Notes on Kenneth Pike

Kenneth Lee Pike’s Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behaviour documents his ambitious attempt to revise the framework of language study in the absence of satisfactory basis. Published in 1967 with some chapters composed quite early, the book offered warning footnotes without revision. With a team of students and colleagues, including his wife and his sister, under the auspices of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Pike (often took the first steps) generalized 350 languages for principles. Gradually, the approach began to emerge.

Pikes tagmemic approach differed especially in its sheer elaboration and complexity. He treated language in terms of: (a) variable focus; (b) a dyad of approaches (emic, etic); (c) a triad of views (particle, wave, field) on units net, discrete, continuous, arrayed; a matching modes (feature, manifestation, distribution); (d) hierarchies (phonological, lexical, grammatical); (e) levels (morpheme, word, phrase, etc, arranged by unit size; (f) styles: social, dialectal, individual personalities, emotions, voice quality and so on. Pike gives only sporadic examples.

In his new scheme: langue and parole, language and non-language, verbal and nonverbal are mixed. The observer is included in observation and analysis. Form and meaning are handled not in opposition but as two sides of a composite. And above all, language is unified with human behaviour.

Pike seeks a balance between theory and method, intending his principles as sign-post and exploratory tools. Description varies in validity, depending partly on initial selection ( the only scientific one). A theory should describe, explain data, present truth,

assert relationships, and predict occurrences. This goal requires a unified theory rather than dichotomous constructions. He extols a unified yet adequate theory with limited theoretical constructs, searches for structural analogies between language and society, and advocates unity among different disciplines. Linguists abstract on a higher level, unifying language data with nonverbal activities within a hierarchical structure, wherein motives fused language and etic experience in single events; verbal and nonverbal elements are interchangeable with partly similar structures. Language obtains its structuring in reference to the larger behavioural field. An observer component enters into all forms perception. ☀So, judgment varies. It is still preferable with alternative, simple solutions. Scholar observation can enhance the fruitfulness and elegance of the approach. We should analyze language with reference to its function, consult the general response of the community which constitute objective evidence. Outside clues are usable but not precise, such as delayed or various responses, conscious or unconscious data, different standpoints. Observers may differ in mental and practical ability, training and interest, cultural bias. Still, subjective components (feelings) are observable. Pikes own monolingual approach relies mostly on gesture (no doc and interpreter). The interdependence of etic and emic behaviour is so striking and must be reflected. Research helps make principles concrete. It is hard to avoid encroaching on linguistic naivety of the informant. Verbal data may become abnormal due to the intrusion of the linguist: over rigorous attempts make informants self-conscious; they may be uninformed, or misinformed, or deliberately deceptive for the sake of psychological comfort. The observational and analytic ability, purposes of researcher also interfere. Questioning may change the structure at issue or make informants quasi-analysts. Training helps but may also destroy procedure simplicity. Among various solutions, a better tactic is Checking against fresh data unbiased by questioning, e.g. to gather comments when the actor is off guard, or to triangulation.

Observation depends on focus, any change in which reflects attitudinal change. Teaching situations also change the focus and thresholds of attention. We can never make certain what is essential. We can only pick a predominant focus, or start at some convenient threshold, set limits and concentrate on smaller data. Research itself merits analysis. An objective study is viable only after the sureness of the researcher’s discriminating power. When a system is intuitively arrived, description should cover formal part of data as well as the heuristic steps-a possible knowledge.

One key problem of focus and analysis is to decide the proper size of the unit. Large and small units are mutually defining; Analysis start with some knowledge of large units. The lower limit can be set by consulting meaning, purpose, cultural relevance, and native reactions. No need for setting up limits for maximal unit. Items have priority over relation. We perceive a structure made of units as parts of a system. Relationships are theoretical constructs. Contrary to glossematic claim, purely relational units might have nothing to relate. Yet he doesn’t mean that units exist independent of their relationship; He questions the binary oppositions as the most advantageous way. It may force the existence of an opposing pole as well as being difficult to handle. Starting from unity is better than the traditional starting from cuts in the string of materials. Immediate constituents are the end product of analysis.

