The Locutors Linguistic Creativity

1. 2. 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 2.5.1. 2.5.2. 3. 3.1. 3.1.1. 3.1.2. 3.1.3. 3.1.4. 3.2. 3.2.1. 3.2.2. 3.3. 3.3.1. 3.3.2. 4. 4.1. 4.1.1. 4.1.2. 4.1.3. 4.1.4. 4.2. 5. 5.1. 5.2. 6. Preliminaries... A Psychological Perspective on the Functions of the Language ... Roman Jakobsons Theory of the Functions of the Language The Referential Function of the Language .. The Expressive / Emotive Function of the Language . The Conative Function of the Language . The Metalinguistic Function of the Language The Metalinguistic Function of the Language in Religious Speeches The Metalinguistic Function of the Language in Literary Texts Ambiguity .. Semantic Ambiguity ... Semantic Ambiguity vs. Semantic Vagueness Local Ambiguity and Genuine Ambiguity .. Pragmatic Aspects of Ambiguity and Vagueness ... Factors That Contribute to Semantic Disambiguation Lexical Ambiguity .. Lexical Ambiguity Based on Polysemy .. Lexical Ambiguity Based on Homonymy and Categorial Ambiguity Structural Ambiguity ... Amphiboly and the Garden-Path Effect .. Idiomatic vs. Literal Interpretations Clichs Types of Clichs . Fillers .. Circumlocutions .. Tautological and Pleonastic Expressions Witter Words ... Linguistic Clichs Creatively Used . Humour .. Homonymy, Polysemy, and Paronymy as Sources of Humour .. Implicature and Logical Deduction . Conclusions

1. Preliminaries
The term linguistic creativity may be interpreted in various ways. In her Derivational Morphology, Taina Duescu-Coliban states that in the Generative Transformational Grammar this notion refers to the property the grammar has to capture the power of producing and understanding sentences that have never been uttered or heard before. Thus, in GTG we have to do with a more banal sort of creativity, which lies within the rules entirely. [] Creativity is rule-governed.1 Its current use, however, is associated with literary activity, hence with poetic licence, deviance or rule

Taina Duescu-Coliban, 2001, Derivational Morphology, Bucureti: Universitatea ,,Spiru Haret, Editura Fundaiei ,,Romnia de Mine, p. 72.

breaking. (inverted commas in the original)2 Stephen Ullmann also refers to the barriers imposed by language on literary creativity: The choices that a writer can make are limited by the expressive resources of the language, by the number and nature of the alternatives open to him in a given situation. In many cases he will be faced with a simple binary choice: he will have to choose between two synonyms (help aid, grateful thankful,), two morphological variants (I do not I dont), or two constructions (inversion or non inversion of the subject, ante-position or post-position of the adjective in French) (inverted commas and italics in the original), but The simplicity of these minimum choices does not mean in any way that the effects obtained from them are also simple as The more the unusual the construction, the more expressive force it will have3. The conclusion that follows logically from Stephen Ullmanns words above is that it rests with any individual writer to use the limited material offered by the language as a restricted set of rules and to build unexpected constructions as this is the real measure of his creative power. In the present chapter, the concept of linguistic creativity is used to describe any linguistic item, be it lexical, morphological, syntactic or semantic, that may catch a listeners ear or a readers eye due to the locutors skilful manipulation of the rules that govern the language at each of these levels without this affecting the interpreters power of understanding the linguistic resorts behind each such enterprise. In short, somebodys linguistic creativity consists in the salient features of that persons linguistic style; the more unexpected the construction, the greater marks of creativity it bears. As the majority of the examples under analysis are fragments selected from literary texts, the term locutor will be used to refer to the author the literary text, and never for the (speaking) characters, which are referred to as such or by their name.

2 3

Idem, p. 71. Stephen Ullmann, 1964, Language and Style, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, p. 141. 2

2. A Psychological Perspective on the Functions of the Language

The aim of the present section is to provide a possible account of the major uses that language is put to in human communication. This account is of a psychological nature in that the locutors intentions, emotions and attitudes are highlighted in the examples analysed. These mental, emotional, and behavioural aspects, respectively, are of semantic nature. Hence they belong mainly to the deep structure of the sentences uttered or written by locutors (i.e. speakers or writers). However, they become manifest and observable at the level of the structural organisation of the linguistic discourse, therefore, the surface structure of sentences is used as the starting point for such an analysis. In the elaboration of this section I have mainly relied on the theory of the functions of the language developed by Roman Jakobson. Occasional references will be made to Noam Chomskys theory of communicative competence and performance, to M. A. K. Hallidays functional theory of language, as well as to John Langshaw Austin and John R. Searles theory of speech acts. These theories are presented in a nutshell in the sections in which they are referred to along with the explanation of other significant terms that are used in the analysis of the examples selected for illustration. Most examples have been selected from literary texts; a small number, however, have been invented in accordance with the structural rules of standard English.

2.1. Roman Jakobsons Theory of the Functions of the Language The famous linguist Roman Jakobson identified the constitutive factors of linguistic communication: the locutor, the interlocutor, the message, the code, the context (linguistic and extralinguistic), and the contact or channel (physical and psychological). All these factors, which are represented in Figure 1 below, may be labeled in various ways: instead of locutor emitent, encoder, writer, speaker, decoder, interlocutor recipient, we may as well use terms such as of the message; listener, instead of interpreter, hearer, sender reader,

addressee, even audience; discourse or text instead of message; language instead of code, etc. But, as Baylon and Mignot suggest, any other terminology we

might be using, this would not bring about significant changes to the essence of the factors identified by Roman Jakobson.4 Context Locutor Contact Code
Figure 1: Roman Jakobson: Factors involved in linguistic communication5

Message Interlocutor

According to Jakobson, who was a functionalist6, each factor in the scheme he drew is considered the object of a separate cardinal function of the language. Therefore, the scheme of the functions of the language corresponding to the factors identified in Figure 1, arranged identically for easier identification, are those represented in Figure 2: Referential Emotive / Expressive Conative Phatic Metalinguistic
Figure 2: The cardinal functions of the language, according to Roman Jakobson7

Poetic

As I consider that linguistic creativity may be related to the locutors artful handling of the functions of the language as well, not only of the linguistic ornaments at any of its levels, the present section draws on some of these functions identified above, namely the referential, the expressive, the conative and the metalinguistic ones. I also consider these functions very resourceful as far as the interpretation of the locutors psychology in terms of cognitive processes, volitional processes (intentions, attitudes) and emotional processes (wishes, desires, aspirations) behind the process of language production is concerned.

4 5

Cf. Charles Baylon and Xavier Mignot, 2000, Communicarea, Iai: Editura Universitii ,,Alexandru-Ioan Cuza, p.82. Idem, p. 81. 6 A functionalist is a linguist who considers that language is used in order to fulfil one or more functions subordinated to that of communication, which is the essential one. 7 Idem, p. 84. 4

2.2. The Referential Function of the Language This function refers to the informational content of the message, the ideas conveyed by the locutor about the state of affairs that constitute the subject matter of his linguistic discourse. These ideas have referents in the external objective world or they may be created by the locutors imagination. Every utterance or written sentence has a topic8. Usually this has a concrete or an abstract referent and, functionally, it overlaps with the grammatical subject: 1). The old gentleman went on as follows.9 2). They drank their tea in the bedroom sometimes.10 3). Charlie burst through the front door, shouting.11 4). The whole episode was clearly a great embarrassment to my father.12 5). The promise seemed, somehow, to make the recipient unfortunately conspicuous.13 6). The surface of their collective glory ondulated as one or another would stand.14 7). Nothing but an extreme love of truth could have hindered me from concealing this part of my story.15 8). Time ran on.16 Even in these few examples it is clear that the topic, i.e. generally the noun phrase functioning as the grammatical subject, concentrates only a part of the informational content of the sentence, also known as old information in functional grammar. It is its main part but not the whole of it. It is only the point of departure in the development of the sentence. The verb itself bears a great amount of meaning, and the remainder of the sentence adds to its informational content as well. The new information conveyed by the sentence is provided by these last two parts. Given the fact that almost all utterances in English have an informational content17 made up of one or more parts, what is important from a psychological point of
8

This term belongs to Noam Chomsky in his structural transformational generative grammar. It is also referred to as theme by M. A. K Halliday in his functional grammar, but only in examples of a certain structure, these mentioned here included. 9 Laurence Sterne, 1992, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Oxford: O. U. P., p. 276. 10 Virginia Woolf, 1994, To the Lighthouse, Wordsworth Classics, p. 130. 11 Roald Dahl, 1995, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, London: Puffin Books, p. 67. 12 Kazuo Ishiguro, 1990, The Remains of the Day, London Boston: Faber and Faber, p. 63. 13 John Updike, op. cit., p. 49. 14 Idem, p. 136. 15 Jonathan Swift, 1985, Gullivers Travels, London: Penguin Books, p. 173. 16 Robert Louis Stevenson, 1994, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, London: Penguin Books, p. 40. 17 M. A. K. Halliday considers sentences such as How do you do! , Hi!, Good bye!, etc. as void of informational meaning, they having only a ritualistic function in language. 5

view is how the locutor organises syntagmatically this content. He may speak about various states of affairs following the classic structure of a kernel clause18: SUBJECT + VERB + OBJECT + COMPLEMENT(s) + ADJUNCT(s)19, as in the examples from (1) to (8). In this case, the recipient of the message usually has no difficulty in following the locutors train of thought: this structure is deeply rooted in his linguistic competence, therefore, it is the most expected and the easiest to recognise in the others performance. But the locutor may organise his utterances in various other ways. When one of the elements in the classic structure of a sentence is displaced, it becomes marked in that it is emphasised or given more weight in terms of informational content but not only; most of the times, emphasised elements bear the marks of the locutors emotions, intentions or attitudes towards the referent of these elements: 9). To this Gentleman came Bellarmine on the Errand I have mentioned.20 10). Such was the complexity of things.21 11). Drunk am I? Mad am I?
22

12). It was around this point [] that I happened to glance out of the window.23 Sentences (9), (10), and (12) are semantically similar in that the underlying meaning conveyed by the locutor is X, not Y, i.e.: 9). To this gentleman, not to another one. 10). Such was the complexity of things, no other way. 12). It was then, not another time. Although they contain displaced / extraposed elements, as long as they can be grouped as realising a certain semantic pattern, these sentences fall within the interlocutors realm of possible expectations. He grasps relatively easily their meaning, which is not the case of a sentence like (13) below, for instance. Here the difficulty in processing the information conveyed by the locutor resides in the displacement of only one part of an element in the structure of the sentence, not of a whole element as such: 13). At all which Places nothing happened worth remark.24
18

This classic structure is characteristic of kernel clauses. Cf. Dennis Freeborn, 1995, A Course Book in English Grammar, 2nd Edition, MacMillan. 19 With the corresponding subordinate clauses in the structure of complex sentences. 20 Henry Fielding, 1980, Joseph Andrews and Shamela, Oxford: O. U. P., p. 113. 21 Virginia Woolf, op.cit., p. 93. 22 George Bernard Shaw, 1970, Pygmalion, London: Penguin Books, p. 119. 23 Kazuo Ishiguro, op. cit., p. 105. 24 Henry Fielding, op. cit., p. 182. 6

The classic word order of this sentence, if nothing were emphasised, would be: 13`). The places in which nothing happened worth no remark at all. At all is an adverbial intensifier whose place in the sentence is closest to the negative element it emphasises; in this case this element should be the noun phrase no remark; its meaning in such a context is equivalent to whatsoever. By placing it first in the sentence, the locutor creates in the interlocutor a certain expectancy of a following nominal element together with which this negative intensifier can occur. The difficulty in processing (13) resides in this last aspect: the noun phrase it makes up a semantic unit with is not in the negative and neither is worth, the transitive verb dominating it. It is not until the story unfolds a little more that the meaning (13`) becomes clear: the places where nothing happened are not mentioned because they worth no remark at all. However, such examples of sentences that contain partially extraposed constituents difficult to process are rare in writing. It is not the aim of the present section to get into more structural details. What is relevant here as far as the referential function of the language is concerned is that the locutor can express his own attitude towards the informational content of his utterances by simply changing the place of the structural elements, thus giving them the status of marked elements. This status of privileged element requires different degrees of concentration and specific types of mental information processing from the interlocutor. 2.3. The Expressive / Emotive Function of the Language Besides the communication of ideas, the locutor externalises, in a more or less overt way, his intentions, emotions, wishes and desires, in a word, his feelings. These psychological features visible at the level of the surface structure of the message are relevant to the study of the expressive function of the language.25 The most natural way of expressing ones own intentions or internal volition, besides the use of the finite verb to intend, is by means of the deontic modal verb will:26 1). I will try this again later. 2). We will solve this problem as soon as possible.
25

The expression of feelings is considered in this section a matter of here and now. Therefore, the examples analysed refer to the locutors feelings at the very moment and in the very place of his transmitting of the message. 26 Cf. Horia Hulban, 2002, Syntheses in English Morphology, Iai: Spanda, p. 267. 7

It is true that in these two examples the modal will expresses intention, but this is only one meaning among others. The sentences above can be understood in more than one way: I / We intend to, I / We promise that, I / We assure you that, I / We have just made up my / our mind to, even I / We want to, in this last situation will being no longer a modal but a finite verb rendering the idea of willingness and that of intention as well. Therefore, the modal verb will can express besides intention volition, promise, assurance, desire. When a finite verb, its use in the continuous aspect comprises the meanings of simultaneous volition and intention: 3). I am willing to quit smoking.27 The operator expressing future time, shall, is also characterised by the semantic feature [+ Intention]28: 4). We shall visit you next week. However, the [+ Intention] feature in the time auxiliary shall is weaker than that in will, primarily because modal auxiliaries, like will here, are closer to lexical verbs in terms of meaning than time operators are. Sharing ones intentions can be realised overtly by means of other verb constructions such as be going to Future or Present Tense Continuous with a future meaning: 5). We are going to leave the town next week. 6). We are leaving the town next week. These last two constructions make it possible for the locutor to speak not only about his intentions, as was the case of will and shall in the situations above, but also about the others: 7). They are going to come tomorrow. 8). They are coming tomorrow.

27 28

Idem, p. 268. Idem, p. 265. 8

But in this situation the main function of the language is the referential, not the expressive one. The locutor himself may have strong feelings against the course of events as intended by others, in which case we shall speak of other feelings he expresses when uttering such sentences as (7) and (8). This depends a lot on the intonation he uses, on the linguistic and extra-linguistic contexts in which he formulates these sentences, on his facial gestures or body language. Mental and physical emotions are overtly expressed syntagmatically through: a) verbs indicating intellectual or emotional attitudes: abhor, adore, appreciate, contemplate, despise, detest, enjoy, fear, feel (like), hate, hope, hurt, (dis)like, pity, (dis)respect, (cannot) stand, trust, wish, etc.: 9). I cant stand the sight of her. 10). We appreciate your effort. 11). I feel like Im falling down into pieces. Here the locutors emotion is totally rendered by the verb in the progressive aspect following the Subject 1(I) + feel like + Subject 2 structure, which is not the case of: 12). I dont feel like dancing at all. where the structure (not) to feel like concentrates the whole emotional content of the sentence29. In such a case, the verbal structure feel like and the following ing verb have the same Subject. b) verbal constructions of the type be / feel + adjective / past participle denoting emotions or states of mind: afraid, amazed, amused, angry, anxious, attracted, bewildered, devastated, eager, ecstatic, excited, grateful, happy, heart-broken, hopeful, hopeless, furious, glad, good, nervous, nice, miserable,

overwhelmed, pleased, responsible, sad, sorry, tempted, thrilled, wonderful, worried, etc., followed by the appropriate prepositions: 13). Im so sad that you missed the party! 14). Well always be grateful to you. 15). I feel so happy that you have passed the exam!

