- Email: [email protected]
The role of factive predicates in the indexicalization of stance: A discourse perspective
Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799-814
The role of factive predicates in the indexicalization of stance: A discourse perspective Margaret Field Linguistics Department, i'Jniversity of New Mexico, Humanities Bldg. #526, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1196, USA Received April 1995; revised version May 1996
Abstract Based on a corpus of 112,000 words of spoken discourse, this paper examines the use in natural conversation of 'factive' predicates (Kiparsky and Kiparsky, 1968). It is suggested that factive predicates operate as indexical symbols (Jakobson, 1971) to encode both a semantic, referential meaning or proposition, as well as to index pragmatically an epistemic stance on the part of the speaker. The role of factive predicates in the constitution of the indexical ground of discourse (Bauman and Briggs, 1990) is also considered. Following Chafe (1994) another, more dynamic model of speaker is presented here, which takes into consideration the multiple footings (Goffman, 1981), or perspectives, which speakers adopt in discourse, regardless of speaker's logical knowledge state. This model not only offers an explanation for the use of factive constructions in irrealis discourse contexts (where previous discussions suggested that factive predicates 'lose their factivity'), but also explains why factive constructions index an inherent duality of stance.
I. Introduction This p a p e r takes another l o o k at ' f a c t i v e p r e d i c a t e s ' ( K i p a r s k y and K i p a r s k y , 1968) (so l a b e l e d b e c a u s e the s p e a k e r p r e s u p p o s e s the ' f a c t ' that the c o m p l e m e n t clause is true), f r o m the p e r s p e c t i v e o f s p o k e n discourse. B a s e d on a corpus o f 22 texts I (112,000 w o r d s ) o f s p o k e n discourse, it will c o n s i d e r h o w these predicates I would like to thank the following people for their helpful criticisms and many insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper: Sandra Thompson, Patricia Clancy, Wallace Chafe, and John Du Bois. Any oversights or errors are of course my own. Ten texts came from the London-Lund Corpus (LLC) and 11 came from the archives of the Corpus of Spoken American English project at the University California Santa Barbara. Two examples are borrowed from a text in Eckert (1993). Separate texts are labeled by various abbreviations such as Mab, Aes, etc. These abbreviations stand for slightly longer titles (i.e. 'Mab' is short for 'Mabel', 'Aes' stands for 'Aesthetics in Advertising') which are in the archives of the Center for the Study of Discourse at the University of California at Santa Barbara. 0378-2166/97/$17.00 © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved PH S0378-2166(96)00047- 1
800
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799~14
function in discourse to assist in the construction of a multi-dimensional indexical ground (Bauman and Briggs, 1990; Hanks, 1989) in discourse. In other words, it will explore how factive constructions operate as indexical symbols (Jakobson, 1971; Silverstein, 1976, 1993), to encode both a semantic, referential meaning or proposition, i.e., either an epistemic or affective stance which is attributed to grammatical subject, as well as to index pragmatically an epistemic stance on the part of the speaker. Indexical symbols combine the referential function of encoding meaning through a conventional or arbitrary relationship between object of reference and symbol, with the non-referential inde.rical function of pointing to a message which is understood through an "existential relation between the utterer and utterance" (Jakobson, 1971: 132). Non-referential indexical signs are understood through their interpretation in context. They may be communicated through non-surface-segmentable channels such as intonation, voice quality, non-verbal cues, or through variation and/or juxtaposition in sequencing or framing of referential information or various other aspects of speaking as a context (Bauman, 1975; Ochs, 1992). Indexical symbols are inherently multidimensional or duplex signs (Jespersen, 1967; Jakobson, 1971), since they provide information at both the referential as well as indexical levels. As with other categories of indexical symbols (such as tense, deference, and person), their meaning depends on the juxtaposition or comparison of the proximal speech event with the distal event being referred to. As Silverstein points out, for example, the category of tense depends on "a comparison of the time referred to with the time of utterance" (1976: 24). In factive constructions, the juxtaposition or comparison is between the epistemic stance of the proximal speaker with the epistemic and/or affective stance of the grammatical subject. Thus, factive constructions contribute to the multidimensional nature of the indexical ground of a speech event, as they signal information at two levels (i.e., referentially as well as indexically), about participants' stances towards the propositions contained in thatcomplement clauses. 2 Stance has been defined (Comrie, 1989) as a pragmatic relation between linguistic elements and context. It may be realized either referentially or indexically, to represent the "expression of attitudes, feelings, judgements, or commitment" (Biber and Finegan, 1989) towards propositional content, towards other discourse participants, or towards the implications of other's utterances (Goodwin and Goodwin, 1987). In other words, stance may be thought of as the expression of an affective or epistemological disposition (Biber and Finegan, 1989; Ochs and Schieffelin, 1989; Besnier, 1990; Ochs, 1990). Affective dispositions include feelings, moods, and attitudes; epistemological dispositions refer to participants' beliefs or knowledge (Ochs, 1990). Speakers may index their own stance, or attribute stance to some other par-
2 There are also many other types of syntactic constructions which have been associated with the phenomenon of presupposition, such as gerundive complements, nominalized phrases, etc., but this paper will be concerned only with 'that-complements', in order to control for semantic differences between verbs which are higher or lower on the 'binding hierarchy' (Giv6n, 1980); in that-complement constructions, the main verb and complement clause are semantically maximally distinct.
