derivation of meaning in proverbs

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Working Paper 5 in Semantics 12 th July 2000 1 Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs: A Ka:rmik Linguistic Analysis Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar, CIEFL, Hyderabad, India Symbols used in the Article I-I-I Network Node; Impacts on; Gives Rise to by Transformation; Leads to in the Direction of the Arrow; Apparently Transforms into; Reflected on (like an adjunct) Reflected in (like a quality); Delink intrer-categorially leads to as opposed to Intra-categorially leads to a:nushangikally gives rise to; inherently qualified ; Through the Means of Connecting Node in a Cyclic Network; Superimposed On is analyzed Heart or Nucleus of the Circular/Cyclic Network The Individual Consciousness (soul or the ji:va) The Triad of Qualities [sattva (luminosity or cognitivity) giving knowledge of activity; rajas (activity or analyticity) giving choice and pattern of activity by traits; and tamas (inertia or substantivity) giving inertia or materiality of activity by va:sana:s] of Disposition. Horizontal Line; Vertical Line; Diagonal Line; Horizontal, Vertical, and Diagonal Axes I, II, III, and IV the quadrants 1, 2, 3, and 4 Reversal of Order I. Introduction When proverbs are used, they are understood, misunderstood, or even not understood depending on the abilities of the participants in the discourse. When both the speaker and the hearer 1. know the referential, prototypical, and contextual meanings correctly and at the same time, 2. the performance (by the speaker) and the reception (by the hearers) are also successful, the proverb is understood; on the other hand, if any one of them is defective either in the

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It is work in progress. It offers an interpretation of meaning of proverbs from the view of Ka:rmik Pragmatics (Ka:rmatics) developed from the Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory of Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar.Please bear with me. The diagrams and symbols are distorted in the upload. I tried to correct them but I could not because it is not allowing me to do so. if someone can help me- i will be thankful.

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Page 1: Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

Working Paper 5 in Semantics 12th July 2000 1 Derivation of Meaning in ProverbsDerivation of Meaning in Proverbs: A Ka:rmik Linguistic Analysis Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar, CIEFL, Hyderabad, India

Symbols used in the Article

I-I-I Network Node; Impacts on; Gives Rise to by Transformation;

Leads to in the Direction of the Arrow; Apparently Transforms into;

∧ Reflected on (like an adjunct) ∨ Reflected in (like a quality); Delink

intrer-categorially leads to as opposed to Intra-categorially leads to

a:nushangikally gives rise to; inherently qualified ; Through the Means of

Connecting Node in a Cyclic Network; Superimposed On is analyzed

● Heart or Nucleus of the Circular/Cyclic Network

The Individual Consciousness (soul or the ji:va)

The Triad of Qualities [sattva (luminosity or cognitivity) giving knowledge of activity; rajas (activity or analyticity) giving choice and pattern of activity by traits; and tamas (inertia or substantivity) giving inertia or materiality of activity by va:sana:s] of Disposition.

Horizontal Line; Vertical Line; Diagonal Line; Horizontal, Vertical, and Diagonal AxesI, II, III, and IV the quadrants 1, 2, 3, and 4

Reversal of OrderI. IntroductionWhen proverbs are used, they are understood, misunderstood, or even not understood depending on the abilities of the participants in the discourse. When both the speaker and the hearer 1. know the referential, prototypical, and contextual meanings correctly and at the same time, 2. the performance (by the speaker) and the reception (by the hearers) are also successful, the proverb is understood; on the other hand, if any one of them is defective either in the knowledge of the meaning of the proverb or the performance/reception, the proverb will be misunderstood; and finally, if the speaker is successful while the hearer is defective in the knowledge or

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

reception of the proverb and vice versa, the proverb may not be understood at all. For a successful encoding or decoding of a proverb, the following conditions are necessary.

1. The meaning of the proverb as an expression (sentence or phrase)-in-context (an expression that was formed by its use in a context but now a potential utterance, but not an actual utterance as opposed to a sentence- in- vacuo which is not so formed) should be clear to both the speaker and the hearer.

2. The speaker should have the proverbial competence to perform the utterance of the proverb appropriately in an actual world and performed it accordingly. 3. The hearer should have the proverbial inference (decoding) ability and inferred it accordingly.

If any of the abilities are lacking in the participants, the use of the proverb will be a failure, and if all of them are present, it will be a successful performance. Therefore, it is essential to know why and how proverbs mean what they mean and what is the process of their use and inference. Let us discuss these issues one by one.

A. Propositional Meaning in Proverbs: Its DerivationProverbs have different meanings. First, as an expression (a phrase, a sentence, or even more than one sentence including Wellerisms), it has a literal meaning. A literal meaning is the expressional meaning derived from the collective literary meaning of all the words in the expression. A literary meaning is derived not only from literal proverbs such as Honesty is the best policy; It is easier to forgive than forget; Reason succeeds where force fails; etc. but also figurative proverbs such as Faraway cows have long horns; A dead dog never bites; Sleeping cats catch no mice; etc. Let us take the following examples for an illustration of their literal meaning.

1 Set: Literal Proverbs i. Honesty is the best policy. ii. A little learning is a dangerous thing. iii. That must be true which all men say? iv. When in doubt, leave it out. v. Better late than never.

In Set 1, the literal meaning of the sentences is the sentence-in-context meaning of the proverb in a possible world (because the proverb is not yet used in a real world). For example, A little learning is a dangerous thing has the meaning with the proposition P that a little learning is a dangerous thing as an assertion. This is its literal or referential meaning. When the

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

proverb is used as an utterance, for example, in the following Indian English conversation that took place between two brothers (A: elder; B: younger) in a real world– A injured his leg badly while taking his moped up the footsteps into the house and got a bandage from an allopath; after five days he took a dose of Natrum Mur 200 on his own:

A: I thought a higher dose of Natrum Mur will heal my bruise quickly, but now, all over my body, I got black pigmentation.

B: A little learning is a dangerous thing. Consult a qualified homeopath immediately. It is not good to take medicines without proper knowledge.

A little learning is a dangerous thing means exactly that much with reference to the use of medicines, i.e., an incomplete knowledge (about homoeopathic medicines) is dangerous as dispositionally cognized by the speaker irrespective of its truth value -- the user might or might not have used the medicine according to the science of homoeopathy -- because it may not be adequate enough to treat an illness and therefore such an inadequate knowledge may lead to problems instead of solving the problem, if it is prohibited. To put it technically, the literal meaning of the proverb is the same as the utterance meaning of the same proverb – of course, it is contextually extended to imply knowledge about homoeopathic medicines, giving its third level meaning which is the contextual meaning (which will be discussed later). Proverbs such as these whose literal (sentence or referential) meaning and utterance meaning are the same are called direct (as opposed to indirect) proverbial speech acts. This meaning is captured in the following equation (1):

(1) Proverbial Meaning :Literal (Referential or Sentence) Meaning Utterance Meaning

Proverb Meaning

2 Set: Figurative ProverbsThere are many types of proverbs which contain figures of speech such as simile, hyperbole, paradox, metaphor, etc. A few examples are discussed below to arrive at a generalization about the meaning in figurative proverbs.

2.1. Similaic Proverbs i. News spreads like wild fire. ii. Calumny is like coal – it either burns you or besmirches you. iii. Money, like promises, is easier made than kept. iv. Like mother, like daughter. v. Disgraces are like cherries: one draws another.

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

In 2.1. Similaic Proverbs, we have examples of proverbs whose literal (sentence or referential) meaning is dependent on the figurative meaning of the sentence. For example, the sentence-in-context meaning of the proverb News spreads like wild fire is first, dependent on the figurative meaning (simile) used in the proverb by implicature from the general and cultural knowledge at the internal structural level. Like wild fire is the figure of speech (simile) used in the proverb. That characteristic property which is culturally associated with wild fire, namely, its spreading rapidly is first attributed to wild fire – this property is generally selected out of a number of other properties from its dispositional general cognition as a common and familiar property which sticks out prominently (as salient). Second, this characteristic property is transferred into the simile; and finally, the sentence is endowed with that meaning. It is shown in the following equation (2) in three stages.

(2) Proverb Meaning of News spreads like wild fire: Stage I a. News spreads [like wild fire] S V A (Prepositional Phrase of Manner)

b. News spreads [like wild fire spreads]

c. Wild fire spreads …. How? Very rapidly

Stage IIAdding this dispositionally chosen characteristic as a culturally chosen characteristic into the sentence, we get:

d. News spreads like wild fire spreads very rapidly.

Stage IIINow if we delete the Adverbial like wild fire and retain the characteristic property very rapidly (instantaneously), we get:

e. News spreads very rapidly.

[This is its Prototypical Meaning which will be discussed in the next section.]

This is the meaning by paraphrase. But the hearer does not understand the proverb with this paraphrased meaning; he understands the proverb to mean this (2e) via the image but not independently of the image. Had the paraphrased meaning only is meant, then the proverb would not have been coined to be so with the image by violating the Gricean Maxims of Quantity (stating more than what is required by giving the additional information

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

through the simile ‘like wild fire’) and Manner (by not being brief; by being obscure). The very fact that there is an image which violates the Cooperative Principle proves that it has a function to serve – this function here is either a function of expressing the abstract meaning (of spreading so quickly) by a concrete example as wild fire (does) for which there is no equivalent word; or a function of creating aesthetic appeal by evoking a powerful image of wild fire. So as this paraphrased meaning is derived, it is derived a:nushangikally via the image in three stages as follows: 1 2 (Literal or Referential Meaning)f. News spreads like wild fire News spreads like wild fire which

spreads very rapidly (+News spreads like wild fire) 3 (Prototypical Meaning)

News spreads very rapidly [+ like wild fire spreads very rapidly + (like wild fire)]

Therefore, if this proverb is used in a real world, its utterance meaning has to be derived via its figurative meaning, if there is any such meaning. Most importantly, this figurative meaning should be pro-culturally derived; if not, its appropriate meaning will not be arrived at. For example, wild fire also destroys the flora and the fauna in the wild (jungle or bush land) and so the meaning can as well be News spreads like wild fire which ruins many people around the hearers of the news which is not the intended meaning of the proverb. Just like a literal proverb, the meaning of the proverb is determined from the meaning of the words collectively but pro-culturally through salience. That means that the literal (referential) meaning in proverbs is simply not literal but socioculturalspiritually literal.

In a similar way, in the proverb More like the devil than St. Laurence, unless and otherwise we know what characteristics are culturally bestowed on devil and St. Laurence, we will not be able to construct the meaning of the proverb as a sentence-in-context in a possible world. Since proverbs are thoroughly culture bound, meaning in proverbs is intrinsically culture specific and a lack of cultural knowledge causes a failure in understanding the meaning of the proverb. Examples such as the ones given above are relatively simple because of the familiarity of the words or concepts, but some proverbs are very difficult to understand in view of the cultural obscurity of the proposition in the proverb. Similaic proverbs such as As wise as Waltham’s calf in English or Parama:nandayya sishyulu la:ga ‘Like Parama:nandayya’s disciples’ in Telugu are difficult proverbs in the sense that they require more in depth knowledge of the culture in a society. Even if we know the cultural referents such as Waltham or Parama:nandayya, there is no guarantee that the meaning can be correctly derived. For example, one may know about Waltham but that does not give us any clue about the proverb; unless we know that his calf ran a long distance to drink milk from a bull and came back in vain, we will not be in a position to derive

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

its meaning. In a similar way, even if we know about Parama:nandayya (who is a learned scholar) but not about his disciples (who always behaved stupidly), we will not be able to understand the proverb meaning. Therefore, not only the salient meaning chosen by the culture but also the knowledge of the legends associated with the words to arrive at the salient meaning is required to calculate the implicature correctly.

(3a) Similaic Proverb Meaning: Literal Meaning Similaic Meaning (+ Literal Meaning)

Expanded Similaic Meaning (+ Similaic Meaning + Literal Meaning)

In the case of similaic proverbs, the same principle of comparison is used to clarify and elaborate the social practice which can be categorially instantiated in the conduct of the socioculturalspiritual living of the proverb community and facilitate the appropriate use of the proverb to construct the similaic dispositional (ka:rmik) reality of the categorial social practice.

(3b) Simile - Clarification and Elaboration of the Social Practice - Clarified and Elaborated Prototypical Practice

2.2: Hyperbolical Proverbs i. The buzz of a mosquito can drown out the ocean’s roar. ii. Deviate an inch, lose a thousand miles. iii. With seven nurses a child will be without eyes. iv. The coward dies many times. v. Don’t make a mountain of a molehill.

The referential meaning of these hyperbolical proverbs is simply the meaning of the words taken collectively. For example, the proverb Deviate an inch, lose a thousand miles means the P that You deviate an inch, you lose a thousand miles; the proverb The coward dies many times means the P that The coward dies many times; and so on. The hyperbole is a part of the referential meaning a:nushangikally inherited from the referential meaning.

(4a) Proverb Meaning: Literal Meaning Hyperbolical Meaning (+Literal Meaning)

Expanded Hyperbolical Meaning [+Hyperbolical Meaning (+Literal Meaning)]

In the case of hyperbolical proverbs, the same principle of overstatement to attract the attention by rousing the interest of the hearer is used as pointed out by Leech (1983: 145); here, the maxim of quality (truth value) is violated to achieve the effect; alternatively, it is also used to highlight the social practice by increasing the prominence through the means of the hyperbole – the hyperbole is used as a means to achieve the goal of highlighting the

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

social practice; the second use seems to be more applicable in the formation of proverbs:

(4b) Hyperbole – Interest Arousal – Highlighted Prototypical Social Practice

However, the hyperbole is on the social practice which can be categorially instantiated in the conduct of the socioculturalspiritual living of the proverb community and facilitate the appropriate use of the proverb to construct the hyperbolical dispositional (ka:rmik) reality of the categorial social practice.

In this set, we also have sentences which are hyperbolical on the one hand and metaphorical on the other hand. All of them taken literally do not fit the world. Let us take an example. In the first sentence of The buzz of a mosquito can drown out the ocean’s roar, a buzz (a property of sound) has no property of drowning (a property of a liquid); second, an ocean cannot roar, since roaring is a quality of an animate object such as an animal like a lion; third, the sound made by the buzz of a mosquito is many decibels less than that of the sound of an ocean’s wave (breaking on the shore). All these states of affairs in the world do not fit with the sentence meaning. Yet, this is a sentence-in-context in addition to a sentence in vacuo. Then, how is the meaning derived by a speaker to mean “something” and how does the hearer decode the “something”. Surely, there must be a process by which the encoding should correspond with decoding and vice versa. In order to do so, a hearer must first of all know the use of figurative language whose conventions are equally shared by any member of the proverb community without which successful communication fails. Once he understands this convention, he tries to derive the meaning either algorithmically (if he has no thorough knowledge about the proverb), or heuristically (if he has a partial knowledge of the proverb), or automatically (if he has complete knowledge about the proverb) – this is a very important cognitive processing technique.

In this case of this proverb, the hearer has to get the meaning of the proverb in three successive stages of computation of: 1. the referential meaning; 2. the figurative meaning; and 3. the combined meaning by integration and binding.

In the first stage, the referential meaning of the proverb is interpreted and cognized to be the collective meaning of all the words in the sentence form. That is to say that the referential meaning of the proverb is the propositional meaning P that The buzz of a mosquito can drown out the ocean’s roar as an assertion.

As soon as he arrives at the propositional meaning P that The buzz of a mosquito can drown out the ocean’s roar as an assertion, he realizes that

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

there is no fit between the state of affairs given in the sentence and the real world but the sentence cannot be wrong since the speaker is following the Cooperative Principle (CP) of Grice. Therefore, he interprets the sentence as a proverb and the literal meaning as a figurative meaning based on the CP – to do so he has the knowledge of such a linguistic convention in the society – and comes to the intuitive understanding that it is a hyperbolical assertion since the truth condition of the assertion is not satisfied: The buzz of a mosquito cannot drown out the ocean’s roar. Again, a buzz cannot drown a roar since sound cannot have the property of drowning and hence it should be metaphorical (synaesthesia). The hearer unpacks the metaphorical meaning and paraphrases it as equivalent to “make… inaudible”/ “suppresses”: The buzz of a mosquito can make the ocean’s roar inaudible. Finally, he combines the meataphorical and hyperbolical meaning and integrates them into the literal meaning as shown below.

(4c) Proverb Meaning: Literal Meaning Hyperbolical Meaning (+ Literal Meaning)

Metaphorical Meaning (+ Literal Meaning + Hyperbolical Meaning) Expanded Figurative Meaning [+Metaphorical Meaning +

Hyperbolical Meaning (+Literal Meaning)]

In formal linguistic analysis, there is a separation between literal and figurative meanings since they are atomic in their approach but in ka:rmik linguistics, they are not separated but interconnected-interrelated-interdependent since it is a holistic approach: When the proverb The buzz of a mosquito can drown out the ocean’s roar is used, it means all the literal, figurative, and the combined meanings together as a whole in a single unit called cogneme but not separately or in parallel. Let us call this the Wholistic Meaning to distinguish it from the holistic meaning. What is more, this cogneme is open-ended and expands, integrates, and binds the referential into the prototypical into the contextual meaning also in it as it is used in an exchange in a context and then leads to the experience of the results of action as the Experiential Meaning. This experiential meaning is derived as the Ka:rmik Meaning through Language as a Means. From this ka:rmik meaning, proverbial ka:rmik reality is constructed when a proverb is used in an exchange/discourse; and when they are remembered by individuals, or stored in the collective memory of a proverb community, or recorded in books, they are done so as proverbial-ka:rmik-reality-realizing-linguistic-means. This is with reference to the use of language as proverbs for the construction of (proverbial) ka:rmik reality.

These concepts are captured succinctly in equations as follows:

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

(4d) Typification of Meaning:Literal Meaning / Figurative Meaning Literary Meaning (+ Figurative Meaning) Atomic Meaning Holistic Meaning

Literal as the Figurative as the Combined Meaning as a CognemeWholistic Meaning (Ka:rmik Meaning)

OR

Literal Meaning ●

Figurative Meaning Combined Meaning

Cogneme

Experiential Meaning Ka:rmik Meaning

Legend: Disposition; ● Consciousness; gives rise to by transformation; leads to; reciprocally leads to; inter-categorially leads to; ● Dispositionally-Qualified- Consciousness (D.Q.E.)

(4e) Meaning of a Proverb:

i. Atomic Meaning:a. Literal Meaning / Figurative Meaning

b. Referential Meaning / Prototypical Meaning / Contextual Meaning

ii. Holistic Meaning: a. Literal Meaning + Figurative Meaning

b. [Referential Meaning + Prototypical Meaning + Contextual Meaning]

iii. Wholistic Meaning (= Ka:rmik Meaning)a. Literal Meaning as Figurative Meaning as Combined Meaning as a

Cognemeb. [Referential Meaning as Prototypical Meaning as Contextual

Meaning as a Cogneme = Experiential Meaning]

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

(4f)

[Ka:rmik Impulsion (Experiential)] [Dispositional Impulsion (Choice of Action)

Cognitive Impulsion (Deliberation of Action) Conceptual Impulsion (Binding of Action)

Actional Impulsion (for Materialization of Action): Will] (gives rise to)

Action (Mental/Vocal (Proverbial)/Physical)[Karma is an experiential principle of cause-effect reality in KLT and is realized through disposition (svabha:vam) which gives rise to choice of activity, impressionality of activity (va;sana:s) which gives rise to the

pattern of the concerned activity, and experientiality of activity (bho:gam) which gives rise to the ultimate experience of action.]

(4g)Action (Proverbial Utterance) [Deliberation of Proverbial Meaning Interpretation Experience of the Proverbial

Meaning] Realization of Ka:rmik Meaning

(5)a. Consciousness (C) ∧ Karma (K) K – Qualified - C.

OR ● ∧ K K ●

b. K – Qualified - C ∧ Disposition (D) C – Qualified - D. OR K ● ∧ ●

c. C.Q.D. ∧ Context Desire Effort Differentiated Awareness Conception

[d. Trait ∨ Knolwledge ∨ Va:sana Conception]

[Legend : ∧ Reflected on (like an adjunct) ∨ Reflected in (like a quality)]

e. Conception:Objectification (This and That - Cognition) Classification (So

and So - System / Paradigm) Qualification (Such and Such - Structure)

(see the conceptual axis graph for a graphic representation of Conception)

Consciousness is the unchangeable substratum of Pure Awareness (Static Consciousness) and gives rise to Pure Cognition (Static Cognition). When it is charged with Karma, it becomes Karma-Qualified-Consciousness/Awareness/Cognition and gives rise to

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

Disposition. Again, when Consciousness is charged with Disposition, it becomes Disposition-Qualified-Consciousness and gives rise to Disposition-Qualified- Awareness/Cognition. Conception of an Object/State of Being/Action is an apparent transformation of the Karma-Qualified-Cognition (K.Q.Cog.) which is the Ultimate Cause into Dispositional- Qualified-Cognition (D.Q.Cog) which is the Immediate Cause into the cognition of this and that as so and so in such and such a manner as the conception (which is the means) into the experiential cognition (which is the effect). The K.Q.Cog is the invisible cause of D.Q.Cog. which is inferential. D.Q.Cog. remains as it is like light but projects a conception on it by apparently transforming the sides of the triangle of disposition into a star which can have many rays and so twinkles (1…n) depending upon the nature of conception that gives rise to the cogneme.

Basically, there are three components to disposition (Traits-Knowledge-Va:sana) and Traits are further divided into the three qualities of Sattva (Cognitivity or Luminosity) -Rajas (activity)-Tamas (Inertia). In equilibrium, all these three qualities are static and do not create any disturbance in the awareness of the Dispositionally-Qualified-Consciousness. To explain it further, the state of cognition is static and remains inactive and therefore remains as the basic cognition without any projections. Once the qualities get disturbed by the impact of knowledge gained from sensory perception in the immediate context/or previous experience (memory and va:sana:s), they act upon the mind and stir the cognition into activity and thus make it kinetic. Consequently, there will be a change in the state of rest of cognition giving rise to an apparent transformation of blank cognition (which is like a rock) into a cognition of conception of this and that as so and so in such and such a manner (which is like the figure to be sculptured on the rock) under the influence of disposition like the coloured crystals in a kaleidoscope producing different colours under their influence. Conceptualization is thus dispositionally generated, specified, directed and materialized. Finally, the concept is formed to be so and the state of cognition is synoptic (which is like the finished sculpture). Even though Disposition has no power of cognition, by virtue of being qualified by Consciousness, it springs into action and produces the specific cognition.

There is an interesting Principle of Reversal of Order in cognition also. First, Disposition qualifies Consciousness to make it Dispositionally-qualified-Consciousness (DQC); second, by a reversal of order, Consciousness qualifies Disposition to make it Consciousness- qualified –Disposition (CQD); third, this CQD is the one that produces phenomenal conceptualization and its cognition.

(5f) D + C DQC CQD Dispositional Conceptualization of Lingual Action

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

The transformation from static-to-kinetic-to-synoptic cognition is generally automatic in casual conversation and fast writing but can be heuristic or algorithmic in cultivated or contemplative or creative thinking. After the conceptualization of the action, it is performed to get the desire fulfilled and eventually the speaker experiences the result of the action as experiential meaning as ka:rmik meaning, in this case, as proverbial-action-experience-meaning as proverbial ka:rmik meaning. As he experiences the meaning, the state of cognition is experiential and the awareness is experiential awareness.

(5g:1 and 2) Evolution of Cognition:

1. ● ● Static Dispositional Kinetic Dispositional Synoptic Dispsoitional Cognition Conception Concept

Experiential Dispositional (Ka:rmik) Concept Experiential Cognition

Experience of Action (Experiential Awareness).

2. Causal Cognition of Action Dispositional Cognition of Action

Cognition of Action Experiential Cognition of Action

[ intrer-categorially leads to as opposed to (Intra-categorially) leads to]

2. 3: Parodoxical Proverbs i. What is hard to bear is sweet to remember. ii. The greatest hate comes from the greatest love. iii. So near and yet so far. iv. Many a good cow has a bad calf. v. He that speaks ill of the mare will buy her. vi. Life is hard by the yard, but by the inch, life’s a cinch. vii. The only way to save an hour is spend it wisely. viii. Least said, soonest mended. ix. A good offence is the best defence.

As observed in the case of the hyperbolical proverbs, the referential meaning is simply the meaning of the words taken collectively. For example, the proverb What is hard to bear is sweet to remember means the

……..

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

proposition P that What is hard to bear is sweet to remember; and so on in the case of other proverbs also. The paradox is a part of the referential meaning a:nushangikally inherited from the referential meaning.

(6) Proverb Meaning: Literal Meaning Paradoxical Meaning (+Literal Meaning)

Expanded Paradoxical Meaning [+Paradoxical Meaning (+Literal Meaning)]

The paradoxical meaning is derived by a socioculturalspiritual implicature of the shared knowledge of the proverb community. Otherwise, a proverb like A good offence is the best defence becomes illocutionarily impossible. The assertion of an offence implies an attack and not defence. Therefore, offence cannot be defence. Consequently, it is illogical. However, if it is understood that the meaning has a presupposition: That defending oneself is best accomplished by attacking, the meaning becomes logical. By violating the Maxim of Quality via the socioculturalspiritual knowledge of the proverb community and embedding the directly paradoxical pair of words such as hate and love, good and bad, save and spend, etc., or indirectly paradoxical practices such as speak ill and buy, least said and soonest mended, etc., the concerned social practice is highlighted by increasing the prominence through the means of the paradox – the paradox is used as a means to achieve the goal of highlighting the social practice; alternatively, as explained in the case of the hyperbolical proverbs, paradox is used to attract the attention of the hearer by rousing his interest. The second function of aesthetic appeal seems to be complementary to the first function of highlighting the social practice in the formation of proverbs. From a synoptic perspective, different functions are interconnected-interrelated-interdependent and they may be linear, parallel, or radial.

