Junichi Toyota, Pernilla Hallonsten, Marina Shchepetunina-Sense of Emptiness - An Interdisciplinary Approach-Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2012)

Sense of Emptiness
Sense of Emptiness:
An Interdisciplinary Approach
Edited by
Junichi Toyota, Pernilla Hallonsten

and Marina Shchepetunina
Sense of Emptiness: An Interdisciplinary Approach,

Edited by Junichi Toyota, Pernilla Hallonsten and Marina Shchepetunina
This book first published 2012
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
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Copyright 2012 by Junichi Toyota, Pernilla Hallonsten and Marina Shchepetunina and contributors
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ISBN (10): 1-4438-3583-8, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-3583-1
THE EDITORS WISH TO THANK RIMA, KESTUTIS AND BIT

FOR PROVIDING US WITH A WONDERFUL ENVIRONMENT
FOR EDITING THIS VOLUME IN KAUNAS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface ........................................................................................................ ix
Presence of Absence
Junichi Toyota, Pernilla Hallonsten and Marina Shchepetunina
Chapter One................................................................................................. 1
Exploring Sense of Emptiness: A Cognitive Overview
Junichi Toyota
Part One: Socio-cultural studies
Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 14
Emptiness in Confucianism
Jelena Gledi
Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 31
Emptiness in Haiku Poetry
Sonja Vinji iovi and Junichi Toyota
Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 47
The Concept of Emptiness in Ancient Japanese Myth and Religion
Marina Shchepetunina
Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 67
The Medieval Meaning of Existence
Tatyana Solomonik-Pankrasova
Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 80
Stillness and Silence in Alexander Sokurovs Films:
An Affinity with Japan
Fiona Bjrling
Part Two: Cognitive-semiotic Studies
Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 94
Communication Culture and Gesture Use
Kerttu Huttunen and Karen J. Pine
viii
Table of Contents
Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 112

The Construct of Emptiness Augs Anthropology of Non-places
Gunnar Sandin
Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 128
Counting System and Classifier/Non-classifier Languages
Junichi Toyota, Pernilla Hallonsten and Borko Kovaevi
Part Three: Anthropological and linguistic studies
Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 146
Information Structure and a Role of Topic/Focus in East Asian Languages
Marja Kaurila
Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 187
Concept of Time: Future Tense and Emptiness
Junichi Toyota
Part Four: Further studies on emptiness
Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 210
Prospects on Emptiness
Junichi Toyota, Pernilla Hallonsten and Marina Shchepetunina
Contributors............................................................................................. 216
Index ....................................................................................................... 220
PREFACE
PRESENCE OF ABSENCE
JUNICHI TOYOTA, PERNILLA HALLONSTEN
AND MARINA SHCHEPETUNINA
Sense of emptiness
The presence of a sign normally indicates some message, and lack of sign
or absence should not, by contrast, alert people to anything in particular.
Predatory animals try to hide their presence when approaching prey and a
murderer tries to hide his traces from a murder scene. Nonetheless, when
one expects the presence of a sign in a certain place, its absence can signal
something. We can argue then that the absence as well as the presence of
something can have a significant impact on how we perceive the world.
Human perception normally works based on binary pairs of
information, i.e. common or shared information and a new piece of
information (cf. Toyota 2009). This binary system can be found consistently,
regardless of the type of perception involved. What is interesting
concerning these binary pairs is that a new piece of information almost
always gets higher prominence over a previously shared one. The opposite
pattern is possible, but not very likely. The two types of information can
be examined in terms of increasing or decreasing prominence, and there
are four possibilities, as demonstrated in Table 1. The plus sign signals an
increase in prominence, or an item with higher prominence, and the minus
sign correspondingly indicates a decrease in prominence or an item with
low prominence. Among these types, the most unlikely is type (ii) since
something has to receive prominence in our perception and it is practically
impossible to perceive something without receiving any prominence. The
other three patterns are all possible, but type (i) is the most likely pattern.
Giving prominence to both types of information is also possible, as
represented in type iv. Type iii, where common information is given
prominence and new information is suppressed is unlikely in perception,
Preface
but it is still possible. What determines these variations is relative

prominence.
Table 1. Types of information in relation to prominence
Shared information
New information
Likelihood
+
+
Most likely
Most unlikely
Possible
Highly possible
Type i.
Type ii.
Type iii.
Type iv.
Relative prominence can naturally be difficult to measure, since this is

gradient. For instance, imagine a small pond, where one keeps throwing in
small stones. Considering the relative proportions of water and stones, we
see that the water occupies a high proportion initially, but as one keeps
adding stones, there will be a point where the relative proportion between
water and stone is more or less the same, and finally, the proportion of
stones will prevail over that of the water. This shift is schematically
presented in Figure 1. Black dots represent stones. States a and c in Figure
1 are easier to analyse, whereas state b is rather difficult to determine in
terms of higher prominence.
a. White > Black
b. White = Black
c. White < Black
Figure 1. Geographic distribution of the future tense (Dahl and Velupillai 2008)
The concept of emptiness used in this volume refers to less prominent

proportions, which tends to form a background in our perception. In most
cases, we are dealing with how we perceive this background. As
demonstrated by Nisbett (2003), Nisbett and Masuda (2007), there seem to
be some differences in how we perceive the background according to our
cultural backgrounds. Such differences will be discussed in this volume.
Sense of Emptiness: An Interdisciplinary Approach
xi
Scope of research and approaches

This volume consists of contributions from different fields covering a wide
range of topics. Due to the range covered in this volume, studies presented
here are highly interdisciplinary, but all chapters deal with the sense of
emptiness, which suggest that the underlying idea of the significance of
emptiness is pervasive. Yet, this topic has not previously been
systematically compared across different disciplines. It is hoped that this
volume will offer a first overview of the pervasiveness and integration of
disciplines concerning the sense of emptiness.
Contributions in this volume do not focus on one specific theoretical
framework, but are in principle descriptive. This is because of the
interdisciplinary nature of the volume, so that different contributions can
complement each other in order to form a comprehensive understanding
on emptiness without any constrains of certain theoretical frameworks.
Organisation
This volume consists of three major sections: socio-cultural studies,
cognitive-semiotic studies, and anthropological and linguistic studies.
These are merely rough divisions and some topics may appear in several
chapters. This is unavoidable due to the nature of the volume.
Within socio-cultural studies, we find historical studies of Chinese
philosophy, Japanese religion and myth, Japanese literature, Russian film
studies, as well as European medieval literature. Cognitive-semiotic
studies consist of gesture studies, architecture, and counting systems.
Anthropological and linguistic studies cover information structure of
Asian languages and future tense in relation to the concept of death.
Apart from these contributions, there is also a final chapter suggesting
further studies concerning the sense of emptiness.
References
Nisbett, R. E. 2003. The Geography of thought: How Asians and
Westerners think differently... and why. New York: The Free Press.
Nisbett, R. E. and T. Masuda 2007. Culture and point of view.
Intellectica 46-47, 153-172.
Toyota, J. 2009. Kaleidoscopic grammar: Investigation into the nature of
binarism. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press.
CHAPTER ONE
EXPLORING SENSE OF EMPTINESS:
A COGNITIVE OVERVIEW
JUNICHI TOYOTA
Abstract. This chapter introduces a subject matter of emptiness in the

entire volume from a cognitive perspective. What is presented here is aided
by the use of figure and ground, terms borrowed from cognitive linguistics,
to highlight how people from different parts of the world conceptualise
their surroundings differently. This type of difference can be found in
various aspects of human cultural activities. The basic underlying principle
in understanding the world is the same regardless of where a speaker is
from or brought up, but the way each speaker gives prominence to either
figure or ground differs, and this is what makes emptiness prominent in the
Eastern countries, but not in the West.
Introduction
Comparing the European and East Asian tradition in the domain of
literature and art, one feature is really striking, namely, a sense of
emptiness, or in other words, how the concept of void or nothingness is
appreciated. It may sound a contradiction to appreciate something that
does not exist, since it implies seeing something that is not visible or
hearing something that is not audible. However, the concept of
nothingness can vary significantly from culture to culture. There is a clear
difference found in different aspects of cultures and even in linguistic
structures. This paper discusses the importance of emptiness in the East
Asian culture, paying particular attention to Japan. In addition, since this
concept seems to be absent in Europe, the comparison is made in order to
highlight the difference. The comparison is made using a basic principle
often employed in cognitive linguistics or cognitive poetics, e.g. figure and
ground. The figure-ground distinction proves to be useful and this can be
Chapter One
used pervasively across different kinds of comparisons, whether they are

cultural or linguistic.
This paper starts with a basic distinction between figure and ground.
This serves as a background for the rest of the paper. Then the sense of
emptiness is explained, drawing evidence from various aspects of culture,
such as flower arrangement and literature. Once the interpretation of
emptiness in this work is established, we analyse it in terms of figure and
ground, and provide a coherent pattern across cultures. Finally, some
linguistic characteristics between Europe and East Asia that follow the
concept of emptiness are shown, namely counting system. Also,
suggestions are made for further research in this section concerning this
concept involving different parts of the world.
Figure and ground

The grammar of languages may vary dramatically from one language to
another when comparison is made involving the world languages.
However, in spite of this diversity, there is also a general tendency
commonly found in human beings regardless of their ethnic and linguistic
backgrounds. When we conceptualise the world, we tend to view it in a
binary pair of a certain object in focus and a background in which this
focused object is located (Toyota 2009). In cognitive linguistics, the
former is termed figure or trajectory, and the latter, ground or landmark
(see, among others, Langacker 1987; Lee 2001). Let us take a simple
example. How can the location of the vase in Figure 1 be described in
relation to the table? Speakers of English or other European languages
strongly tend to consider that a vase is on the table, i.e. (1a). This suggests
that the vase is considered as figure, and the table, ground. This is how we
see the world, but this is not a Eurocentric world view: it is a human nature
that we tend to view something large and stable as ground and something
small and movable as a figure. However, this does not necessarily mean
that this is the only way of viewing the world, it is theoretically possible to
view the vase as ground and the table, figure as in (1b) in less studied
languages and cultures, although it is not likely.
(1)
a. A vase is on the table.

b. The table is under the vase.
Figure 1. Conceptualisation of figure and ground: relationship between a vase

and a table
The case of a vase and a table is very straightforward and there seems
to be consensus among speakers of different languages due to the general
human nature. However, consider the pictures in Figure 2. They are very
well-known optical illusions, and the problem here is that it is difficult to
decide what to consider figure and ground. In case of Figure 2a, the
problem lies in deciding where to draw a boundary for figure, i.e.
interpretation of two faces depends on where the jaw line is, and in Figure
2b, when the dark parts are considered as figure, two faces emerge and the
white part as figure yields a vase. These illusions show that it is possible to
have some cases that trick our decision concerning figure and ground.
a.
b.
Figure 2. Optical illusion: (a) a young lay and an old woman
and (b) two faces and a vase
Chapter One
Apart from these ambiguous cases, it is worth mentioning that nurture

and the world view are closely connected and this connection can
influence how we choose figure and ground. Subir (2006) demonstrates
that different geographic regions for upbringing can have a significant
impact on spatial conception. Consider a picture in Figure 3, where there is
a lake situated around a mountain top. His research reveals that those who
are brought up in a mountain region consider a range of surrounding large
hills (as in Highland of Scotland) as simply hills, but those who are raised
in a flat region tend to see the same landscape as high mountains. This
difference is shown in an English description of location concerning the
lake, e.g. those who are brought up in the mountain region tend to use a
preposition on (e.g. (2a)), specifying a surface element of a mountain and
implying the flatness, while those who are from a flat region use in (e.g.
(2b)), signifying an element of container in the scene and meaning that this
is more three dimensional. There are some exceptions, but this can be
considered a general tendency. This is related to the figure and ground
setting in a sense that ground can be adjusted according to ones familiar
environment through upbringing.
Figure 3. Position of lakes in relation to surrounding mountains
(2)
a. The lake is on the mountain.

b. The lake is in the mountain.
Figure and ground may be considered a cognitive foundation in human

understanding of their surroundings, but it can be implemented to various
different kinds of understanding concerning our surroundings.
Sense of nothingness
As hinted in the previous section, various factors can influence the choice
of figure and ground. Naturally, cultural differences can also affect the
choice. What is striking between the European and East Asian culture is
often seen in the sense of nothingness. This concept refers to
understanding of absence or void. Human perception, whether it is feeling,
hearing, seeing, etc., needs stimuli against which our cognitive sensory
reacts. Sense of nothingness refers to the lack of stimuli, and this naturally
entails that there is no sensation perceived. However, this is a very
important element in the field of art and literature in Japan and other East
Asian countries. In order to highlight the basic difference, let us take a
look at a typical style of flower arrangement in two different cultures.
Consider two different styles in Figure 4. 0a represent a typical European
style, while Figure 4b, a typical Japanese style. There is much cultural
integration between these two cultures in the past couple of centuries, if
not longer, and it may be rather difficult to see a typical example
nowadays. However, what matters here is the tradition, not the current
form.
(a)
(b)
Figure 4. Flower arrangements: (a) an European /Western style;
(b) a Japanese style
In comparing them, it is obvious that there are several striking

differences. The Western style certainly has the larger number of flowers
Chapter One
in a vase, and they are arranged in a near-symmetry. The Japanese style

has the considerably less number of flowers, and their layout is
asymmetric. The artistic distinction may vary from person to person, but it
may be easier to prepare the Western style as long as there is enough
supply of flowers. The Japanese style may take some training to learn a
certain style of arrangement. This difference is not restricted to the flower
arrangement, but can be found elsewhere in aesthetical orderings. The
garden is a good example. Consider two types of garden in Figure 5.
Figure 5a is a traditional English style and Figure 5b, a traditional, or
rather archaic, Japanese style. In this case again, it is obvious that the
Japanese style is much simpler and does not involve much material to
make an artistic impression. In this case, what is involved are rocks and
moss. A typical English garden normally contains a number of trees and
plants, and occasionally ornamental objects, such as statues. These two
kinds of comparison may yield a general tendency, as far as horticulture is
concerned, that the Japanese style involves less material to make it
aesthetic.
(a)
(b)
Figure 5. Gardens: (a) a traditional English style; (b) a traditional Japanese style
What underlies in this difference can be attributed to the concept of

emptiness. By emptiness, it is meant that a space does not necessary have
to be filled and it can be left untouched. Instead, small changes made
should be understood in conjunction with what is left untouched.
Emptiness here refers to spaces without any additional changes. In the
Japanese flower arrangement or garden, there are many untouched spaces
and they are left untouched on purpose. The European style has to have
everything on display and an empty space normally indicates that a job is
not yet completed. These empty spaces can actually speak loud in Japan,
perhaps louder than possible objects that could occupy these empty spaces.
In the flower arrangement in 0b, an asymmetrical design perhaps forces
viewers to imagine that there is something in an empty space that can form
complementary features to make the overall (imaginary) shape
symmetrical, because the human mind tends to prefer symmetry (cf. Jablan
1995; Toyota 2009). The European style has to present itself in full and it
does not leave any space for viewers to imagine anything. The Japanese
and East Asian cultures find an exquisite pleasure in this imagination, and
this is the fundamental difference in appreciation of arts in these two
cultures.
It is also important to note that Neibett (2003) and Nisbett and
Masuda (2007) argue a basic difference in perception between East Asia
and Europe along the same line of argument presented here concerning
emptiness. With their psychological analysis, Europeans are claimed to
have more focus in perception of a scene, while East Asian are more likely
to attend to a broad perceptional and conceptual field. It is also argued that
this difference comes from social factors, i.e. East Asians live in complex
social networks with prescribed role relations. Attention to context is
important to effective functioning (Nisbett and Masuda 2007: 153). Their
argument reconfirms that the sense of emptiness stems from different
aspects of human life in different cultures.
One may consider the presence of emptiness in the Japanese style is a
typical case of horticulture in East Asia. However, this principle is
surprisingly pervasive and it can be extended to other kinds of arts.
Literature, for instance, provides a large amount of examples to illustrate
this point. In Europe, there has been an environment that gave birth to a
movement called realism in the late 18th century and the 19th century. The
motif for artistic work is often taken from our common daily life, perhaps
for the purpose of detailed description. In French literature, for instance,
several authors are considered to represent this movement, e.g. Honor de
Balzac (Le pre Goriot Old father Gorit 1835; Le lys dans le valle The
lily of the valley 1835), Gustave Flaubert (Lducation sentimentale
Sentimental education 1869) and mile Zole (Germinal 1885). For
instance, de Balzacs Le pre Goriot has a scene where a room of Goriot is
described in every fine detail. It is often claimed that following this
description, everyone can draw a more or less same picture. This proves
the extent of preciseness and details in his description. Why are details so
important in Europe? In modern times, this idea stems from the
Renaissance period, especially a landmark work for modern analytic
thinking, Discours de la method Discourse of the method by Ren
Descartes (1637) can be said to have set a standard. This book states that
Chapter One
one has to dissect a problem into finer pieces and analyse them piece by
piece. This work is very important in a sense that it clearly laid out various
ideas and thoughts that have been circulating among intellectuals in
Europe for at least several centuries. This book indeed suggests that the
analytic thinking has been present in Europe, although not clearly defined.
In a large extent, this tradition of analytic thinking can date back at least to
Aristotle in the fourth century BC. It seems that European thinking has
traditionally focused on details, and small details will make up the whole
picture.
In Japanese literature, on the contrary to the European counterpart,
authors try to make readers read between the lines. In Rashomon
Rashomon gate (1915) by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, for instance, has a
plot in describing the lapse of time in this story. In the opening scene, he
mentions that there is a grasshopper on a date. At this point, it seems like
an irrelevant note in the story. However, at the very end, when the author
briefly describes the gate, he mentions that this insect has gone. This refers
to the passing of time, implying that there was a significant amount of time
involved in the story, although there was no specific mention of time. It is
possible to say somewhere in the work that a certain amount of time has
passed, but the author opts for a more subtle reference without directly
mentioning it. In Europe, the use of certain objects or animals in this way
can be a part of allegory and it can give a specific meaning without a
direct mention (e.g. salamanders represent righteous people, who can
withstand fire, as in Ingeborg Bachmanns Erklaer mir, Liebe Explain to
me, dearest). A grasshopper does not refer to time on its own in any sense
of mythology or allegory in Japan, and its only reference is the season of
summer. In Asia, allegories are not yet fully developed and still at the
level of metaphors. Allegories are in a sense dead metaphors and they
need to be fossilised as a generally understood concept in a speech
community (see Heine et al. 1991; Levinson 1983 for metaphorisation).
The Japanese literary style often leaves a space for readers to interpret on
their own (see Vinji iovi and Toyota, this volume), and this space
can be considered an empty space in the text, forming a parallel to cases in
horticulture.
In the East Asian countries, what has been most influential in this
region is Chinese philosophy, especially Confucianism (see Gledi, this
volume). Since China developed their civilisation much earlier in this
region, other countries also learned from the Chinese philosophy and it is
not an understatement to say that this world view forms a base for the
Asian thinking. The principle of Confucianism is to find a compromise
between positive and negative points by combining the best of both. This
naturally forces us to think various matters in more general terms. In other

words, Confucianism deprives us of a focal point in our thinking and
makes us look at the outline of various matters but not details of their
content. The overview does not have to be filled with every detail, but it
should allow some space for unidentified concepts, which can be
sometime interpreted as ambiguity. This ambiguous space is the origin of
concept of emptiness, which came to be extended to different areas of
culture, whether it is literature or fine arts. Another possible influence is
religion. The goal of Buddhism, the main religion in East Asia, is to
achieve religious enlightenment, satori. This is mainly achieved by
meditation. The followers are required to remove anything from their mind
in meditation to reach a state of salvation. Once the emptiness of mind is
achieved, they are closer to the teaching of Buddhism. This emphasis of
emptying their mind might have influenced the culture in general and
therefore, people became highly sensitive to emptiness in their nonreligious thinking.
It is worth mentioning that the Asian literary style also went through a
period of realism, but this was a copy of European literary style. A
promoter of the Japanese literary realism, Shyouyou Tsubouchi, for
instance, was familiar with the European literature, and he in fact
translated Shakespeare. Different styles can be copied through contacts,
but what underlies in each culture cannot be easily altered or modified.
Emptiness in terms of figure and ground

The difference between Europe and Japan and other countries in Asia can
be analysed in terms of figure and ground. Roughly speaking, the focus is
on details in Europe, whereas in Asia, an overview is focused. However,
the case of Asia needs a clarification: it is not common at all that ground is
focused. Ground is background information in order for figure to be
singled out, and even in the Asian culture, it is figure that gets most
salience. What is meant by focus here is that ground is given unusual
attention in Asian culture, especially in comparison with the European
counterpart. Thus, a term focus is used in a relative term in this discussion.
This relationship is schematically represented in Figure 6. The square
frame represents ground, and the inner circle, figure. The entity
highlighted in bold is in focus. So in Europe, figure is in focus and in
Japan, it is ground that receives focus. Thus, in flower arrangements as in
Figure 4, for instance, the European style starts with putting each flower
(i.e. figure) together and an overall presentation (ground) is achieved. In
the Japanese style, on the other hand, the overall picture (ground) is
10
Chapter One
initially imagined and each flower (figure) is arranged to achieve the

initial picture in mind. It seems that the arrangement starts with a focused
distinction between figure and ground and moves onto unfocused one.
Thus, by schematically representing figure and ground in relation to focus
in each culture, it is clear that there is a sharp contrast.
Ground
Ground
Figure
Figure
a. Western view
b. Eastern view
Figure 5. Schematic representation of figure-ground relationship:

(a) an European type; (b) a Japanese style
Conclusions
This chapter discussed the sense of emptiness using the figure and ground
distinction in cognitive linguistics and cognitive poetry. Comparing the
European and East Asian (particularly Japanese) traditional culture, the
sense of emptiness turns out to be a really striking feature. It is much
appreciated in Japan and East Asia, but not at all in Europe. We have seen
the evidence from flower arrangement, gardening and literature (cf. Figure
4 and Figure 5). It turned out that the Japanese culture tends to focus on
ground, but the European, on figure (cf. Figure 6). This is a striking
difference that can be applied to different aspects of culture. One example
used to illustrate this applicability is a linguistic feature of counting system.
The difference between European and East Asian system, i.e., nonclassifier and classifier, respectively, can be attributed to the difference in
terms of figure and ground shown in Figure 6.
The emptiness, therefore, proves to be a very useful concept in
understanding cultural and cognitive difference between Europe and East
Asia, especially Japan. This concept can be extended to comparison
involving different parts of the world and it can prove to be a very useful
and powerful concept in future research.
11
References
Primary sources
Bachmann, Ingeborg, Erklaer mir, Liebe Explain to me, dearest.
Basho, Matsuo 1686 Nozarashi kiko Records of a weather exposed
skelton.
mile Zole 1885. Germinal (Editions Gallimard, 1999).
Gustave Flaubert 1869. Lducation sentimentale Sentimental education
(Editions Flammarion, 1992).
Honor de Balzac 1835. Le pre Goriot Old Gorit (Editions Flammarion,
1960).
Honor de Balzac 1835. Le lys dans le valle The lily of the valley
(Editions Gallimard, 2004).
Ren Descartes 1637. Discours de la method Discourse of the method
(English translation by Desmond M. Clarke, Middlesex: Penguin,
1999).
Ryunosuke Akutagawa 1915. Rashomon Rashomon gate, (English
translation by Jay Rubin, Rashmon and seven other stories, London:
Penguin, 2006, 3-9).
Secondary sources
Heine, B., U. Claudi, & F. Hnnemeyer 1991. Grammaticalization: A
conceptual framework. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jablan, S. V. 1995. Theory of symmetry and ornament. Belgrade:
Mathematics Institute.
Langacker, R. W. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar Vol. 1:
Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lee, D. 2001. Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Levinson, S. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nisbett, R. E. 2003. The Geography of thought: How Asians and
Westerners think differently... and why. New York: The Free Press.
Nisbett, R.E. & T. Masuda 2007. Culture and point of view. Intellectica
2-3, 46-47, 153-172.
Subir, C. 2006. Spatial conceptualisation in English: comparative
analysis. BA thesis, Lund University.
Toyota, J. 2009. Kaleidoscopic grammar: Investigation into the nature of
PART ONE:
SOCIO-CULTURAL STUDIES
CHAPTER TWO
EMPTINESS IN CONFUCIANISM
JELENA GLEDI
Abstract. As an introduction to potential research on cultural characteristics

in the perception of emptiness, this text deals with the case of
Confucianism. Our aim is to give a basic introduction to the concept of
emptiness in Confucian thought, but also to stress the problems of
researching cultural and national differences. We provide an examination
of the various views on Confucianism, and also its position in todays
China, followed by an analysis of the place of emptiness in Confucian
practices, source texts, and also its very methodology and discourse, with a
brief overview of similar concepts in Daoism and Buddhism. Considering
that even defining Confucianism is determined as problematic, and in view
of the vast body of material, we emphasize that the given analyses should
be viewed only as guidelines. This paper is not conceived as a complete or
definitive answer to what emptiness is in the Confucian view, but rather a
study of the possible approaches to the question. We challenge the idea of
providing a single interpretation in favor of pointing out the possible
directions in which particular research can be developed by choosing a
specific approach, theory, and material that can be analyzed in detail. We
conclude with an assessment of the possibilities of conducting empirical
research in this field and the potential for advancements in theory.
Introduction
An attempt to thoroughly examine the question of emptiness, like any
other phenomenon, as described and interpreted in Confucianism
necessitates a precise definition of ones research scope, because the term
Confucianism practically has no indisputable definition. Researching
Confucianism often leads to oversimplification (Tu 1979), and studies in
the last few decades have shown that different authors can have very
different opinions on what constitutes Confucian thought there have
been attempts to question the generalized view of Confucian tradition
(Chow, Ng & Henderson 1999) and to summarize the existing scholarship
15
on the history and influence of Confucianism in China and Chinainfluenced societies (Richey 2008).
Firstly, the nature of Confucianism is debatable it originates from
works of ancient Chinese philosophers and as such it is a philosophy (e.g.
Chan 1977; Fung 1998), but considering that it played a significant role in
the formation of the state and society in China one can hardly challenge
the perception of Confucianism as a system of political ideas (e.g. He et al
1998). In addition, over the centuries many spiritual rituals have been
included in Confucian practices, and Confucian temples are a common
occurrence, so one could just as easily take into consideration whether it is
in fact a religion (e.g. Ching 1986; Taylor 1990). In our assessment of
emptiness, we will consider all relevant literature that claims to deal with
Confucianism, as defined by the author(s), adopting a comprehensive view
that allows the existence of a tradition of religious philosophy that can also
have the form of a political ideology. This will enable us to estimate the
meaning and significance of emptiness in Confucianism in general, still
keeping in mind that each example is burdened with the implications and
limitations of the approach of the primary author.
The second problem with researching Confucianism is defining which
sources one is to hold referential the writings of Confucius (or, rather,
the texts attributed to him, Fung 1998) and Mengzi (Mencius, one of the
most famous Confucians of ancient China) (Legge 1945), or perhaps the
Song and Ming dynasty school of Neo-Confucian thought (Chan 1963;
Huang 1999), the 20th century New Confucianism (Makeham 2003) or the
recent 21st century writings of Yu Dan (Yu 2007). We will rely on both the
source texts of philosophers and the interpretations of scholars.
Considering that this is only an overview of the concept of emptiness in
Confucianism, we will use the widely accepted interpretations of ancient
texts, leaving a more thorough analysis of the accuracy of the existing
translations for future research.
Another issue in approaching Confucianism is whether there is any
practical significance in researching its teachings, i.e. whether
Confucianism has any value and influence in todays China. This may
seem redundant considering the recent scholarly works on the revival of
Confucianism, both as a system of ethical and political ideas and as a
religion (e.g. Bell 2008; Takahiro 2009; Billioud and Thoraval 2009; Chen
2009), but up to the 1980s arguments that Confucianism would disappear
in the modern, globalized era seemed compelling, at least in Western
studies (e.g. Levenson 1968). It may be claimed with relative certainty that
Confucianism has restored its significance in modern Chinese society (Hu
2007; Makeham 2008), although certain authors claim its position was
16
Chapter Two
never in question (e.g. Tu 1979; De Bary 1996). If we perceive

Confucianism as a tradition of religious philosophy we might see it as an
integral part of Chinese society, a reservoir of humanistic insight useful
for tackling the vital issues of any historical period (Tu 1979), a good
example of which is the popularity of Yu Dans reinterpretation of ancient
Confucian texts at the dawn of the 21st century (Bell 2008). In our
approach we will adopt the idea that Confucian thought as the
mainstream of Chinese thought in the last millenniumhas deep
economic, political, and social roots (Tu 1979), and that it is a significant
part of todays China. Based on this notion, we assert that, with adequate
caution and adaptation, the conclusions reached through the exploration of
Confucianism may be reconfigured and applied to vital practical issues of
Chinese society, therefore undeniably establishing the significance of the
research question at hand.
The discussion is divided into three parts. In the first and most
detailed section we will examine occurrences of the term emptiness in
Confucian texts and aspects of Chinese culture that may be connected to
Confucianism, while also examining in brief the respective terms in
Daoism and Buddhism. The discussion is placed in the context of the
difficulty of
making
a
distinction between
these
three
philosophies/ideologies when researching the Chinese civilization. The
second part of the text deals with emptiness as background, i.e. as a
metaphor for viewing all aspects of the perceived reality in a wider, more
general context, always having in mind the future which is empty until it
becomes reality. We will discuss how Confucian views on the individual
and society can be interpreted as balancing ones focus between
dichotomies. The third section examines how emptiness can also be
perceived as a narrative method, i.e. how emptiness of content or
vagueness can be seen as a characteristic trait of Confucian texts. We will
discuss how the manner in which the texts are written becomes a part of
the philosophy one writes about. Thus, we will discuss concrete textual
and practical examples, then ideas related to Confucian thought, and
finally we will go beyond the content directly expressed in the body of
Confucian literature and consider the meaning of its form.
To conclude with, we will discuss the possibilities of conducting
empirical research of cultural characteristics in the perception of concepts.
We will give a tentative assessment of research conducted to date, and
discuss possible methodological and theoretical developments that would
enable gaining reliable results with a satisfying level of predictability. We
will also mention some significant aspects of examining the Chinese
culture and civilization in light of the different influential schools of
17
thought present in Chinas society. Considering that this text is an

introduction to the potential study of cultural differences in perception
(either sensory or cognitive), we will try to stress the significance of
proper observation, and also the possible insurmountable issues in seeing
ones cultural or national origin as a defining characteristic.
In this chapter we will by no means attempt to give a definitive
answer to what emptiness is or what it might be in Confucianism, or in the
Chinese worldview in general. This work should rather be seen as a
contribution to the challenge of providing a single interpretation or theory
of emptiness in the Chinese context.
Literal Emptiness
If one were to wonder about the concept of emptiness in Chinese culture,
they would almost certainly turn towards Daoism or Buddhism, either on
account of knowing the basic characteristics of each of the three
worldviews, or because of the sheer abundance and availability of
literature on the topic (e.g. De Bary, Chan & Watson 1960; Chan 1963;
Innada 1997; Innada 2001; Zhang 2002; Pui 2003; Tan 2008; Allen
2010; Yao 2010). Considering that this is a logical step, deeper reflection
necessarily raises questions about the connections between Daoism,
Buddhism, and Confucianism. Although often assessed individually (as
will be the case in this work), these three schools of thought should be
perceived as different sides of a single dynamic civilization in its several
thousand year long process of ongoing development. All significant
philosophical concepts have their counterparts, and the fundamental
connection is apparent either through direct similarities, or through the
Chinese concept of the union and harmony of opposites. The Daoist
concepts of non-existence or beingless (w) and empty space or emptiness
(x) are formed as mirror images of existence and being (Zhang 2002),
and the Chinese Buddhist idea is that emptiness (kng) is actually form
(Lusthaus 1998). Both these views can be interpreted as indications of a
qualitative primacy of emptiness (e.g. the ideal of attaining emptiness in
the Daodejing (Zia 1966), the vision of good life in the Zhuangzi (Fraser
2008), or the possibilities for detachment from difficulty in Buddhism
(Sundararajan 2008)). On the other hand, Confucianism is known for a
conservative view on the necessity for strict regulation of worldly affairs
(by means of a well-established tradition and rituals). However, despite
this contraditcion, scholarly literature is not lacking in connections
between the three schools of thought from similarities in ethics (Jiang
2002) and epistemology (Shien 1953) to examinations of the metaphysical
18
Chapter Two
basis of Confucianism (tiemble 1966; Zhang 1985) and the practical

aspects of Daoism and Buddhism (Faure 1993; Jrgensen 2005), to name a
few. Based on certain readings, Confucius is a character in the dialogues
of Zhuangzi (Watson 2003), and the prominent Confucian philosopher
Xunzi attempted to interpret Daoist ideas (Yearley 1980). Accordingly, the
concept of emptiness also has its place in Confucianism.
The basic Confucian documents, the Four Books, contain little literal
mention of the term emptiness, but we must again note that we only
provide a tentative, introductory review of the generally adopted canonical
text without a deeper examination of all the versions discovered to date. In
Legges (1945) translation we find only three occurrences of the word
empty, two of which are used to denote x, in (1) and (2), and one to
denote kng (3) (all italics in quotes are added emphasys):
(1)
Having not and yet affecting to have, empty and yet affecting to
be full, straitened and yet affecting to be at ease: it is difficult
with such characteristics to have constancy. (Analects, Book
VII, Ch. XXV, 3, 89)
(2)
The philosopher Tsang said, Gifted with ability, and yet

putting questions to those who were not so; possessed of much,
and yet putting questions to those possessed of little; having, as
though he had not; full, and yet counting himself as empty;
offended against, and yet entering into no altercation; formerly I
had a friend who pursued this style of conduct. (Analects,
Book VIII, Ch. V, 98)
(3)
The Master said, Am I indeed possessed of knowledge? I am

not knowing. But if a mean person, who appears quite emptylike, ask anything of me, I set it forth from one end to the other,
and exhaust it. (Analects, Book IX, Ch. VII, 111)
In all three examples emptiness is opposed to fullness, whether it is

perceived literally, as physical void, or as metaphysical space. In example
(3) the term kng is duplicated as kng-kng, so certain authors claim that
in this occurrence the term actually means sincerity (Chen 1986), but
examples (1) and (2) are confirmed mentions of emptiness. Finding true
harmony between two opposites emptiness and fullness, and not
pretending to be on the preferred pole, seems to be the desired form of
conduct.
19
The character x represents a significant cosmological principle in

Chinese philosophy it is not simply emptiness, but rather space from
which everything originates (Zhang 2002). The idea of emptiness which is
not nothing, but actually the origin of everything, was further developed in
Neo-Confucianism (c. 10th to c. 14th century, Song and Ming dinasties).
After the philosophy of emptiness was introduced into China through the
Three-Treatise School of Indian thought and after its seemingly profound
influence (Chan 1963), Neo-Confucians openly developed their
philosophy under the influence of Buddhism (Fu 1973). At first the
difference between Buddhism and Chinas dominant ideology seemed
insuperable, due to the differences in key issues related to political, social
and private life (e.g. filial piety vs. Buddhist seclusion, Xing 2010), but
Neo-Confucians seemed to understand that Buddhism offered a new kind
of religious belief system that the Chinese people needed (Lin 1998).
Hence the first Neo-Confucian teachers based much of their interpretations
on the Book of Changes and attempted to build a Confucian view on core
Daoist and Buddhist concepts, such as beingless, non-action and emptiness,
giving the philosophy a religious dimension. Zhou Dunyi and Zhang Zai
give similar construals of emptiness (De Bary & Watson 1960; Chan
1963; Liu 2005; Wang 2005; Patt-Shamir 2005) emptiness is not
actually empty, but possesses the potential to create all things; it is one
with the cosmic force (q, or chi), and is in contrast only with the state of
constant change. See the following examples:
(4)
When the Chi condenses, its visibility becomes apparent so that

there are then the shapes [of individual things]. When it
disperses, its visibility is no longer apparent and there are no
shapes. At the time of its condensation, can one say otherwise
than that this is but temporary? But at the time of its dispersing,
can one hastily say that it is then non-existent? (Zhang Zai, cited
in Fung 1948, 279)
(5)
When it is understood that Vacuity, Emptiness, is nothing but

[cosmic] force, then something and nothing, the hidden and the
manifest, spirit and external transformation, and human nature
and destiny, are all one and not a duality. (Zhang Zai, cited in
De Bary, Chan & Watson 1960, 467)
(6)
Activity as the absence of stillness and stillness as the absence

of activity characterize things (wu). Activity that is not
[empirically] active and stillness that is not [empirically] still
20
Chapter Two
characterize spirit (shen). Being active and yet not active, still
and yet not still, does not mean that [spirit] is neither active nor
still. For while things do not [inter] penetrate (tong), spirit
subtly [pervades] the myriad things. (Zhou Dunyi, cited in
Wang 2005, 317)
In practice, one is to aim at emptiness of desire. Zhou Dunyi writes:
(7)
Can one become a sage through learning? Having no desire

one is empty [absolutely pure and peaceful] while tranquil,
and straightforward while in action. Being empty while
tranquil, one becomes intelligent and hence penetrating. Being
straightforward while active, one becomes impartial and hence
all-embracing. Being intelligent, penetrating, impartial, and allembracing, one is almost a sage. (cited in De Bary, Chan &
Watson 1960, 460)
(8)
That which is completely silent and inactive is authenticity

[cheng]. That which penetrates when stimulated is spirit (shen).
That which is active but not yet formed, between existing and
not existing is incipient. Authenticity is of the essence (jing),
and therefore clear. Spirit is responsive, and therefore
mysterious. Incipience is subtle, and therefore obscure. One
who is authentic, spiritual, and incipient [cheng, shen, ji] is
called a sage. (cited in Wang 2005, 322)
Although influenced by Buddhism and Daoism, Neo-Confucians

strived towards differentiating their philosophy and asserting its
superiority. Zhang Zai writes:
(9)
Confucianists investigate principle and therefore can follow

their nature. This constitues the Way. Buddhists, on the other
hand, do not know how to investigate principle and arbitrarily
consider [Emptiness] as the true nature. Consequently, their
theory cannot prevail. (cited in Chan 1963, 515-6)
(10)
It is according to ones nature that being and non-being, and

reality and unreality pervade a thing. Food and sex are both
nature. How can they be obliterated? Thus being and non-being
are both nature, How can there be no opposition? The Taoists
21
and Buddhists have for long maintained there is none. Do they

really understand truth? (Ibid.)
It is in this direction that Neo-Confucian philosophy developed. The
theory of l was built as a metaphysical principle which is nonetheless
grounded in reality and has potential for practical application. It is stated
that it was actually constructed in opposition to the Buddhist doctrine of
emptiness (Ch'ien 1988), which was perceived by Neo-Confucians as a
denial of reality and nothing but non-being. They struggled to stress the
pragmatic aspects of their own philosphy, perhaps not for pure
philosophical or ideological conviction but in an effort to retain or fortify
social and political influence. Zhu Xi states:
(11)
the Buddhists talk about emptiness whereas the Confucians talk

about concretness, and whereas the Buddhists talk about nonbeing, the Confucians talk about being. (cited in Chan 1963,
648)
(12)
With us Confucians, although the mind is vacuous, principle is

real. The Buddhists, on the other hand, go straight to their
destination of emptiness and void. (Ibid.)
Thus in the Song and Ming dinasties, Confucians seemed to provide a

concept of emptiness that could be incorporated into everyday life without
the need for ascetism and isolation, their questionable interpretations of
Buddhist theory and certain theoretical contradictions notwithstanding.
The idea of emptiness that is inherent in all things streamed into the New
Confucianism of the 20th century, combined with the philosophy of change
which dictates the necessity of the existence of both nothing and
something. The New Confucianism philosopher Tang Junyi writes:
(13)
The prehensive nature of an object is its Yin aspect. The

essence of matter is its Yin nature. This Yin or prehensive
nature lies in its nothingness, which not only takes external
forces as somethingness but also renders them recessed. (cited
in Streng 1982, 375)
(14)
The fundamental principle of giving birth to new events or new

objects lies in the occasion that the firm matches the receptive
22
Chapter Two
and the moving matches the rest, so that there is interprehension

between somethingness and nothingness. (Ibid., 376)
Constant change and nothingness within somethingness are extensions of
ancient Chinese principles, which encourage individuals to establish
harmony between their own principles and cosmic principles. This should,
as a consequence, lead to a stable (although everchanging) society.
In terms of specific practices, Confucianism developed distinct
methods of self-cultivation based on the idea of emptying ones mind.
Contrary to Daoists and Buddhists, Confucians developed meditation with
the aim of improving ones self in the practice of virtue (Ching 1986).
Although it can be perceived as transcendental, Confucian meditation does
not aim to numb the mind or the senses but rather to have one view ones
self in a wider context. Through meditating, one should be able to gain
knowledge of ones moral self and to perceive ones strengths and
weaknesses. This should lead to unity and harmony, the advance of virtue
and regression of vice. Once again we are presented with the concept of
the unity between contemplation and action, as the mind need not be
empty or still as long as it is not a distraction.
As we established that Confucianism dealt with metaphysics, and not
just practical political and social aspects of life, it can be assumed that it
also influenced the arts. Former interpretations stated that the vast number
of Confucian intellectualls who practiced art adopted Chan aesthetic
principles (Levenson 1968), but despite a seemingly pervasive idea of
Asian art being almost solely influenced by Buddhism, Confucianism
influenced both art theory and the practice of art in China (Cahill 1960).
Although it was not central in the development of the classic Chinese
aesthetics of emptiness (e.g. Cheng 1994; Innada 2000), the Confucian
idea of emptiness intrinsic in somethingness resonates in art theory. It is
most notably visible in the idea of controling ones thoughts and emotions
without annihilating them, of attaining harmony that entails action (Cahill
1960). The method involves becoming skillful in enjoying things, but not
being permanently affected by them; it entails not being bound to worldly
things, but still enojoying mundane pleasures. The 11th century artist Su
Shi developed the following arguments based on Neo-Confucian thought:
(15)
Lao-tzu says: The five colors confuse the eye, the five sounds
dull the ear, the five tastes spoil the palate; but the sage
never really renounces these [sensual objects], for he merely
rests his thoughts on them. (as cited in Cahill 1960, 133)
(16)
23
It is like clouds and mists passing before my eyes, or the songs

of birds striking my ears. How could I help but derive joy from
my contact with these things? But when they are gone, I think
no more about them. In this way, these two things [painting and
calligraphy] are a constant pleasure to me, but not an affliction
to me. (Ibid.)
The early 12th century theorist Dong You emphasizes that attaining such
an ability shows quality of character and spirit:
(17)
If a person is sincere (cheng) within, he is released from such

attachments, and although things be ever so numerous they
cannot become involvements to him. He who is cultivated
within his mind is fixed and quiet, like still, deep water. (Ibid.,
134)
These ideas are further formulated in some Confucian principles of art,

such as non-purposefullness, blandness, and the virtue of concealment
(Cahill 1960). It is also interesting to note that the appreciation of
emptiness did not extend only to its literal depiction, but also to capturing
the invisible essence of things which is seemingly not there. Skillful is not
the artist who is able to attain likeness of form, it is the one who can
capture the ostensibly absent metaphysical essence.
Metaphorical Emptiness
As noted in the introduction to this volume, emptiness can also be
perceived as background, both metaphorically and literally. In line with
the literal understanding of the concept of emptiness found in Confucian
texts, the metaphorical construal can also be seen as an attempt to view
emptiness (background) as essential, or even identical to somethingness
(foreground). Confucianism emphasizes viewing things in a wider context,
thus necessarily linking the present with both the past and the future. The
insistence on ancestor worship might have seemed incompatible with the
pragmatic approach of Confucian thought, but if we adopt the stance that
they perceived the present as a dynamic route, not a point in time, which
always springs from a past and heads towards a future, it becomes
apparent that respect for ancestors was actually the embodiment of an
already existing sequence. This is apparent in the Neo-Confucian Wang
Pins view on the connection between past and present sages:
24
(18)
Chapter Two
The former sages and the later [sic] sages are in perfect
harmony. It is because they do not transmit the Tao of the sage
but the mind of the sage. Actually they do not transmit the mind
of the sage but their own minds. Indeed my mind is not
different from that of the sage. It is vast and infinite. It
embraces myriad goods. To expand this mind is thus the way to
transmit the Tao of the sages. (cited in Tu 1979, 107)
The New Confucian Tu Weiming further interprets this notion:

(19)
Since the mind of the ancients can never be reproduced,

transmission in a real sense always implies an act of creativity
not creating something out of nothing, to be sure, but deepening
ones self-awareness to the extent that its quality is comparable
to that of the ancients. (Tu 1979, 108)
The origin of things is seen as their inseparable, defining trait. Furthermore,

the present is always an extension of the past and the starting point of the
future, so the background and the foreground are one.
Such a view brings about a collectivist approach to society. Confucian
spiritual practices are aimed at making a person more humane and
committed to the needs of larger groups, such as family and society (Ching
1986). In this worldview, individuals cannot be perceived as exceptional
and isolated, but always as part of the entire human civilization, past and
future. Their achievements are not their own, as Tu Weiming states:
(20)
To the Neo-Confucian thinker, what happens here and now is

more than the demonstration of a single individual genius; it is
the fulfillment of a historical mission and the vivification of an
accumulative tradition. (Tu 1979, 108)
We should note that the positive side of this idea is often neglected just
as ones achievements are not their own, the same applies to their failures.
A collectivist society paradoxically has to take good care of the individual
in order to preserve the group. Once again we see that the background and
foreground, emptiness and somethingness, have a dynamic relationship.
The two opposites are set in motion from equilibrium, in order to attain
harmony specific to particular cases.
Confucian rites are also a good example of metaphorical emptiness.
The well-known idea about the prescribed order in which each person
should know their place, a ruler should be a ruler etc., reveals a Confucian
25
theory of personal identity. In this view, there is no fixed personal identity.

