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Tres problemas de concordancia verbal en el espaǹol moderno
396
Reviews
Ritter, H., 1967. 1968, 1971. T u r 6 y 6 . Die Volkssprache der syrischen Christen des T fir Abdi'n. A. Texte. 3 vols. Beirut: Orient-Inst. der DMG]Wiesbaden, Steiner. Robins, R.H., 1973. The history of language classification. In: -r.A. Sebeok (ed.), Current trends in linguistics. Vol. I 1. The Hague, Paris: Mor~ton, 3 - 4 1 . Sasse, H.-J., 1972. Kuschitistik 1972. Paper given at the 18th Deutscher Orientalistentag, Lubeek, Oct. 1972. Tsereteti, K.G., 1964. S o v r e m e n n y j assirijskij jazyk. Moscow: Nauka. Uilendorff, E., 1958. What is a Semitic language? Or 27, 6 6 - 7 5 . Ullendorff, E., 1961. Comparative Semitics. I n : G.Levi della Vida (ed.), 1 3 - 3 2 . Rome: Universita di Roma, Centr~ di Studi Semitici. Vergote, J 1945. Phondtique historique de l egyptlen: les consonnes. Biblioth~que du 'Muse'on' 19. Louvain: Bureaux du 'MuseCon'. Vergote, J., 1947. Le s.vs: ~me phonologiquc du moyen-dgyptien. (;LECS 4, 5"/--61. Worrell, W.H , 1934. Copl'ic Sounds. With an appendix by Hide Shohara. University of Michigaa Studies. Humanistic Series 26. A n n Arbor: University of Michigan Press, Zaborski, A., 1970. Cushitic languages - an unexplored s u b c o n t i n e n t . Bulletin ,,f the Intern;~tional Committee on Jrgent Anthropological and Ethnological Research 12, 119 -28. • 1
~r
.
Gunnar F~ilt, Tre.~ problemas de concordancia verbal en e! espahol moderno. A:ta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Roma~ica Upsaliensia 9. Uppsala 1972, 21)0 pp. Reviewed by W.H. Haverkate, Univ. of Amsterdam, Holland. As saggested by the title the book falls into three sections. The respective chapter:~ are: I 'Sujetos coordinados y t6rminos enlazados por expresiones cuasicopulativas' [Coordinated subjects and terms connected by quasi-copulative expressions], !I 'Sujetos colectivos' [Collective subjects], I!I 'Oraciones atnbutivas del tipo su f u e r t e n o son las m a t e m a t i c a s ' [attributive sentences of the kind 'mathematics are not his strorg point']. The investigations a~e based on a corpus composed of written texts, both literary and non-literary. The former category consis;s of thirty novels a~ld short stories, the latter of forty newspapers and forty five magazines. With respect to the rules ol verb agreement, however, no relevant differences between hten, ry and nonqiterary sources have been found. All of the texts are written in Peninsula1 Spanish, none of them being earlier than 1960. As for the selection of the material F~lt points out that he has tried to avoid any normative criteria based on the ~ocial or cultural prestige of the authors. The corpus has provided some ten thousand instances relevant to the study of verb a:~reement. The author explic~ty ~dhe,~s to the synchronic approach: "Lo que sobre todo hemos querido evitar es la costumbre tan arraigada de aducir ejemplos demasiado antiguos" [We particularly want to avoid the c o m m o n practice of examining oldfashioned examples] (9). Nev,.'rtheless p. 155 contains an extensive examination of a construction occurring in th~ 'Don Quijote'. Since t!:~ stud~ i~c.~ b-~-~ carried out according to the general principles of corpus-based research, conclusions are drawn from the results of quantitative analyses. Frequent comparisons with traditional grammars serve the purpose of submitring these to a critical evaluatic, n. As has been implied before, F~lt is not workir,~
Reviews
397
within t,~e framework of any current linguistic theory. In this connection it m a y also be pointed out that the bibliography of T P C V does not contain publications rel:,esentative of recent developments in linguistics. Of course, the above should no~ be considered an a priori criticism of the study under review, for, even if nowadays most linguists are interested in the construction of grammars with predictivr rules, they can still profit from corpus-based investigations when it comes to tes~iing their hypotheses, especially as far as these concern the well-formedne.,s o f se~ tences. Furthermore, it is evident that inductive ~tudies have an intrinsic scientific value if they are done with methodological rw~ur. With regard to the latter aspect, however, T P C V is a very disappointing book. In the following I shall attempt to show why by discussing a n u m b e r of striking shortcomings concerning both lir~guistic and general methodology. Ch. ',i, the largest in the book, deviates most from what can be found in tradi~onal grammars. Therefore, i shall concentrate on the topic it deals with. the ~..)