Introduction: Reflections on Motivation
Günter Radden and Klaus-Uwe Panther
1
An attempt at explicating ‘motivation in language’
The present volume addresses a problem that is receiving increasing attention in present-day
functional and cognitive linguistics: How much of language is motivated? Motivation is
generally seen in contrast to arbitrariness. De Saussure, who is usually cited in connection
with the principle of arbitrariness of the linguistic sign, was already aware of the limits of
“the irrational principle of the arbitrariness of the sign”:
[The principle of arbitrariness] would lead to the worst sort of complication if applied
without restriction. But the mind contrives to introduce a principle of order and
regularity into certain parts of the mass of signs and this is the role of relative
motivation. If the mechanism of language were entirely rational, it could be studied
independently. Since the mechanism of language is but a partial correction of a system
that is by nature chaotic, however, we adopt the viewpoint imposed by the very nature
of language and study it as it limits arbitrariness.
There is no language in which nothing is motivated, and our definition makes it
impossible to conceive of a language in which everything is motivated. Between the
two extremes—a minimum of organization and a minimum of arbitrariness—we find
all possible varieties. (de Saussure 1916/1959: 133).
These insightful ideas on motivation make de Saussure appear as a precursor of cognitive
linguistics rather than the “founding father of structural linguistics”: motivation, in his view,
is a cognitive principle that makes language meaningful to its speakers and is necessary as a
counterbalance to arbitrariness. De Saussure’s notion of relative motivation is in the spirit of
cognitive linguistics. Most scholars would probably subscribe to the view that motivation is a
matter of degree along a continuum ranging between the poles of arbitrariness on the one
hand and predictability on the other hand. De Saussure’s view of motivation differs from
modern cognitive approaches mainly in the perspective taken: he views motivation as a
limiting case of arbitrariness, while cognitive linguists tend to see motivation as the norm and
consider arbitrariness as the last resort (Lakoff 1987: 346). Similarly, Heine places the burden
of proof on those who cling to the dogma of arbitrariness. He argues that since “[h]uman
behavior is not arbitrary but […] driven by motivations”, language structure, which is a
product of behavior, “must also be motivated”.
1
Still, the term ‘motivation’ is not frequently used, let alone defined, in present-day
linguistics and authors often seem to presume that ‘motivation’ is a self-explanatory term. In
current functional and cognitive linguistics, the notion of motivation is understood in various
ways, which are, however, not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, Hiraga (1994: 8),
very much in the Saussurean spirit, understands motivation in the sense of a “non-arbitrary
relationship between form and meaning”. More specifically, Heine (1997: 3) regards
linguistic forms as motivated if they “are not invented arbitrarily, but are, rather, already
meaningful when they are introduced for some specific function.” Within a semiotic tradition,
Haiman (1980, 1985) and others restrict the term ‘motivation’ to one type of diagrammatic
iconicity, viz. structural resemblance of language to conceived reality, opposing it to
isomorphism, i.e. the principle “one form – one meaning”. Geeraerts (2002) uses the terms
‘motivation’ and ‘isomorphism’ in a somewhat different fashion, reserving the former for
paradigmatic relations between literal and figurative meanings (e.g. metaphor and metonymy)
and the latter for one-to-one mappings from non-figurative to figurative syntagmatic levels.
Lakoff (1987: 448) probably has the naïve native speaker in mind when he characterizes
motivation as an independently existing link L between some A and some B that “makes
sense”. Traditionally, the term ‘motivation’ is applied to the form of linguistic units; more
recently scholars have also applied it to the extension of senses (e.g. Lakoff 1987, Beitel,
Gibbs and Sanders 1997: 243, Evans and Tyler, this volume).
Although there thus is no definitional consensus regarding the notion of motivation in
language, each of the above characterizations contains important elements: non-arbitrary
relationships between form and meaning (as opposed to arbitrary relationships), iconicity (as
one type of motivation), and explanation (“making sense” through motivation). These and
other elements need to be integrated into a unified theory of motivation, which, as observed
by Lakoff (1987: 107, 148), is still missing in linguistics.
In contrast to linguistics, in psychology the notion of motivation is firmly established
as a theoretical concept. There seems to be a general consensus that “motivation is an internal
state or condition (sometimes described as a need, desire, or want) that serves to activate or
energize behavior and give it direction” (Huitt 2001). Both internal condition and external
factors are seen as relevant in psychological theories of motivation. Some theories treat
motivation as having an internal bodily locus and as being an impulse that propels the
organism into action; other theories focus on the sources in the surrounding environment that
pull or push an organism toward them or away from them.
2
The everyday understanding of motivation seems to be close to the scholarly notion
used in psychology. In asking a questions such as What motivates Al Qaeda to carry out
terrorist acts against the Unites States?, the speaker expects to be given an explanation about
the internal state or condition of self-professed fundamentalist Muslims that causes or results
in aggressive and self-destructive behavior against other people believed to be enemies of
Islam. This is the sense given by the Oxford English Dictionary (s.v. motivation): “The
conscious or unconscious stimulus for action towards a desired goal provided by
psychological or social factors; that which gives purpose or direction to behaviour.” The
common defining elements of the psychological and everyday notions of motivation are thus:
(1) internal psychological state or condition that (2) activates, energizes, or stimulates (3) a
person’s behavior or action (4) in a certain direction or towards an intended goal.
We believe that the linguistic notion of motivation is not far removed from its use in
psychology and everyday language. (i) As a starting point, motivation in language requires a
basis that serves as a potential trigger or enablement for a motivational process to operate on,
i.e. the form and/or the content of a linguistic unit. We will refer to a given basis as the
source of the motivational process. (ii) As a next step, a motivational process is normally
triggered by language-independent factors. By ‘language-independent factors’ we mean
factors that operate in language as well as in other cognitive or semiotic systems. Such factors
are e.g. experience, perceptual gestalt principles, as well the language system in which a
linguistic unit is embedded. The interplay of a linguistic source and language-independent
factors sets off a motivational process. (iii) The motivational process may, at least partially,
shape speakers’ linguistic behavior. We assume that all motivational processes of language
affect speakers’ linguistic behavior. (iv) Linguistic behavior may then “freeze” into recurrent
and stable linguistic structures, i.e. become routinized or entrenched in the linguistic system.
It is this final entrenched stage of a linguistic unit that is usually referred to as ‘motivated’.
We will refer to this final stage as the target of a motivational process. We need to
emphasize, however, that motivation in language not only operates on the diachronic level
but also on the synchronic level. On the basis of the above-mentioned criteria we propose the
following working definition for motivation:
A linguistic unit (target) is motivated if some of its properties are shaped by a
linguistic source (form and/or content) and language-independent factors.
3
We thus assume that linguistic motivation involves a causal relation. As suggested by
the term ‘shape’ in the above definition, however, the notion of causation is nondeterministic. In what follows, we will discuss criteria that are essential to our understanding
of motivation in language. We will first, in Section 2, look into the relation between a
motivational source and a motivational target by way of one example. Section 3 discusses
motivation as a causal relation and the role of abductive reasoning.1 Section 4 contrasts the
notion of explanation, as favored in generative grammar, with motivational explanations in
functional and cognitive linguistics. Section 5 provides a typology of relations between
source and target, which may be exploited for motivational purposes. Section 6 considers
language-independent factors of motivation in more detail and categorizes them into various
types. Section 7 briefly addresses the topic of multiple and competing motivations. Finally, in
Section 8, we summarize the contributions to this volume, relating them to the concept of
motivation proposed above.
2
Source and target in motivational processes
Let us illustrate the notions of motivational source and target with the morphological process
of compounding. Already de Saussure noted that compounds such as dix-neuf are relatively
motivated by their components, i.e. dix and neuf.2 Lakoff (1987: 147) observes that the
meanings of compounds are not compositional, hence not predictable from its parts.3 At a
more general level, Langacker (2000: 16, 152, 215) argues that complex expressions are not
constructed out of their components, but that their component structures only correspond to
certain facets of them and, in this respect, complex expressions are motivated to some extent
(but not predictable). Compounds are especially interesting complex expressions in that they
are conventional names that highlight conceptual parts of a more complex conceptualization.
A compound evokes a conceptual network, or Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM) (Lakoff
1987: 147). The conceptual parts of the complex ICM that are chosen for naming purposes
may vary from language to language; as we demonstrate below, they are motivated by
language-independent factors, namely salience, metonymy, and economy. Consider the names
1
To do justice to the complex problem of causality and determination is beyond the scope of this
introductory chapter (see Stegmüller 1969 for a useful introduction to philosophical aspects of
causality).
2
De Saussure (1950: 133) recognizes two relations involved in relative motivation: a syntagmatic and
an associative relation. In dix-neuf, the syntagmatic relation is expressed by the juxtaposition of dix
and neuf, while the associative (paradigmatic) relation is supported by terms such as dix-huit,
soixante-dix, etc.
4
given in eleven European languages to the tool called screwdriver in English, which typically
looks as in Figure 1.
Figure 1. A typical screwdriver
The concepts the names for screwdriver in different languages denote are listed in (1):
(1)
a.
‘screw-drive-er’
English screwdriver
b.
‘screw(s)-pull-er’
German Schraubenzieher, Danish skruetrækker,
Hungarian csavarhúzó
c.
‘screws-turn-er’
Dutch schroevendraaier
d.
‘turns-screw’
French tournevis
e.
‘de/out-screw-er’
Spanish destornillador
f.
‘screw-chisel’
Swedish skruvmejsel, Finnish ruuvimeisseli, ruuvitaltta
g.
‘stick-in/take-out-screw’ Italian cacciavite
h.
‘key of cut’
Portuguese chave de fenda
We assume that the different lexemes listed in (1) all evoke the same conceptual frame or
ICM as their meaning. Figure 2 presents a partial ICM of ‘screwdriver’ relating it to some of
the lexical items listed in (1). The dotted lines identify the elements of the ICM that are
highlighted as components of the complex expressions.
3
As John Taylor pointed out to us one might even query whether the meaning of any complex
expression is ever fully compositional.
