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LINGUISTIC SYSTEMS AND THE PHYSIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF VERBS
INTRODUCTION
How does one ground a theory of linguistic forms? Noam Chomsky
(1965, 1966), the founder of transformational grammar, attempted
to ground his theory of language in mathematical formalism, Cartesian
philosophy and in the biological faculty of language. His mathematical
endeavor began when he expanded on the work of Zellig Harris (1970),
a mathematical linguist, who proposed a model of co-occurrence
transforms. Chomsky went on to create a more sophisticated model
of transformational grammar.
|
Zellig Harris Co-occurrence Transforms |
Sentential structures are not isolated entities but are co-related to each other by means of rules called co-occurrence transform |
Active Sentence
Statement
Affirmative
|
|
Noam Chomsky Transformational Grammar |
Rules are ordered and applied to a basic underlying sentential structure (deep structure) to create an output (surface structure) |
Deep Structure: John past see Mary Ordered Rules: Passive, Interrogation, Negation, etc.
|
Later, Chomsky argued that his model was grounded on the postulates
of Cartesian philosophy (Chomsky 1966). This enabled him to situate
his theory in a particular historical time and in a particular
philosophical tradition. Gradually, Chomsky began to assert that
linguistics was a sub-branch of psychology and he claimed that
human beings are unique because they possess a faculty of language.
What he meant by this, in essence, is that human beings are biologically
wired for language, a rather strong biological claim.. Chomsky
and his followers argue that human beings possess an instinct
for language (Pinker, 1994).
Recently, Lakoff and Johnson (1999) have returned to the biological
foundations of language, but from a different perspective. They
are interested certain biological foundations to linguistic schemas.
Their quest for universals is not necessary on language instinct,
the faculty of language, but on biological schemas that underlie
and provide the foundations and the motivation for linguistic
schemas. Their arguments consist of inferring the former from
the latter. They want to infer that linguistic schemas provide
evidence for biological schemas. There is a problem with this
research paradigm. These inferences lack biological and physiological
motivation. To correct the problem in this research paradigm,
the authors of this paper argue that one must first investigation
biological and physiological systems and compare them to linguistic
schemas in order to ascertain just how and where these relationships
are established. It makes more sense to investigate the physiology
of the auditory system in order to better comprehend how auditory
perception occurs prior to making claims about the verbs of hearing
in English and their linguistic schemas. What this research demonstrates
is that there are biological transducers that do have correlates
with lexical and grammatical structures in language, but most
of the linguistic schemas noted by Lakoff (1987) are not biological
but due to analogical processes such as grammaticalization (Traugott
and Heine, 1991a, 1991b) and metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980,
1999; Lakoff, 1987).
THE EMBODIED MIND HYPOTHESIS
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1991, 1999) have proposed a promising
new paradigm for the cognitive science that they refer to as the
embodied mind. This paradigm is not new to western philosophy
as it can be found in its earlier stages in the writing of Maurice
Merlau-Ponty (1964, 1994). It has also been articulated as a biological
model by Varela (1991) and Maturana (1984). What is new about
the paradigm proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1999) is that it
has been offered as a model for the cognitive sciences. Why is
this important? Why should the concept of the embodied mind be
treated as a revolutionary idea within cognitive linguistics?
The answer is rather obvious to students of the first generation
of the cognitive sciences (Gardner, 1987). Most of the earlier
work on language and the mind done under cognitive linguistics
were predicated on the Cartesian assumption that the mind functions
as a separate entity from the body as a kind of computing machine
that equate the brain with computer hardware and human language
with computer software. This assumption has been labeled as the
"separablility hypothesis" (Shapiro, 2004), but most
scholars refer to this approach as "connectionism."
What Lakoff and Johnson have done is revolutionary because their
proposal counters the Cartesian assumption of the separation of
the mind and the body (Damasio, 2000).
MODELING BRAIN RESEARCH
The cognitive sciences were used as a cover term for several academic
disciplines that used the computer as a metaphor for the brain
(connectionism). These disciplines included linguistics, psychology,
anthropology, the computer sciences, and neurolinguistics. Investigators
from each of these disciplines were fascinated by the computer
as a research tool. Why were these disciplines included in the
new paradigm and not others? What was it about computers that
merited so much attention? Why did they use the metaphor of the
brain as a computer? Why did they cherish this new machine metaphor
and invest such extensive research efforts in explicating this
new model? The answer to these questions can be found in the significance
of the computer as a technological invention. It was a general
problem solver. The computer was not just another machine; it
was not merely another tool. Prior to the computer, machines were
built for special purposes. A hammer, for example, was created
to for the specific purpose of pounding on nails; the saw was
created for the specific purpose of cutting through wood. Even
when tools were improved upon, they remained as special instruments.
For example, a saw that cut through wood was a different kind
of tool than a saw that cut through metal. What the computer brought
into the world of technology was a general purpose instrument
that could be used for different tasks. The computer could be
used for different purposes. One only needed to substitute one
kind of software for another and the computer would emerge as
a new tool. It could be changed from a machine that does statistical
analysis to one that operates some kind of expert system using
artificial intelligence. Consequently, the computer was not just
another tool. It was one that intrigued cognitive scientists.
