Section 3-1 USING LANGUAGE

Grammarians usually choose the sentence as the basic object of grammatical description, though sometimes they try to include other larger units of linguistic analysis. Concentration on the sentence in a sense parallels the logician’s study of the proposition. When logicians consider the structures of arguments and proofs, they are studying the larger context — the larger logical environment of the proposition. When linguists consider units larger than the sentence, they usually study the various social contexts or other larger contexts in which people normally use the various utterances of the language.

Motivations of utterances.  
Normally the language user wants to communicate ideas, thoughts, or feelings. One uses the expressions of one’s language in a social setting, or one directs them inward — speaking to oneself. When an utterance comes out, it may be a response to a situation, or it may be an attempt to effect a change in the state of affairs. The user may have devices in his natural language that exhibit syntactic and semasiological structure for any of these situations. The linguist might conceivably provide some of these uses with their own specific grammars, each, as it were, a dialect of English. Some aspects of these dialects are expressions in other media or in the form of extra-linguistic phenomena as in body language.

Seven categories of language use.  
Linguists have distinguished at least seven categories of language use, which I have distilled partly out of David Crystal (1987, chapter 4) and charted on the table below. In any of these uses the linguist may also consider whether the language use is introverted. In this context introverted means that people other than the user himself are not necessarily addressed or otherwise involved as they normally are in direct communication. Another thing to consider is whether or not the use arises out of the needs of society.
 USEEXAMPLESMOTIVATION / CONTENT
1.SoundCounting rhyme, OnomatopoeiaIntrinsic attributes of language
2.EmotionGlossolalia, Interjection, ExpletiveIntrinsic attributes of language, user & social environment
3.IdentityMotto, Salute, Headline, Title, Personal nameUser or social environment
4.InteractionGreeting, Boolean reply, Sneeze response, VocativeUser and social environment
5.ControlPerformative, Command, Request, ImperativeControl over the user, social environment & world
6.ConceptualBiography, ReportKnowledge representation of user, social environment & world
7.DocumentaryRecord, EpitaphKnowledge representation of world

Use of sound.  
Perhaps the most primitive use is the kind of utterance in which the language’s intrinsic attribute of sound is most evident. Children in their learning games make and use rhymes to establish a rhythm as in (1). The effect of sound is no less evident in nursery rhymes. In this genre meaning is archaic or has become somewhat obscure, which actually seems to increase its appeal to children.
(1)a.One, two, buckle my shoe,
Three, four , shut the door,
Five, six, pick up sticks,
Seven, eight, lay them straight,
Nine, ten, big fat hen.
Eleven, twelve, dig and delve.
Thirteen, fourteen, men a-courting.
Fifteen, sixteen, men betwixt ’em.
Seventeen, eighteen, maiden’s a-waiting.
Nineteen, twenty, my tin’s empty.
b.One potato, two potato, three potato, four,
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more
These examples illustrate a means of isolating number words for counting. These verses mix the numbers with alliterative and rhyming nonsensical sounds. The words used do in fact carry meaning, but the child hardly seems to care about what it is. These kinds of utterances often contain phrases adopted from the conceptual use of language to be used in a non-conceptual way. Poets frequently use such devices as they attempt to stretch meaning. When children, however, use rhyming phrases for their sound values, they do not usually intend any listeners to apply any particular literal interpretation to their utterances. It is probable that the linguist would not need to spend many hours in observing children at play to find many more utterances to class with the ones given in the preceding paragraph. The careful linguist would probably also find some variation in syntactic and semasiological type by which to further characterize and subclassify utterances in this use.

Expressing emotions.  
All present life is but an interjection,
An ‘oh!’ or ‘ah!’ of joy or misery
Or a ‘ha, ha!’ or ‘bah!’ a yawn or ‘pooh!’
Of which perhaps the latter is most true.
— Lord Byron, 1819–24, Don Juan, Canto 15, Stanza 1*
A second kind of utterance involves sounds emitted principally as a means of venting emotion. The expressions in (1) are virtually devoid of any conceptual content. They do, however, have primitive (non-speech) phonological forms. (The symbols between slashes designate the sounds of English, which are described in my Short Phonology of English on this site.)
(1)a.Ouch! /æw¡/ (or Yi! /y¬/)pain
b.Oh! /oow/ (or Yikes! /yœ¡/)fear
c.Ah! /aaw/ (or Oo! /uuw/ or /mœœm/)pleasure
d.Yuch! /yœ¡/ (or Ugh! /¡œ¡)disgust
e.Oo! /uuw/ (or My! /may/)sympathy (danger to another passes)
f.Tsk-tsk! (or Tut-tut!) /t¬¡/(mock) pity
g.Oh, my gosh! /¨owmay'gaws/ (or Oh, my god! /¨owmay'gawd/)surprise
h.Huh! /¡œ¡/ (or Man! /mæn/)disbelief
These utterances often have a unique phonological shape — words not found in any of the other language uses. The English user is fluent in their use, but they do not take part in conveying information. This use is usually introverted, i.e., in those situations where the speaker finds himself using these exclamations he seldom checks for the presence of others. Notice, however, that most of these words have more or less appropriate variations that the speaker might want to choose from, either so as not to offend the sensibilities of others within earshot, the so-called euphemism, or so as to suitably impress them. Certain variations usually reveal more about the character of the speaker than they do about emotions. Traditional grammars classify these words as interjections. As with children’s rhymes, the analyst will find that emotive utterances are often derivable from phrases in the language that the speaker would under other circumstances or in different contexts intend to have denotative meaning.

