Paradigm versus Syntagm

Paradigm versus Syntagm 173

A recent development in PFM (Stump, 2002) is the hypothesis that the definition of a language’s morphology involves two types of paradigms— syntactic paradigms (whose cells are pairings of a lexeme with a morphosyntactic property set, e.g., hGO,{past}i) and morphological paradigms (whose cells are pairings of a stem with a morphosyntactic property set, e.g., hgo,{past}i). On this hypothesis, one can assume that each cell in a syntactic paradigm is linked to a cell in a morphological paradigm and that the realization of the former is that of the latter. This assumption affords an account of deponency (instances in which hL,si is linked to hx,s0 i, where s 6¼ s0 ), nondirectional syncretism (instances in which hL,si and hL,s0 i are both linked to hx,ti, where t  s, s0 ), directional syncretism (instances in which hL,si and hL,s0 i are both linked to hx,si), and heteroclisis (instances in which hL,si and hL,s0 i are respectively linked to hx,si and hy,s0 i, where x 6¼ y). Other recent developments extend the theory’s scope to cover a range of phenomena, including verbal clitics (A. Spencer, personal communication, 2000; Spencer and Luı´s, in press), word-formation (Spencer, 2003), and periphrasis (Ackerman and Stump, in press). See also: A-Morphous Morphology; Periphrasis; Syncre-

tism; Template Morphology; Word.

Bibliography Ackerman F & Stump G (2005). ‘Paradigms and periphrastic expression: a study in realization-based lexicalism.’ In Spencer A & Sadler L (eds.) Projecting morphology. Stanford: CSLI Publications, in press. Anderson S R (1992). A-morphous morphology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Corbett G G & Fraser N M (1993). ‘Network morphology: a DATR account of Russian nominal inflection.’ Journal of Linguistics 29, 113–142. Halle M & Marantz A (1993). ‘Distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection.’ In Hale K & Keyser S J (eds.) The view from Building 20: linguistic essays in

honor of Sylvain Bromberger. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 111–176. Hoeksema J (1984). Categorial morphology. Ph.D. diss., University of Groningen [New York: Garland, 1985]. Lieber R (1992). Deconstructing morphology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Luı´s A & Spencer A (2005). ‘A paradigm function account of ‘mesoclisis’ in European Portuguese (EP).’ In Booij G & van Marle J (eds.) Yearbook of morphology. Dordrecht: Springer. 117–228. Matthews P H (1972). Inflectional morphology: A theoretical study based on aspects of Latin verb conjugation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spencer A (2000). ‘Verbal clitics in Bulgarian: a paradigm function approach.’ In Gerlach B & Grijzenhout J (eds.) Clitics in phonology, morphology, and syntax. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 355–386. Steele S (1995). ‘Towards a theory of morphological information.’ Language 71, 260–309. Stump G T (1992). ‘On the theoretical status of position class restrictions on inflectional affixes.’ In Booij G & van Marle J (eds.) Yearbook of morphology 1991. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 211–241. Stump G T (1993a). ‘On rules of referral.’ Language 69, 449–479 [Reprinted in Katamba, F (ed.) Morphology: Critical concepts in linguistics. London: Routledge, 2003.]. Stump G T (1993b). ‘Position classes and morphological theory.’ In Booij G & van Marle J (eds.) Yearbook of morphology 1992. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 129–180. Stump G T (2001). Inflectional morphology: A theory of paradigm structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stump G T (2002). ‘Morphological and syntactic paradigms: arguments for a theory of paradigm linkage.’ In Booij G & van Marle J (eds.) Yearbook of morphology 2001. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 147–180. Stump G T (2005). ‘Morphological blocking and Pa`o˜ini’s principle.’ In Ackerman F, Blevins J & Stump G (eds.) Paradigms and periphrasis. Stanford: CSLI Publications. Zwicky A M (1985). ‘How to describe inflection.’ In Niepokuj M, Van Clay M, Nikiforidou V & Feder D (eds.) Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. 372–386.