Why were these scientists intrigued by the new general problem
solver? What is it that they saw in the computer that led them
to create an interdisciplinary research paradigm known as the
cognitive sciences? What they found in this new technology was
the ability to create computer models that would simulate the
functions of the human mind. The computer became the most power
and inventive instrument of technology yet devised. It was this
tremendous ability to simulate models of reality that led the
cognitive scientists to adhere to the "multiple realizabiity
thesis" (Shapiro, 2004: 3). According to this hypothesis
the human minds are realized by human brains. These attempts by
cognitive scientists to construct models of the human mind are
based on how the human brain functions. The computer model of
the mind is proposed as one of the realizations of the human brain.
LINGUISTIC SCHEMAS
The focus of the research paradigm advocated in this essay begins
with the embodied mind hypothesis and the claim made by philosophers
(Merleau-Pony, 1964, 1992, 1994; Johnson, 1991) and linguists
(Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999) that the embodied mind
plays a significant role in the epistemological construction of
human cognition. Lakoff and Johnson (1991, 1999) argue that biological
schemas are the motivating forces behind the creation of linguistic
schemas. Other linguists such as Bernd Heine (1987) and Dirven
and Verspoor (1998) have also provided examples of linguistic
schemas, but they argue that these are metaphorical creations
rather than biologically induced schemas. Since these schemas
are based on actions and relationships and consequently they are
represented as verbal schemas:
| Source Schema | Label of Schema | English Examples of Schemas |
| X takes Y | Action |
Agent + Verb of Manipulation + Object Agent +Verb of Manipulation +Object |
| Y is located at X | Location |
Agent + Existential Be + Locative Person + verb of location |
| X is with Y | Companion |
Agent + Companion + Verb. Person + Verb + with Accompaniment Person and Accompaniment Verb |
| Y exists from X | Source |
Person + verb of movement +from Place Person +verb of movement + from Source. |
| As for X, Y Verb | Topic |
Agent as Topic + Verb of Perception + Object Topic, Subject + Verb + Object |
| Y is X's (Y) | Equation | |
| Being Schema |
|
|
| Happening Schema | Eventing | (Dummy) Subject + Event Verb BE + Natural
Event The sun is shinning It is raining It is snowing |
| Doing Schema | Agent | Agent + Verb of Making or doing + Event
or Object Mary is reading a book They are doing the Vista Tour |
| Experiencing Schema | Patient | Experiencer Experiencer as Subject + Verb
+ Object Experienced Harry saw a snake He knows that it is dangerous He thinks that he feels better He feels happy |
| Having Schema |
Material Possession
Mental Position Whole-part |
Kinship Relations Agent +Verb of Possession + object- Affected Person Verb of Possession and Affection The table has four legs |
| Spatial |
Spatial
Temporal |
States Subject or Agent + Verb of Motion + from Source
to Goal The weather changed from dark to sunny |
| Transferring Schema |
Transfer From X to Y Receiver and Goal |
Agent + Verb of Transfer + Object + Receiver John gave the door a coat of paint |
There are several things implicit in this new framework of the
second generation of cognitive linguistics.
" The concept that language forms that represents reality
has been challenged. Language, it is argued, is used to order
concepts and not forms.
" The categories in language are no longer seen as classifications
based on forms, but are organized around ideal exemplars or prototypes.
The concept of a bird is best represented, for example, by an
ideal bird, for example, a robin, and the other birds are radially
organized around this ideal type.
" Ideas are no longer treated as treated as separate units
but as complex units that are associated with other entities through
experience or other forms of association. A door, for example,
also connotes a door knob, a key hole, a door jamb, etc.
GROUNDING COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS IN THE EMBODIED
MIND
What this investigation into the classification of verbs in this
essay offers is predicated on the Lakoff and Johnson (1999), but
with one major exception. Rather than classify verbs linguistically
and infer their biological transducers, the model proposed here
begins with biological systems and uses these systems to classify
verbs and what they constitute as linguistic concepts and forms.
In other words, verbs are classified by means of the biological
systems that they represent.
" The olfactory system and verbs of smell
" The auditory System and verbs of hearing
" The motor cortex system and verbs of manipulation
" The somatological system and verbs of space
" The limbic system and verbs of emotion
" The visual system and verbs of seeing
" The gastronomical system and verbs of ingesting
Linguists prefer to classify verbs in accordance with their linguistic properties (Levin, 1993). This approach may satisfy linguistic criteria, but it in no way provides insight into how the embodied mind works and how biological schemas can be correlated to linguistic schemas. Hence, this new approach based on biological systems and subsystems come closer to explains just what verbs are determined by biological factors and which are not. Those verbs that are not determined by biological factors may function either as metaphorical extensions or as grammaticalizations (Traugott and Heine, 1991a, 1991b).
Alleged biologically constructed verbs: I see the problem.
Metaphorically constructed verbs: I understand the problem..
Grammatical Metaphor: John went crazy.
Seeing is based on the fact that human beings have biological systems of vision. It implies that there is a whole system of vision in which light enters the eye and its visual record is transmitted to the occipital region of the brain where it is further processed for color, shape, etc. The act of understanding may appear to be a biological function, but this expression is being used metaphorically and not biologically. This metaphor of vision comes from classical Greek thought where one understood the nature of an object by holding it up, standing under it, and inspecting its properties. Hence, the expression "I see the problem" means "I understand the problem." These are obviously metaphorical constructions. These are metaphorical constructions. Grammatical metaphors as exemplified by "John went crazy" emerge from regular grammatical constructions.