It is fluid and changeable, and thus in essence it is empty because it can
adopt any form as needed. As Xunzi states:
(21)
Beauty and ugliness, music and weeping, joy and sorrow are
opposites, and yet rites make use of them all, bringing forth and
employing each in its turn. (as cited in Ching 1986, 67)
A myriad of opposites exists within the vacant identity in equilibrium,

rising to attain the needed harmony for each occasion. This enables
individuals to adapt to different social roles, and formulates a theory of
personal identity that is based on the idea of the existence of basic
similarities of all people.
Another extension of this idea is the theory of reverence without selfdenial. As with meditation, Confucians aim to cultivate the self without
detachment from society. The seeming asceticism in classic documents
can be explained by practical reasons (Ching 1986), and in the Confucian
view spiritual practices can be performed without deprivation. Reverence
should include self-awareness so that ones morals can be cultivated along
with ones mind. As Zhu Xi states:
(22)
Reverence does not mean one has to sit stiffly in solitude, the
ears hearing nothing, the eyes seeing nothing, and the mind
thinking of nothing It means rather keeping a sense of
caution and vigilance, and not daring to become permissive. (as
cited in Ching 1986, 73)
Seeing the literal and metaphorical concepts in Confucian thought, we

will now examine how the manner in which the texts were written also
reveals a specific idea of emptiness.
Methodological Emptiness
In a general characterization of Chinese philosophy, the theorist and
historian Feng Yulan states that:
(23)
Chinese philosophers have preferred to apply knowledge to

actual conduct rather than to hold what they considered to be
empty discussions about it. (Fung 1983, 2)
26
Chapter Two
If we consider that the ostensibly incompatible views of Daoism,

Buddhism and Confucianism functioned within the same society, it seems
clear that the philosophies encompassed more than what was directly
stated in their respective canonical texts. For Confucianism, the following
is apparent when reading its basic documents: not much is stated clearly,
and there are few ideas that can be indisputably interpreted.
The intentional vagueness of Confucian texts can be seen as their
attempt to ensure the widest possible applicability. They seem to have
attained the perfect balance between a general approach, which can be
applied to a vast array of situations, and a focused approach, which is
useful when applied. This characteristic has been recognized as an element
of Confucian discourse (Mllgaard 2007), which was especially developed
in Neo-Confucianism with the introduction of spirituality (Ching 1986).
Neo-Confucisans do not seek an objective point of view (Tu 1979), but
rather try to encompass every instance of subjectivity:
(24)
When the Neo-Confucian master suggests to his students that

the only way to take hold of a certain dimension of his teaching
is to embody it (ti-chih), he is absolutely serious. The
absence of a clearly articulated position on such matters is not a
result of the teachers deliberate attempt to remain silent as a
pedagogical device, but of his sincere determination to be
truthful to the very nature of such a teaching. Even in some
of the highly sophisticated essays emphasis is still on
experiential understanding rather than the art of argumentation.
(Tu 1979, 104-5)
The current structure of canons shows that the text was a base for
consequent interpretations. Numerous comments from different periods of
Chinese history have become a part of the original text, serving as
guidelines but not limiting ones own interpretations. This lack of concrete
content drew criticism in ancient China (De Bary, Chan & Watson 1960),
but it enabled Confucianism to become incorporated into almost every
aspect of Chinese society and culture.
Conclusions
Considering the given analysis and stated stance on generalizing and
experiential versus theoretical learning, it is debatable whether conducting
empirical research with the goal of attaining a unified theory is even
significant in the Chinese/Confucian view. If experiments were performed
27
using a truly precise method, the results would be too specific to formulate
a general conclusion, and if the findings were applicable to a defined
majority they would be useless in many specific cases. Avoiding the
pitfalls might be possible by predicting such challenges and designing
ones research while keeping them in mind.
Research on cultural differences to date shows the main difficulties in
performing studies within a globalized world, namely: the risk of overgeneralization and the inability to perform adequate sampling. In the
methodologies of Geert Hofstede and Richard Nisbett for example, we see
that, in order to tackle the vast amount of variables, cultures are
categorized as static entities that individuals belong to. This is one
approach that might serve as a basis for a future integrated theory if
more researchers tried to view the phenomena differently, and then
integrated their findings. The dynamics of cultural exchange in the modern
world cannot be petrified for observation, but they might be dissected into
different aspects which could then be connected to form a general picture.
When researching China, this is seen in the necessity to examine all three
influential schools of thought Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism in
order to gain insight into the workings of Chinese society and culture.
Finally, a note on the research of cultural difference in general.
Although a lot can be said about the differences of Asian and Western
traditions of thought, there are also many similarities if one goes beyond
the concrete definitions. The question of whether the two origins of
civilization and culture are more different than similar remains open. More
importantly, we must stress that even a definitive answer to such a query
would not necessarily be applicable today given the mentioned globalizing
trend which has been apparent since modernization in Asia began. With
the influx of technology, culture, and consequently scientific and political
thought, as well as the intense migrations caused both by wars and by
ideas of the pursuit of happiness, we can no longer take nationality or
cultural background as a given condition in any type of empirical study.
Being Asian or Western is not something that is easily defined. One
may adopt a flawed definition, leave it undefined as in Confucian texts, or
strive to further the current aims of methodology and theory.
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CHAPTER THREE
EMPTINESS IN HAIKU POETRY
SONJA VINJI IOVI AND JUNICHI TOYOTA
Abstract. In the history of Japanese poetry the name Matsuo Bash (16441694) has always been connected with the poetic genre of haiku nowadays the most famous and renowned Japanese poetic form - which
contains only 17 syllables grouped into three verses (5-7-5). Although
haiku was initially considered a poetic pastime, in time it evolved and
became a highly aesthetic art. Matsuo Bash, who contributed to the
development of haiku, is considered to be one of the greatest exponents of
this art form and his poems are viewed as masterpieces of Japanese poetry.
He highly valued personal experience and considered it as an important
element of true and sincere poetry. Concerning the fact that he, for some
time, was practicing Zen Buddhism and was a great admirer of Taoist
philosophy (especially work of Chuang Tzu), it is clear that Zen Buddhism
and Taoism had a great influence on his work. Since the sense of emptiness
is one of the fundamental principles in Zen Buddhism and Taoism, in this
chapter an attempt is made to analyse his haiku poetry from perspectives of
the following four elements: sincerity of poetry, forgetfulness, naturalness
and lightness. These ideas form key principles of haiku poetry in general,
representing special attitude towards life, nature, art and beauty which are
all rooted in the sense of emptiness.
Introduction
(1)
Hototogisu kieyuku-kata-ya
shima-hitotsu
cuckoo
disappearing-direction-VOC island-one
In a direction of a cuckoo flying away, there is a lone island.
(1688 Okuno hosomichi)
The poem shown in (1) is one of the well-known pieces by one of the best
known and most significant Japanese haiku poets Matsuo Basho (16441694). As it is obvious, Haiku has only 17 syllables divided into three
32
Chapter Three
verses (5-7-5) and it is the shortest poetic form in the world. Its shortness
naturally represents simplicity, a poetic form released from any excessive
word or phrase. To an untrained mind, it may be difficult to comprehend
this type of poetry. For instance, (1) contains a vocative marker -ya (this
function can be achieved also by -kana), which introduces a background of
the scene, where a cuckoo flies away. However, this grammatical marker
implies that while a bird flies out of the scene, its singing voice also
disappears, i.e. silence prevails as the bird flies away. In this silent
background, one can imagine a distant island. As in any forms of poetry in
the world, there are many literary techniques in the haiku poetry, but each
technique expresses much more than an image or a scene a simple word
can evoke. This special form forces poets to be in a certain state of mind to
create a piece, by emptying his mind (mushin and muga) to cope with the
paucity of syllables they can use. This state of mind also distances them
from a depicted scene, and most poems, like the one shown in (1), a poet is
evidently absent. Instead, he depicts the scene objectively and simply
records it as if his mind is a clear mirror with an empty surface
(Pasqualotto 2007, 118). This can be also seen in terms of mushin
emptiness of mind and muga emptiness of personality (p.c. Marina
Shchepetunina).
There are indeed other elements to formulate this poem, such as
mononoaware fragility of objects, but sense of emptiness seems to be the
prevailing factor, which can be seen in various forms: limited number of
syllables, limited source of information, emptiness of mind, objectivety in
poetry, etc. This chapter deals with such points and analyses how the sense
of emptiness can be visible in the world of haiku poetry. First, the
background of the haiku poetry is given with a historical review. Then
various influences such as Zen Buddhism or Taoism are analysed in
relation to the haiku poetry, covering diverse features, e.g. naturalness,
silence and stillness, emptiness of mind, abandonment, naturalness, and
finally lightness. Finally, we demonstrate how the emptiness can be
important in interpreting the theme of some pieces of poetry.
Historical background
Haikai (or haiku from the 19th century onwards) originates from waka
poem with 31 syllables (5-7-5-7-7). In the Heian period (794-1185), by
division of the first part of waka poem from the second, arose a poetic
game or renga (linked verse) in which the first participant tells opening
verses (5-7-5), called hokku, and the another participant tells the next two
verses (7-7, wakiku), adding them to the previous ones. From the earliest
33
periods, haiku-like expressions were present in the Japanese poetry, which

gradually developed into a more crystallized form. This is noticeable to an
astonishing degree in all periods of the Japanese poetry. This poetic form
has its source in the early Japanese poetry. For example, even in one of the
oldest Chronicles of Japan, Nihonshoki (720), there are verses in the form
of questions and answers that will be a base for early poems, and the later
poetry compilations such as Mansoshyu (a759) are influenced by
Nihonshoki. This form is called katauta and usually consists of three parts
arranged in the syllabic pattern 5-7-7 or 5-7-5, varying in length from 17
to 19 syllables. This length is very important because it points out a simple,
direct and spontaneous question and the answer in same manner that is,
in one breath. Even with this simple question-answer type of poetry, it is
possible to find the characteristics that are haiku: ellipsis, condensation,
spontaneity and nakedness of treatment (Yasuda: 1995, 111).
Early Japanese poetic forms based on katauta and other important
poetic forms were developed in successive order: sedoka, choka and tanka.
They are based on the 5-7-5 syllabic pattern and this shows that the basic
element of haiku is deeply stored in the poetic instinct of the Japanese
which predicted the future poetic form today known as haiku. (see:
Yasuda: 1995, 115)
We already mentioned that haiku evolved out of renga (linked verses),
or a poetic game. Although until the year of 1127 the term renga was not
used, this kind of poetic form had been present in poetic anthologies since
the Heian period (794-1185). Renga of that time was rich in humour and
wit, expressed either for the immediate amusement of ones superior
poetic skills or outwitting ones opponent. Renga reached its culmination
during the Muromachi period (1324-1549). However, young poets of the
time were beginning to write humorous renga (haikai no renga), where
haikai denoted something amusing or playful. So, throughout the history
of the Japanese poetry, the succession of the serious by the witty or comic
was a common phenomenon against the refined tanka, there appeared
humorous renga; when renga became refined, then the witty haikai
emerged.
Even though haiku had a few composition rules, there were clear
difference between haiku and renga. Haiku allowed the use of words,
both Japanese and Chinese, that had been forbidden in the classical forms
such as tanka or renga. These words were called haigon. For popularization
of haiku, and enrichment of haiku glossary (because of usage of haigon),
Matsunaga Teitoku (1571-1653) and his Teimon school of haiku were
responsible. Teitoku made great efforts towards advanced regulations that
enabled haiku to make a big step forward and to be conceived and
34
Chapter Three
established as a justified poetic preoccupation. Therefore, he is considered

to be a poet whose merit is placing of haiku on the solid literal foundation.
His greatest contribution to Japanese literature, then, was to elevate haikai
to the position of a recognized poetic form (Keen: 1971, 90). He
succeeded in establishing a more conservative and more formal approach
to haiku. For him, humour was a kind of intellectual wit and he considered
haigon to be the only difference between haiku and renga. Teitoku
introduced clear and strict rules concerning the composition of haiku and
strived to enrich the form of haiku with elegance and aesthetic sophistication
of serious renga.
As a contrast to Teitoku and his Teimon school, around the year of
1673 Nishiyama Soin (1605-1682) began his work with his Danrin school.
Soin emphasized the humorous aspects of haiku. The main characteristic
of his school was fast linking of verses in order to practice free association.
This new sensation of artistic independence enabled broader choice of
subjects to haiku poets. Soin and his followers considered their first aim to
be playfulness and their only wish was to make people laugh. They
introduced everyday speech in haiku.
A poet that was trained in both Teimon and Danrin styles but who also
continued to improve both his personality and his poetry was Matsuo
Basho. By the end of the 17th century he had created his Shomon school
of haiku that soon became filled with artistic sincerity. He believed that
haiku should not be used only as a word game but also as a way of lyric
expression of the first three verses of renga (hokku) into an independent
poetic form. The accomplishment of Basho in the history of the Japanese
poetry was in abridgment of the traditional Japanese poetry and in its
improvement.
Prior to his time, haikai had been more an urbane game or pastime than
serious poetry, and hokku was part of it. With his keen literally sensitivity
and superb command of the language, Basho explored all the potential that
had been dormant in the verse form. He was a daring explorer: he used
slang terms, he borrowed from Chinese, he wrote hokku in eighteen,
nineteen or more syllables. Even more important, he endeavoured to make
hokku true to actual human experience, to what he saw, thought and felt,
with all sincerity and honesty... In brief, he created serious poetry out of
what had largely been an entertaining game. (Ueda 1992, 3)
Denying the values of the samurai and the common people, Basho
devoted his life and poetry to the way of elegance. As a poet, he supported
the idea of introduction of personal experience into the poetry. Therefore,
one cannot ignore the influence of Zen Buddhism and Taoism on the
35
poetry of Matsuo Basho who is considered to be the best representative of

the Japanese poetic form of haiku.
Influence of Zen Buddhism on haiku poetry

Zen Buddhism came to Japan from China through Korea in 522. Note,
however, that this date has been hotly debated. According to Nihonshoki
(720), Buddhism was officially introduced into Japan from Koerea in 552,
when the king of Paekche sent a mission to the emperor of Japan bearing
presents including an image of Sakyamuni in gold and copper and a
number of sutras. However, current scholarship favors another traditional
date for this event, 538 (Aoki 1995, 208-209). Buddhism became
connected with the Chinese thought in the first century B.C. and
developed and changed along with the Chinese philosophic tradition. The
Chinese pragmatic mind reacted to the Indian Buddhism by focusing on its
practical aspects and developed them into a type of spiritual discipline
named chan, which is usually translated as meditation. The chan
philosophy was accepted by the Japanese in the 12th century by the name
of zen. That is the reason why Zen Buddhism represents a mixture of three
different schools of philosophy and three different cultures: it is a way of
life that is typically Japanese which also reflects Indian mysticism, Taoist
love towards naturalness and spontaneity as well as consistent pragmatism
of the Confucian mind. As a philosophical and religious movement which
had a great influence on the Japanese art and the way of life, Zen
Buddhism also found its way to haiku poetry. According to Blyth (1995,
64), the art of haiku is as near to life and nature as possible, as far from
literature and fine writing as may be, so that asceticism is art and the art is
ascetism.
As for the aesthetic principles that are present in haiku poetry, largely
influenced by Zen Buddhism and Taoism, it is possible to observe that all
these principles emerged from the sense of emptiness, as the rest of the
chapter reveals. Generally, the influence of Zen Buddhism on haiku poetry
could be observed in the following characteristics:
i. Timelessness and infinity
These principles arise from emptiness because there is neither time
nor limitations in this sense. In haiku poetry, this is evident in the
choice of subjects poets usually write about simple matters from
everyday life. However, they try to depict universal order of the
nature through simplicity. There are no insignificant things, which
36
Chapter Three
means that countless matters are worth writing about in haiku

poetry.
ii. Simplicity and implication
These principles are implied in the very shortness of a haiku poem.
For that reason, a haiku poet does not tell (depict or explain)
everything clearly, but only suggests. Consequently, it is possible
to have many interpretations of one poem. The emptiness awakes
readers imagination which completes the poem and becomes an
active participant in it. Words in haiku poetry alluding to emptiness
enable countless possibilities of other words, but also of other
sensations and interpretations of the same poem.
iii. Synchronisation
The only thing that actually exists is this very present moment,
while the past or the future is nonexistent. This may first appear to
be synchronic, but its implication is that beauty is limitless and
undying, cf. timelessness and infinity.
iv. Unity of subject and object
We have already mentioned this principle. In haiku poetry, a poet
should be unified with the moment and the object of his poem.
Matsuo Basho depicted this principle in his well-known teaching
about the pine and the bamboo: Go to the pine if you want to learn
about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the
bamboo. And in doing so, you must leave your subjective
preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on
object and do not learn (taken from Sanzoushi, complied in 1702).
This saying suggests that writing poetry requires the unification of
a writer with an object they observe. Once this unity is achieved,
words flow out and poetry writes itself, revealing some hidden
beauty of nature. When a writers mind is not attuned to the nature,
writing poetries ends up creating numerous subjective forgeries.
All these above mentioned principles are nicely expressed in the
following Bashos poems. Let us take two examples shown in (2). The
theme of this poem is purity, represented by a white chrysanthemum, as
described in the poem itself, and the winder coldness, which is implied by
this flower. It is obvious to observe purity based on the whiteness, but its
meaning is strengthened by the winder coldness, which is considered to
cleanse ones mind. In this way, a flower metaphorically refers to a human
mind, i.e. a state of mind one could experience when standing outside on a
cold winter morning. Thus, without personification of white chrysanthemum,
the main theme of this poem is hard to achieve. The poetry itself is very
37
simply formulated, but it is rather complex to achieve its added meanings.

In addition, what this piece suggests is also generally applicable to human
mind at any time of the year as long as one can think of winter. In this
sense, the beauty of this piece is timeless and one can even appreciate it
present day.
(2)

Shiragiku-no
me-ni tatete-miru chiri-mo-nashi
white.chrysanthemum-GEN eye-by-look
dust-NEG
White chrysanthemum, even if closely observed, bears not a
speck of dust. (1694)
As in other forms of arts in general, a masterpiece often represents not

simply an artistic form, but also various cultural and philosophical
backgrounds. Haiku poetry is not an exception, but its additional beauty is
timelessness, and any good pieces can be equally appreciated regardless of
time.
Influence of Taoism on haiku poetry

Bashos school of Shomon, emerged in the period during which the
Chinese style prevailed in haiku circles (since the end of the 1670s until
late 1680s). Matsuo Basho loved Chinese poets Li Po, Tu Fu, Po Chu and
Su Tung-Po as well as the Japanese poets Saigyo and Sogi. However, a
stronger influence on his poetry was exerted by Chuang-Tzu, one of the
founders of Taoism. A strong force behind the development of the Chinese
style was a determination to elevate haiku to an art comparable to the best
of the Chinese poetry. It also represented dissatisfaction with frivolous
plays of words in the previous haiku as well as an effort to seek more
profound connotations of the haigon other than that of waka and renga.
The philosophy of Taoism largely influenced the principles of naturalness
and lightness, as discussed in this section, and also had impact on the
Japanese Zen Buddhism. The influence of Taoism on haiku poetry is
evident through several features, e.g. spirit of carefree wondering (shoyoyu),
silence, tranquility, stillness, fluidity, emptiness of mind, abandonment,
inaction (wu-wei), naturalness (shizen) and lightness (karumi). Each of
them is examined separately below.
38
Chapter Three
Spirit of carefree wondering (shoyoyu)

An important event in Bashos career was his settling in Fukagawa (1680).
The joy that he felt in solitude and simple life prompted him to set on a
long journey to follow the ways of nature and return to it. In this way,
this principle influenced the ideas of poetic eccentricity (fukyo) and
elegant unconventionality (furyu). Fukyo poetic eccentricity celebrates
the poorness, the solitude, the uselessness, the idleness and the unstrained
condition, while furyu elegant unconventionality marks aesthetic ideal of
rejected secular values and seeking of beauty in the life style or mentality
liberated from all material constrains and devoted to art. Basho himself
rejected his samurai ancestry and decided to be in solitude and on a
constant journey in order to live his poetry to feel the places he was
writing about. Since he spent a large part of his life on journeys, he wrote
a series of travel journals that contain much of his best known haiku.
Integration of these poetic ideals was expressed through Bashos ideal of
poetic sincerity or fuga no makoto. Basho used this term often to indicate
the very source of the most important artistic, basic and supreme power,
without which valuable poems could not be possibly composed. Basho
thought that this idea was a revelation of the way of heaven and of the true
man, which could be compared with Chuang-Tzu:
Knowing what it is that Heaven does, he lives with Heaven. Knowing what
it is that man does, he uses the knowledge of what he knows to help out the
knowledge of what he doesnt know, and lives out the years that Heaven
gave him without being cut off midway this is the perfection of
knowledge. However, there is a difficulty. Knowledge must wait for
something before it can be applicable, and that which it waits for is never
certain. How, then, can I know what I call Heaven is not really man, and
what I call man is not really Heaven? There must first be a True Man
before there can be true knowledge. (Peipei 2005, 50-51)
Naturalness (shizen)
Naturalness here refers to an idea of following the ways of the nature and
return to the nature. Along with the maturing of Bashos style, the tradition
of carefree wandering (shoyoyu) was given a crucial importance and it
became a base for his principle of following the nature and returning to the
nature. Bashos poetry could be called the poetry of nature or naturalness.
In his lectures concerning poetic values, Basho widely used Taoist terms
to describe the state of poets mind and principles of composition,
including zka (, process of nature), shizen (, nature, naturalness),
39
tenk (, action of heaven), tenrai (, piping of heaven), kyo (,

emptiness) and ki ( , primal inner force). However, it is sometimes
difficult to separate the influence of Taoism on his poetry from the
influence of Zen Buddhism, since, needless to say, Zen Buddhism was
formed under the influence of Taoism.
Zka is the term taken from the work of Chuang-Tzu, and it includes a
number of key Taoist ideas. In short, zka primarily refers to action, the
flow of the Tao, and is an actual reflection of the Tao. Existence of all
things and beings is a direct outcome of the flow of the nature. Therefore,
every being spontaneously and naturally embodies Tao, and by following
the flow of the nature, at the same time one follows the Tao. The principle
of harmonizing things with the heavenly equality originates from this idea.
This principle is present in the work of Chuang-Tzu and refers to the state
of absolute liberation of any conceptual limitations and to harmonizing
with the nature:
What do I mean by harmonizing [things] with the Heavenly Equality?
Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right, it would differ so
clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were
really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need
for argument. Waiting for one shifting voice (to pass judgment on) another
is the same as waiting for none of them. Harmonize them all with the
Heavenly Equality, leave them to their endless changes, and so live out
your years. Forget the years; forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless
and make it your home. (Peipei 2005, 23)
The idea that strengthened Bashos belief and his critical tendency that
one should follow the nature and return to the nature was the fact that
Chuang-Tzu thought that the Way or the Tao was something abstract,
something that existed beyond reality that it was the way of things as
they really were in their natural condition. Therefore, anything that was in
its natural state was perfect and beautiful.
So, Bashos maxim of learning about pine from pine and about
bamboo from bamboo precisely summarizes his poetry of nature. In order
to achieve sincerity of poetry (fga no makoto), a poet should eliminate
subjectivity and enter into the object. In this sense, sincerity of poetry is
defined as a true revelation of the nature of all beings. Sincerity of poetry
is in harmony with the transformation of the nature and the revelation of
its truth in reality. Basho called this kind of poets quest the awakening of
the lofty by returning to the common and the ordinary. The awakening of
the lofty here means making constant efforts to achieve the sincerity of
poetry to follow the nature and to return to the nature as well as ones
40
Chapter Three
own spiritual elevation, i.e. spirit should be held aloft with highly elevated
poetical elegance and return to the secular life of the ordinary people.
Basho thought that haiku had three elements: i. Tranquility and
solitude (sekibaku) are its moods. Even when one enjoys fine food and the
company of a beautiful woman, one should find a true joy in humble
solitude; ii. Fry (taste) is its quality. Even if dressed in embroiled silk
and satin, one should not forget those wrapped in woven straw; iii. Fky
poetic eccentricity is its language. Ones language should stem from the
emptiness in order to perceive the substance of things. These three
elements do not imply that a person who is low aspires to the high but
rather that a person who has achieved the high perceives things through
the low (Peipei 2005, 149). As we can see, Basho thought that a man
should discover lofty and high in ordinary and common and to express
high through low. Only when a person returns to common and ordinary,
can he conceive high principles. However, ordinary and low does not
mean vulgar and primitive. They represent common, plain and basic
everyday life, immediate reality, everyday poetic practice, common
everyday speech. In the poetic sense, this is true and sincere. Basho
thought that returning to the common was actually returning to the nature
and the natural.
One of Bashos contributions was in achievement brought about
through a reconsideration of the energy residing in traditional poetic
vocabulary and a restoration of its vigour by means of an exquisite
combination of this language with the common or vulgar. He was the first
to show poets how to look with a poetic eye upon the ordinary and prosaic
incidentals of urban and rural Edo life and to prove that these could be
used as the raw material for poetry that could rival both waka and renga at
their peak (Kawamoto: 2000, 172).
Silence, tranquillity, permanence and fashion

In the late poetry of Basho, Taoist ideas largely influenced the thematic
characteristics of his school of Shomon. Basho himself contributed to the
development of style and themes of the school. The notion of kanjaku
(carefree idleness and tranquillity) was considered to be the poetic quality
reached by frequent use of the words shizuka quiet and sabishii sad.
Besides tranquillity and solitude, Basho used another two key terms in his
lectures and they are fueki (permanence, ) and ryk (fashion, ).
Kyorai (one of Bashos best students), recorded one of his Masters
lectures on fueki permanence and ryuko fashion. These principles may
be found elsewhere in the world, and may not be necessarily associated
41
with Bashos poetry, but once influence from Taoism and Zen Buddhism
is taken into consideration, these terms used here are derived originally
from Taoism.
The Master said that some haikai styles remain unchanging for thousands
of years, while others are fluid with the passing of time. Although these
two are spoken of as opposite sides, they are one at the base. They are one
at the base means that both are based on sincerity of poetry (fga no
makoto). If one does not understand the unchanging, his poetry has no
base; if one does not learn the fluid, his poetry has no novelty. He who
truly understands the fluid will never stop moving forward. He who excels
at a transitory fashion can only have his verse meet a momentary taste,
once the fashion changes, he becomes stagnated. (Peipei 2005, 136)
Fueki permanence and ryuko fashion represent two fundamental

aspects of Bashos poetry and they have a basic preposition: a binary
construction that is present in poetic creation and that consists of
something unchanging that is in constant change. In this way, two opposite
aspects are unified in the idea of sincerity of poetry. Of course, sincerity of
haiku means truthful, spontaneous poetic attitude unlike those pretentious
and artificial. Oseko (1990: 11) states that [t]his is very important theory
of literature, to see both aspects of all things. Although everything is
changing, the truth of nature and human life is not changing. Literature
based on this can have an eternal artistic value.
In this way, fueki (permanence) and ryk (fashion) represent dialectic
aspects of Bashos poetry of the nature, while sincerity of poetry implies
both the constant flow and the unchanging principles of the nature.
Introducing these dialectic terms into haikai theories, Basho and his
followers were seeking balance between continuity and reconstruction,
tradition and novelty.
Basho described verse as being composed of these two elements, and
this combination of characteristics can also be said to apply to the position
of haikai in this period. In that it could as art transcend the age in which it
was written it was permanent and in that it changed with the times it was
fashionable. Bashos art was permanent for it encapsulated the indigenous
sensibility; it was also fashionable, for it provided a form of expression for
a significant group of writers who had left samurai (warrior) society and
were not connected with chonin (common people) culture (Kato: 1979,
104).
42
Chapter Three
Emptiness of mind, abandonment and inaction (wu-wei)

Along with the formation of his notion of following the nature and
returning to the nature, Basho came to use the term of kyo (emptiness) to
denote the emptiness of the mind as the essential condition of artistic
perception and expression. Chuang-Tzu discusses the emptiness in terms
of the Taoist way of cognition as follows:
Listen not with your ears but with your mind. Listen not with your mind
but with your primal breath. The ears are limited to listening, the mind is
limited to tallying. The primal breath, however, awaits thing emptily. It is
only through the Way that one can gather emptiness, and emptiness is the
fasting of the mind. (Peipei 2005, 144)
This point is clearly expressed in a haiku he composed in 1692, as shown

in (3). This piece is accompanied by a painting of a winter mountain. It
metaphorically symbolises Buddhist God, since its stillness impersonates a
person with the Buddhist enlightenment achieving emptiness, getting rid
of all thoughts in their mind and keeping it empty.
(3)
Niwa-haki-te
yuki-wo-wasururu
hahaki-kana
yard-sweep-CONJ
snow-ACC-forget
bloom-VOC
While sweeping the yard with a broom, the surrounding snow
is completely forgotten. (1692)
The emptiness is an important concept in the philosophy of Taoism

only emptiness is all inclusive. The emptiness is a prerequisite for
understanding and feeling of the Tao and to feel the Tao is to be absolutely
free from subjectivity. A very important principle necessary to achieve this
is inaction (Chinese wu-wei; Japanese mui) or non-interference with
intuitive contemplation. This term is often misunderstood. Wu-wei denotes
natural, unforced action actually, it means following the nature and
achieving the naturalness.
The naturalness denotes changing with all things. In order to achieve
this, one should abandon his mind (, Japanese wasure; Chinese wang,
literally means forget), step out of himself and enter the course of the
nature. Only after unifying with the changing of all things, a man can
achieve the state of changing. The unity of self and the cosmos is a
fundamental argument of Chuang-Tzus philosophy. One way to achieve
this unity, according to Chuang-Tzu, is to abandon the self and enter in the
course of the nature or, in Taoist terms, the course of the heaven and the
43
earth. The literary significance of emptying mind is in its application to

artistic perception by which a poet can achieve unlimited creative force.
Those who limit themselves with formal rules and seek conceptual
principles should be ranked in the middle level, while those who go
beyond formal rules and forget (wasure) conceptual principles are the
immortals of the art. (Peipei 2005, 153)
However, although Basho went beyond formal rules and forgot the
conceptual principles, he did not deny traditional principle which states
that one should not imitate the achievements of great men of the past, but
try to seek what they sought after.
Lightness (karumi)
As a critical term, karumi lightness could be seen in renga before Basho,
but medieval renga masters mostly used it to discuss the mental relaxation
of the beginners. However, karumi was a crown of Bashos work, denoting
simple and plain expression which could transfer poetry of the nature. As
an ideal state of poetic mind, karumi means to remove the conceptual
heaviness and to let intuitive perception and contemplation lead the
composition. In that sense, karumi denotes the same mental state which
Basho explained by the terms of emptiness and inner force:
Lightness means to say immediately what one sees without forcing it,
whether in the opening verse or the second verse. It does not mean easiness
of diction and light-heartedness of taste; it refers to the naturalness of a
poem that emerges from ones inner depth. (Peipei 2005, 153)
In composing a poem, there are two ways: one is a natural way, in which a
poem is born from within of itself, the other is to make it artificially only
with technique. If we continue our study of haikai all the time very hard, a
good poem is spontaneously born out of the artistically elevated heart. If
not, it doesnt come out naturally, then, only a fake is made superficially
only with technique. (Oseko 1990, 9)
As we can see, karumi is a poets real understanding of the principle of

the naturalness. Basho himself explained that karumi denoted naturalness
of a poem that emerged from the poets inner depth. Bashos interest in
Chuang-Tzu began with his search for suitable concepts and principles that
could help him reform haiku of that time. This deep interest finally led him
to forget conceptual principles and to accept light spontaneity. (Peipei:
1994, 232)
44
Chapter Three
Interpretations of emptiness in Bashos haiku poetry

As described so far in this chapter, there are various kinds of emptiness
implied in haiku poetry. The basic principle stems from the influence of
Zen Buddhism and Taoism, but it has extended to the status of literary arts.
As mentioned in the earlier section on historical background, the haiku
poetry developed from renga, and only the first three verses were kept.
The literary sense of emptiness may stem from this development, i.e. the
emptiness in expression is due to the fact that the rest of the renga form
has to be reconstructed by listeners or readers. This missing second half is
perhaps what we observe as emptiness in haiku poetry, and its expression
became elevated to the status of arts based on religious and philosophical
influence.
The artistic form of haiku poetry is shown here, exemplifying two
aspects of human perception, vision and hearing. A common technique is
that poetry does not overtly express a specific object, but it is merely
implied. This method achieves simplicity of form and at the same time
absorbs listeners or readers into a scene depicted in each scene. The vision
and hearing are perhaps the most basic human perceptions and they are
what Basho used to imply emptiness. This basicness is perhaps useful in
helping the audience to be a part of the scene.
Let us first examine a piece shown in (4) involving the visual
perception. In this scene, a nocturnal bird, night heron, cannot be seen due
to the darkness of a stormy night, but only heard. The use of koe birds
cry clearly aids the audience to imagine a presence of a bird, and by using
a sound, this poem implies its visual presence. Seeing an invisible object
in essence deals with the sense of emptiness, which also adds the artistic
value to this piece of poem.
(4)
Inazuma-ya
yami-no-kata-yuku
goi-no-koe
lightening-VOC darkness-GEN-towards-go night.heron-GEN-cry
As a flash of lightening passing through the darkness, there is a
night herons cry. (1694)
Another perception, hearing, also plays a crucial role in Bashos work.

The pieces shown in (5) and (6) draw particular attentions in this respect.
These two poems deal with the theme of silence. In (5), silence is overtly
mentioned by sizukasa silence, which clearly signifies the theme of the
poem. However, this is not the case in (6), and on the contrary, the only
mention concerning hearing is made about the presence of sound of
45
splashing water. The first verse depicts a quiet and tranquil scene around a
pond. This is not a simple pond, but an old one, which refers to the
stagnation of water which has remained there for a long period of time. In
addition, the silence is even more emphasized by the action that disturbs
that silence a jump of a frog into the water. This shows the Zen
comprehension of the world and life the eternal flow of time is shown by
a fraction of a moment and the silence is implied in its unity with the noise
that disturbs it.
(5)
Shizukasa-ya iwa-ni-shimi-iru
semi-no-koe
silence-VOC stone-to-seep-PROG cicada-GEN-voice
Silence prevails as cicadas songs being absorbed into a stone.
(1702 Okuno hosomichi)
(6)
Furu-ike-ya,
kawazu-tobikomu mizu-no-oto
old-pond-VOC
frog-jumping
water-GEN-sound
In an old pond, as a frog jumps in, there is a sound made by a
splash of water. (1686 Basho Nozarashi kiko)
These examples show that the physical or visual absence of an object

does not mean its actual absence, but by emptying the physical or visual
space Basho opens it for other alternatives of perception. However, it may
be possible to draw a different interpretation that by empting the space he
denies the idea of emptiness, since in his haiku something is present
although often just by sound or a hint. So emptiness here can possibly
mean emptiness of obvious things in order to deny emptiness, since it is
packed with things which can be seen only after emptying our mind. This
idea corresponds to the concept of beauty in Zen Buddhism, muga (p.c.
Marina Shchepetunina). Of course, since idea of emptiness does not imply
nothingness, physical or visual absence of the object does not mean its
total absence. In this way, emptiness merely suggests, rather than
describes, and it is condition or warranty of existence and efficiency of
abundance (cf. Vinji iovi 2008). This stems from the acceptance of
emptiness in the basic philosophy and religious world view of the Asia
society in general, and the haiku poetry has elevated its status to an art
form.
46
Chapter Three
Conclusions
As presented in this chapter, the key principles of poetry of Matsuo Basho,
and haiku poetry in general, are: sincerity of poetry (fuga no makoto), which
can be achieved through naturalness of verse; abandonment (wasure) is an
important principle that denotes inaction and abiding in emptiness that leads
to forgetfulness of oneself, of all thoughts, ideas, theories and rules. By doing
so, a poet can enter into the realm of naturalness (shizen) and lightness
(karumi) of style. Finally, it is possible to claim that haiku poetry, as a
product of the Japanese mind and culture, expresses a way of typically
oriental thinking and understanding of life, nature, beauty and art that reveals
and respects universal laws of nature and truth. Because it is based on
naturalness and lightness, both deriving from emptiness, haiku poetry through
constant changes nourishes the unchanging universal values of the nature.
References
Aoki, E. (ed.) 1995. Japan: Profile of a Nation. Tokyo: Kodansha
International.
Blyth, R. H. 1995. The genius of haiku. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press.
Kato S. 1979. A history of Japanese literature, Vol. 2. Tokyo: Kodansha
International.
Kawamoto, K. 2000. The Poetics of Japanese verse Imagery, structure,
meter. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
Keen, D. 1971. Appreciations of Japanese culture. Tokyo: Kodansha
International.
Oseko, T. 1990. Bashos Haiku. Published by T. Oseko, produced by
Maruzen Co., Ltd.
Pasqualotto, G. 2007. Estetika praznine [Aesthetics of Emptiness],
Beograd: Clio.
Peipei, Q. 1994. Poetics of the natural: A study of the Taoist influence on
Basho. Ithaca: Columbia University Press.
Peipei, Q. 2005. Basho and the Dao: The Zhuangzi and the transformation
of haikai. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Ueda, M. 1992. Basho and his interpreters: Selected hokku with
commentary. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Vinji iovi, S. 2008. Elementi prirode u poznom stvaralatvu Macuo
Baoa [Elements of Nature in late Poetry of Matsuo Basho], Beograd:
Liber.
Yasuda K. 1995. The Japanese haiku: Its essential nature, history and
possibilities in English. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE CONCEPT OF EMPTINESS IN ANCIENT
JAPANESE MYTH AND RELIGION
MARINA SHCHEPETUNINA
Abstract. This chapter gives insight into the problem of the philosophicoreligious background for perception of space, found in Japanese aesthetics.
Japanese aesthetics is claimed to have as its characteristic feature a special
focus on the ground rather than on the central object. It is a focus on the
creation of empty space (Nisbett & Matsuda 2007, Humphries 1999). The
idea of emptiness k (Japanese) as absence of objects and absence of
inner subject is deeply rooted in Japanese philosophy (Ueda 2004). This
chapter traces the religious and mythological meaning of k and questions
connecting points between this basic Buddhist idea and its counterpart in
the coexisting Shinto religion. While it is recognized by some scholars that
in animism, which formed the basis for Shinto, there is no place for an
emptiness concept (cf. Tamura 1982), central Shintoist texts were
recorded in the period of active perception of Chinese culture and the
influence of its concepts on the records was inevitable. In this chapter, we
examine the understanding of k as sunyata (Sanskrit), as it was
represented in intricate detail within Indian philosopher Ngrjunas
thinking in the 2nd century AD, and later introduced to Japan. Then, we
conduct a mythological analysis. One of the main objectives of this paper
is to give insight into the philosophy-oriented ideological background
which was formed in pre-Buddhist Japan, i.e. mythological thinking, as it
is represented in the mythico-historical writings Kojiki Records of Ancient
Matters (712) and Nihon shoki Chronicles of Japan (720).
Introduction
The concept of emptiness k or mu is reflected in many aspects of
Japanese culture. Gardens, architecture, ikebana, the art of bonsai,
literature and poetry, may be named among other arts, which all constitute
a special kind of conceptualisation of space.
48
Chapter Four
A branch of philosophy, namely the Kyoto philosophical school with

the leading figure of Nishida Kitar (1870- 1945), in its conceptualisation
of Eastern aesthetics, grounded the [Japanese] arts in a privileged space
of emptiness or nothingness, which was understood to provide man
with a complement to the limited faculty of reason in grasping a complex
reality to which logic alone could hardly do justice. This empty space of
nothingness (mu) was seen by Nishida and his followers as a kind of
metaphysical ground that is alleged to explain the specificity of Eastern
culture and, consequently, its difference from Western thought. (Marra,
1999, 171).
Among western scholars, Jeff Humphries, in his work on Japanese
aesthetics, Reading emptiness: Buddhism and literature, points out that
[T]o create and sustain that space, that sense of emptiness or the inherent
unreality of things, has long been the goal of the Asian arts (Humphries
1999, 11). Having studied traditional classics of Japanese prose narratives
such as Murasaki Shikibus Tale of Genji or the eighteenth-century Ugetsu
Monogatary by Ueda Akinari, he claims that The Japanese narratives are
allusive, erudite, ambiguous, lyrical, and elliptical at the same time
(Humphries 1999, 9). A lot of attention in these works is paid to detailed
scenery description, what makes a reader perceive the narrative as very
realistic, while at the same time, get lost in it. This effect is achieved by
paying close attention to small details, rather than to rough outlines, and
those details create space in which personality vanishes, or, to put it in
another way, less emphasised.
If we talk about literature, then it may be claimed that the space is
created due to the nature of the Japanese language, namely due to the
frequent absence of a subject (known as pro-drop in linguistics). However
the same phenomena of close attention to empty space and intentional
creation of it can be found in different kinds of arts. And this dramatically
differs from the European way of perceiving space.
This point has been developed by Nisbett & Matsuda (2007, 159) who
state that Differences between East Asians and Westerners extend beyond
cognition to encompass many tasks that are attentional and perceptual in
nature. Asians appear to attend more to the field and Westerners more to
salient objects.
In this chapter, we will discuss the cultural background which might
have predisposed people in Japan to such a perception of space. Having
got the starting point from the Kyoto philosophical school, we will try to
explore the idea of emptiness as an absence of objects and absence of
inner subject, or k, as a philosophical Buddhist category and try to trace
the connections between this basic Buddhist idea and the perception of
49
emptiness in the coexisting Shinto religion. The concept sunyata and its
place in the Buddhist worldview was thoroughly examined by Indian
philosopher Ngrjuna in the 2nd century AD (cf. Streng 1967), and was
later introduced to Japan. A reflection of the ideological background
which was formed in pre-Buddhist Japan, i.e. mythological thinking, is
found in the mythico-historical writings Kojiki Records of Ancient
Matters (712) and Nihon shoki or Nihongi1 Chronicles of Japan (720).
Emptiness in Buddhism
In this section we will review the meaning of emptiness in a broad context
of Buddhist teaching and its perception in Japan and follow up with
semantic changes of the word sunyata in Buddhist texts.
The history of sunyata and its perception within Japanese

Buddhism
Emptiness, sunyata, is one of the main categories in Buddhism, which
along with such ideas as karma, dharma and samsara forms a unique
worldview and understanding of life and death. The concept of sunyata where all things are considered empty - is indispensable to Buddhist
philosophy, and its significance and influence in the East may be
compared to that of the Western Christian understanding of God the
Creator and His all-penetrating divine wisdom and love manifest (cf. von
Brck, M. 1990).
The understanding of existence and place of the idea of emptiness in
Buddhist teaching may be summarised as follows:
Pervading the Buddhist teaching were several notions about the nature of
existence and the meaning of spiritual insight. One of the most important
of these notions was the assertion that a human being has no permanent
essence (tman) and is only a changing conglomerate of material, mental
and psychic factors (dharmas). These factors interact to form the
experienced world as we are aware of it in everyday living, and all objects
of perceptions or ideas are seen to be without independent bases of
existence. The arising of existence, which generally is also the arising of
turmoil, comes about through interdependent and reciprocal forces or the
factors (dharmas) forces which find their roots in mans ignorant
clinging to the objects that he unwittingly is fabricating! For the arising
1
In his translation of Cronicles of Japan Aston (1972) reads the title as Nihongi.
However, in this paper we use the reading, which is more common for Japanese
scholarship, i.e. Nihon shoki (cf. Kojima 2007).
50
Chapter Four
of existence to cease, the fabricating ignorance must cease; and the
quelling of ignorance requires spiritual insight (praj). When fabricating
ignorance and the residue of the fabricating force has dissipated, then there
is nirvna the dying out of the flame of desire for illusory objects.
(Streng 1967, 30)
According to Buddhist teaching, there is no self, - no permanent

single essence, and the spiritual insight praj or true wisdom is to
understand the true absence of objects as such and realize that the world is
empty. This is the idea which constitutes understanding of the ultimate
reality. Buddhist philosopher Ngrjuna, who lived in India in the 2nd
century AD, used the term emptiness to express the ultimate reality.
According to his teaching, At its highest point the perfection of wisdom
led to the awareness that all things are empty (Streng 1967, 30). This
point can be found in some Buddhist texts, e.g.:
Regard the world as void; and eer
Alert, uproot false view of self.
Thus, Mogharajah, thou wouldst be
Deaths crosser; and, regarding thus
The world, deaths king doth see thee not
(Suttaniptta 119, cited in Conze 1954, 91)
To what extent is the world called empty, Lord?
Because it is empty of self or of what belongs to self, it is therefore said:
The world is empty. And what is empty of self and what belongs to self?
The eye, material shapes, visual consciousness, impression on the eye all
these are empty of self and of what belongs to self. So too are ear, nose,
tongue, body, mind, whether it be pleasant or painful or neither painful nor
pleasant that too is empty of self and of what belongs to self.
(Samuyutta-nikya IV, 54, cited in Conze 1954, 91)
What we can read in these passages is that emptiness or sunyata is

perceived as an absence of consistency, of self, of a subject in a
philosophical sense. Buddhism recognises physical existence of objects in
the natural world but deprives them of any inner permanent essence, of
subjectivity. Therefore, if the objects are empty of self, and everything is
constantly changing, then there is no necessity in emphasising that
temporal state of being but rather it is important to pay attention to the
field, or background, in order to follow the rules which govern this
changing world, i.e. dharmas. These ideas may be reflected in the
perception of space which Nisbett & Masuda (2007, 159) formulated as,
Asians appear to attend more to the field and Westerners more to salient
objects.
51
Meaning of emptiness
We can distinguish categorical or philosophical emptiness and emptiness
as such, i.e. physical emptiness.
In Early Buddhism, before Mahayana doctrine (1st century AD), to
understand emptiness meant to understand that things, which we see
around us, do not exist and the world is empty. In order to realise this, one
should throw away his self, or tman (Sanskrit), and attain a state of mind
which finally gives one an opportunity to overcome death as suffering.
This teaching was the earliest philosophical interpretation of emptiness
(Kimura 2004, 23). In other words, emptiness was perceived as a true state
of the world, used in a positive sense.
Around the 1st century AD, Mahayana teaching was formed in
Buddhism. One of the central ideas in Mahayana is that of non-self, or
antman, in other words, that all things are empty inside. The concept of
sunyata as a philosophico-religious Buddhist category was first profoundly
expressed by Indian Buddhist philosopher Ngrjuna 2 in his teaching
Mlamadhyamakakrik (Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way),
developed in the frame of Mahayana Buddhism thought. As Streng (1967,
158) points out, [H]aving inherited a fund of Buddhist concepts and
modes of thought, Ngrjuna attempted to put them into a new light by
maintaining that all visible and ideal entities were empty of self-existence .
Tamura (1982, 883) claims that the first understanding of emptiness
was relatively simple. It was used in the sense of quiet in such
expressions as sua-agra (nya-agra) or sua-geha (nya-giha),
which were translated as empty room/empty space, quiet [still] room.
These words were often used in texts, starting from Dhamma-pada sutra
(Early Buddhism) up to Mahayana sutras. Then the concept of emptiness
emerged, with much more profound connotations attributed to existence.
Suttaniptta 3 invites its reader to Break the obsession to selfness and
perceive the world as empty, and later to see that everything does not
exist, and to see the absence of form. From the above examples we
may conclude that empty meant absence of fixed (concrete) objects.
Then the triad of emptiness/non-form/non-desire was formed. Finally, the
idea of emptiness developed into the idea of non-subjectivity, and the
word emptiness was even used instead of muga (Japanese) non-self or,
in Sanskrit, antman, the original concept of non-subjectivity.
Ngrjuna, with his disciple ryadeva, is considered to be the founder of the

Mdhyamaka school of Mahyna Buddhism.
3
As cited in Tamura (1982, 883). Translation from the Japanese is ours.
52
Chapter Four
In the Clasuata-sutta and Mahsuata-sutta sutras, there are

cases when emptiness was used along with the meaning of sky. There are
notions of boundless or infinite space, with emptiness being used instead
of sky, and thus signifying the shift of meaning from absence of objects
to infiniteness. This meaning of emptiness was further developed in
Mahayana Buddhism (cf. Ngrjunas teaching).
Therefore, here we can trace the development of emptiness from the
initial empty room/empty space to non-existence of concrete objects,
and finally to non-subjectivity and non-selfness to infinity.
Buddhisms Introduction to Japan

Mahayana Buddhism, which was spread in East Asia, came to Japan
in the 6th century AD, introduced by Koreans, who learnt it from Chinese
monks. Buddhism was introduced to China in the 1st century BC, and the
translation of sutras and support from the court had been taking place since
around the second part of the 2nd century AD, the period when in India
Ngrjuna developed his teaching about the place of emptiness in
Buddhism. In Chinese culture the idea of Buddhist emptiness correlated
with pre-existing Confucian concepts of nothingness and self-denial
(Hanayama 1960). The question arises, what predisposed the people of
Japan to the spread of Buddhism?
According to Nihon shoki (720), Buddhism came to Japan on October
13th, 552, i.e. the 13th year of Emperor Kimmei, the 29th Emperor of Japan.
This is an official date, but it is now recognized that it came earlier.
As Matsunaga & Matsunaga (1974, 9) claim:
The accuracy of Shokis date for this event has long been disputed and
from earliest periods the year 538 has been considered more precise. In any
event, the formal introduction of Buddhism did not represent the first
contact of the Japanese with the new faith.
In any case, by the time of the compilation of the first mythologicohistorical records, Kojiki (712) and Nihon shoki (720), Buddhism had
assumed an important place in Japanese culture, especially among the
court members. It is recognised that Buddhist doctrine and Chinese
philosophical ideas had their influence on these records (Nakamura 1995;
Miura 2007).
According to Nihon shoki, all civil and military officials competed in
erecting Buddhist temples. These temples were primarily meant to express
gratitude towards ancestors (Hanayama 1960). Buddhism and Shintoism
were conceded to be virtues of equal importance. The word Shinto along
53
with Buddha appears in Nihon shoki before the records of Emperor

Ymeis inauguration (586-588), as The Emperor believed in Buddha and
reverenced the Way of the Gods (Aston 1924, v.2, 106) and Emperor
Ktokus inauguration (645 - 655), as He honored the religion of Buddha
and despised the Way of the Gods (Aston 1924, v.2, 195).4 By the time
Buddhism came to Japan there existed the indigenous religion Shintoism,
which was not replaced by the new thinking but coexists up to today.
Section summary
The idea of emptiness developed from the initial empty room/empty
space to non-existence of concrete objects to non-subjectivity, nonselfness to infinity and finally to the highest knowledge of no-selfexistence. As Streng (1967, 17) states, One of the most important
expressions of spiritual truth in Buddhism: all existing things are empty.
Emptiness is permanent; understanding of such is the highest goal in
life. In Buddhism everything exists in emptiness. Everything is empty of
self and other physical objects. Through the realisation of these facts,
Buddhist teaching leads one towards emptiness. It is the ultimate reality
and ultimate truth. The understanding of this is the way to nirvna, nonexistence of desires, suffering or anything, i.e. emptiness. This is the virtue,
for which everyone should aim in order to escape suffering in samsra.
Therefore we may say that for a Buddhist everything is empty, with
emptiness being perceived in a positive sense.
By the time of the compilation of Kojiki and Nihon shoki this teaching
had been accepted by the upper class of the Japanese nobles. Its influence
is visible in these texts.
In the next section, we will question the concept of emptiness and the
usage of k, the character which was adopted to express emptiness in
translations of Buddhist sutras into the Japanese language, in Kojiki and
Nihon shoki.
Emptiness in mythology
Japanese mythology is represented in the first volume of Kojiki and the
first and second scrolls of Nihon shoki, constructing the basis for Shinto
ideology, i.e. the ways of kami, or gods. Shinto has undergone
transformation from a collection of animistic beliefs in spirits being
4
In the footnotes, Aston points out that in the original text the word Shinto is used
in both cases.
54
Chapter Four
universally present in all things, which is reflected in mythology, to a

highly institutionalized system of religious practices, which remains an
important cultural element up to the present. Shinto as a religion was
formed in the course of historical events in Eastern Eurasia, when the
Chinese civilization was introduced to Japan. Scholars believe that the
compilation of mythico-historical writings Kojiki Records of Ancient
Matters (712) and Nihon shoki Chronicles of Japan (720), that form the
principal source of Shintoism, began in the 6th century during the reign of
Emperors Keitai (507-543) and Kimmei (540-572) (Philippi 1969, 5).
Notions of k in Japanese mythology