Paradigm versus Syntagm T F Broden, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

These paired terms represent one of a half-dozen central sets of concepts adapted by semioticians from general linguistics. Syntagmatic relations obtain

among a unit and others in the same string, for example, in English smoke, among the individual sounds or letters s, m, o, etc.; between s initial and the rest of the sounds; and between one or more letters (part) and the entire word (whole). Similarly, multifarious syntagmatic relations occur among the phrases, words, roots, affixes, and sounds or letters in the utterance ‘Did Chanel try to transform women’s fashions’?

174 Paradigm versus Syntagm

Figure 1 Sample paradigmatic relations.

Paradigmatic relations oppose a unit to others that could replace it in a given sequence, as m in smoke is opposed to p and t (cf. spoke, stoke). Figure 1 illustrates paradigmatic relations associated with the example sentence, to which one can add the declarative and imperative sentence types, which could replace the interrogative. Using the term ‘associative’ (cf. associationism in psychology) for paradigmatic, Saussure contrasts the pair: ‘The syntagmatic relation is in praesentia. It is based on two or more terms that occur in an effective series. Against this, the associative relation unites terms in absentia in a potential mnemonic series’ (1916: 123). Syntagmatic, ‘horizontal’ relations engage combination (addresser) and segmentation (addressee); paradigmatic, ‘vertical’ relations entail selection, substitutability, and similarity. The two axes are rigorously interdependent: to segment a syntagm into its constituents is to identify the paradigmatic classes it contains, and a linguistic category is defined by its syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations (cf. value, commutation and permutation, minimal pairs). Compared to traditional categories such as agreement or verb paradigms, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations represent elementary cognitive and symbolic processes found throughout the ever wider variety of languages studied, mechanisms underlying language behavior and change, which cross and straddle the boundaries of syntax and morphology, lexicology, and phonology. Defining them in purely formal terms, glossematics extends their purview to semiotics and indeed to all of science. Jakobson (1956) illustrates their fecundity, demonstrating that the two axes define parallel sets of speech disorders in psycholinguistics, as well as contrasting styles in literature, painting, and film; he defines the poetic function as the projection of paradigmatic relations onto the syntagm (1960: 71). The twin concepts figure prominently in Barthes’s semiology: in cuisine, the syntagmatic axis corre-

sponds to the number and sequence of different courses in a meal, while the paradigmatic axis represents the choice of items within each course. Metz identifies the immediate constituents of the fictional narrative film as a paradigm of eight terms, each described by its distinctive syntagmatic organization of images, especially shots, e.g., simultaneous vs. consecutive, alternating (ABABAB . . .) vs. linear (AAAA. . .). Following Hjelmslev, Greimas defines paradigmatic vs. syntagmatic as disjunctive relations of the type ‘either . . . or’ vs. conjunctive relations of the type ‘both . . . and,’ and distinguishes separately among (a) spatio-temporal criteria such as succession, linearity, contiguity, and juxtaposition; (b) the combinatorial relations of unilateral presupposition, reciprocal presupposition, and simple co-occurrence; (c) virtual or realized semiotic existence (cf. competence and performance); and (d) language and metalanguage. In his study arguing that science progresses more by revolution than by evolution, Kuhn uses ‘paradigm’ to designate the set of beliefs shared by a scientific community at a given time and ‘paradigm shift’ to refer to a sea change in the latter.

See also: Jakobson, Roman (1896–1982); Martinet, Andre´ (1908–1999); Saussure, Ferdinand (-Mongin) de (1857– 1913); Structuralism.

Bibliography Barthes R (1964). ‘E´ le´ ments de se´ miologie.’ Communications 4, 91–135. Lavers A & Smith C (trans.). Elements of semiology. New York: Hill and Wang, 1968. Greimas A J & Courte´ s J (1979). Se´ miotique: dictionnaire raisonne´ de la the´ orie du langage. Paris: Hachette. Crist L, Patte D et al. (trans.). Semiotics and language: an analytical dictionary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982.