Grammatical Schema. John went to town (AGENT GO TO LOCATION)
Grammatical Metaphor. John went crazy (Agent goes to a new state
of mind)
Grammaticalization is a linguistic process in which grammatical markers, function words, or constructions are created metaphorically. The source of this metaphor is usually a basic linguistic schema or a pattern that is expanded into a new and innovative construction. The normal pattern, in this case, is the linguistic schema of movement to a physical location (John went to the store) and it is expanded into a new construction in which one does not go to a physical location, but one goes instead to a new state of mind (John went crazy). Before discussing the organization of this book, it is important to look at how linguists classify verbs and then contrast this with how physiologists look at human biological systems that are related to the same phenomena.
THE LINGUISTIC CATEGORIZATION OF VERBS
There are many ways of classifying English verbs that are based
on forms or formal properties. One such attempt can be found in
the work of Levin (1993). She placed verbs into different classes
on the basis of their patterns of alternation.
| Verbs of Contact by Impact | Hit verbs, swat verbs, spank verbs, contact verbs, poke verbs, and touch verbs |
| Verbs of Cutting | Cut verbs, carve verbs, |
| Verbs of Combining and Attaching | Mix verbs, shake verbs, verbs of amalgation, tape verbs, and cling verbs. |
| Verbs of Separation and Disassembly | Separate verbs, split verbs disassemble verbs, differ verbs and diverse verbs. |
| I mage Creation Verbs | Verbs of image impression, scribble verbs, illustrate verbs, and transcribe verbs. |
| Verbs of Creation and Transformation | Build verbs, grow verbs, verbs of preparation, knead verbs, create verbs, turn verbs, performance verbs, and engender verbs. |
| Verbs of Perception | See verbs, sight verbs, peer verbs, and stimulus perception verbs. |
| Verbs of Psychological State | Amuse verbs, admire verbs, marvel verbs, and appeal verbs. |
| Verbs of Desire | Want verbs, and long for verbs. |
| Verbs of Judgment | Verbs of positive judgment, verbs of negative judgment, and verbs of assessment |
| Verbs of Social Interaction | Correspond verbs, marry verbs and meet verbs |
| Verbs of Communication | Verbs that transfer messages, verbs of manner of speaking, verbs of instruments of communication, say verbs, chitchat verbs, complain verbs, and advice verbs. |
| Verbs of Ingestion | Eat verbs, chew verbs, gobble verbs, devour verbs, dine verbs, and gorge verbs. |
| Verbs Involving the Body | Hiccup verbs, breathe verbs, exhale verbs, non-verbal expression verbs, curtsey verbs, snooze verbs, flinch verbs, internal body state verbs, suffocate verbs, hurt verbs, change of body state verbs, dress verbs, floss verbs, braid verbs, verbs of dressing well, and verbs of being dressed. |
| Verbs of Killing and Destruction | Murder verbs, poison verbs and destroy verbs |
| Verbs of Change of State | Break verbs, bend verbs, cooking verbs, basic change of state verbs, change of color verbs, causative verbs, intensify verbs, harmonize verbs, deteriorate verbs, germinate verbs, and calibrated change of state vebs. |
| Verbs of Existence | Exist verbs, verbs of modes of being, verbs of being involving motion, verbs of the existence of sounds, verbs of the existence of groups, herd verbs, bulge verbs, |
| verbs of spatial configuration, | meander verbs, and verbs of continuous location. |
| Verbs of Appearance and Disappearance | Verbs of appearance, verbs of disappearance, verbs of occurrence, verbs of body internal motion, verbs of assuming a position, verbs of inherently directed motion, leave verbs, roll verbs, run verbs, verbs of motion involving a vehicle, waltz verbs, chase verbs, and avoid verbs. |
| Verbs Involving Lingering and Rushing | Linger, rush |
| Measure Verbs | Register verbs, cost verbs, fit verbs, and price verbs. |
| Aspectual Verbs | Begin verbs, end verbs, and complete verbs. |
| Weather verbs | Verbs of rain, verbs of snow, verbs of sunshine, verbs of sleet, and verbs of drizzle |
The nomenclature of verb patterns and their classification
developed by Levin are supposed to be based on linguistic form
and transformational patterns; however, they suggest that certain
cognitive processes underlying these categories. In particular,
the labels that she has assigned to these verb classes are suggestive
of verbal systems that exemplify the embodied mind hypothesis
(Lakoff and Johnson, 1991, 1999). These verbs provide information
on how one navigates through a biological and social environment
as a human being. Of course there are many ways of accomplishing
these biological navigations, but those that relate to biological
systems and their functions are of special importance because
they suggest that biological transducers are inherently responsible
for these verb classes. Consider, for example, verbs of movement.
One is able to specify through verbs how one moves through a route.
There are verbs that focus means of movement such as walking,
running, driving, flying, swimming, etc. Verbs are important because
they enable language users to articulate human physiological actions
in detail.
Verbs are not the only linguistic components that relate to the
physiological actions carried out by human beings. Nouns, it should
be noted, also play a role in the articulation of the human environment.
They enable one to specify and clarify distinctions between events.
Such distinctions, it should be noted, are not limited to nouns.
They also can be found among verbs and adjectives as they also
contribute to a theory of lexical and biological knowledge. This
essay will only focus of verb classes in English but when necessary,
the focus will shift to other linguistic phenomena of relevant
interest.
