Transcript Process and Grammatical Metaphor in Wordsworth’s The

Andrew Goatly Dept. of English, Lingnan
University, Tuen Mun, N.T. Hong Kong,
[email protected]
‘We think of our world as being populated by discrete physical
objects. These objects are capable of moving about through space
and making contact with one another. Motion is driven by energy,
which some objects draw from internal resources and others
receive from the exterior. When motion results in forceful physical
contact, energy is transmitted from the mover to the impacted
object, which may thereby be set in motion to participate in
further interactions.’ This billiard ball model ‘exerts a powerful
influence on both everyday and scientific thought, and no doubt
reflects fundamental aspects of cognitive organisation, …
providing the conceptual basis for certain grammatical constructs.
Among these universal categories are noun and verb’ (L 1991: 1314)
OBJECT
INSTANTIATED
EXTENSION
AUTONOMY/
DEPENDENCE
WORD CLASS
ENERGETIC
INTERACTIONS
In space
In time
Spatially compact
Temporally compact
Temporally unbounded Spatially unbounded
Autonomous
Dependent
Noun
Verb
‘The billiard-ball model also figures in the characterisation
of the prototypical finite clause, which inherits its
profile from a content verb designating an energetic
interaction’. The action chain can be used to model
many aspects of clause structure:
HEAD
head
TAIL
tail
Agent
Patient
SETTING
Viewer
Commonsense views of prototypical actions,
like naïve Newtonian physics, are
represented by the canonical event (CE)
model (Langacker 1991) (Figure 1).
In an event/action one discrete object
(‘billiard ball’), the head of the action chain
or agent transmits energy, by forceful
physical contact, to another (‘billiard ball’), a
patient, resulting in a change of state (the
squiggly arrow).
This takes place within a setting and a viewer
observes it from an external standpoint.
(A) The Affected participant in a physical
process/CE is passive and controllable: the
billiard-ball which is hit. But thermodynamics and
the theory of entropy undermine this, allowing for
the dissipation of energy :
“Thus the "negative" property of dissipation shows
that, unlike dynamic objects, thermodynamic
objects can only be partially controlled.
Occasionally they "break loose" into spontaneous
change” (Prigogine and Stengers 1985: 120).
The CE model depends upon the absolute
distinction between things and energetic
interactions, undermined by relativity theory,
which necessitated the notion of process or
event as primary:
“Indeed it is not possible in relativity to obtain
a consistent definition of an extended rigid
body, … Actually, relativity implies that
neither the point particles nor the quasi-rigid
body can be taken as primary concepts. Rather
these have to be expressed in terms of events
and processes” (Bohm 1980:123-124).
The CE model separates setting
(environment), participants and their
energetic interactions.
This is challenged by Gaia theory: that the
world, including the atmosphere, oceans,
biota, rocks and minerals of the crust,
functions as one large self-regulating system
(Lovelock 1988: 19). Gaia emphasises
wholeness and interrelatedness, abolishing
the dangerous separation between CE’s
agents, settings, and patients.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
‘Properties characteristic of a prototypical transitive clause:
it has two participants expressed by overt nominals that function as
subject and object
it describes an event (as opposed to a static situation)
the event is energetic, relatively brief and has a well-defined
endpoint
the subject and object represent discrete, highly individuated
physical entities
these entities already exist when the event occurs (i.e. they are not
products of the event)
the subject and object are fully distinct and participate in a strongly
asymmetrical relationship
the subject’s participation is volitional, while that of the object is
non-volitional
the subject is the source of the energy and the object is its target
the object is totally affected by the action.’ (L 1991: 302)
Traditionally
fishermen caught 100,000 tons a year
of fish
in the North
Sea
Circumstance
(time setting)
Actor
Process
Affected/Goal
Circumstance
(time setting)
Circumstance
(place setting)
Adverbial
Nominal
Subject
Verbal
Group
Nominal
Object
Adverbial
Adverbial
A division into agentive participants
(fishermen), affected participants (fish) and
circumstances (North Sea) on the other, which
is not consonant with modern scientific theory,
Gaia theory in particular.
The particular division into (volitional) agent
and (passive) affected, which conflicts with the
notion of matter being active or with feedback
within Gaia.
The fish are not thought to have any effect on
the fisherman, though it is their presence and
market value which causes the fishermen to
catch them: a false unidirectionality of cause
and effect.
The division into agent/affected participants,
on the one hand, and location circumstances on
the other, misguidedly suggesting that the
environment, the circumstance, is either
powerless, or is not affected.
For example “The North Sea” is seen as part of
the setting, rather than involved in or affected
by the process, as inevitably it is from an
environmental point of view.
The categorization of phenomena into processes
and things, which is doubtful given the
primacy of process in modern physics. The
catching is seen as a process, but the fishermen
and the tons of fish and the North Sea as
relatively permanent things or substances.
Choice of subject (theme/participant) partly determined by
the empathy hierarchy:
speaker > hearer > human > animal > physical object > abstract
entity
The dog chased me + I was chased by the dog
I chased the dog ??The dog was chased by me
Doubtful case is because the subject is neither the agent nor
very high in the empathy hierarchy (L 1991: 307). ‘Since
animacy is strongly correlated with ability to serve as an
energy source, there is a natural association between
subjects and the upper portion of the [empathy] hierarchy’
(L 1991: 322)
Imposing the empathy hierarchy and the correlation
between energy sources and animacy onto the
canonical event we have the construal of the
prototypical clause in which a volitional human
agent provides the energy to act upon a passive
(perhaps non-human) patient in a setting
/environment which is marginalized as less
important.
This typical construal of material events is one
which is out of step with the insights of modern
scientific thinking and environmentally
dangerous. It suggests humans can dominate or
ignore a passive nature.
To overcome the misrepresentations of the
nature of matter and life inherent in the CE
model and construed by congruent grammar,
in English certain kinds of grammatical
metaphor can be employed, more in tune with
modern/ postmodern physics. I shall call these
structures consonant.
I have suggested ways of using marked or
grammatically metaphorical English
constructions to construe the world in a less
billiard-ball, less canonical event and more
ecologically-friendly way:(Goatly 1996, 2000,
2007)
 Activation of tokens
 Activation of experiences / phenomena
 Reciprocal verbs
 Nominalization




