Matilal, Bimal Krishna;
The Word and the World: India's Contribution to the Study of Language
Oxford University Press, 2001, 204 pages
ISBN 0195655125, 9780195655124
topics: | india | philosophy | language
Preface vii
1. Introduction 3
2. On Grammar and Linguistic Studies 7
Synonyms and homonyms 15
3. Words and their meanings 18
4. Names and Things: Universals 31
5. The Karaka Theory 40
6. Knowledge from Linguistic Utterance 49
7. Sphota Theory: Early history and Patanjali's View 77
8. Bhartrhari's view of Sphota 84
Linguistic determinism 86
9. Critics of the Sphota Theory and Views of Later Grammarians 99
10. Words vs. Sentences 106
11. Translation and Bhartrhari's Concepts of Language (Sabda) 120
12. Cognition and Language 133
I Mysticism and Ineffability: Some issues of Logic and Language 142
II Semiotic conceptions in the Indian theory of Argumentation 156
III Meaning in Literary criticism: Vakrokti and Dhvani 167
Bibliography 180
Human language is a very complex phonomenon. But its supreme relevance lies in the recognition that thinking is almost impossible without language, and hence by analysing language we can analyse thought. e.g. [Dummett 80] believes that language is the 'base of the entire structure' we call 'philosophy'. p. 1
One modern philosopher, Dummett(1980) firmly believes that the
philosophy of language is 'the base of the entire structure" we call
philosophy - argues that there is a very general aspect of our concern
with language and this concern is with the fundamental outlines of an
account how language functions.
at times almost excessive preoccupation with language on the one hand and
with philosophy on the other, may indeed be regarded as a characteristic of
Indian civilization. (F. Staal, Sanskrit Philosophy of Language, 1969,
463)
shabda in this writing will often be translated as 'language'...
[akShapAda, author of Nyayasutra, has attested to] the 'word' as
"pramANa", 'a means of knowledge.
Nyayasutra 1.1.7: shabda or Word is what is instructed by a
trustworthy person (Apta)
here shabda stands for shabdapramANa - the means of knowledge called
"word".
[WEST:
Nietzsche - all discussions are linguistic.
Wittgenstein - good / true - how are these notions realized linguistically?
Quine: Aristotle's meaning = marriage of word and thought]
It has often been claimed in recent times that in the Indian scientific and philosophical tradition, mathematics plays a less crucial role and its place is taken by grammar or linguistics. ... Linguistics, and along with it the philosophy of language, developed in India from the fifth century BC, although not much is known about these subjects in the early centuries except for the work of three grammarians (pANini, followed by kAtyAyana and paTañjali), and that of the etymologists (called nairuktas) such as yAska. In the West, linguistics developed relatively late, although for an early discussion of the philosophy of language one can go back to Plato's Cratylus. [Cratylus: Plato presents the NATURALISTIC view of word origins. words get their meanings in a natural process, independent of the language user (?God may have given these?). the opposite (CONVENTIONAL) view, posed by aristotle, says that words arise due to convention among language users. ] vyAkaraNa (literally it may mean 'analysis') or grammar was regarded as the gateway to other disciplines. it was part of the vedAnga, one of the six 'limbs', i.e. auxiliary (or preparatory) disciplines, for the successful study of the vedas. the six ancillaries include grammar, phonetics, etymology, metrics, astronomy, and the science (or art) or rituals.
[In the classical educational tradition, Vedas were thought to have six
parts (angas):
- ShikSha: language and learning
- Kalpa is the procedure such as how to perform yagna.
- Vyakaran is grammar.
- Nirukta is the dictionary of words / etymology.
- Chhanda is the system of writing or syntax.
- Jyotish is the knowledge of past, present and future or the science
of Astrology.
]
The early development of 'grammar' or what may be termed 'science of language' led to many interesting results. Intimate relationship between logical and grammatical categories was noticed: what may be called certain 'universals' of logic and language were noted, distinction between language and metalanguage, or rather between use and mention, was underlined, and metalinguistic notions were more clearly understood and treated accordingly. For example, in rule 1.1.68, pANini notes the distinction between the practices in the 'language' of grammar and in ordinary language. In grammar, by the use of a word (say 'cow') we refer to the word itself, while in ordinary language by the use of a word we refer to its meaning, the object, a cow.. pANini seems to say that in normal language when we use a word to refer to itself, i.e. where we mention it, we mark it (in Sanskrit) with an iti (which, incidentally, functions as quotation-marks in Sanskrit), but in grammatical rules where we frequently mention the word instead of using it, it is convenient to have the reverse convention: mark the word with iti when we use it and leave it unmarked when we mention it. [NOTE: what was "laukika" in pANini's time is now classical]
pANini's aShTAdhyAyI (5th-4th c. BC) is certainly a monumental work - an achievement of encyclopaedic research and technical perfection, a comprehensive grammar of the Sanskrit language which includes both the Vedic Sanskrit and what is called 'classical' or laukika Sanskrit. It consists of nearly four thousand sUtras, short grammatical rules in aphoristic style. A comparatively simple outline: - vyAkaraNa may be taken to mean the process of analysing language and in such a process the first element we reach is a sentence, which consists necessarily of a verb in various tenses and moods, and a number of substantives called kArakas 'casual or contributory factors' to the action denoted by the verb or the action-word, and also the qualifiers and other related items belonging to such kArakas. - The forms of verbs found in the sentence can be viewed as made up of an original root/stem called dhAtu and a number of endings called PRATYAYAS. These endings, pANini thinks, give the verbs their temporal and modal significance. While dealing with verbal endings, pANini notices that there are a vast number of verbal derivatives which are treated as substantives and take kAraka inflections, but which can be analysed into root/stems and a set of inflections which he calls kr^t (KRIT). [verbal derivatives ==> kr^t; taddhit -> noun extensions; ting ==> verb inflections: pratyayas - needs further elucidation] - This has led to the interesting philosophical discussion between the nairuktas or etymologists and the pANinIyas. According to the etymologists, all nouns (substantives) are derived from some verbal root or the other. yAska in his nirukta refers to this view (in fact defends it) and ascribes it to an earlier scholar shAkaTAyana. This would require that all words re to be analysable into atomic elements, 'roots' or 'bases' and 'affixes' or 'inflections' -- better known in Sanskrit as dhAtu and pratyaya.... yAska reported the view of gArgya who opposed shAktAyana (both preceded pANini who mentions them by name) and held that not all substantival words or nouns (nAma) were to be derived from roots, for certain nominal stems were 'atomic'... p.8-9 pratyaya meant, among other things, 'a causal factor' or a 'condition' (a constituent), in dependence upon which a product will come into being (see the meaning of pratyaya in any Buddhist text). p.9
Grammar is regarded as a shAstra, 'a system of thought' with a purpose and
directed towards a goal, composed for the sake of a well-defined
readership. As a shAstric discipline it has four anubandhas or
'parameters', or delimiting lines: subject, connection, purpose, and
readership. The 'subject' of grammar is shabda, 'words and sentences', its
relation with shabda is that it analyses shabda into stems and suffixes and
thus helps our understanding of its significance. Its purpose is clearly
stated in pANini's title of aShTAdhyAyI: shabdAunushAsana: teaching of the
principles that would serve to distinguish correct forms from incorrect
ones.
[paTañjali remarks that the purpose could also be:]
- protection of purity in scriptural texts (rakShA),
- transformations of word-affixes to suit ritual context (Uha)
- recitation of the Scriptures (Agama),
- a simpler way of learning the language (laghu), and
- certainty, a way of learning about the proper meanings when ambigyous
words are used (asaMdeha) p.11
[patañjali says at one point] language is the great 'spirit' (deva)
that has entered into mortals, and the study of grammar helps us to
get control of this spirit, that has become identified with the
essence of mankind. ... [Instead of making lists of correct words (or
incorrect ones, which would be much larger)] the best method is to
formulate rules following the principles of 'generalization' (sAmAnya)
and showing 'exceptions' (viShesha) to such generalities. p.12
patañjali says that language reveals its own secret to one who studies
grammar just as the faithful wife reveals her beautiful body to her husband.
word acquisition (learning the meaning of words): indian philosophers from
very ancient times are almost unanimous - such learning can come from eight
ways -
a) grammar (vyAkaraN) - derivative (yangika) word meanings can be
understood based on the root.
b) analogy (upamAna) - a description of the word based on a known concept
c) lexicon (koSha)
d) statement of a trusted person (AptavAkya): parent pointing at
object and saying "this is a horse"
e) speech-behaviour of elders (vyAvahAra): perhaps the most important
of these eight ways (nAgesha, prabhAkAra), gangesha: "everybody in
his or her first learning of the language depends exclusively on
the speech-behaviour of the elders."
Language Acquisition process: older adult commands 'Bring a cow,' and
the younger adult obeys by bringing a cow. The child as an onlooker
understands that the utterance (sound emitted by older adult) as a
whole means the activity. ...
of the younger adult. Then on another occasion from such and other
commands as 'bring the horse' and 'tie the cow' the child through an
unconscious process of assimilation and elimination ( AvApodvApa) learns
the meanings of such words as cow, horse, bring, tie etc. involves not
only perception and inference, but also an understanding of the adult's
intention as revealed by their bodily movements
[AUGUSTINE, Confessions, I.8: When they (my elders) named some object and
accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the
thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it
out. Their intention was shown by their bodily movements, as it were
the natural language of all peoples: the expression of the face, the
play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone
of the voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having,
rejecting, or avoiding something. Thus, as I heard words repeatedly used
in their proper places in various sentences. I gradually learnt to
understand what objects they signified; and after I trained my mouth to
form these signs, I used them to express my own desires.
aside: Wittgenstein opens Philosophical Investigations with this
statement from Augustine. That words "signify something" is
implicit in this quotation. He goes on to challenge the notion that
such a meaning is signified, except for concrete visual words
"table", "chair", "bread". Using examples that include indexicals
like "this" and "there", he asks: "What is supposed to shew what [a
word] signifies, if not the kind of use they have?" [PI.10] Then he
develops the argument that sensations are private, and not shared,
and may drift. This private language gains stability by being
anchored in public (shared) words.]
f) larger context of the stentence or passage (sannidhyatAH): The
special or the specific meaning of a word (which may be ambiguous
in its use) - e.g. an ambiguous word yava which may mean
long-bearded barley (AryAn) or a kind of seed (mlechha) can be
disambiguated when the following sentence runs - "when other plants
droop down, the yavas stand up and flourish." Contextual factors
have primacy in resolving ambiguities in meaning.
g) Explanation or commentary: parallels word-meanings supplied by
definition
h) Syntactic connection (?vr^ddhAH?) with words whose meanings are already
known: e.g. the unfamiliar word pika: "The pika sings sweetly sitting in
the mango tree", here the meaning of pika can be inferred from its
syntactical connection with other known words e.g. pika may be understood
to mean a singing bird, such as a cuckoo.
