SOME YORUBA QUANTIFIER WORDS AND SEMANTIC INTERPRETATION: A CRITIQUE
SOME YORUBA QUANTIFIER WORDS AND SEMANTIC INTERPRETATION: A CRITIQUE
Credit: Prof L. O. Adewole
Yoruba for academic purpose
This work takes a close look at the Yoruba quantifiers, púpọ̀, ọ̀pọ̀, and ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ ‘many’, and concludes that, contrary to Lawal’s (1986) claim, it is difficult to differentiate semantically between them.
1. Introduction[1]
Lawal (1986:95) examinees the Yoruba quantifiers, pọ́ púpọ̀, ọ̀pọ̀ and ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀,
which she regards as the “four morphological encodings for the
quantifier ‘many’ and concludes that the last three differ not only
morphologically and syntactically, but also semantically.[2]
She does not compare the first with the others because, according to
her, it is the verb from which the others are derived. We agree that
these three words differ both morphologically and syntactically but we
find it very difficult to differentiate semantically between them. The
same applies to other native speakers we consulted. To support our
argument, we shall use (i) Odell’s (1984) paraphrastic criteria for
determining whether “a linguistic expression has, in the same or a
different linguistic context, the same sense as another linguistic
expression” (Odell 1984: 118) and (ii) one of the criteria for lexical
relations proposed by Cruse (1986) to see if one could differentiate
semantically between the items ọ̀pọ̀, púpọ̀, and ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀. We shall then present empirical evidence to support our argument.
2. Theoretical Consideration
2.1 Odell’s (1984) paraphrastic criteria. Odell
(1984: 118-119) distinguishes between two kinds of synonymy, “the kind
which exists between two tokens of the same type, and… the kind that
exists between two tokens of different types”. The former is referred to
as monotypical synonymy while the latter is called multitypical synonymy. They are defined as follows:
An expression e in SI is monotypically synonymous with e in S2 if e is used in the same sense in S1 and S2.
An expression e in S1 is multitypically synonymous with f in S2 if e and f are used in the same sense.
As the items ọ̀pọ̀, ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀, and púpọ̀ are not three
tokens of the same type, it is the latter definition that concerns us
here. The criterion formulated by Odell (1984: 119) for deciding whether
some given items are multitypically synonymous is as follows:
An expression e in S1 is multitypically synonymous with f in S2 if (1) there is a word or phrase g which is a metaphrase of e in S1 and of f in S2, (2) there is no word h which is metaphrase of e in S1 but not of f in S2, and (3) neither S1 nor S2 is odd.
If one applies this criterion to the use of the items ọ̀pọ̀, púpọ̀, and ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀
in sentences, one would note that they are multiytpically synonymous.
Given a situation of a thousand people standing watching a play and only
fifty people sitting watching the same play, consider the following
sentences where
púpọ̀ = e
ọ̀pọ̀ = f
ọ̀pọ̀lọ̀pọ̀ = g
díẹ̀ = h
(1) a. ó rí ènìyàn púpọ̀ ní ìdúró ‘he saw many people standing’
he see people many in standing
b. ó rí ọ̀pọ̀ ènìyàn ní ìdúró ‘he saw many people standing’
he see many people in standing
c. ó rí ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ ènìyàn ní ìdúró ‘he saw many people standing’
he see many people in standing
d. ó rí ènìyàn díè ní ìdúró ‘he saw a few people standing’
he see people few in standing
The púpọ̀ in (1a), the ọ̀pọ̀ in (1b), and the ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ in (1c) are multitypically synonymous, but the 4th (=h) is not because one cannot use díẹ̀ ‘a few’ to describe a thousand people standing where only fifty are sitting.
2.2 Cruse (1986) on lexical meaning.
Cruse (1986) also provides some criteria for determining whether some
items are logically equivalent. According to him, a useful semantic test
for deciding the logical relations between items is to see if the items
mutually entail each other (Cruse 1986: 15). If one applies this test
to the quantifiers under discussion, one would note that they are
logically equivalent. For instance, I can say (2a, b, c) but not (2d).