THE SYSTEMS ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY APPROACH
As noted earlier, whereas most linguistic accounts of verbs focus
on grammatical forms and classes, but their names are suggestive
of a biological and physiological classification. Just how and
why these relationships exist needs to be investigated and that
is an ongoing project by the authors of this paper (St. Clair,
Rodriguez, and Joshua, 2005). There are certain advantages in
grounding the study of language and the classification of verbs
in English by focusing in systems anatomy. For example, Joseph
LeDoux (1998, 2004) worked with Michael Gazzaniga (1970) on the
split-brain research and went on to specialize in the study of
the limbic system. In order to a person to perform a series of
sequential behaviors (Hebb, 1949), this information must be orchestrated
by means of the limbic system. Many of the linguistic schemas
that are used to organize ideas and concepts in the mind have
to do with sequential ordering of events. This is why Philip Lieberman
(1975, 2001) argued that language began in the limbic system.
Contrary to Chomsky (1965) who argued that language is innate,
Lieberman sees language as a learned skill.
"The human capacity for language is based on a 'functional language system' (FLS), distributed across many subsystems of the brain, many of which link directly to the subcortical basal ganglia." . (Lieberman, 2000: 1)
The point this attack was the claim made by Chomsky that language
is innate. Lieberman claims that language can be explained in
terms of Darwinian evolution. It is not biologically special and
is not based on some recent biological development which Chomsky
has proposed as the rational for a universal grammar. He even
counters the work of Fodor (1983) and his claims about the linguistic
modularity of the mind. The neural architecture of the functional
language system, he notes, differs profoundly from that implied
by current "modular" theories of Mind (Chomsky 1980;
1983). These linguists argue that the human brain contains a unique
localized "language organ."
It is clear that basal ganglia circuits regulate sequential, self-paced,
manual motor control tasks in humans. However, it cannot be claimed
that speech motor control or syntax resides in the basal ganglia.
The FLS model provided by Lieberman integrates activity from many
parts of the human brain, including the subcortical cerebellum,
thalamus, motor cortex, premotor cortex, prefrontal regions, and
sensory cortex. What Lieberman is claiming is that brain mechanisms
that were originally initially adapted for motor control were
modified by Darwinian evolution processes to make higher cognitive
and linguistic ability possible. Hence, the following simple structural
classification of verbs into predicate classes has to do with
the primordial constraints by the basal ganglia on syntax as serially
ordered behavior..
| Predicates | Abstract Structure | Examples |
| One-Place | Predicate Verb + Noun | Adjective + Noun John sings (intransitive
verb) John is tall (predicate adjective) John is here (locative) Humans exist |
| Two-Place Predicate | Noun + Verb + Noun | John is a student |
| Three-Place Predicate | A gent + Ditransitive Verb + Direct Object + Indirect Object | John gave a book to Mary |
NATIVE AND LATINATE VOCABULARY SYSTEMS
The English language, which is essentially a Germanic language,
has undergone a long process of borrowing words from other languages.
Of these, the Classical languages of Greek and Latin and the French
language have proven to be more significant. These languages (Greek,
Latin, and French) play a major role in formal English whereas
the native words that entered the language through Germanic routes
(Anglo-Saxon, Danish, and Norwegian) constitute informal English.
For example, students who enters medical school will need to learn
about 10,000 new words that are used to introduce them to the
new conceptual fields of anatomy and medicine. Most of those new
words are made up of Greek and Latin roots. This is because the
native vocabulary of English cannot function adequately in articulating
the nature and the structure of this new framework. The native
vocabulary is not precise enough. It fails as a language fopr
the medical sciences. This use of technological language is referred
to as technological registers. It is part of a larger phenomenon
of the social uses of linguistic codes known as diglossia. In
countries in which there are levels of distinction between those
who command literacy and those that do not, diglossia acts as
a marker of social achievement and one who commands the formal
language also commands mobility and access within that society.
In the United States, there are two levels of diglossia, formal
and informal English. Within formal English, there are many different
kinds of professional registers such as the language codes of
science, medicine, law and other professional disciplines.
|
Formal and Informal English |
|
| Formal English | Words borrowed from Latin, Greek, and French. Prose style based on the logical organization of events Use of the subjunctive Use of counterfactuals (if x, then Y) Embedded phrasal structures Use of third person perspective |
| Informal English | Words that entered the language through
German, Danish, Norwegian, and Plattdeutsch (lowland dialects
of German) Narrative style based on temporal organization of events Mainly used in the indicative Use of first and second person perspective |
The term given to the lexical items that constitute Formal English is referred to as Latinate Vocabulary. It includes Latin, Greek, and French loan words. It is not just limited to Latin loan words. Why have these languages greatly influenced English Prose? The answer comes from the historical record. Britain fell in love with the classics and established the command of these languages and their literature as a marker of the higher social classes. Students were required to study Latin and Greek as part of their formal education. Knowledge of these languages was used as sign of social achievement. This aspect of English lexicography is readily comprehensible, but why is French considered to be a significant part of Formal English? The answer to this question can be found in the Battle of Hastings in 1066 when France invaded England and won the battle over England that gave them the right to use French as the language of government and to rule that country in a foreign tongue for nearly 300 years. In the process of that time span, England became a bilingual nation. The language of the government was French and the language of the people was Old English, a Germanic tongue. The interface between these two languages led to the rise of a new language, a creole language known as Middle English. Since the government of England was under French rule, French words were given special status and endowed with greater value. Even in Modern English, one finds this system of endowing Greek, Latin, and French loan words with special status.
| Informal English | Formal English (Latin, Greek, French) |
| go in go out go up go down go through go around at the present time through time ahead of the times to hide back front side after the flood dog |
enter exit ascend descend penetrate circumnavigate, periphrasis contemporary, synchronic diachronic avant-garde camouflage posterior anterior lateral postdiluvian canine |
| smart sharp understand to create to keep something going |
erudite, intelligent perspicacious comprehend to establish to sustain, to maintain, to manage |
This process of elevating Latinate vocabulary in English is a
cultural artifact, a social construction of reality shared by
English speakers in the United Kingdom. American, Canadian, New
Zealand, and Australian English share in this heritage. This tradition
is very deep and it even can be found embedded among intelligence
tests, which are in many ways culture-bound assessments of intelligence.
