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Roland Posner

Sign Economy in and Related Systems

Series A: General & Theoretical Papers ISSN 1435-6473 Essen: LAUD 2003 Paper No. 574

Universität Duisburg-Essen

Roland Posner

Technical University of Berlin (Germany)

Sign Economy in Language and Related Sign Systems

Copyright by the author Reproduced by LAUD 2003 Linguistic Agency Series A University of Duisburg-Essen General and Theoretical FB Geisteswissenschaften Paper No. 574 Universitätsstr. 12 D- 45117 Essen

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Sign Economy in Language and Related Sign Systems

To appear in: Walter Schmitz (ed.), Sign Processes in Complex Systems. Proceedings of the 7th Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies in Dresden 1999. Dresden: Thelem.

1. Semiotic systems My task is the description of language as a complex semiotic system. Initially, I intended to approach this task by confronting my audience directly with sign definitions, characterizations of rule types, and system-theoretic statements.1 This would then sound as follows: A semiotic system (or ) is a taken together with its context of use. Each code includes a repertoire of basic and a set of rules for their combination and interpretation. A context of use consists of situations in which a sender applies a code in order to produce a sign combination and (or) a receiver tries to interpret the sign combination with the help of a similar code, both of them being led by certain purposes and specific .² If I were to continue in this style with you then we could work out together step by step a system that is so elaborate that it can explain precisely what is typical about verbal codes and which requirements sender and receiver have to fulfill in order to use verbal codes successfully in sign production and reception. However, the chain of definitions necessary for this approach is long and the procedure too abstract for an oral lecture. I have therefore decided instead to present, wherever possible, selected examples of language use to you and to elaborate its special features by comparing them with other types of sign use in a .

2. and Instead of speaking we often make gestures or operate with numerals and , and in many cases we achieve more by doing that. What is the between the spoken word and a gesture or a configuration? And how can they supplement one another in order to facilitate efficient ? Instead of speaking we often produce a written text, or even a chain of Morse code signs, and in certain cases it is necessary to recode language in this way in order to establish communication. What is the difference between a spoken word and a written word or a word in Morse code? And in which types of situations can they replace each other? Our verbal utterances make use of our lexical repertoire and our grammatical rule knowledge. But this knowledge does not govern them completely. No grammar stipulates how fast or slow, how loudly or quietly, how high or low, how sonorously or hoarsely we should speak. Nevertheless, how we speak often has greater consequences than what we actually say. Are not all modes of sign behavior determined by semiotic systems? And if yes, in what relation do these modes of sign behavior stand to language? Such questions can only be answered when language is regarded as a semiotic system without assuming this system existed in empty space. A language like German is in continuous exchange − with other such as Polish, Hungarian, Italian, French, English³, − with language–related codes such as the alphabetic script and the respective cultural techniques of writing and reading4, the chants and the cultural techniques of solo and choir singing5, as well as language art and the cultural techniques of scanning, rhyming and composing literary texts6, − with the body codes of mimic and gesture, which partly accompany speech and partly replace it7, − with the systems of number representation8 as well as arithmetic and algebra9, which again partly accompany the writing of words and partly replace it, − with general behavioral codes such as those of politeness and etiquette10 , − and with the sign systems of pictorial in art11 and science.12 All of these systems are semiotic systems in the sense outlined initially. Language itself must therefore be regarded as part of a complex system of sign systems. For systems of sign systems, the Estonian semiotician Jurij Lotman introduced the concept of a semiosphere in the 1980s.13 In doing this, he continued a tradition in which 20th century structuralist linguists distanced themselves from the historically-oriented linguists of the 19th century, who had all too often studied words as isolated individual objects. The structuralist thesis proposing that a sign receives its only within a field or system of signs14 is supplemented by Lotman through the thesis that a sign system also only receives its meaning within a system of sign systems which are used in close connection with one another.15 According to this approach, each national culture is a system of sign systems16, and all of the world are sub-systems of the semiosphere of humans. From a biological point of view, cultures are those ecological niches which gave rise to the emergence of languages. And if it is correct that all humans have at their disposal an innate competence for the acquisition of a language17, then it is important not to forget that this innate competence could not be used without the competence to apply mimic and gesture, and to practice politeness and etiquette according to the conventions of a culture – a context which for millennia also included the cultural techniques of singing and writing as well as those of art and science. As you can infer from my formulations, I consider language in line with its biological evolution primarily as a phono-acoustic means of expression, and I will therefore speak of “oral language” wherever necessary for the sake of clarity. Oral language is a sign system unique to homo sapiens and universally present in this species.18 Only in the event of

2 damage of the necessary production and reception organs is it replaced by another system, for example the sign language of hearing-impaired persons.19 Now, in the course of human history, a series of language-related codes (see above) has established itself around oral language, which makes each oral language appear today as the core of an extensive system of sign systems within the semiosphere of a culture. I would like to designate such a language-related system of sign systems as a “logosphere”.20 Every oral language of today is thus embedded in the logosphere of a culture, which is itself part of the semiosphere of humanity. Strictly speaking, even an oral language is also more than a simple sign system. As children we quickly learn to differentiate variants: dialects indicating difference of origin, sociolects indicating social difference, idiolects indicating speaker identity, and outdated phrases indicating past language stages. Thus apart from language-related codes, an oral language is itself a whole cluster of sign systems and only as such embedded in the logosphere of its culture. It is within this multi-faceted context21, that I would like to treat language as a semiotic system. Thus, language-related codes will play a special role in my lecture. They serve to recode oral expressions so that the language can be used in additional types of situations. This is equally true of the codes of writing, of singing, and of literature. And it is also true of the semiotic systems of number representation. All these codes have historically developed in a close relationship to language. They do not only complement language, but through their joint use with language in the last millennia they have also changed the structure of language considerably. Interesting conclusions on the essence of language can therefore be drawn from a comparison of a language with its language-related codes, as I would like to demonstrate in the following.

3. Performance effort: complementarity of production and reception My main hypothesis in the comparative analysis of language and language-related codes is the idea that sign systems serve to handle complexity: we use them in communicative interaction to reduce complexity in our relation to each other and in cognition to reduce complexity in our relation to the world.22 If sign systems are to fulfill their purpose as instruments for dealing with complexity, then they should not get too complex themselves. It is the context of use of the signs which keeps their complexity on a manageable level. The extent to which the structure of verbal utterances is shaped through their use as instruments of communication, has been convincingly pointed out in investigations which were carried out thirty years ago by my respected teacher Helmut Lüdtke at the Technical University of Berlin.23 He formulated his results in such a succinct way that, as an allusion to the Nuremberg Funnel, his students started to talk of “Lüdtke’s Funnel”: Verbal expressions which were fed in at the top of the funnel thousands of years ago, are systematically modified through permanent use and come out at the bottom completely different. The following example24 may elucidate this.

