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Michael Covel

LING 489 – University of Montana

13 May 2015

I. Primer

As linguistics has sought to systematically describe natural languages in a comprehensive manner

it has adopted the methods of other sciences, relying heavily on the scientific method, empirical data, and

the descriptive power of symbolic mathematical notation. This has led to the development of various

formalisms, approaches to analyzing the morphological structure of language and mapping the relations

between form and function which are unique to each individual language. A significant challenge is to

describe natural languages in all their diversity with a set of universal models which are analogous to the

natural laws of the physical world: an empirically observable truth about a particular behavior.

Any of these formalisms are quite separate and markedly different from the lexicon and grammar

of the native speaker, and cannot be based upon nor used to illustrate the kinds of unobservable cognitive

processes which motivate communication. Each model therefore encounters challenges in the form of

exceptions to theoretical predictions as well as inherently describing certain typologies less well than

others. In a scientific discipline well motivated to the achievement of elegance as a sign of validity,

phenomena such as non-concatenative and templatic morphology become difficult to model without

complex accommodation. One might even suppose that any given language typology has a formal model

which is particularly suited to its analysis, and discard the notion of a universal model capable of doing all

things equally well.

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II. Hockett 1954

Charles Hockett outlines two main methods for the analysis of the morphological aspect of

grammatical structure: item-and-process (IP) and item-and-arrangement (IA). The older formalism of IP

relies on understanding words as deriving from a particular base and subsequently being subjected to

some process of transformational morphology to derive their ultimate form and meaning. A newer and

both far more developed and favored approach - particularly among structuralists - is the formalism of IA

which analyzes words as being each discrete arrangements of particular morphemes. This model suggests

that constituents may be either simple or composite and that it is the arrangement of these constituents

which ultimately create form. The reliance of this method on empirical methodology and the observable

speech of speakers removed much of the mysticism from attempts to ascertain what might constitute the

process in IP.

Neither of these models is without its respective challenges; either in the mysterious processes of

IP or the complex contortions required of IA to account for non-concatenative morphologies. Hockett’s

own outline of the criterion for any successful model is that it must be generalizable, specific, inclusive,

productive, and efficient (Hockett, 232-233). However, whichever model is adopted is overcome by the

complexities of accounting for phenomena in human language which ultimately defy attempts at purely

empirical description. The systematic arrangements of IA become far too convoluted to be distinguishable

from descriptions of probable processes, and the processes of IP tend to grow without bound as

immediate constituency analysis struggles at differentiating the complex and the uniquely lexical. The

notion that there need be - in IP - process types, or some means of identifying both unique constituents

and unique processes, is coming closer to what might be better described as a word-and-paradigm

approach.

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Remarks on the applicability of various formalisms in relation to Semitic languages

When adopting a particular theoretical approach to analysis, a model which can account for the

observed phenomena in the language being studied with elegance is of great importance. Many of the

languages which are used as examples to model analysis by one formalism or another seem to be equally

well suited to any of them. Aside from the particular bother of non-concatenative morphology, a

reasonable analysis can be arrived at in nearly any case. With Semitic languages, however, a type of

morphology is encountered which defies attempts at applying these formalisms with any degree of

elegance.

Templatic morphology relies on a consonantal root or radical which carries an abstract

connotation, but lacks any specific meaning. Upon this radical are imposed any number of distinct

patterns of vowels and additional consonants, some of which appear to constitute proper contiguous

affixes but which behave much more in the manner of distinct templates into which the consonants of the

radical are inserted. This poses a problem for the IA model in that any given radical would need - in the

case of Arabic, for example - 35 different arrangements, each representing a distinct semantic meaning.

The IP model will have a similar problem in that each distinct process needs to accomplish only one

change in form and produce a similarly singular change in meaning. This would imply that within a single

template, there were multiple processes at work, and to complicate matters further: more than one

template may be employed to generate a form and there may be additional affixation involved, resulting

in what may be interpreted as a complete clause without ever having left the initial radical and the word to

which it contributes meaning. Neither of these models approach the kind of elegance which is useful to

differentiate analysis from an attempt to account for various unobservable cognitive mysteries.

