by J. L. Speranza
-- for the Grice Club.
We are considering the argument for and against the argument:
H. M. S. Rodney sank the Bismarck.
----
Therefore, H. M. S. Rodney sank (Grice 1986, p. 4).
Kramer:
some transitive verbs are derivative
of intransitive ones. Sink-T is shorthand
for "cause to sink-I." That "X sank Y" does
not -- emphasis mine. JLS] implicate
"X sank" is no more noteworthy than that it
does not implicate "X stank." I am asking
for an argument against that claim.
Good. I wonder if you want a cross-linguistic argument, or a universal-grammar argument -- just kidding!
I can sink--, I mean, think -- that if I am learning English, and I am explained the uses of 'sink' qua intransitive and qua causative-transitive, I would give some thought to the idea that it is TRUE that "H. M. S. Rodney sank." I think there is a working paper in linguistics at UCL -- powerpoint presentation, actually, to that effect -- the disappearing sandwich, I think the author (she) called it.
Thus we can say,
"The dog ate".
The dog actually ate a sandwich.
"eat" is transitive, but there is nothing wrong with saying, "The dog ate". -- i.e. a sandwich.
Similarly, I can say, "The H. M. S. Rodney SANK", meaning thereby that she sank a ship (or two) -- unspecified --. It is a mere arbitrary, surface thing about ONE natural language, or 'lingo', if you must, -- "English" -- I say this to provoke Kramer -- we both love English -- that you use the same 'verb' here, but seeing that you do, I think we have to respect THAT fact.
So, I would think that 'sink' can occur in isolation, as 'eat'. We say, "The dog ate", "The dog ate a biscuit" --. The sense of 'eat' does not change -- it means to 'ingest via the digestive system'.
Similarly, the ONLY sense for 'sink' is 'to introduce in the depth of the water', as it were. It IS true that there is an implicature, rather than entailment, that if you just say,
H. M. S. Rodney sank.
you tend to think that she sank herself. In fact, you may not even be concerned about who or what sank it.
The Titanic sank.
Surely it was that horrible iceberg that sank her.
Perhaps we should avoid, on the other hand, using 'sink' in the active voice, and stick to the passive, voice:
"The Titanic WAS sunk", by an iceberg that is.
Or,
The Bismarck WAS sunk by H. M. S. Rodney.
The problem with this account is that surely the passive voice is DERIVATIVE of the 'active' voice counterpart. But in any case, I rather have a rational reconstruction of what's going on here rather than depend on a mere arbitrary convention.
You may say that 'the Titanic sank' need NOT specify the cause of the sinking (or 'sink', for surely 'sink' can be used as the name of the action). In any case, a translation to French usually does the trick -- a lot of ships were sunk in France -- French ships too. As McEvoy remarked to me recently: "History is written by the winners; that's why a French history book is a blank" (or words to that effect).
I would suggest a translation to German, too, seeing that the Bismarck IS involved. I wouldn't be surprised if the Romans dealt with this problems, too, but used the umlaut or ablaut -- less economical as the English are in using the SAME root, logically, for the SAME concept or variant thereof. Or not.
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Latin...with umlauts? That would be rather scary--accents, perhaps, but Umlauts are a northern dish, ich denke.
ReplyDeleteJesting aside, I think at some point ord.language, when not strictly logical, does hint at something like...comparative syntax, which can get rather involved if not exhausting when say examining transitivity and verb structure across euro. languages (or compared to asian, semitic et al). That said, transitivity seems to be the norm for latinate (with exceptions...tho' I grant that claim could be falsified).
Similarly, I can say, "The H. M. S. Rodney SANK", meaning thereby that she sank a ship (or two) -- unspecified --. It is a mere arbitrary, surface thing about ONE natural language, or 'lingo', if you must, -- "English" -- ... that you use the same 'verb' here, but seeing that you do, I think we have to respect THAT fact.
