The Reason for Grammar
Bill Cleere
"All grammar, all linguistics and all formal logic have held that
sentences are the independent elements of speech. This cannot be
admitted any longer. They are interlocking. Imperative and narrative
are two aspects of one speech. Both have to be said before either
makes sense or creates an epoch. The trouble with linguistic discussions
has been that they always stopped at the analysis of the "completed"
sentence. In so doing, the reason for grammar remains invisible...
"In our flabby speech, this is obscured because we do not assign to
speech long avenues of time. While laws and army orders take weeks
and months and years before they are reported as finished, an order
given by a mother: 'Take this sandwich' is answered by the child with
words before anything is done. Johnny may say 'Thank you' or he may
say 'Why?' or he may say 'I don't want any', etc. We are so accustomed
to such immediate orders that, when I asked my students for the proper
answer to an order given, they all gave examples of this type [i.e.,
the Johnny/Mommy type].
"A Hindu story may put us on the right track about the correspondence
by which languages are created... A Hindu father says to his boy
'My son, break the twig.' The question then arises which is the correct
answer for the son. The proper answer, says the Hindu sage, is:
'My father, the twig is broken.' ...'Break' and 'broken' are aspects
of one and the same act which lies between the two sentences spoken.
The logic of these sentences, then, is their place before and after an
act willed by two people. These people change places after the act.
One speaks in advance, the other speaks afterwards. He who speaks
first listens afterwards; he who speaks afterwards listens first."
(Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, _The Origin of Speech_, Norwich, VT,
1981, pp. 48-49. Posthumous publication of essays and fragments
from the 1930's to 1960's)
Thoreau said that it takes two to tell the truth--one to speak and one
to listen.
--Bill