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799414
801
ticipant (even themselves at sorae point in the past). This paper explores the role which factive predicates play in the indexicalization of stance in spoken discourse.
2. Prior research on factivity Earlier work on the phenomenon of factivity (Kiparsky and Kiparsky, 1971; Karttunen, 1971; Hooper and Thompson, 1973; Hooper, 1975; Shankland, 1981)proposed a category of verbs called 'factives', which, when followed by a that-complement, 'presuppose the complement' in such a way that it (the complement) is still 'true' from the speaker's perspective, whether or not the main clause is negated. For example, in the following (made-up) 3 example, the complement clause is presupposed by the speaker whether the main clause is positive (1) or negated (2): (1) - T o m realizes that his time is up. (2) NTom doesn't realize that his time is up. Previous discussions of factivity state that the presupposition of the complement belongs to the speaker, although this point is often unclear, since in much of the literature statements are frequently made to the effect that the main clause or sentence presupposes the complement clause. For example, Karttunen (1971) states: "According to the standard analysis,which was first presented by Paul and Carol Kiparsky, a sentence with a factivepredicate is said to presuppose the truth of its complementsentence." (1971: 55) However, the Kiparskys state quite clearly that "presuppositions ... are relative to the speaker" (1968: 155). A pragmatic, speaker-based definition of presupposition such as this contrasts with logical, truth-based definitions of presupposition (Strawson, 1954; Keenan, 1971 ; Kempson, 1975), which hold that presupposition is somehow located in external truth relations which have nothing whatsoever to do with the beliefs of speakers or hearers. Between these two schools of thought concerning the nature of presupposition, there exists a fairly long history of debate (Cooper, 1974), with those who prefer the logical definition arguing that examples of contexts where the speaker may utter presupposing constructions when s/he does not personally presuppose or believe them are fairly easy to imagine. In response, linguists preferring speaker-based definitions of presupposition (Sellars, 1954; Austin, 1963; Lakoff, 1971 a,b) have made statements to the effect that: "To say that S presupposes St is to say that, given certain conventions and purposes of language, it would be 'inappropriate,' 'deviant,' 'incorrect,' 'odd,' etc. to sincerelyassert S unless one believedS~ to be true." (Cooper, 1974: 46) Concerning the phenomenon of factivity, linguists preferring the speaker-based definition have pointed out that, for example, many factive predicates seem to 'lose 3 Made-upor amendedexamples will be marked in the text with the symbol~.
802
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799-814
their factivity', under certain conditions (Karttunen, 1971 ; Shankland, 1981), i.e., in questions, or conditional constructions, or more generally, whenever the speaker is not certain about the truth of the proposition. This paper will attempt to make sense of the pragmatic, speaker-based approach to the notion of presupposition as it is realized in factive constructions, by deconstructing the notion of speaker. For example, earlier speaker-based models of presupposition limited the scope of speaker's presupposition to only the logical knowledge state of the speaker at the moment of speaking in the proximal context, a model which breaks down when presuppositions are indexed for irrealis contexts. The model for speaker proposed here is a more dynamic one, which takes into account the various footings (Goffman, 1981), or perspectives, or 'projected selves' which speakers may adopt in discourse. Far from being 'inappropriate', 'insincere', 'deviant', etc., this paper will argue that speakers regularly create discourse contexts in which they may project presuppositions which they may not actually hold in the proximal, 'real world' context of speaking. In such discourse contexts, factive constructions index presupposition(s) which belong to a projected self adopted by the speaker in the discourse world. Previous discussions of factivity have observed that there are two types of factive predicates: epistemic, or 'semi-factive' predicates, and affective, or 'true factive' predicates. Below are some examples of each type of factive predicate (from Hooper and Thompson, 1973; Hooper, 1974; Shankland, 1981): epistemic
affective
find out discover know leam realize see perceive notice
regret resent be sorry be surprised be amused be amazed be happy be upset
Epistemic factive predicates "express the subject's state of knowledge" (Shankland, 1981), or "the manner in which the subject came to know the truth" of a presupposed complement (Hooper and Thompson, 1973), as in the following: (3) She knows that the system doesn't listen. (LLC) (4) ... and then he sees that he has a package in his hand, (Aes) Affective factive predicates are those which "express some emotion or subjective attitude about a presupposed complement" (Hooper and Thompson, 1973; Hooper, 1974) as in the following: (5) Personally, I'm sorry I haven't replied. (LLC) (6) I think John was m a d that I was with Alex. (Gue)
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799-814
803
This paper explores the notion offactivity from a fresh perspective. In considering how these predicates work in natural spoken discourse, it suggests that they function as indexical symbols which corttribute to the multi-dimensionality of the indexical ground of discourse. As such, they allow speakers to simultaneously encode as well as index both the epistemic and affective stances of other participants 4 in relation to their own knowledge state at the moment of speaking.