29

This is a matter of the structural pattern the syntagm feel like is used in. If its immediate constituent is a gerund, its meaning is wholly emotional; if followed, at some distance, by a present participle, part of a verb phrase in the progressive aspect, like gets a comparative meaning, comparable with that rendered by as if / though, and the emotional content is expressed by the ing verb only. In such a situation it is clear that the ing verb is supposed to have a [+ Emotion] meaning if emotions are to be transmitted. 9

c) exclamatives of the type What (a) + adjective.!, How + adjective / adverb!: 16). What a great idea! 17). How nice of you to have thought of us! 18). How beautifully she swayed about the room! d) exclamatives in disguise:
30

19). He was such a good dancer! (utter appreciation of his achievements) 20). He was so good a dancer! 21). He was too / very arrogant! (disapproval or contempt) With these sentences, the idea of superlative can be rendered by means of intensifiers such as: very, too, so, such, as in (19), (20), (21), or by means of negative indefinite pronouns and adverbials: nobody, nothing, never (ever), no way as in: 22). Nobody has ever done that for me (before)! (strong feeling of gratitude as reaction to a service received) 23). Nobody has ever done that to me (before)! (strong feeling of disappointment, contempt or disdain, depending on intonation and other paralinguistic features) 24). Never (ever) will I speak to you (again)! (disappointment + determination not to repeat action) 25). Nothing ever happens (lack of hope, melancholy) 26). No way will he come here (again)! (utter lack of hope) In (22) and (23) the mere change of a preposition for another one entails a total change of meaning, from the positive to the negative pole. This change is due to the meaning of the prepositional verb phrase: to do something for somebody implies a positive meaning of [+ Beneficiary], whereas to do something to somebody implies a negative meaning of [+Affected]. It is also worth noting that the idea of superlative in the examples from (22) to (25) is added to by the time adverbials before, again, ever, which sometimes are already implied, if they are not overtly expressed, by the use of

30

I call these sentences exclamatives in disguise because their informational content is very prominent, thus the referential function is on a par with the expressive one. 10

the perfect tense - in (22) and (23) - or of a future time reference of will, meaning want to - in (24) and (26). e) interjections and adjectival or adverbial equivalents expressing pain, surprise, bewilderment, disappointment, disgust, excitement, joy, happiness: Ouch!, Oh!, Ah!, Alas!, Wow!, Hurray!, Ugh!, Phew!, Yes!, No!, Great!, Fantastic!, Terrible!, etc. The last three exclamatives in this list may be considered the shortened form of a full exclamative sentence of the c) type above: How great / fantastic / terrible + noun / pronoun + Be!, or What (a) great / fantastic / terrible + noun / pronoun + Be! Given the context in which these adjectives are used as interjections, the participants in a discussion whose topic is already clear usually have no doubts about what noun they modify. Wishes, hopes and desires are overtly expressed by: a) verbs and verb phrases such as: wish, desire, want, hope, expect, would like, would prefer: 27). I wish it were true! (wish + slight disappointment, bitterness or regret) 28). We wish it would rain! (a not very hopeful wish) 29). We expect you to come to work in time. (wish + polite demand) 30). Id like to read some interesting books. (desire) 31). I want to become a famous writer. (wish + determination) b) a verb in conditional sentences In such sentences, whenever the grammatical Subject in the main clause is a pronoun in the 1st person, its verb may be interpreted semantically as the locutors wish or desire to accomplish some task: 32). If it is fine tomorrow, Ill go for a walk. (Rephrasing: I wish it would be fine tomorrow so that I go for a walk!) 33). If I were wealthy, I would travel about the world. (Rephrasing: I wish I were wealthy and travelled about the world!) 34). Had you come in time, we wouldnt have missed the train. (Rephrasing: I wish you had come in time and we hadnt missed the train!) 35). If she had brought me the book, I wouldnt be watching T.V. now. (Rephrasing: I wish she had brought me the book and I werent watching T.V. now!)

11

In all these sentences the fulfillment of the action expressed by the main verb depends on that of the verb in the conditional subordinate clause. All verbs refer to the locutors more or less hopeful wishes and desires, even if these are impossible to achieve, as is partially the case of present conditionals (33), and fully the case of past conditionals (34), and mixed conditionals (35). In all the examples from (27) to (35) the idea of wish or desire is not the only one expressed by the locutor. One and the same sentence may render the meaning of wish and some other meaning such as: disappointment (27), bitterness (27), demand (29), determination (31), regret (33), reproach (34, 35). c). The construction If only! followed by a verb in the subjunctive mood also expresses wish and hope, whether the goal is attainable or not: 36). If only I could see you! (meaning: I wish I could see you! I dont know whether this will happen or not.) 37). If only she hadnt been so boring! (meaning: I wish she hadnt been so boring, but unfortunately she was.) Intentions, wishes, desires, and especially emotions are classes of feelings that have many constitutive members31: alarm, amazement, anger, appreciation, attraction, bewilderment, bitterness, comfort, desire, determination, disgust, eagerness, fear, gratefulness, happiness, hate / hatred, hope, intention, love, peacefulness, pity, pleasure, sadness, serenity, shock, stubbornness, temptation, willingness, wish, etc. The locutor may express his feelings by employing these nouns in verb phrases of the type: Feel / Show / Express + Noun Phrase: 38). Ill always express my gratitude to you. 39). I could feel fear flowing through my veins. or in sentence patterns such as: It + Be + Noun Phrase + to + Verb: 40). It is my intention to work out a solution to this problem.
31

The nouns in this list are hyponyms of the more general terms desire, emotion, intention, wish.

12

41). It was utter happiness to see my parents again. or in sructures such as: Possessive + Noun Phrase + Be 42). My appreciation of his merits was immense. Even if the main function of these last five sentences (from 38 to 42) is the referential one - as the locutor informs the interlocutor of his intention, feelings of happiness, appreciation, fear, etc. - it is clear that the emotive function is not totally absent. It is, nevertheless, diminished by the distance that the locutor places between himself and his feeling, distance visible in the way he speaks of the feeling and not expressing it directly. The direct way of expressing ones own feelings is, as mentioned earlier, in the very presence of those feelings: using the 1st person singular or plural along with a verb in the present or future tense32, by means of interjections or exclamative sentences and phrases. When using nouns describing intention, emotions, however, the locutor may speak of his or others feelings in the past tense as well: 43). My / Their intention was to take up that job. 44). It was utter despair that I could read on her face. 45). I felt the temptation to deny immediately and unambiguously such motivations33 46). I suspect some residue of my bewilderment, not to say shock, remained detectable in my expression.34 47). I must confess I did feel a slight sense of alarm a sense aggravated by the feeling that I was perhaps not on the correct road at all []35 In such a case the feeling is reified and constitutes a part of the informational content of the sentence, which is the focus of the referential function of the language.

32

Even if the verb is in the future tense, as is the case of expressing some intentions I shall do it for you the intention is present, not future. It is the realisation of the intention that is future. 33 Kazuo Ishiguro, op. cit., p. 14. 34 Idem, p. 15. 35 Idem, p. 24. 13

2.4. The Conative Function of the Language Both in everyday life and in the field of the linguistic sciences, the term of linguistic communication is used to refer to a double-faced reality: communicating about something and communicating to somebody36. In the first case, the language is said to develop the referential function; in the latter case, its function is the conative one. According to the same linguist and philosopher of language mentioned earlier, Roman Jakobson, this latter function has as its object of focus the interlocutor / recipient of the message; it is more explicitly described in terms of the locutors concern about the interlocutor, of his formulating of the message in such a way as to make the latter react either verbally, by answering a question, psychologically, by changing his own convictions or feelings, or materially, by adopting a certain behaviour or attitude as a result of the locutors request.37 In most cases the message bears the formal mark38 of the locutors expecting the interlocutor to react, or if not marked this expectation is one of the possible meanings39 that the structure of the sentence may employ. The transfer of information between the locutor and the interlocutor entails a transformation of the latter. Sometimes this transformation is at the level of his knowledge of the world, both in terms of quantity and quality, other times it is a transformation of his attitude, or actions, or feelings and emotions, etc. This last aspect is the reason why the conative function of the language is said to have a pragmatic side40 and is approached in this section in close relationship with J. L. Austin and J. R. Searles pragmatic theory of speech acts. These two linguists consider that each sentence uttered is designed to serve a specific pragmatic function: to inform, to warn, to order, to promise, to question about a fact, to thank, to apologise, to congratulate, etc. The function it serves is critical to communication as any locutor expects his interlocutors to recognise this function and to act accordingly.41 There are situations in which the function of an utterance is
36 37

Cf. Ioan Oprea, op. cit., p. 90. Ch. Baylon and X. Mignot, op. cit., pp. 83 - 84. 38 For instance, the use of imperatives and the interrogative form of a sentence are marks of commands and questions, respectively. 39 M. A. K. Halliday suggests the term meaning potential to refer to the speakers cultural competence to use language structures in order to express the meanings he intends. Sometimes, similar meanings may be expressed by different structures, some other times the same structure may employ various meanings, but their intended meaning is seldom unclear due to the disambiguating hints provided by the linguistic and the extra-linguistic contexts in which linguistic communication takes place. Halliday relates the concept of meaning potential to that of competence in Noam Chomskys theory of the language, stressing mainly upon the differences between the two: The two are somewhat different. Meaning potential is defined not in terms of the mind but in terms of the culture; not as what the speaker knows, but as what he can do in the special sense of what he can do linguistically (what he can mean []). M. A. K. Halliday, 1977, Explorations in the Functions of Language, London: Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd., p. 25. 40 Cf. Ioan Oprea, op. cit., p. 89. 41 Cf. Herbert Clark and Eve Clark, 1977, Psychology and Language: Introduction to Psycholinguistics, p. 25. 14

misunderstood due to external factors, such as noise or the distance in space between the two participants in the discussion, or to other factors of which one could be the clash between the speakers linguistic, paralinguistic, ideological and cultural competences.42 Psychological factors such as shyness, fear, absent-mindedness, etc. may affect negatively the reception of the function of the message, even if everything else about the sentence has been taken in perfectly (its informational content, for instance). According to the same linguists every time speakers utter a sentence, they are attempting to accomplish something with the words, that is to say they are performing a speech act43, called by J. L. Austin an illocutionary act.44 There are direct illocutionary acts and indirect illocutionary acts. In the direct ones the performative verb or the verb that can be used performatively is explicitly provided: 1). I ask you to tell me who that woman was. 2). I order you to shut up. 3). I promise Ill never do that again. Some other performative verbs are: advise, affirm, announce, apologise, bet, command, congratulate, pronounce, request, recommend, sentence, state, suggest, thank, urge, warn, etc. These are also called verbs of declaration or verba dicendi. Sometimes, even though it is not explicit, the performative verb can be easily inferred from the underlying semantics of the shortened construction that frequently contains a verb in the imperative or the conditional mood: 4). Shut up! (order) 5). Ill never do that again. (promise) 6). You should go there and see what is all about. (advice)
42

Baylon and Mignot provide Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchionis scheme of the constitutive elements of any type of verbal communication. What is of great importance in her scheme is the factors called competences linguistic, paralinguistic, cultural, ideological attached to the locutor and the interlocutor, competences considered the basic elements of mans communicative competence. Language as a code is no longer seen as a totally autonomous factor, situated outside the participants in the linguistic communication, it is no longer a stable and unique entity to which they have to relate irrespective of their own personalities, ideological, cultural, linguistic and paralinguistic backgrounds. Language is integrated into each participant seen as a complex cultural being and it has features characteristic of their personality. Orecchionis theory also provides a possible explanation of the failure in linguistic communication: there could be a great distance between the language as competence possessed by the locutor and that possessed by the interlocutor, even if they speak the same language. Thus, there could be a clash between the way in which the message is produced, or encoded, and that in which it is received, or decoded. Cf. Baylon and Mignot, op. cit., pp. 87 88. 43 H. Clark and E. Clark, op. cit., p. 26. 44 Among the commonest types of illocutionary acts performed by the locutor, there can be mentioned assertions (I tell you that), questions (direct or indirect), commands and requests (I order you to Im asking you). 15

7). Pass the salt, please. (request) 8). This book is very interesting. You should read it, too. (recommendation) 9). Well done! (congratulation; if the tone is ironic - criticism) 10). Who was that man? (request for information, asking) In English, commands / orders and suggestions may also be formulated in the 1st person plural: 11). Lets / Let us go on with the game. (suggestion) All these direct illocutionary acts, as illustrated above, are easy to understand by the interlocutor and more often than not he has no difficulty in grasping what their function is. But there are also indirect illocutionary acts whose formulation makes it sometimes difficult for the interlocutor to understand how they should react, and therefore he may fail to comply with the function of these acts. In such cases intonation is of no help. For example, when the sentence Its hot in here is used to get someone to open the window (i.e. its function is request for service), if the interlocutor replies No, it isnt, this may show that he either misunderstood the function of the message, taking the sentence for a declarative with referential function with which he disagrees, or that he refuses to open the door, in both cases the speech act as intended by the locutor proves to be a failure in terms of the expected result. Nevetheless, indirect illocutionary acts are very resourceful as far as the psychological backgrounds of the two participants in the discussion are concerned. Some verbal exchanges between two speakers are constrained by cultural factors or social conventions. Among these there can be mentioned: greeting, introducing people, taking leave, thanking, etc. These speech acts follow specific structural patterns that are generally known by everybody living in a certain cultural area. These patterns can be considered clichd conversational frameworks. When such a pattern is broken, as in the following examples, the result is usually humorous, if not offending, due to the puzzlement of those who initiate or to those who are witnesses to such exchanges. The reasons why the pattern is not observed may be complex: either the addressee does not know the linguistic customs of the place, or he does not consider the social requirement to comply with the rules of linguistic behaviour in such situations.