3 When we refer to the current day in German, then we say “heute”. In French we say “aujourd’hui”. Hui is derived from the Latin hodiē – a word, which has emerged as a contraction from the nominal group in the ablative hō diē, which means ‘on this day’. The German heute has a similar etymology; it comes from Old High German hiutu – a word which emerged as a contraction from the nominal group in the instrumental case hiu tagu (Gothic: himma daga), meaning ‘on this day’. But why don’t French people today say “hui”, why do they instead say “aujourd’hui”, which means ‘on the day (au jour) of (d’) today (hui)’? In order to explain these and comparable findings, Lüdtke starts from the well-founded thesis that in all languages the effort which the speaker has to put into transmitting a given piece of has remained more or less the same throughout millennia.25 In order to refer to the current day in a simple way, the Romans required three syllables (ho+ di+ ē), and two thousand years later the French also articulate exactly three syllables (au + jour + d’hui). However, if that is so, one might well ask: Why has language changed at all? The answer lies in the context of oral communication. Speakers are orally lazy; they try to give information with the least possible articulation effort. That is why Latin hō diē was reduced via hodiē to hui in Old French. Listeners are mentally lazy; they try to comprehend a given message with the least possible comprehension effort. If it gets too difficult, they interrupt the flow of speech of the conversation partner and ask: “What did you say?” – “Hui.” – “And what did you mean with that?” – “Le jour d’hui.” In order to avoid such an uneconomic digression in the case of words which have become too short in the course of language history, the speaker prefers to produce the more explicit syntactic periphrase immediately. It has enough morphological structure that the listener understands the word without having to ask, even when it is articulated carelessly. In Lüdtke’s Funnel completely comprehensible expressions are phonetically reduced up to the point at which they can hardly be understood without asking, and are then embedded in a new syntactic construction so that they become comprehensible again immediately. The continuous phonetic reduction is compensated by discontinuous repair measures on a morpho-syntactic level. For our example, such a development is also foreseeable in German, as is shown by the meanwhile common expression heutigentags (contracted from heutigen Tages). With its four syllables (heu + ti + gen + tags), this expression has the same length as the Old High German hi + u + ta + gu, and it is only a question of time – which must however be calculated in centuries – until heutigentags will have replaced our word heute. With heutigentags, as incidentally also with heutzutage, we currently designate a longer time interval than with aujourd’hui, but that was once also the case with aujourd’hui and can change in German as well. Worth mentioning in this context is the – meanwhile completely normal – French formulation au jour d’aujourd’hui for ‘nowadays’. It is based

4 on three-fold repetition of the French or Latin form for ‘day’: “*au jour d’aujourd’ hō diē” (‘on the day of the day of this day’). On the basis of Lüdtke’s Funnel it is easy to understand in which way the tendency to minimize the effort for phonetic articulation generally determines the structure of verbal expressions in oral communication. In addition it becomes understandable how the million- fold repetition of the same reduction process finally leads to a transformation of the language system. The reduced form (hui), which has become cumbersome for efficient communication, is being increasingly replaced by the syntactically expanded form, until it is considered outdated and completely disappears.26 We have here a case of an endogenous language change, which takes place independently of possible influences through the use of other sign systems. This type of endogenous change occurs in all languages of the world and can always be detected within historical evidence which goes back far enough. What keeps Lüdtke’s Funnel going is the striving for sign economy within situations of oral communication. The speaker hopes for an advantage from conveying a message to the addressee, but would like to keep the cognitive and articulative effort necessary for sign production as low as possible: he strives for production economy. The addressee hopes for an advantage from understanding the speaker’s message, but would like to keep the necessary perceptive and cognitive effort for sign reception also to a minimum: he strives for reception economy. The two communication partners on the one hand have shared interests because they both want communication to be felicitous. On the other hand they also have antagonistic interests since each wants to pay as little as possible for the mutual benefit. This behavior is tolerated to a certain degree by the respective partner. When the addressee is hardly listening, the speaker can increase his effort and speak louder or phrase his message more explicitly so that the message arrives nonetheless. And when the speaker formulates carelessly, the addressee can try to reconstruct what the speaker wanted to say by drawing conclusions from what has already been said and from the context of the conversation situation. A lack of reception effort can therefore be compensated by increased production effort and vice versa. Within certain limits the effort used can shift between speaker and addressee, even if the sum of their efforts necessary for felicitous communication remains constant. It is therefore useful to abstain from differentiating between speaker and addressee and to speak indiscriminately of the performance effort which is required for felicitous communication. In the same way, the production economy of the speaker and the reception economy of the listener can be summarized in performance economy. When both communication partners are equally interested in felicitous communication, no one profits from reducing his/her part in the performance effort so drastically that the other cannot compensate by increased efforts. For when the first communication attempt fails, it becomes necessary to ask questions, which increases effort for communication sharply on both sides.

5 In order to minimize this risk, each communication partner usually makes slightly more effort than necessary. The speaker articulates only with a minimum amount of precision, but balances this by a syntactically relatively redundant formulation. The addressee listens only with a minimum of attention, but balances this with the anticipation of what the speaker could say and through the use of additional information from the conversation situation. This is the constellation which lies at the basis of Lüdtke’s Funnel. Provided there are suitable measures of effort, we can try to calculate the production effort of the speaker and the reception effort of the addressee. All communication partners do this intuitively: the addressee can judge very well when the effort reduction on the side of the speaker (for example his mumbling) becomes unreasonable; and also the speaker can estimate when the effort reduction on the side of the addressee (for example his roaming eyes) becomes unreasonable. The skill of both lies in avoiding such a case. In the ideal case both strive for an equal distribution of the whole performance effort on the production side and the reception side. Such an effort distribution may be called “performance balance”. The point of Lüdtke’s Funnel is that he makes performance economy responsible for the system change of language. The transition of the old expression variant (hui) to the new (au jour d’hui > aujourd’hui) has the advantage that it considerably diminishes the danger of a disruption of the performance balance. In addition to the performance effort in the use of language for communicative purposes (communicative effort), one can investigate the performance effort in the use of language for cognitive purposes (cognitive effort). And in addition to the complexity of performance in sign use, the complexity of the sign system used can be investigated. Alongside the striving for performance economy there is also a striving for system economy. I now want to demonstrate this using the example of number representation. There we will have to do less with system transformation than with replacement of systems.