‘The garden lay upon a slope surmounted by a
plain of a small bowling green; beneath us stood
a grove’. (Wordsworth: The Prelude)
the garden was below a slope 
the garden lay upon a slope
the slope (was) above the plain of a small
bowling green, 
a slope surmounted by a plain of a small
bowling green
beneath us was a grove 
beneath us stood a grove


‘the whole cave busies the eye with images and
forms boldly assembled’
cf. I looked long and hard at the cave and its
connected images and forms


‘The sky and sea merged at the horizon’
cf ‘the sky merged with the sea’
Blurring the distinction between process and
thing by using nominals to refer to processes
and eliminate reference to participants:
‘Economic growth causes pollution’(cf. ‘the
economy grows and this causes X to pollute Y’)







Setting-subject constructions (Activation of
Circumstances)
Creative processes
Noun incorporation into verbs
Meteorological conditions
Reflexives and middles
Ergatives
Dative case
In canonical events there is a distinction between
stable inclusive setting and the smaller more
mobile participants (L 1991: 34) Some structures
blur this distinction:
1.
Thursday saw yet another startling development
2.
The dam contains 10,000 million gallons of water.
3.
The garden is swarming with bees
4.
The flowers are glistening with dew
In 3. and 4. ‘The subject hosts a certain type of activity
by the components of a mass that is essentially coextensive with it, so that instances of that activity
also extend to its boundaries’
There constructions
 There was a loud commotion
 There is a vase on the table
‘There designates an abstract setting construed as
hosting some relationship’ (L 1991: 352)
blur the distinction between process and participant, by
making the participant dependent on the process: light
a fire, write a letter, knit a sweater, and sing a song, live a
hard life, fight a good fight With the cognate noun
construction ‘existence of the thing referred to by the
nominalization is limited to the time-span of the
verb’s temporal profile’ (L 1991: 363)
The reified process in cognate object constructions is not
really the tail of an action chain—since there is no
sense that there is a transfer of energy affecting
another participant, the end of the path of energy flow
(L 1991: 364)