16

In the next fragment the two speaking characters belong to two different worlds, therefore there is a clash between their codes of verbal behaviour:
12). [] at last the Caterpillar [] addressed her []: Who are you? This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation [] I think you ought to tell me who you are, first. Why? said the Caterpillar. Here was another puzzling question; [] Alice could not think of any good reason45

What is puzzling to Alice in this dialogue is the unexpected way in which the Caterpillar approaches her. The conversational pattern she is used to in such a situation in the real world to which she belongs is that of saying Hallo!, then introducing oneself, to which the interlocutor does the same, at the end of which both say How do you do? or Nice to meet you. This socio-linguistic pattern is totally foreign to The Caterpillar, who lives in Wonderland, therefore has a totally different perspective upon life and a queer linguistic behaviour. As Alice did not know anything about that in advance, she interprets the situation and her interlocutor using the instruments she is familiar with; judgmental at first about the Caterpillars good manners, she ends up by getting puzzled at his apparent lack of consideration. This is the primary meaning of this fragment. What lies below this surface is Lewis Carrolls destroying such socio-linguistic convention rendered by the conversational pattern mentioned above and inviting the careful reader to ponder upon its hidden cultural explanations and upon the ensuing psychological effects that a speakers attempt of not observing it may have. This is not to say that the author is moralistic. He only illustrates how some questions, such as Who are you? And Why?, which are largely used in everyday conversations, become out-of-place when it comes to verbal exchanges of set patterns. It is common knowledge and commonly consented upon in the English speaking culture that when people meet for the first time they are supposed to talk about some topic before they get better acquainted with each other. The most common topic that has a cultural characteristic in such respect is weather. Being a neutral subject, it is considered the best one for an ice-breaker in a conversation. In any other context, the main function of such an exchange would be the referential one. But in this situation its function is conative: the speakers take and give each other the time to reduce the distance and to get over the emotional barriers that such a social interaction involves without keeping silent.
45

Lewis Carroll, 1994, Alices Adventures in Wonderland, London: Penguin Books, pp. 53 55. 17

Such an exchange is illustrated in the fragment below; only it has humorous effects due to the discrepancy between the common informal language required by such small talks and the highly formal register actually used by the main character, Liza. Freddys reaction to Lizas words is only natural:
13). Mrs. Higgins [at last, conversationally] Will it rain, do you think? Liza: The shallow depression in the west of these islands is likely to move slowly in an easterly direction. There are no indications of any great change in the barometrical situation. Freddy: Ha! ha! how awfully funny!46

What is striking in this dialogue is Lizas inappropriate pretentiousness and artificiality of formulation which sounds very funny to Freddy. The remarkable length of her answer, the structural complexity and the undeniable clarity of ideas in the two sentences she utters are characteristic of a meteorologists scientific speech, therefore totally inappropriate when it comes to a common person engaged in an everyday verbal exchange, such as the five-oclock tea talk here. Freddy behaves as any other person would under such circumstances in real life. And this is what G. B. Shaw points out: small talk should stick to a simple, natural pattern and wording in order to sound natural and to function as what it is meant to. To the reader of this play, however, the humorous effect achieved by this fragment also resides in the way in which the contradiction between appearance and reality is given shape. Eliza seems to be a lady, but she is actually a florist belonging to a low social class. This contradiction is misinterpreted by the participants in this conversation: what is appearance is taken for reality, and the other way round. This is one of the typically Shavian inversions that employed here and in some other places of this play as well.47 The next example illustrates a verbal exchange in which the speaking character uses an indirect question, apparently referential in function, which is interpreted as an indirect request for a service even if it could have been a request for an answer:
14). Higgins: I wonder where the devil my slippers are![] Eliza returns with a pair of large down-at-heel slippers.48

Considering this fragment in the light established by the previous global context of the play, Elizas reaction to Higginss words is the most natural one: she is a submissive servant, always trying not to offend her master. Later in the play it becomes clear that Higginss intention was to get an answer and not a service to his indirect
46 47

George Bernard Shaw, op. cit., p. 78. Cf. Horia Hulban, Un cuplu celebru: Eliza Higgins i povestea unui mit inversat, in G. B. Shaw, 1990, Pygmalion, Bucureti: Editura Albatros, p. XXVII. 48 Idem, p. 101. 18

question. This linguistic exchange proves to have been a sample of unsuccessful communication when he criticises Elizas humble attitude towards him:
15). You were a fool: I think a woman fetching a mans slippers is a disgusting sight: did I ever fetch your slippers? [] No use slaving for me and saying you want to be cared for.49

In the extended fragment below the writer points out the importance of the psychological and ontological extra-linguistic contexts for the smooth functioning of an illocutionary act. The fragment renders the discussion between Mr. Farraday and his butler, Stevens, an employee of impeccable social and linguistic behaviour, as well as the latters psychological struggle to live up to his employers alleged expectations. Stevens is also the 1st person narrator in the novel:
16). It is quite possible, then, that my employer fully expects me to respond to his bantering in a like manner, and considers my failure to de so a form of negligence. This is, as I say, a matter which has given me much concern. But I must say this business of bantering is not a duty I feel I can ever discharge with enthusiasm. [] I did though on one occasion not long ago, pluck up the courage to attempt the required sort of reply. I was serving Mr. Farraday morning coffee in the breakfast room when he said to me: I suppose it wasnt you making that crowing noise this morning, Stevens? My employer was referring, I realized, to a pair of gypsies gathering unwanted iron who passed by earlier making their customary calls. As it happened, I had the same morning been giving thought to the dilemma of whether or not I was expected to reciprocate my employers bantering, and had been seriously worried at how he might be viewing my repeated failure to respond to such openings. I therefore set about thinking of some witty reply [] I said: More like swallows than crows, I would have said, sir. From the migratory aspect. And I followed this with a suitably modest smile to indicate without ambiguity that I had made a witticism []. I beg your pardon, Stevens? Only then did it occur to me that, of course, my witticism would not be easily appreciated by someone who was not aware that it was gypsies who had passed by.50

The author of the novel from which the excerpt above was taken proves to be a fine observer of the intricate psychological processes that a cooperative interlocutor Stevens in this case - may go through when he is in the position to understand the actual meaning of an ambiguous message, and implicitly its function. Non-verbal psychological factors such as the locutors intentions, expectations, knowledge of the referent are difficult to infer from the informational content of the message alone, especially when there is a difference in the social status and cultural backgrounds of the participants in the discussion. To these factors there must be added the participants willingness to cooperate, without which any verbal exchange would be a failure.
49 50

Idem, p. 134. Kazuo Ishiguro, op. cit., pp. 16 17. 19

What is interesting in the fragment above is the authors suggesting another psychological factor that might affect the successful reception of the informational content and function of a message: Stevenss certainty that he knows what is going on in his employers mind, which in the end proves to have been only unfounded suppositions. A natural way of avoiding such false suppositions is to ask for, or to be given, explanations about how certain words, ideas, even illocutionary functions of the message are to be interpreted in order for verbal communication to be successful. This is the topic of analysis in the next section. 2.5. The Metalinguistic Function of the Language Apart from communicating ideas about referents in their external, imaginary, or internal worlds, people may speak about language itself as a system of communication, or code in Roman Jakobsons terminology. Whenever a certain term or concept makes it difficult for the interlocutor to understand what the message is about, this can be clarified by the locutor as a response to the interlocutors verbal signals such as: What does X mean?, What do you mean by X?, Explain X, please!, etc. Sometimes, clarification may come naturally from the locutor himself without the interlocutors signalling verbally his total or partial lack of understanding in order for the former to avoid any confusion in the latter: X refers to, This is to say, I mean, For example / instance. All these explanations concerning the way in which language seen as a code is used in communication fall within the scope of the metalinguistic function of the language. Baylon and Mignot state that the metalinguistic function of the language gets activated: a) whenever a locutor uses a technical or unusual word or phrase unknown to the interlocutor51, in which case the explanation has the form of a definition of the denotative meaning of that specific word or phrase; b) in everyday conversations, whenever an explanation about the contextual meaning of a word / phrase / sentence that has just been used 52 is needed, in which case the explanatory definition or paraphrase has as its object the connotative meanings specific to the context in which the unfamiliar word / phrase / sentence is used. The examples in this section are illustrations of both these situations.

51 52

Cf. Ch. Baylon and X. Mignot, op. cit., p. 85. Idem, p. 85. 20

2.5.1. The Metalinguistic Function of the Language in Literary Texts Literary texts provide numerous examples of the uses of this function of the language. The difference between these examples and those from non-fictional types of discourses is that whenever a terms explanation is put into a characters mouth, the authorial intention is never absent. The meaning so highlighted usually contributes to the narrative as a way of illustrating real-life socio-linguistic habits. Some other times, however, the metalinguistic function of the language becomes a narrative technique itself. In the example below the denotative meaning of a colloquial phrase is explained to those of a higher social status who are not familiar with the characters informal small talk. This is an illustration of the most direct way in which people ask for the clarification of unknown terms:
1). Liza: [] and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in. Mrs. Eynsford Hill: What does doing her in mean? Higgins [hastily]: [] To do a person in means to kill them.53

In the next fragment, G. B. Shaw points out the difficulty felt by some people to explain lexical items which are commonsensical to them, yet unusual to others, and provides as an alternative to definition another procedure which is largely used: a near definition or exemplification of the type X is a sort / kind of Y, in which Y is similar to X, only it is more common, thus easier to understand:
2). The Bystander [explaining to the note taker]: She thought you was a coppers nark, sir. The Note Taker [with quick interest]: Whats (sic!) a coppers nark? The Bystander [inapt at definition]: Its a well, its a coppers nark, as you might say. What else would you call it? A sort of informer.54

The following examples are taken from George Orwells novel 1984. In the Appendix to this novel, under the heading The Principles of Newspeak, the author (i.e. the locutor) explains to the reader (i.e. the recipient of the message) all the unknown terms used throughout the book. This Appendix can be considered a treatise of a new wooden language, a treatise elaborated in conformity with the rules of a scientific grammar study:
3). Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism.55
53 54

George Bernard Shaw, 1970, Pygmalion, p. 79. Idem, p. 20. 55 George Orwell, 1990, Nineteen Eighty-Four, London: Penguin Books, p. 312. 21

4). The B words were a sort of verbal shorthand, often packing whole ranges of ideas into a few syllables, and at the same time more accurate and forcible than ordinary language.56

Illustration with examples is a way of avoiding a definition difficult to formulate or a way of getting more specific about a definition. Thus, for the B words Orwell provides a sentence made up of such lexemes in order to make his explanations clearer to the reader by means of illustration:
5). Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc which Orwell translates into Oldspeak (i.e. contemporary standard English) as Those whose ideas were formed before the revolution cannot have a full emotional understanding of the principles of English Socialism.57

The new grammar of Newspeak is based entirely on linguistic material familiar to the reader. The B words are compounds of contemporary English words; sometimes they preserve parts of these lexemes, other times a whole idea is concentrated into a short lexeme which becomes very expressive in this way. Here is a succinct explanation of the way in which these compounds were formed: before the revolution old Those whose ideas were formed thinkers cannot un full understanding believe + fully belly emotional feel English Ing socialism soc Sometimes, the linguistic devices employed by people when they mentally activate or resort to the metalinguistic function of the language are used by writers as narrative techniques. This happens when they intend to achieve certain effects on the readers. In the following examples, Peter Ackroyd explains the meaning of some words in an ironically mocking manner by resorting to what common people do more or less subconsciously when they come across a word they are not familiar with, namely, making semantic associations with what they already know. The following definitions are provided by the main character, Plato, who is, in this book, the great orator of the City of London, living around the year of 3700 A. D. His main preoccupation
56 57

Idem, p. 316. Ibidem. 22

is to give public lectures on the life in the past ages. In this book, the period from c. A.D. 1500 to c. A.D. 2300 is known as the Age of Mouldwarp. By collecting the very few and discontinuous historical documents which have survived the passing of the time, Plato attempts to explain to his contemporaries their ancestors view of the world, the concepts they used, the cultural and ideological background of the books they wrote, etc.58 . The metaphorical associations in some of the following examples follow a rather simple syllogistic pattern, which used in the mental articulation of the linguistic process known as folk etymology: Major premise (stated): A associates with B Minor premise (unstated): A accesses C and Minor premise (unstated): B accesses D Conclusion: Therefore, (A associated with B) means the same as (C associated with D) Logico - mathematically formulated, this syllogism can be represented as: If (A C) and (B D), Then (A + B) (C + D) But the mental associations do not stop here. Once a new pair of signs is found (C + D) it automatically forms a unit that is interpreted in the light of the locutors experience of life, i.e. (C + D) E. From this it follows logically that (A + B) E, as well. Although the two minor premises of the syllogism are not stated (i.e. A=C, and B=D), the identity relationship between their two terms is highly humorous to the reader due to the fact that in everyday speech people do not associate these familiar terms in the same way, although the commonsensicality of the association is undeniable. In other words, the fact that (A + B) E is highly humorous. 6). biographer: from bio-graphy, the reading of a life by means of lines. A fortune teller or palmist.59 A+B: (bio) + (-graphy)
58

It is interesting to note that throughout the book The Plato Papers by Peter Ackroyd, 2000, London: Vintage, Plato, the main character, interprets literary works as scientific studies and the other way round. For instance On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, written by Charles D., is assumed to be a narrative by Charles Dickens (p. 5) and The Fall of the House of Usher by E. A. Poe is interpreted as a living proof of the way in which one eminent family in the Mouldwarp Era, i.e. the Ushers, built their house and buried their dead in its vaults without the inconvenience of a church service. (p. 30) Even Sigmund Freuds psycho-analytical study Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious is approached as a comic handbook (p. 59). 59 Peter Ackroyd, op. cit., p. 13. 23

If A (bio) = C (life) and B (-graphy) = D (line) Then (A + B) bio-graphy = (C + D) life + lines But (C + D) life + lines E (fortune-telling). Therefore (A + B) bio-graphy E (fortune-telling), and the persons involved in each of the two practices do the same thing: biographer = fortune-teller / palmist.
7). brainstorm: on certain occasions the amount of anger or anxiety in the brain was believed to cause a violent change in the weather.60

Here, the syllogism is differently articulated, but the final result is as hilarious as that in the previous example. The word storm automatically associates with weather, a word in the same semantic area, and, by means of contingency, it makes the word brain to associate with anger or anxiety, and this leads to the association of anxiety or anger with weather. More schematically: A (brain) + B (storm) A (brain) B (storm as negative change, both in A and D) D (weather) Which means [A (brain) + B (storm)] [B (storm) + D (weather)], where [A + B] translates anger and anxiety, and [B + D] translates negative change in the weather, between the two there existing a relationship of similarity. However, the cause-effect relationship between [A + B] and [B + D] is added to this logical argument by the locutor to increase the comical effect of this process of mental gliding from one meaning to another; it is not suggested by any relationships between the terms in it. 8). CD: an abbreviation of cold dirge, a form of music designed to calm or deaden human faculties.61 Here, the readers mental play guided by the writer translates as follows: CD is the abbreviation for Compact Disc. But the term cold dirge is brought on stage as it is a familiar term to the lexicographer Plato, who does not know of compact discs. Both disc and dirge are associated with music. As dirge has death-related connotations, the CD, meaning compact disc, is made to carry these connotations to the reader, too. If the association between the adjectives cold and calm and the extreme dead is made, as
60 61

Idem. Idem, ibidem. 24

they share a common [- Action] seme, the final definition follows naturally. However, it is humorous to the reader both because he is guided to make these associations and because they sound unexpectedly commonsensical. Other examples of such interesting mental gliding are illustrated below:
9). daylight saving: a technique by which light was stored in great containers and then taken through underground pipes to the residences of Mouldwarp.62 10). ideology: the process of making ideas. The work was generally performed in silence and solitude, since great care was needed in their manufacture. Certain artisans were chosen for this occupation at an early age and were trained in mental workhouses or asylums. They were known as idealists, and were expected to provide a fixed number of ideas to be exhibited or dramatised for the benefit of the public.63 11). language laboratory: a sterile area where language was created under strict experimental conditions. New complex words or phrases were bred from existing phonetic and semantic systems before being tested upon a group of volunteers. There was of course always a danger of contamination or leakage; we believe that there were occasions when rogue words were accidentally released into the community, sometimes causing hysteria or fever.64 12). literature: a word of unknown provenance, generally attributed to litter or waste.65 13). logic: a wooden object, as in log table.66 14). psychotic: a person in communion with his psyche or spirit, who sometimes spoke as if by inspiration.67 15). sleeping car: an example of the belief that inanimate objects, when not being employed or exploited, reverted to a dormant state. See sleeping bag and sleeping tablet.68 16). transcendence or trans-end-dance: the ability to move beyond the end, otherwise called the dance of death. The fear of death, in the Mouldwarp period, was part of a great fear of life.69 17). wisdom teeth: it was believed that the source of human characteristics of behaviour could be found in various organs of the body. Courage was identified with the heart, for example, and memory with the brain. It would seem, then, that wisdom was located in the teeth.70 18). words-worth: the patronymic of writers who had earned their high position. In a similar context we have Chatter-ton. Many Mouldwarp writers were compared to inorganic substances, such as Ore-well, Cole-ridge and Gold-smith. Some writers were considered sacred, as in Pope and Priestley. Some were feared as Wilde or Savage while

62 63

Ibidem. Idem, p. 150. 64 Idem, p. 19. 65 Ibidem. 66 Ibidem. 67 Idem, p. 24. 68 Ibidem. 69 Idem, p. 25. 70 Idem, p. 26. 25

others were celebrated for their mournful or querulous style, among them Graves, Bellow and Frost. Unfortunately, no specimens of their work have survived.71

The humorous effect achieved by Peter Ackroyd in the examples above is also a result of a combination of a scientific method and a scientific linguistic style used in the formulation of these dictionary-like definitions with the underlying message that Platos way of distorting the truth by drawing absurd assumptions on the margin of truncated historical and cultural documents may be similar to what some of our contemporary historians do when interpreting documents of our past ages. What is more humorous is that behind these definitions there is a seed of bitter truth about the state of affairs in our contemporary mercantile society. Some of these definitions can be considered extended metaphors [e.g.-s (6), (8), (10), (12), (13), (16) and (18)]. The main characteristic of the definitions or explanations in the examples above is that the meaning of compounds is interpreted as a sum of the meanings of the component parts; the meaning of simple lexical items and of derivatives, such as literature, logic, psychotic, ideology, is a merely impressionistic etymological interpretation of their morphological root. That is why they can be considered examples of folk etymology. Below there is another illustration of the humorous effect achieved by Peter Ackroyd in The Plato Papers based on the same means of using the metalinguistic function of the language as a narrative technique along with the stylistic device of playing upon words:
19). But the most hilarious examples of Freudian repartee took place when his partner, Oedipus, appeared on the stage. This fall guy or straight man may have been some relic of the old pantomimic tradition, since he wore loose white robes and displayed that glum expression characteristic of the pantaloon. He also adopted a peculiarly rapid and sliding walk known to devotees as the Freudian slip.72

What makes it possible for such a definition to be given to the semantic unit Freudian slip is mainly the polysemantism of the noun slip, a noun among whose meanings are that of an act of sliding a short distance or of falling by sliding and that of a small mistake. To this there is added the method of separating the two elements of this unit and trying to recover the meaning of the unit from the sum of the meanings of the two terms. Using an unexpected meaning for a word and creating a whole context in which this meaning gets motivated, thus sensible, is part of the creative talent of a writer.