ReplyDeleteWhy, and in what way? I don't respect the facts about driveways and parkways. Certainly someone learning English has to learn that "fish" is not spelled "ghoti," that adding an "s" to "princes" makes a plural word singular (and changes its gender), and all the other quirks that have arisen in our lingo. But "respect" it? I need more.
Okay. I should consult an etymological dictionary. The other day I told Geary: "Flew has died". He replied by remembering a ditty his mother used to sing to him:
ReplyDelete"The flea said to the fly: let's fly -- no, let's flee" etc. -- it's Ogden Nash actually. But I was wondering.
Etymologically, a fly WAS a flea, and vice versa, and to flee was to fly and vice versa! In Italian and the romance lingos in general, the 'Bismarck sank' simpliciter would be expressed by the verb followed by a reflective pronoun ('si' in Italian). This may beg the question that the Bismarck is NOT sinking itelft. It's the Bismarck which IS sinking -- but the Bismarck is NOT the cause of the Bismark's sinking -- or at least not the ONLY cause. So there may be a confusion by those who invented that verb, 'to sink'.
I would think that the causative is secondary. Surely one CAN define 'sink-t' (sink transitive) in TERMS of sink-i (sink intransitive): cause-to-sink-1 -- but the other way round seems unavailable. At this point, one has to be careful. I am a Humean, and I dislike the idea of 'cause', so I think it is a bit too much to simulate that the deep structure (which don't exist, but still) of 'sink-t' INVOLVES the notion of "CAUSE". There must be something simpler than that. I would think something relating to 'make'.
Grice has some nice word about 'do' which may connect. He thinks he's never seen a word more vacuous than 'do'.
----
So, I MAY suspect that in Old English, sink-i and sink-t were perhaps marked by a different umlaut, making them perhaps TWO different words -- however related, but I would need to check this! (In any case, perhaps it this wasn't a fact about English, it perhaps SHOULD have been?).
Anyway, I'll rethink about the 'respecting'. I think the ideas of polysemy, monosemy, ambiguity, truth-conditions, sense, AND implicature, all interact, and we may need to consider them (all).
"Princess" seems like a French precieux thing to me -- without the French 'princess' no English 'princess'. It's the formative suffix -ess that seems to be at play. And 'ghoti' refers to the phonic medium. I think, with Grice, we are dealing with 'syntax' here, perhaps at a level which is prior to 'semantics'. -- And with Grice, I am particularly interested in what logical devices to use to represent an alleged 'ambiguity' of the 'brick' that is SINK such that it gets realised sometimes as 'monadic' (non-causative truth-condition) and sometimes as dyadic (causative) -- and see the dyadic as derivative of the monadic.
Sxy (x sinks y) has to pay extra. It's like Humpty Dumpty with words. If 'sink' is, first, monadic, then, if you ARE going to use 'sink' as dyadic, you have to BUY it along with the 'rule' that introduces 'make' PLUS sink-monadic. Or something like that. There SHOULD be an online reference to this -- hopefully Griceian! I can thing of Traugott.
I am particularly interested in what logical devices to use to represent an alleged 'ambiguity' of the 'brick' that is SINK such that it gets realised sometimes as 'monadic' (non-causative truth-condition) and sometimes as dyadic (causative) -- and see the dyadic as derivative of the monadic.
ReplyDeleteI would describe sink more as "amphoteric," to borrow from chemistry class, than ambiguous. One of my laws of language is that it is easier to create a usage than a word, because the original usage provides a powerful clue to the meaning of the new one. All that is required is that there be no ambiguity that context does not resolve in the normal course of communication.
Given this econonomically and, therefore, evolutionarily sanctioned bit of linguistic parsimony, we should expect that verbs will be both transitive and intransitive, that nouns will be verbed, and that words will be used figuratively. Accordingly, while it is possible to posit ambiguities, the important thing is that it equally possible to avoid ambiguity, which, after all, is what separates conversation from wordplay.
