On the correlations between lexicon, grammar and syntax. Naming
strategies, lexicalization patterns and syntactization mechanisms
Per Durst-Andersen, CBS, Denmark
If the concrete uses of position verbs (or location-based state verbs) in Russian,
Danish and English are compared, a striking picture emerges. First of all, it appears
that whereas English (along the lines of French and Italian) tends to use a pure
existential verb instead of a specific position verb (e.g., The tree is (*stands) in the
backyard and He is (*lies) in the hospital), Russian and Danish prefer a specific
position verb. Moreover, it turns out that the Russian position verb stojat' 'stand' is
chosen in a considerable number of cases, where the Danish verb ligge 'lie' is the
only choice, and vice versa. In other words, English does not use specific position
verbs to denote the exact location mode of an entity or a human being - instead be
is used to denote unspecified local existence. The same is true in French - the
difference being that French has the possibility of expressing the specific mode of
existence, e.g., etre assis 'be sitting', etre debout 'be standing', etc.
Russian and Danish are opposed to English, but nevertheless differ fundamentally
from one another. While stojat' 'stand' is the natural choice in Russian, ligge 'lie' is
the natural choice in Danish. This may be illustrated by the following examples. In
Russian a town, a house, a shop, a mountain, a regiment, a problem, a prize,
temperatures, etc. all STAND, while in Danish they all LIE. The only natural
conclusion to be drawn is that what is vertical plays a dominant role in Russian,
whereas what is horizontal plays a dominant role in Danish.
It turns out that this way of thinking is not confined to position verbs, but is also
characteristic of so-called motion verbs (or location-based activity verbs like walk,
lead, crawl, etc.) and placement verbs (or location-based action verbs like put, sit
down, lie down, etc.).
If we take Russian as an example, it appears that those activity verbs that entail a
vertical position (idti/xodit' 'walk, go' and vesti/vodit' 'lead') are unmarked in
relation to those entailing another position (polzti/polzat' 'crawl' and tašèit'/taskat'
'pull') and that those action verbs that involve a vertical position (prijti/prixodit'
'come' and stavit'/postavit' 'put') are unmarked and therefore far more frequently
used than verbs involving another position. In other words, there is almost a
hundred percent correspondence between the subjects (X) that require stojat'
'stand', ležat' 'lie', sidet' 'sit' and viset' 'hang', and the objects (Y) that take stavit' /
postavit' 'put (= X do smth + Y stand)', klast' / polozit' 'put (= X do smth + Y lie)',
sažat' / posadit' 'put (= X do smth + Y sit)' and vešat' / povesit' 'hang up (= X do
smth + Y hang)'. This kind of symmetry is also observed in Danish (although to a
lower degree), but is non-existing in English.
How is it possible to account for the differences between these three languages? I
shall argue and present further evidence for the hypothesis that Russian takes its
starting point in the figure (which will be vertical unless the object is permanently
anchored in a ground) and then places it on a ground, whereas Danish takes its
starting point in the ground (which is the earth - not water or the air) and then
places this figure on the ground. In the former case, we are dealing with a naming
strategy called "from-figure-to-ground”; in the latter case we are confronted with a
strategy named "from-ground-to-figure". The third strategy is called ”betweenfigure-and-ground” - this strategy is typical of languages, which do not have
position focus.
The three naming strategies match the Peircean notions of firstness, secondness and
thirdness. This suggests that there are no further possibilities of naming a situation.
It will be demonstrated that the Russian, Danish and English naming strategies
have crucial reflexes in the lexical, grammatical and syntactic systems of these
languages. In other words, the notion of naming strategy cannot be avoided - it is a
fundamental, but hitherto unnoticed notion.