5
Schrauben-zieh-er
csavarhúz-ó
screw-driv-er
des-tornill-ador
skruv-mejsel
INSTRUMENT
TOOL
key
‘screwdriver’
ACTION
OBJECT USED
screw
helical cut
groove at head
PURPOSE
MATERIAL
MEANS METAL
attach detach turn
one object
to another
chisel
SHAPE
long thin rod
w/handle at
one and blade
at the other end
long shaft
w/metal blade
pull-out drive-in
loosen
tighten
Figure 2. The ‘screwdriver’ ICM and its relation to names for ‘screwdriver’
in various languages
The first thing to note is that the expressions in (1) name no more than two or three
elements of the complex ICM ‘screwdriver’, but these parts are sufficient to evoke the whole
ICM. Each of these parts thus metonymically stands for the whole ‘screwdriver’ ICM.
Although we do not claim that this sample is representative, we believe that the selection of
certain elements of the ICM as components for the naming process is not arbitrary: most of
the languages select the object operated on by the instrument, i.e. the screw, but none of them
selects e.g. the object the screw is driven into such as the board, or part of the screwdriver,
such as its blade. The screw is obviously a highly salient element of the screwdriver ICM.
Most compounds also highlight one of the actions that is characteristically performed with the
6
tool on the screw, such as ‘turn’ (French), ‘pull’, which stands for ‘pull-out’ (German,
Danish, Hungarian), ‘drive’, which stands for ‘drive-in’ (English), ‘detach, remove’
(Spanish)—a screwdriver is, in fact, used to perform all of these and even some more
operations such as fasten, fix, tighten, loosen, etc. Note, however, that ‘pull-out’ and ‘drivein’ do not literally describe the activity carried out by means of a screwdriver: these concepts
seem to be motivated by analogy to the driving-in and pulling-out of nails. None of the
specific actions performed with a screwdriver stands out as particularly salient so that each of
the actions is equally appropriate to stand metonymically for the whole range of actions. Most
of the languages looked at also designate the instrumental character with a nominalizing
suffix like in English –er.
In comparison to the fairly transparent expressions used for ‘screwdriver’ in English,
German, Danish, Hungarian, Dutch, French, Spanish, and Italian, the expressions used in
Swedish, Finnish, and Portuguese are more opaque, i.e. they are relatively little motivated. In
Swedish and its Finnish loan translation a tool outside the screwdriver ICM is profiled, chisel.
A possible motivation for selecting the word for chisel is its similarity in shape (a long
shaft/blade) and/or function to a screwdriver. The Portuguese term chave de fenda involves a
metaphor: a screwdriver is applied to the cut in the head of the screw (fenda) like a key
(chave) to a lock. In Italian, the present-day use of cacciare in the complementary senses
‘stick in’ and ‘take out’ are derived from the older senses ‘hunt’ and ‘catch’, which is no
longer evoked in cacciavite.
Even within the same language different forms for one content may coexist at one
period in time. This is especially true when a new “thing” is introduced and the need arises in
a speech community to name this new object, e.g. a screwdriver. There is often a phase when
several names compete before one of them wins out and becomes the conventional
designation of the object in question. In the 19th century there were at least three competing
names for ‘screwdriver’ in English: screwturner (attested 1831 in the OED), turn-screw
(attested 1801, 1837 and 1889) and, of course, screwdriver. Note that screwturner and
turnscrew select the same conceptual components from the screwdriver ICM as the French
word tournevis. All of these terms for ‘screwdriver’ are motivated for designating a
screwdriver, but, according to Croft’s (2000: 176) “first law of propagation”, there is a natural
tendency in human languages to conventionalize one of the competing names at the expense
of the others. Which among these competing terms is ultimately chosen is largely a matter of
arbitrariness.
7
In conclusion, the following conceptual steps can be identified in the motivational
process. First, there is the tool screwdriver that has to be named. This tool is associated with a
complex ICM (source), which provides the basis for naming the thing (target). Second,
guided by language-independent factors such as salience, economy, and metonymy, only
certain components of the complex ICM get selected and named by a given speech
community. The coding of these salient parts is sufficient to evoke the whole ICM by means
of a PART FOR WHOLE metonymy.
3
Motivation as a causal relation
Let us now turn to the notion of causation that is involved in motivation. We will consider an
example of grammaticalization: the development of a bound grammatical morpheme out of a
free lexical item. Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer (1991: 188ff.) observe that in the African
language Ewe all case markers are derived from verbs. These case markers synchronically
“form a continuum ranging from a fully verbal behavior at the one end to a prepositional
behavior at the other” (p. 188). For example, the Ewe verb ná ‘give’ has grammaticalized into
the case functions
BENEFACTIVE, PURPOSE,
and
DATIVE.4
The concept ‘give’ with its
participant roles ‘giver’, ‘recipient’ and ‘transferred object’ constitutes a linguistic source that
may be exploited for further conceptual elaboration. The sense of ‘benefactive’ is most likely
derived from the sense ‘give’ by way of two metonymically-based implicatures: first,
NEUTRAL FOR POSITIVE,
through which the recipient is positively evaluated as
BENEFACTIVE,
and, second, ACTION (of giving) FOR SALIENT PARTICIPANT (recipient). The concept ‘give’ is a
linguistic source that, in conjunction with the above-mentioned implicatures, is causal in
bringing about the meaning ‘benefactive’. But what kind of causal relation is involved in this
case? It is not a sufficient cause because the concept ‘give’ not only triggers the meaning
‘benefactive’ but, as demonstrated by Newman (1996; this volume), also gives rise to other
meaning extensions such as ‘interpersonal communication’ (give a talk), ‘emergence’ (give a
yell), ‘causation’ (give someone a headache), etc. It is not a necessary cause either because
The usual functional explanation of the grammaticalization of ná ‘give’ into a case marker with the
meaning of, for example, ‘BENEFACTIVE’ is based on the fact that, with the exception of ná, verbs in
Ewe as well as in some other Kwa languages allow no more than two participants. In order to
introduce an additional participant, Ewe probably used, at an earlier stage in its history, a serial verb
construction with ‘give’, which finally grammaticalized into a marker of a semantic role. One of the
examples given by Claudi and Heine (1986: 319), cited in Hiraga (1994: 16), is the following:
é -fi
ga
ná m
he-steal money give me
‘He stole money from me.’
The verb ná in this function is “desemanticized” to that of a preposition.
4
8
the concept ‘benefactive’ may also derive from other sources than give. For example, in
English the semantic role
BENEFACTIVE
is expressed by the preposition for, which is derived
from the spatial and/or temporal meaning ‘in front’ and ‘before’ (from Germanic *fora
‘before in place or time’). This shift in meaning was probably also motivated by a languageindependent principle of metonymic reasoning: objects that are in front of a person are
perceptible and accessible and hence potentially beneficial to this person. The notion of
causation that is involved in all these examples is that of a contributing cause and comprises
both a linguistic source and language-independent factors.
To summarize, the concept ‘give’ and language-independent factors (such as
metonymic and other inferential principles) are neither sufficient nor necessary causes for the
development of the grammatical function
BENEFACTIVE,
but they are contributing causes
(among others). The same applies to the notion ‘frontness’, which together with inferential
principles is a contributing cause to the development of English for in the sense of
‘benefactive’.
In conclusion, we assume that there are two types of contributing cause that are
relevant in linguistic motivation: (i) a linguistic source and (ii) language-independent factors.
A linguistic source is a linguistic unit as a whole, its content or its form. The other
contributing causes can be called language-independent since they involve general cognitive
faculties, such as inferential abilities, or metaphoric and metonymic mappings, that are not
restricted to language. It is such contributing causes that are at work when a linguistic unit, its
content or its form is called ‘motivated’.
In using the term contributing cause we take a “realistic” stance, acknowledging that
it is impossible to exhaustively list the set of causes that are necessary and jointly sufficient to
trigger a linguistic property. In fact, the attribution of motivational sources to linguistic
phenomena by the linguistic analyst is usually based on post hoc abductive reasoning, i.e.
inferencing from some observed fact plus assumed general principles of reasoning (which
may be merely probabilistic) to a conclusion that “best explains” the observed fact (see also
Goldberg 1995: 69ff. and Hopper & Traugott 1993: 64).
In the case of the example discussed above, an abductive reasoning process might run
as follows:
(2)
Observed fact:
Target: Ewe ná has the grammatical meaning BENEFACTIVE.
9
Abductive reasoning:
(i)
Source: ná originally meant ‘give’, i.e. ‘Agent causes Recipient to have
Object’ [contributing cause: linguistic source]
(ii)
The metonymic principle
from
RECIPIENT
to
NEUTRAL FOR POSITIVE
BENEFACTIVE
invites the inference
[contributing cause: language-
independent factor)]
(iii)
The metonymic principle
EVENT FOR SALIENT PARTICIPANT OF EVENT
invites the inference from event of ‘giving’ to ‘benefiting recipient’ of
this event [contributing cause: language-independent factor]
(iv)
The grammatical meaning
BENEFACTIVE
of ná is caused (= motivated)
by the contributing causes (i) – (iii).
The step-by-step process outlined above is meant as an illustration of abductive
reasoning by linguists, not as a claim about conscious reasoning processes in native speakers.
Whether the abductive inferences happened exactly as outlined in (2) is a question that, in
hindsight, cannot be answered. We believe, however, that general cognitive principles
(including metonymies) guide native speakers and hearers subconsciously in constructing and
comprehending meanings.
