V
Textual
Efficiency
1. MOTIVES FOR EFFICIENCY
1.1
I have argued throughout that the utilization of texts in communication entails
constant management of blocks of knowledge, only some of which are relevant at a
given moment. The sheer volume of this knowledge usually precludes making even a
majority of it explicit in an individual statement. It follows that a language
should provide numerous options for compacting surface expression without
damaging the connectivity of underlying knowledge. In effect, these sets of
options point the participants in communication toward that portion of active
knowledge which is to be currently expanded or modified. The options are clearly
an important contribution to the EFFICIENCY of textuality: processing the
largest amounts with the smallest expenditure of resources. In terms of
CYBERNETICS, the use of formats for restatement responds to the CURRENT CONTROLS
on communication (cf. I.3.4.7), regulating the flow of knowledge up to the
surface.
1.2
The notion of “cohesion” has been used by some researchers for devices such
as pronominalization, substitution, and ellipsis (see
especially Halliday 1964; Hasan 1968; Halliday & Hasan 1976). Often, no
special consideration is given to the underlying connectivity of text-knowledge
and world-knowledge that makes these devices possible and useful (except in the
discussion of “lexical cohesion” in Halliday & Hasan 1976: ch. 6). Many
factors in linguistic outlooks were responsible for this omission: limitations
to sentences, exclusion of world-knowledge, lack of interest in real
communication, and a general discomfort regarding semantics. The enduring
primacy of syntax in linguistics is revealed by the very terms that were
proposed for the devices we are considering:. “hypersyntax” (Palek 1968),
“macrosyntax” (Gülich 1970), or “suprasyntax” (Dressler 1970a).
Evidently, the notion of ‘syntax” here is not that of syntax proper, but a
hybrid of ‘semantics of syntax” and “syntax of semantics” as envisioned
by the scheme set forth in I.2.8. Bonnie Webber (1980) remarks on the tendency
to treat the cohesive devices as if they served to refer to surface words rather
than to the conceptual-relational content underlying words. Jerry Morgan (1978a:
109f.) notices that tendency even in the writings of Halliday and Hasan (1976:
2), ‘who probably know better.” But Morgan may be too severe: surely we may
say metaphorically that words “refer” to other words, and mean that words
refer to the same referents as other words, provided we do not go on to claim
that we are dealing with nothing but words.
1.3
An exception to general trends is the very broad outlook of Roland Harweg
(1968a). His notion of ‘substitution’ subsumes not only the usual devices
such as pronouns and articles, but a diverse range of conceptual relations like
inclusions among classes, superclasses, or metaclasses, part/whole, causality,
and proximity. He is one of the few linguists to make free use of
world-knowledge in defining textuality. In the main, “substitution’ is any
connection between two components of a text or textual world that allows the
second to activate a configuration of knowledge shared with the first. Hence, a
good portion of his examples would be in line with the spreading activation
model of knowledge use (cf. III.3.24).
1.4
I will undertake to outline some of the most important devices of cohesion. My
criteria will be their contributions to the processing efficiency. These devices
are:
1.4.1
RECURRENCE is the actual repetition of expressions. The repeated elements may
have the same, different, or overlapping reference, and the extent of conceptual
content they can be used to activate varies accordingly.
1.4.2
DEFINITENESS is the extent to which the text-world entity for an expression at a
given point is assumed to be identifiable and recoverable, as opposed to being
introduced just then.
1.4.3
CO-REFERENCE is the application of different surface expressions to the same
entity in a textual world.
1.4.4 ANAPHORA is the type of co-reference where a lexical expression has is a PRO-FORM (e.g. pronoun) after it in the surface text.
1.4.5
CATAPHORA is the type of co-reference where a lexical expression has is a
pro-form before it in the surface text.
1.4.6
EXOPHORA is the application of a pro-form to an entity not expressed in the text
at all, but identifiable in the situational context.
1.4.7
ELLIPSIS is the omission of surface expressions whose conceptual content is
nonetheless carried forward and expanded or modified by means of noticeably
incomplete expressions.
1.4.8
JUNCTION subsumes the devices for connecting surface sequences together in such
a way that the relations between blocks of conceptual text- world knowledge are
signaled, such as: addition, alternativity, contrast, and causality. Subtypes of
junction are CONJUNCTION, DISJUNCTION, CONTRAJUNCTION, and SUBORDINATION (see
II.2.24ff.).
