How to do contrastive semantics with propositional modifiers: The case of hearsay adverbs

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How to do contrastive semantics with propositional modifiers:The case of hearsay adverbs

'Re-thinking synonymy: semantic sameness and similarity in languages and their description‘

Helsinki, 28.10.2010

Björn Wiemer (Mainz)Anna Socka (Gdańsk)

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1. INTRODUCTION

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1. Introduction

(cf. Dahl 2000)

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2. OUR CASE: REPORTIVE ADVERBSIN POLISH AND GERMAN

AND THEIR “EPISTEMIC OVERTONES”

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2. Our case: reportive adverbs in Polish and German and their “epistemic overtones”

• Our concern: the semantic description of a couple of propositional modifiers indicating hearsay:– Pol. rzekomo, jakoby, podobno, – Germ. angeblich, vorgeblich.

• These hearsay markers have been claimed to carry epistemic overtones by which the actual speaker transmits his/her doubts into the contents of the message referred to.

• On first sight, these lexemes do so to a varying extent.

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• But: Any of the aforementioned hearsay markers can become void of epistemic overtones in specific contexts.

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(5) Przy określaniu wymogów wizowych głównym argumentem ma być nie poziom rozwoju albo więzi historyczne z Unią, ale liczba nielegalnych imigrantów przedostających się do krajów członkowskich UE. Według niektórych dyplomatów państw Unii wyjątkowo trudny może być zatem przypadek Rumunii, skąd rzekomo wciąż napływają nowi imigranci. („Rzeczpospolita“, 01.15.2000)

‘While defining visa requirements the main argument is not to be the level of development or historical bonds with the Union, but the number of illegal immigrants getting into the EU member states. According to some diplomats from the Union countries, exceptionally difficult may be the case of Romania, from which allegedly new immigrants constantly come in.’

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(7) Durch Chlorgas sind in Räbke in Niedersachsen 24 Menschen verletzt worden. Der Schwimmeister des Freibades hatte bemerkt, daß das Gas aus einem Tank austrat. Feuerwehren versuchten, mit Wasser das Chlor zu binden. Für Anwohner bestand angeblich keine Gefahr. („Mannheimer Morgen“, 15.05.1998)

‚24 persons have been injured by chlorine in Räbke in Lower Saxony. The beach guard noticed gas escaping from a tank. Firemen tried to bind the gas to water. Local people were allegedly not at risk.’

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• With a pair (or set) of merely epistemic adverbs this opposition results in certainty higher than 50% for the marked member (‘probably’). The marked member of the reportive pair is supposed to be simply neutral (‘reportedly’), thus close to 50%, since its unmarked counterpart (‘allegedly’) regularly implies speaker’s distrust toward P being true, i.e. an epistemic value below 50%.

(cf. Ramat/Ricca (1998:230)

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• Pol. rzekomo and Germ. angeblich lose their epistemic overtones in (con)texts in which speakers utter statements for which they can be made juridically responsible.

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(9)Francja. Oskarżony rosyjski marynarz. Przed sądem w mieście Brest na zachodzie Francji rozpoczął się proces […] drugiego dowódcy na statku Melbridge Bilbao, który rzekomo nie zapobiegł osadzeniu jednostki na mieliźnie na wodach Zatoki Mojańskiej. 43-letni Władimir Czernyszow został oskarżony o spowodowanie zagrożenia życia i zdrowia załogi przez pogwałcenie podstawowych obowiązków i zasad sztuki nawigacyjnej - napisano w akcie oskarżenia. (“Rzeczpospolita” 01.09.2002)

‘France. Russian officer accused. The trial began in the city of Brest in Western France of [...] an officer on the ship Melbridge Bilbao, who allegedly did not prevent the ship from running aground in the Bay of Molene. Vladimir Tshernyshov, aged 43, is accused of endangering the lives of his fellow crew by flouting of basic duties and rules of the art of navigation - the indictment states.’