3. Factive constructions and nmltidimensional indexicalization of stance Factive predicates contribute 'to the multidimensionality of the indexical ground of discourse by allowing the speaker to index a stance on his/her own part while simultaneously attributing referentially another stance to the grammatical subject. More specifically, they allow the indexicalization of certainty concerning the truth of the information contained in the complement clause, on the part of the speaker, in addition to the affective or epistemic stance which is referentially attributed to the grammatical subject. In other words, presupposition, at least as it applies to factive constructions with that-complement clauses, it is suggested here, is equivalent to certainty as a type of epistemic stance. More importantly, an important function of factive constructions is that they may be used to index certainty on the part of the speaker in relation to affective or epistemic stance on the part of the grammatical subject(s). This observation is not entirely new, as previous pragmatics-based discussions of factivity have suggested as much; but these discussions have not pursued its implications. For example, Kiparsky and Kiparsky (1968) note that examples which might otherwise be semantically anomalous, such as the following, make sense only in a proximal participant framework where two egos are involved, such as in the case of an actor describing his character's epistemic state: (7) I don't realize that he has gone away. (1968: 148). In other words, factive constructions may be used to index alignment of stance (or, in cases where negation applies, non-alignment) between speaker and grammatical subject, even (in contexts where two egos are involved) in the first person present tense. Thus, one intriguing aspect of factive constructions is that they doubly index stance, allowing the speaker to index his/her stance in relation to that of the grammatical subject. This paper differs from earlier discussions of factivity in that it suggests a more dynamic model of speaker. For example, in the past tense, the knowledge state of a first perso:a grammatical subject (which shares identity with the speaker) may be analytically distinguished from the knowledge state of the speaker
4 Notethat the term 'other participant' as used here may even apply to the speaker himself or herself at some prior time, when his/her knowledge state differed from that of the proximal moment of speaking.
804
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799814
at the moment of speaking; in other words, speakers may refer to their own previous states of knowledge which may differ greatly from their current state, as in the following examples: (8) I didn't know it crushed her leg too. (Afr) (9) Later on I began to realize there were all sorts of aggressions and so on. (LLC) (10) ... and I didn't realize there was a Lawrence Berkeley research lab ... (Din) Examples (8)-(10) reflect another aspect of the indexical ground of discourse: the footing(s) (Goffman, 1981), or perspective(s) of the participants involved. In the above examples, the pronoun I encodes first person, i.e., the speaker, yet the factive predicates index two epistemic stances, both attributable to the same speaker, but at different times. As Chafe (1994) points out, past tense indexes the presence of a representing consciousness (as the deictic center of that tense), which stands in relation to the represented consciousness of the grammatical subject, even if that grammatical subject shares identity with the speaker: the notion of speaker may be analyzed in such examples as referring to two separate consciousnesses, at two separate temporal points. Thus, epistemic factives (such as realize, know, understand) index certainty of the truth of the predicate on the part of a representing consciousness, in addition to epistemic stance on the part of grammatical subject. Affective factive predicates (such as regret, resent, be upset) create an even richer indexical ground, as they overtly encode affective stance on the part of grammatical subject in addition to indexing epistemic stance on the part of both representing consciousness and grammatical subject. For example, consider the following:
(11) I'm a little appalled that as soon as we announced the conservative spokesman on the budget attacked us for doing it. (LLC) (12) Shej was very surprised that she2'd even gone over there. (Afr) In both of the above examples, affective stance is overtly encoded and attributed to the grammatical subject, while simultaneously an epistemic stance on the parts of the "proximal speaker" as well as grammatical subject is (covertly) indexed. For example, in (12), the proximal speaker is reporting on a third person's (she0 affective state (i.e., that "she was very surprised") towards the information encoded in the that-complement, which the grammatical subject as well as the proximal speaker apparently both consider to be true (this is their epistemic stance). Thus, it is argued here, an important aspect of factive constructions which has not been observed before is that they are a type of grammatical construction which allows speakers to make language, which Saussure (1959) characterized as inescapably linear, 5 a little more multi-dimensional. Factive constructions allow 5 Saussure said, "The linear nature of the signifier ... is fundamental ... There is no duality within the [phonational] act but only different oppositions to what precedes and what follows" (1959: 70).