-c'alle I 'suietos colectivos'. r o !~egin with, however, a problem discussed in ch. II!. With respect Io the distmclton between subject and nominal predicate in sentences with two definite noun p ~rases connected by the copula, F~iit concludes: " H a y no p o c o s casos 1/mites - sobr~: t o d o del tipo el primer capitfilo es la me~or parte (sc. det libro) - en los que ~c.~ulta sumamente dificil distinguir entre el sujeto y el atributo . . . " [There are many I,orderline cases - especially of the t y p e 'the first chapter is the best part' (sc. of the b o o k ) - in which it is very difficult to distinguish b e t w e e n subjcct and attribute] (154). This statement, however, is not satisfactory, since an adequate grammatical description requires a way of defining the subject. The problem can be solved by paying attention to the distribution of topic and c o m m e n t . That is, for the sentences under discussion, it can be postulated that the function of t~e topic is always performed by the subject. Consequently, as it carries the lowest degree of haformation, it normally stands in sentence initial position preceding the nominal predicete which functions as the c o m m e n t . A shift in their respective positions is only possible if it occurs together with an emphatic stress on the c o m m e n t . Turning n o w to chapter 1I, we see that a fundamental subdivisio',, of the 'sujetos colectivos' results in the distinction b e t w e e n 'colectivos organizados' [organized co!]ectives] and 'colectivos no organizados' [non-organized collectives]) The author speak,~ o f "un criterio de importancia primordial" [a criterion of vital importance] (85), because he has f o u n d that plural agreement occurs more frequently with the latt :r than with the former category. There are, however, a great many problems with this ciassification as may be seen from the following instances. First, the category of 'colectivos no organizados' is c o m p o s e d of heterogeneous members: not only specifying and nonspecifying quantifiers - e.g. docena 'dozen' and mayorfa 'majority' respectively - but also full lexical items, like clientela 'clientele' and luventud "youth' form part of it. I As this terminology suggests the former category comprises nouns referring to ~oups ot persons or tlungs characterized by some degree of internal organization, Likegobierno 'government' and e]Orcito 'army'. To the latter belong such items as m,:dtitud 'multitude', centenar 'a hundred' and sinffn 'an awful lot', which are qualified in the folio wing way' s61o denotan masa o cantidad sin indicar el tipo de elementos componentes' [they 3nly denote mass or quantity without reference to the type of elements they are composed of] 83).
398
Reviews
Furthermore, it is difficult to see what semantic motivation could be given for qualifying, for e~ample, asarn blea 'assembly' and personal 'personnel" as 'colectivos organizados' and familia 'family' and matrimonio 'married couple' as 'colectivos no organizados'. Both gobierno and policfa 'police' belong to the 'colectivos organizados', but when they are subsumed in the verbal form so that they do not arise on the surface level,' distinct rules of agreement are involve~l: " . . . gobierno se construye normalmente con el verbo en singular (21 casos de 2 2 ) . . . Pol,Ycfa, en cambio, admite muy bien la forma plural (4 casos de 6 ) . . . " [go~erno normally t::k,.~ ti,~ ~hhgula, f~,~,~ of the verb (21 cases out of 2 2 ) . . . Policfa, on the contrary, easily takes the plural form (4 cases out of 6)] (90). Another case in point is the analysis of the polysemic item casa 'house'. With respect to the feature 'organizado' the author specifies casa positively in casa discogrti]ica 'record shop', and negatively in toda la casa se habt'a levantado pron,o 'the whole house got up early'. Nevcxi.ll¢less, a normal iaterpretation of the latter utterance would be that all the people living in the hot~se had made an agreement to get up early, so that in this case, too, some kind of organization is involved. But there is more to it than merely a question of interpretation. Fdlt uses the example of casa to indicate that when lexical items have two or, p, site readings with respect to the feature 'organizado', they are put into the san~e