Abstract
Languages differ widely from one another in the extent to which they are transparent, i.e. obey one-to-one relationships between meaning and form. Transparency, in turn, is an important factor in the learnability of languages. This paper first sets out a framework for the study of transparency and subsequently studies cross-linguistic differences in transparency, using the theory of Functional Discourse Grammar as its point of departure. Transparent and non-transparent features of languages are systematically defined using the multi-level architecture of this model of language, representing them as mappings between and within levels. In applying this framework to a sample of 30 languages it is shown that the (non-)transparent features investigated can be ordered into an implicational transparency hierarchy, and that as a result the languages of the sample can be ranked in terms of their degrees of transparency as well. Finally, the consequences of these findings for the learnability of languages are discussed.
Acknowledgements
We are greatly indebted to Enoch Aboh, Jenny Audring, Eva van Lier, J. Lachlan Mackenzie, Roland Pfau, the members of the Amsterdam FDG Colloquium, and our anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this paper. We thank Afra Klarenbeek and Luisa Seguin for their help in collecting part of the data.
Abbreviations
- 1
first person;
- 2
second person;
- 3
third person;
- I
gender I;
- II
gender II;
- III
gender III;
- a
actor;
- abs
absolutive;
- anim
animate;
- aux
auxiliary;
- com
comitative;
- comm
common gender;
- comp
complementizer;
- contr
contrast;
- dat
dative;
- def
definite;
- dem
demonstrative;
- erg
ergative;
- f
feminine;
- fin
finite;
- fut
future;
- imp
imperative;
- inan
inanimate;
- inch
inchoative;
- ind
indicative;
- indef
indefinite;
- inf
infinitive;
- lnk
linker;
- lv
locative version;
- loc
locative;
- m
masculine;
- neg
negation;
- neut
neuter gender;
- nh
non-human;
- nmlz
nominalization;
- nom
nominative;
- nonsubj
non-subject;
- pf
perfective;
- pl
plural;
- pol
polite;
- poss
possessive;
- prs
present;
- pst
past;
- purp
purposive;
- q
question;
- rem
remote;
- res
resultative;
- sg
singular;
- u
undergoer
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