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799--814
805
speakers to create an indexical ground which encodes two perspectives, or stances, at once, or to index something '.about the relationship between speaker's and grammatical subjects' epistemic stance(s), illustrating the following observation made by Silverstein: "Formal surface features of language ... function pragmaticallyin many indexical systems at the same time as they contribute to the ... reference-and-predicationdomain of ... propositionality." (1979: 207)
4. Deconstructing the notion of speaker Another important difference between this discussion of factivity and previous discussions is that the notion of speaker is somewhat different. As mentioned above, following Chafe (1994), the term speaker is deconstructed here, distinguishing the representing consciousness (realized indexically as the deictic center of tense) of the speaker, from the represented consciousness of first person grammatical subject. For example, when referring to their knowledge state in past contexts, the first person grammat:ical subject used by the speaker refers to a represented consciousness whose knowledge state may be very different from that of the speaker at the moment of speaking (their representing consciousness) in the proximal context, although the pronoun I may serve as an indexical symbol for both states of consciousness. This paper makes a major distinction between the representing consciousness of the speaker and the represented consciousness of grammatical subject, as even first person subject only sometimes coincides with the representing consciousness of the speaker (e.g., in the present tense). This is why factive constructions only encode and index a single stance in the first person present tense; in this case, the represented and representing consciousnesses are conflated. This is also why (7) only makes sense if it is interpreted as involving two egos, and why it would sound strange to say "I do not know that my fly is unzipped". More importantly, the dynamic model for speaker being proposed here also offers an explanation for the use of factive predicates in irrealis contexts such as conditional clauses and question.s, where previous speaker-based models of presupposition broke down. Where factive predicates before were said to 'lose their factivity' when used in irrealis contexts where the speaker could not logically presuppose the truth of the complement, the model for speaker proposed here, since it is more dynamic and allows for the projection of self into irrealis contexts, accounts for factive predicates in irrealis contexts. The following sections will attempt to illustrate how factive constructions function in spoken discourse. Section 5 discusses some semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic differences between affective and epistemic stances as they are realized in factive verb constructions. Section 6 will examine how factive predicates function in irrealis contexts, and will argue that there is no 'loss of factivity' in such contexts. Section 7 summarizes the major points made in this paper.
806
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799-814
5. Semantic, syntactic and pragmatic differences between stance types 5.1. Semantic differences Epistemic stance appears to function differently from affective stance in that degree of certainty (Giv6n, 1980, 1982) is part of the semantic content of epistemic verbs, with factive epistemic predicates being a set which index a great degree of certainty, in contrast to nonfactive epistemic verbs (such as think, believe, etc.) which index a lesser degree of certainty, if not outright doubt, at least on the speaker's part. Thus, epistemic stance appears to be graded in a way that affective stance is not. Factive epistemic predicates are those verbs of knowing which hold for the factivity test (Kiparsky and Kiparsky, 1968) of having complements which are presupposed by the speaker whether the main clause is positive or negated. Not all verbs of knowing pass this test. Nonfactive verbs like think, believe, guess, be sure, suppose, etc. differ from factive epistemic verbs like know, realize, discover, find out, see in that the former don't pass the factivity test. For example, when the main clause of the following utterance (13) is negated, the speaker's epistemic stance toward the truth of the complement clause seems to be reversed (14): (13) I believe that there's such a thing as love. (Gue) (14) -1 don't believe that there's such a thing as love. If the speaker wishes to attribute epistemic stance to a grammatical subject, the choice of a factive main verb implies that the speaker's epistemic stance toward the complement is one of certainty, i.e., the speaker presupposes the truth of the complement clause. If the speaker does not him/herself presuppose the truth of the complement, s/he probably wouldn't choose a factive main verb. For example, consider the semantic/pragmatic difference between the following two sequential stanceindexing constructions embedded within a single narrative (about a woman (Val) who fainted): (15) 6 ANN: there was 'one ^girl, Janet ^Park, I don't know if you ^knew [her]. The transcription system used here is that in Du Bois et al. (1992). Below is a key to the symbols: Intonation unit
Researcher's comment (()) Lengthening = Long pause ...() Uncertain hearingMedium pause ... Indecipherable syllable X 6
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799-814
807
BOB:
]Oh Ayeah], I remember [2 ^Janet 2]. ANN: [2 Okay 2]. .. She was ^behind 'Val. .. (TSK) She 'ran .. (TSK) ^:round her. BOB: ...didn't know that ^either, ANN: (0) 'Figuring= .. you 'know, .. that she w a s 'just, .. going to 'get up and ^come.
