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Duality of Patterning: Absolute Universal Or Statistical Tendency? DOI 10.1515/langcog-2012-0016 Language and Cognition 2012; 4(4): 275 – 296 1 Juliette Blevins 2 3 Duality of patterning: Absolute universal or 4 statistical tendency? 5 6 Abstract: As more of the world’s languages are described and compared, more 7 absolute universals have joined the class of statistical tendencies. However, few 8 have questioned the universality of the duality of patterning. Following Hockett, 9 most linguists assume that in all human languages, discrete meaningless parts 10 combine to form meaningful units that, themselves, recombine. However, an 11 alternative interpretation, explored in this article, is that duality, like other 12 proposed linguistic universals, is a statistical tendency reflecting a complex set 13 of factors, and most centrally, the need for some minimal number of basic units 14 that can recombine to yield a potentially infinite set of form-meaning correspon- 15 dences. If this is the essence of duality, then we expect: languages where duality 16 is not a central component of grammar; languages where most, but not all, utter- 17 ances are decomposable into meaningless phonological units; and different types 18 of phonological building blocks in different languages. These expectations ap- 19 pear to be confirmed by natural language data. 20 21 Keywords: duality of patterning, language universals, statistical tendencies, pho- 22 nology, Charles F. Hockett 23 24 25 Juliette Blevins: Linguistics Program, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, 26 NY 10016, USA. E-mail: [email protected] 27 28 29 30 31 1 Linguistic universals as statistical tendencies 32 33 Absolute universals are properties that all languages share. As more of the world’s 34 languages are described and compared, more absolute universals have joined the 35 class of statistical tendencies, holding true of most languages, but not all. For 36 example, in the realm of spoken language phonology, it was once thought that all 37 languages make use of a coronal stop phoneme /t/, with this following from the 38 unmarked status of coronal consonants cross-linguistically, and more generally 39 that all phonological systems have coronal phonemes (Hyman 2008). However, 40 Northwest Mekeo, a Western Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea has the (CS4) WDG (155×230mm) DGMetaScience J-2663 LANGCOG 4:4 pp. 275–296 2663_4-4_03 (p. 275) PMU:(idp) 21/9/2012 26 September 2012 9:37 AM 276 J. Blevins simple consonant inventory /p k β g m ŋ/, and not only lacks /t/, but appears to 1 1 have no coronal phonemes at all (Blevins 2009). The existence of a language like 2 2 Northwest Mekeo is good evidence that the contrastive use of coronal place of 3 3 articulation in spoken languages is a strong statistical tendency whose source 4 4 is not an innate design feature of language, but a range of independently con- 5 5 vergent extra-grammatical factors including speech articulation, perception, 6 6 aerodynamics, and language contact. 7 7 Absolute universals are also compromised when a particular language 8 8 adheres to a universal most of the time, but not always. Language-internal statis- 9 9 tical tendencies of this kind (referred to as “matters of degree” by Ladd 2012), 10 10 challenge classical phonological theory, where universals of contrast, phonotac- 11 11 tics, and alternations are stated categorically (Ernestus 2011). Consider, for 12 12 example, 20th century analyses of Yawelmani Yokuts vowel alternations which 13 13 incorporate closed syllable-shortening to enforce a constraint against CVVC syl- 14 14 lables (Kuroda 1967; Kenstowicz and Kisseberth 1979; Kenstowicz 1994; McCarthy 15 15 1999). The great majority of CVVC syllables surface as simple CVC, but a small 16 16 number do not (Blevins 2004). If closed syllable-shortening is attributed to the 17 17 dominance of a universal preference for CVC vs. CVVC syllables in the grammar of 18 18 Yawelmani, how does one explain the fact that a small number of CVVC syllables 19 19 surface? While Sapir (1921: 39) observed early on that “all grammars leak”, it 20 20 seems we must all accept that all universals seep: within the grammar, most forms 21 21 adhere to them, but at the periphery where function may dominate form, they are 22 22 diluted and violable. 