1.5
These devices offer a number of contributions to efficiency: (1) the compacting
of surface expression; (2) the omission of surface elements; (3) the carrying
forward of materials to be expanded, developed, modified, or repudiated; (4) the
signaling of knownness, uniqueness, or identity; and (5) a workable balance
between repetition and variation in surface structure as required by the
considerations of informativity.
1.6
The dependence of these devices on context emerges from this list of advantages.
At any particular moment during the production and comprehension of a text,
people need cues about what ALTERNATIVES among possible continuations are more
or less probable (cf. IV.1.1). At the same time, it is necessary to keep the
intended alternatives CURRENT without cluttering up the surface text by lengthy
restatement or repudiation.
1.7
The STABILITY PRINCIPLE was proposed in I.4.4 as a major factor of systemic
regulation of the kind I envision in the actualization of texts. Such a
principle assigns a high priority to strategies for co-ordinating surface
expressions that share common or contiguous conceptual content. The ECONOMY
PRINCIPLE stipulates that, wherever expedient or doubtful, preference should be
given to re-using already activated content, rather than activating new content.
It follows that cohesive devices like those enumerated in V.1.4 do not make the
text coherent; the prior assumption that the text is coherent makes these
devices useful (cf. Morgan 1978a: I 10).
2.
RECURRENCE
2.1
The recurrence of surface expressions with the same conceptual content and
reference is especially common in spontaneous speaking, as opposed to formal
situations. The eyewitness report of a distraught county supervisor after a
flood in Arizona contained these statements (Gainesville Sun, Dec. 20,
1978):
(73)
There’s water through many homes.
I would say almost all of them have water in them. It’s just
completely under water.]1 [1. Throughout this chapter,
I use the convention of underlining the elements I wish to address in
italics.]
The
rhetorical accumulated effect of this usage has something of the disastrous,
disordered copiousness of the water, an entity normally in short supply in
Arizona.
2.2
According to the principles of stability and economy, recurrence would entail
sameness of reference. But this could lead to conflicts in texts where there
seem to be no alternative expressions for different referents (Gainseville Sun,
Dec. 20, 1978):
(74.1)
Weapons and projectile toys have a built-in threat to eyes and cannot be
made child-proof. (74.2) Consumer safety groups have also warned about stuffed
animals with loose eyes and poorly sewn-on accessories. Small children
can pull them off and swallow them. (74.3) “We find eyes all over the
place,” one toy store clerk said.
We
assume that the clerk was finding toy eyes, not children’s ‘eyes all over
the place’ because in the latter case, the press treatment would be much more
explicit (lack of knowledge inference, III.3.21). Ambiguity is similarly
overcome for this passage of the Ohio Drivers Handbook:
(75)
A restricted license may be issued to any person otherwise qualified who
is subject to episodic impairment of consciousness upon a statement from a licensed
physician.
None
of my Ohio informants interpreted the passage such that the physician is
required to have a driver’s license (though some wondered how ‘episodic impairment
of consciousness’ differs from the usual state of Ohio drivers).
2.3
Deliberate violations of the stability and economy principles might increase
informativity and interest. For example, a poem allegedly written by the
18-year-old conspirator Chidiock Tichborne just before his execution in 1586
contains the line (Simpson [ed.] 1967: 85L):
(76) My glass is full, and now my glass is run.
A
discrepancy (1.6.9) arises when the second ‘glass’ cannot be taken as a
drinking vessel and must be processed as ‘hourglass’ instead, reverting to
knowledge about the writer’s personal situation of impending execution.
2.4
Psychologically, recurrences should distribute attention away from their
components, except in cases like (76). If the frequency principle of learning
(IV.2.2) applies, the recurrent elements should be impressed on memory.
Processing should be easy, as the point of connection in the ongoing text-world
model should be obvious (cf. Kintsch 1974: 86). Whatever factors may apply,
there must be a difference between the TRIVIAL recurrences required by the
limited repertories of language options and MOTIVATED recurrences where
repetition has some deeper justification (cf. Werth 1976; Beaugrande 1978b,
1979e, 1979g).
2.5
Consider for instance the Biblical proverb:2 [2. These
examples are taken from a textbook entitled Rhetoric: From Athens to Auburn, ed.
