, N. 1976. Lnnguoge.f of Art. Indianapolis: Hackett. Hamilton. P. 1986. The West Pier. HilJIIlondsworth: Penguin. Lacan. J. 1966. Ecrits. Paris: Seuil. Lak.off. G. and M. Johnson. 1980. Metaphon We Li\·e By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lecercle. J.J. 1990. n1e Violence of Ln''R"age. London: Routledge. Miller. J.A. 1991. "Language: Much Ado About What?". In Wean and the Subject of UJnguage. E. Ragland-Sullivan and M. Bracher teds). 21-35. London: Routledge. Milner, J.C. 1978. De Ia synta.teO l'imerpritation: qllalllitis, i11.wlte.t, e.tclamations. Paris: Seuil.

PART

V

Iconicity in textual structures

!conicity and rhetoric A note on the iconic force of rhetorical figures in Shakespeare Wolfgang G. MUller Friedrh'h-Schiller-Unil'ersiUit Jena

1.

Introduction: a famous example of rhetorical iconicity

One of the quotations which linguists dealing with iconicity like to adduce are the words that Julius Caesar wrote in a letter after one of his military victories: Veni. ridi, 1·id ('I came. I saw, I conquered'). This saying is usually quoted to illustrate the iconic principle that the sequence of clauses in discourse tends to correspond to the temporal order of the events referred to (e.g. KUper 1981: 147. 151: Haiman 1985:4: Nanny 1986:199: Engberg-Pedersen 1996:458: Anderson 1998:265. 279: NOth 1999: 648). Now while Caesar's dictum is undoubtedly an

excellent example of chronological iconicity. its iconic force goes far beyond the mere expression of chronological sequence. For the principle of natural sequential order could be exemplified by any other sequence of clauses without the specific rhetorical shape of Caesar's dictum. for instance by the sentence ''He opened the door. came in. sat. and ate" (Giv6n: 1995. 54). It is indeed curious that with this saying linguists adduce a quotation that is as rhetorical and as far removed from ordinary language a<> may be. Nobody would in an ordinary. real-life context use such language. except when citing it as a quotation. And the use of Caesar's words with the purpose of illustrating such an evident iconic principle as the correspondence of the temporal sequence of events in real life with the sequence of its representation in language can almost be called a misuse of a quotation. For the specific iconic force of Caesar's words derives from the entire rhetorical form of the utterance. which

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with its asyndetic isocolon and its sound correspondences - alliteration and assonance (Jakobson 1960:358: Johansen 1996: 49tf.) - expresses a sense of achievement. the consciousness of a series of actions swiftly and expertly performed. Asyndeton. i.e. the lack of linkage between the verb forms. creates the impression that no time intervenes between the actions referred to. Growing momentum is suggested by the increase of assonance in the sequence of the clauses. The sound (i:) appears once in the first clause and twice in the second and third clauses. It is the specific rhetorical structure of the enumeration of the actions performed that suggests a sense of achieved mastery, which is inseparably related to the subject of the utter.mce. The subject position is emphasised by the fact that the individual elements of the triad consist of lir.il·person-singular verb forms which. by their endings. contribute essentially to the already-mentioned sound structure of the quotation. Grammar and sound effect tie in with each other in these words. The utterance would lose its subjective verve if it were written in the third person: Venit, ~Mit, l'idt. The quotation. which compresses a lot of meaning into few words, may seem to belie one of the principles of iconic coding posited by Giv6n (1995:49): "A larger chunk of information will be given a larger chunk of code". But it can also be said that Caesar's dictum obeys Giv6n's principle because Caesar suggests - or even pretends that his victory was a very swift and short action. What then is the mimetic quality of the quotation under discussion? It is not simply to be seen in its quality as an example of chronological iconicity. i.e. in the mere expression of the fact that one action followed after an other. Neither docs it qualify. from the point of view of mimesis. as an account of a battle. What the utterance implies is a sense of the personal triumph of the speaker. who enumerates the actions he performed. So it is not objective or historical reality that is here imitated by the structure of the verbal utterance but a subjective reality. reality as seen from a subjective point of view. The more fundamental problem of the nature of mimesis in iconic forms of verbal expression is thus raised. There are scholars who hold the opinion that the structure of language reflects the structure of reality. In his attempt to rehabilitate the concept of iconicity in the historical situation of the late 1970s and early 1980s, in which the transformational approach to language was predominant. which "claimed that the structure of language reflects the structure of THOUGI-IT''. John Haiman argues for the iconicity of grammar in generdl. contending that "the structure of thought reflects( ... ] the structure of REALITY to an extent greater than it is now fashionable to recognize" (Haiman 1980: 537). In a later publication Haiman modifies his position to some extent. postulating that "linguistic structures are often similar to non-linguistic diagrams of our

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thotiRht.{" (Haiman 1985:8 [italics mine)). This notion is denied by a theorist

such as August Fenk. who believes that iconidty requires an immediate relation of language to the external world - ''perceptual similarity between sign and referent" - and thus doubts the possibility of •·a thought's iconic character" (Fenk 1997: 217). Such a limited understanding of verbal mimesis or iconicity cannot do justice to Julius Caesar's dictum Ve,i, l'idi. l'id. for instance, whose rhetorical structure expresses a subjective attitude to reality. What the linguistic structure imitates is not external reality. but a subjective perception or. rather. conception of reality. a menta] structure which is related to external reality but does not merely imitate or copy it. Rhetorical features, for instance. schemes like asyndeton and climax. or different forms of word-order. are structuring and ordering devices. which point to the structure and activity of the mind and to cognitive and epistemological processes. The categories. which Earl Anderson relates to syntactic 'iconisms'. - "chronology. hierarchy. preference. direction. length or dunn ion. and complexity versus simplicity" (Anderson 1998: 265) belong to the sphere of the mind or consciousness and not to that of external reality. Thus rhetorical iconicity does not really consist in a mirroring of objective reality. but in an interpretation or structuring of reality or experience from a personal point of view. To repeat it once more. a strongly rhetorically structured utterance such as Caesar's reflects the speaker's view of reality rather than reality as such. lconidty occurs in language in general and in rhetoric (which is a more organised. more structured. more formalised and also more expressive use of language than ordinary discoun;e) not only as mere mimesis of objective reality (e.g. by purely miming temporal order). but also as a reflection of subjective reality. This latter idea of iconicity can be related to the phenomenon which ElZbieta Tabakowska ( 1999) investigates under the name of ..experiential iconicity". In what follows. I will first make some general remarks on the problem of rhetoric and iconicity. Then I will explore the iconic potential of a number of rhetorical devices. concentrating on figures or schemes. Examples will predominantly be taken from Shakespeare. whose ''works are", as George Kennedy says. "in a very concrete way perhaps the greatest achievement of classical rhetoric" (Kennedy 1980:213).

2.

The iconic dimension in rhetoric

According to Aristotle it is the function of rhetoric to persuade by an effective use of word and argument. He distinguishes between three types of proof or

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persuasion: (I) etho.f, the representation of the speaker's character as a trustworthy man: (2) pathos. the capacity for moving the hearer emotionally: (3) logos. the convincing use of issue-related argument. In other words. the speaker must achieve three things if he wants to plead successfully: He must present himself as a creditable person (ethos). he must move his hearers emotionally (pathos). and he must argue competently (Jogo.f). Of these three aspects of the persuasive process pa1ho.~ has traditionally been related to iconicity. There is a theory dating back to classical times that rhetorical figures or schemes originated as fonns of expression "used naturally by people in states of extreme emotion" (Brinton 1988: 163). that they are. in fact. imitative of emotional states. Citing evidence from the entire tradition of rhetoric. Brian Vickers argues that in writing "schemes and tropes are basically stylizations or records of man's natural emotional behaviour as e~pressed in language" (Vicker.. 1970: 105). Thus rhetorical figures of omission. unusual word order or repetition arc held to be imitative of actual disturbances of language in emotional conte~ts, which, in tum. reflect feelings and emotional states such as anger. grief. indignation or consternation. Hyperbaton, a form of irregular word order frequently referred to in this conte~t. is characterised by Longinus in the following manner: This ligure fh.\pt>rbatoll) consists in arr.lllging words and thoughts out of the natural sequence. and is. as it were. the truest mark of vehement emotion. Just as people who are really angry or frightened or indignant. or arc carried away by jealousy or some other feeling - there are countless emotions. no one can say how many - often put forward one point and then spring off to another with \'arious illogical interpolations. and then wheel round again to their original positions, while. under the stress of their excitement, like a ship before a veering wind. they lay their words and thoughts first on one tack then another. and keep altering the natural order of sequence into innumemble variations - so. too. in the best prose writers the usc of hyperbata allows imitation to approach the effects of nature. (longinus 1995: 239-241)

This is a dear description of the mimetic or iconic character of a rhetorical scheme. Deviations from the "natural sequence" of words are said to bear "the truest mark of vehement emotion" and the use of such forms of expression by writer.. is called an "imitation" of ''the effects of nature''. Now while it is undoubtedly true that such schemes as aposiopesis (breaking off of an utterance before it is completed), hyperbaton or repetition are frequently related to emotional states. it must also be realised that the whole reservoir of rhetorical schemes represents a system which provides a multitude of possibilities of express.ing meanings, among which emotions form only one variety. To mention just one further aspect relevant to the rhetorical triad of logo.~. etho.~.

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and pathos, I would hold that the iconicity of rhetorical figures (schemes) emerges also with respect to logical proof (logm). This is not to deny the fact that contrury to tropes - which change the meaning of words by 'metaphorical' use - figures or schemes (e.g. repetition or inversion) usually do not affect the meaning of words as such. but nonetheless it must be recognised that these devices are indispensable in giving argument and logical proof thrust or effective shape. Thus it is quite interesting that an article on rhetorical iconicity by Christoph KUper (1981) begins with a discussion of the structure of syllogism or its rhetorical equivalent. enthymeme, where an iconic arrdngement of the individual parts - the sequence of the premisses and the proposition deduced from them - is found which corresponds to the slructure of theme and rheme. In what follows the iconic implications of a number of rhetorical figures will be considered. Jconicity will be shown to occur in rhetoric in a great variety of types. which extend beyond the miming of emotionaJ states and logical operations. A comprehensive and systematic categorisation of types cannot be attempted in this study, but in the course of the examination of individual figures and groups of figures various kinds of iconic functions will be pointed out. and thus the paper hopes to take a little step on the way towards a more comprehensive account of rhetorical iconicity. Before analysing concrete examples it is. however. necessary to discuss some theoretical concepts and distinctions which have recently been utilised with regard to rhetorical iconicity.

3.

Autoico.Wm. exophoric and endophoric iconicity

A concept which has been introduced by Laurel Brinton ( 1988) in an article on the iconicity of rhetorical figures is that of "autoiconism". Referring to an earlier study by Roger Wescott ( 1971 ). Brinton makes a distinction between a ··vertical'' iconic relationship in language in general. which "holds between linguistic signs and nonlinguistic signata" and a "horizontal" relationship, which emerges in "the iconic dimension" of rhetorical schemes. The latter relationship she describes as follows: For rhc10rical M:hemc~. though. both the signan~ and the signatum are linguistic; language is iconic of it:.clf. We have here an example of autoiconism [... J or automorphism. in which there is reciprocal diagrammatization between one domain or one dimension and another. The automorphic relationship holds here between styles or register.. of language. formal and informal or literary/poetic and nonliterary/nonpoetic. or between modes of language. the written and the :.poken - a "horizontal'' relationship. (Brinton 1988: 166)

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While this passage does not convey any clear idea of iconicity. its main drift seems to be that with regard to rhetorical figures there is a kind of iconicity which works within language as such. That iconicity may occur on a purely linguistic or textual level has been noticed by several scholars (for instance Jakobson 1960; Johansen 1996; Fischer and Nanny 1999). Enkvist ( 1973: 123). for instance, states that ''Iconic Linkage" occurs in ''those situations in which two or more sentences cohere because they are. at some level of abstraction, isomorphic

(or. more popularly. 'pictures of each other')". In his discussion of rhetorical iconicity KUper ( 1981: 157) defines the principle of structural repetition operating in parallelism a" imitation. There are good reasons for introducing the concept of autoiconism. i.e. the idea of language being iconic or imitative of itself. An important terminological clarification has lately been provided by Winfried NOth. who. with regard to literature. makes a distinction between ''the traditional form of mimetic iconicity". which he designates "as exophoric icmricity, i.e., iconicity referring beyond the text", and "a second major form of iconicity" which consists of referrals by likeness within the text. either at the expression or at the content plane". The latter form of iconicity he calls "etrdopJroric iconidty" (NOth 1999:649, see also NOth in this volume). Both these fonns of iconicity are, as he demonstrates using the key terms of M. H. Abrams' famous book The Mirror atrd the Lamp (1953). to be found in literature: "( ... ] litemture is both iconic when it functions as a mirror of the nonlinguistic world and when it functions as a lamp creating its own patterns of endophoric referral" (NOth 1999: 649). However valuable NOth's distinction may be, he fails to consider the fact that in a text it may sometimes be difficult to separ.1tc exophoric and endophoric iconicity. As we shall sec. endophoric and exophoric iconicity may coincide at times. NOth's distinction can be profitably applied to rhetorical schemes. It is quite obvious - and Brinton makes a convincing case of it - that rhetorical figures such as anaphora, epistrophe. parellelism. etc. "must be seen as contributing in different ways to textuality". "that they function as cohesive devices. while at the same time they often contribute to thematic coherence" (Brinton 1988: 163). There is no doubt that rhetorical figures. from sound correspondences (alliteration. as.o;onancc) to larger structures such as gradation and climax. may evince endophoric iconicity. But. as I will try to demonstrate. rhetorical ligures frequently also exhibit exophoric iconicity in that they are used to express emotional states. processes of cognition. and point of view. Brinton's main thesis that rhetorical schemes contribute to textuality in that they provide cohesion and coherence, is entirely plausible and important, and our discussion will be aware of this aspect of rhetorical figures. although it is to be

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doubted whether 'mere' coherence can in any meaningful way be called a phenomenon of iconicity. The focus of the following analysis will mainly be on exophoric iconicity. although instances of endophoric iconicity will also be considered. To make a statement of principle at the outset, our analysis is based on a broad understanding of exophork iconicity, which. in addition to the mirroring of elements of the real world, includes instances of miming emotion. acts of cognition. attitude, point of view, and also world-picture. In my understanding of iconicity. a linguistic item can also be called iconic if it represents an analogue of external reality filtered through the subjectivity of em individual consciousness. This phenomenon can be related to Tabakowska"s above mentioned "experiential iconicity". Whenever there are linguistic equivalents of thoughts. thought processes. and psychic phenomena in a text. we can speak of iconicity. One problem of the following analysis lies in the already-mentioned fact that endophoric and exophoric iconicity cannot always be separated clearly. As far a.-. rhetorical figures are concerned, these two forms of iconicity tend to coincide. A rhetorical figure such as repetition of words or phrases may have a cohesive function and at the same time it may mime an emotion or a thought. Sometimes it is difficult to disentangle these functions. but it is a necessary analytical procedure to do so. For emphasis on the cohesive function of rhetorical figures may make us overlook their primary semiotic quality. which consists in their force of miming aspects of the external world. but also subjective phenomena such a.<> emotions. attitudes. thought structures. etc.

4.

The rhetoric: of emotion in Shakespeare's King Lear: Ellipsis and repetition as chief devices

Earlier. I referred to the tmditional notion that rhetorical figures are deviations from normal language use which are indicative of states of emotion. I will demonstrate this aspect of rhetorical iconicity by looking at King Lear as that Shakespeare tragedy which is written at the highest emotional pitch. 1 The play evinces a stunning rhetoric of passion. in which expressive figures of speech. such as exclamation. repetition. apostrophe. and invective. abound. I will concentmte on some examples of repetition. which is in the play frequently connected with ellipsis. which itself is a device often suggestive of emotion. The first quotation is an example of pure repetition: Old Gloucester. who is cheated into believing that his good son Edgar is seeking his life. says. ''my old heart is cracked. it's cmcked'" (II.I.9). The idea of the old man's heart being broken is

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reinforced by the repetition of the verb form ··cracked". An echo effect is caused by the fact that the word "cracked". which denotes one event coinciding with a

short. sharp. sudden sound. is utlered twice. The device of iconic repetition is here combined with onomatopoeia, the sound of the word "cracked" being similar to its non.Jinguistic referent. When Edgar meets his father with his eyes

gouged out and led by an old man. he shouts, "World. world. 0 world!'' (IV.I.IO). This quotation represents a characteristic combination of ellipsis and repetition as two devices iconising emotion. Edgar then reflects on the limits of human suffering: 0 gods~ Who is't can say 'I am the wonof? I am worse than e'er I was.j ... ] And worse I may yet the worst is not So long a~ we can .~ay 'This L~ the worst.'

The extreme grief felt by the speaker is mirrored in the repetition of the central words ''worse" and "worst", and particularly in the grammatical forms of comparative and superlative. The best example of the play's rhetoric of emotion is. of course, Lear who is driven to madness by his suffering. In the moment of recognition (anagnorisis). when he realises the wickedness of his elder daughters. his grief and self-torment are boundless. Here are some randomly chosen examples. in which ellipsis and repetition are characteristically combined: 0 Lear. Lear. Lear! (1.4.262) - 0 me. my heart: My rising heart! But down! (11.2.310) - Howl, howl. howl, howl! (V.3.255) - No. no. no life! [... [ Thourt come no more,/ Never. never, never. never. never. (V.3.304-307)

Lear's language is reduced to expressive exclamations and imperatives. all in the form of elliptic utterances. The climax of his passionate language occurs in the play's last scene (V.3). when Lear enters with his youngest daughter Cordelia in his anns. He is here reduced to an inarticulate frenzy by his grief. His last utterances are negative. as seen especially in the famous line which repeats the word "never" five times. an unheard-of verse. a blank-verse line which. with its metrical inversion. creates a grating sound (syncope). This is an extreme example of iconicity: Excessive emotion is iconised by an excessive repetition of a word. In these examples the rhetorical figures can hardly be understood as autoiconic devices which provide textual cohesion. It is their primary function to mime emotion.

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313

Further examples of the use of iconic repetition in Shakespeare's plays

As ha
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day. [ ... ] Out. out, brief candle~ The polysyndetic repetition of the word "to·morrow" with the insertion of the connective "and" (diacope) iconiscs - together with a number of repetitions on the level of individual sounds in line 20 - the endlessness and weDriness of the process of time. which is here seen as mere repetition with no change whatsoever. The notion of "peny pace" is Ddditionally mirrored by the series of eight monosyllables which starkly contro~.st with the trisyllabic words of the previous line. The rhetoric of repetition iconises the mdically disillusioned world-view at which Macbeth has arrived in the course of his career a
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structure of the passage iconises the insoluble connection of the "I" of the speaker with the "bond". his single-minded insistence on what he believes to be his legal right. Here repetition creates a verbal structure which connects the crucial words ('T'. "bond") of the lines (endophoric iconicity) and at the same time has a strong semiotic impact (exophoric iconicity). The repetition of the word "bond'' in end position can also be understood as iconising the speaker's emotion. Another form of repetition which serves to impose order on the text or a segment of the text. but which frequently is also used with a semiotic impact is anadiplosis. the repetition of a word at the end of a clause or line and at the beginning of the next. In the following quotation from Antony's forum speech in Shakespeare's Julius Cae.mr (111.2.105-106) the word ''cause" is repeated in this way. which stresses the speaker's intention to give his strongly emotional - in fact. demagogical - oration the appearance of reasonable argument: You all did love him once. not without cause: What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?

By giving the word ··cause" the prominent end position in one clause and an equally prominent front position in the next clause. Antony produces a close proximity of the two occurrences of this word. stressing the notion of causality. The rhetorical structure of the two lines reinforces their logical structure. the argument of cause (argumentum a causa). Repetition here serves to give the argument the appearance of logical proof. The mixing of the categories of emotion and logic is additionally iconised by chiasmus: love-<-·a11se I ca/uemoum. In this passage repetition and chiasmus reveal Antony's demagogical rhetoric which gives the appeal to his hearers' emotions a rational appearance. A related figure of repetition is climax or gradatio, an extension of anadi· ptosis in a series of three or more pairs of clauses. A fine parodistic example comes from the mouth of Rosalind. the heroine of Shakespeare's Ai You Like It (V.2.28-37). when she makes fun of falling in love at first sight. It is interesting that she relates her description of the falling in love of two people to Caesar' triad of veni. 1·idi. l'ici: There was never anything so sudden. but the fight of two rolllls, and Caesar's thrasonical brag of I came, saw. and overcame. For your brother and my si~ter no sooner met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but they loved: no sooner loved, but they sighed: no sooner sighed. but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason. but they sought the remedy. And in these degn:es have made a pair of stairs to marriage [... J

Rosalind relates her description of the action between the two lovers in a comic way to Caesar's famous account of his victory. which is part of her geneml

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debunking of male arrogance in the play. The passage excellently illustrates the difference between a prototypical asyndetic and an anadiplodic series of clauses. While Caesar's dictum is an enumemtion of three actions performed with masterly confidence and swiftness. Rosalind's description is a step-by-step account which pauses at each step recapitulating the resuh of the previous step. That Rosalind is conscious of her use of the rhetorical figure of climax. which literally means 'ladder'. is shown by the fact that after the completion of the figure she refers to ''stairs" leading "to marriage" by ''degrees''. With its intricately repetitive structure this passage is endophoric or autoiconic in Brinton's sense of the term. But its exophoric quaJity is more important. Earl Anderson ( 1998: 306) relates these lines to the Elizabethan "psychology of falling in love". in particular to ''the process of faJiing in love by degrees". as it is in a quite complex way rendered in Philip Sidney's sonnet "Not at First Sight". Through the pronounced iconicity of the passage which marks the individual steps of the process by means of anadiplosis Rosalind ridicules the artificial cutting up of a continuous process into individuaJ stages. As an example of a non·ironic use of climax I will quote a passage from Thomas Kyd's The Spunislr Tragedy (11.1.119-129). Here again the rhetorical climax may be understood as a structuring device. but its iconicity is clearly exophoric. The irresistibility of a military victory and a triumph in love over a rival is mimed by a series of anadiploses: First. in his hand he brandished a sword. And with that sword he fiercely waged war. And in that war he gave me dangerous wounds. And by those wounds he forced me to yield. And by my yielding I became his slave. Now in his mouth he carries pleasing words. Which plea.~ing words do harbour sweet conceits, Which sweet conceits are limed with sly deceits, Which sly deceits smooth Bel· Imperia's cars, And through her ears dive down into her heart. And in her heart set him where I should stand.

