Entities
3.1. Introduction
In this chapter, we consider the kinds of semantic properties that are typically
encoded as noun. We begin with a survey of definition of noun as a syntactic, semantic,
and discourse category and observe that, universally, temporally stable phenomena,
entities, surface as nouns. We then look at the nature and encoding of eight kinds of
semantic properties of noun/ entities: specificity, boundedness, animacy, kinship, social
status, physical structure, and function. For each, we look at a number of subleases (e.g.,
humans, animals, and inanimate under gauges. Thereafter, we consider the theoretical
problem of unifying the semantic properties of entities internally (in relation to each other
via neutralization) and externally (in relation to perceptual and cognitive structure).
3.11. Nouns and entities: formal and notional definitions
Any student reared in the western grammatical tradition will say that a nouns is
the name of a person, place or thing and thus define a noun by its semantic
representation. Two observations conspire to weed this view out of our untutored celiefs
about language. First, there are many things that are nouns but not exactly person, places,
or things. Smoothness is a noun, but it does not readily appear to represent a thing.
Second , a noun is not a notional class, something defined by its conceptual
content, out a from class, something defined by its structural or formal properties (Lyons
1966, 1968). Formally a noun is identifiable because of what other categories and form
co-occur with it. Under this view, a noun is something that takes certain modifiers, like a
definite article. By this criteria, smoothness is a noun, in spite of the variation in its
national content, because it co-occurs with the definite article: the smoothness of the
wood.
The applicability of purely formal criteria for the identification of nouns is
undeniable, even in languages where “nounhood” has to be more particularly defined:
Russian and Chinese have no definite articles. For example, so the formal criteria have to
be more carefully applied. But curiously, when the traditional notional definition (“a
noun is the name of a person, place, or thing”) is reversed, the definition turns out to be
true. Nouns are not always persons, places, or things, but persons, places, and things
always turn out to be nouns! (see the work by Givon 1979, 1984; Haiman 1985a, 1985b;
langacker 1987a, 1987b; Wierzbicka 1985).
Nouns do have purely formal properties because at the grammatical level they are
contenlessly manipulated by syntax, just like any other category, but these formal
properties are supported by overwhelmingly consistent semantic factors. Nouns
incontrovertibly tend to encode entities, broadly construed.
This convergence of semantics and syntax is not meant to be reductionistic:
syntax cannot be read directly off semantic no more than semantics can be read directly
off culture. To say that from classes are semantically motivated is to agree that the best
semantic account is one that respects a close connection between from and meaning
rather that one that severely separates-modularizes-the two. This is a position more in line
with Jackendoff’s Grammatical Constraint (see chap. 1), especially so beaus many
morphosyntactic reflexes of nouns, such as number and gender, are correlated with, if not
accountable to, the direct effect on the structural aspects of language, in this case
categoriality, the status of from classes. The tradition national definition of noun thus
resurfaces, if in modified from.
3.12. Three account of categories and their denotations
A number of recent studies of the universality of grammatical categories have
come to conclusions similar to those on the semantic motivation of nouns as a formal
category. Our brief examination of three accounts-one from discourse and two from
conceptual linguistic-will show us the consistencies in semantic representations that
underlie nouns as a category.
3.121. Category in discourse
Hopper and Thomson (1984, 1985) have observed that the major lexical
categories of noun and verb have a consistent discourse definition: Nominal an verbal
categoriality is a matter of degree and kind of information in discourse. The goal of
discourse is to report events happening to participants, with verbs encoding the events
and nouns the participants. From classes are direct result of the informational
requirements of verbal reports: the more individuated or discrete a discourse event, the
more likely it is to be coded as a full verb; the more individuated the disvourse
participant, the more likely the form encoding the participant is to be a full noun.
With regard to nouns in particular, Hopper and Thompson (1984, 1986) show that
languages have syntactic operations to decrease the categorial status of a noun as a
function of the individuation and relative salience of the discourse participant that the
noun encodes. Some verb in English, for example, allow their semantically predictable
direct object to incorporate, or fase, with a verb to from a new compound verb with the
same meaning as the separate verb plus its individuated direct object: fish for trout/trout
fish, watch birdsbird watch, tend bar/bartend. Such incorporation has distinct
defocalizing effect in discourse by reducing the informational status of the entity
represented by the noun and reducing nominal categoriality. Nonincoporated forms,
because they have full categoriality and are fully individuated in the discourse, may take
subsequent pronouns, as illustrated in (1a); however, incorporated nouns do not take
pronouns, as in (1b):
1a. Tom fished for trout. Bob fished for them, too.
1b. Tom trout fished,?? Bob fished for them, too.
Pronominalization is disallowed in (1b), even though there is an overt surface
noun to serve as a potential antecedent, because incorporation reduces the discourse role
of the participants. Low categoriality of the nouns drivers from low categoriality of the
discourse referent, and because incorporation reduce the semantic individuation is
thereby constrained.