The first written accounts Kojiki and Nihon shoki, which are the main
sources for Japanese mythology, were composed after Buddhism had
already received national recognition. The art of writing arrived in Japan
with Buddhist doctrine together with Confucian and Taoist thought.
Chinese characters were first introduced in Buddhist sutras and then
adopted for Japanese words. The Chinese character k was first used in
sutras to express the Buddhist category emptiness or sunyata, then it was
adopted for Japanese words sky and empty.
Japanese mythology is recorded in the upper scroll of Kojiki5 and the
st
1 and 2nd scrolls of Nihon shoki6. As shown in Table 1, there are four
cases of the use of k in the upper scroll of Kojiki, which speaks of the
age of gods and ends with the birth of the first legendary emperor, Jimmu.
In all cases it appears as a part of an idiomatic phrase kok, which
means sky.7 The word is read as sora, the Japanese word for sky, and is
used as an honorific suffix to be appended to the names of deities, as we
will show further. Note that K in Table 1 refers to Kojiki. The quotations
of the Kojiki text are from Chamberlain (1982). Chamberlain gives the
translated names of deities in the text and the notion of Japanese ones in
the footnotes. We put both to the text itself, having the Japanese original in
the square brackets.
5
Kojiki consists of three scrolls upper, middle and lower. The upper scroll talks
about deities only, and the middle and the lower scrolls consist of chronicles of
Japanese Emperors, starting with Jimmu.
6
Nihon shoki consists of 30 scrolls, where the scrolls 1-2 are about deities only,
and 3-30 are chronicles of the Japanese Emperors.
7
In other texts of the same period we come across as referring to sky in
Fudoki (2 cases) and in Nihon shoki scrolls 3-30, Emperors chronicle (4 cases).
There are 2 variants of reading ohozora (great sky) or sora (sky).
55
Table 1. K in Kojiki myths

#
K1
K2
K3
K4
Context
Next they gave birth to the
Island of Sado. Next they gave
birth to Great Yamato-theLuxuriant-Island-of-theDragon-Fly, another name for
which is Heavenly-August-SkyLuxuriant-Dragon-Fly-LordYouth [Amamamisoratsuhiko]
(pp.27-28)
Here upon, as the younger
brother was weeping and
lamenting by the sea-shore, the
Deity Salt-Possessor and asked
his, saying What is the cause
of
the
Skys-Sun-Heights
[Soratsuhiko] weeping and
lamentation? (p.144)
Then
Her
Augustness
Luxuriant-Jewel-Princess,
thinking it strange, went out to
look, and was forthwith
delighted at the sight. They
exchanged glances, after which
she spoke to her father, saying
There is a beautiful person at
our gate. Then the Sea-Deity
himself went out to look, and
saying, This person is the
Skys-Sun-Height
[Soratsuhiko], let him into the
interior [of the palace]...
(p.147)
and asked them saying: The
Skys-Sun-Height [Soratsuhiko],
august child of the HeavensSun-Height, is now about to
proceed out to the Upper-land.
(p.149)
Character
Reading
Meaning
sora
Honorific
soratsuhiko
sora
Honorific
soratsuhiko
sora
Honorific
soratsuhiko
sora
Honorific
soratsuhiko
56
Chapter Four
In all four examples we see soratsuhiko. In example K1 the referent is

an island, and in examples K2-K4 soratsuhiko refers to Hoori-no-mikoto.
Kurano (1963, 56-57, note 20) in his translation of Kojiki into modern
Japanese comments that Amamami-soratsuhiko, or the island Oho-yamatotoyo-akitsu-shima, meaning the Island where the grains are fruitful, is the
name for the region Kinai, with the centre of Yamato. In Yamaguchi &
Knoshi (2007, pp.36-37, note 8) it is noted that this is the name for
Honshu in its entirety. In the text this is the only case in which soratsuhiko
is attributed to the geographical name, and this place is the mainland, the
centre of Japan.
Hoori-no-mikoto, whose son is the first legendary Japanese Emperor
Jimmu, is referred to as soratsuhiko, when met first by another deity. Then,
in the episode of his visit to the land of the Sea, he is recognized as
soratsuhiko Skys-Sun-Height, Son of Heavenly god, by the God of the
Sea, Watatsumi-no-kami. The character is used as an honorific form,
distinguished from amatsuhiko Heavenly God or kunitsukami Earthly
God. The reading of the character is sora, which means sky, but here it
does not refer to the sky as such, but is used in the honorific form for
Japan (K1) or the ancestor of the Emperor (K2- K4). Example K1 is in the
opening part of the Kojiki with the description of giving birth to the
country, and then, examples K2-K4 we see in the closing part of the
mythological scroll.
In Nihon shoki, which consists of the same mythological story but rich
in variants, we observe more diverse usage of the character k, as
indicated in Table 2. All of the quotations of Nihon shoki are taken from
Aston (1972).
In the mythological scrolls of Nihon shoki we can observe six cases of
usage of the character k. Examples N1-N2 are in the opening episode
of Tenchi kaibyaku, The beginning of Heaven and Earth, where the
character is used with the reading of sora sky, in the sense of the
initial space, something from which the first deity appears. Aston
translates this sora as void. Examples N3 and N4 are in the Tenson krin,
The Descent from Heaven episode, the character k having the
reading muna, empty, in the sense of absence of objects. In Astons
translation the deity on his way to the Earth has to pass the desert land of
Sojishi. In the original, it is soshishi no munaki kuni soshishi, of, empty,
land, the land which is empty of soshishi. In the comments on the
translation into modern Japanese, Kojima at al. (2007) point out that
soshishi in Old Japanese meant hunters bag, so we can understand
soshishi munaki kuni as the land without food, k is regarded as
possessing a negative connotation.
57
Table 2. k in Nihon shoki myths

#
Context
Character
Reading
Meaning
N1
When Heaven and Earth began, a thing

was produced in the midst of the Void,
which resembled a reed-shoot. This
became changed into a God, whose
name was called Ama no toko-tachi no
Mikoto [one writing (6)](p.5)
sora
the initial
space
N2
There was a thing produced in the midst

of the Void like floating oil, from which
a God was developed, called Kuni tokotachi no Mikoto. [one writing 6] (p.5)
sora
the initial
space
N3
After this the manner of the progress of

the August Grandchild was as follows: From the Floating Bridge of Heaven on
the floating sand-bank. Then he
traversed the desert land of Sojiji
(Soshishi no munaki kuni) from the Hill
of Hitawo in his search for a country,
until he came to Cape Kasasa, in Ata-nonagaya. [main text] (p.70)
muna
absence
of objects
(between
Earth and
Heaven)
N4
Moreover he girt on his mallet-headed

sword, and taking his place before the
Heavenly Grand child, proceeded
downwards as far as the floating bridge
of Heaven, which is on the two peaks of
Kushibi of Takachiho in So in Hiuga.
Then he stood on a level part of the
floating and passed through the desert
land of Sojishi by way of Hitawo in
search of a country until he came to
Cape Kasasa in Ata no Nagaya.
[one writing 4] (p. 87)
muna
absence
of objects
(between
Earth and
Heaven)
N5
If he had come down from Heaven, he

would have had on him the filth of
Heaven; if he had come from Earth, he
would have had on him the filth of
Earth. Could he be really the really the
beautiful
prince
of
the
sky
[soratsuhiko]? [one writing 1] (p. 97)
sora
type of
deity: sky
deity
(soratsuhi
ko)
N6
But neither of them got anything, and

they came back empty-handed. [one
writing 2] (p. 101)
muna
absence
of objects
58
Chapter Four
Examples N5 and N6 are of the story about Hoory-no-mikoto and

Hoderi-no-mikoto, who exchange their gifts of being lucky in hunting and
fishing, respectively. Then Hoory-no-mikoto looses his brothers hook and
makes a journey to the realm of the sea. In example N5, the use of k in
soratsuhiko is the same as K3, when the Sea Deity recognizes soratsuhiko
in Hoori-no-mikoto. K is used as a part of the honorific soratsuhiko and
clearly points to some sacred nature of the deity, which is regarded as
purer than a Heavenly deity. The text reads, If he had come down from
Heaven, he would have had on him the filth of Heaven; if he had come
from Earth, he would have had on him the filth of Earth. Could he be
really the beautiful prince of the sky (Aston 1972, v.1, 97). Both Heaven
and the Earth have filth, while the sky does not. Here, we see the opposite,
ideally positive, tone of k, in contrast with the previous example. This
idea of giving the honorific soratsuhiko, the Sky deity or the k deity, to
the descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu and a parent of the first
Emperor may reflect the Buddhist influence with its understanding of
sunyata as the way to Enlightenment, with its extremely positive meaning
of k.
In the last example, N7, we have k with the reading of muna, or
empty, used in the sense of without anything in the context of emptyhanded.
In the mythological stories we can observe the usage of k in the
beginning of the texts in the sense of the initial space, from which a
thing was produced. This thing in turn became the first deity or the first
deity appeared within it. Then, in the episodes of the Descent from the sky,
k is used in the sense of absence of objects and, in the stories about
Hoori-no-mikoto, is a part of the honorific phrase for the Sky deity. Next,
we will make a closer, more thorough examination of the meaning of
initial space, which appears in the opening of the mythology.
Creation myth
Japanese mythology offers us eight variations of creation myth. In the
outline of the story, the Kojiki myth, the main text of Nihon shoki and six
in one wrings of Nihon shoki match. The story has it that when Heaven
and Earth began, there was born or appeared a first deity or deities. In
some variations something appears in the void and then a deity was
produced. Common elements are that Heaven and Earth begin or separate,
that there is something drifting or floating and that the first deity
appears. As it is shown in Table 3, the variations indicate different places
for the first deity to appear.
59
Table 3. Place of birth of the first deity

Text
Kojiki
N
(main)
N(1)
N(2)
N(3)
N(4)
N(5)
N(6)
The place of appearance

Heavenly Plain
certain thing was produced between Heaven and Earth
a thing existed in the midst of the Void
a thing was produced within the land
When Heaven and Earth were in a state of chaos, there was first of
all a deity
When the Heaven and Earth began, there were Deities produced
together
In the midst of this a thing was generated (in something like a cloud)
midst of the Void
In Kojiki the first deity is born in the Heavenly Plain, whereas in

Nihon shoki there are variants of being born between Heaven and Earth, in
the midst of the void, within the landand in that case the land is floating,
as the variant of the main text of Nihon shoki describes it as it floated
about, as it were floating oil (Aston 1972, v.1, 4)or from somewhere
there when the Heaven and Earth were in a state of chaos. In Nihon
shoki everything begins with some unordered situation, i.e. chaos, and here
we come across k void in the context of an initial chaotic situation (cf.
Table 2).
Everything begins from chaos, from the void, or, in other words, from
emptiness, which has no order, and the beginning of the universe is the
beginning of order. This point has been in fact discussed in relation to the
Hindu myth, i.e. voidness in a mythical structure of apprehension is
used to indicate the chaos of existence which preceded creation through
the divine myth or symbol (Streng 1969, 156). Before the world begins or
is created, everything existed in a void state. In this context, void can be
perceived as chaos or as the starting point, which needs to be overcome,
and then the myth tells about how the land was born, about the origin of
things, life and death, social order, etc.
Structure of the Japanese myth

The mythological story begins with the situation of nothingness or chaos,
when the Heaven and Earth divide and out of this chaos a certain thing
or the first deity emerges and then, through the establishment of things and
social order, the story progresses to the birth of the first Emperor, Jimmu.
The Emperor symbolically represents high political and social order. In the
field of Japanese mythology it is recognized that the mythological corpus
60
Chapter Four
has some inner structure (Yoshida 1975; Mac 1989; bayashi 1975).
The structural analysis of the Japanese myth is a topic of special study, but
in this section, we incorporate the structural analysis of Levi-Strauss
(1969) and functional analysis introduced by Propp (1998) as analytical
tools and by doing so we want to indicate some of the elements that mark
the beginning and ending of mythological stories. As we have discussed in
the preceding sections, mythological scrolls begin with chaos and end with
the birth of the symbol of order, i.e. the Emperor.
In the course of the story we have a number of chaotic situations, or
situations bereft of order, which may be indicated by a desire of a deity for
something. These situations become the starting point for the narrative
development. They are marked with death, disorder or with tears. Let us
introduce the starting situations, marked with tears. First we come across
this element when Izanagi-no-mikoto cries over his dead wife Izanami-nomikoto, and then travels to the Nether world. The next story is about
Susan-no-mikoto. He desires to go to his mothers land, the Nether world,
and howls. Then we see two deities crying over the princess predestined to
be eaten by the serpent in the land of Izumi. In the stories about
kuninushi-no-mikoto we see the protagonist meeting a crying hare and
curing it. Later the story tells that kuninushi-no-mikoto is killed by the
brothers. His mother cries over him and returns him back to life. In the last
sequence of stories, about Hoory-no-mikoto, we come across the tears
element again. That is when Hoory-no-mikoto looses the fish hook.
As we can observe, in all major sequences of stories we see an
episode with tears. In these situations the tears mark the lack of something,
referring to the emptiness of something. The stories develop so that this
emptiness is filled, as the situation of lack cannot be left as it is but needs
to be overcome. Izanagi goes to the Nether world and meets his wife,
although she cannot go back. However, this is the next stage of the
development of this story. Susan-no-mikoto travels to Heaven and then
gets to the Nether world, the princess is saved by the deity Susan-nomikoto, the hare is cured, kuninushi is revived, and Hoory-no-mikoto
gets back the fish hook.
One of the core episodes of mythology, the Sun Goddess Amaterasu
hiding in the cave, is composed around the presence/absence of an object
intrigue. When the sun is present things are in order, and if it is hidden or
absent, everything turns into chaos. In Kojiki it is expressed as Owing to
this, eternal night prevailed. Hereupon the voices of myriad Deities were
like unto the flies in the fifth moon as they swarm and a myriad portents of
woe arose (Chamberlain 1982, 64-65). And then deities summon
Amaterasu from the cave, so there would be order again.
61
Amaterasu then appears in a sequence of episodes that are crucial for

the writings and may have constituted their main purpose, i.e., in the
sequence of episodes about the Descent of Amaterasus grandchild,
Ninigi-no-mikoto, who became the ancestor of the Emperors, to the Earth
Plain from the Heavenly Plain. As the story has it, Amaterasus child
could not descend at once, because the country was painfully uproarious
and therefore needed to be pacified. So the story tells first about pacifying
the land and then the descending of the ruler.
Above, we have identified some of the elements that mark the
beginning and the ending of some major stories of mythology as well as
all of the episodes that include the act of crying or the element of tears,
which showed a progression from a chaotic situation or lack of something,
to the establishment of order or resolving the problem. The lack of
something or chaos, which correlates with being devoid of something,
needs to be overcome. Thus, Japanese mythological narration goes from
emptiness to the order of things.
Cosmology
In the myth, cosmology is depicted as having a structure of five realms Heavenly Plain (Takamagahara), the Middle Country or the Plain of
Reeds (Ashiharanakatsukuni), two realms of the Nether world (Yomitsukuni
and Nenokatasukuni) and the Realm of the Sea (Umi-no-kuni). Heaven is
referred to as an actual place, simply a high plane situated above Japan
and forming the residence of Heavenly gods amatsukami. There is a
description of the Heavenly Plain in the episode of Sun Goddess
Amaterasu hiding in the heavenly cave after Susan-no-mikoto performs
heavenly crimes: [H]e broke down the divisions of the rice fields laid out
by the Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity, filled up the ditches
(Chamberlain 1982, 62-63). So this Heavenly Plain, Takamagahara,
contains rice fields which the deity Susan is able to destroy. The Middle
Country, Ashiharanakatsukuni, is the place where kunitsukami, Earthly
deities, dwell. This is the very real world, the arena of the main conflicts in
Kojiki. And the last, the Nether world, is referred to as Yomitsukuni and
Nenokatasukuni. It is separated from the Middle Country by the hill
Yomitsuhirazaka, and no distance or space between the two is described.
This structure is common between Kojiki and Nihon shoki, but Nihon
shoki also speaks of some desert land soshishi no munaki kuni, which is
located on the way from the Heavenly Plain to the Middle Country and to
which k is attributed in the sense of there being an absence of
objects. This notion along with the 3rd type of deity, soratsukami,
62
Chapter Four
suggests that the sky was not perceived as void or as nothingness. But
even to the sky, deities can be attributed, and deities can travel it as if it
were land, or kuni. In Kojiki there is also a notion that Susan, when
coming to the Heavenly Plain, declares that he made his way up there on
foot, through clouds and mist. The two realms are not connected with a
central tree or a pole, or another symbol of a centre of the world as in, for
example, Buryat, Kalmik or Greek mythology (Eliade 1970, 259-274).
There is only a notion of the Heavenly Bridge, and from there a deity can
make his way on foot. So we see that even the sky was not perceived as
emptiness, but rather as a kind of land.
As Tamura (1982) points out, the main cosmological belief in
mythological thinking is that of animism, i.e. the belief that the world is
inhabited with spirits. Thus, all spiritual beings dwell in the world, and
things, in contrast with Buddhist thought, are not empty, but inhabited
with spirits. In the world of Japanese myth there is no ideal empty space.
The only notion close to it is a desert land, but when we examine the
original text, we see that it is not desert in an abstract sense, but it is a
land with no soshishi, a hunters bag. In Old Japanese, according to the
Dictionary of Old Japanese (Jdaigo Jiten), which is based on the analysis
of examples from texts from the Nara (710 - 784) Heian (794 - 1185)
periods, shishi was the word for meat in general (deer or boar), was used
as a constituent for inoshishi, boar, shishika8 deer, or referred to both of
them in the meaning of hunters prey. In soshishi, so is written with
the same character as se (back) and these two are the phonological change.
Therefore, soshishi literally meant the back meat, the meat near the back
bones, and also was used for hunterss bag (s.v. Jdaigo Jiten, soshishi;
shishi; inoshishi; shika; so; se).
Section summary
In Japanese mythological stories, k is used in the creation myth, then as a
marker for deity type (soratsuhiko) and also in reference to the space
between Earth and Heaven, i.e. sky, then as empty of something. The
mind of Japanese scholars, familiar with Buddhism and influenced by its
ideas, made this space between Heaven and Earth k, which is generally
perceived as sky, but is some variants of the creation myth as void.
Additionally, there is a notion that this space is inhabited with soratsuhiko,
sky deities. Since the idea of emptiness is alien to mythological thinking,
8
Later, in shishika, shi in shishika was reduced to shika, which actually originated
in shishi.
63
even in the space between the Heavenly Plain and the Earth, i.e. sky,
someone should dwell, just as everywhere else, like spirits dwell in
everything.
The story begins with nothingness: the first deities may appear from
the chaos, from the void. It begins from the emptiness, and heads for order,
expressed by the birth of the first Emperor. The absence of something is
perceived negatively, marked with tears, and this absence needs to be
substituted or resolved.
The meaning of the world is empty is contradictory to the
mythological cosmology in general, because in myth there are spirits
everywhere. We found no notion of empty space as such, although there is
a sky or desert country which is devoid of food.
At the narrative level we come across k in a negative sense, as an
initial void or lack of something, and this becomes a problem to be
overcome and an initiating point for the whole story and episode
development. On the other hand the honorific soratsuhiko is attributed to
the parent of the first Emperor. The reason for this may be found in the
fact that by this the compilers of Kojiki and Nihon shoki attributed the idea
of Buddhist virtue of understanding sunyata to the Emperors parent, or
there was a thought that sky [sora] is inhabited by sky deities. However,
this question needs further investigation. Here we can just point out that in
the Kojiki and Nihon shoki compilations, we see the contradiction between
a negative evaluation of emptiness on one hand and a use of emptiness,
represented by the character k, referring to an honourable deity.
Conclusions
By the time of the compilation of Kojiki and Nihon shoki, Buddhism had
been accepted by the upper class of Japanese nobles and deeply penetrated
into the court culture. At the same time, Shintoism, with its mythology,
remained the core element of peoples lives. These two religions coexisted
in the form of syncretistic religion up to the Meiji period, but Shintoism
was not absorbed by Buddhism. The question we posed in this study was
what the ideological background of pre-Buddhist Japan was and where an
element which could make possible the acceptance of one of the most
important Buddhist concepts, i.e. sunyata, can be found.
In our study, we took note of the cases where the same character,
which was used for translation of sunyata was adopted in mythological
writings. Note, however, that while in sutras it was used to express the
meaning of empty room/empty space, non-existence of concrete
objects, non-subjectivity, non-selfness or infinity, in myth it meant
64
Chapter Four
absence of objects, initial space, chaos and sky. Our analysis did not
locate within myth a meaning of quietness or stillness or infinite for k.
At the narrative level emptiness is perceived as a starting point or
negatively. Furthermore, a sharp contrast can be made between Buddhism
and myth, i.e. the rising of existence is the rising of turmoil in Buddhism,
but in mythology, on the contrary, the absence of something is the arising
of turmoil, and it is marked with tears or with the elements of chaos.
We may conclude that in mythological thinking there is no place for
emptiness. This may be one of the features that kept Shintoism from being
absorbed by Buddhism. On the other hand, the things which may be
compatible with Buddhist ideology and form the ground of its acceptance
are, first, plurality of deities, and the idea that spirits can possess, or enter
the objects.
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CHAPTER FIVE
THE MEDIEVAL MEANING OF EXISTENCE
TATYANA SOLOMONIK-PANKRASHOVA
Abstract. The Medieval Europeans apprehended the beauty of the world

as the revelation of transcendental beauty, i.e., God. For them things did
not exist per se, they were signs, symbols, the manifestation of the sacred;
it is by means of hierophany that the most ordinary things were filled with
essences and, thus, provided the Medievals with the meaning of existence.
Metaphysical symbolism is a reflection of the worldview and habits of life
in the Middle Ages. Inasmuch as a symbol embraces distinct levels of
reality, a sign in a medieval text possesses allegorical meaning in addition
to its literary meaning. Yet, these incompatible modes of expression
constitute a whole. In the text, an obscure sign is to be deciphered by the
reader who is engaged in a kind of intellectual game: to rede the riddle.
The reader must be familiar with a certain code in order to read the
enigmatic characters embedded in the text. The use of periphrases,
metaphorical kennings and prosopopoeia, i.e., the description of inanimate
objects in terms relevant to animate beings, help the Anglo-Saxon poet
cloak the genuine meaning.
The art of the Middle Ages is first and
foremost a sacred writing of which every
artist must learn the characters.
mile Mle
Introduction
The Medieval contemplation of the universe was remarkable for its
soundness, hence its specific intactness and sequence of particular spheres.
The beauty of metaphysical grandeur revealed itself in the symbolic
meaning of nature, which was a sophisticated code to be read. The
Medievals dwelt in a world imbued with hierophanies, the revelation of
God in things. It is the beauty of being in general that endowed the
Medievals with the meaning of existence.
68
Chapter Five
This paper aims at unraveling the enigmatic tone of the Medieval

universe. My reflection proceeds in three ways. First, I am going to
decipher the essence of the medieval aesthetic sensibility in relation to
metaphysical symbolism and universal allegory. Second, I intend to restore
a symbolic picture of the Medieval universe. Finally, I seek to contemplate
the manifestations of the enigmatic code in Medieval texts.
The Universe as a divine work of art

An essential theme in the Middle Ages was the beauty of being in general.
The Medievals did in fact conceive of a beauty that was purely intelligible,
the beauty of moral harmony and of metaphysical splendour. (Curtius
1953, cited in Eco 2002, 5) The medieval aesthetic sensibility evokes a
certain mixture of values/concepts. For the Medievals, the beauty of the
world is an image and reflection of Ideal Beauty, i.e., God (this idea is
Platonic in origin, cf. Eco 2002, 16).
The medieval philosopher John Scotus Eriugena conceived of the
universe as a revelation of God in His transcendental beauty. Whereas
sensuous beauty enchants the sight, interior beauty enchants the soul. For
him, the world is a great theophany, i.e., a species of grace or revelation
(Eriugena 1990, 82). The visible beauty of the earth is a reflection of an
infinite theophanic harmony. In The Voice of the Eagle (Homily on the
Prologue to the Gospel of St. John), Eriugena writes (1990, 35): Learn to
know the maker from those things which are made in him and by him.
The Medieval aesthetic sensibility calls to mind another attribute of
the Medieval worldview, i.e., the intention to understand the world in
terms of symbol and allegory (Eco 2002, 52):
[For the Medievals] the world was filled with the overtones of divinity, the
manifestation of God in things. Nature appeared to be the symbolic
alphabet through which God spoke to men. Things were signs, whereas the
world was Gods discourse to man. Symbolical interpretation involves
analogy of essences. The symbol and the thing symbolised have in
common certain characteristics that can be abstracted and compared. (ibid,
55)
A thing that becomes a symbol is likely to merge with the universe,

just as the hierophany is likely to embrace all of the sacred, to comprise in
itself all the revelations of the sacred (Eliade 1958, 452). It is not only
because a symbol endues a hierophany or is a substitute for it that the
symbol is important; it is essentially because it is able to continue the
modus operandi of hierophanisation and, indeed, because, from time to
69
time, it is itself a hierophany it itself manifests a sacred or cosmological

reality which no other phenomenon is capable of manifesting (ibid, 447).
Medieval symbolism expressed an aesthetic conception of the world.
Medieval symbolism subsumes both metaphysical symbolism and
universal allegory; metaphysical symbolism reveals the hand of God in the
beauty of the world, while universal allegory deciphers the world as a
divine work of art, so that everything in it possesses moral, allegorical, and
anagogical meaning in addition to its literal meaning (Eco 2002, 56). This
kind of perception evolved distinct modes of reality.
Reading the code of the universe

In Mesopotamian divination, the universe itself was an immense writing
tablet, whereas things revealed the omens from which the oracles were
delineated. This is how the Gods assigned every human his/her individual
Fate (Carlier 1978, 1227; cited in Manetti 1993, 5). The omen-oracle
relationship is likely to be symbolic.
Meanwhile, in Greek divination, it is the sign that was employed as a
means of communication between the divine and human spheres. The sign
as a tool to gain philosophical knowledge comes from the sphere of the
divine. The sign is the dominion of the impeccable divine knowledge that
interpolates into the human sphere (Manetti 1993, 1517). With reference
to Platos Timaeus, God has given the art of divination not to the wisdom,
but to the foolishness of man. No man, when in his wits, attains prophetic
truth and inspiration; but when he receives the inspired word, either his
intelligence is enthralled in sleep, or he is demented by some distemper or
possession.1 The divinatory sign is mysterious and ambiguous.
The human race had been desperate to read the enigmatic sign/symbol
and to unveil Fate from time immemorial. For the fixing of destinies there
were two alternative images: oral pronouncement and writing.
The Indo-Europeans seemed to have believed that the distribution of
longevity and prosperity was predetermined, not by a universal, allencompassing Destiny, but by supernatural females attending the birth of
each child and establishing the contours of its life then and there as it laid
in its cradle. (West 2007, 379)
The symbol of the Fates is the Thread of Life, and in many traditions,
the goddesses (the personifications of Fate) determine individual fates by
spinning. This image evokes a certain analogy of essences: the Fates are
1
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html
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Chapter Five
lunar divinities, being dependent on the mystique of the moon, for it is the
moon that has woven all destinies (cf. the moon as an immense spider)
(Eliade 1958, 169). The moon has woven a sort of web between the
various levels of the universe, producing parallels, similarities and unities
among vastly different kinds of phenomena. (ibid, 170) The sequence of
particular spheres of human life and the universe is characteristic of
metaphysical contemplation in the Middle Ages.
As lunar divinities, the Fates come at night. In the Greek tradition, the
Fates are called Aisa or Moira. Their names reflect their functions: Klotho
Spinner, Lachesis Apportioner, and Atropos Inflexible. Indeed, the
spindle symbolises Klotho, whereas the shears, which cut the Thread of
Life, belong to Atropos. Lachesis determines the length of ones life, i.e.,
the Thread of Life.
The Moirai come on the third night after a childs birth and pronounce
its destiny. In Latin tradition, the deities are called the Parcae. The Parcae
like the Moirai spin threads of life. The name might pertain to pario give
birth, i.e. goddesses who attend at birth. Their individual names are as
follows: Nona, Decuma, and Morta, with reference to the child who is
born in the ninth month, or the tenth, or dead (West 2007, 380381).
The name Morta bears an allusion to the power that predetermines the
date of an individuals death by proclaiming it. Etymologically the name
Morta is related to the Indo-European stem *smer apportion, memory,
cf. Greek (Moira), from *mer die. The reduplicated form of the
Indo-European stem *(s)mer- is *me-mor-: Mmir, from the Proto-Germanic
*mi-mer-, from the Old Norse Mmir, a giant who guards the well of
wisdom (Pokorny 1959, 969). Morta is a personification of Death, for she
is the one who cuts the Thread of Life. Death, rather than remaining
shapeless and chaotically threatening, is made concrete and visible by our
creative imagination. Such image-making, such interpretation through
personification, occurs on all levels of consciousness, in all cultures, in all
times that have left records. (Guthke 1999, 10)
In Nordic (North Germanic) mythology, the divine beings are the
Norns (Nornir), a name of unclear etymology (West 2007, 382). Like the
Moirai, they apportion both good and ill. They attend the birth of children
and mold the contours of their lives. The Norns also appear as the
goddesses of Fate who protect a well of white water, Urdas Well or the
well of Ur at the foot of the Cosmic Tree Yggdrasil (Volusp 20, The
Poetic Edda). The water was so holy that none might drink of it. The
Norns bear the individual names Ur, Verandi, and Sculd (Volusp 20),
i.e., Happened, Happening, and Due, which represent the past,
present, and future. It is likely enough that these Eddic names are due to
71
classical influence (West 2007, 383). There is a pervasive image for

allotting human destinies: carving runes on pieces of wood:
(1)
Thence come the maidens mighty in wisdom,

three from the dwelling down beneath the tree;
Ur is one named, Verandi the next,
on the wood they scored, and Skuld the third.
Laws they made there, and life allotted
to the sons of men, and set their fates.
(Vlusp. The Poetic Edda)
The Anglo-Saxon cognate of Ur is Wyrd, cf. Old High German wurt,

Old Norse urdhr, from Indo-European uert turn, likewise Old High
German wirt, wirtel spindle, distaff (Eliade 1958, 181). The idea of a
child from the sea bringing the land good fortune and becoming a king
was remembered in Scandinavian tradition, as Scyld of Denmark in
Beowulf (Davidson1988, 126); consider the following:
(2)
Syan rest wear

feasceaft funden, he s frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum, weormyndum ah,
ot him ghwylc ara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan, t ws god cyning!
(Beowulf Prologue, 7-12)
Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, Fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!
(Translation: Francis B. Gummere)
The allusion to the trio of Norns that ascribe affluence to Scyld is

made explicit in the following lines (word-for-word translation): he s
frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum him afterwards consolation (was)
proclaimed (cf. Fate repaid him), for he waxed under welkin.
(Translation mine: T. S. P.) The Norns fastened the thread of each
newborn child to a star. In Helgakvia Hundingsbana, The Poetic Edda,
the golden threads of Helgis life were fastened to the axis of heaven, with
72
Chapter Five
one piece being attached to the west and another to the east, to reveal the
territory that Helgi would govern in adulthood. The Anglo-Saxon weaxan
bears the sense grow in honour, flourish, prosper and might acquire the
connotation of the full moon (as the life cycle of a human is equated with
the moon) and, thus, imply a man of good fortune.
Enigmatic mode: mythological kenning

The mythological kenning is an ambiguous symbol to be unriddled by a
medieval mind, which is a scrutiny to ones intellectual alacrity. The
mythological kenning bears little resemblance to the kenning of the
pictorial type, for in mythological kenning, the metaphor is based on
some allusion, something explicit yet ambiguous, to mythology or
tradition (Buckhurst 1939, 117).
Hence, in the Anglo-Saxon elegy The Seafarer, the mind might be
puzzled by the mythological kenning hwlweg whale-path, as in the
following:
(3)
Foron nu min hyge hweorfe

min modsefa
ofer hwles eel
eoran sceatas,
gifre ond grdig,
hwete on hwlweg
ofer holma gelagu.
ofer hreerlocan,
mid mereflode
hweorfe wide,
cyme eft to me
gielle anfloga,
hreer unwearnum
(The Seafarer 5864)
Now, therefore, my thought roams beyond the

confines of my heart; my mind roams widely with the ocean
tide over the whales home, over earths expanses,
and comes back to me avid and covetous; the lone flier
calls and urges the spirit irresistibly along the whale-path
over the waters of oceans.
(Translation: S.A.J. Bradley)
Mythological kenning allows this image to be interpreted allegorically
and anagogically. In this interpretation, hwlweg might be apprehended as
wlweg, with the first element wl rendered as the dead body, and the
second element weg rendered as the path, road, i.e., the road taken by
the dead (cf. Smithers 1957, 103). The border between the world of the
living and the world of the dead was marked by a body of water, as the
boundaries between peoples often are in the upper world. Seafaring
73
peoples usually had to cross the sea on their way to the Afterlife (cf.
Gamkrelidze, Ivanov 1995, 390), cf. the mereflode the sea-flood, the
ocean tide.
In this context, anfloga the lone flier might personify a Valkyrie,
who invokes the spirit of the warrior de manera convincente, welcoming
him to Valhalla (cf. Smithers 1957, 137). There is a pervasive image for
the fixing of human destinies, i.e., oral pronouncement: gielle anfloga
cries the lone flier. The prevailing images and personifications of death
that can be uncovered in the remote past and which are still eminent in
folk beliefs are the vulture, owl, cuckoo or hawk, dove, boat, the White
Lady and her hound, and the dry bone (Gimbutas 1989, 187). The cuckoo
and dove were thought to be prophetic birds, omens of death and spirits of
the dead (ibid, 195). Earlier in this elegy, reference is made to the cuckoo
or hawk, cf. swylce geac mona geomra reorde the cuckoo urges by its
mournful cry (Seafarer 53).
Understanding the speech of birds enables a warrior to access the
world of ravens and valkyries and to gain foreknowledge of future events
(Davidson 1988, 86). The image of a valkyrie is a paradoxical one: on the
one hand, she is an inflexible battle goddess (cf. Atropos and her shears,
that cut the Thread of Life), while on the other hand, she is a companion of
a young warrior who not only proclaims his destiny, but also comforts him
(ibid, 93). Etymologically, the name Val-kyrie and the mythological
kenning wl-weg exhibit the following stem:
Proto-Indo-European *wel- pasture, meadow; dwelling of the dead (and
subsequently god of the dead, death): Hittite wellu- meadow; pasture
of the dead, Greek lsion pedon Elysian fields, fields of the dead,
Old Icelandic val-hll Valhalla (dwelling place of warriors fallen in
battle, one of the halls in Asgard, the home of the gods, val-kyria
Valkyrie (maiden who chooses a hero from the dead on the battlefield
and conducts him to Odin and the world of the dead). (Gamkrelidze and
Ivanov 1995, 723724)
Compare, likewise, the Old Icelandic Val-grind the gate of the realm
of the dead, and val-glaumr the crowd of dead making their way to
Valhalla (Smithers 1957, 103). Moreover, the context evokes the image
of the ship of the dead, cf. the Naglfar of Old Norse mythology, likewise,
the Proto-Indo-European *nu-s- ship, boat, the vessel that transported
souls to the afterworld and could acquire the connotation of death, cf.
Sanskrit nuh, Gothic naus corpse, ga-nawistrn bury (etymologically
send off by boat), Old Icelandic nr corpse, Old English n(o)corpse (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1995, 724).
74
Chapter Five
In Christian terms, the same context alludes to worldly upheaval and

the heavenly bliss the soul strives for the soul as a peregrinus, a nomad.
Enigmatic mode: the riddle

The medieval reader is invited to solve another verbal puzzle: to rede a
riddle (the riddle that pertains to the obscure divinatory sign in Greek
divination, cf. Manetti 1993, 29).
Riddles are a species of verbal puzzle, a test of mental agility. Their
purpose is to tease the mind, to mislead the reader (or author) in a playful
spirit. The Old English riddle is a metaphorical genre, one thing being
described in terms of another. This usually takes the form of a description
of an inanimate object in terms appropriate to an animate being. (Sorrel
1990, 107)
It is by means of paradox and incongruity, contrast and antithesis that

the Anglo-Saxon poet attempts to veil the genuine meaning from the
reader. The contrast of the living and the dead is a common riddle motif.
The use of periphrasis, kennings, and metaphorical expressions endue the
diction of the riddle with an enigmatic mode or mystique (ibid, 108109).
The collection of Old English riddles of the Exeter Book sheds light
on Anglo-Saxon habits of thought: specifically, the art of playing with
conceptual categories. Riddles constitute the environment of images par
excellence of the earliest English poetry (Tiggers, cited in Niles, 203
204). Consider Riddle 74:
(4)
Ic was fmne geong,

ond nlic rinc
fleah mid fuglum
deaf under ye
ond on foldan stop
feaxhar cwene,
on ane tid;
ond on flode swom,
dead mid fiscum,
hfde fer cwicu.
I was a woman/girl young, a hair-gray woman/queen

and a peerless warrior/man in/at one time/season/hour
(I) flew among birds and in/on (the) sea swam,
dived under (the) wave dead among fish (fishes),
And stepped/walked on land I had/held (a) spirit/soul (or
souls) living.
(Translation: Niles 1998, 171)
75
This Riddle evokes frequent nautical images: of the birds, sea waves,
fish, and the sea shore. A rede of the Riddle might be a ship with sails
(Niles 1998, 186) that can fly like a bird, dive beneath the waves and
finally is anchored offshore. Moreover, the ship is made of oak, with its
fmne geong as a sapling and feaxhar cwene as the mature tree from
which timber is cut (ibid, 187). Therefore, the ambiguous talking object in
the Riddle is the Old English ac, or oak-tree, which has been transformed
into a ship.
Personification induces a sophisticated parallelism of the ship/soul
model, in which an inanimate object, the ship, is endowed with spiritual
qualities. This poetic device likewise bears the name of prosopopoeia the
expression of inanimate things in animate terms (Marsden 2004, 193). In
the pre-Christian view the soul comes from a tree, i.e., from the earth or
soil, and is volatile on the one hand and solid on the other:
Proto-Indo-European perkwu-s in the meaning of oak, from here
strength, power, life, arbor vitae (life tree), cf. perkwu-s perkwuno-s
thunder tree (oak), cf. Latin quercus oak, Old Prussian percunis
thunder, thunderstorm, Old Slavonic Perun Thunder God, Gothic
fairguni mountain, cordillera, Old English furh pine, peak, Old
Icelandic fura pine, pinewood, feorh life. (Pokorny 1959, 836)
When a sensitive reader turns ones gaze upon the last line, i.e., hfde
fer cwicu had a living soul/mind (Translation mine: T. S. P.), verbal
consistency suggests the subsequent Christian reading of the Riddle: the
ship of ones soul/mind being anchored to the land of salvation by
goodness. It alludes to the peregrinatio motif, i.e., the journey of the soul
to its heavenly abyss. For the patristic fathers, a Christian is a peregrinus
who wanders through turbulent seas of sin toward spiritual illumination
(Wilcox 2005, 184). Hence, in the allegorical reading, the ship is endued
with the nautical attribute of illumination.
Dead mid fiscum dead among fishes pertains to the worldly
distractions for the Christian who is eager to live a devotional life amid the
evildoers. The fish is an emblem of water and it likewise symbolises a
Christian soul that needs to be immersed in the living water or the water of
baptism in order to escape spiritual death.
Symbols identify diverse, incompatible levels of reality. Whereas the
ship of ones mind carries the soul to the terra sancta, cf. on foldan stop
stepped/walked on land, the tree of life the cross becomes the ladder
of divine ascent.
76
Chapter Five
Sense of emptiness: the broken mirror in enigma

The post-modern individual is proud of his critical, logical and alldecomposing mind. Man, the reflection of the divine and the image of God
(cf. St. Gregory of Nyssa 2009, 7), no longer reads the Book of Nature,
being entrapped into the sensible world. The universe, like a mirror, has
been split into two pieces which no longer constitute the wholeness of the
intelligible and the sensible worlds. The broken mirror no longer reflects
the image of Ideal Beauty, i.e., God. Yet, of no great truth was the
medieval mind more conscious than of St. Pauls phrase: videmus nunc per
speculum in nigmate, tunc autem facie ad faciem.2 (Huizinga, cited in
Eco 2002, 52)
The punishment for the insensitive soul is the absence of the beatific
vision. This is how the sense of emptiness could have been understood
by the Medievals.
The remedy offered by the medieval philosopher is presented as the
sensible symbol of the statue, which is the most enigmatic theophany,
furthest removed from their Archetype, hiding the logoi under a veil to
protect tender eyes from too strong a light. (Sheldon-Williams 2008, 465)
In its allegorical reading, a statue is a reflection of Man, the Image of God,
and in its anagogical reading it pertains to the Archetype Himself, cf.
We pray that we may come unto this Darkness which is beyond light, and,
without seeing and without knowing, to see and to know that which is
above vision and knowledge through the realisation that by not-seeing and
by unknowing we attain to true vision and knowledge; and thus praise,
superessentially, it that is superessential, by the transcendence of all things;
even as those who, carving a statue [my italics] out of marble, abstract or
remove all the surrounding material that hinders the vision which the
marble conceals and, by that abstraction, bring to light the hidden beauty.
(Dionysius the Areopagite, Mystical Theology, 2. 206)
The sui generis nature of the medieval mind viewed the highest things
being reflected, as a symbolic expression, in the sensible things, in the
world that is beneath.
2
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face....
The First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 13.12.
77
Conclusions
The Medievals conceived of the universe as an esoteric book of
wisdom, wherein the enigmatic tone was attributed to things. Things
became symbols, a reflection of the metaphysical harmony of being.
The medieval text as a reflection of metaphysical splendour became
an intricate puzzle, for its characters embrace incompatible appearances,
which yet constitute a whole, akin to the distinct intactness of the cosmic
order. The obliquity of signs in the text was rendered by means of
paradox: the fusion of inanimate and animate, Pagan and Christian, the
living and the dead, human destinies and the levels of the universe, the
ship with sails and the ship of ones mind, the oak tree and the cross, the
whale-path and the road of the dead. In the pages of Medieval poets,
things were symbols, and, being endued with allegorical meaning, waxed
into hierophanies themselves.
Medieval man himself is transformed into a symbol of metaphysical
harmony, a riddle (for us?) to rede.
References
Beowulf
Online
http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/Beowulf.Readings/Prolog
ue.htmlhttp://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/beowulf.html
Buckhurst, H. T. 1929. Terms and Phrases for the Sea in Old English
Poetry. In K. Malone & M. M. Ruud (Eds.), Studies in English
Philology, MCMXXIX. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
10319.
Davidson, H. R. E. 1988. Myth and Symbol in Pagan Europe. Early
Scandinavian and Celtic Religion. Syracuse University Press.
Dionysius the Areopagite. Mystical Theology.
Online
http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeII/MysticalTheology.html
Eco, U. 1959. (Italian Original: Sviluppo dellestetica medievale in
Momenti e problemi di storia dellestetica, vol. 1, copyright by
Marzorati Editore) 2002. Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages. Yale
University Press.
Eliade, M. 1974. Patterns in Comparative Religion. A Meridian Book.
Eriugena, J. S. 1990. The Voice of the Eagle. The Heart of Celtic
Christianity. Homily on the Prologue to the Gospel of St. John.
Lindisfarne Press.
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Gamkrelidze, T. V., Ivanov, V. V. 1995. Indo-European and the IndoEuropeans. Berlin. New York: Mouton de Gryuter.
Gimbutiene, M. 1989. The Language of the Goddess: Unearthing the
Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization. London: Thames and
Hudson.
Guthke, K. S. 1999. The Gender of Death. A Cultural History in Art and
Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Manetti, G. 1993. Theories of the Sign in the Classical Antiquity. Indiana
University Press.
Marsden, R. 2004. The Cambridge Old English Reader. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Niles, J. D. 1998. Exeter Book Riddle 74 and the Play of the Text. In M.
Lapidge (Ed.), Anglo-Saxon England, 27. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 169209.
Plato Timaeus
Online http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html
Pokorny, J. 1959. Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wrterbuch. Bd. I-II.
Bern, Mnchen: Francke Verlag.
Seafarer
Online
http://www.apocalyptictheories.com/literature/seafarer/sea1a.html
Smithers, G. V. 1957. The Meaning of The Seafarer and The Wanderer. In
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137153.
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Sorrel, P. 1990. Oaks, Ships and Riddles and the Old English Rune Poem.
In A. M. Lapidge (Ed.), Anglo-Saxon England, 19. Cambridge:
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Wilcox, M. 2005. Alfreds Epistemological Metaphors: eagan modes and

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Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 179218.
CHAPTER SIX
STILLNESS AND SILENCE
IN ALEXANDER SOKUROVS FILMS:
AN AFFINITY WITH JAPAN
FIONA BJRLING