... .. (H) and it was 'only ^after, the 'whole group of them got Aback, .. that they ^ realized, that 'Val w a s n ' t
, (Aft) In the first bolded construction, the speaker is attributing stance to the grammatical subject (Janet), towards a complement which the speaker, at the moment of speaking, is quite certain is false, and a nonfactive verb, figure, is used. However, the speaker subsequently follows this attribution of stance with another one, attributed to 'the whole group', which the speaker, at the moment of speaking (i.e., as a representing consciousness), is certain of the truth of, and she uses the factive predicate realize. When affective predicates are; followed by that-complements, on the other hand, the result always appears to be a factive construction, i.e one which indexes certainty of the truth of the complement. Affective factive predicates index epistemic stance on the part of the representing consciousness of the speaker, as well as of the grammatical subject, i.e., the proximal speaker indexes certainty of the truth of the complement on both parts, regardless of whatever their respective affective attitudes toward that complement may be, as in (16): (16) I was distressed that this thing should have happened when you were away. (LLC) Affective predicates almost always result in factive constructions when followed by a that-complement (except in certain irrealis contexts; this point is further discussed in Section 6). As Giv6n (1980) points out, affective verbs like regret and be happy are closely bound semantically to their complements because they involve "an emotional impact resulting from the event/state in the complement" (1980: 345). As Giv6n argues, syntactic differences appear to be consistently correlated (cross-linguistically) with the place that verb-types take along a semantic binding hierarchy of emotional commitment, with epistemic verbs predictably falling somewhere slightly lower on the hierarchy than affective verbs. Thus, to summarize, when factive predicates are used to attribute affective stance to a grammatical subject, they automatically index certainty (i.e., a type of epistemic stance) on the part of both the proximal speaker (representing consciousness) and
808
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799814
grammatical subject (represented consciousness). Epistemic factives contrast with epistemic nonfactive verbs, in that the former also index certainty on the part of the proximal speaker, while simultaneously attributing (overtly encoding) certainty on the part of grammatical subject. Another important semantic difference between epistemic and affective stance types as realized in factive predicates lies in aspectual differences. In general, all affective factives are stative in nature, in contrast to the epistemic factives as a class. Some epistemic factives (realize,find out, discover, etc.) are more punctual in aspect than others (know, understand). This semantic difference has pragmatic implications as well, as the former set of verbs are those which have been labeled 'semi-factive' (Karttunen, 1971), because they 'lose their factivity' when used in questions, conditionals, or future constructions in which the speaker could not logically presuppose the complement, as illustrated by the following two examples (from Karttunen, 1971: 64): (17) - I f I regret later that I have not told the truth, I will confess it to everyone. *know (18) ~If I find out later that 1 have not told the truth, I will confess it to everyone. The fact that (17), which contains a (non-punctual) affective predicate, is grammatical, but the non-punctual epistemic verb know in (18) is not grammatical (or is nonsensical), appears to be related to the pragmatics of feeling vs. knowing; feelings can change, but one cannot 'unknow' something (one would have to realize, a punctual event, that one was wrong). The implications of these semantic differences in verb types for syntax are discussed in the following section. 5.2. Syntactic differences The attribution of affective stance appears to allow a wider range of subordinate clause types than the attribution of epistemic stance does. This syntactic difference appears to be correlated with the differences between these two predicate types in terms of semantic binding (Giv6n, 1980). For example, predicates indexing affective stance may take a wider variety of reduced complements, such as nominalized (19), infinitive (20), or gerund (21) complements, which conflate the main and subordinate clauses into one semantic event/assertion (Giv6n, 1980), as opposed to the separate assertion of the verb in a main clause towards the contents of a that-complement (23)-(24) (Hooper and Thompson, 1974; Giv6n, 1980). (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24)
I regret his leaving. I regret to tell you that he left. I regret leaving. *I know his leaving/to tell you he left/leaving. I know that he left. I regret that he left.