4. Number representation All European languages have at their disposal word formation rules for the construction of verbal designations for the natural numbers. These rules have considerably changed due to the repeated replacement of the language-external systems of number representation over the course of the millennia. In the Ancient world, counting with quantities such as threescore, score, stook and dozen (1 threescore = 60 pieces = 3 score = 4 stook = 5 dozen27) was supplemented with the introduction of tens and powers of ten (one, two, three ...; ten, twenty, thirty ...; one hundred, two hundred, three hundred ...) corresponding to the Roman number representation system. Slight exceptions in the number words today (we say twenty, twenty one, twenty two ..., but ten, eleven, twelve) still provide evidence of the Ancient competition between the two sign systems – and that in French much more clearly than in English or German.28 Since the 12th century the Roman numerals were joined by the Indo- Arabic number representation system, which pushed its way through between the 15th and

6 17th centuries everywhere in Europe as a leading number code. In the European languages it left no further traces other than a new number word (null). However, through language- independent operation it gained its own weight as a symbol system besides the languages and was thus to become the basis of the symbol systems of arithmetic and algebra. The advantages of the Indo-Arabic system in comparison to the Roman one are obvious. It allows − the representation of numbers of any size without ad-hoc methods, while the Roman system lacks numerals with values higher than one million, − the writing and reading of numbers over 100 with more ease, − the carrying out of operations such as multiplication and division on paper, while the Roman system requires the recoding of numbers from paper to a calculating instrument (the abacus) and after calculation back onto paper.29 These advantages were very practical for administration, trade, and banking and led to a similar increase in efficiency as the introduction of electronic data processing in the 20th century, which has made money transactions without cash and without paperwork commonplace. The transition to Indo-Arabic number representation also had theoretical consequences, which are equally comparable to those of the introduction of electronic calculating. The new sign systems facilitate not only number representation but also calculation with number representations. They make numbers accessible which appeared unreachable before. They thus encourage raising questions which could not be formulated without them. Theoretical mechanics based on differential calculus and theoretical astronomy based on integral calculus could not have been developed by using Roman numerals, just as today the proof procedures in computer-based mathematics could not be performed by calculating with pencil and paper. This development shows how significant an efficient sign system is for the practical development and theoretical penetration of a field. It creates possibilities for action and thought30 and at the same time determines their limits. System-transcending messages require ad-hoc methods, thus increasing the complexity of their formulation to an extent which deters from the pursuit of further ideas. Just think of the question why the Greeks, whose geometry was unsurpassed for two thousand years, remained way behind the Babylonians in arithmetic; or the question why the Chinese, who had invented gun powder and porcelain long before the Europeans, left it to the Europeans to develop the theoretical knowledge which triggered the industrial revolution. The answers to both questions are connected with number representation.31 Signs and culture are dependent on each other like a frame and the tendrils of a climbing plant: the frame has to be extended when the tendrils have grown away from the frame in too many places, and the tendrils will not grow further when they are not being supported by the frame.

7 However, the replacement of the old frame through a new one is connected with costs – costs which can be so high that they do not appear to be justified for the expected use. Even at the beginning of the Modern Age the conflict between the innovators and those who wanted to continue working with Roman numerals was bitter. For the numbers which could be read on the fingers of both hands the Romans had used simple sign combinations which were supported by the idea of the hand as a collection of five units. Now new basic signs had to be learnt in their place, which did not appear to have any relation to fingers and hands: “2” for “II”, “3” for “III”, “4” for “IV”, “5” for “V”, “6” for “VI”, etc. Beyond this, unprecedented conceptual innovations had to be accepted: (1) Context-dependent : Roman numerals have a constant number (“I” designates everywhere 1, “V” denotes everywhere 5), while the “1” and “5” in “125” and in “521” seem to stand for completely different values, depending on their position within the numeral expression. (2) New interpretation procedures for the combination of signs into complex signs: While Roman number representation manages with the addition and subtraction of the values of manifest basic signs (“VI” designates V added to I, “IV” designates I subtracted from V), Indo-Arabic number representation requires a higher type of calculation, multiplication, which is used to determine the position value of the basic signs (in “25”, read from right to left, the product of 5 and 100 is added to the product of 2 and 101, in “125” the product of 5 and 100 is added to the product of 2 and 101 and to the product of 1 and 102).32 (3) Figures which do not seem to designate anything: The zero in Indo-Arabic number representation was hard to deal with for the normal Europeans. That the addition of nothing (“0”) to something (e.g. “2”) should, in the case of “20”, have the effect of multiplication by 10, appeared as devil’s work to the contemporaries of Adam Riese. The semiotic perplexity with respect to the zero – a sign, in which something (as sign carrier) connected with nothing (as a value) was supposed to generate a manifold (through combination with other number signs) – had the effect that in European national languages the Arabic word for “zero”, as-sifr, became a general expression for incomprehensible, secret, and magic signs, as in the English word cipher and the French chiffre. Despite these difficulties, the Indo-Arabic number representation system in the end replaced the Roman numerals. Today it is one of the few globally used ideographic sign systems, and its utilization appears so obvious to us that we tend to consider the scruples of our ancestors absurd and must laboriously reconstruct them in order to understand them.

8 5. System effort: complementarity of repertoire and rules What was achieved in the field of number representation we still have to achieve in the field of language according to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. In primary language acquisition as well as in learning a second language at school, children have for centuries been stumbling on so-called “exceptions” in all countries: In German we say einundzwanzig, zweiundzwanzig, dreiundzwanzig ..., but not *einundzehn, *zweiundzehn, *dreiundzehn ...; alongside the present tense Peter siegt we form the past tense Peter siegte, but we are not allowed to form *Peter liegte from Peter liegt or *Peter biegte from Peter biegt. When students simplify the rule system for word formation and word inflection in such a way, teachers circle it as a “mistake”, and psychologists diagnose “overgeneralization”.33 If the previous generation would not defend their idiosyncrasies so strongly (see also the current German debate over spelling reform), then the language learners would long have simplified the language system so much that the effort for its learning would only constitute a fraction of today’s effort. In the learning of a language one tends to avoid superfluous effort to the same extent as in its use in ordinary communication. The effort for the acquisition of basic language signs (words or morphemes) and grammatical rules, as well as the memory capacity used for them, can be subsumed under system effort. The system effort is dependent on the complexity of a sign system and this is measured mainly on the basis of the number of signs in the sign repertoire and the number of rules for the combination of the basic signs. Exceptions to the rules increase the system effort through the need to learn additional basic signs (such as German elf for 11 and zwölf for 12) or to acquire rules with a minimal domain of application (for example: “German verbs, in which the root syllable ends in -ing, form the past tense not through the addition of -t, but through the changing of the root vowel to - a-, which is why it is not *singte, *springte, *schwingte, but sang, sprang, schwang”). It is clear that a sign system with less basic signs and less rules for equal performance is more economic than the original system. In this sense all language learners strive for system economy. In the treatment of performance economy I spoke of performance balance, which exists between speaker and addressee if the overall effort necessary for felicitous communication is equally distributed among them. Analogously we can speak of system balance in a sign system if the necessary effort for the learning of the system is equally distributed among the sign repertoire and the rule system. This can again be demonstrated well with the number words as a subsystem of German. If the numbers from 11 to 19 were designated according to the scheme ONES-und-TENS (by *einundzehn, *zweiundzehn, *dreiundzehn, ... *neunundzehn such as in einundzwanzig, zweiundzwanzig, dreiundzwanzig ...), the learner of German could extend the application of the word formation rule for the numbers 20 to 99 onto the numbers from 11 to 99. In reality, however, the learner only has the choice either to learn nine additional basic signs (elf, zwölf, dreizehn, … neunzehn) or to