71 72

Idem, pp. 26 27. Idem, pp. 59 60. 26

In the examples analysed hitherto, the metalinguistic function of the language has been illustrated by focusing only on the meaning of a lexical item in each case. However, in everyday conversations there are far more numerous situations in which some meanings have to be defined more precisely lest the linguistic communication between people fail. Explanations are provided about the referential meaning of a certain phrase or sentence, or about the speakers intentions, feelings or attitudes when uttering it. In these cases the metalinguistic function of the language overlaps with the referential function, with the conative one, or with both. The next example is an illustration of such an overlap:
20). [about a glass paperweight] What is it, do you think?, said Julia. I dont think its anything I mean, I dont think it was ever put to any use, said Winston.73

Here the sentence I dont think its anything is ambiguous. Although it refers clearly to the object in front of the speakers, it may have some other meanings as well: Its not valuable, What it is is irrelevant to me, besides the meaning selected by Winston: It is something completely useless. In order to avoid Julias confusion about what he meant, Winston feels that he has to be more specific. This is the conative function of his explanation. Moreover, being a rephrasing of the initial formulation, his explanation is partly metalinguistic in function. A similar situation is exemplified below:
21). [Julia speaks to Winston.] Its all off, she murmured as soon as she judged it safe to speak. Tomorrow, I mean. What? Tomorrow afternoon. I cant come.74

Some time before this conversation, Julia and Winston decided to see each other someday, a day which at the moment of this conversation happens to be tomorrow. Her remark Its all off shows Julias expectations that Winston would understand the referent of it, which is the important event upon which they have mutually agreed to take place tomorrow. Realising that this remark might be too vague, she gives him a hint about its meaning. The repeated failure in her attempt to make herself understood without being too specific (as they are afraid of being overheard) makes her give Winston a full explanation.
73 74

George Orwell, op. cit., p. 152. Idem, p. 145. 27

The linguistic exchange above unfolds three functions: the referential (informing Winston about something), the conative (Julias intention to get her message through to Winston), and the metalinguistic (Its all off means I cant come tomorrow afternoon.). In this situation, as in the majority of cases in everyday speech, the meaning of an utterance is totally dependent on the larger linguistic context. The same sentence may be used in various situations with various meanings. This is mainly due to word polysemantism but also to the number of functions that a sentence as a whole may develop.

28

3. Ambiguity
3.1. Semantic Ambiguity 3.1.1. Semantic Ambiguity vs. Semantic Vagueness In the present section, the term ambiguity is used to refer to the semantic characteristic of lexical items and syntactic structures of allowing for more than one semantic interpretation in a certain context, a case in which the interpreter of a certain piece of linguistic discourse encounters difficulties in mentally processing the meaning of the message. For example, in: 1). The bank is overcrowded today.75 the noun bank is semantically ambiguous as it is not clear whether its meaning is the bank of a river or the financial institution where money is deposited and kept. The phrase porcelain egg container is semantically ambiguous due to its syntactic structure. It may describe either an egg container that is made of porcelain, a case in which the modifier is simple, or a container for porcelain eggs, if the modifier is compound. The sentence: 2). He saw her duck. is syntactically ambiguous due to the categorial ambiguity of the word duck. If there are no disambiguating contextual clues, the meaning of this sentence may be either: a). He saw her pet which is a duck and then duck would be a noun filling the Direct Object position or: b). He saw her lowering her head in order to avoid being hit by something, and duck would be a short infinitive filling the corresponding position in an Accusative + Infinitive construction. For practical purposes, semantic ambiguity is to be distinguished from semantic vagueness. Kent Bach defines a vague expression as one that has a single meaning that admits of borderline cases, and he provides such examples as bold, heavy, old, new, etc. to illustrate this. He says that these words vagueness is explained by the fact that they apply to items on fuzzy regions of a scale of meaning. 76
75 76

This is an example of ambiguity based on homonymy. Kent Bach, Ambiguity, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry, http://online.sfsu.edu~kbach/ambiguity.html. 29

There is no precise breaking point on a scale between young or new and old, for instance, when a person ceases to be young or a thing to be new and starts to be old. Bach also considers vague such cluster concepts as intelligent, athletic, and just because their instances are determined by the application of several criteria, no one of which is decisive.77 Another distinction between ambiguity and vagueness is made by Leon Felkins, who associates vagueness with arbitrariness.78 For instance, the sentence: 3). Tom is tall for his age. refers to Toms height related to his age. But there are no precise natural height standards corresponding to various ages. However, for various practical reasons79, such standards are necessary and people settle them in an arbitrary way. Felkins considers that all the terms referring to such arbitrarily settled standards are vague, not ambiguous. Therefore, the adjective tall above is vague, not ambiguous. 3.1.2. Local Ambiguity and Genuine Ambiguity Semantic ambiguity and vagueness are linguistic phenomena largely used in everyday communication between people. Both represent an inter-play between what is said and what is understood.80 Sometimes, semantic ambiguity may be the result of the locutors intention to condense more meanings into one statement81 or to create humorous effects - a situation in which the listener or reader is expected to grasp the intentional meanings, if it is for the ambiguity to be effective. Other times, an ambiguity may be undecipherable. This happens when the extra-linguistic context in which it occurs provides no clues about how the message is to be interpreted. Such an example is: 1). A: How come that you are at home at this time of the day? B: Well, the bank was overcrowded.
77 78

Idem, p.3. Here we may consider the word different as well. Cf. Leon Felkins, 2002, Dilemmas of Ambiguity and Vagueness, http://www.magnolia.net/~leonf/paradox/ambiguit.html 79 In this case, for medical or commercial reasons. 80 What is said corresponds to the surface structure of a statement, in Chomskys terminology, i.e. its graphic or phonetic form. What is understood generally corresponds to the semantics in the deep structure of a statement. It is true that the deep structure does not account for all the possible meanings of a certain utterance; supra-segmental factors, such as stress, intonation, facial gestures, body-language, etc. may add a lot of semantic nuances to its purely linguistic form. It is these supra-segmental factors along with the segmental ones that help the listener understand the message transmitted by the locutor. As these supra-segmental factors are rarely visible in the written form of the language (stage directions and graphic signs may suggest them), ambiguities based on them are more frequent in written texts. 81 Cf. William Empson, 1984, Seven Types of Ambiguity, London: The Hogarth Press. 30

If A does not have previous knowledge of Bs intentions82 to either walk along the bank of the river or to go and deposit some money in a bank, he will be unable to understand what B is referring to. In this case the word bank is genuinely ambiguous. However, if B adds: You know I hate standing in a queue, then the ambiguity of bank will prove to have been only partial, or local, as A can easily back-trace its exact meaning as soon as he is provided this extra piece of information.83 As a conclusion, particular words and whole sentences may be locally or genuinely ambiguous, according to whether the interpreter84 is provided any contextual hints or not respectively. 3.1.3. Pragmatic Aspects of Ambiguity and Vagueness A certain text, whether spoken or written, may be intended or not to be unclear 85. When lack of clarity is intentional, semantic ambiguity and vagueness are the mark of the locutors wish to achieve a certain effect on the interpreter. This effect may be harmless, even pleasing, in case it is humorous or neutral, but it may also be harmful when ambiguity and vagueness are used with the intention to deceive people or to incite them to negative acts. When ambiguity and vagueness are unintentional, they still may be effective, in the above-mentioned ways, to a perceptive interpreter, in that he may read between the lines and discover meanings that were not actually put there by the locutor himself. These possible meanings may also be activated by the extralinguistic context in which a certain message is transmitted. Therefore, whether intentional or not, ambiguity and vagueness are pragmatically effective only upon a perceptive interpreter who can speculate lack of clarity and attribute it either to the locutors intentions or to the language as a finite system of possibilities of expression.86 More often than not, it is difficult to decide upon the possible intentions of a locutor who uses ambiguous or vague expressions. Sometimes it is the interpreters subsequent actions that prove whether the discourses ambiguity or vagueness left room for speculations, irrespective of the locutors being aware of this or not. Here is an example. The famous statement below contains vague terms:
82 83

Considered here the extra-linguistic context. All pieces of information, or linguistic clues, provided in the neighbourhood of the semantically unclear expression make up the local linguistic context. The global linguistic context refers to all the clues provided by the text as a whole novel, story, public speech, poem, etc. - to which an ambiguous or vague expression belongs. 84 I.e. the listener or the reader. 85 I.e. ambiguous or vague. 86 In the analysis of the examples in this paper, intentionality will be attributed to the locutor only where it is clear that he speculates on the vast possibilities of linguistic ambiguity and vagueness to make a point or to achieve a certain stylistic effect. When the locutors intentions cannot be accounted for, ambiguity and vagueness will be attributed to the language as a finite system of possibilities of expression. 31

1). We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.87

The totally unprovable claim We hold these truths to be self-evident, as well as the vague meaning of the terms certain unalienable rights, liberty, happiness are highly subjective as they may have as many interpretations as people who use and interpret them. But, given the extra-linguistic context in which the Declaration of Independence was uttered, this statement was intended to elate the audiences patriotic spirit, and this is the effect it actually achieved. However, if it were used to implicitly incite people to give their life for such self-evident truths, or if people read this meaning between the lines, be it intentional or not, the effects of this vague statement would be utterly harmful. 3.1.4. Factors That Contribute to Semantic Disambiguation Linguistic ambiguity is a natural phenomenon caused by the discrepancy between the limited number of words and grammar rules that a language possesses, on the one hand, and the theoretically infinite number of real and imaginary objects88 that people can talk about, on the other. From this there may be inferred that communication between people is almost impossible. The reason why this is not true resides in the peoples capacity to disambiguate lexically89 and structurally ambiguous texts. This human capacity is given by the following aspects, which co-operate or work independently towards successful disambiguation: a). peoples knowledge of the linguistic context in which an ambiguity, either lexical or structural, occurs, which allows them to make contextual inferences; b). peoples ability to find semantic associations between nearby words so as to select the most plausible meaning of an ambiguous word or structure in a certain context; c). peoples mental ability to handle syntactic disambiguation cues90; d). peoples knowledge of the world, which allows them to make extracontextual inferences91.
87 88

The Declaration of Independence, July, 1776, The Constitution of the United States of America. Here the term objects has a philosophical meaning. It is used to describe any real or imaginary referent that can be talked about: things, beings, events, processes, situations, qualities, relations between things, thoughts, etc. 89 This is possible only when lexical ambiguity is not of the dead-lock type, a probably very rare case in natural languages. Cf. Graeme Hirst, 1992, Semantic Interpretation and the Resolution of Ambiguity, Cambridge: C.U.P., p. 112. Hirst gives some examples of lexical ambiguities that can be called genuine ambiguities or of the dead-lock type: Ross was escorted from the bar to the dock. (a courtroom scene or a harbor scene); Each bill requires a check (each invoice requires a negotiable instrument or each proposed law requires a verification of correctness, or various other combinations); SUBJ. The fan broke OBJ. the window. (if SUBJ. is AGENT, fan is enthusiast, if SUBJ. is INSTRUMENT, fan is air mover). Ibidem, p. 112. 90 For instance, the famous syntactic garden-path example: The horse raced past the barn fell. G. Hirst, op. cit., p. 11. 91 These aspects are discussed by Graeme Hirst in connection with the problems that should be overcome by artificial intelligence programmers in their effort to build a computer able to process natural language in the same way as people do. He says that a 32

These disambiguation factors will be used in the subsequent sections of this paper to account for the ways in which the interpreters mind works when faced with ambiguous words and structures. 3.2. Lexical Ambiguity According to Graeme Hirst, there are three types of lexical ambiguity: polysemy, homonymy and categorial ambiguity.92 A short definition of polysemes, homonyms, and categorially ambiguous words is necessary for a better understanding of these types of lexical ambiguity. Polysemous words are those whose several meanings are related to one another. Moreover, they belong to the same grammatical category. For example, the verb open has many senses concerning unfolding, expanding, revealing, moving to an open position, making openings in, etc. Homonyms are words whose meanings are not related to one another. Homonyms are of three types: a) Homophones are words that have different meanings but are identical in pronunciation. e.g. rose (N) rows (N, pl.) floor flaw flower flour ground (V, pret.) - ground (N) b) Homographs are words with different meanings and pronunciations but identical in spelling.93 These words are also called heteronyms94. e.g. lead /li:d/ (V) lead /led/ (N) wind /wind/ (N) wind /waind/ (V) tear /tj/ (N) tear /t/ (V)

computer that could be equipped with memory for each of these aspects would be able to deal with ambiguity as humans do, and it would be able to translate texts from one language into another, no matter how ambiguous, metaphorical or idiomatic these texts may be. Cf. Idem, pp. 77 - 78. 92 Idem, p. 5. 93 Cf. Horia Hulban, Syntheses in English Lexicology and Semantics, pp. 224-226. 94 Graeme Hirst, op. cit., p. 89. Hirst defines a heteronym as an ambiguous word whose meanings have different pronunciations. I understand by this that he refers to written words that have the same spelling, but different meanings and pronunciations, i.e. homographs. Op. cit., p. 89. 33

c) Perfect homonyms or homonyms proper95 are words that have the same spelling and pronunciation, but different meanings. e.g.: the noun pit that may mean either a hole in the ground, especially one made by digging, or, in American English, the single large hard seed in peach pit; some fruits, e.g. a Pole. Whereas homophones are ambiguous in speaking, homographs are ambiguous in writing. Perfect homonyms are ambiguous both in speech and in writing. Categorially ambiguous words are those whose grammatical category varies. For instance bark can be a noun describing (a) the noise a dog makes or (b) the stuff on the outside of a tree, or it may be a verb meaning to make the short loud sound that dogs and other animals make. Categorially ambiguous words may also be polysemous or homonymous. The ambiguity of bark is categorial and polysemous if meaning (a) above is considered, and it is categorial and homonymous as the noun meaning (b) and the meaning of the verb are not semantically related. Although categorial ambiguity may be incorporated in the other previous two types, it is its major characteristic of referring to words belonging to different grammatical categories that I will use in the analysis of syntactically ambiguous sentences96 in 3.2.2.2. Moreover, categorial ambiguity is a problem in parsing.