There were two theories in terms of which [words with multiple meanings were to be explained]. bhartr^hari calls one the 'multiple-word theory' and the other 'single-word theory'. According to the former, we should consider one such word with multiple meaning as a dummy for many words, each of which has its own singular meaning. According to the latter, it is considered to be a single word with multiple meaning. ... In some cases it is clearly recognizable (on the basis of etymological history) that the same sound form (rUpa) represents actually two or more words having two or more meanings. This will support the former view, and the resulting ambiguity is resoved easily, as bhartr^hari emphasizes, by the contextual factors (prakaraNa). But this raises, among other things, two problems. First, there are certain roots such as pA. This means both 'to drink' and 'to protect'; it is the same sound-form having two completely different meanings and this cannot be explained through etymology or derivation. Should this not be regarded just as two roots which happen to have the same soundform, pA? Second, many words seem to have some primary meanings and several secondary or related meanings. They are usually explained with recourse to metaphor. Indian theorists, being mainly concerned with the synchronic study of language, explained that the non-primary senses developed out of usage but they are always connected, in some way or the other, with the primary meaning. Sometimes, however, some non-primary meaning may gain prominence through constant usage and then be regarded as another 'primary' meaning... mimAMsA: only 'monosemy' was natural - synonyms and multiple meanings are corruptions... for multiple meanings, each meaning is to be regarded as primary. Old view (patañjali's?) that frequency of use determines the primary meaning is criticized and rejected. Words used by mlechha's are accepted in Sanskrit creating homonyms. problem: shleSha (pun or paranomasia). kumArilabhaTTa: certain cases of genuine synonyums may be accepted where no other explanation is possible (ananyagatikatvena). kumArilabhaTTa in tantravArttika: Since names are used for referring to objects, it is fruitless to have a second (or a third) word if only (the first) can serve the purpose.
WORD CLASSIFICATION [~parts of speech]
yAska: four groups
- nAma - nouns or substantives
- AkhyAta - verbs
- upasarga - pre-verbs or prefixes
- nipAta - particles, invariant words - prepositions (?)
This breaking down of sentence into words generated a philosophical
controversy. In the prAtishAkhya text, [phonetics text; before Gargeya]
the gist of the controversy was
put cryptically as saMhitA pada-prakr^tiH. According to one analysis
the words would be the primary elements (prakr^ti) out of which the
sentence is constructed, while according to another analysis it means
the opposite, that is, the sentence would be the primary entity,
originally given, and the words are arrived at only through analysis
and abstraction.
[AM: i.e. words are the maximal chunks in the intersection sets of
sentences. How? sentences, or rather phrases, carry meaning. if we
restructure them, we can constitute them into frequently occurring
chunks, which we call words, just as words themselves can be broken into
roots and suffixes etc. e.g. the phrases "break the heart" and "heart
failure" both involve a related sense of "heart" - yet, the meaning of
this word is much more work to pin down, than the meaning of the phrases
(by def, phrases have to be more concise than words) - so this makes it
possible to define the phrases more easily than the decontextualized
word. How does one define the meaning for a decontextualized word?
... a conspiracy of the lexicon builders. ]
to call something 'primary' in this context meant that it had a
preferred ontological status, as either a constructed conglomerate or
an abstracted constituent.
the controversy over relative primacy of the word and the sentence was
long and protracted...
the term for what are generally called (ontological) categories is
padArtha, literally meaning 'what the word refers to' or 'referents'. 19
yAska's contribution lay in singling out two main (ontological)
categories: a process or an action (bhAva), and an entity or a being
or a thing (sattva). L. Sarup chose to contrast these two, bhAva and
sattva, by using the terminology of 'becoming' and 'being' (Sarup
1921, 5). recently E. Kahrs has questioned these translations and
suggested being for bhAva, and entity for sattva. yAska first defined
the notion of AkhyAta, verb, and then the notion of nAma, noun, by
reversing the order of his own enumeration. ...
--Verb as process --> petrified (mUrta) as verbal noun--
the verb is defined as that which has the bhAva ('process') as its
predominant notion and a noun is defined as that which has sattva
('thing'), as its predominant notion. the 'process' is one that has,
according to one interpretation, an early stage and a later stage and when
such a 'process' is the dominant sense, a finite verb is used as in
vrajati, 'walks', or pacati, 'cooks'. but when a process is referred to as
a 'petrified' or 'configured' mass (mUrta) extending from start to finish,
a verbal noun is used, e.g. vrajyA (a) walk, or pakti, (a) cooking. in the
latter case the notion of process is subordinated, for the element of
sequence in the process is lacking. hence we have a noun derived from a
verb to express it. [19]
[AM: compare Langacker 'summary scanning' (vs sequential):
Enter - progression along a set of states
Entrance - episodic nominalization - involves collectivization ]
there might have been a profound insight in yAska's writing when he
used the demonstrative pronoun 'that' and said that a substantive or a
'thing' is referred to by the pronoun 'that'. Whatever we can point
out by saying 'that', such as a cow, an elephant or a horse, would be
the referent of a noun-word. Even an abstract idea or an action can
be referred to by a noun-word because we can also refer to it by
'that'. [reinterpreted by helArAja in his commentary on the
vAkyapadIya - definition of dravya]
The pre-verbs or prefixes were never considered to be independently
meaningful. Their significance lies in the contribution they make to
the meaning of the main verb to which they are attached. Sometimes
they modify, sometimes they reverse the meaning of the main verb. A
well-known (later) For example the root-verb hr^ means 'to steal', but
with pra- it means 'to strike', with A- it means 'to eat', and with
pari- 'to abandon'.
[prahAra - to strike, to beat up, AhAra - meal; parihAra - to renounce]
Some have propounded the theory that the pre-verbs are
not to be regarded as 'denotative' of any meaning, but only 'indicative' of
some meaning that is actually located in the verbs, and to round up the
view, they would say that the verbal root does not have any fixed
meaning. In fact such roots implicitly possess the power to have many
meanings, and a particular pre-verb's function is to bring about some
such meaning as is already implicitly present in the verb. On this view,
preverbs would be only functional, lacking any denotation.
A pre-verb is like a lamp that would focus upon a particular meaning among
other meanings or a set of meanings lying within the domain of the verbal
root. 20
However, there are those that oppose this view.
[AM: Verbal root has no fixed meaning. But neither does any word. It is
only at the discourse level that meanings get fixed, if at all. Hence
talking about word meanings is actually not very meaningful. Words
mean only that which is expressible in all the discourses where it can
be meaningfully used. ]
nipAta constitutes a very heterogenous group of words. yAska: they
don't have any fixed meaning but each has a variety of meanings and
the contextual factors determine which one it takes. pANini defined
them in a list beginning with ca = "and" (rule 1.4.57), as well as
described as signifying non-things (a-sattva). In fact in pANini,
nipAta forms a much broader category of invariant words.
In the sentence "He was granted a boon after prayers" the Sanskrit word anu would be used for 'after' and it would not simply indicate the temporal relation of posterity between prayers and granting a boon, but would specifically signify 'after having heard (the prayer)'. The verb 'hear' was understood. Similarly, in 'Lightning flashes at the tree', the Sanskrit anu, used for 'at', would signify not simply the particular direction but rather 'aiming towards or at' (the verb 'aiming' being understood).
[ACCIDENTAL POLYSEMY] a word having multiple meanings, one primary and
several secondary or derived meanings.
[LOGICAL POLYSEMY] homonyms which generate systematic ambiguity to be
resolved by contextual factors.
A word having multiple meanings may be said to have one primary
meaning (as a lexicographer would note) and perhaps several secondary
or derived meanings. This is to be distinguished from the case of
homonyms (two or several meanings are "primary") which generate
systematic ambiguity to be resolved by contextual factors.
But it is a common phenomenon of a natural language, where any word, apart
from having one or several primary meanings, could be used to convey
meanings (or denote objects) which, though distinct from the ordinary
(primary) meaning, are nevertheless connected in some way or other with
the same primary meaning. This phenomenon is usually captured by the
rhetoricians' term, metaphor or metaphorical use. This may also be called
the metaphorical extension of the meaning of a word. In fact this
phenomenon is so pervasive in our language that sometimes we wonder
whether there is any sense in our assuming that there are at ALL any fixed
primary meanings of the words we use, and it may be that the meaning of a
word is to be found or determined simply by its use. Our general tendency
is however to isolate and learn the words as having certain fixed primary
meanings (determines possibly by their frequency of occurrence) and then
explain the additional meanings or senses that the user of a word may
convey, as metaphorical extensions.
Indian philosophers (especially of the nyAya school) give an account
of this phenomenon by identifying two different 'powers' in a word:
one is that of saying (abhidhAna) and the other is that of pointing,
signifying or indicating (lakShaNa). The first is called the primary
meaning-giving power and the second is called the secondary or
indicatory meaning-giving power. By the first, the word speaks, as it
were, while in the second it only indicates, and a metaphor is born.
[AM: abhidhAna - saying; all other meanings are lakShmANa ==> metaphor.
Can we define a metaphor unless we can define a "core" or
"abhidhAna" meaning for a word?
Q. LANG ACQ: In a language where every application of the word is
underspecified, how does one ever learn the "abhidhAna" meaning?]
Consider the example: 'The village is on the (river) Ganga' (=
gaMgAyAm ghoShaH) The primary meaning of the word 'gaMgA' is the river
we call gaMgA, but the sentence which locates the (fisherman's)
village on the river gaMgA would be speaking about an impossible state
of affairs if only the primary meaning of gaMgA is taken into account.
Common rationality demands that we construe the meaning differently in
order to make some sense of the sentence uttered. By metaphorical
extension -- a practice pervasively prevalent among the speakers (of
Sanskrit in this case, but generally, any language) -- the meaning of
the word 'gaMgA' is given (by its indicatory power) as 'the banks of
the gaMgA' and hence the sentence is taken to be describing the
situation that the village is on the banks of the gaMgA -- a perfectly
legitimate conclusion about what the sentence means or how the hearer
is supposed to cognize its meaning in the context.
On analysis, the NyAyAyikas identify two necessary conditions:
(a) the primary meaning should be a 'misfit' in the context; it would
not go with the meanings of other words in the sentence, and
(b) the indicated meaning (presumably intended by the speaker) would
have to be associated with the primary meaning in some way or
other.
It is to be noted that there are some established ways (conventions)
in the language community by which this metaphorical extension is
achieved, and it is not always necessary that the intention of the
particular speaker be taken into account. In fact, the hearer does
not 'enter' into the mind of the speaker, but the context and the
other circumstances would make the intended meaning 'visible' to him.
This process is automatic and hence such meaning seems to come
naturally to the hearer. Rhetoricians note such well-known devices as
part for the whole, the container for the content, genus for the
species, species for genus, and so on.
In 'protect the food from the ravens' the word ravens means not only
ravens but also by extension any birds or beasts that would spoil the
food. This is a common presupposition of our general rational
behaviour. For the person receiving the command would obviously try
to protect the food from being spoiled by any bird or animal. It is
the context which derives this metaphorical meaning from the word
'ravens' here, and I believe no lexicographer would dream of noting
this as presumably another normal meaning of the word 'raven'.