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799-814
809
The fact that affective main verbs take so many types of complements may also account for the fact that it is harder to find examples of affective factive (that-complement) constructions (as opposed to epistemic ones) in spoken discourse data; this makes it imperative to consult a large corpus.
5.3. Pragmatic differences Both epistemic and affective factive predicates may be used to attribute stance to some non-specified human (or anthropomorphized) experiencer, or set of experiencers to which the speaker appears to belong, as in the following examples: (25) Everybody notices that she's unusual. (LLC) (26) (Talking about a book on post-war France): Some neighbor said, Oh I was a friend of Jews, I was this, I was that, --> And you knew that they weren't, (Caf) However, only affective predicates 7 may altematively anchor the stance being indexed to a non-human pronoun such as it or that, as in the following examples: (27) Isn't it nice (that) she's home? (Mab) (28) That's interesting, I mean that you should pair the word aesthetics with advertising. (Aes) In the above constructions, however, the speaker clearly presupposes the truth of the complement, and shares the affective stance which s/he is generalizing to other (non-specified) subjects/experiencers. In addition to the above pragmatic differences, the fact that some epistemic factives contain an inherent punctuality in aspect also has pragmatic consequences. Those epistemic verbs which have been labeled semi-factives (Karttunen, 1971) are punctual in aspect. More will be said on this subject in the following section.
6. Factive predicates and irrealis contexts Previous discussions of factivity have suggested that in some contexts, such as when embedded in a question containing a sincere request for information, or when embedded in a conditional clause, semi-factive predicates 'lose their factivity' because the speaker could not logically presuppose the truth of the complement (Karttunen, 1971). Other possible contexts that can be imagined where this same 7 Affective factive predicates which anchor stance to pronouns such as it and that are often morphologically modified as well, e.g., be upstt becomes be upsetting, regret becomes be regrettable, etc.
810
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatic's 27 (1997) 799-814
point might also be made include constructions in the future tense, or any imaginary, hypothetical, or otherwise irrealis discourse context. But such contexts only create a problem for an analysis of factive predicates in a model where the concept of speaker is limited to the knowledge state of the speaker at the moment of the proximal speech event, ignoring the possibilities in discourse for imagination. If one adopts a more dynamic notion of speaker, which recognizes that speakers may adopt an unlimited number of footings or perspectives from which to project epistemic or affective stance, including certainty of the truth of a complement, then factive predicates no longer 'lose their factivity'; rather, it is the speaker who has simply shifted his/her perspective. This theoretical position is in line with the work of other linguists, sociologists, and anthropologists who have pointed out the dynamic, constantly changing nature of perspective (Goffman, 1981; Giv6n, 1982; Du Bois, 1986; Chafe, 1994)or indexical ground (Silverstein, 1976; Hanks, 1992). For example, in the following examples taken from actual discourse, epistemic stance (i.e., presupposition), in addition to being overtly attributed to the grammatical subject, is also indexed for a projected, or hypothetical representing consciousness. (29) (a hypothetical question between two young girls): Would you go (out) with him even if you k n e w I liked him? (Gue) (30) (another hypothetical situation, where a third party asking a boy out on another girl's behalf might work): Well those kind of third parties only work when like someone would go up to someone and you didn't k n o w they were saying it. (Eckert, 1993: 45) Examples like the above illustrate the creative indexical use of language (Silverstein, 1979), which allows speakers and their interactants to create and talk about universes of discourses which are not identical with what they regard as the real world. Within such discourse universes, notions like 'truth' are likewise different from the 'logical truth' of assumed reality. The representing consciousness who is the deictic center of the presupposition or epistemic stance indexed by the factive constructions used in these examples is a 'projected self' (Goffman, 1981) on the part of the speaker. Note that the same is true of affective factives, as in the following example, where the speaker is describing a friend's imaginary reaction to a hypothetical situation (of staying at a certain vacation spot): (31) ... and when she got there, [she would] be frankly disappointed that she hadn't gotten more privacy. (LLC) In the above example, the speaker in the proximal context of speaking can't logically be certain of her friend's reaction to an event which has not actually occurred, therefore, the affective predicate in this case should also 'lose its factivity', under the previous static model of speaker in the literature on speaker-based presupposition. Thus, under that model, it seems that even the category of 'true factive' (i.e., affective factives) is not tenable. The more dynamic model for 'speaker' proposed here may more successfully account for the fact that human beings may use language cre-
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799-814
811
atively (Silverstein, 1976), regardless of any external or physical world's 'truth'. Speakers always have the option of creating their own discourse realities within which stance may be indexed, which may be quite apart from any real world 'reality', related to states of affect or knowledge of speakers or grammatical subjects at the present moment of speaking. Earlier studies of factivity, which insisted on presupposition relative to the speaker at the moment of speaking could not account for the dynamic nature of 'reality' as represented in human discourse. In examples like (29)-(31), the speaker is adopting a footing, or perspective, however fleeting, from which they presuppose the truth of the factive complement. Speakers constantly project footings which are not equivalent to that of the representing consciousness in the proximal context of speaking, a,;, for example, when reporting the speech of others through direct quotation: (32) Johnny told me 'I know you're going to do good' (Car) As examples of direct quotation illustrate, first person obviously does not always share identity with the speaker. This point has been discussed at length by other authors (Jakobson, 1971; Silverstein, 1976; Du Bois, 1986). This paper has simply attempted to extend the above observation concerning the natural tendency in discourse for humans to adopt multiple footings or perspectives to explain the use of factive predicates in irrealis conl•exts.
