Shouting and Screaming: Manner and Noise Verbs in Communication

In many languages, words can be used in different domains from those in which they originated. In English, sound verbs are commonly used in the context of human communication (1-4).

(1) ('Shut up, Doreen,'[MESSAGE]) (Silas[SPEAKER]) barked, his face contorted by a scowl.
(2) ('Darling,'[MESSAGE]) (Conrad[SPEAKER]) cooed as Lee entered the living room.
(3) ('He's a thief, Hilary,'[MESSAGE])(he[SPEAKER]) grated almost savagely.
(4) (Grandson Richard[SPEAKER]) rumbled (a reply[MESSAGE]).

However, not all sound verbs have communication uses; the ones that do are restricted as to the type of message and/or speaker they can occur with. The syntactic patterns of sound verbs used for communication are not the same patterns found with true communication verbs. Several researchers (Goossens 1995, Miller & Johnson-Laird 1976, Levin et al. 1997) have explored these phenomena, paying particular attention to which verbs have or lack communication uses. Here we propose a unified and expanded corpus-based account of these cross-domain extensions in terms of Frame Semantics (Fillmore 1982) and with reference to theories of metaphor. This analysis has implications for the further description of the relationships between frames (e.g., inheritance and blending), and the development of cross-domain uses of words.

The FrameNet Project (P.I. Charles J. Fillmore) is creating a lexical database with 3 linked components: the expanded lexicon, the Frame Database, and annotated example sentences (Baker et al. 1998). Files which represent senses of lexical items within a particular domain and frame (represented as domain/frame) are created, and constituents are annotated with the Frame Elements which are realized with respect to the target word. This annotation, and subsequent marking of phrase type and grammatical function, is further analyzed for the combinations of syntactic and semantic patterns realized in various senses. Even while still in progress, this project has become a valuable resource for lexical and other linguistic analysis. The authors, both researchers involved in all stages of the project, have examined annotated files for 201 verbs in perception/noise, 23 verbs in communication/manner, and 60 verbs in communication/noise (there are 314 communication verb files overall).

Sound originates in the domain and frame of perception/noise. Since communication involves human verbal interaction, it necessarily overlaps with the sound domain. Two criteria determine which noise verbs can have communication uses. First, a noise verb is usable as a communication verb if the sound is produced by animate beings, especially animals (e.g. bark, yelp), but not when it is produced by objects (e.g. clink, thud). Nevertheless, some inanimate noises, such as rumble, are used for communication. It is possible that the physical profile of these sounds lends itself to a communication construal. Secondly, among animal sounds, imitative sounds (e.g. oink, quack) have no uses as communication verbs; the exact specification of the sound blocks the expression of a message (5).

(5) *(Mr. Baker[SPEAKER]) oinked (an invitation[MESSAGE]) across the table.

The noise verbs with communication uses (e.g. scream, bellow) do not behave like genuine manner of speech verbs (e.g. shout, whisper), differing from them both syntactically and semantically. We argue that this reflects the differences in the structure of the two domains and frames. In their home domain, noise verbs are usually intransitive, taking the sound SOURCE as subject (6-8).

(6) Somewhere behind her (a horn[SOURCE]) blared.
(7) (The long blades[SOURCE]) clashed and rang, their movement too fast for the eye to follow.
(8) The ducks began quacking and (the frogs[SOURCE]) croaking.

By comparison, communication verbs are normally transitive, with a SPEAKER subject and a MESSAGE object. ADDRESSEE and TOPIC prepositional phrases and MANNER adverbs frequently appear (9-11).

(9) ('How's the shop?[MESSAGE]) mumbles (one balding sweating man[SPEAKER]) (to another[Addressee]).
(10) One of his body squires heard (him[SPEAKER]) whispering (about it[TOPIC]) (to his Gascon favourite[Addressee]).
(11) 'If (you[SPEAKER]) so much as whisper (a word[MESSAGE]) (about Dame Agatha[TOPIC])(to the Lady Maeve[ADDRESSEE]), you will regret the day I ever plucked you out of Newgate!.'