9 learn two basic signs (elf, zwölf) and to acquire a rule which is only valid for the seven words from dreizehn to neunzehn: “The number words for 13 to 19 are simply formed according to the scheme ONES-TENS without the use of und.” The special problem of whether this learning task assigned by today’s German can be more efficiently solved through the learning of seven additional basic signs or through postulating one additional rule with an extremely limited domain of application is a question which concerns system balance. The answer depends on how the effort for the learning of one basic sign is generally related to the effort for the acquisition of one rule. If the acquisition of a rule does not require more effort than the learning of a basic sign, then it is worthwhile in our case to learn the rule and to treat the seven number words in question as complex signs. Languages which are not regimented by long tradition and state institutions (such as the school system) attain greater system economy surprisingly quickly. This can be observed in the case of Creole languages. Creole languages emerge in regions of the world in which people without a shared language are forced to create an efficient instrument of communication without relying on the norms of a traditional language.34 The more people communicate by means of a Creole language, the more efficient it becomes and the more rules it develops. In this stage of language growth there is rarely a need for the elimination of exceptions. Creole languages are challenging for linguists because they require standardization and the introduction of a writing system, not because they need grammatical simplification. For state administered old cultures bound by long traditions the option to improve the system economy of their languages through the spontaneous creation of Creole languages is not available. This is why proposals have been made on how intervention from above could transform each national language for itself or all of them together into a more easily acquired sign system with the same range of applications. 35 In Europe, proposals for intervention of this type have increased in particular since Latin, the mediaeval universal language, was replaced by French in the 17th century. The analysis of such proposals reveals not only the various political aims but also the various historical states of the art in sign theory and . What entered general consciousness were mostly the semiotic misunderstandings connected with these proposals. This explains why, despite one century of intensive theoretical and organizational efforts, the so-called auxiliary world languages Volapük, Esperanto and Ido are surrounded by a mysterious aura, which is reminiscent of the mystification of the Indo-Arabic number representation in the early Modern Age. The currently most successful movement of this type, Esperanto, meanwhile has countless (more or less competent) speakers, who live predominantly in the smaller language communities of Europe and Asia; it has accumulated 40,000 volumes with texts written in Esperanto or translated into Esperanto, which are available in London, Rotterdam, and La-Chaux-de-

10 Fonds (Switzerland).36 The average European or American, however, when asked about Volapük, Esperanto or Ido, associates them more with “Abracadabra” or “Open Sesame”. This should not be so for semioticians, since apart from the difficulties of their practical acceptance, the international planned languages have theoretical aspects which make their analysis highly rewarding.

6. Writing The history of language planning is closely connected with the history of language-related codes and with the history of linguistics. The most important language-related codes are the various writing systems of the world.37 Their introduction has enormously increased the possibilities of language use in the last millennia and thus shaped the structure of the language system in a similar way as oral communication. Writing makes verbal utterances available outside the situation in which they are produced and helps humans to overcome the context-dependence of speaking. Not only administration and science, literature and philosophy, also language planning would never have been able to develop to its present state without procedures of written notation. All planned languages are written languages in a certain sense. However, already the choice of the writing system is a decision which not only influences language use but also the language system in a way as serious as all further proposals of language planning. That can be seen, when the development of the European written languages is traced back to its beginning, the invention of the alphabet in the second millennium BC. Someone wanting to record a verbal utterance precisely cannot use a thought script such as the Aztec and Mayan idiograms, nor a word script such as the Chinese logograms; what is required is a sound script. The most natural linguistic sound script is a syllabic code, i.e., a writing system in which the sounds of speech are segmented into sequences of syllables and in which each syllable is represented by a written figure: When chanting, children everywhere have no trouble segmenting sentences into chains of syllables. And syllabic writing systems have arisen independently of one another in many parts of the world. However, the dominant writing systems in the world today are not syllabic, but alphabetic. This type of writing constructs every syllable as a sequence of smaller sound segments, each represented by a written figure: a letter. In contrast to syllables, the discovery of these sound segments presents children with great difficulties that can only be overcome after years of laborious practice in school. And such difficulties are hardly surprising in view of the fact that in many cases (e.g., in diphthongs and affricates) alphabetically induced sound segments have never been acoustically attested as physical segments of the sound stream or auditively isolated as parts of sensory perception. It is simply not the case that any given sound complex can be segmented into a consistent and

11 complete sequence of non-overlapping sub-syllabic parts that can each be designated by a letter and recognized as a specific speech sound when reproduced; nor can each given letter in an alphabetic script be assigned the same acoustic or auditive sound in all words in which the letter occurs.38 These shortcomings are not limited to alphabetic writing systems which have developed naturally; they are also found in sound systems postulated by linguists. Sub- syllabic language sounds are cultural constructs imposed by the practice of spelling.39 When we analyze a word by means of alphabetically induced sound segments, we are not discovering its inherent sound structure; instead, we are simply utilizing a coding procedure based on cultural conventions. How could such an unnatural type of writing which so deeply interferes with the sound structure of words in all languages have arisen at all? And why has it spread over the whole world? The answer to these two questions again draws on considerations of sign economy: system effort as well as performance effort. Let us first answer the question of origin. Since the structure of alphabetic writing systems is obviously not determined by the sound structure of languages, the for their historical success must be sought elsewhere.40 The alphabet is a Semitic invention, and Semitic languages are inflecting languages which share one grammatical idiosyncrasy: In conjunction and declension (and even in word derivation), the consonant clusters constituting the syllabic framework of a word are left untouched, whereas the vowels are modified (and suffixes, prefixes, and infixes are added). Thus, the Arabic lexical morpheme ktb (‘write’) occurs in the following forms: kataba (‘he wrote’), uktub (‘write’), kitāb (‘something written’, ‘book’), and kutūbī (‘someone who deals with written materials’, ‘bookseller’).41 While the lexical morpheme and the meaning ‘write’ are preserved in all word forms, the vowels – and thus the additional grammatical meanings – alternate. In Semitic languages the vowels can therefore be said to vary in two senses: a) phonetically, they cannot be fixed in most syllables as unambiguous segments of the sound stream; b) grammatically, they differ according to the inflectional and derivational forms of a word. A grammarian describing word-inflection in an Indo-European language would not have seen much point in classifying sub-syllabic sound segments into vowels and other segments, because the criterion for this classification is essentially a grammatical one, originating in a grammar that has no systematic validity for Indo-European languages. However, for the Phoenician merchants who first used the alphabet, the distinction between vowels and other linguistic sound complexes was quite natural. They transcribed each of the above-mentioned word forms with ktb, abstracting from the vowels altogether. Important here is that expressions of this type were understood as designating syllable sequences with empty slots, which were left open in the transcription since they could be