4
The notions of motivation and explanation
The notion of motivation is closely related to that of explanation. The description of a
motivational relation in language constitutes one type of explanation, but not every
explanation is based on motivation. Berg (1998: 11), in accordance with Popper (1963: 241),
regards an explanation as an act of “establishing a connection between hitherto unconnected
things.” In principle, both lay people and experts constantly establish connections between
hitherto unconnected things and thus provide “explanations”. The regularities underlying
most linguistic phenomena, however, are below the level of awareness of lay people. For
example, the Bavarian and Austrian noun Watschen ‘slap in the face’ is a singular (feminine)
noun whose ending in –en suggests that it is a plural form; hence the backformation Watsche
as a singular form (witness a recent newspaper headline Keine Watsche für Viatcheslav (‘No
slap in the face for [handball player] Viatcheslav’). Lay persons can, in all likelihood, not
account for their usage of Watsche as the singular and Watschen as the plural. The linguistic
expert, in contrast, can explain the linguistic processes subconsciously guiding the lay person
10
by resorting e.g. to the notions of feminine singular and plural “gestalts”: cf. Bratsche ‘viola’
vs. Bratschen ‘violas’ or Sage ‘legend’ vs. Sagen ‘legends’.
As is well-known, linguistic experts often do not agree on what counts as a
“connection” between two things and hence as an explanation. Explanations are always
embedded within a theoretical framework and reflect the researcher’s theoretical
commitments. Let us consider how a puzzling phenomenon of English grammar is
“explained” within the formalist framework of generative grammar and how it might be
accounted for in terms of motivation. The data are taken from an article by Hoekstra and
Kooij (1988: 38) on the innateness hypothesis, i.e. the conjecture that infants are born with a
richly structured universal grammar. These authors observe that sentence (3a) has two
readings, as opposed to the single reading of sentence (3b):
(3)
a.
b.
Where did John say that we had to get off the bus?
‘John said where that we had to get off the bus?’
(wide scope of where)
‘John said that we had to get off the bus where?’
(narrow scope of where)
Where did John ask whether we had to get off the bus?
‘John asked where whether we had to get off the bus?’
(wide
scope
of
where)
‘*John asked whether we had to get off the bus where?’
(narrow scope of where)
Question (3a) is either about the location at which John said that we had to get off the bus
(wide scope of where) or about where the event of getting off the bus should take place
(narrow scope of where). In contrast, question (3b) has only the reading with wide scope, i.e.,
it is a question about where John asked whether we had to get off the bus. Movement (as a
transformational process) of where is possible from the embedded that-clause in (3a), but
blocked in cases like (3b) where whether is claimed to form a “barrier” to movement. Thus
that-clauses allow extraction of elements while whether forms a barrier to this movement
operation. This account of extraction in terms of barriers provides an “explanation” in the
sense of establishing “a connection between hitherto unconnected things”. However, this
explanation reeks of circularity: whether forms a “barrier” to movement because where is not
moved and extraction of where is blocked because whether forms a barrier.
11
The way out for the formalist approach is to stipulate that children are born with an
innate universal grammar that, on a subconscious level, contains theoretical concepts such as
‘movement’ and ‘barrier to movement’. In the case of the different structural behavior of thatand whether-clauses, a connection is drawn to language acquisition and innate constraints. It
is assumed that the child cannot acquire the scope differences between (3a) and (3b) on the
basis of empirical evidence alone. Therefore, children must be guided by innate universal
constraints on extraction, i.e. barriers are assumed to be part of the innate universal grammar
that humans are endowed with. An explanation in terms of universal grammar is rather
speculative, and there is no empirical evidence that children are guided by such supposedly
universal principles in acquiring this particular grammatical contrast.
A motivational explanation of the contrast between (3a) and (3b) would take other
syntax-external factors into account: say in (3a) is one of the most neutral or schematic verbs
of communication and consequently highly non-salient. The interpretation that is likely to
come to mind first for (3a) is the narrow scope reading of where: the information that is most
relevant (foregrounded) in this kind of question is the location where we have to get off the
bus rather than where John performed the act of saying. The latter is less relevant
(backgrounded) information. If say is replaced by more specific speech act verbs such as
insist, proclaim, announce, or indicate, attention is drawn to the communicative act itself
performed by the subject participant, i.e. an interpretation with a wide scope of where is far
more likely. The same observation applies to the verb ask in (3b), which is semantically
richer than say and therefore automatically more foregrounded. The contrast between (3a) and
(3b) thus does not reside in the presumed syntactic properties of that as opposed to those of
whether but is motivated by communicative factors. In (3a) the speaker’s communicative goal
is to inquire about where we, according to John, have to get off the bus; this communicative
goal can be achieved by backgrounding the act of saying and instead focusing on the
propositional content of John’s utterance. In the default case, main clauses are foregrounded
and subordinate clauses convey background information; however, in (3a) this principle is
reversed due the low degree of informational content of say. As a result, the syntactically
subordinate clause becomes the focus of attention. In contrast, in (3b), because of the more
specific speech act of asking, the pragmatic focus is immediately on the act of asking and the
propositional content of the question is backgrounded.5
5
Similar observations are made by Verhagen (forthcoming) for English and Dutch. He observes that,
apart the verb itself, the possibility of wh-extraction depends on variables such as the tense of the
12
We claim that the cognitive and communicative factors mentioned above such
communicative goal, background information, focus of attention, and the conceptual content
of the message determine or, at least, influence linguistic structure—in the above case, the
constraints on “wh-extraction”. We do not wish to give the impression that every linguistic
phenomenon is totally explainable in motivational terms. However, we regard the search for
motivation as the best heuristics to gain insights into the nature of language.
Given that motivational explanations do not, in general, reach the level of prediction,
many linguists working in a formalist paradigm are inclined to discard motivational accounts
of language form and structure as unscientific.6 However, the impressive amount of data that
has been amassed in the last forty or fifty years of linguistic research strongly invites an
account in terms of motivation. In the following sections we provide only a small sample of
the available evidence that speaks for ‘motivation’ as an important explanatory device in
linguistics.
5
Semiotic relations underlying motivational processes
Since motivational processes involve language, they necessarily operate on linguistic signs,
i.e. they pertain to semiotic relations within the linguistic unit and/or across linguistic units.
In Section 5.1 we list possible basic semiotic relations between source and target, and in
Section 5.2 we illustrate the role of basic semiotic relations for motivation.
5.1
Basic semiotic relations
In this section we propose five basic semiotic relations that may obtain between the form and
the content of a linguistic unit or across linguistic units. Figure 3a represents the case of an
arbitrary semiotic relation between content and form, indicated by a simple line. Motivated
semiotic links between content and form are represented by means of arrows. Figure 3b
illustrates a relation in which a content (source) motivates a form (target), Figure 3c depicts a
matrix verb, the complexity of the subject of the matrix clause (pronoun vs. lexical NP; person of
pronoun, etc.), and the complexity of matrix clause as a whole.
6
Among the few generative linguists who have shown an interest in questions of motivation is
Frederick Newmeyer, most recently in Newmeyer (2000). Newmeyer is generally skeptical as to
motivational explanations of grammatical structure or, as he calls them, “external explanations”.
Nevertheless, he concedes that there are two “prime candidates” (p. 127): First, the performance
theory of constituent order developed by John Hawkins (1994), i.e. the thesis that the human parser
prefers sentences whose immediate constituents can be identified as quickly as possible. This view
implies that syntactic structure can, at least to a certain extent, be explained as a result of such
parsing preferences. Second, languages have a tendency to align grammatical structure and
conceptual structure, i.e., they exhibit what Newmeyer (2000: 129) calls “structure-concept
iconicity”.
13
situation in which a form (source) motivates a content (target). Figures 3d and 3e differ from
the preceding relations in that they do not relate form and content within one unit but contents
or forms across units. These relations, unless elaborated by other relations, only exist outside
the semiotic system: The content-content relation applies to purely mental associations and
the form-form relation to uninterpreted physical phenomena. In language, when these two
relations are exploited for motivational purposes, they are always part of a complex relational
configuration (see Section 5.2).
a.
b.
c.
SOURCE
TARGET
CONTENT
CONTENT
CONTENT
FORM
FORM
FORM
TARGET
arbitrary semiotic relation
SOURCE
content motivating form
form motivating content
d.
e.
SOURCE
TARGET
SOURCE
CONTENT 1
CONTENT2
CONTENT
CONTENT
FORM
FORM1
FORM2
FORM
content1 motivating content2
TARGET
form1 motivating form2
Figure 3: Basic semiotic relations
5.2
Basic semiotic relations in motivational processes
As shown in Figure 3 there are, in principle, four basic semiotic relations that may be
exploited in motivation: (i) a content may motivate a form, as in iconicity, (ii) a form may
14
motivate a content, as in isomorphism or folk etymology, (iii) a content may motivate another
content (in conjunction with other relations), as in polysemy, (iv) a form may motivate
another form (in conjunction with other relations), as in phonological change. (v) Finally, a
form-content unit may motivate another form-content unit, as in grammaticalization. In this
case, content-content relations and form-form relations apply simultaneously.
5.2.1 Content-form relations
Forms that are motivated by their content are generally regarded as the most typical type of
motivation. Particularly convincing cases of content-form motivation are iconicity and
metonymy. They represent the situation of a motivated linguistic unit par excellence. In the
case of iconicity, the linguistic unit is assumed to reflect the content it expresses. The iconic
relation between content and form might ultimately be metonymically motivated: due to its
conceived similarity to the concept, the linguistic form may naturally stand as an image (or
representation) for the concept. Haiman (1980), following Peirce’s (1932) taxonomy of signs,
distinguishes two basic types of iconicity: imagic iconicity and diagrammatic iconicity.
Imagic iconicity applies to a simple sign that resembles its conceived referent. The
most obvious applications of imagic iconicity in language are pictograms used in many
writing systems. For example, in ancient Chinese a circle with a dot in the middle and rays
radiating from it was used to represent the concept ‘sun’. Later on the iconic pictogram
underwent changes both in its form and content: the circle was squared off, the dot was
stretched to a line, the rays were dropped, and the content was extended to senses such as
‘day’ and ‘warmth’. The content-from relationship thus became less transparent or iconic.