Pike found it convenient to describe behaviour from two standpoints.The etic viewpoint studies behaviour as from outside; it treats all cultures and languages or part of them. The emic viewpoint studies behaviour within a system, a language, sees every unit in a larger setting. Etic units come from samplings, surveys and available before analysis. An etic system is external .Emic units must be discovered and determined during analysis. Etic data are preliminary, whereas emic data are final. Still, both may be just result from two points of view. Emic procedures help to eliminate etic distortion in analysis. Some units are etically similar but emically

different. An infinite number of etic differences may share the same emic units. The value of the etic approach is to give an overview of world behaviour. The value of emic study is to show a language or culture as a working whole and help one understand individual actors in such a life drama.

Pike shows a loyalty to physicalism, saying an (etic) physical description also helps to present emic units as elements physically described, hence his preoccupation with the physical setting of society and language. Language entities have a physical order, or place in the uttereme. He admits all facts reach human beings through psychological filters. Yet it is cumbersome to examine events from muscles down to molecules and atoms, we should be content to treat subperceptual variants only in special studies. The emic analysis is also problematic in choosing particle or sequence as point of departure. We need a framework to analytically break up the etic continuum (which no criterion can apply when dealing with overlapping physical variants). A complete description of an emic unit could include numerous variants. The item-and-arrangement approach may have to list laboriously as if no regularity could be observed. Modern Science thinks more in terms of process than of things [contrary to the then American trend (The latter entails arbitrary segmentation which may create unrealistic localizations of meaning)]. The former entails arbitrarily setting up distorted norms as starting points (forms first, often include irrelevant normative judgement and even makes up never existed forms). To incorporate item, process, and arrangement, Pike combines three theoretical concept sets: a static view of units as particles; a dynamic view of a sequence of units as waves flowing into one another; and a functional view of a field of complex units with unpredictable characteristics. The particle view deals with psycholinguistic data in segmentation, the wave view deals with physical data in sound waves, and field view deals with classes and systems of phonemes, morphemes, and tagmemes. It explains how units

are semantically relevant as a whole (e.g. compounds and phrasal idioms). The child can learn complex expressions as wholes before manipulate items.

Pike proposed a triad of modes---distinct, simultaneous structurings of activity. The three modes reside in the behavioural data. The feature mode shows units statically as discrete particles or segments of activity; the manifestation mode shows them dynamically in continuous waves (as simple vs. complex, free vs. conditioned, fused vs. segmented); and the distribution mode shows them functionally in a total field. The three modes cover (a) contrast or identification, (b) complementation or free variation, and (c) distribution or class membership, respectively.

Pike also distinguishes levels, each one representing a phase of structuring. As units on respective levels: conversation, topic, monologue, utterance-response, utterance, sentence, clause, phrase, word, morpheme, stem, and phoneme. These levels are quasi-absolutes in that etic criteria can differentiate them. Yet the levels are still relative in specific details. Unit types of higher level must control the occurrence and order of its lower level, and be structurally organized contrastively. Levels cannot be studied in water-tight compartments. For Pike, it is like failing to see the woods. It gives priority to phoneme over morpheme, and leaves no room for the tagmeme. Indeterminacy of levels reflects built-in indeterminacies of the system. Pike introduced morphological considerations into phonemic analysis. Grammar might be used heuristically, but not in presentation. (Excoriated as a sin, a heresy, or a ghost to be exorcised.)

Pike portrays human activity within a pyramided hierarchy. Here, the traditional scheme with phonemes-morphemes-words etc. is replaced by three hierarchies with partial overlap: phonological, lexical, and grammatical. Our perspective can vary

according to (a) height, i.e. the place of a unit in a hierarchy; (b) depth, i.e. simultaneous attention on one or more levels; and (c) breadth, i.e. the range of hierarchies. Size still seems to be the chief factor. The lowest level of focus is set with some indeterminacy. The upper limit fluctuates greatly with permanent purpose and interest and is less rigid.