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(10) Das Gericht läßt derzeit auch jene bulgarische Freundin Crapanzanos suchen, die am Tatabend angeblich kurz vor dem Opfer die Bar verließ. Für die Verteidigung ist denkbar, daß diese Frau die Täterin sein könnte. […] Die Verhandlung wird am Mittwoch um 9 Uhr fortgesetzt. (“Mannheimer Morgen”, 14.07.1995)

‘'The court is ordering a search for Crapanzano's Bulgarian girl friend, who, on the night of the act, allegedly left the bar shortly before the victim. It is conceivable to the defense that this woman could have been the perpetrator. The trial will continue on Wednesday at 9 a.m.’

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In German the sentence adverb most common in such contexts is mutmaßlich: – It does not express doubt but rather affirmation.– It provides a reasoning based somehow on sensory data.– This is often an inference of an instance mentioned in context (e.g. the police),

which is repeated by the actual speaker.(11) Britische und russische Ermittler befragten gestern in Moskau drei Stunden lang

den Schlüsselzeugen in der Affäre, Andrej Lugowoi. Der Ex-Geheimdienstler sagte danach der Agentur Interfax, er sei als Zeuge befragt worden. Lugowoi hatte am 1. November das Treffen in London organisiert, bei dem Litwinenko mutmaßlich mit dem radioaktiven Polonium 210 vergiftet wurde. („Mannheimer Morgen”, 12.12.2006)

‘Yesterday British and Russian investigators questioned for three hours Andrey Lugovoi, a key witness in the affair. This former intelligence member then told the Interfax news agency that he had been questioned as a witness. On November 1st Lugovoi arranged a meeting in London at which Litvinienko was presumably poisoned with radioactive polonium-210.’

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• In German, reportive expressions are the sentence adverbs angeblich and vorgeblich and the modal verb constructions wollen / sollen + infinitive.

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• The lexicalization degree seems to be the reason why angeblich is used instead of the modal verb construction:

• in clauses already containing another modal verb• in clauses containing a verb in the subjunctive (or the analytic würde-

construction)• when you speak in the present tense about present or future situations• in headlines• if there is an attributive adjective in scope of the hearsay marker• if there is already a sollen+infinitive in the previous sentence

• Almost 2/3 of the examples in our corpus in which no epistemic doubt arises, display one of these situations.

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• Compared to rzekomo, the epistemic overtone of distrust carried by angeblich seems to be weaker.

• angeblich is equally likely to appear in different registers or text genres for which in Polish individual lexemes are preferred (e.g., podobno in colloquial speech, jakoby in polemical discourse).

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3. A PROPOSAL OF HOW TO EXPLAIN THE FACTS

•the relation between reportive value and epistemic judgment as a generalized conversational implicature (3.1)• the specific kind of implicature responsible for the whole mechanism (3.2)• trying to gather the harvest (3.3)

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3.1. Epistemic overtones as results of generalized conversational implicatures“ (a) An implicature I from utterance U is particularized iff U implicates I only by virtue of specific contextual assumptions that would not invariably or even normally obtain.

(b) An implicature I is generalized iff U implicates I unless there are unusual specific contextual assumptions that defeat it.” (Levinson 2000: 16)

3. A proposal of how to explain the facts

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3.2. Which specific kind(s) of GCI is/are at work? 3.2.1. Principles based on the Quantity maxim:(21) Speaker: Do not say less than is required (bearing

the I-principle in mind).Addressee: What is not said is not the case.

(Huang 2007:41)

3.2.1.1. based on Horn-scale (Horn’s Q-principle), or Q-scalar implicatures?

Q-scalar : <x, y>

y +> Q-scalar x (ibid. 42)


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(22) The soup is not only warm, but hot.She’s not just good, she’s excellent.That’s not only bad, but desastrous.

(23) *He has broken his leg not reportedly, but allegedly.

*Złamał sobie nogę nie podobno, tylko rzekomo.(24) *Złamał sobie nogę podobno, a nawet rzekomo.