Richard Graves (Auburn: Auburn University Press, 1976), pp. 33, 32, and 19
respectively).
(77)
As in water face reflects face,
So the heart of man reflects man.
The
two lines are very similar in surface structure, and each contains an element
repeated on either side of the element ‘reflects’. This organization of
expression enacts the content of the textual world: images ‘reflected’ in a
mirror. Less striking is the use of recurrence for signaling repetitious events,
as in Steinbeck’s passage:
(78)
They work at it and work
at it.
This
use is similar to that of the county supervisor preoccupied with an
overabundance of water in (73). Speaker outlook can be signaled with recurrences
such as this one from Jeannie Morris:
(79)
There are no distractions — and I mean no
distractions.
This
time, the surface format iconically nacts the insistence of the speaker on an
attitude as unchanging as the expressions themselves. Possible objections are
accordingly discouraged (cf. Beaugrande & Dressier 1980).
2.6
Recurrence can be employed with a shift in the syntactic function of an
expression (Dressier 1979). The recurring element is adapted to its
environments, yet the identity of reference is still obvious. In the American
Declaration of Independence, we find these stretches of text:
(80.1)
to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station
[...] (80.2) they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation
The
shift from adjective for an attribute to noun for an action neatly signals the
overall coherence while avoiding the monotony of an exact repetition. Dressier
(1979) notes that this recurrence type offers the text producer the potential to
create new language items, since one occurrence can provide for the
comprehension of the other. Such is the case when Erich Fried entitles a story
‘Turtle-Turning’ and includes this passage (Fried 1975):
(81)
Everywhere he finds a helpless turtle fallen on its back, he turns it over
The
title would be highly non-determinate without this recurrence via word- class
shifting.
2.7
Recurrences of lengthy expressions or whole passages can be disadvantageous,
because they depress informativity unless strong motivation is present. It is
strategically sound to vary expression with paraphrases or synonyms. Yet as in
the case of ‘water’ (73), there may be only one readily available name for
the desired concept. In scientific reports, the use of specially defined terms
must be consistent, despite the repetitiousness entailed. Hearers and readers
presumably adapt their expectations in response to these factors.
3.
DEFINITENESS
3.1
The issue of definiteness takes on various dimensions, depending upon whether
one’s outlook is logical or psychological. If meaning is identified directly
with “truth value” (III.I.2), definiteness becomes a property of objects
asserted in a logical world. If meaning is viewed as mental processes, then
definite entities are those that are “uniquely identifiable” to participants
in communication (Clark & Clark 1977: 249f.). Whether the entities are
logical or real, both criteria are too strong. Definiteness applies to many
entities that need not be identified at all with specific objects. Ortony and
Anderson (1977) distinguish the identifiable reference as “extensional
representation” and the reference to entities needed only for conceptual
content as “intensional representation” (cf. I.2.8.2).
3.2
The utilization of ARTICLES,in English at least, is revealing, as the terms
“definite and indefinite article” suggest. Usually, the definite article is
claimed to precede the expression of entities already mentioned, and the
indefinite that of newly introduced ones (cf. Firbas 1966). But the following
fragment of a Thurber story (in Thurber 1948: 34), suggests
that the matter is more intricate: 3 [3. James Thurber,
‘The Princess and the Tin Box’, in The
Beast in Me —And Other Animals, published by Harcourt Brace Joyanovich
1948. Reprinted by permission.]
(82.1)
Once upon a time, there lived a king whose
daughter was the prettiest princess in the
whole world. (82.2) On the day the princess was eighteen, the king sent a royal
ambassador to the courts of the five
neighboring kingdoms to announce that he would give his daughter’s hand in
marriage to the prince whose gift she liked
most. (82.3) The first prince to arrive at
the palace […]
The
classical distinction of new = indefinite vs. previously mentioned = definite
applies here only to ‘a king’ (82. 1) and ‘the
king’(82.2). The beginnings of texts are, of course, likely places for
indefinite articles (Weinrich 1976: 172). Yet the first occurrence of
‘princess’ has the definite article, being a superlative. The usage in ‘the
five neighboring kingdoms’ rests on the postulate of continuity in a textual
world (I.6.4): a geographical region can be expected to have neighbors. ‘The prince’ in (82.2) is a projected entity not yet having any
referent: any prince who meets that description (an “intensional
representation’ in the sense of Ortony & R. Anderson 1977); and ‘the
first prince’ in (82.3) is a member of the candidate class in which there can
be only one for each number in a series. Such varied uses of articles are
essential for the connectivity of the story. De Villiers (1974) found that if
the definite articles in a story text are replaced by indefinite, readers
don’t take the component sentences as parts of a story at all. Loftus and
Zanni (1975) found that eyewitness reports could be influenced by inserting
definite articles in front of strategic items: the articles impelled the
eyewitnesses to accept as factual some items they hadn’t really seen to begin
with. Here, the text surface actually created background knowledge while
pretending to keep it active.
