Journal of Pragmetics 6 ( 1982) 8 I=.

t 23
Narth~Hailand Publishing Company

The history of the treatment aIf bath semantics and pragmatics in Linguistics has been until
recently a captive of over-Iogiciaation, where the dcduc.i:vc, algorithmic, close-ended, I:ontcxt-free
properties of the system were oa*er-cmphasiaedto the dcrimeat 01a more realistic view of facts of
natural language. A careful survey of even the traditional preoccupations of hgicians and
philosophers of language, such as reference, definite description OPpresupposition, nz!vcalsthh\t the
Iogico-dedrxtive treatment of these subjects misrcprcsentcd <their~vcrall nature by systematically
masking their overwhelmingly pragmatic nature - context scnsiti vity, open-endedncs#s and probabilistic/inductive/abductive inferctnca. This paper surveys the limguistncevidence 01both traditional and less traditional kind, showing human language to be a mixed system, whereby deductive
(automat&) processing always arises out of the slower. prebabili~ tic, zlbducti\,,6l/pragnlatic
(analytic) processing, under well-&fined co.mmunicative conditions. These two major systems in
cognizing organisms are then contrasted as to their propcrtics, aml functional distribution, and it ir
shown that a similar interplay between the two is attestted in neurology, perception, ml:btor kehavio:
and memory and retrieval studies. The rise of deduct&z out of prctgnratic processing ibl thus a more
specific. reflection of a general biological phenamencn of the rise: of routinization
circuits out of the slower, analytic, context-sensitive input-processiq
mode.

and automated

In the study of language and meaning, a persistantly anti-empirical logic-beund

tradition has plagued Western epistemology for over two miller&t. The origins
of this tradition may be traced back to one past-socratic giant, Plato. Its real
* 1 am indebted to John Verhaar, TX. B&son, Tom Bikson, Henning Andersnl, Eaimo Anttila,
Martin Tweedale, John Haiman and Erica Oar&a for critical comments and much encouragement.
Weedless to addl, the various blunders and overblowr~ claims expressed here remain my own.
Authors address: Talfmy Giv&n, Linguistics Bcp \., University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403,
USA.
[I J This introduction ia a personal overview, as is ahe entire paper. I am quite aware that what i
have to say may have been said, in parts, by others before me. While not wishing to short-change
anyone, I Iprefer to follow Wittgensteins precedent in this regard: . , . I do not wiahto judge how
far my efforts coincida with those of other phiiosslpherx jndeed, what I h*mvewritten here makes
no claim 10 novelty in detail, and the reason why I give no sources is that it is a matter of
indifference to me whether the thoughts that I have had have been antisipatied by sotneone else to1
(1918: 3).

foundations, however, are buried in a facile and superficial analysis of an

artificially-narrow
tanp of language faces, culled from a narrower yet range of
natural lmguqes, ancilforced into an analytic mould that has little regard for
the burden of empirical validation. This tradition has persisted in one guise or
another via the two er;trernist schools of Western eplsternology - P.ationalism
and Empiricism - through the medieval Mc4istae and their Thor& and
Anselmic descendents, an through the Part Rayd sehd and the Age &de
Raison, then onward through the first formal logicians OS!the 19th century,
eventually coming into full bloom in the Logical Positivists of the early 20th
century and their anti4nguistic bias. Modern American Linguistics, while
the frey rr:latively late in the early 1960s, fell squarely into ;an
hed formal Isgico-deductive tradition in its approach to the an
meaning, on both sides of the so-called Great Debate.
Challenges to the logico-deductive analysis of meaning begin with CS.
Peirce in the second half c!! the 19th century,, via !a tradition that traces it&f
back to Kant. A simirar challenge was mounted later on by Wittgenstein,
roughly contemporaneous to the ascent of Logical Positivism. These early
challenges were quickly neutralized by the growing power and prestige of the
more rigorous :formal logicians. Within Positivism itself, the early broaderscoped Russell and Whitehead slowly gave way to narrower formalists such as
Carnap, Tarski and Montague. Iiy #ihenPeirce had been (effectively co-opted by
social philosophers and the impact of his pragmaitism on epistemology thus
largely obscured. The early Wittgenstein was admired as a brilliant
the late Wittgenstein yulasdismissed by the Positivists as impressio
Formal logicians had of course, b;y then, been en ,aged in a rear-guard battle
against the encroaching shadow of context-depe Idence in human Iaqua
aeducing the open-ended complexity of reference and defi
neatly-packaged deductive-logic formulae, while ruminatin
old-time favorites such as quantification and predication.
language meaning and communicritive use was left largely
disturbed. Thus
when American linguistics was at last readly to outgrow
strictures which relegated Semantics to either the natural sciences or to
Mathematics ( 10lloon~b~ield
1933: 154, 153), the seductive
was the only game in town. And so, elaborate deductive-lo
as the Katz and Fodor model soon spra
ing to represent meanin as a closed syste
rtiles.
When Pragmiatics finally reared its ly head in Amc
entle whimper. The Sapirthen a cxgent observation (2
121The original hypthesi:b was two-edged, allowing either that l~~gu~~g~WIS ~ultu~~~~~~nd~slt or
that culture was language-constrained (Whorf IWd),

thus context dep ndency of Ian

e and meaning. Both early and late
structuralists were not impressed, and soon ma
the observations to cultural vocabulary and tl
sties at the very mar
same issues in his
ian nave!, Of the post-

ed entities shn~has bekief , interlt, judge,

very soul of PragmEiics may !>egiven initially as

Peters (19759, inter alia).
the four properties in tab1 1, c:ontrasted with tieductive logic.
The implications of Pr matics to the st\;dy of human language and human
nition are immense, b the Positivist tradition in Logic and its bobsie-twin,
Generative tradi on in Linguis1ics, seem to force all pragmiktic incursion
into one or two blin
strangulation in irrelevant formalism, or
le ling-istic system. And
toward marginal exist
Ie contrary, culled from
it seems that no am
uistics,
disburse
studies,
developmental
psychology
or perception.
psycho
succeeded in dentin this doctrinaire delusion of modern linguistics
has so
In this paper I propose to erform an epistemolo cal c-OUR
ck grace upon
this stale and mis uided tradition. I will first tackle s e OSthe more habitual

Table I

preserves of the deductive logician, such as reference, definite description and

presupposition, showing how a deductive-logical analysis, while attractive and
on occasion self-consistent. has very little to do with the actual meaning system
used in natural language. f will then proceed to discuss more complex cases
which formal logicians have - for good reasons presumably - consistently
avoided. The main argument I hope to present, that the meaning system in
natural language is inherently of a pragmatic nature, will be made cumuMvely
and with an eye to one fundamenttal truth of science - and a fundamental
feature of pragmatics: that cmnplete proof is a deceptive mirage, and that
science is bound to accept lwith grace the: pragmatically-tainted prep~n~~~rff~~ce
of evidmce [3].

On the face lof it, this old bastion of logic-bound analysis seems alto
context-free, depending in no way on entities outside the bounds of the atomic
proposition -. or __.^_
argument (NP)
itself. Logicians could thus with impunity posit an existential quantifier that
would instantiate an. individlual argument into some real world, or so it
seems. One may of course rzise superficial arguments concerning pronouns
whose co-referents are non-referential, as in:
CVCII

outside

the

(1) I am looking for LJhorse, and

bounds

rt

of

tiie

quantified

better be white

But this can be handled via the modal !ogic of possible worlds. And while
such a treatment involves the tacit assumption that existence and reference do
not i~~lve mapping into the real world, but rather into a unioer.se o~dismurse,
the logician could still consi(der the bulk of reference to involve this real
world, and relegate modal areas to the margins of the system.
There are other cases, however, which make the predicament involved in
defining existence in logical terms more acute. The!/ involve the refer~n~~e-~~in
properties of many languages, perhaps mo
a mapping into the world, nor into a 1
discourse. Rather. existence dependa upon ctantrnunic~tit~eintent of
uttering the discourse, specifically on whethe:, a particular individu
(NP) is going I\Obe intportanr~enou
its specific identity is important, o
encric Q:P~ ~~~~l~~~$h~~.
I will
[3] While this work. deals primarily with epistemolo y, it is only to be expected that whatever valid
conclusions emcrgtr at the end will bo equally applicable to the philosophy of science. Thus, to the
extent that a scientific, method aims at obtaining crew ~s~owl~d~~, it must abide by the c~~hsttsoints
suggestedby Peirce (1955) and Wittl5cnstein (1918).

85

illustrate this behavior first with data from Israeli Hebrew, but identical
ted from Lrkish, Mandarin, H
arian. Sherpa, Persian,
Creg,les 141.In w -zhlanguages,
numeral one has just
le NPs, so that in
ential interpretations, one

ani rn~~~~~~
sefera~~~?~she-neevad li
-for book-one that-lost to-me
book that I lost
bishvil ha-yeled shel-i
for the-boy of-me
book for my boy
further, cannot
ark the object of a negative sentence,
i ther be NM-deferential OSreferential=Jefinite [ 51. Thus
consider:
lo karati et ha-sefer ha-ze
NIX3 read-1 ACC the-book the-this
I didnt read this book
ati (af) sefer ha-shavua
read-1 (any) book the-week
I didnt read (any/a) book this week
rati sefer-pxad (ha-shavua)
read-1 book-one (the-wee
ation or the modal 1
nce of their object.
ch verbs that the on1
e referential-indefinite

or, most verbs in any

one would expect in
ssib%econtrast would be
further, in Hebrew the
object in stlch a context, as

is indeed the ease in:

(4) (a)

karati sefer~~~~~ebmol, ve-. . .