Abstract. Sokurovs films are renowned for their slow pace, lack of action
and relative silence, features that in film constitute emptiness. Beginning
with an analysis of Mother and Son, I proceed to a comparison with the
documentary A Humble Life, filmed in Japan at the same time. The
comparison casts new light on Sokurovs cinematic style. Common for the
two films is an atmosphere of sadness, a depiction or enactment of intimacy,
and the non-naturalistic presence of nature and landscape. Sokurovs visits
to Japan took place in the 1990s, the period when his contemplative style
reached its apogee. Instead of realism, psychologism, and the expected
three-dimensional effect of Western film, his cinema is better understood
as existential, even transcendental. If we accept Sokurovs affinity with
Japan, his films of the 1990s become less perplexing and theoretical than
many Western critics have taken them to be.
Introduction
Russian and Soviet Russian cinema has contributed two distinct styles to
the history of international cinema. Firstly we acknowledge the ideological
style of the great directors from the 1920s such as Vsevolod Pudovkin,
Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov and Dziga Vertov. These film directors, in
sympathy with the new Bolshevik regime, developed a theory and practice
of self-conscious montage, an exploitation of joining shot to shot that was
calculated to indoctrinate the new Soviet citizens with a Marxist-Leninist
way of feeling and thinking. For Eisenstein, for example, a quick
succession of colliding shots was intended to direct the physiology, the
emotions and finally the thoughts of the viewers. Exploiting the new
technique of cinema Eisenstein practised an aggressive avant-garde policy
Stillness and Silence in Alexander Sokurovs Films
81
of constructivism; his films were constructed in order to achieve a desired

effect on the audience.
The second style emerged later in the 1960s, and is attributed to the
cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky and his followers and students at the AllUnion State Cinema Institute. Tarkovsky developed a cinematic style of
poetry and reflection investing in the theory and practice of the long take.
He rejected montage positing that I /cannot/ accept the notion that editing
is the main formative element of a film, as the protagonists of montage
cinema, following Kuleshov and Eisenstein, maintained in the twenties,
as if a film was made on the editing table. (Tarkovsky 1986, 114)
Tarkovsky explicitly denies that his films contain overt messages,
arcane symbols, secret meanings (ibid. 133). For him cinema is not
intellectual or ideological, but poetical and existential. Unique to cinema,
according to Tarkovsky, is its ability to capture or imprint time: Time is a
state: the flame in which there lives the salamander of the human soul
(ibid. 57). To imprint time is not merely to record time but to capture its
pressure in the image: and this is achieved not on the editing table but
during the shooting (ibid. 117-119).
Other film directors have been understood to continue within this
slow and ponderous style of Tarkovsky. Of these, the most notable
director is Alexander Sokurov who up to date has made 46 films: 16
feature films and 30 documentaries. A major feature of Sokurovs films is
their resort on the one hand to an extremely slow pace and lack of action
(stillness), and on the other to their tendency to play down verbal
communication (silence) (See Bjrling 2010). Given that Western film
has on the whole developed towards an ever more rapid pace, an intensity
of action and a reliance on verbal communication, the stillness and silence
of Sokurovs films may be conceived as an expression of emptiness.
In this chapter I shall examine Sokurovs exploitation of stillness and
silence as a form of emptiness to be interpreted as a positive value. This
brings Sokurov in line with Paul Schraders conception of transcendental
cinema, which includes the films of directors Yasujiro Ozu, Robert Bresson
and Carl Dreyer. Schrader posits the concept of negation, emptiness, and
void. Emptiness, silence, and stillness are positive elements in Zen art, and
represent presence rather than absence of something (Schrader 1972, 27).
Thus I too will stress emptiness as presence. At the centre of my analysis
will be the film Mother and Son (1997), the first of Sokurovs films to
receive international recognition. In hindsight there is an intriguing aspect
of Mother and Son that is relevant for an understanding of the feature of
emptiness under consideration, namely that in the same year Sokurov
completed a documentary made in Japan, A Humble Life. This connection
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will lead me to consider Sokurovs affinity with Japan as a feature of

many of his films.
Mother and Son

In the wake of The Second Circle (1990), Mother and Son is Sokurovs
second film to treat the separation of a parent and son through death. The
film opens with a long and still take of almost four and a half minutes as
mother and son lean together on a bed; in soft, barely audible voices, they
share together a few intimate words about last nights shared dream: half
words, repeated words with pauses are whispered or mumbled. This
extended shot illustrates clearly Sokurovs stylized camera technique.
Sokurov explains that he achieves his anamorphic effect by using a
couple of simple mirrors, large panes of glass as well as brush and paint
I work with very thin, delicate painting brushes. Like those used in
traditional Chinese paintings (Schrader 1997. For further analysis see
Alaniz 2008, 188-189). From the start the camera technique establishes the
utterly non-realistic style of the film. The son cares for his mother on the
final day of her life and an increasing mood of sadness prevails. The film
is neither realistic nor psychological. The minimal and uneventful
moments of the last day a drink of water, the brushing of hair, a rest and
reminiscence on a bench outside the house come instead closer to
Schraders definition of a transcendental style in film:
Transcendental style seeks to maximize the mystery of existence; it
eschews all conventional interpretations of reality: realism, naturalism,
psychologism, romanticism, expressionism, impressionism, and, finally,
rationalism. (Schrader 1972, 10)
The eschewal of realism and psychology together with the
sophistication of its visual effects have led to a certain perplexity and
varied responses in Western reactions to the film. One such aspect is the
nature of intimacy between mother and son. If this intimacy with its bodily
proximity and whispered half words is understood in realistic or
psychological terms, it may be interpreted as unnatural, incestuous. A
transcendental interpretation can be said to focus on issues of love or of
death in a more existential vein where responses of physical taboo rest in
peace.
A second aspect concerns the interpretation of the mis-en-scne of the
film as regards the house, its setting and the landscape beyond. On its
release the film was interpreted as placing mother and son in dignified
isolation amidst a wondrous and primeval natural environment, as in the
exclamation of the son: Oh creation [lit. Gods world, bozhii mir], how
83
beautiful you are. Later a number of Western critics have analysed this
natural setting in terms of its artificiality, aestheticism and excess.
Proceeding from a strong intertextual reference to German romantic
painting, particularly to Caspar David Friedrich, they attribute to Sokurov
a sophisticated poetics of representation (Iampolski 1999, Botz-Bornstein
2007, Alaniz 2008). While Sokurov himself confirms his attraction to
Caspar David Friedrich, he does not formulate this in a theoretical way.
Sokurov has made several films explicitly featuring painting and painters,
for example: Stone 1992; Hubert Robert. A Fortunate Life 1996
[henceforth Robert]; Elegy of a Voyage 2001; Russian Ark 2002.
In his article Representation Mimicry Death: The Latest Films of
Alexander Sokurov, Mikhail Iampolski analyses Sokurov as a painter of
ruins, following in the footsteps of Hubert Robert. He shows how
Sokurov adapts to cinema the aesthetic and philosophical implications of a
poetics of ruins in painting, the representation so to speak of illness, time
and disintegration (Iampolski 1999, 131). Resorting to a classical essay
on mimicry by Roger Caillois, Iampolski traces an answer to the question:
How does death in Sokurov destroy objecthood and turn into
representation? (ibid. 134). The article focuses on Robert and Mother and
Son.
Thorsten Botz-Bornsteins chapter on Sokurov (not specifically
concerned with Mother and Son) proceeds from the directors apparent
painterliness; from a semiotic approach to images in painting,
photography and cinema, Botz-Bornstein posits Sokurovs films as
dreamlike landscape paintings /or/ dreamscapes. His interpretation
is that the director in fact challenges the ideology of the image invading
our modern world (Botz-Bornstein 2007, 31-34).
In Nature, illusion and excess in Sokurovs Mother and Son Jos
Alaniz follows W.J.T. Mitchell in the view that a landscape is not a natural
phenomenon but itself a representation (Alaniz 2008, 184). Alaniz
polemicises with the interpretation that nature in the film is represented in
a pristine and innocent form: Mother and Sons representational
strategies present a psychologized, aestheticized view of nature inherited
from the past, particularly from nineteenth-century Romanticist
painting (ibid. 185). He claims that its representation of nature counts
among the most fabricated, simulacral and unnaturalistic in the history of
motion pictures (ibid. 184). Not only is Sokurovs film rife with
quotations from German romantic painting, continues Alaniz, but it
challenges viewers to deconstruct the surface meaning. Finally, Alaniz
claims that Sokurovs project in the film is a sly deconstruction of the
self-possessed Romantic project (ibid. 196).
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Chapter Six
My purpose here is not to dismiss Western critics out of hand, their

more semiotic and theoretical approach is always stimulating and
sometimes enlightening. I merely wish to take a different approach and
investigate whether we might not find an equally relevant interpretation of
Mother and Son if we leave the Western tradition for a while and look
instead to how Sokurov visualised Japan in the 1990s, in connection with
his visits there, and the three documentary films that he made.
A Humble Life and Mother and Son

A Humble Life is a documentary focusing on a single human being, an old
woman living a solitary life in an old house situated in an isolated
mountain village. The film is accompanied, typically, by the voice-over
commentary of Sokurov himself who thereby invests his narration with a
personal attitude to his subject. The film begins in the directors study in
St Petersburg as the camera slowly pans to focus on a photograph of the
poet Hiroko Kojima, Sokurovs friend and collaborator in Japan. In voiceover Sokurov reads a letter to her:
Dear Hiroko, Last night too I had no dreams. But did I sleep or was it nonexistence already? As I opened my eyes I saw the same candle and heard
still the same rumble of wheels and murmur of the wind. My journey to
your sorrowful country is not yet completed, I am not able to part with the
feelings that hold me captive. My soul seemed to be in search of beauty
and kindness. Otherwise for what did I deserve this gift, this encounter?
After a panning shot of racing clouds and mist swirling around a vast
mountain landscape, the camera comes to rest in an establishing shot of a
Japanese house and its surrounding garden. The commentator modulates to
a past tense description of his arrival in Japan, such that the letter to
Hiroko Kojima, written after the visit, imperceptibly becomes an account
of the visit itself.
The theme of sadness (your sorrowful country) has been set at the
beginning and it is held quietly throughout the film in its depiction of
loneliness and a sense, not clearly articulated until the final scene, that the
old ladys life is slowly approaching its end.
As the characters in Mother and Son, so in A Humble Life the old lady
has no name, but is referred to as she.1 As the commentator explains, he
1
In the credits at the end of the film her name is shown on the screen: Umeno
Matsuyosi, mistress of an old house in the mountains, in the village of Aska, the
province of Nara, Japan.
85
has an agreement with her that, as long as he is in her house, he may watch
her for as long as he likes, and come as close to her as he needs to. Thus
the camera (equivalent to Sokurovs personal perspective) is marked by an
extraordinary intimacy with the body, the movements and sounds of this
anonymous and dignified old lady. Physical intimacy is an integral part of
the film as it follows the woman in all her doings and movements:
completing her dressing by slowly pinning up her long hair; licking and
teasing the thread through the eye of her needle; eating her lonely meal
with an occasional involuntary laugh. As she earns her living by sewing
mourning kimonos, the camera zooms in on parts of her body; hands
moving, sometimes stiff and cold; her deep-sunken eyes, a fleshy moon of
lip sunk deep into a fold of her cheek. The intimacy contrasts remarkably
with the reserve and fastidiousness of the old lady and the life she leads.
Only at the end of the film do character and commentator appear to
convene in direct contact when she comes to take her leave of the director.
Kneeling on the floor in a black kimono, she reads him several of her
poems, short poems filled with quiet sorrow:
Ten years have passed since I lost my husband,
Still the pain and bitterness are in my heart like thorns.
In the late autumn, a tiny brook is moving.
My heart is breaking with sorrow.
What the film expresses is the harmony of her life, her sorrow, her
loneliness. There is no protest or complaint; all is of one piece, an
acceptance, a quiet flow of the details of a life that is whole.
If having considered A Humble Life we turn back to Mother and
Son, we may interpret both its sadness and its approach to death in the still
and quiet light of the documentary from Japan, finding here too
acceptance of lifes passage into old age and death, not as rupture, but as
part of a natural and harmonious passage. To pass from life into death is
sorrowful, both for the dying and for those who are close; sorrow is an
integral part of life moving towards death. This in turn opens for the
intimacy in both films. Without sorrow, without participation of another
human being in death, the dying man or woman would be wrenched away
and disappear abruptly from human intercourse and existential meaning.
The phenomenon of intimacy in both films achieves precisely the
existential connection between the living and the dead is carried to the
border of death and beyond. In emptiness, sorrow and intimacy death is
transcended.
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Chapter Six
From the establishing shot of the house and its garden in Japan we
understand the significance of the surroundings in this contemplation of
lifes passage. The traditional Japanese house is situated in a garden with
tended bushes, a tiny pool of water edged with stones, a large and gnarled
tree. The house itself stands in central focus throughout the film, but the
interiors screened from within constantly open out through windows and
sliding doors onto the garden and further to the landscape beyond to reveal
glimpses of mountains, forests and a valley filled with water. Sokurov
shows shots of the sky, dark clouds and waving mists, accompanied by a
soundtrack with wind, thunder and other natural noises more prominent
than human speech. The angling of the camera integrates interiors and
exteriors, for example when the camera moves through the open door out
and up into a tree that frames the sky. The setting of both interior and
exterior is where the old lady lives her moments from day to day, she is at
one with her abode. The narrator delights in the house, drawn to it as to
something beautiful. Early on he says, the house was empty. That this
emptiness is felt as a positive presence is confirmed later by the
commentary to a long sequence of shots of an empty interior:
What a delicate, what a solid construction. The house is 130 years old.
Walls and doors are glued over with paper, everything is breathing; in
everything there is persistence, obstinacy and immutability.
During the day the house is opened in all directions; the temperature
indoors and out is the same just above zero. Thus the impression created
by the film is that the old lady, her house, garden and the landscape
beyond exist in a continuum, holding and carrying her human existence.
The same continuum of interior and exterior is a feature of Mother
and Son, notwithstanding that here the house and surroundings are quite
different and indeed have been artificially chosen and constructed. The
house is made of stone, its bare walls painted to look dilapidated; it is
surrounded by trees, paths, and, further afield, woods and a large stretch of
water; there is some kind of quarry nearby. This apparently isolated place
has provoked both enraptured and disapproving response. Donato Tataro
writes:
The use of nature is one of the films most striking aspects. Its presence is
felt in every frame both visually and aurally: flowers, trees, mountains,
wind, dust, clouds, thunder, crickets, cuckoo birds, rustling fire, running
water. Even when indoors we see the shadowed reflection of leaves and
branches on walls and across their faces. The nature is beautiful, majestic,
yet eerily estranged through Sokurovs estranged stylization. (Totaro 1998)
87
Iampolski connects Mother and Son with the documentary Robert, a film
which he suggests serves as a kind of theoretical manifesto for Sokurovs
work at the time (Iampolski 1999, 128):
In Mother and Son, the mothers slow death is set against the background
of an extraordinary beautiful image, reaching a peak of genuine cinematic
pictorialism. (Ibid. 134) // the fantastic pictorial quality of the landscape
is linked directly with the death of the mother whom the son carries into
the space of nature. The film is literally the story of death as a transition
from the corporeal to the visual, as a growth of an aesthetic illusion from
the process of dying. (ibid. 137)
For Alaniz the house and landscape is replete with what he calls the excess
of Sokurovs cinema. He considers the film underhanded and a particular
shot of the house and landscape is a fake an image of nature thriceremoved (Alaniz 2008, 201-201).
In comparison with A Humble Life the mis-en-scne in Mother and
Son is not natural: we know that the house was built to revolve so as
always to reflect the light as the director wished (Schrader 1997).
Nevertheless, having taken to heart Sokurovs continuum of the life,
sorrow and old age of the old woman in her Japanese surroundings, the
surroundings in Mother and Son can be understood to express in
existential terms a place where the passage from life to death comes to
pass. Rather than interpreting the place as alien, unrealistic, a form of
cinematic excess, we can allow that it creates an atmosphere of
transcendence; that through its artifice it alerts us and allows us to reflect
on the nature of existence in contemplation of a mother and her son
completing the passage of her death in the intimacy of their special world.
Sokurovs Affinity for Japan

Sokurov has made four films with an explicit Japanese theme: the three
documentaries: Oriental Elegy (1996), A Humble Life (1997) and Dolce
(1999). And lastly, the third of his series of men-of-power films The Sun
(2004) about the emperor Hirohito. In addition the documentary Robert. A
Fortunate Life (1996) incorporates a scene from a performance of
Japanese Noh Theatre, and Hiroko Kojimas name features in the credits
of the film. These films involved cooperating with Japanese production
teams for cinema and TV, with Japanese actors as well as with Japanese
friends for whose generous assistance the director expresses enthusiastic
gratitude. In several interviews Sokurov talks with warmth and respect for
the Japanese people and their culture, not least for the Japanese sympathy
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Chapter Six
towards and understanding of Russian culture (Szaniawski 2006). In an

open discussion held at the Faculty of Philosophy in St Petersburg in 1998,
Sokurov was asked about his turn towards the East. The director replied
that this was not a new move since he had long nurtured a serious
relationship towards Japan:
The life of no other country had seemed to me so strange as the life of the
Japanese. This primordial feeling served as a kind of basis. Fate construed
that I started to visit Japan often and some of my films are the result of
these journeys and the result of an inner resolution within myself. I decided
to try and communicate this sensation. Sokurov continues: If I had the
sensation that in my relationships with the people of Japan there was a
feeling of being foreign, than I would not of course not have made these
films. Secrecy or the art of keeping their innermost thoughts and feelings
concealed, and a gigantic correctness is the strongest trait of the national
character of the Japanese. 2 (Stenogramma vstrechi 20/4 1998, my
translation. See also Galitski 2001)
If Sokurov is known for a film style which combines stillness (a slow

pace) with minimal action, a tendency to silence together with a focus on
sadness and/or death, then it is interesting to note that a major cluster of
films made between 1992 and 1999 are particularly characteristic of this
style. Moreover, the visits to Japan and the three Japanese documentaries
were made during this period. Before concluding this chapter I shall
comment briefly on those films that explicitly show Sokurovs affinity
with Japan. Already in 1992, Sokurov dedicated his Elegy from Russia to
Hiroko Kojima; the film received a prize in Japan: the Special Prize at the
YIDFF93 Competition, Selection & Prizes in Yamagato. This bears
witness to a mutual affinity between Japan and Sokurov before the
Japanese films, in a documentary about Russia.
The extended documentary series made for television Spiritual Voices:
from the War Diaries completed in 1995 documents the presence of
Russian frontier guards on the Tajik-Afghani border. The film is
characterised by the stillness and silence that I have labelled emptiness.
The daily life of the soldiers is tedious and boring; there is loneliness in
2
In addition, Sokurov mentions his inability to comprehend how these quiet and
delicate people could have committed the atrocities of the Second World War.
There is an unexpected allusion to the Second World War in A Humble Life: the
director has arrived in Japan and, screening photographs of Russian children in a
summer landscape he comments: For some reason, I thought of the war and
pictures of unknown life appeared in my mind. Maybe from the past, maybe from
the future. Somebodys children Somebodys mothers.
89
being far from home, in the extreme climate of the mountain desert. I
interpret the title of the film to denote a level of transcendence: these
young soldiers carry within them their spirituality, notwithstanding their
apparently meaningless and deprived lives in a war zone (See Bjrling
2010). The same may be said of the military recruits and the commander
on the frontier patrol ship in the Arctic in the later television series
Confession from 1998.
Eastern Elegy from 1996 is the second of the documentaries made in
Japan. Although the film is categorised as a documentary, it resembles a
feature film. More than any other of Sokurovs films, Eastern Elegy is
concerned with crossing the border between life and death. Although this
has been called a meditative text without a clear composition (Levchenko
2006) there is more movement and more dialogue in this film than in
many others. Again the voice-over is spoken by Sokurov, who is shown in
the film, in profile or from behind, as he travels to the mysterious island
where he meets and interviews a selection of old Japanese people who
have all passed over on to the other side; they are so to speak the dead
among the living. The Japanese faces and voices carry the feeling of
transcendent acceptance of the life followed by death, that is the calm and
serene acceptance, familiar from A Humble Life.
The short documentary Robert from 1996 opens with a performance
of Noh theatre that friends had talked Sokurov into visiting. He comments
that the play began quietly, very quietly. The actors appeared silently and
seemed weightless. The camera focuses on a branch of cherry blossom in
the foreground as the commentator quotes a passage from Dostoevsky he
is reminded of, Without noticing how it came about, I found myself in
another land.3 The cherry blossom modulates to the branch of another tree
that we take to be a detail of a painting by Robert. The screening of the
Japanese theatre is momentarily clipped into the film three more times and
finally closes the film. Thus, there is for Sokurov a definite connection in
his experience of Robert and Japan, both take him to another land.
The third Japanese documentary Dolce from 1999 has many
similarities to A Humble Life. It too tells the story of a sad and lonely
woman who, after a tragic life, has lost her husband, the well-known
Japanese writer Toshio Shimao. She lives on a distant and faraway island,
where her house and surroundings, the sound of wind and storms, are
familiar from earlier films, particularly A Humble Life. A difference here
is that Miho is torn by her sorrow in a violent way. She weeps and wails,
mourning the loss of her mother many years ago, the loss of her husband
and not least the sickness of her daughter, who as a child was suddenly
3
The text is taken from the short story A Ridiculous Mans Dream from 1877.
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Chapter Six
struck dumb by a family tragedy, never to speak again and never to grow
into womanhood. Maya, still dressed as a little girl but in her forties, with
a twisted face seems more than her mother to have come to terms with her
fate, a state displayed in a touching scene when we see her peeping in
through a door at her mothers grief, with a little bird resting on her wrist.
Conclusions
In this chapter I have paid particular attention to Mother and Son and
considered three enlightening yet theoretical articles by Western critics
(Iampolski 1999, Botz-Bornstein 2007, Alaniz 2008). These critics analyse
Sokurovs cinematic style in a highly intellectual manner, attributing a
self-conscious and intricate semiotic approach to Sokurov. Their sophisticated
analyses underline the imperspicuity or difficulty of Sokurovs films. The
similarity between Mother and Son and the documentary A Humble Life
filmed in Japan prompted a new strategy, which was to investigate the
relevance of an affinity with Japan as a context that sheds light on
Sokurovs films and renders them straightforward. Features such as
emptiness, silence and stillness, and even so-called artificiality in several
significant films from the 1990s can now be interpreted as having positive
value. Instead of looking for reality, psychology or the typical adventures
and fantasies of modern Western cinema, we recognise an Eastern style of
contemplation or even meditation. Hans-Joachim Schlegel connects
Sokurovs cinema with Tarkovskys; both directors turn away from the
materialism of the West towards an Eastern transcendentalism that
combines life with spirituality. According to Schlegel Sokurov creates
meditation on film (kinomeditatsiia) (Schlegel 2000). T. A. Akindinova
understands Sokurov as belonging to a line of aesthetic of contemplation
that comes to us from Schopenhauer, Tolstoy, Husserl and Heidegger
(Akindinova 2001). In retrospect the three documentaries made in Japan,
as well as the later film The Sun, elucidate a context for the films of the
1990s as forming a cohesive whole. Sokurov was drawn to Japan and his
visits there confirmed for him his intuited approach to film. This is a
question not of sudden influence but of deep affinity.
91
References
Akindinova, T.A.. 2001. Sovremennoe iskusstvo na styke epokh,
Aleksandr Sokurov na filosofskom fakultete, sost. E. N. Ustjugova.
Serija Mysliteli, vypusk 6. (pp. 47-50). St. Petersburg: SanktPeterburgskoe filosofskoe obshchestvo. Online
http://anthropology.ru/ru/texts/sokurov/sokurov_01.html
Alaniz, Jos. 2008. Nature, illusion and excess in Sokurovs Mother
and Son, Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema Volume 2, 183-204.
Bjrling, Fiona. 2010. Quiet Voices; the Significance of Subdued
Dialogue and Voice-Over in the Films of Aleksandr Sokurov,
Scando-Slavica 56:1, 99-118.
Botz-Bornstein, Thorsten. 2007. Films and Dreams. Tarkovsky, Bergman,
Sokurov, Kubrick, and Wong Kar-wei. Lanham MD: Lexington Books,
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Galetski, Kirill. 2001. The Foundations of Film Art: An Interview with
Alexander Sokurov, Cinaste 26:3, 2006, 6.
Iampolski, Mikhail. 1999. Representation Mimicry Death: The Latest
Films of Alexander Sokurov, Russia on Reels. The Russian Idea in
Post-Soviet Cinema, edited by Birgit Beumers. London & New York:
I.B.Tauris.
Levchenko, Ia. 2006, Vostochnaia elegiia, Vozmozhnost ostrova//
Sokurov: [sbornik], Kn.2.St Petersburg: Seans. Online
http://russiancinema.ru/template.php?dept_id=15&e_dept_id=2&e_m
ovie_id=1107
Schlegel, Hans-Joakim. 2000. Transtsendentnost autenticheskogo, o
dokumentalnom u Andreia Tarkovskogo i Aleksandra Sokurova,
Kinovedcheskie zapiski 49. Online
http://www.kinozapiski.ru/article/365
Schrader, Paul. 1972. Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer.
Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of California Press.
. 1997. The History of an Artists Soul is a Very Sad History, Film
Comment 33:6, 20-26. Online http://sokurov.info/?id=1225965602
Stenogramma vstrechi 20/4 1998 2001. Aleksandr Sokurov na
filosofskom fakultete, sost. E. N. Ustjugova. Serija Mysliteli, vypusk
6. (p. 22). St. Petersburg: Sankt-Peterburgskoe filosofskoe obshchestvo.
Online
http://anthropology.ru/ru/texts/sokurov/sokurov_01.html.
Totaro, Donato 1998. Mother and Son, Offscreen, 23 September. Online
http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/9809!offscreen_reviews/sokurov.html.
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Filmography
Elegy from Russia ( ), 1992
Spiritual Voices ( ), 1995
Eastern Elegy ( ), 1996
Hubert Robert. A Fortunate Life (. ), 1996
Mother and Son ( ), 1996/1997
A Humble Life ( ), 1997
Confession (), 1998
Dolce, 1999
PART TWO:
COGNITIVE-SEMIOTIC STUDIES
CHAPTER SEVEN
COMMUNICATION CULTURE
AND GESTURE USE
KERTTU HUTTUNEN AND KAREN J. PINE
Abstract. Speaking culture affects both the verbal and nonverbal

behaviour of children and adults. Speakers use of voice, time and space in
communication differs depending on their cultural background. In this
chapter we introduce some features of spoken and nonverbal
communication that are characteristic to Eastern and Western cultures. The
use of gestures, for example, reflects the typical communication style of
the environment. We present examples from Japanese culture representing
Eastern orientations, and give examples from several Western cultures.
Features of Finnish culture are introduced to exemplify the variation within
Western cultures. We make a special reference to childrens language
development and current knowledge of the cultural differences between
childrens gesture use in different countries. Emptiness (silence) in the area
of nonverbal communication is exemplified by an absence of speechaccompanying gestures.
Cultures and communication

In communication, silence conveys a sense of emptiness although,
paradoxically, it may be far from empty. Silence has many forms and
functions and its role is complex and often context-dependent. For the
speakers and listeners in all cultures, silence allows cognitive processing
time for the speaker to formulate the message and for the listener to
interpret it. In discussion, junctures and meaning or grammatical units are
indicated with short pauses, which help the listener to understand the
content of the message. Verbal silence that carries meaning can also
include nonverbal communication, like gestures (Nakane 2007, 8).
Interpretation of this kind of silence is naturally dependent on the
accompanying verbal communication. In addition to these linguistic
functions, silence also serves many social functions. Social distance, for
95
example, is created, maintained and reduced by silence. Silence also

results from affective reasons in conversations. It may indicate
embarrassment and nervousness, and an emotional conflict may be
avoided by an interlocutors use of silence.
Despite these functions that are common worldwide, some of the uses
of silence are more common in certain cultures than others. Cultures vary
in the emphasis they generally place on individualism and collectivity.
This emphasis depends upon the place assigned to an individual in a given
society. From Eastern (East Asian) orientations, Japanese culture is
viewed as, and also measured to be, more socially oriented in nature
(Bornstein and Cote 2001). In collectivist cultures mutual responsibility is
taken seriously, with connectedness and mutual deference as predominating
features. The communication style of the Japanese, for example, is
characterised by back-channeling and interdependency (Bornstein and
Cote 2001; Donahue 1998, 147). Back-channeling means verbal, vocal or
nonverbal responses of a listener to show attentiveness and to encourage
the speaker to continue his communication turn.
Although connectivity is so strongly emphasized in Japanese
conversations, prolonged silence is socially acceptable in many situations
and it does not raise doubts about willingness to communicate. Silence is
also seen as an appropriate way of communicating feelings. For example,
because politeness is highly important to the Japanese and because
negative emotions are not publicly shown, silence serves as one of the
face-saving strategies (Nakane 2006). A younger person in an inferior
position also remains respectfully silent if accompanied by a senior
person, because initiating speech is the priority of seniors. Images of the
Japanese at least business people that are found in literature, are
characterized by formality and the following of strict protocols (Suvanto
2002). They respect punctuality and are quiet and calm in their behaviour.
Japanese males, in particular, are expected to be serious (Donahue 1998,
131). However, it has to be born in mind, that features of social behaviour
are often very person- and context-dependent, and Nakane (2007, 15)
therefore calls for hard data instead of impressions and experiences, and
warns against invoking stereotypes relating to communication cultures.
It is likely that the communication culture described above will also
extend to nonverbal behaviour, such as the use of gestures. As silence is
highly valued, nodding is widely used by Japanese as a part of backchanneling (Donahue 1998, 147), and respect is shown by bowing while
meeting and taking leave; the deeper the bow, the greater the respect.
Bowing also makes it possible to avoid touching. Apart from gestures that
are used in back-channeling or greeting, it has been argued that the use of
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gestures to communicate meaning would be viewed as vulgar in Japanese

culture. These kinds of views have been said to reflect a more general
communicative tradition in which grosser forms of nonverbal
communication, like use of facial expressions and touching, are inhibited.
Greater distance from other people is preferred and politeness demands a
respect for the use of space. In their small-scale study, Reynen and Furo
(2001), for example, analysed hand gestures in conversations of female
Japanese and American students. Compared to American students,
Japanese students were found to use hand/arm gestures less frequently.
Chinese adults have also been found to use fewer gestures than American
adults (So 2010).
Western, individualistic cultures are characterized by volubility,
efficient, explicit and goal-directed communication, with less backchanneling. It is widely held that Americans, for example, find silence
very uncomfortable during conversation. However, in Nordic countries,
particularly in Finland, silence is highly valued and does not induce
feelings of discomfort. Small talk is less common, and there is less
pressure to communicate obvious matters (Carbaugh 2005), with a-matterof-fact style being the preferred style of communication (Poutiainen 2007).
Differences in perception of time and temporal organization of oral
communication have come to be reflected in communication cultures
(Sallinen-Kuparinen 1986). For example, a hectic modern lifestyle,
reflected in the pressure of being constantly reachable by mobile phones,
has been reported to be unappealing to many Finns (Poutiainen 2007).
There are further variations in sociocultural norms within Western
cultures. People do not generally talk to strangers on public transport, for
example. However, this phenomenon of being reserved with strangers is
particularly strong among some North American Indian cultures (Scollon
1985) and for example, in Finland. Although a general Finnish trend of not
talking to strangers is found, there seems to be differences in behaviour
even between the Western and Eastern parts of Finland; people living in
Western Finland are viewed to be more reserved than people living in the
East (Malmberg 2010). In Finnish proverbs, popular sayings and
newspaper and magazine texts, one can frequently find anecdotal
references to the Finnish speaking culture. For example, Shyness and an
ability to stand silence are Finnish virtues. (Manninen 2010), Finnishtype silence in communication lacks facial expressions, gestures,
movements, eye gazes, use of spacethat are typical to nonverbal
communication. (Antola 2010), Finns spontaneously initiate a discussion
with a stranger only rarely. (Saari 2010). As Sallinen-Kuparinen (1986,
28) suggests, The portrait of the silent Finn has become one of the
97
national myths which is cherished in popular opinion, especially by Finns

themselves. However, Sajavaara and Lehtonen (1997) remind us that
cultural stereotypes are not only illusory perceptions of reality; observable
behaviour does exist that gives rise to common impressions.
Of the many forms of silence, frequent and long intra-turn pauses
feature highly when Finns communicate with Americans (Hamari 1993,
Sneck 1987). Described as silent listeners, Finns use less verbal backchanneling than Americans and Central Europeans (Lehtonen and
Sajavaara 1985). Timing differences are also found in communication
between speakers from different cultures. Ulijn and Li (1995) studied
inter- and intracultural negotiations between Chinese and Finnish
businessmen and found that Finns used longer pauses between speaking
turns than their Chinese interlocutors. Politeness and harmony are highly
valued by the Chinese, but this leads to them producing more interruptions.
Ulijn and Li suggest that frequent interruptions and joint sentence
production by Chinese listeners demonstrate strong conversational
involvement. It has to be noted, however, that the Finns in the above
mentioned studies used their non-native language (English) in
communication with foreigners, and in the study of Ulijn and Li the
Chinese businessmen additionally used an interpreter. Proficiency in
English may therefore have affected the conversational style. Additionally,
in studies with small samples one cannot rule out the effects of the
participants personality on some features of communication.
Frequency of interruptions during conversations also varies within the
Western world; in Latin cultures, such as Italy, interruptions and
simultaneous talk are frequent and reflect high communication interest,
whereas Finns usually do not tolerate interruptions very well (Lehtonen
and Sajavaara 1985). In studying Finnish-Finnish and Finnish-American
telephone interactions (business conversations) Hamari (1993) noticed that
Finns initiated only one third of the number of overlapping speech turns
compared to the number of overlapping turns initiated by the Americans.
It has been hypothesized that the high levels of silence in Finns
communication is related either to their low self-esteem (Lehtonen and
Sajavaara 1985, Sajavaara and Lehtonen 1997), their reserved national
character originating from geographical and historical factors, the Nordic
climate affecting the atmosphere and emotional moods, or just a positive,
natural way of being (Carbaugh, Berry and Nurmikari-Berry 2006).
There is limited empirical evidence for the possible reasons for the
taciturnity of Finns. Sallinen-Kuparinen (1986) failed to find communication
apprehension in an exploration of the self-reflections of university students,
although stage fright and general social anxiety were found to be prevalent.
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Increased tourism and more business travelling by Finns may, however,

have changed communication culture since the 1980s.
Gesture use also varies between the Western countries. High speaking
rate and frequent use of gestures characterizes Mediterranean cultures like
French, Spanish, and Italian, whereas low gesture rate typifies the cultures
of Nordic countries. Compared to Italians, Swedes, for example, have been
observed to use gestures that are smaller in size and less intensive
(Allwood 1999). Additionally, foreign exchange students have described
Finns as using few facial expressions and producing few gestures
(Mkisalo 1988). On the basis of their relatively large data, Croskey et al.
(1996) noticed that compared with Puerto Rican, American and Australian
higher education teachers, Finnish university teachers were perceived by
their students to favour rather modest, and emotionally and nonverbally
restricted communicative patterns.
However, linguistic and pragmatic aspects across linguistic and cultural
boundaries vary and are in continuous interaction with each other, so a
word of caution is therefore needed here again to avoid further overgeneralizations.
Gestures in childrens development

Gestures play an important role in the language development of infants
and they serve as an indicator of early communicative competence. In
brain imaging studies, speech and gesture production have also been found
to be governed by the same brain areas. Activation of these common brain
areas by gestures is suggested to affect speech production (Gentilucci et al.
2008). Early language milestones are accompanied, or even preceded, by
comparable achievements in the gestural modality (Bates and Dick 2002,
Sansavini et al. 2010). In fact, gestures both enhance language
comprehension (Blake et al. 2003, Kircher et al. 2009) and are associated
with early speech comprehension and also, in some studies, with early
speech production. Girls have not only been found to be ahead of boys in
verbal language; they have also been found to produce more gestures than
boys (Sansavini et al. 2010), and develop them earlier than boys
(zalikan and Goldin-Meadow 2010, Sansavini et al. 2010). Gesture
development, like pointing (Colonnesi et al. 2010), gesture vocabulary
(the number of different meanings conveyed in gesture) and the number of
gesture-speech combinations have been found to predict later linguistic
(Rowe and Goldin-Meadow 2009a) and academic development (Rowe and
Goldin-Meadow 2009b).
99
Gestures have multiple functions in childrens development. In

reaching towards a desired object while using an alternating gaze between
the adult and an interesting object the child aims to regulate the adults
behaviour, and showing, giving, requesting and pointing (named as deictic
gestures) are typically used to direct the adults attention. By using iconic
(or symbolic, sometimes also called representational) gestures children
learn to symbolize various referents. Iconic gestures can convey, for
example, size or shape of a referent. By using conventional gestures
people express shared social conventions (like greetings and agreeing),
and metaphorical words and concepts can be expressed via metaphorical
gestures. Beat gestures that accompany speech are used for emphasis in
children and adults alike. Gestures are not only manual; nodding and
shaking the head, for example, are gestures, and gestures can also be
performed with the whole body. Some researchers also include facial
expressions in gestures.
Children first start to point usually between 10 and 12 months of age.
Iconic gestures come along later (at the two-word stage); by 34 years of
age more iconic gestures feature in childrens language. Iconic gestures
emerge later than deictic ones, because iconic similarity with objects or
ideas is a feature that needs to be learned. Additionally, iconic gestures
work with language to convey semantic meanings, and their emergence is
therefore related to a more advanced level of linguistic development.
Uses of gesture
Gestures have multiple uses. Some are internal, or intrapersonal, related to
the childs linguistic and cognitive development, and some are interpersonal.
The interpersonal use of gesture is more culture-bound.
Gestures are an effective means of communication especially in
young children who use them to compensate first for missing speech and
later on for vocabulary limitations. Parents read their childs gestures to
interpret the childs intentions. They may, for example, interpret the
pointing and vocalization of a very young child as a request and offer this
understanding to the child for confirmation (Laakso, Helasvuo and
Savinainen-Makkonen 2010). Co-speech gestures also provide
complementary information. Interlocutors have been shown to pick up
information not only from speech but also gestures/actions. Additionally,
gestures seem to help both listeners to disambiguate the accompanying
speech (Skipper et al. 2007) and speakers themselves to disambiguate
lexical items (homonyms) in narration (Kidd and Holler 2009). The
mechanism in both the reception and the production of speechaccompanying gestures may be one of saving brain processing capacity
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and thereby reducing cognitive load. When speech and co-speech gestures
convey a contradictory message, meanings expressed by gestures may
come through better than speech.
Nicoladis (2002) reported that typically developing bilingual children
sometimes try to compensate word retrieval difficulties with gestures.
Deictic gesture use, in particular, usually decreases after infancy. In
typically developing older children gesturing therefore serves another role,
over and above compensating for any linguistic deficits.
Gestures also clearly help childrens thought processes during
cognitively demanding tasks. Graham (1999) noticed that pointing is an
integral part of the development of early number knowledge and that the
4-year-old children she studied gestured more when the counting task was
hard for them. Additionally, Alibali and DiRusso (1999) found gestures
helped children to keep track and count objects. There seems to be a
general agreement in the research literature that children produce more
gestures as a function of task difficulty, which would be consistent with
the cognitive load hypothesis. When children are ready to learn something
new, they produce particular types of gestures (Pine, Lufkin and Messer
2004), and if children are prevented from gesturing, their learning is
hindered, their speech suffers and they find it harder to access the right
words (Pine et al. 2007). Moreover, childrens gestures are ahead of their
speech when expressing newly acquired concepts (Pine et al. 2007), and
when they are talking about a complex idea, children need to produce
more gestures (Thurnham and Pine 2006). The hands also reveal cognitive
processes in older children and young adults; Roth (2000) found that
during science lessons, children and young adults from grades four to 11
used gestures to make scientific arguments about visual representations of
scientific phenomena. He also noted that when the students were not yet
very familiar with the domain they were discussing, their deictic and
iconic gestures preceded their associated utterances, but later on their
gestures began to coincide with their speech.
Several hypotheses have been introduced to explain co-speech gesture
production. These hypotheses aim to explain how gestures help thinking or
speaking, and they are assumed to apply universally. However, if
distinctive cultural variation is found in gesture use, gestures might be
needed more for word retrieval in cultures and languages where relatively
high speech tempo is used. Many Romance languages like Spanish, Italian
and French have fairly high speech tempo compared to many other
languages. It may not be a coincidence that Mediterranean countries where
Romance languages are spoken are also gesture-rich. This view is worthy
of consideration not only in adults but also in children, to find out at which
101
age the culture in which the child is raised begins to affect their gestural
behaviour.
In sum, some of the uses of gesture are internal, helping the child to
organize his or her thoughts and speech. However, when the motivation of
gesturing is to help the interlocutor, the communication culture surrounding
the child affects the childs behaviour. With increasing age children
gradually acquire adult-like uses of gesture (Colletta, Pellenq and Guidetti
2010).
Childrens gestures in different cultures

Children learn the typical gesture rate from their environment. Parent
gesture input has been found to affect their childrens gesture rate (Iverson
et al. 1999, Rowe, zalikan and Goldin-Meadow 2008), and the use of
pointing by parents has even been associated with vocabulary growth of
children (Iverson et al. 1999). Parents pass on not only their verbal
language but also the culturally bound use of gestures to their children.
Childrens gestures have been intensively explored, but relatively
little is still known about cross-cultural differences in childrens gesture
use (see, e.g., Blake et al. 2003, 2005, Iverson et al. 2008, Mayberry and
Nicoladis 2000, Nicoladis 2002, Ozyrek et al. 2008, Sansavini et al.
2010). Furthermore, ways of measurement (observation, standardized
parental report questionnaires), ages of the children studied and definition
and inclusion of different gesture types vary from study to study. The
majority of studies published on childrens gesture use concern only 10- to
20-month-old infants (Andrn 2010). Due to time-intensive analyses, the
number of children studied is usually small. All these factors complicate
the process of comparing different studies.
The frequency with which children use different gesture types has
been found to be rather similar in American, English-Canadian, French,
and Japanese infants (Blake et al. 2005). It has therefore been suggested
that infants gestural repertoires are universal (Blake et al. 2003, 2005).
However, studies also show that children from a high frequency gesture
environment use more gestures than children from cultures where gesture
use is less frequent (Iverson et al. 2008, Mayberry and Nicoladis 2000,
Ozyrek et al. 2008). Iverson et al. (2008), for example, detected cultural
differences in the use of representational (iconic) gestures; they were used
more by Italian than American 10- to 24-month-old infants. American
infants used primarily deictic gestures.
There is very little information available on the use of gestures by
Swedish and Finnish children. Andrn (2010) followed the development of
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gesture use longitudinally in five Swedish children between the ages of 18

to 30 months. Distribution of the major gesture types of Swedish children
was in line with the results obtained from American children. The highest
gesture frequency was noticed in children aged from 21 to 25 months.
Most gestures co-occurred with speech, and children that produced the
longest spoken utterances produced fewest gestures.
Finnish infants studied by Jakkula (2002) and Laakso, Helasvuo and
Savinainen-Makkonen (2010) only produced about 10 to 50% of the
number of pointing gestures produced by Italian and American children of
the same age (Iverson et al. 2008). Examination of the results of the very
large Finnish samples obtained by Laakso and her colleagues (1999) and
Laakso, Eklund and Poikkeus (2010) shows that, for example, 12-monthold Finnish infants acquired some gesture types somewhat later than
Swedish (Eriksson and Berglund 1999), American (Fenson et al. 1994)
and Italian (Sansavini et al. 2010) infants. Older Finnish children were
studied by Karjalainen (1996) who explored the use of verbal and
nonverbal communicative acts of nine 3- to 4-year-olds during their
conversations in a day care centre. Only 1% of the childrens communicative
acts that replaced spoken utterances contained a gesture (movements of the
head and the hands). Co-speech gestures were most prevalent; for example,
almost every time the children used a demonstrative pronoun, they also
used pointing to support their message. However, gestures accompanying
speech were not analysed, because the main emphasis of the study was
particularly on speech acts.
Taken together, relatively little is still known about childrens gesture
use after the early stages of language development and far less is known
about the possible cross-cultural and cross-linguistic differences in gesture
production related to the childs developing linguistic system. One aim of
a recent study (Huttunen, Pine and Thurnham 2010, Huttunen et al. under
review) was therefore to examine cross-cultural differences in gesture use
between 80 British and 41 Finnish children. We examined childrens
verbal and spontaneous gesture responses to a picture-naming task in
typically developing children from two to five years of age. We were
interested in whether the frequency of gestures, classified into deictic and
iconic, changes with increasing age and linguistic competence, and if the
co-speech gestures appear before the spoken word, thus providing lexical
access facilitation, in both groups of children representing two different
languages and cultures. We did not, however, analyse facial expressions or
conventional gestures.
We found that British children gestured somewhat more than Finnish
children and, in both groups of children, gesture use clearly decreased
103
after the age of two. In the 2-and 5-year-olds, British children used
significantly more iconic gestures than Finnish children. Both British and
Finnish two year-olds used more deictic than iconic gestures than older
children, but the number of their deictic gestures was only half of that
reported for 2-year-old Italian children in a similar task (Stefanini et al.
2009). Two-year-olds also gestured more before the onset of speech, rather
than simultaneously or after speech. The timing of their gestures suggested
that gestures helped the younger children in the naming task. Our results
support the view that gesture serves a communicative and intrapersonal
function, and that the main functions of gesture may change with age. We
found that 39% of the British children and 61% of the Finnish children
produced no gestures at all, and only 6% of the British and 4% of the
Finnish children used the gesture only modality (i.e., gesturing without
speech) at least once. From these results we concluded that compared to
infants, gesture use in older children decreases, but in no way disappears.
Cultural and linguistic background of childrens gestures

Understanding childrens social environment and, more widely, the
language(s) and the culture(s) they are surrounded by, illuminates the
factors underlying childrens development. Furthermore, understanding
differences and the processes of various languages is important, but
because human communication is multimodal in nature, cultural variations
in gesture use should not be overlooked. While some features of gesture
development appear to be universal, cross-cultural differences in
childrens gesturing may reflect the communication culture(s) prevailing
in the society.
As mentioned earlier, research has shown that Eastern cultures tend to
be collectivist, whereas Western cultures, specifically American, are
generally considered to be individualistic. Parental behaviour reflects the
communication style in the surrounding environment, and cross-cultural
variation in parenting has been widely researched (Bornstein and Cote
2001). Culture influences how parents communicate and operationalise
caregiving behaviours, but there is a paucity of research on how the
gestures used by parents, or their gesture rate, influences development.
Goldin-Meadow and Saltzman (2000) explored differences in the gesture
use of Taiwanese and American mothers. Compared to American mothers,
Taiwanese mothers used more initiations and instruction, and three times
as many gestures when communicating with their children. The
researchers suggested that child-rearing practices might explain the
differences in the mothers gesture rate; Taiwanese mothers tendency to
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Chapter Seven
use instruction as their dominating function of talk possibly led them to

use more gestures than American mothers. Rowe and Goldin-Meadow
(2009b) noticed that parents gesture types (i.e., number of different
meanings conveyed by gesture) were associated with childrens gesture
types; children with more gesture types had parents who produced more
gesture types.
We have considered (Huttunen et al. under review) that some
communication culture features could explain the paucity of gesturing in
Finnish children. Finnish mothers, whether living in Finland or in Sweden,
have been found to talk less with their teenagers than Swedish and
American mothers during everyday family conversations (Tulviste et al.
2003, Tulviste 2004). In this respect, Finnish mothers seem to resemble
Japanese mothers; in the study of Bornstein and Cote (2001), Japanese
mothers spoke to their infants significantly less than Latin American
mothers. Japanese mothers also engaged less in social behaviour with their
infants compared to Latin American mothers, and provided their infants
with fewer toys, books, or household objects to play with during videorecorded everyday interaction. Interestingly, Japanese infants were also
noted to engage less in social behaviour than the Latin American infants.
There are also cultural differences in the way of speaking. Compared
to, for example, Japanese mothers, American English parents have been
found to use more extreme intonational exaggeration when speaking to
their infants (Fernald et al. 1989). Large variation in intonation is widely
used in infant-directed speech to communicate affect, elicit the childs
attention and help the child to segment words from speech. Japanese
cultural conventions seem therefore to affect child-rearing practices and
language use. The 12 Japanese infants Blake et al. (2003) studied used
very few emotive gestures (e.g., clapping hands or bouncing) at age 9 to
14 months, which the researchers suggested was related to the quieting
approach (the culturally-bound communication behaviour) of their
mothers.
Cultural rules for communicating may provide at least a partial
explanation for frequency of gesturing. The pace of communication is
observed to be somewhat slower in Finland compared to some other
countries. In a study by Ryabina (2008) even speakers of some other
Finno-Ugric languages (Estonian and Udmurt) had a higher speaking rate
during dialogue than Finns. The Finnish style of communication may
place less time-pressure on the speaker, thus allowing word retrieval
processes more time than in many other cultures. When the speaker is
given enough time to formulate his or her thoughts, there is less of a need
to use gestures to take, hold, or give up communication turns. Additionally,
105
climate and geographic factors may affect gesture use. Having a cold
climate, and polar nights part of the year, makes gestures both difficult to
produce (because of thick clothing) and difficult to be seen.
Not only cultural factors but features of spoken language may also
have effects on gesture use. Kita (2000) and Kita and zyrek (2003)
noted that English, Turkish and Japanese adult speakers used different
kinds of gestures when describing motion events, depending on the lexical
resources of their language. Gestures appear to reflect the way the spatial
relations are encoded in memory. Recently, knowledge of a gesture-rich
language has also been found to affect gesture rate when adult bilingual
individuals speak their low frequency gesture language (Pika, Nicoladis
and Marentette 2006). The language environment itself has also been
shown to affect childrens gestures. zyrek et al. (2008) found that with
increasing linguistic skills, English and Turkish speaking children started
to express motion events with gestures differently in these two language
environments thus approaching adult patterns of language-specific
expression.
Conclusions
Both brain and behavioural studies provide strong evidence for a universal
pattern in the development of gesture production in children. Infants seem
to use different gesture types rather similarly in various parts of the world.
However, at least in children beyond the stages of infancy, cultural
differences have been found in frequency of gesture and gesture types
used. Within Western culture, we found differences in gesture use between
British and Finnish children in a picture-naming task, and in some other
studies Finnish infants have been found to use fewer gestures than, for
example, American and Italian children. The gesture use of infants from
Eastern cultures, such as Japan, is similar to that of infants elsewhere.
However, some differences have been noticed in e.g., the use of emotive
gestures.
In summary, emptiness in the form of silence means that time (as in
speech) or space (as in gestures) does not necessary have to be filled and it
can be left untouched. In the area of communication, of which gestures are
a part, the cultural attitude towards emptiness seems to be related to
gesture use, at least in adults.
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Chapter Seven
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CHAPTER EIGHT
THE CONSTRUCT OF EMPTINESS IN AUGS
ANTHROPOLOGY OF NON-PLACES
GUNNAR SANDIN
Abstract. Our constant interaction with places places as urban partition,

as societal delimitation, or as purely mental fabrication involves a
complex mix of judgements; these judgements may be psychological,
political, aesthetic, etc. The question of whether we acknowledge or
disregard places, of whether we engage with them momentarily or over a
longer term, is a matter of concern for the disciplines of anthropology,
architecture and those strands of philosophy that deal with our attachment
to our surroundings. What we distinguish as a place, then, is a multifaceted matter, and depends to a large extent on the relationship between
the distinguishing agent and the culture(s) at hand. The French
anthropologist Marc Aug has especially in his book with the
emblematic title Non-places had a lot of influence in giving formulation
to a current of interest in studies of architecture and culture which moves
away from traditional and role-model examples, towards an interest in
contemporary place phenomena such as supermarkets, airports and
branded urban districts. The following presents a critical reading of Augs
standpoint, against a background of historical development, place
production and semiotic viewpoints.
Introduction
In daily life, we tend at first to think of places as fairly well-defined
partitions of the world those we live in, go to, or possess, but also those
we avoid, or are excluded from. We also regularly relate to places which
are less distinct or familiar to us, the kinds of places which are harder to
define but are still important parts of life, such as those on the periphery of
the paths of our daily movements, or those we might find ourselves in
without understanding how we got there or how to navigate in them. A
neighbourhood in the dark of evening or an anonymous hotel room may
give us feelings of uneasiness but also provide relief from the boredom
113
of habit. In addition, there are places we know of, but never reach: they
may require too much effort to travel to, or cause too much pain for us to
seek access to. Or we may of course simply choose to avoid a place for
many different reasons. In other words, we constantly interact with places
places as urban partition, as societal delimitation, or as purely mental
fabrication. Whether or not we acknowledge or disregard places, whether
we engage with them momentarily or over a longer term, therefore
involves a complex mix of judgements psychological, political, aesthetic,
etc. What we distinguish as a place, then, is a multi-faceted matter, and
depends to a large extent on the relationship between the distinguishing
actor and the culture(s) at hand.
In what follows, the notion of place will be considered through the
prism of a critical reading of Marc Augs (2002) influential writings
about late modern place-forms, as exemplified by supermarkets, airports
and constructed touristic representations of cultural heritage. These places
often regarded within the phenomenological tradition of place, as well as
by architectural theorists, as lacking genuine richness of place qualities
are, in Augs anthropological analysis, above all associated with notions
such as supermodernity, surrogacy and solitude.
Place and Non-Place