An event is composed of hierarchies of activity. The most important and obvious being the verbal and the nonverbal; linguists differ about how a part of language can be called a system according to their area of attention. The hierarchies are partially independent with an indeterminate margin. Pike contrasts this approach to one based on a linear sequence, which squeezes data and mashing a hierarchy into a linear sequence.

Pike judges his behaviouremic theory elegant because it describes the enormous complexity in terms of a few simple components. All things in a system are mutually defining. Tagmemic theory must demonstrate how hierarchies interlock, such as lateral, or vertical. Structure itself is in part a function of the interlocking of levels; fusion, double functions, and indeterminacies enhance the integration and dynamics of a system.

Hierarchies are mutually relevant if at some points their units are co-terminous or co-nuclear. When one unit or sequence manifests two or more levels simultaneously, it is portmanteau levels. On the middle levels, portmanteau relations are found among word, phrase, clause, and sentence. On the low levels, portmanteaus may combine the phone, syllable, and the stem. On the high levels, the sentence may be portmanteau with a monologue or even a total discourse, and the utterance-response may be portmanteau with a conversation. To prevent confusion, Pike stipulates that a level counts as higher when some of its units are larger than the longest units in the next lower level.

The phonemic level is the most basic. The phoneme exists both linguistically and psychologically. It is a threshold unit of behaviour (articulatory); its locus is not the sound wave, but the actor and his actions. The essential substance of its manifestation is the physiological movement. A listener may pick a phoneme by empathy.

Pike describes the phonological hierarchy in terms of movement. He meticulously labours upward through the phoneme, the hyperphoneme, the syllable, the rhythm group, the stress group, the pause group, and the breath group. Pike sees the clearest model in phonological movement to other linguistic levels. He started out by coining his main terms etic and emic from phonetic and phonemic and seeking cultural equivalents of phonemes.

Language is constituted by systems of morphemes. A large system may include smaller ones, e.g. segmental and intonational morphemes. The internal structure of the morpheme has a sequence of actions resulting in some sequence of sounds. Morphemes can be characterized by a transcription of phonemes linearly; phonemic features can also have morphemic status. Ordinarily, a morpheme is below the threshold of awareness unless under attention. An etic procedure can identify morphs by finding the common denominator in two utterances partly alike. Once a morph is identified, we should decide if it is a free variant of a morpheme, or part of a complex variant.

Both morph and morpheme can be productive. Pike suggests a battery of tests for activeness: if it occur (in a slot or larger unit) frequently; if it is used in new combinations; if its meaning is easy to determine for a native speaker. Between active and inactive (or passive, dead) we may find semi-active ones. Indeterminacy also enters when morphemes boundaries blur.

The morpheme is a form-meaning composite. Normally, only lexical or dictionary meaning is sometimes above the awareness threshold. The meaning of a morpheme can be greatly weakened in certain contexts that its variants have little meaning in common.

The most basic relationship is between a unit and its slot-occurrence. Segments classes are determined by the slots they fill. Each kind of slot has a class of segments. This relation engenders positive and negative predictions about what might happen. The prediction applies to structural components, not to particular words.

Pike selected the tagmeme, a term of Bloomfields, to designate this key correlation between a slot and a class, and declared it more basic than immediate constituents.

Hypertagmemes refer to conversation, monologue, utterance, and so on. Pike is uncertain whether their levels should be absolute or relativistic. A relativistic outlook enables a unit to simultaneously represent a low level and a higher one (e.g. word and clause level). When threshold criteria are needed for determining when one has passed from one level to another, terms need to be made absolutistic. Should the hypertagmeme be composed of two or more sequences? It was simple, sharp-cut, easy to understand and apply and allowed a simple discovery procedure. Yet tagmeme could also be a portmanteau.

To count as words, units must be isolatable and rigid in order of parts. Pike admits that the word level may not be structurally relevant and useful for every language, e.g. not in the Mayan family. And the indeterminacy between the levels is acute when border-line instances occur between word and bound form, and between word and phrase. High frequency can convert a sequence of morphemes into a fixed idiomatic unit. Or, a single word may constitute an entire phrase, clause, or even a sentence (more cases of portmanteau).