2. 4: Metaphorical Proverbs 2.4.1: Literal Practices as Metaphorical Proverbs i. Do not look a gift horse in the mouth. ii. An early bird catches the worm. iii. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. iv. You scratch my back; I scratch your back. 2.4.2: Metaphorical Words in Proverbs i. What is the good of a fair apple if it has a worm in its heart? ii. Don’t monkey with the bandwagon if you cannot play the horn. iii. If the beard were all, the goat might preach. iv. Every dog is a lion at home.In the 2.4 Set, we have the so-called metaphorical proverbs which are predominant in the proverbial genre. Surprisingly, most of these proverbs in vacuo cannot be considered metaphorical in the first instance. For example, Do not look a gift horse in the mouth simply means a directive to not look a gift horse in the mouth; An early bird catches the worm means an

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

assertion stating a belief that P (where P= that an early bird catches the worm); and What is the good of a fair apple if it has a worm in its heart? is a rhetorical question with a negative assertion that P (where P= if it has a worm in its heart). These sentences even as sentences- in – contexts in a possible world need not necessarily be proverbs. For example, in the context of a possible world, where one presents a horse to another – for instance as I was presented horses by the Shehu of Borno, the Waziri of Borno, and the Governor of Borno, Nigeria – and the receiver of the gift looks into the mouth – it is a sociocultural practice to examine the teeth of a horse to determine its age and thus assess its value: the younger the horse, the better its value - the third person witnessing the action may say this sentence: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. [In the mouth is a synecdoche for teeth – this use is also not metaphorical. [Other simple examples are the common social animal practices in proverbs such as You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink; A scary horse needs a stout bridle; A boisterous horse requires a boisterous bridle (British). These proverbs have a real animal social practice as their propositional content and the proverbs are literal in their content but turned metaphorical in their application. In the case of You scratch my back; I scratch your back, it is a human social practice.]

In such a context of use in a possible world, the utterance need not have the force of a proverb if the speaker intended the utterance only as literal advice or command, according to the custom. In such a case it means the same as a proverb but not in the same manner. The meaning of the utterance is not derived via the frozen cultural prototypical illocutionary force of the meaning but as an individual opinion following the politeness principle. Such utterances cannot be used metaphorically in other contexts – they are not sortally incorrect. For example, one cannot say this sentence when you receive a pen as a gift; if you say it, it is understood as a proverb via the prototypical meaning. In other words all such utterances need not be proverbs even though all proverbs can be used in such contexts exactly with the same wording. Hence there is an asymmetric relationship between such utterances and proverbs. That is why, a sentence like Don’t stare (at) a guest in the house is not a proverb even though it is also a similar piece of cultural advice in a similar syntactic structure.

When such a use is taken as a categorial practice and is made the exemplar of such a social practice of condemning the evaluation of gifts as impolite, it gains the status of a prototypical practice, consequently gaining a new meaning that contains the core features of the categorial practice without the image-meaning. [In literal proverbs, there is no image-meaning and therefore the referential meaning is equal to the prototypical meaning: (7) Literal Proverbs: Referential Meaning = Prototypical meaning.]

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Here, the status of the same practice is apparently transformed by superimposition (vivartam by adhya:sa) from an instance of an individual practice to an instance of a categorial practice by looking at it as a member of such similar categories of practices to an instance of a prototypical practice by gradual evolution (karma srushti) in a linear, temporal sequence. In terms of cognition, an expressed meaning in the text of the proverb embodying the individual practice evolves into a prototypical meaning embodying an evolved meaning which when used in a context becomes the contextual meaning embodying an emergent meaning.

(8) a. Individual Practice Categorial Practice Looking at the teeth of horse gifted Looking at the teeth

of a horse gifted Prototypical Practice

Looking at the contents of a present

b. Referential Meaning Categorial Meaning

Don’t look at the teeth of a gift horse Don’t look at the teeth of a gift horse

Prototypical Meaning Don’t evaluate the contents of a present

c. Expressed Meaning Evolved Meaning Emergent Meaning.

OF a social practice THROUGH social practices IN a contextual social practice (Referential Meaning) (Prototypical Meaning) (Contextual Meaning)If the same sentence Do not look a gift horse in the mouth is considered a sentence in a context in a possible world situation, other than the original context of the proverb (i.e., a situation in which one looks into the mouth of a gift horse), it will be a proverb in that context with that semantic interpretation. That is to say that this utterance will be considered a cultural practice and its referential meaning as such will be extended to derive its prototypical meaning ‘that it is not good manners to evaluate a gift in terms of its worth’ and furthermore, it will be superimposed on the categorial action in the context to derive its final contextual meaning. Therefore, it is a negative condition that proverbs used in their original context (from which the proverb took off) need not be proverbial:

(9) a. A: Non-Verbal Action (presents a horse)B: NV (looks in the mouth and checks the teeth)

C: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

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[literal advice in the form of a sortally correct sentence as not a proverb; with a falling intonation on ‘in the mouth]

b. A: Non-Verbal Action (presents an ordinary horse) B: How much is this? C: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

[a sortally incorrect sentence as metaphorical advice as a proverb]

c. A: Non-Verbal Action (presents an ordinary shirt) B: How much is this? C: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

[a proverb as metaphorical advice]

d. A: Non-Verbal Action (presents a horse)B: NV (looks in the mouth and checks the teeth)

C: ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’. [a sortally incorrect sentence citation of a proverb; with a rising intonation

starting from ‘Don’t……’]

In (9a), the sentence-in-context as an utterance is not a proverb because it had not yet become a proverb by cultural authorization whereas in (9d), the already formed proverb is used in the context as an utterance by citation to contextually mean the prototypical meaning but not merely the referential meaning and so it can be considered a proverb.

The vivartam (apparent transformation) of an individual practice into a categorial practice is by gradual evolution (karma srushti); it is generally but not necessarily achieved when an individual uses this practice as a means to interpret an unfamiliar (known to the society but not familiar) / unknown (not yet discovered) /abstract practice or phenomenon by using it as a simile. Later on, as this comparison/contrast is used and polished by many individuals during the course of time and gains currency as a popular illustration of the practice, it achieves the status of a standard example and becomes salient. In the mean time, all other practices which are similar to this practice are categorized as belonging to a class or group. By this categorization, it becomes a categorial practice and again as a salient practice, it is chosen as the exemplar par excellence of all other practices which are classed with this practice. Hence, it becomes a prototypical practice for all the other categorial practices by gradual evolution.

This is an interesting Process of Reversal of Order (indicated by / ) by the Principle of Individual – Contextual - Collective Standardization observed in many ka:rmik linguistic processes. It offers an important counter-evidence to the Innateness Hypothesis of Chomsky or Language as Social Action of Halliday. First, an action is performed by a dispositional choice; second, it is dispositionally used to interpret other similar practices

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that are obtained in the conduct of living of the proverb community in which it is used; third, as it is used to do so, all such similar practices are grouped together as a class or category; and finally, this particular practice, by virtue of being used as a means to interpret other similar practices, becomes prominent or salient and is dispositionally chosen to interpret and represent all other such similar practices that may occur in future. Salience of this practice emerged out of its popular dispositional choice and not out of its intrinsic value – for example, gold is still salient in our modern cultures even though platinum is a nobler metal than gold in the periodic table; so also A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush is salient whereas A pig in the pen is worth two in the market is not in the English proverb community; green in Distant hills are green in English is salient but not in Telugu where it is soft: Du:rapu (far away) kondalu (hills) nunupu (soft) ‘Distant hills are soft’. In other words, first it is dispositionally categorized, and next it is dispositionally used to categorize bringing about a reversal in its use:

(10) a. Action Categorial Action Salient Action Prototypical Action

b. Action Prototypical Action Categorial Action

An important point to note is the way in which proverbs are formed as language. The Principles of Awareness, Cognition, Analyticity, Memory, and Vocalization, and Disposition, Action and its Experience are all innate to every human being. That is why we find them universally across all places, and races governed by Universal Sciences of Action (physics, chemistry, and mathematics), Living (physiology, psychology, cognitive science, and medicine), and Lingual Action (linguistics). However, there is no universal language but many languages in practice (Samskrit, Hebrew, Telugu, Hixkaryana, etc). Just as human beings have developed many cultures, and religions, so also many languages must have been developed by them according to these Universal Sciences of Action, Living, and Lingual Action. We can see this kind of evolution from a historical study of various language phenomena such as the change in the syntactic typology of English from SOV to SVO; loss of cases; semantic changes; new word –formation processes, etc.

2.4.3. Motivation of Metaphoricity in Proverbs

a. Principle of Least Effort in Formation of a ProverbOne way to motivate the formation of metaphorical proverbs is through cognitive processing patterns: Human beings tend to give preference to simplicity over complexity in cognitive processing by the Principle of Least Effort, in the absence of an easily available concept. Here, the prototype can be cognized with effort but the users are lazy to do so. For example, an

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already available social practice can be easily extended to other social practices for categorization by the Principle of Productive Extension of Variables (PEV) in which an already existing variable (obtained by ECV) is taken as the base and modified either at the paradigmatic or syntagmatic levels by dispositional creativity. For example, in affixation, the paradigm is shifted from, say, prefixation to suffixation or circumfixation in word-formation; in semantics, the meaning of an existing word is extended to cover other meanings leading to polysemy (e.g., party having many meanings: tea-party; congress party); similarly, a stitch in time saves nine is extended to be metaphorical and made a prototype. This principle can be overruled in favour of other principles such as the Principles of Aesthetic/Functional/Structural Appeals according to the dispositionality of the users: as the workman, so is his work.

b. Complexity in PrototypicalizationAnother way to motivate the formation of proverbs is through the complexity in categorization and derivation of a prototype:

i. The concerned prototypical practice is vague and invisible to naked cognition and requires microscopic cognition through the instrumentality of a metaphorical social practice and hence difficult to prototypicalize by paraphrase; (e.g., Don’t expect three legs on a cat when you know he has four; Revenge is like biting a dog because he bit you; as wise as Waltham’s cow). In such formations, the derivation of the prototypical meaning requires effort and the image is generally a complex category prototype;

ii. so also, sometimes, the complex category prototype image forms an integral part of the meaning and so requires the metaphor to capture that shade of meaning precisely; in addition, the range, depth, and variety of meaning is sometimes enhanced by the metaphor (e.g., He who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword; An eye for an eye turns the whole world blind; Like a fish out of water);

iii. someother times, the aesthetic appeal of the image rules supreme and decides the metaphorical choice (e.g., A forgotten switch may cause a wreck; One swine recognizes another; Who yaps like a dog will be beaten like a dog). In addition, such proverbs reduce the premium on encoding and decoding the meaning. Here, the image may be a simple or complex category prototype.

c. Ease in the Computation of MeaningIt is easier to compute the contextual meaning of a categorial practice which may be abstract/new/unfamiliar through a concrete/known/familiar practice embodied in the metaphor. The computation is from category to

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category via the already present attributes rather than the abstract meaning in the prototype where the concrete attributes are not present. This is a pragmatic advantage for both the hearer and the speaker: the speaker encodes the new contextual meaning easily because he knows it already through another category and so does the hearer decode it. For example, in the following Telugu conversation between my mother and me about the decoration of Sri Ka:lima:tha in Her Temple in our town, the meaning is quickly and evocatively captured through the image of a decorated doll and an undressed doll in the proverb:

(11) A : puvvulu ti:se:ste:, vigraham andamga le:du.‘(If you) remove(ing) the flowers, the idol is unattractive’

B : avunu, undade:miti? Manishi ku:da: ante: alanka:ram So will it not be ? Even a man (is) also like that, if the

decoration is tise:ste: removed.

Anni: pedite: bommakka, anni: tiste: timmakka. (If you) put(ting) all Sister Doll, removing all Sister Thimma. ‘If put everything, Bommakka; if removed everything, Thimmakka’

[Bommakka is a prototype of a beautiful well-dressed country lass; and Thimmakka another prototype of an ill-looking country wench]

Some proverbs on the contrary – unlike metaphorical proverbs - can be used only in restricted contexts when they refer to a particular subject only. A few examples are given below.

3 Set: Restricted (Subject Specific) Proverbs i. Women are saints in church, angels in the street, devils in the kitchen, and apes in bed. ii. Good coffee should be black as sin, strong as the devil, and hot as hell. iii. A woman’s place is in the house. iv. Don’t spend all your money in one place. v. A good surgeon must have an eagle’s eye, a lion’s heart, and a lady’s hand.

Such proverbs as mentioned above are restricted in their application to specific subjects: women, coffee, money, surgeon, etc. Their range is restricted only to those subjects and not others unlike the literal or metaphorical proverbs which can be applied to refer to various subjects. For example, A woman’s place is in the house can be applied in situations

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where women only are the subject, and not other subjects such as men. On the other hand, literal proverbs like Honesty is the best policy or metaphorical proverbs like An early bird catches the worm can be applied in a wide variety of situations from business to marriage: an early bird can be anybody who is early in doing some work; honesty can be in any situation.

B. Syntactic Meaning in Proverbs: Its Derivation

B.1. Syntactic Meaning of Parallel PatternsA proverb by definition contains the essential feature “prototype’ along with the other essential features “cultural confirmation”, and “frozen textuality” in its definition whichis given by Bhuvaneswar (2002) as follows:

(12) A proverb is a culturally confirmed frozen text ofa prototypical practice (or illocution).

In this definition, the concept of frozen textuality is easily determined as a formal feature: a fixed and finite set of words in a syntactic pattern. Hence, the number of words, their arrangement in an order, and the syntactic pattern in which these words are arranged are fixed for a particular proverb. Any variation in that particular order leads to a variation in the proverb and the original proverb becomes the formal prototype for the rest of the proverbs which are its categories. The core features of the formal-categorial proverbs are largely determined by their semantic features (as indicated in their referential meaning) and their similarity with that of the prototypical proverb with a variation in the fringe features which are largely determined by lexico-syntactic considerations. Let us take a proverb to illustrate this point.

(13) Better late than never.In this proverb, there are four words: better, late, than, and never and they are arranged in that serial order of words in the elliptical syntactic construction of comparative degree. Its referential meaning is:

(14a) (It is) better (to be) late (in doing something) than never (doing it).

This proverb is given as the original proverb and four variations in this proverb are listed in ADAP (1992: 360-61; 51) as follows:

(14.b.1) Better to be late than never, but better never late.(14.b.2) Better late than never, but better never late.

(14.b.3) Better late than never, but better still never late.

(14.b.4) Better late than never, but better yet, never late.

(14.b.5) Better late than not at all.

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(14.c) A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush

Any proverb of this type has a typical syntactic pattern: Better X than Y. In the formation of a proverb of this syntactic type, this pattern functions as a prototype and the speaker creates a proverb with a particular social practice as the content of the proverb. For example, the preference for being late to not doing a thing at all; the preference for choosing something which is available to choosing something which is not available; the preference for buying to borrowing; and so on. Within that syntactic prototype, there may be minor variations which do not affect the basic pattern of comparison. For example, a comparative sentence may be ellipted or slightly changed in the pattern or a new word may be used:

(14b) It is better to be late than never Vs

Better late than never (it is … to be ellipted) Vs

(14e) Better late than not at all Vs

[(14.c.1) Better to be late than never, but better never late

(to be … retained but it is … ellipted and an extension to the syntactic pattern is introduced with a conjunction of exception but);

(14.c.2) Better late than never, but better never late (to be … is also ellipted); and

(14.d.1) Better late than never, but better still never late (an adverb still is added to the extension);

(14.d.2) Better late than never, but better yet, never late (a new adverb yet replaces the old one in the extension)].

In the case of (14b) and (14e), the meaning is the same but there is a change in the words: never is replaced by not at all. In the case of ellipsis, there is a tension between clarity and brevity (via aesthetic appeal) and brevity won the case; hence, there is an interrelation-interconnection-interdependence (I-I-I) of syntax with disposition (as realized in the aesthetic choices); in the case of the extension in the syntactic pattern from Better X than Y to Better X than Y but better not X, there is a tension between the social practice 1 as given in Better X than Y and a change of perception of that social practice given in 2 as Better X than Y but better not X. This difference of opinion resulted in the creation of another version which is a category of the first version. Here, there is an I-I-I between the perception of the social practice resulting in a change of meaning and the syntactic pattern. Therefore, disposition (via the choice of perception), semantics, and syntax are interconnected-interrelated-interdependent (I-I-I). What is more, even the syntactic prototype might have been chosen by analogy to form the other proverbs as it happens in the case of many proverbs. Such a phenomenon is also seen in the synonymy of proverbs

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having the same prototypical meaning but different images: Distant hills are green Vs Faraway birds have fine feathers Vs Distant cows have long horns.

(15) Experience - Accident – Intention - Desire - Effort - Cognition Principle

Here accident is a product of experience, an experience with latent intentions for a specific observation; the awareness in accidental discoveries is not really accidental but unconsciously intentional. When pencilin was discovered by accident, the accident was grounded in the search for antibiotic.

So categorization is also a similar process of discover by focused attention and alertness.

The need for categorization in living is not accidental but intentional – human beings want to categorize activity in order to fulfill their desires and this desire is the necessary input to produce categorization.

B.2. Syntactic Meaning of Complex Sentences in ProverbsIn the syntax of proverbs, a number of examples of complex sentences are given. All of them are not elementary speech acts. Therefore, their meaning is denegational, complex, or conjunctional according to their semantic interpretation.

An Illocutionary Denegation, according to Vanderveken (1996: 24, Meaning and Speech Acts Vol I, CUP: Cambridge), is “to make explicit the non-performance by the speaker of an illocutionary act F(P) and is given by the form F(P)”. For example, a refusal is an illocutionary denegation of an acceptance; permission is an illocutionary denegation of forbidding, etc. Such an illocutionary dengation in proverbs has to be similarly interpreted as a complex speech act. For example, the proverb Better be idle than badly employed is an illocutionary denegation of an act of advising the hearer to be employed.

A few more examples are given below.

4 Set.1: Illocutionary Denegation in Proverbs i. Don’t rush the cattle. ii. Don’t monkey with the bandwagon if you can’t play the horn. iii. You can never tell about women, but if you can, you should not. iv. Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies. v. Judge not of men or things at first sight. vi. Don’t cry over spilt milk.These types of proverbs have a purpose of making explicit the non-performance of an illocutionary act F(P).

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A Conditional Illocutionary Act, according to Vanderveken (1996: 24), performs an illocutionary act F(Q), not categorially but on the condition that a proposition P is true and is given by the form [P F(Q)]. For example, in the proverb If the beard were all, the goat might preach, the speech act of the preaching of the goat (F(Q)) is conditional on the proposition P that the beard were all is true. In the proverb, Make yourself honey and the flies will devour you, the speech act of the devouring by the flies is conditional on making yourself honey: if you don’t make yourself honey, the flies will not devour you.

A few more examples are given below. The conditions are shown in italics and the speech acts in plain letters.

4.2: Conditional Illocutionary Acts in Proverbs i. Fly your kite when it’s windy. ii. Live your life, do your work, then take your hat. iii. When a man’s coat is threadbare, it is easy to peck a hole in it. iv. It’s too late to close the well after the goat has fallen in. v. When in anger, say the alphabet. vi. If you can’t beat them, join them.

In Conjunctions of Illocutionary Acts, according to Vanderveken (1996: 24, Meaning and Speech Acts Vol I, CUP: Cambridge), two illocutionary acts F₁ (P₁) and F₂ (P₂) are performed and are of the form F₁ (P₁) & F₂ (P₂). For example, in the proverb You scratch my back; I scratch your back, there is a conjunction of two illocutionary acts You scratch my back (F₁ (P₁)) and I scratch your back (F₂ (P₂)). The first one is an elementary directive and the second one is an assertion.

A few more examples are given below. The conditions are shown in italics and the speech acts in plain letters. 4.3: Conjunction of Illocutionary Acts in Proverbs i. If anyone betrays you once, it’s his fault; if he betrays you twice, it’s your fault. ii. The early bird catches the worm – but who wants worms? iii. Throw a stone in the mud and it splashes in your face. iv. Give me liberty or give me death. v. If ignorance is bliss, why be otherwise? vi. The husband is the head of the house, but the wife is the neck - and the neck moves the head.

Conjunctional illocutionary acts can be homogeneous or heterogeneous. If all the acts in the utterance belong to the same category, they can be called homogeneous; otherwise, they are heterogeneous. For example, in If anyone betrays you once, it’s his fault; if he betrays you twice, it’s your fault, both

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the first (If anyone betrays you once, it’s his fault) and the second (if he betrays you twice, it’s your fault) illocutionary acts are similar conditional illocutionary acts (P₁ F₁(Q₁)) and (P₂ F₂ (Q₂)) respectively. In the second example, the first: the early bird catches the worm is an elementary assertive speech act (F (P)) and the second: but who wants worms? is a negative rhetorical question. Vanderveken ( 1990: 149) considers questions as requests (directives) but rhetorical questions are not requests – they are positive or negative questions giving negative or positive assertions; so also challenges are not. Hence questions of this type are not considered directives. In the case of the third example, both a directive and an assertive are conjoined. So both the examples ii and iii are heterogeneous conjunctional speech acts. The fourth example is a conjunctional illocutionary speech act with two elementary directives are conjoined. In view of the examples i and iv, we get a further division of complex illocutionary acts: 1. Conjunction of Elementary Illocutionary Acts; 2. Conjunction of Complex Illocutionary Acts; and 3. Conjunction of Mixed Illocutionary Acts.

Therefore, any proverb whose meaning is to be derived is also dependent on the nature of the speech act it represents as a sentence-in-context. If the speech act representation is not given the appropriate semantic interpretation, there is a danger of the failure of the speech act and hence the proverb. For example, in iii, ‘the splashing of the mud’ – an assertion – will be true only if the directive ‘Throw a stone in the mud’ is carried out. In this proverb, ‘Throw a stone in the mud’ is not a condition and therefore it is not a conditional speech act but a conjunctional speech act. As such a failure to interpret it as a conditional speech act leads to a misunderstanding of the proverb.

Look at the following hypothetical conversations to understand the misunderstanding of meaning. (16) i. A: I have quarreled with that useless man and he maligned my name. B: (You) Throw a stone in the mud and it splashes in your face. (Assertion)

ii. A: I want to tell him what nonsense he has been talking about me. B: (If you) Throw a stone in the mud, (and) it splashes in your face. [Implicature: Advice or warning: Don’t tell him…. because he is bad.]

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In the case of Give me liberty or give me death, there is condition in Give me liberty and not an optional directive (as in Give me coffee or (give me) tea).

Sometimes in a conjunctional illocutionary act, there may be more than one propositional constituent (i.e., more subjects) as in A dog, a woman, and a walnut tree: the more they are beaten, the better they will be. As a sentence-in-a context in a possible world, not all the three possible constituents may be present together – only one may be present as it usually happens in the actual world. In such cases, the other constituents become redundant and the meaning flouts Gricean maxims of relevance and quantity. Then, how do we derive the meaning? The only way out is to consider all the atomic propositions as forming a single compound proposition at a higher level abstraction and then apply it: A dog, a woman, and a walnut tree are the categories of a prototypical concept X (stretching across animals, humans, and trees) which have the characteristic of becoming better by being beaten and so become exemplars par excellence of X. Therefore, the prototypical meaning is: X becomes better by beating with X having A, B, and C as its categories. Hence, when this proverb is applied to a context where only B is the focus and A and C are not present or relevant, there is no flouting of quantity or relevance since A, B, and C separately represent the prototype as its categories and not collectively; they need not be the focus together. Another example is: There are three sides to every story- your side, my side, and the right side. Here, two propositional constituents are always present (your side, my side) but the third (the right side) may be optional because both the sides may be wrong and all may be one.

A few examples of such proverbs are given below.

4.4: Compound Propositions in Proverbs i. Feed a cold and starve a fever. (Contrast) ii. Men build houses; women build homes. (Contrast) iii. Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can. (Anticlimax: make, save, give) iv. If you are an anvil, hold still; if you are a hammer, strike hard. (Contrast) full. (Climax) v. First love, last love, best love. (Climax) vi. Haste makes waste, waste makes want, want makes a poor boy a beggar.

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(Anticlimax) vii. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was lost; for want of a horse, the rider was lost. (Anti-climax) The first example Feed a cold and starve a fever is based on a contrast of feeding and starving and is subject specific with two different specific subjects. So when the prototype has to be constructed we have a problem: what common abstraction can be made out of such sentences? Feed a cold F₁ (P₁) and starve a fever F₂ (P₂) are common only as directives making the conjunction homogeneous. Hence, the prototype should be a directive. However, the senses are different but they should be one. The only way out is to consider cold and fever as sicknesses and have sickness as a proposition in the prototype. Feeding and starving are degrees of eating; so eating becomes another propositional constituent. Combining the two, we get: eat proportionately to cure your sickness as the prototypical meaning with F₁ (P₁) and F₂ (P₂) as the two subject specific categories restricting the domain of application only to those two categories. When applied in a context of F₁ (P₁) or F₂ (P₂), only one category is applicable but both constitute the prototypical meaning. However, the contextual meaning is derived with reference to the category referred to in the context.

In the case of climax or anticlimax, all the atomic propositions have to be combined to make the whole. For example, the prototypical meaning of Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can is derived by joining make + save + give to get an abstract practice of dealing (with money) and linking it with the adverbial clause all you can present in all the three atomic propositions: deal with money according to your ability; so also in the case of For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was lost; for want of a horse, the rider was lost, the progressive effect of losing a bigger thing for want of a smaller thing is extended to the biggest thing and the cumulative effect from the smallest to the biggest thing is taken into consideration through the anticlimax for deriving the prototypical meaning: for want of a very small thing, a very big thing is lost.

The different types of complex speech acts are shown in the following network (1).

Denegational

Complex Illocutionary Acts Conditional Elementary

Conjunctional Complex

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

Mixed

Network 1: Network of Complex Illocutionary Acts

II. Prototypical Meaning in Proverbs: Its Derivation

Prototypes in Proverbs So far we have discussed how proverbial meaning is derived from a literal meaning perspective, but we have not discussed separately how prototypical meaning is achieved. Prototypical meaning at the core level is achieved by a cultural convention:

(17) A particular practice is assigned prototypical status by its capability of correlation with other actions, thus making them

categorial.However, there are certain syntactic features which by virtue of their structure convey fixed sentential meanings. These meanings are constant for a given language. Therefore, utterance meaning is derived in extension of the sentential meaning according to the context. As a result, context can change only the utterance meaning but not the sentential structural meaning. For example, Tense, Mood, Number, Gender, Connectives (like if, but, or, yet, and, etc.) fix the meaning. As such, if there is a particular pattern in a proverb, and if this pattern is seen recurring in a number of other proverbs, then we can say that all of them are tokens of that syntactic type. Let us take an example to illustrate the meaning of a syntactic type.