In languages with fusional or polysynthetic typology a model which can account for complex and

systematic changes to form within well-defined templates is much more elegant. The word-and-paradigm

model comes very close to accomplishing this elegance in the environment of templatic symbolic fusion

encountered in Semitic languages, providing a clear method for accounting for a finite number of

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interacting templates which iterate over the lexical roots to produce semantic meaning. This methodology

identifies a stem and a set of feature contexts which act in concert to form a word, a clear parallel to the

classical rendering of Semitic morphology as the unfolding of root-pattern operations (Tucker, 17). The

inherent inelegance of this approach is that it suggests that there are two domains informing lexeme

formation, two semantic repositories: one containing abstract and generalizable roots, and the other

containing paradigms or templates. The interaction between the two is in the territory of the kind of

cognitive mysticism which appears to defy empirical observation.

Yet recent studies concerning speakers of Semitic languages suffering from aphasia suggest that

there may in fact be some neuropsychological truth to the arrangement. Case studies of a bilingual

speaker of Arabic and French produced wide ranging evidence of metathesis errors when producing

spoken and written Arabic, but only affecting the root consonants Further, an aphasic speaker of Hebrew

produced metathesis errors, but only in the templates and not in the roots (Prunet et al). This suggests that

the mental lexicon of speakers of Semitic languages are divided into discrete areas or tiers, organized in a

manner similar to the analytic arrangement of the word-and-paradigm model.

The elegance of this formalism is found in it being essentially an item-and-process style

accounting, but capable of handling complex or composite processes upon items which are neither

discrete morphemes or ‘words’ by any conventional definition. Proposing a system of discrete tiers in the

lexicon can help explain another phenomenon: lexicalized compounds which appear to make use of this

interaction between root and pattern, but which are instead encoded separately as unanalyzed semantic

entities.

III. Syriac (Middle Aramaic) - Classification and Background

Syriac is a prominent and significant member of the Semitic language branch, existing in both a

classical form - primarily literary and liturgical - which is considered a dialect of Middle Aramaic, and a

modern form which is largely vernacular and a composite of several dialects of Eastern and Western Neo-

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Aramaic. Classical Syriac may be considered to have become an extinct language by approximately the

12th Century, still used as a liturgical language but having no native speakers. Including the kinds of

modern neo-Aramaic varieties (largely mutually intelligible and written with the same orthography) used

primarily by Assyrian and Chalcedonian Christian communities pushes the number of native speakers to

approximately 500,000 predominantly in Syria, Iraq, and Turkey.

Classical Syriac is a typical Semitic language, and bears the symbolic fusional typology and

templatic morphology and root systems which one finds in both Hebrew and Arabic wherein a root

comprised nominally of three consonants serves as a semantic center for a large number of words which

can be derived through the imposition of one or more templates which may include short and long vowels

as well as affixes in a variety of positions. Many of these roots, patterns, and derivations are cognates or

near-cognates between the other Semitic languages of the region, although they may not be considered to

form a sprachbund due to high degrees of phonological and lexical speciation.

Two derivational patterns of nouns:

root: ‘possess’ “King” (N) “Kingdom” (N)

literal gloss: ‘one who possesses’ ‘what is possessed’

Syriac m l k /melkə/ /mælkuta:/

Arabic m l k /mæ:lɪk/ /mamlakəh/

Hebrew m l x /meleχ/ /mælkuθ/

Inflectional pattern - imperfect 3rd sg. masculine verb:

root: ‘build’ “he builds” (V)

Syriac b n a /nebne:/

Arabic b n a /yebni:/

Hebrew b n h /yabanni:/

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Aramaic was once the lingua franca of the Eastern Mediterranean basin in the Akkadian and

Assyrian Empires from the 8th to the 4th Century B.C.E. until the conquest of Alexander the Great. The

language was displaced to the east, and its native speech community centered around Edessa, now within

the modern state of Turkey and in the vicinity of Sanliurfa. It was in these environs that in the 1st Century

C.E. that Aramaic became inextricably associated with Christianity in the form of Syriac, and became the

language of literature and liturgy within the various Churches of the East. The period from the 3rd to the

7th Century C.E. may be considered the high age of Classical Syriac. It was during this time that Arabic

emerged as both a spoken and written language to the south, and that Hebrew essentially ceased to be a

spoken native language. After the rise of Islam in the late 7th Century, Arabic displaced the Aramaic

languages with alarming rapidity and their traces may be found in contemporary spoken dialects of

Arabic which clearly rest upon a Syriac-Aramaic substratum in both Syria and Iraq.

