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Dictionaries and encyclopedias again
Lingua 56 0982) 353--355 North-Holland Publishia[~ Company
353
DISCUSSION DICTIONABIES AND ENCYCLOnEDIAS AGMN .fohn HAIMAN Unleer$ity of Manitoba A recent issue of Lingz~a contains an article by William Frawley (Frawley 1981), which questions my argument (Haiman 1980) that the dictionary cannot be separated from the encyclopedia. Frawley's "defence of the dictionary'* systematically avoids the central issue to which my paper was addressed: why it should be that in a "semantic" dictionary, horses should be defined simply as "horses*. Nor is this avoidance a mere oversight. Kripke, Leech, and Wierzbicka (all cited in extenso in the opening pages o f Haiman 1980) explicitly defend such definitions on the ground that the names of natural kinds are like proper names : proper names, in turn, are not defined, at least not in 'semantic' dictionaries. Ftawley not only dismisses this explicit and thrice-stated distinction between proper and common names as a "straw man" (Frawley, p. 59). and as a "pseudo-issue. raised to controversy for the sake of controversy only" (p. 60); he adds that the only people who distinguish between a dictionary and an encyclopedia on the basis of their inclusion of proper names "are the people Haiman cites (Malkiel and Haas)" (ibid. s/c). Frawley himself rejects as insignificant the distinction between proper and common names. His reason is that every name (whether proper or common) is associated with a backing deu:ription (Frawley, ibid.). Presumably. unlike the scholars who treat proper names as meaning|ess labels, he would be prepared to provide an appropriate backing description, or :iefmition, of words like "horse'. Given his expressed hostility towards the "bandwagon position ... against a-cultural linguistic knowledge" (p, 55), his definition would also have to be "a-cultural". I would be very curious to see what it looked like. Frawley does not contest my view that there are no universally valid essential features. He insists that what is universal" is the fact that in any language a line is drawn, a distinction /s made, between the essential and the accidental features of a category (p. 56). It seems to me that Frawley has triumphantly rediscovered the emie principle, also known as the linguistic relativity principle. His repeated claim that this principle is the only universal worth considering is rather like saying that 0024-3841/82/0000-IX~/$02.75
©
1982 N o r t h - H o l l a n d
354
Ofscud'Mort
there is nothing constant except change. I do not dispute either of these propositions, but they lend no support to his position. Frawley's claim (p. 57) that the essence/accidence distinction is paralleled by, and empirically supported by, the prototype/peripheral distinction in recent work of Rosch and others, is quite mistaken. His mistake derives from the confusion of the different meanings of 'core' and 'periphery" in two distinct theories, in prototype semantics, a category in all but the simplest ~ s is defined by a cluster of features. The prototypical exemplar of a category will have a# the features, 'and peripheral members will have fewer of the features, which together define the category. Note that in this theory, the features which define a category are not ranked, and certainly not dichotomized as "essential' or 'accidental'; note also that the terms 'core' and "peripher¢' refer nol to features, but to exemplars of a category; and note finally that it is possible for two exemplars of a category to share features with a prototype, but l ~ t necessarily with each other. (Given a prototype With features X,Y,Z, one peripheral exemplar of the category may have feature X, and another, the features Y and Z.) The core/ periphery, distinction in definitions, on the other hand, is used to establish a dichotomy between essential (= core) and accidental (= peripheral)jeatures which define a category. (The quintessential, as opposed to the prototypical, exemplar of a category, has only the essential feature X: and all exemplars of the category must have this same feature.) Frawley's definition of pragrnatics as "'(!t discourse; (21 act" (p. 58), | find to be not only original but opaque. His more comprehensible asscrlion that there exists a precise distinction between the (pragmatic/ force and the (semantic) content of a statement, which "no amount of inclusion of extralinguistic or social information disturbs" (ibid.), on the other hand, overlooks one of the most familiar axioms of semantic change : the use of a term today will determine its neutral meaning tomorrow. Consider, for example, the fate of any euphemism. A euphemism could be defined as a word whose pragmatic force clashes with its semantic meaning: for example 'go to the bathroom" is a euphemism for 'urinate'. But the very adoption of a euphemism leads to its contamination: no longer is it polite to ask for permission to go to the bathroom - indeed, now one can go to the bathroom in one's pants. Perhaps within our lifetimes, children will be excused into their pants. One may choose to argue that the dichotomy betwoen meaning and force exists and motivates a euphemism in the first place, but hardly that this distinction is inviolate. The meaning of a word, or of a grammatical category, is ultimately brol~ght into line with the reality it represents. The significance of this fact for a dictionary is that adequate definitions of countless idiomatic expressions must include not only, or perhaps not even primarily, what the words 'mean', but the non4inguisti¢ reality they actually refer to. To define 'meaning' so narrowly as to exclude this 'extralinguistic or social information' may satisfy some lofty prerequisites but it utterly fails to de~'Tibe English or any other natural language.
l)is~'u;sion
155
Finally, I should note that there are considerable di~repaneies be~een my own staled views on cultural knowledge (Haiman 331-6), the universality of shared ex. perienc¢ (pp. 3"t4,335, 335 f,), the existence ofencydopedias (p. 337), and the definitions of 9ragmatics (pp. 342-3), on the one hand, and Frawlcy's citations and other representaiions of my views on the other (Frawley, 54; 55; 56; 58).
