“Shouting and Screaming: Manner and Noise Verbs in
Communication”
Margaret
Urban
University of California, Berkeley, USA
Josef
Ruppenhofer
University of California, Berkeley, USA
In many languages, words can be used in different domains from those in which
they originated. In English, sound verbs are commonly used in the context of
human communication (1-4).
(1) ('Shut up, Doreen,'[MESSAGE]) (Silas[SPEAKER]) barked, his face contorted by
a scowl.
(2) ('Darling,'[MESSAGE]) (Conrad[SPEAKER]) cooed as Lee entered the living
room.
(3) ('He's a thief, Hilary,'[MESSAGE])(he[SPEAKER]) grated almost savagely.
(4) (Grandson Richard[SPEAKER]) rumbled (a reply[MESSAGE]).
However, not all sound verbs have communication uses; the ones that do are
restricted as to the type of message and/or speaker they can occur with. The
syntactic patterns of sound verbs used for communication are not the same
patterns found with true communication verbs. Several researchers (Goossens
1995, Miller & Johnson-Laird 1976, Levin et al. 1997) have explored these
phenomena, paying particular attention to which verbs have or lack communication
uses. Here we propose a unified and expanded corpus-based account of these
cross-domain extensions in terms of Frame Semantics (Fillmore 1982) and with
reference to theories of metaphor. This analysis has implications for the
further description of the relationships between frames (e.g., inheritance and
blending), and the development of cross-domain uses of words.
The FrameNet Project (P.I. Charles J. Fillmore) is creating a lexical database
with 3 linked components: the expanded lexicon, the Frame Database, and
annotated example sentences (Baker et al. 1998). Files which represent senses of
lexical items within a particular domain and frame (represented as domain/frame)
are created, and constituents are annotated with the Frame Elements which are
realized with respect to the target word. This annotation, and subsequent
marking of phrase type and grammatical function, is further analyzed for the
combinations of syntactic and semantic patterns realized in various senses. Even
while still in progress, this project has become a valuable resource for lexical
and other linguistic analysis. The authors, both researchers involved in all
stages of the project, have examined annotated files for 201 verbs in
perception/noise, 23 verbs in communication/manner, and 60 verbs in
communication/noise (there are 314 communication verb files overall).
Sound originates in the domain and frame of perception/noise. Since communication
involves human verbal interaction, it necessarily overlaps with the sound
domain. Two criteria determine which noise verbs can have communication uses.
First, a noise verb is usable as a communication verb if the sound is produced
by animate beings, especially animals (e.g. bark, yelp), but not when it is
produced by objects (e.g. clink, thud). Nevertheless, some inanimate noises,
such as rumble, are used for communication. It is possible that the physical
profile of these sounds lends itself to a communication construal. Secondly,
among animal sounds, imitative sounds (e.g. oink, quack) have no uses as
communication verbs; the exact specification of the sound blocks the expression
of a message (5).
(5) *(Mr. Baker[SPEAKER]) oinked (an invitation[MESSAGE]) across the table.
The noise verbs with communication uses (e.g. scream, bellow) do not behave like
genuine manner of speech verbs (e.g. shout, whisper), differing from them both
syntactically and semantically. We argue that this reflects the differences in
the structure of the two domains and frames. In their home domain, noise verbs
are usually intransitive, taking the sound SOURCE as subject (6-8).
(6) Somewhere behind her (a horn[SOURCE]) blared.
(7) (The long blades[SOURCE]) clashed and rang, their movement too fast for the
eye to follow.
(8) The ducks began quacking and (the frogs[SOURCE]) croaking.
By comparison, communication verbs are normally transitive, with a SPEAKER
subject and a MESSAGE object. ADDRESSEE and TOPIC prepositional phrases and
MANNER adverbs frequently appear (9-11).
(9) ('How's the shop?[MESSAGE]) mumbles (one balding sweating man[SPEAKER]) (to
another[Addressee]).
(10) One of his body squires heard (him[SPEAKER]) whispering (about it[TOPIC])
(to his Gascon favourite[Addressee]).