7. Conclusion
Drawing on a large corpus of spoken English, my paper has examined how factive predicates may be used to help constitute the multi-dimensional indexical ground of spoken discourse. It has suggested that factive constructions not only encode epistemic or affective stance for a g~rammatical subject, but additionally index a specific kind of epistemic stance, namely, certainty of the truth of the complement clause, for a representing consciousness adopted by the speaker. Factive constructions also index alignment of stance between a representing consciousness and grammatical subject. Epistemic and affective factive predicates differ in several ways, not only semantically, but also syntactically and pragmatically, in the ways they may be used to index (as well as encode) stance. Affective factive predicates appear to be higher on the 'binding hierarchy' of verb types proposed by Giv6n (1980), such that there is a higher degree of integration between the factive predicate of the main clause and the information encoded in the complement clause than there is in epistemic factive constructions. Affective factives may take a wider variety of complement types, which conflate with the main predicate to encode one event or assertion. Affective factive predicates tend to be more stative in nature than epistemic factive predicates. In general, when affective factives are used to attribute affective stance to a grammatical subject, that stance represents an affective state toward an event encoded in file complement clause, which is presupposed (i.e.,
812
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799--814
believed to be true) by both proximal speaker and grammatical subject. Thus, affective factive constructions both attribute affective stance while simultaneously indexing presupposition of the truth of the complement on the part of two separate consciousnesses (unless there is identity between the representing consciousness of the proximal speaker and the grammatical subject, as may occur in first person present tense). Both epistemic and affective stance may be generalized to some other non-specific deictic center, such as a generic pronoun (i.e., you, people, etc.). Affective predicates may also take non-human grammatical subjects, such as it or that, but all epistemic factives require a human grammatical subject. Epistemic factives may be further subdivided into those which contain an inherently punctual aspect and those which are apunctual; the former are those which have previously been categorized as 'semi-factive' (Karttunen, 1971), because they appear to 'lose their factivity' in irrealis discourse contexts, such as when embedded in questions or conditional constructions. This analysis has attempted to explain this phenomenon by deconstructing the notion of speaker. A more dynamic model of speaker may go farther toward explaining how factive constructions function in discourse. For example, a model which allows for the possibility of multiple footings, or perspectives, as adopted by speakers in discourse, regardless of the speaker's logical knowledge state in the proximal context of speaking, explains why speakers may use factive constructions in irrealis discourse contexts. Following Chafe (1994), this paper has distinguished the representing consciousness of the speaker (the deictic center of the presupposition indexed by factive constructions), from the represented consciousness encoded by the grammatical subject, which is the deictic center of events and states, such as feelings and realizations, etc. This model not only offers an explanation for the use of factive constructions in irrealis discourse contexts, but also explains why an inherent duality of stance is implied by factive constructions even when there is identity between speaker and grammatical subject. Such duality, or multi-dimensionality, of indexical relations between participants, propositions, physical context, the implications of propositions, etc., is an important aspect of the nature of the indexical ground of discourse, which is dynamic in nature and constantly changing. Silverstein (1985) has suggested that indexical relations may be the most basic of linguistic functions, as they "bespeak the simple fact of the situatedness of language use as social function in some context ...[which] is the everchanging dynamic of indexical presupposition and indexical entailment between linguistic signs and specific aspects of the context in the speech event" (224-225). The author hopes that the present paper has helped to clarify somewhat the role that factive constructions play in this basic linguistic function.