Hopper and Thompson propose that all languages follow a radiances of
categoriality of nouns in discourse, from presentative nouns (those that introduce new,
individuated participants and have high categoriality) to anaphoric and contextually
established forms (those that refer to antecedents and have reduced forms and
intermediate categoriality) to nonreferring forms and zero anaphora (those with limited
surface expression, no individuation, and low categoriality). Although their proposal is
not pursued any further here, we should note that their observations support the view that
the form class noun can be seen as a matter of the degree of the individuation of the entity
encoded by noun. In Hopper and Thompson’s theory, the category of noun is motivated
by discourse referentiality.
3.122. Temporal stability
Givon (1979, 1984) proposes an ontological for linguistic categories and argues
that the major grammatical from classes reflect a scale of the perceived temporal stability
of the phonomena they donate. At one end of the scale of temporal stability are
“experiences-or phenomenological clusters-which stay relatively stable over time, that is,
those that over repeated scans appear to be roughly ‘the same” (1979:51). At the other
end are “experiential clusters denoting rapid changes in the state of the universe. These
are prototypically events or actions” (1979:52). In between are experiences of
intermediate stability, sometimes stable, sometimes inchoative or changing. This scale
directly manifests itself in grammatical classes: Nouns encode the most temporally stable,
verbs the least temporally stable, and adjective in between, as in fig 3.1 (after Givon
1984):55):
Nouns
adjectives
Most time-stable
verbs
least time-stable
Givon observes that whereas all languages have both concrete and abstract nouns,
the latter are always derived, most usually from verbs. This suggests that the basic noun
in any language is that which encodes physically anchored, spatially bound entities; in
contrast, verbs typically have “only existence in time” (1979:321). The temporal and
nontemporal domains polarize experience and map respectively onto the major from class
division in language: verb and noun.
Moreover, many languages do not have a productive class of adjectives, and in
such languages, the urden o modificatiton is taken up y nouns and verbs (Dixion 1982;
ion 1979, 198; Schache 198;chap 10). When his happens, he more temporally sale
attributes are often encoded as noun, and less temporally stable ones as verb, thus
splitting the burden along the scale itself.
In Toposa, the phenomenological attribute ‘big’ is encode like a verb (with a
prefixed pronoun) because size reflect ontological growth, and hence is temporally
unstable (givon 198:53)
2. a – polot.
I big
I am big.
More accurately : I am bigging
But the attribution of location, a temporally stable phenomenon, is encoded more
like a noun (see Givon 1984:55 for analogous fact in the bantu languages).
Adjective are thus ontologically between nouns and verbs on the scale of temporal
stability and their encoding properties split along these same lines in languages that must
use other from classes to take up the slack for missing adjectives: more durable properties
are encoded like nouns, and less durable properties are encoded like verbs, exactly what
should be expected from an intermediate class.
One problem with Givon’s theory is its inconsistency when the analysis gets more
fine-grained (Hopper and Thompson 1984:705). Some nouns are less time stable than
others (compare motion, denoting a temporally unstable state, with house), and some
verbs are more time-stable than others (compare sits, denoting a temporal constant, with
unfolds). Givons responds that the scale of temporal stability is a hologram, where a
phenomenon is reflected everywhere in all parts: within the form classes, the scale also
applies full force, so nouns, for example, are generally more time stable, but temporal
stability also saturates the class, and some nouns are more time stable than others (Givon
1984:55).
In Givon’s defense, we should note that his generalization is really much less
specific than what be claims or others attribute to him. Nouns do not encode temporally
stable phenomena; rather the phenomena that nouns encode are not obliged to be
temporally situated. What makes an entity an entity is its relative atemporality. This
characteristic contrasts with that of verbs, which require temporal fixing. So time
boundedness seems to be the gist of Givon’s time stability criterion for entities:” an entity
x is edentical to itself if is identical only to itself but not to any other entity at time a and
also at time b which directly follow time a” (Givon 1979:320).
Crucial to individuated entities is their perceptual integrity, or constancy over
time (see Jackendoff 1983: 42), unlike the notions encoded by verbs. Hence, for Givon
categoriality is a direct reflection of the temporal stability of entities: their relative
atemporality motivates their encoding as nouns.
3.123. Cognitive regions: Interconnectedness and density
The role of temporal priority that Givon stresses is at the heart of Langacker’s
(1987a, 1987b) characterization of the encoding of nouns. In his view, the mentally
projected world that underlies reference is constituted by three kinds of object: regions,
temporal relations, and atemporal relations, respectively the denotations of nouns, verbs
and adjectives/adverb. Anoun designates a region in conceptual space (Langcker
1987b:58); a region is defined by interconnectedness and density.2
The simplest way to think of region is to imagine an array of points in
“continuous extension along some parameter” (1987b: 198), a space of phenomenal
continuity. The constituents that compose the space are intercounnected and define the
space by this interconnection. The word book has two meanings that correspond to two
different regions. Book may refer to the physical object (an array of physical points along
the parameter of information). In both case, book designates an inert, internally unified
space.
