The swing of the pendulum: the status of analogy in linguistic theory from theNeogrammatici up to the present
Olga Fischer (University of Amsterdam/ACLC)In this talk, I consider the role played by analogy in language processing and the status given
to it in linguistic theorizing both synchronic and diachronic, starting with Hermann Paul’sPrinzipien der Sprachgeschichte (1886), via psycholinguists such as Ester (1973), to the mostrecent writings on this topic, ‘swinging’ between ‘taxonomic’ neogrammarian views and‘mentalistic’ generative ideas.
For most Neogrammarians, analogy was an exception (falsche Analogie): soundchanges were seen as laws, with exceptions to these inexorably relegated to the ‘backbenches’. A strong dislike of analogy is also found in the Transformational Generative
tradition (cf. Kiparsky 1974 (but see Kiparsky 2011), Lightfoot 1979: 359ff. and manyothers). The thinking there was (and still is) that analogy cannot be captured within rules, it istaxonomic and unrestrictive, making analogical explanations ‘arbitrary’.
The neogrammarian emphasis on the study of language as a scientific enterprise, on laws
(rules), is probably one of the reasons why in later linguistic (esp. generative) models,analogy kept being seen as secondary, a mechanism involving mere surface phenomena thatcannot be used to explain the grammar system nor grammar change. Instead, re-analysis (inthe form of rule re-ordering/rule-loss, and later parameter shifts, Move/Merge etc.) became
the most important mechanism in change.
It is interesting that a number of Neogrammarians, notably Paul and Brugmann, gave
analogy a much more prominent place both in language change and language learning. The
link between these two domains now seems generally accepted: for Paul as well as later
linguists the principles that play a role in language acquisition must also play a role in change.
The lowering of the status of analogy in later (synchronic) grammatical models therefore led
to the idea that it could neither be an important principle in language learning nor in change.
This ultimately resulted in the idea within the generative school that language acquisition is
guided by children’s ‘innate grammar’ rather than by analogy.
I would like to look at advances made in more recent (psycho)linguistic researchthrough the rise of the new fields of corpus linguistics, usage-based models (such as(diachronic) Construction grammar e.g. Hilpert 2013), neurolinguistics (e.g. Pulvermüller
2002) and cognitive science (Hofstadter1995, 2005, Hofstadter and Sander 2013,the work ofGentner and associates 2006, 2010, 2011, 2012, Kalénine et al. 2009), to see where thesehave brought us. Based on these findings, I will put in a plea for analogy as the basic
principle in language acquisition, processing and change. I will argue (pace most generativemodels, pace grammaticalization theory (cf. Traugott and Hopper 2003: 310, and historicallinguists such as Harris and Campbell (1995: 50-51), that re-analysis is not primary but
should be seen as a meta-linguistic mechanism; a mechanism that describes change but does
not explain why and how change takes place. Similarly in synchronic models, ‘rules’ describe
and show regularities, but do not explain them. If it is indeed correct that, as Katz (1964: 133)
wrote in the early days of generative grammar, that,since the psychologist and the mentalistic linguist are constructing theories of the same kind, i.e.
theories with the same kind of relation to the neurophysiology of the human brain, it follows that thelinguist's theory is subject to the requirement that it harmonize with the psychologist's theories dealing
with other human abilities and that it be consistent with the neurophysiologist's theories concerning thetype of existing brain mechanisms.

then we should follow new developments in these areas, we should align these to our own
linguistic modeling in the hope that we look for the reasons for change in the right places andthat our model indeed, some day, reaches this ‘harmony’.
References
Esper. E.A. (1973) Analogy and Association in Linguistics and Psychologie. Athens:University of Georgia Press.
Fischer, O. (2011) ‘'Grammaticalization as analogically driven change?', in H. Narrog and B.
Heine (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization (Oxford Handbooks inLinguistics) Oxford: University Press, 31-42.
Gentner, D. (2010) ‘Bootstrapping the mind: Analogical processes and symbol systems’,Cognitive Science 34: 752-775.
Gentner, D., Anggoro, F.K. and Klibanoff, R.S. (2011) ‘Structure mapping and relational
language support children’s learning of relational categories’, Child Development 82:
1173-1188.
Gentner, D. and Namy L.L. (2006) ‘Analogical processes in language learning’, Current
Directions in Psychological Science 15: 297-301
Gentner, D. and Smith, L. (2012) ‘Analogical reasoning’, in V.S. Ramachandran (ed.)
Encyclopedia of Human Behavior (2nd ed.). Oxford: Elsevier, 130-136.
Harris, A. C. and Campbell, L. (1995). Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective.
Cambridge:University Press.
Hashimoto, N., McGregor, K.K. and Graham, A. (2007) ‘Conceptual organization at 6 and 8years of age: Evidence from the semantic priming of object decisions’, Journal ofSpeech, Language and Hearing Research 50: 161-176.
Hilpert, M. (2013) Constructional Change in English. Developments in Allomorphy, Word
Formation, and Syntax. Cambridge: University Press.
Hofstadter, D. (1995). Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies. Computer Models of theFundamental Mechanisms of Thought. New York: Basic Books.
Hofstadter, D. (2001) Epilogue: Analogy as the core of cognition, in Gentner et al. (eds), 499532.
Hofstadter, D. and Sander, E. Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire ofThinking. New York: Basic Books.
Kalénine, S, Peyrin, C., Pichat, C., Segebarth, C., Bonthoux, F. and Baciu, M. (2009) ‘The
sensory-motor specificity of taxonomic and thematic conceptual relations: A
behavioural and fMRI study’, NeuroImage 44: 1152-1162.
Katz, J.J. (1964) ‘Mentalism in linguistics’, Language 40: 124-137.
Kiparsky, P. (1974). 'Remarks on Analogical Change', in J. M. Anderson and C. Jones (eds),257-75.
Kiparsky, P. (2011) ‘Grammaticalization as optimization’, in D. Jonas, J.Whitman and A.
Garrett (eds), Grammatical Change: Origins, Nature, Outcomes. Oxford: UniversityPress.
Lightfoot, D. W. (1979). Principles of Diachronic Syntax. Cambridge: University Press.
Paul, H. (1909, 4th ed.[1886]) Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. Halle: Niemeyer.
Pulvermüller, F. (2002). The Neuroscience of Language. On Brain Circuits of Words andSerial Order. Cambridge: University Press.
Traugott, E.C and Hopper, P. (2003) Grammaticalization 2nd ed. Cambridge: University Press.