(2) a. ó bá ènìyàn púpọ̀ ní ìdúró ní ibi eré náà nítorí nínú
he meet people many in standing in place play the because inside
ẹgbẹ̀rún ènìyàn, àádọ́ta péré ni ó rí ìjókòó
one thousand people fifty only FOC he get seats
‘he met many people standing in the concert because out of one thousand people, only fifty were able to get seats’
c. ó bá ọ̀pọ̀ ènìyàn ní ìdúró ní ibi eré náà nítorí nínú
he meet many people in standing in place play the because in inside
ẹgbẹ̀rún ènìyàn, àádọ́ta péré ni ó rí ìjókòó
one thousand people fifty only FOC he get seat
‘he met many people standing in the concert because out of one thousand people, only fifty were able to get seats’
d. ó bá ènìyàn díẹ̀ ní ìdúró ní ibi eré náà nítorí nínú
he meet people few in standing in place play the because in inside
ẹgbẹ̀rún ènìyàn, àádọ́ta péré ni ó rí ìjókòó
one thousand people fifty only FOC he get seat
‘he met few people standing in the concert because out of one thousand people, only fifty were able to get seats’
Example (2d) is anomalous because in talking about people at a concert,
nine hundred and fifty people would be an entailment of “many” not
“few”.
From these tests, one can conclude that the quantifiers ọ̀pọ̀, ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀, and púpọ̀
are logically equivalent. To further support our argument, we shall
check how these words are used in a Yoruba literary work. Our choice for
this is Okediji’s (1983) Atótó Arére..
3. Empirical Evidence
3.1. Why Atótó Arére? As we have stated elsewhere,[3]
this prose is of interest because it depicts not only real characters
but also reflects real life experiences of some Yoruba cities and
villages. The prose is also one of those few writings in Yoruba which
adequately represent the standard language. The dialectal variation is
minimal, and most tones are indicated. The author has also been
described as one who “makes use of the reader’s cultural knowledge and
linguistic competence to good stylistic advantage” (Isola 1978: 501). In
this work, references from the novel are put in brackets ( ).
Before we start quoting examples from the novel to justify our claim,
let us summarize some of the points touched upon by Lawal.
3.2 Lawal (1986) in brief. The points raised by Lawal which concern us in this work are that:
The size of the set referred to by ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ is greater than that of ọ̀pọ̀ and the one referred to by the latter is greater than that of púpọ̀.
Púpọ̀ and ọ̀pọ̀ emphasize the number or largeness of the set, ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ emphasizes variety within a set.
Púpọ̀ and ọ̀pọ̀ imply undifferentiated mass of people only while ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ is used for individual interpretation of a given set of people.
NP’s higher in animacy are quantified by ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ while those lower in animacy are quantified by ọ̀pọ̀ or púpọ̀.
This supports Comrie’s view on animacy that “individuated objects… are
viewed by humans as being higher in animacy than less individuated
objects” (Lawal 1986: 103).
In what follows, we shall examine these points one by one to see if they
are justified by the facts of the language. We begin with size
distinction.
3.3 The problem of size. Lawal states that the set referred to by ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ is greater than the one ọ̀pọ̀ refers to and that the one referred to by the latter is greater than the one referred to by púpọ̀. That this claim is not correct is shown by the following examples:
he see people many that they PROG hit they two one
‘he saw a crowd of people hitting two people’
b. nígbà tí àwọn èrò náà rí ọlọ́pàá, wọ́n síwọ́ọ lílu àwọn
in time that they crowd the see police they stop hitting they
àlejò náà, ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ sì sá lọ (p. 249)
stranger the many then run go
‘when the (crowd of) people saw a policeman, they stopped hitting the strangers, many of them ran away’
What should be noted is that these two sentences are referring to the
same set of people who are all farmers. The example in (3a), in which ọ̀pọ̀ is used, refers to the whole set of people. The example in (3b), where ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ is used, refers to only some of these people. This is contrary to Lawal’s claim that ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ is used to refer to a set which is greater than the one referred to by ọ̀pọ̀. If any of the two is greater in these two examples, it should be ọ̀pọ̀ because in (3b) where ọ̀pọ̀lọpò is used, only some of the people ran away on seeing the policeman.
This is not to say that ọ̀pọ̀ cannot be used in place of ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ in
(3b) and the latter in place of the former in (3a), but what we note is
that when they are so used, they still give the same meaning. We still
have more people in (3a) than (3b). Their use in sentences such as (3a)
and (3b) depends on which of the two the speaker prefers. The two
readings in the sentences are called forth by different types of
contexts. The two items realize a common core meaning.