- the noun pole meaning stick or post and a geographical term as in North

3.2.1. Lexical Ambiguity Based on Polysemy In this section I provide some examples in which the identity of form between words of related meaning is a source of misunderstanding for the participants in the discussion. Most of them are from Lewis Carrolls works Through the Looking Glass and Alices Adventures in Wonderland. In all these examples, the writers logically organised mind97 is always at work. He finds surprising connections between the form of an expression and its semantics by applying the strict rules of Logic to language. The manner in which

95 96

Cf. Horia Hulban, 2002, The English-Romanian Dictionary of English Homonyms, Iai: Spanda, p. 6. An example of categorial ambiguity with consequences upon syntax is the example provided earlier: I saw her duck, in which duck can be either a noun or a verb in the short infinitive. Another term for categorial ambiguity combined with homonymy is partial homonymy. The main source for categorial ambiguity is conversion. Cf. Horia Hulban, op. cit., pp. 226-227. 97 Lewis Carroll was a mathematician as well. 34

he plays upon latent meanings makes the reader realise that a linguistic form may be most deceiving when least expected. Any polysemous word is liable to ambiguity. Given that all its latent meanings coexist in the mental lexicon, the accessing of one or another of these meanings when interpreting the polyseme is sometimes due to subjective rules: any interpreter may pick out the meaning most plausible to him, in accordance with the weight he gives any disambiguating factor he may use. Sometimes the discrepancy between the meaning accessed by the locutor and that accessed by the interlocutor is so huge in everyday life that it results in misunderstanding or even in total lack of understanding. This discrepancy may be played upon by writers to create humorous effects as Lewis Carroll does in the example below:
1). [this is the song...] [] only I dont sing it, he added, as an explanation. I see you dont, said Alice. If you can see whether Im singing or not, youve sharper eyes than most, Humpty Dumpty remarked severely. Alice was silent.98

The source of misunderstanding between the participants in this conversation is Humpty Dumptys accessing a meaning of see different from that intended by Alice. In its first occurrence, see has an abstract meaning i.e. to notice. The meaning accessed by Humpty Dumpty, i.e. to visually perceive is totally unexpected here, given the non-visual nature of singing, the referent of this verbs direct object. The linguistic reason that makes it possible for Humpty Dumpty to pick out this meaning of see, however, is the syntactic structure in which it occurs: V + Direct Object. Direct objects very frequently have palpable entities as referents. Making such an inference, Humpty Dumpty accesses the concrete meaning of the word see. In this example it is worth noting that each of the two sentences in which the verb see occurs is unambiguous to the reader. Lewis Carrolls spirit, always at play upon words, speculates on the latent ambiguity of see, this being one of the salient stylistic features in his works. In the next fragment the preposition for is used in two of its multiple meanings:
2). [The Lion and the Unicorn are fighting.] Fighting for the crown? asked Alice. Yes, to be sure, said the King: and the best of the joke is, that its my crown all the while!99

98 99

Lewis Carroll, 1994, Through the Looking Glass, Penguin Books, p. 105. Idem, p. 115. 35

When Alice presumes that the Lion and the Unicorn are fighting for the crown, she actually uses the most expected meaning of for in such a situation: if you do something FOR someone, you do it instead of them. The White King, however, picks out the opposite meaning of for: in order to or with the purpose to win something100. He sees the crown as the bone of contention for the fighters, not a value to be defended. The simultaneous use of the two contrasting meanings of the preposition for above is possible due to the ambiguity created by the polysemous noun crown. Alice uses crown as metonymically standing for royalty. The White King refers to the crown as the golden object a king wears on his head as a symbol of his kingship. Whereas the form of the sentence stays the same, the polysemy of crown allows for two interpretations. The three uses of the phrasal verb to grow up in the following fragment are not ambiguous to the reader as the global linguistic context provides sufficient clues for disambiguation: Alice is a little girl who is in the White Rabbits house now and she has drunk the content of a bottle that suddenly made her grow in size. It is interesting to notice that if these contextual clues were not provided, the fragment would be ambiguous and the interpreter would have to spend some time on the occurrences of the verb grow up to figure out its meaning each time it is used:
3). There ought to be a book written about me! And when I grow up, Ill write one but Im grown up now, she added in a sorrowful tone; at least theres no room to grow up any more here.101

Moreover, but for the contextual clues mentioned above, there would be some other structures in this fragment that would be difficult to understand: there ought to be (present or future reference?), theres no room (should it be read literally or metaphorically?). Altogether, this is not an example of authentic ambiguity as the meaning is clear every time grow up is used, but the authors drawing the readers attention to the verbs polysemantism may be considered an ingenuous way of signalling its potential ambiguity. In the example below, the polysemantism of the verb phrase to make a remark is the linguistic aspect played upon:
4). [The Red Queen explains to Alice what she should do in order to become a queen after moving through the chess-table squares.] But you make no remark?
100 101

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, p. 549. Lewis Carroll, 1994, Alices Adventures in Wonderland, Penguin Books, p. 43. 36

I I didnt know I had to make one just then, Alice faltered out. You should have said, the Queen went on in a tone of grave reproof, <Its extremely kind of you to tell me all this>102

The discrepancy between the two uses of the verb phrase to make a remark a) to make a comment or intervene and b) to pay compliments is surprising even to the reader, as the meaning (a) grasped by Alice is much stronger than (b) in this context and in everyday conversation as well. Such a discrepancy between the meaning initially primed by the locutors words and that actually accessed by the interlocutor is humorous here. Such a discrepancy is a prolific source of humour in general. I will end this section on the original use of ambiguity of polysemous words by analysing an example from John Updikes Bech: A Book. Here, the meanings of the words are so subtly manipulated that the resulting meaning of the dialogue below is difficult to pinpoint:
5). And how did you like Mr. Taru? Petrescu asked on the way. Hes a doll, Bech said. You mean a puppet? Bech turned curiously but saw nothing in Petrescus face that betrayed more than puzzlement over meaning. Bech said, Im sure you have a better eye for the strings than I do.103

The qualifier doll is a clich in everyday conversation, used to speak well of a nice and well-meant person. Given the global context of this story, the reader knows that Bech did not let himself fooled by Mr. Tarus forged smile, nor did he like his arrogance and lack of education. As he is well-behaved, he could not use a vulgar word to express his opinion about somebody whom he has just met and who is, after all, the Romanian Writers Union President. Therefore, he uses an ambiguous term that can be interpreted by his interlocutor either positively or negatively, without his having to shoulder responsibility for either of these two interpretations. Nevertheless, it is clear that he means it ironically. What is surprising in this fragment is the meaning picked out by Petrescu, a metaphorical meaning that was not intended by Bech, who does not know much about communism and, in addition, could not afford to make critical remarks about one of his interlocutors countrymen. Puppet is literally a hyponym of doll, but metaphorically it refers to a manipulated person. Bech knows that Petrescu is generally subtle; and now he is surprised by Petrescus subtlety again. Even if he does not receive any feedback to show him that this is the meaning intended by Petrescu, Bech goes on developing the metaphor around the word puppet. Petrescu, in his turn,
102

103

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, p. 44. John Updike, 1970, Bech: A Book, Penguin Books, p. 29. 37

may have understood the positive meaning of Bechs words, but as he himself did not like Mr. Taru which is not clear at all from the context could not have taken such a remark at face value. Therefore, he tried out another path. Updikes linguistic creativity in this fragment consists in his ability to slide ironically from the literal to the metaphorical meanings of the words doll and puppet in the deep structure of the text without being very clear about the way in which Petrescu understands them. In this case, ambiguity is insuperable. In Figure 3 below, the arrows show the ways in which Bech and Petrescu mentally access the positive and the negative metaphorical meanings of doll and puppet respectively. The dotted arrows suggest that the context is not clear about whether Petrescu actually follows these paths or he only holds on to the positive meanings of the two words. In this respect, this fragment is genuinely ambiguous as the two contrasting possibilities have to be considered simultaneously:
metaphorical, positive meaning: doll = nice person 1. Bech: He is a doll 2. Petrescu: You mean a puppet? B1
metaphorical, ironical, negative meaning: doll = unreliable person

P2

metaphorical negative meaning: puppet = manipulated person metaphorical or literal: puppet = hyponym of doll 3. Bech: You have a better B3 P3 eye for Figure 3: Mental access of positive and negative metaphorical meanings of doll and puppet strings
in e.g. (5) from Updikes Bech: A Book.

From the analysis of the fragments in this section, it is clear that the ambiguity of polysemous words can be dwelt upon in an inconceivable number of ways. Each instance is unique and deserves individual attention. There are no set rules to follow in order for a locutor to play upon polysemes. His mind can at any time make spectacular connections between the multiple meanings of a word, whether this is expected of him or not. The more unexpected the connection, the more salient this stylistic device is. The same is true about the ambiguity of homonyms, an issue that is developed in the next section.

3.2.2. Lexical Ambiguity Based on Homonymy and Categorial Ambiguity Homonyms, whether homophones, homographs or perfect homonyms, are another source of lexical ambiguity. Generally, the contrast between the totally different
38

meanings of identical or similar word-forms makes different interpretations more visible when contextual clues are provided. But when the local and the global linguistic contexts do not allow for contextual inferences to be made, the interpreter has to resort to the extra-linguistic context in his attempt at disambiguation. Knowing these, the locutor himself can play upon homonyms and achieve humorous or puzzling effects if he handles the text skilfully. In this section the misunderstandings between the two characters participating in conversation are due to the writers making them access different meanings allowed by the same surface structure of a sentence. In the first example below, the global context permits of a play on the homonymy of the verbs to address and to a-dress - the latter probably being coined after similar derivatives extant in English such as: to await, to awake, a-coming (in such an example as Im a-coming, too), a-doze, a-dream104, in which the ante-posed particle a- (a morpheme reminiscent of the Middle English present participle of some verbs105) is a bound morpheme expressing the full progress of the action or a state defined by the attached verb:
1). [global context: Alice gives the shawl she has found to the White Queen whom she has just come across.] Am I addressing the White Queen? Well, yes, if you call that a-dressing, the Queen said. It isnt my notion of the thing at all. [] If your Majesty will only tell me the right way to begin, Ill do it as well as I can. But I dont want it done at all!, groaned the poor Queen. Ive been a-dressing myself for the last two hours. It would have been all the better, as it seemed to Alice, if she had got some one else to dress her, she was so dreadfully untidy.106

Alices intention is to be polite to the Queen, and it is clear that the Queens main preoccupation at the moment is to dress herself in the shawl so that it could not be carried away by the wind again. As each characters focus is on a different action that can be described by a phonetically identical verb, /`dres/, each of them picks out the verbs meaning closest to their immediate preoccupations respectively. It is not until the Queen provides contextual clues i.e. Ive been a-dressing myself for the last two hours - that Alice understands what she is referring to. The reflexive use of the verb to a-dress and the temporal detail, for the last two hours, are two contextual disambiguating factors that do not allow for Alices initial meaning to be selected any longer.
104

The last two ones are from Wasnt it just a storybook over which I had fallen a-dozen and a-dream?, Henry James, 1994, The Turn of the Screw, London: Penguin Books, p. 18. 105 Cf. Adrian Poruciuc, 1995, Istorie scris n engleza veche, Iai: Editura Moldova, p. 102. 106 Lewis Carroll, op. cit., pp. 77 78. 39

There should be mentioned, however, that to the reader of this fragment the ambiguity is almost absent as the two verbs are only homophonous and not homographs. More obvious to him is the original way in which the writer shows how the manipulation of homophones can lead to misunderstandings in everyday verbal communication. Lewis Carrolls play upon homonyms is a classic stylistic device largely used in puns, which are word plays that ensure a right proportion between surprise and inevitability, the former being derived from the writers power of imagination, and the latter from the need of adequacy of speech forms to the concrete situations of the context in which they are used.107 In the next two examples below, where the author plays upon homonyms, he is very imaginative in this respect. The absurd rules observed by the dream-world characters allow for strange connections to be made, but the readers logical thinking is challenged all along. Sometimes Alice herself reacts to these absurdities:
2). Mine is a long and sad tale!, said the Mouse, turning to Alice and sighing. It is a long tail, certainly, said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouses tail108 3). How is bread made? I know that, Alice cried eagerly. You take some flour - Where do you pick the flower? the White Queen asked. In a garden, or in the hedges? Well, it isnt picked at all, Alice explained: its ground - How many acres of ground? said the White Queen.109

In example (3) above, it is worth noting that the word ground is both homonymous and categorially ambiguous. Alice uses the past participle of the verb to grind, whereas the White Queen takes its nominal meaning, as the syntax of Alices unfinished sentence allows for such an interpretation. Categorial ambiguity and homonymy are purposely speculated by the author in the following two examples as well:
4). you had got to the fifth bent, I think? I had not! cried the Mouse []. A knot! said Alice [] Oh, do let me help to undo it!110 5). Thats the reason theyre called lessons, the Gryphon remarked: because they lessen from day to day.111
107 108

Horia Hulban, op. cit., p. 11. Lewis Carroll, op. cit., p. 36. 109 Idem, p. 47. 110 Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland, p. 38. 111 Idem, p. 116. 40

In e.g. (5) the author uses categorial ambiguity to provide a possible folketymology of the noun lesson. As in Wonderland everything that sounds logical is accepted, so is the Gryphons seemingly logical explanation. Behind these words the author seems to wittily mock the peoples natural inclination to provide scientific explanations off the top of their head. Below there is an illustration of a most surprising folk-etymology. The meaning of a noun is semantically motivated by its being associated with an onomatopoeic expression:
6). [Alice talks to the flowers in the Looking-Glass garden.] Arent you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody to take care of you? Theres the tree in the middle, said the rose: What else is it good for? But what could it do, if any danger came? Alice asked. It could bark, said the Rose. It says <bough-wough>! cried a Daisy: Thats why its branches are called boughs!112

The metaphorical connection between tree and dog here must have been signalled to the author by the perfect homonymy between bough the sound that a dog makes and bough a branch of a tree, on the one hand, and between bark the way a dog goes and bark the stuff on the outside of a tree, on the other113. So, both bough and bark are used when speaking both of trees and of dogs. The way in which Carroll actually conceives of a context in which these associations sound logical is a matter of creativity and ingenuity. Applying the upside-down rules of the LookingGlass world, in which the effect usually precedes its cause, he subtly builds the implicit metaphor This tree is a dog. But the reader becomes aware of this metaphor only after the reading of the whole fragment, and it is at the end that he realises that this metaphor has always been in the background and helped him to see the strange linguistic correlation between the two representatives of the animal and the plant kingdoms. Understanding the backstage resources of this linguistic game enhances the pleasure of reading it. 3.3. Structural Ambiguity 3.3.1. Amphiboly and the Garden-Path Effect When the surface structure of a sentence allows it to have more than one meaning, structural ambiguity is called amphiboly. Some classic examples of amphiboly are given below:
112 113

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, pp. 33 34. In English there is also a joke on the same lexical relationship: What makes a tree noisy? / Its bark. Lewis Carroll may have known this, or a similar one, and used it as a resource for this fragment. 41

1). You can have peas and beans or carrots with the set meal.114 The two possible readings of this sentence are: a) you can have [peas] and [beans or carrots], i.e. any of the three dishes, and b) you can have [peas and beans] or [carrots]. When spoken, such a formulation is no longer ambiguous as the intonation marks the phrase borders very clearly. 2). The eligible candidates will be males or females over 25. Possible readings: The eligible candidates will be: a). either [males of any age] or [females over 25]; b). males and females, both over 25; c). males of any age and females over 25. The ambiguity in this example is entailed by two distinct factors: - the logical problem raised by the possibility of the conjunction or to be either inclusive or exclusive. The exclusive or does not allow for a third possibility apart from the two already provided, as in reading a) above; the inclusive or permits of a combination of the two as well, as in b) and c) above; - the ambiguity of a qualifier attached to the last term in an enumeration, in our case over 25. It is not clear whether the attachment qualifies both terms at the same time or only the last term, as in b) and c) respectively. The next example is of a structural ambiguity caused by prepositional attachment: 3). Put the box on the table by the window in the kitchen. Here are some possible interpretations: a). the box that is on the table should be put by the kitchen window; b). the box should be put on the table which is by the kitchen window;
114