For example, one may gain some 20-30 points on an intelligence
test just by knowing Greek and Latin root words. What is important
about this excursion into the Latinate nature of English is the
fact that when verbs are classified linguistics, they are also
further subclassified socially into formal and informal English.
This further social demarcation is not central to the classification
of verbs discussed within the embodied mind hypothesis.
BIOLOGICALLY-BASED CATEGORIZATION OF VERBS
Courses on sensation and perception teach far more than the focus
of this investigation, which is an investigation of biological
systems of hearing, vision, touch, taste, and smell. In addition
to these topics, such books (Goldstein, 2002) discuss receptors
and neural processing, the lateral geniculate nucleus and the
striate cortex, theories of perception, color perception, and
clinical aspects of vision and hearing. What is interesting about
textbooks on sense and perception is that they include the following
areas of analysis:
" The cutaneous senses and the tactile system
" The chemical senses and the olfactory system
" Perceiving objects and the visual system
" Perceiving color and the visual system
" Perceiving Depth and Size within the visual system
" Perception of action
" Sound and the auditory system
" Speech perception
If one is trying to prove the embodied mind thesis, then it seems more reasonable to begin the investigation of these claims with the biological and physiological systems within the human body and their intrinsic relationships to language and the human brain. This is, essentially, the approach taken in this essay. At some point one will either have strong evidence for the hypothesis or not. It will be argued that the hypothesis is correct and that human perception and cognition is embodied. The question, then, becomes one of asking whether or not language is also embodied. If it is, then how is it is embodied. With regard to English verbs, it is argued that verbs are not rules nor do they represent biological functions. Verbs function as markers of biological networks whether they are wired into the neuronal system or subsequently developed as social constructs. The kinds of verbs that are being investigated in this essay invoke biological systems and function as systems markers. These are verbs that relate to basic physiological systems within the brain. Those verbs that are based on social metaphors do have biological consequences, but they are housed within the cerebral cortex within neuronal complexes that are more distant than the biological systems investigated in this book.
LINGUISTIC ACCOUNTS OF VERBS OF HEARING
How does one go about classifying verbs of hearing? Beth Levin
(1993: 185, 187, and 199) placed these verbs under three separate
classifications. .
| Verb of Hearing | Classification | Rationale |
| Hear | Verb of SEEING | These verbs describe the actual perception of some entity. The take the perceiver as the subject (agent) and the perceived entity as the object. |
| Listen to | Classified under PEERING | Verbs of peering form a subset of verbs of perception and are not used transitively. They take a prepositional phrase complement. These verbs do not necessarily describe the apprehension of something via a sense. |
| Listen | Classified under RUMMAGE | Verbs of rummaging form a subset of verbs of searching. Members of this class show only one of three possible patterns of argument expression available to verbs of searching. Both arguments are expressed using prepositional phrases. |
Jeffrey Gruber (1967) provided a more insightful way of classifying
verbs of hearing. He argued that certain verbs form pairs that
are distinguished by the prepositional phrases that follow them.
Consider, for example, the verb to rent. One may rent something
to someone or rent something from someone. RENT TO and RENT FROM
are two parts of the same verb to RENT. With most verbs, however,
the abstract verb has two surface forms that are context sensitive.
One form is used before the preposition TO and the other is used
before the preposition FROM.
| ABSTRACT VERB | Before a To-Prepositional Phrase |
Before FROM-Prepositional Phrase |
| BUY-SELL | Sell to | Buy from |
| GIVE-TAKE | Give to | Take from |
| GO-COME | Go to | Come from |
| LISTEN-HEAR | Listen to | Hear from |
Gruber argued that abstract verbs are needed to explain how language is used. There are many examples throughout the history of English in which certain lexical forms remain in the abstract only to surface as concrete forms many generations later. For example, the agentive form "editor"was used in English for almost a century before its verbal form "edit" appeared. Since one needs the verbal root to form the agentive noun, it can be argued that the verb "edit" existed as an abstract verb long before it finally surfaced as a concrete lexical form in the language. This process is called "backformation." How does one explain the use of these abstract verbs in linguistic theory? What are their motivating structures? Consider, for example, the abstract verb BUY-SELL. The deep structure of this verb has the following form.
| ABSTRACT VERB | Object | From Prepositional Phrase | To Prepositional Phrase |
| BUY-SELL | a book | Buy from John | Sell to Mary |
If the From Prepositional Phrase is chosen as the topic of the
sentence, the following interim structure occurs:
| Topic (past) | Verb | Object | To Prepositional Phrase |
| From John | BUY-SELL | a book | to Mary |
|
|
|||
The preposition "from" is deleted at the beginning of the topic phrase and the concrete verb is chosen by its prepositional context, i.e., sell to, buy from. If "to Mary" were chosen as the topic of the sentence, the following process would result:
| Topic | Verb Past | Object | From Prepositional Phrase |
| To Mary | BUY-SELL | a book | from John |
|
|
|||
There are several problems with this analysis. One of them has to do with the fact that the verbs in the underlying forms are abstract, but the prepositions are not. Another problem has to do with the fact that other kinds of prepositional phrases are needed to more fully complement the underlying structure. In "John bought a book from Mary for three dollars," one needs to account for the "for prepositional phrase." The following reanalysis corrects these problems:
| Abstract Verb | Object | Source | Goal | Transaction Value |
| BUY-SELL | book | From John | To Mary | for $3 |
According to Gruber, LISTEN-HEAR is also an abstract verb. However,
the deep structure of HEAR-Listen verbs is more complex. How,
for example, does on account for the following sentences?