Since language is usually vocal, the only kinds of image that speech can imitate are sounds or
noises. Imagic iconicity in language is therefore described by Taylor (2002: 46) as imitative
iconicity. This simplest case is graphically represented in Figure 3b above. It is typically
restricted to the fairly small set of onomatopoeic words of a language—the majority of simple
words being, at least from a synchronic point of view, usually seen as arbitrary. A wellknown example of imitative iconicity is the simple form cuckoo. The phonetic form of
cuckoo is felt to resemble the bird’s call and, by metonymy, refers to the bird producing the
call. It should be mentioned though that the bird’s cry is not acoustically identical to the
phonological shape of the word. To this extent even onomatopoeic words have an element of
arbitrariness. The motivational force underlying imitative iconicity may be very powerful:
thus, the expected pronunciation of the first syllable of cuckoo would have had the STRUT
vowel as in cuckold, but the pronunciation with the FOOT vowel, or even with a short
15
version of the GOOSE vowel, “has prevailed as the supposed echo of the bird’s cry” (Onions
1966, s.v. cuckoo).7 It is also noteworthy that cuckoo superseded the Old English word geac,
which lost its original sound-imitative quality through phonetic developments.
Diagrammatic iconicity applies to the arrangement of signs that reflects the
relationships of their conceived referents. In language, diagrammatic iconicity pertains to
linguistic structure and is therefore also described by Taylor (2002: 46) as structural
iconicity. This term is preferable to diagrammatic iconicity because the latter subsumes
isomorphism (Haiman 1980), which applies to a different type of iconic situation (see below).
Well-known types of structural iconicity include linear iconicity (Harry came in and sat down
as opposed to *Harry sat down and came in), proximity iconicity (Susan is not happy but
content as opposed to *Susan is unhappy but content), quantity iconicity (full reduplication:
Mandarin Chinese xiao ‘small’, xiaoxiao ‘very small’; partial reduplication: Finnish yksin
‘alone’, ypo-yksin ‘completely alone’), etc. The conceived similarity between source and
target in structural iconicity is more abstract than in imitative iconicity. Highly schematic
correspondences between a linguistic structure and its referent may still be seen as iconically
motivated. Thus, the plural morpheme of a noun, which usually carries more sound than the
singular form, may be seen as motivated by the iconic principle of quantity:
MORE MEANING. 8
MORE SOUND IS
It should be noted though that in structural iconicity the component units, at
least in natural language, are always arbitrary.
The type of metonymically motivated content-form relation was already illustrated by
the ‘screwdriver’ example discussed above. The conceptualization of ‘screwdriver’ was
shown to provide the potential for a wide range of complex expressions in various languages.
Since the concept of the composite expression is invariably richer than the combined “literal”
meanings of its constituents, complex units tend to be motivated by a
PART FOR WHOLE
metonymy.
7
Cf. Ullmann (1972: 95) for a similar development of coucou and other examples in French. The
Latin word cuculus developed to cocu in Old French, which was felt to be inexpressive and was
ousted by the purely imitative coucou. “[I]t has survived, however, in French cocu and English
cuckold as a crudely jocular metaphor based on the notorious habits of the bird”.
8
Exceptions to the general tendency of the plural form being more weighty phonologically are
certain declensional classes of Latin as illustrated by oppidum ‘town’ vs. oppida ‘towns’ or murus
‘wall’ vs. muri ‘walls’. Another counterexample was pointed out to us by John Taylor: the Maori
demonstratives teenei/teenaa ‘this/that’ vs. eenai/eenaa ‘these/those’.
16
5.2.2 Form-content relations
The form-content relation is represented in Figure 3c. It is instantiated by the principle “oneform – one meaning”, known as the principle of isomorphism.9 A corollary of this principle is
sameness in form signals sameness in meaning and distinctness in form signals difference in
meaning. The principle “sameness of form – sameness of meaning” is exemplified in
phonesthemes: certain non-morphemic sound sequences tend to be associated with invariant
meanings.10 For example, many, typically monosyllabic words starting in /sp/ have unpleasant
connotations such as spit, spew, spill, spic (derog. for ‘Puerto Rican’), spot, speck, spy, spank,
etc. The form spam fits this pattern perfectly and may therefore have been chosen to express
the new meaning ‘junk e-mail’; possibly its earlier sense ‘tinned meat’ also contributed to this
meaning extension.11
An interesting example in which phonological form (stress pattern) impacts on highly
schematic (grammatical) content is provided by John Taylor (this volume). He observes that
the form hamburger has primary stress on ham and secondary stress on burger, i.e. it exhibits
the same stress pattern as countless compounds like dog-lover. Because of this stress pattern
the morphological structure hamburg + er has been reinterpreted as ham + burger. Thus
burger came to be understood as the head of a compound and ham as its modifier. The
reanalysis of the form hamburger as an endocentric compound also motivated a lexical
change of meaning: both ham and burger came to be understood as meaning-bearing units so
that a hamburger is understood to be a kind of burger just like a beefsteak is a kind of steak.12
The reanalysis of hamburger is also an instance of folk etymology, i.e. the belief that a
Despite Croft’s (1990: 164ff.) criticism of the “unfortunate selection” of the terms ‘isomorphism’
and ‘motivation’ as used by Haiman, we will adopt the latter author’s established use of
‘isomorphism’. Croft notes that the term ‘isomorphism’ is used in a different sense in mathematics,
i.e. in reference to both correspondence of elements and relations; it thus includes ‘motivation’ as
used by Haiman. Unlike Haiman, who understands ‘motivation’ as ‘iconic motivation’ only, we will
use the term in the widest sense.
10
An excellent collection of English phonesthemes is found on Benjamin K. Shisler’s homepage
Dictionary of English Phonesthemes.
11
John Taylor kindly drew our attention to the fact spam did not originally have a negative
connotation. Its derogatory meaning may have originated in a Monty Python sketch, in which a
restaurant offers all dishes with spam: egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and
spam; spam bacon sausage and spam, etc. Possibly, some computer nerd adopted the word and its
subsequent success was probably fostered by the negative connotation of the phonestheme sp-.
12
However, one could add that the reinterpretation of hamburger as a compound was probably also
reinforced by certain developments in the world of fast food. Once fast food chains put other burgers
on their menu such as cheeseburgers, chickenburgers, etc., “real-world” facts might have established
a new conceptual system that in turn externally motivated (i.e. strengthened) the analysis of burger as
a class term.
9
17
phonological “word” carries meaning—in this case, the fact that ham is a lexeme has
reinforced the folk analysis.
Even
on
the
level
of
grammatical
constructions
constant
form-meaning
correspondences can be observed. For example, the constructions NP1 of NP2 as in a bear of
a man investigated by Foolen (this volume) and bang goes NP studied by Taylor (this
volume) are associated with specific expressive meanings. Even highly schematic
constructions display isomorphism in the sense that they impose aspects of their meaning on
the lexical content. For example, the transitive construction prototypically expresses an action
schema with an Agent participant as the subject and a Patient participant as the direct object.
Non-prototypical participant roles in the subject and object position of transitive sentences are
interpreted in accordance with the action schema. For example, the Instrument in the NRA
slogan Guns don’t kill people is contrasted with the Agent in People kill people, i.e., some
people see guns as self-acting energy sources and it is exactly this implicature that is refuted
in the NRA slogan. Similarly, in The driver honked the horn, the Instrument the horn as a
direct object is seen as more strongly affected than if it were expressed as a prepositional
phrase. Thus, honking the horn refers to the horn’s function of warning while honking with
the horn may also refer to situations such as using the horn for fun or as an attention-getter.
The principle of isomorphism also implies that difference in form signals difference in
meaning. According to this principle, there is no complete synonymy or paraphrase in
language. People even tend to associate different meanings with different pronunciations of
the same word.13 Lexical doublets tend to develop different meanings like shirt (from Old
English) and skirt (from Old Norse). A minimal morphological contrast as between economic
and economical results in a clear-cut semantic distinction: ‘pertaining to the economy’ vs.
‘using money/resources carefully’. Minimal syntactic contrasts display different syntactic
behavior, which indicates that each construal has its own meaning. Hiraga (1994: 14) cites
Bolinger’s (1968) examples, which contradict the claim that the gerund and the infinitive, and
the active and passive voice are synonymous. Thus, both the gerund (4a) and the infinitive
(4c) are compatible with hypothetical situations but only the gerund (4b), not the infinitive
(4d), can be used to describe a factual situation.
(4)
13
a.
Waiting would have been a mistake.
b.
Waiting has been a mistake.
Labov noted that some people think of /va:z/ as a big vase and /veiz/ or /veis/ as a small vase.
18
c.
To wait would have been a mistake.
d.
*To wait has been a mistake.
5.2.3 Content-content relations
A paradigm case for a content-content relation is polysemy, which is regarded by some
cognitive linguists as a prime case of motivation (see Section 1). The study of the “causes”,
i.e. motivations, of semantic changes has a long philological tradition. Sweetser (1990: 9)
observes that “[s]ynchronic polysemy and historical change of meaning really supply the
same data in many ways.” In recent times, cognitive semantics has led to substantial new
insights in the motivational pathways of polysemy.
As shown in Figure 4, polysemy involves a combination of three basic relations: an
arbitrary semiotic relation between a content and a form, a motivational link between two (or
more) contents, and a motivated semiotic link from the target content to the source form. This
link reflects the native speaker’s intuition that the target content is conceptually sufficiently
close to the source content so that it can be subsumed under the same (source) form. The
motivational links themselves can be regarded as being, at least partially, reinforced by
language-independent factors.
SOURCE
CONTENT1
1
TARGET
2
CONTENT2
3
FORM1
1
1: arbitrary semiotic relation; 2: motivated conceptual relation 3: motivated semiotic relation
Example: in ‘containment’ (e.g. in the house)  ‘blockage’ (e.g. in my way)
Figure 4. The motivational structure of polysemy
In this volume, Evans and Tyler’s contribution is devoted to the issue of motivated, or
what they call principled, polysemy. They demonstrate that the senses of the English
preposition in form a radial network of motivated extensions (see Section 8).
19
5.2.4 Form-form relations
Strictly speaking, following Langacker, linguistic form-form relations can only apply to the
phonological level. The relation between one phonological form and another phonological
form may involve individual phones or phonemes, for example, in regular sound shifts or
combinations of phones or phonemes, such as in phonological processes like assimilation,
vowel harmony, metathesis, consonant cluster simplification, etc.