Nani-prefaced polar questions in Japanese conversation and their English counterparts
Makoto Hayashi
Nagoya UniversityNani (‘what’), as an interrogative pronoun, is ordinarily used in a wh-question, such as
in nani ga tabetai? (‘What do you want to eat?’). Inspection of spontaneous language use ineveryday conversation, however, reveals that nani sometimes appears with a polar (i.e.,yes/no-type) question, as seen in the following excerpt.
(1) (a late-night telephone call between two college students; simplified transcript)
01 A:

ore:, ato de mata denwa kakenaosu wa.
I’ll call you back later.

02 B:

aa ore neru kara ii yo.
Oh I’m going to bed, so it’s okay.

03 A:

aa honto ni.
Oh really.

04 B:

u:n.
Yeah.

05 A:

un.
Yeah.

06 B: ànani benkyoo shiteru no mada:.
Nani are you still studying?

07 A:

u:n.
Yeah.

In line 06, nani is used as a preface to the subsequent polar question rather than as part of awh-question (note how A’s response in line 07 treats B’s question as a polar question rather
than a wh-question). Here, nani is used interjectionally and does not serve as a syntacticconstituent within the question’s structure. The present study explores these interjectional usesof nani. Based on 85 instances of nani-prefaced polar questions collected from 15 hours ofnaturally-occurring conversations among native Japanese speakers, I show that nani-prefacingis used to convey specific types of stances that the speaker adopts towards the proposition put
forth in the question. I will also discuss similar uses of what serving as a preface to polar
questions in everyday conversation in English.
A first notable feature of the polar questions prefaced with nani is that, with thesequestions, the speaker presents his/her understanding of some matter that is somehow related(or relatable) to what a co-participant has said in the preceding context, and seeks
confirmation about it from that co-participant. A second notable feature is that the matter
about which the speaker seeks the co-participant’s confirmation is, in most cases, not overtly
mentioned in that co-participant’s prior utterance. For example, in line 06 in (1) above, B
seeks confirmation about his understanding that A is still studying, but the proposition put
forth by B’s question (i.e., that A is still studying) is not overtly mentioned by A in the priorcontext.
These two features are observed in all the instances of nani-prefaced polar questions
identified in my data (n=85). Based on empirical analysis of the cases collected, I argue thatnani in these questions is used to indicate the speaker’s stance that the proposition put forth inthe question may not be transparent in, but is inferable from, the addressee’s prior talk. In
other words, nani-prefaced polar questions are used as a method to bring to the interactionalsurface what is implicit (or what the speaker regards as implicit) in the addressee’s prior talk.
Bringing to the interactional surface what is inferable from the addressee’s prior talkwith nani-prefaced polar questions serves a variety of interactional ends across different
contexts. With relevant data excerpts, I will demonstrate that nani-prefaced polar questions
are used to convey a specific range of affect towards what the addressee has said, such asunexpectedness, incredulity, disapproval, etc. I will also show that these questions provide
their speakers with a resource to perform such acts as teasing a prior speaker or implementing
a topic shift during the course of a conversation.
Inspection of spontaneous conversations in English suggests that what in English isused in a similar manner, though the number of instances collected so far is still small (n=11).
For example, in the following excerpt, Amy prefaces a polar question with what in line 06.
(2) (two friends making an arrangement for a get-together; simplified transcript)
01
02
03 Bud:04 Amy:05 Bud:06 Amy: à07
à08 Bud:09 Amy:((Bud off line for 26 seconds to get his calendar to see if heis free on Saturday.))
Theoretically I’ll be here.
Theoretically?
Yeah.
You mean, (don’) you- what you carry multiple calendars so
you never know?
Well, I do have two. One in the office and one at home.
Oh.