[AM: GL encoding: "protect the food from the ravens" ==> ravens are
immediate concern, but the intent is to protect the food. who else can
steal food? answer in IRS framework, and generalize to other birds,
and maybe even rats. But to find answer to these types of questions
also, need more content - who is mostly seen stealing food etc. ]
[appendix III: beautifully summarizes milleniums of debate on what is poetry - ultimately, says Anandavardhana (c. 860 AD) - poetry must have suggestivity or "dhvani" [in addition to three other types of meaning - abhidhAna (primary, direct), lakShaNa (indicative), or tAtparya (in sentence context), this other is called vyAnjanA]. If what it shows i.e. the suggested sense, exceeds (atishaya) the expressed sense, then it constitutes a better variety of poetry. ] High class poetry, says Anandavardhana, is that where the suggested meaning of the word excels, that is, it is more beautiful and more charming than the ordinary meaning (which may be either the lexical meaning, or, to suit the context, the indicatory (or transferred) meaning (=lakShyArtha). The suggested meaning is appealed to only after [these meanings] are fully comprehended, [and that too,] only by the sensitive reader. Anandavardhana has called it the 'reverberation' of the sense from the sound, i.e. speech. When the hearer has apprehended that the village is on the banks of the gaMgA (from gaMgAyAm ghoShaH) he may further comprehend that the speaker intends to emphasize the natural beauty and simplicity of the place... (the metaphor underlines its excessive proximity to the river). [23] [In other words, poetry must mean more than it says, and this remains a beautiful statement of what poetry must be!] [Challenge to the third meaning in poetry:] Words may be suggestive because people are suggestible - very subjective factor - diff hearers suggestible in diff ways. So the power of suggestition is explained in terms of the hearer's inferences, without attributing a separate 'power' or dispositionality to the word itself. Poetry may have well-entrenched mechanisms for suggesting beauty, charm and aesthetic rapture, but this can hardly be a proof for the existence of an ontological property in words called the "suggestive power" [lit. critic mahimabhaTTa criticizes Anandavardhana]. On the other hand, the power to denote or mean (the primary meaning), as well as to indicate or signify (the metaphorical or non-primary meaning) are however both, designatory powers, without which the meaning of a sentence would not be comprehended. ... sometimes of course, the old metaphorical meaning can be so well-entrenched as to gain currency as a lexical meaning. [24] [vyAnjanA: speaker intent less important than nature of hearer ] [IDEA: tAtparya: intent of speaker - cannot enter his mind, but can make inferences. Q. "do you have the time?" A: "seven-thirty," or, "the milkman just came". Model: IRS - why is the speaker saying this? if she want to know if I have the time, then maybe she wants to know the time itself. why not just tell her the time directly. but I don't have a clock. but then, the milkman comes around seven. i could say "seven o'clock", but that is perhaps too precise, or i could say "about seven", but better i tell her how i know it, so she knows also my inference mechanism, the underlying uncertainty, and also any factors that may cause an error in it. diachronic shift: over time, the usage Q becomes indexicalized, and now it means - "can you tell me the time?", and even usage A may become conventionalized. ]
two main theories of poetry - one regarded alaMkAra as external means to beautify speech. The other regarded alaMkAra as the very essence of poetry. Poetryhood consists in ornamentation (of speech)' - Kuntaka The debate whether vArtA (the straight meaning) can indeed constitute poetry or not, raged for hundreds of years. The role of alaMkAra - is it essential - or can the unembellished body also be beautiful? Some like DanDin (c.700 AD) or mammatha (1050) suggest that vArtA can also be alaMkAra while kuntaka (AD 950, Kashmiri rhetorician of 11th c. ) says that without alaMkAra, a writing looses kAvyatA or poetryhood... Two types of alaMkAra - shabdAlaMkAra - alliteration, paranomasia (pun), or arthAlaMkAra - simile, metaphor. body needs life or soul in order to appear beautiful. What constitutes this element (sArIrin)? Later answer is that it is rasa or aesthetic rapture. SECOnD VIEW: alaMkAras are external properties of the kAvya bhAmaha (c. AD 700) - a vArtA (plain report) such as 'the sun has set, the moon is up, birds go to their nests' - cannot constitute poetry vakrokti = atishayokti = alaMkAra 170 daNDin (c. AD 700) - the above can be poetic in the right context. svabhAvokti (telling as it is), as in the shAstras, may be desirable in poetry. Anandavardhana (AD 860) - dhvani - atishayokti kuntaka (c. AD 950) - holistic - obliqueness (vakratA) underlies all alaMkAras; there can be no poetry without alaMkAra. the alaMkAra and the alaMkArya (body ornamented) are inseparable. Therefore obliqueness in speech constitutes poetry, and it may come from plainnn statements in suitable contexts. 172 abhinavagupta (AD 980) - alaMkAra refers to arthAlaMkAras, ie. simile etc, and not to shabdAlaMkAras such as alliteration etc. vakrokti refers to the guNas pertaining to the sound and sense - utkr^ShTa saMghaTanA - excellent arrangement (?sound echoing the sense?) 171 mammata (c. 1050) this vArtA example, for nine types of people may suggest nine diff meanings - hence it is suggestive, and may be considered poetry. bhAmaha rejects hetu, sUkShma, leSha [??] as alaMkAras since these do not constitute vakrokti. kuntaka: e.g. there is fire on the hill because there is smoke - is not hetu alaMkAra because it is direct. But how do we study individual alaMkAras - simile, metaphor, alliteration etc? For this kuntaka suggests the apoddhAra approach - extract from the whole (see p.107)
* abhidhA - denotative
* lakShmaNA - indicative - metaphorical, arising 'if the primary meanings are
obstructed' [mukhyArtha-bAdhAyaM lakShaNAyAh prakl^ptiH, - abhinava]
* tAtparya - generates sentence meaning from isolated word meanings and
context
* dhvani - fourth power - suggestivity, beyond _vAchArtha, the literal
meaning, atishaya. unlike lakShmaNa, requires no lack of fitness
(ayogyatA)
A fourth concept - tAtparya - intention of the speaker. While it is clearly seen by many philosophers that the intention of the speaker must play a very important role in the determination of the meanings ... it is redundant to think of it as a separate meaning-giving power of the word. From 'Bring saindhava' [homonym; means salt or horse] the hearer comprehends that the speaker intends to have some salt brought to him for he is having his dinner at the moment - the context (here the situation of utterance) helps us to infer or guess the intended meaning... [EXTRA-LINGUISTIC GROUNDING] Ambiguity resolution: presence, absence, conjunction, opposition etc.
vaisheShika sUtra - relation between word and meaning is a matter of convention (samaya). [also in NyAya; opposition - grammarians and mImAMsakas - siddha, given to us, eternal. Though the object it is referring to is non-eternal, the substance of its meaning, like a lump of gold used to make diff ornaments, remains undestroyed, hence permanent.] [How do we know words as eternal? patañjali:] people are seen using words to convey meanings, but they do not make an effort to manufacture words. When we need a pot, we go to the potter and ask him to manufacture a pot for us. The same is not true of words - We do not usually approach grammarians and ask them to manufacture words for our use. [27] Shabara: autpattika - not created by human convention. The connection between word and meaning can't be physical (then uttering "sweet" would taste sweet, and "knife" would cut our tongue). C = connection between object of cognition and the causal factor of that cognition (cf. pratyAyya-pratyAyaka). If there is C between word and its object, then why does the word not cause cognition of the object when it is heard for the first ntime by the hearer (who has not learnt the language)? But this is a false argument. We can't see a pot in the darkness although it is there. Just like light is needed, we learn a language by watching the linguistic behaviour of others... non-derived (eternal) nature of C [jaimini and shabara]: a. form (Akr^ti) is destructible, whereas that which the word signifies is indestructible. b. we cannot remember the person who created the convention for C. Some exceptions (e.g. pANini created C between "vr^ddhi" and the letters A, ai etc. for his grammar, and piNgala, the C between the letter "m" and the three long vowels, but these are technical terms. For the majority of words, there is no originator. This proves their uncreatedness. c. child learns from elders - which supposes the connection C. [THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE, Shabara:] If there was a time when not a single word was connected by C to its object, then the act of connecting could have never taken place. Therefore the C is uncreated (non-conventional). 29 [IDEA: MWEs : Plato argued in the dialogue Cratylus that there was a natural correctness to names. To do this, he pointed out that compound words and phrases have a range of correctness. For example, it is obviously wrong to say that the term "houseboat" is any good when referring to, say, a cat, because cats have nothing to do with houses or boats. He also argued that primitive names (or morphemes) also had a natural correctness, because each phoneme represented basic ideas or sentiments. For example, the letter and sound of "l" for Plato represented the idea of softness. However, by the end of the Cratylus, he had admitted that some social conventions were also involved, and that there were faults in the idea that phonemes had individual meanings. ... ] nyAya: opposes mImAMsA view - historically, a consensus emerged regarding the use of certain words to denote certain objects and convey meanings. These conventions are remembered, not their originators. However some naiyAyikas resort to the theory of origin of language from God. sphoTa theory - word and its linguistic meaning both remain undistinguished in the mind of the competent speaker as well as hearer. 30
ghaTatva: the property of pothood - 'what is X' rephrased as 'what is
the pravr^tti-nimitta of the term X'? What are the qualities of X?
nyayasutra: a word conveys three meanings: - the thing or the
individual (vyAkti) - the form of the thing (Akr^ti), and - the
universal (jAti). The word 'cow' refers to the cow-individual, or the
form or image of a cow (e.g. golden cow), or universal cowhood.
nAgesha: Akr^ti - visible mark, _liMga, characterized by appearance,
colour, actions etc. e.g. "draw a cow" ==> refers to the form, for
neither the cow nor the universal cowhood, could be construed as an
object of the action, drawing. 32
[vyAkti-Akr^ti-jAti: individual - configuration - universal
ROUGHLY: jAti = qualia; Akr^ti = formal qualia; vyAkti = individual;]
patañjali [vaiyAkaraNa-mahAbhAShya] - what is the word "gauH" (cow)?
is 'that by the utterance of which there is comprehension of the
object having the dewlap, tail, hump, hoofs, horns (all taken
together)".
[later writers:] "gauh shuklash calo DittaH" (a moving white cow
called DittaH)- here the four words all refer to the same object, the
cow in question, but the basis are different for each word:
- "cow" - class-name (universal);
- "white" - quality name, a colour in this case;
- "moving" - action name, a particular movement of the cow
- "DittaH" - proper name - basis of this usage is not non-existent
but arbitrary (yadr^cchA) - connected with the whims of the
speaker. 34
mImAMsakas: shabda - two forms - one the sound, and one the letters
(varNa) that constitute the word - while noises are ephemeral, the
words or bits of language are eternal. [sound vs phoneme map of a
word]. The letters are
nothing but verbal utterances produced by the vibration of the vocal
chord, although different and variable utterances of the same letter k
indicate that there is a sound-universal called k-ness manifested in
each such different utterance.
[vAcaspati comm., bhAmati:] When we recognize a letter k from an
utterance and then recognize it again from another utterance, we in
fact re-identify it as the same token (and not just as a "similar"
one).
[Possible western paraphrase:] The letters k and c are like k-type and
c-type, which, being universal, are indestructible, and the actual
utterances are tokens of this type. [But this is risky:] upavarSha
claims: utterances only "manifest" the letter k (diff from tokens
representing the universal). 34-5
Three views of "meaning" of word: the individual, the universal, and
third (by commentator helArAja), as the individual characterised or
qualified by the universal. This last came to be regarded as the
navya nyAya view.
bhartr^hari: from objective/phenomenal universals to 'word' universals:
- artha-jAti = thing-universal
- shabda-jAti = word-universal
All words mean or designate their own word-universal and thereafter
we imagine that word-universal superimposed upon the forms or
universals of external things.