A. Comparison in Proverbial Syntax Comparison in English is expressed by the inflected forms of the adjective - er, and - est with a correlative construction introduced by than (Quirk, et al 1989: 130-131). In addition to it, the proposition expressed in the superordinate clause is compared with another proposition expressed in the subordinate clause by means of a comparative element (COMP-Element). This comp-element specifies the standard of comparison and identifies the comparison as equational (e.g., as….as) or as differentiating (adjective + - er …than; less…than; more…than) in a scale but not with absolute values (ibid. 330-331). Such comparative constructions are also amenable to ellipsis. In the proverb given in (18),

(18) Better a small fish than an empty dish,the comparative element (a subject complement (Cs)) is differentiating and the inflectional comparative is better for the adjective good. This proverb is an ellipted form of:

(18a) A small fish is better than an empty dish (is)

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with an ellipsis of the verb is and a fronting of the comparative element (which is Cs) to the initial position for emphasis, thus giving rise to the following operation:

(18b) A small fish is better than an empty dish Better a small fish than an empty dish.

The standard of comparison (a small fish) in the superordinate clause A small fish is X contains the object of comparison (an empty dish) in the subordinate clause X which is a subject complement (Cs) with the comparative element.

(18c) Better a small fish than an empty dish. standardard of comparison object of comparison comparative element

(18d) A small fish is better than an empty dish.

Subordinate Clause

Superordinate Clause

Therefore, the construction [Better X than Y] means a comparison between X and Y in that sense and hence can be considered a prototypical syntactic type for all proverbs with that construction in that sense. And all the structures of such proverbs become the tokens of that prototype. Furthermore, all the proverbs formed in the analogy of the first proverb (whose temporal precedence may or may not be established easily owing to the difficulty in getting the correct historical chronological evidence of the usage of other similar proverbs) with minor variations in their syntactic structure at the peripheral level such as ellipsis become ‘a sort of categorial proverbs’ of the prototype proverb which becomes the prototypical syntactic proverb type by virtue of being considered so by the culture. Hence, comparative proverbs with ellipsis or without ellipsis are the two categories of the prototype of comparative proverbs. Again, single comparison and double comparison form another set of categories; absolute, comparative, and superlative syntactic types form yet another set of categories. A few examples are given below.

a. No Ellipsis in the Comparison1. A live soldier is better than a dead hero Better a live soldier than a dead hero.2. The good that is, is better than the good that was.

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3. It is better to be late than never Better late than never.

b. Ellipsis in Comparison 1. Better a live dog than a dead lion.

c. Double Comparison1. The more, the merrier. 2. The bigger the man, the better the mark.

A large number of proverbs are formed analogically either syntactically or prototypically or both. For example, Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth has a syntactically and prototypically equivalent proverb: Don’t look a gift elephant in the tusk.

B. Lexical PrototypesIn the case of vocabulary, there are also certain lexical features which are prototypical. For example, some words as proper nouns (dealing with personal names) are prototypicalized. Johnny, Jill, Jack, etc. in English, Venki, Subbi, Pullayya, Poli, Machakamma, Annambhotlu, Peddibhotlu, reddi (a caste name – who is the village chief), etc. in Telugu are prototypical in their meaning. Actually, these are repetitions of the same word and have the grammatical status of a proper noun but they carry with them the status of words having a common meaning X with certain characteristics. As such every use of such a word in a proverb becomes a token of the prototype rather than the same proper noun. In some cases, the common name is further qualified to indicate the specific sub-characteristic by compounding (as John Newcome; and John Raw). A few examples are given below.

5 Set: Lexical Prototypes in Proverbs5.1. English Proverbs i. Johnny is as Johnny does; What Johnny will not teach himself Johnny will not learn. ii. For every Jack, there is a Jill; A bad Jack may have a bad Jill; Jack of all trades, master of none; iii. John (Jack) Blunt; John Bull; John Doe and Richard Roe; John Trot; John Newcome; John Raw iv. As James treats God, so God treats James v. We are as many Johnstons as you are Jerdans (Jardines) vi. Round Robin Hood’s barn makes a tedious yarn vii. Rob Peter to pay Paul viii. Tom Fiddler’s ground

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5.2. Telugu Proverbs i. Venki pelli Subbi cha:vukochhindi. ‘Venki’s Marriage came at Subbi’s death’ iii. Po:li:! Po:li:! Ni: bho:gamenna:lle: ante: ma: atta ma:alapi(a)lli nunchi vachhe:da:ka: (andita) annattu. “If said, ‘Poli! Poli! How long is your enjoyment?’, she said, ‘Till my mother-in- law comes back from Malapalli’ “ iv. Aravayye:llo:ccha:ka Annambhatlu atakakekkite: va:llamaki ade: apuru:pamayindita “After getting sixty years (of age), if Annambhatlu climbs up the attic, that alone has become very enchanting for his mother.” v. Ennadu: ekkani reddi gurramekkite: mundu venakayindi. “ When the never-climbed reddi climbed on the horse, the front became the back.”

C. Semantic PrototypesCertain semantic concepts such as antonymy, synonymy, and tautology dealing with social practices recur in different images in the practice. For example, all these three proverbs Faraway cows have long horns, Faraway birds have fine feathers, and Distant hills are green convey the same prototypical meaning: Things which are distant look better but the participants in the action are different having different images. Such synonymous proverbs belong to a semantic prototype exemplified by their prototypical meaning.

In this article, we are not dealing with lexical and syntactic prototypes but we discuss how prototypical meaning is derived in the case of literal, figurative, subject specific, and compound propositional proverbs in general in the next section. C. Derivation of Prototypical Meaning

1. Literal Meaning as the Prototypical Meaning in Literal ProverbsAs we have already seen, proverbs can be literal or figurative. In the case of a literal proverb, the prototypical meaning is itself encoded as the text of the proverb. That it is so can be seen from the derivation of the contextual meaning when it is applied in a context. The literal meaning is changed accordingly to yield a categorial meaning which shows that the literal meaning is the same as the prototypical meaning. Therefore,

(19) Prototypical Meaning = Literal Meaning (Referential Meaning).

2. Defigurativized Meaning as the Prototypical Meaning in Figurative Proverbs

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In literal proverbs, the prototypical practice is explicitly encoded in the text. In figurative proverbs, the prototypical practice is not explicitly encoded in the text but the figure of speech implicitly represents a categorial practice which is turned into a prototype by apparent transformation (vivartam) for one reason or the other in the forward direction:

(19a) Categorial Practice Prototypical Practice Implicit Prototype

To derive the prototypical meaning, 1. the categorial practice meaning has to be reduced to its prototype in the reverse direction by removing the image, etc.;

2. Then, the concrete meaning has to be turned into the abstract meaning of the social practice to get the core features of the categorial practice and give rise to the explicit prototypical practice.

(19b) Categorial Practice Images Decategorized Proposition Explicit Prototype

[ delink from … in the direction of the arrow; gives rise by transformation to; apparently transforms into]

The following types can be observed:

1. Simple Category Prototypes; and 2. Complex Category Prototypes.

In Simple Category Prototypes, the figure can be easily detached to give the prototypical meaning; but in Complex Category Prototypes, it is difficult to do so. The terms simple and complex are relative and fuzzy and proverb specific. For example, the images of the bird in the hand and the bird in the bush in the proverb A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush can be easily detached to give the prototypical meaning: A small thing obtained is better than a big thing yet to be obtained. But proverbs such as The early bird catches the worm – but who wants worms? require effort in cognitive processing of the prototypical meaning in a text because of the two different meanings of the word worm: 1. succeeds (gets the desired object); 2. a small thing.

3. Subject Specific Prototypical MeaningIn subject specific proverbs, the prototypical practice is restricted to a specific subject and it may be expressed literally or figuratively. For example, the proverb Don’t spend all your money in one place is almost literal and has the subject spending money. Its prototypical meaning is the same as the proverb with an implication that you should not invest your money in a single place (venture). In the proverb A good surgeon must have an eagle’s eye, a lion’s heart, and a lady’s hand, the subject is a good surgeon and the proverb has many figurative words such as an eagle’s eye,

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a lion’s heart, and a lady’s hand. Their figurative meaning has to be appropriately explained in literary terms as a sharp eye, a brave heart, and a tender and skillful hand and they have to be combined into a brief attribute if possible: A good surgeon should be skilful and brave.

4. Compound Propositional Prototypical MeaningAs explained in compound propositions in proverbs, the prototypical meaning has to be constructed by motivating a higher level of abstraction of the compound propositions as Literal Meaning 2 and then that abstraction should be taken as the prototypical meaning of the proverb.

(20) Literal (Compound Propositional) Meaning 1 Literal (Higher Propositional) Meaning 2 Compound Propositional Prototypical

Meaning

So far we have discussed how prototypical meaning of proverbs has to be derived.

D. Contextual Meaning in Proverbs: Its DerivationThe derivation of contextual meaning of proverbs is complex and is not just a matter of listening to the proverb and knowing the meaning. It is so because the listener should possess different types of knowledge to derive the meaning appropriately: 1. He should possess the background knowledge over which it is used;

2. He should know the cultural and pragmatic constraints that control the use of the proverb (as shown in the Network of Pragmatic Constraints in Bhuvaneswar (1999) given below) as well as the structural relations of the proverb in the exchange/discourse;

3. He should take into consideration the shared knowledge, especially, cultural knowledge between him and the other interlocutors;

4. He should be aware of the disposition of the interlocutors – their beliefs, biases, likes, dislikes, and emotions; and

5. Finally, he should possess the cognitive skills of automatic prototypical-categorial instantiation of the contextual action, i.e., mapping the prototype in a proverb appropriately on to the contextual action and categorizing it by its prototypical-categorial instantiation through the proverb. In the case of a figurative proverb, there is an interesting process of ablation (apavadam) to derive the prototypical meaning of the proverb and a superimposition (a:dhya:ro:pam) of the categorial properties of the contextual action on to the prototypical meaning to bring about an apparent transformation (vivartam) of the proverbial meaning into the contextual meaning. In the case of a literal proverb, there is no ablation but only a:dhya:ro:pam and vivartam.

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When 1-5 are missing in the hearer, then non-understanding, or misunderstanding of the proverb may take place.

In a similar way, if the speaker does not know the appropriateness of the proverb in a context, then the hearer may misunderstand the proverb; this is especially true when the peripheral features of the use of a proverb such as the pragmatic constraints are violated.

Network 2 for Pragmatic Constraints in a PE

Vulgar

Age

Sex

Social Status

SharedKnowledge

Offensive *(Literary or Colloquial)

K PK Type of ProverbialPragmaticConstraints

Literary

Colloquial

Social

Relations

OlderPeerYounger

MaleEunuchFemale

SuperiorPeerInferior

+_

Situation & Status

Setting

FormalInformalIntimate

GeographicalSocial

A distinction between vulgar and

offensive proverbs is that the latter do

not contain taboo words (lexicon) but

contain images and themes that are

offensive to the listener depending on

differences in age, sex and social

status according to the cultural norms.

- Solemn (Setting)+ Intimate (Situation)Peer, Sex, Age, Social Relation (Social Status)

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(Adapted from Bhuvaneswar 1999)

Here are a few real life examples.

D.1. Proper Use and Understanding of the ProverbsWhen both the speaker and the hearer possess: 1. the background knowledge (which is the knowledge that forms the background for the present contextual action);

2. the shared knowledge (which is the (relevant past, present, and future) knowledge which is mutually shared by the interlocutors; sometimes, the background knowledge may or may not be shared; sometimes, the previous and ongoing discourse knowledge may not be shared owing to inattentiveness, and lack of memory));

3. the knowledge of the cultural and pragmatic constraints (which is the cultural information regarding the use of language, and the knowledge of the traditions and customs);

4. the knowledge of the disposition of the interlocutors (which is the knowledge of the character, temperament, beliefs, etc. of the interlocutors, and the mood of the discourse impelled by the temperament and attitude as well as the way the interlocutors use language) ; and

5. the cognitive skills of proverb processing (which are related to memory, alertness, attention, prototype-categorial instantiation skill, and dispositional creativity);

a proverb will be properly used and understood. An example is given below for illustration.

(21a) A (Me): It is good that we have come this way. B (Robin Fawcett): Every cloud has a silver lining. A: Oh, you used a proverb! B: Because of you.

[A (Me) and B (Robin Fawcett) were going on a sightseeing trip in Hyderabad in 1999. We hired an auto to take us to the famous Golconda Fort.]

1. Background Knowledge

- Solemn (Setting) - Formal (Situational) Peer

(Social Relation, Age, Sex, Social Status)

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A is an Indian and a resident of Hyderabad but not very familiar with the topography of the Golconda area. B is British and is new to this place and came to attend a conference at CIEFL, Hyderabad. A is aware of the Golconda Fort as a historical monument and the Jail of the famous saint and poet Ramadas [Kancharla Gopanna, a Tehsildar of Bhadrachalam, who was imprisoned by the Nawab Abu Al Hasan Tanasha of Golconda of 16 century A.D., on a false accusation of spending the money collected from the people to build a temple for Lord Rama; after he was tortured for 14 years in the jail, Lord Rama along with His Brother Sri Lakshmana appeared to him physically (Lord Rama belonged to more than 5000 B.C.) and paid the Nawab Tanasha in the form of gold coins (16000 varahas – one is still kept in the museum)]. B wanted to see the Golconda Fort and A accompanied him to show the place. 2. Shared Knowledgei. A and B are interested in linguistics and A is aware that B is a linguist in the SFL tradition and B is aware that A is doing research in linguistics (on proverbs)

ii. B is not aware of the historic importance of the fort and so wanted to see it.

iii. We went in auto to visit the Golconda Fort but the auto rickshaw driver took us in a wrong road by mistake and it was near the Kutub Shahi Tombs which B wanted to see also. We came to know about it as we saw the Golconda Fort away from us. iv. B does not use proverbs very often and I was told about it when I told him about my work in proverbs.

3. Knowledge of the Cultural and Pragmatic ConstraintsB is a native speaker of English while A is not. Both of them are aware of the Cultural and Pragmatic Constraints of using proverbs in English. He is elder than me and a Reader and I was a PhD student; he was a visitor and I was a host. He knows that the proverb Every cloud has a silver lining is a standard proverb that can be used in an informal context like ours. Moreover, it is a follow up supporting my assertion.

4. Knowledge of the Disposition of the InterlocutorsB knows that A is interested in proverbs and so A likes proverbs. B wants to please A because of politeness and empathy by using a proverb. In other words, B is inclined (by his disposition) to use proverbs even though he does not use them often.

A knows B as friendly and open-minded and learned and respects him. So he is informal in his behavior with him. So he made an informal observation about their missing the path thinking that B will not feel bad about it.

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5. Cognitive Skills of Proverb Processing1. B remembers the proverb Every cloud has a silver lining; He is alert to know its contextuality and is attentive to my observation; he has categorially mapped the contextual action on to the prototypical practice in the proverb Every cloud has a silver lining and exhibited dispositional creativity (by making the choice of the proverb to please me; and choosing an appropriate proverb to suit the occasion) and made a successful performance.

2. In addition, as a hearer, I know the structure of the proverb as a follow up (K2F in Berry’s terms (1981 a, b, c) or as a P1 proverb used as a support to an assertion in Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory (Bhuvaneswar 1998, 1999)) and understood the meaning correctly. Hence, the proverb is not only used appropriately and but also understood according to the speaker intentions.

D.2. Proper Use/ Improper Use and Non-Understanding of the ProverbWhen the proverb is used correctly, it may not be understood correctly if the hearer does not have the full knowledge about the meaning and use of the proverb. For example, if A does not know the meaning of the proverb Every cloud has a silver lining he will not understand the proverb. He may have to strain his imagination and test the truth value of this proverb in real world and find it to be false because not all clouds have silver linings and finally fail to understand the meaning. Proverbs are not truth-value based but dispositionally practice-value based.

In a similar way, if the speaker does not know how to map the categorial contextual social practice onto the prototype in the proverb and use it, the hearer will not understand the proverb as there will be a misfire. Depending on the proverb, it may be polite or impolite. For example, if B had used an improper proverb A bad workman quarrels with his tools, the Relevance Maxim in the Cooperative Principle is flouted and it might be understood as a censure by A: there is an implicature that A did not know the way and so could not guide the driver properly at the right time and hence B wanted to challenge his assertion with a new move to censure his inefficiency. The entire structure of the conversation would have changed, say, hypothetically, as follows:

(21b) A (Me): It is good that we have come this way. B (Robin Fawcett): NV (Pause a few seconds). A bad workman quarrels with his tools. [B is angry that he lost money because of the mistake.] A: Come on! Why do you say that? I already told you that I am not familiar with this route.

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I am not a business man. [A is unhappy.] Don’t worry. I will pay the difference of the auto-fare. B: It’s Okay. It is all right (condescendingly).

This is a very clear cut instance to show how dispositionality generates, specifies, directs, and materializes the discourse and its dynamic, synoptic, and experiential structures. In (21a), the use of the proverb is caused by sympathy and friendship and hence the proverb is used to mitigate the cost to A and A feels happy; in addition, it might have been used to express his own reaction to the contextual action but the choice of a proverb is not; and (21b) will have been caused by intolerance and arrogance and hence a proverb will have been used to censure and offend A – if at all, he has the habit of using proverbs and knows the proverb - and make A feel unhappy and change the direction of the discourse into accusations, challenges, reconciliation, etc.; in a similar way, had A not felt friendly and informal with B, he would not have made that assertion at all. Instead, he would have apologized to B to save his (A’s) face: I am sorry. The driver missed his way or found fault with the driver: Why did you miss the way. You should know your way; here, disposition rules supreme and flouts the cultural norm of courtesy: culture is derived from dispositionality as dispositionally patterned behavior of the individuals by collective standardization without affecting the autonomy of the individual dispositional behaviour.

The discourse structure is not probabilistic but deterministic by the ultimate experientiality component of the interlocutors: it is not a probable or an accidental structure that emerged out of the contextual action, because there is a cause-effect sequence controlled by dispositional behavior and coordinated by the context. For example, the choice of the proverb is not probabilistic but determined by a dispositional impulsion connected to my interest in proverbs; the abrupt termination of the exchange followed by the initiation of the second exchange is not probabilistic at all – Oh, yes/ Yea/You are right/ etc. might be probabilistic as a supporting move - but might appear to be accidental where a new move is initiated, completely unconnected with the normal expected course of evolution of the discourse structure. However, it is not so. The normal supporting move is abandoned and the turn is interrupted by a recollection of the shared, background knowledge that B does not use proverbs in general and A is surprised and expressed it immediately as a dispositional reaction in a Cause (the use of a proverb by B) – Effect (A’s surprise) through the Means (expressive speech act of speech). The use of an equine proverb Ta:kur nata ma:tiha in (23) given later is also another similar example to show the role of dispositionality – B (a native speaker of the Bura language in Nigeria) knows that A has collected 325 proverbs on horses in Hausa (the largest so far in African oral literature on a single animal) and asked B to help him in collecting Bura proverbs on horses. So

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he is prompted to remember this fact and consequently impelled to use the equine proverb Ta:kur nata ma:tiha as it suits the context. Another example is a mild protest against using an inappropriate proverb E:do: ku:se: ga:didochhi me:se: ga:didani cherichindi given in (18a).

At every point in the dynamic structure of discourse, decisions are made as to what to say or what not to say, how to say or how not to say, and when and where to say or when and where not to say. These decisions are both unconsciously (by va:sana:s) and consciously (by thinking) impelled by a dispositional action/reaction in the context of action by the dispositionality of the ka:rmik actor (here, as the lingual actor). They are systematically impelled for the ultimate construction of the experiential reality which is the ka:rmik reality. But these impulsions are generated in a huge mind boggling interconnected-interrelated-interdependent network of action-reaction sequences in the cause-means-effect principle of the Universal Science of Action- Universal Science of Living- Universal Science of Lingual Action.

The conversational implicature (speaker meaning or the meaning nn in the Gricean paradigm) is not just a matter of deriving implicature from the CP but is a matter of deriving a (w)holistic implicature which is a unified product of semantic, pragmatic, and dispositional implicatures to constitute the experiential implicature.

The sentence meaning gives us the semantic implicature; the speaker meaning (in the Gricean sense) gives us the pragmatic implicature via the CP; and the dispositional interpretation which is constructed through the semantic and pragmatic implicatures as a sum of the parts, and at the same time greater than the sum of the parts gives us the dispositional implicature from which arises the ka:rmik implicature which is all these and at the same time beyond them. It is beyond them because in marked cases of misunderstanding of meaning or a special understanding of meaning, the conventional pragmatic implicatures do not apply – it is the ka:rmik (via the dispositional reaction) that applies. What is more, the ka:rmik implicature includes the socioculturalspiritual meaning and goes beyond it in the derivation of the dispositional meaning by evaluating it and then accepting, adapting, or rejecting it.

(21c ) Ka:rmik Implicature Pragmatic Implicature Socioculturalspiritual Implicature Semantic Implicature[Ka:rmatics Pragmatics Sociosemantics Semantics]

and[Ka:rmatics Pragmatics Sociosemantics Semantics]

That is why, according to Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory, The Dispositional Principle (DP), derived from the Ka:rmik Principle (KP), is above the CP and it is the cause for CP and NCP (Non-Cooperative Principle) which makes the

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speaker either ignore or challenge the speech act; pragmatics becomes Ka:rmatics (Experiential Pragmatics as Actional Semantics).

CP

Ka:rmik Principle DP Ignore NCP Modify Challenge Reject

Network 3. The (Ka:rmik) Disposition PrincipleIn the application of language in a context, or its comprehension, the principle of reversal of order comes into force and pragmatics is a:nushangikally derived from semantics, and sociosemantics from pragmatics, and ka:rmatics from sociosemantics/pragmatics/ semantics in an I-I-I star network.

(21d) Semantics Pragmatics Sociosemantics Ka:rmatics

D.2. Improper Use and Misunderstanding of the ProverbsWhen a speaker or a hearer does not know the figurative, aetiological and cultural meaning of the proverb, its prototypical meaning will not be correctly realized and he fails to understand its context and implication. As a result, the speaker uses the proverb inappropriately and the hearer understands it as such (that it is used intentionally to be so according to the CP or that it is wrongly used owing to lack of knowledge of the use of the proverb). What is more, the dispositional knowledge of the interlocutors paralinguistically generates, specifies, directs, and materializes the improper use as well as the misunderstanding of the proverbs.

D.2.1. The Role of Disposition in the Use and Comprehension of Proverbs

D.2.1.1. Disposition: A Ka:rmik Linguistic AnalysisAccording to Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory, disposition (svabha:vam) generates, specifies, directs, and materializes all action including lingual action for its experientiality: language is not only dispositionally produced by human beings living in a context but also dispositionally used by them for living in a context. It is a complex of traits, knowledge, and impressionality of activity qualifying the individual’s being (ego) like colour qualifying light. It is basically action-qualifying knowledge shaping the individual’s behavior as this and that to be so and so in such and such a manner; in a broader sense, it qualifies all the three states of body, mind, and speech.

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Let us see how action is qualified by disposition and how it affects the formation, application, and comprehension of language.

D.2.1.1.a. The Structure of a Human BeingA human being consists of the following important components: i. Organs of Perception

They are five: the ears; the skin; the eyes; the tongue; and the nose. We see these organs of perceptions in our body physically; at the same time, they also exist in a subtle form. For example, tongue is the instrument of speech and is a physical organ in our mouth. Its movement is obligatory in the pronunciation of sounds. However, without moving the tongue, we can also say the sounds mentally – close your mouth; rest your tongue naturally and firmly; mentally say a word or a sentence and you see that it is possible to say it and hear it as well. So also is the case with the eyes: you can see mentally by closing the eyes. The perception of touch and smell are a bit more subtle but nonetheless possible as mental experiences. For example, you feel a nauseating experience even after you leave a stinking place and feel the softness of a baby even after you kiss it. Therefore, we can say that there are subtle counterparts of these gross organs of perception.

ii. The Internal Instrument of Perception (Antahkaranam)

The organs of perception by themselves cannot perceive an object/action directly. They are like binoculars of the seer. Perception is first processed through the mind. That is why, if a seer is not attentive (i.e., is not mindful), he cannot see an object – it escapes his perception. The process of perception of the Internal Instrument (antahkaranam) is tetrastatal according to the Indian psychology: deliberation as this and that (as mind - ‘manas’), decision of this and that as so and so (as the intellect – ‘buddhi’), remembering this as that, so as so (as memory – ‘chittha’), and ego (as I ‘ahamka:ra’ remember, know, experience, do, etc.). For example, when the eye, as it were, sees a Holy Tulasi (Indian Basel) plant, or tastes the Holy Zam Zam water, the mind projects itself through the eye and takes the form of the Tulasi plant / through the tongue and feels the taste of the water- at this stage, there is only mere perception/taste. It (Mind) perceives/tastes, again, as it were, the Tulasi plant / the Zam Zam water as this or that – at this stage, it only deliberates and is not sure about what plant it is/what water it is; so it functions as the mind (manas or deliberating instrument): at this stage, the knowledge is indeterminate. From analyticity, phenomenal knowledge (by direct experience or valid information), and memory, it (Intellect) comes to the conclusion that the object is so and so: a Tulasi plant/Zam Zam water – at this stage, it decides about the nature of the object after

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deliberation and analysis of the object to be such and such, and so functions as the intellect (buddhi or deciding instrument): at this stage, the knowledge is determinate. Later on when it sees the same or a similar plant/water it remembers the past object and superimposes the knowledge of the past object on the present object and recollects it as a Tulasi plant / Zam Zam water – at this stage, the knowledge is mnemonic and the mind functions as a mnemonic instrument or memory (chittha). Finally, when this knowledge is related to oneself as ‘I know this Tulasi plant or Zam Zam water (I + knowledge of the Tulasi plant/Zam Zam water)’, it is called the ego (ahamka:ram).

When this knowledge is culturally qualified, it becomes cultural knowledge: the Tulasi plant/the Zam Zam water becomes the Holy Tulasi plant for the Hindus/the Holy Zam Zam water for the Muslims who revere it as so according to its religious significance but to others it is just another plant/water. In other words, when the knowledge of the Tulasi plant/Zam Zam water is received via religion/culture and related to oneself (ego), it becomes personal, subjective religious/cultural knowledge. When an individual who is attached to or identifies with his religion/culture, sees this plant/water, he thinks of it respectfully owing to his attachment to his religion and consequently shows respect in his behaviour towards it. At this stage, when the Holy Tulasi plant/Zam Zam water becomes my/our Holy Tulasi Plant/Zam Zam water, it finally becomes dispositional knowledge a:nushangikally. [When someone outside the culture respects it, one feels proud/happy; shows disrespect to it, one feels offended because of the attachment of it to oneself. Therefore, attachment to one’s ego is the root cause of misunderstanding and it is derived through religion/culture in this case; sometimes, the misunderstanding may be due to an error in cognition: you mishear a word and so misunderstand it; or an error in contextual application: you may wrongly use a word/an utterance which is due to ignorance of its use but not due to intention. A similar response will also be generated at other levels such as opinions, ideology, etc.]