e.g. Latin amo I love; Shoshoni: ta-kahni-pai;
Tetelcingo Nahuatl tonal-kiisa [sun-emerge]
‘sun come out’ and lapis-kwilowa [pencil-write]
‘write with pencil’ (L 1991: 374-5) cf. miaow
These seem to make the noun syntactically and
morphologically dependent on the verb.
Things are now no longer independent of
processes.
Omission of subject in Chinese?
In ‘It is raining’ it refers to ‘ambience or all encompassing
environment’ ‘It embraces weather, time, circumstance,
whatever is obvious by the nature of reality or the
implications of context’ (Bolinger 1977: 84-5): abstract
setting-- ‘the “dummy” or “ambient” it pushes lack of
specificity to the limit; its referent is the polar opposite
of a well-articulated, clearly focused participant, being
characterised instead by maximal extension and
minimal differentiation.’ ‘it neutralises the
setting/participant distinction…’(L 1991: 377)
Reflexives washed himself and middle verbs wash, stand,
stretch (ergative verbs in Halliday) blur the distinction
between actor/agent and goal/patient. ‘Hence a true
reflexive and a middle represent successive degrees of
departure from the archetypal conception of distinct
objects interacting asymmetrically—they share the
property of conflating dual roles in a single
participant, but the middle goes further by lacking
even the expectation of distinct participants’.(L 1991:
371) ‘The book is selling well’: unspecificity of the
action chain head. The event is now symmetrical.



In languages with case markings according to the
Ergative/Absolutive system (rather than
Nominative/Accusative system) transitive subject is
specially marked (ergative) while intransitive subject
and transitive object have same (usu. zero-marked)
form (absolutive).
Halliday and Langacker (1991: 387) ergative class of
verbs: cook, sail, tear, boil, freeze, etc
The ergative system reverses the action-chain
canonical event path of energy flow





The ice cracked.
A rock cracked the ice.
The waiter cracked the ice with a rock.
The manager made the waiter crack the ice with a rock.
The owner had the manager make the waiter crack the
ice with a rock.
‘Either convention or personal choice may lead a speaker
to focus just on the final segment of an action chain,
effectively portraying it as an autonomous
occurrence’(L 1991:389) The energy for the interaction
could therefore be seen as residing within the theme
participant, e.g. the ice.
Ergatives in Chinese?

Accusative marking of Objects associated with
the canonical event model.: directionality and
reaching the goal special examples of
asymmetry and completion. ACC-marked
objects associated with this pattern.




Er klopte mich (accusative) auf der Shulter
‘he hit me on the shoulder’
Er klopfte mir (dative) auf der Shulter:
‘he patted me on the shoulder’
treffen ‘go to meet possibly after arranging to do so’
ACC
more asymmetric
begegnen ‘encounter by chance’
DAT
symmetrical and non-volitional
jagen ‘chase, hunt’ ACC subject controls the action;
object’s action is avoidance
folgen ‘follow’ DAT intent to reach not necessary; indirect
object has some independence or initiative of movement—
less controlled.
1. Taroo
ga
ziroo o
ik-ase-ta
Taro
NOM Jiro ACC go-CAUS-PAST
2.
Taroo ga
ziroo ni
ik-ase-ta
Taro NOM Jiro DAT go-CAUS-PAST
o is used in 1. when Taro is indifferent as to whether Jiro
consents to go. Ni is used in 2. where Jiro willingly
carries out the action of going. Typically the dative or
instrumental case marks a partly agentive causee,
accusative a passive participant. (L 1991: 411-12).
So typical canonical event is non-reciprocal and
asymmetric. Dative indicates that the profiled
relationship significantly deviates from the accusative
schema in terms of asymmetry, contact or completion. (L
1991: 400-1)