Cf. NLP Jargon, http://www.scism.sbu.ac.uk/inmandw/tutorials/nlp/jargon/jargon.html 42

c). the box which is on the table near the window should be put in the kitchen. The only clear information in this example is that the box should be placed in the kitchen. But whether the box is already on the table, or it should get there, whether the table is by the kitchen window or not, these are very difficult to infer from this written sentence. In speaking, however, stress, pauses, and intonation, along with indexical gestures may be helpful disambiguating factors. These supra-segmental factors seem to be of no help in the next example: 4). Nadia saw the man in the park with the telescope.115 The possible interpretations are: a). The man was in the park and Nadia saw him through a telescope. b). The man in the park had a telescope and Nadia saw him. c). There were other men in the park as well, but Nadia saw only the one with a telescope. Of course, it is not yet very clear whether Nadia herself was in the park or not. The ambiguity of the next two sentences is of a local type. The former is also an example of garden-path effect ambiguity:116 5). a). The old train the young. b). The old train left the station.117 Out of these two sentences, (b) is hardly ever felt as locally ambiguous, due to the more frequent use of train as a noun and the normal use of old as a modifier. In (a) however, the interpreter may encounter some difficulty in the interpretation of old as a collective plural noun, and of train as a verb from the outset. It is not until the phrase the young is mentioned that some syntactic cues are offered: there is no Predicate for what seemed to be the Subject the old train and the noun-phrase the young is found to be a Direct Object. Therefore, the interpreter goes back quickly and re-interprets the whole sentence in this new light. In this example, structural ambiguity is caused by homonymy and categorial ambiguity. The examples in this section illustrated some common types of amphiboly, which in everyday life can be used for various purposes. For instance, as in the examples (1)
115 116

This example is from Graeme Hirst, op.cit., p. 175. Locally ambiguous sentences of the garden-path type contain a point at which, in left-to-right parsing, the parser could take one or several paths, and the information that determines which is correct occurs only later in the sentence. Cf. G. Hirst, op. cit., p. 11. 117 Ambiguity, http://www.scism.sbu.ac.uk/inmandw/tutorials/nlp/ambiguity/ambiguity.html 43

and (2), if the interpreter does not understand all the semantic variants and accuses the locutor of not having said all the relevant details, the latter can prove that the overlooked meaning was there all the time and it was the interpreters fault of not seizing it118. Such examples of ambiguity are used in the political discourse as a weapon of defending ones own interests and as a means of revealing truncated truths119 when the other part of it, which, nevertheless, has to be said, may be self-incriminatory. Garden-path ambiguities may be intentionally or unintentionally used. In the next two literary excerpts it may be argued that they are accidental, due to categorial ambiguity in (6) and to the habit of omitting the Subject the second time it should be used in a compound sentence:
6). the driver would speed up and intensify the mutter of his honking. [] Bech felt as if gears, the gears that space and engage the mind, were clashing.120

The categorial ambiguity in this example is between space /N/ and space /V/. It is caused by a series of factors such as: - both the nominal and the verbal forms are allowed by the sentence structure at the point in the sentence where the word space is used; - the switch of verb tenses - from the past of would speed and felt to the present of space and engage is usually unexpected within the same sentence, and the interpreters mind needs some time to process it. - this ambiguity is enhanced by the identity of form between the Nominative and the Accusative of the relative pronoun that. If the reader accesses the nominal value of space, which is very likely to happen due to its more frequent use with nominal value, he is forced to go back and try another interpretation as soon as he comes across engage, which is definitely a verb and signals the verbal value of space with which it is coordinated. This also triggers the interpretation of that as the Nominative, not the Accusative as it was initially presumed. A similar garden-path effect is achieved in (7) below due to ellipsis:
7). Since the road was well travelled, the noise was practically uninterrupted, and after the first hour nagged Bech like a toothache.121

Here, the absence of the subject pronoun it with anaphoric reference before the verb nagged, leaves the impression that this predicate takes the first hour as its
118 119

This is usually the case of inclusive or used in notes of public interest. Usually the inclusive or is intended but the interpretation of it as exclusive or is expected from the lay interpreter, as this is the more common way in which or formulations are perceived. 120 John Updike, op. cit., p. 31. 121 Idem, p. 31. 44

metaphorical subject. This impression proves to have been fallacious as soon as the sentence ends. The reader realises that after is not an conjunctive adverbial, so it does not introduce a time clause: it is the preposition in a prepositional noun-phrase and the sentence is self-sufficient as it is. If the sentence had been added some extra constituents to, such as when the noise stopped he felt like in heaven, the first impression would have proved to be the right one. Listeners and readers are very often confronted with such situations in which they have to go back and re-adjust their first interpretation of a given sentence. This is partly due to categorially ambiguous words which locally fit the linguistic context created by the preceding words, but as soon as the following constituents are added the initial interpretation has to be reconsidered. The example below is similar to (7) in that the anaphorical subject of the past tense verb held out is missing. This time the reader has to make both local and global contextual inferences in his attempt at disambiguation:
8). Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer shaped little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, just like a star-fish, thought Alice.122

Here, it is unclear who stretched the babys arms, Alice or the baby itself? The process of forward deletion or gapping results here in an ambiguous formulation, as before the deleted element, which is the Subject of held out, there are two constituents of the same rank that may have attracted it: Alice, and the baby. Moreover, one cannot say for sure what two clauses are coordinated here, the first and the third, or the second and the third. Some syntactic clues that mislead the reader into taking Alice as the subject of held out are the following: - the past tense forms caught and held out; - both verbs catch and hold out take as a subject a noun AGENT; - the coordinating conjunction and which seems to link this Predicate to the preceding Predicate caught; - the placing between commas of the sentence fragment as it was a queer shaped little creature, which may suggest that this comment is a parenthetical adverbial clause of reason that can be read in a lower tone; - the fact that the sentence begins with the subject Alice may signal that this is the topic noun throughout the sentence and all major references in the sentence should be about it.

122

Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland, p. 73. 45

But for some local contextual clues provided by the last part of the sentence, just like a fish-star, and the following sentences in the story123, the reader could never tell which is the Subject of held out, a case in which this ambiguity would be insuperable. 3.3.2. Idiomatic vs. Literal Interpretations The overall meaning of an idiomatic set phrase is not the sum of the meanings of its component words. Therefore, when such an idiomatic phrase as to explain oneself is unexpectedly split up into its structural parts, as V + Direct Object, the effect is puzzling. Destroying the unifying semantic and syntactic links between the words of an idiom is usually a source of humour. Lewis Carroll is a very resourceful writer in this respect. His creative ability to build contexts in which both the idiomatic and the non-idiomatic meanings of a set phrase are dwelt upon and co-exist without excluding each other proves that nothing in language is settled once and for all. The examples in this section illustrate the intricate ways of the locutors mind when interpreting set phrases literally. All ambiguities in these examples are of a local type as by the end of their speaking exchanges either the two characters participating in conversation or the reader becomes aware of this source of misunderstanding:
1). Explain yourself! I cant explain myself, Im afraid, sir, said Alice, because Im not myself, you see?124

The frequent syntactic structure V + Direct Object in which the verb to explain occurs, such as explain the meaning of this word or explain this idea, together with the knowledge of the previous events in the story125, provide enough reasons for Alice to take the words of this idiom literally, and for the reader to understand the authors mental associations. In example (2) below, the author uses the same device as above. The unitary meaning of to lose ones way, i.e. to get lost, is split into component parts, the stress falling on the possessive value of the pronoun and the concrete meaning of the noun way, which is interpreted by the Red Queen as path or road, i.e. as the Direct Object of the verb to lose:
2). Where do you come from? said the Red Queen. And where are you going?
123

In the next sentences of the story, it becomes clear that Alice tries to keep the baby calm and silent, therefore she cannot have attempted to upset it. 124 Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, p. 54. 125 Alice has serious doubts about whether she is the same person as she used to be. She thinks that she might have turned into one of her friends. 46

[] Alice explained, as well as she could, that she had lost her way. I dont know what you mean by your way, said the Queen: all the ways about here belong to me.126

In his speech act theory, J. L. Austin points out that an utterance has both sense and force. The sense of an utterance is strictly related to its linguistic form, whereas its force is related to its various functions. These functions may change according to the extra-linguistic and the linguistic local contexts in which the utterance is produced. Misunderstandings occur when a person concentrates on the sense of the utterance, rather than being aware of its present function.127 In the next example, the interlocutor does not see the wood for the trees. He overlooks the function of Alices remark i.e. request for explicit information and he concentrates on the form of the utterance, i.e. on its literal meaning or sense:
3). I beg you pardon? said Alice. It isnt respectable to beg, said the King. I only meant that I didnt understand, said Alice.128

As in (1) and (2) above, the idiomatic phrase I beg your pardon is interpreted literally as V + Direct Object. The same idiom is used in the next example:
4). [Humpty Dumpty speaks to Alice about his cravat.] They gave it to me [] for an un-birthday present. I beg you pardon? Alice said with a puzzled air. Im not offended, said Humpty Dumpty. I mean, what is an un-birthday present?129

Even if Alice has already used the same structure in a previous conversation with the same character, Humpty Dumpty fails to perceive its function. However, this time what he does is not play upon words; he rather accesses one of the functional meanings of this expression, which is also different from that intended by Alice. The effect created on the reader is puzzling and humorous at the same time. Alices words are not ambiguous in everyday conversation, but Lewis Carroll, by means of this trick, forces the reader into looking at the words more carefully and seeing that this functional meaning was already there, only it was latent due to contextual constraints. In all but the last two examples in this section, Lewis Carrolls play upon the structure of idiomatic phrases is based on his awareness of a major difference between the logic of the language and the mathematical logic. In mathematics, for instance, both
126 127

Idem, p. 37. J. L. Austin, Apud. Alison Ross, 1999, The Language of Humour, London and New York: Routledge, p. 39. 128 Lewis Carroll, op. cit., p. 55. 129 Idem, p. 99. 47

(a + b + c) = (a + b + c), and (a + b + c) = (d)130 are true, and (a + b + c) and (d) can be used interchangeably. In language, however, if (a + b + c) = (d), where (a), (b), (c) are the meanings of the component words of an idiomatic expression and (d) is its overall meaning, then it is (d) that has to be accessed whenever (a + b + c) is used, and not the individual meanings of (a), and (b), and (c). When (a + b + c) is accessed instead of (d), this may lead to a misunderstanding of the message. When both (a + b + c) and (d) are accessed simultaneously, the effect is usually humorous as in (5):
5). [Alice talks to the Gnat, who sits on a twig.] You shouldnt make jokes, Alice said, if it makes you so unhappy. Then came another of those melancholy little sighs, and this time the poor Gnat really seemed to have sighed itself away, for, when Alice looked up, there was nothing whatever to be seen on the twig.131

Here, the author seems to make mock of the readers linguistic instinct to access the idiomatic meaning first, by forcing them into seeing, by the end of the sentence, the literal meaning as well. The same device is used in (6) below:
6). [Alice is in the Sheeps shop] I should like to look all round me first, if I might. You may look in front of you, and on both sides, if you like, said the Sheep: but you cant look all round you unless youve got eyes at the back of your head.132

In the next example, the possibility for a sentence to allow for more than one parsing is speculated on by the author. Also, a linguistic clich used to win the interlocutors benevolence - such as Would you be good enough to? - is understood by the White King literally, a case in which the adverbial value of enough is enhanced:
7). [Alice and the White king are running together] Would you be good enough, Alice panted out, after running a little further, to stop a minute just to get ones breath again? Im good enough, the King said, only Im not strong enough. You see, a minute goes by so fearfully quickly.133

As the verb to stop can be either transitively or intransitively used, the syntactic structure of to stop a minute can be interpreted in two ways. Alice uses it intransitively, the noun-phrase a minute being an Adjunct of time, but the White King understands its transitive meaning, the same noun-phrase being a Direct Object this time. This is

130

Where a, b, c are numbers, and d is their sum. Idem, p. 55. 132 Idem, pp. 85 86. 133 Idem, p. 116.
131

48

possible due to the identical Accusative form of the time Adjunct and of the Direct Object noun phrase a minute. The example below, the last one in this section, illustrates once more Lewis Carrolls artistry of playing upon the syntactic relationships between the component words of an idiomatic expression:
8). [Alice knocks at a door.] Wheres the servant whose business is to answer the door? she began angrily. Which door? said the Frog. [] This door, of course! [] To answer the door? he said. Whats it been asking of?134

The idiomatic meaning / function of the verb phrase to answer the door is to answer the person who is knocking at the door, and this is what Alice means when she uses it. In this expression, the noun door is metonymically used. What the Frog does is use the word door literally, taking it for the interlocutor in a discussion an unexpected personification both for Alice and for the reader, puzzling to Alice, and highly humorous to the latter.

4. Clichs

134

Idem, pp. 155 156. 49

Clichs are linguistic expressions that have lost most of their meaning due to the fact that they have been used too often, even if they once added colour to the language. Being overused, these expressions have gradually turned into linguistic automatisms. As their activation from the mental lexicon is done effortlessly, they are resorted to especially in speaking. When a literary writer makes use of linguistic clichs, these are put into the characters mouth with the purpose of sketching their personality in a less descriptive, thus, more stylistically-effective manner. 4.1. Types of Clichs: Fillers, Circumlocutions, Tautological and Pleonastic Expressions, Witter Words When people need time to think ahead and formulate what they want to say next, instead of pausing, they sub-consciously use a type of clichs called linguistic fillers. At times, any individual may develop a certain fondness of one filler or another, such as: I know, You know?, I see, You see?, I should say, I dont know, I mean, Right?, O. K.?, a sort of, a kind of,135 which they tend to use whenever the structure of a sentence allows for their insertion. For instance: I was walking along a kind of path, you see, and, you see, I didnt know that there was a kind of creature following me, you see Such formulations may express the locutors emotional involvement in the events, his doubts, insecurity or lack of self-confidence, but at the same time they may be a sign of his poor active vocabulary and inability to express himself or herself fluently. In the latter case, clichs may be very boring, even annoying to the listener, especially when they constantly break the fluency and coherence of the linguistic discourse. Certain clich-like formulations may be adopted by whole groups of people who have the same preoccupations. Politicians are notorious clich-users as they often have a keen interest in not being pinned down.136 The clichs they use are of a special type: they pompously replace other phrases that already exist in language but are felt somehow flat. These clichs are called circumlocutions. Although they add information to the meaning of the sentence, these clichs do this in a way that holds back what is essential in the sentence. e.g.: - as to whether (instead of whether) - consequent upon (instead of because of) - apart from the fact that (instead of because / since /although)
135

Some of these clichs, especially those in the interrogative form, are labeled as sympathetic circularity devices. Cf. Alison Ross, op. cit., p.100. 136 Robert Coole, 1993, Crisp, Clear Writing in One Hour, Reading: Berks, Mandarin in Association with the Sunday Times, Cox and Wyman Ltd., p. 30. 50

- due to the fact that (instead of because) - irrespective of the fact that (instead of although) - in accordance with your instructions (instead of acting on, following) - in addition to which (instead of besides) - inasmuch as (instead of because) - in connection with (instead of about), etc.137 It is worth noting that circumlocutions are also used in writing, especially when the writers intention is to show a high level of sophistication of either his characters, in literary texts, or of himself, in non-literary writings. In their wish to be precise or emphatic, some people use tautological and pleonastic expressions, such as: each and every, thats that, whats right is right, free gift, to add extra, past history, future plans, quite / absolutely / utterly perfect / unique / excellent, etc. Sayings that occur in everyday speech are apparent tautologies, like what is true is true, but they do have an emphatic function, so they are not useless. When used with a view to achieve a certain stylistic effect, tautological and pleonastic clichs are considered stylistic devices that describe the locutors linguistic creativity. Witter words are another type of clichs. Robert Coole defines them as expressions that clog a sentence and add nothing to the information or meaning. [] witter words [] tell us nothing. Some of them are more often used in speech, especially among prattlers of radio and television. But many appear in writing138 as well. Here are a few examples: - Anyway (used at the beginning of a sentence) - as it is, as it were - by and large - having said that - Funnily / Strangely / Oddly / Curiously enough - I am here to tell you/ to let you know - I am the first to admit - I have to say, here and now - In a manner of speaking - I should say
137 138

Idem, p. 30. Idem, p. 38. 51

- It goes without saying - so to speak, so to say, So, (to begin a sentence with), etc.139 4.2. Linguistic Clichs Creatively Used The examples analysed below show how sometimes clichs are given life to due to the locutors skilful manipulation of language. In the literary texts, linguistic clichs can be used as an expression of the authors attitude towards certain characters: a clichd word or phrase put in the mouth of a character can spare the author pages of psychological description. In the first example below, the individual clichs used by Tweedledee and Tweedledum define them as funny characters, ready to contradict Alice while agreeing to each other:
1). Wax-works werent made to be looked at for nothing. Nohow! Contrarywise, added the one marked <DEE>, if you think were alive, you ought to speak. [] I know what youre thinking about, said Tweedledum: but it isnt so, nohow! Contrarywise, continued Tweedledee. [] First boy! [said Alice; my note] Nohow! Tweedledum cried out briskly. [] Next boy!, said Alice passing on to Tweedledee Contrarywise! [Tweedledee shouted out; my note]140

The two characters individual clichs belong to the same lexical area: both nohow and contrarywise are adverbs of negation. These clichs actually label the two brothers as contradiction-prone figures. Some examples analysed in the section where polysemes, homonyms and idiomatic phrases were discussed as sources of ambiguity speculated on by the writer can also be considered here to illustrate the authors creative way of ironically scoffing clich-users. They also illustrate how the interlocutors lack of co-operation in language use may influence negatively the smooth progression of the dialogue:
2). Only I dont sing it, he added. [] I see you dont, said Alice. If you see whether Im singing or not, youve sharper eyes than most, Humpty Dumpty remarked severely. Alice was silent.141 3). I cant explain myself, Im afraid, sir, said Alice, because Im not myself, you see? I dont see, said the Caterpillar.142 4). What size do you want to be?, it asked.