class, that is, the class to which the reading showing the highest frequency, belongs. Needless to say that by mixing up quantitative and qualitative criteria the a~,thor undermines the foundations of his own classification. The 'coiectivos nt~ organizados' are dwided into 'colectivos examinados en su totalidad' [collective., examined in whole] and 'colect~v~,s examin~dos parcialmente' [collectives examinect in part]. To the latter a sixfold subclassification is applied. Surprisingly, the respective subclasses do r~ot share an~ property whatever justifying their membership of this higher class. This may be se~:-n from th,," following labels: (1) 'Colectivos que denotan conjunto o cantidad en geot*ral' [Collectives denoting a whole or a quantity in general], (2) 'Colectivos ,le denotan tipo' [Collectives denoting a type], (3) 'Los partitivos' [Partitivesl, (4) 'Numerales colectivos' [Collective numerals], (5) 'Colectivos que denotan sucesi6n' [Collectives denoting sequence], (6) 'El tipo "una nube de fot6grafos" [The type 'a cloud of photographers']. With regard to Falt's discussion of the above subclasses 1 shall confine myself to two critical re,harks La mayorfa de 'The majority el' and la m a y o r parte de' 'the greater part of', two partitive constructions with id0ntical semantic properties, do not form part of the same class. Only la m a y o r parte de is considered to be a partitive, whereas la mayoria de is qualified as one of the 'colectivos que denotan cenjunto" (sic!) 'o cantidad en general'. Subclass hr. 6, composed of items like lluvia 'rain, mar 'sea', oleada 'waves', is defined in the following way: "Hemos reunido en este grupo algunas palabras que designan fen6menos de la naturaleza y cuyo sentido figurado tiene un claro valor colectivo" [We have put into this class some words denoting meteorological phenomena whose figurative sense clearly has a collective value] (149). It follows that the class is set up only in order to account for a semantic feature which is shared by
Revicws
399
a set of polysemic items, but which has no effect whatever on the rules of verb agreement. Lasl!ly, ! shall mention t w o instances of a large number of ad hc, c explanations, which reveal that the author incorrecly believes there to be a systematic correlation betwee a difference in agreement and difference in meaning. Referring to a series of utteran-es in which un grupo de soldados "a group of soldiers' agrees with the singular verb form, on the one hand, and un grupo de se~oras 'a gzoup of w o m e n ' and un grupo de palabras 'a group of words', with the plural form, on the other, F~ilt c~ncludes that a group of soldiers shows a higher degree of organization and unity than a group of w o m e n or a group of words (sic!). On p. 97, a comparison is made between t w o reports of the same newspaper, both describing the same event. The relevant parts of the quotations run as follows: (1) 'Una comision de traba/adores de la empresa MATESA, perteneciente a la planli',la de Barcelona y acomapafiada del presidente del Consejo Provinc:al de Trabajadort s . . . ha v i s i t a d o . . , al delegado p r o v i n c i a l . . . ' 'A c o m m i t t e e of workers r o m tiae firm MATESA in the department of Barcelona and accompanied by the preside~Lt of the Provincial Board of Workers . . . has visited . . the provincial de ~eg a t e . . (2) 'Una comision de trabajadores de " M a t e s a " , pertenecientes a la plantilla de Barc~!ona, ~lan visitado al delegado provincial . . . ' 'A c o m m i t t e e of workers from "Matesa" u, the department of Barcelona, have visited the provincial delegate . . . " These interesting instances, as well as many others mentioned t h r o u g h o u t the chapter un,ter discussion, provide empirical evidence for the hypothesis that free variation is. possibly the only factor involved in the operation of the rules of agreement as far as the 'sujetos col ctivos' are concerned. F/fit, on the contrary, comes to the counterintuitive conclusion that the singular agreement of the first example ~eflects the interpretation of the subject as a unity, whereas in the second utterance the plural agreement shows that the labourers are considered to act as individuais. To the above criticisms many others could be added. It seems to me, however, that the foregoing evaluation of TPCV suffices to demonstrate that this study can in no way be considered a serious contribution to the topic to which it is devoted.