Rd'erences
Frawley,W., 1981. [n defence of the dictionary: a response to Haiman. Lingu~ 55. 53 61. Haiman,J., 1980. Dictionariesand encyclopedias.Lingua 50, 329 357,
353
DISCUSSION DICTIONABIES AND ENCYCLOnEDIAS AGMN .fohn HAIMAN Unleer$ity of Manitoba A recent issue of Lingz~a contains an article by William Frawley (Frawley 1981), which questions my argument (Haiman 1980) that the dictionary cannot be separated from the encyclopedia. Frawley's "defence of the dictionary'* systematically avoids the central issue to which my paper was addressed: why it should be that in a "semantic" dictionary, horses should be defined simply as "horses*. Nor is this avoidance a mere oversight. Kripke, Leech, and Wierzbicka (all cited in extenso in the opening pages o f Haiman 1980) explicitly defend such definitions on the ground that the names of natural kinds are like proper names : proper names, in turn, are not defined, at least not in 'semantic' dictionaries. Ftawley not only dismisses this explicit and thrice-stated distinction between proper and common names as a "straw man" (Frawley, p. 59). and as a "pseudo-issue. raised to controversy for the sake of controversy only" (p. 60); he adds that the only people who distinguish between a dictionary and an encyclopedia on the basis of their inclusion of proper names "are the people Haiman cites (Malkiel and Haas)" (ibid. s/c). Frawley himself rejects as insignificant the distinction between proper and common names. His reason is that every name (whether proper or common) is associated with a backing deu:ription (Frawley, ibid.). Presumably. unlike the scholars who treat proper names as meaning|ess labels, he would be prepared to provide an appropriate backing description, or :iefmition, of words like "horse'. Given his expressed hostility towards the "bandwagon position ... against a-cultural linguistic knowledge" (p, 55), his definition would also have to be "a-cultural". I would be very curious to see what it looked like. Frawley does not contest my view that there are no universally valid essential features. He insists that what is universal" is the fact that in any language a line is drawn, a distinction /s made, between the essential and the accidental features of a category (p. 56). It seems to me that Frawley has triumphantly rediscovered the emie principle, also known as the linguistic relativity principle. His repeated claim that this principle is the only universal worth considering is rather like saying that 0024-3841/82/0000-IX~/$02.75
©
1982 N o r t h - H o l l a n d
354
Ofscud'Mort
there is nothing constant except change. I do not dispute either of these propositions, but they lend no support to his position. Frawley's claim (p. 57) that the essence/accidence distinction is paralleled by, and empirically supported by, the prototype/peripheral distinction in recent work of Rosch and others, is quite mistaken. His mistake derives from the confusion of the different meanings of 'core' and 'periphery" in two distinct theories, in prototype semantics, a category in all but the simplest ~ s is defined by a cluster of features. The prototypical exemplar of a category will have a# the features, 'and peripheral members will have fewer of the features, which together define the category. Note that in this theory, the features which define a category are not ranked, and certainly not dichotomized as "essential' or 'accidental'; note also that the terms 'core' and "peripher¢' refer nol to features, but to exemplars of a category; and note finally that it is possible for two exemplars of a category to share features with a prototype, but l ~ t necessarily with each other. (Given a prototype With features X,Y,Z, one peripheral exemplar of the category may have feature X, and another, the features Y and Z.) The core/ periphery, distinction in definitions, on the other hand, is used to establish a dichotomy between essential (= core) and accidental (= peripheral)jeatures which define a category. (The quintessential, as opposed to the prototypical, exemplar of a category, has only the essential feature X: and all exemplars of the category must have this same feature.) Frawley's definition of pragrnatics as "'(!t discourse; (21 act" (p. 58), | find to be not only original but opaque. His more comprehensible asscrlion that there exists a precise distinction between the (pragmatic/ force and the (semantic) content of a statement, which "no amount of inclusion of extralinguistic or social information disturbs" (ibid.), on the other hand, overlooks one of the most familiar axioms of semantic change : the use of a term today will determine its neutral meaning tomorrow. Consider, for example, the fate of any euphemism. A euphemism could be defined as a word whose pragmatic force clashes with its semantic meaning: for example 'go to the bathroom" is a euphemism for 'urinate'. But the very adoption of a euphemism leads to its contamination: no longer is it polite to ask for permission to go to the bathroom - indeed, now one can go to the bathroom in one's pants. Perhaps within our lifetimes, children will be excused into their pants. One may choose to argue that the dichotomy betwoen meaning and force exists and motivates a euphemism in the first place, but hardly that this distinction is inviolate. The meaning of a word, or of a grammatical category, is ultimately brol~ght into line with the reality it represents. The significance of this fact for a dictionary is that adequate definitions of countless idiomatic expressions must include not only, or perhaps not even primarily, what the words 'mean', but the non4inguisti¢ reality they actually refer to. To define 'meaning' so narrowly as to exclude this 'extralinguistic or social information' may satisfy some lofty prerequisites but it utterly fails to de~'Tibe English or any other natural language.
l)is~'u;sion
155
Finally, I should note that there are considerable di~repaneies be~een my own staled views on cultural knowledge (Haiman 331-6), the universality of shared ex. perienc¢ (pp. 3"t4,335, 335 f,), the existence ofencydopedias (p. 337), and the definitions of 9ragmatics (pp. 342-3), on the one hand, and Frawlcy's citations and other representaiions of my views on the other (Frawley, 54; 55; 56; 58).
Rd'erences
Frawley,W., 1981. [n defence of the dictionary: a response to Haiman. Lingu~ 55. 53 61. Haiman,J., 1980. Dictionariesand encyclopedias.Lingua 50, 329 357,