6.

Endophoric vs. exophoric iconicity: The problem of the iconic usc of paronomasia and polyptoton

At least a brief remark is necessary concerning the difficult problem of the iconic impact of rhetorical figures based on partial repetition of words. a problem which does not seem to have attracted much attention so far. These figures

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constitute - together with homonymy - basic forms of word-play. Panial repetition may appear in the form of a similarity in sound between entirely different words (paronomasia) or in the concurrence of words with a common root but different derivational morphemes (paronymy) or in the concurrence of word forms with different inftcctional endings (polyptoton) (MUller 1996). The question to be asked is whether these ligures. whose iconicity seems to be purely endophoric - working exclusively within the text or a segment of the text - do not also possess a semiotic impact which transcends their function as structuml devices in the sense of Brinton's understanding of the figures (1988). My discussion will be restricted to paronomasia and polyptoton. To begin with pamnomasia, this figure suggests iconicity. since it involves similarity in sound between dilferent words. It establishes an unmistakable formal correspondence. a conjunction between etymologically unconnected words which are similar in sound. The point of pamnomasia is that a mere accidentaJ phonetic relationship assumes the appearance of a semantic relutionship. The words coupled in paronomasia may have u different or contrasting or even contmdictory meaning. Here is. first. an instance of an antithetical relation of the punning words from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (111.4.8): "These times of woe afford no times to woo". The iconic impact of this pun lies in the fact that words of similar sound. but sharply contnasted meaning (woe - 1mo) are combined. The figure thus reflects the contrarieties and antagonisms which dominate the whole action of the play. The fundamentaJ problem of the play is iconised in miniature by such an antithetical combination of similar-sounding words. an effect which is also produced by the rhetorical figure of oxymoron which pervades the whole play. This example must be classified us an instance of endophoric iconicity. since it hao;; u clearly identifiable function in that an individual linguistic element is here an unalogue to the larger structure of the whole text. A different ca'ie is to be found in the following instance of paronomasia. the pun contained in the climactic lines of Cassius' attempt to persuade Brutus to join the conspiracy against the would-be king Julius Caesar in Shakespeare's play (1.2.154-155)o Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough. When there is in it but one only man.

This pun. which relates the words "Rome" and ''room". is iconic in that the phonetic similarity between the two words - according to Elizabethan pronunciation the pun might almost be conceived as a homonymic pun - coincides with a semantic correspondence. What Cassius protests against is that Rome is under the given circumstances in danger of losing its political identity. its status of

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being room for many people and not just for one man. i.e. an autocmtic ruler. The pun with its combination of different words of similar sound ha.'i a profound semiotic function. It is used to express the political ideal of Rome as a stronghold of republicanism. To make it unmistakably clear. the pun's iconicity is exophoric. because Cassius argues that ''room" and "Rome" should be 'one and the same' reality. There is no time for an adequate treatment of the iconic potential of polyptoton. I have to limit my account to two examples. In Othello (11.1.74). Cassin ironically refers to Desdemona as "our great captain's captain". The word ''captain", which is here repeated in different grammatical case-fonns is adequate to the professional status of Othello as a military leader. Yet Othello is referred to by the genitive, i.e. the subordiru:ate case, Desdemona by the nominative, i.e. the superordin<~te case. Thus polyptoton is here used to refer simultaneously to two hierarchies. the professional and the marital one. The grammatical structure mimes a complex power structure. This is clearly an instance of exophoric iconicity. because the nominative-genitive relation resembles the outside-world order. As an instance of polyptoton com;isting of two verb fonns. a line from Richard 1/ (V.5.49) can be quoted: ''I wasted time, and now doth time waste me". Here the entire career of King Richard with its two phases - the period of his incompetent rule and the period of his decline- finds a rhetorical equivalent in the grammatical change from the subject position ("'I wasted") to the object position ("wastes me"). And the change of the tense-form of the verb iconises a change of fortune. 1 believe that this is also an instance of exophoric iconicity. It can be noticed that the examples of paronomasia analysed above evince mainly endophoric iconicity, whereas the thrust in the examples of polyptoton seems to be more in the direction of exophoric iconicity. Since the textual basis is in these exDmples is rather slender. generalisations will not be attempted. The problem requires further study.

7.

Jconic:ity concerning order or words, clauses, and parts or the text

As the heading of this chapter indicates. we are now concerned with the ammgement of textual elements. which. according to Brinton, involves autoiconism. in other words. endophoric iconicity. But, a.-. was noted above. exophoric and endophoric iconicity cannot always be clearly separated. and sometimes the semiotic force of figures of order is so strong that the merely endophoric aspect is transcended. We will begin with climax. A fundamental principle of rhetorical composition is that of a climactic order of words. clauses. and sentences. In

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sequential arrangement of whatever kind the succeeding part should always be weightier or more important than the preceding one. Thus the structure of climax or gmdation in the modem sense of the word (i.e. not as a sequence of clauses fonned on the principle of anadiplosis, but as an arrangement of the parts of the structure which leads step by step to a culminating point) can be regarded as a quintessential rhetorical form (KUper 1981: 154). An example is Caesar's abovequoted dictum wmi. \'idi, \'ici. which is targeted to the peak in the third part of the triad. Progressive heightening is here to be found on the semantic level (reinforced by the sound structure). An example from a comic context in which the law of increasing quantity is added to progressive semantic intensification is the following triad: ''Some are born great. some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ·em". (TweljihNighl,II.5.145-146) Now in rhetorical composition there may be a conflict between different principles of composition. The natural sequential order - Quintilian's reclus ordo (Quintilian 1988: 376IIX.4.271)- may be at variance with the rhythm of the sentence which may necessitate syntactic transposition (hyperbaton) in order to provide proper rhythmical order (Quintilian 1988:377 IIX.4.26-27)). Or. to come to a point which is more important in our context. there may be a conflict between natural. i.e. linear or chronological, order and the principle of progressive semantic intensification. For Quintilian the most imponant principle of order is that of progressive semantic heightening. According to him. it is detriment<:~! to the effect of composition to have weaker expressions following on stronger ones: "in his cavendum ne descrescat oralio ct foniori subjungatur aliquid infirmius" (Quintilian 1988:375 IIX.4.231). Let us discuss the iconic quality of two examples in which this principle of order is involved. The first is taken from Keats's lyric depiction of the misery of human existence in the third stanza of his "Ode to a Nightingale'': "The weariness. the fever. and the fref' (Keats 1970: 207). While this line invens the rule of progressive expansion. each noun in the triad being a syllable shoner than the previous one_ the principle of step-by-step semantic intensification is realised. Each term of the triad conveys the idea of pain and suffering more poignantly. Progressive reduction is here a means to express the sense of life being doomed by sickness and transitoriness. The same compositional principle is to be seen albeit not as clearly - in another line from the same stanza: ''Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin. and dies'' (Keats 1970: 207). Keats's poem a.'iserts its own iconicity by inverting the law of the growing length of the individual parts of a rhetorical structure. Reduction of length iconises the decline from life to death. Thus the arrangement of the elements of the rhetorical structure is not just a matter of order. It has also profound semantic implications.

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A very interesting phenomenon in the context of the order of presentation

in rhetoric is hysteron proteron. The best-known example from Shakespeare is Enobarbus' description of the flight of the Egyptian fleet in Antony and Cleopatra (111.10.1-4). which will be quoted in its context with the crucial line italicised: Naught, naught. naught. all naught, I can behold no longer: The Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral. With all their .fi.nyfly, a"d /Urn the ruJJu: To scc't. mine eyes arc blasted.

The temporal sequence of the events is inverted here. What comes later - the act of fleeing -

is referred to before the initial event -

the act of turning the

rudder. Earl Anderson calls hysteron proteron ··a form of aniconic syntax". because "events are presented in reverse chronological order" (Anderson 1998: 274). However, if we look at the figure in the context of the reporter's indignation at the disgruceful Hight of the Egyptian boats, we realise that hysteron proteron has a very strong iconic impact here. The decisive fact, the shameful action of Antony and the Egyptian Heet. receives the strongest emphasis. which is re8ected in the order of the events narrated. The passage thus represents not only the event but also the speaker"s sense of outr.tge at the event. This can be interpreted as an instance of exophoric iconicity. The speaker's subjective reaction to the event is iconised by hysteron proteron. In this as in many other cases in rhetorical speech it is just the deviation from the iconic nonn which manifests iconicity most conspicuously. This is iconicity. to be sure. on a level dilferent from the mere miming of external reality. It is non-objective or, to use Tabakowska's tenn once more. 'experiential iconicity'. A stronger syntactic discontinuity than in hyperbaton and other fonns of changed word-order is to be found in syntactic dislocation as it is evinced in parenthesis (grammatically unconnected insertion in a text) and anacoluthon (broken syntax. change of a syntactic construction before its end). Both these phenomena are combined in the following passage from the last act of Hamlet (V.2.62-67). where the protagonist expresses his sense that revenge on King Claudius is, after all the latter's misdeeds. completely justified: Docs it not. think thee. stand me now upon He that hath kilrd my king and whor'd my mother. Popp'd in between th'election and my hopes, Thrown out his angle for my proper life And with such coz'nage - is't not perfect conscience To quit him with tRis arm? ( ... ) (Hamlet, V.2.62-67)

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The speaker begins with a syntactic construction (62). which he intenupts. inscning a large chunk of syntacticaHy unconnected matter (63--66), whose parenthetic character is indicated by Shakespeare's editors through da-.hcs. After five lines he makes a new start to e;o;press the first idea. now in a new syntactical construction. which he brings to an end in the two last half-lines of the quotation (66--67). The discontinuous construction reflects Hamlet's righteous anger. which makes him deviate from grammatically correct syntax. parenthetically inserting a portmit of his enemy. which lists all his offences from the murder of Hamlet's father to incest with his (Hamlet's) mother and robbery of the crown to attempts on Hamlet"s life. This is not a ca'ie of endophoric iconicity at all. The irregularity of syntax and grammar mimes the subjective point of view of the speaker, his perception and evaluation of the incidents that have happened at the Danish court.

8.

Chiasmus

This essay will be concluded by an example of chiasmus which reveals the tremendous iconic potential rhetorical figures may have. In the famous statement of one of the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth (1.1.11). a rhetorical structure iconises the structure of a whole world: Fair is foul. and foul is fair:

This is usually quoted as an instance of chiasmus or antimetabole without being subjected to closer analysis. An examination of the line will show that what looks so deceptively simple is. in fact. a rhetorically. semantically. and epistemologically extremely complex statement. The line combines different rhetorical schemes such as definition. antithesis. chiasmus. and alliteration. It consists of two definitions. in which one term is defined by - or equated with - its antonym. Since the second definition reverses the roles of deji11iemlum and definiens in the first definition. a chiasmus is established. The key tenns of the utterance are connected by alliter.uion. What is of central importance is that Shakespeare equates the antonyms. He does not say. 'Fair without. but foul within' or 'What seems fair is in reality foul'. To repeat it once more- since it is so important - he identifies antonyms. And this identification constitutes a paradox. In Shakespeare's identification of antonyms the world is revealed a.'i a total semantic and epistemological chaos. which is also a mom) chaos. The interpenetration of contradictory tcnns is reinforced by the chiastic structure of the utterance and by allitemtion. which establishes a phonetic bond between the key words of the line. Shakespeare actually deconstructs the opposition of fair

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and foul. and it is the specific rhetoricaJ fonn of the statement which reveaJs a world·view in which the opposition of appearance and reality or seeming and being does not work any longer. While the line as such is an iconic expression of a whole world-view. it is also related iconically to the thematic structure of the play (Miiller 1991).

Note I. Shukespcan:'s plays arc quoted from the editions in the Arden Series.

References Abrams. M.H. 1953. nteMirrorandt/r,.Lamp. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anderson, E. 1998. A Grommaroflconi.fm. Madison. N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Brinton, L.J. 1988. "The !conicity of Rhetorical Figures: Schemes a.o; Devices for Textual Cohc..o;ion". Language a11d Stylt' 21: 162-190. Engbcrg-Pctlersen, E. 1996. "lconidty and Arbilrariness". In Cm1tem. £rpressimr and Stmcture: Studie.t in Danish Fmrt·tim~al Gramnwr. E. Engberg· Pedersen et al. (eds). 45.,-468. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Enkvist. N. 1973. Lingui.ttit' Stylistio. The Hague/Paris: Mouton. Fenk, A. 1997. "Representation and Iconicity". Semiotinl 115: 215-234. Fischer. 0. and Nanny. M. 1999. "lntroduction.lconicity a~ a Creative Force in Language Use". In M. Nanny and 0. Fischer (eds). xv-xxxvi. GivOn. T. 1995. "Isomorphism in the Grammatical Code. Cognitive and Biological Considemtions". In /conicity ill Language, R. Simone (ed.). 47-76. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Haiman, J. 1980. "The lconicity of Grammar: Isomorphism and Motivation". Umguage 56: 515-540. Haiman. J. 1985. Natural Syma.r. lconicil)· and Erosion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jakobson, R. 1960. "Closing Statement Linguistics and Poetics". In Style in Language. Th. Sehcok {ed.), 350-377. Cambridge. Ma.--.s.: M.I.T. Press. Johansen, J0rgen Dines. 1996. "lconicity in Liter.ature". Semiotic-a 110: 37-55. Keats. J. 1970. Ed. H. W. Garrod. John Keats. Poetical Works. London/Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Kennedy, G. 1980. Clu.uic-al Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Kiiper. C. 1981. "lkonische Tendenzen in dcr Rhctorik". Zeiuchrifrfiir Uterawn,•i.uen· .tdraft 1111d Linguistik: LiLi II: 144-163.

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Kyd, T. 1970. TheSpunish Tragt'd)'. Ed. J.R. MuJryne. London/New York: Benn/Norton. Longinus. 1995. On tile Sublime. Ed. and tr.msl. By W.H. Fyfe. Rev. by D. Russel. Cambridge. Mass: Harvard University Press. MUller. W.G. 1991. "Das Problem von Schein und Sein in Erasmus' Sifeni Aldhiadis und Shakespeares Machetlt''. Wo/fenblitteler Renaissance Mitteilungen 15: 1-18. MUller. W.G. 1996. "Drei Formen des Wortspiels bei Shakespeare: Paronoma'iic:. Paronymie, Polyptoton". In Bright Is the Ring of Wonk Fe.ftschrift fiir Hour Weinstm·k :Jilt! 65. Gebumlaf.:, C. Pollner c:t al. (c:ds). 205-224. Bonn: Romanisti· scher Verlag. Niinny. M. 1986. "lconidty in Literature''. Word a11d /mnge 2: 199-208. Nanny. M. and Fischer, 0. (eds). 1999. Form Miming Mealling.lconiciry in lAnguage and Lileramre. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. NOth. W. 1999. "Cognition.lconicity, and Blake's Fearful Symmetry". In /nlerdigilalirm. Essays for lrmengard Ral/('h, G. F. Carr et a!. (eds), 647-655. New York: Lang. Quintilianus, M. 1988. Ambildmrg des Redners. 2. AuH. Zweiter Teil. Dannstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschafl. Tabakowska, E. 1999. "Linguistic Expression of Pen:eptual Relationships: lconicity as a Principle of Text Organisation". In M. Nlinny and 0. Fischer (eds), 409422. Vickers. B. 1970. Clas.fit·a/ Rl!eioric i1r Engli.flr Poe1ry. London: Macmillan. Wescoll. R. 1971. "Linguistic lconism". Language 47: 41&-428.

The emergence of experiential iconicity and spatial perspective in landscape descriptions in English fiction Werner Wolf UniiWJity ofCra:_

I.

The applicability of 'iconicity' and •spatial perspective' to literary landscape descriptions: theoretical problems and typological distinctions

Is there such a thing as iconicity in landscape descriptions in fiction. and can they be perspectival? Doubts may arise. since. with the exception of a mention by Bal. which refers to possible coincidences of verbal rhythm and content in de:-.criptive discourse (cf. 1980: 126), iconicity has never been associated with narrative de:-.criptions in research so far. and also because the applicability of 'iconicity' and 'spatial perspective' to literary descriptions is not obvious. If the reference had been to landscape painting. these terms. both of which originally denoted visual phenomena. would certainly not create a problem, but can they be applied to literary landscapes? As for spatial perspective. the problem docs not seem to be overcompli· cated. as there is a well-known narratological device which is related to this phenomenon not only in terminology but also in substance: 'internal perspective", that is. the presentation of the diegetic world from an intm-dicgetic point of view. Although "point of view" is used here in a wider. metaphorical sense. internal narrati1·e perspective is in fact a precondition for the rendering of concrete spatial perspective.• Owing to this intimate relationship, critics have tended to link the beginnings of spatial perspective in literature historically with the period in which internal narrative perspective became predominant. i.e. the

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late nineteenth century and modernism (cf. Stanzel 1979/91 and Sternberg 1981: see below, note 16). However. the sustained imitation of spatial perspective by a verbal text is considerably older than this and. as I will show. appears in fiction in conjunction with a descriptive phenomenon which seems to be quite di!Tcrent but whose emergence stems from a common ground: iconicity. The question of whether 'iconicity' can be applied to literary landscape descriptions is more difficult to answer than the analogous question concerning spatial perspective. As opposed to images. from which the term 'iconicity' itself etymologically derives, literature is perhaps not the most natural medium to come to mind when one talks about 'iconicity'. Though recent research has shown that iconicity is in fact an important feature not only of the primary system of language but also of the secondary system of literature. which even exploits linguistic iconicity to a maximum (cf.e.g. Ntinny and Fischer. eds 1999). this 'unnaturalness' of iconicity is to some extent true of fiction. with which I am concerned here. Except for the imitation of speech. which may be conceived of as a typical literary and also narrative form of iconicity (cf. Scheffel 1997: 31f.. 234). prose fiction employs iconicity to a considerably lesser degree than poetry.2 This is partly due to the fact that -to use Peirce's terminology (cf. 1940: 105) - in prose fiction the imagic variant would. in most cases. appear to be highly unusual: shaped verse and metre. in poetry a common source of iconicity. are here out of the question; iconic 'typogrnphical devices' are usually restricted to experimental fiction: and even onomatopoeic elements, while not impossible, are generally used with more discretion in fiction. Apart from imagic iconicity.there is. theoretically. the alternative form of metaphoric iconicity. Yet the similarity constitutive of iconicity is here reduced to an intralinguistic resemblance. or ro~ther identity. between the signifiers which mime a similarity between the signifieds of tenor and vehicle (e.g. 'head' (i.e. 'leader') and 'head' (part of the body)). Metaphoric iconicity thus "involves a lower degree of iconicity. because there is no mirroring of any physical or conceptual structure in the outside world'' by the verbal signifiers (Nanny and Fischer 1999: xxvf.). and is therefore a marginal case of iconicity. which I will not deal with here. An additional reason for not treating this variant in the context of landscape descriptions is the fact that the metaphoric reading of literary landscapes. in particular as correlatives of psychic states experienced by fictional characters. ha.-. already been amply documented in research (cf.e.g. Kullmann 1995). What ba.-.ically remains in fiction is diagrammalic iconicity: a certain isomorphism between the structure of textual signifiers and signifieds. In traditional. non-experimental fiction. diagrammatic iconicity can genemlly appear in two forms:·'

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There is. first. a qullnlillllil·e form. in which it is the amount of words that creates iconic isomorphism: in contrast to a short mention of a semantically

'peripheral' element. an extensive reference may be used to render the importance or "centrality" of. the focus placed on. or the attention paid to, a fictional object (Nanny and Fischer 1999: xxii). In the second. Jequnuial form, it is the order of verbal signifiers and their manner of collocation (in terms of coherence. hierarchical and local relations) that constitute iconic isomorphism. This form may be used for the expression of the idea of dominance (vs. subordination). for the imitation of degrees of fragmentation and complexity in the fictional world. furthermore for the rendering of ''distance" or ''proximity'', for the illustmtion of "repetition". and. most important. for the imitation of the sequential order of occurrences in the fictional world (Ntinny and Fischer 1999: xxii}. Both of these variants can basically also appear in other litemry genres as well as in non-literary and non-fictional texts. However. the Iauer sub-variant. sequential iconicity as a mimesis of a series of occurrences. is the most typically narratin! kind of iconicity. Generally, this kind of diagrnmmatic iconicity can easily be used in those parts of stories. whether fictional or not. which are truly narrdtive. as Julius Caesar's frunous dictum reni, l•idi, \'ici, illustrates. The temporal sequence of events can in fact be imitated by the discursive order in a natural way: by means of the ordo llaturalis. Descriptive discourse. which usually deals with non-temporal 'existents' mther than with 'events':~ again seems to have a less natur.ll relation to iconicity here. This may be one reason why descriptions. in fiction. are of a very limited importance in most literary epochs, though their existence can be traced back to the days of Homer. Another reason for this limited importance is the problem of motivating descriptions. This problem refers. on the one hand, to external motivation, that is. to the question of how to account for a description in relation to the context of the narrative in which it is embedded (and which is always awkwardly interrupted by it) and. on the other hand. to internal motivation. that is. to the question of how to organize and justify the progress of the descriptive discourse itself. Here the obvious difficulty is that the verbal medium of the dynrunic temporal art of fiction is inadequate to the representation of static spatial objects. Lessing. in his Ltwkom1 (1766). has shown one way of solving this latter difficulty: the device of tmnsfonning the description of an object into the narration of its creation. as epitomized in Homer's Iliad (cf. Lessing's remark. in chap. 18. on Achilles' shield). For obvious reasons. such a solution. whilst creating (sequential) diagrrunmatic iconicity. does not work for verbal landscape descriptions. In tenns of iconicity. such descriptions therefore present

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a special challenge. but it is worthwhile attempting to meet it. since a lot may be learnt from investigating this particularly well-documented field of literature both

for cultuml history and the theory and development of descriptive techniques. My thesis is that. in spite of apparent difficulties. more or less iconic elements can occur in landscape descriptions. though this wa~ not always the ca.<>e. In speaking of ''more or Jess iconic elements'', I want to imply that 'iconicity' is a gradable quality of signs or sign complexes and also a quality that permits a mixture with other semiotic forms in the same text. notably a symbolic

use of signs. 5 Thus. when I refer to 'iconic descriptions', I mean text passages that. besides using language in the customary symbolic way. also show diagrummatic similarities between signifiers and signifieds.ln claiming that iconicity wa" ··not always" to be found in descriptions. I intend above all to point to a historical development in which two rypes of landscape description may be distinguished: an old 'discourse-centred' type which is more or less non-iconic and does not contain imitations of spatial perspective; in this type. textual progress and coherence depend primarily on discursive features. that is. on logical. linguistic, rhetorical and other intra- or intertextual phenomena; b. a new 'experience-centred' type in which iconicity occurs in combination with spatial perspective. lconicity here means the imitation. not of landscapes themselves. but of probable structures of their perccption 6 as might be attributed to someone experiencing the fictional world. In this second kind of description. it is this perceptual experience which can be observed as an important shaping factor in the textual progress and coherence. The resulting functional variant of diagrammatic iconicity is what I tcnn 'experiential iconicity' .7 In fiction. this new type of description emerges in the second half of the eighteenth century. and it is signific<~nt that it appears together with the first major attempts in this genre to render spatial perspective a" a basic condition of human visual experience: for experiential iconicity presupposes an awareness of perspectivity. and both phenomena are historically linked to an increa.,.ing concern with subjective perception.