12 filled with different vowels depending on the inflectional or derivational properties of the word form involved. Thus the writing system of the Phoenicians can be regarded as a syllabic script specially adapted to the grammatical structure of the Semitic languages by leaving undesignated those elements which varied according to word inflection and derivation. The first to create a genuine alphabetic writing system were the Greeks. At the beginning of the first millennium BC, they adopted the grammatically motivated syllable script of the Phoenicians, reinterpreting certain syllable signs to meet the requirements of their Indo-European language. The first letter of the Phoenician alphabet (spoken Phoenician ’aleph, Greek alpha, Latin a) provides us with an example. For the Phoenicians, ’aleph stood for a syllable introduced by a glottal stop (e.g., ’a, ’i, ’u; cf. German be’achten). In Greek, the glottal stop has no systematic linguistic function, and so the Greeks gave ’aleph the sound value ’a, utilizing what they thought was the beginning of the Phoenician citation form of the letter. Greek iota, Latin i, also arose in this way from Phoenician yōd, as did Greek omikron, Latin o, from Phoenician ’ayin.42 Thus the introduction of an alphabetic writing system was made possible by two independent developments: (1) the grammatically conditioned distinction between varying and constant sub- syllabic sounds in Phoenician and (2) the use of written signs in Greek for the designation not only of the syllable parts that were constant but also for those that varied (phonetically and grammatically in Semitic and only phonetically in Greek). These developments were eminently semiotic in character: Through continued use, a practical instrument for the fixing of sounds that had a language-specific origin and was then insufficiently adapted to other languages fundamentally changed the manner in which speech was perceived. a) Ancient grammarians already tended to rationalize the introduction of the alpha- betic writing system by claiming that there were two kinds of speech sounds: consonants, the stopping points, and vowels, the transitions in the sound stream. In Hebrew, the vowels (Greek phonēeta, Latin sonantes, German Selbstlaute, ‘independent sounds’) have been called “movables”, and the consonants (Greek symphona, Latin consonantes, German Mitlaute, ‘dependent sounds’) have been called “constants” up to the present day. b) By projecting the structure of Greek and Latin word transcriptions back onto the sound structure of the words, three thousand years of writing procedures have established the folk conception that spoken words are chains of elements similar to those of their written counterparts. Spelling practice in primary schools has induced the average literate European to “hear” sound sequences below the level

13 of the syllable. So a construction neither physically present nor acoustically recordable, one which originally possessed no correspondent in the perception of Indo-European language speakers, has been transformed into a psychological reality by the habits involved in using a language-related code. Not only alphabetized laymen claim to be capable of hearing the structure of the letter sequences, also the linguists of spelling cultures, who should have understood and scientifically analyzed the outlined process from the beginning, have given way to its suggestive power. Saussure43 in fact notices that the sound flow (“ruban amorphe”) considered for itself does not provide a basis for a systematic segmentation below the syllable level. But that does not stop him from claiming that those who know the functions of the segments can structure the sound flow into a chain of individual sounds (“chaîne phonique”). When sound analysis developed into its academic versions as phonology44, phonemics45, and phonematics46, spelling procedures attained the status of a linguistic method: are meaning-differentiating sound complexes which are conceived as sound segments by analogy to letters. Only after the technology used in sound analysis had made further progress, did it become obvious that a physical realization of phonemes is impossible. Thus the segmentation of a sound flow into a sequence of phonemes could be unmasked for what it is: a useful cultural technique, not a way of scientifically describing a linguistic reality.47 I have outlined the history of sound writing in such detail in order to show to what degree we may fall pray to mystifications of the structure of language because of lack of linguistic knowledge. A typical mystification of many phonologists, phonemicists, and phonematicians is the assumption that phonemes sometimes have sub-phonemic variants but that these are theoretically negligible, practically irrelevant and rather harmful for smooth communication. This misunderstanding caused by the notation-based description practice has severely hindered comprehension of system changes on the sound level: they tend to appear as unexplainable accidents. And it seduced linguists into the view that the language with the least variants is the best language. At this point these considerations become relevant for the evaluation of historical efforts in language planning: language planners seriously wanted to create languages in which each letter has the same pronunciation wherever it occurs. A typical formulation of this ideal appears in the “Vollständige Grammatik der Internationalen Sprache” by Louis de Beaufront48 (acknowledged by Louis Couturat): “All remaining letters of the above listed alphabet are pronounced as in good German, and always the same way regardless of their position in the word.” This is a suggestion which postulates an oral absurdity. It is not realizable for the articulation apparatus of humans. It was realized, however, by the oversimplifying machines for synthetic speech generation used well into the 1990s. They are now being increasingly replaced by machines which apply a diphone or triphone analysis and thus work syllabically.49 The flagrant contravention of principles of natural

14 pronunciation has turned the products of the outdated machines into symbols of how humans are fascinated and repressed by the misuse of technological progress. This is demonstrated by classical songs of electronic rock – for example the “Kraftwerk” song from 1978 “We are the Robots ...”.

7. Coding effort: complementarity of system effort and performance effort Since the Phoenicians, a segmental alphabetic system of writing has not been not invented a second time. However, the system of the Phoenicians has been preserved and has spread throughout the entire world in its Greek, Latin, Cyrillic, Persian, and Indian varieties. How can this be explained?50 The main advantage of alphabetic sound recording over syllabic and other scripts does not lie in its adequacy of sound representation but rather in its economy. This can be shown when one compares the efforts required for learning and using various types of scripts. In order to demonstrate this point, let us again consider number representation. Ancient codes such as those of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Roman numerals needed a set of basic signs; in order to represent all the natural numbers below 10,000, the Egyptian writers used 5 simple hieroglyphs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ; the Romans employed 10 basic signs: I, V, X, L, C, D, M, D), ((I)), I))). In both numeral codes, the construction of complex signs followed a simple syntactic rule: juxtaposition. For the interpretation of complex numeral signs, the Egyptians proceeded according to a simple semantic rule: “add the values of adjacent constituent parts”; the Romans needed two rules: “add or subtract the values of adjacent constituent parts depending on their size relation.  (a) when the value of the left numeral is smaller than that of the right numeral, it must be subtracted from it, (b) when the value of the left numeral is bigger than that of the right numeral, it must be added to it”. With twice as many basic signs and twice as many semantic rules the Romans required a greater system effort than the Egyptians; but that was directly compensated by a reduction of performance effort in the production and reception of numeral signs: For the representation of a number such as 2407, the Egyptians needed 13 basic signs (4433331111111), the Romans only 7 (MMCDVII). System effort and performance effort thus stand in an inverse relation to each other. The more is invested in order to simplify a recurrent task, the less one needs CCCC for its daily completion. The transition to the Indo-Arabic numeral code shifted the relation between system effort and performance effort even more to the advantage of performance. Like the Roman, this system also requires 10 basic signs and one simple syntactic rule (juxtaposition) for the construction of complex signs; however, learning to interpret complex numeral signs is much more difficult in it, because it requires multiplication with changing powers of 10 not designated by basic signs (see above, section 4). The rewards for this extra learning effort include not only shortening of complex signs but also the extension of the sign domain to virtual infinity and the possibility of computing