This process is captured in the following equations.

(22a) Perception Deliberation Decision Personal Knowledge

Dispositional Knowledge

(22b) Phenomenal Knowledge Socioculturalspiritual Knowledge

Personal Knowledge Dispositional Knowledge

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iii. Evolution of CognitionEvery individual is endowed with the power of awareness and ‘becoming aware’, i.e., ‘the power to act’ and ‘acting’. ‘Becoming aware’ is a dynamic process realized through energy. To explain it more, when awareness reflects in energy, that energy will transform into ‘becoming aware’, i.e., cognition. If that energy is not qualified, it becomes unqualified cognition (or blank cognition); on the other hand, if that energy (thought energy) is qualified as this and that to be so and so in such and such a manner, say, this flower to be a lotus flower in such and such big size and red colour, that energy will transform into ‘becoming aware of this and that to be so and so in such and such a manner’, i.e., the cognition of a concept of a big, red lotus. This cognition can be emergent as when one sees an object or recollective as one remembers something. Since there is a mutual superimposition of one on the other, the transformed energy (thought) will appear as transformed awareness: in reality, the thought cannot be aware of itself; awareness illumines the thought. To elaborate further, as the energy (which is disposition) is, so will be the thought (energy); as the thought is, so will be the action/reaction. Therefore, disposition(al energy) is the source of qualifying thinking and further (lingual) action.

We all know that our awareness is basically of three categories in our folk wisdom: 1. Blank Awareness (just being aware; be awareness as expressed in such phrases as blank looks – looking without really looking at anything); 2. Qualified Awareness (Intellectual Awareness of ideas, thoughts – both semiotic and non-semiotic; Emotional Awareness of feelings such as anger, lust; etc.); and 3. Experiential Awareness (Experience of pleasure or pain resulting from physical, mental, and lingual action). There is a progressive addition to awareness: Pure-to-Qualified-to Experiential in an a:nushangik manner. The point is that Awareness remains as it is but it is qualified to become qualified or experiential: a man simply sitting (in blank awareness) sees a beautiful flower blooming and knows that it is beautifully blooming (by qualified awareness) and gets into a rapture (experiential awareness). It is for this experience a human being performs action and uses language as a resource to perform this action and conducts his living.

Graph 1. D: Triaxial Graph of Contextual Actionality: C. Actionality Quadrant (4) in Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory Spirituality Ideology Cogneme Concept

Society Participants II III

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Culture Relation Guna:s Context

I IV

Vasanas Activity

Knowledge Knowledge (lingual) (D) (P) Contextual actionality Actionality

Legend

The Individual Consciousness (soul or the ji:va)

The Triad (sattva giving knowledge of activity; rajas giving choice of activity by traits; and tamas giving inertia or materiality of activity by va:sana:s) of Disposition.

Horizontal Line; Vertical Line; Diagonal Line; Horizontal, Vertical, and Diagonal AxesI, II, III, and IV the quadrants 1, 2, 3, and 4

In the above graph, I, and III quadrants show how cognition takes place. When consciousness reflects in the dispositional quadrant (according to his karma), disposition becomes charged and projects a concept.

iv. Evolution of Action and Lingual ActionAll the human beings are genetically endowed with the desire for pleasure (sukhe:ccha in Sanskrit). From the sensory perception of the world, phenomenal knowledge is generated in the individual and is stored in memory. This knowledge impacts on this innate basic desire for pleasure in the individual and generates different types of secondary desires to fulfill the basic desire for pleasure through dispositional impulsions to be followed by dispositional cognition of desire, function, means to the action, and propositional(semantics) and formal conceptualization of action and its materialization.

Dispositional Impulsion

Action Desire Propositional

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Meaning Relation Function Participants Cognition Means: Lingual Action Conceptualization Concept Paradigm Form Pattern Syntagm Form Sentence/Speech Act

Network 4: Cognition of Lingual Action and Its Materialization

These secondary desires can be broadly classified into physical (anything related to physical or material planes), mental (anything related to intellectual, socio-cultural, self-actualization, and emotional planes), and spiritual (anything related to the knowledge of self, and the why/cause of the world and life) desires. Lingual desires (such as writing novels, etc.) from a part of the intellectual branch of mental desires (which consist of intellectual and emotional desires). Desires trigger triple action (mental, vocal, and physical) for their fulfillment by experiencing the results of action. When an individual experiences the results as pleasure (out of success) or pain (out of failure), it generates likes and dislikes in performing action according to his state of being in the context of his living. The resultant likes and dislikes of patterns of action form traits (guna:s) which produce tendencies for such actions in future. At the same time, actions leave their impressions (samska:ra:s) in the individual; and tendencies for a pattern of action together with its impressions form the impressionality of activity or internalized habit (va:sana) – strong or weak – which impels such actions without any precedent or antecedent cause in a context; and they get fulfilled or unfulfilled in a conducive or hostile context. Each experience creates and enhances knowledge and influences traits, and knowledge geared by traits controls action. At the same time, va:sana:s impel desires for whose fulfillment action is performed and ultimately the results of action are experienced.

Dispositional knowledge is the personal internalized knowledge of the world around him out there, previous experiences with the interlocutor prior to the immediate context of discourse and his own traits along with his

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habits in the form of va:sana:s (the world in here in his personality) that react to the contextual use of the proverb; and the whole [knowledge of the world + (knowledge of) the traits + (knowledge of) impressionalized activity] can be called personalized worldly knowledge or svabha:vam (there is an abstract worldly knowledge in terms of principles and practice which is personalized according to one’s own reception of it – this is individual and may or may not be similar to others’ knowledge). It is distinct from phenomenal knowledge, background knowledge, and shared knowledge in the sense that these types of knowledge do not qualify one’s action like a black dye changing the colour of the grey hair into black or carbon qualifying iron to make it non-corrosive steel; dispositional knowledge is coloured (qualifying) knowledge and directly controls the quality of behavior whereas other types of knowledge only inform but do not modify behavior: only dispositional knowledge directs practice and practice increases dispositional knowledge.

Since dispositional knowledge is qualifying knowledge, it can impact on the sentential meaning or the sociocultural meaning and produce a new meaning, according to one’s own dispositionality, that can cause an enhanced positive understanding or a misunderstanding or unexpected reactions because va:sana:s may trigger an automatic reaction (+ or -) by their superimposition on the text in the context: as the Telugu proverb says, Like, to a jaundiced man, the whole world appears yellow. Thus, if dispositional knowledge colours the speaker meaning into a face threatening meaning, misunderstanding springs forth automatically from this dispositional reaction. Consequently, the dynamic structure of discourse also will be changed – discourse is the means of the coordination-of- coordination-of-action to achieve the goal of experiencing the results of dispositional, contextual action. Let us see how it works in real life situations.

D.2.1. Impoliteness by Misunderstanding of the ProverbMisunderstanding is understanding the intended meaning otherwise. All discourse is a means to an end. Language is used to coordinate the coordination of action; and this coordination is dispositional and constructs dispositional reality and its consequent experience. Language in this sense is used for the collective construction of individual dispositional realities. In this process, personalized knowledge plays a crucial role in the coordination of action and when there is dissonance in the communication of the intended meaning, i.e., what is intended is not comprehended but it is understood otherwise, misunderstanding occurs. When the intended meaning is misunderstood, it may lead to: 1. an erroneous comprehension of the contextual action positively or negatively; and/or 2. implicate impoliteness in the contextual action. In the use of proverbs, both the possibilities are observed.

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2.1.1. Erroneous Comprehension of the ProverbProverbs in isolation as well as in context can be misunderstood with far reaching implications in the life of individuals. Proverbs are generally taken as guidelines for living successfully and this function of social-practice guidance, if misunderstood, becomes pragmatically counter-productive.

a. One of my friends Mr. Sri Ramaligeswara Sastri (appx. 60 + years old; a retired college Lecturer in English) told me that he misunderstood the meaning of the proverb Speech is silver but silence is golden as “It is better to keep quiet than to talk” and observed this practice of keeping quiet (even when there is a necessity to talk) for decades in his youth and middle age. Later on, he changed his talking behaviour to talk judiciously.

[Another man who practiced the proverbial practice Hit first and talk next went to the court first and committed suicide last – He did not know this English proverb but followed this proverbial practice.

Here is a joke: A poor man who married very early because he heard the proverb Strike while the iron is hot was struck by his wife (for money) till he became old and then by his children till he became cold.

I heard another joke about a man who heard the proverb One at a time delayed having children until he settled down and in the meantime his wife heard another proverb poruginti pullaku:ra ruchi ‘the neighbours’s sour curry is tasty’ and got a child from his neighbour.]

b. When I was in Maiduguri, Nigeria, one of my friends Balami, used a Bura proverb Ta:kur nata matiha ‘(when you are in a hurry) Tie your horse to a lump of (elephant) grass’. Here is the exchange reproduced by recollection.

(23) A (Myself): I want to conduct the tree-planting campaign in Kano next week, and then …the Molai Leprosy Rehabilitation Visit, and establish the Kanuri Folklore Society soon. B (Balami): Buba… Ta:kur nata ma:tiha. Buba (Bhuvaneswar)… Horse tie to a lump of grass ‘Buba… (when you are in a hurry,) tie your horse to a lump of (elephant) grass’

You are leaving Nigeria soon and… You want to do all these things.

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[The implicature is that I should not get involved in all these extra-curricular social welfare activities but care more for my personal career, which I never really bothered about.]

I remember this proverb and sometimes think about it when I want to do something new or more and get discouraged. But it did not really affect my way of life of doing many things at a place until now. But I feel about it and unconsciously regret not following it. This is a reverse affect of not understanding proverbs properly and following them. May be I will be more cautious in future and follow this proverb.

2.1.2. Misunderstanding Leading to Impoliteness

a. Wrong Use and Misunderstanding Sometimes we use proverbs without understanding their implications. In other words, there is an intentional (cultural) misunderstanding of the unintentional (dispositional) implicature of the speaker’s intentionality. To explain it further, the speaker uses a proverb, say, without knowing its pragmatic constraints: he lacks the knowledge of application; he intends Iα (I = Intention) but the proverb generates not Iα but Iβ according the culturally shared pragmatic constraints. Consequently, an unintentional implicature will be endowed onto the speech act of the proverb.

(24) Iα Iβ U.I. (Unintentional Implicature)

If the speaker B knows from his background knowledge and dispositional knowledge of the speaker A that he is friendly and has not used the proverb correctly, he will derive a modified implicature to that effect from the U.I. As a result, he will not apply CP because the quality maxim is out of scope: What he means through the utterance is not what he means through his intention. This implicature is intuitional and subjective but it can be constructed from the general mood of the discourse over a long stretch of interaction, or repairs and the previous experience with the speaker. However, if the hearer does not apply this consideration (owing to his own dispositionality), a misunderstanding erupts leading to a conflict. Even in other actions, dispositional reactions can become dangerous and lead to violent clashes.

In (25a), there is a violation of the pragmatic constraints of status and age between A (above 65 and a school teacher; middle class) and B (above 50 and a university lecturer; upper middle class) and therefore a potential case for misunderstanding; when C pointed out in his turn that by using the proverb, A has made him a donkey to which he made a repair by saying that he (A) made himself a donkey and so he did not mean any offence. [C felt

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that his positive face is threatened.] Here, first, the meaning is culturally calculated as impolite through linguistic interpretation; second, it is dispositionally determined to be not so by interpersonal interpretation; third, it is contextually resolved as a misapplication of the proverb, but not an intentional act of impoliteness, by pragmatic interpretation; and finally, it is experientially reconciled through an interpretation by personality traits. (25a) A: E:do: ku:se: ga:didochhi me:se: ga:didani cherichindani, something braying donkey having come, grazing donkey spoiled that me:re:do: chaduvukunto:nte: ne:nochchi chedagodutunna:ni anuko:kandi. You are something reading I having come spoiling that think not sirs ‘Sirs, don’t think that like a braying donkey spoiling a grazing donkey I have disturbed you when you are reading something (about spiritual matters – which he heard)’ B: (B is not offended.) E:vi: le:dandi … randi... (Laughs)… e:do: chaduvukuntunna:m. ante:. anything not there sir…come,sir… (Laughs)… Something…reading we. That’s all. ‘Nothing much, sir. Come, sir. (Laughs). We are reading something. That’s all’ C: Ante: me:mu gadidato: sama:namannama:ta. That means we donkey with equal saying like ‘That means that we are equal to a donkey’. A: (Taken aback and embarrsassed). Abbe:! Alla anuko:kan di. Oh! Like that think not sir Ne:nu: gadidakinda lekke: ayyanu kada: I also donkey under counted, not! A: (Looking at C) Na:ku cha:laka:langa Ga:yathri mudralu ne:rchuko:valani undi. Me to long time for ga:yathri postures learn to that is Mi:ku telusani Subrahmanyam cheppa:du. ka:stha chebuduru. You to known that Subrahmanyam told. Small tell (please) C: Ayyo. Tappakunda:nandi. Mi:ku kha:liga: unnappudu cheppandi. Ayyo. Failing not sir. You to leisure is then tell sir

(25b) is an open reprimand and there is no misunderstanding.

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(25b) A: e: gua paite: a: guato:i (Surya Kamala Devi) what cloth falling if that cloth with

tui te:sta: e: ii ? [A]1

clean do will what ‘why are you cleaning with any

cloth?’

ai te:jji tuutukune: gualuthose(are) hand cleaning cloth s

[A]2

B (Suryavathi): No reply. She keeps quiet

[B]1

C (Kanthamani): anduke: anna:ru,because of that said (plural)

ja:bra:siki panekkua lo:bikkartekkuaniUntidy person to work more miser to expenditure more that

[C]1

‘That is why they said that for an untidy person, work is more (and) for a miser, expenditure (is) more’.

Here, the application of the proverb will become appropriate if only we construct the implicature I that by using cloths for cleaning hands to mop the floor will cause unnecessary extra work of getting new pieces of cloths for cleaning hands again. Otherwise, the proverb appears to be inappropriate in this context. Here, the proverb is construed by the speaker from her background of behaviour, namely, doing things with meticulous care and order.

Another example of a reprimand that can occur in a dialoguic exchange is given in (20c) as follows:

(25c)A (Kanthamani): ginnelu ubraga: to:u. [A]1

vessels neatly clean ‘Clean the vessels neatly’.

B (Suryavathi): ne:nu subraga: to:aam le:da:ni I neatly cleaning not, madam ‘Am I not cleaning the vessels neatly, madam’?

[B]1

A: diguruga: ununna:ji [A]2

greasy are (they)

B: ai ni:ani.

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they(are) water, madam [B] 2

………………………………. (gap of one second appx.) [B]3

A: ma:alne:rtina kukkanu e:aku pampite:words learned dog ac.case hunting to sent if

usku: ane: usku: andia.usku said if usku said that [A]3

‘If (one) sent a conversationally skilled dog for hunting, if said, “usku (a cry for hunting)”, it said, “usku’, (I understand) that.”

or

"(I understand) that, if one sent a conversationally skilled dog for hunting, (and) if (one) said, “usku”, it replied back, ‘usku’.”

alla: undi ni: ja:pa:ramlike that is your behaviour

‘Like that is your behaviour.’ [A]4

This proverb is a dialoguic [adjective: dialogue + ic) proverb and the participants in the conversation are a person and a dog. This dialoguic proverb is further embedded in a dialoguic conversational exchange in which two women participated in a house.

The difference between a monologuic proverb and a dialoguic exchange proverb lies in the source of the Proverbial Base (PB). In the former, generally, the speaker’s contextual action itself provides the proverbial base while in the latter, another speaker’s contextual action provides the proverbial base.

In (26) given below, there is also a violation of the pragmatic constraints of status and age between A (above 40 and a cook; middle class) and B (above 75 and a very orthodox Brahman housewife; from rich parents but now upper middle class) and therefore a potential case for misunderstanding. However, the misunderstanding was not contextually reconciled and lead to a quarrel between A and B.

(26) A : bayat + unnappudu pani + lo:ki rakandi. outside being work into don’t come madam

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“When you are in menses, don’t come for work“ B : cheppe:vi Sri:ranga ni:tulu du:re:vi those being told Sri:ranga morals those being entered dommara gudiselu. Dommara huts “Those being told are Srirangam morals, those being got

into dommar huts“

[+ indicates laison or Sandhi of the two words]

A is traditional and in their households, women are not allowed to touch the inmates if they are in menses and she is very serious about keeping off from domestic work those in menses. Such practice is cultural and it is being abandoned by many now-a-days. B’s reply violates PP at the approbation and agreement maxim levels. It is so because of the age difference; social status difference; and the offensive meaning attached to the phrase “dommara huts”: traditional people (in the olden days) do not go to the houses of the Dommara caste people who are low in their social hierarchy. The use of the proverb sparked off a row between them.

b. Violation of Social DistanceWhen a proverb belonging to one level of social distance is used in another level, it will misfire and leads to misunderstanding. For example, when a proverb is used between two persons where the distance is more, it will cause misunderstanding if it does not belong to that level: a taboo proverb used between two people, one socially at a great distance from the user, will be impolite and causes embarrassment and even anger. In the Yoruba/Igbo Society, juniors refrain from using proverbs in front of elders. Offensive proverbs are also not used between unequal interlocutors.

A few examples are given below under the four broad categories of social distance given in Bhuvaneswar (1999).

6 Set: Literary Proverbs

7 Set: Colloquial Proverbs

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8 Set: Slang Proverbs

9 Set: Taboo Proverbs1. The shortest way to a man’s heart is through his balls.2. A stiff prick knows no conscience.3. Unable to fuck, (one) said that the cunt is crooked. (Telugu Proverb)4. If the cat is blind, the rat showed its crotch. (Telugu Proverb)5. Fucking less; noise more. (Telugu Proverb)6.

10 Set: Intra-Cultural Proverbs

a. Religious Proverbs1. The Bible is printed in 610 different languages and read in none.2. The nearer the church, the farther from God.3. Many bring their clothes to church rather than themselves.4. All are not saints that go to the church.5. God heals but the doctor takes the fee.6. God help the rich for the poor can beg.

b. Ethnic Proverbs1. The only good nigger is a dead nigger.2. Hit’s a mighty deaf nigger dat don’t hear de dinner ho’n.3. Naught’s is a naught and figger’s a figger – all for de white man and none for de nigger. 4. Soap and water will not make a Negro’s face white.5. A Jew can make a living by selling shoe strings.6. An Indian scalps his enemies, while a white man skins his friends.7. The only good Indian is a dead Indian.

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11 Set: Inter-Cultural Proverbs

These proverbs are pragmatically constrained in terms of social distance and solidarity.

(27) Linguistic Impoliteness – Cultural Impoliteness – Dispositional Impoliteness

D.3. Derivation of Meaning through Ka:rmaticsFrom the above discussion, we understand that language is used to communicate, and interpret phenomenal activity to coordinate the coordination of action and experience its results in the context of its performance – non-phenomenal activity can only be indexed but not communicated or interpreted or created by language. As already discussed earlier, action is undertaken to fulfill one’s desires which are further impelled by svabha:vam (disposition).

From this perspective, language, as one type of action, is generated, specified, directed, and materialized by disposition – in other words, language is holistically dispositional action and atomically formal, or functional, or cognitive action in a part-whole relation. However, in KLT, the whole is not only a sum of the parts, not only greater than the sum of the parts, but also beyond the sum of the parts. Furthermore, its meaning is also derived dispositionally (ka:rmikally) – which is (w)holistic in derivation. In a (w)holistic relation, the whole is equal to, greater than and even beyond the sum of the parts in an I-I-I star network relation according to the dispositional choice of the interlocutor.

In such a relation, there is a centre of the star and it is the one that glows (i.e., means (verb) by selective awareness) by taking all the parts together as individual twinkles (sum of the parts), or some of the parts only as the

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twinkles in a gestalt relation (greater than the sum of the parts), or by itself going beyond the parts (beyond the sum of the parts): for example, in the derivation of meaning in conversation, in a straightforward case of implicature, it is the sum of the parts; in an ellipted utterantial implicature, it is greater than the sum of the parts; and in a metaphorical implicature or indirect speech acts, it is beyond the sum of the parts. In a gestalt relation, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts; whereas in a holistic relation, the whole is only a sum of the parts; and in an atomic relation, the whole is interpreted by the part and so equated to the whole by this relation.

In other words, the meaning is either formally (semantically or formally in isolation), or functionally (in use in a context or pragmatically), or cognitively (mentally or psycholinguistically) derived which is atomic and then equated to the whole as if it were the whole – like the three mythical blind men describing an elephant as like a tail, like a leg, and like the trunk which they have individually touched in isolation; or dispositionally (ka:rmikally) derived which is wholistic – like the zoologist who examines the whole anatomy of the elephant and its evolution in a formal-functional- ecological matrix of space, time and matter. A wholistic interpretation is selectively open-ended, all inclusive and the most comprehensive in contrast with the atomic interpretation which is close-ended, exclusive and inadequate.Meaning in semantics and pragmatics is exclusive in an a:nushangik process – pragmatics ultimately excludes semantics and vice versa; whereas meaning in ka:rmik linguistics is inclusive of all in an a:nushangik manner – pragmatics includes semantics, and ka:rmatics includes pragmatics and semantics. Karmatics is not only a sum of semantics and pragmatics but also (at the same time) greater than and beyond them. In ka:rmatics, the sentence meaning embodies the contextual sentence meaning (consisting of the socioculturalspiritual, contextual, and sentence meanings) which embodies the experiential meaning as an emergent meaning (arising out of the dispositional, cognitive, socioculturalspiritual, contextual actional, and lingual actional meanings in a single I-I-I cognemic unit).

(1) Experiential Meaning (Ka:rmik Meaning) Contextual Sentence Meaning (Pragmatic Meaning)

Sentence Meaning (Semantic Meaning)In semantics, meaning is derived in a code model of communication: the code is supreme and it does not take the functional context into consideration; in Gricean pragmatics, meaning is derived by formal implicatures in an inferential model of communication: inference is supreme and it does not take into consideration the socioculturalspiritual and dispositional dimensions into consideration in the derivation of meaning; Gricean pragmatics is based on the cooperative principle and the politeness principle – on the assumption that all implicatures in conversation take place by following these principles of cooperation and politeness. But in

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real life situations, they may or may not be followed. One or more in a two party or multiparty conversation may be non-cooperative by indifference and/or hostility towards each other or one another and disrupt the path of cooperative conversation. In such cases, not only the meaning but also the structure of discourse can only be derived dispositionally and not otherwise: in the absence of rational behaviour, there is still irrational lingual behaviour - a misnomer, in ka:rmatics, since all behaviour is dispositional - which has to be accounted for, only by recourse to disposition. Therefore, we have two situations, cooperative and non-cooperative behaviour, and both of them have to be accounted for to get a comprehensive description. By taking recourse to disposition, we can include both of them as options in behaviour and thus provide a comprehensive account.

It is captured in a network as shown below once again. CP

Ka:rmik Principle DP Ignore NCP Modify Challenge Reject

Network 3. The (Ka:rmik) Disposition Principle

In a similar way, in interactional sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication, and conversational analysis, meaning is derived in an interactional model of communication: “utterances contextualize and are contextualized by one another” (Schiffrin 1994: 407). However, the supremacy of disposition is not taken into account in these models. For example, in the ethnography of communication, utterances are generated and gain meaning within a sociocultural framework only. Therefore, it has to be modified to accommodate this new dimension of deriving meaning through the ka:rmik process of experiencing the results of action in an experiential model of communication.

In an experiential model of communication, the code, the inferential process, the socioculturalspiritual meaning, and the contextualization of the code meaning through the inferential, socioculturalspiritual interpretation are all interconnected-interrelated-interdependent in a unified network to produce the cogneme of meaning. In this experiential model of communication, intersubjectivity is transformed into a dynamic dispositional co-construction of inter-experientiality of the contextual action. What is aimed at is experientiality, what is achieved is experientiality, and what is used as a means is language ± the other non-linguistic means.

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An illustration is given below by taking (21a).

(21a) A (Me): It is good that we have come this way. B (Robin Fawcett): Every cloud has a silver lining. A: Oh, you used a proverb! B: Because of you.

The derivation of meaning of the proverb by A is made dispositionally and the lingual reaction is also made dispositionally. However, the meaning is derived in an I-I-I manner as follows: 1. The utterance “Every cloud has a silver lining” is first recognized as a token ofthat proverb by memory of the proverb since A is familiar with it and remembersit, and further able to recall it to be so. [Had he not known this to be a proverb, he will follow a different process of deriving the meaning.] That it is a proverb is its cognized (cognitive) meaning; if he does not know it as a proverb, then that it is a sentence will become its cognitive meaning.

2. Since he knew it as a proverb, he has taken the sentential meaning which is the referential meaning and superimposed the socioculturalspiritual meaning of the proverb on it and derived the socioculturalspiritual meaning which is the prototypical meaning. Thus, the utterance carries with it both the sentence meaning and the socioculturalspiritual meaning of the proverb at the same time; what the speaker does is first he takes the sentence meaning into consideration and recognizes the utterance as a proverb and then – after he recognizes it as a proverb – he leaves the sentence meaning and takes the socioculturalspiritual meaning (that in every mishap, there is an advantage) into consideration in an a:nushangik manner as captured in the following equation:

(27) Sentence (Referential) Meaning Socioculturalspiritual (Prototypical) Meaning [+ Referential

Meaning]Here, the socioculturalspiritual meaning as the prototypical meaning is the cognitive meaning.

3. The proverb is contextualized and then its contextual meaning is cognized as that the speaker B supports the assertion of A by a follow up move with a proverb: that missing the way (cloud) gave us the advantage of seeing the Kutub Shahi Tombs (silver lining). This meaning is derived by categorizing the contextual action under the prototypical action represented by the proverb by the socioculturalspiritual convention.

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Therefore, the sentence (referential) meaning apparently transformed into the socioculturalspiritual (prototypical) meaning and again transformed into the contextual meaning. Thus, the utterance carries with it the sentence meaning, the socioculturalspiritual meaning, and the contextual meaning of the proverb at the same time; what the speaker does is first, he takes the sentence meaning into consideration and recognizes the utterance as a proverb and second – after he recognizes it as a proverb – he leaves the sentence meaning and takes the socioculturalspiritual meaning (that in every mishap, there is an advantage) into consideration in an a:nushangik manner, and then extends the prototypical meaning to derive the contextual meaning by superimposition in the same a:nushangik manner as captured in the following equation:

(28) Sentence (Referential) Meaning Socioculturalspiritual (Prototypical) Meaning [+ Referential

Meaning]Contextual Meaning [Prototypical Meaning + Referential Meaning]

Here, the sentence meaning as the prototypical meaning as the contextual meaning is the cognitive meaning.