A region also has density, compactness of the points in continuous extension.
Density produces the prototype denotation for the category: the more compact the region,
the more likely it is to instantiate the prototype. Langacker’s example here is the
difference between archipelago and island. The former denotes a discontinuous region, a
series of small islands functioning semantically as a single unit, where as the latter
designates a continuous and dense region. Though each has the same semantic content,
‘body of land surrounded by water,’ island is more typical of the region expressed.
Discontinuous and composite regions are less likely to surface as prototypes.
In Langacker’s theory, the density and interconnectedness of regions in cognitive
domains account for why nouns are remembered better acquired earlier, translated more
easily across languages, and more stable under paraphrase. Their internal stability,
derived from their interconnectedness and density, allows them to be relatively immune
to linguistic context and surface consistently in the form class noun.
3.13. what nouns denote
We can summarize the convergence of these three accounts of categories and their
denotations rather straightforwardly. The categoriality o a noun is a function o thte
relative stability of its typical denotation. For Hopper and Thompson, this is
informational stability, individuated and salient discourse participants. For Givon, it is
temporal stability, spatially anchored phenomena. For Langacker, it is cognitive stability,
a dense and interconnected region in conceptual space. These semantic features breathe
new life into the national definition of noun. Nouns may not always be persons, places, or
things, but persons, places, and things almost always turn out to be nouns. Entities,
relatively stable and atemporal discourse, ontological, and phenomena, motivate the
form class.
3.2. Eight classes of semantic properties of entities
We now have a sense of the basic issues involved in the semantic of nouns and
entities. Here we turn to an enumeration of the properties that tend to be encoded as
nouns. In section 3.1 we presented a picture of the broad content of the semantic
representation of nouns: a relatively attemporal region in semantic or conceptual space.
But languages often encode quite specific properties in their treatment of nouns, and so
we must consider the more detailed content of their semantic representations. Our goal in
this chapter is to take inventory of these components.
We examine eight classes of semantic properties: specificity, boundedness,
animacy, gender, kinship, social status, physical structure, and function. All these have
more specific subelasses and characteristic grammatical reflexes that deserve our
attention.
The study of the semantic properties of entities and their grammatical
manifestations is often carried out under the broader examination of noun classes and
classifiers: particular morphological means to signal the semantic classes that nouns
instantiate (Allan 1977; Denny 1976, 1986; Dixon 1982; Lakoff 1987). Elaborate
classifier systems are found in a variety of genetically, and Swahili, gauges (Mandarin
Chinese, American Sign Language, Chipewyan, and Swahili, e.g.): classifier take a
rangeg of forms, form explicit coding in separate words to affixation by bound
morphemes. Noun classifiers are clear instances of the encoding of specific semantic
properties, and thus we resort to them as illustration.
Classifiers either measure an entity by unit (mensurarls, e.., yard of X) or sort it
by kind (sortals, e.g., row of X) (Lyons 1977: 463; homason 1972 is the seminal formal
study). As Denny (1986) notes, classifiers, in combination with the entity,
compositionally determine the meaning of the nouns they classify and so are good places,
to observe the requirements of semantic theory (see chap 2). For example, in the phrase
wad of paper, the sortal wad attributes a more specific property to the atemproal region
denote by paper. The semantic representation of the whole expression, irregular ensemole
of paper, is thus compositionally derived from the specific properties that make up its
content. We want to account for the relatively few such specific properties that are
actually instantiated in the vast range of possible properties that language could in
principle encode.
In many language. Classifier mark grammatical agreement and concord. In other
languages, they mark discourse participants and function much like pronouns (Downing
1986; Hopper 1986). So the semantic properties they encode have a direct effect on the
structural design of language and fall in line with the grammatical constraint. We now
turn to an examination of the semantic properties that languages tend to encode as or on
nouns.
3.21. Specificity
3.211. uniqueness and the specific/ nouns distinction
An entity has been defined as an individuated, relatively attemporal region in
conceptual space. Languages may also make reference to the degree of individuation of
an entity. This is specificity, the uniqueness of the entity or, in more philosophical terms,
the relative singularity of the denotation.
He effect of specificity can be seen in the possible interpretations of the following
sentence:
3. I’m looking for a man who speaks French.
On one reading, a man who speaks French refers to a particular individual: ‘I’m
looking for a particular man who speaks French.’ This is a specific reading. In another
sense, however, a man who speaks French may refer to any person whatsoever: ‘I’m
looking for any old man who speaks French.’ This is a nonspecific reading: the entity
represented is any member of the class or kind so describe, but no one member in
particular.
The specific/ nonspecific distinction has clear grammatical ramifications. The