Not exactly nominalism, for the the universals of external things are
not rejected, but the word-universals are recognized as primary
meanings of the words and an intimate (genetic) connection is
established between the word-universal and the thing-universal.
[NOMINALISM = the position in metaphysics that there
exist no universals outside of the mind ~ properties are in word not
in object.
Plato famously held that there is a realm of abstract forms or
universals apart from the physical world. Where is this universal
realm? is it in the realm of space and time, or in the mind?
Realists: it is present in space-time wherever it is manifested.
Nominalists consider it unusual that there could be a single thing
that exists in multiple places simultaneously. The realist maintains
that all the instances of greenness are held together by the
exemplification relation, but this relation cannot be explained. [WIKI]
]
[ Realists - universals exist outside
Nominalists - universals in mind only - no universals in external world
]
If the 'basis' (see katyAyana's theory) for the use of the word 'cow'
is cowhood (a universal) what would be the 'basis' for the use of the
word 'cowhood'? [infinite recurrence] Hence we must take as the
basis for the use of any word to be the very same word-universal
itself.
When we imagine [that word-universal superimposed upon the forms or
universals of external things], the two may not be really different -
the latter may be a 'transformation' (vivarta) of the former. Whether
bhartr^hari had meant this or not is not clear.
bhartr^hari's main view is that each linguistic unit - letter / word /
sentence is actually an invariant sphoTa - _varNa-sphoTa, pada-sphoTa,
vAkya-sphoTa_), i,e, an invariant, sequenceless, and partless 'whole'
entity, manifested only by the corresponding audible noise in
speech. At the level of sphoTa, a linguistic unit and its meaning or
the 'thought' it supposedly conveys are one and undifferentiated.
[WHORFIAN] It is strongly advocated by bhartr^hari that there cannot
be any proper awareness-episode without its being interpenetrated by
words or language. Hence words and the concepts they convey cannot be
very well separated in this view. 37
varying particulars cannot be the 'basis' or 'ground' for using a
class-name (jAti-shabda) - two objections
- 1. innumerability (ananta): - learning what it means would be
impossible (e.g. cows of the past, present and future), and
- 2. variability: learning/usage would 'deviate' from each other
(vyabhicAra)
[AM:
1. Argument from Poverty of Stimulus (from Chomsky 80, Rules
and Representations) = APS.
The "ananta" argument in bhartr^hari shadows the APS argument when
extended to semantics (SEMANTIC UNDERSPECIFICATION), which forms the
core of the GL enterprise.
2. "core" meaning - lexicon model - may be defined as
"minimal logical structure" that accepts all positive exemplars and
rejects all negative. Does this exist? In the absence of such
models, indiv's may learn different meanings = vyabhicAra
]
BUDDHIST approach to the ananta problem:
DiNgnAga proposes the theory of apoha or 'exclusion' as word
meanings rejecting the reality of the thing-universals. exclusion of
what is other than that, where 'that' refers to the particular falling
withing the domain of the (meaning of the) class-name. Thus anything
that is not a cow is excluded.
[OBJECTION: Requires a greater order of objects to be listed! ]
Two camps (39):
Negativists - emphasize elimination / exclusion
Positivists - particulars reached through such elimination / contrary
(rival) possibilities
Just as the presence of smoke generates the knowledge of the presence
of fire at a particular spot, by excluding the spots where fire is
definitely absent (vipakSha-vyAvr^tta) and just as this knowledge is
aided by our obsvn of smoke together with fire (sapakSha-sattva), the
word 'cow' generates the knowledge of a cow by excluding similarly the
not-cow individuals.
dharmakIrti elaborated the apoha doctrine. This dispute continued for
about seven centuries (till AD 1200). 38
True perception, according to DingnAga is totally untouched by
imagination or conceptual construction ==>
perception is pre-linguistic or non-linguistic <==> totally opposed to
bhartr^hari.
wordless awareness is blind; so is the totally conception-free
perception.
Philo of lang is only part of a larger discipline - epistemology or
philosophy of knowledge.
[IDEA: COGNITIVE SCIENCE: concepts - abstractions of experience -
informs both perception as well as language]
Declension has been analyzed extensively in Sanskrit, where it is known as
karaka. Six varieties are defined by Panini, largely in terms of their
semantic roles, but with detailed rules specifying the corresponding
morphosyntactic derivations:
* agent (kartri, often in the subject position, performing independently nominative)
* patient (karman, often in object position accusative)
* means (karaNa, instrument instrumental)
* recipient (sampradAna, similar to dative)
* source (apAdAna, similar, but not the same, as ablative)
* locus (adhikaraNa, location or goal)
As an example, consider
vrikSh[at] parN[am] bhUm[au] patati
[from] the tree a leaf [to] the ground falls
"a leaf falls from the tree to the ground"
Here leaf is the agent, tree is the source, and ground is the locus, the
corresponding declensions are reflected in the morphemes -am -at and -au
respectively.
[
theta-roles - almost no semantics : Chomsky - uses theta-roles
Fillmore 67 - case grammar | karaka ==> semantics
= arity + finer-grained seantics
theta-criterion - very formal role - each syntactic position has a
theta role
The Latin ABLATIVE combines the functions of the Indo-European
ablative (indicating "from"), instrumental (indicating "with" or
"by"), and locative (indicating "in") cases, which merged together in
the development of Latin. From these original meanings several others
developed, including the ablative of cause (indicating "caused by"),
the ablative of time and means (indicating "at the time of", deriving
from the locative), and the ablative absolute.
]
if locus, action-substratum is adhikaraNa - but the same
action-substratum may be karman if action is prefixed with pre-verbs
e.g. adhi-As (lying, staying or being seated) :
grAme tishThati (lives in village) (locus)
grAmam adhitiShThati (stays in the village) (karman)
[kArakas are "expedient"] relate affixes in words and the representation of
certain semantic relations. Unless the narrow semantically conceived kArakas
are widened grammar would [be difficult to formalize].
[the kArakas were not cases - e.g. the genitive (possessive - John's
book) was not a kAraka - AC]
Unless the narrow, semantically conceived kAraka categories are widened (in the way Panini did) to include various other items, grammar would have to be conceived differently. The same expediency may have proted Panini to disregard a distinction between agents (kartr^) which are sentient beings and those that are not: devadattaH vr^kShaM chinnatti: devadatta [agent] is cutting the tree parashur vr^kShaM chinnatti: the axe [instrument] is cutting the tree or sthAlI pacati - the cauldron cooks. pANini / pANinIyas : shabdapramANakAh - regarding speech patterns as authority; patañjali "We accept the authority of the speech. What speech 'tells' us is what we depend upon (in deciding issues)." ==> Grammar is not concerned with ontology (or semantics) - but with what people actually say, how they speak of things and events. syntactic-semantic dispute on nature of kAraka - naiyAyikas - artha-pramANakaH - things or events are authority - how the world is, not how people talk about it. vaiyAkaraNas - shabda-pramANakaH - speech is the authority [shadows the debate on the cartesian / chomskian position - formalist/ syntactic, rules determine correcteness of language; vs. the embodied / cognitive sci position - meaning determines correctness of lg] kAraka roles in epistemological debate: pramiti - know (knowledge) - action pramAtr^ - knower - agent prameya - object to be known - object pramANa - means of knowledge - instrument nAgArjuna - the kAraka distinctions are arbitrary - same item can be object in one frame and instrument in another. vAtsyAyana (c. 350AD) - kAraka is based not on things, but on power vested in the thing. CASES from nyAyasutra 2.1.16: [43] (he) sees the tree" The tree is object - karman (he) shows the moon by the tree" the same tree is instrument - karaNa (he) sprinkles water for the tree - beneficiary/recipient - sampradAna the leaf falls from the tree - fixed point of departure - apAdAna the crows live in the tree - locus (substrate-of-action of living) - adhikaraNa neither the thing itself nor the event is a kAraka - a kAraka category applies to the thing that participates in an action during which it is endowed with some special functional activity. moral: usage must determine grammatical theories - vindication for shabda-pramANakaH of patañjali. quiddity (essence) of kAraka - debate - kriyAnimitta - causal factor of action (nyAya) kriyAnvayin - syntactically connected with action / verb kriyA term "kriyA" itself ambiguous - may stand for the action, or the verb, a syntactic entity. [some verbs may not be actions - e.g. in dhAtupatha: gaDi - "part of the face" ==> gaNDati kapolam - "the cheek is a part of the face" - here ganDati is not an action, but a substance - part of the face; so for this kriyA cheek is the kartr^, agent. ]
all kAraka items are doing something or performing some function
towards the completion of the main action.
- Bhartr^hari, vAkyapadiyA III.7.18
causal relation between a kAraka and the action - includes
direct relations (agent, instrument) and indirect - sampradAna,
apAdAna, etc are indirect. But if we widen the notion of caussal
relationship too far we may make the definition too broad ativyApta
(over-extensive)
sixth vibhakti - expresses both a kAraka or sheSha "remainder" (genitive)
relation between thing and substance - ownership or parenthood -
(Caitra's wealth / son). Thus
rAmasya putraH : Ram's son - genitive/remainder
but rAmasya gamanam; Ram's going, (agency)
jalasya pAnam; the drinking of water (karmattva)
From pANini - sixth - sheSha - may involve direct causal factors
mAtruH smarati - he remembers mother
sarpiSho jAnite - acts with the idea that there is butter
but "caitrasya taNDulam pacati" - cooks the rice of Caitra - the
Caitra role is not a direct causal relation
_anvayin syntactically connected 47
anvita not syntactically connected 46
daNDena ghatah "the pot (is produced) by the stick" - stick is only
hetu, a causal factor, but not a kAraka (though it takes 3d vibhakti),
but pANini 2.3.23 explains how the kAraka (instrument) relation is
clarified if we consider daNDena ghatah kr^taH - "pot is produced by
the stick"
bhavAnanda - 14th/16th c. - way out:
kAraka is what is syntactically connected (anvita) with the
action-verb (anvita) and is endowed with one of the six properties -
Can adverbs take kAraka roles?
stokam pacati - "(he) seldom cooks" - takes 2nd vibhakti affix - but
on one view adverbs do not denote any meaning. On another, they are
modifiers for verbs - the affix is indicative of the abheda or
identity with what it qualifies. kr^ti = effort
but it is impossible to have an unique distinguishing feature -
lakShaNa for the six kArakas
Most Indian philosophers accept that linguistic utterance is an important source of knowledge. recognized as verbal testimony in the Western tradition. According to nyAya - is another type of pramA, type of knowledge, causal factors of which are separate from perception and inference. According to some others - it is an inference. Yet others - a type of perception. Following largely based on gaMgesha and mathuranAtha. shabda - human speech - hence, linguistic utterancees. Language mechanism: (Speaker is participant in a linguistic community) 1. Speaker emits such sound as is identifiable as a piece of linguistic utterance 2. This is done to communicate some knowledge or information to a hearer. 3. Hearer is participant in same linguistic community 4. utterance must be a sentence consisting of a word, or a word with affix. 5. The hearer has auditory perception of each word in the utterance. 6. The hearer, as a consequence of 3 and 5, is reminded of the meanings / objects / things associated with each word. 7. The hearer then acquires knowledge of the connected meaning communicated by the utterance.