23 23 More general design features of human language (Hockett 1960) have also 24 24 come under renewed scrutiny as more and better language descriptions become 25 25 available. Recursion, once thought to be a universal feature of natural language 26 26 syntax, has been reported to be absent in some languages (Everett 2005; Sakel 27 27 and Stapert 2010). However, few have questioned the universality of the duality 28 28 of patterning. Following Hockett, most linguists assume that in all human lan- 29 29 guages, discrete meaningless parts combine to form meaningful units which, 30 30 themselves, recombine: “The meaningful elements in any language – “words” 31 31 in everyday parlance, “morphemes” to the linguist – constitute an enormous 32 32 stock. Yet they are represented by small arrangements of a relatively very small 33 33 stock of distinguishable sounds which are themselves wholly meaningless” 34 34 (Hockett 1960: 6; See Ladd 2012, for a comparison with Martinet’s view of “double 35 35 articulation”). 36 36 Hockett’s reference to duality as “a human design feature” suggests not only 37 37 that small meaningless elements can recombine to form larger meaningful units, 38 38 but that they must do so. Indeed, we find 21st-century textbooks stating that “The 39 39 sounds of a language are intrinsically meaningless: their only purpose is to form 40 40 (CS4) WDG (155×230mm) DGMetaScience J-2663 LANGCOG 4:4 pp. 276–296 2663_4-4_03 (p. 276) (CS4) WDG (155×230mm) DGMetaScience J-2663 LANGCOG 4:4 pp. 277–296 2663_4-4_03 (p. 277) PMU:(idp) 21/9/2012 26 September 2012 9:37 AM PMU:(idp) 21/9/2012 26 September 2012 9:37 AM Absolute universal or statistical tendency? 277 1 1 the building blocks of which words are made” (Hayes 2009: 19). However, an al- 2 2 ternative interpretation is that duality, like other proposed linguistic universals, 3 3 is a statistical tendency reflecting a complex sets of factors, and most centrally, 4 4 the need for some minimal number of basic units that can recombine to yield a 5 5 potentially infinite set of form-meaning correspondences. If this is the essence of 6 6 duality, then our expectations regarding universality will be quite different from 7 7 the rigid interpretation of Hayes and others. 8 8 First, we expect that though rare, there may actually be a natural human lan- 9 9 guage where duality is violated, or not a central component of grammar. Though 10 10 duality of patterning is evident in all widely established sign languages (Stokoe 11 11 1960; Sandler 1989; Sandler and Lillo-Martin 2006), there may be some excep- 12 12 tions. A case of this kind is suggested by research on a relatively young sign 13 13 language, Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language. In their on-going description of 14 14 Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language grammar, Sandler et al. (2011) propose that 15 15 this natural human language lacks duality of patterning, despite its apparent 16 16 well-developed prosody, relatively large lexicon, productive word-formation pro- 17 17 cesses, stable SOV constituent order, and normal usage in everyday life. If this 18 18 is true, then, as with use of the coronal stop phoneme /t/ in spoken languages, 19 19 duality of patterning may be a strong statistical tendency whose source is not an 20 20 innate design feature of language, but related more directly to functional issues 21 21 such as means of productive word-formation processes, limits on memory, and/or 22 22 limits on word-specific articulatory routines. 23 23 Second, we expect to find languages where most, but not all, utterances 24 24 are decomposable into meaningless features, segments and other phonological 25 25 flotsam and jetsam. Since universals seep, there may be edges of the language 26 26 that are external to this seepage. In these far corners we may see holistic non- 27 27 compositional utterances on the one hand, or meaningful bits and pieces on the 28 28 other. In the sections that follow, I suggest several places where spoken languag- 29 29 es show grammar-internal violations of duality: in sub-systems of sound symbol- 30 30 ism where single features are systematically meaningful, and in what I call ‘holis- 31 31 tic morphemes’ where, at the level of sound, utterances resist decomposition. 32 32 However, before discussing these, it is worth noting that, while Al-Sayyid Bedouin 33 33 Sign Language may show an extreme case where duality of patterning is nearly 34 34 absent, other sign languages may have central iconic ‘channels’ which also lack 35 35 duality. For example, in Nepali Sign Language, duality is clear in some signing, 36 36 but not in other, and not consistently (Graif 2011). In discourse, it is common for 37 37 signers to go back and forth between iconic and arbitrary signing, and lexical 38 38 and iconic (non-decomposable, holistic) signs are interchangeable. The socio- 39 39 linguistic context lends some understanding to the situation. As Graif (2011: 10) 40 40 describes: (CS4) WDG (155×230mm) DGMetaScience J-2663 LANGCOG 4:4 pp. 276–296 2663_4-4_03 (p. 276) (CS4) WDG (155×230mm) DGMetaScience J-2663 LANGCOG 4:4 pp. 277–296 2663_4-4_03 (p. 277) PMU:(idp) 21/9/2012 26 September 2012 9:37 AM PMU:(idp) 21/9/2012 26 September 2012 9:37 AM 278 J.
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