5.2.5 Form/content-form/content relations
This configuration applies to motivated changes of whole linguistic units as form-meaning
pairings. An example illustrating this phenomenon is the taboo-avoiding use of Gosh! or
Golly! for ‘God!’ or (what the) heck! for ‘(what the) hell!’. As shown by the bold arrow in
Figure 5, the form of a unit undergoes a slight phonological change, which results in a new
form. The meaning of this form is motivated by a variant of the principle of isomorphism:
similarity of form corresponds to similarity of meaning: Like God!, Gosh! is used as an
exclamation of surprise, bewilderment, etc. Since the target form is also sufficiently
dissimilar to the source form, however, it is no longer felt to offend people’s religious
feelings and is not an appropriate expression to be used in invocations of God.
SOURCE
CONTENT 1
TARGET
4
1
FORM1
CONTENT 2
3
2
FORM1
1: arbitrary semiotic relation; 2: motivated form-form relation; 3: motivated semiotic relation;
4: motivated content-content relation. Example: God!  Gosh!
Figure 5. The motivational structure of related forms
The reverse case of a motivated form/content-form/content relation is found in
grammaticalization. Typically, a lexical or less grammatical content is shifted towards a
more grammatical content, a process that is often accompanied by phonological attrition. For
example, the demonstrative that has developed the additional grammatical sense of a
complementizer (for its motivation see Hopper and Traugott 1993: 185ff.). The demonstrative
20
is only pronounced /Dœt/, whereas the complementizer also has the attrited form /D´t/. Thus,
the new target content has motivated a new phonological form.
SOURCE
lexical
CONTENT 1
TARGET
2
3
1
FORM1
grammatical
CONTENT 2
4
FORM2
1: arbitrary semiotic relation ; 2: motivated content-content relation;
3: motivated semiotic relation; 4: motivated form-form relation (optional)
Example: demonstrative that  complementizer that
Figure 6. The motivational structure of grammaticalization
In other cases of grammaticalization, the new target form is noticeably distinct from the
source form, as in be going to versus be gonna or one versus a(n).
6
Language-independent factors of motivation
Section 5 dealt with combinatorial possibilities of motivational relations. This section will
take a closer look at some of the language-independent factors that may have an impact on the
linguistic unit. As shown in Figure 7, language-independent factors may operate either on a
linguistic unit as a whole or on its content or form.
21
Experiential motivation 3
(e.g. embodiment,
image schema)
LINGUISTIC
UNIT
CONTENT
Genetic motivation 2
(e.g. grammaticalization)
Perceptual motivation 4
(e.g. viewpoint, similarity,
salience)
Cognitive motivation 5
(e.g. inferences,
mappings, blending)
FORM
Ecological motivation 1
(e.g. ecological niche)
Other motivations
motivmotivation
Communicative
motivation 6
(e.g. maxims, economy,
expressivity)
Figure 7: Some language-independent motivational factors
Motivational factors usually do not function in isolation but tend to apply jointly. All
motivational factors, as they show up in language, are mediated through conceptualization. In
other words, we surmise that linguistic motivation is ultimately guided by cognition. For
analytical reasons and ease of exposition, however, we will discuss the motivational factors
one by one in the following sections.
6.1
Ecological motivation
Ecological motivation is meant to refer to the motivation of a linguistic unit due to its place,
or “ecological niche”, within a system. The notions ‘ecology’ and ‘ecological niche’ have
been introduced by Lakoff (1987: 487). Taylor (this volume) elaborates these concepts within
a framework of linguistic motivation. Ecological motivation is certainly not restricted to
language but is much rather a general human principle. The term ‘ecology’ suggests that
Lakoff and Taylor see a very strong parallel between ecological systems and linguistic
systems. In this sense, the systematic aspect of language is a language-independent
phenomenon.
The ecology of a linguistic unit is to be understood in the sense that it has “pointers”
to other units and, to the extent that the unit is related to other units in the language, it is
motivated. Since each linguistic unit is related to other units within a system, all units are
motivated to some extent. The reinterpretation of hamburger as a compound is motivated in
being related to other compounds within the system of English, and the form-meaning pairing
22
of spam is motivated in being related to other words of English with unpleasant connotations.
As aptly described by Taylor (this volume) in his analysis of bang, this onomatopoeic word is
motivated “by the cumulative effect of a network of associations pertaining to the word’s
phonological components.”
The notion of ecology includes the idea of a system that contains slots or “niches” that
are filled or fillable by linguistic units. This view of language was already put forward by
Meillet (1903: 407), who regards language (French langue) as a “système où tout se tient”.14
An important consequence of the ecological view of language is that a local change is not
only seen as affecting its immediate vicinity, but ultimately the system at large. A
phonological example of the impact of an ecological change is the Great Vowel Shift at the
end of the Middle English period. According to Akmajian, Demers & Harnish (1984: 368f.),
the long mid vowels /e:/ (as in feet) and /o:/ (as in mood) were raised to /i:/ and /u:/,
respectively. As a result, the original long high front and back vowels were diphthongized to
/ai/ and /au/, respectively, and the lower /æ:/ and /XXXX:/ were raised to /e:/ and /o:/,
respectively (see Figure 8). The chain reactions triggered by these shifts have traditionally
been described as “push and pull” effects, suggesting that a system as such exerts some
linguistic pressure. In this case, the raised mid vowels may have “pushed” the high vowels
into a lower position, and the low vowels may have been “pulled” up into the vacated
locations left behind by the raised mid vowels. The reason for these chain reactions might
have been to restore the equilibrium of a system that seemed to be ecologically out of
balance.
i:
u:
e:
o:
æ:
ai
x
au
Figure 8: The Great Vowel Shift
For a discussion of the origin of the quote “un système où tout se tient”, see Linguist List 14.1954,
July 17, 2003. It is found in Meillet’s writings but apparently ultimately goes back to de Sausssure’s
lectures.
14
23
The same applies to changes affecting the semantic system. The change of meaning of
an existing lexeme or the adoption of a new lexeme typically leads to a restructuring of the
semantic field to which the lexeme belongs. A well-known example is the meaning extension
of the Old English word bryd ‘young bird’ to ‘bird’ in general at the cost of the established
Old English word fugol, which then developed the specialized meaning ‘fowl’. The gap left
behind by the shift of meaning of bryd, ‘young bird’, has partially been filled by fledgling.
Two contributions to this volume demonstrate that the notion of ecology also applies
to the grammatical system. Both Taylor’s and Foolen’s chapters are concerned with
constructions that are associated with expressive meanings such as Bang goes the weekend!
and a bear of a man. On the one hand, both constructions have pointers to other more neutral
constructions such as Here comes my bus and a wheel of a car, respectively, on the other
hand, they gain their expressivity by “deviating” from these constructions and occupy a niche
of their own.
6.2
Genetic motivation
The term ‘genetic motivation’ is due to Bernd Heine (this volume); it relates to diachrony.
Just as present-day human behavior is the result of past motivations, present-day linguistic
behavior (and one might add, the product of this behavior, language structure) is motivated by
factors that were operative a long time ago but whose effects are still visible and relevant to
an adequate understanding of language structure today. Among the many examples Heine
(1997) discusses we single out one case of genetic motivation. The schematic notion of
comparison in the sense of ‘comparative’ has a variety of source schemas cross-linguistically
(p. 112), e.g. the Action Schema, the Location Schema, the Polarity Schema, etc. Let us
consider the last schema, which may be coded by two independent clauses expressing
positive and negative polarity. Thus X is Y, Z is not Y has the meaning ‘X is Y-er than Z’ (p.
117). For example, in the Carib language Hixkaryana, the idea ‘Kaywerye is taller than
Waraka’ is literally rendered as ‘tall-not he.is Waraka, tall he.is Kaywerye’. The factors that
must have been operative at the time when this construction was used in Hixkaryana in the
past are still relevant today. The construction is mainly motivated by the languageindependent factor ‘implicature’: the fact that ‘person A is tall and person B is not tall’
implies that, provided the standard of comparison is the same, person A is taller than person
B. The logic of conversational implicature must have been the same for Hixkaryana speakers
of old times as for present-day speakers of Hixkaryana as well as for speakers of English, i.e.
if someone said, Bill is not tall; Harry is tall, we would draw the same inference.
24
In this volume, the contributions by Bernd Heine and Christian Koops are mostly
devoted to genetically motivated grammatical phenomena. Heine establishes the foundations
of genetic motivation, and Koops studies a particular type of emergent grammaticalization.
6.3
Experiential motivation
The experientialist approach to language advocated by many cognitive scholars, in particular
Johnson (1987) and Lakoff (1987), draws attention to the fundamental impact of embodied
meaning. The notion of embodiment is most perspicuous in the sensori-motor experiences
that give rise to kinesthetic image schemas such as the container schema, the part-whole
schema, etc. Image schemas relate to our earliest experiences in childhood and are assumed to
be directly meaningful—Lakoff and Johnson even claim that they are preconceptual in nature.
For most image schemas, it is, however, intuitively more plausible to assume that, only after
experiencing a number of image-schematic situations, a child can form abstract imageschematic concepts. Irrespective of whether image schemata are preconceptual or only
preverbal, they are powerful motivating factors because of their embodied basis. As Beitel,
Gibbs and Sanders (1997) have shown in their experiments on the polysemy of the spatial
preposition on, the image-schematic basis of sense relations is psychologically real and
motivates sense extensions.
Parts of our early experiences are also basic events and primary scenes (see Grady
1997). Basic events are simple, goal-oriented interactions with the world, such as walking,
sitting or jumping, while primary scenes relate to the subjective experience of basic events,
such as the experience of strain or discomfort involved in lifting a heavy object. According to
Lakoff (1987: 206ff), embodied experiences are not just to be understood in the sense of what
happens to an individual, but in the much broader sense of “the totality of human experience
and everything that plays a role in it.” They feed into our basic conceptual structure and allow
us to access abstract concepts by metonymic and metaphorical projection.