[4] For ~~!~~~ou~d and man) details, see Givbn ( 1973a, 1978, 198 1a).
(51 For discussion of the prq~~~tic motivation for this restriction, see Giv6n ( 1979a: ch. 3).

system in Webrew seems r3th

the speaker refers to an
that NP is marked with one. While if the speaker
particular indiwidual, but rather irr t&in
less sF specific identity, then the NP is
seemingly clear and 1
could also find a &ogi
marked as a etcbn-referent
sider :

So fax, then, the: markin

(5) karati sefer letm01,ve- . . .

read-B bcxik yesterday stmdI read a bodk yesteday, and..

In 1ogicaI terms., both (4a) and (5) must re

since if one hlaisread it, thal individual book must 1
been identified. But in terms of discourse-pragma
radically different. In order* I:Omake this difference expli
little more ccntext into the narrative, and consider th
below :
(6) COG-REK

PRAG-REf

. . . az axarley h a-avoda hiilaxti Ia-sifriya ve-yashavti sham

. . . so after the-work webn
t-1 to-the-library and-sat-I there
. . . So after work I went to the library an
ve-karati defer-exam,
and-read-l: book-one
and I read1a book,
ve-ze baya sefer metsuyan. . .
and-it was book excellent . . .
and it was an excellent book..

(7) LOG;-.i?EF, PRA G-IVOIV-R

. . . a2 axarey ha-avoda ha1
. . . so after the-work wentA to
.. . So after work I went to th
az karati sefer, ve-karati shney itonim,
so rc:ad-I book and-read-1 tw
so I read a book, and a coup1

n went home..

.*

[fi) I am deliberately expressing t!heseconditkns hcrc in tern-1sof the 8

Ws;intent 01bdi ef,
Logicianscould of course easily convert &an imte trutha-3atians b~tw~n propaitians, I supple

via modai logic and possible-worlds.

87

6) and (7) to ctie

id~nti~~yis what matteredp
text, mast specifL

where referential-

aya ici- t a,bo

-want REF-bask
I warlt a spec@e bask

icd

can&as t dws not exist, the pragmatic

us c6 ~sid~r :

one

manifests itself

(IO) (a)

-hook

88

A similar situation may

the contrast of refer%7ntiality3in e
reading is aHowed, by contrasti
independent NIPS (REP;). Ibus
(11) (a) REF:

I want a book (be it an:y)

(12) (a) REF:
kacb-n pyQclwa+ (urti) pynikya-na
NEG-I bo&OBJ (that) s~~-N~~~PA~~
1 didnt see the book
(b) NON-REF: kac6-n p#qva-pvnikyn-na
N EC&I book-see-N EC&PAST
I didnt see a/ur~_)rbook
But again where the ILogicalcontrast is absent, the
itself and is coded by exact 1y the same devicle:

m;bttsr)
The facts II am discrrssi
paradigm, but are ratha
English, except thi\t En
vs. non-referential inde
consider:

thus, are nst limit

pnagrrra~ic

m?

manifests

we have here
in envi r~nrnll~n ts

hat what

t, if it were ~~~~~~ted,then the fact

ferantiality may appear t y

r a noun is logi6@y
rential. Thus, one looks for (a
ok does not mztter
discourse c8n tex t.
s where the issue is whether
a purgicuiur book), What we
/ semalwtic feature
contrast is uugmznred by a
ion, is not independent of
involve the components of

evancci within the diseither havrng in mind

The fact that II
izcd only Ae extreme case
ion on tht methodological

3. Coreference ad dtefinite descripthn

Logicia.ns have traditionally tried to interpret the use
(and with it ana@ruric pronouns
problem of establishulg unique ~i~~r~~~ttiu~
I
that didnt quite masr:h the facts
concept of premppo.v tim, construed as 8 I
propositions or partip of them, arnd
son 1950). And various later refin
notion that definiteness is a matt
while skirting the intrusion of t
beliefi (Donellan 1966). Logicians, and 1
classical examples such as:
( 16) The king of France is bald
*here the truth-value of th!: sentence .n~y be FafiIWWUPSC~
fi'i)iii
tYVi_l,
i=iff~iUli
perspectrves. First, going along with the presupposition that
Frxlee, (16) may 13ejudged either true of false in case the
or not bald, respectively. Alternatively, if one does not s
presupposition,, thrrn ( 16) presumably has no truth value. In this way,
logicians reduced dcfini tcness to the realm of presuppositionality 191.It wound
take a relatively small expansion of the data-base, however, to illustrate how
definiteness in human language is inherently a pragmatic ~Il~n~$~
volving the speakers belief about what the hearer is like& tcr know
in, and about ittowM~Vit is going to be for the hearer to uniquely i
referent under consideratilon.
Logicians have never been forced to wrestle with the eat diversity of
language devices all employed in making unique reference
These devices, or at least a commonly recognized sub- raup of them f lo), may
be hielparchized according to a continuous, non-discr
termed as either:
(a) the degree of difficulty that th speaker assume the hearer will ex
in identifying the referent uni
[9] Logrcictns proceed 80 idcdfy two scparatc: interpretations of the
atian of 6161,i.e. The king
of F: arlcc is not balcl, an internul one which acmpts the pmuppositim but denies the arsmrtion,

and un exrernd lone which denies the ussertion knee

qf failure of the ~~~~u~~~~iti~~n
(K
1969).Thefact that language users tend to admit only the intsrnnl i~~t~~~~~t~ti~n
c,f such a 11
.sentcnce (Givbn 1979a: ch. 3) seldom bothers Io@ians.
[ 10) It may be shown (Giv6a 1979a: ch. 2, and 19801~:ch. 17) that other ~~~tr~~t~~n$,
such as
passivkation, Y-movement, indefinite3 and focus-cons,truGtions, as well as the VSfSV
variation observed in Spa&h QSilva4JorvalBn 1977) and Hebrew (Givbn 1976a, 1978
the same ;ontinuunx

d~sco~~~nu~t~in the referent-tracking

sub-system

~ctabiiity in discourse.

men t

erlirzhy is massive iind corn

-- ^a
e exampi;~ from En lish. Consider
fhi
ik
uns (or verb agreement)

m, saw Mafy, pulled a <hair and sat down.

m, saw Mary, pulled a chait and sat down.

;ht. He re1axe.d.
rned a?agisaw Mary. We p Aled a chair and
sat down,
ree of continuity/predictability:

(0

f he retains control, and

a mere objecdand does not

(ii)

iven in their natural

(iii)

somehow the whole passa e is give11 ati i!

reemetnt, see Hindh ( 1978), Li and

the ralative positbn of srrcssed vs.
Kunent: ( 1975), Hinds ( 1978) or
sf pronouns vs. DEF-NPS,, see
n ( 1979s: ch. 2), among athers.
-N Ps and left-dislocated DEF-Ws,
am! Oivbn (19798: ch. 2, 1980~ ch.

92

T. Giwti,~~Lagic us. pragntatics

In ( l&Q, the topic is continuous and no interference from other topics,

exists. Therefore, except for the first introduction of the referent he?, all other
references ;~e given as zero amphora [ 121.In (18b), we: start with the s
of maximal continuity. But then a break occurs where Mary takes over as an
important to!pic/subjeet. And again when the topi~/subj~t switche* b
phortr cxnnat
he. All three continuities are broken in these cases, and zero[ 13]b ~~~~1~~~
be used arly more, Rather, the ~n~~~~~~@~p~~#~~~
must bt: u
nlrst
the sequence: given in (18~) illusttrates the fact that the disc~ntinu~~ty
overtlyfest
have to be due to topic switch, as in (18b), nor to an
discontinuity in the action sequence. It can be purely thematic, simply a way sf
or&an.idng tbe%ame sequence into different, more discontinuous cr;rent~~~~~~~.
p K=+
Let us ne:xt illustrate the relative ranking of unstressed vs. &-es
nOun5:

( 19) (a) JoJnn told Bill that he was sick,

and that he couldnt come
W)
(1~)John to:3 Bill that he was sick,
and that h3 couldnt come
(d)
(e) .fohntold Bill that he was an idiot,
and that hu couldnt come
(f)
(g) John told Bill that he was an idiot,
and that hh couldnt come
(h)
(i) John hates Bill, and he hates Mary
(j) John hates Bill, and h6 hates Mary
In ( 19a) the first referent of he could be either John or Bill, but the second
unstressed he, in (19b), must be coreferent to the he in ( 19a). On the other
hand, the stressed he in ( 19d) cannot be coreferent to the unstress
( 1%). Thus, unstressed pronouns are used when chins of to~?i~-id~nt~t~~
are
broken/disrupted. In (19e), the mere se:-nantics of telli
you/he is an idiot militates strongly
the object rather than with the subject. And
must be coreferentt with he in ( 19e).
not be coreferent with he in (1
with thri: subject John [ 141. But
stressed he in ( B9j)
[ 12) In Eaglish, zero anaphora covers a much narrower ran

of the. continuity scats, and i@

customarily referred to as phrasal conjwctiao, eithe
Hinds, 1978), on the other hand,, zero anaphora c
functiowl range covered by unsttwed pronouns in
the lattw, further, subject agreement covers the fun
is obligatory.
[ 131 The Iunctisnal mnge of unstressed pronouns in English is covcrcd in Spa&~ by obh
subject rlf;reemen\.
[ 141The verbs tell (to) and hate have diffentnt topic-orientation r=haractenstics, since thle subject
of tell (to) is datiue-recipietit, but that of hate may be inwt and ~ni~~~~ (ix, patient). This is

tck-reference - vs.
nce - is att{:sted in
iated with stress need
r counter expectationr.

draft, but Sohn told

ill rtlkwasnt so sure.

and unstressed pronouns, here
from expectations about
n other - thematic - sources.
pr0r~0tir~1s
vs. DEWS Ps and
Ps are used when not enough
le the hearer to identify the
e either the presence of ot
a major thematrc break.

tlia Prince aud the General.