4. Finally, from the contextual meaning, the experiential meaning is derived dispositionally: that B supported what he felt, and in doing so he used a proverb – which he said that he does not usually do – and pleased A by showing solidarity or empathy. By deriving meaning like that and to be so, he felt happy and superimposed the happiness on that meaning. Thus, dispositional meaning leads to the experience of (meaning) happiness over that contextual meaning and so it finally becomes ka:rmik meaning.

To explain it more, language is experiential action which is ka:rmik action realized in its hierarchical, a:nushangik evolution as dispositional-cognitive-socioculturalspiritual-contextual actional-lingual action. In that sense, discourse is Experiential-Interactional-Contextual-Utterantial-Sentential coordination of coordination of action. What is more, karma (via disposition) rules supreme and decides the choice of interpretation by highlighting (giving prominence to) any one or more or all means of calculation of meaning in a star network.

To reiterate it further, first, disposition generates the lingual action and so it becomes dispositional lingual action; second, it is contextually generated and so it becomes dispositional contextual action; third, the dispositional action is patterned and specified to be so and so in such and such a manner in such and such a context and becomes dispositional, socioculturalspiritual, contextual, lingual action; fourth, when this dispositional sociocultural lingual action is generated, specified, directed, and materialized in a context for the fulfilment of a desire and its consequent experience, it

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becomes experiential, dispositional, socioculturalspiritual, contextual, lingual action: in short ka:rmik lingual action.

(29) a. Disposition Lingual Action Dispositional Lingual Action

b. Dispositional Lingual Action Context Dispositional Contextual Action

c. [Pattern + Specification] Dispositional Contextual Action

Dispositional, Socioculturalspiritual, Contextual, Lingual action

d. Experience Dispositional, Socioculturalspiritual, Contextual, Lingual action

Experiential, Dispositional, Socioculturalspiritual, Contextual, Lingual action

(= Ka:rmik Lingual Action)

An interesting feature in the performance of lingual action is that each type of action is dispositionally qualified and hence dispositionally chosen. For example, in the PRE- socioculturalspiritual stage of a community, action is performed as dispositional action. However, as a community develops its own culture, this dispositional action becomes dispositional, socioculturalspiritual action. Nonetheless, since it is chosen by disposition, the disposition of an individual has the power to follow, modify, or violate the cultural norm and perform his action. When there is a dispositional flux (which is not erratic but gradual evolutionary from an individual as well as collective perspective), it qualifies the new activities in living systems as dissipative structures and sets in a bifurcation process which gradually separates the emergent system from the original system. That is why we get variations in social behaviour. Historically (diachronically) any deviation occurs by only CEV, PEV, and CNV of the principles in the Universal Science of Action as reflected (like the sun in a lake) in the Universal Science of Lingual Action and manipulated according to the dispositional choices. This principle is applicable across all types of action and hence it is paramount in the formation, comprehension, transmission, and retention of all types of lingual action.

Another significant point in the derivation of meaning is the Spherical Processing by Radiation Technique in a gradual evolution perspective: first, meaning is processed in a linear model: form –to- function-to-context-to-implicature-meaning; second, meaning is processed in a parallel model: form; function; context; implicature; and meaning; third, meaning is processed in a radial model by I-I-I technique in a star network.

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In this model, disposition rules supreme and chooses its options of deriving meaning either formally, or functionally, or cognitively, or dispositionally, or ka:rmikally; or some of them joined together selectively; or all of them joined together collectively by a dispositional choice. That is why, there are misunderstandings in communication owing to the choice in the multidimensional networking of meaning.

Let us capture this distinction more vividly through the following equations.

a. Sentence Meaning [(S)M]

(30) (S)M = W₁ + W₂ + W₃ + .... Wn[Sentence Meaning ((S)M) =

a sum of the meanings of the individual words (W) in their concatenated form]

This is the semantic meaning (literal or referential meaning).

b. Contextual Sentence Meaning [(CSCS)M]

(31) a. (S)M = (CSCS) M[Sentence Meaning ((S)M) = the Contextualized Socioculturalspiritual

Meaning (CSCS)M]

This is the meaning of the linguistic utterance in its socialized context. Here, the soicocultural meaning is superimposed on the utterance and the

sentence meaning is apparently transformed into the sociocultural meaning. Here, the implicature should be drawn through the sociocultural meaning rather than the mere linguistic meaning in a context by implicature. The

utterance is the substratum and the sociocultural meaning is the superimposition by vivartam.

(31) b. (S)M = (S)M = W₁ + W₂ + W₃ + .... Wn (CSCS) M by

c. Dispositional Meaning [(D)M]

(32) a. (S) M = (CSCS) M = DM[Sentence Meaning = the Contextualized Socioculturalspiritual Meaning

= Dispositional Meaning]

This is the meaning of the linguistic utterance in its linguistically, socioculturalspiritually dispositionalized context. Here, the dispositional meaning as the soicocultural meaning is superimposed on the utterance,

and the sentence meaning is apparently transformed into the dispositional meaning. Here, the implicature should be drawn through the dispositional meaning rather than the sociocultural or linguistic meaning. The utterance is the substratum and the dispositional meaning is the superimposition by

vivartam.

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(32) b. (S)M = W₁ + W₂ + W₃ + .... Wn (CSCS) M DM by

d. Experiential (Ka:rmik) Meaning [(E(K))M](33) (S)M (CSCS) M DM E(K)M

[ I-I-I Network Node]

This is the meaning of the linguistic utterance in its linguistically, socioculturalspiritually, dispositionally, experientialized I-I-I star network.

Here, the dispositional meaning as the experientialized meaning is superimposed on the utterance, and the sentence meaning is apparently

transformed into the experiential meaning. Here, the implicature should be drawn through the experiential meaning rather than the dispositional, or

sociocultural or linguistic meaning. The utterance is the substratum and the experiential meaning is the superimposition by vivartam.

The following principles are proposed to initiate further research in this direction.

The Ka:rmik Law

IntroductionAccording to the Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory, the theory of language should be derived from a theory of living which is essentially a theory of experiential action. That language should be motivated from a theory of experiential action can be inferentially proved from the cause-from-effect reasoning approach. We all know that:

1. We exist in a birth-survival-growth-transformation-decay-death continuum in a spatio-temporal-material changing context from generation to generation as physically-mentally-spiritually embodied beings. This is a fact and is the first piece of empirical evidence about us.

2. As we exist, we perform action and experience the results of action as pleasure and pain, or sometimes merely witness the action and its results in detachment. This is a fact and is the second piece of empirical evidence about us.

3. We choose the type of action that we want to perform and its choice is controlled by our likes and dislikes which fashion out our response bias towards a choice. For example, my response bias towards vegetarianism is controlled by my liking for vegetable food and disliking for meat products; and this response bias produces my choice of action, namely, eating vegetarian food. Furthermore, my dislike for meat products is created by my personal trait for non-violence and to avoid killing as far as it is possible, and not for ecological imbalance against the laws of Nature: human beings

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are biologically not suitable for meat eating (e.g., their teeth, their digestive system are not fit for meat consumption). Therefore, there is a dispositional basis that produces a dispositional bias which controls my response bias towards the choice of an action. This can be captured in the following equation of Choice of Action Principle. The same type of logic can be equally applied to non-vegetarians from their own point of view.

(34) Disposition Dispositional Bias Response Bias Choice Action

This is a fact and is the third piece of empirical evidence about us.

[Such type of choice of action is generally motivated by recourse to culture and tradition in sociolinguistics. However, on a close examination, we find that it need not necessarily be culture bound and hence such motivation suffers from the defect of hasty generalization: if it were solely due to culture, then there should not be any non-conformity within a culture, for example, some belonging to my culture (Hindu Brahman sect) violate this norm and eat non-vegetarian food; in the case of linguistic habits also we see such divergences – some of the members of my culture do not aspirate the voiced bilabial plosive uniformly. In fact, culture is an offshoot of disposition – as dispositionally patterned behaviour – and can be overruled by disposition: disposition decides cultural choices and not vice versa. Therefore, it is motivated through disposition which is the highest cause at the human level (karma is considered to be the ultimate cause because of the variability in disposition among human beings and groups.)]

4.a. We know that we get desires and we exert ourselves and perform action in order to fulfil our desires. When our desires are fulfilled, we feel happy, and when they are not, we feel unhappy. But all of us want happiness only, and therefore, we try to fulfil our particular desires to get happiness only. Again, when a desire is not fulfilled and gives us unhappiness, or we find out that such desires lead to unhappy experiences, we try to resist from fulfilling such desires, and very often successfully resolve them. In other words, we get desires, and fulfil them for the sake of experiencing happiness (called sukheccha ‘Desire for Pleasure’ in Sanskrit).

(35) Sukhe:ccha Desire Effort Action Result Experience

This is a fact and is the fourth piece of empirical evidence about us.

b. What is more, the desire for pleasure as well as the desires for other objects, actions, and states of being are impelled by our disposition. For example, the personality trait for serving sick people is impelled by sympathy for the sick people, which is a quality in disposition. This trait further produces the desire to become a doctor and an effort is consequently made to become a doctor. To put it differently, Disposition is

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the cause of desires; again the same disposition specifies, directs, and materializes the effort, action, and experience of action. For example, a person may be impelled to read very hard (effort) and apply for admission (sub-action) in a famous university and experience the result (pleasure if successful; pain, if not), or may read normally and try to get admission in an ordinary university according to one’s dispositional bias triggered from his specific disposition.

Here, the Dispositional Impulsion (that I) to Desire (D) to Experience (E) the Result (R) as Pleasure (PL) is produced from a top-down /bottom-up processes in the Vertical Axis of the Dispositional Plane of the Ka:rmik Process; in a similar way, the Dispositional impulsion leading to the manifestation of action is processed in the Horizontal Axis of the Actional Plane of the Ka:rmik Process; and finally the experience of the results of action is processed in the Diagonal Axis of the Experiential Plane of the Ka:rmik Process.

Dispositional Impulsion (I)

Desire (D)

Disposition Experience (E)

Result of Action (R)

Pleasure (PL)

Fig. 1 . The Vertical Axis of the Dispositional Plane of the Ka:rmik Process:

Top – Down Process of Action

In the case of a reaction, a bottom-up processing will take place. Here, the action is first perceived, then interpreted to produce the dispositional reaction. From this dispositional reaction, the ka:rmik actor experiences pain/pleasure/witnessing as he is dispositionally inclined towards the perceived action.

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The process is captured in the following figure.

Pleasure or Pain or Witnessing

Experience

Disposition Reaction

Interpretation

Perception

Fig. 2. The Vertical Axis of the Dispositional Plane of the Ka:rmik Process:

Bottom-Up Process of Reaction

However, when the action is manifested, it is done so in the horizontal axis of the Actional Plane.

(36) Disposition Effort Process / Concept Pattern Form

Fig. . The Horizontal Axis of the Actional Plane of the Ka:rmik Process:

Linear (Beginning – Middle – End) Process

Finally, when the results of action are experienced, they are experienced radially – all around.

Disposition Action

Experience

Result

Fig. 3 . The Diagonal Axes of the Experiential Plane of the Ka:rmik Process:

Radial Process

Therefore, disposition is throughout the cause for generating desires, or efforts, or actions, or experiences. However, the results of actions are not decided by his disposition in the sense that they are controlled by external forces in the context. Nonetheless, the results are due to his dispositional effort in that particular context in that particular way. To explain further, a lame man cannot dance without legs. If he gets a desire to do ballet, he is

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bound to fail. This failure is contextually decided but dispositionally caused: he should not desire to dance which he did out of his dispositional bias: As you are, so you think; as you think, so you act; as you act, so you reap the result; as you reap the result, so you experience. Hence, we can say that disposition generates, specifies, directs, and materializes the desire, effort, action, result, and experience of action in a cyclic process:

(37) Disposition Desire Effort Action Result Experience

This is a fact and is the fifth piece of empirical evidence about us.

c. If we look at our lives, we observe that right from the first cry immediately after birth to the last gasp of breath immediately before death, we ceaselessly perform one act or the other to fulfil our desires generated, specified, directed, and materialized by our disposition in a context through the material means of our environment. In other words, we lead our lives to simply fulfil our desires and experience the results of our actions by performing all kinds of actions. Here, the experience of action and its results is the basic and ultimate cause for performing action; otherwise, there is no need for all this activity. Hence, it is reasonable to say that living is a matter of existing for experiencing the results of our actions performed to fulfil our desires.

(38) Living = [Desires Efforts Actions Results ] Experiences

This is a fact and is the sixth piece of empirical evidence about us.d. This has a serious implication for a theory of language since language is one type of action human beings perform throughout their lives. What is more, language is primarily used as a means to create, communicate, interpret and coordinate the coordination of action. As such, it is at the centre of all human activity and is used fundamentally as a means for experience of action, and not otherwise. Therefore, it is too naive and simplistic to consider language only as mental action (as in the Chomskyan Formal Linguistic paradigm), or social action (as in the Hallidayan Functional Linguistic paradigm), or cognitive action (as in the Cognitive Linguistic paradigm) but more empirical and scientific to consider it as experiential action (i.e., action for creating experience, but not the action of experiencing) as postulated in the Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory of Bhuvaneswar: language is used as a resource for the construction of ka:rmik reality (i.e., experiential reality).

(39) Living = [Desires Efforts language Actions Results]

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ExperiencesThis is a fact and is the seventh piece of empirical evidence about us.

e. When we look at language from this perspective, linguistic meaning must and should be primarily experiential meaning and not otherwise. That is why in Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory, linguistic meaning is ultimately derived as experiential meaning via sentence meaning (in isolation), sentence meaning (in context), sentence meaning (in culture), sentence meaning (as cognized through socioculturalspiritual contextual action), and sentence meaning (dispositionally). Experiential meaning finally becomes the ka:rmik meaning.

(40) Sentence Meaning = [Sentence Meaning in (Disposition Cognition

Socioculturalspirituality Context Isolation]

Experiential Meaning Ka:rmik Meaning This is a fact and is the eighth piece of empirical evidence about us.

5. In such a view, human beings perform only and only three types of action in their broadest sense. In a bottom-up process (ascending order), they are: 1. Physical Action; 2. Mental Action; and 3. Spiritual Action.

Physical action can be further sub-divided into two classes: a. +Vocal and b. –Vocal. + Vocal action is the vocal organ action which is used to produce lingual action in collaboration with mental action organs.

Mental action can be further sub-divided into three classes: a. Intellectual; b. Emotional; and c. Experiential. Intellectual action is associated with the action of thinking organs: a. mind (called manas in Sanskrit) which deliberates on phenomenal activity as this and that (indeterminate awareness which typifies a phenomenon, say, as an object), as so and so (determinate awareness which classifies by partially qualifying the phenomenon, say, as a horse), and such and such (detailed awareness which elaborately qualifies a phenomenon, say, the object horse as having a body with four legs, mane, hooves, etc.); and b. intellect (called buddhi in Sanskrit) which decides what is deliberated to be this or that (that the phenomenon deliberated is indeed an object), as so or so (that the phenomenon is indeed a horse) , and such or such (that the phenomenon deliberated is the object horse with a body with four legs, mane, hooves, etc.); the former performs the deliberating function and the latter the deciding as well as the choosing function (decision and choice). The result of thinking is thoughts, ideas, and concepts.

Emotional action is associated with the action of feeling organs: a. the heart (not the biological heart but the psychological one called hrdayam in

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Sanskrit) which feels what is thought in terms of emotions such as anger, greed, vanity, envy, lust, and desire which are studied elaborately as 9 emotions with 31 attendant sub-emotions in Bharatha’s Na:tya Shastram; and b. the mind which perceives these emotions.

Experiential action is associated with the action of experiential organs: a. the ego which experiences the action (attendant with its cause, process, and effect (product)), and its result as pleasure or pain or both – this is due to the attribution of agency to itself; alternatively, it merely witnesses the action without being affected by the action and its result - this is due to the attribution of non-agency to itself in association with b. hrdayam; c. buddhi; d. manas; and e. chittham (memory) which construct the experience of action, and its results through their respective functions. In fact, it is the same internal organ (antahkaranam in Sanskrit) which functions as mind that functions as intellect; and also as heart; and also as memory and generates the experience as ego. All of them are indicated by a single term mind in English: it is the mind that thinks, decides, feels, remembers, and experiences. These components can be captured in the following network.

Spiritual Action is not really any action per se. It is related to the Consciousness in a human being. The concept of Consciousness is a controversial issue among scientists. Some consider it as an emergent phenomenon; others – along with some theologians – consider it to be a distinct phenomenon. Even Philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Descartes considered it to be a distinct phenomenon. In Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory also, it is considered to be a distinct phenomenon but for a different reason: whether Consciousness is an independent phenomenon or not, it is existent as subjectively experienced by us; and it is perceived as a distinct phenomenon from the body and even the mind in higher states of awareness. It is a fact of experience: for example, when a person lies down, closes his eyes, thinks of something (which is thought of something plus Consciousness) and then stops thinking (which is leaving out the thought of something), he still experiences awareness of his being (which is Consciousness minus Thought). Therefore, the very act of being is considered as another type of distinct action: it is simply BEING (as a verb). The verification of its objective existence is beyond the scope of Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory and is left to scientists for proof.

+ Vocal

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Physical - Vocal

Mind Lingual Action Mental Intellect Action Memory Heart Mental Emotional Mind Experiential Ego Spiritual Being

Network 5 : Human Action Organ Network

The Ka:rmik Law can be stated as follows:Karma generates, specifies, directs, and materializes the required lingual contribution by collective construction of individual dispositional realities for their experiential reality through lingual actional reality by the contextual coordination of coordination of action in a causal star network of action-reaction sequences in the framework of living.

Karma operates in a huge mind boggling system within the System of Creation. It is a dynamic system with several layers spanning from the supra-cosmic (the pre-big bang state of creation– to – the macrocosmic (the post big bang state of creation) - to – the microcosmic (the individual level of the living and non-living systems) - to- the contextual – to – the actional –to – the experiential levels. Within this causal ka:rmik system – within – the system of creation, the linguistic system operates as a means to realize the experiential system as the effect. To elaborate more, for a man to say a sentence in a context, a whole creation has to take place from the pre-big bang to the post big bang to the present state of human evolution to produce the context for the utterance to have been materialized.

[The concept of a computer, hardware, and software can be used to explain the operation of a linguistic system. The computer is like the body of the human being; its hardware can be divided into four components: 1. Physical; 2. Mental; 3. Dispositional; and 4. Experiential. The physical component, mainly, through the vocal organs, provides the means for VOCALIZATION. The mental component provides the means for the PATTERNED STRUCTURATION of the vocalization, its MEANING, and its EXPERIENCE. The dispositional component provides the means for the choice (specification) of the (lingual) action in terms of its form, content,

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and function as well as its generation, direction, and materialization in a ka:rmik plane. These four components are genetically inherited by all the human beings and are subject to change as a man lives in the world in a birth-death sequence. However, the software package that produces a specific language is not inherited by the human beings. In a KLT perspective, this software is contextually acquired as an additional but critical instrument or resource for a larger experiential programme by a human being when it is applied by other human beings in his context of living. Nonetheless, the positive choice to acquire the system is genetically inherited. Since it is so, when a language is used, its system (the software package) is acquired, integrated into the larger system, and used in order to facilitate the experience of existence (living).

The body, mind, and soul of the human being (like the hardware produced by a manufacturer) are produced by Nature – whether it is God, or the pre-existing Immanent Intelligence Principle or the emergent intelligence in Nature by various chemical reactions is not the issue here - and it is used by the Being in a human being (like a user of a computer who acquires and uses it). As this Being decides, so he uses his body, and mind according to his dispositional choice (like the operator deciding to use the computer according to his likes and dislikes). The only difference between a computer and a human being is that the former is a non-living, mechanical system with artificial intelligence and therefore not capable of experience while the human being is a living, cause-effect experiential system with egoistic intelligence and therefore capable of experience and that is an insurmountable categorial difference. The computer also suffers breakdowns (health problems), and malfunctioning (mental problems), but no experiential problems.] To explain it further, in KLT, discourse is a causal structure that includes a process and a product along with the causal explanation – the WHAT (the effect or the product) is derived from the ultimate WHY (the cause or the dispositional conception) through the HOW (the process or the spatiotemporalmaterial where, when, and what manner); whereas in other theories, it is an exclusive structure of either the process or the product without a causal explanation – the what is derived from the what (formal approaches) or the how (functional and the cognitive approaches) but not from the why. Even when the causality is given, it is not the ultimate causality: for example, social reality (as in functional theories) is not the ultimate cause for using language since there is no uniformity within sociocultural patterns of lingual behaviour and therefore not the whole truth.

Cause: Why (WP)

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WhenStructure of Discourse Process: How Where (Means) (AP) How

Product: What (AP) (Effect)

[WP Wholistic Process; AP Atomic Process]Network 6: Structure of Discourse in KLT Network

The Ka:rmik Law is realized through three important principles that control lingual action. They are: 1. The Principle of Karma; 2. The Principle of Karmaphalam; and 3. The Principle of Karmaphalabho:gam: Every action is generated by the disposition which is produced by karmaphalam of the previous actions in a cyclic network; again, every action produces results which are experienced by human beings to constitute their living. The Principle of Karma deals with action (karma) and gives The Disposition Principle which fashions out action; The Principle of Karmaphalam deals with the production of action in a context to yield the results of action (karmaphalam) and gives The Actional Principle; and The Principle of Karmaphalabho:gam deals with the experience of action (karmaphalabho:gam) and gives The Experiential Principle by apparent transformation.

They are as follows:

THE KA:RMIK LAWKarma generates, specifies, directs, and materializes the required lingual contribution by collective construction of individual dispositional realities for their experiential reality through lingual actional reality by the contextual coordination of coordination of action in a causal star network of action-reaction sequences.

1. The Causal or Dispositional PrincipleA lingual contribution is triggered as an action or reaction according to the dispositional impulsion specified by the traits, contentualized by the knowledge, and materialized by the impressionality of activity of the interlocutor. Such an impulsion is therefore ka:rmik and not probabilistic. A choice of an impulsion is decided from above by karma through va:sana:s impacting on the context. To explain it further, the ingrained habits produce that specific dispositional impulsion and not another by the ka:rmik contextualization of that action at that specified Spatio-temporalmaterial-

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Socioculturalspiritual- Contextualactional- (Lingual) Action for its experience. Again, the cause of the specification of context can also be traced back to the previous karma (action-result-experience) of the individual in his individual-collective-contextual living.

When a lingual action is performed, it sets in a functional cyclic network of application-comprehension-reaction in which the hearer understands the meaning according to his disposition that rules supreme in the derivation of meaning. Consequently, the choice of the process is decided according to his disposition and he may derive the meaning either as linguistic meaning, or as socioculturalspiritual meaning, or as contextual actional meaning in an atomic way by choosing one or more than one option, or as dispositional meaning in a wholistic manner.

The Dispositional principle can be stated as follows.

The Disposition Principle The disposition of an individual acts or reacts in a context for the fulfilment of one’s desires and produces an appropriate desire – effort – action sequence towards that end. Such an action/reaction is produced by an interplay of Traits, Knowledge, and Va:sana:s in the context of their occurrence.

It consists of three maxims: i. The Traits Maxim; ii. The Knowledge Maxim; and iii. The Va:sana (Impressionality of Activity) Maxim

i. The Traits Maxim: IntroductionEach individual is constituted with certain guna:s (constituent qualities of cognitivity, activity, and inertia). According to their state, they produce personality traits in an individual’s disposition (svabha:vam). Traits are linked with his (phenomenal) impressionality of activity (va:sana:s) in a context and produce their corresponding desires which impel the individual to make an effort and perform lingual action.

(46) a. Guna:s Traits Desires Effort Lingual Action.

As traits produce desires, they do so by controlling the choice and specification of action: its type, function, and form. Consequently, the interlocutor acts or reacts (type); cooperates, or non-cooperates by challenge or neutrality, or indifference (class); chooses the style (standard, or colloquial, or slang, or taboo) and manner (polite/impolite); and the content of action (the proposition or the conceptual specification as process/ objectification/state of being). The Consciousness in the individual charges the Trait Component in Disposition and the Consciousness-Qualified-Trait impacts on the (Dispositional) Knowledge component which embodies it.

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(46) b. Trait Knowledge Specific Knowledge Va:sana

Desire Conceptualization

The Traits or Specification Maxim can be stated as follows.

The Traits Maxim: The concerned traits in svabha:vam (disposition) generate the required lingual contribution by specification of the entire lingual action in its variety, range, and depth.

In other words, it is the CHOICE maxim that deals with the lingual action; it specifies the type of action (as action or reaction), the class of action (as cooperation / neutrality / challenge), the style of action (standard / colloquial / taboo; poetic / prosaic; figurative / literal, etc.); the manner of action (polite / impolite); the content and the action itself (the utterance) as well as the nature of the impact on the Knowledge (its choice and content) of the speaker. In short, it is the maxim that decides the conceptual specification of the lingual contribution.In Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory, the Traits Maxim is the heart of all lingual action and is critical not only in the derivation of linguistic meaning or the socioculturalspiritual meaning but also the dispositional meaning as the ultimate meaning. It can be captured in the following network. Action Type Reaction Cooperation Class Neutrality Non-Cooperation Challenge Polite Manner Impolite Standard Colloquial Taboo

The Trait Maxim Style Poetic

Prosaic

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Figurative

Literary Impact on knowledge More Quantity Required Less True Content Quality Action False Form Relevance

Network 7: The Trait Maximii. The Knowledge or Conceptualization Maxim The knowledge possessed by the individual is charged by the Consciousness-Qualified-Trait and the conceptualization of the lingual action is achieved. The knowledge maxim can be stated as follows.

The Knowledge Maxim The knowledge component in disposition will embody the specified conceptualization of the object / state of being / action by the traits to produce the patterning of the semiotic lingual action.

In other words, the type/class/style/manner components will be superimposed on the content of the lingual action and the specified lingual action will be embodied to give its pattern (of the meaning and form) to mean the lingual action in that particular form. This lingual action will be further superimposed on the context to make it contextual lingual action. Finally, its function is superimposed on the form of the meaningful lingual action to intend that functional meaning contextually. So far, there is triple superimposition on the content: 1. the traits specification to pattern the form, and 2. the meaning in that form to perform the intended function and 3. the context. Furthermore, knowledge is a:nushangikally produced from traits:

(41a) Trait Specification Knowledge (+Trait Specification)

In automatic lingual action processing, all of the superimpositions happen in a single cogneme as explained earlier.