A perception or feeling of place is by necessity paralleled by some kind of
exclusion of what does not belong to that place; this could be seen in
general terms as the establishment of non-place. I interpret this label as
referring to any place-like property, and indeed also any actual place,
which for various reasons is not considered as a place proper by the
defining mind, or the defining community. It may be argued that nature
itself also defines places, by the way water flows and mountains enclose,
and so on, but in the present context I will take human activity as my point
of departure. The exclusion of certain property as having less or no sense
of place is a mechanism which is involved whenever we form our own
places. But exclusion and discrimination also threaten the dynamics of a
place, and in the end threaten the existence of the place itself as a living
entity. How then do place and non-place interact in ways which make
it possible for exchange of different kinds cultural, interpersonal,
disciplinary, economic, etc. to occur? Are there intermediate stages to be
found between such presumably separate worlds? Can the different modes
of how a place appears in usage replace a polarised view? What are the
deviations from or on the line of demarcation between a place and a
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Chapter Eight
non-place? Questions like these help to form the background to this

study.
Depending on the purpose economic, pragmatic, aesthetic and so on
there are many types of theoretical determination of place and of those
qualities that we may label placial (Casey 1997) in analogy with
space/spatial and site/situational. A fundamental ingredient in place
theories, though not always explicitly stated, is the fabrication of
dichotomies, either/or relations, and polarities. What then are the particular
types of dichotomies to be found in the analysis of the phenomenon that
we label place, and in the representations of place which are the
foundation for the communication of architecture and urbanity? As a
central concept in architecture as well as in site-specific art, which is a
domain of special interest here place has been comprehended
cognitively, semantically, geographically, politically and emotionally as
separate from non-places of various sorts. This separation is not
confined to theoretical argumentation about issues such as place/site,
place/space, place/placelessness, place/new place, place/discourse,
place/wilderness, etc.; it also appears in the practical management of
architectural and urban matters: place/background, place/sprawl,
place/space-left-over-in-planning, etc. This recurring need to define an
inside and an outside informs a substantial part of the daily professional
decision-making of architects, politicians, gardeners, etc. with regard to
how to categorise our spatial surroundings. And if, in line with much
recent philosophy of space, we extend the domain of fabrication of space
to the doings of ordinary life, then we find ourselves dealing with a very
wide scenario of place judgements. I am thinking here, for instance, of
how various scientific and sociological disciplines, but also daily practices
such as walking and the telling of stories, may generate spatial orders and
ultimately perhaps new places.
The Appearance of Non-Place in Different Frameworks

Concepts of place may evolve from a discomfort with the way human
activity is detached from human places, and from the presumption that we
find ourselves (to a greater extent than at any previous time) in a world
where large-scale and anonymous motives have replaced the traditional
scale of living. We can see how such an understanding of non-placeness
shows up as a negative node in various axiologies, as mere situatedness,
(Casey 1997), as placelessness (Relph 1976) or as dominated spaces
(Lefebvre 1991). A distinction less concerned with explicitly axiological
statements, and more with the understanding of the participatory experience
115
of space, was made by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1991); in his reflection on

spatial awareness he opened up approaches in which geometrical and
physical spaces were seen to be in co-existence with the subject that was
recognising those spaces. For Michel de Certeau, who saw place as a
static entity, in contrast to the more dynamic space (Certeau 1984), it
is an important point of departure that Merleau-Ponty distinguishes
geometrical space from the type of anthropological space where the
investigator is a participant in what is studied. Merleau-Ponty (1989), who
is critical not only of the idea of space as a perfect objectivity, but also of
the idea that there is a perfect subjectivity for which the object is made
determinable as an identifiable being and where it exists only for the
subject who carries out this identification (Merleau-Ponty 1989, 212),
argued for a more situation-based type of spatial existence: Once the
experience of spatiality is related to our implantation in the world, there
will always be a primary spatiality for each modality of this implantation.
(1989, 283).
As we will see in the reading of Marc Auges conception of modern
places presented below, the dual issue of the position of the individual in
places, and of that of the investigator both of them vital for anthropology
generates a peculiar notion of non-place.
In contemporary anthropology non-places may, as we shall see, be
talked of as if they were concrete places involving human activities. The
non prefix designates here, rather, a disciplinary approach, and places
are labelled in this way because no or too few traditional social facts are
expected to be found there: no inherited cultural life forms, no traditional
tribal patterns, no significant variety of social activities, etc. Since interest,
complexity and meaning have a tendency to increase in any empirical
object of study, non-places have gained in anthropological content. But
the disciplinary mechanism is not the primary reason for studying them
it is rather the case that non-places are studied as such because they have
shown themselves to be culturally significant in a contemporary
perspective. Typical non-places in this sense are places where people
stay only temporarily, such as airports, supermarkets, highways, refugee
camps, etc. Treated as such, the concept of non-place, in spite of the
nominal negativity of the term, plays a positive and revealing role in
contemporary theory of place. A non-place, defined as a not-previouslystudied place, thus denotes a new kind of investigative interest and a
category of place recognised in its own right as an important urban
factuality.
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Chapter Eight
Non-Place and the Anthropology of Supermodernity

The dilemma faced by contemporary anthropology and ethnology as to
what object to study in times when the idea of isolated societies is
becoming obsolete, has led to interest being directed towards the
investigative culture itself and its relations to other cultures. In Nonplaces: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, Marc Aug
(1995) considers this disciplinary dilemma with reference to an airline
flight, with all the sense of non-place that airports and air travel provide
in terms of temporary refuge and fictive other places at the destination.
Aug points to the problem of the scientific subject, a problem clearly
manifested in one of the central concepts of the field of social
anthropology the total social fact (Mauss 1950). Early studies of the
total social fact expected to find extremely rigid structures in the society
under scrutiny, and these original studies also revealed that the
investigating subject was affected by prejudices; it was presumed, for
instance, that there are groups, women, and men in archaic or backward
societies which, since they have automatic responses that the elite of
our modern societies dont have, are therefore better suited for analysis
(Aug 1995, 20). Despite the burden of these prejudiced perspectives, the
concept of total social fact taken as encompassing not only the cultural,
technical and economic aspects of a society's doings, but also reflecting
the self-image of the partakers of those doings has lived on and is still
used and commented upon. A problem for anthropology today one
which, according to Aug, leads to the creation of too many social facts
in the study of societies and their members is the constant need in
contemporary life to give everything a precise meaning. This is the price
we pay for the overabundance of events corresponding to a situation we
could call supermodern to express its essential quality: excess (Aug
1995, 29). He recognises in fact three aspects of supermodern excess: in
addition to the overabundance of events carrying specific meanings, he
also mentions spatial overabundance, and thirdly, the individualisation of
references. With the term spatial overabundance he recognises the
proliferation of actual and virtual access to places. By individualisation of
references he not only means that we in general have more personal
reference to the world, but also, and above all, he warns against ethnoself-analysis (1995, 39), pointing out that those who perform an
anthropological investigation do not have one common frame of reference,
and that as individuals they take actual part in different ways.
In relation to what Aug encapsulates as the individualisation of
references and an overabundance of spaces and events, we may recall the
117
analysis of Relphs (1976) stages (or states) of identification (which were

essentially anthropological), resulting in the grading of insideness (Sandin
2003). Regarding the multitude and diversity of identities produced in a
state of supermodernity, it would essentially not make sense to maintain
a limited number of modes of insideness since they will proliferate with
the number of people aspiring to be inside. But these gradings, or
modalities, may nevertheless precisely because of their fictitiousness
work as a means of enriching a one-sided placial discourse, regardless of
the variety and multitude of actual partakers' views. As we shall see, Aug
performs his own operation mainly via two of types of insiders, namely
the incidental (traveller) and the objective (anthropologist) but he
also represents the vicarious insider, since Non-places is written to
enable a broader public to get acquainted with a certain type of place
(Sandin 2003).
The difficulty of comprehending time today, Aug claims (1995, 30),
stems mainly from the (supermodern state of) overabundance of events in
the contemporary world, and not so much from the (postmodern state of)
collapse of the idea of progress. Aug presents a fairly simple image of our
ages spatial overabundance, with its quick and superficial access to
several places; he describes it as a decoy, a symbolic universe
whose manipulator is hard to identify (1995, 32-33), and makes no
attempt to elaborate on the fabric and machinery of that symbolicness.
He does not say anything about the producers of these spaces, about the
generators of tourism, advertising, etc; rather, these things are produced by
an anonymous they (or perhaps, ultimately, we). A closer view of the
semiotics of mediated place-making, its ways of communicating, its
paradigm of images, its ways of thinking in target-groups, etc, would have
added an interesting complexity here. Instead, he concludes in this respect
(somewhat hastily) that these closed universes where everything has
turned into a sign (1995, 33) build on recognition rather than knowledge.
Aug partly makes this simplification in order to point to the analogy with
the perfect ethnological universe, in which everything is a complete
whole; he simplifies, in other words, the semiotic complexity of the
contemporary production of culture and meaning. Augs view that there
is a sign into which all these mediated places are sucked implies an
interpretation or perception of cultural significance as something built only
on automatic or passive recognition, and in this respect it reminds us of a
simplified version of the notion of the spectacle of the Situationist
movement (Debord 1967). It would appear that Aug's primary intention
here is to characterise a spatial condition with which he believes many can
agree; but if we lend it credence, his mono-semiotic perspective which
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Chapter Eight
encompasses only a simplified view of the images, relations and conventions

involved in cultural sign-production risks neglecting the diversity of not
only the sign-production mechanisms, but also of the actually existing
range of responses, even down to such a superficial thing as place in a
tourist brochure.
Features of Augs Non-Places

When Aug turns explicitly to the concept of non-place, it is in contrast
to the sociological notion of place, associated by Mauss and a whole
ethnological tradition with the idea of a culture localised in time and
space (1995, 34). He associates non-place with the installations needed
for the accelerated circulation of passengers and goods (high-speed roads
and railways, airports), but also with commercial centres and transit camps
for refugees. Non-places are measured in units of time and lived
through in the present (1995, 104), says Aug, and points to the
contemporary need for timetables, notifications of delays, and airports
screened minute-to-minute updates on aircrafts progress. As places of
supermodernity, airports exceed in the latter type of spectacle, mediating
a sense of orientation (signposts, information brochures, loudspeaker
voices, etc.) which tells of an original world that is supposed to go on
outside the non-place. This supermodern type of place, described as a
channel for temporary stay or interchange, provides, says Aug, a paradox:
as new as they are, with their identity as places of the era of global
possibilities, they trigger a double desire for the genuine land of the
roots (1995, 35). This desire is viewed as an ambiguity, as being torn
between either staying at home in peace, or wanting to escape to a new
mother country by means of supermodernitys paradigm of communications.
Supermodernity makes the old into a specific spectacle, as it does with all
exotism and all local particularity (1995, 110). It creates, in Augs terms,
a condemned possibility of choosing between the language of
conservatism (to stay where we are) and that of messianism (to search
for a new provenance) (1995, 35).
It may seem paradoxical to view these new anthropological places
these sites of networks, of transport (of bodies, money, words and images)
and of temporary subsistence as forming a coherent empirical field of
study. As Augs own study shows, they develop their own modes of
regular activity, establish their own hierarchies of authority, and their own
sets of human identities. And even if Aug emphasises their non-historical
existence, they do seem, judging from Augs own choice of exemplification,
also to develop a history: one non-place leads to another, so to speak. We
119
need only think of the development of public transportation and its stations
for arrivals and departures: air flight has inherited the steward, the
terminal, the gate (etc.) from boat traffic and railways; and modern
trains have learned from air traffic how to assist passengers via
loudspeakers.
As an object of study, then, non-places are indeed paradoxical: in a
way they seem doomed to vanish, because they will lose their non-
status in the same instant as they become objects of investigation.
Nevertheless, as real places, opposite to utopias (1995, 111), they might
be seen to form a significant part of contemporary culture. They are even
quantifiable, as Aug puts it in a somewhat snappy but spatially intriguing
description: They are a real measure of our time with the aid of a few
conversions between area, volume and distance by totalling all the air,
rail and motorway routes, the mobile cabins called means of transport
(aircraft, trains and road vehicles), the airports and railway stations, hotel
chains, leisure parks, large retail outlets, and finally the complex skein of
cable and wireless networks that mobilise extraterrestrial space for the
purposes of a communication so peculiar that it often puts the individual in
contact only with another image of himself (1995, 79). A more linguistic
approach than a measuring of the mileage of communication routes is his
view of non-places as connoting a set of attitudes. Aug associates six
explicitly fashionable words with non-places (1995, 107-108) and
contrasts them with six attributes of the traditional place, as illustrated in
Table 1.
Table 1. Augs labels, associated with non-place and place, respectively
Non-Place
Place
Transit
Residence
Interchange
Passenger
Destination
Housing estate (French lensemble)
Communication
Crossroad
Traveller
Route
Monument
Language
Without subjecting this list of buzz words to any serious statistical or

semantic analysis, and without questioning in depth the obvious problem
of how fashion swings in life as well as in language, it can suffice here to
say that the word language, for instance, could be held to be just as
fashionable, and thus as supermodern, as the somewhat traditional
word communication (which in my experience is often associated with
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Chapter Eight
the heyday of informatics, or programmed city planning). To what extent

these labels provide an image plausible, crude or contorted of a
particular phase of circumstances remains for history itself to resolve.
More thorough and more radical is Augs analysis of individuality
individuals form the primary group in non-places and with
individuality, of the related notion of identity: Whereas anthropological
place is formed by individual identities through the unformulated rules
of living know-how, non-place creates a shared temporary identity of
passengers, customers and Sunday drivers (1995, 101). And this collective
identity is measured against the typical requirements of being prepared to
show a formalised personal identity: Individuals (customers, passengers,
users, listeners) are identified (name, occupation, place of birth,
address) only on entering or leaving (1995, 111). We may, in line with
Aug, imagine the moment of revelation, even when there is nothing in
particular to be revealed for instance when we get closer to the passport
control, or when facing the cash registers quest for our credit card data. In
both cases we leave the solemn state of collective anonymity.
The user of a non-place, Aug says, is in a way always required to
prove his innocence (1995, 102).1 Aug emphasises the individuality, and
the solitude linked to it, in collective activity: The individual wants to be
a world in himself, says Aug, addressing two phenomena thought of as
being performed in togetherness: religion and sex. Without citing any
reference he states that: Sociologists have revealed the singular character
of Catholic practice, and the question of relations between the sexes can
be settled only in the name of the undifferentiated value of the individual
(1995, 37). In transit halls, on airline flights, etc., we are provided with a
role for which a certain pattern of behaviour is expected, and which also
relieves us from usual determinants. These environments of the moment
provide us with the passive joys of identity-loss, or the more active
pleasure of role-playing (1995, 203). Similar lines of thought have also
been discussed in the context of the theory of art: the way in which certain
artists have moved towards positioning themselves and their works not in
real places, but in mediated ones, is expressive of a letting go of normal
traces of identity, and may even extend to a complete alteration of identity.
Miwon Kwon (2000) refers, in her analysis of contemporaneitys new
forms of being in place inter alia to Frederic Jameson, whose analysis of
postmodern hyperspace (Jameson 1991) contains considerable preechoes of what Aug later called supermodernity. Kwon also uses as an
example, and reference, a two-act play by Don DeLillo entitled Valparaiso,
1
In French the word non-lieu stands for the technical judicial situation that there is
no case to answer or no grounds for prosecution.
121
where the main character, after an accidental mix-up in flight destinations,

accepts the new itinerary and a new sense of belonging in the world
(Kwon 2000, 103).
As we have seen, Aug often emphasises the pleasantness of being one
in the crowd at non-places, and we may in this respect make a comparison
with the type of identity linked to Lefebvres (1991) notion of appropriating
space. We must then conclude that Augs perspective of pleasure
coincides partly with Lefebvres, where the individual may appropriate
space for reasons of liberation, for pleasure, or for the sake of resisting a
dominating spatial ordering. But their views also differ, at least on the
level of appropriation as a form for social resistance: Aug seems to
introduce a social view where a loss of appropriative desire (at least a
temporary one) is a primary need, or at least a possibility worth guarding.
On a deeper phenomenological level, they may actually both be
advocating the recognition of pleasure, but their ideological aims are quite
different: it is clear that while Lefebvres agent in the world is one of
production and resistance, Augs is one of a more passive partaking.
From the perspective of non-places as containing large groups (of
individuals), and non-places as immense placial parentheses daily
receiving ever increasing number of individuals (1995, 111), Aug makes
a particular observation relating to the vulnerability of these places: they
are typical targets for those whose passion for reclaiming or conquering
territory drives them to terrorism. Apart from the efficiency which
Aug speculates such acts may have as a result of being directed towards
crowds, there could be another, more obscure, reason for their being
perpetrated against non-places: the fact that these places are actually
existent, i.e. opposite to utopia, while at the same time they are devoid
of what Aug labels organic society (apparently, again, in relation to
traditional places). For these reasons they are, Aug says, negations of
[terrorist] ideals (1995, 111). There are grounds for adding to this
speculation of Augs the observation that terroristic activity in later
decades has shown that it is most often the symbolic meaning of a place,
seen in a political context, that makes it into a target; and in some cases,
such as the WTC in New York in September 2001, the place (building)
itself stands for financial and societal progress. In other words, the World
Trade Center also embodied traditional symbolic values of wealth.
Moreover, the aftermath of that event showed the difficulty inherent in
dealing with emptiness; Ground Zero, the place where the buildings
destroyed in the terrorist attack had had their physical fundament, was the
subject of considerable controversy with regard to its particular emptiness,
and with regard to how to rebuild the place. Ground Zero has now been
122
Chapter Eight
given emphasis as a memorial, expressed in the decision to leave the

ground level, free from new building construction above-ground (Sturken
2004).
Disciplinary Matters of Interest

A main line of thought, as we have seen, in Non-places, is the articulation
of the need for a new domain of anthropological interest, and although
Aug in this book does not go further into the practical side of what such
studies might contain, and in what directions they might extend, he
proposes a future scientific task related to these spaces of singularity and
anonymity, namely, the ethnology of solitude (1995, 120). Solitude,
according to Aug, is what we are forced into or what we desire when
we are in the midst of a mono-functional activity such as flying or
shopping. Solitude is actually required, it is a fundamental in non-places,
and is emphasised in the accelerating number of situations in which we
have to show cards to identify ourselves in order to be able to pursue an
action: taking out money, buying things, crossing borders, opening doors,
etc.
Aug can be seen as an inverted anthropologist in more than one
sense: in the way he approaches his own culture, and his personal cultural
habits of travelling by plane or by underground train, it is almost as if he is
disguised as a newcomer; he also uses observations made as a veteran
anthropologist of the cultures in the southern region of the Ivory Coast,
and transfers them to the (so-called) Western world. In an introduction to
Augs In the Metro, the translator and theorist of French culture, Tom
Conley, notes that it is possible to locate at least four elements
transported to and from the Ivory Coast and Paris (Conley 2002). Without
entering into detailed scrutiny of these elements here, they may be briefly
listed in the aim of casting a light on the background to some of Augs
perspectives: According to Conley, they may be summarised as: 1)
Solitude accrues as the world accelerates. Where greater access to
technologies of communication is obtained, a greater degree of isolation
results; 2) The dialogue of the self and the other is anchored in the
variously plural and collective self in Alladian culture;2 3) The non-lieu
or non-place, and its corollary, the shrinkage of space that marks
postcolonial culture. Aug finds it in the erasure of the myriad sense of
place that had been part of the mentality and the social geography to the
west of Abidjan in the late 1960s. This placial erasure made it necessary
2
Aug visited Alladian cultures, which are found along the southern shore of the
Ivory Coast, first in the mid-1960s, then several times later.
123
for the ethnographers phantasm of an originary and perpetual place of

habitation to be studied as the illusion it was; 4) Oblivion, and
aberration of memory, are what Aug might be putting forward as a
constructive antidote to the condition of solitude. In the loss of memory is
assured the drive to go ahead and to return to anodyne places in order that
they can be transformed into vital spaces (Conley, 2002).
The fact that Augs transitory attempts in Non-places often present a
somewhat crude, perhaps popularised and oversimplified side for
example in his views on supermodern society as a sign (as a spectacle),
in the lack of possible historical contextualisation, and in the passive view
of people as paralysed participants in an uncontrollable course of events
is no hindrance to the interesting fact that Augs study is a serious attempt
at adopting a Western (anthropological) view of itself in comparison with a
set of notions brought from investigation of other cultures. That he still
differentiates between Western and non-Western societies becomes
clear however, when for unspecified reasons he hesitates to attribute to
other societies than the Western a desire for self-fulfilment. In the
Western world, the individual wants to be a world in himself: he intends
to interpret the information delivered to him by himself and for himself.
This observation on his own culture recalling a traditional anthropological
view that individualism is a typically Western phenomena does not
rhyme very well with his own initial mission: to state an anthropology of
non-places where it is not Europe that is under scrutiny but
contemporaneity itself (Aug 1995). The fact that, across the globe, there
are any number of complex individual and political cases of self-fulfilment
seems here to be missing from his analysis.
Conclusion: Non-Places Contextualised

As we have seen, non-places are characterised by Aug as constructed in a
moment of history: they do not integrate earlier places, but are listed,
classified, promoted and assigned to a circumscribed and specific
position. They are, as Aug puts it repeatedly, other than places, which
are relational, historical, or concerned with identity (Aug 1995, 78). In
this idealistic and polemical, yet believable view, we recognise once
again the typical quasi-phenomenological idea of a loss-of-place. It is clear,
however, that Aug has a slightly different axiological view, or a different
interpretation of the notion of a loss-of-place, than is expressed for
instance in Relphs ethnological categories, or by the place-identity
oriented architectural theorists like Frampton and Norberg-Schulz, all of
whom presuppose the existence of a genuine, or authentic, place an idea
124
Chapter Eight
that emanates from a romantic relationship to a phenomenological tradition.

Augs enterprise differs also from the place phenomenology of Casey,
even if they both more than anything else are calling for a renewed interest
in places without this interest necessarily being linked to a recovery of old
times or to the notion of architectural genius. It is, however, clear that
Casey fears the seemingly inevitable course of extinction of traditional
placial values in modern urban and architectural development (Casey
1997), while Aug, in this same historical course of events, sees that there
is scope not only on a disciplinary level but also on a lived one for
appreciation of, and for possibilities to be experienced in, new place-forms.
That being said, the fact that Aug emphasises the non-place as a
construct, relieved from the course of history and from its relation to
(other) places, does, as we have seen, have a problematic side to it: since
non-places hardly can be devoid of historicity and recognisable
decision-making, and since they are not devoid of identities Aug
himself is very much occupied with precisely the identities found in them
they do not quite fit the ideal view of having simply appeared, as if
dropped on Earth from nowhere. Perhaps it would be more apt to adopt a
view of these types of places that is rooted in an acceptance of their
identity as being in a state of becoming, of their being emerging and
expiring places of transition. Another approach to these places would be
to discuss them as indexical, i.e. places that point to other ones, or are part
of a larger body of cultural significance. 3 Otherwise, we find ourselves
forced to accept their disciplinary definition and status, as expressed in
statements made in the attempt to define an area that offers the
anthropologist a new object of study (Aug 1995, 78).
3
Aug is much concerned with placial pointedness i.e. a pointing towards for
instance a destination or towards a world represented on an information board
rather than a placial stability in the traditional sociological sense. The label
indexical represents an attempt to achieve a thematical conjoining of certain
typical features of these places namely the fact that they are not full
anthropological places, but are relationally conditioned, transitory, juxtapositional
and surrogate. They are incomplete or, as Aug puts it: parentheses. The notion
of indexicality is borrowed from Charles S Peirces theory of signs. Indexicality
means here that something is pointing out, or is pointed out by, something else.
This state of directedness separates indexes from other sign relations either those
that depend on immediate recognition based on resemblance (icons, in Peirces
terminology) or those that are conventionally conditioned (symbols).
Psychologically, the action of indexes depends upon contiguity, and not upon
resemblance or upon intellectual operations (Peirce CP, 2.306). In Peirces
typology, an indexical sign is not as grounded in cultural knowledge and
framework as a symbolic sign is (Peirce CP, 2.274-306).
125
Aug shows no interest in left-over places i.e. low-value sites like inbetween areas, ditches, the kinds of materialised remnants which are a
residue when urban plans have been carried out, abandoned houses, etc.
as is otherwise usual in romantic or dystopian understandings of nonplaces. Nor is he interested in the type of symbolically and culturally
invested emptiness that carries a particular spatial value, as is at times
attributed to specific architectural traditions, such as the Japanese
(Thompson 1998). On the contrary, he is mainly interested in the highly
technological and massively visited places that are emblematic for modern
life-style behaviour such as shopping, transportation and tourism, and in
his theoretical stance he places himself in a French philosophical and
epistemological tradition. In the fashion of Foucault and the Situationist
movement, these surpluses of modern urbanism are viewed as highly
significant of the type of society that creates them. Certeau, as a writer on
space and cities, and as an important source of influence, may be seen as
positioned somewhere between Augs meta-anthropological approach
and the Situationists more artistic pragmatism, since he is much
concerned with how to deal with the individuals relation to, and
navigation in, existing places.
With the notion non-place (non-lieu) Aug attempts to break with a
pessimistic view of modernitys new types of places, saying that despite
their having been considered as anthropologically empty, or as not
containing enough traditional social goings-on, they are exemplifiers
which reflect new forms of human life. He thus operates with, and against,
what he regards as the traditional anthropological place, which is
considered to be established as far as rituals and symbols are concerned.
We might be tempted, Aug says, to contrast the symbolised space of
place with a non-place defined as a non-symbolised space. But that, he
continues, would hold us to the existing negative definition of nonplaces (Auge 1995, 82). Still, he regards space in general as eminently
abstract, not yet symbolised, and consequently, as lacking characterisation.
This definition seems at first to accord with Certeaus (1984), but lacks the
latters existential preference for precisely that openness. Oddly enough, it
therefore accords better with how Casey (1997), in his philosophical
history of the notion of place, views space as a mere anonymous container
of places. Only to a lesser extent does this view of space as anonymous
correspond to what Lefebvre (1991) calls mental or abstract space,
because Lefebvres modalities of space do actually carry characterisation,
in that they are always described as produced by someone. The view that
space is produced and formed in an act of appropriation is central also for
Certeau. Aug took inspiration from Certeau in the way he regards non-
126
Chapter Eight
place as a positive rather than negative social type, but sees it as invested
with meaning more as an anthropological object of study than as a matter
of social fact.
Aug admits that this dichotomy is partly rhetorical, and not perfect:
Place is never completely erased, non-place never totally completed
(1995, 79). This statement essentially opens up for an anthropological
investigation of the borderline itself, but Aug prefers, seemingly for
polemical reasons, to maintain the dichotomy as solid enough to form a
basis for a questioning of anthropologys field of interest. A broadening of
the demarcation line into what would be a discursive and disciplinary area,
an area of semi-places, or modalised places, is not explicitly announced in
Non-places; it could however be said, as an affirmative concluding remark,
that an area for investigation is actually made visible here, since Aug
demonstrates and implies the need for a more diversified analysis of the
meaning of new types of places, and for an enriched analysis of solitude as
a social role.
References
Auge, M. 1995: Non-places: introduction to an anthropology of
supermodernity. (Orig.: Non-lieux: Introduction une anthropologie
de la supermodernit), London/New York, Verso.
Casey, E. 1997: The Fate of Place. Berkely/Los Angeles/London, Univ. of
California Press.
de Certeau, M. 1984: The Practice of Everyday Life. London, Univ. of
California Press.
Conley, T. 2002: Introduction, in Aug, M. In the Metro. Minneapolis,
Univ. of Minnesota Press
Debord, G. 1994: The society of the spectacle (Orig.: La societ du
spectacle, 1967). New York, Zone Books.
Jameson, 1991: Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
Durham, Duke Univ. Press.
Kwon, M. 2000: The Wrong Place, Art Journal. Spring 2000, 33-43.
Lefebvre, 1991: The Production of Space. (Orig.: Production de lespace,
1974), Oxford/Cambridge, Mass, Blackwell,
Merleau-Ponty, M. 1989: Phenomenology of Perception (Orig.:
Phnomnologie de la Perception (1945). London, Routledge.
Mauss, M. 1950: Sociologie et anthropologie. Paris, Les Presses
universitaires de France
Peirce, C. S. 19311935 & 1958: The collected papers of Charles Sanders
Peirce. Vols. IVI [Hartshorne & Weiss, Eds., 19311935], Vols.
127
VIIVIII [Burks, Ed., 1958]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press. (Citations use the common form: CP vol.paragraph).
Relph, E. 1976: Place and Placelessness. London, Pion Ltd.
Sandin, G. 2003: Modalities of Place: on polarization and exclusion in
concepts of place and in site-specific art. Lund University.
Sturken, M. 2004: The aesthetics of absence: rebuilding Ground Zero,
American Ethnologist, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp 311-325. Berkeley, Univ. of
California Press.
Thompson, F. 1998: A comparison between Japanese exterior space and
Western common place, Nordisk Arkitekturforskning 1/2, pp 115136.
CHAPTER NINE
COUNTING SYSTEMS AND CLASSIFIER/
NON-CLASSIFIER LANGUAGES
AND BORKO KOVAEVI
Abstract. This paper discusses the basic counting systems in the worlds
languages in connection with their cultural diversity, with particular
attention to the sense of emptiness. There are roughly two types of
counting systems in the languages of the world, depending on how
speakers make the distinction between count and mass nouns: the classifier
type and the non-classifier type. Hence there are classifier and nonclassifier languages (with the addition of optional classifier languages).
Generally speaking, classifier and optional classifier languages are
concentrated in East and Southeast Asia, and it seems possible to claim
that this is a clear areal feature. The concentration of these languages
seems to correspond to the area where various versions of Confucianism
were followed. This cultural difference seems to stem from a basic world
view, especially in terms of reductive and holistic views. In the case of
Asian countries, everything appears as uncountable mass, i.e. countable
elements are absent from a speakers perspective. In non-classifier
languages, each item is focused, suggesting that figure (as against ground)
has its prominence in conceptualisation. In classifier languages, on the
other hand, the figure does not receive much attention, and since both
figure and ground receive more or less an equal amount of focus, they can
be identical in mental representation. The conclusion is that the counting
system reflects one of the basic cultural differences between East and
West, i.e. the sense of emptiness.
Introduction
We may take counting and the use of numbers for granted in our daily life,
but basic counting systems are surprisingly diverse and by no means
universal, although it is possible to classify counting systems into several
129
types. In addition, as later sections reveal, different systems seem to

correspond to different parts of the world. There are some previous works
in this line of argument, e.g. Corbett (2000), Senft (2000), etc., and they
deal with typological characteristics of counting systems and number.
This paper elaborates these previous works and analyses the basic
counting systems in the worlds languages in connection with their cultural
diversity, especially paying attention to the sense of emptiness. It is argued
here that regional differences can be ascribed to differing understanding of
the sense of emptiness.
This paper is organised as follows: We start off with some theoretical
issues concerning number and counting. This section may not be related to
the rest of the paper, but it serves to indicate complexity of various issues
in linguistics concerning number and counting. Following this, we present
the basic distinction of counting systems, i.e. classifier and non-classifier
types. This distinction is also shown according to a regional distribution in
the world. The typological distribution seems to correspond to various
cultural features and along this line of argument, we incorporate the sense
of emptiness in counting systems. This can also be argued in terms of
cognitive science, and highlights how the counting system can illustrate
the reflection of cultural practice on linguistic forms.
Theoretical issues concerning number and counting

Counting and numbers are complex issues in any single language, let alone
in typology. A simple case is a noun phrase including numerals. There is a
head-dependent relationship between noun and numerals in terms of
agreement between controller and target. Naturally, different systems are
formed in different languages and there are opposing cases. First, let us
examine the numeral-centred type.
In Somali, for instance, the numerals function as syntactic head or the
controller of agreement and they attract the determiner. Consider the
example in (1): the head noun lab two is grammatically feminine and
the remote determiner accordingly takes the feminine form ti, not the
masculine form ki, and the noun functioning as a modifier is in the
genitive case. Similarly in Hungarian, numerals are the syntactic head
requiring the noun to stand in the singular, creating a potential mismatch
of form and meaning. Consider the examples in (2). The target of singular
agreement in (2a) is the nominal mkus squirrel, although it is modified
by a numeral tz six.
130
(1)
(2)
Chapter Nine
Somali (Cushitic, Saeed 1999, 71)

lab-ti
waraab
two.FEM.ABS-the.REM hyena.SG.GEN
the two hyenas (remote) (lit. those two of hyena)
Hungarian (Corbett 2006, 166)
a. Tz
mkus
szalad
ten
squirrel.SG run.3SG
Ten squirrels run.
b. Mkus-ok
szalad-nak
squirrel-PL run-3PL
(Some) squirrels are running.
The second type involves languages of the nominal-centred type. The

Latin example in (3) shows that the numeral duo two agrees with the
noun it modifies, genus class in number, case and gender. Note that this
is not a result of the preposition governing the numeral. The preposition de
of in this case governs the noun genus class and forces it to be in
ablative. Since this noun is neuter plural, the numeral agrees with it in
gender and number. In Russian, the numeral agrees in number with its
head. Thus, the numeral odin one in (4) has a plural marker agreeing
with its head nonicy scissors in plural form. Note, however, that this is a
rather extreme case, since nonicy scissors does not have a singular form
and this type of noun is extremely rare in Russian.
(3)
(4)
Latin
Sed
de his
duobus
generibus
in.fact of this.ABL.PL.N two.ABL.PL.N class.ABL.PL.N
alterum
est druidum,
alterum
equitum
one.NOM.SG is Druid.GEN.PL one.NOM.SG knight.GEN.PL
Of these two classes, the one consists of Druids, the other of
knights. (Caeser Bello Gallico 6.13)
Russian (Corbett 2006, 42)
odn-i
nonic-y
one-PL scissors-PL
one pair of scissors
These examples are a minimum set of examples to illustrate opposing

cases of the head-dependent and the controller-target in agreement
relationships. Once numerals and counting are considered in much wider
131
perspectives, much more complex systems are also included. In Lithuanian,

for example, the numerals between one and nine are used as adjectives and
agree with the head noun in gender, case, and number. Thus, (5a) carries
the masculine singular ending -as showing agreement with a singular
masculine noun bernikas boy, whereas in (5b), the same numeral has the
feminine singular suffix -, due to its head noun mergit girl. This is a
nominal-centred type. The numerals from ten to nineteen are used as
nouns and dependent nouns have to be in the genitive plural, as
exemplified in (5c). Such cases show a numeral-centred type.
(5)
Lithuanian (Ambrazas 2006, 167)

a. ven-as
bernik-as
one-NOM.MASC.SG boy-NOM
one boy
b. vien-
mergit-
one-NOM.FEM.SG girl-NOM
one girl
c. dvlika
kd-i
twelve
chair-PL.GEN
twelve chairs
These cases differ considerably from the similar cases found in

languages like English. Such diversity has been noticed (cf. Corbett 2000;
2006), but no coherent typological explanation has been offered to unify
all those phenomena concerned with number and counting. Apart from
various issues concerning actual counting, there is another complex issue
dealing with zero (cf. Seife 2000). Simple cases shown here in (1) to (5)
may nonetheless be enough to show how complex it can be to explain the
whole paradigm of numerals and counting systems.
In addition to the diversity presented so far, another aspect has to be
incorporated in order to understand fully how number and counting are
understood, i.e. the distinction between mass and countable nouns.
Languages normally deal with counting mass nouns by using classifiers.
However, some languages do not behave in a similar way to the languages
seen in (1) to (5), in the sense that they require classifiers for both mass
and countable nouns. Thus, a further division can be made according to
how countable nouns are counted.
132
Chapter Nine
Classifier and non-classifier languages

There are roughly two types of counting systems in the world languages,
depending on how speakers make the distinction between count and mass
nouns (cf. Senft 1996; 2000). These two types of nouns can be treated
identically or differently. The former system is called the classifier type
and the latter, the non-classifier type. This distinction had been noticed
even several decades ago, as summarised in Lyons (1977, 463):
[Non-classifier] languages which grammaticalize the distinction between
entity-denoting nouns and mass-denoting nouns tend to draw a sharp
syntactic distinction between phrases like three men on the one hand,
and three glasses of whisky, on the other. Classifier languages do not:
they treat enumerable entities and enumerable quanta in much the same
way.
In reality, however, there is a third type, which can optionally have

classifiers; this is not compulsory. Thus, we have three types, the classifier,
optional classifier, and non-classifier types, and languages with each type
are henceforth referred to as classifier, optional classifier and nonclassifier languages.
Let us take a look at some actual examples. Non-classifier languages
do not use classifiers when counting countable nouns as in English two
books vs. two glasses of water. The examples in (6) from Tagalog
(Austronesian) further illustrate this point. In non-classifier languages,
classifiers are normally free lexical items, not affixes, and they do not
form a morphological unit with the noun they modify. Note that Tagalog
has a ligature of morphophonemically variable form, i.e. the enclitic -ng.
There are some confusing cases such as nominal class in, e.g. NigerCongo languages such as Bantu. Each noun class has its specific semantic
criteria, such as animacy, shape, size, number (SG/PL), etc. The examples
in (7), taken from Chichea (Bantu), illustrate such cases. The noun fupa
bone is class 5/6 (i.e. class 5 for singular and class 6 for plural), and
according to the nominals including the numeral, the modifier takes
different prefixes (i.e. li- for class 5 and a- in class 6). However, these
languages normally have affixes to mark the nominal class, and verbs
carry agreement markers (see Dimmendaal 2000, 189-191 for a
comprehensive summary of this issue concerning African languages), and
such cases are not considered as non-classifier languages in the current
work.
(6)
(7)
133
Tagalog (Austronesia, p.c. Miguel Maliksi)

a. dalawa-ng aklat
two-LIG
book
two books
b. dalawa-ng
puswelo-ng
tsaah
two-LIG
cup-LIG
tea
two glasses of tea
Chichea (Bantu, Corbett 2006, 43)
a. fupa
li-modzi
bone(5/6) 5-one
one bone
b. ma-fupa
a-wiri
PL-bone(5/6) 6-two
two bones
The classifier and optional classifier languages require classifiers in

counting both countable and uncountable objects. The examples in (8)
from Japanese and (9) from Minangkabau (Austronesian) illustrate how
classifiers are employed. Japanese is a typical classifier language, whereas
Minangkabu is an optional classifier language. Note that (9d) illustrates an
optional case, where the classifier ikue can be omitted, although the
general counting system is the classifier type. This can be considered in
comparison with (9c), where the classifier is obligatory. Note that some
languages may allow several classifiers for the same object. For instance,
Japanese has a more semantic/function-based classifier system (cf.
Downing 1996), with a fluid system of assigning a specific classifier. This
flexibility creates some ambiguous cases for certain referents. The
classifier for ika cuttlefish is normally pai plateful, since cuttlefish are
normally sold on a plate, but it can be also counted with hiki tail, the
classifier for fish. Such cases will increase the complexity of the classifier
system in some languages.
(8)
Japanese
a. hon
ni-satu
book
two-CLF
two books
b. hana
ni-hon
flower
two-CLF
two flowers
c. mizu ni-hai
water two-CLF
two glasses of water
134
(9)
Chapter Nine
Minangkabau (Sundic, Austronesian, Gil 2008)

a. sa-urang padusi
one-CLF woman
one woman
b. tigo batang pituluik
three CLF
pencil
three pencils
c. duo ikue
anjiang
two CLF
dog
two dogs
d. duo (ikue) anjiang
two (CLF) dog
two dogs
The number of classifiers in each language may also vary. Malay, for
instance, has ca. 20 classifiers, as shown in Table 1. In Tariana
(Arawakan), 81 classifiers are listed in Aikhenvald (2003, 89-92). In
Tariana, the animate and inanimate nominal distinction is important, and
there are three classifiers for animate (general animate, human and, if a
referent is of female sex, another classifier may be used for emphasis), but
the rest refer to inanimate referents, mainly based on shape and function.
The Tariana example in (10) has an animate classifier -ita, and the
classifier in (11a), -kha, is based on shape and form (i.e. curvilinear),
while (11b) is an example of specific classifiers, i.e. -pukuipe refers to a
turn.
Table 1. Classifiers in Malay (Lewis 1947, 67-68)
Classifier
orang
ekor
buah
biji
batang
klai (or lai)
kping
puchok
bilah
bntok
bidang
Semantic range
human beings
other living creatures
large things
smaller things
rod-like things
thin layers/sheets
pieces, slabs, fragments
letters, fire arms
bladed things
rings, hooks
mats, widths of cloths
Classifier
Kuntum
Kaki
Urat
Pintu
Tangga
Patah
Butir
puntong
Potong
Utas
Semantic range
flowers
long-stemmed flowers
threads
houses (in a row)
Malay houses
Words
jewels, seeds, fruits
stumps, butt-ends
slices, of bread
fishing nets
135
Tariana (Aikhenvald 2003, 90, 92, 93)

(10)
pa-ita
em-ite
mat-i:te
one-NUM.CL.ANIM youngster-NCL.ANIM good-NCL.ANIM
one nice child.
(11)
a. kule-kha fishing line, hewya-pi-kha rainbow (curvilinear)

b. u:ni-pukuipe turn of a river (turn)
The source of these classifiers can be identifiable in some cases. Heine

and Kuteva (2002), for instance, state that languages use nouns such as
branch, child, man, piece, song, tree, woman as the source of
classifier grammaticalisation, e.g. Kikivila (Austronesian, Senft 1996, 29,
175) sisila branch > sisi; Vietnamese (Lbel 1996, 138, 172) con child
> con; Akatek (Mayan, Zavala 2000, 134-135) winaj man > naj;
Chinese (Bisang 1999: 133) kui piece, lump, chunk> kui; Hmong
(Hmong-Mien, Bisang 1999, 131, 167, 173) zaj song > zaj; Chinese
(Bisang 1999, 164) g (bamboo) tree > ge; Akatek (Mayan, Zavala 2000,
134) ix/ix woman > ix. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg and
cannot cover languages with much diversity of classifiers. As Heien and
Kuteva acknowledge, this is a rich area, which has been under studied and
further research is hence required.
Typological distribution
As with any other linguistic characteristics, it is impossible to make out
firm typological characteristics, but one can observe general typological
tendencies (cf. Evans and Levinson 2009), and this can also be applied to
the classifier and non-classifier languages. The distribution of these
classifier systems, including the intermediate optional type, is illustrated in
Figure 1. Generally speaking, classifier and optional classifier languages
are concentrated in East and Southeast Asia, represented in the shaded
circles in the figure (the darker shade for classifier languages, and the
lighter shade for optional classifier languages). It is worth mentioning that
some languages in this concentrated area are non-classifier languages, e.g.
Tagalog (cf. (6)), Yami, Chamorro, etc. (all Austronesian). Apart from this
area, there are some in Central/South America and some sporadic
languages along the north-western coast of North America and in West
Africa. It seems possible to claim that classifier and optional classifier
languages are regional, and in the rest of the world, this system is rare or
absent.
136
Chapter Nine
Figure 1. Distribution of classifier and non-classifier languages (Gil 2008)
Note that some of the languages considered as non-classifier languages

do not have any linguistic means of elaborate counting systems. Pirah (a
language isolate spoken in Brazil) is known to lack number entirely (cf.
Corbett 2000, 50-51; Everret 2005; 2009, 424-428), but this is the only
such extreme case. Other languages have some forms of numerals, but the
number distinction can be more complex than the distinctions among
singular, plural, dual, trial, paucal, etc. Noticeable is what Corbett (2000,
30-35) terms greater plural. In this system, plural is divided into two
subtypes; one normal plural and the other, excessive plural. One example
is shown in (12), taken from Fula (Niger-Kordofanian). This system can
modify itself varyingly once combined with numerals: Worora
(Australian), for instance, has a single numeral root which means one in
the singular, two in the dual and three or more in the plural. In some
extreme case, the greater plural is foregrounded once it is contrasted with
the numeral one: e.g. Botocudo (Macro-Ge) has terms only for one and
many (cf. Stampe 1976, 596; Greenberg 1978, 256; Dixon 1980, 107108; Heine 1997, 24). Thus, the white dots in Figure 1 do not always refer
to non-classifier languages like English, but some may simply lack an
elaborate counting system up to higher numbers.
(12)
Fula (Niger-Kordofanian, Evans 1994, 21.6)

a. ngesa field (singular)
b. gese fields (plural, in a sense of several, many)
c. geseeli fields (plural, in a sense of excessively many)
137
Nevertheless, it is indeed interesting to observe the clear areal feature.