3.3
At least the following entities would seem to be eligible for the status of
definiteness:
3.3.1
MENTIONED entities as established in a textual world (e.g. ‘the king);
3.3.2
SPECIFIC entities established by constraining description or definition (e.g.
‘the day the princess was eighteen);
3.3.3
EPISODIC entities stored in the shared knowledge of language users personally
acquainted with each other (e.g. ‘the movie’ in Clark & Marshall 1978:
57; cf. also Goldman 1975: 347);
3.3.4
UNIQUE entities which every sensorially endowed member of a communicative group
is assumed to know about (e.g. ‘the sun’, ‘the earth);
3.3.5
INSTITUTIONALIZED entities that social organization is presumed to require
(‘the president’, ‘the fire department’, ‘the police);
3.3.6
DEFAULT entities created on demand for the continuity of a textual world (e.g.
‘the five neighboring kingdoms’ in [82.2]);
3.3.7
PROTOTYPICAL entities that function as the representative of a class (e.g.
‘the man on the street’, ‘the ugly American) (cf. III.3.27);
3.3.8
SUPERLATIVE entities that occupy the extreme position on some scale of variables
(e.g. ‘the prettiest princess in the whole world’);
3.3.9
RELATIONAL ENTITIES accessible via TYPICAL and DETERMINATE links from already
definite entities.
3.4
The criterion of being “uniquely identifiable” fails to cover these various
uses. Often, definite entities have no more identity than is required for the
particular context wherein they appear (Rieger 1975: 204). We can talk about ‘the
police” ‘the ugly American’, or ‘the prettiest princess in
the whole world’ without any commitment to an object, or even to a complete
entity: we are addressing a conceptual configuration whose content may be no
more than the properties we need at the moment. The ‘police’ are people only
in their official capacity, not as private individuals. An ‘ugly American’
need by no means possess a repellent outward appearance. We can easily envision
the man on the street’ not being on any street at all, but sleeping in a
dumpster. And ‘the prettiest princess’ may be decidable in a children’s
tale, but hardly in a reality where beauty is a matter of opinion.
3.5
Definiteness might be explicated as the status of entities in a textual world
whose FUNCTION in their respective context is non-controversial. To fix the
status, e.g. with proper names or definite descriptions, is to instruct the
hearer/ reader that the appropriate conceptual content should be easily
suppliable on the basis of already activated knowledge spaces. INDEFINITE
entities, on the other hand, require the activation of further knowledge spaces.
Hence, de Villier’s (1974) test subjects thought that the version with
indefinite articles could not constitute a unified story world. They took the
indefinite articles as instructions to activate new spaces rather than use
already active ones.
3.6
No one would have trouble with entities like ‘the sun’ and ‘the moon’.
These entities are not in fact unique, as the exploration of astronomers
attests. But in lack of any wider setting such as a science fiction story,
preference is at once given to the usual referents. Since a textual world is not
committed to exact correspondence with the accepted real world, conventionally
unique entities can be recontextualized into non-unique. In this view,
uniqueness begins to converge with default. Consider this excerpt from a news
article on prostitution (Gainesville Sun, Oct. 8, 1978):
(83)
Now that the adult bookstores, formerly the vice squad’s primary
target, have been closed down, the agents are able to devote more time to
busting hookers.
The
definiteness of ‘bookstores’, ‘vice squad’, and ‘agents’ rests on
their typical or institutionalized status in American social organization. They
can be assumed as defaults without any clear notion of where or who they might
be in this particular town. If an unfortunate occasion arises, their uniqueness
can be established. Yet communication would operate very slowly if we had to
establish uniqueness merely in order to talk about these entities.