H& thanked him profusely.. .
ed around and sat down. He was tired
in his chair and waited.
came into the room, looked around and sat down. The man in the
se to midclle age but still young.
the pr~se~~~ of prince and general preclu c refering to king as he,
so a pronoun may be
ssed pronoun. In both
evertheless, in (2 lc) two
to mark them. But the
re disruptive:, removing the
(tts in being tired or
insteacl [ 161.It is thus
yaidel~tifiable referent INith a DEF-NP

coxntn ), Wte (Ciivbn 198Oa).

se continuity (see Ciivb 1877; Hopper

of M@YJN~~,whew datives out&c

acmsativ~s (Giv6n

refstritq to the &jwt of tell (to), Thus, it

ndntity of topic, but rather the property
lW6b).

94

The use of right-di!.loc81ted DEF-NPs may be likened to an afterthou

de vice [ 171whereby thle speaker first assumes that there is eno
the: discourse to warrant using a pronoun, then ehan
adds the full DEF-NP as insurance. To illustra : this consider:
retired.. .
danced and sang. Later on
(212) (a) The
the
rformed. Then kle ~~~~~~~~
danced, then other people
(b) The
b&g did,. .
(c) The king danced, and the prince and the

retired,.

. .,

Irl (Z&I), with full referential continuity, a pronoun is used. In (22b) t~hni~~lly
there is no referential confusion, but there is Rlready a one-clause
intrusion of other participants
in the subject position. There
ungrammatical
with using only a pronoun here, but still it is a typical
comr;xt for using right-dislocation in conversation [ 181. Finally, in (22~) there is
w reason to even nedge and use a pronoun
first, since referential
cc,ntinuity/predictability
is-broken. So a DFF-NP is used.
Finally, left-dislocated
DEF-NPs are used primarily over Ion
absence, where a referent/topic
is re-introduced
into the d&course. To illustrate this in contrast with normal DEF-NPs, consider:
(X) (a) There once lived a king and a queen in an enchanted forest.
The king was fat and ugly. . .
(b) There onc,e Ifved a king in an enchanted fores , He ~8s rllurriccf tc:, ;i
beautiful queen, and she was the real powl:r In the realm. Near the
forest lived a poor prince, and the queen used to visit him and have
lunch. NOW the king. he didnt like the guy,. . .
One must bear in mind, however, that in ti tly-plwrmed, written teXt the use
Ion in informal speech
c f left-dislocatic;:1 is not common, though it
( lY99). ~~~1~~~ and
and conversatiosl (See Ochs (1979). Duranti and (
Schieffelin ( 1977))
The prece&ing - albeit encapsulated .- survey of the major devises us
firmly establish that we are Indeed
tilefinite express;ons in human langua
oealing with Q sccrle, and that the scale is sensitive to either of the three major
factors of continuity:
(i) Topic/referent
continuity and identifiability
(ii) Action continuity in a narrower, sequential sense
(iii) Thematic, Continuity in a larger sense
117)The explanarion couched in the term ufterthought is due to Mymw ( 1975).
[ 181Both right- irnd left-dislocation are used primarily in conwrsation and informal spertch (O&s
1979; Giv6n 197%; Duranti and Ochs 1939).

nts near and liess-near to the actual

.

diSCourSe,

and the

lity to f~I~~w that continuity;

scour-se, and assessabout themes and
expectation
rounded in either the speakers
of previous encounters
rsonality and computaof the hearers
t of specific facts concerning the hearers

of the hearers

rs t~~~pat~~ ability and thus direct

recesses of the hearer [ 191.

access

to the thought

could of course
an and an, but it is not rea ly necessary. It seems quite
sorption is a
t tcr, involving gradations,
Clear thtrt definite
~.~~~~a~~d~d~~~~s
and
I of the spealrer about the
Qna cwIcI of course
md about the d~~~c~~~;~.~~
nt that when the
df the system may
ted and ~~~i~~~t~
~rllth
~*.11. .rcs1nflr.c.
*.iU.aVLIS
buckn,

whate

le who have access to each others thoughts either

cptrrhy,to meet ea.41other after ,J year of absence,
) wtd the other replying: HP is. Wonder whos

41.Nonldiscrotenw of reference
P&ost linguists folllow logicians in assuming that an ar
referential or generic/non
evidence from natural la13
indeed common, one may also find gr
like semi-referentiality that is bound
p&e,consider the following contrast:

(?4] (a) Did you see mything there?

(b) Did\ you see something there?

Officially, both expressions in (24) are non-referential, but (24b) is somehow a

li!.tle bit more referential than (24a). The distinction be ween the two i~volv
n>ughly, the degree to which the speaker is willing to co mit himself or her
to a specif;c :individual they have in mind which they s~pcrct - but art not sure
- alay have in fact been involved. *Whena speaker uses (24aj, he or she is iess
committed to having, an individual in mind, while the use of (24b) su
swcwgercommitment. But the gradation is even more extensive. Thus co
(Z!5) (a)
(b)
(c)
(d)

Did
Did
Did
Did

you
you
you
you

see any man there?

see some man there
see a man there?
see J man there wearing a blue tie with rcen ~~~~~-~~ts an

twirling a silver batorl on his right-foot

roe?

In (25), (25cl) is practically a u ue referential description, at least as it is

likely to be used in natural lang
enericity, ~a ;r\ the
One may also show the phe
following example from Spanish [20]:
(26) (a) Maria siemprle hahl

3 con &u@s
Mary always talks to sorcerers
(bj MaAa siempre habla con &-ubn&as
(i) Mary always talks to (the) sorcerers
(ii) Mary always talks to the sorcerers (t

Sentence (26b) has two readi

one (26b(~ii))fully d~~i~~it~.
(26b( i)> is semigeneric, rou
, a ~~?~~~ll~r
~~~?~~~~
~~~1 from
any smallerqet group of brujos may be pulled out trl fit the d~s~ripti~~~
[20+]A similar dlistinctionis observed in Mandark (StandraTh~p~n
contrast is between %e and exist.

prs. camm.), wheta the

87

5 yews old, blue eyes, brown

and lives in a suburb of
tc.. . . , and he lives nextdoor

tian can thus be?:a rmtkr of fiae gradation, approaching

in the s~~~all~stof i~~~e~~ents, each one of which
unique identifiCre in W W-questions
non-referential

The answer to (29a) may be properly .lohn, my teacher, the doctor etc., i.e.
bly some unicluely-referring DEF-NP. While the proper answer to (29b) may be
a. doctor, ia teacher a horse etc., i.e. by an attributive/non-referential
illdefinite expression. But the non-referenti;;? question - as i
S]!IOW
further gradation, involving roughly the degree af ~~~t~in
about the exact type-membership of the referent. Thus consider:
(ICIj (a) Normal TYPE-identity:

(b)

Unwtain

TYPE-identity:

in i ark-ay In a?
WH be-PROG t~so,4~~~-~~~J
What kind (of animate) is this one?
in i-kwra ar&ay in&
W H-DO WBT be-PWOG thisSUBJ
What kind (of an aliiruate) could this one
possibly be?

Thus, not only can human languages treat definite identification* an

ing unique reference as scalar properties, they can also treat having unique
type-meinbership as a scalar property. While it is true then that
languages tend to code major extreme ends of this system in a see
discrete fashion, there is inherently nothing pa-titularly discrete ab
cognitive space of definiteness, referentiality and gsneticity. Rather, it seems to
bc! a continuous, flon-discrete space involvin certainties and probabilities.

5. Truth, fact and presupposition

The early history of the notion of presupposition in lingui4cs was io direct

and slavish outcrop of an earlier logico-deductive tradition 1223. Several
supposed pragmatic formulations still strive to represent the cystem as
closed. tight #anddeductive-looking (see Karttunen (1974), rice ( ).~~$/ 1971).
Glxdon and Lakoff (197 1) or Gaxdar (1979), inter alia), In this s~~ti~n I am
going to try and show, by citing langu e-data from various sources, that the
logicians once again have misrepresent
the general thrust of a s
in essence pragmatic, by rigorously eliminating from their d
quantities of relevant evidence. I will attempt to show, then, t
tion in language does not involve truth relations
rather probabilistic assumptions that the speaker makes about
{2i:] See eg. Keenan (1969, 1971), Horn (1972), ,imr dr~c. Kgartturren (1944) has su
may formultie i)resupposilion for human language in prt~gntrr~icterms, kc. with reference to the
spcwkds beliefratherthan to atomic propositions. But he still formulates presupposition in terms
of truth relations** between various beliefs/propositions
held by the speaker. This is a rear-guard
attemptto salvalsesomedeductive properties for the system.

