О некоторых закономерностях формирования терминологии лингвистического анализа

MOKSLO KALBOS KULTŪROS IR TERMINOLOGIJOS PROBLEMOS LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXIV (1985) VALERY NIKOLAEVICH CHEKMONAS ON SOME REGULARITIES IN THE FORMATION OF THE TERMINOLOGY OF LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS We shall call a set of terms serving a particular theory or a fragment of it a terminological group (TrG). In their structure and properties, TrGs are similar in a number of respects to the thematic groups (ThGs) of the lexicon of a natural language. Thus, at any synchronic cross-section, TrGs and ThGs are usually represented by lexemes that differ in their origin and time of emergence. In most sciences, especially the humanities, including linguistics, the composition of a TrG forms spontaneously, and its units are most often words of a natural language. In this process, the formation of TrGs and ThGs is influenced by practically the same sociolinguistic factors—fashion, stylistic considerations, the availability of prestigious sources of borrowing, purist tendencies in the development of the national language in question, and so on. In terms of semantic structure, TrGs and ThGs are similar in that they contain both monosemous and polysemous lexemes. While this is the rule and a natural state for ThGs, polysemy among lexemes is undesirable in TrGs; however, it is practically inevitable when their terms are represented by lexemes of a given natural language. In linguistics, many terms are characterized by latent (or potential) polysemy because they are not strictly defined, their interpretation permits ambiguous readings, or they have been borrowed from other theories or related disciplines. The latent or overt polysemy of TrG lexemes often makes it difficult to understand adequately new propositions formulated within the theory in question, but at the same time it facilitates the presentation of new propositions using old terms, thereby ensuring continuity between theories. In this connection, let us recall that researchers seeking to emphasize the originality and distinctiveness (“discontinuity”) of their theoretical constructs often propose terminological systems radically different from traditional ones. Such structure and properties of TrGs and ThGs make it possible to regard the terminological groups of the lexicon—primarily of the humanities—as varieties of thematic groups in language belonging to the sphere of so-called cultural vocabulary. In our view, this approach will help 151 to understand more deeply the regularities governing the formation of TrGs in the humanities. At the same time, the semantic mechanisms by which the meanings of TrG and ThG lexemes are formed differ profoundly. The scope of a term’s meaning is determined mainly by the theory it serves. The theory also specifies the differential features (semes) by which lexemes are contrasted within terminological groups; it is also clear that these semes are encyclopedic (non-systemic, non-linguistic) in nature, since the composition of the TrG itself is determined by the theory. The composition of thematic groups in the lexicon, by contrast, is known to have developed historically, while the scope of each lexeme’s meaning within them is determined by systemic relations in the core of its semantic field. Moreover, the meanings of natural-language lexemes are closely connected with their distribution, whereas the features of a term’s semantic distribution depend on the structure of the theory served by the corresponding TrG. In general, the differences between the semantics of terms and that of natural-language lexemes arise from the fact that the former constitute the basis of a metalanguage used to construct a theoretical model of a phenomenon, whereas the latter function as (natural) objects that can be described using some metalanguage. In various sciences, there is a pronounced tendency for theory to determine not only the semantics of terms but also their formal structure. This tendency has been realized most consistently in chemistry. In our view, some parts of the terminology of linguistic analysis (or the theory of describing natural languages) also took shape as a result of this tendency. The aim of the discussion that follows is to demonstrate the validity of this supposition; at the same time, a detailed account of the history of the emergence of individual terms in linguistic analysis is beyond the scope of this article. Linguistic analysis is based on a theory describing the units and structure of the principal levels of language—phonetic, morphological, lexical, and syntactic. Its starting points are observable and perceptible units—speech sounds, words, word forms, and sentences. These units are intuitively identified by a researcher who is a native speaker, through perceiving and understanding speech in that language, and constitute the so-called etic level of representing facts of language (or the level of observation; the term etic is formed from the suffix -etics of the word phonetics). The main task of formal analysis (description) is to identify and describe the units of a given language on the basis of units at the etic level. Unlike etic units, these units are theoretical constructs, models of observable facts of language. The names of such units contain the suffix -eme. 152 As early as the last quarter of the previous century, I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay proposed the concept of phoneme as an abstract unit representing intuitively distinguished speech sounds. This suffix was subsequently given to an analogous unit at the morphological level, defined by function: morpheme. “Word,” as a unit in an