The polemic I am mounting is that examining potential ambiguities is like looking for shiny things in the trash. The language evolved to be used unambiguously, not to be, Godel forbid, abused ambiguously. The focus, as with implicature, should be on the efficiency of natural usages, rather than on the inefficiency of unnatural ones.
What a masterpiece of rhetoric and truth! You are a genius, Kramer!
ReplyDelete--- And I SHOULD consult about the etymology of these tricks, the causatives-etc. like 'sink'.
From:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sink
under 'sink':
"The transitive use [of 'sink' as in Grice's "H. M. S. Rodney sanks the Bismarck"] supplants Middle English "sench" (cf. drink/drench) which died out 14c."
The point is -- KILLED by who. :(
I am a Humean, and I dislike the idea of 'cause', so I think it is a bit too much to simulate that the deep structure (which don't exist, but still) of 'sink-t' INVOLVES the notion of "CAUSE".
ReplyDeletewell, that explains much. A Humean would seem to hold something relativistic in regard to language (as well as cause, etc) such as "meaning is use", so verbs can be transitive and then intransitive at will (or become adjectives, nouns, etc). That may have been the case with spoken English (or saxon, etc) but I doubt it holds for the academic/formal use of Latin, at least after the language had been established.
OK -- for the record: Grice was ambivalent as regards Hume. Not for nothing (sic!) he speaks of "Humean projection" -- which I have relabelled merely "projection" simpliciter in a 'construction routines' post ("Rutinary Grice" I think I clumsily called it). In any case, I was warmed by the fact that the wiki entry on 'causatives' does NOT include 'cause' as involved at all.
ReplyDeleteThey mention ONLY "make" (first) and "have" (second). I was merely then making the point that 'cause' is, in English, a Latinate term, and it would be very artificial to think that when Baby says, "Sink it!" Baby means 'Cause'. Most likely Baby means "Make sink" or, if you must, "Have Sink".
Of course, sometimes Grice is so convoluted to paraphrase ordinary expressions, that I would NOT be surprised if he glossed "Sink it!" by "Cause it to sink!" -- but I would not think that an element in deep structure (alleged) need a latinate term like 'cause'.
In the romance languages -- the three of them, to speak of the national ones -- 'causa' in Latin, gives 'chose' in French, cosa in Italian and Spanish -- i.e. 'thing'.
It IS fascinating how Cicero MUST be turning on his grave upon hearing 'cosa' as used by a modern Italian to mean mere 'thing'. What possibly would irritate him, too, as it does irritate me, is the doublet or parvenue thing: the French can speak of a 'chose' therefore using the old Latin 'causa' via the natural development of the word, BUT they can also use 'cause', or 'causation' -- if that's NOT having your cake (gateaux) and eating it too, I Kant see what is!
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ReplyDeleteinteresting. Were it in a formal context--like legalistic, i.e. assigning liability-- Causality as it relates to the sunken ship would certainly be relevant, and not just a grammatical quibble (and whether necessary or just probable, the torts judges still assign damages)--
ReplyDeletein casual convo. Baby may not be discussing the problems of induction, but ...that issue sort of manifests itself in day to day human speech (ie whodunits, murder trial, celebrity scandal etc). Normal people aren't generally Humeans---they want revenge, to pin something--murder, sinking ship, oil spill, adultery--on someone or thing
So "causa proxima" still around...(and the romance tongues also the heirs of Aristotelian causality...so "cosa" as indicating not just efficient cause, but like formal, material, AND final, supposedly...to bother Hume's mummy).