John heard the news from his parents
John listened to the news
John listened for the news
John heard about the news.
There are some verbs that are based on grammaticality or metaphorical constructions (listen up, hear out, listen in, and listen out for) and these are not the focus of this discussion. The problem is that there is evidence that HEAR and LISTEN are two separate verbs and that they merit different underlying constructions. First, the act of hearing is involuntary. Individuals hear whether or not they want to. Listening, on the other hand, involves that one focus attention on what is being heard. Linguists need to extend their understanding of the auditory process by going beyond the study of only linguistic information. Theories of grammar must include physiological and biolological systems associated with the embodied mind.
EXPLICATING PHONOLOGICAL THEORY
Before beginning a journey into the structures and the functions
that are characteristically associated with the auditory system,
it is necessary to first outline some of the phonological concerns
that play a role in phonological theory. Linguistic must explain
the concept of phonetics and how phonetic sounds form a natural
class of abstract sounds known as the phoneme. Consider, for example
the bilabial voiceless consonants associated with the following
words: pin, spin, and up. The voiceless bilabial phone of "pin"
is aspirated, [ph] whereas those of "spin" and "up"
are not, [p]. By what kind of physiological process do the two
allophones [p] and [ph] constitute a natural class, the phoneme
/p/?
Another problem comes from acoustic phonetics. Native speakers
of English designate the phoneme /p/ to be the same consonant
before all vowels, but the acoustic evidence shows that each of
these consonants are different due to the consonant to vowel transitions
involved. The phoneme /p/ actually consists of several acoustic
allophones, [pi], [pe], [pu], [po] , etc. How do these acoustic
allophones constitute the same abstract sound, the phoneme /p/?
Not only are the unaspirated allophones of /p/ different before
each vowel, but so are the aspirated ones /ph/.
Another problem in phonological theory comes from those linguists
who have noticed several similarities between phonological theory
and music theory. Both deal with sign systems based on resonance.
Both have structure, but what is this structure? How are they
related? Could it be that vowels are really musical chords? These
and other concerns of phonological theory are discussed after
the auditory system is explicated.
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE AUDITORY SYSTEM
There are many functions involved in hearing and listening. Some
of these functions are more significant than others with regard
to phonological theory. Each of these functions are discussed
in this section of this essay and those that relate to phonemic
theory include an expanded discussion.
The auditory system is organized to detect several aspects of
sounds, including pitsch, loudness, and direction. The anatomical
components of the system are the external ear, the middle ear,
and the inner ear.
THE OUTER EAR: Sound waves are collected by the external
ear and channeled along the ear canal to the eardrum or the tympanic
membrane. When the sound hits the tympanic membranes, the impact
creates vibrations that cause the three bones of the middle ear,
the ossicles, to move. The smallest of these bones is called the
stapes and it fits into the oval window between the middle and
inner ear. When the oval window vibrates, the fluid in the inner
ear transmits the vibrations into a delicate, snail-shaped structure
called the cochlea.
What are the functions associated with the outer ear? One of them
is determined by the outer ear, the pinna and its extension into
the ear canal. It is shaped to detect sounds and direct them into
the ear canal. Humans are structured to receive sounds that are
before them. Unlike some species that can move its ears to locate
sounds, humans are limited in this physiological function and
need to channel sounds from the acoustic spaces around them into
the ear canal. The next function of the out ear is to send these
sound vibrations towards the tympanic membrane where the impact
causes that membrane to vibrate. The outer ear detects air vibrations
and directs them to the middle ear where they are converted into
mechanical vibrations. One other function needs to noted: the
pinner protects the tympanic membrane (the eardrum) at the end
of the ear canal.
THE MIDDLE EAR: The middle ear is a small chamber between the tympanic membrane and the inner ear. It consists of the tympanic cavity and contains the auditory ossicles. The function of the middle ear is to transmit and amplify the sound vibrations from the tympanic membrane to the inner ear . The tympanic cavity is divided into the epitympanum, the mesotympanum, and hypotympanum.
|
|
|
| Epitympanum | It contains the malleus and incus. It is the malleus that is set into vibration by the tympanic membrane. These vibrations are sent to the incus which in turn sends them to the stapes. The stapes transmits these vibrations to the inner ear by pushing against the oval window of the cochlea. |
| Mesotympanum | This is the part behind the tympanum and it consists of the stapes, a part of the incus, and two muscles |
| Hypotympanum | This is the part of the tympanum that lies under the level of the bottom of the external auditory canal. |
The tympanic membrane has an irregularly round, slightly conical
shape. The apex of the cone is located at the umbo, the projecting
center of the tympanic membrane that corresponds to the point
of attachment to manubrium or tip of the malleus. The angle between
the between the tympanum and the external auditory canal is approximately
140 degrees (Goldstein, 2002: 344-355).