Consider a communication use of the sound verb 'snarl' (`Do you have to?' she snarled at him as he took out a cigarette). Whereas `Do you have to?' [MESSAGE] and she [SPEAKER] look like canonical communication frame elements, (at him) is not a typical encoding of ADDRESSEE; compare the oddness of (I talked at John). The effect of (at him) is to make him seem more like the target of a directed sound emission as in (The dog barked at me). The difference between real manner of speech verbs and communication uses of noise verbs can also be observed in terms of complementation patterns and their frequencies. For example, more quoted MESSAGEs are found with noise verbs than with manner of speech verbs. The pattern is the reverse for that-clause MESSAGEs. ADDRESSEEs are less common with noise verbs used for communication than with regular manner of speech verbs (12).

(12) (The housekeeper[SPEAKER]) left the room, muttering (about ingratitude[TOPIC]).

This difference can be exemplified statistically by the analysis of proportional samples of representative verbs from each domain and frame.

Noise verbs used for communication do not only differ from manner of speech verbs as a class, but also exhibit interesting differences among themselves. For instance, many verbs are specialized as to what kinds of speakers they accept: older people and females are better cacklers, while men and people in positions of authority are more likely to rumble, bellow, or grunt (13-15).

(13) ('I'll warrant he is!'[MESSAGE]) (the old lady[SPEAKER]) cackled unexpectedly.
(14) We passed (the police sentry who[SPEAKER]) grunted (a sleepy greeting[MESSAGE]).
(15) ('Off now then?'[MESSAGE])chirped (the woman[SPEAKER]), dropping another sock.

Also, inasmuch as the manner of the speech act is being emphasized, the quoted [MESSAGE] component frequently contains an alphabetic representation supporting that emphasis (16).

(16) ('Th-that's b-blackmail,'[MESSAGE]) (she[SPEAKER]) spluttered.

This analysis shows that in these cross-domain uses, semantic and syntactic factors from both source and target domains play a role in determining the structure of the utterance. While the target domain supplies a syntactic structure, the source domain's semantics constrain the degree to which that syntactic structure can be exploited. Although some of the domains' interactions resemble metaphorical mappings, e.g. the SPEAKER-SOURCE correspondence, the relationship between the domains is not that of metaphor. Both domains are concrete, rather than one being concrete and one abstract. Instead of being discrete domains, they have something in common, i.e. the presence of a sound source. Nor are they simple cases of situational metonymy between speaking and producing sound. This kind of evidence and data can be used to describe more the complex interactions of frames which are evidenced in natural language: frame blends and inheritance, metaphor, complex frames, and other cross-domain uses. The synthesis of linguistic theory, lexicography, and work with large-scale corpora is necessary for significant coverage of the data. The frame semantic approach, with detailed lexical analysis, provides a semantically and syntactically informative account.

References

Baker, Collin F., Fillmore, Charles J., and Lowe, John B. (1998). The Berkeley FrameNet Project. COLING-ACL '98 Proceedings of the Conference, held August 10-14, 1998, in Montreal, Canada.
Fillmore, Charles J. (1982). Frame Semantics. In Linguistic Society of Korea (ed) Linguistics in the Morning Calm. 111-138. Hanshin, Seoul.
Goossens, Louis (1995). Metaphtonymy: The Interaction of Metaphor and Metonymy in Figurative Expressions for Linguistic Action. In Goossens et al. (eds) By Word of Mouth. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia Publishing Co.
Lakoff, George, and Johnson, Mark (1980). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London.
Levin, Beth, Song, Grace, and Atkins, B. T. S. (1997). Making Sense of Corpus Data: A Case Study of Verbs of Sound. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, Vol. 2, No. 1. 23-64.
Miller, George A., and Johnson-Laird, Philip (1976). Language and Perception. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.