Identifying meaningful elements Identifying word meanings
المؤلف:
PAUL R. KROEGER
المصدر:
Analyzing Grammar An Introduction
الجزء والصفحة:
P7-C2
2025-12-02
29
Identifying meaningful elements
Identifying word meanings
Consider the following sentence in the Lotuko language of Sudan:
(1) a idulak atulo ema ‘The man is planting grain.’
Although we know the meaning of the sentence as a whole, we cannot be sure what any of the individual words mean. One sentence in isolation tells us almost nothing; we need to compare it with something:
(2) a idulak atulo ema ‘The man is planting grain.’
b idulak atulo aful ‘The man is planting peanuts.’
These two Lotuko sentences constitute a MINIMAL PAIR, because they are identical except for a single element (in this case the final words, ema vs. aful). The beginning of the sentence (idulak atulo . . .) provides a context in which the words ema and aful stand in CONTRAST to each other. Two linguistic elements are said to be in CONTRAST when (i) they can occur in the same environment (s), and (ii) replacing one with the other creates a difference in meaning.1
The examples in (2) allow us to form a HYPOTHESIS that the word ema means ‘grain’ and aful means ‘peanuts.’ It seems quite likely that this hypothesis will turn out to be correct, because it is based on a type of evidence (a minimal pair, or CONTRAST IN IDENTICAL ENVIRONMENTS) which is usually quite reliable. However, any hypothesis based on just two examples is only a first guess– it must be checked against more data. What information do the sentences in (3) provide?
(3)
c ohonya eito erizo ‘The child is eating meat.’
d amata eito aari ‘The child is drinking water.’
Both of these sentences contain the word eito, and the English translation for both sentences contains the phrase the child. This observation suggests the hypothesis that the word eito means ‘the child.’ In this case our hypothesis is based on the assumption that there is a regular association between the recurring Lotuko word (eito) and the recurring element of meaning (‘the child’). This process of identifying recurring elements of form which correlate with recurring elements of meaning is sometimes referred to as the method of RECURRING PARTIALS WITH CONSTANT MEANING (Elson and Pickett 1988:3).
Both of the hypotheses we have reached so far about Lotuko words are based on the assumption that the meaning of a sentence is composed in some regular way from the meanings of the individual words. That is, we have been assuming that sentence meanings are COMPOSITIONAL. Of course, every language includes numerous expressions where this is not the case. Idioms are one common example. The English phrase kick the bucket can mean ‘die,’ even though none of the individual words has this meaning. Nevertheless, the compositionality of meaning is an important aspect of the structure of all human languages.
Based on the four Lotuko sentences we have examined so far, which are repeated in (4), can we determine the meaning of any additional words?
(4) a idulak atulo ema ‘The man is planting grain.’
b idulak atulo aful ‘The man is planting peanuts.’
c ohonya eito erizo ‘The child is eating meat.’
d amata eito aari ‘The child is drinking water.’
We can at least make some guesses, if we assume that the word order is the same in each sentence. The minimal pair in (2) allowed us to identify the words expressing the direct object, and those words occurred at the end of the sentence. The repeated word in (3) expressed the subject, and it occurred in the middle. Assuming that all four sentences have the same word order, then the verb must come first and the order of elements must be Verb–Subject–Object (VSO). Based on this hypothesis, try to identify the unknown words in (4).
This kind of reasoning depends on another important feature of linguistic structure, namely that the arrangement of linguistic units of ten follows a systematic pattern of some kind. We arrived at a hypothesis about the structure of a simple sentence, and used that hypothesis to make some guesses about word meanings. But be careful– a hypothesis based on this kind of reasoning needs to be checked carefully. Many languages do not require consistent word order within a sentence, and most languages allow for some variation in word order. So, we need to look for additional data to test our hypotheses. What evidence does the sentence in (5) provide as to the correctness of your guesses in (4)?
(5) e ohonya odwoti aful ‘The girl is eating peanuts.’
Now use the methods discussed above to find the meanings of any unknown words in (6), confirm or disprove the specific hypotheses stated above, and fill in the blanks for sentences h and i:
(6) Lotuko (Sudan; adapted from Merrifield et al. 1987, prob. 131)
a idulak atulo ema ‘The man is planting grain.’
b idulak atulo aful ‘The man is planting peanuts.’
c ohonya eito erizo ‘The child is eating meat.’
d amata eito aari ‘The child is drinking water.’
e ohonya odwoti aful ‘The girl is eating peanuts.’
f abak atulo ezok ‘The man hit the dog.’
g amata odwoti aari ‘The girl is drinking water.’
h ____________ ‘The girl hit the child.’
i ohonya ezok erizo _______________
Let us review what we have learned so far. We have identified three types of evidence that can be used to form hypotheses about the meanings of words: minimal contrast, recurring partials, and pattern-matching. These methods cannot be applied to a single example in isolation, but involve comparing two or more examples. The methods work best if the examples are reasonably similar to each other. In this data set, all the sentences contain the same three elements in the same order (verb, subject, object), and the same specific words are used over and over. So, selecting the right data and organizing them in the right way are crucial steps in analyzing the grammatical patterns of a language.
The methods of recurring partials and minimal contrast simply allow us to identify new words. The recognition of structural patterns in the data (e.g. the VSO word order) not only helps us to identify new forms but also allows us to use the language creatively, that is, to produce or understand sentences we have never heard before (as in [6h, i]). In those examples, our hypothesis about the rule of sentence formation enabled us to make predictions that could be tested by consulting native speakers of Lotuko. It is important that our analysis of the grammar be stated in a way that allows us to make clear and testable predictions. Otherwise, there is no way to be sure whether our claims about the language are correct or not.
1. When substituting one form for another does not produce a difference in meaning, we say that the two forms are in FREE VARIATION with each other, at least in that particular context.
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