Several auxilliary factors or pieces of knowledge are invovled in
reaching the final knowledge or shabdabodha or pramA:
A. AkAMkShA (syntactic expectancy): the words must be syntactically
related - ensures grammatical acceptability of the sentence.
B. YogyatA (fitness) : Meaning of word-elements must fit and hearer must
have awareness of such compatibility - or at least, must not be aware
of any incompatibility. (e.g. fire and dampness are not compatible).
C. Asatti (proximity): Word-elements must be spatio-temporally
proximate to each other.
D. _tAtparya : If some word in the sentence is ambiguous, the hearer
should be able to make an intelligent guess about the speaker's
intention from the context, situation of utterance etc.
e.g. saindhava = salt or horse. "Please bring me saindhava"
uttered during a meal can only mean salt.
[_AkAMkShA - syntactic compatibility; YogyatA: semantic compatibility
Cognitive dissonance if not present.
degree of incompatibility prop to degree of attention ==>
entropy. The higher the compatiibility, the less attentive
focus.
]
[Asatti --> proximity - related to algorithms such as LSA??]
any efficient causal factor (_kAraNa) needs an intermediate factor
(vyApAra) to produce the end result (phala, in this case a pramA)
[event structure of causal action = action (vyApAra) + result (phala)]
Instrumental-cause + Vyapara ==> phala - Result
PERCEPTION
I: sensory-faculty
V: sense-object connection
R: perceptual knowledge
INFERENCE
I: knowledge of pervasion between evidence or reason
V: pAramarsha, judgement having special structuure, combined
knowledge that the evidence is pervaded by the inferable
feature. Usually a knowledge of the connection between universal
features or sortals.
R: inferential conclusion - particular case (P) contains this
particular evidence ==> pervaded by (concomitant with) the feature
we intend to infer.
LINGUISTIC (_shabdabodha)
I Knowledge of Word-Elements
V Knowledge of their meanings
R Hearer's knowledge-episode from shabda
vr^tti - connection between word and meaning vr^tti-jn~Ana - awareness of this connection (also: shakti-jn~Ana) e.g. utterance of word "pot" may generate an auxiliary term, say "space". This reflects an auxiliary factor in meaning - since this associative awareness is different from the knowledge following an utterance "space". 52 There is syntactic expectancy between words A and B if uttering A cannot contribute to knowledge of sentence-meaning without being in combination with B. Some feel that this syntactic expectancy is in fact the sequential order in which words and suffices are arranged in a particular language following its rules of grammar and syntax (AnupUrvI = AkAMkSha). Sequence of words violating these rules will not be causally potent to set the mechanism in action. 53 lacking yogyatA: "Pigs fly", "Drink bananas" - do not result in shAbdabodha an instance of shAbdabodha is given by the description of exactly the message contained in and communicated through the utterance... corresponds very roughly to 'paraphrase' ... represent the meaning of each word along with its semantic connection with others in the cluster. This process is variously called shAbdabodha, anvayabodha or vAkyArtha-bodha. 54
... the chief qualificand, chief substantive around which the other elements would gather as qualifier, qualifier of qualifier, the bonding agent between qualifier and qualificand and so on. [?? substantive - not only NOUN - can be verb] The grammarians and the mImAMsakas believe that the principal element in a sentence is the verb itself ...
The meaning of the verbal stem is dominant = principal qualificand.
e.g.
rAmaH annaM pacati (Rama cooks rice)
Here '_ti', technically called AkhyAta, means agency, and qualifies the
meaning of the verbal stem _pac ... it also three more meanings: a
substratum, a number (singular) and a particular time (present). The
one with the first-inflection is connected with the substratum of
agency; the number also goes along with it, and the present time
qualifies the operation or activity - hence the content of the
shAbdabodha:
1. In the activity, which is presently taking place, which is tied to
the substratum which is identical with the (single) rAma, and
which is conducive to the softening located in the substratum
which is identical with rice. 56
The new vaiyAkaraNas:
1b. The activity of cooking occurring in the present time is qualified
by rAma as its agent and qualified by rice which is connecte with
it by way of being its object. 56
The _AkhyAta, not the stem = principal qualificand.
Apadeva has defined bhAvanA as 'bhavitur bhAvanAunkUlo
bhAvaka-vyApAraviSheshaH' - it is assumed that in each sentence there
is a verb, and in each verb there is an implicit verb _bhU, to be, to
become. ... when something becomes, that which happens or becomes is
called _bhavitr^, 'become-er', and it presupposes something else that
makes it become -- this second is called bhAvaka or bhAvayitr^,
'maker of becoming'. _bhAvana is the operation or function of the
maker conducive to his making whatever he makes. bhAvana is therefore
the making function. This is expressed by the AkhyAta, 'ti' in
'_pacati' and according to the mImAMsakas, this meaning is the chief
qualificand... the action of cooking becomes the object (karman) or
the instrument (_kAraNa) of the making function (bhAvanA). 'pacati' is
paraphrased as pacam karoti (makes cooking), and 'annam pacati' as
'pAkena annaM karoti'.
[Q.??: "do the cooking" - is the head "do" or "cook"? arguments in
rest of sentence are selected by "cook", but can have formalisms where
"do cooking" is a phrasal head taking arguments outside it, but inside
which do can be the head. This
reflects the special character of verbs like
'do', 'make', etc. The same duality also appears in our CODE MIXING
analysis - is the English V nominalized when used in a V kiyA
construct? Or how about dekhA coercing bird into acting as H:
*saw chiRiyA / saw the green chiRiyA / saw the harA chiRiyA
bird dekhA / * the bird dekhA
]
2. It is a making function, which is happening at present, which is
done through the instrumentality of cooking (i.e. qualified by
cooking), which (cooking) has rice as its object-goal (karman) and
is done through the instrumentality of firewood, and the making
function is qualified by the rAma as its agent.
--The naiyAyika position--%
First-inflection word = chief qualificand (usually nominative or
subject)
the meaning of 'ti' in pacati in this view is the effort (kr^ti), a
property, which can be located in the agent who cooks.
rAmaH mahAnase kAShThena annaM pacati
rAma cooks rice with firewood in the kitchen
3. It is rAma (r) who is qualified by the effort (e) that is conducive to
cooking (c), which cooking has rice (r) as its object-goal, (i.e. qualified
by the object-hood resident '_niShTha' in rice), which is qualified
by instrumentality in firewood (f), and
a. it is the same rAma who is qualified by being located in the
kitchen (k), or
b. which cooking (belonging to rAma) is qualified by being
located in the kitchen.
[This is more compact using Sanskrit case-markers; but in modern
notation, use Qo notation; Qi (c,f) = c qualified by c as instrument
Q(R Q(e Qo(c,r) Qi(c,f) Q_l(c,k)))
]
here the affix -e in mahAnase is locative and -ena in kAShThena
indicates instrumentality; and the -aM in annaM is objecthood. 60
In the recent discussion of testimony in the West (see Fricker 1987)
several knotty questions have emerged. The central questions are: Is
the committedness of the assertion of the speaker a matter of
perception or inference? How do we make sense of the principle of
credulity, i.e. our reliance on the privileged epistemological
position of the speaker? And what is understanding as opposed to
knowledge of meaning? While I shall expound the Nyaya view, I will
add another: Must understanding be a more fundamental attitude which
necessarily precedes our coming to believe or know what the speaker
states to be the case? 61
The general idea in the West has been to accept an attitudinal verb
'understand' -- a sort of non-committal comprehension of what is being
communicated without believing it to be either true or false - e.g. I
can ask a student in class to translate into Skt: "You owe me a
million dollars', and the student will proceed to tranlsate without
batting an eyelid.
Gangesha view: straightforward knowledge of what
is said arises first, and this non-committal comprehension seems to be
a more complex attitude and parasitic on the [prior knowledge], being
generated by attending factors such as the classroom environment.
Knowlege = event; cognitive episode re: subject; hearer derives
occurrent knowledge from linguistic utterance...
[Gangeshopadhyay: 12th c, but could be 13-14th. founder
Navya Nyaya. born Mithila, Karion village. wrote
tattvachintAmaNi: deals with rules of logic on testimony. In
logic, testimony is of four types: direct, assumed,
comparative, and vocal. Basing his work on these four
testimonies, Gangesh completed Tattvachintamani divided into
four parts: pratyakShchintAmaNi (knowledge through
perception) anumAnachintAmaNi ((knowledge through
inference), upamAnachintAmaNi (knowledge through analogy),
and shabdachintAmaNi (knowledge through words) - enabled the
terminology of navya-nyAya. trad: was a fool until
transformation after Kali-worship at a smaShAn ghAt]
[Q. occurrent knowlege 62, cccurrent false cognition 64
designate - ch11?
occurrent true belief = knowledge simpliciter]
]
For FREGE thoughts are real - they are inter-subjective, not
subjective or private images of individual agents.
Frege: [Preface, Grundgesetze]
If we want to emerge from subjectivism at all, we must conceive of
knowledge as an activity that does not create what it knows, but
grasps what is already there. 64
two types of failures in fitness:
a) when objects referred to by the elements do not fit, e.g. 'barren
women's child'
b) when the objects may fit in a possible world, but not in actuality,
e.g. someone says 'there is a snake in the next room' when I know
there is none.
mImAMsaka: trustworthiness of speaker a causal factor necessary for knowledge. Does not consider (non-scriptural) utterance as a separate form of knowledge Nyaya: so long as the three causal factors are present, even testimony by a compulsive liar may give rise to a belief with knowlege-claim in the hearer (at the first leve, knowledge simpliciter). But simultaneously or in the next moment this will be undermined by strong doubt about its knowledgehood (apramANya-saMshayAskandita). This would take place at a second level. 67 Nyaya view: (non-scriptural) utterance is a special form of knowledge - is not the same as Perceptual knowledge because: Gangesha: a yogyata claim may not be really fulfilled - because we know of only positive exemplars, and we cannot reject it unless we have an instance where it is not true. uncertainty in the causal factors or indicator reason (_liMga) cannot constitute a basis for inference. 68 Doubts about the trustworthiness of the speaker cannot at the first instant stop the occurrence of the knowledge-claim, but paradoxically, helps to generate such knowledge. ... doubt is the psychological factor for inference to arise, (saMshaya-pakShatA) JagadIsha: [DIFF WITH PERCEPTION] consider a perceptual situation where a cat is sitting on a mat. The object-complex creating perceptual awareness has a 'neutral' structure. different verbal expressions of the perceptual knowledge reveal different structures: 'the cat is on the mat' vs 'the mat is under the cat'. [in the first, it is the cat that is qualified by...] These would give rise to different knowledge-episodes.
occurrent true belief or knowledge simpliciter, vs knowledge of that
knowledge - two levels = involving distinct knowledge-episodes and diff
sets of causal factors. Gangesha: Any true belief is knowledge,
i.e. knowledge simpliciter. The q of justification arises, in this view,
only at the second level when one tries to ascertain the knowledgehood of
the acquired belief. According to Nyaya, to know and to know that one
knows are two distinct events, caused by two distinct sets of causal
conditions. The second-level knowledge, i.e. to know that one knows p,
is usually a sort of implicit inference which immediately follows the
episode of knowledge simpliciter. The basis for this inference will be
an evidence, and this takes the role of the so-called justification.