‘He has broken his leg podobno, in fact rzekomo.’*He apparently / reportedly has broken his leg, in fact allegedly.

(25) A speaker, in saying ‘... p ...’, conversationally implicates that (for all he or she knows) ‘... at most p ...’


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3.2.1.2. based on clausal implicature?Q-clausal : <X(p), Y(p)>

Y(p) +> Q-clausal p, p (Huang 2007:42)

(26) I know that John is away.(= X(p))(27) I believe that John is away. (= Y(p))(28a) <necessarily p, possibly p>(28b) It’s possible that Buddhism is the world’s oldest living religion.(28b) +> ‘It’s possible that Buddhism is the world’s oldest living

religion, and it’s possible that Buddhism isn’t the world’s oldest living religion.’ – or:

(28b') +> ‘It’s not necessarily the case that Buddhism is the world’s oldest living religion.’ (ibid. 43)

(29a) Podobno P.(29b) +> ‘... It’s possible that P is true, and it’s possible that P isn’t

true.’


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3.2.2. based on the I(nformativeness)-Principle?I-scale : [x, y]

y +> I x (Huang 2007:47)

(30) Speaker: Do not say more than is required (bearing the Q-principle in mind).

Addressee: What is generally said is stereotypically and specifically exemplified. (ibid. 46)

(31) A speaker in saying ‘... p ...’, conversationally implicates that (for all he or she knows) ‘... more than p ...’. (vs. (25))


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Typical cases:(32a) p and q +> and then / therefore q(32b) John pressed the spring and (+> then) the drawer

opened / and (+> thereby) caused the drawer to open.(Huang 2007:47)

(33a) frame-based inference(33b) Mary pushed the cart to the checkout.

+> Mary pushed the cart full of groceries to the supermarket checkout in order to pay for them (and so on).

(ibid.)


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3.2.3. based on the M(anner)-Principle?M-scale : {x, y}

y +> M x (Huang 2007:51)

(34a) John stopped the car.+> John stopped the car in the usual manner.

(34b) John caused the car to stop.+> John stopped the car in an unusual way, for example, by bumping into a wall. (ibid.)


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3.3. Trying to gather the harvestQuantity-based(21) Speaker: Do not say less than is required

(bearing the I-principle in mind).Addressee: What is not said is not the case.

Informativeness-based(30) Speaker: Do not say more than is required

(bearing the Q-principle in mind).Addressee: What is generally said is

stereotypically and specifically exemplified.


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(35) Implicature cancellation procedure• background assumptions• contextual factors• semantic entailments• conversational implicatures• Q-implicatures• Q-clausal implicatures

• Q-scalar implicatures• M-implicatures• I-implicatures (Gazdar 1979, Huang 2007:54)

-- Knowledge about possible legal consequences of an assertion in a news report belongs to background knowledge of the journalist (and probably his/her reader, too), as does knowledge about the significance and function of different text genres.


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4. CONSEQUENCES

•How can reportive adverbs be described in the lexicon? (4.1)•How can reportive adverbs be compared across languages? (4.2)•Can the methods and principles of lexical typology be extended to the analysis of reportive adverbs? (4.3)

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4.1. How can reportive adverbs be described in the lexicon?

(36a) Podobno / jakoby / rzekomo P.(36b) (i) ‘I want to say what someone else says.’

(= reportive component)(ii) ‘I say: P.’(iii) ‘I don’t say I know that P.’ (= epistemic

component, agnostic stance)(iv) ‘I think that other people can think the

same.’(Wiemer 2006, cf. Wierzbicka 2006)

4. Consequences

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A second epistemic component

(36c) (v) ‘I think that P might be / can be / is not true.’

can now be removed to a system of pragmatic principles which in section 3 we tried to reduce to GCI.

4. Consequences

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4.2. How can reportive adverbs be compared across languages?

(37) *Probably he will come, probably he will not.(38) Possibly he will come, possibly he will not.