15 mathematical problems on paper, an operation which requires computing machines (such as the abacus) in other numeral systems. In written codes of the natural languages, the relationship between system effort and performance effort plays a similar role: − Logogram scripts such as those of the Chinese require a huge learning effort and thereby permit very time-saving communication. In modern Chinese, approximately 6000 – 8000 word signs are standardly used; a more differentiated text contains up to 10,000. An official dictionary from 1716 encompassed 50,000 word signs, and there are up to 80,000 different signs known to scholars of Chinese writing. On the other hand a Chinese text is very short, because it requires only one basic sign for each word.51 − Syllablic scripts in contrast, function with an inventory of under 1000 elementary signs; in languages with a simple syllable structure, such as Japanese, their number can even decrease to less than 100. However, this reduction in learning effort also means a corresponding increase in performance effort, since the average word must generally be represented as a complex sign consisting of several basic signs. − Recoding syllables into sequences of letters in alphabetic scripts reduces the number of basic signs to between 20 and 50. However, word and text length increases even more. − The most extreme example of basic-sign reduction is provided by the Morse code, which employs only three basic signs (dot, dash and space). However, morse texts are several times longer than others, and the speed of production and of reception (reading rate) slows down correspondingly. Just as number representation has reached an optimal balance between system effort and performance effort in the Indo-Arabic system for the purposes of trade and industry, writing systems appear to have found the best compromise in the alphabet script.52

8. Song: complementarity of language and music Sound languages allow communication by conveying semantic information with acoustic signs. However, acoustic signs also play a role in music. This raises the question of how language differs from music as a sign system and which information is conveyed by musical signs. This question can again be approached best if we compare the language-related codes with music-related codes, in particular the notation procedure of alphabetic writing with that of the music score. Also here, a glance back into history may assist understanding. In my treatment of the Phoenician alphabetic script I left a question unanswered which has caused the learned a lot of worry: How could the Phoenician script actually fulfill its

16 task of preserving the exact wording of a Semitic utterance, when it only notates the lexical morphemes of the language and leaves the grammatical ones undesignated? When a writer can use ktb to stand for each of the word forms kataba, uktub, kitāb and kutūbī, how is it possible for the reader to identify the one word form the writer has in mind? The following considerations are decisive here: (1) Information gaps in sound transcriptions can only be systematically filled when there is a choice from a finite (and preferably small) set of elements. While the set of lexical morphemes of a language may be freely augmented and thus is virtually infinite, the number of grammatical morphemes (in word inflection and derivation) is quite limited and not easy to increase. Grammatical morphemes thus constitute a restricted paradigm from which the appropriate form can be chosen by trial and error. (2) The verbal and non-verbal context of an expression provides clues for determining which of the possible alternatives for the interpretation of that expression is the correct one. Awareness of adjacent words, knowledge of the objects and states of affairs designated, and hypotheses on author intention and purpose provide a network of indicators that can reduce the number of appropriate interpretations to very few, given the right kind of circumstances. Generally speaking, the systematic filling of information gaps in text understanding is only possible when a choice can be made among the fixed small number of morphemes in a grammar and not among the extendible number of morphemes in a lexicon. What is of interest in this connection is the fact that not one traditional notation system reproduces the sound complexes in all their aspects. Not only Phoenician alphabetic writing, but also every other known notation system leaves certain properties of the notated sign complexes undetermined. The dimension recorded most precisely is the one regarded as most essential by the sign user. This is the principle of dimension dominance. Its validity can be shown in language notation as well as in the notation of music. In order to characterize a sound complex with a single source completely, one must describe it according to the dimensions of pitch, timbre (the overtones involved), volume, and duration. 53 However, no traditional system of sound notation represents all of these dimensions with the same degree of precision.

1. In classical Western music scores54 we find the following: a. a pitch is always designated in absolute values on a scale; b. duration is always designated in relative values given by type of note (with reference to a basic tempo generally not specified in absolute terms); c. volume is only designated occasionally, and if so, then approximately by means of vague, context-dependent linguistic terms (e.g., piano, forte); d. timbre is mostly not designated at all, and if so, then only through an indication of the type of instrument (e.g., violin, bassoon).

17 But how do we ascertain what is essential for the listener of music? This can be derived from the conditions under which he assumes a piece played at time t2 to be “the same” as a 55 piece played at t1 : criterion of identity for the listener of Western music is neither volume, nor tempo, nor timbre, but rather the relative duration of the tones and their pitch. If the same pitches are played louder, faster, and with a different instrument at time t2 , then we say: “The musician played the same piece (differently).” However, if the same instrument is played at the same tempo and volume to produce a different sequence of pitches (disregarding the transposition of the entire tone sequence into a different key), then we say: “The musician played a different piece (in a similar way).”

2. The writing of the Indo-European languages functions analogously to music notation but treats the four dimensions differently. We thus find the following for texts written in the Roman alphabet: a. timbre (the phonetic character or manner of articulation of the given syllable) is always designated in absolute values by a chain of letters; b. duration is generally designated in relative values, e.g., as long or short vowels (with reference to a certain basic speech tempo never specified in absolute terms); c. volume is seldom designated, and if so, then only approximately with accent marks; d. pitch (intonation, melody) is generally not designated at all (and can at most be derived from sentence meaning and accenting). As in the case of musical notation, what is essential for the hearer of verbal utterances can again be derived from the conditions under which a text spoken at time t2 is considered “the same” as a text spoken at time t1: criterion of identity for the hearer of an utterance in an Indo-European language is neither pitch, nor volume, nor tempo, but rather the timbre of the sounds. If the same syllables are spoken louder, faster, or with a different pitch at time t2, then we say: “The speaker spoke the same text (differently).” However, if different syllables are produced at time t2 with the same sequence of pitches (intonation) at the same speed and volume, we say: “The speaker spoke a different text (in a similar way).” The dominant dimension – that is the dimension, on which the identification of the signs depends – is notated with the highest precision. It determines not only the recognition of the signs, but also has a leading function for their interpretation. It delivers the information which is viewed as most relevant in the semiotic system concerned. With regard to the respective dominant dimensions, classical Western music and European languages stand in a complementary relation to each other. Pitch, which plays the main role in music and its notation, has a subordinated function in language and writing. Timbre, which plays the main role in language and writing, has a subordinated function in music and its notation. The remaining dimensions lie in-between so that it is possible to speak of two inverse dimension hierarchies.56

18 Timbre and pitch are independent dimensions of one and the same sound event. A person wanting to utter a word (which is a sound-color sequence) can choose many different pitches, and wanting to utter a sequence of pitches (intonation) he/she can choose many different words. As a result of this fact we are able to combine language and music in one and the same utterance. In fact, each sentence has an optimal pitch course (intonation), but this is not necessary for its identification. The sentence is even recognized when its intonation, i.e., the sentence melody, changes. The same applies for a melody. A person singing a melody must produce some sequence of timbres which carries the melody. For this he/she can use meaningless syllable structures such as “tra-la-la” and “tä-te-rä-tä”, the components of which partly go back to the babbling phase of language acquisition. However, he/she can also use verbal morphemes. This then results in a song. Without the complementarity of language and music, which becomes obvious in their notation in the inverse precision hierarchies of the sound dimensions, singing would not be possible. But what does a song communicate which a written text alone or a music score alone could not communicate? The answer becomes evident when we once again consider the writing practice of the Phoenicians and its continuation in European alphabet scripts. Phoenician written texts were mainly concerned with semantic information necessary to characterize goods to be transported from one harbor to the next. Pragmatic information on the purposes of the senders, on the reliability of their messages, and on their assessment of the addressees were not formulated but presupposed. And even today in the Indo-European as in the Semitic languages, the semantic content of a message is generally viewed as its most relevant information. It is mainly communicated through the sequence of timbres (syllables). In contrast, pragmatic messages assessing the communication situation are rather expressed through the modulation of speech tempo, volume, and sequence of pitches. Song melodies thus turn out to be stylizations of the communication procedure for pragmatic information57 , while written sequences turn out to be an abstracted way of conveying semantic information. There is much evidence showing that the complementary functioning of language and music in both the Semitic and Indo-European group of cultures developed in connection with the introduction of alphabetic writing. It had the effect of reducing the rich oral language to sequences of timbres with semantic content, and this opened up space for the development of absolute music, in which the sequences of pitches with pragmatic content neglected in writing could unfold optimally without words. The disintegrated system halves can be put together again only by those who are able to listen to oral verbal utterances as songs. If these considerations are correct and the current division of labor between language and music in Indo-European and Semiotic cultures really is script-induced, then the question arises of what supports the current division of labor between language and picture as well as