The ossicles serve to transmit the sound energy from the tympanic
membrane to the inner ear. The malleus, one of the ossicles, is
attached to the tympanic membrane. The incus is the link between
the malleus and the stapes, the bone that connects to the inner
ear. Since sound waves cannot be readily transmitted into the
liquid medium of the cochlea, they need to be amplified. In addition
to the function of transmitting air vibrations into a liquid medium,
the bones of the middle ear also protect the cochlea from damaging
vibrations. It masks low frequency sounds in loud environments
by removing background noises under 1000 Hz. It also decreases
sensitivity to a person's own speech. It should be noted that
the contraction of the stapedius muscle and the tensor tympani
muscle occurs as a reflex to high volume sounds. This contraction
makes the ossicular chair more rigid and dampens the response
to acoustic stimulation, especially those frequencies under 2000
Hz.
THE INNER EAR: In the inner ear, there are thousand
of microscopic hair cells that are bent by the wave-like action
of fluid inside of the cochlea. These impulses are then passed
through to the auditory nerve and to the hear center of the brain.
The relative length of the hair cell vibrations determine the
different frequencies that are send to the hearing center in the
brain. Short fibers correspond to higher frequencies and vice
versa. The inner ear is also filled with a maze of fluid-filled
tubes that can be found throughout the temporal bone of the skull.
The bony tubes, the bony labyrinth, are filled with a fuild called
perilymph. Within this labyrinth one finds a second series of
delicate cellular tubes called the membranous labyrinth and they
are filled with a fuild called the endolymph. It is in the membranous
labyrinth that one finds the actual hearing cells, the hair cells
of the organ of corti (Anthony and Thibodeau, 1983: 338-344)..
What are the functions of the inner ear? The front portion is
the snail-shaped cochlea which functions in hearing. It performs
a Fourier analysis of incoming complex sound waves and breaks
them down into fundamental frequencies. The rear part consists
of semicircular canals in the vestibule and they are responsible
for balance. The three semicircular canals (known collectively
as the crista ampullaris) are perpendicular to each other. This
arrangement allows it to sense movement in each of the three spatial
planes. The static head position is sensed by the vestibule, specifically
the utricle and saccule, which contain the position hair cells.
Different head positions produce different gravity effects on
these hair cells. The impulses from these cells travel over the
vestibular nerve to synapse in the brain stem, cerebellum and
spinal chord. These impulses produce reflex actions to produce
corrective responses (DeLisa and Stolov, 1981: 51-54). The crista
ampullaris provides a sense of equilibrium and a reference center
by means of which one is also able to sense the location of sounds
in space.
AUDITORY NERVE OR CRABUAK NERVE VIII: The perception
of pitch must be determined not just by the activity in the cochlea,
but by the way in which the brain analyzes the information that
originated in the cochlea. The first-order neurons of the auditory
system are cells of the spiral ganglion situation within the modiolus
or central core of the cochlea, approximately 32,000 myelinated
cochlear nerve fibers. The chochlear nerve occupies the anterior-inferior
portion of the internal auditory canal and the vestibular nerve
occupies the posterior half. Axons leaving the cochlear nucleus
pass between the pontomedullary junction and the midbrain. The
auditory fibers from the dorsal and ventral cochlear nuclear form
three pathways which are called the striae. The fibers from the
anterior ventral portion of the ventral cochlear nucleus send
an ipsilateral pathway to reach the superior olivary complex (Goldstein,
2002). It also sends information to theipsilateral lemniscus which
is the principal ascending auditory pathway in the brainstem.
Projections of these cells proceed to the midbrain and terminate
in the inferior colliculus. What is important about the inferior
colliculus is that it is located in the midbrain tectus and serves
as a relay center for all of the ascending and descending fibers.
These ascending fibers and some of the lateral lemniscus constitute
the afferent bundkle known as the brachium of the inferior colliculus.
These fibers synpas in the medial geniculate body of the thalamus.
.
Rather than go into greater detail on the auditory system and
the hearing center in the brain, a task that would take several
chapters of a book, it is time to return to certain theoretical
concepts in linguistics and rephrase them in physiological terms.
THE AUDITORY SYSTEM AND PHONOLOGICAL PERCEPTION
One of the most interesting questions that a linguist could ask
has to do with the digitizing of the continuum of complex sound
waves into units that are perceived as consonants and vowels.
How do the sounds of language, which exist in a continuum of resonance,
get transferred into digital information in the brain? The cochlea
takes these complex sounds that exist in a continuum and breaks
them down into harmonic frequencies by a process known as Fourier
analysis. The inner ear is a biological transducer. It takes in
information and restructures it for internal use.
Another interesting question has to do with the fact that the
auditory system is able to detect vowels and separate them from
consonants. How is this done? Studies in acoustic analysis (Goldstein,
2002) demonstrate that vowels have a unique structure. They consist
of formants or resonant bars that correlate to buccal pockets
of resonance above and below the tongue during phonation. There
is a small compartment of resonating air under the tongue that
produces a high pitch; there is a large cavity of resonating sound
near the pharyngeal area at the back of the tongue that produces
a low resonating sound; and there is another compartment of resonating
sound on the dorsal region of the tongue and the palate that produces
sounds in the medial range. When these sounds are emitted during
phonation, they produce a complex sound wave. The inner ear receives
this complex sound in the form of liquid vibrations and transforms
them into digitized harmonic sounds. Each vowel has its own configuration
of harmonic sounds. If a sound is nasalized, it contains another
resonant bar that was created by vibrations in the nasal cavity.
Consonants differ structurally from vowels. In acoustic terms,
they have a point of origin and gradually interface with vowels
which are more steady state vibrations. The transitions from consonants
to vowels leave a distinct pattern.