In terms of evaluating Classical Syriac as a discrete linguistic entity in the context of this broad

and complex history, it becomes clear that it is only the literary language of some 400 years in the social

context of Christian communities south of the Anatolian plateau. Later varieties of neo-Aramaic and/or

Modern Syriac tend to lack some of the distinctive features of the historical language, becoming

typologically more similar to the surrounding semitic languages over time.

IV. Compounding in Syriac in the context of Semitic morphology

One such feature, found in Classical Syriac but long out of use in the modern varieties is the

production of a certain kind of compound in the form of a lexicalized noun phrase. These fixed phrases

are often associated with items of cultural significance, high frequency terms related to relationships

between individuals, and idiomatic expressions (Thackston, 53). This feature is known as the “construct

state” and fell out of general use in Syriac by approximately the 3rd Century CE, surviving only in the

aformentioned fixed phrases. As such, one may have two distinct readings of phrases formed by the same

roots and derivational patterns; semantically related, but one analyzed and the other lexical differentiated

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only by the introduction of the affix “d-” marking the genitive on the second constituent: bar nasa

“person” but bar d-nasa “son of man”, bayt abahata “Patriarchal See” but bayt d-abahata “house of the

(spiritual) father”.

The pattern in Hebrew is very similar to that of Syriac, and modern Hebrew dispenses with the

construct state entirely. One finds the construct state fully intact in modern Arabic, however. where it is

the primary mode of compounding two derived forms of separate radicals: nihayat al-usbuu3 “the

weekend” (end of the week), sayarat ajrah “a taxi” (a fare car).

There is a certain convention of referring these constructions in Semitic as noun phrases, but

might it be more accurate to think of them as a close analogue of compounding? In the Syriac examples it

is clear that those expressions in the construct state are lexicalized as a single semantic chunk - a word,

oftentimes with a more specific meaning than its phrasal counterpart - and those with the relational

particle d- are analyzed as phrases. Thus it is in Arabic as well, where perhaps a conventional view is that

there are two nouns in a grammatical relationship established by the syntax; yet it remains that they refer

to a single semantic entity, and are treated as if they were single words. Where this is not the intention,

and a more analytic reading is desired, the syntax handles this with prepositions and particles designed to

break the construct state and create an explicit phrase.

V. On Sapir 1929

In December of 1928, Edward Sapir read the text of “The Status of Linguistics as a Science” at a

joint meeting of the Linguistic Society of America and the American Anthropological Association in New

York. The intention of the piece is to clearly locate the linguistic disciplines amid formal company such

as physiology and the behavioral sciences as well as the more humanistic such as anthropology and

sociology. In order to appraise a discipline as scientific, one needs to be able to assert some objective

observations and formulate reasonable hypotheses and generalizable systematic theories. Where

linguistics is challenged in this regard is in terms of the scope of the variability of the phenomena of

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human language, and - crucially - that those phenomena are exquisitely sensitive to the context in which

they occur. Sapir writes: “Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world

of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language

which has become the medium of expression for their society.” (Sapir, 209)

Thus, Sapir posits that any study of linguistics is by definition a study of human behavior, and

inclusive of both psychological and social aspects of that behavior. This argument places linguistics

squarely in the aforementioned crossroads of anthropology and behavioral science, as an accounting of

both is needed to be able to apprehend such things as meaning and intentionality. “No two languages are

ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.” (Sapir, 209) The

linguist is equally at the mercy of his language, culture, and social context as is his informant, and the gap

must be bridged by more than raw linguistic data, but by a comprehension of the social context from

which those data are harvested. Sapir emphasizes the anthropological and sociological aspects of

linguistics at some length, describing language itself as “a symbolic guide to culture.”