19 that between language and gesture. This is a problem of a comparable relevance, and it can be solved in a similar way with the methods of cultural semiotics. The treatment of this problem must, however, be reserved for another opportunity.

20 Notes 1. Cf. , Cours de linguistique générale, Lausanne and ; Payot 1916; , Omkring sprogteoriens grundlaeggelse. : English translation Prolegomena to a . Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press 1953; Henning Bergenholtz and Joachim Mugdan, Einführung in die Morphologie, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1979, p. 9-57; Angelika Linke, Markus Nussbaumer and Paul R. Portmann, Studienbuch Linguistik, Tübingen: Niemeyer 1991, p. 13-42; Winfried Nöth, Handbook of Semiotics, Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press 1990, p. 79-294. 2. Cf. Roland Posner, , in: R. Posner, Klaus Robering and Thomas A. Sebeok (eds.), Semiotics. A Handbook on the Sign-Theoretic Foundations of Nature and Culture, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter 1997ff, p. 219-246. 3. Cf. Hans Goebl, Peter H. Nelde, Zdenek Starý and Wolfgang Wölck (eds.), Kontaktlinguistik. Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter 1997ff. 4. Cf. Hartmut Günther and Otto Ludwig (eds.), Schrift und Schriftlichkeit. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch internationaler Forschung, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter 1994-96. 5. Cf. Vladimir Karbusicki, Einführung in die musikalische Semiotik, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1985 as well as Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Musicologie générale et sémiologie, Paris: Bourgois 1987. 6. Cf. Jurij M. Lotman, Die Struktur des künstlerischen Textes, ed. R. Grübel, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp 1973; Wolfgang Iser, Der Akt des Lesens. Theorie ästhetischer Wirkung, Munich: Fink 1976. English translation: The Act of Reading. A Theory of Aesthetic Response, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press 1978; Roland Posner, Poetic Communication versus Literary Language – or: The Linguistic Fallacy in Poetics, in: R. Posner, Rational Discourse and Poetic Communication: Methods of Linguistic, Literary, and Philosophical Analysis. Berlin and New York: Mouton 1982, p. 113-127. 7. Cf. Cornelia Müller, Redebegleitende Gesten: Kulturgeschichte, Theorie, Sprachvergleich, Berlin: Berlin Verlag Arno Spitz 1998. 8. Cf. Roland Posner, The Numbers and Their Signs: History and Economy of Numeral Systems, in: K. Yamanaka and T.Ohori (eds.), The Locus of Meaning. Papers in Honor of Yoshihiko Ikegami, Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers 1998, p.3-16. 9. Cf. Klaus Mainzer, Zeichenkonzeptionen in der Mathematik und Informatik vom 19. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, in: Roland Posner et al. (eds.), Semiotics. A Handbook…, p. 1553-1586.

21 10. Cf. Esther N. Goody (ed.), Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction, Cambridge GB: Cambridge University Press 1978, as well as Gino Eelen, A Critique of Politeness Theories, Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing 2001. 11. Cf. Sybil Dümchen and Michael Nerlich (eds.), Texte – Image / Bild – Text, Berlin: Technical University 1990, as well as Claude Gandelman, Reading Pictures, Viewing Texts, Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press 1991. 12. Cf. Jacques Bertin, Sémiologie graphique: Les diagrammes, les reseaux, les cartes, Paris: Mouton 1967. 13. Cf. Jurij Lotman, Über die Semiosphäre, in: Zeitschrift für Semiotik 12 (1990), p. 287- 305. 14. Cf. Karl Bühler, Sprachtheorie, Jena: Fischer 1934, 2nd edition Stuttgart: Fischer 1968; also see Jörn Albrecht, Europäischer Strukturalismus, Tübingen and Basel: Francke, 2nd edition 2000. 15. Cf. Roland Posner, Kodes als Zeichen, in: Zeitschrift für Semiotik 5 (1983), p. 401-408. 16. Cf. Roland Posner, What is Culture? Towards a Semiotic Explication of Anthropological , in: Walter A. Koch (ed.), The Nature of Culture, Bochum: Brockmeyer 1989, p. 240-295. 17. Cf. , Reflections on Language. New York: Pantheon Books 1975. 18. Cf. Rudi Keller and Helmut Lüdtke, Kodewandel, in: Roland Posner et al. (eds.), Semiotics. A Handbook ..., p. 430. 19. Cf. Penny Boyes Braem, Einführung in die Gebärdensprache und ihre Erforschung, Hamburg: Signum 1990. 20. The logosphere should, however, not be confused with logocentrism, of which reproaches Western cultures (cf. Jacques Derrida, De la grammatologie, Paris: ed. de Minuit 1967; also see the conversation on logocentrism with Julia Kristeva in J. Derrida, Positionen, ed. Peter Engelmann, Vienna: Passagen Edition 1986, p. 52-82). Every human culture in the world has developed a logosphere; “logocentrism” and “phonocentrism”, however, designate a particular view of oral communication, which, according to Derrida, has formed in some cultures that employ a syllablic script or an alphabetic script. This view assigns language a metaphysical priority over all other sign systems, and oral utterances a metaphysical priority over written utterances. No such view is present in the approach that I am pursuing here. 21. Its analysis is the task of language ecology, which is part of ecosemiotics. Cf. Winfried Nöth, Ökosemiotik, in: Zeitschrift für Semiotik 18 (1996), p. 7-18; also see Roland Posner, Semiotic Pollution: Deliberations towards an Ecology of Signs, in: Sign Systems Studies 28 (Tartu 2000), p. 290-308. 22. Cf. Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp 1997, p. 92ff.