Here, too, what Amy seeks confirmation about with the what-prefaced polar question issomething inferable from, but not directly stated in, Bud’s prior talk. I will show that, in thisand other instances from English conversations, what-prefaced polar questions are often used
to tease a co-participant by bringing to the interactional surface what is implicit in that coparticipant prior talk.

Expressions of Directive Speech Acts Revisited
Hidemitsu Takahashi
Hokkaido University
In research on directive speech acts, a great deal of attention has been devoted to the problem
of inferencing supposedly involved in interpretation (Searle 1975; Sperber and Wilson 1986),
the division between conventional vs. non-conventional indirect directives (Searle 1975),
preferences for the way directives are expressed (Curl and Drew 2006), the influence ofculture (most notably, politeness) on performance of directives (Leech 1983; Brown andLevinson 1987; Sifianou 1993; Aikhenvald 2010) as well as varying degrees of manipulative
strength (Givón 1993), and cross-cultural comparisons of request strategies (Fukushima1996; Wierzbicka 2003; Flöck 2016; Aikhenvald and Dixon 2017). Along these lines ofstudies, we are also witnessing a growing number of Cognitive/Construction Grammar-based
analyses – concerning the operations of cognitive metonymies and speech act scenarios(Panther and Thornburg 1998), the illocutionary forces and conventionality of speech act
constructions (Yamanashi 2001; Mori 2006), the constructional nature of request forms(Stefanowitch 2003), and the ICMs and/or specification links of indirect directives (PérezHernández and Ruiz de Mendoza 2002; Pérez Hernández 2013).
While there is a vast literature, researchers regardless of their paradigms have notmuch considered the kinds of propositional contents speakers more commonly convey inchoosing a particular directive form. Work on direct vs. indirect directives normallycompares sentences like Close the door and Can you close the door? to discuss theirdifferences in “indirectness” and/or “politeness,” but is close a representative verb of the Canyou VP? request strategy in the first place? To this date, little attention has been paid to thepossible correlation between directive constructions and their propositional contents.
Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, the types of argument structure verbs
preferentially take in directive constructions have not been explored. In Takahashi 2012, I
conducted a comprehensive analysis of the English imperative as part of my long-term
project on expressions of directives. Major findings include:(i) Four most frequent verbs in English imperatives are tell, let, look and come, followed bysuch verbs as get, take, be, go, give, do, forget, listen and wait.
(ii) Some verbs exhibit a preferred argument pattern, “VERB plus me/us,” as illustrated inTell me about school and Let me put it this way.
(iii) Imperatives are approximately fifteen times more frequent in use than all the variants ofindirect directive expressions, despite common belief to the contrary.
(iv) The imperative can be best analyzed as forming a category involving the scalar notion offorce exertion. Imperatives prototypically exert positive force but less prototypically may
lose force or exert negative force in both English and Japanese.

(v) The imperative may readily act discourse-organizationally or interjectionally (e.g. let’ssee, tell me, come on, look) or serve as a conditional/concessive (e.g. Double your offer; Iwon’t sell.).
These findings naturally raise further related questions. What verbs are common withindirect directive constructions? How are such verbs used? Can the “VERB plus me/us”
argument pattern be found in all directive constructions? Are indirect directives capable ofacting discourse-organizationally the way imperative verbs are. In this talk I explore thesequestions. There are three major findings I would like to address. First, there are bothcommonalities and differences in distributions of verbs and their usage between imperatives
and indirect directives, as well as within different subtypes of indirect directives. Second, the“VERB plus me/us” pattern can be observed in many (but not all) indirect directives, thoughparticipating verbs can vary among different constructions. Third, in stark contrast with theimperative, indirect directives are extremely limited in their ability to depart from the normand play a less directive or non-directive role.
These findings are discussed in relation to overall research on speech act constructions
in English (and Japanese), preferred argument structure and the theory of Construction
Grammar.
Selected References
Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson (1987) Politeness: Some universals in language
usage. Cambridge University Press.
Panther, Klaus-Uwe and Linda L. Thornburg (1998) “A cognitive approach to inferencing inconversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 30, 755-769.
Pérez Hernández L. (2013) “Illocutionary constructions: (multiple source)-in-target
metonymies, illocutionary ICMs, and specification links.” Language & Communication
33, 128-149.
Searle, John R. (1975) “Indirect speech acts.” In Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan, eds., Syntaxand Semantics 9, 59-82. Academic Press.
Stefanowitch, Anatol (2003) “A construction-based approach to indirect directive speechacts.” In Panther, Klaus-Uwe & Linda L.Thornburg, eds., Metonymy and pragmatic
inferencing, 105-126. John Benjamins.
Takahashi, Hidemitsu (2012) A cognitive linguistic analysis of the English imperative: Withspecial reference to Japanese imperatives. John Benjamins.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2003) Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction.
Mouton de Gruyter.
Yamanashi, Masa-aki (2001) “Speech-act constructions, illocutionary forces, andconventionality.” In Daniel Vanderveken and Susumu Kubo eds., Essays in speech act
theory, 225-238. John Benjamins.