3.7
The spreading activation model of knowledge use, as frequently cited in this
book, is relevant to definiteness. Although it is not decided whether spreading
is consciously controlled or not (cf. M. Posner & Snyder 1975), definiteness
can be one means for channelling it. The appearance of a definite entity not
previously mentioned would then have the effect of singling out a point in
knowledge space to which activation is assumed to have spread. DETERMINATE and
TYPICAL links clearly provide the soundest basis for that assumption. Consider
this news item (Florida Independent Alligator, Oct. 9, 1979):
(84)
A seat belt saved a UF student when he fell asleep at the wheel of his
1977 Subaru and turned off into the path of a train.
The
definiteness of ‘wheel’ arises as a determinate ‘part-of’ a
‘Subaru’, and that of ‘path’ as a typical ‘’location-of-motion-of’
a ‘train’.
3.8
Perhaps the following definition merits consideration: definiteness con
spread to any text-world entity standing in a determinate or typical linkage
(cf. III.3.15) to an entity whose definiteness is already establishedin the
textual world. To see how this principle would work, imagine that (85.1)
were a text beginning; any of the continuations in (85.2) should then’ be
acceptable via the link types (from III.4.7) cited in square brackets:
(85.1)
Never before had we seen such a house.
(85.2a)
The plot of land was quite deserted. [location-of]
(85.2b)
The rectangular outline looked oddly lopsided. [form-of]
(85.2c)
The walls were leaning inward. [part-ofi
(85.2d)
The plaster was peeling off. [substance-of]
(85.2c)
The furniture was awfully rickety. [containment-of]
(85.2f)
The edifice seemed doomed to collapse. [motion-of]
In all of these continuations, the ‘house’is taken as a topic node and thus as a control center to which new material is preferentially connected (cf. III.4.27). This configuration is shown graphically in Figure 22, with all continuations included.
However, if the linkage were accidental, definiteness would not be so likely to spread, e.g. (85.2g) being an odd continuation:
(85.2g)
The canary seemed depressed. [containment-of]
The
oddness of some of my school children’s ‘parts of a house’ (III.3.26) is
due to accidentalness. Definiteness also seems reluctant to spread down longer
pathways, so that (85.2h) is an odd continuation if the house’s inhabitant is
meant:
(85.2h)
The face was terribly ugly. [part-of-agent-of-possession-of?]
If
a single accidental instance is taken from an otherwise accessible class, we are
adding an ‘instance-of’ link. Again, definiteness is not clear in such
continuations as:
(85.2i)
The nail was rusty. [instance-of-part-of]
(85.2j)
The brick hurt my elbow. [instance-of-part-of]
We
can improve upon these continuations by providing some intermediary entities not
included in numerous classes:3 [3. There may be a constraint
that definiteness cannot spread to an accidental instance of an unordered class
unless the class itself is first evoked.]
(85.2k)
The nail holding the name-plate on the front door was rusty.
[location-of-location-of-part-of]
(85.21)
The brick protruding furthest from the fireplace hurt my elbow.
[part-of-part-of]
3.9
Linkages to an event can function like these linkages to an object. If a text
begins with (86.1), then the continuations in (86.2a-c) connect up to the whole
event:
(86.1)
The sun was just emerging from behind a cloud.
(86.2a)
The day was not yet over. [time-of]
(86.2b)
The sudden brightness blinded our eyes.
[cause-of]
(86.2c)
The improvement in our spirits was
remarkable. [reason-of]
We
could also link back to ‘sun’ as object:
(86.2d)
The golden color was impressive.
[attribute-of]
(86.2c)
The orb blazed down on us. [form-of]
3.
10 Inclusion in classes, superclasses, and metaclasses (III.3.19f.) renders
these matters quite intricate. One entity which usually has no unique or
identifiable referent is the PROTOTYPE (cf. P. Hayes 1977; Fahlman 1977; Rosch
1977; Brachman 1978a; Webber 1978). The prototypical member has a determinate
“instance-of” link to its class, to the extent that the class has a
discoverable identity. In a conversation like the following from The
Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde 1940 [original 1899]: 420):
(87.1)
ALGERNON: In married life, three is company and two is none.
(87.2)
JACK: That is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been
propounding for the last fifty years.
(87.3)
ALGERNON: Yes, and that the happy English home has proved in half
the time.
It
matters little if speakers have any particular French drama or English
home in mind. The context demands no more than a FUZZY concept which supplies
the needed content.