Hence, in most Gettier cases, where a true belief has been acquired but
through the wrong route, it may be regarded as knowledge simpliciter on
this view. This seems to go against general accepted Western
'linguistic' insight, according to which the 'Gettier' examples are
regarded as counter-examples, i.e. non-knowledge, although they are true
beliefs and happen to have some justification. In the particular Navya
Nyaya view, in the case of knowledge by testimony, if all the necessary
causal factors co-operate and no inhibiting factors are present then
there will arise true belief, i.e. knowledge, in the hearer in all such
cases, though at the very next moment, when the hearer is about to embark
upon the venture of knowing whether he knows p, doubt will infect the
attitude and destroy the previous lack of uncertainty. Lack of
uncertainty is constitutive of the previous attitude of true belief (an
hence it was claimed to be 'knowledge' or pramA). Udayana said (NTP) that
we all have a strong natural disposition (cf: samutkata-vAsanA) to
believe truly, i.e. to have knowledge, so our first gut reaction is not
to look for falsifiers. (Compare it with, not gullibility, but the
Davidson-like point that 'believes truly' is generally implicated by
'believes' D 75,66).
Note that at this second level, Gettier like counter-examples may be
easily detected and excluded. Following vAcaspati, we may claim that not
all cases of cognition or true belief when they arise need justification,
for in many 'familiar' cases we act automatically without even
unconsciously asking for justification. In the 'unfamiliar' cases or in
cases where doubt has crept in, we generally use two types of inference
to establish knowledgehood or truth of the occurrent belief. One is
based upon 'confirmatory behaviour' as evidence, and the other upon
likeness with the familiar' as evidence. Another type may use 'assurance
about the operation of adequate causal factors' as evidence. In any
case, if the inference is right, it will establish knowledgehood and the
required justification will be given. This means that the person now not
only has knowledge (an occurrent true belief) but also has a right to be
sure. He is now entitled to call his cognition a case of knowledge. In
some (Gettier-like) counter-examples, if the resulting belief is true, it
would be knowledge according to Gangesha. and if untrue, it would not be
knowledge, though the person may go on to call (i.e. vyavahAra) it
knowledge. For, according to the view we are expounding,
speech-behaviour that something is X (utterance 'it is X') ordinarily
presupposes awareness of awareness that the thing is X. I cannot rightly
say 'this is a camel' unless I am aware that this is a camel. If, in
some Gettier-like cases, I am wrong in my inference about the
knowledgehood of the given occurrent belief (for the evidence may be
pseudo-evidence), then I am mistaken about the truth of my belief -- and
this is in accord with Nyaya fallibilism: not all knowledge-claims can be
sustained. 71-72
Is there a level of awareness, before the final meaning is deciphered?
Perhaps we can glimpse it when nearly asleep or half-conscious, when some
false perceptions are indicated by a simpliciter view. E.g. a mobile phone
rings, and you realize that this sound is artificial. Throughout a woman's
voice is speaking, laughing etc (even before the ring). In your half-asleep
state, after the phone rings, you find yourself thinking of the woman's voice
as if it's on a TV or radio
==> using a simplistic inference scheme that extends the machine-ness of the
mobile phone to the voice??? ]
mImAMsakas - the scriptures that inform us about the heavens are
informative for they tell us about things that we have no other way of
knowing. Hence they are informative, not repetitions of what we know
already. [ENTROPY] - FRESHNESS CONDITION 72
in its rudimentary form, sentence is not just a concatenation made up
of different sound units arranged in a particular order, but a
single whole, a single symbol which bears a meaning. ...
Language is what is revealed or made public to another person by the
'noisy realities', not the noisy realities themselves. Sounds are as
inessential as the black marks (writings) on paper... 77
nAgeshabhaTTa : etymology: from sphuT - bursts; that from which
meaning bursts forth, is revealed 78
John Brough, Theories of general linguistics in the Sanskrit grammarians
Transactions of the Philological Society 27-46, 1951 (p,33): The sphota is simply
the linguistic sign in its aspect of meaning-bearer.
Panini rule 6.1.123: 'avan sphoTAyanasya' - possibly a reference to an early
grammarian named Sphotayana -
Haradatta, paniniyan from 10th c.AD, speculated that Sphotayana was the
propounder of the sphoTa doctrine.
nAgeshabhaTTa : sphoTavAda - also attributes to sphoTAyana
Yaska has quoted another cryptic sentence and attributed it to AudumbrAyaNa :
indriya-nityaM vacanam - 'Speech or language is eternal in the faculties' (Yaska,
1918 edn 1.1), which is explained as stating that a sentence is actually in
the mental faculties of the language users, the speaker and the hearer.
p.79
Bhartrihari himself refers to a similar view by a vArtAkSha.
the sphoTa concept may also have appeared in the early grammarian VyAdi,
whose _saMgraha is lost to us, but all this is mere speculation. 79
Brough has conjectured that the forerunner of Bhartrihari's sphota theory was
this view of AudumbarAyaNa
bhartr^hari: _sphoTa - partless (whole) entity, unanalyzable (has no units).
patañjali : sphoTa is the speech or language (shabda) while the noise or
sound (dhvani) is a quality (feature) of the speech (language). The noisy
element (audible part) can be long or short, but the sphoTa is what
remains constant or same, unaffected by individual speaker differences.
For patañjali, a single letter or 'sound' (_varNa) such as k, p or a
fixed sound-series or letter-series can be a sphoTa (= the invariant).
each sphoTa has a constant 'size' determined by number of units.
[PHONEME - Semantically distinct character of the sound -
representn of sound] 79
sounds can vary in intensity and duration - but the letters have a fixed
nature (avasthIta) but the style of delivering them through speech
organs (vr^tti) depends on the speaker.
vyAdi [probably pANini contemporary whose saMgraha is now lost] - a
verse in bhart^hari ascribed to him distinguishes between
prakr^ta-dhvani (original sound) and vaikr^ta-dhvani (transformed
sound) ==> this distinction may have crystallized into patañjali's
sphoTa-dhvani distinction.
mImAMsakas may also have influenced patañjali:
letters (varNas) or sound-units are permanent, diff from
instances of their utterance. these leave traces (_saMskAra)
in the mind, and inference is based on such recollections. 80,82
The modern theory between what is sometimes called the phonemes and
the objective or 'perceived' sounds may have some relevance with
patañjali's sphoTa-dhvani theory. 80
naiyAyikas: sound-units are not permanent - but they are produced
(_kArya) and therefore impermanent. Thus an instance of the
sound-universal k (or ka-tva jAti) is given an utterance k by a
speaker. (Like a type token distinction). The meaning of a word is
presented the last sound heard, aided by the memory-impressions of all
the preceding sounds. all the sound-atoms must have togetherness
(_samAnAdhikaraNya) - must be 'pereived' or cognized as a whole.
word-meaning relationship:
nyAyikas: established only by samaya (convention) - chosen by the
first language users or the original language-user (God)
mImAMsakas: anupattika - natural and uncreated,
apauruSheya - impersonal - not created even by God,
for the mImAMsakas do not believe in a creator God
grammarians - kAtyAyana: word, meaning and the w-m relation area
all "siddha", uncreated.
Grammarians felt that both nyAya and mImAMsa view as limiting - the
uttered word must be distinguished from the physical sequential
sounds ==> dhvani-sphoTa distinction
Is sphoTa is a mysterious entity related to shabda-brahmaN (Indologists: AB Keith or KS De) - appears untrue Is sphoTa = meaning-bearing symbol, 'linguistic sign' (Kunjunni Raja, Brough) or abstract sound class sorted out from gross matter? (Joshi)? Cardona: varNa-sphoTa is a sound-unit, not meaning-bearing.
for bhartr^hari, 'meaning-bearing unit' is the wrong term:
Thought anchors language and thought 'vibrates' through language.
There is no essential difference between a linguistic unit and its
meaning or the thought it conveys. sphoTa refers to this
non-differentiated language-principle. Thus I believe that it is
sometimes even incorrect to ask whether sphoTa is or is not the
meaning-bearing speech unit in Bhartrihari's system. 86
shabdanA (languageing) is thinking.
[AM: This leads to the Whorfian or Linguistic Determinism position.
AC: Whorfian: "language determines thought". This position may be
more Relativism (?? lang has no absolute reference, may depend on
language or culture) whereas Whorfian position is that language
determines thought.
AM: If thought can express itself only in language (Bhartrihari)
surely it is the case that only those things can be thought which
are linguistically distinguishable. ]
language activity (shabdanA or shabdana-vyApAra) is a common human activity.
In Bhartr^hari's metaphor, it is the very vibration (_spanda) of
consciousness. [134]
There are two levels of language or shabda:
- the implicit or inner speech (sphoTa)
- the articulate noise (nAda)
the former is more real, and is the causal basis of the latter. In another
view, nAda is the 'transformation' of sphoTa. 134
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY: from Ludwig Wittgenstein onward
accept the proposition that, as Wittgenstein said, "What we cannot
say, we must pass over in silence." That is, the words we possess
determine the things that we can know. If we have an experience, we
are confined not just in our communication of it, but also in our
knowledge of it, by the words we possess.
SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS: From an entirely different starting point,
the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis argues that individuals experience the
world based on the words they possess. Sapir and Whorf asked people to
describe how many stripes or bands they saw in a rainbow. Since
rainbows are actually a continuum of color, there are no empirical
stripes or bands, and yet people saw as many bands as their language
possessed primary color words.
]
[AM: But what bhartr^hari is calling shabda is not word! It is more like a
conceptual model, which is not quite linguistic. See discussion p. 141]
The sphoTa doctrine was rejected by most other philosophical schools, particularly the mimamsa and nyaya schools rejected it. The Mimamsakas felt that the sound-units or the letters alone make up the word. The sound-units are uttered in sequence, but each leaves behind an impression, and the meaning is grasped only when the last unit is uttered. Kumarila Bhatta (7th c.) argued that since the sphoṭas at the word and sentence level are after all composed of the smaller units, and cannot be different from their combination. However, in the end it is cognized as a whole, and this leads to the misperception of the sphoTa as a single indivisible unit. Each sound unit in the utterance is an eternal, and the actual sounds differ owing to differences in manifestation. The Nyaya view is enunciated among others by Jayanta (9th c.), who argues against the Mimamsa position by saying that the sound units as uttered are different; e.g. for the sound "g", we infer its ''g''-hood based on its similarity to other such sounds, and not because of any underlying eternal. However, he agrees with Kumarila in terms of the compositionality of an utterance. A number of other authors have commented on this theory. Coward, Harold G., The Sphota Theory of Language: A Philosophical Analysis Motilal Banarsidass, 1997, 158 pages. ISBN 8120801814,
Bhartr^hari, in vAkyapadiyA (enormous work of 2000 verses, p.121) ch.2, notes that there are two principal philosophical theses regarding the notion of sentence and sentence meaning: - a-khaNDa-pakSha (indivisibility or sentence-holism): sentences are wholes and they are the unanalysable units of meaningful discourse. - khaNDa-pakSha (atomism) - divisibility thesis; this latter is view of mimAMsikas and naiyAyikas. how does bhartr^hari account for learning the meanings of words? we reach words as parts of the sentence, and word meanings as parts of the sentence meaning through 'analyis, synthesis and abstraction' (_apoddhAra). this method is only instrumental in facilitating our language-learning, a convenient way of making explicit our implicit linguistic competence. The words are no less abstractions than letters are. The meaning of a word in isolation is an imaginary construct. in fact, words are as much devoid of meaning as the letters or some syllables in a word, like 'rat' in 'socrates'. the meaning of a complete sentence is given to us as a whole block of reality. we chip this whole and correlate such abstracted (extracted) bits and pieces of meaning with word and particles which are also reached by such a process of breaking apart the whole sentence. on this theory, a sentence cannot be a composite entity with words as constituent elements, and the meaning of a sentence likewise cannot be given by the allocation or computation of word-meanings individually considered. (this view is very similar to that of w.v.o. quine, 1960). the whole meaning expressed by a sentence can share a common structure and have common 'parts', but such parts would not be capable of existing in isolation from the rest. in this sense they would be just our own 'abstractions'. a weaker implication may be that in ontological terms, the wholes (whether sentences or other wholes) may have parts but such parts lose their significance (perhaps ontic significance) as soon as they lose their contextuality in the whole. (the opponent would have to say that there may be wholes which have parts but the latter will not lose any ontic significance if they lose contextuality or connection with the whole.) this holistic solution of bhartr^hari was seriously challenged by the mImAMsakas. p. 107 [_apoddhAra ??etymology?? apa + uddhAra - recover meaning? significance - also the whole method - extraction and abstraction - example of this process in language learning?]