In this volume, two studies demonstrate the impact of experiential motivation on
language structure. In their analysis of the polysemy of the particle in, Vyvyan Evans and
Andrea Tyler show that its sense extensions are motivated from the spatio-physical
experience of the proto-scene of in, which is associated with the image schema of
‘containment’. In his study on “Motivating the uses of basic verbs”, John Newman shows that
the morphosyntax of verbs of sitting, standing and lying in some languages is motivated by
the experiential basicness of these states and acts.
25
6.4
Perceptual motivation
Our perception of the world is inseparable from our experience and cognition, or, as
expressed by the philosopher Immanuel Kant, “we see things not as they are but as we are.”
Sensory stimuli are meaningless and only become meaningful by associating them with
something familiar, i.e. “seeing typically involves categorization” (Lakoff 1987: 126).
Principles of perception allow us to filter out irrelevant information, supply information not
present, and thereby structure the sensory stimulus into a meaningful gestalt. Many of the
organizing principles that are pertinent in the structuring of perception also motivate language
structure. Three perceptual capacities seem to be particularly relevant as motivating factors
for language: attention to salience, recognition of similarity, and viewing arrangement.
Attention to things that are salient shows up in many guises. In perception, salient
entities are, amongst others, the figure (especially when moving) as opposed to the ground, a
good gestalt as opposed to a poor gestalt, and a whole as opposed to its parts or “active
zones”. Especially Talmy and Langacker have shown that perceptual principles operate in
language. For example, the figure/ground alignment of conceptual entities determines how
they are coded in language (the book on the table vs. ?the table under the book).
Recognition of similarity is an important gestalt-perceptual principle. For example, an
array of equidistant identical figures as in Figure 9a appears to us as unstructured, but when
different-looking figures are added in a regular fashion, we tend to see the similar-looking
things as belonging together and, as the circles alternating with the squares in Figure 9b, as
forming columns and hence a regular pattern.
a.
b.
Figure 9. Similarity as gestalt-perceptual principle
The human ability of viewing different things as similar and, as a result, grouping them
together is also of vital importance to language. The most important linguistic areas where
recognition of similarity is relevant and may hence be said to contribute to motivating
26
linguistic structure are the following: (i) categorization and generalization: conceiving
separate things as being similar enough to be grouped together as members of the same
category or abstract schema; (ii) iconicity: perceiving a similarity between phenomena in
conceived reality and the linguistic expressions describing them.
The impact of viewing arrangements on language structure has been extensively
studied by Langacker. Facets of the viewing arrangement include the speaker’s adoption of a
vantage point (e.g. taking the hearer’s point of view as in I’ll come with you), viewing frame,
subjective and objective construal, scanning, and fictive motion (see Matlock, this volume).
6.5
Cognitive motivation
Cognitive factors that may have a motivational impact on language structure include the
human ability for developing and accessing knowledge structures (such as categories, frames
and mental spaces) and performing cognitive operations on them (such as relating concepts,
blending concepts, mappings within a domain and across domains, and drawing inferences).
Cognitive factors almost always interact with other factors. For example, categorization and
frame construction are to a large extent based on experience, mental spaces are tied to
communicative interaction, and metaphor and metonymy are often triggered by experiential,
cultural and ecological factors.
In this volume, six contributions are concerned with aspects of cognitive motivation.
Teenie Matlock shows how the human ability to mentally simulate motion (fictive motion) is
reflected in linguistic structure. Anatol Stefanowitsch and Ada Rohde compare two possible
explanations for the preference of coding goal over source. Gerhard van Huyssteen
investigates the motivation of reduplicated expressions in Afrikaans. Three contribution
address the impact of metonymy on grammatical structure: Ruiz de Mendoza and Díez
Velasco demonstrate how the choice of anaphora is motivated by the conceptual properties of
the metonymic antecedent; Brdar-Szabó and Brdar explore the role of metonymy in
explaining cross-linguistic differences in predicative structures; Barcelona investigates the
grammatical consequences of metonymically motivated shifts of proper names to common
nouns.
6.6
Communicative motivation: economy of coding
Since one of the main purposes of language is communication, it comes as no surprise that
there is a strong drive for making communicative acts as economical and perspicuous as
possible. In formulating the framework of his Cognitive Foundations of Grammar, Heine
27
(1997: 3) describes the first assumption about language structure as follows: “The main
function of language is to convey meaning. The question why language is used and structured
the way it is must therefore be answered first and foremost with reference to this function.”
The content of the message must hence be presented with clarity and, at the same time, it
should be coded in such a way that the hearer can interpret it with minimal processing effort
(economic motivation). The requirement of clarity has a long history in the prescriptive and
descriptive traditions of language studies. Suffice it here to mention Grice’s (1975) maxims
of manner such as Be perspicuous and Avoid ambiguity and vagueness.
As to economic motivation, we have already seen an example of coding motivated by
economy in Section 2: compounds name (almost by necessity) only certain aspects of the
complex ICM they evoke. More generally, it has long been recognized that there is a
universal tendency in language to code conceptual content in an economical way. George Zipf
(1949) discovered an inverse relationship between the token frequency of a word and its
length: the more frequent a word, the shorter its phonetic form. Even in a language like
German, which has many more polysyllabic words than monosyllabic words, almost 50% of
the word tokens actually used in texts are monosyllables (Crystal 1997: 87). Speakers’
tendency to choose monosyllabic words rather than polysyllabic words reflects the principle
of least effort in phonological coding, which is motivated by the speaker’s wish for economy
in speech. Pustet (2004: 2) points out that Zipf discovered the same kind of statistical
correlation as in language in various other domains such as demographics and economics.
The observed statistical regularity is thus by no means restricted to language but is a
“language-independent factor” in the sense discussed in Section 1.
On the semantic-pragmatic level economy principles have been proposed by neoGricean scholars (Horn 1989, Levinson 2000). Horn and Levinson develop the idea that
(generalized) conversational implicatures serve to minimize coding effort: a meaning does
not have to be coded as a separate lexical item if it can be inferred on the basis of general
pragmatic principles. Thus, there is no need for a word *nall ‘not all’ because it is
pragmatically inferable from some. However, the logical contrary of all is coded as a separate
word, i.e. none, because its meaning ‘all [...] not’ is not derivable by implicature. Similarly,
the deontic expression permitted (= deontic may) implicates the default meaning ‘permitted
[...] not’, i.e. if a person is permitted to do something, then s/he is also, by default, permitted
not do it; thus no separate coding of this idea is necessary.
28
Economy has also been recognized as guiding principle in communication in
relevance theory. According to Sperber and Wilson (1995), linguistic communication is
geared towards achieving maximal contextual effects with a minimum of processing effort.
An utterance is relevant to the extent that its contextual effects in the given context are large
and the cognitive effort needed to process the message is small.
6.7
Other motivations
A full-fledged theory of motivation would, of course, have to distinguish many more
language-independent factors of motivation than the six discussed above. These would,
amongst others, include cultural, social, psychological and anthropological factors as well as
biological and neurological determinants, which, however, are not yet sufficiently known.
A good example of the impact of culture on language is the different
conceptualization of anger in English and Chinese. Yu (1998: Chapter 3) has shown that
English and Chinese share the metaphor
FIRE,
and one of its subtypes,
ANGER IS
but they differ with respect to the other subversion: English has the metaphor
ANGER IS
A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER as
ANGER IS HEAT
in You make my blood boil, where Chinese uses the metaphor
ANGER IS HOT GAS IN A CONTAINER
as in ‘He’s ballooned with gas (i.e. inflated with anger)’
(p. 55). Yu argues that the GAS metaphor is motivated by the philosophical theory of yin-yang,
in which things in the universe are categorized by “the law of the unity of opposites” (p. 72f.).
In this theory, fluids (yin) are categorized with cold, while gas (yang) is categorized with heat
because heat is understood as a necessary condition of the occurrence of gas. The
metaphor is therefore motivated in Chinese culture, while the
HOT FLUID
GAS
metaphor, though
understood by Chinese-speaking people, is not made use of.
The
HOT FLUID
metaphor is, as shown by Kövecses (1995), very wide-spread cross-
linguistically; however, it may not be exclusively motivated physiologically, i.e. by
experiential motivation, but as argued by Geeraerts and Grondelaers (1995) it may be a legacy
of the medieval theory of the four humors, i.e. be an instance of cultural motivation. The
humoral interpretation of our emotional vocabulary would account for the fact that only
liquids, but not solids, serve as the source domain of the ANGER IS HEAT metaphor.
The role of socio-psychological factors in triggering language change was first
observed by William Labov in 1962. In his seminal study “The social motivation of a sound
change”, Labov (1972) showed that the local fishermen of the island Martha’s Vineyard
emotionally reacted against the influx of vacationers from the mainland by reintroducing a
feature of pronunciation typical of their traditional speech: a centralized pronunciation of the
29
vowel /a/ in the diphthongs /ay/ as in light and /aw/ as in town. This pronunciation had a
positive connotation and became a marker of identity and loyalty to the island. In a follow-up
study carried out by Blake and Josey (2003) “40 years after Labov”, the social situation on the
island has changed: tourism is no longer seen as threatening but as sustaining the local
communities. As a result, /ay/ centralization has lost its social meaning and is replaced by
decentralization.15
Another factor that is of vital importance to language is the probably anthropological
universal that humans rank higher than non-humans. This preference for humans is reflected
in many domains of linguistic structure. For example, in English human participants make a
better reference point than non-human participants in possessive constructions as in the
president’s dog versus *the dog’s president (see Langacker’s 2000 and Taylor’s work on
possessives).
