Supplemental Readings in QML basement

Grammatical categories  by Whorf, Benjamin Lee Bobbs-Merrill 1945 Call #: p415 Who g    

Some verbal categories of Hopi  by Whorf, Benjamin Lee Bobbs-Merrill 1938 Call #: p4974 Who s

Also found in Language, Thought, & Reality, edited by J. B. Carroll

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?

They never co-authored anything, although Whorf does refer explicitly to his teacher.

There is no statement of a hypothesis.

Whorf frames his statements as empirical conclusions.

principle of linguistic relativity

Contradiction?

Whorf says that there is no correlation between language and culture (p. 139), but on pages 148-49 he connects behavioral features to linguistic categories.

Is this a contradiction?

Contradiction - No

P 139:“I should be the last to pretend that there is anything so definite as a ‘correlation’ between culture and language, and especially between ethnological rubrics such as ‘agriculture, hunting,’ etc., and linguistic ones like ‘inflected,’ ‘synthetic,’ or ‘isolating.’”

Contradiction - No

P 148-9:“… people act about situations in ways which are like the ways they talk about them.”

The covert categories of language, grammar, are associated with unconscious, cultural assumptions we make about the world, what is natural, how it works.

Escaping the Prison of Language

• Learn other, radically different languages

• Become conscious of the covert categories and the unconscious assumptions they imply

• Recognize your own assumptions about what is natural and de-naturalize them.

cryptotypes

Covert categories marked by types of patterning

Avoidance of combinations (syntagmatic relations prohibited)

Avoidance of certain affixes/morphemes (paradigms shaped by classes not usually recognized)

Overt categories

Has a formal mark which is present every time a member of the category appears.

Ex. Plural in EnglishMarked by suffix ‘-s’

Sheep, fish, etc.The sheep is in the pen. verbThe sheep are in the field.

marked

Overt categories - plural

Fish appeared out of nowhere.A fish appeared.The fish will be plentiful.

The Romans arrived.The Chinese arrived.

Covert categories

We know an element belongs to a covert category only when encountering problems using it in certain circumstances.

Ex. Intransitive verbs - no passiveShe cooked it. She went home.It was cooked. *She was went

Covert category - gender

Gender is not marked in English words.

Apparent only through pronominal substitution.

John met Sally. - He met her.

Covert category in NavahoWord classes organized by shape

Round(ish), long objects, amorphous objects

Different shape-classes require different verb-stems for the same idea (verb)

Arbitrary: Sorrow belongs to the round

class

cryptotype

Covert categories are hidden, cryptic.

The overt categories are phenotypes.

Comparisons

We may find patterns of similarity in specific categories in different languages

Taxonomic categories - classification of categories

Transitivity, case, voice

Transitivity

Nominative - Accusative

The dog bit the man. - It bit him.

The dog is sleeping. - He is sleeping

He is sleeping.He hit him.

Another view of Transitivity

Ergative - absolutive relations

The dog bit the man. - He bit him.

The dog is sleeping. - Him is sleeping

Him is sleeping.

He hit him.

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