The Message in the Bottle and Lost in the Cosmos

by Walker Percy

  Transformational grammar is not an explanatory theory of language as phenomenon but rather a formal description, an algorithm, of the competence of a person who speaks a language. There is no evidence that this algorithm bears a necessary relation to what is happening inside the head of a person who speaks or understands a sentence. There is evidence in fact that it does not.

  Transformational grammar also fails as theory because it violates a cardinal rule of scientific explanation, namely, that a theory cannot use as a component of its hypothesis the very phenomenon to be explained. That is to say, if one sets out to explain the appearance of an apple on an apple tree, it will not do to suppose that apple B, which we have in hand, derives from putative apple A, which we hypothesize as its progenitor. An adequate account of the origins of either apples or sentences must contain in the one case only nonapple elements, e.g., pollen, ovary, ovule, etc., and in the other case nonsentential elements. So. it will not do for an explanatory theory of language which must presumably account for the utterance and understanding of a sentence or “surface structure” to hypothesize a “deep structure” as its source when deep structures are themselves described as “kernel sentences” (Chomsky) or “underlying propositions” (Chomsky), when in fact it is the phenomenon of sentence utterance itself in whatever form, kernel sentences or propositions, that is unique among species and therefore, one would think, the major goal of theorizing.

  3.1. The main error of a generative grammar considered as a theory of language is that its main component is syntactical with semantic and phonological components considered as “interpretations” thereof (Chomsky). This awarding of the prime role to syntax rules out nonsyntactical elements, for example, semological and phonological components, as primitive generative components of deep structures and in effect posits syntax as an underivable and therefore unexplainable given.

  Thus, the phrase-marker or general rule of sentence formation is given as the coupling of syntactical elements:

  S → NP-VP

  In point of fact, the phrase-marker does not represent the class of all classes of sentences or even the class of all declarative sentences. Consider the one-word sentence in which a child points at a round red inflated object and looks questioningly at his father, whereupon the father says Balloon. Where are the NP and VP of this sentence? What have been coupled here are not two syntactical elements but a class of sounds and a class of experienced objects. The only way this one-word naming sentence can be captured under a syntactical rubric is to consider it as an elliptical version of the NP-VP form That is a balloon, and even this strategy does not give an account of the special semiotic status of the demonstrative that. To parse the one-word naming sentence syntactically is to tailor data to fit theory. It is rather for theory to accommodate data.

  It is important to notice, as we shall presently see, that while this one-word sentence does not fit the syntactical phrase-marker NP-VP, it fits very well the more informal definition of a sentence given by the ordinary-language analysts as comprising (1) what one talks about and (2) what one says about it (Strawson). What the father and child are talking about is the experienced balloon itself considered as a member of a class of such objects. What the father says about it is that it is named by a class of sounds balloon.

  3.2. The phrase-marker NP-VP describes a subclass of declarative sentences. A general rule of sentence formation must accommodate nonsyntactical as well as syntactical elements such as “noun phrases” and “verb phrases.”

  3.3 The central component of the LAD is not syntactical but rather semological-phonological (Chafe). The syntactical component is nothing more nor less than the formal properties which issue from the semological-phonological linkage and later from combinations of semological-phonological complexes or semantically contentive words (Brown’s usage, see Brown and Bellugi).

  Thus the formal properties of syntax are already present in two-word combinations of “contentives” in children’s sentences. Later these formal properties are explicitly marked by the addition of “functors” (Brown and Bellugi).

  3.4. Accordingly, a rule of sentence formation must be sufficiently general to accommodate both the purely syntactical NP-VP sentence and the naming sentence in which a class of experience (semology) is linked with a class of sounds (phonology) (Chafe).

  Some such general rule may be formulated as follows:

  (1) Sentence → S (is) P

  The “subject” and “predicate” form seems advisable for no other reason than that these terms are sufficiently general to accommodate both naming sentences and NP-VP sentences. Thus “subject” and “predicate” are used not to revive Aristotelian categories but as a shorthand description of a sentence as comprising (1) what one talks about and (2) what one says about it. “Subject” fairly describes both the balloon in the one-word naming sentence Balloon and the NP in The boy hit the dog.

  The copula is indispensable because something is asserted in a sentence. The parenthesis is added because such assertion does not always require the presence of a verb phrase, e.g., Balloon.

  Subclass (1a), the naming sentence, might be formulated by the semiotic rule

  (1a) Sentence → IEc (is) Sc

  where I is an index, either an item of behavior, a pointing at or looking at, or some such functor as that in That is a balloon; E is an experience, subscript c added to indicate that it is not such-and-such an experience which is pointed at or looked at as a singular but rather as one of a class of such experiences. Similarly, Sc is not such-and-such a sound but rather an utterance understood as a class of such sounds (phonology). To use Chafe’s terminology, we are dealing not with substances but with forms (Chafe).

  Note that it is preferable to use Ec to designate a semological class of experience rather than, say, Oc for a class of objects, e.g., ballons. For in fact a child not only names things (table, doggie, ball) but actions (play, see, drop) and qualities (blue, broke, bad) (Brown and Bellugi). What such words have in common is not a syntactical property but a semantic property. Thus they are not all nouns; some are verbs and adverbs. But they are all semantically contentive.