Standing at this crossroads, Sapir argues, linguists ought to be uniquely qualified to undertake

studies of human behavior, social constructs, and historical problems precisely because of their increased

awareness of and sensitivity to their own behavior. “... the linguist should be the very nature of his subject

matter be the most relativist in feeling, the least taken in by the forms of his own speech.” (Sapir, 213) In

other words, there is a foundational recognition of the wide ranging variability of linguistic phenomena,

and it is difficult to become too attached to a particular analysis or theory with so much immediate

evidence calling such assertions into question. This is accompanied by something resembling a warning

that linguists ought not lose themselves in the mesmerism of “pretty patterns” and must operate

scientifically to firmly ground their essentially social discipline in something concrete enough to be

useful.

If we are to accept that “language is primarily a cultural or social product and must be understood

as such” then - Sapir argues - we must equally adopt scientific methodologies and employ them in novel

ways in order to accomplish with linguistics as a science that which other disciplines have historically

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struggled to accomplish: being capable - through adopting concrete methods and generating meaningful

data - of scientific studies of societies which fully integrate their behavioral, psychological, humanistic,

and cultural aspects; and this made possible by recognizing that those aspects are all encoded in the

behavioral phenomena of language.

VI. Concluding remarks

Although Sapir wrote in inspired fashion to establish linguistics as a science among sciences,

Hockett undertook to examine formal modes of analysis, and they both have been followed by many

seeking to better understand the mechanics of human communication, it remains unlikely that linguists

will find themselves soon in the position of the physicist - asserting an empirically observable and

theoretically proven explanation with mathematical certitude which must hold true at all points in the

universe. If this analogy were to hold true, then perhaps the single place in the universe that consistently

bends or breaks the laws which physicists have asserted about what is known is precisely a region about

which nothing can be directly observed. The cognitive process which underlies the communicative use of

language is the black hole of linguistics: it seems clear that something is happening there, and repeated

complications to existing theory suggest that - in the same manner as the discoveries of astrophysicists - a

lack of direct empirical observation in no way diminishes the significance or importance of the

phenomenon.

In another sense, the study of formal properties of language reveals

something of the nature of man in a negative way: it underscores, with great

clarity, the limits of our understanding of those qualities of the mind that

are apparently unique to man and that must enter into his cultural

achievements in an intimate, if still quite obscure, manner. (Chomsky, 76)

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One thing is clear: the pursuit of universal theories will inevitably lead to the discovery of

exceptions and difficulties, which is in itself a valuable contribution to the progress of linguistics. When

all that we have to observe are essentially secondary effects of some mysterious unseen process - models

seeking to describe the process in uniform, mathematical, and formal ways will likely always stumble

over the very truth that what lies beyond the event horizon of language is fundamentally human and

subject to behavioral anachronism, psychology, social context, and personality; a composite which defies

systematic definition. The pursuit of understanding in linguistics is a contemplation of the mysteries, and

- as Sapir so eloquently wrote - is at once one of the most difficult and one of the most fundamental fields

of inquiry.

References:

"Syriac." Ethnologue. Web. 14 May 2015. <https://www.ethnologue.com/language/syc>. Web.

Chomsky, Noam. The Essential Chomsky. (ed. Anthony Arnove, 2008)

Hockett, Charles Francis. Two Models of Grammatical Description. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959.

Prunet, Beland and Idrissi. “The Mental Respresentation of Semitic Words.” (2001)

Sapir, E. "The Status of Linguistics as a Science." Language 5.4 (1929): 207-14.

Thackston, W. M. Introduction to Syriac: An Elementary Grammar with Readings from Syriac Literature.

Bethesda, MD: IBEX, 1999.

Tucker, Matthew A. The Morphology of Nonconcatenative Languages Data and Analysis from a Few

Semitic Languages. 2012. Web.

Tucker, Matthew A. Introduction to Paradigm Morphology. 2012. Web.