Noticeably, a similar distributional pattern can be found for the future
tense (see Toyota, this volume). It may be a mere coincidence, but the
concentration of classifier languages seems to correspond to the area
where various versions of Confucianism are/once were followed. Thus,
what is observed in literature or arts in general in this region may be also
reflected in the grammar.
Counting system in terms of emptiness

What the distribution in Figure 1 suggests is that there is a clear
regional characteristic, and that languages spoken in Asia tend to be
classifier languages. Once analysed from an evolutionary perspective, the
origin of counting can be traced back to the recognition of size, i.e.
roughly speaking, smallness represents singularity and largeness, plurality,
based on some sporadic evidence found in certain modern languages such
as Pirah, e.g. ho i small size or amount, ho somewhat larger size or
amount, and ba a gi so cause to come together (loosely many),
although they possibly make a rough mass and count distinction (Everret
2005, 263). This system is closer to the holistic type of counting, i.e. the
classifier type. In this sense, the classifier system still preserves an earlier
world view.
The counting systems we have seen so far are representations of
linguistic forms, an underlying system of counting may be more complex
than the forms can possibly represent. A good example is the use of a mass
noun as a countable noun through metonymy, e.g. English three coffees, as
used for ordering in a caf, for instance, referring to three cups of coffee
(cf. Lee 2001, 137-146). This type of metonymy is found elsewhere, but
nevertheless, it is fair to say that counting systems in the west and in the
east differ considerably, and the eastern systems may reflect the basic idea
of the sense of emptiness. This idea has been represented elsewhere in this
volume concerning literature and other forms of culture, especially
Confucianism (cf. Vinji iovi & Toyota; Gledi, both in this volume).
The cultural difference seems to stem from the basic world view,
especially in terms of reductive and holistic views. The eastern perspective
seems to be deeply embedded in Confucianism, in the sense that a certain
object is considered as a whole creating a harmony. In this way, a number
of objects can be considered as a mass block. For instance, books are
considered as one mass of the same object and each volume is not clearly
marked. This perspective is holistic, and countable and uncountable
elements are practically identical, since speakers do not pay attention to
138
Chapter Nine
countable elements in count nouns. In other words, objects around

speakers are all equally considered mass nouns.
Contrary to this type, the western view focuses on each volume, and
the entire number of books is not marked. Perhaps the best representative
of the reductive view found here is ancient Greek: the Greeks were known
for their reductively analytical thinking (cf. Robins 1990, 11-14).
Bloomfield (1933, 4) claims that the ancient Greeks had the gift of
wondering at things that other people take for granted. This means that
they pay due attention to fine details, which allowed them to examine the
world in terms of whether they can dissect a certain object into pieces or
not. Thus, they distinguish countable elements from uncountable ones.
Concerning mass nouns, both East and West use the same counting
system and the basic difference lies in how countable nouns are viewed.
This is why languages spoken in Asia require classifiers even on count
nouns, because they are considered as a substance, not a quantity. Nisbett
(2003, 18) summarises this cultural dichotomy as follows:
For the Chinese, the background scheme for the nature of the world was
that it was a mass of substances rather than a collection of discrete objects.
Looking at a piece of wood, the Chinese philosopher saw a seamless whole
composed of a single substance, or perhaps of interpenetrating substances
of several kinds. The Greek philosopher would have seen an object
composed of particles. Whether the world was composed of atoms or of
continuous substances was debated in Greece, but the issue never arose in
China. It was continuous substances, period.
The concept of emptiness, as found elsewhere in this volume, seems

to play an important role in this case too. In the case of Asian countries,
everything appears as uncountable mass, meaning that countable elements
are absent from a speakers perspective. The lack of awareness of
countable elements at the linguistic level is comparable to emptiness in
other parts of cultural practice, i.e. the art form focuses on the overall
presentation in viewers mind by providing a bare minimum as a base.
Although some details are provided, viewers still focus on the overall
perspective leaving most details aside. Thus, one aspect of cultural
practice can be found in another, considering a language as a cultural
product, along the line of relativity. It can also be argued that this
difference comes from social factors, i.e. East Asians live in complex
social networks with prescribed role relations. Attention to context is
important to effective functioning (Nisbett and Masuda 2007, 153). Their
argument reconfirms that the sense of emptiness stems from different
aspects of human life in different cultures.
139
Cognitive explanation
Neibett (2003) and Nisbett and Masuda (2007) present a basic difference
in reductive and holistic perception, with their psychological analysis,
which involves gaze when looking at a picture. When a picture is taken
with a person in it, as they argue, the Western culture tends to focus on the
person, leaving little background, while the Eastern culture tries to
incorporate the background much more than the Western culture does. In
other words, Europeans are claimed to have more focus on perception of a
scene (i.e. the person), while East Asians are more likely to attend to the
broad perception and conceptual field (i.e. the person as well as the
background). This can be shown by the amount of time a person spends
when he gazes at a picture.
The opposition between reductive and holistic views can be
comparable to structuralism, and Gestalt psychology has often been
considered a counterpart to structuralism. In structuralism, the basic
understanding of the world is considered in terms of a pair of binary
oppositions, and this has been fundamental in developing modern
linguistics by scholars such as de Saussure or Bloomfield (see Toyota
2009 for application of this approach to evolution of languages). Gestalt
psychology, on the other hand, tends to view the world in a holistic way,
claiming that the brain operates by calculating a situation as a whole. In
achieving this, the brain tends to identify a certain object in focus with
others in the background. In a way, this is a binary segmentation of the
world, but both components are necessary elements in the holistic view.
The Gestalt approach has been applied to various related disciplines,
and cognitive linguistics (e.g. Lakoff 1977, 1987; Langacker 1987)
incorporates this basic principle in its explanation of how we communicate.
It is common to use a schematic representation involving figure and
ground (or trajectory and landmark) in this approach. In this way, we
perceive a figure (or trajectory) with ground (or landmark) in the
background. Thus, when we perceive a person walking across a park, for
instance, we visually follow a person as a figure and the park in the
background as ground. It is in our human nature that we tend to focus on
figure, and the importance of the background is somewhat suppressed.
Thus, it is natural that when we look at a portrait, the focus is naturally put
on the person depicted in the picture and whatever is painted in the
background receives less attention, unless it is in some way particularly
focused.
What has been proposed in Gestalt psychology is applicable to human
conceptualisation of the world in general, regardless of the origin of each
140
Chapter Nine
individual. However, considering the nature of emptiness in different

cultures, it is possible to claim that Asian cultures tend to behave slightly
differently, i.e. they seem to focus on ground as well as figure, or in a
relative term, ground in Asian cultures is given more focus than that in
Western cultures, as discussed in Toyota (this volume). In other words, the
Western culture seems to focus more on details in a scene, but the Asian
culture perceives a scene as a whole, and the difference between figure
and ground is suppressed. This relationship can be schematised as in
Figure 2. The bold-lettered items receive main attention, and the Western
view is a very conventional pattern according to cognitive linguistics,
whereas the one for the Eastern view is unconventional. However, note
that this does not mean that ground receives more focus, but rather, both
figure and ground receive equal focus.
Ground
Ground
Figure
a. Western view
Figure
b. Eastern view
Figure 2. Schematic representation of figure-ground relationships

according to Western and Eastern views
When we apply the difference shown in Figure 2 to the basic counting

systems, the difference between the classifier and non-classifier languages
becomes obvious. In non-classifier languages, each item is focused,
suggesting that the figure has its prominence in conceptualisation. In nonclassifier languages, on the other hand, the figure does not receive much
attention and since both figure and ground receive more or less the equal
amount of focus, they can be identical in the mental representation.
Bearing these points in mind, consider the schematic representation in
Figure 3. As Nisbett (2003) claims, Western culture tends to focus on
small details that make up an object. This point is shown with small circles
within an outline as in Figure 3a. These smaller circles are figures,
representing particles that make up an entire object, and the outer line is
ground. The Eastern view does not assume such details within an object,
which in fact correspond to the mass noun in the Western view. In the
Eastern view, it is possible to consider that both figure and ground are
identical, which makes the content of an object look empty as represented
141
in Figure 3b. This point can be made clearer especially in comparison with
the representation of the Western view, Figure 3a.
a. Eastern view
a. Western view
Figure 3. Schematic representation of Western and Eastern views on counting
Cognitively speaking, the difference in counting seems to rest on how

speakers consider figure and ground, and how much focus the figure
receives in relation to the ground. This difference seems to be culturallybounded, and the world views of people can thus be reflected in the
counting system. Classifier and non-classifier languages are good examples
to represent such cases, and the distribution of non-classifier languages in
Asia is not a coincidence (cf. Figure 1). In other words, the sense of
emptiness can also be visible in how we count objects.
Conclusion
This paper has examined how different languages employ counting
systems. The basic distinction is made between classifier and nonclassifier languages, with some acting as intermediate, i.e. optional classifier
language. What is interesting is that classifier and optional classifier
languages are mainly found in East and Southeast Asia. Thus, this can be
considered, roughly speaking, as an areal feature. We have argued that
counting systems correspond to one of the basic cultural differences
between East and West, i.e. the sense of emptiness. The classifier
languages seem to be based on the holistic world view, which originally
stems from Confucianism. This point can be supported by various kinds of
evidence. For instance, psychological analysis of picture gazing behaviour
has revealed that people from East Asia tend to gaze both a specific object
in a picture and its background. This forms a sharp contrast with the
common behaviour of people from the West, i.e. a certain object is
focused on in gazing at pictures, and the background is less focused.
142
Chapter Nine
This suggests that this areal feature can stem from cultural practice,
which is embedded in peoples behaviour. Thus, counting systems can
constitute good linguistic examples to represent one of the basic cultural
differences between East and West. Counting systems and number may
need further research to be understood more thoroughly, but the cultural
distinction should also be given due attention in future research.
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PART THREE:
ANTHROPOLOGICAL
AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES
CHAPTER TEN
INFORMATION STRUCTURE AND A ROLE
OF TOPIC/FOCUS IN EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES
MARJA KAURILA
Abstract. In this article, I will consider the concept of emptiness and the
figureground contrast in respect to the strategies in assigning arguments
to syntax and in constructing complex sentences in topic-prominent
languages with semanticpragmatic case-marking patterns. I will show that,
in these languages, the loose relationship between the verb and its
arguments and the acknowledgement of various degrees of transitivity give
rise to a certain amount of indeterminacy together with empty positions
and multiple simultaneous perspectives in the basic sentence structure. I
will show that these features of the basic sentence are also reflected in
complex sentences, where the coordinate nature of the linkage together
with the formal asymmetry of the structure levels the figureground
contrast present in subordinate clause linking. As a case study, I will look
in more detail at the sentence structure of the Wutun language, which is a
mixed language spoken in three villages in Tongren County in the China
QinghaiGansu multi-national area.
Introduction
In the theory of idealized cognitive models, Croft (1994, 89) together with
other propagators of the construction grammar, states that linguistic
meaning is not based on objective properties of the outside world, but on a
subjective viewpoint that represents interaction of the speakers mind with
the world around. Language can only evoke a perspective on the complex
experience communicated by the speaker. In this article, I will consider the
choice of the perspective in East Asian languages as opposed to IndoEuropean languages. I will show that as opposed to the fixed structure
with a clear figureground contrast typical in Indo-European languages,
the syntactic structure in East Asian languages is often rather loose, and
this offers various possibilities in the choice of the figure, and in balancing
Information Structure in East Asian Languages
147
the figureground contrast. In the presence of empty space, manifested in

a loose relationship between the verb and its arguments, various degrees of
prominence between the argument positions are possible, and secondary
perspectives, together with the loss of a clear focusing point, are common.
Moreover, at the level of complex sentences, empty space in the sentence
structure may level the figureground contrast that exists at the semantic
level between the component clauses describing a certain semantic relation
between two events.
In Crofts (1994, 91) idealized cognitive model of events, an event is
seen as a self-contained causal chain, which is set apart from the rest of the
causal network and has a starting point and an endpoint. In a typical
transitive event construal in Indo-European languages, the viewpoint of
the agent in the subject position is taken as the perspective of the sentence,
while the patient in the non-topical object position supplies the endpoint.
The topic-prominent East Asian languages, however, present a totally
different picture. In these languages, the basic sentence can have multiple
simultaneous perspectives represented by participant roles in argument
positions. The Mandarin example in (1), in which all the preverbal NPs are
topical (cf. Van Valin and LaPolla 1997, 211), opens a scene, where the
implicit topic wo I in the sentence initial position supplies the main
perspective, while the three other preverbal NPs in argument positions add
secondary perspectives. The preverbal NPs supplying the secondary
perspectives are marked by prepositionverb constructions. They are
topical constituents that belong to the predicate and are also focal. In (1),
the preposition rang marks the agent lang wolf, the preposition ba marks
the patient wo I, which refers to the same participant as the topic in the
clause initial position, and the preposition gei marks the experiencer,
which is again the same participant as the topic-patient:
(1)
Mandarin Chinese (Li 1986, 219, analysis mine)

Zng
VXjn
VKu
tu
le
xin,
surely reckon be
come.off
PRF
danger
Ppi
Ujng
Oing
b
w gi
yo s
NEG
RANG wolf
BA I
GEI bite die
Surely, [I] have gotten out of the danger finally, not having been
bitten to death by the wolf.
The English translation shows that the English sentence structure is

different, having no positions for secondary perspectives. The patient in
the subject position is the topic, while the passive agent is moved into a
background position with a status of an adjunct.
148
Chapter Ten
Likewise, a tight relationship between the subject and the predicate,

and the thematic hierarchy between the argument positions in simple
sentences tend to lead to a clear figureground contrast between the
component clauses in complex sentences. Thus, in Indo-European
languages, the description of an event in a certain semantic relation to
another event is often realized by a subordinate clause, which gives
background information and is embedded in the structure of the
superordinate clause, which describes the event in the figure. However, it
is not always easy to discern the type of the linkage between the clauses in
complex sentences. Finnish is a Finno-Ugric language, and an in-between
case between the Indo-European and the East Asian language types. The
Finnish examples in (2) show the difficulties in discerning the type of the
linkage on the basis of the outward structure alone:
(2)
Finnish
a. Hn
ji
vuoteeseen,
he
stay.PST
bed.ILL
koska
hn
oli
sairas.
because he
be.PST
sick
He stayed in bed, because he was sick.
b. Hn
ji
vuoteeseen,
he
stay.PST
bed.ILL
sill
hn
oli
sairas.
due.to
he
be.PST
sick
He stayed in bed, and it was due to the fact that he was sick.
In (2a), the change of the order of the clauses is possible, while, in (2b), it
is not. This is shown in (3):
(3)
a. Koska hn oli sairas, hn ji vuoteeseen.

b. *Sill hn oli sairas, hn ji vuoteeseen.
The inability of the second clause in (2b) to take a variable position in (3b)
means that, despite the formal asymmetry between the component clauses,
the linkage is coordinate. Both clauses have equal prominence, which
levels the figureground contrast present in the subordinate clause linkage
in (2a). Between (2a) and (2b), (2b) is the one that best represents a typical
clause linkage in topic-prominent East Asian languages.
This paper is organized as follows: First, I will discuss empty
positions and multiple perspectives in the basic sentence structure of East
Asian languages. Second, I will show how the loose relationship between
149
the verb and its arguments and the acknowledgement of various levels of
transitivity level the figureground contrast in complex sentences in these
languages. I will pay special attention to the structure of Wutun, which is a
mixed Sinitic language spoken in the China GansuQinghai multi-national
area and strongly affected by Amdo Tibetan. As a mixed language with
features from two topic-prominent Sino-Tibetan languages, where Chinese
is an accusative type verb-serializing language and Tibetan an ergative
language with converbal structures, Wutun shows the basicness of the
topiccomment relation and the analogy which exists between verbserializing structures and converbal constructions in coordinate clause
linking in topic-prominent languages.
The basic sentence in the East Asian language type

The difference in the basic sentence structures between typical IndoEuropean languages with a fixed perspective and a clear focus, and typical
East Asian languages with multiple simultaneous perspectives and a vague
figureground contrast, can be described by the following generalisations,
where the structure generalizations in (4) give the basic patterns in English
and represent Indo-European languages, while the structures in (57) give
the basic patterns in Mandarin Chinese, Amdo Tibetan, and Tagalog and
represent East Asian languages. The English pattern in (4a) shows the
default choice with the agent in the topic position of a transitive event
construal, while the pattern in (4b) shows a marked choice with the patient
in the topic position. The verb is detransitivized and changed into the
passive form to preserve the fixed structure imposed by the thematic
hierarchy. In (4), the abbreviations in bold show the syntactic structure,
while the unbolded abbreviations show the choices for the semantic
pragmatic roles and the verb form:
(4)
English
a. S
TOP/A
b. O
TOP/P
V
ACT
V
PASS
O
P
(OBL)
(A)
In Mandarin Chinese in (5), in Amdo Tibetan in (6), and in Tagalog in (7),

on the other hand, various degrees of transitivity can be manifested in
event construals, where alternative choices for argument positions and for
the orientation of the verb are possible. Multiple topical slots with
different degrees of prominence can either be filled or left empty. In (57),
150
Chapter Ten
the abbreviations in bold show the syntactic structure, while the unbolded
abbreviations show the choices for the semanticpragmatic roles and the
verb form:
(5)
(6)
(7)
Mandarin Chinese
(TOP)
S
(FRAME) A
(FRAME) P
(FOC) V
(P)/
(P)
(P)-FORM (P)/
(A)
(A)-FORM (V)
Tibetan
(TOP)
(FRAME)
(ERG) (DAT)
(A)
(EXP/REC/L)
Tagalog
(TOP)
(FRAME)
(FRAME)
(FRAME)
V
A-FORM
P-FORM
L-FORM
(A)
P
A
A
(P)
A
P
(V)
(V)
(L)
ABS
P
(L)
(L)
V
CAUS/RES
FOC
P
L
In his article concerning active/stative case-marking systems,

Vollmann (2007, 355356) brings out that variability in case-marking
across languages comes from the fact that case-marking systems will
perform various semiotic operations at the same time: in an event
construal, a small number of stereotypical participants are identified by
semantic case markers; every case marker is also in a relationship to other
parts of the system, marking the internal structure of the clause rather than
the participant structure of the event; and finally, an event construal must
distinguish a main participant and additional participants to show the
figureground contrast.
Vollmann (2007, 356360) notes that, in a case-marking system such
as in English, semantic distinctions play hardly any role, and the language
has only few (formal) cases for many (semantic) event construals. This
kind of system depends on a predefined verb categorization of transitivity.
To change the basic pattern where the viewpoint of the agent is chosen as
the perspective of a transitive event construal, this system needs special
constructions, such as passives, in which the verb is detransitivized in
order to have the patient in the topical subject position. Vollmann (2007,
356) gives the following example, where the relations are coded in the
same way in English, although the event construals are quite different in
that there is a gradual decrease of transitivity from top to bottom:
(8)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
j.
151
John breaks the cup.

John eats up the rice.
John eats some rice.
John beats the dog.
John watches the dog.
John sees the dog.
John feels a pain.
John knows Tibetan.
John visits the town.
John has a lot of money.
Vollmann (2007, 375) compares English with the active/stative

language type, which covers the active/stative languages of the Pacific
together with the topic-prominent (Sino)-Tibetan languages and the
Philippine languages. Although, in topic-prominent languages, the
pragmatic roles have primacy in assigning participants into syntax, the
topic-prominent (Sino)-Tibetan languages and the Philippine languages
belong to the active/stative language type in that the semantic roles follow
the active/stative pattern. Vollmann (2007, 362) notes that, unlike IndoEuropean languages, active/stative languages do not distinguish the
concept of transitivity, but the verbs are orientated towards specific
participant roles, primarily towards an agent, a patient, an absolutive
(uninvolved), or an experiencer, as shown in (9), where the verb in (9a) is
agent-orientated, the verb in (9b) is patient-orientated, and the verb in (9c)
is experiencer-orientated:
(9)
Lhasa Tibetan (Vollmann 2007, 362)

a. ngas las ka di
byas
pa
yin
I.A work
DEF
do.PRF
NZR
CONJ
I have done the work.
b. nga
khed rang
mjal
ba
de
I.ABS you.ABS
meet
NZR
DEF
ha cang
dga po
byung
very
happy
GOAL
I am very happy to meet you.
c. nga la
yi ge
zhig
byor
byung
I
ALL
letter
INDEF
receive
GOAL
I have received a letter.
In these languages, a certain degree of indeterminacy is tolerated

together with empty positions. As Vollmann (2007, 358) shows, in the
152
Chapter Ten
case of Tibetan, these languages have no obligatory arguments, and the

structural valence of a verb is indefinable, as can be seen in (10):
(10)
Lhasa Tibetan (Vollmann 2007, 358)

(nga) (khong la)
kha par
(I)
(he
ALL) telephone
(I) have called (him) by telephone.
btang
make
pa yin
PRF.INT
In the active/stative language type, varying degrees of transitivity is

expressed by the presence or absence of agents and by the choice of verb
forms (Vollmann 2007, 357). The meaning of a sentence does not depend
on the formal structure alone, but also on the semantics of the verb, which
supplies the frame for the possible interpretations of the voice and the
argument structure. The Lhasa Tibetan examples in (11) show the
interdependence of the presence or absence of agents and the choice
between the causative and the resultative verb forms. In (11a), the verb is
causative and both the agent and the instrument are present, which gives
the sentence an active interpretation. In (11b), the verb is resultative and
the agent is present, which gives the sentence a middle interpretation with
the agent in the role of an effector. In (11c), the verb is causative and the
instrument is present, which gives the sentence either an active or a
passive interpretation. In (11d), the verb is resultative and the instrument is
present, which gives the sentence a middle interpretation with the
instrument in the role of a cause. In (11e), the verb is causative and the
agent is absent, which gives a passive interpretation. Finally, in (11f), the
verb is resultative and the agent is absent, which gives a middle passive
interpretation:
(11)
Lhasa Tibetan (Vollmann 2007, 357358, the interpretations mine)

a. bla mas
sgra
chen pos
bya
spur
Lama.ERG noise
big.INSTR
bird
frighten.PRF
The lama frightened the birds away with a loud noise.
b. bla mas
bya
phur
lama.ERG
bird
get.frightened.PRF
The birds got frightened away by the lama.
c. sgra
chen pos
bya
spur
noise
big.INSTR
bird
frighten.PRF
The loud noise frightened away the birds. or
(Someone) frightened away the birds with a loud noise.
d. sgra
chen pos
bya
phur
noise
big.INSTR
bird
get.frightened.PRF
The birds got frightened by a loud noise.
e.
f.
153
bya
spur
bird
frighten.PRF
(Someone/something) frightened away the birds.
bya
phur
bird
get.frightened.PRF
The birds got frightened away.
The causative/resultative opposition in Tibetan can also be expressed

by separate verbs, such as in Amdo Tibetan, where this opposition is
expressed by a pair of complement verbs (light verbs). Both complement
verbs mark completion, but the verb btang make adds a causative
(active) meaning, while the verb song become adds a resultative
(spontaneous) meaning. In this system, a verb followed by the causative
complement verb btang has an active meaning, as shown in (12a), but
when no agent is present, the verb gets a passive interpretation, as in
(12b):
(12)
Amdo Tibetan (Wang 1995, 27, 61, analysis mine)

a. khur ges dros ja thungs btang
tha
he.ERG lunch drink.PST CAUS.CMT PHS.DISJ.TEST
He had a lunch.
b. di nas
khang ba
soma
gzig
there
house
new
SPEC
las
btang
gzig
work
CAUS.CMT
DISJ.INDIR
A new house was built there.
A verb followed by the resultative complement verb song, on the other

hand, has a spontaneous meaning, as shown in (13a), but when there is an
agent present, the verb gets a middle passive meaning and the agent an
interpretation of an effector or a cause, as shown in (13b) and (13c):
(13)
Amdo Tibetan (Wang 1995, 14, 61, 96, analysis mine)

a. zha yes
gnyid
song
gzig/
child
fall.asleep CMT.RES
DISJ.INDIR
The child fell asleep.
b. dmag dpon chao gis
thab dzing
gi
las gan
officer
PL
ERG mission
GEN duty
154
Chapter Ten
c.
grub
song
kha
gzig
get.accomplished RES.CMT likeness
SPEC
red
be.DISJ.ASSERT
The mission seems to have got accomplished by the officers.
tshag par
de
rlung
gis
newspaper
that
wind
ERG
khyer
song
gzig
carry
RES.CMT DISJ.INDIR
The newspaper was taken away by the wind.
Finally, similar interdependence of the presence or absence of the

agent and the verb form can also be seen in other East-Asian topicprominent languages, such as Mongolian, as shown in (14). In the absence
of the agent, the sentence in (14a) with an active verb form bajguulav 'did
build' gets a passive interpretation, while the sentence in (14b) with a
(middle) passive verb form bajguulagdee got built gets a passive or a
middle interpretation:
Mongolian (Sanders and Jantsangiin Bat-Iredui 1999, 108, analysis
mine)
(14) a. 1585 ond
Xarxorum
xot
baijsan
1585 year.DAT/LOC Karakorum
town be.PRF.PTCP
gazryn
derged Monggolyn
aryn
any
b.
place.GEN near
Mongol.GEN yellow.GEN religion.GEN
anxny
sm
xijdijn
neg Erdene-Zuug
first.GEN temple monastery.GEN one Erdene-Zuu
bajguulav ge
bien
bajna.
build.PST say.IMPRF.CV write.PRF.PTCP be.PRES
[It says that] in 1585, one of the Mongolian yellow faiths
first monastries called Erdene-Zuu was built near the place
where Karakorum had been.
1220 ond
Als Dornod Dundad Azi,
1220 year.DAT/LOC Far East
Central
Asia
Dornod
Jevropyn
xudaldaany
zamyn
East
Europe.GEN trade.GEN
route.GEN
uulzvar deer xudaldaa gar jldverrijn tomooxon xot
junction on
trade
handicraft.GEN big
town
Xar Xorum
bajguulagdee ge
biee.
Karakorum
bild.PASS.PST say.IMPRF.CV write.PST
155
[It says that] a big town of trade and handicrafts named

Karakorum got built in 1220 at the junction of trade routes
from the Far East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
Kibrik (2000, 67) for his part discusses semiotic techniques of
expressing separate dimensions of semantic and discourse-pragmatic roles.
He divides languages into cumulative and separative, depending on
whether roles of different dimensions are expressed cumulatively by one
form, or separately by one form with one meaning. Both types can have
accusative, ergative, or active case marking systems, but the intra-systemic
relations differ. Kibrik (2000) comes to the conclusion that only
cumulative languages have syntactic relations. These languages have
constructions, such as passives, to change the figureground relations of
the semantic roles. In active/stative languages (or in separatist languages
in general), on the other hand, the rearrangement of the figureground
contrast is performed by verb recategorizations, as Vollmann (2007)
shows in his article.
Li and Thompson (1976, 459) divide languages into subject-prominent,
where the basic relation is subjectpredicate, and topic-prominent, where
the basic relation is topiccomment. In typical Indo-European languages,
the syntactic structure is based on the transitive/intransitive patterns
together with the thematic hierarchy of the semantic roles and a strict
relationship between the subject and the predicate.
In topic-prominent languages, on the other hand, one of the primary
factors determining the linking from semantics to syntax is the referential
status of the participants, while the semantic roles are of secondary
importance. Unlike the subject, which is always an argument of the
predicate and assigned based on the thematic hierarchy, the sentence initial
topic is in a rather loose relationship with the rest of the sentence. Shi
(2000, 386) defines the topic as an NP that precedes the clause and is
related to a position inside the clause; it sets the frame for the sentence,
while the clause that adds information to the topic is the comment.
Empty space, manifested in non-obligatory positions and a loose
relationship between the topic and the verb complex, makes it possible to
establish secondary viewpoints in addition to the main topic that supplies
the primary perspective. In Chinese, as shown in (15a), and, in Japanese,
as shown in (15b), there can be found what is called in their tradition a
double-nominative construction, where several successive topics
(nominatives) add secondary viewpoints to the main topic in the sentence
initial position:
156
(15)
(15)
Chapter Ten

a. Suhng
Wjitai
shu-l
the.head.of.the.institute wife:TOP
hand-in.TOP
Upn
Kii
du
zhe
ne.
people:TOP still
be.many
RES
MOD
As for the wife of the head of the institute, there are has many
people that are under her hand.
Japanese (Bisang forthcoming, 15)
b. Bunmeikoku
ga
dansei
ga
cilized.countries
NOM
men
NOM
heikin zyumyoo
ga
naga-i.
average.life.expectancy
NOM
long-ADJ
It is in civilized countries that the average life expectancy of
man is long.
Separate slots in the basic sentence structure for semantic and

pragmatic roles, i.e. for discourse and role dimensions, also makes it
possible to choose a perspective, where a non-argument in the topic
position supplies the primary topic, while the agent in the subject position
adds a secondary viewpoint. In the Chinese examples in (16), the location
is the topic in (16a) and the agent in the subject position adds a secondary
viewpoint, while the matter in consideration is the topic in (16b) and the
agent adds a secondary viewpoint:
(16)
Mandarin Chinese (Li 1986, 44, 45, analysis mine)

a. T~shgun
t
zh
di
le
library.TOP
he.S
only
stay
PRF
VKt
fnzhng
ML
Otki
le.
ten minute
then
leave
PRF.PHS
In the library, he only stayed ten minutes and left.
b. =Kq ge
VKuqing
n
this CL matter.TOP
you.S
shuI~-E
lio
w.
talk.sb.over-NEG
finish
I
In this matter, you cannot talk me over.
In topic-prominent languages, also case-marking systems, whether

accusative or ergative, tend to be semantic-pragmatic rather than purely
structural. Mongolian is an accusative language with several voice
variations marked by different verb forms. In these variations, the agent,
157
marked by the dative/locative case, which is the case that shows the third
(extra) argument position (cf. Van Valin and LaPolla 1997, 575576), will
have a status of a secondary perspective with a degree of prominence and
topicality. The status of a secondary perspective of the passive agent in
Mongolian can be seen in (17), where the main topic Maha-saduva in
(17a) is left implicit, while the main topic erdemd wisdoms in (17b) is
marked by the topic particle inu. In both cases, the passive agent takes the
dative/locative case and supplies a secondary topic:
(17)
Mongolian (Grnbech and Krueger 1955, 45, Plate I, analysis mine)

a. Maha-saduva ali,
keme -n
asaGu-Gsan-dur,
Maha-saduva where say -MOD.CV ask-PRF.PTCP-DAT
qoyar aqa
inu
yaGun-ber
gle-n
two
brother
TOP
what-INSTR say-MOD.CV
yada-ju
qorum
a-gad,
be.unable-IMPRF.CV a.while
be-PRF.CV
bars-tur
ide-gde-bei,
keme-n
tiger-DAT
eat-PASS-PRET
say-MOD.CV
gle-bes,
speak-COND.CV
When [the parents] asked, where Maha-saduva is, the two
brothers were unable to say anything for a while, and when
they said, [he] was eaten by the tiger,
b. Biraman-u
uqaGan-u
jil-dr
mergen
brahman-GEN knowledge-GEN sort-DAT
learned
bolu-Gsan
erdem-d
inu
become-PRF.PTCP wisdom-PL
TOP
qamuG bgdeger-tr
all
everywhere-DAT/LOC
sonos-ta-Gsan-a,
hear-PASS-PRF.PTCP -DAT/LOC
When his wisdom(s) in every sort of brahman knowledge had
become known by everybody everywhere,
The loose relationship between the topic and the verb, together with
variations of voice forms can also be seen in (18), where the verbs are
intransitive, and where the first verb is in the co-operative voice and the
second verb in the (middle) passive voice. The shared topic ta you is
marked by the topic particle ber:
158
(18)
Chapter Ten
Mongolian (Grnbech and Krueger 1955, 4950, analysis mine)

Bi
ene
met
sain
trl
I
this
kind
good
birth
olu-Gsan-tur,
ta
ber
daGan
find-PRF.PTCP-DAT/LOC you
TOP also
bayasu-lca-Gad,
buyan-u
jg-tr
rejoice-COOP-PRF.CV
virtue-GEN
direction-DAT/LOC
kiciye-gde-ki.
strive.for-PASS-FUT.PTCP
Since I have found this kind of good birth, as for you, we shall
rejoice together, and then you should also be striven for virtue.
Kapampangan, on the other hand, is a Philippine language which has

an ergative case system and a voice-like system consisting of sets of
varying sizes of morphologically related verbs (Mithun 1994, 257).
Example (19) shows the strategy of rearrangement of the argument
structure by the choice of the verb form. Sentence (19a) is transitive; (19b,
19c) are applicative transitive; (19d), is antipassive intransitive; (19e) is
passive intransitive; and (19f) is middle intransitive:
(19)
Kapampangan (Mithun 1994, 257-258)

a. (I)buklat
ne.
open
3ERG/3ABS
Hell open it.
b. Buklatan
ne.
open.for
3ERG/3ABS
Hell open (it) for him.
c. Pamuklat
ne.
open.with 3ERG/3ABS
He will open (sth) with it.
d. Mamuklat ya.
open
3ABS
Hell open up (as a shop/house).
e. Makabuklat
ya.
open
3ABS
It has been opened/is open.
f. Mibukulat ya.
open
3ABS
Its opening.
159
Mithun (1994, 257) notes that the absolutuve in Kapampangan is cognate

with the topic (focus) in the Philippine languages. She (1994, 272) defines
the absolutive as the most immediately involved participant in an action or
a state, but not necessarily the most central to the discussion as a whole.
The focus in the Philippine languages resembles the topic in the topicprominent East Asian languages in many ways. The constituent in focus is
assigned based on pragmatics rather than semantics; it is set apart from the
rest of the sentence and is not necessarily in a selectional relationship with
the basic verb. However, since the constituent in focus is predictable by
the verb form and expresses the most immediately involved participant in
the action described by the verb, it is more like the topic of the verb
complex than a clausal topic in East Asian languages.
Finally, Bisang (forth, 61) states that nonactor-tigger (nonagent-focus)
constructions in the Philippine languages differ from passives in IndoEuropean languages in that no demotion of the agent (detransitivization of
the verb) takes place. The argument positions of the agent and the patient
are preserved irrespective of the participant role in focus, so that any focus
construction can be taken as a representative of the basic sentence. The
flexibility in the orientation of the verb and the independence from the
thematic hierarchy in assigning participants to syntax makes it possible to
have structures where a non-argument role supplies the primary
perspective of the sentence and the agent adds a secondary viewpoint. This
is shown in Tagalog examples in (20), where the transitive verb binalutan
wrap in (20a) and the intransitive verb namatayan die in (20b) are both
in the location-focus. In both cases, the location supplies the primary
perspective, while the agent in the argument position supplies a secondary
perspective:
(20)
Tagalog (Bisang forthcoming, 54, 60)

a. B-in-alut-an
niya ng
papel
ang libro.
PRF-wrap-L.FOC 3SG P/A paper
FOC book
He covered the book with paper.
b. Na-matay-an
ang
lalaki
ng
tatay.
PRF-die-L.FOC
FOC
man
P/A
father
The father died on the man.
Mandarin Chinese lacks a case-marking system but does have a very

similar sentence structure to some topic-prominent accusative languages,
such as Japanese. As Shi (2000, 383) notes, Mandarin has sentence initial
slots for both the topic (cf. wa in Japanese) and the subject (cf. ga in
Japanese), while the agent and the patient are distinguished by the word
160
Chapter Ten
order. To resettle the semanticpragmatic relations, Mandarin has a system

of bei- and ba-constructions, where the bei-construction is one of the many
passives and the ba-construction is the corresponding active, as shown in
(21):
(21)
Mandarin Chinese (He et al. 1983, 405, analysis mine)

huzhe (n)
b
lohu
d
s,
either
you.TOP/S
BA tiger
hit
die
huzhe (n)
Eqi lohu
ch GLjo,
or
you.TOP/S
BEI tiger
eat
drop.off
qr zhe
Eu
j
Tt
y.
the.two
must
occupy
its
one
Either (you) kill the tiger, or (you) are eaten up by the tiger,
[you] must choose one.
Example (21) shows that, in the bei-construction, the patient is in the topic
position, while, in the ba-construction, the agent is in the topic position
and the patient in a preverbal position (cf. Li 1986, 222). The preverbal
position, taken by the patient in the ba-construction and by the agent in the
bei-construction, is a position marked on the verb by a preposition. The
constituent in this position is an unmarked NP, which is both topical and
focal, i.e. the topic of the verb complex, or the focus. The participant in
focus in Mandarin can be the patient (goal), marked by the preposition ba;
the (adversative) agent, marked by the preposition bei (rang/jiao/gei); or
the experiencer, marked by the preposition gei.
The indeterminacy of the structure and the possibility of multiple
simultaneous perspectives in Mandarin can be seen in (22), which shows a
sentence that is simultaneously active (ba-construction) and passive (jiaoconstruction). In addition to the sentence initial topic na ge hudie that
butterfly, which supplies the primary perspective, (22) has secondary
viewpoints, or foci, marked by the jiao- and ba-constructions, in which the
preposition jiao marks the agent ta he and the preposition ba marks the
patient chibang wings:
(22)

1j
ge
K~dLp
MLjo
t b FKubng
that CL butterfly.TOP/S
JIAO he BA wing
Qzng
VXu
le.
handle
break.to.pieces PRF.PHS
The wings of that butterfly were torn to pieces by him.
161
In closing, I present the structure of the Wutun sentence, where the

prominence relations between the participant roles and the orientations of
the verb may occur in various combinations. The Wutun sentence structure
has slots for the topic, which is in some relation to a position inside the
clause and sets the framework for the predication, the focus (i.e. the topic
of the verb complex), which is an argument of a verb in the semantic
representation of the clause and shows the most immediate participant in
the predication, and Wutun has also a recategorization system of the verb,
which gives possibilities to change the orientation of the verb itself. The
Wutun examples are from my own material and come from native
speakers, mostly Xiawu Dongzhou, from Wutun Xiazhuang village, and
Myrtle Cairangji, from Wutun Jiacangma village.
Wutun is a topic-prominent Sinitic language, where the basic
grammatical categories come from Chinese, but the overall syntactic
structure is strongly affected by Amdo Tibetan. The (topic)-subject (cf.
Japanese -ga) takes the clause initial position, as shown in (23a), it may be
preceded by a frame topic (cf. Japanese -wa), as shown in (23b), and
followed by another topical NP, as shown in (23c):
(23)
Wutun
a. Ngu
yegai-ge
xai-lio.
I:TOP/S
letter-SPEC
write-PRF
I wrote a letter.
b. Je-ge
dondak
gu
xen shang-di li.
this-SPEC thing.TOP he.S heart hurt-PROG DISJ.TEST
Because of this thing, his heart is hurting.
c. Ni
tiema
gu
lu-she-la
you.TOP/S
bike
that
road-on-ABL
lu
a-ge-she-la
qhi-de zhong
li
road which-on-ABL
go-STS be.right DISJ.TEST
To go by the bike on the road, from which road it is right for
you to go
The focus, i.e. the topic of the verb complex, can add a secondary
perspective. The Wutun focus marker -ha most probably originates from
the Mandarin disposal marker ba, which, as mentioned in (21), forms a
pair with the passive marker bei in a voice-like system of verb
recategorization.
In Wutun, the marker -ha has lost its voice-like function on the verb,
and the language has developed a separate system of verb recategorization
based on verbcomplement constructions. However, even though the
162
Chapter Ten
changed status of -ha in some respect may resemble the dative/accusative

case of accusative languages, the basic sentence structure in Wutun shows
no subjectobject dichotomy, normally marked by a nominative
accusative case system. Moreover, the marker -ha is non-obligatory and
can be taken by various participant roles. Thus, -ha is best analyzed as a
focus marker, marking a constituent that is both topical and focal, i.e. the
most immediate constituent in the predication. The constituent marked by
-ha in Wutun belongs to the comment in the basic topiccomment relation.
It is an argument of (BECOME) pred((z), y) in the predicate verbs
logical structure [do(x, )] CAUSE [BECOME pred((z), y)] (cf. LaPolla
& Van Valin 1997, 109). The argument of do(x, ), on the other hand,
cannot be chosen as focus.
Example (24) shows the possible choices as focus in the undergoer
group. In (24a), the patient, in (24b), the recipient, in (24c), the possessor,
in (24d) the goal, and, in (24e), the time distribution is chosen as focus:
(24)
Wutun
a. Ngu huacekde-ge-ha
lak-la-gu-lio.
I
camera-SPEC-FOC lose-EXT-CMT-PRF
I lost my camera.
b. Nga-ha
pio
shek-li
mi-lai.
I.DAT-FOC ticket hand-in
NEG-come
I didn't get the ticket.
c. Apa-ha
nek do
yek
li.
father-FOC
yak many exist
DISJ.TEST
[My] father has many yaks.
d. Gu cokdde-ha
qhi-de-ge
mang-ma,
he
meeting-FOC
go-STS-SPEC be.busy-RLS
huan ra
xhe-ma
mi-lio.
food also drink-RLS
NEG-finish
He was so busy to go to the meeting that he could not finish
eating.
e. Gejhai
dico
yizek-ha
din-gu-lio
himself
hour
one-FOC wait-CMT-PRF
ze
li.
DO
DISJ.TEST
He has waited for an hour.
Moreover, when a role in the actor group is part of the comment, it can be
chosen as focus. In (25a), the causee and, in (25b), the experiencer is
chosen as focus:
(25)
Wutun
a. Gu nga-ha
pa
kan qhi
sho
he
I.DAT-FOC friend see
go
tell
He told me to go see a friend.
b. Gu -ha
e-di
li.
he-FOC
be.hungry-PROG DISJ.TEST
He is hungry.
163
li.
DISJ.TEST
The -ha-construction is also a device for changing the pragmatic

relations of the semantic roles, while the argument structure remains
unchanged. The Wutun -ha-construction functions so that, in the Wutun
equivalent of the Chinese ba-construction, the unmarked agent is the topic
and takes the initial position, and the -ha-marked patient, which is both
topical and focal, takes a position inside the comment. In the Wutun
equivalent of the Chinese bei-construction, on the other hand, the -hamarked patient, which is both topical and focal, takes the initial position.
In Wutun, the constituent marked by -ha and all the constituents that
follow it belong to the comment in the basic topiccomment relation. Thus,
when the -ha-marked patient takes the initial position, the agent is
detopicalized and removed from the topic relation into the comment. As an
NP inside the verb complex, the agent is now both topical and focal, and
has a status that is very similar to the status of the agent of the Chinese
bei-construction. Moreover, when both the agent and the patient are
present in the -ha-construction, there are no restrictions for the orientation
of the verb, and the verb in the -ha-construction can take any orientation.
Example (26) shows -ha-constructions in the function of the Chinese
ba-construction with varying orientations of the verb. In (26a), the verb
taking the completive complement -gu is patient-orientated; in (26b), the
verb taking the causative complement -ge is causee-orientated; in (26c),
the verb taking the resultative complement -she is agent-orientated:
(26)
Wutun
a. Gek
shai-ha
nio
se-gu-lio.
dog:TOP/S snake-FOC bite die-CMT-PRF
The dog bit the snake dead.
b. Ngu-de
wa
gu
maqo-ha
my
son.TOP/S that
bird-FOC
hi-gu-ge-lio
ze
li.
fly-CMT-CAUS-PRF
DO DISJ.TEST
My son has let the bird fly away.
164
Chapter Ten
c.
Gejhai
mian-ha
momo
self.TOP/S
dough-FOC
steamed.bread
rek-she-ma
li.
roll-RST-RES DISJ.TEST
I have rolled the dough into steamed bread.
ze-ma
DO-RLS
Example (27) shows -ha-constructions in the function of the Chinese

bei-construction with varying orientations of the verb. In the passive -haconstruction, the verb often takes the perfective aspect-marker -lio
followed by the third person testimonial evidential li. This structure shows
the distance and the non-active role of the speaker, seen in (27a), and in
(27c), while, in (27b), where the speaker is in the agent role, this structure
is not used. In (27a), and in (27b), the verb taking the completive
complement -gu is patient-orientated, while, in (27c), the verb taking the
resultative complement -she is agent-orientated:
(27)
Wutun
a. Haba-ha qhichai nia
si-gu-lio
ze li.
dog-FOC car
knock die-CMT-PRF DO DISJ.TEST
The dog has been knocked dead by the car.
b. Je
huaiqa-ha
ngu
kan-gu-lio.
this
book-FOC
I
read-CMT-PRF
This book was read by me.
c. Bianshe-ha
gek qe-she-lio
ze
li.
dumpling-FOC dog eat-RST-PRF DO DISJ.TEST
The dumplings have been eaten by the dog.
As (26) and (27) show, in addition to the topic, which shows the
primary perspective, and the focus, which shows a secondary perspective,
Wutun has a voice-like verb recategorization system where a voice
complement can be added to change the orientation of the verb itself. As
opposed to subject-prominent languages, where the verb must agree with
the subject, the loose structure in Wutun allows much more freedom in
choosing the orientation of the verb, irrespective of the choices for the
topic and the focus. Example (28) shows the resultative voice complement
-she, which marks the agent-orientation of the verb and expresses that the
action by the agent has been finished with a result. The resultative
complement can be used in active sentences, which express the action and
the result, as in (28a), or in resultative sentences, which express the result
of an action, as in (28b):
(28)
165
Wutun
a. Ngu
men
so-she-lio.
I
door
lock-RST-PRF
I locked the door.
b. Zek-she
huazhe-ge
gua-she-ma
li.
wall-on
picture-SPEC
hang-RST-RES DISJ.TEST
There is a picture hanging on the wall.
Example (29) shows the completive voice complement -gu, which

marks the patient-orientation of the verb and expresses that the action that
the patient undergoes has reached an endpoint. It is typically used in
passive sentences, where, in the absence of the agent, the verb must be
patient-orientated, as shown in (29a). Similarly, when verb-serialization is
applied to form complex structures with a resultative meaning, the
resultative verb in the latter clause must be patient-orientated, taking the
voice complement -gu, as shown in (29b):
(29)
Wutun
a. Ngu-de dico
tek-gu-lio
ze
li.
my
watch steal-CMT-PRF DO DISJ.TEST
My watch has been stolen.
b. Ngu laixa
xai-ma
lio-gu-lio.
I
homework write-RLS
finish-CMT-PRF
I got my homework finished.
Example (30) shows the causative voice complement -ge, which

marks the receptor-/causee-orientation of the verb and gives the verb an
applicative or a causative meaning. Example (30) shows the applicative
meaning with verbs quan-ge to put on in (30a) and to-gu-ge to take off
in (30b), and the causative meaning with the verb xhe-ge to cause to
drink in (30c):
166
(30)
Chapter Ten
Wutun
a. Ana
galamala-ha
xen
quandi
mother child-FOC
new
clothes
quan-ge-di
li.
put.on-CAUS-PROG DISJ.TEST
Mother is putting new clothes on the child.
b. Adia zhawa-de
ro-ha
mai-she-ma
monk
disciple-TR dead.body-FOC
bury-RST-RLS
zanxhan yidaze
to-gu-ge-ma...
coat
all.together take.off-CMT-CAUS-RLS
The monkburied the body of the disciple, and took off the
coat with all the clothes (for him), and...
c. Gu-jhege
nga-ha
zek
xaige xhe-ge-lio.
he-PAUC I.DAT-FOC wine much drink-CAUS-PRF
They made me drink a lot of wine.
The voice complement -ge may also give a verb an optative meaning, as
shown in (31a), or it may change a static verb dynamic to make it
acceptable for the imperative, as shown in (31b):
(31)
Wutun
a. Ngu gu-ha
da
lai-ge-zhe.
I
he-FOC
then
come-CAUS-IMM.FUT
I wish him to come.
b. Kuai-ge
da,
che-gu-lio.
be.quick-CAUS IMP be.late-CMT-PRF
Quickly, or else [you] will be late!
Furthermore, example (32) shows the purposive voice complements

qhi go in (32a) and lai come in (32b), which give the verb a purposive
meaning:
(32)
Wutun
a. Gu pa
kan
qhi-gu-lio.
he
friend see
go-CMT-PRF
He went to see a friend.
b. Da
xhe
lai
ba,
ngu-jhege xhe-de
now
drink
come MOD
I-PAUC
eat-STR
jjorai kada
ze
lai.
while conversation DO will
Come to eat, we will talk while eating.
167
Finally, example (33) shows the jussive voice complement sho tell,
which gives the verb a jussive meaning:
(33)
Wutun
Nia
nga
a-ge
you.DAT I.DAT who-SPEC
Who told you to advise me?
qan
advise
sho
tell
li?
DISJ.TEST
The Wutun examples are another manifestation of a sentence structure

which can tolerate a certain amount of indeterminacy together with empty
positions and multiple simultaneous perspectives. Empty space in the
sentence structure of East Asian languages thus supplies a vision where
various perspectives are present without a clear focusing.
Complex sentences in the East Asian language type

In simple sentences, the empty space in the structure of East Asian
languages is manifested in multiple simultaneous perspectives without a
clear focus. Loss of contrast between the figure and the ground can also be
found at the level of complex sentences. While in subject-prominent
languages, the strict structural restrictions imposed by the transitive
intransitive dichotomy and the thematic hierarchy are often reflected in a
clear figureground contrast between the component clauses in complex
sentences describing a certain semantic relation between two events, in
topic-prominent languages, the loose relationship between the verb and its
arguments and the acknowledgement of various levels of transitivity are
manifested in a loose relationship between the component clauses.
The concept of the finite verb and the existence of nonfinite verb
forms in languages are often taken for granted. However, the predefined
verb categorization into transitive and intransitive and the occurrence of
infinitives, participles and verbal nouns in complex structures seem to be
closely related to finiteness. On the other hand, in languages that
distinguish various levels of transitivity, changes in the degree of
transitivity with the occurrence of stative or nominal verbs are often found
instead of infinitives in complex structures, which tend to take the form of
verb-serialization or clause chaining.
In linguistic literature, the term finite verb normally refers to a verb
that takes a set of obligatory verbal markers and can stand alone to form a
sentence. Nonfinite verbs, on the other hand, are dependent verb forms
that lack the finite verbal marking and occur in subordinate clauses. In
other words, a nonfinite verb is less verb-like than the finite verb is. It
168
Chapter Ten
cannot function as an independent predicate, and must instead be integrad

in the structure of another verb.
Bisang (2001, 1403) states that one way to look at the concept of
finiteness is to take it as a scalar phenomenon. An increasing degree of
nominalization and of thematic coherence (i.e. referential continuity,
sequential action continuity, and tense-aspect-modal continuity) are both
indicators of a decreasing degree of finiteness. Accordingly, nonfinite verb
forms, such as participles, infinitives, and verbal nouns, are typically used
in descriptions of overlapping events with more referential continuity,
sequential action continuity, and tense-aspect-modal continuity. In current
work, following Kaurila (2010), I will, however, show that descriptions of
overlapping events may also take the form of verb-serialization, where the
deranking of the verb, which takes place along with the increasing degree
of thematic coherence, is manifested in a decreasing level of transitivity
rather than in an increasing degree of nominalization. Moreover, clause
linkages formed by converbal constructions and those formed by verbserializations in languages like Tibetan, where both phenomena occur side
by side, should be analyzed in an analogous way.
The Chinese examples in (3437) show how the deranking of the verb
in the form of decreasing degree of transitivity can take place without any
formal asymmetry and may be manifested in the verbs inability to take
certain verbal markers. Example (34) shows the deranking of the main
verb in complex predicates in clause internal serial verb constructions. In
(34a), the predicate is a transitive accomplishment verb gai cover, which
expresses the activity and the change. In (34b), the predicate is a
resultative construction, where the main verb gai cover gets an
intransitive activity interpretation and expresses the activity alone. It is
directly followed by another verb hao be good, which expresses the
result of the activity. Finally, in (34c), the predicate is a modifying
construction, where the main verb gai cover gets a stative topical
interpretation and barely names the activity. It takes a mediating particle
de and is followed by another verb jin be tight, which expresses the
quality of the activity:
(34)
Mandarin Chinese (Li 1986, 125; Wei 1995, 311, analysis mine)
a. W zng
yu
VKt
QLin
I
surely exist
ten year
E
Jji
Eqizi
VKXu MLjo
le.
NEG cover blanket
sleep sleep
PRF.PHS
I have surely slept at least ten years without covering up
myself.
169
b. T
]Xytin
wnshang
Eqizi
he
yesterday
evening
blanket
Ppi
Jji
ho,
]KiROLing
le.
NEG
cover be.good
catch.a.cold
PRF.PHS
He didnt cover himself up well last night and now hes got a
cold.
c. *jer Jji-de
E
jn.
lid
cover-STR NEG be.tight
The lid isnt on tight.
A similar deranking takes place in controlling verbs in control
constructions. In Chinese, the basic causatives are syntactically simple and
cannot take any aspect markers (Li 1986, 143). The lexical verb, on the
other hand, is relatively free and can take any verbal marking (Li 1986,
162). This is seen in (35), where the causative verb shi 'cause, make',
which cannot take any verbal marking, is followed by the lexical verb
dedao 'get', which takes the perfective particle le:
(35)