Reviews
Ritter, H., 1967. 1968, 1971. T u r 6 y 6 . Die Volkssprache der syrischen Christen des T fir Abdi'n. A. Texte. 3 vols. Beirut: Orient-Inst. der DMG]Wiesbaden, Steiner. Robins, R.H., 1973. The history of language classification. In: -r.A. Sebeok (ed.), Current trends in linguistics. Vol. I 1. The Hague, Paris: Mor~ton, 3 - 4 1 . Sasse, H.-J., 1972. Kuschitistik 1972. Paper given at the 18th Deutscher Orientalistentag, Lubeek, Oct. 1972. Tsereteti, K.G., 1964. S o v r e m e n n y j assirijskij jazyk. Moscow: Nauka. Uilendorff, E., 1958. What is a Semitic language? Or 27, 6 6 - 7 5 . Ullendorff, E., 1961. Comparative Semitics. I n : G.Levi della Vida (ed.), 1 3 - 3 2 . Rome: Universita di Roma, Centr~ di Studi Semitici. Vergote, J 1945. Phondtique historique de l egyptlen: les consonnes. Biblioth~que du 'Muse'on' 19. Louvain: Bureaux du 'MuseCon'. Vergote, J., 1947. Le s.vs: ~me phonologiquc du moyen-dgyptien. (;LECS 4, 5"/--61. Worrell, W.H , 1934. Copl'ic Sounds. With an appendix by Hide Shohara. University of Michigaa Studies. Humanistic Series 26. A n n Arbor: University of Michigan Press, Zaborski, A., 1970. Cushitic languages - an unexplored s u b c o n t i n e n t . Bulletin ,,f the Intern;~tional Committee on Jrgent Anthropological and Ethnological Research 12, 119 -28. • 1
~r
.
Gunnar F~ilt, Tre.~ problemas de concordancia verbal en e! espahol moderno. A:ta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Roma~ica Upsaliensia 9. Uppsala 1972, 21)0 pp. Reviewed by W.H. Haverkate, Univ. of Amsterdam, Holland. As saggested by the title the book falls into three sections. The respective chapter:~ are: I 'Sujetos coordinados y t6rminos enlazados por expresiones cuasicopulativas' [Coordinated subjects and terms connected by quasi-copulative expressions], !I 'Sujetos colectivos' [Collective subjects], I!I 'Oraciones atnbutivas del tipo su f u e r t e n o son las m a t e m a t i c a s ' [attributive sentences of the kind 'mathematics are not his strorg point']. The investigations a~e based on a corpus composed of written texts, both literary and non-literary. The former category consis;s of thirty novels a~ld short stories, the latter of forty newspapers and forty five magazines. With respect to the rules ol verb agreement, however, no relevant differences between hten, ry and nonqiterary sources have been found. All of the texts are written in Peninsula1 Spanish, none of them being earlier than 1960. As for the selection of the material F~lt points out that he has tried to avoid any normative criteria based on the ~ocial or cultural prestige of the authors. The corpus has provided some ten thousand instances relevant to the study of verb a:~reement. The author explic~ty ~dhe,~s to the synchronic approach: "Lo que sobre todo hemos querido evitar es la costumbre tan arraigada de aducir ejemplos demasiado antiguos" [We particularly want to avoid the c o m m o n practice of examining oldfashioned examples] (9). Nev,.'rtheless p. 155 contains an extensive examination of a construction occurring in th~ 'Don Quijote'. Since t!:~ stud~ i~c.~ b-~-~ carried out according to the general principles of corpus-based research, conclusions are drawn from the results of quantitative analyses. Frequent comparisons with traditional grammars serve the purpose of submitring these to a critical evaluatic, n. As has been implied before, F~lt is not workir,~
Reviews
397
within t,~e framework of any current linguistic theory. In this connection it m a y also be pointed out that the bibliography of T P C V does not contain publications rel:,esentative of recent developments in linguistics. Of course, the above should no~ be considered an a priori criticism of the study under review, for, even if nowadays most linguists are interested in the construction of grammars with predictivr rules, they can still profit from corpus-based investigations when it comes to tes~iing their hypotheses, especially as far as these concern the well-formedne.,s o f se~ tences. Furthermore, it is evident that inductive ~tudies have an intrinsic scientific value if they are done with methodological rw~ur. With regard to the latter aspect, however, T P C V is a very disappointing book. In the following I shall attempt to show why by discussing a n u m b e r of striking shortcomings concerning both lir~guistic and general methodology. Ch. ',i, the largest in the book, deviates most from what can be found in tradi~onal grammars. Therefore, i shall concentrate on the topic it deals with. the ~..)