22 23. Cf. Helmut Lüdtke, Sprache als kybernetisches System, in: Bibliotheca Phonetica 9 (Basle 1970), p. 34-50. 24. Cf. Helmut Lüdtke, Auf dem Weg zu einer Theorie des Sprachwandels, in: H. Lüdtke (ed.), Kommunikationstheoretische Grundlagen des Sprachwandels, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter 1980, p. 182-252, in particular p. 208f. 25. E.g., the formulation for ‘I give you water’, in Latin acquam tibi dō becomes je te donne de l’eau in modern French. The oral utterance /akwã: tibi do: / with five syllables becomes / jə tə don də l’o: / also with its five syllables, but with partly reduced, partly added morpheme material. 26. Concerning frequency of word use as a factor of language change cf. Gertraud Fenk- Oczlon, Familiarity, Information Flow, and Linguistic Form, in: Joan Bybee and Paul Hopper (eds.), Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure, Amsterdam: John Benjamins 2001, p. 431-448. 27. Cf. Karl Menninger, Zahlwort und Ziffer: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Zahl, 2 volumes, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2nd edition 1958, vol. 1, p. 165. 28. Compare French cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf with cinquante, soixante, soixante-dix, quatre- vingt, quatre-vingt-dix .Cf. Menninger, vol. 1, p. 78; also see James R. Hurford, The Linguistic Study of Numerals, Cambridge GB: Cambridge University Press 1975, as well as Heike Wiese, Zahl und Numerale: Eine Untersuchung zur Korrelation konzeptioneller und sprachlicher Strukturen, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1997. 29. Cf. Roland Posner, The Numbers and Their Signs (see above, note 8). 30. Cf. Roland Posner, Denkmittel als Kommunikationsmittel, in: Zeitschrift für Semiotik 17 (1995), p. 247-256. 31.Cf. Menninger 1958 as well as the chapter “Vom Sinn der Zahlen” in Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, Munich: Beck 1923, new edition 1979, p. 71-124. 32. Cf. the akwardness with which Adam Riese explains the status of numbers in his school book Rechnung auff der Linien unnd Federn / Auff allerley Handtierung (Frankfurt a.M.: Egenolph 1525): “Numerirn heyst zelen / leret wie man iegliche zal schreiben und außsprechen sol / darzu gehoern zehen figurn also beschriben / 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 0. Die ersten neun sind bedeutlich / die zehend gilt alleyn nichts / sonder so sie andern fürgesetzt wirt / macht sie die selbigen mehr bedeuten / Und solt wissen das ein iegliche undergesatzte figur an der ersten stat / das ist gegen der rechten handt bedeut sich selbs / An der andern gegen der lincken handt sovil zehen / an der dritten sovil hundert / und an der vierdten sovil tausent” (p. 6). 33. Cf.. William C. Watt, Grade der Systemhaftigkeit: Zur Homogenität der Alphabetschrift, in : Zeitschrift für Semiotik 5 (1983), p. 377f. 34. Cf. Peter Mühlhäusler, Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Oxford: Blackwell 1986. 35. Cf. Otto Back, Plansprachen. In: Goebl et al. (eds.), Kontaktlinguistik, p. 881-887 (see above, note 3). Also see Klaus Schubert (ed.), Plansprachen: Vom Plan zur Realität,

23 Brussels: Association Belge de Linguistique Appliquée 1998, as well as Alexander D. Dulicenko, Über die Prinzipien einer philosophischen Universalsprache von Jakob Linzbach, in: Zeitschrift für Semiotik 22 (2000), p. 369-385. 36. Cf. Tazio Carlevaro und Günter Lobin (ed.), Einführung in die Interlinguistik. Alsbach, Bergstraße: Leuchtturm-Verlag 1979, p. 130, as well as Back, Plansprachen, p. 885 (see above, note 35). 37. Cf. Florian Coulmas, The Writing Systems of the World, Oxford: Blackwell 1989, as well as Jack Goody, The Logic of Writing and the Organisation of Society, Cambridge GB: Cambridge University Press 1986. 38. Cf., e.g., Herbert Pilch, , Phonemics and Metaphonemics, in: Proceedings of the 9th International Congress of Linguists in Cambridge MA. Paris and Den Haag: Mouton 1964, p. 900-904. 39. Cf. Peter Ladefoged, The Perception of Speech, in: Mechanisation of Thought Processes, London: National Physical Laboratory Vol. 1, Symposia No. 10 (1959), p. 401. 40. Cf. Helmut Lüdtke, Die Alphabetschrift und das Problem der Lautsegmentierung, in: Phonetica 20 (1969), p. 147-176. 41. Cf. Wolfgang Röllig, Die Keilschrift und die Anfänge der Alphabetschrift, in: Studium Generale 18 (1965), p. 729-742. 42. Cf. Lilian H. Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, Oxford: Clarendon 1961: 2ff. 43. Cf. Saussure, Cours …, p. 167 (see above, note 1). 44. Cf. Nicolaj S. Trubetzkoy, Grundzüge der Phonologie, : Cercle Linguistique 1939, 2nd edition Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1958. 45. Cf. , Language, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1933; also see Kenneth L. Pike, Phonemics: A Technique for Reducing Languages to Writing, Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Press 1947. 46. Cf. Hjelmslev, Prolegomena…(see above, note 1) as well as André Martinet, Eléments de linguistique générale, Paris: Armand Colin 1960. German by A. Fuchs: Grundzüge der Allgemeinen Sprachwissenschaft, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1963. 47. Cf. Lüdtke, Die Alphabetschrift ..., p. 148ff (see above, note 40). 48. Cf. Louis de Beaufront, Linguo internacia di la Delegitaro, London: Pitman 1908: 8. 49. Cf. Jean P. Tubach (ed.), La parole et son traitement automatique par CALLIOPE. Pairs: Masson 1989. 50. Cf. Roland Posner, The Numbers and Their Signs (see above, note 8). 51. Cf. Lüdtke, Die Alphabetschrift ..., p. 160 (see above, note 40). 52. It should be emphasized that there is indeed historical and philological evidence which supports such statements on the subject of sign economy but that so far no sufficient experimental proof exists. In this respect a lot of ground still has to be covered within experimental psychosemiotics.

24 53. Cf. Hermann von Helmholtz (1863), Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als physiologische Grundlage für die Theorie der Musik. Braunschweig: Vieweg. 54. Cf. Erhard Karkoschka, Das Schriftbild der neuen Musik, Celle: Moeck 1966, as well as Cecilia Hultberg, The Printed Score as a Mediator of Musical Meaning: Approaches to Music Notation in Western Tonal Tradition, Malmö: Academy of Music 2000. Also see Simone Mahrenholz, Musik und Erkenntnis: Eine Studie im Ausgang von Nelson Goodmans Symboltheorie, Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler 1998, p. 115-128. 55. This constitutes the central focus in Nelson Goodman’s book, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1968, 2nd edition Indianapolis: Hackett 1976. 56. Cf. Harai Golomb, Function-Reversal of Similar Subsystems in Different Auditory- Temporal Systems of Communication: The Roles of Pitch and Timbre in Music and Language, in: Tasso Borbé (ed.), Semiotics Unfolding, Berlin and New York: Mouton 1983, p. 1643-1646. Also see Roland Posner, Balance of Complexity and Hierarchy of Precision: Two Principles of Economy in the Notation of Language and Music, in: Michael Herzfeld and Lucio Melazzo (eds.), Semiotic Theory and Practice, Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter 1988, p. 909-919. 57. Cf. Thomas Betzwieser, Sprechen und Singen: Ästhetik und Erscheinungsformen der Dialogoper, Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler 2001.

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