99

sub-domains cf the entire field does presupposition

at& sentences ii1

r~,~ra~rn~ti~s, so
or *be used apT:qrieitely,
aff~~~~ative must have
e speaker must QSSUFPI~
at.&, ~?l~~~~l~d
to b&we in it,
tly toward it, etc. As

(31) (a) ~~nl~~~t~Hi, how are ysu, whats new?

Well, my wife is pregnant

Well, my wife is not pregnant
koround of (i) total lgnoralnce of
CVb) ic vised
ropriately on the bac&%,
s~~lfi~,s, and in addi n (ii) the cultureed assumption that women (at
blast nl~~~~d~ys~
are more likely to be UL~-p ant than pregnant. On the other
affirmative is a
ng pragmatic
logically presupposed,
t N EG-p presq~posed
y

eahng here with two

and, and disgoursehen severa, facts
example. many
s in syntax into two groups (see discus-

ivhn 1975) every assertion is

Thus, for
e verb itself is included or
rn~~h~l~
asserted. But the following
xcluded from the scogdrc?fnlc~~i
constructions are ~utorn~t.~~~~~rn~r~~~ for ~~~~~~~~ the verb from the:scope
of new information:

too
H-questions, CLIWT~asentences, NC
(33) REL-clauses, VW
(including IF-clauses)
Most of these constructions are logically p~suppositi~
sumably have no truth value? (stx? further ~IQw~~ whit
course/pragmatic presuppositional or
are they grouped together9 A.gain, I s
is a jgc9ze&property hat iis inherent1

(34) The speaker asswmes that a prclpcsition p is ~a~i~~a~to the

to be be/it~d by the hearer, ac~essibie
the hearer etc. ORwhatever grourrds.

to the

hearer, withia

And only within a limited subsct of ountext do the

or belief by the hearer involve something resembli
obviously still couched - in natural language - in te
about the hearers belief.
X?. Restrictivtp relative clauses

2estrictive relative clauses are one of the stro est bastions 0f lo

presupposition in language. On the surface they se
quite solid, sic) that
the eulbedded sentence in (3%) below, the full sentence iu (3%) must be
presupposed:
(35) (a) The man I saw yesterdqy left

(b) I saw a/the man yesterday

Things begin to blur when one realizes that restrictive relati
modify non-referential head nouns. Thus eonside r:
(36) (a) I didnt see anybody wha WCW~
Q blue sb +t

(b) ?Somebody wore a blue shirt

Logically, there is no way in wh,ich (%a) ~~~~~ ~r~su~)~~s~~3~b~iu the ~ff~~~
sense as (35a) presupposed (3%). N(orret
(36b) must hate been the ~is~~u~s~-~~
und for 98~r~~~r use
perhaps a question such as:
(37) Did you see anybody wearing a bhe shirt1
This property of backgrounded~ness is thus sha*tbd betw n (35a) and @$a>,

only to (35a). Consider

s, its status isnot the !3ameas

ay and nobody came i

ve clauses does not

information, nor
s to unify srflcases
nformation that is

is an extreme case

11 other subordinatewith the bi@W

102

presuppositional clauses. But certainly an IF-clause cannot

tionail, logically it even doesnt have truth value. If some presupposition is
involved here, it c:ould not be logical, but must be discourse-pragmatic. To
il!us t.ra,tethis, consider first:
(41) (3) Context: What will you do if .I @tie you lke rntme~?
(b) Reply: If you give me the money, Ill buy this houEle,
(c) Context: Under what coadition.s wifi you buy this h.~~e~
(,d) Rep/y: Ill buy this house if you ve me the money.
The repties in (41b,d) are appropriate in their context, but they are noI
interchafigenble. Logically, the I F-clause is presupposed in neither. But pra
matically it is established as backgrtmod in (41a), while the ma:co clause IS
established as background in (41~). Such, variation is pos(r:ble in En
acivcrbial clauses may either precede or follow their main claus
impossible in some languages, where ADV-clauses - as well as
c;rlly-background clauses - can only p,rcxede asserted/main clau
languages pre-pose all topic/background clauses, includin
REL-clairses,V-complements (of knolv or think) and other topic clauses.
In other languages, ADV-clauses in text are overwhelming& pre-posed (241.
Unlike IF-clauses, BECAUSE-claua es are logically presuppositional. But
t.hey tou eshibit the same discourse-pragmatic variation as IF-clauses. Thus
+zonsider :
C~mt&xt :

What did she do bee.ause he instrlled her?

Reply: Because he insulted her, she slapped him.
Context: Why did she s/tip him?
RepI): She slapped him because he insulted her.
Mere lo@x~Hy the BECALJSE-clause is presuppositional tn both (4
(42d). Pragmatica!ly, however, it is backgrounded in (42b) but for
(42d). Logical presupposition, involving, truth values, is thus a
phenomenon, often corresponding to - but never id~l~ti~al wi
cases of pragmatic backgrounded-ncss.

[23] For an exmplc from C hunve, a clausa.chaining Papwer-Naw

( 198Ob).
[24] Greenberg ( 1966) ha:, crbscrved that in the languages in his survey,
type, the dominant tendency was roughly &I pm~~t of A~V~l~u~
in
20% post-possd.

103

The

semrmtics
of co

tion verbs such as know or think was an early

in linguistics. where ohe
een factive (presuppolsinon-factive (non
c, (see e.g. Kiparsky
Given (1973a), inter alia).
ns to break down when one
being an exotic
is in fact ~~~~n~~rvas~,ve,
although its surface coding
and Nichols in prep.).
nya Rwanda (see Giv6n and
hink are the same
resupposed from
ment ~la~s~. In addition however, Rwanda has an
evidentiality in the
w something from
it via hem-say or
in~~~~n~~-. you use another. This is, inherently, a sc&r, non-discrete space
of .rMbJecticle
cerbnty qf the speaker concerning
An, logical presupposition
extreme edge of a much
licated. Superficially, one would expect a
her certainty and fact/truth.
tain. For example, in Sherpa