MIMAMSA VIEW (two schools): Both recognize sentence as a composite entity
composed of words, particles, etc. These elements are meaningful units of
expression. The sentence-meaning must be connected with these units. The
hearer grasps the meaning of a sentence if he has LINGUISTIC
COMPETENCE... sentences cannot be the smallest meaningful units, for
sentences are virtually countless and we certainly cannot learn a language by
learning countless sentences. It is only by learning the [finite set] of
words and knowing how a language works that we gain linguistic competence. 107
linguistic competence = vyutpatti [117]
[IDEA: once we reject the view that linguistic structures have some intrinsic
thing called "meaning" then also we find it difficult to define the
minimal unit of discourse - e.g. phonemes are defined based on
minimal pair distinctions. Calls for some other approach to
determining these.
CONSTRAINT THEORY of MEANING. linguistic utterances do not carry one
specific meaning, but merely constrain the possible changes in the
existing interpretation. These constraints are not deterministic but graded
- different constraints are possible to different degrees. The set of
constraints are obtained based on sentences, which are much more tightly
constrained, and finally in grounded discourse, which is extremely
constrained, and finally in one's own thought even which may not be
completely predicationally defined, since predicates themselves have some
degree of definitional variability.
These constraints may be definable as regions in some high dimensional
space.
If the constraints invoked by the word constitute its "meaning", then what is
polysemy? In particular, "logical polysemy" as in newspaper, may not be a
polysemy at all - since the boundaries of one constraint region runs into
another, it may be a set of connected regions in some high dimensional
space, except that the frequency of usage is higher in different regions, so
that the interpretation may be said to have several modes (or centers)
IDEA2: context sensitivity in perception. e.g. in Hindi, the letter r and v
when juxtaposed, make the unrelated letter kh - can be disambiguated only in
context. If the entire whole makes sense one way, it is kha, another way, it
is rava, but no one stops for a moment to analyze this.
Same as the visual "THE" and "CAT" example.
]
bhATTa (Kumarila c 650AD): [_abhihitAnvaya: COMPOSITIONAL] meaning of
sentence understood after understanding first the meanings of indiv
words. words are independent, complete objects.
prAbhAkaras (prabhAkara c. 670) whatever a word designates, is connected with
other words [_anvitAbhidhAna: UNDERSPECIFICATION]. We know or learn
the meaning of a word only by considering the sentential context in
which it appears; we learn such word meanings together with their
(possible) semantic connections with other words.
[anvita = connected; abhidhA = denotation].
Sentence meanings are grasped directly, skipping the stage of grasping
singly the individual word meanings. 108
Both sides in the dispute appeal to a general theory about language acquisition. 109 uttamavr^ddha (older adult) : Bring a horse madhyamavr^ddha (younger adult) brings the horse. Similarly, "bring a dog and tie the horse". the child, learns the grounded meanings by listening to the language and observing the actions. bhATTa argument against bhartr^hari's sentence-holism: Sentences are innumerable, but the word-lexicon has a manageable size. The logic of parsimony demands that it is the word that should be endowed with the designative power (_shakti) - learning five words we can interpret eight sentential combinations - can interpret new combinations we have never heard before - if there are several unfamiliar words in a sentence we cannot cognize its meaning. thus there is denotative power in the words. [amazingly reminiscent of Poverty of Stimulus] denotative power in words: gives us as 'meanings': - isolated objects - actions - qualities - relations prAbhAkAra against pure word-atomism (bhATTa): since indiv word meanings are derived only the context of some sentence and therefore from words already syntacticaly connected with other words, we learn such word-meanings along with their semantic connections to other word-meanings. The denotative power of the word gives us not simply the object, or action, or quality, or relation, but also each item's possible connection with other items. [Underspecification debate] 110 If isolated atomic word meanings are like distinct iron pins (_ayaHshalAkA), how can they constitute a continuous line representing the unity of the sentential meaning? bhATTa: Sentence unity is achieved through _AkShepa - extrapolative judgments from individually cognized word-meanings (as in seeing a baby in a cradle, we infer that the mother is nearby), or through _arthApatti - suggestive inference (??in the presence of an objection) - as in, seeing that the desk is not in my room, I infer that someone has removed it elsewhere. [abduction] These two, together with Asatti (proximity) AkAMkShA (syntactic expectancy), and semantic fitness (_yogyatA) allow us to infer the sentence meaning. Asatti: proximity AkAMkShA: syntactic expectancy yogyatA: semantic fitness [see p.53] + AkShepa - extrapolative judgement: baby in cradle ==> mother is nearby arthApatti - suggestive inference: desk not in my room ==> someone moved it naiyAyika: interconnection between word-meanings is derived from their syntax (AkAMkShA) - greater emphasis on syntax compared to the bhATTa. prAbhAkAra view: word designative power extends to a designatum plus possible linkages with other words. this semantic contribution (object plus a relation) guarantees the unity of sentence meaning. There is no need for suggestive unity, or extrapolative judgement
words have meanings only in the context of a sentence - as in grammatical
particles, adverbs, prepositions, etc. e.g. "sake" in "for the sake of". 111
Quine extends the notion to include adjectives - e.g. "little elephant" vs
"little butterfly", "true artist", "poor violinist" etc. [UNDERSPECIFICATION]
Strong Context claim: All words are like this
Weak Context: related to Wittgeinstein's claim that the meaning of a word is
the use it has in language.
Extreme form of syncategorematicsm: all words are definable only by
considering context
Milder interpretation: sync may be a vague way of understanding the later
Wittgensteinian claim that the meaning of a word is the use it has
in language.
categorematic words - can have independent meanings
Is this the view of the prAbhAkaras? maybe not quite :
- prAbhAkara: a word cannot have such a meaning as is unconnected with the
meanings of other words
- syncategorematism: a word unconnected with other words cannot have a
meaning. 112
The argument of the prAbhAkara: bhATTa argues that the prAbhAkara by making all word-meanings 'context-sensitive', faces a problem. Consider the 2-word sentence 'XY'. If we ask what meaning is conveyed by X then we have to answer that if it conveys any meaning at all then it conveys the unitary meaning of 'XY'. The same holds for Y as well. This is so because the prAbhAkara has claimed that the meaning of the word of a sentence ontains within itself, though implicitly, the whole sentence-meaning, i.e. the connected meaning. This seems to amount to sentence-holism, which the prAbhAkara tries to avoid. The prAbhAkara maintains that sentences are made of parts which are words and if the meaning of one part contains the meaning of the whole, the other part becomes redundant. The prAbhAkara answers that the word 'cow' in the sentence 'Bring the cow' or 'The cow is white' designates a cow along with the idea of its linkage with all other possible objects, or a cow with all the possible qualities, modalities and actions, and the second element is necessary _only to help us determine which _particular linkage, to the exclusion of all other possible linkages, is to be taken into account. 113 Unconnected word meanings can be recognized (like wheels in an image of a wagon, Jayanta 900AD), but it would be wrong to construe them as separate entities. Each of them can play a role only in combination with the others. 114 More generally, bination of factors produces a combined effect and each factor in combination produces its own effect, which is discernibly only in that combined effect. The designative power of a word becomes manifest only in combination with other words or only when it is placed in its natural home, a sentence (one word sentences being allowed). A word may _remind us of an isolated independent object, but to contribute to the sentence meaning, it must _mean directly an object with a linkage.
The context principle would oppose what has been called _epistemological atomism_ [Dummett:1981] - the view that at least some objects are 'given' to us in sense perception or intuitition - and hence our knowledge is in the first instance knowledge of isolated objects (and their properties). This view would then construct the meaning (sense or reference) of complex expressions (sentences, etc.) in terms of those sense-perceptible _givens or the isolated objects. In Der Gedanke, Frege seems to have rejected this view impressionistically. Perception of objects, he said, involved grasping of thoughts. It is not to be confused with pure sensory reaction. Knowing is always knowing that. white flash moving swiftly + noise of hoofs + sound of neighing ==> "a white horse runs" 116 bhAtta: these three are presented through diff avenues of knowledge (pramANas) and are grasped as unconnected bits of objects. When such isolated object-atoms (or, for lg, meanings) are grasped, there will automatically arise the judgement which unites them. prabhAkAra argues that this uniting requires us to know the relations between the words, and if so, there is no need to go down to the word-meaning atoms themselves. ShAlikanAtha (c.850AD), following prabhAkara : How do we as hearers know the sentence meaning with our usual linguistic competence (_vyutpatti)? Word meanings properly understood are connected facts, not isolated, unconnected bits of objects. Otherwise it would be impossible to derive knowledge of the connected sentential meaning from unconnected bits. To imagine any such device, as the bhATTa does, would violate parsimony. 117 The dispute between the two groups rolled on for several centuries. At some point the prAbhAkaras conceded that the isolated meaning of the word can be _recollected by the hearer as soon as the word is heard - the object cow, from the word 'cow', is quickly recollected because of intensity and recrurrence. But this recollection only facilitates our awareness of the proper meaning of the word in the context. 118 While the context principle of Frege was formulated to answer presumably a diff set of q's, some of the philosophical issues raised by it were not entirely different from the issues raised by the age-old controversy between the bhATTa and the prAbHAkara. The prAbhAkara explicitly makes an epistemological point about how we grasp sentence meaning. By positing such semantic or epistemic objects as things, properties or actions with possible linkages constituting the domain of the meaning of words in a sentence, he steers clear of the two extremes: the Scylla of crude realism implicit in the extreme atomism of the bhATTa [FODOR] and the Charybdis of a sort of idealism implied by Bhartr^hari's holism. [see Matilal and Sen, Mind, 1989]
Bhartr^hari developed a theory of speech or language which was unique and evoked
strong criticism from all quarters... but he exerted strong influence,
indirectly upon others, but directly upon Kashmir Shaivism, particularly on
Utpala and Abhinavagupta (ch.12).