explanatory dictionary representing a set of semantically identical word forms, was called a lexeme. More recently, the term syntacticeme was also proposed for the name of the basic functional unit of syntax. Alongside the emergence of emic terminology, the transformation and unification of etic terminology began. The formal structure of the new etic terms was designed to emphasize their unmarked character in relation to the emic terms. In other words, the theoretical derivation and secondary status of emic terms began to be modeled at the level of their formal structure. As a result, the following pairs of terms emerged: phoneme — phone (speech sound) lexeme — lex (word) morpheme — morph (word form) syntacticeme —? (“syntact”) The formation of new etic terms was stimulated by the spread of the terms allophone and allomorph. It should be emphasized that the unification of etic terminology took place to a considerable extent spontaneously. For this reason, the potentially possible term lex was not used for a long time, and the term allolex did not gain currency—in this sense, word is still used. The term syntacticeme is currently a kind of exoticism, while the potentially possible term syntact is unlikely to catch on anytime soon. The reasons for inconsistent term formation and use are unlikely to be explained simply by researchers’ desire to avoid unusual terms. The history of linguistics shows that new terminology takes root relatively easily when a sound theoretical justification is offered for its introduction. In our case, such a justification might be an appeal to the isomorphism of formal analysis at each of the language’s principal levels. However, the understanding of this isomorphism developed gradually, and it can be argued that most linguists have not yet recognized its reality. In addition, the role and significance (or theoretical weight) of formal analysis differ somewhat at each linguistic level; specifically, the more content-rich (semantically rich) a linguistic unit is, the less important formal analysis seems for it. For this reason, phonology—the theory of language units that have no meanings—is currently the most formalized, both in substance and terminologically; morphology and lexicon follow it in descending order of formalization. It is characteristic that 153 The significance of formal analysis in describing vocabulary was recognized relatively recently, and it is still often not given due consideration. As for syntax, it is not even entirely clear what such an analysis should consist of. Thus, the degree to which the terminology of linguistic analysis has been developed and standardized, on the one hand, and the degree to which the levels of language have been theoretically studied, on the other, clearly depend on one another. This fact vividly confirms the idea that the development of theory is precisely the main factor in shaping its terminology, both in terms of content and form. It should be noted that formal analysis does not exhaust the problems involved in describing a particular language, since its data do not make it possible to formulate objective rules for generating the marked (meaningful) units of that language. It is quite clear that formal analysis must be supplemented by data from the parametric description of language units, or by a description of the ways in which they are realized and function. In phonetics, the aim of parametric description is to determine the objective acoustic characteristics of segments of the speech stream responsible for realizing particular speech sounds (and, consequently, phonemes). In morphology, parametric description aims to identify the semantic and morphological meanings of individual morphs. In vocabulary, however, the issues of contemporary syntactic semantics or, equivalently, semantic syntax are essentially parametric in nature. The isomorphism of the tasks of parametric description at different levels of language is, at present, practically unrecognized; many linguists have also failed to recognize the distinctiveness of the tasks of parametric description, both in relation to intuitive analysis and to formal analysis. For this reason, expressions such as phonetic description of a language (i.e., practically emic units) and phonological description of speech (i.e., emic units) occur in contemporary scholarly literature, although within the framework of contemporary theoretical linguistics they are essentially contradictory. In our view, the distinctiveness of the tasks of parametric description will sooner or later become apparent, which will probably lead to the creation of special terms such as phoneta, “the totality of psychoacoustic parameters that create (or may create under certain phonetic conditions) the effect of a particular speech sound (phone)”; morpheta, “the totality of lexical and morphological meanings that determine the distinctive usage of a particular morph”; lexeta, “the totality of a word’s meanings that determine the distinctive features of its semantic combinability”; and perhaps syntaxeta, meaning certain morphosyntactic rules governing the use of a particular “syntax.” But we repeat: terminology of this kind (in terms of function) will apparently emerge and become established— 154 only after the ideas of parametric description have been clearly formulated and practically implemented. Finally, one last point. A terminological group whose semantic and formal structure is wholly and entirely motivated by the theory it serves may be called “perfect.” For such a group, the problem of the relationship between the national and the international falls away, and it naturally becomes a fragment of the (international) semantic language of contemporary science.