7
Multiple and competing motivations
Motivation is a multifactorial phenomenon. In a given case, several factors may either jointly
motivate a linguistic unit or, more commonly, compete with each other. In their analysis of
binomial freezes, Cooper and Ross (1975) identify several semantic and phonological
constraints, i.e. motivating factors, governing the ordering of conjuncts. In the freeze bow and
arrow, semantic and phonological factors jointly motivate this order: the semantic factor
‘power source’ motivates the position of bow as the first element, and the phonological factor
‘more syllables’ motivates the position of arrow as the second element. The order in the
equivalent German expression, Pfeil und Bogen, is reversed. It is in accordance with the
phonological constraint (the monosyllabic element Pfeil ‘arrow’ precedes the more “weighty”
two-syllabic element Bogen ‘bow’), but it competes with the semantic constraint ‘power
source to be mentioned first’ and overrides it. Also Cooper and Ross’s example Trick or treat
(p. 72) illustrates competing motivations and phonological constraints overriding semantic
constraints. The freeze is in conformity with the phonological constraint that the second
element, /tri:t/, should contain a more resonant nucleus than the first element /trik/, but is in
conflict with the semantic ordering principle A or B (‘If not A, B will occur’) as in Hands up,
or I’ll shoot. The resolution of competing motivations results in an element of arbitrariness –
in this case, the ordering principle A or B no longer applies without exceptions.
15
We should note in passing that, in general, sociolinguistic correlations between social status and
linguistic variables do not, as such, indicate a causal, and hence motivated, relation.
30
Some motivational principles compete with each other by their very nature. A prime
example is the conflict between economic and isomorphic motivation discussed by Croft
(1990: 192ff., who follows Haiman, 1985).16 With respect to the lexicon, the principle of
economy motivates a minimal vocabulary, while the principle of isomorphism requires a
distinct word for every distinct concept. One resolution to the economy-isomorphism conflict
is polysemy, where the principle of economy predominates. Another resolution is the use of
different forms, i.e. a predominance of isomorphism. A third possibility, namely the use of
more than one form for a given concept, i.e. synonymy, is both un-economic and “unisomorphic” and, therefore, unmotivated and not likely to be found in natural language.
At a more general pragmatic level, there is a constant need to resolve competing
motivations as well. From this perspective, one could regard metonymy as a conflictresolving device as suggested by Langacker (2000: 199) in his paper on reference-point
constructions. He observes:
Metonymy allows an efficient reconciliation of two conflicting factors: the need to be
accurate, i.e. of being sure that the addressee’s attention is directed to the target; and
our natural inclination to think and talk explicitly about those entities that have the
greatest cognitive salience for us.
We might add economy as a third factor. As opposed to the explicit expression The water in
the kettle is boiling, the metonymic expression The kettle is boiling is clear enough for
directing the hearer’s attention to the intended target, construes the salient container as the
figure entity, and is considerably shorter than the explicit version.
8
The articles in this volume
The twelve articles collected in this volume can be grouped into four of the types of
motivation discussed in Section 7: ecological motivation, genetic motivation, experiential
motivation and cognitive motivation. It should be kept in mind, however, that the issues
presented in the papers often also touch upon other types of motivation, i.e., the allocation of
the papers to a specific category is to a certain degree “arbitrary”.
8.1
Ecological motivation
The basic units of grammar are syntactic constructions. According to John Taylor, three
kinds of constructions can be identified in Cognitive Grammar: phonological constructions,
semantic constructions, and symbolic constructions. Only the last type is usually considered a
16
Croft and Haiman refer to what we call isomorphism as iconicity.
31
construction. In his paper “The ecology of constructions”, Taylor argues that a linguistic
structure may be motivated with respect to all three kinds of construction. In his
understanding, a construction is motivated to the extent that it is related to other units in the
language. The structure he uses to illustrate this point is the constructional idiom bang goes
as in Bang goes my weekend. As a phonological construction, the sound shape of the
ideophone [bæN] is motivated within a network of associations with words sharing one or
more of these sounds such as slam and is therefore felt to be an appropriate form to designate
the sound of a sudden impact. As a semantic construction, the bang goes construction
conjures up a specific scenario in which a person feels mild annoyance at having things
interfere with their plans.
As a symbolic construction, the bang goes construction instantiates the schematic
subject-final construction [X V NPSubj] and constructions with go such as Bang went the
balloon, when it burst. Constructions do not exist in isolation but occupy an ecological niche
within a network of relations. In this sense, any construction is motivated to some extent.
In his chapter “Expressive binominal NPs in Germanic and Romance languages” Ad
Foolen analyzes constructions such as an angel of a child, which exist in various Germanic
and Romance languages. The construction consists of two noun phrases linked by the
preposition of in English and similar “neutral” prepositions in the other languages considered.
The binominal construction as in She is an angel of a child is emotionally “marked”: it
conveys a strong expressive force.17 Foolen discusses the problem of which of the two NPs is
to be considered the head of the construction. At first sight, the construction seems to confirm
the hypothesis that the relation between linguistic form and content is arbitrary; by extension,
it seems to support a modular view of language, i.e. the autonomy of syntax from semantics,
because the conceptual modifier, i.e. the metaphorized property of being an angel, shows up
as the syntactic head of the noun phrase, whereas the conceptual head, i.e. child, is
syntacticized in a subordinate prepositional phrase. However, on closer inspection, the
expressive binominal noun phrase construction turns out to be highly motivated: the direction
of the motivational relation proceeds from conceptual content to syntactic form (or
alternatively, schematic grammatical meaning). The metaphoric property ‘angel(like)’ is
foregrounded and consequently given the most prominent position (head) in the grammatical
construction. Foolen calls this position the “expressive” head of the construction. In contrast,
the conceptual head child, which assumes the function of “referential head”, is syntactically
32
relegated to a non-prominent position although it is topical in sentences like An angel of a
child entered the room, which is referentially clearly about a child, not about an angel. Foolen
concludes that the double-headedness of the construction is motivated by its double function:
the first NP is the expressive head of the construction, whereas the second NP is the
referential head.
8.2
Genetic motivation
In his contribution “On genetic motivation in grammar”, Bernd Heine contrasts two
opposing views of motivation: ‘structural motivation’ and ‘genetic motivation’. Structural
motivation pertains to the relationship between structures within a given language or between
linguistic and extra-linguistic structures. Genetic motivation refers to language structure as a
product of human behavior: it accounts for the motivating forces underlying linguistic
change. In this view, language structure is basically motivated and arbitrariness constitutes
the exception and is in need of explanation.
By way of illustration of this type of motivation, Heine looks at the cognitive forces
that are responsible for the emergence of three grammatical categories: numerals, indefinite
articles and possession. The numeral systems found in the languages of the world have
evolved from our experience of body parts and a set of basic arithmetical operations.
Indefinite articles typically derive from the numeral ‘one’, which is still reflected in their
predominant use with singular count nouns. The concept ‘possession’ derives from different
source schemas in different languages and may, in turn, give rise to different non-possessive
meanings such as tense and aspect. In combining historical evidence with cross-linguistic
generalizations, the search for genetic motivation provides a new promising approach to the
study of grammatical structure.
Christian Koops’ chapter “Emergent aspect constructions in Present-Day English”
can also be regarded as a contribution to the topic of genetic motivation. It is concerned with
the emergence of grammatical structures at the incipient stage, concentrating on constructions
in
Present-Day
English
(PDE)
that
convey
progressive
meaning.
Studies
on
grammaticalization have shown that the progressive aspect tends to originate from a restricted
set of source concepts, in particular ‘location’, ‘posture’ and ‘motion’. Paths of
grammaticalization attested across languages are probably well-motivated and may be
assumed to occur in any given language. As Koops convincingly demonstrates, Present-Day
See also Taylor (1996: 329f.), who also notes the “distinctive affective overtones” (329) of what he
calls ‘appositive of-constructions’ since the two noun phrases refer to the same entity.
17
33
English also has aspectual constructions emerging from these source notions. The source
notion ‘location’ is found in the PDE aspectual locative construction with in the middle/midst
of as in I was in the middle of getting my hair cut. The source notion ‘posture’ underlies PDE
aspectual posture verb constructions with the basic verbs sit and stand as in You sit there and
read hundreds of cases and How could you stand there and watch them beat that guy? The
source notion ‘motion’ gives rise to PDE aspectual motion verb constructions, especially with
the basic verb go (around) as in You can’t go around testing everybody for everything. The
emergent aspectual senses associated with these three constructions are subtypes of the
imperfective aspect: specifically, they are progressive, durative or repetitive in meaning. The
aspectual meaning characterizing each of the three constructions as well as additional aspects
of meaning and grammatical constraints are shown to follow from the lexical meanings of
their source notions.
8.3
Experiential motivation
Two chapters are devoted to aspects of experiential motivation: the first contribution
investigates motivation in lexical structure, the second the role of basic verbs in
grammaticalization.
The lexicon, in contrast to grammar, has traditionally been viewed as the idiosyncratic
and arbitrary component of language and, therefore, as lacking structure and systematicity.
This position is challenged by Vyvyan Evans and Andrea Tyler, who argue that lexical
structure, too, is highly organized and conceptually motivated. The motivation of lexical
structure can most clearly be seen in the meaning extensions of polysemous lexemes. In their
paper “Spatial experience, lexical structure and motivation: The case of in”, Evans and Tyler
illustrate their approach by way of analyzing the “principled polysemy” of the English particle
in. The central meaning, or “sanctioning sense”, of a given preposition is a highly abstract
representation of a spatial configuration of two objects, which Evans and Tyler call ‘protoscene’. In the case of in, the proto-scene is characterized by the complex spatio-functional
relation of ‘containment’. Our experience and interaction with aspects of containment has
consequences for certain associations, which, via pragmatic strengthening, motivate meaning
extensions of in. Thus, as Evans and Tyler argue, our common experience of a bounded
location and being in a state of restricted freedom give rise to a conventionalized State Sense
as in We’re in a state of war. Bounded landmarks may also be associated with specific
activities, thus giving rise to an Activity Sense of in as in She’s in medicine. The fifteen
senses of in distinguished by Evans and Tyler form a radial network of interrelated senses.
34
What makes this cognitive-linguistic study particularly relevant, however, is the insight that
each of the extended senses is motivated from our spatio-physical experience with different
aspects of containment. The experiential approach adopted here can most certainly also be
fruitfully applied to other instances of lexical polysemy.