2.

Characteristics of visual perception as a basis for descriptive iconicity and perspectivity

Visual perception. the common bao;is for the kinds of perspectival and iconic imitations I am here concerned with. is an intric<~te subject. which has been investigated in depth by perceptual psychologists and cognitive scientists (e.g. by Piaget and lnheldcr 1966; Downs and Stea 1977; Gibson 1979: Goldstein 1999,

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and. a.. far as the application of perceptual psychology to the interpretation of an. is concerned, the classic in the field, by Gombrich 1960n7). I cannot repeat all their findings here. but will restrict myself to those characteristics of perception that are relevant to my purpose. Visual perception.like any other sen.'iory perception. unless it is a hallucina-

tion. depends on seemingly objective data. for instance. on the shape of an object. its texture and colour. il'i location in a three~imensionul space with respect to other objects. and on its visibility as an elfect. say. of atmospheric conditions. Yet these data are only .n?emingly objective. since their meaningful perception is determined by subject-centred. in pan. even highly variable subjective parameters. As the constructionists among the theoreticians of perception and cognition emphasize (e.g. Hoffman 1998). perception is not a passive response to reality data but a constructive process. in which acquired frames or schemata play an important role in creating 'cognitive maps' (cf. Downs and Stea 1977). With respect to the perception of landscape. one must add that these maps can be heavily influenced by developments in the history of art and aesthetics. which in tum may influence perceptual and experiential processes as imitated in fiction. The subjectivity of perception is obvious when one thinks of parameters regulating the focus and shape of the selection taking place in all perception. such as mood, interest, expectation, attention and the personal history of the experiencing subject. In visual perception. a further shaping factor is the spatial position of the beholder. It defines his or her perspective and consists of a (static or dynamic) point of view or centre of perspective. an angle of vision. determining the scope. the visibility and the perspectival distortions of the objects seen. and a horizon. which changes with the centre of perspective and the angle of vision. All this contributes to two inevitable traits of visual perception: its partialness or incompleteness and the relativity of the location and visibility of the objects with respect to the perceiver. As regards the sequential structure of visual perception. which is of particular interest in the context of a temporal medium such as literature that transmits its messages in a linear and sequential way, landscape perception would fall into the field of the so-called "top-down processing" (Goldstein 1999: 206; cf. also Dretske 1995: 343). This processing applies to what Dretske has termed "meaningful perception" as opposed to mere "sense perception" ( 1995: 331. 3.33), that is. it applies to objects which can easily be linked to pre-existing knowledge and are hence. in an initial stage. identified and classified according to a generul impression. If the perceiver is interested. a second stage ensues. in which details are noticed. This is done in a series of eye (and head) movements and alternating moments of perceptive fixations which follow salient features of the object.

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In fictional worlds. there are. of course. no such actual objects. All objects must be textually evoked or constructed: and instead of 'objective' structures of perception we can only talk about probable structures as experienced by a real or

imaginary observer (though these may coincide with the findings of cognitive scientists). But this is the point: as I will illustrate in the following, there are ways to evoke such objects which dim•gard such probable structures. and there are ways which iconically imitate them to various degrees.

J.

Non-iconic and non-perspectival early landscape description: Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

A good example of the early stage in fictional evocations of landscape is the description of· Arcadia' in Sir Philip Sidney's pastoral romance The Co11111ess of Pembroke:~ Arcadia (1593). The description occurs in Chaplcr 2. where the stranded prince Musidorus. in the company of two shepherds. arrives in Arcadia and is "welcomed 1... 1 with delightful prospects": There were hills which garnished their proud heights with stalely trees: humble valleys whose base estate ~med comforted with refreshing of silver rivers: meadows enamelled with all sorts of eye-pleasing Howers: thickets, which, being lined with most pleasant shade. were witnessed so to by the cheerful deprn;ition of many well-tuned birds: each pa.~ture stored with sheep feeding with sober security. while the preny lambs with bleating oratory cr.tved the dams' comfort: here a shepherd's boy piping as though he should never be old: there a young shepherdess knitting and withal singing. and it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to work and her hands kept time to her voice's music. As for the houses of the country - for many houses came under their eye - they were all scuttered, no two being one by the other. and yet not so fur niT as that it barred mutual succour: a show, as it were. of an accompanable solituriness and of a civil wildness. (Sidney 1593/1977:69f.)

What is perhaps most striking in this description is its lack of truly visual qualities. "(Hfills'', ''valleys". "meadows", "thickets" and "pasturels)" appear with only a single mention of colour (''silver"). No references are made to shape and luminosity. and there is only one indication of the relative position the components of this landscape occupy with respect to each olher: hills appearing above the "'base estate" of "silver rivers"'. In accordance with this poor visualization there is hardly any iconic imitation of probable structures of visual experience. Admittedly. the initial general identification and emotional appreciation of the "delightful prospect".

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which is followed by some of its details. may be considered an imitation of the natural top-down sequence of perception. However. this is the sole hint at experiential iconicity here. The details of the Arcadian geogr.lphy are basically

rendered a.o; a list of schematic objects that docs not coalesce into a graphic whole. At first glance. this list seems to be a purely additive. even r.mdom collection of itcms.K Yet it is actually structured by discursive, rhctorical.logicul and conceptual principles. such as oppositions (e.g. "proud heights" and "stately

trees" vs. ''humble valleys" and "base estate''). unifying recurrences (e.g. ''eye-plea.~ing

flowers'' and "most pletLWIII shade". or the repetition of "comfort")

and analogies (the references to different producers of pleasing. musical sounds as metonymic suggestions of Arcadian harmony). These principles do not fun.her visibility; however, as Sternberg has shown (1981:63).they provide a powerful means of ordering descriptive discourse. In pan.icular. Sidney's description appears to be shaped by the analogies and hierarchical 'degrees' characteristic of the old concept of the 'chain of being': the text starts with the lowest. inanimate realm of "hills" and "valleys",links it with the next. animate realm. the realm of plants ("trees". "meadows", "ftowers", "thickets") and then proceeds to the sphere of the animals ("birds", "sheep", "lambs", "dams") before culminating in references to humans and their habitations ("shepherd's boy'', "shepherdess", ''houses"). All this betrays iconicity only in so far ao; the kind of sequential iconicity imitative of hiemrchies as mentioned above is concerned. Yet in no way is the textual organization here related to the subjective experience of the travellers. their progress or the focus of their gaze: it only imitates an abstract conceptual hierarchy. which is based on discursive and logical principles mther than on visual perception. This extreme abstractness and discourse-orientation is all the more remarkable. a., the group of travellers. and in particular the main character Musidorus. would have provided a good centre for both experiential iconicity and the imitation of spatial perspective. Yet from this text no concrete and specific point of view can be deduced, let alone the travellers' movement as they "pass through'' (p. 70) the landscape. Consequently. there is no suggestion of the perception of a three-dimensional space from the tmvellers' point of view: there is no background-foreground segregation. no indication of a right-left axis nor (with one exception) of a vertical axis 'above vs. below', there is no focus on privileged elements of the landscape. nor is there a mention of objects that are merely partially visible. depending on the position of the viewers. Instead. there is only a rhetorical opposition between a "here" and an indefinite "there". cmd an equally rhetorical insistence on an indefinite frequency and totality. The rhetorical nature of the text is especially obvious in the many plurals and the improbable

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detail that "each pasture", regardless of its distance. can be seen to contain "sheep feeding with sober security''. This non-existence of subjective spatial perspective and indeed the lack of internal narrative perspective in general necessarily entail an absence of experiential iconicity. for which internal perspec-

tive. as already mentioned. is a prerequisite. Curiously. this neglect of perspectival imitation occurs in fiction at a time. when. in the history of the visual arts. it had already reached a high degree of perfection. following the discovery of linear perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi and Leon Battista Alberti in fifteenth-century Italy. Why then is fiction so

'backward'? The medial differences between painting and literature may in pact be responsible for this. Both media in fact are diametrically opposed in their respective fields of excellence: if painting is good at visual iconicity and bad at the rendering of actions and speech. the strength of literature is exactly the opposite. Yet. as I will show with a view to the later history of fiction. these differences are not absolutely unsunnountable obstacles. This may also be seen in the fact that. where a special external motivation exists in the fictional context. the verbal imitation of perspective can already be found in Elizabethan drama. A famous example is Shakespeare's Ki11g Lear4.6.ll-24. where Edgar describes an imaginary perspe'-1ival view from the alleged top of the Dover cliffs to blind Gloucester. In this scene Edgar's motivation for verbal perspectivity is to emphasize the depth of the suicidal fall which the despairing Gloucester intends to do and to be able to persuade him afterwards of the miraculousness of his 'survival' as a cure for his despair. Thus. if the verbal imitation of spatial perspective was not entirely unknown in Sidney's time. there must be specific historical reasons for the lack of perspective in prose fictions such as Arwdia. In narrdtological tenns the passage from Arcatlia makes use of an external narrative perspective with 'zero focalization', and in this does not provide the necessary basis for the imitation of spatial perspective: internal narrative perspective. The external perspective is causally linked with the fact that Arcadia is written in the neoclassical tradition. This tradition privileges the mimesis of general and 'objective' truth to the detriment of particularities and subjective perception. and this, as Hamon has pointed out (1981: II f.). does not constitute a fertile ground for perspectival descriptions either. In addition. as in virtually all fiction up to the early eighteenth century (and sometimes beyond. cf. Hoffmann 1978: 16). settings arc of secondary importance in comparison with characters and action. If settings are described at all. the emphasis is usually on their easy and efficient readability with respect to certain schemata and connotations. not on the convincing visualization of an imaginable reality. One of the principal schemata that guide landscape descriptions in the neoclassical context is the

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pastoml idyll of the locus amoemu as an emblem of an ideal state of being.<,! Together with the concept of paradisiac harmonia contrarium, which occurs in the oxymora "accompanable solitariness" and ''civil wilderness... it is clearly this cla<>sical topos which informs Sidney's description. As an imitatio \'elemm his text thus follows a frame inherited from antiquity and is more an intertextual imitation of literature than an iconic imitation of an imaginary visual experience (cf. already Kadish 1987: 9). Owing to the inHuence of classical literature. this kind of landscape description can be traced. in content as well as in its noniconic and non-perspectival transmission. from Alcinoos's garden. as described in chant vii in the Odyssey. to the idyllic ··opening" in the forest covering Robinson Crusoe's 'Island of Despair'. which to him "looked like a planted garden" (Defoe 1719/1965: 113).

4.

The emergence of iconicity and the use of spatial perspective in static landscape description: Fielding, Tom Jones

An early example of a new way of describing landscapes in English fiction is the famous page on Squire All worthy's estate in Henry Fielding's novel Tom Jones (1749). It stood on the south-east of a hill, but nearer the bottom than the top of it. so as to be sheltered from the north-ea.'it by a grove of old oaks. which rose above it in a gmdual ascent of near half a mile. and yet high enough to enjoy a most charming prospect of the valley beneath. In the midst of the grove wa." a fine lawn. sloping down towards the house. near the summit of which rose a plentiful spring, gushing out of a rock covered with firs, and forming a constant cascade of about thirty foot. not carried down a regular flight of steps. but tumbling in a natural fall over the broken and mossy stones. till it canle to the bonom of the rock: then running off in a pcbly channel. that with many lesser falls winded along. till it fell into a lake at the foot of the hill. about a quarter of a mile below the house on the south side. and which was seen from every mom in the front. Out of this lake. which tilled the center of a beautiful plain. embellished with groupcs of beeches and elms. and fed with sheep. issued a river. that, for several miles. was seen to meander through an amazing variety of meadows and woods. till it emptied itself into the sea: with a large ann of which. and an island beyond it. the prospect was dosed. On the right of this valley opened another of bs extent, adorned with several villages. and terminated by one of the towers of an old ruined abbey, grown over with ivy. and part of the front. which remained still entire.

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This passage is remarkable in more respects than one. Besides being a fine illustration of a new taste in English landscape gardening (cf. Bland 1967: 318).

it displays a concern with exact and concrete visualization according to criteria of spatial orientation (measure. direction and distance). which genemlly help the reader's 'concretization' (cf. Stanzel 1979/91: 163).11 is also remarkable in that

the discursive principles of contmst and analogy. which were prominent in Sidney's description. have lost their impact in favour of diagrammalic iconicity and "(p]erspectival motivation" (Sternberg 1981:85) as experiential principles organizing the descriptive discourse. As for iconic isomorphism. the text again begins with an imitation of the top-down structure: it first offers an overall orientation of the estate and at the same time justifies the ensuing description as centred on an unusually ''channing prospecf'. before presenting details. Even the initial rendering of the complete view may be said to iconically follow an imaginary focalizer's approach to the house: such a beholder would presumably first focus on the most important element. the building, in a 'long shot' and then scan, by means of head or eye movements. the situation "above it" and "the valley beneath". Unlike Sidney. Fielding continues this iconic imitation of probable perceptual structures and their temporal order. The most important part is the description of the brook. From its ··spring'' to the "lake'' and further down to the "river'' that issues out of it and Hows to the distant "sea", the discourse follows exactly not only a topological guideline, the watercourse. but also the gaze of an observer. who traces the How of the water from the source to the mouth of the river. It is a gaze which natur.llly focuses tirst on nearby objects and then wanders to ever more distant objects. In contmst to the enumeration of objects in Arcadia. it is this sequence which is reproduced in the wort! order of the text: contiguity in discourse here mirrors contiguity in perception. After this the description is again structured in a way which appears to follow the eye or head movements of an observer who wants to focus on further 'prospects' from a static vantage point: the text items are here grouped. not according to extra-experiential. discursive criteria as in Arcadia, but according to directions defined by the beholder's position and his or her gaze. as for example: "On the riRht of this vaJley opened another": or: ''The leftlumd scene presented the view of a very fine park." (p. 58f.. emphasis added). Here experiential iconicity and the imitation of spatial perspective coincide. 111 This is also true of what one may call an imitation of atmospheric perspective. due to which the number of distinct objects mentioned decreao;es (and the ''generalizing tendencies

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of distance" (Gombrich 1960n7: 1871 increase) in proportion to the distance. All this is a remarkable attempt at introducing both perspectivity and iconicity in description and thereby helping the reader to "concretize' and to vividly imagine a loc<~l setting. Although Ttm1 Jo11es as a whole is still written in what Stanzel ( 1979/91) has called 'authorial narrutive situation'. the c~temal perspective of an omniscient narrator, which is typical of this nam:ative situation. is here superseded locally by an internal spatial perspective which gives the impression that the ''prospect.. is being observed from a specific. static point of view situated inside the landscape. In fact. this is what the narrator himself suggests in the facetious remark that closes the descriptive passage: Reader. take care. I have unadvisedly led thee to the top of as high a hill as Mr Allwonhy's. and how to get thee down without breaking thy neck, I do not well know. However. let us e'en venture to slide down together, for Miss Bridget rings her bell. and Mr Allwonhy b summoned to breakfast, where I must auend ( ... ] (p. 59) The centre of the perspective. where both the narrator and the fictitious reader as imaginary focalizcrs are located, 11 seems to be the hilltop above Mr Allworthy's house, and this enables the typical view from above which chardcterizes the kind of 'prospects' fa.;hionable in the mid-eighteenth century. 1 ~ This point of view. however. does not conform to what the narrator has said some lines above: It was now the middle of May, and the morning was remarkably serene. when Mr Allwonhy walked fonh on the terroK:e. where the dawn opened every minute that lovely prospect we have before described to his eye. (p. 59)

Apparently, we have not Otle centre of perspective from which the landscape is seen but actually two: Squire Allworthy. that is. a spot on the terrace, and the point of view of both the fictitious reader and the narrutor from the hilltop. As there is no view possible from the terrace which could start with focusing on the grove above (situated behind the house) and end with the distant sea. this is a dear inconsistency in the handling of spatial perspective and may also be an indication that we are still at the beginnings of iconic imitations of visual perception.

S.

lconicity and spatial perspective in dynamized landscape description: Radcliffe. The Mysteries of Udolpho

Towards the end of the eighteenth century such inconsistencies no longer occur. at least not in the Gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe. who is jll'\tly famous for her convincing verbal landscape paintings, however fantastic they may seem.

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Paradigmatic for the new quality of description is the crossing of the Apennines and the approach to the castle of Udolpho in The Myslerie.~ of Udolplro (1794), already singled out by Scott as a "fancy-picture.. of particular interest (1824: xxxii). The heroine Emily, forced to follow her evil uncle Montoni and her aunt to the castle. experiences. in the course of a journey described over more than three pages. two contrastive landscapes: A.,; the travellers ( .. -I ascended among the pine forests. steep rose over steep. the moumains sc=emed to mulliply. as they went. and what wa.~ the summit of one eminence proved to be only the ba"e of another. At length. they reached a little plain, where the drivers stopped to rest the mules, whence a scene of such extent and magnificence opened below, a~ drew even from Madame Montoni a nole of admiration. Emily lost. for a moment. her sorrows. in the immensity of nature. Beyond the amphitheatre of mountains. that stretchc<.l below, whose tops appeared as numerous almost. a~ the waves of the :.ca. and who!-e feel were concealed by the forests - extended the Campagllct of Italy. where cities and rivers. and woods and all the glow of cultivation were mingled in gay confusion. The Adriatic bounded the horizon ( ... J Towards the dose of day. the road wound into a deep valley. Mountains. whose shaggy steeps appeared to be inaccessible. almost surrounded it. To the easl. a vista opened. that exhibited the Apennines in their darkest honnrs: and the long perspective of retiring summits, rising over each other. their ridges clothed with pines, exhibited a stronger image of grandeur, than any that Emily had yet seen. The sun had just sunk below the top of the mountains she was descending. whose long shadows stretched athwart the valley, but its sloping mys. shooting through an opening of the cliffs. touched with a yellow gleam the summits of the forest. that hung upon the opposite steeps. and streaming in full splendour upon the towers and battlements of a ca~tle. that spread its extensive ramparts along the brow of a precipice above. The splendour of these illumined objects wa~ heightened by the contrasted shade, which involved the valley below.[ ... ( Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the ~:astle, which she understood to be Montoni's: for though it was now lighted up by the setting sun. the gothic greatness of its features. and its mouldering walls of dark grey stone. rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholic purple tint. which spread deeper and deeper. as the thin vapour crept up the mountain. while the battlements above were still tipped with splendour. From those too, the rays soon faded. and the whole edilice was invested with the solemn duskiness of evening.( ... ] As the twilight deepened. its features became more awful in obscurity. and Emily 1.:ontinued to gaze. till its clustering towers were alone seen. ri~ing over the tops of the woods, beneath whose thick shade the carriages soon after began to ascend. (Radcliffe 1794/1980: 225-227)

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The old type of description. epitomized by Arcadia. consisted mainly of stereotyped and visually highly indetenninate landscape staples. They were arranged according to abstroct principles. and their dominant function was to indicate and reproduce general schemata of pre-existing meaning. It was therefore possible to dispense with efforts towards visualization, perspective and iconicity. All this is remarkably different in this passage. in which Radcliffe achieves a new quality in description which surpa.o;ses even Fielding's portrait of Allworthy's estate. This novelty is not to be understood in terms of an absolute absence of indeterminacy and stereotypicalness nor in terms of a complete independence from schemata literdl)' descriptions will always be indeterminate (and certainly more so than painterly ones). 13 and Radcliffe's descriptions also follow certain schemata 14 and may even be said to tend towards certain non-realist stereotypes. 15 What is. however. new is the nature of these schemata and stereotypes and the manner in which they are tilled. Instead of intertexmal. literary frames. such as the low.~ umoemu or. as would be more appropriate in this case. the locus terribilis (cf. Garber 1974). the new type of description follows general convenlions of the contemporary perception of nature and is quite frequently shaped by models derived from the visual arts. which in tum inHuenced ways of perceiving real landscapes (cf. Smuda 1986: 64f.): fictional descriptions now often 'visibly' betmy their debt to either 'sublime' or 'picturesque' landscape painting (as in this example) or to landscape gardening (as was the case in Fielding's text. which is a thinly veiled description of Ralph Allen's Prior Park [cf. Malins 1966: 43f.j). Another feature of the new type is that it no longer concentrates on the easy recognizability of subject-independent. almost abstract settings but offers convincing material for subjective imaginative visualization. The suggestiveness of Radcliffe's landscapes does not reside in their geographical exactness but mainly in that their verbal representations follow. with a high degree of probability. structures which were missing in earlier descriptions: the structures of subjective visual perception (even if these are filtered by other arts). In fact. her ability not only to devise sublime or picturesque Jandscupes but also to mirror visual perception both in discursive sequence and in the textuul focus is what invests her landscapes with iconicity and the 'painterly' quality for which she was famous among her contemporaries. As in Ttm1 JnneJ, the landscape in Udolpho is seen from an internal perspective. but Radcliffe simulates this perspective in a more consistent and persuasive way than Fielding. A first clement in her imitation of perception is the specificity and subjectivity of the gaze the reader is permitted to follow. In contrast to Fielding's description we have here one con...,.istent centre of perspective located in a diegetic focalizer-character: Emily. And whereas Fielding's

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observers still have something of the objectivity of an omniscient narrator. Radcliffe accentuates the subjectivity which tinges the perceptions of this focalizer. Emily's tirst view from the "little plain" is invested with positive emotions and is expressly connected to her lover Va1ancoun., while the second view of the castle with its obvious relation to the villain Montoni reHects her negative. fearful feelings in the situation. Unlike Fielding's "prospect"'. which is viewed from one. or rather two. but at any rate static points of view, we here move through the landscape and accompany a dynamic focalizer. Instead of a "'tableau'" we are given a "'description en mouvement'" (Hoffmann 1978:40). in which the sequence of the objects mentioned not only iconically follows Emily's wandering gaze but also her physical approach to the ca.-.tle. The description is thus narrativized. which creates a correlative to the dynamic principle of description already praised by Lessing as particularly suitable for literature. As a consequence of this dynamic movement. the views vary, and this is mirrored in the arrangement of the objects described and in the different angles of vision in which they arc made to appear in the text. At first it is a view from above. which is comparable to the device used by Fielding. Emily's gaze wanders from the mountainous vicinity to a distant plain below, where "cities and rivers. and woods and all the glow of cultivation" are mentioned with neither apparent order nor relation to each other. On the swface, this seems similar to Sidney's non-iconic technique of description. Yet. in reality this 'confusion' of objects. which is enumerated predominantly in indefinite plural fonns. is iconic here. since it mirrors the reduced visibility and "gay confusion'' of objects seen at great distance. In contr.tstto this first part with its sublime 'prospect' seen from above, the latter part contains what was the hallmark of ·picturesque' perspective: a view from below (cf. Andrews 1989:61 and pa.uim). In either case. the occurrence of the tenns "perspective" and "horizon" is noteworthy: they suggest that the imitation of spatial perspective did not emerge in fiction in the late nineteenth century. as has been assumed. but in fact already a century beforeY' Radcliffe's description is also iconic in that she imitates the partialness of visual perception. She does so. for instance. by mentioning something which wa.-. still absent in Fielding's, let alone Sidney's, 'prospects'. namely a sequence of erroneous perception and ensuing readjustment: while Emily ascends the mountains, "the summit of one eminence prove(sl to be only the base of another". as remoter ranges arc at first invisible and only grddually come into her field of vision. The reverse happens. when she approaches Udolpho from the bottom of the valley: after having been in full view from the opposite slope. the castle. due to obstructing "woods", is now visible only in its topmost parts.

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A fun.her instance of iconicity in this latter description. which complements the dominant 'sequential iconicity' in this text. is a good example of the other diagrammatic subform introduced above in the first section: 'quantitative iconicity'. It can be seen in the isomorphism between textual and visual focll'i: between the amount of text allotted to the castle (of whose description I have only quoted the beginning) and the subjective impon.ance this building ha.<> for Emily. In concentrating on the ca'itle to the detriment of other landscape elements. the description may seem reductive. Yet this very reductiveness imitates what happens when sense data in real perception are processed and selected according to criteria of interest (cf. Stanzel 1979/91: 158). The discourse here follows Emily's selective gaze. for whom the awe-inspiring castle is the most intriguing object in the landscape. The latter part of the description is even invested with a maximum of iconicity by the sequence of the terms denoting changes in colour, luminosity and atmosphere. Radcliffe here not only achieves a painterly quality but almost anticipates filmic effects: the text focuses on the castle first in a long shot. and then gradually zooms in on it. while the light modulates from the intensity of a spotlight, which illuminates the edifice in its entirety. to a receding beam. which is surrounded by a growing shade. till the entire scene, through various grades of decreasing luminosity. is lost in twilight. We can see here that indeed a new quality of description emerged in the eighteenth century. This is. however, not to say that it immediately supen.eded the old non-iconic and non-perspectival typc. 17 Alternative, culturally motivated and "medium-oriented" principles of "ordering" descriptive discoun.e. which have been mentioned by Sternberg (1981: 87). such as hierarchies. conceptual or linguistic "analogies", "correspondences", "oppositions" or "idiomatic sequence" (1981: 63 and 87). remain influential. but this does not alter the historical impon.ance of the perception-oriented mode of description exemplified by Radcliffe.

6.

Reasons for the change in landscape representation in the novel

How can this remarkable change in fictional landscape representation. this joint emergence of spatial perspective and experiential iconicity. be explained? It should be noted that I do not want to deal here with the general fact that descriptions of nature and landscapes gain in impon.ance (and length) 1H in fiction from the late eighteenth century onwards (and do so with some delay. compared to other discourses). This would mean discll'ising factors such as the new sense of landscape as an aesthetic object (cf. Ritter 1963: Heffernan 1984:Chap. I. and Smuda 1986) and the new awareness of the milieu as a determining influence on man (cf.

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already Zola 1880/1971). 1<,) My concern is rather with possibilities of accounting

for specific 'technical" devices which developed in the wake of that fact. A crucial prerequisite for the change in descriptive techniques outlined above exists in the common basis for both pcr.;pectivity and experiential iconicity: the well-known increasing accentuation of subjectivity in cultuml history since the seventeenth century. One of the symptoms of this development can be seen in the demise of neoclassicism with its concern with general. 'objective' truth and a heightened sensibility for the modes and conditions of individual experience. a development which reached a climax. in aesthetic theory in ArchibaJd Alison's E.{.fli."S o111he Namre and Principle.{ ofTa.fte (1790) (cf.

Kullmann 1995: 83f.). In this context one must also mention the rise of empiricism. which is of particular importance in the cultural history of Britain (cf. Heffernan 1984: 37). Another noteworthy factor is the eighteenth-century emphasis on visual perception and on its mental and aesthetic correlative in aesthetics and poetry: 'imagination'. Instances of this can be seen in the pr.aisc of .. sight" as "the most perfect and most delightful of all our Senses" in Addison's first Spet·tafor number (411) on the pleasures of the imagination ( 171211970: 397).2t1 in the genre of the 'topographical poem', and also in the importance attributed to the representation of land~cape and nature. e.g. in James Thomson's TheSea.mm (1726-30). Generally speaking. a~ Wolpers (1984. esp. pp. 78-130) and Lobsien ( 1981. esp. chap. 4) have shown, parts of seventeenthand eighteenth-century descriptive poetry with its emerging emphasis on visual detail and the subjective experience of outer reality paved the way for the development in question. Poetry thus not only contributed to overcoming, in a general way. the resistance which literature as a medium tends to show towards spatial mimesis but also helped to shape landscape descriptions in the particular way I have described. Yet all this does not account for the fact that it is with Radcliffe and some other authors that iconic and perspectival descriptions - albeit belatedly - begin to appear in fiction. A~ compared to poetry. additional incentives seemed to be necessary for fiction. lbe following four factors cenainly played an important role: I. The context of sensibility and pre-romanticism: As the genre 'sentimental novel' shows. this eighteenth-century context had a relevance that was not confined to poetry. It was anti-classicist in its nature. accentuated the general cultural tendency towards subjective experience and thus strengthened an essential precondiction for perspectivity and experiential iconicity. 2. The contemporary aesthetics of the sublime and the picturesque: This aesthetics was related to the subjective experience of landscapes in that it included nature in the range of favourite objects of emotional and aesthetic appreciation

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and rendered the subjective view of impressive landscapes fa.o;hionable in life as well as in fiction. 3.1n connection with this.the aforementioned intermedial influence of the visual arts as guiding 'scripts' for litemry landscape descriptions: In the landscape garden (cf. Malins 1966 and Heffernan 1984: chap. 1), the model of Squire Allworthy's estate. perspective is a natural condition of perception anyway. As for landscape painting. it did not only initiate the ''history of landscape as a cultural phenomenon in England.. in general (Heffernan 1984: 9). the rising interest in this art also formed a strong stimulus for novelists to imitate its essentially iconic mode of representation through literary means: by combining description with experiential iconicity. 4. An intensified concern with aesthetic illusion in fiction. that is. with the feeling of being recentred in a fictional world. The heightened attention paid in the eighteenth century to illusionist storytelling is a consequence of the new definition and the rising popularity of the novel as a medium providing life·like experience. The rendering of spatial perspective a." a fundamental trait of the perception of the visible world and the imitation of other structures of experience strongly support aesthetic illusion. since the imitation of basic features of experience is a general prerequisite for its emergence (cf. Wolf 1993: chaps I and 2). All of these factors can in fact be seen at work in Radclitfe"s novels. As for aesthetic illusion. her verbal landscapes all contribute to creating precisely this effect. not least because of her frequent use of a dynamic viewpoint. which hannonizes with the dynamic nature of literature as a temporal medium. 21 In Gothic fiction. aesthetic illusion is of special importance as a means of making the reader ·swallow· the improbable events and as a precondition for the thrilling entertainment aimed at by the genre. Iconic and perspectival. and consequently strongly illusionist descriptions have the further advantage of offering the readers the vivid experience of 'novel". unfamiliar landscapes. 22 wherea.'l non-iconic and non-perspectival descriptions. if they permit experience at all. rely more on a pre-existing familiarity with the objects described. As for the influence of painting. it has become a criticaltopo.f. which is corroborated by a famous passage at the opening of Udolpho. 23 Here a landscape description expressly contains a reference to painting as a typically iconic art: "This was such a scene as Salmtor would have chosen. had he then existed. for his canva..,:· (p. 30) The influence of landscape painting. which in eighteenthcentury England was frequently a<>sociated with Salvator Rosa. can also be seen by the fact that Radcliffe concentrates almost exclusively on l'isual perception

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and thereby departs from real-life experience of nature. which also includes acoustic. olfactory and tactile sensations. A-; far as the influence of the aesthetics of the sublime and the picturesque is concerned. it is virtually omnipresent in Radcliffe and can also be seen in both the content and the wording of the passage quoted. These aesthetic concep-

tions support iconicity indirectly not only by triggering subjective emotional responses in fictional characters experiencing external objects such as landscapes (which is precisely Emily's situation) but also by involving the readers so that they can re-experience, in a similarly subjective way. what the characters see and feel. In fact. Udolpho as a whole is characterized by a marked emphasis on pre-

romantic. sentimental subjectivity. although the implied author struggles to keep a certain distance from Emily's exaggerated sensibility and irrationality.24 In accordance with the thematic focus on sentimental subjectivity as well as with the aesthetics of the sublime. the reader is often allowed to view the fictional world. including some seemingly supematuml occurrences.through Emily's eyes. This corroborates the fact that the emphasis on subjective experience is perhaps the most important common denominator of the joint emergence of perspectivity and iconicity in landscape descriptions.

7.

Conclusion: perspectives of further research

My foregoing remarks could be no more than a first glance at a still largely uncultivated critical field. It lacks in cultivation due to a tendency in criticism to neglect 'technical' aspects of (landscape) descriptions in favour of their functions.25 While I am far from underestimating the functional importance. for instance. of Radcliffe's portrait of the Apennines as a correlative of Emily's psychic states. one should not underrate the technical dimension of descriptions and their development either. I have insisted on technical aspects for the following reasons: (a) they elucidate historical solutions to the general problem. which was already disciL'\sed by Lessing. of how to organize a descriptive discourse convincingly: (b) they highlight important details in the development of narrative aesthetic illusion by showing that eighteenth-century fiction belatedly follows the same basic tendency as painting. namely a progress ''from rude beginnings to the perfection of illusion" (Gombrich 1960n7:4); (c) they thus help to dilferentiate between such divergent texts as Longus's Daplmis a11d Chloe. Sidney's Arcadia and Radclilfe's Udolplw. which Hagstrom still subsumed under the hazy common label of "Pictoriali.~r novels" ( 1984: 435): 2 ~> (d) they also yield interesting insights into cultural history, in particular into the

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development of subjectivity: and last. but not least. (e) they throw light on aspects of texts which have been neglected in literary theory but do merit attention. 'Perspective·. as the collocations "internal vs. external perspective· or 'mulliperspcctivity" indicate. is in narr.ttology and drama theory mostly used as a metaphor for general intratextual modes of transmitting and evaluating a fictional world and its norms from more or less subjective points of "view" 27 rather than a..; a specific discursive device destined to imitate visual perception. However. as we have seen. fiction does have techniques at its disposal to imitate precisely this. It thereby achieves quasi painterly effects and thus approaches the old intermedial ideal ·,, pict11ra poe.~ is' .2M As for iconicity. its existence in descriptions has vinually gone unnoticed in literary theory, despite the fact that to reveal iconic structures even in such a seemingly remote field contributes to illustrating the general tendency of literature towards iconicity already claimed by Lotman (1970n7: 21). This tendency can be related to larger epistemological or general philosophical concerns of literature a.; a whole. !conicity is opposed to the usual arbitrariness of the literary medium language. and its use in literature may be regarded as a 'poetic' compensation for this arbitrariness: it enhances the meaningfulness and the transparency of the litemry discourse and perhaps creates the impression that the time-honoured ideal of a natural connection between words and things has still some validity (a similar argument has been put forward with reference to poetry by Nanny (1986: 199)). It would be interesting to trace the development of descriptive techniques in terms of iconicity and spatial perspective beyond the eighteenth century. An extended study dealing with this issue should. of course. stan with earlier experiments in the field. including non-fictional texts. In prose. early examples of descriptions containing at leao;t tentative elements of spatial perspective are Petrarch's famous description of the view from the top of Mont Ventoux ( 1336) and John Dennis's account of his crossing the Alps (1688). Petrarch. in his momlizing outlook on the beauties of nature (which are ullimately rejected in favour of spiritual values). and Dennis. in his travelogue_ can both afford to pay attention to visual structures. since they do not have to obey the constraints imposed on narrative fiction up to the eighteenth century. namely that it should principally deal with characters and action. As far as English fiction is concerned. a ntther unknown author ought to be mentioned in the early eighteenthcentury history before Radcliffe: Thomas Amory. The rising concern with the visualization of the setting can in fact already be witnessed in his two-partite novel The Life allli Opinion.{ of Jolm B11nde, Esq11. ( 1765/66). It contains extensive landscape descriptions. which are integr.1ted into the fictitious first-person travelogues of the eponymous hero (but,like the numerous landscape descriptions

342

WERNER WOLF

in Charlotte Smith's Emmeli11e or tire Orphan of the Ca.ftle 11788). they display iconic perspectivity in only a few cases). After Radcliffe Scott's Wal·erley (1814) marks a further stage in the tendency towards graphic descriptions of natural (in this case Scottish) settings. A climax in the development of both spatial perspectivity and experiential iconicity is attained in Hardy's 'cinematic' novels. as they have justly been called (cf. Lodge 1977). After this, we find perspectival and iconic descriptions also in some modem novels, e.g. in E.M. Forster's Howards End ( 1910. cf. the view of a village in chap. II. or the view from the Purbeck hills in chap. 19). in Woolr"s The Voyage OIU (1915. cf. the description of the ascent of. and the view from. a South American mountain in chap. 10) and in the Alpine scenes of D. H. Lawrence's Women in Ltn·e (1920) and Mr Noon ( 1920/21 ). Yet modernism. on the whole. seems centred more on psychic introspection and the perception of social conditions and cityscapes than on the outer reality of natun1llandscapes. and the modernists' experimental drive also creates descriptions such as the chapter openings in Woolf's The Wm·e.~ ( 1930) in which a poetic concern with highly suggestive imagery supersedes the exact rendering of perception. An especially interesting chapter in this history must be dedicated to the French no/1\'etm roman: here perspectivity and experien· tial iconicity can still be observed to some extent: however. due to an overabundance of details. descriptions no longer permit the reader to visualize the scenes described, as can be 'seen' in the notorious pages on the sea and the harbour at the opening of Robbe-Grillet's LR Voyeur ( 1955). Generally speaking. perspectival and iconic landscape portraits cannot exist where there is no emphasis on the subject-centred mimesis of outer reality. This could be observed in Sidney. and. owing to dilferent reasons. namely the decentering of the subject and the abandonment of the referential function of the language of fiction. this can again be observed in postmodemist experimental texts. A more thorough survey of descriptive techniques in terms of perspective and iconicity. of which only some outlines could be given here?'" would throw additional light on the theoretical and historical points mentioned above. Moreover. it should elucidate the historical conditions of the emergence as well a.-; the decline of experiential iconicity and perspectivity in landscape descriptions in more detail. In addition to that. it would also be rewarding to continue the theoretica1 investigation of descriptions. by confronting literature with the findings of perceptual psychology and cognitive science in more depth. For the time being. these suggestions must remain 'perspectives' of future research. but what they aJready show at this stage is that iconicity and spatial perspective in fiction are fields of research which merit attention on a larger scale than has been gr.mted them to date.

EMERGENCE OF !CONICITY IN LANDSCAPE DESCRIPTIONS

343

Noles I.

For the manifold meanings which have developed out of the original oplin.J sense of 'pc:n;p«· tive' cf. Guillen ( 1968). KOnig (19K9) and Strlamp (19911): for the narratologicul sense cf.e.g. Stanzel (1979/91, e~p. chap. 5).

2.

It is ~vealing that lolman, one of the fi111t critics to emphasiu the iconit" tendencies of literaiUre (cf. 1970n7. esp. chap. 3), referred mostly to poetry.

l.

H~ I slightly n:slnll;lute and supplement the typology devised by Niinny and Fischer ( 1999: Ju;ii). which comprises the following funt"tioJL~ of what they, in opposition to ''semantic diagrammatic (i.e. metaphoric) iconicity"' ,term ..structural diagnunnunic iconicity": the imit.ation of "centm1ity vs. pcriphernlity, distuncefproximity. sequential onlering, miU'kedness. repetition'',

4.

For the opposition of 'existenL~' and 'events' cf. Chatman ( 1978: \9). For description as dealing, in contr.a.~t to n!UTB.tive proper. with non-chronological phenomena. cr. Chatman {1990:9) and Killay (1981). wa.~ already voiced by Moni~ ( 1946), and has since been talten up by Eco (1968:chap.B.I .ii.2) and olhers. e.g. by Pelc (cf. 1986. csp. pp. 8 and 12r.): concerning !he mi;~;ture of symbolic and iconil; ~igns, fenk (1997:231) claims !hat such a mixlure is not merely 1111 option bul a prerequisite for iconicily.

S. 1bc idea of a gr.tdabilily of iconicily

6.

According 1oGombrich (1960n7) and Eco (1968:chap.8.1.ii.9 and 197S:chilp!i.3.S.Ito 35.10) such tin pan convenlional) structum; musl be taken into accounl in a.ll iconic imitations. though Eco would perhaps be unhappy with !he application of iconidty to vcrbaltclts. In Johansen's typology of diagranunatic k:onicity. the: vllrianll have in mind woulll correspond in part to "the diagrammatizalion of intelligible relations and their translation into sensible relutions" and in part to a "diagrammatil; homoi~Jgy between worlll order and word order"' (1996: 52).

7.

I am gr.tlefulto Max Nanny and Olga Fischer fOT pointing outlo me thai 'experiential iconicity' has already been used in a strikingly similar way by Tabakow~kB ( 1999), who concenlro~tes on non-fictional texts. Tabakowska follows Enkvist ( 1989 am! 1990) and defines ··rxperiential iconicity" as a "more or less direct relation between linguistic npression and pen:c!pual relationships" (p. 410). For ber. "pen-epcuul rehtlion.~hips"' IIR fOT c;~;amp1e "pen:ep!Ual saliency" (p. 415). whose linguislic elpm;sion would correspond to my "quantitalive fonn of diagram· mutic iconidty", Of the "ordering of lhings in spa~.-c or time" a~ pen:c!ived by an nperiencing subjecl (p. 417). which is a11he ba.~is of my "sc:quenlial form of diagranunatic iconicity".

8.

For an early critique of !he additive principle in descriplion a.~ es.'iCntially unlit lo help !he reOOer visualize the objects represented cf. Lessing's comments on a passage from Albrechl v. Haller's Dit Alptn (17321 in UJokiNin, Ul1, and. in contrasl to this p~dure. his pr.Use of Homer's device of rendering coex..is1ing trailS of an objecl in consecutive namuivc: or dcscripive discourse tcf. Ul6 and 18): for Lessing !hen: is an al1emative method of description. namely to render the elfeciS or the described objecl (cf. U21). In both ca!lt's we are. as it were, on the thn:shold of a theory of iconic description.

9.

A~ a kind of timele!l$ parudi'iC, the (neo-)Cla.~sical /(J(""/I.f anlf>('mu dtlCS not seem to be generically appropriate to diagrammatic experienlial iconicily. Yet. as is generally lhe case with dcscripeions. lhis woulll not preclude the fl«:l !hal a sialic, parodisiac landscape can be verbalizetl in tenns of a dynamic experience. e.g. of a traveller. Moreover. a.~ will be shown wilh n:spect to Fielding's TomJon~J. even a sialic poinl of view CIUI be employed for the iconic imilation of OOIL~eculive gazes.

344 10.

WERNER WOLF Bal (1980: 124J blun; the difference between suc:h attempt~; to imitate c:.operiern:c and per.ip«· tivc. and desaipions of the 1ypc 10 be found in Arc-adia by claiming that all de!aiptions are tnln~~;ripts

II.

of particular

vi~kms.

this is an ellample of a "mitaf~ps~d~ l'auttllf' (Genetic 1972: 244), an presence of the extr.adie!!etic narrator (rather !han the 'author') in the diegetic world. Trllditionally,this device i~ used to simulate a quasi-dr.unatic situlltion. when: the action appears not as a past but as an ongoing present which both reader and narr.nor can direcdy observe from an internal point of view. In

narr.lloklgi~;;altenns

'impos..~iblc'

12.

At the same time lhe fact thllt the centre of this internal perspective is hetc' lot"attd on an eminence, from wh1ch the enlire landscape can be seen. may be regarded as a compromi..~e

13.

This is. of coun;e. no! to say !hat Rodclilfe does nol offer more concn:le elements !han Sidney. but descriptive iconicity - and !his is also 1n1e of lhe illusionist effect of de~criplions - does n01 din:cdy depend on the quantity of details. As lngarden ( 1968) ha..~ pointed out. lhe indetenninades ("UnbestimmlheiL~stellen"J literary texts necessarily contain are spaces which the reader, in the proce~s of 'concretization', ean, under cenain condition.~. fill in according to the context and his or her own imagination.

14.

One could. for

between a local simulation of internal perspective and the prWominance of namatorial ·omniscience' and hence of eXIemol nllfT,!.Iive perspective.

in.~tance, point out lhe principle of contr.a..~t infonning lhe !ieQUCDCe of tenn.~ mentioned {"below" vs. -tops" vs. "fee1"; "illumined objects" vs. "shade"), but what distinguishes !his amiJlgemenl from Sidney's description is thai it also imitaces a perceptual ~uence: Emily's gaze. which proceeds from nearby objects "below" the "amphithealrc" to more distanl ones and !hereby first encompa.ues the ''tops" of lhe lower mountains and then their "feet", which merge wilh lhe still lower plain of the "Campaxna of Italy".

IS.

Radcliffe. in Udolpho, but abo in Tht Italian, tentls to focus either on 'horrible' or ·sublime' mountain scenes or on scenes of pa.~tol'lll beauty (cf. Poc:nicke 1970: 7-9).