Activation of Tokens: more active environment
Activation of Experiences: more active perceived environment
Reciprocal verbs: two billiard balls equally active
Nominalisation: interaction becomes participant/agent
Setting-subject/circumstance-actor constructions (there, etc.)
environment and participants blurred
Creative processes and cognate objects: participant not
independent of process
Noun incorporation in verbs: participant not independent of
process
Ambient it (meteorological expressions): environment and
process blurred
Reflexives: process involves one participant
Ergative/middle: patient becomes more active
Dative: agent less in control, patient more independent
David Peat in Blackfoot Physics (1996), following David
Bohm (1980), recognised that Niitsi’powahsin
structures the world in ways closer to the insights of
modern theoretical physics.
Bohm met several Algonquin speakers before his death
and saw a correspondence between their
language/world-view and the findings of modern
physics. “What to Bohm had been a major
breakthrough in human thought – quantum theory,
relativity, his implicate order and rheomode – were
part of the everyday life and speech of the Blackfoot…”
(pp. 237-238).
Peat presents interesting informant evidence on
the nature of Niitsi’powahsin:
“Sa’ke’j Henderson has said that he can go for a
whole day without ever speaking a noun, just
dealing in the rhythms and vibrations of
process. Nouns do exist within the language
but, like the vortex that forms in a fast flowing
river, the nouns are not primary in themselves
but are temporary aspects of the everflowing
process” (p. 237).
Prefixes and suffixes, and other variations of “verb
stems” are numerous, distinguishing:
transitive-intransitive; “animate-inanimate”;
independent-conjunctive-subjunctive-imperativeunreal; “singular-plural”; “first-first+secondsecond-third-fourth person”; “present-future-past
tense”; and durative-perfective “aspect”, giving
well over a hundred possible inflexions.
“Verb stems” are often complex, including
“negatives, quantifiers, intensifiers, all kinds of
adverbials, and many many others, including
numerous morphemes which would be main or
auxiliary verbs in other languages” (Frantz 1991:
84).
“Verbalisation” incorporates “nouns” into “verbs”
by suffixation:
–yi, can derive intransitive verbs from “nouns” with
a meaning equivalent to the English Relational
process plus Value: ínaa (chief)  ikitáaksinaayi
“you will be chief”.
–wa’si conveys the meaning of “turning into”:
nítohkiáayowa’si “I bear became” or “I became
enraged”
--hkaa/-Ihkaa carries the meaning “acquire”
iimííhkaayaawa “they acquired fish” “they fished”.
However, native speakers, like Ryan Heavy Head
(personal communication) dispute Frantz’s
analytical categories.
“It’s apparent to me that there were never any
‘nouns’ here to begin with. Ohkiaayo is not
literally a “bear”, nor mamii a “fish”- each of
these supposed nouns are really just
describing characteristics, events, processes,
and such. Ohkiaayo is not verbalized with the
addition of -wa’si, instead, -wa’si just describes
the state of its manifestation, the early stage of
transformation toward ohkiaayo-ness (which
includes rage, the practice of violently seizing,
gestures of intimidation, etc) … There really
are no nouns that I can find in Niitsi’powahsin
[Blackfoot] to verbalise.”
What Western languages refer to with nouns is referred to by verbs
or clauses, undermining the noun-verb distinction:
 conversions -- “intransitive verb used as a noun stem referring to
the subject of the underlying verb” (Frantz 116 ff.) e.g., omiksi
áyo’kaiksi ‘who sleep/those sleepers’.
 associated instrument nominalizations -- a’tsiS added to
“Animate” Intransitive stems, e.g.: Sináákia’tsisi ‘which makes an
image/book’; ‘which cut in strips/scissors’, ‘which covers/lid’.
 instrumental “nominalisations” with the ‘instrument/means’
prefix: omoht-/iiht-/oht-, e.g. iihtáóoyo’pa ‘that one eats with/fork’;
‘that one speaks with/telephone’, ‘that one buys with/money’,
‘that one sees afar with/telescope’.
 locational nominals with the prefix it-/iit (‘there’), e.g. iitáóoyo’pi
‘where one eats/restaurant’; ‘that one eats on/table’, ‘where
one washes clothes/laundry’, ‘where one washes dishes/sink’.
In ‘A Conceptual Anatomy of the Blackfoot
Word’ (2004), abandoning SAE grammatical
categories, Leroy and Ryan distinguish 3
linguistic levels in a ‘sentence’.
áóhtakoistsi, or “sounding”
aanissin or “the completed saying.”
áíkia’pii reference to multiple happenings or
one event as dependent on another
the smallest meaningful unit is called
áóhtakoistsi, or “sounding”, rather like the
–ing of English. Unlike morphemes these units
“suggest only a potential to contribute to
transitional meaning, to mark a temporary
aspect of a view, quality, process or essence
associated with an event not yet delineated” (p.
33).
áóhtakoistsi can be joined together into aanissin
to convey the experience of an event, “marking
a perceptible happening that issues from a
more all-encompassing dimension of reality as
constant flux”.
Niitsi’powahsin addresses different aspects of
an event that English might label with the same
noun or its hyponyms.