3.4 Largeness of the set and variation within the set. Lawal’s claim that ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ indicates variety within a set while púpọ̀ and ọ̀pọ̀ imply largeness of the set is also incorrect. Witness the following examples:
(4) a. ó léegun ju ọmọ olóbì lọ, ṣùgbọ́n ọmọ olóbì
he has power more than child kola-owner but child kola-owner
mọ àyínìke ìja púpọ̀ (p. 26)
know technique fight many
‘he is stronger than the boy selling kola but the boy knows the technique of wrestling better than he does’
(5) Alàbá gba ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ súgà (p. 106)
Alaba get much suga
‘Alaba collected a lot of sugar’
In (4), it is not the largeness of techniques of wrestling that the boy
knows but the various types that are being discussed. In (5), on the
other hand, we are talking about the amount of sugar and not different
types of sugars. This is because all the sugars are plain, white cubes.
In addition, if one looks at sentences (3a) and (3b), one would note that the people are farmers, so the use of ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ does
not emphasize their background or discipline. The people are also all
middle-aged, so, no distinction either of sex or age-group is made with
the use of ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ in (3b).
We also note that ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ can mean ‘much’ or ‘many’ when
applied to mass nouns or uncountable items. For example, both (6a) and
(6b) are ambiguous between ‘a lot of palm wine’ and ‘(many) different
kinds of palm wine’ with no difference in preferred reading. The reading
‘a lot of palm wine’ applies when the same types of palm wine is used
for the sacrifice and the other reading applies when different types of
palm wine, e.g. iṣà ‘a day old palm wine’, àyọ̀ ‘palm wine tapped and drunk on the same day’, ògidì ẹmu ‘a palm-wine not mixed with water’, òjú-ògún ‘the first palm-wine to be tapped from a palm tree often used in sacrifice to Ògún, god of iron’, etc., are used for sacrifice.
(6) a. ó fí ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ ẹmu bọ àwọn òrìṣà
he use many/much plam-wine sacrifice many gods
‘he used many different kinds of/a lot of palm-wine to sacrifice to the gods’
b. ó fí ẹmu púpọ̀ bọ àwọn òrìṣà
he use plam-wine many/much sacrifice many gods
‘he used many different kinds of/a lot of palm-wine to sacrifice to the gods’
3.5 Undifferentiated mass vs. individual interpretation. Lawal also claims that while ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ is used for individual interpretation, ọ̀pọ̀ and púpọ̀ are used for undifferentiated mass. Our examples (3a) and (3b) counter this claim. As stated above, both ọ̀pọ̀ and ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ in (3a) and (3b) are used for the same set of people, ọ̀pọ̀ for all of them and ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀
for some of them. There is no way one can know whether the people are
differentiated or not. For one thing, the narrator of the story does not
know any of the people hitting the men. What this means is that the set
of people hitting the man is undifferentiated yet, as we have seen,
both ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ and ọ̀pọ̀ can be sued interchangeably.
3.6 The animacy property.
The last criterion used by Lawal to distinguish these words from each
other is that of animacy. According to her, NP’s that are regarded as
higher in animacy are quantified by ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ while those that are regarded as lower in animacy are quantified either by ọ̀pọ̀ or púpọ̀ (Lawal 1986: 102-103).
Most of the examples given by Lawal herself are counterexamples to this
claim. Witness the following examples (Lawal 1986: 101) (the number is
ours):
(7) ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ ènìyàn lọ ibi òkú náà
many people went place-of funeral the
‘many people attended the funeral’
(8) ọ̀pọ̀ ènìyàn lọ ibi òkú náà
many people went place-of funeral the
‘many people attended the funeral’
(9) ènìyàn púpọ̀ lọ ibi òkú náà
many people went place-of funeral the
‘many people went to (sic) the funeral’
As the glosses show, the three sentences have the same meaning, and they
are all acceptable. Yet, in the three sentences, we have ènìyàn ‘people’, which is animate.
Other counterexamples of Lawal’s claim are the following popular Yorùbá sayings:
(10) ọ̀pọ̀ ẹja ní ń bẹ nínú ibú
many fish FOC PROG exist in inside deep sea
‘there are many fishes in the ocean’
(11) ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ ìràwọ̀ ní ń bẹ lódé ọ̀run
many star FOC PROG exist in inside heaven
‘there are many stars in the sky’
(12) ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ ìyanrìn ní ń bẹ létí òkun
many sands FOC PROG exist in side ocean
‘there are a lot of sands by the side of the ocean’
In (10-12), ẹja ‘fish’ is higher in animacy than both ìràwọ̀ ‘star’ and iyanrìn ‘sand’ yet, while ọ̀pọ̀ is used to quantify ẹja ‘fish’, ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ is used to quantify both ìràwọ̀ ‘star’ and iyanrìn ‘sand’.