dir

true i-:hthe most absoi

e Life of the Buddha, is

er that the story-teller
sense of the word [ZS].
am other story-tellers.

~~~n~~~
the ~ef of the hearsay mode.

ntcd the traditional notion of subject.

one-place predictations,
nce the predicate (7) is
t fsf the propositions bound by either an
referred to as subject. Things

T. ihka/Li@c

104

ws.priqmutics

become more coqdicated, however, when the predicate itself is nominal.

is generic, a logician may yet resort to some type-theory 8
to explain why one of the two nominals in the sentence ia
other the predicate, and thus explain the contrast in 126
(43) (a) John is a farmer

(b) * A Farmer is John

But it is doubttul if logicali criteria alone could dcxidc w ich ~o~nal is t
subject and which is the prediicate in cases where both are equally ref~r~nt~~l
and definite, as in:
(44) (a) The teacher is the cook
Ib) The cook is the teacher
eablC2:but they
To linguists and speakers, however, (44a: b) are not int
depend on the rather nebulous (from the logicians poin
view) cri&rion of
what one is talking about, a notion that cannot be defined within the bounds
of isolated propositions, but is rather discourse-cont,crxtsensitiue.
In handling two-place predicates, the logician could
notions such as AGENT and PATIENT, then translat
KILL (John), (Bill),. Blurtthis notation will 61ot d
active and its corresponding passive. The lo
atomic notion SUBJECT, then characterize the active as KILL (J~hn~~~
(Bill), and the passive as KILL (J~.)hn)~(Bill),. But as lire
would know, subject is not an atomic notion, but ETJ:
pragmatic entity closely !related to the notion topic*.
I have already discussed the use of both subject
dislocation in discourse, (see section 3 above), and s
agreement is used to refer to the amtinuing clausal topic, v+hile left-di$l~~ti~n
is used to mark the switching/disruptive clausal topic, Consider nail:
I saw him leaving a while back..
WV . . . Now John,
-I1___1

TOP SIJBJ
In normal conversation context, a constructional such as (4
when John is :)eing rc-inhroduced into the discussion
while I repreLents the continued topic. Clearly, t
posiit an atomic, context-free notion subject to d
that notion is tied together with many other devices along a scak? which we
(26) All other thing&being,quaI, the referentialscopeof the subject must be nat~owr than that of
the predicate.See discussion in Giv$n ( 1973a) and Keenan ( 1976).

ic us,

105

dy shown to be discourse-pra matic i,n nature. The f;ar;~that :%ome

c sub~sys~em ean be described in seemiq&but it ~erta~~Iy does not justify viewing the

ordinary-language

cd. Rather, the material

s, Lconve:n
tional
nt the speech-act foundations
tie system (see @rice ( 196V/ 1975)
matic precipice to tvhich
s section li am going to
e discreteness of

ation of a clause is marked by vet% suffixes,

t-point continuum between the tw,o extreme
alive, as given in table 2. The difference
in terlns of the

see that we are

rmatory or corrective reapon se.

which by themselves make the traditional
atsve a hopeless
point on the
au (1973: JO), and was brought to my attenticm by Charlie Sato

The eight-point oontinuusn between the two extreme points of declaratitsc and interrog;;
-~~
Degree/type of SW
Traditional label
Particle

(I)
(2)

(3
(4)
(5)
(6)

I%clarati ve
Ncu tral
Assertive

-yo

certainty; not expectin

High certainty; cxpcotin
be&g emphatic m order

-na
-kanaa.
-ne

Exclama!ory

-desyoo
-daroo
-kadooka

Presumptive (polite)
Presumptive (plain)
Rhetorical

Confirmative

in

Informal

ii;3

-ka

Formal

surprise (and thus less ~~rt~~nty~

Low certainty; inviting challsngc or
comment
More presupposed question; artswer is
expected as either yes or no
Rhetorical qtustion when rcpntiis fairly
sure of an answer
Lower corttinty in the answer, more
reliance on hcorers response
Lowest certainty: f~rtnai nnd deferent to
the hearer, au;1 thus by implication more
dcpeeZcnt 011 response

Interrogative

exercises cklicate pragmafic judgmeJrlf concerni

his or her own certainty and validity of sou

various probabilities, such 8s

of infornx\tion, the hear&s

kmowledgc:,the hearers willingness to respond DenevolentlIy and the he~recs

disposition to attack or challenge. And in Japanese at least, subt.le computations of the social gradient between the speaker and hearer must also
into account, and those are not fully independent of the more
considerations.
Of course, one does not have to stray far to find :;imilar
tag-questrcws in English are clearly an intermediate grade bletween d
and interrogatives. Further, the normal yes-no question pattern in
not neutral, but rather is systematically brasledt(Jward either
negative response (see Bolinger (1975) $ordetails and argun~~~,t~.So that only
the explicit construction below represents total neutrality:
(46) Given p and non-p, please tel.! me which one is true
One could also show that the data of inchw
speda acts points toward
another continuum between dwlarative and imperativ , where at least the
followin:

graded dimensions

must be involved:

(a) The degree of the speakers attempt to elicit action from the hearer

e information ~~~~~~~r~~~
by the speaker is relevant
ssessed by the speaker)
~~t~~ly relevant on top of the

of the type mentioned

intruding. The entire
f non-discreteness and
e edges of the system
to logical-deductive

h topics hat, in one .Nay or another, have

iogieians fo;laquite a while. But C~FT of
from the use of human language in
en touched by logicians. One of those is the
an NP CKa phr,sse: or a larger chunk - as a
8 comment in a s sequent sentence. As a fairly
consider the followi
left-dislocated example in ti
I like Reagan.
an, how do you like

the sky is blue,

uld say that. in principle anything could
that is within the cognitive network
within the network, and the only
is b,y whaq de e?, by how many
w, if the cognitive
ument holds for the paoblem of smuntic rclatcdness in
nctwarrks and semantic change. Example
:%y,abl;4rsrdend, ud is reminiscent of the
y childhood, such BD:Thrxe were QIMXtwo brothers, the first
one was tell and hmdwm,

and the wad

one likaiacheesecoo.

nety,+rorkwere a clased, deductive system, then in principle crne c&d specilty

the degree of connectedness in an sxnct way, pointing out to a discrete number
of specific computational steps. B11tit is clear that the kind of ~o~~side~at~ons
undlerlying relevance judgment in the examples above are totally
they are sen: itive to anything the spc!aker might suspat the hearer
to, including triviaI and accidental information that belies systematic fsrma&
zatiort. In principle, then, the problem of topic relevance, which plays a crucial
role: in the use of language in communication - including the more syntactic
lo&ing processes discussed in section 3 above - cannet be dealt with within b
lo&A-deductive sys,em, without trivializing it or ma$king its exp
cat~ons[ 291.

9. The context-depedent,

relativiftic nature of texical meaning

In the analysis of the purely semantic lexical meaning. the same Positivist
tradition of radical reductionism observed by Quine ( 1953: 20-46) in philssophy lhas largely prev;.Gled in linguistics. One is thus conditioned to talk about
%emantic features as if they are atomic, absolute, primal units of meaning in
the grand tradition of Carnap (1947) and Katz and Fodor (1963). Everr.people
f#nrrc:moved fr;;m this tradition, such as the Diverians (see, for example, Garcia
( 1975) or Kirsner ( 1979). inter alia), proceed upon the assurrpt ion that it is
possible to segregattt the core meaning of words or morphemes, twhiuh is
invariant and context-free, from contextual inferences which are contingent
and context-sensitive:.
Uittgenstein (1953) challenged this tradition of logical atomism from two
$#e:parateperspectives, and I would like to deal with his second clhallerl
III hills Investigatiorrs, Wittgenstein attacks logical atomism by citing
BOONS'and fanlily-~~selnb~~anc~s,
and in general vcwnbulary items that are more
CJbviously culturally-dependent. The Positivists and their conscious or unconsci-

ous followers in inguisti,cs are forced to concede the for

iirgument, but confine its scope t,o what they consider tea
c:lf the semantic system, while continu
to int
in terms of a closed deductive system
eman
projection, analyticity and contradiction within such a s:fstem. What I
would like to do in this section is demonstrate, with a few rather !~im~l~~mminded
cxamplcs, how the shoe is on the other foot, and how what Wit
ein
demonstrated to be the less objective margins of the semantic s
of
*natural language is in fact true with u vengemce for the entire systen~
Suppose you and I were taking a wallk in ~r~m~~~lurnbiax~l
scur.hwestern
Colorado, and suppo,se we both saw the followin
(291G&e (1%8/75), for example, includes relevance in one of his maxims without further

6tmplification.

(48) A man is slow y walking up a hiil; he reaches the to , then

he kneels

down ir?rfront of a pile of stones and raises his ~krmsto the sky.
And su
we had

ta
in

d asked us both: What was that man doing?, and

the event* with you claiming (49a) a,~d I claiming

1 endeavor to show how both p

ng and mourning
meani
constructs. But how
ts of ~4g)~Ccynsider firs slowly, and it is easy
is totally rel~~tivisti~~gclstcrrlt-determined, ft>unded upon
er, hot fixed but rather depends
n t/movernen t involved [301. Wow
e GriYeriadiffctrcntiati tagwalking
from running ? Well, how about up? At
physical horizontal plane does
to move upward? And is that irbsolute horizental plane defined in
mference? In terms of our visu.31
of the horizon? Next, take l~ill, and wonder how it is to be
~liff~r~ntiat~d from mound, heap, pile. peak or mountain. Size has
obviously s#methin to do with it, but their theres nothing absolute about si:ze
mouse is much !I;maller than a smal! elephant. Take
nder about the point where one reaches the top (of
especially something sue
ich does not have a discrejre,
)roct:ed to kneel - how
pex but rather curves
eeling? And how elevated
nd need to bc: And is kn:+contact necesknee to tht: yoint of con~~t/approach. is
? And - horror of horrors - what exactly is the
y

At this point the ~Qsitivistshoutd be unable to contain him- or herself and

the objective, sci :ntific nature of our
nd b,r:tween the femur and the tibia/fibula,
m what perspective are he femur and
e a b~n.c~i/j~intbetween them Let us consider
(see fig. 1b 1, and mac~*o (see fig.
abi;,ut optical trick:-; and the finesse of
Plrdee 1 wish to defer the discussion1 of

whether scientific truth is in any sense subject to less-pragmatic imd more-objective criteria of meaning (see discussion in C3iv6n 197%: c6 8). But the
cognitive map represented in language clearly judges wheths:r objects are

Fig. 1. Three perspectives of the knee: (a) normal, (h) micro, and (c) macro.

strnight or bent in a ~h-m~e-dqw~~dm~

way, given a p rticular per.,; 2 *tivc an
utilitarian context. Let us &I;;bin to invest
ion of in frant, and we
ith respect to the position
fine? that different cultures construe it di
of the observer/reporter, the physical ~hara~t~risti~s of t~hdttw
vorved, and their relative position v:ls4+is each other [3 1). And
thzse three dimensions is potentially a continuum, We ma!
now, and face the same relativistic problems as with 1
stones. and worrv how different they are from kxks or *I
to raksiqg?, where we must worry about what an
(3 11 Hill (1974) illustrates such differcncws between &q&h
spatial relation terms.

and Wausa ia their constrwtian

of

 to hold, And on to %rm where similar problesns as seen above for

critlekl angks, visual field etc.
the moment separate -

matterr is the envy lllrfboth biologists and behavcur ~~~~~~~ -- become, the more and finer

dently of the inst~m~nt~ti~n.

Thcrt reality may indeed exist, but v&; is the

in any sense objective? Obviously, clnlv from
at is in principle denkd to us (331 - C:CN&one
support such a faith. The specifics certainly have not
is in principle a pragmatic matter, a,
mo;st concede the great areas in our
frames have: been establishe:J by tk

that they etre forever

ty is rerr;.:i.ve in two

tivistic areas in our cognitive map; and

and context-sensi+
%terwon

of re!ative areas of
prkgmati:: map of
hi8 qwat fqt tke Bhwal in *Mattltiiessen
(1978).
to stimulating axc:hmp with Tan Bikmn and

reality is a useful feature of su~~iu~zl,a functional ~w&.s operandi of bi~~~~nti~nt

sys terns: no rapid dechion making, action schemata and c~t~~~~i~~y~~/~~
&oices
for survival are possible othefwise. The ~bj~:tiv~tio~
alization of reality is a prime SW a&linked feature slf such syi
evels of percll:ption and c
manifesting itself repeatedly at
re-creating itself - out of the inherently pragmatic,
discreteness, by re-framing or re-adjustin exisl~~;~frames
shaill see directly below, Fluchre-ad.justme: is a f~l~d~~e~~t
and language change.
l

IO. Pra;gmat~cs
Ever since Saussure:, linguists have tended to s~gregute dja~hr~~nic from synchronic study, pretending that it was possib e to appreciatt: langu
.
any fpen

.
.
m f;v&q
c.,,c*fim . jp.:lr,
:n 4am.P.
a-.-t IU
:a
porn! :t was C*
I*Ab.w 3JJbWll
v ra.llc~;r
1c 1.3
LBUC;rtfi4
ciuac bUW1

a necessary methodol~~jcal-heuristic stelp (see discussion in Givbn 1979a:

ch. 6), it is still the fact that language - within the minds of speakers, rather
than as some abstract system of lartlpage
lexicon/meaning, syntax, morphology and
map is thus not only a system of codin
system of re-cuding, modifying and reintegrating into it newly-acquired lcnow
tradition, such modification is often repre
as a purely forma
permuting and re-combining a fixed inventory of atomic primitiv
the order of relati~~ely-fixedformal rulsec,thus totally trivializing
language change (see, for example,
1976b)), and also making diachronic ii
logico-deductive dogma.
There are three aspects of aiachronic ch
t that would be incom
with a formal/deductive approach to meani

III 11 10
primitives are fixed, and any change
involving formal deductions from exi
1918). Further, the primitives in suclh
value and are thus not system~d~~~~nd~nt.
show!; rathe).*(Aearly that in human tan
subtritct&, split or merged, and that further, a
syste*mreqkes re-definition of the entire system.
(ii) Ohen-ende&Js; Aside from Goedels abservat ions rn~~~~~~~~~~~
dedueti
systems are closed and can absorb no new primitives,
tions that are not deducible from existing ones. The hum

(i)

T/w system-parts dependmcy:

clearly attests to the openity to absorb new knuwledge without

9

e a number of typical examples of diachronic ~zhange

word-order and syntactic structure, In each close I
-deductive analysis of whilt goes on is in
matic characterization i$; im
of the argument will remain
as the system of knowledge represent ation
it could not possibly be a.deductive-based
e evolution will be

h know and can

, WC Anttils ( 1977) and An Jersen

vernaldcvdopments

ts(>k place mostly based

an aorist-perfcxl stem
Ided Modern E know. On tke other hand,
(OHG km, Modem G kcran, inlinitive
which &a yieldccl Moden E WI. The
the 0 &mm lmtm and OE cemm, and
ccnmm.; this fbtnote

114

(SO)

T. Giorin/l ogic

OS.

pragma&ics

If one knows how tcl do something,

thea the probability is higher tlat one

cari do

it.

That the inference in (50) is probabilistic/inductive rather than deductive is

easy to see, since ability to do involves not only knswin how to ~~~~~
but
also possibly having the physical power to, having the
ll-pawer to or
being physically/mentally un-restrained. NOW, if the senzz be aMe to can
be pragmatically/contextually inferred, then presumably know at that historical stage in English may be described as ~~A~entotrs,roughly alon
following lines:
(51) KNOW + be able to/know how to pIerform an act
-+ know/elsewhere
In (51), then, know is the core rneanin~, and can a special case in a
narrower context, still pragmatically inferable as in (SO). Next what must have
again, pr~~mat,ic,/inAnlry;up
occurred is a ~&?~J&?&~&,o
igjf&yg??!Cg?,
a**UUY*1.Y in fia& p,
roughly on the line:
(52) If one can do something because one kmvs how to do it, perhaps one can
do it for other reasons as well, such as(i) physical/mental power, or (ii)
being unrestrained.
Deductively such an inference is absolutel,y unwarranted, but irtdz~ctive& it
proceeds along a family resemblnnce cline, noting the similari iy between
the three sense: of ability (qinowledg,e how, power and litck of outside
restraint). Once such an infererce has czcurred, however, the structure of the
lexical item KNOW as in (51) - with ability defined as a contextual variant of
knowledge - is now disrupted, since the (:ther senses of ability have nothing
t, between the
to do with knowledge. At this stage spe&ers face
semantic domain of ABILITY and that irlf KNOW
bcth of which
overlap at one point, namely the sense knowing how to. The conflict, in this
particular case, was resolved by t&in advantage of the phone
kann,/catt, which (presumably by so
inferential/inductive st
all its know senses except know how to do - and absorbed the other can9
senses. of power and lack of rzsraint. Ilhis restructuring may be thus summarized as:
(53) KNOW 4 know
CAN
-+ (i) be able to because) of knowled
(ii) be able to because of power
(iii) be He to for lack of restraint
But the fortuitous appearance of an l~tymological!v~related stem is not a
prerequisite for the restructuring, Rather, a senzantically-related stem cc&i do
just as well. This was presumably the c:Ebsein German, where 3Lheknow that

to wissen
, with ktinrw
ut wissep!lcome!:
d is attested irr the L. tIi&-re see,
at see was the original
le: the perfect-resultative
nd t&us know. And this
tion is again itself the
e original situat.on may

tic! i~du~ti~~~inf

nee must have then proceeded:

The inference from physical. perception to mental cognition is of course !lot

and musi be a human universal [36]. Nevertheless, it is noi. a
ut rather inductive-probabilistic. Presumably. the next
,ee to know in *WI% involved a generalizing inferewe

(56) If one u~~der~~~~r~ds

somethin because of prior perception/seeing, ma!rbe
then one u~d~~.stands it for other reasons as well, s&r as hearing,
explanation, inti-ospection, &ine inspiration etc.

once

in we hnve an overlap betw en two semantic ofmains, of cognition

with the point of overlap which cements the fandy
understanding due to seeiqg.
al variant form, the perfective
form to carry the restructured
) the sti:nse of see anc,l loa

verb War -wwfw~mis also used for

. Ihit even mom concrete expressions

ding,/cognition. Tlhus in Amhanc it
I get/got it has a similar sense. In

i.e. 3: QW follows with the eyes (pcial

upon @Othic s&van, QE s&r, etc., themsdves

via exactly the 881HBtype Of p~@Tli?W
inference,
context of 6follow) tOlenone sees. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Consider the folJlo~ng gradual ejctension of the ~eanin

originally a physical-tastcrl-adjst IVC:
(57) (a) sweet apple (physical-taste,
(b) sweet music ~a~l~io/abstr~~c
(c) sweet victory (abstract, be~efi~ial/re
At first glance, one may argue tha.t we have here a straight case of ~~~~nti~~
bleaching, whereby sweet has the CXW~
n ~,aniq
the extensions are contextual injeremxs from that core
bleaching the more physical/concrete aspects of meani
linguist would argue rather strenuously that no semanti
at all between (57a), (57b) and (57c), bat only a widenmg o
contextual inferrences (see e.g. arguments in Garcia (197S) and Kirsner (2979)
inter alia). But the concept of core me,aning becomes nebulous when one
considers the fact that the very same h:xical item may mutate in different
diirections, using glifferent components af its total meani
cluster as the
so-calleld core m.eaning. IYIthis connection, see the discu
n of the mutaing withiln the
tions o.f the verb sit, further t>elow. In other words, II
semantic field,dlomain of a \,xicaJ item can be consider*ed either core or
contextually in1eiSreS meaning, given particular
But the role of
context in this casc~is lo &ffinclwhat is rdmant lwithia the domain, what will be
held cons tan t anfd thus considered lzorc:1 as against what will be mutated and
thus considered *contextual inference. This determinrhtion is in pnnciplt~
nom-deductive, bult rather involves the pragmatic ju me:at of relevana: and
10.1 &tave - ujQc:h a,,tcz
similarity. Further, much like the cascs discussed
*after ah metaphoric in very much tl te sam
resemblance rather than with objectiflre/core
I would like to claim here that all semanti
kind as metaphoric extension, and that
semantically related words simply co
eyes of some scholars. Thus, consider
extension of the
Hebrew root Vb, sit:
(58) (a) Early stqpB: ib sit
(b) Late4pstqgtr: y-.fb sit
Jb-t rest--)rest from work -+st; ike
co?mJ:ts.

The split between sit and rest is obviously a cent xtual i~f~ren~~ from sit,
as are the later extensions of res#ttoward rest !rotn work
~v~~t~~ly
strike. The added phonolo cal differentiation most likely
: horn the
suffix ..t
Gnperfeci third-lpelrson ms. sg. prefix y- for sit d the ~~~~~~~~g

essive
Luqxct.

The

matit: inference is

, where an erstwhile ltm tive-directional

rzes next the dative/ben+b:factivc marker
~~~Q~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
marker, as in lhe case of the
initia~l~~,proixcds by bleachmg, along a welland the rncw$: Tro locative to da t,ive-benefactive

I ~~~~ati~steps of in~er~~~e involved in (!Sa-d) may be

bjcct moves, that person

n, the Arabic guatrsit has become the

of Iocatic~nedto temporal cxprcsor Givh (I 973b). inter dia. The
,n widely documented (sc:c summary in Givbn,
b). Similar chanp, up to at least the
10, Baatu ku-, Ht:brew Ie-, Sherpa Jr,

118

T. Givcin/Logzc es. prugnwtics

(ii) If a person can be a conscious-recipient

o conc:r~ti objects, that

person could aIso ble a conscious/recipient of aEst~aet ideas.
(iii) If a person is the recipient of anything, chances are he/she is the
possesmr of that thing.
(iv) Whoever possesses an object most likely also ~~~~e~~~from that
object.
The probzinilistic nature of these inferences, and the family-r~~sembiance character 0% the verb-continuum along which hey progress, need no further
dative/ benef acelaboration. But how did the inference psogress further
tives are involved
tive to human-accusative? Three facts ab(Dut dative/hen
here:
(a i They are in text overwhelmingly human (see discussion in Given 1976b,
1979a: ch. 2):
(c4)They nre in text overwhelmingly definite (see discussion in Oivon 1976b,
i 979a : ch. 2);
(c) They have a high probability in discourse/text of undergoing a dativcshift and thus being promoted to direct o@ect/accusatiloe (see discussion
in Giv6n 1979a: ch. 4).
tposition
*to/ for,
Now, in Engfish dative-shifting involves the loss of the
but in Spanish it does not. Thus compare the two co
variant and In& nbc,-u*bject
-**wc
variant, in table 3. The an;
resemblance nature of this inflerential space next gave rise in Spanish to the
following inferences:

(6 1) (a) If an object is dative, 1t has a high probability of also bein

*anddefinete.
(bj If an object is datue-humarL-deji,tite, it has a hi h probability 01also
being direct object.
This purely probabilistic re,itsoning i s responsible for re-a
others, a. human-ac.wat;ve marker. But the very same i
lead 1.0#another resolution. In Swahili, I:orexample, (s
1076b) l;he object agreement/proniun
first marked dative objects, tlhen was
extended to definite direct objects. ,tnd finally was further ~xt~~d~d .- within
one gender only - to be the mnrlier of htrmm direct ok$wts,
indefinite alike. The more general e;utenr;ion in Swahili, then, went from dative
to dqfirrife-direct object, rather than from dative to )runlcrrr+=Clirect
object.

Direct-objeez vwial?a

Indirect-object

variant

hat the functional domain of

ins that overlap in the passive

(62) (a) th?

topic-

ntiwnt domain: here a non-agent gets promoted to the

/topic position. Other members of this domain are, e.g.
ronouns, definitization, right and left dislocation, etc.;
atisn domain: here the iderltity of the agent is supp~esse~i in various ways. Other members of this domain are various
rson~)./neut~~l constructions;
(c) the stcrtive)l/dc7t~~rasitive
domain: here an event is construed as a
erties thus suppressed. Other members
st.ate, its active p
ctivals, ref exives, reciprocals, perfecomain are stative-a
tive-resultatives, etc.

Now, in ~~iachr~~nic
c~l~ngegiving rise to passive corn>tructions of the classical
ts properties of all three functional domains of
where the passive arises from constructions
wit~n eiach d,~m~n that are not er se passive constructions, but rather
one of the $three domains. Undergoing
&ly acquire some of the properties characteristic of the
irtvolve the folLowin inductive/probabilis-

t is to bat suppress~rd,the next most likely

will be likely to become the topic of the
0% the action is to be focused upon,
the staous/identity qf the agent Is lefss important.
(c) If the clatlse-tcapic is u noti-agent, then it is most likely that the
nduc, aqxxt

12'3

T. &xbr/

Lo rgicvs. pragmatics

patient-related properties of the event, such as iits being a uesu&ng

state, are /focused upon.
InEcrence (63a) leads from the agent-identity-suppression 1domain to the topic-

identification domain. Inference (63h) leads from the st~,tive~iIlt~~ns~~ve

dom;lin to the agent-identity-suppression domain. And inferewe (63~) leads from
t hit topic-identification don,ain to the stative-detransitive doma,in. Each is in
Ijrinciple pragmatic, and each is supported by a wet&h of cross4in
A
0.5. Word-order change
lin Old Biblical Hebrew (OBH, see Givoa 1977) the unmarked word order
either an anterior break in
TNasVSO and a special marked order rew
-the action sequence or a topic-switch - was SVO. In
the
(LBH), the two orders changed their valuation, wit
unmarked word order - in context of both action and topi@ continuity _I_and
VSO assuming specialized, oft-semi-frozen, values (though not the original
perfect/anterior/topic-switch
value of the QBH SVO). This re-analysis also
inl~~olvesa crucial change in the tense-aspect system, from a perfect-aspect
system to a past-tense system, whereby the OBH perfect than
Gon from anterior to past, while the OBH imperfect
valuation from preterit to future/non-punctual.
Both UK
tense-aspect change ; niay be characterized 1s over-use prc>8essesof de-mark-

Over-use of the mere marked left-dislocated SW word-order to

identify subjects that are easier to identify and represent h&$er
pvdictability/continuity
than those normally marked by left-disl
tion (see section 3 above). This de-marked the SVO wordmorder:
(b) Over-use of the anterior prior to value that firs/: involved a
specific look-back function of perfect 8r pluperfect, maki
mlore general in the past :narker. This de-marked t
and made it a past tense.
Both changes are well attested elseINhere, mostly il~d~~~~~~l~~,t
of each other
[40]. Both represent an over-kill communicative strategy, whereby the speak-e1
decides i ha t - just for satefys sake - he will use a more m(arked
insure beyond ;a shred ,sf doubt tillat thr: hearer
da-marking or deualtrativg that device. A similar
de-marking the right-dislocated VS word-order and ev
[M) See Givh (I 911Ob)for the perfect-to-pm
1~ft-dislocate4 constructions.

change, and Givbn ( 1976b) flor the clc-mwking af

T. GivbnJLo\gic vs. prapnutics

e from SV to VS neutral word-o

121

-r(see discussion in Slobin 1.1977)

input into such a decision by the
riety of probabilities, cone erning
i sepal-interactive factors all perthe message without inordinate
irich a decision procedure could be
s;rstem. It is inherently a context-

the childs acquisie same kind as the

in ( 1977) and Givirn
and enlargement of
d and of his/her
necessarily opena Iogico-deductive descriljtion.
discussion in Givbn 1979a: ch. 7),
f human language
and ontogenetic
only is a deductive-base j account incapable of characterizage is undergoing at all times, but
way language has evolved. In this
sense, thus, ~hornsky~, profoundly anti-evolutionary view of human language
is certainly compatible with his view of rammar as a closed aigorithmic
system f4 11.

systems,

ein and

iucc

Bert rmd F~uss~ll,in his f Dreword to Wi it ensteins Tractatus, acknowledges

eductive syste.ms, yet
noting; that for someone who argued that
anaged to say quite
nent was of course ndamentally misdirected, since
though Russells
worthy model of
g been made some
[4\] TO wit: ,.t It is quite senseless to s&se the prciblem of erplaining the evolution of human
language ftcrtn more pnmitiw sysre+ns of wmmunication
that appeared It lower levels of
intellectwl crap&y.. . * (Chomsky 1968: 59).

decades earlier by Peirce (see Peirce ( 1455) and discussion in Anrtila (1977)).
Both saw c;learly that a deductive, axiomatic system cannot express new
information, but only tau3Qlugies (totally familiar knowledge) or c~~ntrud~cti~n~
(totally
strange and un-integrable knowledge). Peirce went on to win the tam
abduction to characterize the kind (Dfnon-de uctive inference, inductian or
quisitioa of new in~o~~tion~ Still,
intuitive Ieap that must un
down tile foundlations for
neral
Wittgenstein, perhaps inadv
theory of injbrmation within any c municativc* system - ~ert~nly within
natusmal language - w3ere new information alwa!ys operates ~me~vhere
between the two extrr:mes of tautology and contradiction: it cannot be t~tul~
new and thus incompatible with all previous knowledge (Le. ~~ontr~~dicto~~~.
And it cannot be totally old and thus redundant and of no interest (i.e.
:autological). Wi&in such extreme bounds, one coulld conceive of the
seemingly logical impropriety of tautologies and contradicuons such 8s;
(65) (a) Joe is a teacher; he is tl teacher (tautology)
(b) Joe is a teacher; hes not a teacher (contradictlion)
as being merely the extreme margins of the system. But the bulk of the system
of linguistic communications operates somewhere bex~~n these two extremes,
where degree of redundancy and degree of newness/surprise* cannot be
ruled upon by deductive means, but TL*Iust
be inferred prqmatico&.
There ore
three empirically-based argunlrenlis that militate for such conclusions:
(;)

The cuntext-dependency argument: The logician would consider (ir9a. b)

above, closed systems, and thus pretend that the contradketory or tautological second proposition in each is that way becztuse of the first
proposition. But the use of language in communicative context is r&e
open in two distinct senses: First, generica&, any itelm of shared knowledge within the culture/lexicon can potentially be an im@cit part of the
context for any prop0
Second, any span of the specific/
context the speaker
s to be within reach of the rhea
legitimate context for a proposition. Decisions on both
principle probabilastic and pragmatic, given the total spa
context [42].
(ii) The speaker-hearer argument: For logicians, eontext is ~obj~tiv~~,
overtly-listed premises. They are never comfortable with I
But in language and communication, it is the I thett ma
about what -. generically and specifically -- can be taken us the ~~~~~~~
context for you, and this horror of subjective, inductive inference would
(421 Logicians, of COUIBB~
create a sanitized notion of context by listing: a finite number of
propose
tims as premises.

uctive system wide open. In addition, sooner or later the

with the I create the classic infinites paradox), and while a logician may
s done [43], that does not make the
section 8, above, even
diate, visible, proposio get the logician off the hook, This is so
visible, immed.~ate context is judged by the
:lance as context. And as we have seen
t is in prizrrciplecrpen-ended and pragmatic.
ic may define the u pel: boundis of
systems (the l~~~t~ern~cases), the bulk of the actual
atic irr nature, where new and o;ld informaU@tct open ended generic nd specific contexts.

mv

context
m to take symqvmy

for granted as d matter of

iat would find it extrt:mely hard to identify a bona fide case of
her lexicon or grammar. Marchand (1964) refers to the seeming
nymq in;lthe lexicon 2~sthe eccxxmy principle, and that may
ect ~~p~~~ati~n, at letrst in part, since one would be hard put to
ex~~,~~nwhy speak rs should store two forms coding exactly the same meanrng
or function. Appa nt cases of synonymy tend to dissolve, on closer examinaistic, dialectal variation.
tion, into more subtle semantk, pralirnati:, socia
and grammatical
ity in sentences olrt of
On the ather harlkd
ier to document, being indeed one of the most pervasive
cantext -. is much
types of diachronic changes discussed in
s of 1exiCORan
this, so that in fact language change at all
Jly-dependent proliferation of senses and
e two extra @??.poles of the system of cOain$j
is the extreme case 01 ~l;ecoding, where the very same
one cseiebnits. While polysemy is the
sage units - presumably along
domain -. are coded by only
seem to avoid the one extreme so con1~p~r~dc~~and its implications for epis emology and pragmatks in

fjjistentlyid

indut

sistently? The answer, 1

On
n it violates it so ~~~si~
clearly abides by this dictum,
the polysemy/ambiguity end?
If language were a closed, deductive system d~a~in
meaning, this question would indeed be bafflin
I believe, already established that lexical and
in language is open-ended and context-smsitix. Thus, t
can tolerate the seemingly hi incidence of p~ly~~erny
must be that they constarttly make use of the context ta disa
while a small core or m;~rgins of the semantic syst
they are absolute and context free, the bulk is conte.~t-dependent, at least
--i
when one considers the actuai facts of language use. Gtven su
?,nguage, it seems that it &GS indeed strive to operate by
one-to-one correlation between code and message, Either tota
an infinite number + f:ode-units expressing the same message) or total
ambiguity (i.e. an infinit c number of messa
coded by a sin
c~d~~u~~it)
would be a communicative nightmare. The
t would impose
enormou~q
and non-functional MVIKV~:~
bur&rr. While the
ond would impose t~~t~~
ciependenqv cm con text. I!t seems to me that Ila
in fact 8 ~~~_~~~~~
c*ompror~t~~e
system, relying to some extent on m
en - where items
and rules can be memorized in a relatively atomic, context-free fmhion,
while to some extent rel>ting on disambi
tion via context, where items a&
rules shift their meaning /usage depend
That such a compromise should be root
anism seems too obvious to require further COI

When one considers the ont

eny of human lan
struck by the fact that carlie
more the extreme
polysemy/ambiguity and t
And that from those earli
umbiguotrs and HIOIVrich& coded. It is
communication and primates communica
in the extreme (see discussion in Givbn 16
here-and-now, visible topics and I-and-you. One may thus
of language, both phylogenetically and
s:mtax out of discourse, core meaning out
contextual rn6ani
out of pragmati:s, and thus - in very much the same s

c3fcontext-free,

n the human organism

le, .is their fundam~nt~~~ connection

and constant

interchange

nt ext-free automated routines and context-sensiFirst are uscd~ along established, routine pathnrajor ch.wficl;rtory
nodes of the system, where pre-

ulate about what \h analytic scannin

native device is on automatic pilot. One
tional level - at the theme
the ht urcr - in order to

14.1. Lmgutqy, cwttmunicationand prugmatic:l;us. logrc

I think an txnpiricul study of language data, without idea
or abstracting use, context and eomm
points out clearly to the fact that 3,@
stripe can achieve little in eithelr de!
cognition. This is not to say, howevtr, &at
them with pragmatic
ones from the
col;itdstitig
informatior./cornmunication
theory, cannot yield some in
about the parameters that bound cogGtion
differences betwlcen the two systems ma;y be su
The fact that a fundamentally prag
the human orglinism nevertheless gives rise, repeatedly and in various subsystems. to islands of relative firm~~ment/dedu~tabi~ity, is an important evolutionary and epktemological fact. The hybrid system that is thus treated is
t-annhlFi
YUps.b

fif
V*

aAnr9tino
UUyCIa.@

tr\
Z

turfi
b

rncaiplr
.UJ.

nar-aml*t*rc
puW1a.bY.

fif
Va

banvirnnmant
V*a.*.Va.a.aYI*.

sank-4 ckrrwiuul*
w4U
VU+. .* .UW

Flexibility, change and indeterminacy: this is a fundamental fact of reatity,

and only an organism capable of dealing with it could survive in a real

universe.
(ii) Speed of decision making, planning and action: this is a fundamel~ta~

Table 4

.-

Spuce

Context relution
System bounds
WC& of inference
Mode of proof
Mode of dataprwwsing
Functional distribution
Spead of processing
hlemory/hardwart:
d cpendence
Pro~rerm/software
d~~pendence

Pragmntic processing

Ikductive processin

Continuum
Con tcxt dapcnden t
Open-anded, chan~eablc
Inductive/abductive
Pwponderonca of cvidencc,
open

Catc~orial/discrcte
Context fr
Closed, fixwl
uc:tive
uctive proof, cslosed

Analytic

Automatic, ~l~~rjthmic

certainty und high corn-plcxi ty

L,owsp

certainty crud low cornplexi ty

Low dapcndcrrce
Low dependence

in a potentially hostile universe,

action is of the esseracec
do not reveal a measure of rnutinized
nis:m in its cognitive evolution has been

the syntacticized vs. the

h. 5). it seemed to me then
, one reflective of general

find out how

r the last few years, it has been gratifying to

that initial hunch indeed pans out. The psychological
with works on the auto~~at~~ation/rout~nizati~~n of percepast literature exists concerning the routinineurolo#cal literature
f feedback-free circuits is
ard ~11these phenomena
suggest hkolds for the
t such compartmentalism is bound to be self-defeatition is now as well as rstanding of both what
ow it evolved out of so-c

Q6.iitn#tiC ~r~~~~~i~&
in perccptkinelndcaglition, alcc
Kbin ( 1973), Pssner wd Snyder (1914). Atkinson arld
rin (1947), inter aNa. Fur autsnlatizutiorr
unJ rautinizuti0t7
t (1975,1930),Shapiroand Ghmidt (in press), Shapwj
in press), rrsf~ dia. For the ncurolagical basis for
Margain ( 1950) or Pkllard ( I960),in,ter
see Smith ( I980),

cd routines/reflexes,

128

T. Givh,/

Logic vs. prugntutics

ability to react to feedback and fast-changing feedback, the copin

indeterminacies and imponderables.
Ultimately, I think, we must elaborate not only a theory of human co
as it is now, but aiso a theory ey;plaining the rise of h an cognition 8s m
as p=t of such a
~O/M~UMJ~,biological process. What I believe will em
theory is a hierarchic view of the evolution of organismic functions, whereby
simple, lower functions get routinized via repetition and the eventual catee
a more
gorization of tokens of both stimulus and behavior as be
This
categorization
makes
routin~~~d
of the
general typ8 X.
response/behavior possible, thus freeing the analytic, f~~back-dependent
capacity to seek, create and pursue higher levels of organization. But eventually
those higher levels get similarly categorized and eventually routinized, etc.,
perh,aps potentially ad infini~~r?l. Categorization into hieriuchic tok~naty~e
syste.m:; may thus be viewed as the prerquisite for routinization,
parcel of the same eneral process of systems creatioa And routini
processing is what makes it possible, in turn, to keep increasing the depth of the
processing system, by freeing the analytic capacity to pursue the next level.
14.3. TIie rise of order out of chaos: Carnup and Wittgenstein revisited
To some extent, the rise of deductive, closed, well-ordered, discrete and
algorith,mic systems out of the non-discrete, chaotic mire of pragmatics must
remain a fundamental mystery of the sentient organism. Philosophical exm
tremists since time immemorial, be they Western epistcmolo ts and latter-day
logical a tomists or mushy mystics and late-Wit
-outs of whs tevcr
stripe, have all striven to represent the roots o
gnition as one of the extreme
poles. Iaepistemology is ever to become relevant to and compatible with the
empiriizal study of cognition and behavior, it must reject both extremes with
equal gigor, both Carnaps fear of coping w
atics of reality in the
study of mind as well as in science, and Wit
deductive mode i;l his late years. The c
eventually contend with, I believe, is the rise of temporary, 4
nevertheless real islands of relative firmament and order out of the inhetently chaotic universe of experience. Ultimately, I believe, fi
pragma tics - the idea that the picture is stable and real o
frume remains fixed - must play a central rol,e in such an ente
order out of chaos, and thus the rise of consciousness itself, must be ascribed
to the evolution of creative jraming and re-~~~~~~i~?g,
tlrrou h whj& portiolns of
experience - those which are repetitive, recwrcnt, ~redictu~~~ and
made into background or frame, and thus held constant just lo
produce, within the frame, the illusion of a stable, coherent picture.

he view th:at the concept 0%

the krmwrr in the knower.

Russerl has
ress which such self-in&.rsion
n his 77~~r-y of TyileJ: (see
1913: ch, 12), banning the
ame system. Such legislacian and his concern with

on modes of re-@aming is indeed that of

or self-refe:*ene:e. The oerennial

ividuation, planning and the

1 remains

otdtsSde the

frame,

what is inside to its advantage.

ard are thus seen as

of the ~x~~~~~nt~a~
universe, one often observes that

est context for clhaa

of these two %onsta

then
ed as
tht co
mate

st that on the backgroun,l

c81 evidence seems to su
le fac:ets of experience 81-e
0 more daffy and I
ions, movements etc. Lacking the Ultis, events,
1s ssems to construct a second best one.
organism

T. G&in /Logic w. pragt0ratic.s

130

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