=Kq Fu
KXuWin
MLpgu,
sh
this time conversation result
make
OLing
JXy
UpQPtn zh
jin
de
two
country people STR between STR
GpGjo le
Mun
y
E
de
get
PRF
enter
one
step STR
As the result of the conversation this time,
between the peoples of our countries was made
forward.
wmen
we
yX\u
friendship
fzhn.
development
the friendship
to take a step
When the semantic relationship between the verbs gradually loosens,

the restrictions on the first verb disappear, and the participating verbs are
relatively free, being able to take any verbal marking. This can be seen in
(36), where the verb-serialization strategy is used on to describe a linear
sequence of successive events. In (36), the first verb guan shut takes the
perfective particle le, the second verb dao fall followed by the coverb zai
be is unmarked, and the third verb meng cover takes the resultative
particle zhe:
170
(36)
Chapter Ten

T
gun
le
Ppn
do
]ji
FKXing-shang
he
shut
PRF door
fall
be
bed-on
Ppng zhe
Wyu
k.
cover RES
head cry
He closed the door, fell on the bed, and cried with his head
covered.
Finally, as Bisang (1995, 139) notices, verb serialization can also be

used in establishing a certain semantic relation between two events. Like
in the modifying construction in (34c), the first verb in these constructions
functions as the topic that presents an event for the second verb to
establish a relation. This is shown in (37), where the relationship between
the clauses is consequential in (37a); and conditional in (37b):
(37)
Mandarin Chinese (Li 1986, 129, 130, analysis mine)

a. W Zpifn
Mul
ji
pStng
le.
I
violate
discipline
suffer criticize PRF:PHS
Because of violating the discipline, I was criticized.
b. W Zpifn Mul
\jo
ji
pStng.
I
violate discipline
will
suffer criticize
If I violate the discipline, I will be criticized.
Tibetan, on the other hand, differs from Chinese in that converbal

constructions and verb serialization occur side by side, as can be seen in
(38). In (38a), the verb bshad say and the verb btang send; make, cause
form a serial verb construction, where the verb bshad functions as the
main verb and the verb btang gives it a past completive meaning. Both
verbs are unmarked and both can form a sentence on their own. In (38b),
however, the first verb bshad say takes the purposive particle la, and
thereby the structure has a future completive meaning. Even though the
first verb in (38b) is neither unmarked nor able to form a sentence on its
own, the converbal structure is analogous to the serial verb construction in
(38a) and should be analyzed in an analogous way.
(38)
Amdo Tibetan (Dorje 2004, lecture notes, analysis mine)

a. ngas
khur ge 'a
bshad btang
nga/
I.ERG he
DAT/LOC say
CAUS.CMT SUBJ
I told it to him.
b. ngas khur ge yong na/
bshad la
btang/
I.ERG he
come COND say
PURP CAUS.CMT
When he comes, I will tell him.
171
Converbal constructions in Tibetan can also be used to establish a

relation between two events. The topical interpretation of the first verb in
these constructions can explain the occurrence of the nominalizing particle
pa in the non-final verb. In (39), the converbal construction is used to
establish a consequential relation:
(39)
Lhasa Tibetan (Sherab 1996, 63, analysis mine)

Lam la
mo da
mang po
gro
pas/
road LOC
car
many
go
NZR.CAUS
lug phrug de
mo dai brdzi
bai
nyin kha
lamb
that car.GEN knock.down NZR.GEN danger
yod
pa
red/
exist
NZR DISJ.FACT
Because of many cars driving on the road, the lamb is in danger
of being knocked down by a car.
In his article concerning verb-serialization and converbs in East Asian

and Southeast Asian languages, Bisang (1995, 138) also pays attention to
the similarity of the two phenomena. He (1995, 145) distinguishes verbserialization in a broad sense, which includes juxtaposition, modifying
verb-serialization, and governing verb-serialization, and verb-serialization
in a narrow sense, which includes resultative verbs, directional verbs,
tense-aspect-mood verbs, coverbs, causative verbs, and conjunctional
verbs. Examples (36) and (37) show verb serialization in a broad sense in
Chinese. Verb serialization in a narrow sense in Chinese can be seen in
(40), where (40a) shows resultative verbs; and (40b) shows directional
verbs:
Mandarin Chinese (Bisang 1995, 149; Fang Yuqing 1992, 493,
analysis mine)
(40) a. T
ch bo
le.
he
eat
full
TAM
He has been eating his fill.
b. T
dn
[Lj
T,
OLin
m
he
squat
go.down go
link
feel
Gji
Njn, \zu
\io
le
\io
Wyu.
attach look again shake PRF
shake head
While squatting down, he felt and looked around, and shook
his head again.
172
Chapter Ten
Bisang (1995, 154) shows that similar classifications can be applied to

converbs in many East-Asian languages, such as Mongolian and Japanese.
Converbal constructions that correspond to verb serialization in a broad
sense are seen in Mongolian examples in (41), where (41a) shows a
simultaneous relation, (41b) a sequential relation, (41c) a conditional
relation:
(41)
Mongolian (Bisang 1995, 166168)

a. Cas
or-
xjten
bol-loo.
snow fall-CV cold
get-TAM
When the snow was falling, it became cold.
b. Bi dund
surguul tgs-d
end
ir-sen.
I middle school
finish-CV here
come-TAM
After having finished middle school, I came here.
c. Exel-bel duusg-ax
xeregtej.
start-CV finish-VN be.necessary.PRES
If one starts [doing something], one must finish it.
Converbal constructions that correspond to verb serialization in a narrow

sense are also seen in Mongolian, as shown in (42), where (42a) shows
resultative verbs; (42b) directional verbs; (42c) tense-aspect verbs; and
(42d) modal verbs:
Mongolian ((a), (b), (c) Bisang 1995, 169170; (d) Sanders &
Jantsangiin Bat-Ireedi 1999, 94, analysis mine)
(42) a. Sono-
med-ex
hear-CV know
to understand
b. Ter ger-t-ee
gj-
or-ee.
he
house-LOC-his run-CV enter-TAM
He ran inside his house.
c. i
juund inee-
suu-
baj-naa?
you why
laugh-CV stay-CV be-TAM
Why do you keep on laughing?
d. Terel raaan-taj juu ge-
asuu-val
Terelj spring-COM QST say-IMPRF.CV ask-COND.CV
bol-ox-son
bolob-uu?
become-FUT.PTCP-PRF.PTCP maybe-QST
I wonder if I could ask you whether there is a spring at Terej.
173
In Wutun, on the other hand, choices between verb serialization and

converbal constructions with subtle differences in meaning are often
possible at different levels of the structure. This can be seen in (43) and
(44), where (43) shows verb serialization as opposed to converbal
constructions in structures that involve resultative and directional verbs,
and (44) shows verb serialization as opposed to converbal constructions in
structures that describe a purposive relation. In (43a), serial verb
constructions where a resultative or a directional verb directly follows the
verb expressing the action are used to describe an action and a result. In
(43b), a converbal construction with the status-marker -de attached to the
verb expressing the action and followed by the verb of result is used to
emphasize the evaluation given to the result. In (43c) and (43d), converbal
constructions with the realis-marker -ma attached to the verb expressing
the action and followed by the verb of result in (43c) and the verb of
direction in (43d) are used to emphasize the sequential nature of the
process of an action and a result:
(43)
Wutun
a. Ni
huaiqa kan man-lio
gu-la,
nga-ha
you book read finish-PRF CMT-IRL I.DAT-FOC
qen
qhui-la
ka.
give
go.out-STS give
When you have finished the book, give it back to me.
b. Ngu huaiqa xai-de
qang-gu-ma
li
I
book
write-STS be.long-CMT-RES TEST
I wrote the book too long.
c. Jjhangdai-she
yegai xai-ma
man-gu-ma
li
exercisebook-on letter write-RLS be.full-CMT-RES TEST
The exercise book has been written full of letters.
d. Gu-ha yi-ge
rang
yen-ma
qhi-gu-lio
he-FOC one-SPEC person lead-RLS go-CMT-PRF
ze
li.
DO TEST
He has been taken away by somebody.
Example (44) shows purposive structures. In (44a), a serial verb

construction is used to describe an action and the intention for it. In (44b),
a converbal construction with the status-marker -de attached to the verb
expressing the intended action is used to emphasize the intentional nature
of the purposive action. In (44c), the order of the verbs is reversed and
follows the temporal order of the events. A converbal construction with
174
Chapter Ten
the realis-marker -ma attached to the purposive verb qhi go is used to

emphasize the sequential nature of the purpose and the action. Finally, in
(44d), the two constructions are used together:
(44)
Wutun
a. Gu pa
kan
qhi-gu-lio.
he
friend see
go-CMT-PRF
He went to see a friend.
b. Ni
jhang zio xhui-de qhi-zha?
you today swim-STS go-IMM.FUT:QST
Are you going to swim today?
c. Ngu bangongshe-li qhi-ma
I
office-in
go-RLS
dianhua
da-ma
manba qho-dai.
telephone
make.a.call-RLS doctor call-MOD
I went to the office to make a phone call to call for a doctor.
d. Macio
tang-di hi-ma
qhi-ma yegai sho qhi!
little.bird quickly fly-RLS go-RLS news
tell
go
Little bird, go flying to report the news quickly!
Similar to verb-serialization, the order of the clauses in converbal

structures follows the principle of iconicity so that, with the realis-marker ma, the order of the clauses follows the temporal order of the events; with
the irrealis-marker -ra (-la), the first clause presents an event, and the
second clause establishes a relation; and, with the status-marker -de (-di),
the first clause presents an event, and the second clause gives a modal,
aspectual, or some other evaluation. This iconicity of the order can be seen
in (45), where the clause linkage marker in (45a) is the irrealis-marker -ra;
in (45b) and in (45c), the realis-marker -ma; and, in (45d), the statusmarker -de:
(45)
Wutun
a. Ya
da
kek
be-tin-la-da,
well then mouth NEG-listen-IRL-then
Well, as for [your] not listening the advice, in that case
b. nia
ra
yen-she,
sho-ma,
you.DAT also take.along-RST say-RLS
[I] will take you along', said [the monk], and then,
c.
d.
175
da
adia-da
zhawa
liang-ge
du
then monk-and disciple two-SPEC alone
jaze
bi-she-ma,
basket
carry.on.back-RST-RSL
then the monk and the disciple the two of them took baskets
on their back, and then
xhen-dio(-de
yo)-de
re.
walk-must(-STS must)-STS DISJ.FACT
[they] had to start walking.
The dependence of the meaning on the choice of the marker can be

seen in (46), which shows a resultative construction, where a resultative
meaning is achieved by choosing the realis-marker -ma in (46a), while a
potential meaning is achieved by choosing the status-marker -de in (46b):
(46)
Wutun
a. Gu yidaze qe-ma
lio-gu-ge-ma
li
he all
eat-RLS finish-CMT-CAUS-RES DISJ.TEST
He has eaten up everything.
b. Ngu huan xhe-de
lio-gu-ge
I
food
drink-STS
finish-CMT-CAUS
be-qhe
li.
NEG-be.able DISJ.TEST
I cannot finish my food.
Moreover, the occurrence of the same markers at different levels of

the structure, the interpretation depending on the tightness of the linkage,
can be seen for the irrealis-marker -ra in (47). In (47a), the converbal
construction with the irrealis-marker -ra attached to the verb in the first
clause shows a rather loose conditional-temporal relationship between the
verb in the first clause presenting an event and the verb in the second
clause establishing another event in a relation to the first event. In (47b),
the converbal construction with the irrealis-marker -ra attached to the verb
of thinking in the first clause shows a more tight governing relation
between the verb of thinking in the first clause and the verb that expresses
the content of thinking in the second clause. Finally, in (47c), the
converbal construction with the irrealis-marker -ra attached to the first
verb shows a rather tight deontic relation between the verb of action and
the modal verb that follows:
176
(47)
Chapter Ten
Wutun
a. Gu nia-ha
nguiwo song-ra,
he
he.DAT-FOC
thing
present-IRL
nia
gga-la-di-de
bai
li.
You.DAT like-EXT-PROG-STS not.be DISJ.TEST
Although he gives things to you, it does not mean that he loves
you.
b. Ngu ddang-da-ra,
ni
bai-qhi.
I
think-make-IRL you should.not-go
I think that you should not go.
c. Ngu-de
yenze-de
ban-ge
hen-gu-ra
my
money-STR
half-SPEC divide-CMT-IRL
ddo-la
li.
want-EXT DISJ.TEST
I want to share half of my money.
In his 1995 article, Bisang comes to the conclusion that verbserializing languages, showing a high degree of indeterminacy with regard
to finite verbal categories, lack an instrument to develop a certain
asymmetry between finite and nonfinite forms, or, as he puts it more
cautiously, an asymmetry between complete [maximum] verbal forms and
less complete verbal forms.
Since nonfinite verb forms are usually understood as nominal verb
forms somewhere between a verb and a noun, the latter wording is more
appropriate for languages that acknowledge various levels of transitivity.
In these languages, the above asymmetry can be seen between the final
maximum verbal form and the medial verbs that undergo transitivity
changes in the process of concatenation. Changes in transitivity are the
result of temporal-aspectual or relational interdependences, either left
implicit or shown on the medial verbs, while the shared verbal categories
are marked only once on the final verb. The loose relationships between
the concatenated verbs make it possible to have a very limited inventory of
relational markers to show various interdependences, the final
interpretation depending on the level of the structure, i.e. on the level of
overlapping of the described events, as was shown in (4347) in the case
of Wutun.
In his inventory of markers that can create asymmetry, Bisang (2001,
1405) mentions markers denoting reference tracking, case markers, and
markers specialized for expressing dependence. Reference tracking
markers occur in verb-final Papuan languages with switch-reference
reference-tracking systems (Foley and Van Valin 1984, 339). These
177
languages show long sequences of clauses, where the medial verbs depend
on the final verb in that they share the mood and tense of the controlling
verb, and the reference of their subject is often determined by the
controlling verb (Haspelmath 1995, 20). Case markers, on the other hand,
are common in infinitives of Indo-European languages, and occur also in
adverbial clause connectors, so called non-strict converbs (Bisang 2001,
1407) or quasi-converbs (Nedjalkov 1995, 102), in languages of Europe
and Eurasia. Finally, strict converbs, specialized for expressing
dependence, are common in eastern Eurasia (Bisang 2001, 1407).
Haspelmath (1995, 13) notes that one criterion for subordination is
that only subordinate clauses can take a variable position. On the other
hand, the order of the component clauses in verb-serialization, whether
used to describe a linear sequence of successive events or to establish a
certain relation between two events, is always iconic (id.: 14). In the
former case, the order of the verbs follows the temporal order of the events,
while, in the latter case, the first verb presents an event for the second verb
to establish a relation. Both subtypes of verb-serialization thus represent a
coordinate clause linkage, which is usually realized by a coordinate
conjunction in Indo-European languages.
In establishing a certain semantic relation between two events, IndoEuropean languages tend to use a subordinate linkage with a subordinating
conjunction, as was seen in (2a). A subordinate clause is embedded in the
structure of the superordinate clause with a clear figureground contrast
between the main clause in the figure position and the subordinate clause
in the background position. In East-Asian serial verb languages, on the
other hand, there is much indeterminacy in the interpretation of complex
sentences; none of the clauses is independent of the others, and none of
them is clearly in the figure or in the background position. The lack of
asymmetry obscures the figureground contrasts in these languages, as
was seen in the case of Chinese in (37).
The converbal clause linkage type in eastern Eurasia falls in-between
the European subordinate clause linkage type with a clear figureground
contrast and the East-Asian verb-serializing clause linkage type, where the
lack of asymmetry obscures the contrasts. In his consideration of the
Papuan clause-chaining switch-reference languages, where the medial verb
is structurally dependent on the final verb and unable to occur in an
independent sentence, Haspelmath (1995, 2324) notes that several
linguists working on clause-chaining languages have observed that the
clauses with medial verbs are not subordinate but coordinate. Example
(48) shows clause chaining in Amele, a Papuan language:
178
(48)
Chapter Ten
Amele (Papuan language, Haspelmath 1995, 24)

Ho busale-ce-b
dana age qo-i-ga.
pig run.out-MED.DS-3SG man they hit-3PL-HOD
The pig ran out and the men killed it.
Moreover, example (49) in Amele shows that, unlike subordinate adverbial

clauses, which can be extraposed, as seen in (49a), medial clauses cannot
take a variable position, as seen in (49b):
(49)
Amele (Papuan language, Haspelmath 1995, 24)

a. Uqa sab
man-igi-an
she food
roast-3SG-FUT
ija
ja
hud-ig-en
fi.
[I
fire open-3SG-FUT if]
She will cook the food if I light the fire.
b. *Dana age qo-i-ga
ho busale-ce-b.
man
they hit-3PL-HOD pig run.out-MED.DS-3SG
The men killed it, the pig having run out.
Likewise, Nedjalkov (1995, 109) argues that narrative converbs, such

as - (simultaneity) in (41a) and -aad (anteriority) in (41b) from
Mongolian, are coordinate. Mongolian makes a distinction between
coordinate converbs, which advance the narrative, and subordinate (quasi-)
converbs, which establish background information. In (50), the
imperfective converb, which is marked by -u/- (- ) and has the meaning
and, and the perfective converb, which is marked by -ad/-ged (-aad)
and has the meaning and then, are coordinate. On the other hand, the
(quasi-) converb, which is marked by the perfective participle -san/-gsen
followed by the dative/locative case -dur/-dr and has the meaning after,
is subordinate:
(50)
Mongolian (Grnbech & Krueger 1955, 45, analysis mine)

keme -n
sedki-j
say-MOD.CV think-IMPRF.CV
tere bars-un
dergede kr-gsen-dr,
that tiger-GEN beside
arrive-PRF.PCTP-DAT/LOC
kbegn-i
bars
ide-j,
boy-ACC
tiger
eat-IMPRF.CV
yasun inu
ai-ju
bki
je-ged,
bone
POSS bleach-IMPRF.CV being
see-PRF.CV
179
beyeben
kser-e
deled-d-n
their.body
earth-DAT/LOC
strike-MOD.CV
kdk-bei.
faint-PRET
[They] thought [like that], and after arriving to the place where
the tiger was, the tiger had eaten the boy, and so they saw his
bones shining white, threw themselves to the earth and fainted.
In (50), coordinate converbal constructions are used to describe a
linear sequence of successive events. However, they can also be used to
establish a certain relation between two events. Like Mongolian, Tibetan
makes a distinction between coordinate and subordinate clause
connectives. In (51) and (52), the clause connectives pa'i rkyen gyis 'by the
reason of' and pai tshe in the time of, formed by a relational noun, are
subordinate, while the causal clause connective pas/bas and thus, formed
by the instrumental case particle -s and a mediating nominalizer pa, and
the conditional clause connective na as for, formed by the locative case
particle na, are coordinate:
(51)
Tibetan (Bosson 1969, 119, analysis mine)

blun po bya ba
las
byar
na//
fool
task
LOC
attach:PST
COND
don nyams de yang nyams par
gyur//
matter perish that also perish NZR.PURP become.PRES
zhes gsungs pa
dis/
myong
goms
so
say:PST NZR this.INSTR experience custom
gang yang med
pai
rkyen
gyis
what also not.exist NZR:GEN reasonINSTR
rang bzhan gnyis phungs su
gyur
bas
self others two perish PURP become:PRES NZR.CAUS
de
mi
byed
par
bstan
pa
ste/
that NEG do.PRES NZR.PURP show.PST NZR CONT
If the fool is given a task, the matter will be ruined, and [the
fool] himself also will be ruined. These words show that, because
of having no experience at all, both [the fool] himself and the
others will perish, and thus this [kind of thing] should not be done,
thats what [the above words] tell
With coordinate connectives, such as pas/bas in (51) and also in (52), the
order of the clauses is iconic, and the relation, marked by the connective
on the first verb, is always established with the verb that follows. Change
180
Chapter Ten
of the order of the clauses will break the chain, such as the chain of the
event and its consequence in (51) and in (52). Thus, the fixed order is not
only due to the syntactic rules, which demand that a clause with the verb
taking the finite marking must end the chain, but it is also due to the
iconicity, present in a clause chain, and caused by the independent nature
of the coordinated clauses (cf. Haspelmath 1995, 14). Example (52) shows
that a clause taking the connective pas/bas and thus can actually end a
chain, but also in that case the relation is established with what follows, i.e.
with all that was said: and thus it is [as was said]:
(52)
Tibetan (Bosson 1969, 116, analysis mine)

ci
ste
bzang pai
spyod pa
zhig
what CONT
good.GEN
behavior
SPEC
byung
na
yang
de
ni
happen
COND
also
that
TOP
gzhan
ngo bskor
bai
bslu khrid
others
head turn.round NZR.GEN deception
bcos mai rnam thar yin
te
false.GEN story
be
CONT
bzang poi rigs dang
phrad
pai
tshe
good.GEN kind SOC
get.in.touch NZR.GEN time
rang tshugs
ma
thub
pa
self keep
NEG
be.able
NZR
dei
rang bzhin
dka tshegs
that.GEN
own.nature
difficulty
med
par
shed
nus
pas
so/
not.exist NZR.PURP know be.able NZR.CAUS DCL
If [a bad person] happens to behave well, that is a false story to
deceive others, and when [he] gets in touch with good people, he
cannot persist in [his good behavior], his true nature comes out
without difficulty, and thus it is [as was said].
Example (52) shows the independent nature of the clause taking the
connective pas. It is coordinate with the main clause that precedes it,
giving the reason for all that was said.
Thus, similar to verb-serialization, the clause linkage in the East
Asian converb type, both in descriptions of a sequence of successive
events and in descriptions of a certain relation between two events, can be
coordinate. In that case, it corresponds to a coordinate clause linkage with
a coordinate conjunction in Indo-European languages rather than the
European converb type, which is typically subordinate. The subordinate
181
status of the perfective converb in Russian is shown in (53), where the

component clauses can take a variable order:
(53)
Russian (Haspelmath 1995, 13)

a. Vernuvis
domoj, Xevgun naal novuju izn.
Return.PRF.CV home Khevgun began new
life
Having returned home, Khevgun began a new life.
b. Xevgun naal novuju izn, vernuvis
domoj.
Khevgun began new
life
return.PRF.CV home
Khevgun began a new life (after) returning home.
Example (53) shows that, even though East Asian and European
converbs are formally alike, they behave differently. European converbs
are in a strict structural relationship with the superordinate verb, and take a
nonfinite form in order to be integrated in the structure of the finite verb.
In the East Asian converb type, however, the loose relationship between
the verb and the arguments in the basic sentence is reflected in the
structure of complex sentences, where the predicates together with their
arguments are concatenated in verb-serialization or in clause chaining.
Thus, in the East Asian coordinate converb type, represented by clause
chaining in Papuan switch-reference languages, by coordinate converbs in
East Asian languages, and by coordinate clause connectives in Tibetan, the
equal prominence given both to the final clause and the non-final clauses
levels the opposition which exists between the component clauses at the
semantic structure. Since the final verb imposes no structural demands on
the medial verbs, the interpretation of individual markers is very flexible,
and many markers, such as the imperfective converb marker -, the
perfective converb marker -aad (-ood, -eed, -d), and the conditional
converb marker -bal (-bol, -bel, -bl) in Mongolian, can occur at various
levels of the structure, as was shown in (41) and (42).
Foley and Van Valin (1984, 242) call cosubordinate the nexus type,
where one of the component clauses is functionally independent but
depends on another clause in the interpretation of the verbal features of its
predicate. In clause chaining, the medial verbs depend on the final verb in
respect to the interpretation of their verbal features in a very similar way
as pros depend on their antecedent in respect to the interpretation of their
nominal features in a topic chain, which is a common strategy in
preserving the same topic over a sequence of successive clauses in IndoEuropean switch-function languages. In other words, clause chaining,
together with coordinate converbs, is a strategy to preserve the same topic
over a sequence of successive clauses in switch-reference languages: the
182
Chapter Ten
reference of the subject may change, but the topic remains the same over
the whole chain.
In closing, I introduce the clause linkage marker -shi in Linxia,
another mixed Sinitic language showing a strong Amdo Tibetan influence
and spoken in China QinghaiGansu area. Linxia is the native language of
the Muslim minority in the city of Linxia, and also an areal lingua franca.
The Linxia examples are my own material and come from Ma Yujuan, a
native speaker from Linxia.
The converbal structure, where the verb in the first clause takes the
relational marker -shi, shows an extreme case of the levelling of the
semantic contrast in complex sentences describing various temporalconditional relations between two events. The marker -shi comes from the
Mandarin copula shi and has an irrealis meaning in many respects similar
to the Wutun irrealis-marker -ra (-la) in (47). This can be seen in (54),
where the complex sentence in (54a) describes a conditional relation, the
complex sentence in (54b) describes a concessive relation, and the
complex sentence in (54c) describes a consequential relation:
(54)
Linxia
a. Xia
ku-zhe
zheng qia-shi,
nuli
bu-shi.
put.in effort-RES gain
money-IRL slave NEG-be
If [you] work hard to make money, [it does not mean that]
[you] are a slave.
b. Yijie
nia
song
dunxi-shi,
he
you:DAT present
thing-IRL
nia
nai-di
yisi
bu-shi-dai.
you:DAT love-STR meaning NEG-be-EMPH
Although he gives things to you, it does not mean that he loves
you.
c. Nge yijie zou mi-shuo-liao-shi-zhe,
I
he
early NEG-say-PRF-IRL-RES
yijie
nga
guai-zhe-li.
he
I.DAT blame-RES-EXT/EVID
Because I did not tell him earlier, so he is blaming me now.
However, in addition to the non-final verb, the irrealis-marker -shi can

also be taken by the final verb. In that case, it shows the standpoint of the
person referred to by the topic-subject, as shown in (55), where, in (55a),
the topic-subject refers to the speaker, and, in (55b), it refers to the third
person:
(55)
Linxia
a. Nge ao-gu
b.
gao-zhe
nga
jiang-di
183
ha-shi.
I
he
beg-RES I.DAT explain-STS go.down-MOD
I beg him to explain [it] to me.
Yijie nga
jiao-zhe
lianshou kan zou-shi.
he
I.DAT tell-RES
friend
see
go-MOD
He is telling me to go to see a friend.
In some cases, the marker -shi occurs more than once in the same
sentence, and it may occur both in the non-final and the final verbs, as
shown in (56):
(56)
Linxia
a. Yijie
shuo-shi
he
say-IRL
nge-meng yida
jiaozi
chi
zou-shi.
we
together dumpling eat
go-MOD
He suggested that we would go together to eat dumplings.
b. Nge simu-shi
ni
bao
qi-shi
I
think-IRL
you
should.not go-IRL
dui-zhe-li.
be.right-RES-EXT/EVID
I think that you should not go.
c. Duan lai-di
ha-shi
nge Qingdao qi
in.case come-STS go.down-IRL I
Qingdao
go
ge-shi.
SPEC-MOD
If I have time, I will go to Qingdao.
The occurrence of the same grammatical marker with different but

related meanings both in the non-final and final verbs highlights the
levelling of the contrast in descriptions where a certain semantic relation is
established between two events in the topic-prominent East Asian
language type.
184
Chapter Ten
Conclusions
In this article, I have discussed verb recategorization and case systems in
topic-prominent East Asian languages. These languages have a sentence
structure where alternative choices for argument positions of different
degrees of prominence and verb forms of different orientations supply a
possibility for multiple simultaneous perspectives.
Moreover, the loose relationship between the verb and its arguments
in the basic sentence is also reflected in the structure of complex sentences
that describe a sequence of successive events or a certain semantic relation
between two events. In comples sentences, the verbs together with their
arguments are concatenated in verb-serialization or in coordinate
converbal constructions. The loose relationship between the component
verbs in those structures obscures the figureground relation and levels the
contrast that exists at the semantic level.
The sentence structure in the East Asian language type is thus another
reflection of the worldview familiar from the traditional Chinese landscape
painting, where a moving perspective, based on variations between the
distances, allows the eye to move between various pictorial elements
without being limited to one fixed, static point of view.
Abreviations
A = Agent; ABL= Ablative; ABS = Absolutive; ACC = Accusative; ACT
= Active; ADJ = Adjective; ALL = Allative; ASSERT = Assertative; BA
= Ba-construction; BEI = Bei-construction; CAUS = Causative/Causative
complement; CL = Classifier; CMT = Completive complement; COM =
Comitative; COND = Conditional; CONJ = Conjunctive; CONT =
Continuative; COOP = Cooperative; COV = Coverb; CV = Converb; DAT
= Dative; DCL = Declarative; DEF = Definite; DISJ = Disjunctive; DO =
Auxiliary do; DS = Different-subject; EMPH = Emphasis; ERG =
Ergative; EVID = Evidential; EXP = Experiencer; EXT = Extent; FACT =
Factual; FOC = Focus; FUT = Future; GEI = Gei-construction; GEN =
Genitive; GOAL = Goal; HOD = Hodiernal tense; ILL = Illative; IMM =
Immediate; IMP = Imperative; IMPRF = Imperfective; INDIR = Indirect;
INSTR = Instrumental; INT = Intentional; INDEF = Indefinite; IRL =
Irrealis; JIAO = Jiao-construction; Location = LOC; Locative; MED =
Medial; MOD = Modal; NEG = Negation; NOM = Nominative; NZR =
Nominalizer; O = Object; OBL = Oblique; P = Patient; PASS = Passive;
PAUC = Paucative; PHS = Phase; PL = Plural; PRF = Perfective; PRES =
Present; PROG = Progressive; PRET = Preterite; PST = Past; PTCP =
185
Participle; PURP = Purposive; QST = Question; RANG = Rangconstruction; RES = Resultative; REP = Receptor; RLS = Realis; RST =
Resultative complement; S = Subject; SG = Singular; SOC = Sociative;
SPEC = Specific; STR = Structural; STS = Status; SUBJ = Subjective;
TAM = Tense-Aspect-Mood; TEST = Testimonial; TOP = Topic; V =
Verb; VN = Verbal noun
References
Bisang, W. forth. Argumenthood and syntax in Chinese, Japanese and
Tagalog.
. 1995. Verb serialization and converbs differences and similarities. In
Martin Haspelmath & Ekkehard Knig (Eds.), (pp. 137188). Berlin,
New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
. 2001. Finite vs. non finite languages. In Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard
Knig, Wulf Oesterreicher & Wolfgang Raibe (Eds.), Language
typology and language universals, (pp. 14001413). Berlin, New
York: Walter de Gruyter.
Bosson, J. E. (ed. and tr.) 1969. A treasury of aphoristic jewels.
Bloomington: Indiana University.
Croft, W. 1994. Voice: beyond control and affectedness. In Barbara Fox &
Paul J. Hopper (Eds.), (pp. 89117). Amaterdam, Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.
Dorje, D. 2004. Basic course of Amdo Tibetan, personal notes by Marja
Kaurila. University of Helsinki, East-Asian studies.
Fang, Y. 1992. Shiyong hanyu yufa. [Practical Chinese grammar.]
Beijing: Beijing Yuyan xueyuan chubanshe.
Folley, W. & R. D. Van Valin 1984. Functional syntax and universal
grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fox, B. & P. J. Hopper (Eds.) 1994. Voice, form and function. Amaterdam,
Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Grnbech, K. & J. K. Krueger 1955. An introduction to Classical
Mongolian. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
Haspelmath, M. & E. Knig (Eds.) 1995. Converbs in cross-linguistic
perspective. Structure and meaning of adverbial verb forms
adverbial participles, gerunds . Berlin, New York: Mouton de
Gruyter.
Haspelmath, M. 1995. The converb as a cross-linguistically valid category.
In Martin Haspelmath & Ekkehard Knig (Eds.), pp. 155. Berlin,
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He, S., M. Guo & S. Chai 1983. Xiadai hanyu yufa. [Grammar of modern
Mandarin.] Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe.
Kaurila, M. 2010. Complex predicates and clause linking in Chinese and
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Kibrik A. E. 2000. Subject-oriented VS subjectless languages: a
typological overview. Handout, a lecture in the University of Helsinki.
Li, C. N. & S. A. Thompson 1976. Subject and topic: A new typology of
language. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic, pp. 457489.
New York: Academic Press.
Li, L. 1986. Xiandai hanyu juxing. [Sentence patterns in modern
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Mithun, M. 1994. The implications of ergativity for a Philippine voice
system. In Barbara Fox & Paul J. Hopper (Eds.), (pp. 247277).
Amaterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Nedjalkov, V. P. 1995. Some typological parameters of converbs. In
Martin Haspelmath & Ekkehard Knig (Eds.), (pp. 97135). Berlin,
Sanders, A. J. K. & B.-I. Jantsangiin 1999. Colloquial Mongolian, the
complete course for beginners. London and New York: Routledge.
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Childrens village.
Shi, D. 2000. Topic and topiccomment constructions in Mandarin.
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dictionary.] Beijing: Waiyu jiaoxue yu yanjiu chubanshe.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CONCEPT OF TIME:
FUTURE TENSE AND EMPTINESS1
JUNICHI TOYOTA
Abstract. This paper analyses the historical development of the future

tense cross-linguistically, particularly focusing on its evolutionary onset in
relation to concepts of death and afterlife. The focal point in this paper is
that the emergence of the future tense is somehow related to the lack of a
clear idea concerning the afterlife. The geographic distribution of the
future tense reveals that the future tense is absent in Asia, and it is argued
that this is due to presence of a clear idea of life after death, mainly due to
a belief in reincarnation. Reincarnation asserts the continuation of soul
after death and, without this concept people become afraid of the
uncertainty caused by death. This fear is, as argued in this paper, a
necessary element in creating the future tense.
Introduction
The tense system in languages can vary very much from language to
language, and once aspect and mood are considered in relation to tense,
the system proves to be very complex. Naturally, the development of such
complex grammatical systems has been a concern for many scholars, and
various kinds of grammaticalisation paths have been identified (cf. Hiene
1
Abbreviations used in this paper are: ABS = absolutive; ACC = accusative; ART
= article; DAT = dative; ERG = ergative; EXCL = exclusive; FUT = future; GER =
gerund; HAB = habitual; IMM = immediate; INCPL = incompletive; INF =
infinitive; INSTR = instrumental; INTJ = interjection; IRR = irrealis; LOC =
locative; NFUT = non-future; NOM = nominative; NPST = non-past; NR =
nominaliser; PERF = perfect; PL = plural; POSS = possessive; PREP =
preposition; PRON = pronoun; PRS = present; PART = participle; PST = past;
REL = relative (clause marker); SG = singular; SBJV = subjunctive; VEN =
venitive.
188
Chapter Eleven
and Kuteva 2002). However, the historical onset of a particular tense

system, e.g. the future tense, is less studied among various tense systems,
let alone aspect and mood. Thus, in this paper, we analyse historical
development of the future tense from an evolutionary perspective, and try
to relate the current regional distribution of tense to various social
practices in different regions. It will be shown in due course that certain
social practices seem to correspond to the presence or absence of the
future tense typologically.
This paper is organised as follows: we first review various
developmental paths that have been identified so far. Some are more likely
to develop into the future tense than others, although there are some rare
cases, too. Then we move onto a certain social practice relating to the
future tense, i.e. the concept of death in different cultures. Each culture has
its own understanding of death and the afterlife and we argue that this is
connected to the formation of tense. Study of death leads us to the concept
of emptiness, which can be observed in some cultures. It seems that the
presence/absence of the concept of emptiness corresponds to the
distribution of the tense system.
Tense system
It is true that all languages have some means to make a temporal
distinction covering past, present and future overtly. The tense system can
be roughly classified into two types, termed here as the past v. non-past
type (i.e. (9)) and the past v. present v. future type (cf. (14)).
Past v. non-past type
Japanese
(13)
a. Yuubinkyoku-ni
it-ta
post.office-to
go-PST
I went to the post office.
b. Yuubinkyoku-ni
ik-u
post.office-to
go-PRS
I go/will go to the post office.
Past v. present v. future
Serbian
(14)
a. ekao
wait.PST.PART
I waited here.
sam
am
ovde
here
189
b. Ja ekam
ovde
I
wait.PRS.1SG here
I wait here.
c. eka-u
ovde
wair-FUT.1SG
here
I will wait here.
A problem in this classification is the use of auxiliaries for the future
tense. In a number of Indo-European languages, for instance, the future
tense is expressed with an auxiliary, but only those languages with
morphological markings are considered to have a specific tense. Thus,
English is considered as a language with the past v. non-past type, since
the future tense is expressed with the auxiliary verb will. Use of an
auxiliary is an intermediate stage in the historical development known as
grammaticalisation (cf. Heine et al. 1991; Heine and Kuteva 2007) and it
will become a morpheme as it further develops.
Although the majority of the languages in the world belong to one of
these types, there are some exceptions. These exceptions include no tense
marker (e.g. Tibeto-Burman, Sino-Tibetan languages), the Future v. nonfuture type (Papuan languages and some Amerind languages in South
America). The future tense is known to be closely connected to aspect and
mood (cf. Bybee et al. 1994), and a question in the case of the future v.
non-future type is that it may be connected to the mood, i.e. the realis v.
irrealis distinction (i.e. non-future and future, respectively). In fact,
languages with this type of tense normally have a complex system of
evidential, too (cf. Aikhenvald 2004). We do not attempt to solve this
question here and this issue needs further attention from scholars.
The presence or absence of the future tense is an important criterion in
considering the tense system in the world languages. Figure 1 represents a
general distribution of the future tense. The darker dots represent
languages with an overt future tense marking. Among the sample of 222
languages in Dahl and Velupillai (2008), 110 languages are claimed to
have the future tense, making up 49.5% of all the sample languages. What
is noticeable in the figure is that there is a particular geographic area
where the future tense tends to be absent, i.e. Asia (especially East and
South-East Asia).
190
Chapter Eleven
Figure 1. Geographic distribution of the future tense (Dahl and Velupillai 2008)
Historical development of tenses

If the future tense is a key feature in distinction of tense, is it a new feature
or an old one? Evolution of temporal expression started off with the binary
aspectual distinction into perfective v. imperfective (Toyota 2009).
Independently from this aspectual distinction, the mood distinction
between realis and irealis also appeared in some languages. It is likely that
the aspectual distinction developed into the binary tense system, i.e. past v.
non-past, and the realis v. irrealis distinction turned into future v. nonfuture. Based on grammaticalisation paths (cf. Heine and Kuteva 2007 on
reconstruction of earlier languages), it is very likely that the future tense
was absent in the earlier stage of human language and its development is
very recent, perhaps in the last 2,000 to 3,000 years at most. This is the
normal duration of time required for spontaneous grammaticalisation. In
addition, this is recent considering the duration of 100,000 to 150,000
years of human language.
Development of future tense

Once the future tense marker is found, there are certain patterns in the
development of the future tense. There have been numerous works that
deal with developmental paths of the future tense in different languages,
e.g. Heine and Reh (1984), Marchese (1986), Bybee et al. (1991; 1994),
Emanatian (1992), but perhaps Heine and Kuteva (2002) provide the most
191
comprehensive view on various grammaticalisation paths to the future

tense, and various paths presented here are based on their seminal work.
There are 12 different developmental paths found cross-linguistically,
e.g. come to, copula, deontic modality, go to, love, obligation, havepossession, take, then, tomorrow, venitive and want. Naturally,
some are more likely to occur in different languages than in others, and
Heine and Kuteva (ibid.) rightly point out such cases. For instance, the
copula requires the main verb to be in a non-finite (possibly a purposive)
form (Heine and Kuteva ibid., 97). Table 1 illustrates which sources are
more commonly used in forming the future tense. The table contains four
different types of likelihood: Likely and unlikely are straightforward, but
an areal or generic feature is something that is only found in certain
regions or language family and this source is not common elsewhere, and
some cases require further research to reach a more definite conclusion to
decide whether such cases are more or less likely to develop into the future
tense.
Table 1. Likelihood of future tense grammaticalisation
Likelihood
Likely
Category
Motion verbs
Verbs of desire
Modality
Unlikely
Copula
Adverbs
Areal/generic feature
Possession
Deixis
Modality/verbs of desire
Possession
Further research
Sources
come to
go to
want
deontic modality
obligation
copula
then
tomorrow
have-possession
venitive
love
take
The table suggests that motion verbs, verbs of desire and modality are
categories that are likely to develop into future tense markers, and others
are either unlikely or areal/generic features. The use of love and take
needs to be studied further to reach a comprehensive typological
behaviour. It is important to note that the future tense used here is very
inclusive, and some developmental path may be specifically used for finer
distinctions concerning futurity, e.g. immediate future, distant future, etc.
We do not make such finer distinction in this work and merely look at
variations of grammaticalisation paths denoting futurity.
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Chapter Eleven
We divide different sources listed in Table 1 according to their

likelihood, and take a closer look at likely sources, and others are grouped
together as unlikely sources in the following sections.
Motion verbs
Motion verbs, both come and go, often serve as a source of
gramamticalisaiton. An obvious example is a new future in English be
going to, but similar developmental patterns can be found in different parts
of the world with different language families. For instance, a remote future
marker in Zulu (Bantu) -ya- as exemplified in (3b) is derived from a
motion verb -ya go as in (3a). Another example is Tamile as in (16): vaa
come is used as an auxiliary for intended future.
(15)
(16)
Zulu (Bantu, Mkhatshwa 1991, 97)

a. Ba-ya
e-Goli
3PL-go LOC-Johannesburg
They are going to Johannesburg.
b. Ba-ya-ku-fika
3PL-FUT-INF-arrive
They will arrive.
Tamil (Dravidian, Lehmann 1989, 217)
naan kumaar-aik
keetk-a varu-kir-een
1SG Kumar-ACC ask-INF come-PST-1SG
I am going to ask Kumar.
Examples like these exhibit rather straightforward grammaticalisation,

i.e. a lexical item turning into a grammatical word. In some cases,
however, motion verbs have turned into a tense marker with some
constraints. An earlier English example needs to be in the progressive
aspect, for instance, to refer to futurity. This type is in fact very common.
Let us take a look at some examples: in Tzotzil (Mayan), ba(t) go, when
used in the incompletive aspect, functions as a future tense marker (cf.
(17)). In Basque, as shown in (18), joan go has to be combined with the
allative case marker (i.e. -ra) of the gerund of a verb to express futurity.
(17)
(18)
193
Tzotzil (Mayan, Haviland 1991, 13)

j-tak
ta
kanele,
yuun
ch-ba
1.ERG-send PREP
wanting
because
INCPL-go
tal-uk
come-SBJV.3.ABS
However much [liquor] I send for, its going to come.
Basque (isolate, Heine and Kuteva 2002, 163)
kanta-tze-ra
n-a-oa
sing-GER-ALL 1SG.ABS-PRS-go
Im going to sing.
In addition, as noted in Heine and Kuteva (2002, 163), a number of

pidgin and Creole languages use motion verbs as a base of
grammaticalisation (cf. Mufwene 1996). Negerhollands Dutch-lexifier
Creole uses lo(o) as a near future auxiliary, which is derived from loop (<
Dutch lopen) go, run.
(19)
Negerhollands Dutch-lexifier creole (Stolz 1986, 164, 166)

a. Astu An:ni a
lo a
hus
after spider
PERF go to house
After the spider had gone home...
b. Wel, am
lo:
ma: e:n gunggu ba:l
INTJ 3SG FUT make a
big
ball
Well, hes (soon) going to give a big ball.
Motion verbs are commonly used as a source of grammaticalisation

of the future tense, but the range of futurity, i.e. near future, distant future,
etc. can be diverse. In addition, grammatical constraints in order to achieve
futurity can be very varied.
Modality
It is obvious that future tense is somehow related to modality, especially
irrealis mood. This is so, because events in the future have not happened
and it is a mere prediction by speakers and a degree of uncertainty is
involved. This line of understanding is also connected to verbs of desire
used as a future tense marker, since desire refers to irrealis world, i.e. the
lack of an item forces people to feel desire. In addition to the relationship
in terms of irrealis mood, deontic modality, especially obligation, can be
connected to futurity. It is true that some ancient languages such as Proto-
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Chapter Eleven
Mayan used subjunctive or conditional to denote futurity (cf. Toyota 2010:

221-222). The example (8) from Sanskrit is also another example from
ancient languages. Thus, modality and future tense are perhaps better
considered in terms of continuum, not two distinctive categories.
(20)
Sanskrit (Indo-Iranian, Toyota 2010, 221)

yt
te
ghs
REL.PRON
2SG.DAT
resound.3PL.SBJV
ttar
yugni
future.NOM.PL generation.NON.PL
which future generations will resound for/to you (Rigveda III,
33, 5)
Let us take a look at actual examples concerning the continuum nature

between modality and futurity. Buriat (Mongolic) has a future tense
marker -xa, as exemplified in (9a). The same marker, when followed by a
possessive suffix (e.g. -mni my in (9b)), denotes a deontic modality,
obligation. Another similar case is found in Chepang (Tibeto-Burman).
Chepang has two kinds of future tense, normal and immediate, and
immediate future is marked by -khe? in conjunction with -?a (PST)
or -na? (NPST) (cf. (10a), Caughley 1982, 94). (10b) seems identical with
(10a) concerning a serialisation of suffixes -khe and -na?, but (10b) is
preceded by an irrealis marker -sa, and this example denotes weak
obligation. (10c) denotes strong obligation and in this structure, -khe is not
followed by the non-past marker -na?. Chepang has a rich morphological
system and this allows the language to express subtle differences based on
the immediate future and modality.
(21)
(22)
Buriat (Mongolic, Bybee et al. 1994, 260)

a. jaba-xa-b
go-FUT-1SG
I will go.
b. bi jaba-xa-mni
I go-FUT-1SG-POSS
I must go.
Chepang (Tibeto-Burman, Bybee et al. 1994, 260-261)
a. kim-ta
dah-khe?-na?
house-ALL arrive-IMM-NPST
He is about to arrive at the house.
195
b. a
wa-sa
khe-na(-)?
1SG come-IRR.NR be-NPST(-1EXCL)
I ought to come. (weak obligation)
c. a
wa-sa
khe?-(o)-to
1SG come-IRR.NR be-(1EXCL)-SECONDARY.LINK
I must come. (strong obligation)
In this type, futurity may not be overtly expressed through the future
tense marker, but rather through expressions concerning modality. It is
natural that they may exchange the functional role over periods of time
and the complex system we can find now, such as in Chepang, can be an
intermediate stage.
Verbs of desire
We have already seen one example of this type earlier in the Serbian
example (2c), which has a suffix -u. This suffix originated from a lexical
verb hteti want. This is also found in the auxiliary, e.g. Present-Day
English will is derived from Middle English willan want, desire, or
Romanian, unlike other Romance languages that normally belong to the
have-possession type, uses a lexical verb vrea want as an auxiliary, as
demonstrated in (11b). Compare this example with (11a), where the verb
is used in its original sense, want, desire.
(23)
Romanian (p.c. Flavia Vlasa Florea)

a. vreau
s
beau
want.1SG COMP drink.SUBJUNCT.1SG
I want to drink coffee.
b. voi
bea
cafea
FUT.1SG
drink.INF coffee
I will drink coffee.
cafea
coffee
Similarly, the future tense auxiliary don in Somali (Cushitic), when

used as a main verb, means wish, want (Saeed 1999, 90). Likewise, in
Swahili (Bantu), a lexical verb -taka want has been grammaticalised as a
suffix -ta as in (12c), but it can appear in its original form though
functioning as a future tense auxiliary, as in (12b). This happens only in a
specific syntactic construction, e.g. in a relative clause. Subordinate
clauses, including relative clauses, often preserve earlier structures or
functions, and this usage is also a residue of an earlier stage of
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Chapter Eleven
grammaticalisation. See Botne (1989) for other numerous cases of the

future tense markers in the Bantu languages.
(24)
Swahili (Bantu, Payne 1997, 237)

a. a-taka
ku-ja
3-wait
INF-come
He/she wants to come.
b. a-taka-ye
ku-ja
3-want-REL INF-come
He/she who will come.
c. a-ta-ku-ja
wair-FUT-INF-come
He/she will come.
Unlikely sources
Apart from the developmental paths we have seen so far, there are several
more types, although they are not so common. They may be a regional or
generic feature, but further research may prove that they are more common
than we think at this moment. We simply list such cases in this section
without referring to possible typological implications.
A case involving love is considered as a subtype of want, and
love specially used as a source for the future tense is rare. Consider a
case of Albanian: the future tense marker do love also has other lexical
meanings such as need, love which are closely related to want, and
perhaps this polysemous nature allowed this verb to refer to futurity.
(25)
Albanian (Buchholz et al. 1993, 693)