3.11
A class combined with scales of values can yield a SUPERLATIVE as the class
member situated at the extreme end of a scale. Because value scales are in the
main imprecise, superlatives share the fuzziness of prototypes. The usage of
‘the prince whose gift she liked most’ in (82.2) is straightforward enough,
since the princess’s decision will automatically define the referent. But when
Leroy Brown was asserted in the American pop song back around 1977 to have been:
(88)
the baddest [i.e. toughest] man in the whole damn town
no
one would seriously suppose a precise value determination. Leroy is simply being
characterized as an extreme representative of the already extreme class of
‘bad men in south Chicago’. Where competition is so keen, empirical
verification would be absurd (and mighty dangerous). In this one textual world,
Leroy was the superlative, at least until his sudden demise, ‘like a picture
puzzle with some pieces missing’.
3.12
As I mentioned in III.1.3, logicians have traditionally been concerned with at
least certain aspects of classes and class inclusions, namely those that fall
under the heading of QUANTIFICATION (cf. Stegmüller 1969: 15f.). As I observed
at a philosopher’s symposium at the University of Bielefeld in June 1979,
logicians generally suppose that definiteness and the use of definite articles
depends on the types of quantification described in III.1.3. My own impression
was that quantification has been introduced not so much for matters of this
kind, but for the special requirements of logic in constructing valid proofs. In
the following famous example, we have a universally characterized class of
‘men’ in (89. 1) and the unique member ‘Socrates’ in (89.2):
(89.1)
All men are mortal.
(89.2)
Socrates is a man.
(89.3)
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
Although
the proof is clearly valid, I do not see why it should depend particularly on
definiteness of existence or uniqueness. We might replace ‘men’ and
‘Socrates’ with ‘unicorns’ or ‘the King Louis XIII of France’s pet
pageboy’ without making the line of reasoning faulty. The questions of
existence and definiteness, I submit, hinge upon context of occurrence. The
demands of formal logics for precise quantification far exceed the conditions of
many contexts of everyday communication. Whereas logicians have for years
debated the status of the donkey in the (according to the redoubtable Texan
Robert F. Simmons, who vowed prospectors love their donkeys, utterly
false) assertion:
(90)
Every man who owns a donkey beats it.
the
language user need merely create a default donkey with whatever further traits
(besides being beaten) are required for the textual world. The demands exerted
by logical quantification are far too strict for natural language communication.
For the text psychologist, the interesting questions are rather how people
recognize objects, and under what conditions they are more or less disposed to
believe statements. People concern themselves with existence and abstract truth
only in special contexts.
3.13
INDEFINITENESS, I suggested in V.3.5, is the property of entities for which no
knowledge space is currently active. The beginning of our rocket text:
(35.1.1) A great black and yellow V-2 rocket 46 feet long stood in a
New Mexico desert.
accordingly
instructs the reader to create active nodes for ‘rocket’ and ‘desert’
and to hang the supplied attributes, locations, etc. onto them. However, the
text could also have begun with ‘The great black and yellow V-2 rocket
[…]’ and still have been perfectly coherent. The effect would be the
writer’s commitment to make further use of the node beyond that one statement.
For example, Through the Looking Glass (Carroll 1960: 175) starts right
out with the statement:
(91) One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do
with it.
The
reader justly expects to hear at least enough about the white kitten to make the
statement believable (and will have a long time to wait!). Such usage is very
widespread in texts whose format requires engaging the reader’s interest,
because a knowledge deficit is created. In one collection of short essays (G.
Levin [ed.] 1977), definite articles for not yet established entities at the
beginning of texts is clearly the rule, not the exception (cf. Harweg 1968b):
(92)
Each year I watched the field across from the Store turn
caterpillar green. (Maya Angelo, p. 13)
(93)
The judging formally begins with the Saturday luncheon at the
Heart of Wilson Motel. (Frank Deford, p. 115)
(94)
The train, its metal wheels squealing as they spin along the
silvery tracks, rolls slower now. (Robert Ramirez, p. 127)
(95)
Before you even get the cone, you have to do a lot of planning.