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The knowledge in a human being is a product of sensory perception, intellection, emotion, and experience. Every experience impacts on the knowledge of action and directly interacts with the pleasure principle (sukhe:chcha) in a human being. As a result of this interaction, the present inclinations may be strengthened, weakened, or new inclinations may be born. According to the nature of inclinations, choices will be made and consequently actions are performed according to the choices made. When such actions are habituated, they develop traits. The traits in turn set up a chain reaction of impelling desires, etc. The pleasure principle holds good in all types of action, and at all levels – be it in the simple case of taking a cup of milk for rejuvenation, or going to jail for achieving freedom for a country.(41b) Experience – Knowledge – Desire for Pleasure – Inclinations –

Choices – Action – Habituation – Traits

iii. The Va:sana MaximThe va:sana maxim impels the embodiment of the pattern as the form through va:sana.

(42) Trait Specification Knowledge (+Trait Specification) Conceptualization of the Form [+Knowledge (+Trait Specification)].

2. The Actional PrincipleWhat is generated, specified, and directed by disposition transforms into a desire and an action is performed to fulfil it and experience the result. It is achieved by assigning a function, a meaning, and a form to the action and is finally materialized through this principle. In other words, the dispositional reality is embodied in the (lingual) action. It consists of three maxims: 1. The Function Maxim; 2. The Meaning Maxim; and 3. The Form Maxim.

i. The Function Maxim Assign the speech act function. Embody the desire through the function.

ii. The Meaning Maximi. The Patterning Maxim (Meaning): Assign the propositional meaning via the functional and formal meaning.ii. The Patterning Maxim (Form): Assign the pattern (paradigm + structure) of the proposition as a speech act. (Resolution of the Chosen and Conceptualized Utterances in terms of the Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Axes in a Pattern)

The meaning embodies the function as well as the form that realizes the function.

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iii. The Form Maximi. The Phonation Maxim: Embody the pattern of the proposition as a speech act by vocalization in the context. (Materialization of the Pattern in Sound/ letters)ii. The Binding Maxim: Bind (by Interconnection-Interrelation-Inter-dependence- Integration (I-I-I-I) all the Components of Lingual Action as well as the other actions into a Ka:rmik Context)) The form embodies the phono-lexico-syntactic pattern of the proposition on the one hand, and embodies the meaning and the function as well as the implicature on the other hand to finally embody the desire and the disposition. Each succeeding stage embodies the previous stage in an a:nushangik process. In a formal-functional structuration of meaning, ((Paradigm + Structure) of Action) Meaning but in a functional-formal structuration, meaning precedes the ((Paradigm + Structure) of Action).

(43) a. Disposition Desire (+Disposition) Action (+Desire +Disposition)

b. Action: Concept Pattern [Function Meaning ((Paradigm +

Structure) of Action)] Form

1-3 in II give the speaker meaning.

3. The Contextualization PrincipleA contribution to the discourse and the discourse and its structure are created, sustained, and dissolved in the form of an appropriate context to bring about the ka:rmik reality for the experience of the participants in the discourse via their dispositional realities.

It consists of three maxims: 1. Contribution Maxim; 2. Comprehension Maxim; 3. The Experiential Maxim

i. Contribution MaximThe Contribution Principle is a part of the Contextualization Principle. To explain further, the Contextualization Principle is a:nushangikally derived from the Contribution Principle in an I-I-I-I network.

It can be stated as follows.

Contribution Maxim

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An appropriate contribution is made by the contributor in the context according to his disposition to bring about the emergent contextual action and thus construct his dispositional reality.

The Context is an adjunct (like the space around a house) which acts like a stage, and not a qualifier (like the redness in a lotus) which acts like a constituent to the creation of the discourse. Furthermore, it is created by discourse in a bottom-up process as an effect and becomes the stage for discourse in a top-down process as a means with karma (via disposition) as the cause in a cause-means-effect model of experiential action. What is more, it is reflexive in the sense that it facilitates a contribution as an action and also facilitates a contribution as a reaction to the action to constitute discourse. It consists of two maxims which are basic to the other two principles of Contribution and Comprehension in an a:nushangik relation:

(44) Contribution Contextualization Comprehension Experience

Action Reaction Dispositional Interaction Ka:rmik (Experiential) Reality

a. The Causal or Dispositional Maxim (Choice and Conceptualization of Utterance and its Use: Objectification and Process of Action along the Cognemic Axis) b. The Lingual (Actional) Maximi. The Patterning Maxim (Resolution of the Chosen and Conceptualized Utterances in terms of the Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Axes in a Pattern)ii. The Phonation Maxim (Materialization of the Pattern in Sound/ letters)iii. The Binding Maxim (Interconnection-Interrelation-Inter-dependence- Integration (I-I-I-I) by Binding all the Components of Lingual Action as well as the other actions in to a Ka:rmik Context)) 2. The Comprehension MaximThe interlocutor comprehends the lingual contribution dispositionally in the overall framework of his living in the context.

It is a complicated principle and draws from many sources to create the comprehension of an utterance. The utterance may be comprehended atomically by taking only the referential meaning, or it may be comprehended by taking the sociocultural meaning, or by contextual implicatures, or it may be comprehended by taking the meaning

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dispositionally through all these meanings, or simply directly without any filters.

3. The Experiential MaximThe experiential maxim is a fallout of the contribution and comprehension maxims. It can be stated as follows:

The participant in a discourse experiences the results of the contextual lingual action as a product of the ka:rmik reality generated by it.

The Dispositional Principle can be called The Causal Principle since the choice and conceptualization of an utterance as well as its use are triggered by disposition and then materialized by it. That means, it is the cause of the patterning and phonation of the utterance leading to its subsequent experience. The Patterning and Phonation Principles constitute the phonic realization of the utterance and hence can be joined together under one principle which can be called The Lingual (Actional) Principle. Finally, the lingual action is experienced by the individual speaker/hearer or writer/reader to produce the effects of pleasure and pain under The Experiential Principle, leaving behind the impressions of the action and its experience that are stored in the individual. These will produce their own effects in future and create a cycle of cause-effect and action-reaction sequences.

(45) Disposition Action Experience ● Karma ....... Cycle

The entire phenomenon of the creation, patterned structuration, processing, and using, and transmitting is done under the theoretical principle of karma-karmaphalam-karmaphalabho:gam in a procedure of constructing the five realities ( at the conceptual level) through another set of five procedures at the actional level [Physical – Mental – Vocal (Lingual) – Dispositional-Experiential] by using different phonological, lexical, syntactic, semantic, discourse techniques

3. The Experiential Maxim (Experience of Results of Lingual Action as Pleasure/Pain for all the participants) a. The Interpretation Maxim b. The Experiential Maxim c. The Ka:rmik Maxim

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AVGSatsang Page # 1

ManmanËbhava1

Swami Dayananda SaraswatiIn the BhagavadgÌtË, whenever Lord Krishna uses the first person singular, he isreferring to himself as ½Úvara. In other words, VyËsa presents Krishna asBhagavËn. Thus, the meaning of the compound manmanËbhava would be ÌÚvaramanË

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bhava, may you become one whose mind is with me, ½Úvara. Either themind objectifies ½Úvara or dwells upon ½Úvara.Keeping the Mind in BhagavËnThere is a certain possibility of continuity of thought, sajËtÌya-vÎtti-pravËha. AvÎtti, a thought-form, does not have any staying power; it is always kÛaÙika,momentary. It has got to be so. VÎttis are momentary, like the frames in a film.Because they are moving, you will see the same person, but with a difference,and thereby, you capture motion. The number of frames is adequate so that thereis no jerk in the movement. So too, we have enough frames in our mind so thatwe can recognize continuous motion; otherwise, it would be seen in fits andstarts. Being momentary, a thought is there, and it is gone. It does not stay. Thatis how the whole jagat is; jËyate gacacti, it comes into being and goes away.There is always a newness about it. A single object, which is recognized, iscoming and going, but because it is the same object. You see a swami sitting,even though it is not constant. There is a flow of the same object, so you seethe same thing, with small differences. SajËtÌya-pravËha is a flow of the sametype of thing, as in mental pÍjË, worship, in which there are different steps.Every step has the stamp of pÍjË, but the steps are different—Ësanam, offering aseat; pËdyam, water to wash the feet; arghyam, water to wash the hands; snËnam,bath; vastram, clothes; ËbharaÙam, ornaments; candanam kuÑkumam, sandlepaste and vermillon powder. Each step is different, but the category, jËti, is thesame, pÍjË-jËti. You are not moving away from pÍjË, but the mind has differentoccupations. Though it is not the same occupation, the particular name, pÍjË,continues to be there in all the steps. That is the jËti. The specific item in thepÍjË category, the step, is different. The main thing is pÍjË and these are allauxiliaries for the pÍjË. This is an ingenious way of keeping the mind in thesame occupation. You give the mind enough scope to move around, but at thesame time, the occupation is the same. This is possible in pÍjË, etc., which is apursuit which has me, ½Úvara, as the topic.In the GÌtË, from the second chapter onwards, so much is covered about ËtmË,

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the truth of everything. From the seventh chapter onwards, there is more ½Úvara1 Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Saylorsburg, 2007AVGSatsang Page # 2presented. The nature of ½Úvara, essentially, and what makes ½Úvara, ½Úvara areelaborately discussed. At the end of it BhagavËn says, manmanËbhava, may yourmind be with me always. Does that mean you cannot do anything else? Becausethe mind has one occupation, it will have no accommodation for anotheroccupation, since it can only entertain one thing at a time. If ½Úvara is alwaysthere, then you cannot do anything else. This is what one who has no exposureto the teaching, thinks. Then he complains, "Swamiji, the mind does not staywith me. It goes to various unfinished jobs and gives up BhagavËn." By thesame logic through which it went away, it comes back also. It is a loop. Fromanything, you can go and come back to the same thing, without thinking. Whatis the logic for going away? Nothing.The mind keeps coming and going. If that is the truth, then there is nothingmuch to talk about. Krishna becomes another object, through some association,and is one more person in the world. He cannot say that he is all-pervasive2, or“I am the one who is in the heart of everyone, I am the one who sustains theentire jagat, and I pervade the entire jagat. From me, is memory; your faculty toknow; from me, is this power to suspend what you know, what you remember,”BG 15.15.3 That all this can be suspended is a great blessing. The capacity tosuspend makes your mind fresh so that it can see something new. Even oldnotions can get negated in the wake of knowledge. You can get rid of ignoranceand ignorance-born wrong notions because the mind is capable of being open,having suspended all notions for the time being. That is the grace of ½Úvara; it isgiven to you. He says, “From me, is your faculty to remember and recollect, toknow and the power to suspend. I am the one to be known in all four Vedasand I am the one who revealed the Vedas. I am the revealer and I am therevealed,” BG 15.15. Like this BhagavËn uses the first person singular in allthese sentences.BhagavËn is Not an Object

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BhagavËn cannot be an object enclosed by a given thought. An apple is enclosedby a thought, excluding every other thought. This is how we learn to recognizeobjects discretely. A discrete object is the object of a thought form excludingeverything else. When you thread a needle, everything else in the world isexcluded. Even the needle is excluded. Only the eye of the needle is the objectin focus. That alone exists. When you see a tree, and then see the trunk of thetree, the focus, the intended perception, tËtparya, is the trunk, even though thetree is there. And if you see the leaf, then only the leaf is there, and so on. Youcan go on reducing the focus down to the molecules that make the chlorophyll.2 mayËtatamidaÑ sarvam jagadavyaktamÍrtinË, BG 9.43 sarvasya cËhaÑ hÎdisanniviÛÖo mattassmÎtirjÕËnamapohanaÑ ca, BG 15.15.AVGSatsang Page # 3In the same way, you can have a collective object-vÎtti called forest. There, theentire tËtparya is different. This is how the mind works. When you think of onething, other things are necessarily excluded.When you think of BhagavËn everything else is excluded. The question is: Isthere BhagavËn and everything else? What is other than BhagavËn? TheUpanisads tell us that whatever you see here is ½Úvara;4 what you know and donot know. Nothing is outside ½Úvara including the given ignorance an individualmay have. If the whole thing is ½Úvara, then when can your mind be away from½Úvara? Practice this a little bit—instead of sending the mind to ½Úvara, try tosend it away from ½Úvara. For this, you must necessarily have knowledge ofwhat ½Úvara is.Another way of looking at this is, “Wherever my mind goes and lands, that isyour lotus feet.” 5 Whether it thinks of time, it is you; a place, it is you; anobject, it is you. The sun, moon, constellations, mountains, oceans, continents,laws, forces are all you. Let the mind go; where will it go? Outside BhagavËn,how will it go? If the mind stays, if it is attracted towards something glorious,that is you. If someone is very strong, that strength is you.6 The burning powerthat fire has, that is you. Any glory anywhere, which attracts, is you. In fact the

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word 'krishna' means the one who attracts everything 7 . Whichever quality,feature, attribute attracts, that is BhagavËn. Lord Krishna says, “The brilliance inthe brilliant person is me8.” The faculty to think is given, and objects to thinkabout are given. Ignorance is given and the capacity to dispel it is given, forwhich there must be truth. The whole thing is given. How can anyone say, “Thisis my brilliance”? The ‘my’ is gone. My brilliance or someone else's brilliance is½Úvara's brilliance. That is the law.Understanding BhagavËnTo understand BhagavËn it takes a certain way of looking at what 'is'. It is notyour usual way of looking at something, as a product made by someone. Yousee the jagat and wonder by whom it was made. By BhagavËn. The eyes go upimmediately. Unless this orientation goes, there is no BhagavËn. The question ofwhere BhagavËn is should not even arise. “What 'is' BhagavËn?” alone should bethe question. “What 'is'?” will yield everything. You are not going to searchelsewhere, because searching for something else presupposes understanding of4 idaÑ sarvam ÌÚvara-buddhayË ËccËdanÌyam, yad idaÑ sarvam ÌÚvaraÒ, based on ½ÚËvËsyaUpaniÛad 1.15 yatra yatra mano yËti tatra tatra tava pËda paÔkajam6 balaÑ balavatËÑ cËham, BG 7.117 ËkarÛati sarvasmin sarvËn8 tejastejasvinËm aham, BG 7.10AVGSatsang Page # 4what is in front of you. But what is in front is not understood, because that hasthe solution. It is the product, it is the cause, and it is everything. You do notsearch for ½Úvara outside of what you see. That orientation does not work.Therefore, question “What is it that I see here?” In what you know, ½Úvarareveals himself. You require only one object, because you are the subject, theenquirer. The object can be the universe or one system or the sun or the earth ora rock. The object should reveal the truth of the object.If the object that you see is a table, what is its truth? 'What is?', is the question.You think it is created by a carpenter who is not here, because when you see thetable, you do not see the carpenter. What did he make? A table. Can you see the

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table without seeing another object, the meaning of which is not the same astable? We have an object table, which means that we have a word ‘table’ andthat word has an object. Then there is a word, 'wood'. It also has an object,wood. When you see the table, do you see wood at the same time? There aretwo words, 'table', and 'wood'. Both must be synonyms if they are referring tothe same object. ‘Table’ refers to an object and ‘wood’ refers to the same object,therefore, wood and table are synonyms. What does it mean if two words aresynonyms? It means that wherever there is a table there is wood, and whereverthere is wood, there is a table. Both are wrong. Wherever I see a table, I do notsee wood, and wherever I see wood, I do not see a table. Here, wood and tablehave assembled together. A certain logician 9 said, "They are two differentobjects connected by a principle called samavËya." He says so because he has acommitment to proving that they are two different objects. Let us understand'what is' and not try to prove anything. 'What is', is this table, which I cannoteven imagine without imagining a substance other than table, referred to by theword 'wood', ‘plastic’ ‘steel’, etc. Some other object has to be seen by me inorder to see the table. Without seeing that, I cannot see the table. Not only can Inot see table, I cannot even imagine it. Any one thing you look into is like this.You cannot think of a given thing without thinking of another. That ‘another’also, you cannot think of without thinking of another. The more you know, themore you have 'another'. Can you think of an object without its cause? No. Ifthere is a cause for this entire jagat—the maker and material being one cause—can you think of the jagat without it,? Can you take the mind away from anyone object to ½Úvara? How can you think of an object outside ½Úvara? You canthink of ½Úvara perhaps without the jagat, but can you think of a jagat which isoutside ½Úvara? Which object will take you away from ½Úvara? No object. Whenyou understand 'what is', with the answer to that question, “What is?” you haveall the answers. All questions become redundant. In all the chapters of the GÌtË,

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BhagavËn has made such questions redundant. Therefore, manmanËbhava— we9 This is the VaiÚeÛika who considers samavËya as one of the seven categories of substance in the jagat.AVGSatsang Page # 5have to see that whatever we see is ½Úvara, because the product is nËmarÍpa, justname-form, which is not separate from ½Úvara; it is ½Úvara. You do not need torub your eyes and see something more. Inside one has to be totally free fromnot recognizing 'what is'. If you see only the table and fail to recognize thewood, you will search for wood.

The World is Only WordsWe have only words and their meanings. We think there are tangible objects forwhich there are words, but there are just words and their meanings. The word'shirt', for instance, has its meaning. Whether it is in English or any language, itis the same. The word 'shirt’ is a word because it has a meaning which we bothunderstand, and therefore, I can communicate that to you, and we can deal withit; that is vyavahËra. This is a shirt and it can be used only as a shirt, not aspants. ‘Pant’ is a different word and has a different use. For every word we havea meaning, and when we see the meaning, we use the word. We see themeaning in the mind, and also, outside, which we call an object. We have theword and the meaning in our head, and when we see something outside thatcorresponds to the meaning of that word, we recognize it as an object, like ashirt.Sometimes, the word and its meaning are only in my head. I imagine it, butcannot see it with my eyes. I imagine a song, but I do not hear it through myears. I can imagine a particular fragrance, but I do not find a source outsidefrom which I can pick up the fragrance. Then we say this is imagination,subjective. When you are able to see the shirt with your eyes, it is not animagined shirt. It is not “I think, therefore it is,” but rather, “It is, therefore, Iam able to recognize it,” the word and its meaning. You get a concept of realityout of this. What is imagined is subjective, not available for public perception,

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but seen only in your mind. It is purely a subjective perception. We do not saythat it is not valid, but when we are talking of realities, we are talking aboutwhat is objectively real. What we make out of it is subjective. Sometimes youfantasize, visualize and then produce. That has its own use, but it is allsubjective.Because we see objects outside, we think that each one is different fromeverything else, which is true. Having accepted that, we consider that theseobjects are the meanings of words, which we necessarily perceive. We acceptthat kind of objectivity, but that does not give the shirt any status of tangibility.This is because shirt has no being. The 'isness', the being, of the shirt belongs tothe fabric. The fabric ‘is'; the 'is', resolves into the fabric. I see the existence ofa shirt, but I touch the fabric, not the shirt. When I say it is a cotton shirt, Itranscend the fabric, the yarn, and then go to the cause, the cotton. The capacityAVGSatsang Page # 6to transcend and see without doing anything is Vedanta. A shirt continues to bea shirt; fabric continues to be fabric; yarn continues to be yarn; but I transcendall of them and say that it is cotton. If you are quantum physicist, you will gofurther—up to quantum objects, particles. A shirt is nothing but particles. All theway the shirt is an effect.The material cause is where the effect is. The material cause for the shirt isfabric, and is referred to by another word. The shirt is referred to by the word'shirt' with its own meaning, but what is referred to by the word 'shirt' is notseparate from what is referred to by the word 'fabric', the cause of the shirt. Thisis the method, prakriyË, of revealing the truth through cause-effect. The effect isthe cause, and therefore, there is no cause-effect, so we call it a prakriyË. Theshirt is produced and is a value addition. Fabric is the cause, but is also aneffect from the standpoint of its cause, yarn. Where the shirt is, the fabric is;where the fabric is, the yarn is. Both causes are there, so I can even say that theshirt is but yarn; and further, yarn is but cotton; cotton is but fibers with their

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own molecular structure, and the molecule is atoms, so the shirt is atoms. I amwearing a bunch of particles. The body is a bunch of particles. One bunch ofparticles is wearing another bunch of particles. The glory is that particles canwear particles. Therefore, in non-difference there is no joy; the joy is indifference because difference does not make a difference. If it makes adifference then it is a problem. Let the differences be. Is there any cause, morefundamental, even for the particles? If there is a cause, then the particle is thecause, and therefore, the shirt is that cause.You are asking, “Where is god?” The shirt is the effect; the effect is the cause.If there is a fundamental cause, it is in the form of effect, which, in terms of itsreality, is called mithyË. You can neither dismiss the shirt as non-existent, norsay it exists by itself. If I use the word 'reality' for what is self-existent, then Icannot use the word 'reality' for the shirt; I cannot use the word 'non-existent',for the shirt because I wear the shirt. The very object that you confront is nonseparatefrom its cause. And one more thing—things are intelligently puttogether.The Cause; All KnowledgeWe, with our knowledge based upon our experiences, know that we cannotcreate a thing without really understanding, visualizing, what it is, and for whatpurpose it is going to be created. The extent of knowledge required to create agiven thing is the extent of knowledge the author must have to create that thing.In creating an object, like a shirt, the tailor knows why he is buying the fabric,why he cuts it the way he does, why he stitches it in this way. And the shirt iscreated. Because there is adequate knowledge, after the creation process, theAVGSatsang Page # 7meaning of the word 'shirt', is there. Previously, it was in his head; it wassubjective. Now it has become objective. This ‘objective’ is amazing. Even theword 'objective', has its limitations. Really, there is no object, but when you look

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at it, you can recognize it as a shirt. When it is in your head, I cannot look at it,but after creation it is available for public perception. This is what we say sÎÛÖi.Here it is knowledge that there is such a possibility that accounts for thecreation of a shirt. Whatever name you give an object, it is there because it is apossibility in this world.If a shirt presupposes shirt-knowledge, then the body also presupposes bodyknowledge.When the body is born, it presupposes knowledge of it and theprogramming required for it to grow. The knowledge that the existence of thisbody pre-supposes must be somewhere. The father does not have this knowledge,nor does the mother. Where is that knowledgeable person? Never ask, “Where?”',because there are people who will say that it is not locally available. What isnon-local? This whole jagat is in the form of knowledge, word and its meaning.Possibilities are all words and meanings. Buddhi, intellect, is a word and itsmeaning; manaÒ, mind, a word and its meaning; cittam, memory, a word and itsmeaning. That is knowledge. ‘Body’ is one word, and when you look into that,there are words, words, words, and their meanings, nËmni nËmËni. The meaningsof many words are the meaning of one single word, ‘body’, and not only thisbody, but the bodies of all living beings. Limitless knowledge, resting in aconscious being, is the cause, is the effect. The question of “Where?” does notarise here, because the effect is the cause. We swallow the material cause andthe efficient cause. The effect is the meaning of the word 'knowledge', and thecause is all-knowledge, ½Úvara.Anything you focus your attention upon is all-knowledge ½Úvara. Within that allknowledgealone is this individual knowledge. This is 'what is'. Where is thenecessity of questioning 'where' and 'how'? This is how it is. "Swamiji, Iunderstand all this but why did god create this?" God did not create all this; thisis god. This is how god is—the maker and material; male and female; god andgoddess. If somebody is sitting somewhere and creating, then you can ask,

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“Why did he create this?” This is how ½Úvara is, and it necessarily includes you.That ½Úvara who is inside and outside, who is all-knowledge, one consciousness,you are. You are that conscious being. All that is here is one knowledge, andwithin that, from the standpoint of your mind, which has limited knowledge, etc.,this all-knowledge is the being. Small-knowledge is also the same being. Smallknowledgeis not outside consciousness; all-knowledge is not outsideconsciousness. Therefore, all-knowledge, being, consciousness is ½Úvara, andsmall-knowledge, being, consciousness is jÌva, the individual. Are you awayfrom ½Úvara? Can you think of an object outside ½Úvara? The greatness of aAVGSatsang Page # 8human being is that even then he can think that he is away. Therefore,BhagavËn says, manmanËbhava, may your mind always be in me.Missing and Non Missing the Presence of ½ÚvaraWhen you are bringing ½Úvara into your day-to-day life, there are areas whereyou are bound to miss the presence of ½Úvara in your awareness andunderstanding. First, it is in your understanding. Even if someone hasunderstood, there are certain areas where one is bound to miss the presence of½Úvara. The awareness is never out of sight, but can be missed. Even if a personis within sight, there can be remoteness if he is not recognized. Then, in one'sawareness, there is alienation. ½Úvara also seems to be far removed from me.That 'me' is very loud. In the noise of the jÌva, who is so loud, ½Úvara is notheard even if he says, “I am here.” We are going to look into those areas wherethe presence of ½Úvara is likely to be missed. In those areas, this sentence—manmanËbhava—will become very valid. Given the understanding of the ninthchapter, which we have covered so far, all that is here is ½Úvara. Then at the endof this chapter, BhagavËn says, manmanËbhava, may your mind be always in me;madbhaktobhava, may you be devoted to me; madyËjibhava, may you worshipme; mËÑ namaskuru, may you surrender to me, mat parËyaÙo bhava, may I be

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the most important to you; mËmeva yeÚyasi, you will not be separate from me.'What is', is ½Úvara—before the manifestation of this jagat, including my bodymind-sense complex, and after the manifestation, because only what isunmanifest can manifest. If what is manifest is ½Úvara then the un-manifest isalso ½Úvara. The unmanifest ½Úvara is the cause, and the manifest ½Úvara is themanifested ½Úvara, so the effect is not separate from the cause. All-knowledge½Úvara being the cause means that the jagat was un-manifest in the form of pureknowledge. In the beginning, there was the word, and the word was with god,and the word was god. This is our understanding; word is nËma. We see this inBÎhadËraÙyaka UpaniÛad. All this was unmanifest; then it became manifest asname and form.10 That is how ½Úvara manifests. What was undifferentiated isnow manifest in a differentiated form, like a plant in a seed.In an orange seed, you do not see the orange tree. When you break the seedopen, there is no indication of an orange tree there—no presence of a trunk,branches, leaves, fruit, etc. It is all undifferentiated, in other words, anunmanifest, tree. The manifest orange tree was, ËsÌt. The manifest tree was inthe seed at the causal level as unmanifest. If you look at anything at the causallevel, it is unmanifest; it is pure software. What is unmanifest, undifferentiated,10 taddhedaÑ tarhyavvyËkÎtamËsÌt tanËmarÍpËbhyËmeva vyËkriyata, BrU 1.4.7.AVGSatsang Page # 9becomes differentiated in time. This is called sÎÛÖi, creation. Look at the creationnow. It is not that someone created it. The entire jagat was there,undifferentiated and that is ½Úvara. Differentiated ½Úvara, is also ½Úvara. What was,what is and what will be is ½Úvara.In this manifestation, the individual is also a very significant component. Whenwe talk of DakÛiÙËmÍrti as the Lord, the Lord is incomplete without theindividual who is looking at the Lord. The Lord is one, but just for ourunderstanding he is presented with eight components. It is an eight-fold model.