Paradoxes, Semantic 175 Happ H (1931). ‘Paradigmatisch’ – ‘syntagmatisch’: zur Bestimmung und Kla¨ rung zweier Grundbegriffe der Sprachwissenschaft. Heidelberg: C Winter. Hjelmslev L (1943). Omkring sprogteoriens grundlaeggelse. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Whitfield F J (trans.). Prolegomena to a theory of language (rev. edn.). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1961. Jakobson R (1956). ‘Two aspects of language and two types of aphasic disturbances.’ In Jakobson R (1987) Language in literature, Pomorska K & Rudy S (eds.). Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 95–114. Jakobson R (1960). ‘Linguistics and poetics.’ In Jakobson R (1987) Language in literature, Pomorska K & Rudy S (eds.). Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 62–94.

Jakobson R (1987). Language in literature. Pomorska K & Rudy S (eds.). Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Kuhn T S (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Martinet A (ed.) (1969). La linguistique. Guide alphabe´ tique. Paris: Denoe¨ l. Metz C (1971). Essais sur la signification au cine´ ma. (vol. 1). Paris: Klincksieck. Taylor M (trans.). Film language. A semiotics of the cinema. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1974. Saussure F de (1916). Cours de linguistique ge´ ne´ rale. Bally C & Sechehaye A (eds.). Lausanne: Payot. Baskins W (trans.). Course in general linguistics. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959.

Paradoxes, Semantic T Kenyon, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The semantic paradoxes are a group of logicolinguistic puzzles characterized by the key roles of semantic notions such as truth, reference, or meaning in their construction. Like any paradox, their defining feature is that they force us to accept absurd consequences without employing any premise or concept that can easily be rejected. The semantic paradoxes are usually grouped together for the purpose of distinguishing them from the logical or settheoretic paradoxes, the most famous of which are Russell’s Paradox, Cantor’s Paradox, and the BuraliForti Paradox. The depth of difference between these two groups is not always clear, however, so it is unwise to attach much significance to the distinction.

The Paradoxes The most significant of the semantic paradoxes, the Paradox of the Liar, is also the most ancient, dating at least to the 4th century B.C.E. Eubulides of Miletus is the first known writer to have formulated it as a fairly explicit logical puzzle. In a still earlier form, the Paradox (often simply called ‘the Liar’) consisted of an utterance attributed to the philosopher Epimenides, who was said to have framed the implicitly puzzling statement ‘All Cretans are liars.’ The idea was that since Epimenides himself was a Cretan, his statement, if true, would be false. An allusion to this forerunner of the puzzle even surfaced in a biblical

reference from the letter to Titus, whose author seemed to take Epimenides’ example rather too literally: ‘‘Even one of their own prophets has said, ‘Cretans are always liars. . ..’’’ In any case, this version turns out not to be very obviously paradoxical, since one need not always lie in order to count as a liar. One could be a lying rascal in general who happens to be telling the truth just this once. Avoiding some of these quibbles, Eubulides simply asked whether someone who says ‘I am lying’ speaks truly or falsely. This is a better paradox, though still somewhat confounded by the fact that while lying entails speaking a falsehood, the converse does not hold. If the speaker is lying, then by the meaning of ‘lying’ the utterance is false; but if the utterance is false, then it does not quite follow that what he says – namely, that he is lying – is true. One can speak falsely without lying. The most obviously paradoxical version of the puzzle, then, is the still simpler case ‘This sentence is false.’ While this may be intuitively paradoxical, we can make the problem transparent by adding explicit assumptions: Any well-formed sentence P in the indicative mood is true just in case P and is false otherwise; the Liar sentence is such a well-formed sentence; and the expression ‘this sentence’ in the Liar sentence refers to the Liar sentence itself. So assume that the Liar sentence is true. What it tells us, though, is that it is false. So if it is true, then it is both true and false. Now assume that it is false. Then, since the Liar sentence tells us that it is false, what it tells us is true; if false, it is both true and false. Whether we take the Liar to be true or false in the first instance, we are forced us to accept a contradiction. Yet by our first assumption it must be