References Austin, J.L., 1963. How to do things with words. Oxford: OxfordUniversityPress. Bauman,Richard, 1975. Verbal art as performance.AmericanAnthropologist77(2): 290-31 I.
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799814
813
Bauman, Richard and Charles Briggs, 1990. Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 59-87. Besnier, Niko, 1990. Language and affect. Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 419-452. Biber, Douglas and Edward Finegan, 1989. Styles of stance in English: Lexical and grammatical marking of evidentiality and affect. Text 9(1): 93-124. Chafe, Wallace, 1994. Discourse, consciousness, and time: The flow and displacement of consciousness in speaking and writing. Chicago, IL: University Chicago Press. Cooper, David, 1974. Presupposition. The Hague: Mouton. Du Bois, John W., 1986. Self-evidence and ritual speech. In: W. Chafe and J. Nichols, eds., Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistem,ology, 313-336. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Du Bois, John W., S. Schuetze-Coburn, D. Paolino and S. Cummings, 1992. Discourse transcription. Santa Barbara Working Papers in Linguistics, Department of Linguistics, University of California Santa Barbara. Eckert, Penelope, 1993. Cooperative c,~mpetition in adolescent 'girl-talk'. In: D. Tannen, ed., Gender and conversational interaction, 32~511. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Givrn, Talmy, 1980. The binding hierarchy and the typology of complements. Studies in Language 4(3): 333-377. Givrn, Talmy, 1982. Logic vs. pragmalics with natural language as the referee. Journal of Pragmatics 6: 81-133. Goffman, Erving, 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia, PA: University Pennsylvania Press. Hanks, William, 1989. The indexical ground of deictic reference. In: Parasession on language in context. Chicago Linguistics Society 22(2): 104-122. Hooper, Joan, 1974. On assertive predicates. In: J. Kimball, ed., Syntax and semantics, Vol. 4: 91-124. New York: Academic Press. Hooper, Joan and Sandra Thompson, 1973. On the applicability of root transformations. Linguistic Inquiry 4(4): 465-497. Jakobson, Roman, 1971. Shifters, verbal categories and the Russian verb. In: Selected Writings of Roman Jakobson, Vol. 2: 130-147. The Hague: Mouton. Karttunen, Lauri, 1971. Some observations on factivity. Papers in Linguistics 4(1): 55--69. Kiparsky, Paul and Carol Kiparsky, 1968. Fact. In: M. Bierwisch and K. Heidolph, eds., Recent advances in linguistics, 143-173. The Hague: Mouton. Lakoff, George, 1971a. On generative semantics. In: D. Steinberg and L. Jakobovits, eds., Semantics: An interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics and psychology, 232-295. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lakoff, George, 1971 b. Presupposition and relative well-formedness. In: D. Steinberg and L. Jakobovits, eds., Semantics: An interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics and psychology, 329-340. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lyons, John, 1977. Semantics, Vols. I--II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ochs, Elinor, 1990. Indexicality and socialization. In: J. Stigler, R. Shweder and G. Herdt, eds., Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human development, 287-308. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ochs, Elinor, 1992. Indexing gender. In: A. Duranti and C. Goodwin, eds., Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ochs, Elinor and Bambi Schieffelin, 1989. Language has a heart. Text 9(1): 7-25. Sellars, Wilfrid, 1954. Presupposing. Philosophical Review 63: 197-215. Shankland, Mary Ellen, 1981. Factivity from a discourse perspective. Linguistic Notes from La Jolla 10: 20-32. Silverstein, Michael, 1976. Shifters, linguistic categories, and cultural description. In: K. Basso and H. Selby, eds., Meaning in anthropology, 11-55. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research. Silverstein, Michael, 1979. Language st~ucture and linguistic ideology. In: R. Clyne, W. Hanks and C. Hofbauer, eds., The elements: A parasession on linguistic units and levels. Chicago Linguistics Society. Silverstein, Michael, 1985. Language and the culture of gender: At the intersection of structure, usage, and ideology. In: E. Mertz and R. Parmentier, eds., Semiotic mediation: Sociocultural and psychological perspectives, 219-259. New York: Academic Press.
814
M. Field / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 799---814
Silverstein, Michael, 1993. Metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function. In: John Lucy, ed., Reflexive language: Reported speech and metapragmatics, 33-58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strawson, P.F., 1954. Reply to Mr. Sellars. Philosophical Review 63: 216-231.