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The five elements, sÍkÛma, subtle and sthÍla, gross: ËkËÚaÒ (time is assumedwith space), vËyu, air; agni, fire; ËpaÒ, water and pÎthivÌ, earth, plus the sunrepresenting all luminous bodies, the moon for all planets, and the eighth factorin this eight-fold form, aÛÖamÍrti, is the significant person, you, who is lookingat the Lord. You have to include yourself for the Lord to be the Lord.You are the significant person because everything else is unlike you. If youexamine the meaning of the word 'I', it does not take much time for you tounderstand that you have no comparison, so how can you have a complex?Comparison leading to a complex is only between things that are similar. Youcannot sit by a rock and say, "You are impervious to sun, rain, people. I amjealous of you." A classical musician who spent all his time learning music,found that when he performed, people generally slept. If he compares himselfwith a rock-star who attracts large crowds, he can have a complex. He can havejealousy, anger and frustration, but not while sitting by a rock. Everything isunlike you. You are the only significant person in this world. You are the onlysubject; everything else is an object. All that is here is objects of yourconsciousness—the whole jagat. That is why consciousness is unlike anythingelse. And this is why god cannot be an object of consciousness. God has got tobe that consciousness, and everything. What 'is', is ½Úvara. In this, there is thetotal and the individual; that is the manifestation. If you look at yourself throughyour body-mind-sense complex, which gives you individuality, that is the truthabout you. In the total, ½Úvara, there is the individual, another individual and soon. This is called nËnË, differentiated creation, and it is all intelligently puttogether.Among the various laws, there are certain genetic laws and karmic laws. Theywork in tandem because it is all one phenomenon. You look at it through aparticular model and say that it is a genetic flow. If you ask “Why?” then thereis a karmic connection also, according to ÚËstra. You do not separate the laws

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from their outcome, because if the outcome is not there, you cannot even discernthe law. You discover the law because there is an outcome of it. Otherwise, howare you going to understand the law? Each individual is different. Karma is apart of that. When you look into it, it becomes a very important law. You canAVGSatsang Page # 10never discern the law without the outcome. Even if the ÚËstra tells yousomething, you cannot assimilate it unless the outcome is experienced by you.We see ourselves missing the bus and getting the bus. These outcomes we see.ÉËstra tells us that there is a law of karma. We accept that and can assimilate it,because in the outcome, we see the law. Whether you study the physical order,the biological order, or psychology, etc., they are all orders. In physics, if youfind in the dual behavior of a particle, that it is a wave now, that is the order, asfar you know now. There is no contradiction because you are trying tounderstand 'what is'. What 'is', is ½Úvara. Therefore, the study of all the orders isbhagavat-darÚanam, the vision of god. That is why when you discover orunderstand something there is such a joy. The quality of it is not comparablewith any other pleasure, because you are having a clearance of your ignorance,which separated you from all-knowledge ½Úvara. With reference to a particularfact, there is ignorance or no ignorance. When there is no ignorance, there is joy.You are in harmony with ½Úvara. Even a joke you understand when there isclearance. That is knowledge. Any understanding puts you in harmony with½Úvara.What 'is', is ½Úvara. Alienation is ignorance. Subject-object are both ½Úvara. Letus take an object like music—rock, classical or any other music. Then there is aperson, you, significant you. Music is the object; you are the subject. You sitthere judging the music, then you give yourself to the music. Then there is nosubject-object, just fusion. The subject-object are not standing opposed to eachother, and because there is fusion, there is joy. Subject-object is ½Úvara,

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nonduality. All within the non-dual whole, the wholeness is experienced, whetherit is the joy of knowing, vidyËnanda, or the joy of fusion with an object,viÛayËnanda, or some clearance and joy from prËÙËyËma or meditation,yogËnanda, there is only one Ënanda, ÌÚvarËnanda.Here is where your growth lies. How much you allow ½Úvara to be in your life,how much you are in harmony with ½Úvara, is your growth as a person. Being inharmony with ½Úvara is not being in harmony with one single person, becauseeverything is ½Úvara. It is not a single person that you have settle account with.You have to settle account with the whole world, and only then will you settleaccount with ½Úvara. How do you settle account with the whole world?The world is not that simple. When I admire the rose, holding it in my hand, thethorn pricks me. This is how it is. Some will say that the thorn is evil. No, thethorn is part of creation; it is there so that a goat will not eat the rose. The plantwants to keep it for some time, until it withers away. It is part of its survivalmechanism, its intelligence. There is no evil. The word 'evil', the way of lookingat something as evil, is the only evil in the world. This is because of some innerAVGSatsang Page # 11problem. One has to create that evil so that one can deal with it. There is no evil;there are only causes and effects. Using words like, ‘evil’, ‘beggar’, etc., onlyshows a person's insecurity, how vulnerable he is. One has to come out of thissurvival pattern of living. These are all words that give one some kind of shellbehind which one seeks some security. This is not security, because you are outin the world; you have to breathe fresh air.There is an order in psychology. The moment you say that something is evil,there is no order. If someone is born evil, who is to blame? It is all in order.Once you understand that there is order, you can relax, because in theappreciation of order there is the presence of ĪÚvara in your mind. You canunderstand that ĪÚvara's presence is purely cognitive, because the presence is

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there already. Absence is only due to your disowning or not seeing. Therefore, itis cognitive. The moment you say that any particular emotion is in order, youare recognizing the presence of ĪÚvara. That is what BhagavËn says inmanmanËbhava, let your mind recognize the presence of me in any situation.The emotional order is a very critical order because all our problems areemotional. People who do not deal with emotions and want to transcend themshould understand that they have a lot of emotions to process. They are afraid totouch the Pandora's box. If you understand the order, then you are not afraid ofanything. This is an order that is more critical, more important, because it isconnected to the order of dharma.DharmaI have no word to translate into English the word 'dharma'. Dharma has a vastmanifestation. It is present every moment in your life. Dharma is ĪÚvara'smanifestation. Interaction with the world is governed by dharma every momentof your life. The presence of dharma is there. If you transgress, there is adharmaand if you conform, dharma is there. If you conform to dharma, it is very muchthere and you are not separate from it. Dharma is ĪÚvara, and therefore, you arein harmony with ĪÚvara. If you are transgressing, it is because you are alreadyalienated. There is guilt and hurt, which is alienation. The joy of living is gone.Therefore, manmanËbhava, may you be that person whose mind is with ½Úvara.That is the literal meaning. ManmanËbhava implies that the presence of ½Úvara isalready there, and has to be recognized. The recognition should be such thatpresence cannot not be lost sight of. Suppose, physically you want to go awayfrom space, where will you go? Space is non-separate from ½Úvara. At least fromthis place you can go to another place, even another order of reality, as you doin a dream. Leaving this place-time, you create your own place-time in which

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the time series is different. It does not have the relativity that you have hereAVGSatsang Page # 12based upon the speed of light. There, you create another time series and place;that is possible and is within the order of ½Úvara. Why should there be thisparticular dream? It is all within the order. The dream is controlled by the orderof ½Úvara just as the physical universe is. The presence of ½Úvara cannot bemissed by anyone who is awake to ½Úvara.A certain critical area of ½Úvara's manifestation, where one is likely to miss½Úvara, is the area where there is conflict between desire-produced pressure anddharma. Dharma is universal, and anything universal cannot be created by ahuman being. So knowledge of dharma is there in every person. Consider onevalue, like hurting. I do not want to get hurt; no one should hurt me. Whodoesn't want this? 'Who' includes all life forms. A cow does not want to getkilled. It wants to survive. That is innate in creation. It is the order of ½Úvara.Every living being is given this instinct for survival, and survival implies notgetting hurt. This is universal. But the cow does not seem to have theknowledge that you do not want to get hurt. It does not look at it as a value. Ifit did, then it would have regret after hurting somebody. It has no guilt becauseit knows that it should not get hurt, but does not seem to know that others donot want to get hurt either. That is why the cow is called dharma-adharmËbhyËÑvimuktaÒ, free from dharma and adharma. PaÚupati is called vimukteÚvara, thelord of the vimuktas, where vimukta means an animal, paÚu.I do not want to get hurt; no one wants to get hurt; this knowledge is complete.That is why non-injury is the highest dharma, ahiÑsËparamo dharmaÒ. ½Úvara ismanifest in the form of dharma. Dharma is not ‘outside’, but is manifest whereit has got to be, right in your mind. That is the basic knowledge of yourself.You are a cognitive person, basically, not an agent. First, you are a knower;open your eyes, and you become a seer. No will is involved and no decision isinvolved. Just by opening your eyes, you become a seer. If there is a sound, youare a hearer, if your ears are open. You are a knowing person, a cognitive

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person, and in that person this knowledge of the universal value structure isgiven. This knowledge is there by common sense.For human interaction you require a mechanism that will allow you to say, “No”when you have to. All the impulses are there, the desires are too numerous, andthe pressures created by them are too great, because every human being isinsecure until the person understands that he is the source of all security. Thereis a long way to go to know that, and until then, he is insecure and incomplete.His desires have got to be fulfilled in order for him to feel that he is ‘somebody’.These kinds of desires produce a tremendous amount of pressure called vega—the pressure of desire, the pressure of anger. Anger is not the problem; it is thepressure, the force that is created by desire that is the motivating power. Itmoves mountains. It can be positive or it can go against dharma, which is innateAVGSatsang Page # 13to the cognitive person. This is what we weakly refer to as conscience. It isreally knowledge of dharma, which can become highly assimilated knowledge.There is always pressure to cut corners when one does not have an assimilatedvalue, so the advantage of conforming to dharma has to be assimilated. What doI lose when I go against dharma? That assimilation has to take place. What Igain is very clear—money, power, and advantage. “The one who is able toneutralize this pressure is successful11.” The pressure is a motivating force, but itturns into a harmful thing, for others and yourself, when it drives you to goagainst dharma, against ĪÚvara, and against yourself. Dharma is sensed by all ofus, without exception. It is universal. You have knowledge of dharma in yourmind, where you require a mechanism to regulate your actions, because youhave freedom. The pressure created by desire is so great that you can abuse anddestroy, so the brake mechanism has to be within yourself. That is theknowledge. Because you are a cognitive person, you have freedom to do, not todo, or do something differently. Therefore, you can say 'yes', or 'no'. Thiscapacity and freedom being there, the mechanism has to be there. That is howwe are all able to live; that is how you can leave your house and come here.

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Dharma does not always transpire because of law and order. We controlourselves because we have a mechanism for that.Dharma is not only a mechanism given to you to stop you from doing what youfeel like doing when it is harmful to yourself and others, but also, to make youreach out and grow into a compassionate person. That dharma is given to you tohelp you grow into a huge human being. It is all-knowledge and it has an objectwhich is not outside of you. The object of each value is inside you, and is notanything other than ĪÚvara, even though there is really no object at all. AhiÑsa isnot an object; compassion is not an object; love is not an object; giving is notan object. They are all the nature of ĪÚvara. Dharma is a critical manifestation ofĪÚvara, manifest in the mind of every human being, innate to the basic personwho has this knowledge of dharma, ĪÚvara’s manifestation. It is in every humanbeing, providing a basis on which to make his or her choices. The alienationfrom ĪÚvara is going against dharma. When you go against dharma, you are therevery much; you have fallen victim to your own pressure. What was given is aprivilege—to desire, to do, not to do. When one succumbs to the pressure causedby desire and it turns into passion, it makes the person go against ĪÚvara, againstoneself. What kind of joy can one have when one goes against oneself? Vaidikadharmaholds dharma as a puruÛËrtha, an end to be accomplished by a humanbeing. Dharma is a manifestation of ĪÚvara, not a mandate of god. The differenceis the difference between the aggressive and the objective.11 ÚaknotÌhaiva yaÒ so×huÑ prËk ÚarÌravimokÛaÙËtkËmakrodhodbhavaÑ vegaÑ sa yukta sa sukhÌ naraÒ, BG 5.23AVGSatsang Page # 14The world of objects has two categories—rËga-dveÛa, objects you love to haveand retain and objects you love to avoid and get rid of. You have the privilegeto desire, and therefore, you have raga-dveÛa. There is no harm in them; theymake you a privileged human being. That you can have desires is a privilege but

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one should not come under their spell, tayoÒ vaÚaÑ na Ëgaccet, BG. A spell isthe motive force you come under only when you go against dharma. Untilassimilation of dharma takes place what is the deterrent? Norms in the society,punitive, discouraging laws are all deterrents. You have to be a mature person toassimilate dharma, and that comes only with one's own initiative. That is whydharma is a puruÛËrtha. You cannot achieve it as a rule, like physical maturity.ÉËstra recognizes that a human being has to grow to conform to dharmanaturally, spontaneously. The growth is up to that point where you do not haveany conflict, because what you like is exactly what is to be done, and what youdo not like is what is not to be done. Then dharma, the puruÛËrtha is yours. Youare a successful person. That is vaidika-dharma. See the difference. Only thenwill you have the capacity to make proper choices and to make use of theprivilege that you have. Dharma is ĪÚvara, and when you conform to dharma youbecome manmanË, one whose mind is in ĪÚvara. And for that you should havemadbhaktaÒ, devotion to ĪÚvara.At the end of all the discussion in the 9th chapter of the Gita, BhagavËn says,manmanËbhava, may you become one whose mind does not lose the presence ofĪÚvara. In the awareness of such a person, the presence of ĪÚvara is not lostsight of. But unless you understand ĪÚvara properly, that is not possible. Supposeyou understand that wherever you go, all that is there is ĪÚvara, where will themind go? That is what the whole teaching is. That is the difference between anobject and ĪÚvara. A given object or a person is not any other object or person.You should not reduce ĪÚvara to one of those objects. Such ignorance cannot befurther heightened. Therefore, there is so much discussion by Lord Krishna tomake himself very clear about ĪÚvara, “May the presence of me (ĪÚvara) bealways in your awareness,” because it is possible, because that is the truth.

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Dharma is a manifestation of ĪÚvara in your mind, not outside of you. Itmanifests in the form of your interactions with the world born of yourknowledge of dharma. Because it is a manifestation of ĪÚvara, we have theexpression, rËmaÒ vigrahavËn dharmaÒ, the Lord as dharma is manifest with abody, called Rama. Dharma itself assumes a body in the form of Rama. RËmameans the one in whom people discover joy.12 Krishna is Ënanda-avatËra, so hisexpressions are in the form of dance, music, etc. When dharma is there, Ënanda12 ramante yasmin iti rËmaÒAVGSatsang Page # 15will follow, and without dharma, there cannot be Ënanda. There can be artha andkËma, objects of pleasure, avenues of pleasure, for which there is enough wealthand so on, but only with dharma do they yield Ënanda. That is why Rama isfirst, and then Krishna.BhagavËn is there in the form of dharma, but not only that. BhagavËn says, "Iam in the form of your desire, as long as it is not opposed to dharma.13 " Evenif your desire is against dharma, in your mind BhagavËn is there in the form ofdharma. In terms of desire, he is there in the desire of all living beings, which isunopposed to dharma. In an animal, the desire is unopposed to dharma becauseit is programmed. A human being, however, has knowledge of dharma, andtherefore, he alone is talked about here. “In human beings, I am in the form ofdharma and desire that does not go against dharma.” Even if a desire is againstdharma, like wanting to rob someone, if you do not act on the thought, then youdo not go against ĪÚvara. Because you had no control over that thought, even theoccurrence of that desire is according to an order and that order is ĪÚvara.There is an order because of which there is greed, coveting and so on. That kindof thinking is because of pressure that arise due to the psychological order.Psychology works along with the order of dharma. Anyone one who goesagainst dharma is not intrinsically healed. There is a background which iscontrolled by the psychological order, which is a manifestation of ĪÚvara. We

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understand ĪÚvara only in this way. Like the physical order is a manifestation ofĪÚvara, the biological order is another manifestation, the physiological order isanother manifestation of ĪÚvara, and the psychological order is another criticalmanifestation of ĪÚvara, because it is intimately connected to dharma.The order of dharma is one side of the coin, and the other side is the order ofkarma. Therefore, even a desire, which is not in keeping with dharma, can beaccommodated within ĪÚvara's order as long you do not go along with it. Whenone goes along with that desire, it becomes karma—adharma becomes karma.Only then is it adharma, otherwise it is all within dharma. It is against dharmaonly in action. Therefore, the Gita says, “You have a choice only over youraction. 14” One can argue, “Why don’t we say that this wrong action is alsoĪÚvara's order?” Yes, that is also ĪÚvara, but it turns into guilt and fear, which is,again, all within the order. Therefore, there is pËpa, suffering, unpleasantexperiences in this life, and the hereafter also. This is not an intelligent,pragmatic proposition. If you think you are gaining by robbing, then the loss isbigger than the gain; it is yourself. Everything that you want is to please13 dharma-aviruddho bhÍteÛu kËmo’smi BG 7.1114 karmaÙi eva adhikËras te BG 2.47AVGSatsang Page # 16yourself; that is the basic want.15 You need to see yourself as a pleased person.How can you be pleased with guilt and fear inside? The very action has guiltinvolved in it. Therefore, a fancy is not taken into account. In keeping with theorder, there are so many fancies occurring in your head. When you go alongwith one, make sure that the means of fulfilling it is in keeping with dharma.Therefore, karma becomes so important. Dharma is the basis and karma is whatyou choose. So you have a choice over your action; you can do it or you neednot do it. That is the human choice. If that is lost, then the human status is lost.Therefore, you should be able to say, “No.” Up to this point, it is simple. Thenyou take it to another step.

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When you are in harmony with dharma in your actions, then, whatever be thesituation, there is dharma involved. Dharma is not merely right and wrong. Ithas other shades covering your life. Dharma is a dynamic order because life isdynamic. Situations keep on changing, but one thing never changes. In allsituations, your response is appropriate or inappropriate. That is also aninvariable. The appropriateness, called svadharma, is invariable. That this isappropriate at this place, at this time is all hooked on to dharma. Conformity isconsideration of others. It is a high degree of sensitivity. You conform to certainconventions, which are all man-made conventions, but then, because you aredoing what is appropriate, it will not cause any resistance from anyone.Therefore, you live a life of least disturbance. That is our understanding ofahiÑsa. At the time of sannyËsa, ahiÑsa alone is the commitment. It is a life ofleast disturbance to others and one's self, which is svakarma.A situation calls for a certain thing to be done, and when you do it, you feelfree because you have done your svakarma. If you do not do the laundry in time,nothing will happen, but the load of laundry will sit inside your head. I say thisbecause when you finally do it, you feel lighter. It is clear that the load wasunloaded. BhagavËn says, “The human being gains success in life by doing whatis to be done.16” BG 'To be done' also implies appropriateness and etiquette. Ifyou have any doubt as to whether something is dharma or adharma, then askand follow what the elders say or do. Conformity to dharma implies that whatyou do is not in any way harmful or disturbing. It includes the environment,flora and fauna also. Seeking help in knowing dharma is intelligent living. To beignorant is not a special privilege of someone. Everyone is ignorant, until theperson knows. Svakarma, whatever is to be done, whatever is appropriate, in allsituations, is BhagavËn. If you recognize the presence of ĪÚvara by doing theappropriate thing, then you are manmanË.15 Ëtmanastu kËmËya sarvaÑ priyaÑ bhavati BrU 2.4.5; 4.5.616 svakarmaÙË tam abhyarcya siddhiÑ vindati mËnavaÒ BG 18.46

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AVGSatsang Page # 17manmanË bhava madbhakto madyËjÌ bhava mËÑ namaskurumËmevaiÚyasi yuktvaivamËtmËnaÑ matparËyaÙËÒ BG 9.34To be that person whose mind is awake to the presence of ĪÚvara in allsituations, you do your svakarma with an awareness of, and conformity to, theorder of dharma. Then you are in harmony with ĪÚvara. Whether you knowĪÚvara or not, when you do what is to be done, you feel at home. That isbecause you are in harmony with ĪÚvara, 'what is'. At all times the 'to be done',is given. You have no choice. When you do that without conflict, there isharmony. The awareness is important; dharma implies all this. It is not only auniversal value structure; it is also duty. Even giving is dharma, because it isalso something to be done. In a given situation, when you are in a position togive, you give. The SËmaveda tells us dËnena adËnaÑ tara, overcome theincapacity to give by giving. Being this kind of a person is not something youcan decide about and be. It is a matter of understanding and living.The DevoteemanmanË bhava madbhaktaÒBeing manmanË is not possible if you are a devotee, bhakta, of something else.If you look at the devotees in the world, they have a certain understanding ofĪÚvara in different degrees. They have some kind of Úraddha, belief in ĪÚvara,and want ĪÚvara to help, but what they want is most important. If someonewants redress from his difficulties, relief from distress, he is a distressed devotee,an Ërta-bhakta. If everything goes well, then ĪÚvara does not come into thepicture, because this person thinks he is in charge. When things do not go well,then he invokes the grace of ĪÚvara, which is the right thing to do. That bhaktais a devotee in distress. The second kind is a devotee in distress too, but he isalso an arthËrthi, a devotee invoking grace for the success of an undertaking. Heis more aware of the need of some grace. He understands that ÌÚvara-anugraha isnecessary for achieving his ends, artha. Besides the course of action that oneemploys for achieving a given end, one works for grace, because in between

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there are too many problems. That is religious pragmatism.There is a third type of bhakta. He will pray when in distress, seek help, dowhat is to be done and invoke grace when he wants to accomplish an end. Butprimarily he is a jijÕËsu, one who wants to know. The Lord says, "He is the onewho wants to know me. Knowledge of me becomes his primary end."Everything else subserves that end, and that end is there all through his life. It isnot that it is there at a given time and not there at other times. It is always there.If one is a bhakta, a jijÕËsu, it means that all through he or she is that. Nomatter what kind of altar one prays to, a bhakta is always a bhakta. He is theprimary person, because primarily he is related to ĪÚvara.AVGSatsang Page # 18A wave in the ocean may be related to another wave because it was born of thatwave. It also has a relationship to other waves as a sister, brother, friend, etc.But there is one relationship, which is not variable. In other relationships, whenone is there, the others are absent—when the sister is there, the daughter has tobe gone. In the invariable relationship, the bhakta wave is related to ocean.When the bhakta relates to her mother, does the bhakta go away, and thedaughter come? No. Let us look at the mother and the ocean—the relationship isthat of the individual and total. If there is a mother's mother, that mother also isindividual and total; mother's daughter, individual and total. Mother's daughterrelated to mother's mother is not the same. She is granddaughter, but still,individual and total. Small, big, old, young are all individual and total. In otherwords when this relationship is recognized, the individual becomes a permanentbhakta. We have to create a word for this person, the one who recognizes thepresence of the total pervading him or her. The ocean pervades the wave.Therefore, as an individual she is always related to the total. She can never beaway from the total presence. As an individual, she is pervaded and sustained bythe total. If she understands the role she has, the nature of ĪÚvara, the order that

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is ĪÚvara, then sshe is pervaded, sustained, blessed, he can say, by the presenceof ĪÚvara, the total. This relationship is absolute because it is not variable.A person who is basically a bhakta does not need to promote bhakti. That is thetruth, but it takes jÕËnam, knowledge, to appreciate that, and that is whyBhagavËn says he is a jijÕËsu and not the more general bhakta. He is a bhaktawho is not subject to spasms of bhakti. This bhakta is the basic person, the onewho recognizes the relationship that is basic, that of the individual to the total. Itis invariable, and remains there always, so that he has no doubt about what rolehe plays. A jijÕËsu-bhakta is not a seasonal bhakta. A jijÕËsu wants BhagavËnbecause he is available for owning, just for the asking. All that is here isBhagavËn so gaining of BhagavËn, is knowing. Bhagavat-darÚanam is knowing.Seeing a particular form is mËnasika-ÌkÛaÙaÑ and is purely subjective. Even ifBhagavËn gives such a darÚana as his karmaphala, it is still mËnasika-ÌkÛaÙa.Because the presence of ĪÚvara is always there, the gain of ĪÚvara is knowingĪÚvara.Such a person is unaffected by the roles. That is the bhakta. His bhakti is thecushion, so the roles' problems are confined to the roles. This is not ordinary.For that, you have to be a bhakta. That is the truth. Do not say you areconsciousness. It does not work. That is dissociation. Because you are anindividual, you have to resolve the issue with the presence of ĪÚvara. Betweenthe bhakta who is aware of the presence of ĪÚvara and the role, there is always aself-aware distance, that is, a distance brought about by self-awareness. Thisdistance is purely self-identity, not losing self-identity while playing roles.AVGSatsang Page # 19Therefore, role-playing is not an issue. The whole life is role-playing and inevery role the bhakta is always present. This is a jijÕËsu-bhakta.Madbhakto bhava, may you be my devotee. There are different kinds ofdevotees. If one is a devotee because one needs the help of BhagavËn,BhagavËn becomes an accomplice for various ends. There is nothing wrong with

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that, because we need grace, but we need to have knowledge of ĪÚvara, which isthe gain of ĪÚvara. Therefore, madbhakto bhava means that one has to become ajijÕËsu. How?MadyËjÌ bhava mËÑ namaskuru. For a jijÕËsu, any action enjoined by the Veda,a vaidika-karma, is also for gaining the knowledge of ĪÚvara. MadyËjÌ bhava,means offer all your worship—whether smËrta-karmas or vaidika-karmas, stuthi,namaskËra, etc.— unto me Any ray of glory anywhere is ĪÚvara's manifestation.Thus be, matparËyaÙËÒ, one for whom I am the ultimate end to be accomplished.We have to say 'ultimate' because there are other ends. Through all other ends,you achieve the param, ultimate, end. MËmeva eÚyasi, certainly you will reachme. The various things that we do in life become yoga when that is kept in view.We need not change anything external; attitude changes, vision changes.Then, the culmination of the various devotees—Ërta arthËrti jijÕËsuÒ—is a fourthdevotee called a jÕËni, a fulfilled devotee. All are devotees. Lord Krishna says,“All are exalted [because they recognize me; they have Úraddha in puÙya-pËpa,dharma], but then, the jÕËni is myself alone.” 17 That is ĪÚvara's vision.

