Because its there: How linguistic phenomena serve as cognitive opportunities

ions/ Intangibles činŭ ‘rank’, sanŭ ‘rank’, darŭ ‘gift’, rodŭ ‘clan’, grěxŭ ‘sin’, polŭ ‘half’, mirŭ ‘peace’ Associated with Czech, Polish, and Russian Gsg -u and Lsg -u We will focus our attention on the short-u-stem endings that survived the collapse of their paradigm. The few nouns that were associated with the old short-u-paradigm were absorbed into the o-stem masculine paradigm, but retained the old u-stem endings as extra desinences, apparently used primarily in constructions that were particularly characteristic for those nouns. The list of original short-u-stem nouns is not very long, but it is peculiar in that it completely lacks any words that designate small, discrete manipulable objects of definite form. In other words, there were no nouns associated with the “extra” short-u-stem endings that represented the mid-portion of the figure-ground scale. All nouns refer to items that are at one extreme or the other. There is the virile kinship term meaning ‘son’, the non-virile animate ‘ox’, and then all the remainders are at the very bottom of the scale. For example, about 30% of these presumed old short-ustems are mass nouns, which would have been used primarily in the genitive singular case in constructions with quantifiers. This motivated an association of Gsg -u with mass nouns. Another 30% of original short-u-stem nouns name locations, motivating the association of Lsg -u with names for locations. The remaining short-u-stem nouns (nearly L. Janda How linguistic phenomena serve as cognitive opportunities 23 another 30%) named abstractions and intangibles, and were also associated with Gsg -u and Lsg -u. To make a long story short, the old short-u-stem endings were redeployed to create new distinctions at either end of the figure-ground scale, and here is where we see languages taking advantage of cognitive opportunities over the course of their histories. The Npl ending, originally associated with the nouns meaning ‘son’ and ‘ox’ (because the other short-u-stem nouns either had no plurals or were unlikely to occur in the plural) was realized as -ové in Czech, where it spread mostly to virile nouns, but also to some nonvirile animates. The Polish version of this Npl desinence, -owie, is used to designate only masculine kinship terms, personal names, and high-status viriles (eg. exalted professions), as opposed to neutral viriles (most nouns referring to male humans), and low-status viriles (where the non-virile morphology can be used pejoratively; Dunaj 1992, Rospond 1971). The dative case is strongly associated with human beings (since it presumes the ability to react to whatever has been received or experienced), and Czech has spread the original short-u-stem Dsg ending, -ovi, to mark all animates (with a secondary spread of this ending to the Lsg; Vážný 1970). Russian has not spread either of these endings, but retained only relics of them in the Npl synov’ja ‘sons’ and adverb domoj ‘homeward’ (derived from an earlier Dsg domovi; Gorškova & Xaburgaev 1981). Although the Gsg -u and Lsg -u have been productively spread in all three languages, in Polish Lsg -u was ultimately spread for phonological purposes, to distinguish soft stems from hard stems. In all other instances, however, these languages have capitalized on the semantic opportunities available here. In Czech Lsg -u and Gsg -u are used for typical expressions of those two cases. In Polish, Gsg -u is associated with inanimates that are not discrete countable concrete objects (i.e., masses, landscape features, and intangibles; Westfal 1956). Russian uses both Lsg -u and Gsg -u with locations and masses lacking internal differentiation (i.e., if a location is just a place for finding something else or a mass is just a quantity of something, not if we are really interested in some fact about the location or mass; Šaxmatov 1957, Unbegaun 1935). L. Janda How linguistic phenomena serve as cognitive opportunities 24 Recycling morphology summary To conclude this brief analysis of a historical linguistic data, we find that defunct morphology can present cognitive opportunities. Existing semantic associations can be conventionalized and spread productively via the mechanisms of analogy. In this fashion, yesterday’s trash can literally become today’s treasure when linguistic units are exploited to express semantic distinctions. 5. Conclusion: Generalizations based upon the three analysesOverall, we have seen that the “same” linguistic material may be deployed differentlyover dimensions of space (geography) and time (diachrony). The same cases can beutilized differently by different related languages, and the morphology once used just todistinguish cases in the old-u-stem paradigm, after it was inherited by the o-stems, wasover time pressed into service to make new semantic distinctions. In these ways,linguistic forms such as case endings provide varying cognitive opportunities forexpression. Wherever variation exists, language strives to attach and enhance semanticdistinctions. Languages are like the proverbial pack-rats -they keep a lot of stuff aroundand try to figure out what it’s good for. This drive for semantic order observed inlanguage is probably indicative of processes characteristic of human cognition, sincelanguage is the most immediate artifact of human cognition available to us for inspection.Cognitive linguistics is particularly apt in analyses such as these because itenables us to get a good focus on large issues and make broad comparisons withoutdenying the real complications involved. 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The Hague: Mouton. i Here and elsewhere parentheses indicate less common variants.