Any reading is a creative reformulation, and hence a translation. 122
[Q. Then, is composition a creative act?]
The very thought that meaning, thought, or 'what is said' is isolatable from
the speech or the text seems repugnant to Bhartr^hari's holistic conception of
lg. Hence translation in the sense of 'transfer' of thought from one garb to
another seems impossible in this theory. 122
DUALITY in meaning:
Nyaya realists: distinction between the word (signifier) and the object
(signified).
Jacques Derrida: the metaphysicians' age-old search for a "transcendental
signified" - a concept indep of language - that forces upon us the duality of
the signifier and the signified.
In the light of Bhartr^hari, this is a platitude that we would do well to give
up. For B, the signifier-signified duality (vAk and artha) is more fiction
than reality. It is _vikalpa, a convenient fiction, lacking ultimate truth
value. 122-3
Bhartr^hari's holistic doctrine, with the identity of _vAchaka (signifier)
and _vAcya (signified), requires us to give up the search for any independent
'transcendent' meaning as the translational constant, and yet the same view
allows that there could be a situational meaning of vAcya that would be
correlated with diff linguistic expressions or vAchakas (signifiers) which
would be deemed as intelligibly equivalent. The thought is not separable from
its verbal cloak - thought and language are born together, like karNa in his
armour. 123
How are we to distinguish good translation from bad ones, to determine
distortion or even falsification by translation? The goodness or badness of
translation would be determined not based on inter-linguistic semantic rules,
but by the entire situation of each translation, the total reactions, effects,
motivations and preferences it generates. 123
Our perceived world is also an interpreted world - and this interpretn is
invariably in terms of language - interpretation is "languageing". Both language and
this world it refers to form an indivisible, unitary whole. 124
The first sentence of the enormous text, vAkyapAdIya (I.1):
The essence of _language has no beginning and no end. It is the
imperishable Brahman, the ultimate consciousness, which is transformed in
the form of meanings and which facilitates the functioning of the world.
An absolute beginning for language is untenable. Language is continuous
and co-terminous with the human or any sentient being. ==> language is
underived and eternal - opposing, with the mimaMsakas, the nyaya view of
language being arbitrary and conventional - no real connection between the
word 'cow' and the object cow.
J. Derrida: Everything begins by referring back, that is to say, does not
begin. 125
vAkyapAdiya I.93: sphota is the universal or linguistic type - sentence-type
or word-type, as opp to their tokens (sounds).
vAkyapAdiya I.94: sphoTa is _avikArya 'unmodifiable' or 'immutable' and sounds
which have modifications cause the perception or comprehension of the sphoTa
just as light causes perception of objects.
the illuminative power of consciousness is itnertwined with its vAg-rUpatA or
shabdanA (languageing). Taking some help from Kashmir Saivism (Utpala and
Abhinava), one can say that each awareness-episode has two natural powers, the
power to reveal or illuminate (prakAsha) and the power to discriminate or
differentiate (vimarsha). The second power which is equiv to differentiation
through verbalizability, is never found without the first. 128
This seems to imply that the pure sensory grasp where awareness is not
isolatable from what one is aware of, and where what we are aware of is not
conceptualizable or verbalizable,
vAkyapadiyA I verse 124: the illuminatory power of consciousness is intertwined
with vAg-rUpatA, the power of articulating the grasped object in language.
an awareness-episode has to reveal (_prakAsha) some object, it has to contain
the seed of verbalization or verbal discrimination (_vimarsha). 134
vr^tti:
- Just as the shabdabhAvanA where explicit forms are withdrawn (_saMhRtarUpa)
cannot accomplish anything (_kAryaM na kriyate), similarly non-conceptual
(_avikalpaka) cognition is of no use.
- when walking on grass, a tactile awareness arises. a similar awareness
that is unique and vague (kachid - means both unique, or vague) state of
cognition in which an object's nature (_vastvAtma) is said to be cognized
(_jnAtate ity abhidhIyate) provided the object is tinged with awareness
(_jnAnAnugata), and its explicit form shines forth
(_vyaktarUpapratyayAvabhAsa).
This state (of cognition) contains the about-to-sprout (_abhimukhIbhUta)
seed of the residual traces of language (_shabdabhAvanAbIja).
There are two types of shabda - articulate or speakable, and
non-articulate; AkhyeyarUpAnam anAkhyeyarUpAnam ca shabdAnAm
"[I take 'inarticulate' to refer to the shabda of babies -
their actions of sucking their mother's breasts, etc. are prompted by such
word-impregnated awareness]"
And there arises denotative power of the words regulated by each
denotatum (pratyarthaniyatAsu shaktiShu) while the object picked out
(upagr^hyamAna) and given a form (AkriyamAna) by that cognition which
is impregnated with words (shabdAnuviddhena) and empowered with that
denotative power (shaktyanupAtinA).
- like illumination inhering in fire, speech inheres in all cases of
awareness - the fine nature of vAc (sUkhShmo vAgdharmah) penetrates and
permeates even such states as lack ostensible mental activity
(asaNchetitAvasthA). Even the epistemologically first-born
(prathama+upanipAtin) illumination (prakAsha) of the external objects
(bAhyArtha), since it cannot apprehend the nimitta or special features that
cause our usage of certain words, (e.g. "white", or "cow"), make the object
(vastu+svarUpa+mAtra) appear in our awareness (pratyavabhAsayati) by some
unspecifieable designation such as 'this' or 'that' (idam tad ity
ayapadeshyayA vr^ttyA). 135
proponents of kashmiri shaivism, Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta, asssimilated
this theory... 136
Most Indian philosophers, the buddhists, naiyAyikas, and mimAMsakas have
argued for two types of perceptual awareness - _nirvikalpaka and
_savikalpaka. The first is the sensory awareness where no concept hence no
language or shabda can appear, and the second is where words, concepts and
universals are present. The usual argument is that the epistemologically
first-born is the given, without shabda, as in the body's 'raw feel', the
mute's awareness, etc.
bhartr^hari, and following him, Utpala and Abhinava:
even for the nirvikalpaka, awareness is interpenetrated with
shabda.
Without this vAg-rUpatA (word-impregnation) which bhartr^hari
calles _pratyavamarsha, 'determination by word' (I, verse 124), and the
Kashmiris call vimarsha or sometimes parAmarsha, an awareness cannot be
aware; illumination will not illuminate (_na prakAshaH prakAsheta).
Two aspects: two inherent, inalienable, mutually complementary
properties of any awareness episode: prakAsha, and vimarsha
(roughly, illumination, and discrimination)
[in Wittgenstein jargon: awareness is both showing and saying]
pre-linguistic grasp cannot be firm unless the object is sufficiently
distinguished, and if so, then vimarsha has set in, and a
_shabdabhAvanA (penetration by word) is implicit.
pure prakASha without vimarsha is impossible. 136
[Not what Kant or Nelson Goodman say - that perception without
conception is mute, or that conception without perception is
blind. See Matilal Perception, ch. 10]
Some empirical evidence have been cited in favour of this not too
obvious thesis: instinctual awareness of babies that causes them
to act, cry, articulate their first words, must be a sort of awareness
where the purpose and method to achieve that purpose are distinguished
- hence it presupposes vimarsha and hence shabdabhAvanA.
Utpala: even in sensory awareness (_sAkShAtkAra) there is vimarsha,
for otherwise how would instantaneous running away be possible (e.g. from
seeing a snake) without doin _pratisandhAna (active thinking)? A
consideration (_parAmarsha)
Dharmakirti : opposes any possibility of 'discrimnation by word'
(vimarsha, vikalpa or shabda) contaminating the purity of
nirvikalpaka, i.e. sensory awareness.
SENSORY: what is graspable (grAhya or pratibhAsamAna)
LINGUISTIC: _adhyavaseya, determinable
In his pramANavArttika:
Sense perception arises from the capacity of the object
(arthasAmarthya) whereas word-impregnated awareness involves the
sequence:
- sensation leading to the awakening of saMskAra
(memory-impression)
- leading to the remembering of saMketa (convention of
learning word-meaning),
- leading finally to discrimination by word, shabda-yojanA or
vikalpa.
both sides agree that mental attention (_manaskAra) is needed for perception. [p.140 : an essential causal condition of each cognitive awareness] abhinava: Just as the object accounts for the _pratibhAsa, 'appearance' of the object in the awareness, the _manaskAra, 'mental attention' accounts for the vimarsha, i.e. distinguishing the same, resulting in full-fledged perceptual awareness. manaskAra is defined by abhinava as the readiness for the 'distinguishing" act (vimarshonmukhatA)... thus manaskAra impregnates perception with subtle word-seeds (_pratisaMhrta-rUpa-shabda-yojanA), 'ascertainment through words withdrawn to themselves'. For such shabda-yojanA, a prior saMketa (see dharmakirti 2 above) is not needed. 138-9 dharmakirti: child does not have saMketa - conventional word-meaning - how can his perception be impregnated with word-seed? without this word-seed then, how can he learn language?
_shabdabhAvanAbIja (word-seed) : CONCEPTS are formed and can be discriminated prior to words - ] abhinava: learning the meaning of words (saMketa grahaNa): the child learns the word 'cow' by looking at the cow and hearing instructions such as 'This is a cow'. But this ascription of the word or the predicate cow, would be impossible unless the subject is discriminated (by vimarsha, or parAmarsha, 'discrimination'). The "this" in the sentence is clearly a vimarsha. Even pointing a finger would imply vimarsha - the word itself is not necessary. Neither is the referent necessary, e.g. we can learn the word pika from "a cuckoo is called pika" (or a cat is called pussy). reminiscent of the NATIVIST theory in the Western tradition, or the Socratic quip: Learning is nothing but remembering. 140 [NATIVIST: that there are innate rules, esp. as used for learning - helmholz: Facts of perception; behaviorism, - George Graham, Stanf Ency Philo] Plato: thought is the 'inner dialogue' of the soul Davidson (1975): this platitude is of a piece with 'primitive behaviourism' which being 'baffled by the privacy of unspoken thought' may take comfort in the view that thinking is really 'talking to oneself', 'silent speech'. Davidson and Quine: wrong belief: of thought and language, since language may be easier to understand, it should have the privileged position over thought. But indeed, language and thought are two sides of the same coin. Davidson: "Each requires the other in order to be understood." Some philosophers today avoid the epistemologist's dilemma by claiming that even a pure sensory datum is elusive unless it is reinforced by language (Wittgenstein 1958, Philosophical Investigations]. Quine: public language anchors experience, arresting drift. But bhartr^hari's claim seems even more fundamental. Here language anchors experience and experience anchors language. Similar position, W. Sellars (1963): all awarenesss of sort, resemblance, facts, etc. -- in short, all awareness of abstract entities, in deed all awareness even of particulars, is a linguistic affair. --- blurb: Not just an exposition of classical Indian philosophy of language, but also their relevance to philosophy today. Topics include sphota theory, the word as a unit of sentence, the problem of translation, and an elaboration of Bhatrihari's view of cognition. Addresses the theories of meaning and the related problem of universals, and the connection between the ordinary meaning and the profundity of sense in a literary composition.