17 udhËrËs sarva evaite jÕËnÌtvËtmaiva me matam BG 7.18

Schiffrin (1994:115) points out that “social meanings of acts can be formulated in

terms of their interpersonal and interactional consequences, thus providing another

context in which utterance meaning is situated”. This applies to proverbs in

exchanges also, as can be seen in the following example:

A : I: sandarbhanga: ku:l drinks ti:sukurandi.

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This context according to cool drinks get

‘On this occasion, get cool drinks’.

B : Talliki chi:retle:duga:ni pinatalliki sa:rettaduta.

Mother to saree give cannot but aunt to saree gave.

‘He cannot give a saree to his mother but gave a saree to his aunt’.

[Sare is a gift of clothes, food stuffs, and other domestic items given on

special occasions such as marriage, birth ceremonies etc.]

B (Clerk’s) ‘Cousin’ (brother’s daughter) passed the examinations in

distinction and he breaks the news to his colleague A (the superintendent) in the

office.

As utterances b(a) and (d) are conventionally seen as face-threatening being

an imperative in the first instance and a censure in the second instance. But are

they really so in this context? No, they are not.

Let us see why it is so. A and B are friends and have a jovial and warm

relationship. They are also intimate. That is why A is permitted to intrude upon B’s

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freedom of action (negative politeness and issue an order b(a) which is considered

without any offence. B’s utterance .. is a rejection of A’s order and is an enhanced

modification of A’s informal request and a promise to fulfill that modified order.

There are two possibilities here. It would threaten A’s positive politeness, if A

thinks that B is hedging. However, B is not hedging ; he is merely boasting via a

bigger promise. That is known from the background interpersonal relationship

between A and B. At the same time, A has missed his cool drinks and wants to

tease him on that account. So he light-heartedly jokes using the proverb as a

discourse strategy. This fact is confirmed by his laugh. The same proverb in a

different interpersonal setting, for example, in a cold relationship between A and B

may trigger a potential censure threatening B’s positive politeness. Thus, we have

seen that interpersonal relationships alter the social meaning. They also alter the

emergent sequence of discourse. For example, in a formal relationship, A would

not have used an imperative in the first instance and again would not have used the

proverb in the second instance in (b) – A would have opted for an indirect or polite

or no request and consequently concluded the exchange with an acknowledgement

or a support.

However, the identification of speech acts is problematic since the conditions for two speech

acts may be similar as in the case of, say, questions and requests (cf. ibid 71) leading to alternative

interpretations as exemplified in the case of :

‘Ywant a piece of candy?’ as a question, as a question, a request and an offer (ibid 59-85)

followed by ‘No’ as an answer, a compliance, and a refusal. Nonetheless, not all texts yield to such

multiple interpretations. In such cases, there will be a cross-matching of the speech acts producing

incoherence if multiple interpretations are sought. The coherence will come out if only the intentionality

of the Speaker / Hearer is known from their psychological knowledge and not from the textual

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representation. Such a phenomenon can be observed in a proverbial exchange – as in the case of an

(angry) elicitation and an (angry) exclamation both in the interrogative structure – given below in (2) :

1. A : mi : ru ha : rsu raidiingki ra:le:de: ?

You horse riding to come not i.m.

2. B : buddiki Savurle : du ga:ni kottam lo:di : pam pedata : nannatta :….

Bottle to oil not (then) but cattle hut in light put wills aid that

‘There is no oil for the (small lamp) bottle but he said that he will put a (big lamp) in the cattle

hut (shed).

(1) A : puvvulu ti:se:ste:, vigraham andamga le:du.‘(If you) remove(ing) the flowers, the idol is

unattractive’

B : avunu, undade:miti? Manishi ku:da: ante: alanka:ram tise:ste:

So will it not be ? Even a man (is) also like that, if the decoration is removed.

Anni: pedite: bommakka, anni: tiste: timmakka.

(If you) put(ting) all Sister Doll, removing all Sister

Thimma.

[ Bommakka is women decorated like a doll;

Thimmakka is an ill-dressed country girl ]

2. Contextual Reconcretization of the Abstraction

3. Algorithmic- Heuristic - Automatic Processing of Cognition in Derivation of Meaning

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Works Cited

Bhuvaneswar, Chilukuri [1998]. “The English Proverb in I/E Exchange: A Multilayered Systemic Analysis”. A Part of PhD Course Work. Hyderabad: CIEFL

------------ [1999]. “The English Proverb in I/E Exchange: A Multilayered Systemic Analysis”. A Paper Presented at the First International Congress On English Grammar. Hyderabad: CIEFL ------------ [2000a]. “Reference, Sense and Denotation in Proverbs”. In Semantics of Proverbs. A Part of PhD Course Work. Hyderabad: CIEFL

________ [2000b]. “Proposition in Proverbs: A Semantic Analysis”. In Semantics of Proverbs. A Part of PhD Course Work. Hyderabad: CIEFL

________ [2000c]. “Synonymy and Antonymy in Proverbs: A Semantic Analysis”. In Semantics of Proverbs. A Part of PhD Course Work. Hyderabad: CIEFL

----------- [2000d]. “Figures of Speech in Proverbs: A Semantic Analysis”. In Semantics of Proverbs. A Part of PhD Course Work. Hyderabad: CIEFL

Berry, M. (1981a). “Polarity, ellipticity, elicitation and propositional development, their relevance to the well-formedness of an exchange”. Nottingham Linguistic Circular, 10, No. 1. 36 - 63.

------ (1981b). “Systemic linguistics and discourse analysis: a multi - layered approach to exchange structure”. In Studies in discourse analysis. (ed.by) Malcolm Coulthard and Martin Montgomery. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.120 - 145.

----- (1981c). “Towards layers of exchange structure for directive exchanges”. Network, 2. 23-32.

Gleitman, Henry, Fridlund, Alan J., and Reisberg, Daniel (2000). Basic Psychology. New York: W.W. Norton and Company

Leech, Geoffey N. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman Group Limited

Leezenberg, Michiel (1995). Contexts of Metaphor: Semantic and Conceptual Aspects of

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Figurative Language Interpretation. Dissertation, ILLC/Dept. of Philosophy, Universityof Amsterdam

Lyons, John (1979). Semantics I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

----------- (1979). Semantics II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Mieder, Wolfgang (1992). A Dictionary of American Proverbs. New York: Oxford University Press

Schiffrin, Deborah (1994). Approaches to Discourse. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers

Searle, John (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

------ (1979a). Expression and Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

------ (1979b). “A Classification of Illocutionary Acts”. In Expression & Meaning. Cambridge UPVenkatavadhani, Divakarla, Reddi, Yasoda P., and Reddi, Kodandarama (1986). Telugu Samethalu Third Edition. Hyderabad: Telugu Visvavidyalayam

Vanderveken, Daniel (1990). Meaning and Speech Acts Vol I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

--------- (1991). Meaning and Speech Acts Vol II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

H.P. Grice 1989 [1973] Logic & Conversation. In Studies in the Way of Words.Cambridge MA: Harvard UP

Pierre Bourdieu 1991 Language & Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity PressPenelope Brown & Stephen C. Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some universals in languageusage. Cambridge UPCharles Briggs 1998 Missing Signs: Ideological presuppositions and political lacunae inpragmatics. Plenary lecture, 6th IPrA Conference, Reims, France

Sarah Mills on Gender and Politeness

In this chapter I aim to bring together new theoretical work on gender from feminist linguistics with new theorising of linguistic politeness. (1) I aim to clear some theoretical space for thinking

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about both the terms gender and politeness, and thus much of the paper is given over to a critique of theorising on this subject. My argument is that we need a more flexible and complex model of gender and politeness. Theorists in gender and language research cannot continue to discuss gender simply in terms of the differential linguistic behaviour of males and females as groups; we need to be able to analyse the various strategies which gendered, raced and classed women and men adopt in particular circumstances and with particular goals and interests. (2) In terms of the analysis of politeness, I would argue that we need several analytical changes: firstly, we need to see politeness as occurring over longer-stretches of talk; secondly, it should be seen within the context of a community of practice, rather than as simply as the product of individual speakers, and finally, we need to be aware that there may be conflicts over the meanings of politeness. By focusing on the analysis of an incident in which I was involved, in the final part of this essay, I try to formulate the ways in which I think the theorising of gender and politeness might proceed, and in particular I focus on the way that impoliteness is dealt with in interactional terms. A more pragmatic focus on impoliteness enables us to view politeness less as an addition to a conversation, something which is grafted on to individual speech acts in order to facilitate interaction between speaker and hearer, (which is at least implicit in Brown and Levinson's 1978 model) but rather as something which emerges at a discourse level, over stretches of talk and across communities of speakers and hearers. This, therefore, constitutes a discourse analysis of politeness, rather than a linguistic analysis of politeness. Thus, rather than identifying the Face Threatening Acts performed by individuals and the politeness repair work deemed necessary to contain their force, as Brown and Levinson (1978) have done, I will be focusing instead on the effect of impoliteness on groups and the way that gender plays a role in assumptions about who can be impolite to whom, and who needs to repair the damage. I will suggest that, using Relevance theory to examine the way that male and female interactants make sense of an event in speech, we may be able to see gendered protocols at work. (Sperber and Wilson, 1986) In viewing a range of different interactions we can analyse the different strategies adopted by various women rather than attempting to make generalisations about the way that all women respond to rudeness or are themselves impolite. (3) In this way, we can map out parameters for strategic intervention to repair interaction and suggest ways in which they may be contextually gendered, without making assumptions about the necessary pairing of language items with a specific gender.

The above quote suggests that prototype structure theory serves as a descriptive model for describing meaning on the level of performance. Prototype categories have not only the functional advantage of offering “maximum information with the least cognitive effort” (Rosch, p.28), but according to Geeraerts they also “maintain themselves to changing circumstances and new expressive needs” (1988, p.223). For instance, prototypical ‘vehicles’ of the early 19th Century (carriages) are not the same as prototypical ‘vehicles’ of the early 21st Century (motor-cars). If, however, the prototype of ‘vehicle’ has changed in the past hundred years, this does not mean that the meaning of ‘vehicle’ has also changed. This consideration of temporal changes creates an additional problem for prototype structures as representations of real world categories.

In this context, however, Lehrer remarks that the same words are not used only in their prototypical sense but that single words are frequently extended in meaning

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for other peripheral events, processes or situations. She adds that this strategy can be useful to account for an infinitive set of expressive needs by a finite lexicon. Therefore, fuzzy boundary words are useful in the sense that they are applicable to a wider variety of things, situations and events. Thus, lexical economy can be achieved.

The experiments of both Labov and Rosch mentioned above, show that prototype theory involves a psycholinguistic notion that aids human categorization.The related features can be summarised as follows:

1. 1. A prototypical structure underlies every category.

2. 2. Prototype categories cannot be realised by means of a set of features, since the various members may not share the same amount of such features.

3. 3. Prototype categories may be blurred at the edges.

4. 4. Category membership can be realised in terms of gradience.i[2]

5. 5. Semantic structures of such categories often cluster and overlap in meaning.

The above five features can be characterised as related in two dimensions, according to Taylor, “prototypicality, as studied by Rosch, is intimately up with what we might call the ‘two axes of categorisation” (1989, p.46). In Rosch’s terms the horizontal dimension describes the internal structure of a category, while the vertical dimension describes the intercategorial structure. The horizontal dimension is concerned with descriptions such as why x is a cat and not a dog, but it does not consider why in certain cases x is categorised as animal or mammal. The vertical dimension, on the other hand, exhibits a threefold subdivision: basic levels, superordinate levels and subordinate levels. The basic level is considered as the most informative and can therefore be claimed as the most economical with relation to cognitive processes. In fact, the basic level terms can be considered as of privileged status reflected in everyday situations. For example, supposing there is an apple on the kitchen table, it is likely that a person would ask another‘could you please fetch the apple for me?’ but it would be unlikely that they would them to pass ‘the Golden Delicious’ or ‘the piece of fruit’, ‘the Golden Delicious’ being in a subordinate category and ‘the piece of fruit’ being in a superordinate category. This explains the above statement that basic level objects, such as apples or dogs, attract a privileged status because they belong to the most inclusive level at which, according to Kleiber, “information-rich bundles of co-occurring perceptual and functional attributes” are to be found (p.59); these are also common to all or most of the category members. The following section considers the relation between prototype structures and meaning.

It would not be appropriate to claim that the meaning of a given lexeme , such as ‘bird’, is expressed by the meaning of its prototype, such as sparrow or blackbird. Instead, and according to Colman and Kay,

many words have as their meaning not a list of necessary and sufficient conditions that a thing or event must satisfy to count as a member of a

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category denoted by the word, but rather a psychological object or process which we have called a PROTOTYPE. (p.43)

In relation to the above quote, Kleiber argues that the prototype should be regarded as a cognitive representation, which is generally associated with a particular word and serves as the reference point for categorisation. Therefore, the meaning of a given word is not defined by a concrete prototype, but rather by the mental representation of the prototype. This mental picture is not necessarily the

i[2] It is important to add to this point the assumptions made in a study by Barsalou (1987), who, following that the graded structure of a category is not stable but varies across contexts, concluded that invariant structural characteristics of categories are not represented by graded structures. This instability in graded structure is triggered by the temporal representations of concepts of the same category in the working memory domain, on different occasions. Accounting for these graded structures as highly dynamic and an unstable phenomenon, he evaluated the proposal that the memory stores such representations; certain associative strengths (between the category and its exemplars) represent a category’s graded structure in long-term memory. Assessing the strength of these associative relations, people assign higher typicality values to higher strengths. For an extended discussion see Barsalou, 1987. “Researchers have long been aware that linguistic communication, of which face-to-facedialogue is merely one variety, is an irreducibly social phenomenon. Remarkably,however, among authors dealing with theoretical questions in pragmatics, includingAustin, Searle and Grice, there is a consistent tendency to downplay, hide, or abstractaway from the institutionalized nature of most if not all speech acts, and from thespecifically social character of these institutions (cf. Bourdieu 1991, Briggs 1998). Searlein particular tends to naturalize and decontextualize the conventions involved, as he hasthe explicit aim of redescribing the philosophy of language as a subpart of the philosophyof mind. In keeping with with this approach, he tries to reduce the social aspects oflanguage use to biological characteristics of the mind, and to relocate the socialconventions in a allegedly largely culture-independent domain of rules of language usagethat follow their own logic. In recent years, speech act theory has ceded much ground tomore descriptive approaches like conversation analysis, but on this specific point nomajor revisions appear to have been made. My intention here is to exploit what lines ofempirical research could be opened up if we do take the social and institutionalizeddimension of linguistic communication seriously.” (Leezenberg, Michel (1995) Symbolic Power, Illocutionary Force, and Impoliteness: A Critical Look at the Foundations of Speech Act Theory)

With the above-mentioned syntactic and propositional structures

of proverbs, let us see how the quantity maxim is inter-related.

(1) A : a: gottam akkadinunchi tiyyave: ante: vinale:du.

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representation of a realistic example of a given category, but rather an abstract entity that involves some combination of related typical features.

For this reason, Rosch states that human categorisation “should not be considered the arbitrary product of historical accident or of whimsy but rather the result of psychological principles of categorisation” (1978, p.27). This means that

B : ne: tiyyanu. Ante:

C : attaga:ru che:sina paniki a:rallu le:vani.

(2) A : i: ve:la e:ncheyyamanta:vu? [ check it.]

B: e:vi:le:ni samsa:ra:niki muppeviti

chandrakantalondave: pellama: anna:tta.

(3) A : evandi mi:ru ha:rsu raidingki rale:de:?

B : buddiki savurle:duga:ni kottamlo:

deepavedata:nna:tta. Ekkada kudarle:dandi.

(4) A : puvvulu ti:se:ste:, vigraham andamga le:du.‘(If you) remove(ing) the flowers, the idol is

unattractive’

B : avunu, undade:miti? Manishi ku:da: ante: alanka:ram tise:ste:

So will it not be ? Even a man (is) also like that, if the

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human cognition is the primary element for any categorisation process (linguistic categorisation included). Rosch argues that an object is assigned to a category through comparison with its prototype object rather than a set of criterial features. This prototype object consists of a mental entity in the human mind.

decoration is removed.Anni: pedite: bommakka, anni: tiste: timmakka.

(If you) put(ting) all Sister Doll, removing all Sister

Thimma.

[ Bommakka is women decorated like a doll;

Thimmakka is an ill-dressed country girl ]

In this exchange, the proverbial base is worked out before the

proverb’s use (i.e. inductively). The proverb is used to establish

cultural approval for her support in P3 form. Generally, when the

proverbial base carries more information, P3 forms are used;

contrarily, when the information is shared, a P1 form is used

(either textually or contextually by background) (See examples

(7), (1), (5) and (10) in commenting our actions. However, a P1

form alone is used in conveying information by implicature and

in (3) and the following example :

(5) A : Ardharatri ku:chunte: evade:na medattukunta:du.

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“ In the midnight if you sit down someone will hold the

neck “

B : Sivuda:jna lende: chi;maina kuttadu.

“ Without Eswara’s will, not even an ant will bite “

In (3), B informs A indirectly via the proverb that he did not have

money even for his daily expenditure and so how can he spare

money for horse-riding – B has to spend roughly 60 rupees per

one riding sessionat concessional rates for CIEFL Horse Riding

Club. In (10), B assures A that nothing will happen (to her) even

if there is no special door to the Varandha – She wants to use it

in the night for Urinals since the toilet is far – since nothing will

happen if God does not ordain it.

In the case of (3), B achieves another objective by upholding the

PP in two ways : 1. He maximizes dispraise of himself to gain A’s

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sympathetic appreciation of his problem and thus mitigate the

threat to A’s face – B failed to fulfil his promise to come for horse

riding; 2. But maximizing dispraise of himself is done via the

indirect action of the proverb which is less face-threatening than

direct speech action on a scale of politeness shown below in

Fig.1. In this way he saves his face. In addition, the proverb

strengthens B’s claim to further make the first goal more

effective, thus hitting three birds at a shot !. This is an interest

case of PP.

MORE POLITE

Where both A’s and B’s face are simultaneously saved. In real life

situations as in the above example B did not make all these

calculations before he said it. It is automatized social behaviour

just like recognizing a tree by looking at it and naming it

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instantaneously; the reaction is spontaneously cognized and

uttered simultaneously. This is possible from the experience of

exposure to such psycholinguistic activity. In cultivated speech

such as writing or prepared public orations, such reactions can,

nonetheless, be planned.

Now, that we know the relationship between a proverb and its

base, we can find out its quality. The proverb upholds the quality

maxim if the proverbial proposition and the proverbial base

proposition complement each other to instantiate a pro-cat

relationship; else, the quality maxim fails. In other words, the

proverb’s quality hinges in the pro-cat relationship. If it is

established correctly, it means that he did not say 1) What is

believed to be false (quality maxim 1); and 2.that for which he

lacked adequate evidence (quality maxim 2). It is important here

to note that the quality maxim hinges on his instantiation of the

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pro-cat relationship and not on his morality of telling the truth or

a lie. However, whether he is telling the truth or not is guessed

from a background knowledge of the proverb user. Hence, if B

can really afford horse riding – as known from B’s personal

wealth – A will derive the implicature that he is telling lies.

Having discussed the quantity and quality’s maxims, let us

examine the relation maxim from their perspective.

(6) Relation Maxim Revisited

By knowing whether the quality maxim is upheld or not, we will

know whether the relation is established or not. For example, in

(9), the proverb has the following three meanings :

1. Putting all (decorations), (it is) sister Doll; removing

(decorations) (it is) Sister Thimma : (Referential

Meaning)

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2. When decorated an object looks beautiful; when

undecorated it looks not beautiful : prototypical

meaning.

3. Yes, the idol is not beautiful since it is undecorated.

The prototypical meaning of the proverb when mapped

onto the context fits its proposition – It will be

explained later on that there is an adhyasa in the

context to appear as the proverb and vice versa –

Hence, the relevance of the proverb is established in

terms of its correspondence. This correspondence is

(made) further relevant by its cultural praxis indication

(for approval). Thus, relationship is established via

quality.

In the case of (3), the proverb is further made relevant by an appeal to PP also. (7) PP and proverbs, sometimes, proverbs are used to uphold that mainly PP via the proverb. In such cases, proverbs strongly uphold, or front the PP. Proverbs are

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made relevant then mainly by PP. For example in (11), the proverb is relevant by fronting the PP blatantly.

(6) A : a: swichchi konchem nokkave: ra:dha.

B : kukkani pilchi piyyi nakinchukune:kante:

eththukunte:nayam.

“ Instead of calling the dog to lick the shit, it is better to

lift it (for throwing out)

[ A is asking C to press the correct switch of the fan

which she was not able to do and B (her mother) was

angry at her ]

Here the proverb clearly violates the modesty maxim and the

sympathy maxim. By using the proverb, she implicates that C is

like a dog which in a different interpersonal context can spark off

a row as in the following example.

(7) A : bayatunnappudu panilo:ki rakandi.

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“ when you are in menses, don’t come for work “

B : cheppe:vi sriranga ni:tulu du:re:vi dommara

gudiselu.

“ Those being told are Srirangam morals, those being

got into dommar huts “

Here A is an old housewife and B is her middle-aged Cook. She is

traditional and particular about keeping off from domestic work

those in menses for cleanliness. Such practice is cultural and it is

being abandoned by many now-a-days. B’s reply violates PP at

the approbation and agreement maxim levels. It is so because of

the age difference; social status difference; and the offensive

meaning attached to the phrase “dommara huts”. The use of the

proverb sparked off a row between them.

Proverbs are used to enhance face also. For example :

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

(8) A : A:yana goppa vidvansudu. A:yana mundara che:tulu

kattuku nilapadalsinde.

‘ He is a great scholar. We should stand near him crossing

arms ‘ B : e:do: hanumanthuni mundara kuppigantulla:ga.

“ Something like hopping in front of Hanuman “

In (13), A is highly learned and saintly person revered by many.

He uses the proverb to enhance his face by humbling himself.

This is a contrastive proverb and all such proverbs are double -

edged : They cut down somebody’s size and at the same time

enlarge another person’s stature. Thus, in showing the other

person as great, the approbation maxim is upheld; and in

humbling oneself, the modesty maxim is upheld. In all these

cases, PP plays its role in the choice and use of proverbs.

POLITENESS PRINCIPLE AND PROVERBS

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

Proverbs are divided into literary, colloquial (including slang),

and vulgar proverbs according to the standard of language used

with their appropriateness conditions in different types of

situations which are broadly divided into formal, informal and

intimate (Bhuvaneswar 1999). Based on this observation,

proverbs can be polite or impolite if there is an appropriate

matching or mismatching of the language of the proverb with the

situation, impolite features can be identified as follows:-

A.1. According to the lexical items, vulgar words (especially

genital organ and four letter words) are always considered

impolite in civil behaviour; 2. After four letter words, other taboo

words such as ‘muddi’ (anus), ‘munda’ (widow, also prostitute),

etc. are also impolite in civic behaviour; 3. after them,

metaphorical implicatures involving reference to animals such as

donkey, dog, and pig which are held in low esteem are less

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

polite; 4. sexual words, not necessarily vulgar but low on

politeness scale, are also considered impolite – ‘ranku’ (illicit

sexual relation), ‘lanzatanam’ (immortality) etc. come into this

category.

B.1 According to themes, all sex-related proverbs are

impolite in civic consideration; 2. Themes which invoke

comparison with lowly held practices are also considered

impolite, especially, caste-based or occupation-based

comparisons. However, these features lose their impoliteness in

a friendly or intimate interpersonal situations. For example, a

vulgar proverb (with four letter words) will produce a humorous

and warm atmosphere in intimate situations while it can be very

impolite in formal situations. In a similar way, a proverb such as

“A braying donkey, coming, has spoiled a grazing donkey “ will

be very impolite if used to comment on an elderly or superior

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

person’s action. That is power (P) and distance (D) play an

important role in neutralizing impoliteness (See Brown and

Levinson 1987 : 15ff)

Let us take a few examples to show how lexis and theme affect

politeness in proverbs. As the lexical items become increasingly

crude, the politeness also becomes less and less as in the

following case.

(9) A :

‘ has (played) (shown) teased ‘

B :

“ has shown the anus “

C :

“ has shown the crotch “

[ ‘anus’ is impolite, but ‘crotch’ is “taboo” ]

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

When the prepositional content in a proverb is changed from

topics considered acceptable in a civic behaviour to less and less

socially valued practices, the politeness value also falls down as

in the following case.

(10) a)

‘ he cannot give a saree to his mother but he said he would

give a saree to his aunt ‘

b)

‘ A women unable to jump to a Utti said that she would jump

to heaven ‘

c)

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

‘ There is no oil for the lamp-bottle, but he said that he would put a lamp in the cattle shed ‘

d)

‘ (there is) No food for the evening, but he said he would do

horse riding ‘

e)

‘ Not a morsel (he has) to swallow but he wants sampangi oil to moustache ‘

In the above examples, (e) is more damaging than (a) since the

social practice in (a) is at a higher level in terms of expenditure

than (d). Buying a saree is more expenditure than getting a

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

morsel of food to eat and so also giving a saree than buying

‘sampangi’ oil. In a similar way, not having oil for the lamp is at a

higher level than not getting food to eat in the evening which is

higher than not getting a morsel of food to eat at all.

(Bhuvaneshwar (1999).

In (14), the cost to the hearer (ef. Leech 1985 : 123ff) becomes

more and more as the language becomes ruder and ruder while

in (15), it is so as the proposition describes a practice which is

lesser and lesser in its social value. Surprisingly, (14 (a) has

__________ “teasing or joking” which is non-metaphorical while

[14 (b) (c)] have metaphors in place of ‘teasing’. However, 14(b)

and (c) are more impolite in spite of being more indirect. This is

so because of the inhibitive ranking of vulgar words as more

impolite them direct speech acts without vulgar words. In the

case of (15), the prototypical practices in propositions are

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Derivation of Meaning in Proverbs

hierarchically ranked according to their social value and carry

the stamp of cultural authority. Hence, they are stronger than

other normal utterance indirect speech acts. As a result they are

more face enhancing or threatening (eg. As in Fig.1)

So far we have discussed the pragma-linguistic functions of

proverbs in terms of the quantity, quality, relation and manner

maxims of CP and PP. Now let us discuss the socio-pragmatics of

proverbs.