Features of the closed-class subsystem
As we have seen, Talmy (2000) posits the bifurcation of linguistic knowledge into the open-class subsystem and the closed-class subsystem, also known as the grammatical subsystem. Closed-class elements may be overt or implicit. Overt elements can be bound (for example, inflectional morphemes) or free (for example, English determiners or prepositions). Implicit elements have no phonetic realisation but represent speaker knowledge of grammatical categories like noun and verb, subcategories (for example, count noun and mass noun) and grammatical functions (also known as ‘grammatical relations’) like subject and object. According to Talmy, the closed-class subsystem is semantically restricted and has a structuring function, while the open-class system is semantically unrestricted and has the function of providing conceptual content. To illustrate the restricted nature of the closed-class system, Talmy observes that while many languages have nominal inflections that indicate NUMBER, no language has nominal inflections that indicate COLOUR. For example, many languages have a grammatical affix like plural -s in English, but no language has a grammatical affix designating, say, REDNESS. Furthermore, the grammatical system reflects a restricted range of concepts within the relevant domain. For example, the grammatical NUMBER system can reflect concepts like SINGULAR, PLURAL or PAUCAL (meaning ‘a few’) but not concepts like MILLIONS or TWENTY-SEVEN.
Talmy accounts for such restrictions by means of the observation that grammatical categories display topological rather than Euclidean properties. This means that the meaning encoded by closed-class elements remains constant despite contextual differences relating to size, shape and so on. For example, the demonstrative determiner that in the expressions that flower in your hair and that country encodes DISTANCE FROM THE SPEAKER regardless of the expanse of that distance. Equally, the modal will in the sentences I will fall! and The human race will become extinct encodes FUTURE TIME regardless of the ‘distance’ of that future time. As these examples illustrate, the function of the closed-class system is to provide a ‘pared-down’ or highly abstract conceptual structure. This structure provides a ‘scaffold’ or a ‘skeleton’ over which elements from the open-class system are laid in order to provide rich and specific conceptual content. Consider example (40) which is similar to one we explored in Chapter 1.
In this example, the closed-class elements are in bold type and the open-class elements are in ordinary type. If we remove the content words, we end up with something like these somethings are somethinging my somethings. Although the meaning provided by the closed-class elements is rather schematic, it does provide the information that ‘more than one entity close to the speaker is presently in the process of doing something to more than one entity belonging to the speaker’. This is actually quite a lot of information. If we exchange the content words for different ones, we can end up with a description of an entirely different situation but the schematic meaning provided by the closed-class elements remains the same:
As this example illustrates, the grammatical elements encode far less specific information than the content elements, and function to organise or structure the scene encoded by the utterance. This kind of information remains constant regardless of the content words.
As Talmy points out, however, there is not always a clear-cut distinction between open- and closed-class elements with respect to the kinds of concepts they encode. For example, while closed-class elements (auxiliary verbs like will or inflectional morphemes like -ed) encode past or future time in relation to the verb system, open-class elements (like the adjective imminent) encode these concepts in relation to the noun system. This point is illustrated by example (42).
Talmy observes that while no inventory of concepts expressible by open-class forms can ever be specified (because there is no limit to human experience, knowledge and understanding), there is a restricted inventory of concepts expressible by closed-class forms. Each individual language has access to this inventory, but it does not follow that any given language will exploit all the available possibilities. Talmy (2000: 38) does not identify a single principle that accounts for the concepts that belong within the closed-class set but admits the ‘strong possibility’ that it may be partly innate.