Social use of language.  
People typically use certain utterances in society as a sign of consent to some cause or hope for its well being. Slogans, mottos or shouts are highly traditional, ritualistic, habitual or hackneyed — used more for their connection with the situation and less for their conceptual interpretation. Such utterances identify an individual within a particular social group; the person establishes an identity. The examples in (1) all fall into the social environment category of language use.
(1)a.Hosanna!
b.Long live the King!
c.Heck no, we won’t go!

Expressions of assent and dissent.  
There are also holophrastic expressions that seem to lie between those cited so far. Sometimes their production involves non-systematic sounds and the expression of strong emotion. These are words of assent (1) and dissent (2) (Boolean reply):
(1)a.Yes.
b.Uh, huh.[/œœ/ rising intonation, no glottal stops]
c.Yep.[/yœ¡/ (final consonant is a glottal stop)]
d.Right![/ray¡/]
(2)a.No.
b.Uh, huh![/¡œ¡œ/ falling intonation]
c.Nope.[/now¡/]
d.Wrong! (or Not!)
Together with the Boolean reply it is possible to classify certain adverbs that express some limit on assent (3a) or degree of assent (3b):
(3)a.Maybe.
b.Absolutely!
The speaker may express special concern for or emotional involvement in a particular situation with an interjection. Compare the expression and intonation of (4b) to that of (1b) and (2b):
(4)a.Sorry!
b.Uh, oh![/ow¡ow/ falling intonation]

Expressions for social interaction.  
The words and phrases illustrated in (1) have lost much of their denotative force in cases where the speaker uses them to establish, maintain, or terminate social interaction.
(1)a.Hello. How are you today?
b.Good morning. Pleased to meet you.
c.Thank you. You’re welcome.
d.Bless you. Gesundheit!
e.Good bye. See you later.
f.Hum. Interesting.[/m¡œm/ steady intonation as in “I’m listening.”]
g.Humpf. [/m¡œm/ falling intonation; “I don’t believe it.”]
Seldom are such greetings and salutations meant to convey any meaning other than that the speaker wishes to begin a conversation, is concerned about or attentive to the listener, or wants to bring the conversation to a close. In a sense we may want to speak of this as a neutralized meaning. Addressees may find themselves answering a question such as (1a) with a rhyming rejoinder, such as “’bout the same; can’t complain.” Greeters are obliged to consider the meaning of such a reply as neutralized in a fashion not unlike that of children’s rhymes.

Syntactic status of first four language uses.  
I would like to consider an any more detailed description of the classes of utterances mentioned so far as outside the scope of the present grammar, or at least peripheral. Their lack of original syntax motivates an analysis that derives them from more full forms. However, the reason a linguist investigates such expressions does not appear to be their literal interpretation. This makes them of less interest as objects of grammatical analysis, in and of themselves. It appears that an expression of this sort is a kind of degenerate form of sentence or somehow derivable from one. Their non-grammatical character seems to reside in their meaning, which is typically idiosyncratic, socially primitive, or composed of synthetic elements not easily amenable to a simple analysis. We have chosen to put these words and phrases in a category called “pro-sentence.” In other words, they are used in place of a well-formed sentence. Some are perfectly formed syntactically (cf. How are you today? Have a good day!); the “imperfection” resides in their normal interpretation.

Using language to control the world.  
Some of the oldest cultures believe that language has a special power over the world. It is possible that the sacred nature of the name of the God of Israel derived from the idea that to know someone’s name gave you power over that person. Many languages use a special grammatical form of a person’s name, called the vocative case, in situations of address. In such languages this use of names is closely related to an imperative mode with verbs. The controling nature of language use survives in English in these grammatical forms. These forms were probably those used by Jesus in calming a storm on the Sea of Galilee. These were sentences uttered with the idea that the natural elements of the world would take heed. Today there are many cases where social bonds are initiated or disolved by such utterances. In this class are also the words of a priest at a baptism or wedding, or the sworn oath of the President before he takes office. Some linguists call these utterances performative sentences.

Using language to represent knowledge.  
Traditionally grammatical analysis proceeds in the most straight-forward manner on the kinds of sentences in English that people use to represent knowledge. The meaning of these kinds of sentences is basically informational or conceptual. Even in its conceptual use language does not necessarily convey information to someone else. The common denominator among these uses is the standardization or the clarification of thought. For example, in order to solve a problem the language user often finds it helpful first to express the problem in words. Forms found in this use of language are the most fully grammatical. It appears that forms found in the other uses of language are somehow derivable from these grammatical forms.

Using language to preserve knowledge.  
One of the conceptual uses of language is its use in documents. The diverse worlds of business, law, and the sciences use language to record concepts so that others might have access to them. Practitioners communicate their ideas not only to people now alive in the present, but possibly also to people alive at some time in the future. Each field has its own idiosyncratic and traditional devices for recording their concepts. The esoteric nature of the meaning of some documents restricts their audience considerably. Presumably a linguist would require several different grammars with additional features to describe language in its various documentary uses. The languages of the different sciences include many of the different dialects of applied mathematics. One of the goals sought in the present work is to characterize an appropriate mathematics (formal system) for one of these studies — the study of the syntax and semantics of English.
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