Also, examples (13-15) which Lawal (1986: 103-104) marks as semantically
anomalous are acceptable to some Yoruba speakers we interviewed (the
numbering is ours).
(13) ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ iyanrìn ló ṣe é po síbẹ́ńtì (sic)
many sands be do INF mix cement
‘many sands can be sued to mix cement’
(14) ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ ẹ̀fọn máa ń kú ní àsìkò ọyẹ́
many mosquitoes habitual die at time cold
‘many mosquitoes die during the cold weather’
(15) wọ́n kó ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ koríkọ dà sí àjà
they carried many grass throw at loft
‘they throw many grasses in the loft’
Other counterexamples to Lawal’s claim taken from Atótó Arére are as follows:
(16) ọ̀pọ̀ ènìyàn àti aláìlágbára tààrà kò jẹ́kí Fọ̀ràwáì lè
many people and powerless much NEG allow Forawai able
sá lọ ní tirẹ̀ (p. 249)
run go in his own
‘Forawai could not escape because apart from the number of people around, he was also powerless’
(17) nígbà tí ó wo olúwa-rẹ̀, ó rí i pé ẹni kan tí
in time that he look peson-his he see him that one person that
ó bá òun ra ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀ táyà ni Ilé-Ifẹ̀ láìpẹ́ ni (p. 103)
he follow him buy many tyres in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ in-not-long FOC
‘when he looked at the person, he saw that the person was the one who bought many tyres from him in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ recently’
In (16), ènìyàn ‘people’ is quantified with ọ̀pọ̀, and in (17), táyà ‘tyre’ is quantified with ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀. With the animacy principle the reverse should be the case.
3.7 Further comments on animacy. We quite
agree with Palmer (1986: 2) that linguists should look into different
languages for items ‘identified and defined in terms of the formal
characteristics of each of those languages” that could be used to
illustrate some scholars’ typological postulates. Such illustrations
have recently become the subject of a number of scholarly works. Some
proposed illustrations are entirely justified, but quite a few are not.
Our detailed examination of the quantifiers ọ̀pọ̀, ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀, and púpọ̀ shows that the proposal that they could be distinguished on the basis of their animacy property falls into the latter category.
4. Conclusion
The quantifiers ọ̀pọ̀, ọ̀pọ̀lọpọ̀, and púpọ̀, therefore,
are semantically identical. We are quite aware of the fact that absolute
synonymy is a rare phenomenon but, despite this, we have been able to
provide both theoretical and empirical evidence to show that if these
items differ in respect of some semantic properties[5], they are not the ones noted by Lawal.
References
Adewole, L.O. forthcoming, “Yóò: the so-called future particle in Yorùbá”. University of East Anglia Papers in Linguistics.
Cruse, D.A. 1986. Lexical Semantics. Cambridge University Press.
Iṣọla, A. 1978. “The detective novel in Yoruba”. In O.O. Oyelaran (ed.) Seminar Series 1976/77: Part II, 491-508. Ifẹ, Nigeria: Department of African Languages and Literatures, University of ifẹ̀.
Lawal, S.N. 1986. “Some Yoruba quantifier words and semantic interpretation”. Studies in African Linguistics 17: 95-107.
Odell, Jack S. 1984, “Paraphrastic criteria for synonymy and ambiguity”. Theoretical Linguistics 11: 117-125.
Okediji, Oladejo. 1983). Atótó Arére. Lagos: Longman.
Palmer, F.R. 1986. Mood and Modality. London: Longman.
[1]
An earlier version of this paper was published as L.O. Adewole (1989),
‘Some Yoruba Quantifier Words and Semantic Interpretation: A Critique’, Studies in African Linguistics
Volume 20, Number 1, pp. 79-88. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer
and the editor for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper
[2] This classification assumes that ọ̀pọ̀ ‘many’ and ogunlọ́gọ́, often
glossed as ‘many/several’, is not a morphological encoding for ‘many’.
Note, too, that the three items can be used adverbially as in ó pọ̀ púpọ̀, ó pọ̀ lọ́pọ̀, and ó pọ̀ lọ́pọ̀lọpọ̀ ‘they are too many’. Lawal does not discuss this use of the items and we shall not be concerned with them here.
[3] See Adowole (forthcoming).
[4] Context:
A man has just been murdered in a village. The murderer escaped but
some villagers, all middle-aged farmers, searching for the
murderer/murderers saw two men loitering around. They concluded that the
two men should be the murderers. They took the law into their hands and
started hitting the men. A policeman came just in time to save the men
from being lynched.
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