Phrase: a unit filling an emic slot in a clause or sentence structure. Pike wants to allow for a single word being portmanteau with a phrase, Dichotomy between morphology and syntax should not be too rigid; it creates problems with stereotyped phrases (e.g. rack and ruin). Phrase has a much greater expansion potential than the word and more freedom to vary the order of its parts; and is more likely to be interruptible by parenthetical forms or phonological junctures.

Clause, Pike accords the clause level a place in the grammatical hierarchy between phrase and sentence. Clause is a useful term for subject and predicate, since the typical overall structural meaning is predication, equation, query, or command. Sentence is a minimum utterance isolatable in its own right. Whereas a clause can add tagmemes of time, manner location, etc. the sentence can add further clauses in coordinate, subordinate, and paratactic relations. In America, linguistics in the past had made its most striking progress by dealing with units no larger than the sentence. Yet Bloomfield defined it as an independent linguistic form, which left larger language units to students of literature, public speeches. Among the few linguists to address such units, Jakobson studied verse patterns, while Harris proposed a discourse analysis. To understand language event in a total cultural setting, sentences must not be studied outside of behavioural contexts. The abstracting is useful, but must be recognized to be an as-if procedure and a deliberate distortion for handling data. Characteristics of sentence structure can be adequately handled only in reference to discourse structure. Sentence types include sentence-word, question, actor-action, instrument-action, equational, narrative, emphatic, surprise, and disappointment etc. By taking discourse into account, Pike can identify types by quite diverse criteria, like form, constituents, order, and pitch, meanings, cultural setting.

Monologue, utterance-response, conversation -- are barely described aside from the relative size, the number of speakers, and the flow (merging, diverging, overlapping, interrupted, etc. Perhaps Pike supposes the results for the lower levels can be applied to these higher levels.

Behavioureme: the emic unit of top-focus, a behaviour related to its cultural setting in such a way that cultural documentation may be found for its beginning, ending, and purposive elements within the verbal or nonverbal behaviour. The size of behaviouremes and their closure help indicate when ones analysis is complete. An acteme is the minimum segment or component of human activity (a verbal acteme being a phoneme and a nonverbal one a kineme). A verbal behavioureme is an uttereme -- a unit which receives participant focus in nonhypostatic situations -- large types being hyperutteremes and small ones minimum utteremes such as the single sentence. In the analysis of language, uttertics would be a classification of utterance types around the world.

Pike provides no separate hierarchy for semantics. Some analysts adopted a formalistic approach. Bloomfield argued that meanings cannot be known exactly. In Pike’s opinion, the neglect of meaning implies that the linguist is not interested in language as a communicating device, and cannot analyse the communicative process and its content. Semantic components are essential. To exclude meaning is to abandon the most useful structural threshold between the reciting of a poem and the minutiae of atomic structure. Linguists can only bypass the mention of meaning, not the use of meaning.

He joins Firth in rejecting the theory of signs of de Saussure and Hjelmslev. Meaning is an omnipresent aspect. Meaning has its locus not in the individual bits and pieces, but within the language structure as a whole. The sharp-cut segmentation of meanings is impossible. Meaning is a contrastive component of the entire complex and occurs only as a function of a total behavioural event in a social matrix. So we must foreground the social components of meaning by focusing on communication. Pike suggests that speech meaning has as its cause and effect in physical matters. The central meaning applies when words occur in descriptions close to the physical situation, and gets more difficult to state when no reference is made to physical objects, actions, or qualities. The central meaning may have greater frequency than marginal meanings. As a child grows older, the central meaning may become relative to the milieu. Pike envisions a hierarchy of discourse with progressive degrees of centrality.

