Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
2010
ABSTRACT
The derivation of meaning in proverbs is a complex tristratal process which
involves the derivation of the referential meaning of the proverb; its
prototypical meaning, and finally its contextual meaning. In this second
article in continuation to the first article on the Derivation of Referential
Meaning 1 - Propositional Meaning: A Ka:rmik Linguistic Analysis, an attempt
has been made to study the syntactic meaning of parallel patterns and
complex sentences in proverbs from a ka:rmik linguistic perspective. In a
Ka:mik Linguistic perspective, meaning is an emergent experiential
awareness; it is born out of dispositional understanding mediated through
the I-I-I (interconnected-interrelated-interdependent) networking of the
formal, functional, and cognitive levels of the contextual (lingual) actional
reality for the construction of dispositional reality. Such a shift in paradigm
opens up a new way of deriving meaning of proverbs and language as
language for individual experience (ka:rmik pragmatics or ka:rmatics)
instead of language for communication (as semantics) or language in use
for social communication (pragmatics).
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Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar Derivation of Syntactic Meaning in Proverbs
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Reversal of Order
I. Introduction
In the Derivation of Referential Meaning 1- Propositional Meaning: A Ka:rmik
Linguistic Analysis, an attempt has been made to derive the propositional
meaning of literal, restricted (subject specific), and figurative proverbs by
examining such figurative proverbs as similaic, hyperbolical, paradoxical,
and metaphorical proverbs. In addition, the formation of metaphorical
proverbs is motivated from such concepts as the principle of least effort,
complexity in prototypicalization, ease in the computation of meaning, and
aesthetic appeal. This is with reference to their propositional meaning from
the perspective of their style. There is another area that is also worth
consideration, namely, the syntactic meaning derived from parallelism and
complexity in their syntactic structure.
In this article, an attempt has been made to examine how parallelism and
complex sentence structure contribute to the building up of meaning in
proverbs.
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The formal, functional, and cognitive linguistic models are atomic and
therefore inadequate to provide such a description. In a Ka:mik Linguistic
perspective, meaning is an emergent (w)holistic experiential awareness; it
is born out of dispositional understanding mediated through the I-I-I
(interconnected-interrelated-interdependent) networking of the formal,
functional, and semantic levels of the contextual (lingual) actional reality for
the construction of dispositional reality. In such a process, meaning is
dispositionally generated, specified, directed, and materialized through its
systematic and holorchical mediation through the cognitive and
socioculturalspiritual realities in its context of lingual action. Hence, the
ka:rmik linguistic paradigm integrates all these planes into a unified
framework and therefore it is claimed that it is better suited to derive the
meaning in a single framework.
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the original proverb becomes the formal prototype for the rest of the
proverbs which are its categories. The core features of the formal-categorial
proverbs are largely determined by their semantic features (as indicated in
their referential meaning) and their similarity with that of the prototypical
proverb with a variation in the fringe features which are largely determined
by lexico-syntactic considerations. Let us take a proverb to illustrate this
point.
(13) Better late than never.
In this proverb, there are four words: better, late, than, and never and they
are arranged in that serial order of words in the elliptical syntactic
construction of comparative degree. Its referential meaning is:
(14a) (It is) better (to be) late (in doing something) than never (doing it).
This proverb is given as the original proverb and four variations in this
proverb are listed in ADAP (Mieder 1992: 360-61; 51) as follows:
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(14.c.2) Better late than never, but better never late (to be … is also
ellipted) Vs
(14.d.1) Better late than never, but better still never late (an adverb still is
added to the extension) Vs
(14.d.2) Better late than never, but better yet, never late (a new adverb yet
replaces the old one in the extension)].