Very good point. There is an extensive -- and I'm pleased there IS -- treatement of 'cause' in Grice's "Actions and Events" (Pacific Phil. Quart. 1986) -- of which I may quote at some point -- which is good to have as it compares nicely with perhaps the most engaging bit in his "Reply to Richards" -- his excursus on finality. Baker found that bit in "Reply to Richards" engaging enough to murder the piece and reprint ONLY the second bit (I love her) when she printed Grice 1991 (Conception of Value -- whose list of content thus goes: The Carus lectures themselves, the three of them --, plus Method in philosophical psychology, plus, latter bit of "Reply to Richards". Reply to Richards is VERY Griceian; Grice's 'Actions and Events' is more ... Aristoteian. I may need to revise the bit, but it allowed me to understand that, IN GREEK, 'cause' (aitia) is BEST used for 'final cause' (something difficult to conceptualise with the sinking of the Titanic, say) -- in Grice's example, "H. M. Rodney sank" the 'final cause' is not really transparent either. It seems to be MORE transparent in the transitive use, "H. M. S. Rodney sank the Bismarck" -- to annihilate the danger involved by the Bismarck, etc. --.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, a case I compare here is "Rebel without a cause". It's not that the rebel lacks a pre-Humean efficient cause. It's that he lacks a 'reason' TO do (things). I will have to elaborate on 'act' and 'do' vis a vis Kramer's point (different foci), but it's good to conceptualise 'cause' (qua ratio essendi, agendi, or cognoscendi) as 'do -- for'. Why did H. M. S. Rodney shoot the torpedo? To sink the Bismarck.
--- At this point, Grice talks of 'what' qua verb, which relates to Kramer's point about verbing of nouns, etc. and of which I may copy some passages for a blog post.
usually any reference to causation (even basic, ugly Sherlock Holmes or Murder she wrote sort) relates to efficient cause. Hume didn't make that disappear really (or..disappear that). It's an interesting issue (as with much of the Grice is Right)--how language relates to the C-word. And one notes references to final cause (or crypto-final causes) in ord. language as well, even in supposed doubters...or Humean sorts (or Darwinistas). Yes the Titanic sank, due to striking iceberg, ie...but then on a larger scale....at least some humans speculate on a purpose or goal ... (destiny, dewd)
ReplyDeleteWhat does the hard-minded evolutionary type mean with development, progress, or even adaptation, or much of his evo-speak? Isn't there even a metaphysical claim to say....equus (horse) has ....advanced?? Sounds vaguely Aristotelian (or at least ...Design as some of the biblethumpers say) even when some loud-mouth like Dawkins insists it's not. That's a bit of a different tangent but the point is that the language seems a rather Aristotelian (for better or worse); Hume & Co. are the upstarts....
Yes. We once discussed this with Tapper. I quoted from Grice, and Tapper temporarily forgot the Carrollian reference, which was good, since it allowed Tapper to expand on the 'end' of a cabbage.
ReplyDeleteYou see, in "Aspects of Reason" (his 2001 book) Grice refers to 'value-oriented words' (like 'reason', 'sentence', etc.) but he adds: value permeates ALL talk. He quotes from Lewis Carroll:
Cabbages have a 'metier'.
Kings have a metier
sealing wax has a metier
ship has a metier.
(the reference is to "the Walrus and the Carpenter" by Carroll -- 'the time has come to talk of many things...' -- which became the cliche, "Of cabbages and kings". I may retrieve the reference at some stage.
So, Grice would say that, yes, metier is basic and that finalitas permeates it all. In his later Carus lectures (but published as Grice 1991), he talks of 'tigers' and their metier as being that of 'tigerising' -- which I find a good strategy or policy. For any noun N, the metier of its reference is to n-ise.
---- Yes, in the latter bits of "Actions and Events", Grice would expand (not on this example, but similar ones) that "H. M. S. Rodney sank the Bismarck" can ONLY be undersood with reference to the 'will' -- behind the 'action' or 'doing'.
He's not clear he likes 'deed' -- a word he associates with damsels in distress and cavaliers to their rescue.
I have referred to this elsewhere by the rather ugly term, 'teleo-functionalism'. I was considering Searle's polemic with Millikan: the lung -- it is a pumper. So 'pumper' is a teleofunctional term. It describes what the lung does. The evo-talkers usually need some consideration of what 'proper' function is -- and how form depends on function, or not. Millikan, who I have corresponded with, relates this to some polemic with Strawson -- and we may count her as a Griceian.