(Ramat/Ricca 1998: Fn. 29)

(39) Engl. *Allegedly he will come, allegedly he will not.(40a) Pol.*Podobno przyjdzie, podobno nie przyjdzie.(40b) *Rzekomo przyjdzie, rzekomo nie przyjdzie.(41) Germ. Wahrscheinlich / *Unwahrscheinlich kommt er.

Engl. Probably / *Improbably he will come.Pol. Prawdopodobnie / *Nieprawdopodobnie przyjdzie.

4. Consequences

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4.3. How should a lexical typology of reportive adverbs look like?

Evans (2010: 509) distinguishes:– ‘etic grids’ by which we establish a language-independent calculus

of logically imaginable possibilities “regardless of whether or not individual languages group them together” (an onomasiological task);

– ‘emic grids’ (or descriptions) which aim at capturing “what is common to all members of a category from within the perspective of a particular language” (a semasiological task).

Synonymy (or closeness of meaning) presupposes a semasiological viewpoint, but for purposes of crosslinguistic comparison it is essential to project the concrete items of the compared language onto a conceptual (i.e. onomasiological) framework.

4. Consequences

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REFERENCES

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Aikhenvald, A.Y. 2004: Evidentiality. Oxford etc.: Oxford U.P.Croft, W. 20032: Typology and Universals. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge U.P.Dahl, Ö. 2000) The tense-aspect systems of European languages in a typological

perspective. In: Dahl, Ö. (ed.): Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 3-25.

Diewald, G., Smirnova, E. 2010: Indirekte Rede zwischen Modus, Modalität und Evidentialität. Paper read at the DSWI Conference in Rome.

Dik, S.C., Hengeveld, K., Vester, E., Vet, C. 1990: The hierarchical structure of the clause and the typology of adverbial satellites. In: J. Nuyts, M. Bolkestein & C. Vet (eds.): Layers and levels of representation in language theory. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 25-70.

Evans, N. 2010: Semantic typology. In: J. Jung Sung (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology. Oxford etc.: Oxford U.P., 504-533. (to appear)

Gazdar, G. 1979: Pragmatics: implicature, presupposition and logical form. London: Academic Press.

Huang, Y. 2007: Pragmatics. Oxford etc.: Oxford U.P.Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M. 2008: Approaching lexical typology. In: M. Vanhove (ed.): From

Polysemy to Semantic Change (Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 3-52.

References

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Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M., Rakhlina, E. 2006: “Some like it hot”: On semantics of temperature adjectives in Russian and Swedish. STUF 59-2 (Special Issue on Lexicon in a Typological and Contrastive Perspective, ed. by G. Giannoulopoulou and T. Leuschner), 253-269.

Levinson, S.C. 2000: Presumptive meanings. The theory of generalized conversational implicature. Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press.

Levinson, S.C. 200718: Pragmatics. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge U.P.Ramat, P. & D. Ricca 1998: Sentence adverbs in the languages of Europe. In: van der

Auwera, J., Dónall P.Ó. Baoill (eds.): Adverbial Constructions in the Languages of Europe. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 187-275.

Socka, A. 2010: Reportative Partikeln in kontrastiver Sicht (Polnisch – Deutsch). In: A. Kątny & A. Socka (eds.): Modalität / Temporalität in kontrastiver und typologischer Sicht. Frankfurt/M. etc.: Lang, 239-264.

Wiemer, B. 2006: Particles, parentheticals, conjunctions and prepositions as evidentiality markers in contemporary Polish (A first exploratory study). Studies in Polish Linguistics 3, 5-67.

Wierzbicka, A. 2006: English. Meaning and Culture. Oxford: Oxford U.P. Corpus baseIDS – Electronic online corpus of the Institut für Deutsche Sprache (Mannheim)NKJP – Electronic online National Corpus of PolishPWN – Electronic online corpus of the PWN publishing company

References

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How to do contrastive semantics with propositional modifiers: The case of hearsay adverbs

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