139 140

Some of these examples are given by R. Coole in op. cit. p. 38. Lewis Carroll, op. cit., pp. 61 62. 141 Idem, p. 105. 142 Idem, Alices Adventures in Wonderland, p. 54. 52

Oh, Im not particular as to size, Alice hastily replied; only one doesnt like changing so often, you know. I dont know, said the Caterpillar.143

In the last three examples, the contradiction between the sentence-filler function of the highlighted clichs and their literal interpretation is unexpected both to Alice and to the reader. The author is deliberately awkward and makes his characters refuse the most appropriate function of these clichs. The effect of his doing so is humorous. In example (5) below, the authors irony reminds of the people who want to look sophisticated by their constant use of clichd generalisations and sententious remarks. In Alices Adventures in Wonderland the Duchess is such a character. She always finds a moral in everything, whether the generalisations behind these so-called morals are sensible or not. Alices sharp ironical remarks whenever the Duchess does so are disapproving comments on such linguistic behaviour:
5). Very true, said the Duchess: flamingos and mustard: both bite. And the moral of that is - <Birds of a feather flock together>. Only mustard isnt a bird, Alice remarked. [] Its a mineral, I think. [] Of course it is, said the Duchess []; theres a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is - <The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours>. Oh, I know! exclaimed Alice [] its a vegetable. It doesnt look like one, but it is. I quite agree with you, said the Duchess; and the moral of that is - <Be what you would seem to be> - or if youd like it put more simply - <never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise>. I think I should understand that better, Alice said very politely. if I had it written down: but I cant quite follow it as you say it. [] Pray dont trouble yourself to say it any longer than that.144

The Duchesss morals are always far-fetched proverbs, related illogically to the facts about which she makes generalisations: they are mere speculations on lexical relationships, such as homonymy in mustard-mine - the more there is of mine, and synonymy in to look like - seem to be in e.g. (5). The Duchesss pretentiousness is ridiculed to a highest degree by the author through the allegedly simpler paraphrasing of her last moral: double and triple negations, anticipatory it, inserted Subject clauses impossible to follow and highly unlikely to formulate in a similar situation in everyday speech. Only Lewis Carrolls mathematical logic could decipher the meaning of such a

143 144

Idem, p. 59. Idem, pp. 107 108. 53

sentence in its left-to-right unfolding145. The effect achieved is also humorous due to the contradiction between what she says put it more simply and what she actually does. Although in everyday life clichs are worn-out expressions that overload somebodys language and pass unnoticed if they do not leave a negative impression on the interlocutor, in prose writing they can be skilfully employed as to create stylistic effects, very often humorous as the examples analysed in this section illustrate.

5. Humour
In this section, some linguistic sources of humour such as: homonyms, polysemes and paronyms used in the creation of puns are mentioned first. As the examples for analysis are fragments from Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, I will also consider one of this authors major sources of humour: the play upon the rules of logic, which will be treated along with the
145

It can be argued that Alices remark I think I should understand that better if I had it written down: but I cant quite follow it as you say it refers to the logical-mathematical practice of carefully interpreting facts and especially figures and logical arguments whose numerous items are arranged in a certain order difficult to mentally hold in their entirety. Their graphic transcription would allow the interpreter to go back and read the unclear parts again in order to understand their articulation. 54

breaking of the language conventions. Terms such as incongruity and the unexpected will be employed to refer to the mechanisms of humour along with its linguistic resources. 5.1. Homonymy, Polysemy and Paronymy as Sources of Humour Although William Empson is aware that puns have been considered the lowest form of humour146, he refers to Shakespeares talent for creating puns in highly praising terms: very few poets can afford so to exploit their sensitivity to the sounds of language, and [] perhaps no other poet has been able to concentrate, on to the creative act of a moment, such a range of intellectual power.147 Therefore, puns can also be considered a mark of an authors intellectual power and sensitivity to the sound of language. According to Horia Hulban puns based on sound relationships between words cannot be regarded only as a test of a writers fantasy, as a unit of measuring his intellectual abilities. They can also be an expression of his attitude towards certain characters, a satiric device meant to mock at commonplaces, both in speech and in thought.148 In short, puns can be a measure of an authors ingenuity, creativity, originality, and perspective upon the world he catches in his writings. Three major sources of puns in English are polysemy, homonymy, and paronymy. In the example below the author plays upon the relationship of homonymy between the noun tea and the sound of the letter t:
1). Im a poor man, your Majesty, the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, and I hadnt begun my tea [] and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin and the twinkling of the tea - The twinkling of the what? said the King. It began with the tea, the Hatter replied. Of course twinkling begins with a T! said the King sharply. Do you take me for a dunce?149

The meaning intended by the Hatter here is clarified by the clues provided by the global context of the story. Earlier in the story, when discussing with Alice over a cup of tea, the Hatter said a poem about a twinkling tea-tray. This detail is unknown to the King, therefore he builds up a meaning for the Hatters words using the immediate / local contextual clues: twinkling begins with a T. To this confusion also contributes the
146

William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity, p. 87. In this quote the author refers to Dr. Johnson and his followers view point on the subdued puns used especially in poetry; then he quotes their judgmental evaluation: It shows lack of decision and will power, a feminine pleasure in yielding to the mesmerism of language, in getting ones way, if at all, by deceit and flattery, for a poet to be so fearfully susceptible to puns. Op. cit., p. 87. 147 Idem, p. 88. 148 Horia Hulban, op. cit., pp. 10 - 11. 149 Lewis Carroll, op. cit., pp. 133 134. 55

relative indexicality of the pronoun it: the Hatter refers to the word he cannot remember, while the King refers to the word twinkling. The ambiguity in the written text is weaker than in speech, as the prepositional phrase with the tea clarifies the reader about the meaning intended by the Hatter. However, in speech the phrases with the tea and with a T sound alike, and this allows for the King to make the connections mentioned above. If the reader makes these inferences, the lack of communication between the two characters in this fragment achieves humorous effects. Otherwise, it is only puzzling. Below there is an example of a pun made in a special context. It is the context created which is humorous, rather than the pun itself. The two terms of the pun are categorically ambiguous homonyms: the noun fit and the verb to fit:
2). [In Court, the White Rabbit has just read a cryptic poem that is supposed to prove the Knaves innocence, as it contains evidence about who stole the tarts. The King tries to decipher the clues by interpreting each line in turn.] Then again - <before she had this fit> - you never had fits, my dear, I think? he said to the Queen. Never! said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. [] Then the words dont fit you, said the King, looking round the court with a smile. There was dead silence. Its a pun! the King added in an offended tone, and everybody laughed.150

What is interesting about this fragment is the locutors saying, between the lines, that sometimes puns are not humorous. As Alison Ross mentions in The Language of Humour, People usually signal first that they are going to tell a joke, so that the listeners are ready and willing to laugh, and she adds further on: [] the context can often determine whether something is received as humorous.151 In the example above, the context of a law court is not appropriate for such entertainment. Moreover, the king does not signal his intention to make a joke; when he does this, after telling it, everybody laughs. Apart from these, in this example the real source of humour is not the pun itself, but the incongruity between what the Queen says i.e. that she never had fits and what she actually does she has a fit. The fact that nobody laughs may be accounted for not only by the Kings not having signalled the joke and the inappropriateness of the joke, but mainly by the terror that everybody feels in front of the Queen. Homonyms are played upon in he fragment below, this time the effect is highly humorous due to the unexpected way of stating the obvious:

150 151

Idem, pp. 144 145. Alison Ross, op. cit., p. 72. 56

3). Boots and shoes under the sea, the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, are done with whitening. Now you know. And what are they made of? Alice asked [] Soles and eels, of course, the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: any shrimp could have told you that.152

The total homonymy between soles, meaning a flat sea fish, and soles, meaning the flat bottom part of a shoe not including the heel, and the paronymy of eel, meaning a long fish that looks like a snake with heel, are creatively manipulated here. Not only are the words soles and eels phonetically suggestive of their counterparts, but the physical appearance of their referents is also suggestive of the shape of the bottom of the shoe and that of the heel, respectively. If the Cockney accent is brought into discussion, eel is homophonous with heel, as in this accent the initial h- in words is not pronounced. Another humorous element in the fragment above is the noun shrimp which is suggestive of whimp, usually employed in such a context. As these last two words sound similar, they can be considered paronyms as well. The next example illustrates a pun on polysemes:
4). Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As this is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat upon it.) Im glad Ive seen that done, thought Alice. Ive so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, <There was some attempt of applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court>, and I never understood what it meant till now.153

The humorous effect of his excerpt resides mainly in the original explanation that Lewis Carroll gives to the verb to suppress. He actually mocks the sophisticated language of newspaper writers who make use of vague terms such as suppress here. In everyday language suppress means to stop people from opposing the government, especially by using force.154 Lewis Carroll focuses on the last part of this definition especially by using force and builds up a context in which the verb suppress becomes morphologically motivated: prefix sub- + verb press, meaning to press something by sitting on it. He, therefore, gives an etymological explanation to a word normally used in its figurative meaning. The whole situation becomes hilarious as it is very hard for the reader to take for granted, as Alice does, an explanation such as the officers slipped the applause in a bag and sat upon it. The unexpected incongruous correlation between the folk etymological explanation and the real situation is the
152 153

Lewis Carroll, op. cit., p. 122. Idem, p. 135. 154 Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, p. 1451. 57

source of humour here, rather than the pun. The pun is only an ironical linguistic means to a humorous end. Paronymy is another source of linguistic humour. Generally, the use of a word instead of another one similar in sound but totally different in meaning is a stylistic device by means of which a writer satirises the characters verbal inability and instability, which are marks of their illiteracy, stupidity or pretentiousness. Lewis Carroll uses paronyms too, but not only in a satirical way:
5). No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise. Wouldnt it really? said Alice in a tone of great surprise. Of course not, said the Mock Turtle; Why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was going a journey, I should say <With what porpoise?> Dont you mean purpose? said Alice. I mean what I say, the Mock Turtle relied in an offended tone.155 (italics in the text)

A porpoise is a sea mammal rather like a dolphin, that swims in groups.156 The author is creative again in building a context in which both readings i.e. porpoise and purpose - are acceptable and comply with the Wonderland world logic. The comic effect here is created by the lack of contradiction between the unexpected logical explanation that accounts for the Mock Turtles correct use of words, on the one hand, and Alices knowledge of the language, on the other. Below there is a classic example of paronymy which is humorous due to the misunderstandings it usually creates between the participants in a discussion who seem not to be listening carefully to each other in everyday life:
6). [Alice speaks to the Duchess] You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round of its axis Talking of axes, said the Duchess, chop off her head!157

This phenomenon is very frequent in everyday conversations: somebody uses a word which triggers another similar one in the mind of the interlocutor, who starts talking about what concerns him, in this way diverting from the course of discussion. I will end this analysis of lexical sources of humour by giving a few examples of interesting paronyms humorously chosen. The Mock Turtle tells Alice about the school subjects he studied at the sea school, each of them phonetically alluding, as the reader may find out, to the subjects studied in real life schools. The correlation between the absurd subjects he mentions and the real ones have to be made by the reader for the
155 156

Lewis Carroll, op. cit., p. 122. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, p. 1094. 157 Lewis Carroll, op. cit., p. 71. 58

effect to be completely humorous. These are the sea-school subjects and their correspondents in real life schools: - Reeling Reading - Writhing Writing - Ambition Addition - Distraction Subtraction - Uglification Multiplication - Derision Division - Mystery, ancient and modern Ancient and Modern History - Seaography Geography - Drawling Drawing - Stretching Sketching - Fainting in Coils Painting in Oils - Laughing and Grief Latin and Greek. It is to be noted that each of these subjects are perfectly appropriate for a sea school that educatesturtles. Some of them allude to real school subjects not only phonetically, but also semantically: Mystery can be argued to refer to historical facts impossible to know in detail; if the reader knows that Greek was the language of ancient tragedy, the connection between Grief and Greek is more subtle to him, thus of highly spiritual humour. 5.2. Implicature and Logical Deduction Sometimes people, whether purposely or not, do not perceive the intended meaning, or conversational implicature in the Gricean terminology, of an utterance. As the linguist Raymond W. Gibbs Jr. contends, Recovery of what a speaker means is primary for communication and successful verbal communication demands that the listener make an inference about what the speaker meant158. He supports this idea by resorting to H. Paul Grices theory of the m-intention: such recognition [of what the speaker meant] is of a special kind, what the philosopher H. Paul Grice called an m-intention. An m-intention is a speakers intention to produce an effect in the listener by means of the hearers recognition of that intention. [] If the listener successfully recognizes this intention, he or she will have drawn the authorized inference. Any other inferences
158

Raymond W. Gibbs Jr., 1999, Intentions in the Experience of Meaning, C. U. P., pp. 122 and 115, respectively. 59

drawn [] is (sic!) unauthorized or not m-intended.159 The same linguist assumes that such authorized / correct inferences are based on shared knowledge between the participants in a conversation: Any presupposition a listener has about a speakers plans, goals, and likely intentions will act as part of the context for understanding160. When the participants in a discussion have only recently met, the chances for solid shared knowledge, therefore for successful communication based on correct mintentions recognition, are close to non-existent. That is why verbal exchanges with strangers follow strict patterns, low in possible implicatures other than the socially agreed upon one: to make such encounters comfortable. One of causes for the participants failure to recognise the m-intention behind a certain utterance may also be the fact that the same utterance may have more functions, depending on the extra-linguistic and the linguistic contexts in which it is used. Such failure to grasp the implicature of an utterance is considered an act of breaking the co-operative principle of conversation.161 According to whether this rule-breaking is done deliberately or not, it may result in misunderstanding that can be humorous or annoying, depending on the general context in which the speech act takes place, on the relationship between the participants, on whether it is a subtle play upon the rules of language or rather far-fetched, etc. In literary written texts in prose, it is the authors creative mind that makes characters speak to one another and observe or not the maxims of the co-operative principle of conversation. If one speaking characters m-intention is misunderstood or