-c'alle I 'suietos colectivos'. r o !~egin with, however, a problem discussed in ch. II!. With respect Io the distmclton between subject and nominal predicate in sentences with two definite noun p ~rases connected by the copula, F~iit concludes: " H a y no p o c o s casos 1/mites - sobr~: t o d o del tipo el primer capitfilo es la me~or parte (sc. det libro) - en los que ~c.~ulta sumamente dificil distinguir entre el sujeto y el atributo . . . " [There are many I,orderline cases - especially of the t y p e 'the first chapter is the best part' (sc. of the b o o k ) - in which it is very difficult to distinguish b e t w e e n subjcct and attribute] (154). This statement, however, is not satisfactory, since an adequate grammatical description requires a way of defining the subject. The problem can be solved by paying attention to the distribution of topic and c o m m e n t . That is, for the sentences under discussion, it can be postulated that the function of t~e topic is always performed by the subject. Consequently, as it carries the lowest degree of haformation, it normally stands in sentence initial position preceding the nominal predicete which functions as the c o m m e n t . A shift in their respective positions is only possible if it occurs together with an emphatic stress on the c o m m e n t . Turning n o w to chapter 1I, we see that a fundamental subdivisio',, of the 'sujetos colectivos' results in the distinction b e t w e e n 'colectivos organizados' [organized co!]ectives] and 'colectivos no organizados' [non-organized collectives]) The author speak,~ o f "un criterio de importancia primordial" [a criterion of vital importance] (85), because he has f o u n d that plural agreement occurs more frequently with the latt :r than with the former category. There are, however, a great many problems with this ciassification as may be seen from the following instances. First, the category of 'colectivos no organizados' is c o m p o s e d of heterogeneous members: not only specifying and nonspecifying quantifiers - e.g. docena 'dozen' and mayorfa 'majority' respectively - but also full lexical items, like clientela 'clientele' and luventud "youth' form part of it. I As this terminology suggests the former category comprises nouns referring to ~oups ot persons or tlungs characterized by some degree of internal organization, Likegobierno 'government' and e]Orcito 'army'. To the latter belong such items as m,:dtitud 'multitude', centenar 'a hundred' and sinffn 'an awful lot', which are qualified in the folio wing way' s61o denotan masa o cantidad sin indicar el tipo de elementos componentes' [they 3nly denote mass or quantity without reference to the type of elements they are composed of] 83).
398
Reviews
Furthermore, it is difficult to see what semantic motivation could be given for qualifying, for e~ample, asarn blea 'assembly' and personal 'personnel" as 'colectivos organizados' and familia 'family' and matrimonio 'married couple' as 'colectivos no organizados'. Both gobierno and policfa 'police' belong to the 'colectivos organizados', but when they are subsumed in the verbal form so that they do not arise on the surface level,' distinct rules of agreement are involve~l: " . . . gobierno se construye normalmente con el verbo en singular (21 casos de 2 2 ) . . . Pol,Ycfa, en cambio, admite muy bien la forma plural (4 casos de 6 ) . . . " [go~erno normally t::k,.~ ti,~ ~hhgula, f~,~,~ of the verb (21 cases out of 2 2 ) . . . Policfa, on the contrary, easily takes the plural form (4 cases out of 6)] (90). Another case in point is the analysis of the polysemic item casa 'house'. With respect to the feature 'organizado' the author specifies casa positively in casa discogrti]ica 'record shop', and negatively in toda la casa se habt'a levantado pron,o 'the whole house got up early'. Nevcxi.ll¢less, a normal iaterpretation of the latter utterance would be that all the people living in the hot~se had made an agreement to get up early, so that in this case, too, some kind of organization is involved. But there is more to it than merely a question of interpretation. Fdlt uses the example of casa to indicate that when lexical items have two or, p, site readings with respect to the feature 'organizado', they are put into the san~e class, that is, the class to which the