  The second subclass is the standard “syntactical” declarative sentence form:

  (lb) Sentence → NP-VP

  Sentences of this form, I shall suggest, appear first in children’s speech as those two-word combinations in which contentive words are selected from an inventory of semophones stored up by naming sentences and are paired to form primitive versions of adult NP-VP sentences. Thus: Bobby wet, Doggie fall, Mommy lunch (Mommy had her lunch), etc.

  3.5. Four immediate advantages accrue to a linguistic model which proposes a semological-phonological linkage as its genetically prime component:

  (1) It is a transsyntactical theory; that is, it is founded on a general semiotic—the science of the relations between people and signs and things—which specifies syntax as but one dimension of sentential theory. Accordingly, it provides theoretical grounds for distinguishing between the two types of declarative sentences, the naming sentence and the NP-VP sentence.

  (2) It accords with the data of language acquisition and provides a model for understanding the ontogenesis of speech in children, in particular the stages of word and “phrase” acquisition, a sequence which is presently accounted for by purely descriptive “generative rules of phrase formation.”

  (3) It allows the possibility, as we shall see, of looking for a neurophysiological correlate of such a model, a possibility which is disallowed in principle by a generative theory which postulates syntax as a central underived component.

  (4) It permits the assimilation of linguistic theory to a more general theory of all symbolic transactions, a theory which must in turn accommodate such nonsyntactical “sentences” as metaphor, a painting, a sculpture, a piece of music. From this larger perspective it will be seen that the division of language into two kinds of sentences is not as arbitrary and unsatisfactory as it might at first appear. Rather is it the ca
se that the standard syntactical sentence of language, the coupling of subject and predicate, is a special case of the more fundamental human capacity to couple any two things at all and through the mirror of the one see the other. Thus, the child’s sudden inkling that the thing ball “is” the sound ball is the progenitor not only of all future sentences about balls but also of his grasp of metaphor, art, and music.

  4. The two kinds of sentences formed by (1a) and (1b) can be regarded not only as representing the formal subclasses of constative sentences—anyone at any time can name things with one-word sentences or assert propositions about things and events and relations—but also as delineating major stages in the ontogenesis of language. In the initial naming stage of language acquisition, the first sentences children utter are the linking of semological elements (forms of experience) with phonological elements (forms of sound). As a consequence of this extraordinary naming activity, a repertoire of semological-phonological complexes or “contentive” words is formed. For the sake of convenience I propose to call these semological-phonological complexes “semophones.” Once such a lexicon of semophones is available, it becomes possible by combining any two semophones to form a large number of primitive NP-VP sentences.

  4.1. One test of a theory of language is its utility in accounting for the acquisition of language, in particular the ontogenesis of speech as it is observed in intensive studies of individual children.

  Judged by the standard of adult syntax, the early manifestations of speech in children appear vagarious and fragmentary. In studies of individual children, such speech forms have been described variously as “single-word utterances,” “phrases,” “holophrases,” “sentence fragments,” “telegraphic sentences,” and so on.

  Such studies, however, generally agree in specifying certain stages of language development.

  Some time around the end of the first year of life, most children go through a naming stage. As Brown and Bellugi put it, at this period “most children are saying many words and some children go about the house all day long naming things (table, doggie, ball, etc.) and actions (play, see, drop, etc.) and an occasional quality (blue, broke, bad, etc.).

  It is interesting to note that the best-known studies of the acquisition of speech in children (Braine, Brown, Ervin, McNeill), while taking note of the naming stage and of “one-word utterances,” skip over it and address themselves to “phrases” of two or more words. The assumption seems to be made both that there is assuredly such a thing as a naming stage and also that there is not much to be said about it. This may be true, but it nevertheless seems curious, considering the fact that no other species on earth ever names anything at all, much less goes about naming everything under the sun or asking its name, that investigators of the genesis of language in children should not have been more intrigued by this apparently unique activity. On the other hand, what is one to say about it? A child names something or hears it named, understands or misunderstands what is named, and that is that. One can only conclude either (1) that the phenomenon of naming is the most transparent of events and therefore there is little to be said about it, or (2) that it is the most mysterious of phenomena and therefore one can’t say much about it. As Fodor said, nobody knows what a name is.

  I wish to suggest that one reason for the indifference of these psycholinguistic studies to the naming stage of language acquisition is a necessary consequence of a commitment to structuralism as linguistic theory. That is to say, if one regards grammatical patterns and distributional relations as the primary goal of linguistics, one can’t have much to say when confronted with a single word. For as soon as theory abstracts from behavior and the relation of words to things, and addresses itself only to the relation of words to words, the theorist can only watch the naming child with bemused interest and mark time until he begins to put two or more words together.