(L. Rust Hills, p. 182)
3.14
The introduction of entities as definite right at the beginning of the text does
not disprove or undermine the status of the definite/indefinite distinction. We
do see that, given a regularity of natural language communication, people freely
do just the opposite for special effect. It is pointless to argue whether the
essays just cited are “well-formed.” In a linguistics of actual texts, a
rule such as ‘Use the indefinite article for the first mention, and the definite for later mention” can be no more than I
DEFAULT or PREFERENCE (d. 1.3.4.3). Communication takes place gainst a
baekdrop of defaults and preferences, but text users will go their own ways when
it is expedient to do so (cf. 1.3.4.8).
3.15
The treatment of PROTOTYPES illustrates another facet of the definite/ indefinite distinction. Either of the following utterances
could be produced
in a situation of receiving unqualified advice:
(96a) A layman shouldn’t give advice to an expert.
(96b) The layman shouldn’t give
advice to the expert.
If
one utters (96a), bearers are instructed to look immediately into the
situational context for referents, so that the indefiniteness is removed. One
can use (97b) with a less obvious directness, because the tendency is to
envision prototypes for the class of laymen and experts. Once more, the
question of “well-formedness” would miss the main point.
3.16 Indefiniteness could also be applied unconventionally. If we had the utterance (traditional saying):
(96)
A
man who never loses his head doesn’t have a
had to lose.5 [5.
A similar saying in German goes back to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.]
the usage ‘a head’ presents as indefinite something that is a determinate “part-of” ‘man’. The effect is to weaken the determinateness of that link by suggesting that there could be men without heads after all.
3.17
The definiteness of text-world entities, as we can see, is complex. The usual
criteria (cf. V.3.1f.) for exploring the issues are too narrow. If people could
assign definiteness only to uniquely identifiable objects in the world, or
objects whose existence (either singly or as a class) has been explicitly
asserted, communication as we now find it would scarcely be feasible. We might
make better headway by treating definiteness as something that arises out of the
connectivity of stored knowledge being used in a real situation, where
efficiency is referring
expressions.
4.
CO-REFERENCE VIA PRO-FORMS
4.1
If REFERENCE is the relationship between expressions and the objects, events,
and situations in a world those expressions designate (III.1.3). The
use of alternative expressions in a text for the same text-world entity could be
termed CO-REFERENCE. Although there are many types of co-reference, (e.g.
synonyms, paraphrase), I shall explore only co-reference via PRO-FORMS.
Pro-forms are derivative in their actuãIized content from their co-referring
expressions. As such, pro-forms differ from their co-referring expressions in
systematic ways (cf. Padučeva 1970; Dressler 1972a: 26f.):
4.1.1
Pro-forms have a wider range of potential application.
4.1.2
Pro-forms are comparatively empty of inherent content.
4.1.3 Pro-forms are usually shorter-a fact which Dressier (1972a: 26f.) sees in agreement with Zipf’s (1 935) “law”. the more frequently a word is used, the shorter it tends to be or become.
4.1.4
Pro-forms obey constraints upon their occurrences, such that comprehension is
not rendered unduly problematic.
4.1.5
Pro-forms need a distinctive surface appearance. In English, PRONOUNS are the
only word class in the nominal system that maintains different forms for gender
(masculine, feminine, neuter) and case (subject vs. object)-nouns distinguish at
most possessive, singular, and plural. DEICTICS (pointing words) generally begin
with ‘th-’and are the only word class in which initial ‘th- ’is voiced
in pronunciation (except the article ‘the’ and the pro-forms
‘they/their/them).
4.2 PRONOUNS are the best known type of pro-forms. In general, they have as
co-referent expressions nouns appearing in the text (cf. Postal 1969). Yet some
uses of pronouns do not follow this application, for instance, in the popular
American imperatives:
(98)
Stop it!
(99)
Hold it!
(100)
Forget it!
(101)
Shove it!
Inferencing
may be required to recover some referents, as in the well-known slogan of the
Bell Telephone Company:
(102)
Calling long distance is the next best thing to being there.
where ‘there’ must be co-referent with an inferrable location. Pronouns may apply to entities whose previous introduction did not occur via nouns, as in a recent statement by a U.S. newscaster:
(103)
The Congressional privilege of giving consent to treaties is one they
seem unwilling to sacrifice.
where the co-referent must be derived from the adjective ‘Congressional’.
4.3 If other expressions sharing referents are used together with pronouns, the natural order would seem to be from most specific to least. Lakoff (1968a) foresees an order of. (1) proper name; (2) specific description; (3) a general class name; and (4) pronoun. An invented example might be:
(104.1)
Napoleon entered the room. (104.2) The
famous general made some announcement. (104.3) The
man was very excited. (104.4) He spoke
at top speed.