Pikes scheme has a number of distributional orbits. The outer orbits carry the greater communication impact, e.g. poetry, puns, slang, idioms, metaphors. Metaphor and poetry go beyond physical stimuli. But a metaphoric meaning, which starts out being less frequent, can spiral down into the central orbit, gradually becoming the only linguistic item to label an object or situation.

Pike approves Malinowskis’ warning against the dangerous assumption that language mirrors reality. For Pike, to know the ultimate truth would require the emic perception of God. He is unwilling to follow his teacher Sapir here. Units of thought and speech show unity but not identity. A person may attain a concept without verbalizing it, or may have the ability to think despite incapacities for speech. Even so, Pike concurs with Cassirer that chaotic impressions take shape only by means of language. From a behaviourist standpoint, concepts are said to tie with sensory experiences, Meaning form the bridge by which a physical behaviour pattern enters into the structuring of society or individual. We can determine meaning and purpose from elicited response. Purpose is placed here alongside meaning because it is frequently obvious and easily detectable. Since participants affirm an awareness of meaning or purpose in behaviour, the analyst can consult the popular reaction to meaning. We can study the conscious choice among alternatives or meanings when hunting for the right word.

Segmental meanings are components of segmented verbal material. They tend to be vague, supplied by a hunch or feeling; Pike likens them to subsegmental phonological features in that both are covert backgrounds. Human communication requires the possibility of change in meanings. Language functions by extending the meanings of words to a variety of contexts which are only vaguely related. A theory of semantic markers is unrealistic in omitting a speaker’s knowledge, situational, motivational and linguistic contexts.

A final problem is hypermeaning, appearing when participants identify two or more utterances as having the same meaning with different sequences. Hypermeanings come into play in translation. They aid reaction to ones environment, but may lead to stereotyping.

To provide demonstrations of his unified theory, Pike discusses large units of activity, such as a football game, a church service. Having been present himself as participant and observer, he could collate his recorded data with his own impressions. His insider knowledge also filters out irrelevantl activities and focuses on those governed by official rules and unwritten customs. Pike fails to take his own advice by including the theorist in the theory. Children’s behaviour is seen as misbehaviour. Another problem with the demonstrations is the staggering explosion of data implied, Pike concedes that if all components were to be treated, the data would be unmanageable. He hopes to avoid this chaotic result by postulating component hierarchies. But the data would still be enormous.

Style: The style may be careful or uncareful, slow or rapid, trite or literary. It acts as a systemic conditioning that uniforms a text. Morphemes must be determined separately for each style. Most units share styles despite different physical manifestations. And variants of phonemes are structurally the same in a topological sense: two total patterns are identifiable point by point.

Pike sketch analogies between society and language. Both sides have a structure with a set of relationships; observable in individual actions, relatively stable. A society constitutes a system of individuals just as a language has a network of sounds, syllables, words, and sentences.

If one finds this approach formal and lacking in insight, the same difficulties may be seen in linguistic analysis, whose devotion to phonemes and morphemes overshadows the ultimate goal. Nevertheless, formal studies have been very stimulating for understanding the mechanics of language activity. But those studies have succeeded only through drastic limitations on the data; they would explode if applied to a whole hierarchy of personal activities.

The wide scope of tagmemics sets it apart from formal studies. Pike has little use for abstracted relationships. A theory system is often a ungrounded calculus floating in the air Mathematical notation makes no reference to meaning or purpose.

Pike admits indeterminacy in both theory and data. A clear cut theory might conceal facts and do violence to the structure. Well-described units need not be well-defined. Indeterminacy might never be resolved. Pikes preoccupation with units and particles is attenuated by h is attention to the indeterminacy of their borders or boundaries (a wave view).

Pikes book shows us a continuing effort to develop a complex theory based on limited notions. He tries to be objective. The complexity of language had to be reconstructed by hierarchies. Pike felt reality of units and constructs were somehow in the material itself. Analyst is more likely to be aware of them. Pikes method helped describe hundreds of previously little-studied languages and widen the scope of linguistics. By insisting that the structure of language shares many characteristics with the structure of society, Pike hopes to demonstrate the pervasive structural traits of man.