159 160

Idem, p. 115. Idem, p. 116. 161 H. Paul Grice formulates the co-operative principle of conversation by assuming that, when they speak to one another, people should be cooperative and follow these maxims: Quantity: Give the right amount of information. Make it as informative as possible. Do not give more information than required. Quality: Try to make it true. Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say something for which you do not have enough evidence. Relevance: Be perspicuous. Manner: Be clear. Avoid obscurity. Avoid ambiguity. Be brief. Be orderly. Cf. Alison Ross, op. cit., p. 40. 60

distorted by its interlocutor, this may be accounted for by the writers intention162 to make a point to the reader. The examples in this section illustrate the original way in which Lewis Carroll undermines the common-sense implicature of a statement by means of logical deduction. In the next two fragments, Alice is speaking to Humpty Dumpty: 1). Why do you sit out here all alone? said Alice.[] Why, because theres nobody with me! cried Humpty Dumpty. Did you think I didnt know the answer to that? Ask another.163 (italics in the text) Here, Humpty Dumpty seems not to comply with the maxim of relation: he merely states the obvious rather than to contribute new information as answers to questions generally require. Moreover, he shows lack of consideration for his interlocutor by keeping to himself the rule of the game, i.e. that he expects Alice to ask tricky questions to put him in difficulty. This breaks the rule of fair play in cooperative verbal exchanges. The fact that this was not accidental is proved by the following example, which is to be found in the same book, shortly after the previously quoted one:
2). Dont you think youd be safer down on the ground? Alice went on. That wall is so very narrow! What tremendously easy questions you ask! Humpty Dumpty growled out. Of course I dont think so.164

Alices question in this example is rather rhetorical: it implies that she expects an answer in the affirmative. Humpty Dumpty delays the answer, his remark about the facileness of the questions that Alice asks giving the impression that she would get such an answer. But his answer in the negative, stressing on its obviousness, contradicts all expectations, both Alices and the readers.
162

It is true that meaning cannot be reduced to authorial intention. Such a reduction was called intentional fallacy by Monroe C. Beardsley in 1946 to refer to the wrong practice of making the meaning of a poem determined by the authors intention. Cf. Julian Harris, 1950, The Humanities: An Appraisal, University of Wisconsin Press, p. 43. This reduction made by the interpreter of a piece of fictional linguistic discourse would be only partly useful, if at all, as long as more important than ones intentions are ones results. Moreover, it is generally acknowledged that locutors, be them speakers or writers, may communicate things without being aware of their doing so. Nevertheless, given that in his literary works Lewis Carroll fruitfully played with language as a rule-governed system by testing various extra-linguistic rules on it, in the analysis of the examples in this section I will assume that he did this consciously. Whether by this he intended to make a point or not is irrelevant. What does count is that such latent meanings exist. Even H. P. Grice considers that listeners may infer some aspects that may not have been specifically intended by speakers, using the concept of weak implicature to describe such a situation. Cf. Raymond W. Gibbs Jr., op. cit., p. 121. I consider this last statement true, both about the characters contributions to the verbal exchanges in which they are engaged and about my interpretation of these contributions as being the result of the locutors, i.e. authors, creative mind. 163 Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, p. 95. 164 Idem, p. 95. 61

Stating the obvious or tautology is a stylistic device employed in the fragment below to a comic effect:
3). [] Everybody that hears me sing it either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else Or else what? said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause. Or else it doesnt, you know.165

Here, Lewis Carroll makes use of logic again: something either is or is not166. But in everyday neutral linguistic communication, when people use eitheror constructions, they usually avoid tautology by adding new information to their utterance after the disjunctive conjunction or. This is a linguistic rule established by usage. And this is the rule that the Knight is expected, by the reader and, implicitly, by Alice, to observe. When he does not come up with new and relevant details, thus defeating Alices and the readers linguistic expectancy, the effect is frustrating to the former and humorous to the latter. Tautological too seem to be Tweedledees conditional sentences below:
4). if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isnt, it aint. Thats logic.167

However, at a closer look, they are tautologies only in form, as semantically the two it Subjects in the main clause and in the subordinate clause respectively have different anaphoric referents, thus, the verb to be in each of its occurrences refers to a different state of affairs. Only it is not clear what exactly these referents are as the preceding linguistic context allows for more interpretations to be made in each case168. Therefore, the contradiction between the obscurity of the arguments that Tweedledee provides and his remark Thats logic is the main humorous element in this fragment. Another one, which has to be perceived along with the previous one, is the readers sudden realisation that, formally, Tweedledees argumentation is indeed logical. It observes the rules of the sequence of tenses in conditional sentences and it follows the rules of logical predication: if experience has proved that a certain action entails a certain effect, then the absence of that action entails no effect, i.e. if p then y is true, then non-p then non-y is also true where p and y are the condition and its effect respectively.
165 166

Idem, p. 137. In the language of Logic this is represented as either p or non-p. 167 Lewis Carroll, op. cit., p. 61. 168 The preceding linguistic context refers here to the nursery-rhyme about Tweedledee and Tweedledum told by Alice earlier in the same book. This poem, famous among the English speakers, provides the possibly disambiguating contextual clues for the interpretation of it and the verb to be in this fragment. 62

In the following example, the humorous effect is achieved by a mixture of the logic of grammatical negation and common-sense implicature in which the former undermines the latter:
5). I see nobody on the road, said Alice. I only wish I had such eyes, the King remarked in a fretful tone. To be able to see Nobody! And at a distance too. [] Who did you pass on the road? the King went on, holding out his hand to the Messenger for some hay. Nobody, said the Messenger. Quite right, said the King: this young lady saw him too. So of course Nobody walks slower than you. I do my best, the Messenger said in a sulky tone. Im sure nobody walks much faster than I do! He cant do that, said the King, or else hed have been here first.169

The written fragment above is less ambiguous than the spoken variant as the negative pronoun Nobody is capitalised. This and the use of the personal pronoun he that replaces nobody point out that the King refers to a person. But in speech, where typographical features cannot be used to help disambiguation, this verbal exchange would be highly humorous. What is interesting here is the play between the ways in which the implications of the utterances are intended by each speaker in turn and the way in which these implications are interpreted by their interlocutors. Alice means that the road is untravelled by using a negative pronoun as the Direct Object of a verb in the affirmative, as the grammar logic of standard English requires: I see nobody The King breaks the co-operative principle of conversation by disregarding this grammar rule, which is unavoidable in such a linguistic context, and he takes the negative pronoun as having a real, concrete referent. Then, his remark: Nobody walks slower than you allows for both the Kings implicature, i.e. You walk faster than anybody else, and that interpreted by the Messenger as a criticism addressed to him, i.e. You walk more slowly than anybody else. On the whole, this fragment is humorous due to the ambiguity of negative sentences with verbs in the affirmative. On the other hand, the absurd contradiction between the King and the Messenger given their observing different rules - that of logic and that of language use respectively is comic, too. Here is another example of linguistic humour based on the same play between a rule of logic and a rule of language:
6). There is nothing like eating hay when youre faint, he remarked to her as he munched away. I should think throwing cold water over you would be better, Alice suggested: - or some sal-volatile.
169

Idem, pp. 114-115. 63

I didnt say there was nothing better, the King replied. I said there was nothing like it, which Alice did not venture to deny.170

The phrase there is nothing like X in this example allows for two interpretations: a) the usual one, accepted in everyday speech, which is the idiomatic superlative meaning: X is the best item in a series of comparable items; b) the logical-mathematical meaning, in which stress is laid on the preposition like and equal weight is given to the two compared terms, in this case, nothing and eating hay. It is obvious that Alice accesses meaning (a), whereas the King means (b), and the humorous effect is achieved by the unexpected logical and correct explanation Lewis Carroll puts in the Kings mouth, which is a particularisation of a mathematical rule: everything is identical only to itself. A curious situation is presented in the example below, in which the Red Queen draws Alices attention towards the surface structure meaning of an utterance, not to its implicature:
7). You couldnt deny that, even if you tried with both hands. I dont deny things with my hands, Alice objected. Nobody said you did, said the Red Queen. I said you couldnt if you tried.171

What is curious here is that both the Queen and Alice are right, even if they contradict each other. This is possible as each of them looks at the same utterance from two different perspectives, both logical in their own way: a) Alice focuses on the utterances implicature: between a condition and its result there should be a relationship of semantic compatibility, whereas between trying with both hands and denying there is none; b) The Queen focuses on the utterances surface structure, considering as important only what is expressed at the level of the form Nobody said, I said - overlooking the possible underlying meanings. As long as the main linguistic rule she observes is that only what is overtly expressed counts, she is also right. In the same vein, in the following example, Humpty Dumpty mocks Alices natural tendency to give more weight to an utterances implicature / function, a habit developed by usage, rather than to its literal meaning / sense:
8). How old did you say you were?
170 171

Idem, p. 114. Idem, p. 147. 64

[] Seven years and six months. Wrong! Humpty Dumpty exclaimed triumphantly. You never said a word like it! I thought you meant <How old are you?>, Alice explained. If Id meant that, Id have said it, said Humpty Dumpty.172

As in the first example in this section, here too Humpty Dumpty makes use of a riddle173 withholding the rule of the game from Alice. Therefore, Alice takes Humpty Dumptys words for what they usually mean, i.e. she picks out the utterances most common and most expected implicature. On the face of it, they contradict each other; nevertheless, they are equally right in their interpreting correctly the same form from two different perspectives. Lewis Carrolls books are very resourceful in examples that illustrate the playing upon the rules of logic and the breaking of the language conventions. The pun as a play upon homonyms, paronyms and polysemes has been analysed as the major stylistic device that this authors creativity produces. The humorous situations thus created abound in unexpected linguistic and logical incongruities. Linguistic creativity manifests itself differently with different locutors, be them speakers or writers. This is one of the reasons why in some sections in this chapter I focused particularly on certain writers ideostyle: Lewis Carrolls in Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Peter Ackroyds The Plato Papers, and George Orwells 1984. The ways in which they dismantle pre-existing linguistic rules and create unique and well articulated instances of language use / linguistic contexts in which these rules are no longer or differently observed are individual creations and very expressive for that matter. Another reason why I adopted this method of analysis restricted to one or another of the above mentioned writers is that the creative devices focused on are predominant in the literary texts they were taken from. As they are marks of these individual authors microstyle, it is very likely for the same devices not to be employed by somebody else, or by the same author in any of his other works.

172 173

Idem, p. 97. A riddle is a linguistic exchange of a question and answer format. It is considered a very popular form of humour because it gives the asker a tiny superiority. He knows something that the party of the second part does not know and has to admit that he does not know. Frank Muir, 1978, Told in the Tuck-shop in Times Literary Supplement, apud. Alison Ross, op. cit., p. 26. 65

6. Conclusions
Along the time, linguists and philosophers have articulated linguistic theories in which the object of their analysis, i.e. the human language, has been said to develop various functions, depending on the locutors main aim of using it. Generally speaking, the communicative function in its referential174 and its conative aspects, the expressive function, and the metalinguistic one are considered the basic, therefore, the most important functions that have been approached by almost all the linguistic theories along the time. In the section A Psychological Approach to the Functions of the Language, all the linguistic functions mentioned above have been approached from a psychological perspective that stresses on the locutors choice of form in accordance with the general content of the message transmitted to the interlocutor. That is to say that all such contributions made towards the alteration of the linguistic norms - both in terms of form and function - currently active in the English language bear the mark of the locutors intention to attach to the message transmitted informational and emotional nuances that have to be perceived by the interlocutor if verbal communication is to be successful. The very nature of the ambiguous formulations allows for more than one interpretation to be possible in a given context. When the meaning intended by the locutor is successfully extracted by the interlocutor by the end of the ambiguous sentence without the latter being given any further explanations, ambiguity is considered of a local type. When the contextual clues, either local or global, and the interpreters knowledge of language and of the world are of no help as disambiguating factors, the term genuine ambiguity is employed to describe the impossibility to mentally process the message thus transmitted. Whereas local ambiguity is very largely used, genuine ambiguity is rather rare in the written language.

174

The referential aspect of the communicative function of the language is sometimes replaced by terms such as: denotative, denominative, or cognitive. Cf. Ioan Oprea, op. cit., p. 83. 66

Any locutor, as the writers cited in the section on Ambiguity, may resort to lexical or syntactic ambiguities in order to create various effects on the readers. Unexpected latent meanings get thus activated by the creative way in which the semantically ambiguous lexical item or syntactic structure is inserted by the locutor into a pertinent context to signal the presence of other possible interpretations generally overlooked by the hasty and conformist reader. The effect is usually a humorous one, generated by the surprising mental associations that the reader as interpreter of the literary text is supposed to make in order to follow the same train of thought as the locutors creative mind. In the section on Clichs, I contend that almost any word, phrase or more extended syntactic structure may turn into an individual clich. For instance, if a person constantly uses the formal conjunction or adverb wherein whenever where has to be used, this word can be considered his individual clich. Or if a locutor often uses the inversion of the verb in order to lay stress on the negative or restrictive adverbial at the beginning of a sentence, then this structure is a clich. When frequently used, the Nouns in the Nominative of Address, such as dear, honey, sweetheart, darling, even Sir or Madam, etc. become automatic and almost void of meaning. Saying How do you do, Good morning, Good bye, or speaking about the weather when meeting somebody are ritualistic / clichd uses of language, socially motivated. Some idiomatic phrases may be considered clichs as well when a locutor makes frequent use of them. To some extent, all idioms are clichs as these linguistic expressions have lost their original meaning and have acquired their unitary meaning by frequent use. The major distinction between genuine clichs and idiomatic phrases is that the latter are still expressive and they have a well defined meaning that adds to the meaning of the text in which they are used, whereas the former are almost void of meaning. However, they can be put together if locutors in everyday life and the speaking characters in the literary texts use them automatically. The analysis of the examples in the section on Humour relies on the fact that language is a flexible system that makes use of a finite number of forms to express a wide range of meanings. In other words, the same string of linguistic signs may render more than one meaning, according to the extra-linguistic context in which the verbal exchange takes place. This extra-linguistic context is defined by elements such as: the actual physical environment, the relationships between the participants in a conversation in terms of social status, age, gender, whether they know each other or not, their educational and cultural backgrounds, etc. The socio-linguistic conventions, established by general use, that have to be observed for communication
67

between people to be effective are summarised by H. P. Grice in his theory of the cooperative principle of conversation. According to the same linguist, another factor that contributes to a great extent to successful communication is that called the mintention. The authorised inferences of the locutors intentions are based on shared knowledge between the participants in a verbal exchange. Failure to observe the maxims of the co-operative principle of conversation and the m-intention leads to miscommunication, a result with highly humorous undertones when speculated on by writers of prose as illustrated in the examples in this part of the present book. The present book has relied extensively on the selection, categorisation, description, interpretation and explanation of examples taken from literary texts and of a few samples of everyday linguistic exchanges. In the case of literary written texts, the locutor (i.e. the writer or author of the written words) transmits the written message to any possible reader. Thus, the role of main interlocutor is assigned to the reader. The speaking characters can be considered only secondary locutors and interlocutors: they do engage in verbal exchanges, but they bear the marks of the locutors intentionality and creativity. As they are only a product of the creative process, they are used by the author to develop a rather pragmatic function: that of means of transportation for or messengers of his own ideas, emotions, and attitudes towards the aspects that constitute the subject matter of the literary text. The interpreter or analyst of the literary text 175 is relegated the role of linguistic investigator who analyses the linguistic product by comparing it to the linguistic norm specified in each case in turn.

175

This is one of the possible readers / recipients of the message. 68