In the case of (14b) and (14e), the meaning is the same but there is a
change in the words: never is replaced by not at all. In the case of ellipsis,
there is a tension between clarity and brevity (via aesthetic appeal) and
brevity won the case; hence, there is an interrelation-interconnection-
interdependence (I-I-I) of syntax with disposition (as realized in the
aesthetic choices); in the case of the extension in the syntactic pattern from
Better X than Y to Better X than Y but better not X, there is a tension
between the social practice 1 as given in Better X than Y and a change of
perception (owing to attitudinal or dispositional change) of that social
practice given in 2 as Better X than Y but better not X. Here, there is a shift
in emphasis from doing a thing late to not doing so. This difference of
opinion (owing to attitudes) resulted in the creation of another version which
is a category of the first version. Here, there is an I-I-I between the
perception of the social practice resulting in a change of meaning and the
syntactic pattern. Therefore, disposition (via the choice of perception),
semantics, and syntax are interconnected-interrelated-interdependent (I-I-I):
svabha:vam (disposition) decides the choice of meaning and via
meaning decides the choice of syntax – hence, there is a double
choice according to disposition. For example, A bird in the hand is better
than two in the bush and A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush have
different syntactic patterns – one is in the comparative degree and the other
in the positive degree with a slight change of meaning; in the first choice, a
bird in the hand is equal to more than two birds and in the second choice it
is simply equal to two birds; again, in the first choice, there is alliteration
[b…b…b] and in the second there is none. In addition, the second has so
many propositional content variations: A bird in the cage is worth two in the
bush; A bird in the hand is worth a flock in the sagebrush; A bird in the hand
is worth a hundred flying; A bird in the hand is worth more than two in the
bush (in comparative degree but with a different word ‘worth’) – this is
synonymous in meaning to A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush;
etc. A similar pattern is observed in the proverb: An ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure and its variation: Prevention is better than cure.
What is more, even the syntactic prototype might have been chosen by
analogy (by a dispositional choice) to form other proverbs as it happens in
the case of many proverbs (e.g., Don’t count your chickens before they are
hatched - Don’t count your new cars before they’re built; A bird in the hand
is worth two in the bush – A dollar in the bank is worth two in the hand or A
camera in the hand is worth two in the alley). Such a phenomenon is also
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seen in the synonymy of proverbs having the same prototypical meaning but
different images: Distant hills are green Vs Faraway birds have fine feathers
or Distant cows have long horns.
All these proverbs have a common underlying meaning derived from a
dispositional choice of the comparison in the social practice as expressed in
the proverb, and it is socioculturalspiritually accepted as a way of perception
by the members of the society in which it is used. Here, the meaning is
standardized by the individual-collective-contextual consensus of the
meaning through dispositional agreement which results in the societal norm
of accepting and using the proverb.
In some cases, somebody may not accept this perception as a pragmatic
choice and ignore the advice – consequently, a new dispositional choice may
emerge leading to a new choice of contextual meaning in discourse. For
example, two people get a job, which is not well-paid, in their town.
Remembering the proverb, one accepts it, not waiting to get a job outside
his town which is well-paid and so loses it. On the other hand, the second
person rejects the wisdom of the proverb and waits for the well-paid job and
gets it. This person derives a different meaning from the proverb: Even
though the society thinks that something available is better than something
more which is not available, the second option is better (Two birds in the
bush are better than one in the hand) – a dispositional choice – and so let me
choose the second option (the perlocutionary force) – the second
dispositional choice. In this latter case, there is a dispositional implicature (a
sort of denegational implicature) that overrules the soicioculturalspiritual
implicature owing to dispositional bias: that means the
soicioculturalspiritual meaning which is derived by a metaphorical
interpretation of the referential meaning is rejected; and the dispositional
meaning is accepted. If this view gains currency, an antiproverb emerges:
Two birds in the bush are (sometimes) better than a bird in the hand. In the
former case, the dispositional implicature accepts the soicioculturalspiritual
implicature which is rejected in the latter case – that means in both the
cases, disposition is supreme. It is an error in interpretation to say that the
meaning is socioculturalspiritually derived instead of saying that it is
socioculturalspiritually standardized, and transmitted – language is not
simple social action but dispositional social action.
(1) Disposition Dispositional Bias Response Bias Choice in
Meaning Variation.
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A few more examples are given below. The conditions are shown in italics
and the speech acts in plain letters.