Do
t
ilen
t
tjera
galeri
FUT ART open.3PL.PRS ART other galleries
More galleries will be opened. (cf. do love, need, wish)
Have-possession is commonly found in the Romance languages (see

Klausenburger 2000), e.g. the French future tense suffix -ai 1SG, -as
2SG, etc. correspond to the present tense of avoir have, e.g. jai I
have, tu as you have, etc., but this path is not common in other language
families. Apart from the Romance languages, Albanian and Macedonian
have the have-future (cf. Balkan Prizren Romani (30)).
The verb take as a source of the future tense is also tentatively listed
in Heine and Kuteva (2002, 288), and they claims that further research is
required for its generic and areal distribution. The Sinto (Indo-Iranian)
197
example is one such case, and Ukrainian also has a similar structure (see
also (29) for Vlach Russian Romani).
(26)
Sinto (Indo-Iranian, Ramat 1987, 15)

Lav
te
va
take.1SG
that
go.1SG
I shall go.
Adverb origins seem to be rather rare. The future tense marker d in

Bari (Nilotic) stems from (e)d then, afterwards (Heine and Reh 1984,
120). The future tense marker in Mandinka (Mande) si originates from
sina tomorrow (which is in turn derived from si sun and na come)
(Claudi 1994, 198).
The use of venitive as a source of the future tense is found in East
Africa, around Somalia and Kenya border. This is an area where several
language families co-exist (e.g. Bantu, Cuchisitc, Nilotic and Omotic) and
it may be a result of language contacts and replication. The Iraqw example
in (15b) has a near future tense marker ni, which is derived from a venitive
marker as in (15a). A similar case can be found in Maa, where the venitive
derivative extension -:(n) motion hither turned into a future tense marker
with verbs of state -:, via a stage of an inchoative marker (Tucker and
Mpaayei 1955, 141; Knig 1993, 294-316).
(27)
Iraqw (Cushitic, Mous 1993, 134-135)

a. ins
ni
xa-xer
3SG
VEN
HAB-come.3.F.SG
d-r
ren-ee
place.CONSTRUCT.CASE-F 1.PL.POSS-BACKGROUND
She comes to our house.
b. atn
ni
d-an
1PL
NFUT
sing-1PL
We are going to sing.
Peculiarities of future tense

In connection to the historical development, the future tense has a peculiar
behaviour in contact-induced historical change, known as replication
(Heine and Kuteva 2003; 2005). What is unique is that the future tense is
easily replicated through language contacts (Heine and Kuteva 2005, 265),
e.g. future tense in one language induces a faster development of the same
tense in another. Other structures such as evidential also show a similar
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Chapter Eleven
tendency, but note that they are somehow connected functionally and
historically. The examples (28) to (30) illustrate cases of replication of the
future tense in different dialects of Romani. Romani is known to replicate
characteristics of a language or languages speakers have close contact with
and its dialects show a wide variety across Europe. Romani of Wales
employed an English phrase be going to as a base for replication, Vlach
Russian Romani bases its future tense on the Ukrainian take-future (the
speakers used to live in Ukraine and moved to Russia and thus, a
Ukrainian-based form developed) and Balkan Prizren Romani, spoken in
Kosovo, employed the Albanian/Macedonian have-future. Note that
possession is expressed based on the locative schema (Heine 1997),
involving a copula verb and a possessor expressed in a locative expression,
either with a preposition or a case marking.
(28)
(29)
(30)
Romani of Wales (Boretzky 1989, 369)

Briindo
dala
te
del
rain
goes
to
give
It is going to rain. (English be going to)
Vlach Russian Romani (Boretzky 1989, 369)
L-av
te xav
take
to eat
I am going to eat. (Ukrainian take-future)
Balkan Prizren Romani (Boretzky & Igla 1999, 718)
Him
ma
te
dav
lesa
is
me
that
go.1SG
he.INSTR
I will go with him. (Albanian/Macedonian have-future)
These examples are clear cases with direct influence on replication,

but what is important is that replication can take place using an existing
lexical item to create a new structure. In this sense, it is possible to
consider the development of the English future tense markers as cases of
replication at different periods, e.g. will is a result of contacts with Latin or
French (morphological future tense marking), and be going to emerged
after contacts with French (cf. French aller go for near future). The
process of replication follows a sequence of changes observed in
grammaticalisation, but changes happen in several generations (ca. 200300 years), in contrast with 2,000 to 3,000 years for spontaneous
grammaticalisation.
199
Questions concerning future tense

The fact that the future tense can be easily replicated may explain why it is
so widespread in world languages (cf. Figure 1). However, there remain at
least two questions: First, one of the languages in contact must have a
future tense in order to achieve replication as seen in (28) to (30), i.e.
Romani did not have the future tense but languages each dialect had
contact with had a specific future form. This tendency explains the spread
and areal features concerning the future tense, but the origin of the future
tense still remains unanswered. Clackson (2007, 119), for instance, points
out difficulties in reconstructing the future tense form in Proto-IndoEuropean due to dissimilarities of forms among earlier Indo-European
languages. In addition, many languages used the present form to refer to
future, i.e. the past v. non-past type (cf. (9)). The exact nature of
evolutionary emergence of the future tense is yet to be revealed.
The second point is that there is a clear areal feature concerning Asia,
i.e. the future tense does not exist in this region, as clearly shown in Figure
1. Apart from Asia, there are some other areas such as West Africa
without the future tense, but these areas also have languages with the
future tense. The mixture of the two kinds of languages can be a case of
replication, especially with Indo-European languages introduced by
colonisers in West Africa. Asian countries also have had contact with
Indo-European languages, but a similar replication has not happened. It is
possible to consider that all languages at an earlier stage were like those
Asian languages without the future tense, but it is hard to explain why this
areal feature is found only in Asia.
These points are summarised in (31). These questions may appear to
be two separate points, but in fact they are closely related to each other, in
a sense that the lack of the future tense in East and South-East Asia is due
to the fact that an important factor for emergence of the future tense was
missing in their earlier culture and it has not changed much ever since. For
this, we focus on the concept of death and afterlife.
(31)
a. What were the forces behind the evolutionary emergence of

the future tense?
b. Why do languages spoken in East and South-East Asia
consistently lack a future tense?
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Chapter Eleven
Evolutionary origin of future tense

Some ancient languages, both reconstructed and with historical data, seem
to distinguish between something one can observe directly (i.e. realis. Cf.
indicative or imperative) and something only possible in a hypothetical or
imaginary world (i.e. irrealis. Cf. subjunctive or conditional. Sanskrit
subjunctive for futurity, cf. (20)). These linguistic forms may not
correspond to the cognitive awareness of futurity among our ancestors.
However, it is possible that future was considered in terms of certainty.
For instance, it can be easily predicted that the ancestors were aware of
futurity for a very long time, perhaps as far back as the history of human
language, and evidence can be found in their social practices such as
burials, communication of the dead and preparing for a next life.
Undisputed archaeological remains dating back 130,000 years (stained
human bone remaining found in the Skhul cave at Qafzeh, Israel) have
been found, but the actual practice of burials and commemoration of the
dead are likely to be much older than this (Toyota 2009, 27-28). Thus, it
seems likely that our ancestors were equipped with an ability to deal with
futurity, but there was no specific linguistic form to express it as a separate
tense. This discrepancy is perhaps responsible for the higher frequency of
replication of future tense in comparison with other forms (Toyota, in
press.).
There are various factors that may be responsible for the emergence of
the future tense, but they seem to be related to the shift in ancestors world
view, i.e. from the domain of irrealis world to assurance of something
unknown, such as existence after death, sprits and gods. We argue here
that what is important in evolution of the future tense is this idea of
assurance of the unknown, especially the existence of life after death.
There are different kinds of understanding concerning death, and it may be
reflected in the current regional distribution of the future tense.
Death and afterlife

Some cultures have rich mythology, and this mythology was, as it were,
the science of the past, i.e. through gods and spiritual beings, people tried
to explain natural phenomena which were otherwise unexplainable at that
time. Although wide variations of patterns can be found in different
cultures concerning mythology, one idea is generally found regardless of
culture or geographic region, i.e. death and afterlife. These concepts are
something that we human beings all have to face one day, in terms of
either our own death or death of people around us. Thus, mythology
201
normally deals with death in various ways, and some have developed into
religions or local beliefs.
The role death has played in our society, both past and present, is very
obvious. Let us take a look at a case in Ancient Egypt. Funerals for the
nobles in Ancient Egypt show a highly complex system: first, the dead
were mummified to preserve the body, and this practice was very active
during the time span 2,500 BC to 700AD. It is now commonly believed
that this mummification was done as a preparation for a future existence
after death. In addition, the mummified body was protected by pyramids
built over burial chambers, and special gifts were placed in these chambers
so that they would assist the dead in the next life. There were, obviously,
other kinds of tombs in Egypt which were not capped by a pyramid, but
the pyramid form stands out in symbolic assertion of the human will to
express the hope and belief that life continues after death (Davies 2002,
94). Outside of Egypt, the mummification was also carried out among the
Chinchorro in Chile. They started mummification as early as 5,000 BC.
What is remarkable in their case is that they were keen to mummify small
children, even foetuses, considering the fact that children were often
neglected in mummification in cultures elsewhere where it existed.
Nevertheless, the dead are taken care of in preparation for the rebirth after
their death in both cases. It took their ancestors a lot of time and effort to
achieve proper mummification, and the knowledge and methods employed
may possibly even match our current technology. This alone can indicate
how important a role death played in their earlier society.
Death can, in a sense, be seen in two different ways, i.e. the end of
ones life or the beginning of a new one. In some cultures, our soul exists
only once and it does not live on. Therefore, the afterlife is not generally
assumed in these cultures. In the Nuer tribe in Sudan (cf. Evans-Pitchard
1956), the deceased are not commemorated: their graves carry no names
and the dead will be soon forgotten. However, the deceaseds name will be
passed down in the family, by naming children with the same name, so
that the name lives on in the lineage. This cultures focus is on the
survival of the social personality in the name (Evans-Pitchard 1956, 163),
not the deceaseds soul. Similarly, the Lugbara of Uganda do not possess
any traditional beliefs concerning heaven or hell or what might happen
after death. What matters most to them is the ongoing life of the lineage
(cf. Middleton 1960). So the welfare of the dead in afterlife is not of
concern at all, and instead, the kinship structure of the deceased family is
the main concern.
In other cultures, death can be the beginning of a new one. In such
social practice, people believe that the soul lives on after death. Elaborate
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Chapter Eleven
death rites involve a lot of effort. Such rites can also inflict some financial
burden on the poor. In spite of this, however, the practice of rites is
reasonably common across the globe. This is because of the awareness of
the afterlife and perhaps also of fear of death. When an afterlife is assumed,
life is often considered cyclic, and this cycle is also referred to as
reincarnation. In religious terms, this often refers to a continuous existence
of the soul, which survives death and is reborn into a new body. This
belief is perhaps the strongest in eastern religions, in particular Hinduism,
but it can be found elsewhere in the world. Roughly speaking, those who
believe in reincarnation assume that life is a linear endlessly-ongoing
process, and the soul is considered immortal. However, there seem to be
different interpretations of this linear process. For instance, a human soul
returns to another human in one belief, but in another, it can change into
another creature depending on various actions carried out in ones
previous life. One might also consider reincarnation positively, e.g.
Hinduism or Taoism, and others negatively, e.g. Gnosticism.
Concerning reincarnation, it is commonly believed among tribes in
Papua New Guinea that a deceased person will return to the same clan. It
can be applicable to some native Indians in North America, such as the
Apache. The Apache also believe that people will be reborn in the state in
which they die. This is why they used to mutilate their enemies body
when they executed them so that their enemies would not be able to fight
against them when they returned to this world. In these cultures, life can
be easily considered a journey. In this type, life is considered as linear and
thus, a journey element is clear. However, reincarnation assumes that a
soul will return to the original point, i.e. it is a circle. A case of Tibetan
Buddhism represents one such case: it is believed that it takes a soul 49
days to go through another world and return to this world. Buddhism
outside of Tibet, however, assumes several different stages. A soul can
come back to this world as a human being, but it may involve different
stages of rebirth, including insects and other animals. So the cycle in this
case may not be so simple, since no one knows for sure what the next life
looks like, but a soul will return to this world as a human in the end. This
can be schematised as in Figure 2.
The case of Tibetan Buddhism is rather spontaneous reincarnation
into a human being (e.g. Figure 2a), but in a number of cultures and
religions, reincarnation is often determined by additional factors, such as
Gods decision or various deeds one performed in previous life. In
complex reincarnation (e.g. Figure 2b), these factors determines what
happens in the next life. So it may appear certain to some that life after
death is waiting for them, but this certainty is somewhat obscured in the
203
complex type. So in terms of certainty, one can make a hierarchy: a

straightforward reincarnation is the most certain type in terms of
prediction of afterlife, and the complex reincarnation is somewhat less
certain.
a. Straightforward reincarnation
b. Complex reincarnation
Note: straight line = this world; dotted line = another world
Figure 2. Schematic representation of reincarnation
Death, fear and future tense

By now, it is apparent that there are clear differences in how people accept
death, i.e. whether they assume reincarnation or not, and if they do, there
are some variations within reincarnation. What underlies these differences
is whether people have a clear idea about an afterlife or not. Even when
reincarnation exists, those cultures that do not assume the spontaneous
type face uncertainty about their future existence and constantly worry
over the fate of their soul. Consider, on the other hand, a case in East Asia
where spontaneous reincarnation is assumed. The next life is taken for
granted in this region. Death is a part of life and people take it as it comes.
Let us turn our attention back to Figure 1. There is a concentration of
the lack of future tense in Asia. Native cultures in this area generally
follow Buddhism, which assumes spontaneous reincarnation. This seems
to suggest that there is a close link between spontaneous reincarnation and
the lack of future tense. Another interesting region is west and subSaharan Africa. In this region, reincarnation is not practiced, but instead,
names are passed down onto next generations as in the case of the Nuer or
the Lugbara. In this case, the family lineage replaces the soul concept
found in Asian countries, but the underlying process is more or less
identical, i.e. their name will survive and continue their existence. In this
sense, since the main concern is not the soul, but the name, and they know
that it will be passed onto next generations, anxiety or uncertainty is not
created concerning an afterlife.
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Chapter Eleven
In different parts of the world, fear and anxiety seem to play an

important role in affecting the tense system in the language. Fear or
anxiety created by uncertainty about an afterlife seems to correspond to
the presence of future tense and this pattern is found in the four corners of
the world. As stated earlier, the future tense is likely to be replicated and
this is perhaps related to the introduction of new religions, mainly
Christianity. The impact of a new religion can be influential, although its
extent is yet to be studied thoroughly. It is possible that a new religion
may bring a sense of fear or anxiety with it when it is introduced to a new
region, and this is a base for replicating the future tense in language
contact.
Along this line of argument, it is also possible to see the effect of fear
in the grammaticalisation of the future tense. Recall that there are three
main sources of the future tense marker, e.g. motion verbs, verbs of desire
and modality. The verbs of desire may be a reflection of fear or
uncertainty of future existence, i.e. a wish for survival of the soul in a
heavenly dwelling. In other words, fear and hope form a binary pair, which
is the basic for developing a complex system, whether a grammatical or
other cognitive system (Toyota 2009). This is perhaps a driving force
behind the creation of the future tense, although further research is
required in order to validate this claim firmer.
Death as a sense of emptiness

Having seen how understanding of death can possibly affect the tense
system, it is possible to connect this idea to the sense of emptiness seen
elsewhere in this volume. As already discussed in Toyota, Hallonsten and
Kovaevi (this volume), a sense of emptiness can be related to the
counting systems in different parts of the world, and there seems to be a
clear difference between east and west. Likewise, the distribution of the
future tense in the world suggests that the Asian languages seem to lack an
overt marking (cf. Figure 1) and this is an areal feature. We argue that this
is related to the aim of life and a concept of death, and these points can be
considered in terms of a sense of emptiness.
Each religion has its unique aim in life, and this aim can also
somehow correspond to the idea of reincarnation. In the Western culture
with Christianity and to certain extent, Islam, for instance, people are
concerned with ensuring the future existence of soul in a heavenly
settlement. This perhaps stems from the holistic world view, including the
presence of Gods in Western culture as discussed in SolomonikPankrashova (this volume). Followers have to achieve their right to reach
205
this place, and no one knows what exactly is required. It is highly possible
that their soul may perish after death. This is one of the points
incorporated in some religions in order to keep followers under control,
indicating what is required to assure the future existence after death. In the
Asian religions, on the other hand, their aim is often to free their soul by
cutting the cycle of reincarnation, as most clearly observable in Hinduism.
Thus, people might even think of the existence of the soul as a kind of
undesirable state and their aim of life is to become non-existent, i.e.
nothingness or emptiness. It is possible to claim that the sense of
emptiness exists in different cultures all over the world, but how it is
perceived totally differs, especially whether people can accept it or not.
This sharp contrast naturally creates different attitudes towards death.
The Western culture is afraid of void or emptiness and becoming nonexistent after death. One might even say that this is perhaps why the
numerical concept of zero did not exist in Europe, although the Greeks had
contact with the Babylonians who invented zero for documenting their
counting (cf. Kaplan 1999; Seife 2000). In Asia, by contrast, people are
not afraid of facing death, since it can bring people closer to their goal in
life, i.e. cut the circle of reincarnation. It is not likely that people are
willing to face death in Asia, but death is more accepted in Asia than in
Europe. This avoidance of emptiness in this sense is stronger in Europe.
People in Asia are more ready to face emptiness of their existence and this
will bring them to a state where death is acceptable. The lack of this state
will force them to be afraid of dying, i.e. fear or anxiety is created. Thus,
understanding of emptiness in different cultures can be reflected in how
people see death and consequently, how peoples world view is
formulated, as seen in the organisation of the tense in grammar in different
languages.
The firm appreciation of nothingness in Eastern culture also allows
speakers to treat death differently from people in the West. Releasing
ones existence into nothingness can be surely related to issues concerning
fear raised from death. This social practice in Asia has made people take
for granted that life goes on even after death and they are not so much
concerned with death as those who are raised in the West. In a broader
sense, people are not afraid of death due to the assurance of an afterlife
and the lack of fear naturally does not encourage people to discuss future
events specifically. Once people are concerned with death, fear is raised
due to its unknown nature. Fear also entails that the issue of death is
always found in ones mind and this can be often discussed. In this way,
peoples awareness is a good base for a specific linguistic form to emerge.
This case shows how pervasive a sense of emptiness can be.
206
Chapter Eleven
Conclusions
Future tense plays an important role in distinguishing tense systems in
world languages. It has been argued here that its evolutionary origin can
be connected with how we consider death. An important factor in this line
of argument is that once we are not certain about future existence, fear is
raised, and it is this fear that functions as the source of future tense.
Spontaneous reincarnation guarantees an afterlife, making a sharp contrast
with other beliefs where lack of such a guarantee often causes fear or
uncertainty. The geographic distribution of future tense corresponds to the
lack of reincarnation in social practice (cf. Figure 1). Thus, it is considered
a strong indication that the concept of an afterlife is closely related to the
formation of future tense.
In terms of the sense of emptiness, it is possible to argue that Asian
countries try to free ones soul from the chain of reincarnation (cf.
Hinduism), i.e. their aim is to turn soul into non-existent, i.e. void or
nothingness. Thus, Asian people are more used to the idea of emptiness
even in terms of their existence. This fact can be found in the lack of
future tense, i.e. since their aim is to free soul from existence, they are not
afraid of death, and the lack of fear raised by death suggest that languages
spoken in such cultures do not to have future tense, as geographically
shown in Figure1.
References
Aikhenvald, A. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Boretzky, N. 1989. Zum Interferenzverhalten des Romani. Zeitschrift fr
Phonetik, Sprachwissenshaft und Kommunikationsforschung, 42, 357374.
Boretzky, N. & B. Igla 1999. Balkanische (sdosteuropische) Einflsse
im Romani. In U. Hinrichs and U. Bttner (Eds.). Handbuch der
Sdosteuropa-Linguistik. (pp. 709-731). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
Botne, R. 1989. Reconstruction of a grammaticalized auxiliary in Bantu.
Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, 19, 169-186.
Buchholz, O., W. Fiedler & G. Uhlisch 1993. Wrterbuc Albanisch Deutch. Leipzig: Langenscheidt Verlag Enzyklopdie.
Bybee, J., W. Pagliuca & R. Perkins 1991. Back to the future. In E. C.
Traugott & B. Heine (Eds.) Approaches to Grammaticalization (Vol.
2). (pp. 17-58). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
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Bybee, J., R. Perkins and W. Pagliuca 1994. The Evolution of Grammar:

Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Clackson, J. 2007. Indo-European Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Claudi, U. 1994. Word order change as category change: The Mande case.
In W. Pagliuca (Ed.) Perspectives on grammaticalization. (191-232).
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Dahl, . and V. Velupillai 2008. The future tense. In: Haspelmath, M., M.
S. Dryer, D. Gil and B. Comrie (eds.). The World Atlas of Language
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Available online at http://wals.info/feature/39. Accessed on <19
November 2010>
Davies, D. J. 2002. Death, Ritual and Belief. London: Continuum.
Emanatian, M. 1992. Chagga come and go: Metaphor and the
development of tense-aspect. Studies in Language, 16, 1-33.
Evans-Pitchard, E. E. 1956. Nuer Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press
Haviland, J. B. 1991. The grammaticalization of motion (and time) in
Tzotzil. Working Paper 2. Nijmegen: Cognitive Anthropology
Research Group, Max-Plank Institute for Psycholinguistics.
Heine, B. 1997. Possession. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heine, B., U. Claudi & F. Hnnemeyer 1991. Grammaticalization: A
conceptual framework. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Heine, B. & T. Kuteva 2007. The Genesis of Grammar. Oxford: Oxford
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Heine, B. & M. Reh 1984. Grammaticalization and Reanalysis in African
Languages. Hamburg: Buske.
Kaplan, R. 1999. The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero. London:
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Marchese, L. 1986. Tense/aspect and the Development of Auxiliaries in

Kru Languages. Arlington: Summer Institute of Linguistics and
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Baker & A. Syea (Eds.) Changing Meanings, Changing Functions:
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Vocabulary. London: Longman.
PART FOUR:
FURTHER STUDIES ON EMPTINESS
CHAPTER TWELVE
PROSPECTS ON EMPTINESS
AND MARINA SHCHEPETUNINA
Abstract. This chapter summarises what has been presented in this volume
and looks at some possible further research concerning emptiness. As
should be clear from the content of this volume, the range of topics is
diverse, showing the interdisciplinary nature of the concept of the sense of
emptiness. There are, however, some features that cannot be covered in the
current state or research and theory, and they may prove to be truly worth
investigating in future research. In order to achieve such a type of research,
further collaborations are expected within this topic.
Interdisciplinary nature of topic

It is obvious from the content of this volume that the theme of emptiness
can cover a wide range of topics in various disciplines. What is curious is
that the sense of emptiness is so pervasive. This topic might have been
given special attention earlier in some fields, such as religious studies and
philosophy (cf. Shchepetunina on mythology, this volume), but in others,
it has been overlooked. As the various contributions in this volume have
hinted, emptiness can be a rigid topic on its own and can be studied in
practically in any field.
Emptiness can be about the void of something, but this void is not
about absence, but rather, about presence. As presented in the preface, it
all depends on how one sees emptiness, i.e. the perspective on the void of
something can be a crucial factor in understanding this concept. It is
interesting that there is a considerable difference between East and West in
understanding this concept, regardless of what specific aspect we analyse.
In some cases, certain features of emptiness can be copied into a new
culture, forming a special understanding of the world. This
copying/incorporation of features from other cultures may be most
211
obvious in the area of arts, including literature (e.g. Vinji iovi and
Toyota; Bjrling, this volume).
From a historical perspective, peoples appreciation or understanding
of emptiness may change. This is certainly related to the copying of new
cultures, but the mixture of different cultures can be highly intricate and
various patterns can be found. However, generally speaking, the
understanding of emptiness has a long tradition in each culture, and the
base of understanding was founded in ancient history (e.g. Gledi;
Shchepetunina, this volume).
These points can be observed in the chapters presented in this volume,
but some topics also require further research. The following three points
can at least be put forth; the evolutionary onset of the concept of
emptiness; its geographic diversity; and the transfer of concepts through
contact.
Evolutionary onset
The evolutionary onset of the sense of emptiness is not discussed in this
volume, but such discussion might reveal how our cognition worked at an
earlier stage in human civilisation. Although one has to involve some
speculations, it is more natural to assume that our ancestors dealt with
things they could not actually observe, in their own environment and in
their lifetimes, including the present and past. The onset of religion or
mythology, for instance, is sometimes considered in terms of dealing with
something our ancestors could not directly experience, and religions or
myths can be considered a form of ancient science (cf. Segal 2004; Morris
2006). In these cases, people are actually concerned with something they
cannot directly experience, which can lead to defining emptiness. And yet,
it is not clear when our ancestors awareness of emptiness arose and how
diversity came into its current distribution.
The awareness of emptiness clearly marks the evolutionary onset of
cognitive development, in the sense that earlier Homo s. sapiens, or even
Homo neanderthalensis, came to hypothesise about possible future events.
The attempts made in this volume (e.g. Toyota on the future tense;
Huttunen and Pine on gesture; Sandin on architecture) are mainly
concerned with development after the establishment of religions or myths,
and there are various unsolved issues concerning the stage prior to the
presence of these concept structures. This line of research can also reveal
how different perspectives have emerged in different regions of the world.
212
Chapter Twelve
Geographic diversity
The geographic regions covered in this volume are limited to Europe and
East Asia; the contributions in the volume hardly touch upon Africa,
Australia, and North and South America. The comparison of the two
regions found in this volume is mainly due to the availability of materials
from previous research. However, it is extremely likely that further
development in understanding emptiness can be found in cases elsewhere
in the world.
Let us take a look at a specific case and see how many possibilities can
be derived from research arising in different parts of the world. Papua
New Guinea and Australia have distinct history, culture, as well as flora
and fauna. Languages spoken in these regions have gained much interest
in the past decades due to their peculiar grammatical structures (e.g. Foley
1986; Dixon 1994 among others). For instance, in order to organise a
sentence structure concerning the grammatical subject and object, the
languages in question have a so-called ergative system. There are three
basic types of arranging the subject and object. In the ergative system, the
transitive object and the intransitive subject have the same form, and the
transitive subject has a different form. This system is demonstrated by
hypothetical English examples in Figure 1. The pattern found in English,
known as the accusative system, has both transitive and intransitive
subjects in identical forms, but the transitive object in a different form, as
also demonstrated in Figure 1.
Historically, it is likely that these systems developed from yet another
system known as the active system (also captured in Figure 1), and that it
turned into either an accusative or an ergative system, depending on the
region of the world. A characteristic of the active system is that it
resembles the ergative system, but it divides intransitive sentences into
two types, active and inactive. When action or dynamicity is involved, a
sentence is considered active, whereas a stative sentence is treated as
inactive (see the hypothetical examples in Figure 1). In the course of
development, the active type of the intransitive became standardised in the
accusative system, while the inactive type is used in the ergative type, as
marked in Figure 1. Note that Saintr stands for the subject of the
intransitive sentence with an active subject, and Sinintr, the subject of the
intransitive sentence with an inactive subject. This shows that the ergative
and accusative systems took different options in the earlier binary choice
of the active system. Thus, languages spoken in Papua New Guinea and
Australia have different options from those spoken in, say, Europe.
213
Accusative
Active
a. He hit me.
b. I hit him.
c. I go. (Saintr.)
d. I stay. (Saintr.)
a. He hit me.
b. I hit him.
c. I go. (Saintr.)
d. Me stay. (Sinintr.)
Ergative
a. He hit me.
b. I hit him.
c. Me go. (Sinintr.)
d. Me stay. (Sinintr.)
Notes: Saintr. = active/dynamic intransitive subject;

in
intr. = inactive/stative intransitive subject
Figure 1. Schematic representation of diachronic alignment shift
Furthermore, there is a clear difference in the use of perception verbs

among the languages of Papua New Guinea and Australia. It is a common
metaphorical extension in the languages of the world that vision is used as
a base to express comprehension, e.g. I see your point, meaning I
understand your point. This is a pattern found in Indo-European languages.
However, the Papuan and Australian languages readily use the hearing as
the corresponding base of metaphorisation, e.g. I hear your point meaning
I understand your point (see Viberg 1984; Evans and Wilkins 2000 for
example). It is generally claimed that vision and hearing are the two main
types of human perception, and here again the Papuan and Australian
languages take a different option in the binary choice. A possible
explanation for this choice is related to religious belief (p.c. Alexandra
Aikhenvald): the natives in Papua New Guinea and Australia practice
shamanism, and they believe that only people with divine gifts can see
spirits. Thus, lay people tend to avoid using vision as a concept to avoid a
clash with religious practice. This made lay people opt to use other
sensory features, and hearing, one of the two basic types of perception
along with seeing, was chosen. This case shows an interaction between
religion and other cultural activities, and that religion can be an important
factor in organising peoples world views (cf. Toyota on future tense).
It seems that Papuan and Australian languages tend to take a different
option from the one picked by other languages. By analogy, it seems
214
Chapter Twelve
possible that various cultures found in these regions might behave

differently from the rest of the world in terms of emptiness, too. We need
further investigation to discover to what extent this statement holds true,
but research based on data from these regions may require extensive field
work. Thus, it is not so easy to achieve thorough research due to
restrictions of time and finance. However, it is clear that remote regions in
different parts of the world can offer interesting data for a better
understanding of emptiness.
Transfer of concept through contacts

The sense of emptiness can be considered a cultural artefact, similar to
myths or rituals. It is natural that it can be transferred from one culture to
another through contacts, as in the sense of transfer of art designs. Thus, it
is possible to find an odd instance of emptiness in a culture where it is not
generally assumed to occur (cf. Bjrling on Russian film in this volume).
A specific case of contacts involving emptiness is now being observed in
the surge of interest in Eastern philosophy in the West. This type of
incorporation may be a temporary trend, and it may not leave a significant
impact in the long run, but cases like this suggest a possible spread of the
concept of emptiness.
This raises some interesting questions: for instance, when two cultures
meet, there is obviously a meeting point. It is normally made via trade and
some stations for goods to store have often turned into a town with cultural
diversity. Central Asia was a meeting point between East and West, via the
Silk Road. This region also holds different ethnic groups and religions.
Like the case of Papua New Guinea, this region has also not been
thoroughly studied in terms of human cognition through cultural contacts.
The way people in this region consider emptiness may resemble one of the
conceptualisation patterns identified above, but they might also have a
slightly different understanding after incorporating different features from
each side.
Another question is whether contacts can assimilate two cultures or
diversify one from the other. Contact is often considered to assimilate
different cultures, but it can diversify a culture based on ones social
identity (Toyota 2010). In other words, the presence of alien cultures
raises awareness of this social identity. Such cases may be rare, but it can
be found in regions such as the Balkan, Sub-Saharan Africa, Siberia
(especially in the case of Ket), etc. In such cases, the understanding of
emptiness may be affected, but it is also possible that it can withstand
outside effects. No one has attempted to analyse emptiness in contact
215
situations and it is difficult to hypothesise what might happen. Thus, this

point is yet to be analysed in future research.
Concluding remarks
Studies on the sense of emptiness can cover a wide range of topics, and
they clearly require an interdisciplinary approach. Due to its range, it is
difficult to capture everything related to this concept. Various features
treated in this volume cover only a small portion of issues related to the
sense of emptiness. Nonetheless, this volume is the first interdisciplinary
approach to this topic, and it is hoped that there will be more works
following this line of research, widening the range of topics, and
deepening our understanding of the subject.
References
Dixon, R.M.W. 1994. Ergativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Evans, N. & D. Wilkins. 2000. In the minds ear: The semantic extensions
of perception verbs in Australian languages. Language 76, 546-592.
Foley, W. 1986. Languages of Papua New Guinea. Cambridge:
Morris, B. 2006. Religion and Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Segal, R.A. 2004. Myth: A very short introduction. Oxford. Oxford
University Press.
Toyota, J. 2010. Language and identity in historical change. In V. Lopii
& B. Mii-Ili (Eds.), Language, Literature and Identity, (pp.127138). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Viberg, . 1984. The verbs of perception: a typological study. In: B.
Butterworth, B. Comrie & . Dahl (Eds.), Explanations for Language
Universals, (pp.123-162). Berlin: Mouton.
CONTRIBUTORS
Fiona Bjrling is Professor of Slavic Languages at the Centre for

languages and literature at Lund University. Her research areas are
Russian literature and Russian cultural history. Her current research on the
works of Boris Pasternak is focused on A Safe Conduct and concerns
Pasternaks aesthetics and his concern with the language of inspiration.
Bjrling works as well with contemporary Russian cinema, in particular
with the films of Andrei Nekrasov and Aleksandr Sokurov. Her most
recent article is based on a theoretical interest in the specifics of verbal and
visual narration: Quiet Voices: The Significance of Subdued Dialogue
and Voice-Over in the Films of Aleksandr Sokurov, in Scando-Slavica
56:1 (2010), 99-118.
Jelena Gledi is a teaching fellow at the University of Belgrade
(Serbia). Her work focuses on various aspects of the Chinese civilization,
most often observed in a global context using cross-disciplinary
approaches. Her research interests include theories of culture, theories of
communication, film and media, linguistics and philosophy. She has
published several articles on Chinese philosophy and philosophy of
language, the Chinese identity in modern media, and theoretical and
methodological challenges of contemporary Chinese studies.
(jelenagledic@gmail.com)
Borko Kovaevi is a senior researcher at University of Belgrade
(Serbia), at Department of general linguistics. His research interests cover
a wide range of linguistic disciplines, including typology, morphology,
syntax and sociolinguistics, and he has published numerous articles in
these fields. He is also one of the editors for a journal Anali Filoloskog
Fakulteta. (borkoko@fil.bg.ac.rs)
Pernilla Hallonsten is a PhD student in linguistics at Stockholm
University (Sweden) and a recent graduate of the University of Oxford.
Her research interests primarily cover typology, historical linguistics, and
cognitive linguistics, and she is currently focusing on typological studies
of lexical categories. She has published articles on historical linguistics.
(pernilla.hallonsten@ling.su.se)
217
Kerttu Huttunen is an associate professor, currently working as a

university researcher at the Institute of Clinical Medicine/Department of
Otorhinolaryngology, University of Oulu (Finland) and her research
covers use of gestures, typical and atypical development of speech and
language, speech reception and production in hearing impairments, effects
of cochlear implantation, and some topics in occupational health and
safety. She works in several multidisciplinary research teams and has
published, for example, in the areas of communication and speech
intelligibility in hearing impairments, speech and language development
and changes of quality of life after cochlear implantation, and effects of
sleep loss and high cognitive load on speech. (kerttu.huttunen@oulu.fi)
Marja Kaurila is a Ph.D. student majoring in general linguistics at
the Department of Modern Languages, Helsinki University (Finland). She
is interested in typology, language contact and areal linguistics focusing
on East Asian languages, especially on Sino-Tibetan languages. She is a
participant in the (China) GansuQinghai Research Group in Helsinki
University, and has made a couple of short fieldwork trips in the Gansu
Qinghai area collecting material from Wutun and Linxia, two mixed
Sinitic languages with a strong affect from Amdo Tibetan. She is one of
the authors of Wutun (2008, Lincom Europa), a grammatical description of
the Wutun language. (mapeltom@gmail.com)
Karen J. Pine is currently Professor of Developmental Psychology at
the University of Hertfordshire, U.K. Her academic research includes
childrens cognitive development, the role of gestures in cognitive and
linguistic processes and in mother-infant interaction, the effect of gesture
on adult recall and in social contexts such as gift failure and advertising.
More widely she is engaged in behaviour change projects aimed at
improving the health and wellbeing of deprived communities using the Do
Something Different approach. Karen J Pine has written a number of
popular books including Love Not Smoking (Hay House, 2011),
Sheconomics (Headline, 2009) and The No Diet Diet (Orion 2006).
(www.karenpine.com)
Gunnar Sandin is an associate professor at Lund University
(Sweden), Dept of Architecture, and Center for Cognitive Semiotics. He is
also a research fellow at University of Hertfordshire (UK). His main
research interests are visual culture studies, aesthetics, and material culture
studies, with a theoretical base in semiotics. His interests are reflected in
articles such as: Spatial negotiations. An actant analysis model for the
218
Contributors
interpretation of land use, LEXIA, no. , 2009, and Keys to heterotopia.

An actantial approach to landfills as societal mirrors Nordic Journal of
Architectural Research, 2. 2008.
(gunnar.sandin@arkitektur.lth.se)
Marina Shchepetunina is a lecturer at Osaka University (Japan). She
works within a field of cultural anthropology, and her research interests
are mainly concerned with mythology and gender studies. She has worked
on ancient Japanese mythology, focusing on two manuscripts, Kojiki and
Nihon shoki, and identified various roles played by divine beings from a
perspective of gender studies. She has written several journal articles on
topics such as Questioning Image of Japan as a Miko Country:
Representation of Shamanism in Ancient Japanese Myths, Myths and
Legends about Ubuya. (shchepetuninamarina@hotmail.com)
Tatyana Solomonik-Pankrashova is an associate professor at
Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty of Humanities (Lithuania). Her
research embraces a wide range of disciplines, i.e. Anglo-Saxon literature,
theology, comparative mythology and historical linguistics. She has
published numerous articles, including The Internal Structure of the
Concept of Soul in the Anglo-Saxon Language (Memory, Mind and
Language, ed. Hans Gtzsche 2010, Cambridge Scholars Publishing). At
present, the scholar is appraising the roots of contemplative spirituality in
King Alfreds Prose Psalter. (rebecca_solo@yahoo.com)
Junichi Toyota is an associate professor at Lund University (Sweden)
and a visiting professor at the University of Belgrade (Serbia). His
research interests cover a wide range of disciplines, including linguistics,
anthropology and cognitive science. He has published numerous articles
on historical linguistics and cognitive linguistics, and has published
several monographs: Diachronic Change in the English Passive (2008,
Palgrave); Kaleidoscopic Grammar (2009, Cambridge Scholars Press);
The Grammatical Voice in Japanese (2011, Cambridge Scholars Press),
and English Grammar through Time (forthcoming by Cambridge University
Press.) (Junichi.Toyota@englund.lu.se)
Sonja Vinji iovi is a founder and one of the editors a publisher
Kokoro Spirit of the East (www.ipkokoro.com). She published and
translated more than 30 books regarding Japanese art, culture, philosophy,
religion and tradition. She is one of the editors of magazine for art, culture
and literature Liber. She finished Master studies in Faculty of Philology of
219
University of Belgrade (thesis: Elements of Nature in Late Poetry of

Matsuo Basho). (kokoro@verat.net)
INDEX
absence of subjectivity 42, 51-53,

63
active/stative languages 150-142,
155, 212-213
Analects see Four Books
anthropology 115-116, 125-126
architecture 114
art (Chinese) 22-23, 26
back-channeling 95
Basho, Mastuo 31-34, inter alea
bowing 95
Book of Changes 19
Buddhism (Chinese) 16-20, 26-27
Buddhism (Japanese) 32, 34, 35, 37,
inter alea
caregiving behaviours 103
chaos 59-61, 63-64
child-rearing practices 103, 104
Chuang Tzu 31, 37, 38, 39, 42
classifier 131, 132, 134
classifier languages 132-135
collectivity/collectivist culture 95
communication culture 96, 98, 101,
103, 104
communication turn 104
communicative competence 98
communicative patterns 98
communication style 103
Confucius 15, 18
Confucianism 8, 9, 15-17, 21-23, 26,
137, 141
connectivity 95
converbal construction 149, 168,
170-174, 177-179, inter alea
coordinate linkage 148, 149, 177180, 184
cosubordinate linkage 181
countable 131-133, 137-138

counting system 129, 131-132, 136,
inter alea
cultural stereotypes 97
cultural rules for communicating
104
cultural variation 100, 103
choka 33
Daoism 16-18, 20. 26, 27
deity 55-61, 62
Dong You 23
East Asia 5, 48, 52, 95, 135, 138,
199, 203, 212
Eastern perspective 137
emptiness 6-7, 9, inter alea
existence 17, 21, 25, 39, 45, inter
alea
enigmatic sign 68-69, 72, 74, 76
Feng Yulan 25
final verb 176-177, 181-183
finite verb 167, 176, 181
Four Books 18
fueki 40, 41
fukyo 38, 40
Fung Youlan see Fung Yulan
furyu 38, 40
haiku 31-35, 37-43
fates 69-71, 88, 90
Gestalt approach 139
gesture
development 98-99
frequency 96, 98
production 98
rate 96, 98
type 99
use 95-96, 99-101
vocabulary 98, 99

gesture-rich 100, 105
gestures
beat 99
conventional 99, 102
co-speech 99-100
deictic 99, 101
emotive 104, 105
hand/arm 96
iconic 99
metaphoric 99
representational 101
speech-accompanying 99, 102
symbolic 99
kami 53, 56, 61
karumi 37, 43
ki 39
kyo 39, 42
Kojiki 49, 52, 53, 54, inter alea
k 47, 48, 53-59, 62, 63
hierophany 68, 69
Hsun Tzu see Xunzi
individualism/individualist culture
95, 96, 103, 123
infinitiness 52
kng 17, 18
language
comprehension 98, 103
development 98, 103
production 103
language-specific 105
lexical access facilitation 102
Mencius see Mengzi
medial verb 176, 177, 181
Medieval worldview 68
Mengzi 15
metaphorical kenning 67
metaphysical symbolism 68, 69
modalised place 126
Moirai 70
mythology 8, 53-54, 58-63, 70, 7273, 200
Nihonshoki 33, 35
nodding 95, 99
nominal verb 167, 176
non-place 113-114, 115, 116-118
non-classifier languages 132-135
221
non-selfness 52, 63
Norns 70, 71
optional classifier languages 135
paradox 74
Parcae 70
parental behaviour 103
peregrinatio motif 75
place 113-114
placelessness 114
pointing 98-102
politeness 95, 96, 97
prolonged silence 95
prosopopoeia 75
reductive view 137, 138, 139
Renga 32-34, 40, 43, 44
road of the dead 77
Romance languages 100, 195-196
riddle 74, 75
ryuko 40, 41
self 80, 122
Shintoism 52-54, 64
ship/soul model 73, 75, 77
sky 52-58, 62, 64, 86
silent listener 97
social behaviour 95, 104
social conventions 99
social facts 115-116, 126
sociocultural norms 96
solitude 25, 38, 40, 113, 120, 122,
123
sora 54, 55, 57
soratsuhiko 55, 56, 58, 62, 63
Southeast Asia 135, 141, 171
space 6-9, 18-19, 45, 48, 50, 52,
inter alea
subjectpredicate relation 155
subject-prominent language 155,
164, 167
subordinate linkage 177
Sunyata 49-51, 54, 58, 63
supermodernity 113, 116-118, 120
Su Shi 22
speaking rate 98, 104
speech tempo 100
symbolic alphabet 68
shizen 37, 38, 46
222
shomon school 34
speaking culture 96
speaking turn 97
structuralism 139
tanka 33
Taoism see also Daoism
Thread of Life 69-70, 73
topic chain 181
topiccomment relation 149, 155,
162-163
topic-prominent language 147-149,
151, 155-156, 159, 161
transcendental beauty 68
Tu Weiming 24
Uncountable 128, 133, 137, 138
universal allegory 68, 69
Valkyrie 73
verb serialization 165, 167-174, 177,
180-181, 184
Index
verb recategorization 155, 161, 164
voice variation 156
waka 32, 37, 40
Western view 138, 140, 141
word retrieval difficulties 100
word retrieval processes 104
w 17, 19
Wu-wei (Japanese: mui) 37, 42
Wyrd 71
x 17, 18, 19
Xunzi 18, 25
Yu Dan 15, 16
Zen Buddhism 31-32, 34, 35, 37
Zhang Zai 19, 20
Zhou Dunyi 19, 20
Zhu Xi 21, 25
Zhuangzi 17, 18
zoka 38, 39

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Sense of Emptiness

Junichi Toyota, Pernilla Hallonsten

Sense of Emptiness: An Interdisciplinary Approach,

THE EDITORS WISH TO THANK RIMA, KESTUTIS AND BIT

Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 112

but it is still possible. What determines these variations is relative

Relative prominence can naturally be difficult to measure, since this is

a. White > Black

c. White < Black

The concept of emptiness used in this volume refers to less prominent

Sense of Emptiness: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Scope of research and approaches

Abstract. This chapter introduces a subject matter of emptiness in the

used pervasively across different kinds of comparisons, whether they are

Figure and ground

a. A vase is on the table.

Exploring Sense of Emptiness: A Cognitive Overview

Figure 1. Conceptualisation of figure and ground: relationship between a vase

Apart from these ambiguous cases, it is worth mentioning that nurture

Figure 3. Position of lakes in relation to surrounding mountains

a. The lake is on the mountain.

Exploring Sense of Emptiness: A Cognitive Overview

Figure and ground may be considered a cognitive foundation in human

In comparing them, it is obvious that there are several striking

in a vase, and they are arranged in a near-symmetry. The Japanese style

What underlies in this difference can be attributed to the concept of

Exploring Sense of Emptiness: A Cognitive Overview

Exploring Sense of Emptiness: A Cognitive Overview

naturally forces us to think various matters in more general terms. In other

Emptiness in terms of figure and ground

initially imagined and each flower (figure) is arranged to achieve the

Figure 5. Schematic representation of figure-ground relationship:

Exploring Sense of Emptiness: A Cognitive Overview

Abstract. As an introduction to potential research on cultural characteristics

never in question (e.g. Tu 1979; De Bary 1996). If we perceive

thought present in Chinas society. Considering that this text is an

basis of Confucianism (tiemble 1966; Zhang 1985) and the practical

The philosopher Tsang said, Gifted with ability, and yet

The Master said, Am I indeed possessed of knowledge? I am

In all three examples emptiness is opposed to fullness, whether it is

The character x represents a significant cosmological principle in

When the Chi condenses, its visibility becomes apparent so that

When it is understood that Vacuity, Emptiness, is nothing but

Activity as the absence of stillness and stillness as the absence

Can one become a sage through learning? Having no desire

That which is completely silent and inactive is authenticity

Although influenced by Buddhism and Daoism, Neo-Confucians

Confucianists investigate principle and therefore can follow

It is according to ones nature that being and non-being, and

and Buddhists have for long maintained there is none. Do they

the Buddhists talk about emptiness whereas the Confucians talk

With us Confucians, although the mind is vacuous, principle is

Thus in the Song and Ming dinasties, Confucians seemed to provide a

The prehensive nature of an object is its Yin aspect. The

The fundamental principle of giving birth to new events or new

and the moving matches the rest, so that there is interprehension

It is like clouds and mists passing before my eyes, or the songs

If a person is sincere (cheng) within, he is released from such

These ideas are further formulated in some Confucian principles of art,

The New Confucian Tu Weiming further interprets this notion:

Since the mind of the ancients can never be reproduced,

The origin of things is seen as their inseparable, defining trait. Furthermore,

To the Neo-Confucian thinker, what happens here and now is