(11) 'If (you[SPEAKER]) so much as whisper (a word[MESSAGE]) (about Dame
Agatha[TOPIC])(to the Lady Maeve[ADDRESSEE]), you will regret the day I ever
plucked you out of Newgate!.'
Consider a communication use of the sound verb 'snarl' (`Do you have to?' she
snarled at him as he took out a cigarette). Whereas `Do you have to?' [MESSAGE]
and she [SPEAKER] look like canonical communication frame elements, (at him) is
not a typical encoding of ADDRESSEE; compare the oddness of (I talked at John).
The effect of (at him) is to make him seem more like the target of a directed
sound emission as in (The dog barked at me). The difference between real manner
of speech verbs and communication uses of noise verbs can also be observed in
terms of complementation patterns and their frequencies. For example, more
quoted MESSAGEs are found with noise verbs than with manner of speech verbs. The
pattern is the reverse for that-clause MESSAGEs. ADDRESSEEs are less common with
noise verbs used for communication than with regular manner of speech verbs
(12).
(12) (The housekeeper[SPEAKER]) left the room, muttering (about
ingratitude[TOPIC]).
This difference can be exemplified statistically by the analysis of proportional
samples of representative verbs from each domain and frame.
Noise verbs used for communication do not only differ from manner of speech verbs
as a class, but also exhibit interesting differences among themselves. For
instance, many verbs are specialized as to what kinds of speakers they accept:
older people and females are better cacklers, while men and people in positions
of authority are more likely to rumble, bellow, or grunt (13-15).
(13) ('I'll warrant he is!'[MESSAGE]) (the old lady[SPEAKER]) cackled
unexpectedly.
(14) We passed (the police sentry who[SPEAKER]) grunted (a sleepy
greeting[MESSAGE]).
(15) ('Off now then?'[MESSAGE])chirped (the woman[SPEAKER]), dropping another
sock.
Also, inasmuch as the manner of the speech act is being emphasized, the quoted
[MESSAGE] component frequently contains an alphabetic representation supporting
that emphasis (16).
(16) ('Th-that's b-blackmail,'[MESSAGE]) (she[SPEAKER]) spluttered.
This analysis shows that in these cross-domain uses, semantic and syntactic
factors from both source and target domains play a role in determining the
structure of the utterance. While the target domain supplies a syntactic
structure, the source domain's semantics constrain the degree to which that
syntactic structure can be exploited. Although some of the domains' interactions
resemble metaphorical mappings, e.g. the SPEAKER-SOURCE correspondence, the
relationship between the domains is not that of metaphor. Both domains are
concrete, rather than one being concrete and one abstract. Instead of being
discrete domains, they have something in common, i.e. the presence of a sound
source. Nor are they simple cases of situational metonymy between speaking and
producing sound. This kind of evidence and data can be used to describe more the
complex interactions of frames which are evidenced in natural language: frame
blends and inheritance, metaphor, complex frames, and other cross-domain uses.
The synthesis of linguistic theory, lexicography, and work with large-scale
corpora is necessary for significant coverage of the data. The frame semantic
approach, with detailed lexical analysis, provides a semantically and
syntactically informative account.
References
Collin F. Baker Charles J. Fillmore John B. Lowe. “The Berkeley FrameNet Project.” COLING-ACL '98 Proceedings of the Conference, held August 10-14, 1998, in Montreal, Canada. : , 1998.
Charles J. Fillmore. “Frame Semantics.” Linguistics in the Morning Calm. Ed. Linguistic Society of Korea. Seoul: Hanshin, 1982. 111-138.
Louis Goossens. “Metaphtonymy: The Interaction of Metaphor and Metonymy
in Figurative Expressions for Linguistic Action.” By Word of Mouth. Ed. Louis Goossens et al. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 1995.
George Lakoff Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Beth Levin Grace Song B. T. S. Atkins. “Making Sense of Corpus Data: A Case Study of Verbs of
Sound.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. 1997. 2: 23-64.
George A. Miller Philip Johnson-Laird. Language and Perception. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976.