The problem for a physiological account of this phenomenon has
to do with phonological constancy. The phenomenon of constancy
is not new to the study of human perception. There is evidence
for size constancy, shape constancy, and color constancy. Consider
shape constancy as an example of how the mind perceives many shapes
but is only conscious of one of them. When one looks at a rectangular
desk, the mind sees that desk as a rectangular shaped object.
From on angle, the desk may appear as a trapezoid or a square,
but the mind sees a rectangular object. Phonological constancy
also exists. The brain perceives many consonant to vowel transitions.
The sound of [p] contains a different consonant to vowel transition
patterns before each vowel, but the mind hears these differences
as the same sound, /p/. How does this constancy occur? Where along
the path from the inferior colliculus to the brachium and the
geniculate body of the thalamus did this imposition of constancy
occur? If one can answer this, one is able to provide physiological
evidence for one of the basic tenets of phoneme theory within
linguistics.
Another problem that merits concern is how does the brain distinguish
vocalic sounds from musical sounds? They apparently have similar
structures. They consist of resonating bands of frequencies that
are spatially organized and co-occur simultaneously. The chord
of C, for example, consists of three resonating sound, C, A, and
E. The sound of /i/, on the other hand, also consists of three
resonating frequencies, two higher frequencies and one lower.
All of these sounds occur within the range of 20-4,000 Hz. Perhaps
the answer has to do with the fact that human vocal sounds are
emitted as complex sounds. However, once these sounds have been
subjected to a Fourier analysis by the cochlea, they are electronically
equivalent to strata of pure vowels. How does the hearing center
of the brain distinguish these patterns? There is evidence that
human beings sing their language, but only students of the auditory
system are aware of this. For the average person, one signs a
song and speaks a language. They are seen as different processes
and there are even different verbs in English to mark the distinction.
Linguists believe that phonetics, the study of speech sounds,
are merely combined and placed into a category known as phonemes.
From the aforementioned discussions of human perception, this
cannot be the case. What a linguist calls a phoneme is merely
a cover term for a system of sound production and perception in
which each member of the class of sounds innervates a whole complex
process of biological and physiological associations. What appears
to be an entity in linguistic analysis is really a physiological
process. There is one process for each perception of a consonant
and vowel sequence. A phoneme, under this analysis, is a marker
of sound constancy. It treats the sound of [p] before [a] in the
same ways as it occurs before [i], and so on. However, each of
these processes is separate. They are held together by the process
of phonological constancy. The problem is how does this constancy
occurs. It is not new to human perception. How does one account
for its occurrence physiologically?
The final problem that needs to be addressed with regard to the
focus of this paper is how individuals distinguish verbs of hearing
from verbs of listening. Gruber (1967), one may recall, had a
theory of abstract verbs in which HEAR-LISTEN was an abstract
verb. Evidently, such is not the case. They represent two different
verbs physiologically. So the question is how does the mind go
from hearing to listening? How does one focus attention on an
incoming involuntary signal? Perhaps this is a topic that needs
to be left for those who are involved in consciousness studies.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
There are several issues addressed in this essay. One has to do
with the grounding linguistic models in a solid tradition of research.
The embodied mind hypothesis provides an informative model by
which to investigate the biological foundations of language. The
only problem with this research is that the model proposed by
Lakoff and Johnson (1999) does not include enough biological and
physiological research. It claims that linguistic schemas have
a biological basis, but go no further than that. The model proposed
by Lieberman (2001) is far more effective, but his concern was
mainly with attacking the claims of universal grammar and as a
consequence he focused on the fact that the basal ganglia provides
a biological rationale for the organization of serial behavior
and syntax is orchestrated by these motor functions. The approach
being presented in this paper is a synopsis of a larger work on
Language and the Embodied Mind (St. Clair, Rodriguez and Joshua,
2005) in which various physiological systems related to language
are investigated as the foundations of upon which linguistic theories
should be developed. A synopsis of one such system, the auditory
system, was presented. This systems anatomy approach provided
greater insight into hearing verbs, the relationship between the
tonal structure of vowels and musical chords, and the organization
of phonological constancy in language perception. It also brought
into focus how formants in acoustic phonetics and the articulation
of vowels are related to the tonal structure of vowels.
The classification of verbs in English was merely the starting
point of this investigation into the embodied mind. The reason
that the classification of verbs was chosen as a topic is because
it was so narrowly defined and articulated by linguists who limited
themselves to syntactic information. The problem is not that these
linguistics limited themselves by means of linguistic methodology,
but that they went on to make strong claims about the biology
of language. Chomsky (1965, 1966) wanted to argue that language
is a faculty of the mind, a innate biological mechanism that accounts
for his claims about universals of language. All of these claims
are inferred and not based on research in the medical sciences.
He eventually had to relinquish this claim (Hauser, Chomsky, and
Fitch, 2002). Another set of biological inference came from the
work of Lakoff and Johnson (1999) who advocate the embodied mind
hypothesis and made several generalization about biological schemas
based on their findings of linguistic schemas. The problem here
is that they did not document their research biologically. What
the authors of this essay advocate is that linguistics who want
to make claims about the biology and the physiology of language
should begin with the study of physiological systems and base
their theories on this established domain of scientific research.
The biology of language needs to be grounded in the biology and
the physiology of human systems.
The example of how the embodied mind research can better explain
the verbs of hearing and listening came from a general overview
of the auditory system in human beings. A more expanded version
of this account with more detailed explications can be found in
a forthcoming book by the authors (St. Clair, Rodriguez, and Joshua,
2005).
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