John Newman investigates the impact that our bodily experience, in conjunction with
the grammatical patterning of a given language, has on linguistic structure. In his paper
“Motivating the uses of basic verbs: Linguistic and extralinguistic considerations”, Newman
looks at selected “basic” verbs in various languages. Basic verbs express ordinary, bodybased experiences and play a fundamental role in language: in particular, they are subject to
figurative extensions and adopt grammatical functions such as serialization, tense and aspect
markers, noun classifiers, and case marking. Basic verbs typically appear in pairs such as
‘come’ and ‘go’, ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, and ‘give’ and ‘take’. These verb pairs reflect natural
groupings of states or acts that we experience as complementary. In contrast, ‘at rest’
positions are typically experienced in three ways: standing, sitting and lying. As a result,
posture is expressed by the three basic verbs ‘stand’, ‘sit’, and ‘lie’. In their grammaticalized
forms, the three posture verbs may express a gradation of control from standing through
sitting to lying. Some morphosyntactic facts appear to be naturally correlated with this
gradation. For example, in the Oceanic language Manam, ‘stand’ is aligned with verbs of
action and agents, while ‘sit’ and ‘lie’ are aligned with state verbs without agents.
8.4
Cognitive motivation
The papers that we have subsumed under the heading ‘cognitive motivation’ are very
heterogeneous. Moreover, all of the contributions presented in the preceding subsections
discuss cognitive factors of motivation as well. The concept of motion and its linguistic
coding have been extensively studied in cognitive linguistics and are the subject of two
contributions in this volume.
In her contribution “The conceptual motivation of fictive motion”, Teenie Matlock
provides compelling linguistic and psychological evidence to show that fictive motion
constructions (FM-constructions) are motivated by our cognitive ability to mentally simulate
motion along a path. In FM-constructions, stationary scenes are construed as motional as in
The road runs along the coast. The motion described in FM-constructions is purely
subjective and consists in the speaker’s mental scanning of the trajectory. The FMconstruction displays linguistic behavior that naturally follows from this conceptual basis. For
example, since scanning requires that the object is not fully visible with just one look, the
35
trajectory described by the subject of the FM-construction needs to be long and large, and the
time of scanning as expressed by temporal adverbials should not be too short. The results of
experiments measuring the decision times in understanding FM-constructions suggest that
people construct a dynamic representation of motion and process fictive motion differently
depending on the type of motion verb. Also, experiments using drawings provide evidence for
mentally simulated motion in processing FM-constructions. Matlock finally points out that
FM-sentences require a contextual situation in which people attempt to establish or maintain
common ground. This communicative aspect may also contribute to motivating this particular
structure.
The chapter by Anatol Stefanowitsch and Ada Rohde is concerned with the “The
goal bias in the encoding of motion events”. The paper assesses two explanations that have
been proposed to account for the asymmetry in the coding of the goal vs. the trajectory and
the source of the moving entity, i.e. for the fact that the distribution of goal-PPs is less
restricted than that of other path-PPs. One explanation, referred to as the (psychological)
salience hypothesis, assumes that the asymmetry is part of our conceptual system and
motivated by our greater interest in the goal of actions than in their source. Another
explanation, referred to as complete-conceptualization hypothesis, assumes that the goal bias
is motivated by the higher information value conveyed by goal-PPs: unlike PPs coding the
initial and medial portions of a path, goal-PPs allow for an inferential conceptualization of the
complete trajectory. In order to test these hypotheses, the authors conduct a corpus-based
study of the combinations of selected motion verbs with path-PPs. Frequency analyses
confirm the general bias towards the goal, but they also reveal the existence of “exceptions”:
thus, the motion verbs cruise and stroll mainly occur with trajectory PPs and the motion verb
escape mainly occurs with source PPs. While both explanations are not mutually exclusive as
motivating factors, the complete-conceptualization hypothesis accounts for both the general
goal bias as well as for exceptional cases.
Reduplication is usually considered an example of iconic motivation par excellence.
In his paper “Motivating the composition of Afrikaans reduplications: A cognitive grammar
analysis”, Gerhard van Huyssteen accounts for reduplication within the framework of
Cognitive Grammar and conceptual metonymy. The subject of his analysis is grammatical
and onomatopoeic reduplications in Afrikaans. In grammatical reduplication, the profile of
the reduplicated composite structure diverges slightly from those of the component structures.
Thus, the Afrikaans time adverbial nou ‘now’ prototypically profiles present time and may,
36
within certain contexts, also be used to profile the near future or the recent past. The
reduplicated form nou-nou, on the other hand, profiles either the future or the past but not the
present. The meaning of ‘distancing from the present’ may be captured by the metonymy
MORE OF FORM FOR MORE OF CONTENT.
Another form of profile shift discussed by van
Huyssteen involves the recategorization of a perfective verb as an imperfective verb. The
reduplicated past tense verb may take two forms: complete reduplication as in gevat-gevat
‘touched-touched’ or partial reduplication as in gevat-vat ‘touched-touch’. The former
structure conveys the meaning of ‘repetition’, the latter also that of ‘attenuation’. Van
Huyssteen convincingly shows how these differences in meaning can be accounted for by
their different compositional structures. Onomatopoeic reduplications differ from
grammatical reduplications in function and structure. Their function is referential as in the
bird’s cry hoep-hoep, which metonymically stands for the bird Upupa Africana; and their
structure is characterized by mutual elaboration of their elaboration sites.
The three following contributions focus on metonymy as a motivating force. In their
chapter “Metonymic motivation in anaphoric reference”, Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza and
Olga Díez Velasco address the thorny problem of what determines the choice of anaphoric
pronouns that have metonymic antecedents. Their contribution is an excellent example of
cognitive motivation of grammatical form, i.e. content-form motivation, in this case, the form
of anaphoric pronouns. Ruiz de Mendoza and Díez Velasco provide a solution to the
coreference problem on the basis of their theory of metonymic mapping and three general
cognitive principles that guide the selection of the pronoun. In their view, metonymies are
either conceptual expansions of a given source domain into a conceptually more elaborate
target domain (source-in-target metonymy), or they involve a process of conceptual reduction
of a source domain that leads to a more restricted target domain (target-in-source domain). In
any case, the selection of the appropriate anaphoric pronoun is determined by what the
authors call the “matrix domain”, i.e. the most encompassing domain. For example, in The
ham sandwich left because he/*it didn’t like the ambience ‘the ham sandwich’ is part of the
matrix domain ‘the customer ordering and eating the ham sandwich’. This matrix domain
determines the grammatical properties of the anaphoric pronoun, in this case he or she. Apart
from the “Domain Availability Principle”, which is at work in the above example, the authors
propose two additional principles: the “Domain Combinability Principle”, which takes the
conceptual content of the verb phrase into account of which the referent of the pronoun is
37
predicated, and the “Domain Precedence Principle”, which accounts for cases that involve
“double” metonymies with two possible matrix domains.
In their contribution “Predicative adjectives and grammatical-relational polysemy: The
role of metonymic processes in motivating cross-linguistic differences”, Mario Brdrar and
Rita Szabó-Brdar provide a further example of content-form motivation. They argue that
certain grammatical facts of English follow from the operation of metonymic processes, in
contrast to Croatian, German, and Hungarian, where these cognitive processes are restricted
or virtually absent. The authors consider a variety of English constructions, such as the
“Setting (Locative) Subject Construction” (e.g. London was foggy today), the “Experiencer
Subject + Predicative Adjective Construction” (e.g. I am hot), the “Be + Adjective Possessive
Construction” (e.g. I was firm of purpose), “Be + Adjective Manner Constructions” (e.g. One
should be as clear as possible about historical facts), and “Raising Constructions” (e.g. The
editor is certain to reject it). They then compare these constructions to their semantic
equivalents in Croatian, German, and Hungarian. The authors’ method of analysis yields
interesting insights into the four languages studied: English tends to keep the adjectival
construction formally constant, relying on metonymic processes such as COMPLEX ENTITY FOR
ITS LOCATION, PERMANENT STATE FOR TEMPORARY STATE, POSSESSOR FOR POSSESSED, MANNER
FOR ACTIVITY, SALIENT PARTICIPANT FOR WHOLE EVENT,
etc., to rearrange argument structure.
By contrast, in Croatian, German and Hungarian these metonymies are either restricted or
impossible so that these languages have to resort to the strategy of overtly rearranging
argument structure by selecting formally different, i.e. non-adjectival, predicative
expressions.
Antonio Barcelona’s paper “Metonymy behind grammar: The motivation of the
seemingly ‘irregular’ grammatical behavior of English paragon names” is concerned with the
motivation for the use of proper names as common nouns. Proper names are characterized by
a number of morphosyntactic restrictions. However, when proper names are used as common
nouns, these restrictions no longer apply. For example, the proper name Shakespeare is
pluralizable like other common count nouns in There are three real Shakespeares in my
college. Barcelona argues that this usage is motivated by two metonymies. First, a
stereotypical model of proper name as a paragon is evoked which, by metonymy, yields a
characteristic property. In the case of Shakespeare, this characteristic property might be
described as “writer endowed with immense literary talent”. Secondly, the metonymy
MEMBER FOR THE CLASS
IDEAL
maps the stereotypical model and its ideal property onto a whole
38
class. Thus, the paragon Shakespeare stands for the class of writers that have an immense
literary talent. As a result, Shakespeare becomes a class name and is coded as a common
noun.
9
Conclusion
We as well as probably most the authors in this volume regard the search for motivational
explanations as a useful heuristic for linguistic research. At this stage, it is impossible to
provide conclusive evidence for or against the hypothesis that all of language is motivated by
language-independent factors. Thus we do not claim that every linguistic phenomenon is
motivated. What we hope to have shown in this introduction is that for many linguistic
phenomena motivational accounts suggest themselves very strongly—not in the sense of
nomological-deductive explanations in the “hard” sciences, but more in the spirit of what the
German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey characterized as ‘understanding’ (verstehen) in the
humanities or cultural sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). The contributions to this volume
surely testify to the fruitfulness of a motivational approach to language.
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