16.

Stanlel. who does not seem to be aware of Radcliffe's innovacive contributions to the cechniqucs of description. already acknowledged. among others. by Poenicke (1970:4) and HolfiT1llnn {1978: 17), repeatedly ~;reatesthe impression that the imitation of 'optical perspective' in fiction can be neglected up to late realism and modernism {cf. 1979191:26 and 16Sf.). Sternberg. in his otherwise highly stimulacing e!ISay. even suggeses that !he shift toward~ 11 "new an of description" charucterizcd by "pen;pe~;tival cohererK:e" took place as late a.~ in modernism {1981:86).

17.

A~ emerges from Slemberg's rel1ection.~ on "DeS~:riptive Coherence" and from one of his examples, Dickens's Blrak Houst, perspectival and non-pen;pectival description.~ can even appear in one and the: same novel {d. 1981: 87 and 61 f.). The same is lniC o! iconic and noniconic desc:riptions.

18.

A certain kngthof a description facilitate:; a dynamic perspective, a.~ epitomiled by Udolpho. and is even a pren:qui~ite for this devke; yel. a.~ !he examples rmm Tomlon~s and Arrudio show. extended description.~ can ill!in remain static and even DOR·petspectival. Hence the mere increa.<;e in tlescripcive tut volume is not in i1sel! an explu.nation ror che phenomena under discussion.

19.

Foc !his subject and relalc:d factors (local seuings as symbolic and/or emolional demenls or us of psychic state~. which became of iOf;fCasing intefellt in the cighteenlh CC"Dtury) cf. Bland (1967). Kadish {1987).und Kollmann (1995). For the question of how 10 account for the gener.al "delay" in appreciating description.~ in fiction cf. Hamon (19111; qtd. on p. 17); for lhe equally delayed emergence of a positive evaluacion of wild nuture in lhe eighteenlh-century novel ef. Wnlr ( 1996). correlative~

EMERGENCE OF !CONICITY IN LANDSCAPE DESCRIPTIONS 20.

For this "prepontlernncc of the 'visible'··, whi~;h reached a Buisine {19111. qtd. on p. 263) and Boehm I 1999).

cli~TUU

345

in the nineteenth tentury, cf.

21. This is not to say that dc~riptions always suppon aesthetk illusion. nor. of course. that an illusionist e_Ot1 de riel is their only or mo.~ impm1ant function. A..~ RilfaterR has shown ( 1981 ), r-.llher than ''mak(ing] the reader sec something'' the "primary function" of descriptions can (also) be "to dictate an interpmation" (p. 125). There are in fact descriptions in which this latter function operales to the delriment of the fanner (e.g. in Sidney's ponr-.ait of Art'adia). Yet it would be unhistoricalto n:ganl both funttions as nc<'t:uaril)' antagonistic. as Riffatcrre implies. 'The same applies to Lobsicn's contention (19111:84. 90) that descriptions ba~cd on the ~nn.~lrtll:tiun of the conditions of e.1..periendng landscape alwo.1·s foll!gruund the conditions of perception rather !han contribute to visualizing objects in the imagination. 22.

In 'romances" ~uch liS Udt>lpho. !he eighteenth·cmtury concern wirh ·novelty", which can be illustrated c .g. by Edmund Burke's A Philosophical E11q11iry imn tilt Orixin of Our ldras nftlle SublimrandBta11tijul (1757). is extended to the SC"Itings. whell!a.~ in the more n:ali!itic ·novels', 'originality' is restricted to "plot, chw"actcr and naming'" (Hunler 1990: 231.

23. This toprn; has been criticized by lobsicn ( 1981: 74-76), for whom botl! literature and painting foreground the ''henneneUiical structure of perception" (p. 75. my traru;lation). However. he disregard~ the fact !hat eighteenth-century aurhof!\ such as Fielding and Radcliffe frequently refer to painterly models themselves and !hat !he reference to the visual arts is often indicative. not of the forrf>:mundillg of perceptual S~.:hemata. but 11:1ther of !heir attempted imitatirm. Such intermedial references help to distinguish something which Lobsien does not take into account either. but which is import.wlt for my lll"gumcnt. namely !hat not all descripion.~ foii
This tension also explains why. in a novel which is told by an omniscient third-person 'aurhorial' nli!T".llor presenting the story frum an extemal point of view. we wilness 'island~· of internal per.;pective precisely in !he landscape descriptions.

25.

Cf. Kullmann (1995). Kostelnick (19115). Bland (1967. whose interpretation of the description of Allworthy's estate focuses on its relation lo contemporary garden archit«"lure and lando;cape painting), or Hoffmann ( 19711. who is not primmily interested in dest:riptive '"Darbietungs· fonnen·· lp. 40J and whose cla~silication of fictional spaces. "gestirruntcr Raum". '"Aktion.~· 11:1um". and '"Anschauungsruum" [chap. 2[. privileges function.~ r.llher !han discuDive phcnomc· na. a.~ is al50 to be seen in his commenl tm the: description of Ul.iolpho. cf. pp. 58-60). Cf. moreover l.obsicn (19111). A relative disregard of discunive devices a.~ discussed by myself can also be observed in research which deals wirh IUimltive description a~ a whole (cf. Hamon 1972; Gclley 19119; Chatman 1990: 15-37).

26.

It is true !hat what Kadish. among others. deprecatingly calls a "'pictorial' way of reading" ( 19117: 3) would be inadequate a~ the tmly way of reading landscape descriptions; yet. for theoretical purposes as outlined here. it is time to revalue this approach. which, as Kone ( 1994) has shown in her review article. has too often been neglected in research.

346 27.

WERNER WOLF Cf. Stan1.el ( 1979191: 166): .. Per.>pektivierung in tliesem Sinnc bedeutet [... ) Subjekth·ierung:· Konc: ( 1993: Ill J ha~ observec.l the: same onc-sidedncss in the narr.nological use of the term 'perspective'.

28. Tn analyse imitations of spatial perspective in in..~pired

29.

liter.atu~.

where they are modelled on. or

by. painting. is thus also a contribUiion to the lheory and history of intermediality.

Obvious funher authors in English and American literutures who would merit spa:ial allcntion in this contc:o;t are: James Fenimore Cooper. E. A. Poe (e.g. his story "Landor's Collage'', in which iconic isomorphism 1s c\·en thematized in a ..scene" which "came fully into view - thus ~:radllally as [the namuor[ tlescrihc[sJ it pi~ by piece, here a tn:e. there a glimpse of water" [Poe 1908: 47[). Henry James and Jnseph Conrad. For more detailed historical material cf. the pioneering worb by Reynolds ( 1895/1909/66, chap. Ill. "Fiction") and Bland ( 1967): in addition. Smuda (1980). lbsch (1982), Pfei!Ter (1986). Kadish (1987), and in pankular Kullmann ( 1995), un e~pedally valuable source: for material from the period between the late eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries.

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Pelc, J. 1986. "lconicity: Iconic Signs or Iconic Uses of Signs?'". In lconicity: E.uay.f on the Namr~ of Culture. Fesudrrift for nwma.f A. Seheok 011 his 65th Birr/Ida_\'. P. Bouis.sac. M. Herzfeld and R. Posner (eds). 7-15. TUbingen: Stautfcnberg. Pfeiffer. K.L 1986. ··oedingungcn und Bedtirfnissc. Literarischc Landschaflen im England des 19. Jahrhunderts''. In Smuda {ed.) 1986. 178-102. Pia get, J. and 8. lnhelder 1966. L 'Jma~:e me malt! eire:. I' enfant: Etude sur le dil·e/op~ment Je.f reprisematimrs imagee.L Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Poe, E. A. 1908. TaleJ of M,\',ftn-y and lmagi,wlion. Ed. P. Colum. London: Everyman. Poenicke. K. 1970." 'SchOnheit im Scholle des Schreckens': Raumgeftlge und Menschcn· bild im englischen Schauerroman··. Arcllivfiir das Studium der neueren Sprachen 11nd Literamren 122(207): 1-19. Radcliffe. A. 1794/1980. The Mysteries of Udo/pl10 [lbe World's Classics). B. Dobrie and F. GUJbcr (eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reynolds. M. 1885/1909/66. The Treatment of Nat11re itl Enxlisll Poetry Between Pope and Wordsworth. New York: Gordian. Rpt. of the seconded. 1966. Riffaterre, M. 1981. '"Descriptive Imagery". Yale French Smdie.f 61: 197-125. Ritter, J. 1963. Ltmdsclwft: Zur Funktion de.f Astheti.fchen in der modemen &sell.rclwft. MUnster: Aschendorf. Scheffel. M. 1997. Fom1en se/bstrejle:ril·en Er:.UIIIens: Eine 1)JKJioxie und .fech.f exemplar· isclle A.nalysen. Ti.lbingen: Niemeyer. Scott, Sir Walter 1824. '"Prefatory Memoir to Mrs Ann Radcliffe". In A. Radcliffe. Nm·els. To wllich i.r prefixed a life of the author. i-xxxix. London: John Ballantyne's Novelists library. Sidney. Sir Philip 1593/1977. T11e Cmmtes.f of Pembmke:f Arcadia. Ed. M. Evans. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Smuda, M. J980. "Dcskriptionsmodalitii.ten und ihn: Funktion im amerikanischen und englischen Roman". Poetica 12: 377-396. Smuda, M. 1986. "Naturals ii.sthetischer Gegenstand und als Gegenstand der Asthetik: Zur Konstitution von landschaft". In Smuda (ed.) 1986,44-69. Smuda. M. (ed.) 1986. Lnndsdwfr. Frdnkfurt!M.: Suhrkamp. Stanzc:l. F.K. 1979191. Theorie de.f Er:.iihfe11s. UTB 904. GOttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 5th edition. Sternberg. M. 1981. "Ordering the Unordered: Time, Space and Descriptive Coherence··. Yale Frnrch Studie.f 61: 60-88. Surkamp, C. 1998. "Perspektive". In Met::fer Uxikonlitertltllr· 1md K11flllrllleorie, A. NUnning (ed.), 42()....421. Stuugart: Metzler. Tabakowska, E. 1999. ""Linguistic Expression of Perceptual Relations: !conicity as a Principle of Text Organization {A Ca.o;e Study)". In Niinny and Fischer {eds) 1999. 409-422. Wolf. W. 1993. Ast!Jeti.ft"he l/fusim1 mul lfftuionsdurc:hhrechut!g i11 der Er:.iihlkunst: The orit' und Gt'st·hidlte mit Schwerpw1kt auf t'tlglischem ilfusionutiiret1den Er:.iiltle11. TUbingen: Niemeyer.

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Wolf. W. 1996. "'The Wildnes.~ Pleases' - But Why Not In the Novel? Literary and Collura) Aspects of the Fascination with Savage Landscapes and lis Belated Ap~ance in British Prc-Romanlic Fiction". In At•glistentax 1995 Greifswold. Proceedings. J. Klein and D. Vanderbeke (eds), 73-92. Ti.lbingen: Niemeyer. Wolpcrs. Th. 1984. ''Atisse und Au81andschaften in der englischen Dichtung von der Renaissance his zur Romantik'', In MO!i\'t' und Themen romanti.fcher Nawrdkhmng: Textmw/y.tt!/1 und Traditioll.f:'.ll.tCJmmenhiinge, Th. Wolpcrs (ed.), 68-189. GOttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Zola. E. 188011971. "De Ia description". In E. Zola. U Roman expirimrntal. A. Guedj. (ed.), 231-235. Paris: Gamier-Aammarion.

Iconic dimensions in Margaret Atwood's poetry and prose Christina Ljungberg Utri\·ersily of Zurich

I.

Introduction

The iconic dimensions apparent in several recent litemry works suggest that. more than ever. writers are playing with the conventions of language in order to exploit the possibilities of linguistic signs and systems creatively. In particular. it is the diagrammatic aspect of iconicity that seems to altrdct contemporary writers. as they use form to add meaning. 1 A case in point is Margaret Atwood. whose playing with the relationship between the formal and semantic aspects of language has always been a chamcteristic of her work. Her interest in visual perception mnges from her use of mirrors and reflections. metaphors of the fragmentation and alienation of the self. to her own production of visual artwork: her watercolours, cover designs, book illustrations and collages. It is also evident in her close attention to words and word games. such as anagrams 2 and palindromes. In her writing, which centres on the revision and exploration of myths and literary conventions, Atwood frequently inverts liter.uy fonns and received images in order to question their origins and functions. This applies to both her poetry and her prose, where she often uses form with a parodic and intcrtcxtual intent, as a means of challenging tradition by rewriting it, transgressing restrictive limitations of genres and conventions in order to open up their creative potential. At the same time. her playing with form and meaning functions as a strategy to involve the reader in the creative process.

352 2.

CHRISTINA UUNGBERG

Iconic dimensions in AtwoOO's poetry

Atwood's dialogue with tradition is already apparent in an early poem from 1961. "Pastoral Elegy". an ironic parody ofT. S. Eliot's The Wa.~te Land. where it becomes doubly significant. By ordering her lines into a panem poem, Atwood uses fonn not only to reflect the content of her poem. but also to subvert Eliot's negative view of contemporary mores. At the same time. she makes a clear allusion to George Herbert, who is known as the originator of the camtefl figllratum. or pattern poem. in English. In her excellent article "Back to the Primal: The Apprenticeship of Margaret Atwood". Sandra Djwa (1995: 20) shows that Atwood. after having been heavily influenced by Elio!"s "mythical method" in her early poetry. began to distance he~lf from Eliot by reworking his concepts into parody and pastiche. But, as Djwa suggests. Atwood was still very intrigued by Eliot"s use of da.~sical fenility mythology to interpret contemporary seltuality. In her poem. however. she inverts the myth: PASTORAL ELEGY

I My landscape is becoming disarranged. The gardener is digging up the willows because their roots have grown into the .sewers: this spring has been warmer than most, but the early burgeoning is not my arrangement: I find too many fJowers get in the way. The only nymphs I could obtain this year. were less satisfactory than usual: they refused to unloose their crimped hair. 10 simpered, demanded extra pay, and strewed used tissues on the lawn. Something

ha.~

changed.

Yesterday. I tried Hiring another musician to provide 15 the right atmosphere, but he insisted on set hours, union mtes, and the sax.ophone, which really not what I had in mind. Once. I seem to recall. someone died, I think. I can find no evidence of it here: 20 the clean sky denies all sense of rain: eddies of swallows swirl again into the hollow branches. and the gardener is digging up the willows.

wa.~

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353

Times have changed: in Atwood's poem. Eliot's departed nymphs have been sub-

stituted by wilful women who no longer comply with the (implicitly male) speaker's desires for them "to unloose their crimped hair": instead. they ''simper ( ... )and demand( ... ) exlra pay" (1961:9.line IO).lhc musician the speaker lries to hire insists on "set hours. union rates, and the saxophone'' (lines 16-17), a far cry from Eliot's romantic "pleasant whining of a mandolin" (1993:2155, line 261). By shaping her poem into an icon of a butterfly to evoke metamorphosis or rebirth. Atwood replaces the negative views of sexuality presented by Eliot by an abundantly fertile landscape that asserts itself against Eliot's barren civilization.

The "dull roots" of Eliot's ''dead land" (1993: 2147. lines 4 and 2) have changed into a sturdy variety of willow whose roots grow into the sewers, and the warm weather has caused the flowers to bud and multiply. so that they overpower the speaker (Atwood 1961: 9.1ines 4-7). Furthennore. the butterfly shape evokes the wing shape used by the religious metaphysical poet George Herbert in his poem "Easter-wings". The iconic fonn of God's wing emphasizes the resurrection theme of the poem. as Easter is the time of death and renewal: this is one of the iconic devices pointed out by Matthias Bauer in his highly interesting essay. "konicity and Divine Likeness''. on the meta-iconicity used by the Metaphysical poets (Bauer 1999: 216).~ In her poem, Atwood lets the structure of the poem itself mirror the regularity of the muural cycle. It starts off with the speaker's comment on the impact of Nature on her civilized "landscape". where. as we have seen. the mpidly growing willow roots have secured their water supply. Then it moves on to human concerns and actions in the first 'butterfly wing' .In the second 'wing'. this order is inverted, reflecting the gardener's never-ending fight against the regenerative force of Nature. Furthennore, by placing the line "Something has changed" (1961: 9, line 12) at the very centre, where it fonns the butterfly's body and the core of the poem, Atwood places particular emphasis on the act of transfonnation: like God's wing. the butterfly emblem embodies rebirth and renewal. At the same time. she comments on Eliot's metamorphoses in The Waste Land, where he alludes to the fate of Procne and Philomel (1993: 2150. line 100: 2160.line 429). who. after death. tum into a swallow and a nightingale. respectively. And. as Max Nanny kindly pointed out to me. both the swallow and the nightingale arc migrating birds - hence, the iconic form of Atwood's poem. with its "eddies of swallows !that! swirl again" (1961:9.1inc 21). could allude to swallows' tails. which also signal the return of spring. The icon of a butterfly is also the emblem of Psyche. the allegorical figure of the soul. The tale of Psyche, which is a quest narmtive. corresponds both to the initiation into the cult of Isis and to episodes of the myth of Isis itself.

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CHRISTINA UUNGBERG

The Wa.~te Land is a quest narr.uive, too: as Eliot points out. the theme and the structure of his poem were based on Jessie L. Weston's book on the Grail legend. From Rillla/to Romance (Eliot 1993: 2146). Thus. by replacing Eliot's 'questing knight' by the icon of the 'questing' Psyche. Atwood alludes to the positive connotation of female generative and creative power associated with the Isis myth. This is something she returns to repeatedly in her fiction. for instance in the novel Cat'.~ Eye (1988). and in "Isis in Darkness" in the short story collection Wildemess Tip.f (1991):~ The themes of metamorphosis and perception reappear in Atwood's poem ''This is a Photogro~ph of Me''. which opens both the collection The Circle Game ( 1966). her first award-winning book of poems. and her Selected Poems ( 1976). Thus. this poem can be said to have an introductory function vital to an understanding of Atwood's poetry: not only because she places it before her other poems. but also because it concerns the reading process. with its complex relationship between reader. text and the world. 5 Furthermore. it discusses the presence of the speaker (and the author) in the written work. This issue. which reappears both in her poetry and in her fiction, can be argued to lie at the centre of her work and to constitUie one of her most fascinating abilities. namely to tum personal experience into art. At the same time. it is a prime example of Atwood's uncanny power to make her readers participate in the creation of meaning: TIUS IS A PHOT<XiRAPH OF ME II wa.~ taken some time ago. At first it seems to be a smeared print: blurred lines and grey IJccks 5 blended with the paper: then. as you scan it. you sec in the left-hand comer a thing that is like a brdnch: part of a tree (baham or spruce) emerging 10 and, to the right. halfway up what ought to be a gentle slope, a small frame house. In the background there is a lake, and beyond that. some lnw hills.

ICONIC DIMENSIONS IN MARGARET ATWOOD

355

15 (The photograph was taken the day after I drowned. I am in the lake, in the center of the picture, just under the surface. It is difficult to say where 20 ~cisely. or to say how large or small I am: tlx: effect of water on light is a distonion but if you look long enough 25 eventually you will be able to see me.)

The deceptively conventionaJ beginning of the poem. which indicates the photograph's uncertain date and comments on its poor quality. evokes a familiar viewing situation, the intimacy of which is further enhanced by the speaker

addressing the presumed viewer of the photogro1ph as ··you". That this intimacy could apply to the act of reading is immediately aJiuded to in the very finot lines: the ''smeared/print: blurred lines and grey Heck..<;;/blended with paper" (lines 3-5) which it "seems to be'' - could refer either to a smeared typographic print or to

a photographic one. which the viewer/reader is invited to make sense of. Carefully guided by the speaker's suggestions as to what he or she is supposed to see, the viewer/reader is first made aware of each item that is contained in the foreground of the photograph. and is then moved to the background. where there is supposed to be ··a lake/and beyond that. some low hills" (lines 13-14). At this point, our expectation." are suddenly sha«ered. The second half of the poem. put in parentheses despite its dramatic disclosure. undermines the first. The absun.l claim that the speaker has drowned and is, in fact. ''in the lake. in the center/ of the picture. just under the surface" subverts the communicative discourse of the preceding lines. Furthennore. the viewer is supposed to see her in a lake which is hardly discernible in the first place, emerging from an indistinct representation of "blurred lines". contmry to the exact rendering of reality we usuaJiy expect from an ordinary photograph. Space and time are inverted: the lake in the background is suddenly in the centre. while the speaker is both in the lake and outside it. simultaneously drowned and alive. Thus. the imaginary 'world' the poem has constructed in its inviting first half is completely dcconstructed in the second. Or is it? If we look at the literary devices of iconic representation that are identified by Max Nanny in his article "!conicity in Literature" such as lineation. stanza breaks. sequence. itemtion and dJiu.wmu ( 1985: 201-207). the poem

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CHRISTINA UUNGBERG

suddenly lend" itself to a different interpretation. Starting with lineation. we see that, between the two parts fanned by the tirst twelve and the last twelve lines. the two lines that introduce the lake and its backdrop of low hills do. in fact. occupy a medial position in the poem. Thus. they function a.<> a divider. like the clear line of the lake surface. splitting the poem and the "photograph" into a conventionally perceived surface and an underlying reality given by the speaker. 'submerged' within the parentheses. Furthermore. the lineation reinforces the poem's emphasis on the process of seeing. through the irregular line breaks on the page. These mirror the movement of the eye on the (suggested) foreground of the photograph. searching for the ''me" announced in the title. hesitating and trying to make sense of what it sees. In the next stanza. the eye's scanning motion from the left "thing ... like a branch" (line 8. my italics), diagonally across. meets ''halfway up/what ought 10 be a gentle/slope. a small frame house" (lines 10-12. my italics). Here. like "seems" in line two, the words "like" and "ought to be" indicate the speaker's hesitation and uncertainty in her identification of the objects she is referring to. signalling to us not to take anything at face value. The "photograph", conventionally considered to be an exact representation of reality, thus opens up new and disturbing possibilities of interpretation. As we now move from the foreground to the background in the middle of the poem. still searching for the speaker. her announcement that she is "in the lake. in the center I of the picture, just under the surface" (lines 13-14) forces us to perform a parallel downward dive. in order to locate her. This cognitive effort of comprehension is again mirrored by the slow spiralling downward of the Jines. until we finally discover her at the end of the poem. Or do we'! As she points out. "the effect of water/on light is a distortion" (lines 22-23): her elusive image below the water surface will not allow us to locate her exactly but will fool us. owing to the refractive power of water. Only by stepping out of our own conventional perception of reality and accepting her offer to show us new and alternative ones will we be able to discover her - on her terms. Thus. Atwood lets her poem enact the transformation involved in the reading process. The initial act of looking at a visual representation (in this case the photograph. or the poem) is gradually replaced by the reader's in.-.ight into and understanding of its meaning ("you ... will sec me", line 26). This transformation is further reflected in Atwood's use of pronouns which refer both to the outside (exophoric) and inside (endophoric) of the text (Halliday and Hasan 1976: 33). thus mirroring the interplay between reader, text and world. Hence, in the title. ''This is a photograph of me", "this" is both exophoric m1d endophoric/ cataphoric (referring to the following text). Atwood sets up this opposition by

ICONIC DIMENSIONS IN MARGARET ATWOOD

357

playing with two types of texts. one associated with the oral ritual of showing photogmphs and the other the written poem. as "this" simultaneously refers both to the outside. 'real' world and the inside. textual world. The transfer of meaning

is thus effected first by

''it"

(line 1), which refers anaphorically to the ''photo-

graph of me", the first visual impression. In the second stanza. the antisymmetry (cf. NOth 1998: 650) created by the opposition between the exophoric ''you" and ''il'', between reader and text. reHects the reader's initial perception of the

seemingly 'real' world of the first half of the poem. In the second half. when this world has been revealed to be a fictional construct. the opposition changes into a relationship between the endophoric "I" (the speaker 'submerged' in the text) and .. you" (the reader) who, by accepting her invitation. might ...eventually". understand the dynamic complexity involved in reading and understanding poetry.

3.

Iconic dimensions in Atwood's prose

The craftsmanship that Atwood employs to involve the reader in the creative process also extends to her fiction. and is manifest throughout her carefully structured narratives, where form vitally contributes to meaning. From the tripartite structure of her first novel. The Edible Woman ( 1969), where the abrupt shift in the narmtion from an 1-narrator to a third person narrator coincides with the protagonist's psychological development. up to the intricate. individually named patchwork panems adorning the beginning of each section of Alias Grace (1996). in all of Atwood's work, the design of the narrative mirrors its content in various forms. This is especially noticeable in Tl1e Robber Bride ( 1993). which is a fntme narrative containing three different narratives. each of which forms a kind of palindrome in time and space. The main plot of the story of Zenia. the Robber Bride. and her rampage through Toronto and through the three narrators' Jives starts and ends in a restaurant called the Toxiquc: it is here that the three women have got together for their monthly luncheon to reminisce about the pao;t. when Zenia, their common enemy. returns unexpectedly ..from the dead.. (1993:4). Her reappearance triggers memories of the irreparable damage she once caused each of them: it also reawakens the underlying childhood traumata which made them susceptible to her powers. This forces them to relive the particular relationships they had with her. and their respective childhoods during and after World War Two. Thus. taken together. these narratives also present what Tony, one of the narrators. calls ..a chart of simultaneous events" ( 1993: 4). since they explore various social and cultural developments over three decades. from 1960 to 1990. ranging from domestic Canadian and Torontonian matters to global events:

358

CHRISTINA UUNGBERG

Set:tion

Narrator

"Onset"

Tony

1991

Tony

1990 1990 1990

2-6 7-1 I 12-16

1990 1960 1945 1960 1990 1990 1970 1950 1970 1990 1990 1983 1945 1983 1990 1991 1991 1991

17 18-20 21-23 24-27 27 28 29-32 33-36 36-38 38 39 41>-41 42-44 45-48 49 51 52

''The Toxique"

Charis Roz

"Black Enamel"

Tony

''Weasel Nights''

Charis

"The Robber Bride"

Roz

''The Toxique"

Tony Charis Roz

Tony-Charis-Roz

"Outcome" Figu~

Tony

Time

Chapter

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53 54-55

1991

56

I. The symnretrica/ly(cllia.ftica/1~·) ordered nlJrrati~·e stmcture ofThe Robber Bride

With this elabora.te narrative strucrure (Figure I). which is a symmetrical panem

of inversion (chiasmus) of temporal space. Atwood not only emphasizes the constructed nature of storytelling, but also uses this configuration as a means to focus attention on the centred part of the narrative structure. This device ha." aJso

been pointed out by Max Ninny in his article "Hemingway's Architecture of Prose", where he draws attention to Hemingway's use of this strdtegy in order to give vital infonnation "a more prominent semantic or narrative significance., (Niinny 1997: 59). This is exactly what Atwood does: by putting each protagonist's

ICONIC DIMENSIONS IN MARGARET ATWOOD

359

childhood at the very centre of her particular narrative. she lets narr.llive fonn enact meaning. iconically miming how childhood functions as a key to a person's character. Atwood lets Tony. the narrator of the ..Onset"" and the ..Outcome .. parts and a military historian at the University of Toronto. usc the figure of the palindrome. a word. phmsc or sentence which reads the same backwards and forwards. to describe the relationship between events in real life and in history. Real life itself. like history. is ..not a true palindrome .. because. as Tony reHects . .. (w]e can't really run it backwards oUld end up at a clean start .. {1993: 109). However. if you tell or write a story. or military history. this allows you both to come back to where you started and to reverse both time and events in your story: ··any point of entry is possible. and all choices are arbitrary.. ( 1993: 4). Contrnry to real life. story-telling permits narrative control. Judging from the handwritten sketches in the original manuscripts of The Robber Briel£• (Figure 2). Atwood originally planned to have the main order of narration structured as a palindrome. with two muin blocks consisting of the three protagonists' narratives. first in the sequence of Tony - Charis - Roz. and then reversed. with Tony as the main narrator introducing. mediating and ending the ovemll narration (Atwood Papers):t.

F•gurc 2. Anrood:~jinr pla11s for tlu· narrati1·e stmclllre of The Robber Bride as a palin· dmme. hanJ-drwm in the midst ofTmry:~ narration in the fint per.wm (Atwood Papers)

According to the manuscript. Atwood later seems not only to have changed the (-narrator into a third person impersonal namtor with a multiple perspective. but also to have arrived at the final order of narration. Furthermore. the set fonn of the narrutive ... box sets .. as Atwood herself called it in Zurich in 1994, points to the compulsive nature of the narrative each character relates: they ull suffer from

360

CHRISTINA UUNGBERG

a serious trauma. which is encapsulated. 'boxed in' inside them, and from which they have to liberate themselves in order to live a normal life (Figure 3): TONY

CHARIS

1990

1990 1960

ROZ 1990

1983

1970

[;'] 5

[;] 0

[;'] 5

Figure 3. The indil'idual narratil't'S a.t ''box set.f"

The 'palindromic' structure of each individual narrative. as shown below in Figure 4, mirrors the feeling of split subjectivity experienced by aJI three protagonists. who all have dual identities and have all changed their names: Tony (Antonia) Fremonlffnomerf Ynot: Charis. who used to be Karen: and Roz, who grows up under the name of Rosalind Greenwood and then finds out that her ''real name" is Roz Grunwald: Tony: 1990-1960- (cbildhood)><(childhood)- 1960-1990 Charis: 1990-1970- (childhood)><(childhood)- 1970-1990 Roz: 1990-1983- (childhood)><(childhood)- 1983-1990 Figure 4. Tite indil•idmtlnarratil·es a.t palindrome.t

This duality is especially pronounced in the story of the left·handed Tony Fremont. who was forced to write with her right hand at school and in protest created a secret "inner" identity. Tnomerf Ynot, by writing backwards: "Tony wrote her outer name with her right hand and her other name. her inner one. with her left" (1993: 137). The palindrome created by Tony Fremont!fnomerf Ynot emphasizes Tony's feeling of incompleteness. the slash between the two fonns of the name marking the split: "her seam, it's where she's sewn together. it"s where she could split apart" (1993: 19). As a child. she used to fantasize th<~t Tnonnerf Ynot "was the name of a twin. an invisible twin ... the incarnation of her sense that a part of her is missing. Although she was a twin. Tnomerf Ynot was a good deal taller than Tony herself. Taller. stronger, more daring" (1993: 137).

In fact, Tony's reverse writing also creates a palindrome. as a 'left·hand' mirror image of 'correct', 'right·hand' spelling. That Atwood clearly had this in

ICONIC DIMENSIONS IN MARGARET ATWOOD

361

mind can be seen from the manuscript page reproduced in Figure 5. which shows

her attempts at writing names and slogans backwards. Entitled ''The Tsap" for the Past (a rather hybrid example). this section introduces the history of Tony's

writing backwards (the final version of the text appears on page 137). Tony's secret pastime of reversing the advertising slogans in the subway car turns the onom<:~topoetic

··crunch!'' for a chocolate bar into "111/nmrd", or ''help them

live'' into "evil meth pleh"; which. in the tina) version of the novel, was replaced by "Pfeil uoy nac?" for the 'Can you help?' of a Red Cross appeal (1993: 19): Foregrounding Tony's reverse writing by italicizing it. Atwood not only lures us. her readers, into participating in the reading process by making us automatically supply the "correct' spelling. but also lets the mirror symmetry (cf. NOth 1998: 650) of the resulting partly printed. partly mental palindrome make us actively experience Tony's ambidextrous dilemma. Furthermore, Atwood also tricks us into changing our viewpoint. In so doing. she deftly demonstrates the power of convention and how a change of point of view can change the way we look at something. Playing with the possibilities this offers. she lets Tony's ')eft-hand' personality defy most conventions. both as a child imagining herself to be the warrior queen of the Barbarians "on the rampage" (1993: 148). and still. as an adult. turning their lunch restaurant. the Toxique. into "Euqixot", which "looks Aztec" (1993: 34) wild and pagan. And. as Max Ntinny suggested, one could even speculate further on the Toxique a.-; a quasi palindrome of Quixote. Cervantes' Knight of the Sad Countenance. who lives in the past and is so caught up in his idiosyncratic reality that he cannot endure everyday life. By placing this emphasis on Tony"s secret. reverse language. which functions as a link with her unconscious and with the space inhabited by her "invisible twin", Atwood points out the conventionality of language. Reverse language has. since ancient times. been considered subversive: the Greek Sotades. who is regarded as the father of the palindrome, used it for political ridicule in his satirical verses. and witches were often accused of talking backwards in order to subvert the religious. political and moral values of official teaching. The witch's power to invert the three sacraments of baptism, eucharist and marriage demonstrated a fonn of political disrespect which linds some outlet in most popular cultures: by representing the opposite of the officially acknowledged. and by replacing the high by the low, the witch is "automatically linked to death and to hell" (Brunei 1992: 1167). And even today. as Tony reflects. "(ijf the fundamentalists were to catch her at it. they'd accuse her of Satan worship" (Atwood 1993: 19).

362

CHRISTINA UUNGBERG

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ICONIC DIMENSIONS IN MARGARET ATWOOD

363

The subversive aspect of reverse language associated with witches also applies to Zenia. the Robber Bride. as a transgressive manifestation of Tony's repressed unconscious, her "(t)aller. stronger. more daring (twin)" (1993: 137). It is Zenia's rebellious. anti-establishment attitude that Tony secretly admires in her. Zenia functions in the plot as the projection of the three protagonists' fantasies and desires. a complement offering qualities they feel they lack in themselves. 7 For it is interesting that, ulthough The Robber Bride is called the "story of Zenia" (1993: 3). we never get to know her thoughts or feelings: she gains her significance only through the three women's stories, and she never exists independently. She functions a~ a manifestation of each protagonist's own repressed unconscious. and hence. it is their own fantasies that are projected onto her. Thus. form and content here really reflect each other. and are aspects of a single meaning. In an interview. Atwood compares the function of Zenia to that of Robert Louis Stevenson's Mr. Hyde: "She is also a part of the reader ... She's Mr. Hyde to our Dr. Jekylls" (Gmeber 1993: 22). Like Mr. Hyde.M whom Stevenson allowed to express dark aspects of the human character that the strait-laced Victorians preferred not to recognize. Zenia, too. operates in areas that have traditionally been off-limits to women. This is something Atwood has stressed elsewhere, pointing out that "female bad charJ.cters can also act as keys to doors we need to open. and as mirrors in which we can see more than just a pretty face. They can be explorations of mom! freedom" ( 1994: 6). By constructing Zenia a.'i a Jungian shadow who pushes at the boundaries and disturbs the established categories. Atwood lets her function as a "key" to open up her readers' minds to the ideologies we are influenced by. By dmwing attention to the 'constructedness' of The Robber Bride. with regard both to the plot and to the multifaceted. elusive character of Zenia. Atwood iconically mimes the culturally constructed nature of the way we perceive ourselves and the reality around us. As I have tried to show. in both her poetry and in her prose, Margaret Atwood explores the relationship between form and content to make her readers participate in the creation of meaning. In my view. this is a central clement in the communicative effectiveness of her writing and one of the reasons for her overwhelming success. For. despite the highly complex and serious issues she discusses. and despite the numerous literary allusions and intertexts she weaves into her material. she still manages to remain accessible to less sophisticated readers. while offering her more literarily adept audience an intertextual universe of additional meaning.

364

CHRISTINA UUNGBERG

Notes I. See e.g. An111dha1i Roy's Tilt Ct in seclions called ''foutnoles''. However, she moves 1hcse up !rum their usual plaL-e al the bollom of the paj;C and gives them the same fonnat as ocdiruuy chapters. Thus, the ~tories about the so-called footiiOies to history. ubout the most ordinary of li\'es. such as those of farmers, shopkeepers. ilalesmen, simple soldiers. are still entitled "footnotes". but are gi\'en a.~ much textual space and importance in the no\'el as iL~ regular chapl:ers. In the laner. the game of Human Croquet is carefully described but ne\'er actually played in the course of the stOI')' - IL~ it turn.~ out, the characters ha\'e been following: its rules all along. Furthermore. the elliptical namatives of Siri Hustvedt in The 8/indfn/d ( 1992), Th~ f;,rrlwlllnlf'll/ of Uly Dahl ( 1996). and Ytmdl'r ( 1998) all di.
Atwood's fondness for anagram.~ is well known. Not only is the nwne of her company. 0. W. Toad. an anagram of Atwood. but she ha.~ also initiated an Anagnm Comer on her web site. According to Atwood (1997). 0. W. Toad i.~ not "only a reference to the author's belated attempts to kam how to dri\'e - \'it. Toad Hall - but d.w a hopeful bridge between the invenebrate kingdom and the primates, via the amphibians. as well as a glancing reference to the fairy-tale belief that the toad cooceals a jewel in its forehe!ld".

3.

Bauer calls attention to the r~t that. by placing the !etten; M and W at the centre of the poem to stress their key function as a ruming point in it. Herben makes them "an image not only of the wings but of the complete reversal taking place at Ea'iter, a.~ they exactly mirror each other" (1999:216). Thus. a.~ Bauer point~ out, the outer form of the poem directly reRccL~ the relalionship between "God and man, spirit and 11\iltter, principle and realiz.ation. or meaning and appearunce" ( 1999: 217): with the help of God, Man can hope for Eternal life (s.ee also Nanny 1999: 176).

4.

For these discussions, see Ljungberg ( 1999).

5.

1be function of reader communication in "This is a Photogroph of Me"

6.

Here and he~Keforth, Atwood Papell! refell! to the collection of Alwood's drafts and final typescripts of her literary works in the Thoma.~ Fisher Rare Books Libr.1ry in T01t1nto. Since the organ~ation of the manuscript' i.~ MJbjectlo ~;ontinual change. they will only be referred to in this way, without indicating any more specific location.

7.

This also applies to Don Quixoll', where the protagonist and Sancho P..anza function a.~ complements of each other in Cervante~· discu...sion about the rel11tionship between an and life.

II.

I am grnteful to Robbie Goh for reminding me of the panicular empha~i~ Stevenson puts on Mr. Hyde's handwriting. In tbe no\'el. Stevenson lets a clerk who wort..~ for Dr. Jekyll's lawyer friend Utterson compare Hyde's autograph with lhat of the unhappy dot'tor and point outthut "tbere's a rather singular re!lemblance; the two hands are in 11\ilny points identical: only differently sloped" (1924: 29).

ha.~ also been e~plon:d by Kathryn V1111Spanckeren. who calls it a "trickster text", becau.o;e it tricks the reuder into responding lo it ( 1995: 77).

ICONIC DIMENSIONS IN MARGARET ATWOOD

365

References Atkinson, K. 1995. Behind the Scene.f at the Musetml. New York: Picador. Atkinson, K. 1997. Human Croquet. London: Doubleday. Atwood, M. 1961. "Pastoral Elegy". Shut 3: 9. Atwood, M. 1966. The Cinle Game. Toronto: Contact Press. Atwood. M. 1969. The Edible Woman. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. Atwood. M. 1976. Selected PoemJ. New York: Simon & Schuster. Atwood, M. 1993. The Robber Bride. London: Bloomsbury. Atwood, M. 1994. "Spony-Handed Villainesses: Problems of Female Bad Behaviour in the Creation ofLitemtun:". MoTRoret Atwood lnformatioll PaJ:t'. 8 pp. 27 June. 1996. Atwood. M. 1996. Alias Graee. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. Atwood, M. 1997. ''Anagram Comer''. Mary:oret Atwood Information Pa~:e. 22 Septcm~r. Atwood, M. (no date). Atwood Papers. The Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library. University of Toronto, RobaJ1s Library. Toronto. Bauer. M. 1999. "Divine Likeness". In Form Miming Mt'alling: lt'OIIicity in l..allguogt'and Literature", M. Nanny and 0. Fischer {eds), 215-234. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Brunei. P.. ed. 1992. Companion w Literary Myth.f, Hemes am/ Arcill!()pe.f. Trans!. W. Allatson. J. Hayward and T. Selous. London: Routledge. Djwa. S. 1995. "Back to the Primal: The Apprenticeship of Margaret Atwood". In Various Atwoods: £uays oil the Lnler Poems, Short Fictioll. and Novel.f, L.M. York (ed.), 13-46. Toronto: Anansi. Eliol. T. S. 1993. 'The Wa~te Land". In Norton AIIIIJOiog_\' of EngliJh Litf!ratllre, M. H. Abrams et al. {eds), 6th ed. 2 vo)s, vol. 2. 2147-2160. New York: Norton. Graeber, L. 1993. "Zenia is Son. of Like Madonna". Interview with Margaret Atwood. Nt'w Yol'k 1imt's Book Re1•it'w October 31: 22. Halliday. M.A.K. and Hasan. R. 1976. Colle.fion in English. London: Longman. Herbert, G. 1974. The Engli.fh Poems ofGt'orge Herbt'rt. C. A. Patrides (ed.). London: Dent. Hustvedt, S. 1992. The Blindfold. Norton: New York. Hustvedt. S. 1996. The Enclumtmt'llt of Lily Dahl. New York: Henry Holt. Hustvedt, S. 1998. Yonder. New York: Henry Holt. Ljungberg, C. 1999. To Join.to Fit, and to Make: The C1't'uti1·e Craft of Margaret AtwQ(IdS Fiction. Bern: Peter Lang. Nanny. M. 1986. "lconicity in Literature". Word&: /magi! 2.3: 199-208. Nanny. M. 1997. "Hemingway's Architecture of Prose: Chiastic Patterns and Their Narrative Functions". North Dakota Q11urterl,1' 64.3: 157-176. Nanny. M. 1999. "Alphabetic Letters a" Icons in Literary Texts". In Form MiminR Meaning: /c'onidty ;,. Language and LiteratuTt', M. Niinny and 0. Fischer (eds), 173-198. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

366

CHRISTINA UUNGBERG

Ntith, W. 1998. "Cognition,lconicity, and Blake's Fearful Symmetry''.ln lnterdigitatiotu: E.uayJjor /nnengard Rauch, G. F. Carr, W. Harbert, and L. Zhang (cds). 647--655. New York: Lang. Roy. A. 1997. The God of Small Things. New York: Harper Collin.~. Stevenson, R.L 1924. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. London: William Heinemann. VanSpanckeren. K. 1995. "lne Trickster Text: Teaching Atwood's Works in Creative Writing Cla..,;ses". In Approoche.t to Tead1ing Atwood:t The Handmaid's Tale and Otht'r Works, S.R. Wilson, T. B. Friedman, and S. Hengen (eds), 77-83. New York: MLA.

Author index

A Abraham, L. 222 Abrams. M.H. 24. JIO Addison, Jo!\Cph 169. DB nlf! Spet·tator 346 Albee. Edward 1in_,•Aiice 50 Albertus Magnus 98 Alderson, S. 135. I 36. 186 Aleman. Mateo Gu:mandeA/faradJe 100, 101 Alfred, King 130 Translation of Augustine's Soliloquies

117 Tran.<~lation

of Bede's Ecclt!.fia:rtical Hi.fWry 112-116, 273

A:lfric Nati1•itaJ Domini mutri lesu Cllri."i (Uw•.fojSuinl.f) 117 Alison, A. 338 Allen. R. E. 177, 241, .l.l5, _,46 Amano, M.63 Amory. T. 341 Ancrene Wi.ue 109, 110 Anderson, E.R. 4. 7, 17. 69. 70. 72, 112.113,119.121.122.271.305, ]07. JIJ. 315. 319 Anderson. J. J. 84, 85 Andrews. M. 336 Apollonius Dyscolus I 39

Aristotle 116, 292. 307 Poetia 301 Armstrong. D. 59 Arnold, Matthew 158 Athenaeus II 96 Atkinson. Kate Bd1inJ tile Scme.f at tilt! Museum 364 Human Croqurt 364 Atwood. Margaret 12. 13 . .'51-354, 356--364. Aliu.f Grace 357 Cat:fEw 354 TIJe Circle Gunre 354 111e Edible Woman 351 The Robber Bride 12. ]57-359, 362, 36J Selected Poems 354 WiiJf!nlf!S.f T/p.f 354 "Pa.-.toral Elegy" 12. 352 ''This Is a Photograph of Me" 12. J54. 356. 364 Auden. W(ystan) H(ugh) 158 Augustine Soliloquie.f 117. DO Auster. Paul 171eMusit' ofC/IUII('t' 5, 29, 31. 36, 38, 40, 44. 50 All'lll)'rs off Arth11re at tile Terne Wathel)'lle 110

368

AUTHOR INDEX

8 Bal. M. 34, 45, 49, 50, 323, 344 Baltsan, H. 83 Barritt. L. S. 124 Baudrillard, J. 196. 209 Bauer. M. 353. 36-l. Baumlin. J.S. 211 Bede Ecde.fia.uical Hi.ftm;.• 112-115. 1.10 BeOII'U/f 84, 112. 126, 129

Bible 252 Re1•elatim1S 123 Blackmore. S. 59 Blake, William 97, 117-120, 123, 158

"To Thoma.-. Buns. 22 Novembc=r 1802"" 173

Bland. D. S. 332. 344. 345 Boehm. G. 345 Bolinger. D.L. 110.251,254-258. 271 Borges. Jorge Louis 5. :n, 37. 40. 45 Labyrillths 32 "Partial Magic in the Qui.wte'' 32, -41,

...

Bosworth. J. 77. 128

Bouissac. P. 17 Drenan, J. 150 Brinton, L.J. 308-310. JIJ. 315-317 Brook, G. L. 252. 332 Brunei. P. 361 Brunner. K. 253, 274 Bruno, Giordano 224 Buisine. A. 345 Burke. Edmund A Pllilo.foplli(·al Enq11iry inlo lile Origi11 of 011r ldea.f of Ilie S11hlime

and Beallli/111 345 Butor. M. 34. 50

c Caedmon Hymn 1. 109. 112-116 Caesar, Julius 2. 3, II. 13. 113. 171. 305-307, 314-316. Jill. 325

Calvina, halo 129. IJO Camre11 de

tl\'t'

phoenice 1. II!!

Carroll. lewis 300 Carstairs-McCarthy. A. 59 Cawley, A. C. 84, 85 Cervantes. Miguel de 106, .161 Do11 Q11i:cote 32, 364 Cezanne. Paul 96 Chapman, George Achilles' Shield 112 Chastaing. M. 87. 125 Chatman. S. 343. 345 Cheney. D. 59 Chnm)oky. N. 6. 55-51. 62-64. 299 Cllri.fl/11119

Clea.-.by. R. 82 Clemoes. P. 114 Cole, H. 220 Collins. William 106. 158, 366 Columella 102. 106 Congreve, William 154 LD1·e for LD1·e 144 Conrad, Joseph 8, 152-155, 346 nu! lnlleriiOn (IO!lCther with Ford Madolt Ford) 152 Conradie. J. 4. 9 Cooper. John Fenimore 346 Crane. Stephen 106 "The Blue Hotel" 103 Cross, M. 189, 195, 209 Crystal. D. 71. 75 Culioli. A. 298. 299, ,,01 Cumminll-"· E(dward) E(stlin) 186 Cummins, W. 209 Dacre, Charlotle 149, 156 nu.> Pa.uion.f 148, 151

D Dallenbach. L. 5. 33, 39, 45.49-51 I.e R~cit Spic••laire 34, 36 Danchev. A. 230 Daniel Ill, 12!1. 239

AUTHOR INDEX Danto, A. Anulytic·al PIJilo.wplry of Hi.ftory 301,

302 Davies, Sir John 154, 155 'The Sacred Muse that fin;t made love devine" 213 Deacon, T. 55 Defoe. Daniel 346 Rohin.fmr Cm.we 33 I Deleuze. G. 299 Denison. D. 233 Dennis. J. 341 Dickens, Charles 107, 149 Bleak Ho11se 344 Da1·idCoppnfteld 151-155 Nicholas Nickleh_\' 101 Dickinson. Emily 27, 87. 130, 158. 187, 274.321 "Poem 76" 174 "Poem 611'' 176 "Poem 661" 174 "Poem 764" 159 Diphilus 99 Di:~ton. R. M. W. 254 Donald. M. 55, 58 Donne, John 158,217. 218, 22.'-225. 260 The Broken Hr!art 223 Elr!Ry: His PiciU" 224 Song.f wrd So11ets 210 "Loven; Infiniteness" 223 "A Noctumall upon St Ludes Day" 9. 214 "Satire" 211 Downs. R. M. 238, 326, 327 Drr!am ofrlre Rood, Tire 129 Dressler. W. U. 254 Dretske. F. 327 Dryden, John 8, 143, 144. 154, 155, 158-170. 179-182. 187, 225 Ar!lleis (tran.-;Jation oO 164. 172 Allforl...m•r! 159. 177, 179, 184 Tire Indian Emperrmr 143

369

Religio Laid 180 'The Cock and the Fo:~t" 169 "Cymon and lphigenia" 163 "The Eleventh Book of the Aeneis"

172 "Epilogue to TheMallofMode" 182 "The First Book of Homer's Iliad" 162 ''The Fin;t Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses" 166. 185 'The Twelfth Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses" 167 'The Flower and the l....eaf'' 163 "Horace, the Second Epode" 161 'The Medall. A Satire against Sedition" 175 "Ovid's An of Low!'' 168 "Palamon and Arcite" 162. 170 "To the Memory of Mr Oldham" 159 ''To Sir George Etherege" 170 "Upon Young Mr. Rogen; of Glosten;hire" 181 "Virgil's Gr!orgid' 101. 165, 172. 174 Dubinsky. S. 274 Dunbar. R. 59 Dupriez. B. 293

E Eco, U. 5, 43, 118, 343 Eggins, S. 51 Eliade. M. 114 Eliot. T(homa.-;) S(leams) 24. 130, 153, 186, 188 17rr! WtWt' Land 352-354 Engberg-Pedersen, E. 305 Enkvist, N.E. 242, 310, 343 Era.<;mu.<; 154. 322 Evans-Pritchard. E. E. 92, 95, 105

Falla. P. 83 Fauconnier, G. 64

370

AUTHOR INDEX

Fenk. A. 307. 3-13

Fidding. Henry 336 Amelia 145 Tomlone.f 331-335,343-345 Fischer. A. 273 Fischer. 0. 4. I 0. 17. I H. 63, !!9, 186, 190. .234. 1:\6, 239, 243, 244. 249, 25!1, 262. 310, 324..'25. 343 F6nagy. I. 87. 89,251, 291 Ford, Madox Ford 8. 154, 155. 260 The Inheritors (logether with Joseph Conrad) 152

Forster. E(dward) M(organ) 117, l.ll Holl'arrl.f Em/ 342 Frankis. J. 109. 110 Friedrich. J. B. 98

Fiiredy. V. 34. _,6, 3!1. 50-51 G

Garber, K. 335 Garcia, E. C. 234 Gellc=y. A. 345 Genetic, G. 35. 344 Gibson. J. S. 326 Gide. Andre 5. 33-36. 45, 49 Cahier.f 33 L!.f Fmu-Monnayeurs 33 lo11mal 33 l01m1UI des Fatu-Mmmc/yellrs 35 Narc-isse 33

La Temative 33 Gilman. E. B. 212. 220 Gir.u-dot. N.J. 105 Giv6n. T. 254, 305, 306 Gob, R. 8, 13. 364 Goldsmith. Oliver 158 Goldstein. E. B. 326. 327

Gombrich, E. H. 327. 340. 343 Goodman. M. B. 209 Goodman. N. 299 Grae~r. l. 363 Gray. Thomas 32. I 58 Greenbaum. S. 258

Greenberg. J. H. 234 Greenle(", D. 5, 4.~. ~-51 Gruber. J.S. 113 Guillen. C. 343 Guiraud. P. 293 G11tlrlac 8 121. 12]

H Haarberg. J. 92. 95, 96. 105. 106 Haggard. Sir Henry Rider Ki11g Solomo11S Mi11cs 99 Hagstrum. J. H. 217. 340 Haiman. J. 13. 113. 230, 245. 254, 278, 305-307 Halliday. M.A. K. 51. 356 Hamans. C. 274 Hamon. Ph. 330. 344. 345 Hansard. T. C. 150 Happe. P. 85 Hardy. Thoma.~ 342. 348 Hargreaves. G. D. 152 Hart. John 140. 141 Hasan. R. 356 Hawkin.~. J. 279 Healey. A. 273 Heffernan. J. A. W. 337-339 Heine. 8. 232. 241 Henry. A. C. 7. 8. Hcptateudr 111. 127. 130 Her~rt. George 158. 21J. 352. 353. 364 "The Allar" 212 "Ea.~ter Wings" 212 Herlofsky. W. J. 4-6 Herrick. Robert 158 Hc.~peridc.r 213

Noble Number.r 2 I 3 "Divination by a Daffadill" 184 "To Daffadills" 185 "To the Painter. to Draw Him a Picture" 166 "Upon 8/andr" 168 "Upon her fe("t" 171 "Wounded Heart" 213

AUTHOR INDEX Hc=rzberg. Judith Beemdgra.f 250 Hc=usch, L. de 105 Hinton, L. 17, 70, 72, 73. !13 Hjelmslev, L. 22 Hoffman, D. D. 317 Hoffmann, G. 330. 336. 344, 345 Hollandc=r. J. 157. 1!16 Homc=r Jlia.f 325 Odyuey 123. 331 Hopper. P. J. 254, .256. 265 . .2!10 Horace 14. 292. 30 I Ar.f poetim 22 Hughes, Tc=d 52. 63 Hugo. Victor 293 "Les Djinns" 194 Hunter. J.P. 345 Hustvedt, Siri The Blilldfold 364 Tire E11drantme111 of Lily Dahl 364 Yo11der 364 Hutcheon. L 36, ·B. 50 Huxley. Aldous 5 Poilll Cmmter Poim 36, 44

lbsch. E. J46 lngarden, R. 344 lnhelder. B. 326 Innocenti. L 9, .220 Isidore or Seville 139

Jack, G. 84 Jackendolf. R. 65 Jakobson. R. 1-3, 21. 22. 24. 69, 70, 72. 15. 113. 189. 306,310 James. Henry 346 Jansen. F. 10. 265 JdTc=rson, A. 32. 36. 38, 47 Jc=spcr:;c=n. 0. 69, 70, 72. 75, 235, 242.

244

371

Johan~.

J.D. 3, 4, 13. 22. 189. 306. 310. 321. 343 Johnson, M. 61. 64, 190, 199 Johnson. Samuel 110

A Di<·rio11ary of the EtJNiish lAIIRIIUKI!

225 Jonson, Ben 158 "Cary-Morison Ode" 181 "To the= Right Hon'ble Hic=rome, L. Weston" 167 Joseph. B. D. 70 Judgment Doy II 120. 121. 123 K Kadish. D. Y. 331. 3+1--346 Kalka. Franz 45-47.51-52

nre Country Doctor 41 nre Trial 5. 38, 45-47. 51 "Befort the Law" 46. 47 Kanda. K. 65 Karp. I. 106 Keats, John 158. 289 E11d.\'mio11 167 "Fancy" 168 "Ode on Melancholy" 173 "Ode to a Nightingale" _,18 "To AUiumn" 91 Keenan. E. 144 Kdkr. R. 65 Kennedy. G. 307 Kenstowicz. M. Ill Kesey, Ken I 00 Sometimes a Great Notio11 106 Kissebenh. C. Ill Kittay. J. 343 Ktihler, W. 124 Ktinig. G. 343 Koopman. W. F. 273 Kone. B. 345. 346 Kostelnick. Ch. 345 Kouwenberg. S. 13 Kuhn, S.M. 79 Kullmann. Th. 324. 338. 344-346

372

AUTHOR INDEX

KUper. C. 305, 309, 310, 313, 318 Kyd. Thoma" The Sptmish Tra~tedy 315 Kyffin. M. 141-143 L Lacan, J. II. 300 La CharitC. D. 13 Lakolf. G. 61. 64, 190, 299 Landsberg, M. E. 17

Langacker. R. W. 256 Langland. William Pier.f Plowman II 0, 118 Lawrence, D(avid) H(e!'Mrt) 272 MrNoo11 342 Khme11 ilr Lm·e 342 "Snake" 160. 161 Lear. Edward

'The Courtship or the YonghyBonghy-Bo" 101

Lecerde.J.J.II.l51.JOO Leiris, Michel 37 L 'A~te d'Homme 36 Lennard, 1.154 Lentz. L. 10, 265 Lessing, Georg Ephraim 22. 24, 3.16, 340 Ulokoo11 325, 343 Levi-Strauss, Claude 299 Lewis. C. T. 83 Lincoln, 8.123 Linen. P. Ill Liure. E. 101 Ljungberg. C. 4, 12. 364 Lobsicn. E. 338, 345, Lodge. D. 342. Longinus 292. 301. 308 Longus

Daphni:r arrd Chloe 340 L01man. J. M. 22. 24. 341. 343 M Macl...eish. Archibald 24 Magny. C. E. 33

Malins, E. 335, 339 Mann, Thomas 268 17u! Magic Mmullain 5, 45, 47, 48 Markov. A.A. 289.299-301.377 Markus. M. 262. 273. Marvell. Andrew 158. 163 '"Aeckno, an English Priest at Rome" 178 Maturin. Charles Robert 148 Me/moth tire Wmrdel't'r 147 Maunrs. R. 212 Max Patrick, J. 168 Meier, H. H. 109. 112 Menander 99 Merleau-Ponty. M. 291 Miller. G. 274 Miller.J.A. 300 Milner. J.C. 296 Millon, John 8, 158, 174-177,272 Pt~radise Lost9, 163-165. 16!!, 169, 171. 174. 180, 214, 215 '"On lime" 176 '"Psalm IV'" 175 '"Psalm V'" 172 Mitchell, B. 252, 253 Moles. A. A. 29, 169 Monis, Ch. 343 Monisseue. B. 5, 3+-36 Morse, Samuel F. B. 151. 154 Mulca.'ilcr. Richard 140. 141 MUller. W.G. 2--4. 11-13. 109, 113.316 N Nanny. M. 4. H. 17. 18. 23. 89, 189. 209. 273. 305. 31o ..n4. 325. 341. 343, 353. 355. 358. 361. 364 Nelson, M. 122. 299 Nietz.~che. Friedrich 241 Tire Birlh ofTraReJ_,. 48 Norrman. R. 4, 6, 92. 96 Ntith, W. 2-5. 22, 39, 50-51. 305, 310, 357, 361

373

AUTHOR INDEX Nova1is

Hei11rid1 von Ofterdingt'lf 45

0 O'Boyle. M. W. 124 Ouida, (Marie Louise de Ia RamCel 97 Pa.fcarrl. Only a Story 107 Owl a11J the Niglltingt~le, 11Je 110, 112

p Panofsky. E. 154 Pape, H. 20 Porie11ce 85 Paul. Jean (Johann Paul Friedrich Richler) 38--40, 43. 45, ~9. 51. 345 Flegdjahre 38, 39, 45 Paz. Octavia I. 4 Pearl 85. 87 Peirce. C.S. 5, 17-21.24-27, .~0. 33. 40--44, 49. 51. 56, 192, 196, 201, 209. 324 Pelc. J. 343 Petrarch 341 Pfeiffer. K. L. 346 Phoenix. Tire 7, I 12. I 16-121. 123-130 Ph.l·sinlngu.r 126 Piaget. J. 326 Pica. P. 65 Pinker. S. 55, 57 Plank. F. 151 Plath, Sylvia "Fiesta Melons" 91 Plato 120 Rep11blic 22 Plaut us Casinal02 Pliny 101 Poe. Edgar Allan Landor S Collage 346 Pocnicke. K. 344 Pope. Alexander 8, 24. 151!. 160--163, 165-167, 176--178. 186 The DrmdaJ Variontm 165, 183

An EssaJ" nf Man 165 Iliad 161. 16J, 166--167. 183 "An E.•;$ay on Criticism'' 160. 176 "letter to Cromwell" 178 ''Moral Essays: Epistle Ill. To Allen Lord Bathurst" 177 "To Mr. Addison. Occasioned by His Dialogues on Medals"l69 "Ode for Musick. on St. Cecilia's Day" 180. 185 "The Temple of Famc"l83 "Windsor-Forest" 173 Pound, Ezr-.J. 186, 191! Pozzi. G. 29. 30, 32. 212 Priti~CI 102 Priestly. T.M.S. 72 Pmse Plweni.:c 119. 120. 123 Prou. S. 104 Michamment les Oisea/Lr 107 Proust. Marcel 290 Puttenham, George 143, 212 11Je Arte of Engli.th Poesie I 39

Q Quintilianus, M. 322 Quirk, R. 252, 258, 273 R Rabelais.

Fran~ois

GCJrgCJIIIIICI

and Pamagruel 213

Radcliffe. Ann 333-341. 345

111e M.\'sterie.f of Udolpho 333. 334 Ramus. Petrus 224 Ransdell. J. 19 Reid, D. 75 Reynolds. M. 346 Ricardou, J. 34 Richard•mn, Samuel 7, 145 Ricks, Ch. 99. 101. 157. 186 Riffaterre. M. 345 Ritter, J. 337

374

AUTHOR INDEX

Robbc-Grillet. Alain U Voyeur 342 Rocg. Nichola.~ Walkabom96

Sidney, Sir Philip 272, 328-332, 336, _,.Ul, 342. 344. 345 nlf! Cmmte.u of Pembroke:{ Arcadia

Ron. M. 31. 34-36.41.45,49-51

''Not at First Sight" 315 Simon, D. 278 Simone. R. 17. 109. 110. 113. 278 Sir Gawain cmd tlte GTPett K11igltt 84 Skorupka. S. 83 Smith. Charlotte Emmeline or the Orpl1011 of tlte Ca.ule

Rosenbach. A. 134, 240 Rosselti. Christina 100 "Goblin Market"' 91 Roy. A. 364 Royce, J. 32. 41

Ruxton, G. F. 100

328

342 Sadowski. P. 4, 6, 84. RS, 91, 122 Santaella. L. 19 Sapir. E. 69 Saussurc, F. de I. 17. 24

Scheffel. M. 324 SchOnrich. G. 40 Scoll, Sir Walter 149. 334 Wu1•nle)' 342 Searle, J.R. 281 Sebeok. T. A. 5. 42, 44

ScmbCne. Ousmane Us boms de bois de Die11 102 Seuss, Dr (Theodor Giesel) Tile Cat i11tl1e Hut Come.f Back 37

Seyfarth, R. 59 Shakespeare. William 12. 20. 305-320 Amony cmd Cleopatra 319 A.f You Like It 314

Smith, Ph. H. 122 Smuda, M. 335, 337, 346 S0rensen. K. 252 Sotades 361 Spearing. A. C. 84 Stanzel. F. K. 324, 332. 333. 337. 343, 344, 346 Stavrou, M. 255. 256 Stea. D..n6. 327 Steehouder. M. F. 278 Stein. D. 234 Sternberg. M. 324. 329. 332. 337, 344 Sterne, Laurence 7, 146. 147 nte Life and Opinimu of Tristram Shattd_\· 155 Stevenson. Robert Louis 363, 364 Strang. B. M. H. 234. 252 Styron. William Ue Down ill Darkneu 97

Homier 32. 45.319,320 l11lius Caesar 211. 316 Ki11g Lear 311. 313. 330 Macbeth 313. 320 Tile Mere/rant of ~11icr 313 The Merry· Wi1·es o[Wi11d.for 94 Othello 179. 187, 317

Ricl!urd II 311 Romeo and hdiet I. 316 Shelley. Percy Bysshe 158. 163 "Mont Blanc'' 160 'The Witch of Atlas" 164

T Tabakowska. E. 3, 2] I. 242. 307. 311. 319, 343

Tai. J. H-Y 277 Tarte. R. D. 124 Taub. S. 65 Taylor, J. R. 239, 2-B. 244 Tennyson. Alfred 99. 158 'The Vision of Sin" 101 Terence Publius nu! Andria 143. 144

375

AUTHOR INDEX Theocritus 212 Theopompus 100 Thompson, S. A. 254. 256, 259, 265, 2611. 269, 2110 Thomson. James TlleSeamlls33R ThmiSand u11d One Nigllt.{ 32 Thurber. James 104 'The Cane in the Corridor'' 107 Tolstoy. Count Leo Nikalayevich The Krr!lll:l'r Sonata 100 Trollope. Anthony 149, 152 Turville-Petre. T. 84 Tuve. R. 224

v VanSpanckeren. K. 364 Vendler. Z. 273. 274 Venezky. R. L. 273 Vezzosi, L. 234. 240 Vickers, B. 308 Vigfusson. G. 82 Villari. P. 104 Vincent. N. 257 Virgil Georgics/V 101, 165. 172, 174

w Wallace. Edgar The At1gel of Terror 103

Wallis, M. 42. 50 Waugh. L. 17 Wescott, R. W. 70. 309 Weston.J.L From Ritual to Roma11ce 354 White. J. 2. 4. 5. II. 23. 47. 59 Whitman, J. 278 WierciRski, A. 72, 87 Williams, William Carlos 186 Williamson. J. 190 Wolf. W. 4, 12. 339, 344 Wolpers, lb. 338 Woolf. R. 85, 86 Woolf, Virginia 153 7111' Vo)'Uge Out 342 111e 342 Wordsworth, William 103, 158

m,,.,.s

Wrenn, C. L. 252. 273, 274

y York Cycle 71te Adoration

PI~·

85

z Zoest, A.J.A. van 45,50 Zola. Emile .H8

Subject index

A absence of words 140 absolute COIL'itruction 180 action schema 232. 241 adjective 10, 76, 122. 174, 220, 238, 249-276 category, 254. 257 comparative 265 deverbal 261 modified by adverb 261-262 prepositional phrase 259-261. 272 negative 263-264 pa."it participle 232. 261-262, 274 position 249-274 gmmmaticalisation of 263. 273 secondary predicate 262-263 superlative 274 advertising 189-209 layout 189-209 theory 189. 190 aesthetic ilhL~ion, .n!l! landscape description aesthetic reftexivity 33 aesthetic theory 338 Afrikaans 229, 232-233 agreement features 65 alchemical metaphor

223

transfonnation 220-221

alchemy 222-225 allegory 9, 211-224 alliteration/allitemtive poetry 3. n. ~. 116. 306. JID, :no allolanguage 70 allusion, metalinguistic 291 amplificatio 123 anacoluthon 12. 291, 319 anadiplosis 12. 2J. 31-1. 315,318 anagr.un 364, 365 analepsis 298 analogies 51. 140, 329, 337 analogy between an and language 141 anaphoralanaphoric pronouns 6, 12, 55--65. 123. 125.293, 296, 310. 313 anastrophe 271 animacy hierarchy 234-237 animal communication, set! communication amecalents 6, 56, 57, 61. 63--65 anti-iconic (force) 193. 229. 2J3 antimetabole. ue chiasmus antisymmetry 23. 357 antithesis 99. 100, 320 apodosis 298 aposiopesis 12. 308 apostrophe 3 II

378

SUBJECT INDEX

arbitrarines.o;, .f~~ also dogma, sign 341 conventions 59, 71 article, see detenniner a.o;sociations, figurative 201 assonance 3. 84. 110. 130,306.310 asterisks..fee ellipsis asyndeiOn II, 292. 306. 307 allrition. phonetic 250 autoiconism 12.309,310, ]17 autonomy of syntax/autonomous linguistic system 63

8 Binding Principles 6, 55-65 principles of referential a'isociation binding 60--62 body• .tee also materiality 8, 189-209 iconic 8 metaphor. St!t! metaphor borrowing. lexical or linguistic 81-82. 86. 87 brand name 199

c t'OTIIIf!n fit.:uralum

352

genitive. .w•e genitive vocative 265 cataphor/cataphoric pronouns 293, 298 catcgoriality. degree of 265 c·command 56, 62-64 chain of being 220, 223, 329 chance fonns 186 chiasmus, see af.w inversion 12. n. 116. 314 ..no. 355.358 circularity of signifien; 214 in pattern of sounds 213 symmetrical pattern 358 child language 23, 70. 74, 131 chromaesthesia 125 circular motion 220 text 221

circularity oumboro.f 221 da.<;sica11iterature331 deft clause/sentence 293, 296, 297. 299,

301 climax, .fee also gradatio 314-315, .H7-318 code, primary and secondary 251 coding of simultaneity 277-280 iconic solution 278 lexical solution 278, 287 cognition and evolution, .fee evolution and iconicity, see iconicity cognitive strategies 254 coherence, textual 326 cohesion 152,310, 312. 321.365 force of 152 function of 31~311 colour, manipulation of 195. 205-207. 209 commodity signs 189-209 communication II. 18. 25. 26. 52. 59, 60, 65, 70-74. 86, 150, 152, 201. 209, 223. 243. 246, 292. 294, 364 animal 71 speed of 73 consonance 110. 120 consonants 23. 91. 120. 158, 159, 216 labial 90-91 lateral75 liquids 7, I 24. 127 plosives.lstops 7, 75 sibilants 72 consonant clusters 7, 120. 129. 181 multiple 125-127 repeated 120 conspiracy rules Ill. 112 contiguity of word order, see word order cookery books. st'e instructive texts correlative (objective) 340 creativity 26. 50 etymological 69 semantic 69

SUBJECf INDEX

D Danish 82. :no..n 1 da'ih, see ellipsis death • .fee also life and death 6, 211-224 deictic possessive 199 demogrnphical strategies 203 demonstrative pronoun 250, 252 denotation 299 detenniner system, development of 250. 252-253 diminutive marking 72 direct speech 7, 139. 140. 145. 146, 152 presentation of 145 direction of writing 191-196 discourse manipulability 259, 265, 260 dislocation II rhetorical 293. 296, 300. 297 syntactic 290, 293, 291,296,319 "distorter'' 291. 299 emotionaJ 293 rhetorical II spatial 293

temporaJ 293 distortion II. 46, 29 I. 298, 355. 356 dogma of arbitrarines.~ I domain, locaJ 56. 57. 61 drama, printed 143 "Droste-effecf'. su nrise 1!11 ab)<·me duality of the line 157 Dutch 10. 36, 81, 82, 90, 232. 250, 251. 267. 273. 277-280, 282, 2!14, 286. 2R7

379

a.-.terisks 7. 135, 139, 140. 143. 146. 147, 149 da.,.hes 7. H, 135, 143-147, 1-19-153. 154, 155. 320 dots 7, 146, 1-17, 152 hyphens 7, 135. 1-H, 143, 149. 150. 154 points 135, 143, 148, 149, 152, 153 rules 143-144, 150-152 grammatical 143. 293 and Modernism 152-153 and standardisation 153 embedding 5, 35. 36. 40-45, 50. 52. 277' 279-284, 283, 285, 286, 293, 299 emotion. II. 289,291-295.298, JOI, JOK. 311-314 empiricism, rise of 338 enthymcme 309 epistrophe 12, 310, 313 epitrochasm 293 etymology, see af.w creativity 70. 96, Ill popular 70 event model 9, 229-246 evolution of human cognition 55-65 of iconic features, see iconic or language 5, 6, 55-65, 69-86 exclamation 311 exegetic models 9. 211 expressivity 93, 290, 291. 301

E edipse/eclipsis 139 economic factors 141. 149 economy. principle of 252 elision 139 ellipsis 12. 113,139, 143-147,293,311, 312 ellipsis marks 7. 8, 135, 136, 141. 143. 145. 149. 150, 152-154

figurality, see signs focus 12. 238, 243, 245, 256. 295-301, 311.325.327. 329. 332,335, 337. 340. 344, 358 end-focus II, 192, 300. 301 principle of 291 multiplicity of 196 fonts, manipulation of 9. 189-109

380

SUBJECT INDEX

fonn/function correspond~nce 135 form. graphic 136, 143 form miming form 2. 5, 18. 22. 50 form miming meaning 2. 5. 18, 21. 22. 24. 41. 50 French 5, II. 34. 36, 31!. 74, 79. 81. 83, !14, 123. 171. 182. 234. 23R. 290, 291,293-295,301. 342. 346-349 frequentative suffix Ill functional model 69 G

Gaelic 79 gaps 139, 147, 150. 151 transcriptional 141 gender 65, 203. 252, 265 iconic 65 genitive 9, 10. 229-246. 260. 268. 269. 317 double (marking) 229-246 durational 245 group genilive 245 marking 229-246 objective genitive 139, 241. 244 of-genitive (periphrastic) 9. 229-246 s-genitive (inflexional) 9, 229-246 subjective 236, 240 German 5. 39, 51. !11-83. 232 gestures, .fee iconic gestures Gothic novel?. 147-151. 153 gradatio 314. 318 grammatica1isation of adjective position. see adjective Greek 88, 96, 102. 12J. 12!1, 139, 252. 254-257, 273, 276, 2KO, 361 H heraldry 5. 33-35 homoeoteleuton 120. 125 homonymy 316 hyperbaton II. 12.292,293, 308, 31H, 319 hyphen. s~e ellipsis

hypoicon. su icon bypotaxis. byperhypotaxis 293 hypotyposis 291, 295 hysteron protcron, su order of clements

Icelandic 82. 87 icon 13. 17-27. 38, 40-44, 55~5. 71-73. 74. 212 genuine or 'pun:' icon 19. 24-25 hypoicon 19 iconic coding 306 correspondence 193 features, evolution of 4 form 353 foundations of language 4 gestures 55. 59. 65 lineation 185 linkage 310 parameters 203 relations 309 horizontal 309 vertica1 309 iconicity a.o; an aesthetic effect 33 and cognition 25-26 double 5. 40 fusion of types 1-4 gradability of 326 grammar. of 131. 306, 321 scale of 19 types of 2. 4. 7. 21. 22. 25 autoiconism/automorphism 12. 309. 310, 317 chronologicaJ 3. 7, II. 113-114, 305-306 deferred 5. 39. 47 descriptive 326. 344 diagrammatic 3. II. 21. K9, 90. 230. 254, 292-298. 301, 324-326, 332. 343 quantitative 325. 337

SUBJECT INDEX sequential 325. 329, 337 emotional II. 289-301.312 endophoric 2, 21-24, -~9. 45, 48, 50, 51. 309-311. 314. 316. 317.320 exophoric 2. 12. 22. 24, 38-40, 50. 310.311.314.315.317.319 experiential 3. 231, 2-l-2. 307. 311. 319.323-346 first deg~e 22 horizontal 7. 122 imagic/imaginal 21. 294. 295, 298, -~01, 324 linear 10. 165 meta-iconicity 353 metaphoricaUmediated 21. 324 paradigmatic. syntagmatic 23 phonetic 89, 90. 209 phonological 6. 10. 256-257. 271, 273 prcfe~ntial 115 primary diagrammatic . .fl!l! al.m iconicity. exophoric 295. 297, 291!. 301 reflexive, su also iconicity. endophoric 298-302 rhetorical II. 305, 307, 309-311 second degree 22. 29!1 semantic 89 spatial II. 293, 297-298 structural/syntactic 113-116. 121. 229-246. 249-247 typographic 157-186. 324 ubiquity of !8, 24-26 verbal 9, 13, 70, 72. 214. 217. 224 iconoclasm 9, 152. 211-224 idolatry 211-224 illocutionary force/import 231. 234. 289, 290 image 7. 8. 17. 19, 25. 26, 33-36. 39-41.47, 48, 52. 211-212, 220. 224 anamorphic 220

381

heraldic 33 imitation 58. 60, 71. 112. 294, 30H . .110. 324-326. 328-3.12 . .135. 336. 339. 343-345 imitatio l'elemm 331 of speech 324 implication 189. 2.18 implicature 296 indefinite plural fonns 336 index IS-27, 55-65, 238. 367, 369 indexicality 48. 50, 66 inflectional endings 250. 259, 265. 316 system 252 information 'given·. su theme ·new·. see rheme inscription. sepulchral 219 instructive act280.281 constitutive 281 regulative 281 texts 10, 277-287 inteljections 70 interpretant see sign intenext. concealed 295 inversion. see al.ro chiasmus 13. 292. 309, 312.358 Irish 82. 83. 117. 123 Isis myth 354 isochrony/isochronic 277. 278. 21! I, 2K4-287 isomorphism 5, 30, 34, 36.-14-48. 131. .121. 324. 325, 332. 337, 346 limited isomorphism 46. 48 llalian 83. 90, 252. 257. 273. 344

joke-work 294-295 journalese 239

L labiality 6, 90

382

SUBJECT INDEX

landscape description 12. 326. 328.331. 333,339 aesthetic iJitL,.ion 339-340, 345 change in descriptive techniques 338 discoun>e-centred vs. experience· centted 316 e.ffet de rhd 345 means of ordering 329 and tWII\'t!tl/1 roman 342 and painting 323. :no. 335. 339-340, 345-346 and postmodemist texts 342 topographica1 poem 338 tr.welogue 341 landscape garden 332. 325, 339 discul1iivc principles 329, 332, 3J7, spatial orientation 332 language change 17, 229-246, 271-173 child language/talk 23, 70. 74. 131 emotive 70. 71. 91 evolution of• .~ee evolution origin/genesis of 70, 72, 73, 78, 88 poetic 189, 190 prclapsarian 113 religious 86 reverse language. see also palindrome 13.361. 363 Latin vii. 2. 3, 7. 74. 79, !!2, 83. 88, 109, I 10, 112-116. 119, 123. 124, 127. 128, 129, 141. 252. 273, 280,

292 life and death . .fee m~taphor 157-186. ]55 gradually long~r lin~s 182-183 gradually short~r lin~s 183-185 contra~t bc:twe~n lin~s 170-176. 181-182. 185-186 conspicuous 159 typographic 157 visualS. 158. 181 lin~. long. a.~ icon 159-170 lin~. short. a.~ icon 17&-181 lin~-l~ngth

lin~ar ord~r/scqu~nce 10. DS. 254. 256, 257. 271.274. 298. 299.301 miming of meaning 158 lin~arity II. 23. 258. 278. 298-199 principl~ 278 lot."IIS amoenll.f, .fee perception logo 199 lyrics. religious 85

M mal11nra-factor 124. 127 marketing strat~gi~s 203, 207 marking diminutive. see diminutive genitive. see genitive linguistic 265 omissions. see omissions Markov chain II. 299-301 mat~ria1ity 196. 201. 219-223 memes 59 metamorphosis 12. 216. 224. ]53. ]54 metaphor 9. 20. 21. 34-36. 46, 49, 51. 66.89-105. 114. 127.214.217. 223. 300, 341. 347 action metaphors 55. 5!1 body metaphors 65 dead/faded 90. 93 of life and death 6. 89, 95-104 phonetic 89 metaphorical extension 8 upward-downward 19&-207 met~r/metrical2]. !14. 157. II! I. 11!6, 187. 252. 272. 312 metonym 207 microlanguage 70 Middle English 6. 7, 10. 79. 80, !11-83. 86, 8!1, 112. 131. 236, 250. 253 mimesis 212, 306. 325, .HO. 33K. 342 mimetic culture 55-58 theory of literary mimesis 22. 24 verbal 306-307 mimicry. vocal 58

SUBJECT INDEX mi.fe enubym~ 5, 29-52 anaphoric and cataphoric 51 duplication, unending 5. 37-38, 44, 49-50 functions of 49 model diachronic 32 synchronic 32 scale model 30, 32 Modernism 209, 210, 324, 342, 344 motivation, natural 89-106 movement of the eye 191, 327, 332. 356 mimetic 192 repetitive 193 rules 63 mythical method 352 N narrative 'box sets' 360 circular 364 filmic effecl-. 337 fr.111te nanutive 12. 357 fonn 324, 359 gaps 151 narcissism 45 perspective 323. :no. _,44 sequence 301 structure 13, 346, 358, 359 narrativity 231 narratology 341 narrator omniscient 333. 336 first vs. third per.oon 151. 357 natural selection 55. 57 naturalness theory/approach 254, 292 nominalisation 238 nothingness 211-224 images of 222 noun category 258 non-referential 269

383

novel Gothic 7. 147-151. 153 sentimental 338 Victorian 149-152 Norwegian 82 number 65

0 object, see sign complement 255. 256. 259, 262, 263.

272 occupatio 119, 12J Old English 6, 7, 9, 10, 7M, 79, MI. 109, 112. 114-119. 121. 123. 125, 127, 128-130, 132. 233-236,245, 249-254. 257-260. 262, 265, 269. 271. 273-176 Old Norse 81. Ill. 123 Old Testament 99 omission(s) 139-141. 143. 308 in MS 136-143 linguistic 139 marking of 7 syntactic 141 onomatopoeia 6. 7. 7{}-86. 119. 162. 312. 324 order of elements. see a/.m word order. linear order hysteron proteron 12. 284. 319 narrated events 2 sequential 2. 3 18 tempor.!.l. 2. 9. 332 ordo naturali.f 21, 325 orientation spatial 332 upward-downward 190 oxymoron 316

p page. blank 146. 147 painting. see also landscape description 330. 335. 339. 340. 345. 346 palindrome 351. 360. 361

384 palindrom~

SUBJECT INDEX (cm1timu•J)

palindromic structure 12. 357,

359-361 mirror image . .fee symmetry pamdigm 17, 23. 31. 93. 109 parullelism 2, 23. 21. 23. 26. 310 113, 119 asyndetic 3. 119 hyperparataxis 293 parenthesis 12. 319

paro~taxis

parody. ironic 352 paronoma.'iia 12, 315-317

paronymy 316 participle past, .w:e adjective present 10. 166. 277-287 position of present participle 281 pa.'isives 229, 232-234 pattern poem 12. 212. 352 icon of buuerfly 353 and technopaegnia 212 pauses 7. 140, 293, .~15 perception 12. 199, 351. 354--357 angle of vision/point of view 321. J27. 329. 333. 336. 341 background/foreground 329 schemata 327. 330-331. 335 hurnro11ia c011trari11m 331 low.f ammmu.f 331. 335, 343, 347 sequence of 329 subjective 307, 326-327, 330, 335

visual78, 81,326,327, 329. 333, 335 ..ll6, 338. 339. 341, 347. 351 perceptual association 69-86 ba.-.is 254 experience 326 linearity 258 saliency 34.~ sequence 344 similarity 307 perfect 231.233

peripherality 120. 294 perlocutionary effect 289. 294 person (category oO 151 perspective 326-340 atmospheric 326-340 center of 333 external 333.341 imitation of 330 internal 321. 330, 333. :us. 341 linear 330 phonetic theories 7. 141 phonaesthemes 7. 109-130 phonology 17. 69-86 phylogenetic 72 plosives, se~ consonants poetic function 189. 299 poetic line 157-186 visual length, see line-length white space 8 polyptoton 12. 315--~17. 322 position of adjective, see adjective present participle. see participle posses... ive, see abo genitive construction 9. 232. 235. 246-247 function 234 prefiguration 34. 47 presupposition 234. 239. 240. 290. 291. 296-298 principles discursive 329, 332 ..U7 logical 329 rhetorical 329 printers. British 7, 141. 144 printing houses 149 house styles 149 printing press 139 prolepsis 298 pronoun.'i/pronominals 12, 55-65. 215, 221. 224, 293, 196. 356 protasis 298 psycholinguistic experiments 71, 110. 124

SUBJECT INDEX punciUation ~xc~ssive

149 iconic 135-154 lunulae 154 parenth~sis. mark of 154 puns 84

Q quantification 238. 245 quantifiers 238, 259, 273 quest narrative 353, 354 R recipes 277-287 reciprocal 64, 309 reduplication 6, IJ, 14, 90, Ill referentia1 association binding. see Binding Principles referential expres.~ions 6. 55-65 ref~rential (in}d~pend~n~ 55-65 reflexiv~ II. 64, 299, 301 relatives, infinitival 273, 274 "remainder" 291 repetition 2. 3, 5. 12. 22. 23. 51. IIM-120. 122. 125. 167, 191. 30M, 309.310-316. 325.329. 343. 355 representamen•.fee sign rhem~/rh~matic 113. 253, 151, 271. 272. ]09 rhetoric viii. 21. 211. 292, 29M. 305-320, 321. 322. 346 enargeialevidentia 212 of passion 311 rhetorica1 distor1~r . .fee distor1er rhetorical figures and schemes 305-320 rhetorical functions ethO!i 308 logos 224, 308. 309 pathos 308, 309 rhyme 23, IW. 110, 119-122. 183, 198, 292 rhythm/rhythmical 3, II. 157, 15!!, 272. 290. 29], 294, 301. 323

385

of th~ ~ntenc~ 318 rules conspiracy Ill, 112 expressive 251 of grammar 60, 63, 251. 254. 271-275. 281. 29(J, 291,295 rules (typogo.aphical) continuous 143-144 discontinuous 143 short/long 7 Russian 83. 87, 88, 96

scope. symactic 64, 245 scribal substitution 7, 110 selection•.fer! natural selection semantic bleaching/emptying II. 298 semantic field/group 6, 75-82. 222 semiosis. process of 5, 42-44. 50 regress of interpretants 44 infinit~ regress 5. 37, 38, 41-42.-1-9 semiotic analysis 209 typology of signs 17-27 semiotics 17-27.40.49-51. 199 symbolic exchange semiotics 199 senses, notion of the five s~nses 117-118 sentence construction. strategies of 23~231

activity-based 230-231 classificatory 230-231 sequence II. 12. 20, 21. 23, 27, 229, 231' 240-243, 245, 254, 278, 292, 294, 296-301, 305, 306, 308, 309, 318, 319, 315.329, .H2. 335-337, 344, 355. 359 sign interpretant 5. 10, 43.-1-4,48, 51 language 65 object 20-21. 50-51 dynamica1 20. 43 immediate 2~21. 43

386

SUBJECT INDEX

sign (cmllin11ed) process of sign imerpretation 20 relations 20-21 representamen 5. 20 signified 2. 89, 135, 214 tenor 6, 21. 89. 90. 324 vehicle 6. 18. 20, 21. 47. 89. 90, 195, 324 signifier 42. 89, 214 sign(s), arbitrary 18. 73-74, 86 conventional I8 de-corporealisation of 198 emotive 70-71. 74. 86 figural. figuraJity 9, 211. 211. 214 iconic . .fee icon indexical•.fee index natural IS onomatopoeic. set! onomatopoeia symbolic. .w!e symbol synaesthetic• .fee synaesthesia theory of 5, 17-27 dichotomic cia.'isification 5, 18

triadic clas.''iification 5. 18, 20 signans 22. 10, 309 signatum 20. 70. 309 simile 21. 126, 127, 153 simultaneity, Srt! also coding of 10. 277, 278. 187 intennittent 287 partial 287 total 287 small clause, see object complement sonority, loss of 3 sound pattern 3. 69, 71 sound symbolism 27, 69-86 space blank 137. 138, 176. 179. 193, 195. 199 cognitive/menta] 64 real world 55-65 signing 65 syntactic 55-65

white. see poetic line Spanish 83. I 00, 252, 254. 255. 257, 315. 322 speech act. indirect 297 .speech community 70. 82 stage direction, intratextual 143 stress 10, 50. 256. 265, 266. 271. 292. 308. 364 difference in 256 iconic. su also iconicity. phonological structure. sequential 321 structuralism/structuralists 69 subject/specified subject 56--57. 63, 64 subjectivity. development of 341 syllable structure 59 syllogism 12. 309 symbol 17-27. 55-65, 77. 88, 92. 94-97, 99, 103, 184, 196 symbolic culture 56--58. 214 symmetry 3. 21. 221. 288. 322, 358, 366 antisymmetry 23. 357 mirror symmetry 13, 23, 24, 361 tnm.slative symmetry 23. 24 synaesthesia 116. II!!, 119. 122. 124, 128. 129 synchisis II, 293 synecdoche 31 syntagm 93 syntax 3. 6, 17, 27. 63, 113. 125, 131. 132. 155. 158. 161. 175. 246, 215. 284. 286. 288, 289, 294-296. 299, .no, 321 andlof emotion II. 291-292 aniconic 319 syntactic dislocation 290. 29 I. 293. 296. 319 expressive 292 fragmented 189 iconic II. 291. 301

!('"'·

T mkt'tt'·factor 124. 127

SUBJECT INDEX

387

theme/thematic 12, 31. 86, 113, 114, 143, 242, 243. 253, 257, 258, 265, 271. 309, 310, 321. 340 theory 45. 49, 53, 66, 92, 343, 346, 347 of grammar 254 naturalness. .tee naturalness of signs, see sign(s) tmesis II. 293 topic(alisation) 255, 257, 295-299. 301 multiple 296, 30 I transcendent topics 224 travelogue, see landscape description trickster text 364, 366 typeca.-.ting, mechanised 8 typography 133, 151. 1!17, 199-203, 207 typographic blank I SO

category of 257 defective 280, 281 mutative 229, 232-234 VetlL" Latina 96 1•ia negatil'f! 218 visual arts 140. 141. 154, 155, 330. 335, 339,345 prosody 157 llitae patnmt 99 vowels 7, 158, 161. 181 back 72. 129. 209 front 72. 124-127, 129 low 7. 72, 124 rounded I 19, 127

u

warning calls/signals 59, 64. 71 word formation 17, 23 word and image 210, 212. 322. 348 word order 7. 9, 21. 22, 161. 229-246, 247, 252. 273, 275, 279, 2!16, 2!18. 290, 3011. 332. 343 sov 9, 229-246. SVO 9, 10. 229-246. 293. 296. 29K wordplay 189 wriuen English 140

Univen;al Grammar 56. 57, 275, 21111 Urspraclte, .tee language. origin of

v velarity 6. 90 ''f'lli, 1•idi. ''ici 1-3. II, 113. 209,301, 305. 307, 314, 318, 325 verbal morphology. lack of 277 verb(s)

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