Yet
this order is far from obligatory. A text producer might use just the reverse in
order to create a knowledge deficit (like the deficit evoked by introducing new
entities as definite, cf. V. 3.13). We find that tactic used for suspense in
this passage by the marvellous Russian story-teller Nikolai Leskov (1961: 55).
The door to the cell of the Archbishop mysteriously opens:
(105)
Who should walk in but a venerable old
man in whom his Grace immediately recognized one
of the saints of the church, no other than the Right
Reverend Sergius.
The
order of ‘who-man-saint-Sergius’ is a complete reversal of that foreseen by
Lakoff,6 [This example is not meant as a refutation of Lakoff,
who was dealing with sequels where each element was in a invented separate
sentence. Rather, it illustrates how flexible language regularities are in
general (cf. note 10 to Chapter 1).] and the gradual emergence of the mysterious
figure’s identity is perfectly matched to the gradual increase of specificity
in the co-referring expressions. The usage is both effective and appropriate
(cf. 1.4.14).
4.4
The replacement of surface expressions also brings up the problem of class
inclusions such as we saw in V.3.10ff. The pro-forms can refer to the same set
of entities as their co-referent expressions (examples here from Webber 1978:
45): (106a) Several linguists attended the masquerade. They were dressed up as
cyclic transformations. But distinctions can be found between a COLLECTIVE
inclusion, as in (106b), and a DISTRIBUTIVE inclusion, as in (106c):
(106b)
Several linguists attended the masquerade. They all came as parse
trees.
(106c)
Several linguists attended the Yorktown Strutters’ Ball. They each
came dressed as a different transderivational constraint. [Insider joke: The
original hit tune was the 'Darktown Strutters’ Ball', but IBM Labs, known at
the time for airy, boastful claims about its language programs, are in Yorktown
Heights.]
This
distinction has important effects upon the text-world model, as these examples
(from Webber 1978: 44) reveal:
(107a)
The three men who tried to lift a piano dropped it.
(107b)
The three men who tried to lift a piano dropped them.
The
pronoun ‘it’ creates a textual world with the men lifting one piano
together, while ‘them’ leaves us with the three lifting one piano each.
4.5
The efficiency of pro-forms is especially evident when they apply to large
stretches of discourse that activate sizeable knowledge spaces:
(108)
“Give your evidence,” said the King, “and don’t be nervous, or I’ll
have you executed on the spot.” This did not encourage the witness at
all. (Carroll 1960: 148) 6
In
(108), ‘this’ stands for the entire content of what the King of Hearts has
said, and places the entirety in a ‘reason-of’ relation to the state of the
‘witness’. A pro-form can even stand for a block of content whose limits are
left open by remaining unexpressed:
(109) “My father and mother were honest, though poor—”
‘Skip all that!” cried the Beliman in haste.
I skip forty years,” said the Baker in tears
(The Hunting of the Snark, [Carroll 1973: 63])
The
depiction of forty years would have constituted a vast expanse of content.
4.6
Pro-forms also serve in the REPUDIATION of some portion of previously expressed
content (cf. IV.3.12), as in (Belloc 1940: 177f.):
(110) I shoot the hippopotamus
With bullets made of platinum
Because if I use leaden ones
His hide is sure to flatten ‘em.
The
class of ‘bullets’ is divided into the subclass of ‘platinum’ versus
‘leaden’, and the expectation that the latter subclass should be used is
repudiated. In the following remark of the White King, ‘one’ designates a
currently present member of the class of ‘Pencils” while a still indefinite
‘thinner’ member is envisioned:
(111) My dear, I must get a thinner pencil. I can’t manage this one a bit. (Carroll 1960: 190)
.
Different
referents in a textual world can be similar in every respect but one, and the
pro-form need only attach that respect to keep them distinct, as in the case of
Tweedledee and Tweedledum (Carroll 1960: 229, e.a.):
(112)
She was just going around to see if the word “TWEEDLE” was written on the
back of each collar, when she as startled by a voice coming from the one
marked “DUM.”
The pro-form ‘one’ is useful also if the entity in question is to be kept indefinite (Carroll 1960: 100):
(113) The March Hare said: “I vote the young lady tells us a story.” “I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice.