The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics Part 45 pot

23 dat John Sheila haat that John Sheila hates ‘that John hates Sheila’ In Dutch, there is also a tendency for verbal elements to cluster in the so-called verbal end-group, even if this

to the noun than the true adjectives For instance, in Rendille we find the order given in (22),

(22) sticks-my four long white

where the opposite relative adjacency is found To explain the difference between the two orderings, we must start from the twofold nature of common nouns This notion derives from the logical analysis of nouns by Bach (1968), who argued that a noun is a variable combined with a predicate; for example, a doll means ‘an x that is

a doll’ In Langacker’s (1991: 54) terms, a nominal displays grounding and type specification (among other things) Most languages (such as English) apparently attract first the modifiers that fit in best with the type specification, that is, the predicational content of the noun, whereas other languages (such as Rendille) highlight the grounding aspect by attracting first the deictic modifiers At the same time, what the two language types have in common is the relative order of the nominal modifiers with respect to each other.

Adjacency of Similar Elements

A third principle involves the adjacency of similar elements, whereby similar ele-ments are placed together Thus, in languages with the basic orders SOV and VSO, the nominal elements subject and object are placed together As such, for instance,

in the Dutch subordinate clause in (23), the nouns (proper names) are positioned next to each other.

(23) dat John Sheila haat

that John Sheila hates

‘that John hates Sheila’

In Dutch, there is also a tendency for verbal elements to cluster in the so-called verbal end-group, even if this disrupts the adjacency of head and dependent, as in (24): (24) dat John Sheila uit Londen terug zal brengen

that John Sheila from London back will bring

‘that John will bring back Sheila from London’

Although terugbrengen ‘bring back’ is one verb, the nonverbal prefix terug can be separated from its verbal head brengen, as in (24), so that the verbal elements zal and brengen cluster together However, the order zal terugbrengen is also possible Again,

we see two competing motivations, in this case head proximity as opposed to adjacency of similar elements.

Relator in the Middle (RIM)

A special iconic principle of adjacency is the one whereby a so-called relator is put

in the middle of its two relata One example of this principle is the typical or-dering in coordination whereby a coordinator is placed between the elements it conjoins, as in John and Mary There are several such constructions.

a Relator Constructions A relator can be defined as a free or bound mor-pheme that has basically two syntagmatic slots, or relata, in its syntactic structure, such that the relator defines a specific semantic-syntactic relation between the two relata The first relatum is more gen-eral in nature, has a freer position in the sentence, and can sometimes be dropped; the second relatum is usually obligatory and has a fixed posi-tion because it has a tighter bond with the relator As a consequence, it

is normally not omitted.17In the following typology, the nature of the relators and their relata will be dealt with (see also Van Langendonck, Swiggers, and Van de Velde, forthcoming).

We can distinguish two major subclasses of relators: coordinative and subordinative relators, with the latter further subdividing into predicative and nonpredicative relators Coordinative relators include coordinating conjunctions, such as and in (25) Predicative relators are verbs and other predicates, such as loves in (26); nonpredicative relators include adposi-tions (i.e., pre- or postposiadposi-tions), subordinating conjuncadposi-tions, and certain particles.18An example of an adpositional (prepositional) relator is in,

as found in (27) Usually, only this third type of relator is explicitly rec-ognized as such in the literature However, it seems advisable to broaden the definition so as to include the three categories mentioned.

(25) John and Mary

(26) John loves Mary.

(27) The girl (is) in the garden.

Coordinative relators are defined by the fact that their two conjuncts (re-lata) mostly seem to show a certain symmetry in that they are inter-changeable, at least in principle Still, even in productive coordination the first conjunct is more prominent pragmatically and often refers to the el-ement occurring first in time or space In freezes, where the order of the elements is fixed, the unmarked conjunct acts as the first relatum Aside from such freezes, the second conjunct displays a tighter bond with the relator, being syntactically more essential:

(28) a John and Mary

b the king and the queen

c here and there

d She got pregnant and married.

By contrast, with subordinative relators, the two relata are hardly inter-changeable because of the clearly asymmetric relationship between the two Again, the first relatum is usually more prominent According to the function of the first relatum, we can distinguish two types of subordina-tive relators: predicasubordina-tive and nonpredicasubordina-tive With predicasubordina-tive relators, which are mostly verbs, the first relatum functions as the subject of the

verb With nonpredicative relators, the first relatum is either the relator’s head or the subject of the predicate of a clause In both types, the second relatum has again a tighter bond with its relator, functions as a kind of complement, and can hardly be omitted Let us now consider the two types

of subordinative relators more in particular Nonpredicative relators have

a complement as their second relatum: in (29a), for instance, the prepo-sition in heads its object the garden; in (29d), the comparative particle than heads its object Alice The first relatum is either the relator’s head, as in (29a)–(29c): girl, excitement, did, or the subject of the clause’s predicate, as

in the comparative sentence (29d): Kevin.

(29) a the girl in the garden

b the excitement before his departure

c He did it before he left.

d Kevin is taller than Alice.

Predicative relators have the subject of the predicate as their first relatum and a complement as their second relatum In case a verb has several complements, we have to do with more than one ‘‘second’’ relatum (as

in 30a) The prototype of a predicative relator is a transitive verb As is well known, in a sentence such as John killed Bill, the subject John refers to the agent of the action of killing, of which the patient, expressed by the object Bill, is the victim We take predicative relators to refer here to all sorts of verbal categories (including auxiliaries and modal verbs), as well

as predicative adjectives, as in She is worth it As second relata of main verbs, we consider not only direct objects (as in 26 above) but, for instance, also indirect objects (as in 30a) and prepositional objects (as in 30b):

(30) a It cost me that.19

b She looked after him.

b Iconic Ordering in the Relator Construction As indicated by the principle formulated above, relator constructions often show iconic ordering in that relators take middle positions Dik (1983: 274) states that ‘‘the preferred position of a Relator is in between its two relata.’’ This syntactic order reflects the fact that the relator establishes a specific semantic connection between the relata In the iconic ordering, the most prominent relatum takes the first position, whereas the second relatum follows the relator Notice that it is only when the relator is a full word that it can exert any influence on order A good example of the principle of ‘‘Relator In the Middle’’ (RIM) is the basic order of subject and object As is well known, the order SVO (42%) is far more frequent than the order OVS (1%) across languages (Tomlin 1986: 22) Note that SVO competes mainly with SOV

and VSO order, where we find the principle of ‘‘adjacency of similar elements.’’

c RIM Languages It appears to be possible to identify ‘‘RIM languages’’ in which relators are typically put in between their relata Thus, in the North-ern European area we have discovered a belt of languages that we can call RIM languages These languages show the canonical order in relator con-structions, but the (basic) order modifier-before-head in other construc-tions As we could see above, English is such a language and forms part

of this belt—as do Scandinavian, Finnish, and Russian, among others (see Van Langendonck, Swiggers, and Van de Velde, n.d.) For relator con-structions, I can refer to examples (25) through (30) above Construc-tions without a relator exhibit [modifier < head] as their unmarked order.20This is illustrated in (31).

(31) demonstrative < noun: that town

predeterminer < demonstrative: all those

numeral < noun: three plants

adjective < noun: nice girl, red cap

proper name modifier < noun/participle: a London shop,

the Everard Brothers, Italy based

adverb < adjective: extremely intelligent

adverb < adverb: very well, not quite

compounds: broomstick, furniture shop

To conclude these paragraphs on word order, we can say that word-order iconicity appears to be constituted by one general principle of closeness (or, alter-natively, distance), under which come various subprinciples Three kinds of close-ness have been reviewed: closeclose-ness of events in narrative sequence, closeclose-ness to the prototypical speaker or to the speakers as a physical entity, and finally, closeness in content Under the latter, I subsume simple adjacency, relative adjacency, adja-cency of similar elements, and the medial positioning of relators.

3 G e n e r a l C o n c l u s i o n

In this survey of iconicity, I have emphasized diagrammatic iconicity in language and related it to markedness and to the prototypical speaker It has also become clear that iconicity fits in well with the cognitive and experiential tenets of Cog-nitive Linguistics Both isomorphism and motivation figure as important phe-nomena throughout such basic cognitivist works as Langacker (1987, 1990, 1991).

N O T E S

For this overview of iconicity, I have especially benefited from the pioneering work done by John Haiman in numerous publications (e.g., 1980, 1983, 1985)

1 For comments on Peirce in relation to the linguistic sign, see, among others, Pharies (1985)

2 For overviews and reflections on iconicity, see, among others (besides Haiman’s work), Bouissac, Herzfeld, and Posner (1986), Van Langendonck and de Pater (1993), Motivation et Iconicite´ (1993), and Simone (1994)

3 Certain authors observe that there are problems with these terms and concepts Greenberg (1995: 57–58) finds the term ‘‘isomorphism’’ unfortunate Others point out that the notion of ‘‘motivation’’ goes beyond that of iconicity (Motivation et Iconicite´ 1993)

4 According to Kleiber (1993: 120), the device of schematicity may turn out to be too powerful since there is obviously no limit to the level of abstractness that can be applied to the semantic definitions of the grammatical units in order to preserve isomorphism

5 This generalized isomorphism paradoxically leads to the introduction of the notion symbolic: ‘‘Lexicon, morphology and syntax form a continuum of symbolic units’’ (Lan-gacker 1990: 1)

6 In certain cases, the generalization of isomorphism generates real conflicts with motivational iconicity Thus, Kleiber (1993: 121) contends that Langacker’s (1987: 216) analysis of adjectives as relational predicates (like verbs) goes against the iconicity of motivation because the landmark of adjectives is in fact never expressed (see also note 20) I signaled a similar conflict between isomorphism and motivation with regard to proper names (Van Langendonck 2004, 2007)

7 There are several criteria for defining markedness, which may even contradict the

‘‘more form, more meaning’’ criterion, but we cannot go into this here See, however, Greenberg (1966a) and, for a more recent account, Croft (2003)

8 Compare the notion of ‘‘embodiment’’ (see Rohrer, this volume, chapter 2)

9 Related to Mayerthaler’s (1980) concept of the prototypical speaker is Langacker’s (1985) notion of ‘‘subjectivity’’ as opposed to ‘‘objectivity.’’ Both Mayerthaler’s and Lan-gacker’s ideas lead to an explanation of the so-called animacy or empathy hierarchy, a controversial topic in linguistic typology

10 Langacker (1991: 447) speaks of a distancing effect of the conjunction that even in pairs like She knows that he likes her versus She knows he likes her

11 In the same vein, Ruwet (1984) deals with so-called equi-NP deletion: in French we have to say je veux partir ‘I want to leave’ instead of *je veux que je parte ‘I want that I leave’ However, if the volition and the action of the agent are independent of each other, two propositions are necessary and equi-NP deletion cannot apply: je pre´fe´rerais que moi je puisse faire cela ‘I would prefer I could do that’ (see also Langacker 1991: 448)

12 The iconic difference between kill and cause to die was ignored by Generative Semantics, which derived kill from cause to die by a prelexical transformation Fodor (1970) already criticized this derivation by pointing out that cause to die, but not kill, may imply a difference in time, for example in John caused Bill to die on Sunday by stabbing him on Saturday; see especially Wierzbicka (1975)

13 Of course, languages may differ as to the rigidity of this cline For instance, while English may have a car accident killed him, the Dutch equivalent is not acceptable: *een auto-ongeval doodde hem This makes Dutch more iconic than English in this respect

Apparently, the subject in English, which grammaticalizes topics rather than agents, allows for more patterns than it does in Dutch, where the subject is primarily characterized by agentivity

14 Russian tam i sjam ‘there and here’ is an exception; here phonetic iconicity appears

to have overridden the semantic principle in that stops tend to precede fricatives in such constructions: t before sj (see also Ross 1980)

15 Of course, politeness or political correctness may change this order, as in ladies and gentlemen

16 In its most general form, the principle of adjacency was already formulated by Otto Behaghel (1932: 4): ‘‘Das oberste Gesetz ist dieses, dass das geistig eng Zusammengeho¨rige auch eng zusammengestellt wird’’ [The primary law is that what belongs closely together semantically is also closely placed together] Rijkhoff (1992: 214) speaks of a principle of domain integrity

17 For example, in a sentence like John is in London, where in is the relator, John the first relatum, and London the second, London has a fixed position immediately after in, whereas John does not immediately precede the preposition

18 The label ‘‘particles’’ also includes ad hoc morphemes that are hard to accom-modate in an ordinary word class, e.g., than

19 In this instance, the verbal relator has two ‘‘second relata,’’ the direct and the indirect object

20 That the pattern [adjectiveþ noun] figures among the nonrelator constructions appears to contradict Langacker’s claim that adjectives are ‘‘relational’’; see also note 6

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