  The second stage of language acquisition is characterized by two-word utterances, usually described as “pivot-open” constructions. The pivot class has fewer members than the open class. Thus, a child will say my sock, my boat, my fan, or big plane, big shoe, big sock, etc. (Braine); that knee, that coffee, that Adam, or two coat, two stool, two Tinkertoy, etc. (Brown and Bellugi); this arm, this baby, this yellow, or the other, the pretty, the dolly’s, or here baby, here yellow, etc. (Ervin). The following rule therefore holds for both single-word utterances and pivot-open combinations (McNeill):

  S→ (P) + O

  which would account in a purely descriptive manner for such utterances as ball or my ball or here ball or there yellow or there drop, whatever syntactical or sentential differences may exist.

  It has been noted that members of the pivot class are usually functors (a, that, the, here) but not always (pretty, big), while open-class words are nearly always contentives (boy, coffee, sock, knee, wet, yellow).

  The third stage is characterized by two developments:

  (1) Differentiation of the pivot class.

  For example, car, through successive expansions a car, that a car, that a big car, eventually reaches its adult form that is a big car (see Brown and Bellugi; McNeill). Descriptive rules can be inferred:

  NP → (P) + N car, a car

  NP1 → Dem + Art + M + N that a my car

  NP2 → Art + M + N a big car

  NP3 → Dem + M + N that big car

  NP4 → Art + N the car

  NP5 → M + N my car

  NP6 → Dem + N that car

  These rules allow, for example, that a big horsie but not a big that horsie.

  (2) The open-open construction.

  Instead of saying here man, here car, here coffee or a bridge, a man, a daddy, the child begins to combine two words of the open class: man car (a man is in the car), car bridge (the car is under the bridge), coffee Daddy (here is coffee for Daddy), etc. (Braine).

  These open-open constructions are often uttered in strong contextual situations, for example, where mother and child are looking at the same thing. The mother, in other words, is a reliable interpreter. Indeed, the mother actually repeats and expands the child’s utterance, keeping the order of the contentives but adding functors and inflections, as much as to say, “Isn’t this what you mean?” Some examples of open-open combinations with the mother’s “interpretations” and expansion and, presumably, the child’s approval (from Brown and Bellugi):

  Child Mother

  Baby high chair Baby is in the high chair

  Mommy eggnog Mommy had her eggnog

  Eve lunch Eve is having her lunch

  Mommy sandwich Mommy’ll have a sandwich

  Note one consequence of the transition from the pivot-open to the open-open construction. The child’s discovery of the latter makes possible an almost exponential increase in the number even of two-word utterances—a fact of the highest significance in any attempt to account for that unique characteristic of the Language Acquisition Device: the ability to utter and understand any number of new sentences. The number of two-word combinations noted by Braine in one child observed at regular intervals went so: 14, 24, 54, 89, 350, 1400, 2500 + (Braine).

  Such then is a too-brief and much-oversimplified summary of the highlights of language acquisition as it is actually observed to occur in children.

  Judged by the criterion of adult NP-VP syntax, child’s speech appears somewhat fragmentary and vagarious, an assortment of one-word utterances, phrases, fragments, “pivot-open” and “open-open” combinations, the whole odd lot accounted for by purely descriptive “generative phrase rules.”

  The real issue seems to be whether the utterances of children, or of anyone at all for that matter, can be understood by a textual analysis which abstracts from the behavior of people who utter sounds to each other about one thing or another. What if sentences have components other than lexical items? If this is so, then a theory of the ontogenesis of language deriving exclusively from the study of corpora of speech must necessarily issue in a purely descriptive structuralism or a formal deduc
tive calculus which transforms one kind of sentence to another by “rules” which, as matters stand now, cannot even in principle be correlated with anything that happens inside people’s heads.

  One wonders therefore: How might the development of child’s speech appear when viewed by a transsyntactical theory of sentences, which sees the conventional NP-VP construction as a subclass of the class of all sentences?

  I think it can be shown that if the speech of children is viewed not merely as a corpus from which certain descriptive grammatical rules can be inferred but as a behavior which implicates both syntactical and “nonsyntactical” elements, it is possible to arrive at more general semiotic rules of sentence formation. The various descriptive rules of “phrase formation” will then be seen to be coherent stages in the emergence of sentence utterances.

  (1) The “one-word utterance,” so characteristic of the first stage of language acquisition, is nothing more Or less than the earliest appearance of the naming sentence, a complete sentence in semiotic terms albeit lacking some later syntactical and functional elements.

  The rule involved is not a phrase rule, such as

  NP → N

  (Brown and Bellugi)

  where NP is “noun phrase” and N a “noun,” or a rule for “pivot-open” combinations

  (P) + O

  but rather the general behavioral rule of formation of the naming sentence

  S→ (I) (Ec) (is) Sc

  where I, the index, is in this case an item of behavior (e.g., a pointing at or looking at), Ec is the thing or quality or action experienced by the child and indicated as one of a class of such experiences, (is) is the copula dispensed with until the final adult form, Sc is the contentive word, usually a sound—e.g., noun ball, adjective yellow, verb hop—uttered as a member of a class of such words. (As Charles Peirce would say, a contentive word or symbol is not a single thing but a kind of thing [Peirce]).