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challenges are not. Hence questions of this type are not considered
directives. In the case of the third example, both a directive and an assertive
are conjoined. So both the examples ii and iii are heterogeneous
conjunctional speech acts. The fourth example is a conjunctional
illocutionary speech act with two elementary directives conjoined. In view of
the examples i and iv, we get a further division of complex illocutionary acts:
1. Conjunction of Elementary Illocutionary Acts; 2. Conjunction of Complex
Illocutionary Acts; and 3. Conjunction of Mixed Illocutionary Acts.
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proposition at a higher level abstraction and then apply it: A dog, a woman,
and a walnut tree are the categories of a prototypical concept X (stretching
across animals, humans, and trees) which have the characteristic of
becoming better by being beaten and so become exemplars par excellence
of X. Therefore, the prototypical meaning is: X becomes better by beating
with X having A, B, and C as its categories. Hence, when this proverb is
applied to a context where only B is the focus, and A and C are not present
or relevant, there is no flouting of quantity or relevance since A, B, and C
separately represent the prototype as its categories and not collectively;
they need not be the focus together. Another example is: There are three
sides to every story- your side, my side, and the right side. Here, two
propositional constituents are always present (your side, my side) but the
third (the right side) may be optional because both the sides may be wrong
and all may be one.
(Anticlimax)
vii. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was
lost; for
want of a horse, the rider was lost.
(Anti-climax)
The first example Feed a cold and starve a fever is based on a contrast of
feeding and starving and is subject specific with two different specific
subjects. So when the prototype has to be constructed we have a problem:
what common abstraction can be made out of such sentences? Feed a cold
F₁ (P₁) and starve a fever F₂ (P₂) are common only as directives making the
conjunction homogeneous. Hence, the prototype should be a directive.
However, the senses are different but they should be one. The only way out
is to consider cold and fever as sicknesses and have sickness as a
proposition in the prototype. Feeding and starving are degrees of eating; so
eating becomes another propositional constituent. Combining the two, we
get: eat proportionately to cure your sickness as the prototypical meaning
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with F₁ (P₁) and F₂ (P₂) as the two subject specific categories restricting the
domain of application only to those two categories. When applied in a
context of F₁ (P₁) or F₂ (P₂), only one category is applicable but both
constitute the prototypical meaning. However, the contextual meaning is
derived with reference to the category referred to in the context.
The different types of complex speech acts are shown in the following
network (1) for a quick reference.
Denegational
Conjunctional Complex
Mixed
Network 1: Network of Complex Illocutionary Acts
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• Ka:rmik Process
Disposition Function
…. Application
Network IV. Dispositional Choices in the Formation of a Proverb
All these stages can be graphically captured in the form of the
conceptualization graphs in the Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory as given below in
Graphs 1 and 2.
(1). Conception of the Parallel Patterns of the Syntactic Meaning:
At the first stage, a sociocultural practice will be observed and
contentualized.
Perception (This and That - Cognition) Classification (So and
So - System / Paradigm) Qualification (Such and Such –
Structure/Syntagm)
Cognition of the Propositional Meaning as Sociocultural
Practice
(see the conceptual axis graph for a graphic representation of Conception in
Bhuvaneswar 2009 b)
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conception that gives rise to the cogneme (see the star networks in
Bhuvaneswar 2000).
The entire process of the dispositional cognition of the proverb in the context of its
use is shown below in the Triaxial Graph of Contextual Actionality (for more details
see Bhuvaneswar 2000)
Society Participants
II III
Culture Relation
Guna:s Context
I IV
Vasanas Activity
Legend
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The Triad (sattva giving knowledge of activity; rajas giving choice of activity by
traits; and tamas
giving inertia or materiality of activity by va:sana:s) of Disposition.
X Legend
C A Act
A C
Cogneme
F F
Function
Y Y X…X X
Axis
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Y… Y Y
Axis
X
Graph 3. Multiaxial Graph of Superimposition
In the case of complex sentence proverbs, the social practices are complex
in their propositional content and demand a complex illocutionary force;
consequently, the form of the proverb is patterned, structured, and
materialized as such an illocutionarily complex utterance.
T I M E S O C I E T Y
C
IPC IPC O
S N
P T
I C A C I E
C X
E T
IPT
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Fig.1. a b
Legend
Works Cited
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