The English speaker has the generic word book and a small
group of specific type-terminology like text, novel, journal etc.
The Blackfoot speaker can have multiple perspectives on this
“object” in terms of various processes:
sinaakia’tsisi (‘facilitates the generation of images’),
iihtáísinaakio’pi (‘means of generating images’),
okstakia’tsisi (‘facilitates recording’),
áípá’sókinnihpi (‘held wide open and flat’).
The referent of aanissin is not a subject or an object, and does
not suggest a relationship between agent/actor and
patient/goal. Aanissin is action alone, or the manifestation of
form. “Actors” and “Goals” are inseparable from, arising
within, or the essence of the event.
So the distinction between noun and verb entirely dissolves in
the Blackfoot language, as one cannot exist without the other
(Leroy and Ryan 33).
Aanissin can be combined into áíkia’pii even though
“words” equivalent to book already represent a complete
idea in Niitsi’powahsin.
Below we have “that boy brought a chair”: which in
Blackfoot involves at least three processes: moving/
transferring near, being young and facilitating sitting:
iihpommaatooma
iih
by
way of
pommaat
transfer
oom
move
wa
ing
saahkómaapiwa amoyi
anna
ann
that
familiar
wa
ing
saahk
young
oma
yet
a’pii
state
of
wa
ing
amo
this
near
yi
ing
asóópa’tsisi
a’s
become
opii
sit
a’tsis
facilitate
yi
ing
English (German, Japanese) to some extent through noncongruent structures can use marked grammar to
construe a world of process more in keeping with or
consonant with the insights of modern physics.
Blackfoot does this in a much more fundamental way. It
undermines the SAE structures which reinforce
unhelpful attitudes to the environment (Goatly 2007,
chapter 7)
The idea that as volitional Actors on passive Goals we
humans can dominate nature in a unidirectional fashion,
or that we can separate ourselves off from our
environmental settings, Circumstances, has proved and
will increasingly prove disastrous.
We need the voice of Blackfoot and languages like it.
How does Chinese compare: is it more like English or
Blackfoot?
Black, M. 1962. Models and metaphors. Ithaca New York: Cornell University Press.
Bohm, D. (1980) Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge.
Davidse, K. 1992 “Transitivity/ergativity: the Janus-headed grammar of actions and events.”
In Advances in Systemic Linguistics; recent theory and practice M. Davies and L. Ravelli
(eds.), 105-166. London: Pinter.
Franz, D.G. 1991. Blackfoot Grammar. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Goatly, A. 2007. Washing the Brain: Metaphor and Hidden Ideology.
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1985. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold..
Langacker, R. W. 1991. Foundations of Cognitive grammar, vol. 2: Descriptive Applications.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Leroy Little Bear and Ryan Heavy Head. 2004. “A conceptual anatomy of the
Blackfoot word.” Revision: A Journal of Consciousness and Transformation 26.3:
31-38.
Lovelock, J. 1988. The Ages of Gaia. Oxford: OUP.
Peat, D. 1996. Blackfoot Physics: A Journey into the Native American Universe. London:
Fourth Estate.
Prigogine, I. and Stengers, I. 1985. Order out of Chaos. London: Flamingo.