reading showing the highest frequency, belongs. Needless to say that by mixing up quantitative and qualitative criteria the a~,thor undermines the foundations of his own classification. The 'coiectivos nt~ organizados' are dwided into 'colectivos examinados en su totalidad' [collective., examined in whole] and 'colect~v~,s examin~dos parcialmente' [collectives examinect in part]. To the latter a sixfold subclassification is applied. Surprisingly, the respective subclasses do r~ot share an~ property whatever justifying their membership of this higher class. This may be se~:-n from th,," following labels: (1) 'Colectivos que denotan conjunto o cantidad en geot*ral' [Collectives denoting a whole or a quantity in general], (2) 'Colectivos ,le denotan tipo' [Collectives denoting a type], (3) 'Los partitivos' [Partitivesl, (4) 'Numerales colectivos' [Collective numerals], (5) 'Colectivos que denotan sucesi6n' [Collectives denoting sequence], (6) 'El tipo "una nube de fot6grafos" [The type 'a cloud of photographers']. With regard to Falt's discussion of the above subclasses 1 shall confine myself to two critical re,harks La mayorfa de 'The majority el' and la m a y o r parte de' 'the greater part of', two partitive constructions with id0ntical semantic properties, do not form part of the same class. Only la m a y o r parte de is considered to be a partitive, whereas la mayoria de is qualified as one of the 'colectivos que denotan cenjunto" (sic!) 'o cantidad en general'. Subclass hr. 6, composed of items like lluvia 'rain, mar 'sea', oleada 'waves', is defined in the following way: "Hemos reunido en este grupo algunas palabras que designan fen6menos de la naturaleza y cuyo sentido figurado tiene un claro valor colectivo" [We have put into this class some words denoting meteorological phenomena whose figurative sense clearly has a collective value] (149). It follows that the class is set up only in order to account for a semantic feature which is shared by
Revicws
399
a set of polysemic items, but which has no effect whatever on the rules of verb agreement. Lasl!ly, ! shall mention t w o instances of a large number of ad hc, c explanations, which reveal that the author incorrecly believes there to be a systematic correlation betwee a difference in agreement and difference in meaning. Referring to a series of utteran-es in which un grupo de soldados "a group of soldiers' agrees with the singular verb form, on the one hand, and un grupo de se~oras 'a gzoup of w o m e n ' and un grupo de palabras 'a group of words', with the plural form, on the other, F~ilt c~ncludes that a group of soldiers shows a higher degree of organization and unity than a group of w o m e n or a group of words (sic!). On p. 97, a comparison is made between t w o reports of the same newspaper, both describing the same event. The relevant parts of the quotations run as follows: (1) 'Una comision de traba/adores de la empresa MATESA, perteneciente a la planli',la de Barcelona y acomapafiada del presidente del Consejo Provinc:al de Trabajadort s . . . ha v i s i t a d o . . , al delegado p r o v i n c i a l . . . ' 'A c o m m i t t e e of workers r o m tiae firm MATESA in the department of Barcelona and accompanied by the preside~Lt of the Provincial Board of Workers . . . has visited . . the provincial de ~eg a t e . . (2) 'Una comision de trabajadores de " M a t e s a " , pertenecientes a la plantilla de Barc~!ona, ~lan visitado al delegado provincial . . . ' 'A c o m m i t t e e of workers from "Matesa" u, the department of Barcelona, have visited the provincial delegate . . . " These interesting instances, as well as many others mentioned t h r o u g h o u t the chapter un,ter discussion, provide empirical evidence for the hypothesis that free variation is. possibly the only factor involved in the operation of the rules of agreement as far as the 'sujetos col ctivos' are concerned. F/fit, on the contrary, comes to the counterintuitive conclusion that the singular agreement of the first example ~eflects the interpretation of the subject as a unity, whereas in the second utterance the plural agreement shows that the labourers are considered to act as individuais. To the above criticisms many others could be added. It seems to me, however, that the foregoing evaluation of TPCV suffices to demonstrate that this study can in no way be considered a serious contribution to the topic to which it is devoted.