Causality as philosophical, logical and linguistic category

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Causality as philosophical, logical and linguistic category

O. Glotova

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of a Junctional-semantic category of causality, one of the central cognitive structures of human consciousness. The essence of this category can be fully revealed only taking into account its peculiarities in the systems of other sciences, namely philosophy and logics. The definition of the linguistic category of causality reflecting its philosophical and logical comprehension is presented. It confirms the possibility to apply the functional approach to studying lexical and grammatical forms belonging to different language levels and expressing causative-consecutive relations in a unified system.

Key words: causality, linguistic category of causality, causative-consecutive relations, lexical and grammatical forms, different language levels, functional approach.

Анотація

О.В. Глотова

ПРИЧИНОВІСТЬ ЯК ФІЛОСОФЬКА, ЛОГІЧНА ТА ЛІНГВІСТИЧНА КАТЕГОРІЯ

У статті розглядається одна з основних когнітивних структур людського мислення функціонально-семантична категорія причиновості. Підкреслюється, що розкрити лінгвістичні особливості цієї категорії неможливо без урахування даних інших наук, зокрема філософії та логіки, предметом вивчення яких також є причиновість. Така спільність робить можливим перенесення уявлень однієї науки для характеристики цієї категорії в інших науках. Не заперечуючи зв 'язку між цими поняттями у висвітленні різних наук, не можна змішувати специфічні ознаки цієї категорії, властиві кожній з наук, щоб запобігти однобічному її розумінню. Кожна наука трактує причиновість відповідно до свого предмета і завдань його пізнання.

Причиновість як філософська категорія, яка має об'єктивний характер, всезагальність, а значить, і різноманітність зв'язку причини та наслідку, безперечно, знаходить місце в законах мислення, що становлять предмет логіки, і в мові, яка оформляє і виражає мислення. Тим часом у логіці ці причиново-наслідкові відношення становлять їхнє відбиття у мисленні, втілюючись у закони мислення. Мова ж виражає причиново-наслідкові відношення певною конкретно визначеною системою лексичних і граматичних форм, вироблених на різних етапах розвитку мислення носіїв мови й закріплених їхньою мовленнєвою практикою. Наявність різних мовних засобів дозволяє одну і ту ж думку або зміст передавати по-різному. Такою є специфіка мови. Разом з тим слід мати на увазі, що саме в мові завдяки різноманітності мовної системи стає можливим передавати смислові нюанси причиновості.

У лінгвістиці поняття причини та наслідку усвідомлюються відповідно до характеру мовного оформлення причиновості. Мовленнєве вираження причиновості має свої особливості: вона здатна передаватись структурами без специфічних формальних її показників. Разом з тим причиновість може відтворювати реально присутню причиново-наслідкову залежність, а також здатна виражати обґрунтування дії або ознаки.

Все це дозволяє стверджувати, що причиновість - це значення (семантика), яке встановлюється на основі семантико-синтаксичних відношень мовних одиниць. Зрозуміло, що ці відношення спираються на певні вироблені у мові засоби. Тому каузальність як лінгвістична категорія може визначатись лише з урахуванням її семантики та засобів вираження. Отож, причиновість як лінгвістична категорія становить собою зумовлене об'єктивною дійсністю і законами мислення значення, засноване на семантико-синтаксичному відношенні мовних засобів, серед яких мотивувальний компонент називає причину дії або ознаки мотивованого або дає йому причинове обґрунтування.

Таке визначення лінгвістичної категорії причиновості відбиває її філософське і логічне розуміння. Саме це дає усвідомлення лінгвістичної причиновості як явища, що відбиває реальну дійсність. У свою чергу, це націлює на інтенсивні пошуки мовних засобів, що її формують. Подальші дослідження мають бути спрямовані на те, щоб віднайти, класифікувати й пояснити мовні засоби причиновості в функціональному аспекті. Такі розвідки можуть реалізовуватися як на матеріалі окремих мов, так і в порівняльному аспекті при дослідженні споріднених та неспоріднених мов.

Ключові слова: причиновість, лінгвістична категорія причиновості, лексичні та граматичні форми, різні мовні рівні, функціональний підхід.

In recent decades, linguists have focused their attention on the presentation of cognitive structures in language. The phenomenon of causality is of particular interest in this respect, since it is one of the central cognitive categories of human consciousness. The study of structural, semantic and functional features of the causative situation is presented in the works of many scholars both in our country and abroad (Arutyunova, 1980; Copley and Wolff, 2014; Dowty, 1979; Dubovyk, 2005; Hale, 1993; Khorovets', 2018; Kratzer, 1996; Melchuk, 1984; Parsons, 1990; Pustejovsky, 1991). As a functional-semantic category, causality begins to be actively studied with the quick development of the theory of functional grammar. Its object is syntactic phenomena of different languages [3; 8; 16]. The functional approach to the study of syntax allows us to consider means belonging to different language levels on the basis of their common semantic functions in a unified system [3, p. 46-57].

The logics of modern linguistic theory presupposes the study of the interaction of elements belonging to different language levels on a functional basis. Also, the needs of active language learning involve obtaining information about language units expressing definite semantic meanings which are represented by various functional-semantic categories, and one of the most important and common one in the structure of language is the category of causality.

It should be noted that in the last decade the category of causality has attracted special attention of researchers in Ukraine. Both general issues of understanding causality and specific linguistic means of implementing this category on the material of different languages are studied [6; 9; 10; 11]. In particular, V. YE. Khorovets' carefully explores the evolution of views on causality in retrospect (from ancient times, the Renaissance to the present day) in philosophical, logical, linguistic aspects. She determines causality as «...a complex structured notion, the plane of content of which is the general invariant meaning of causality with its variant meanings of consequence, condition, concession, etc, while the plane of expression is composed of means of different language levels» [11, p. 7].

Causality reflects the relationships and conditionality of the processes and phenomena of objective reality and requires further steps in their both philosophical and logical, and linguistic description as well. And this explains the topicality of the article under consideration.

The aim of the presented article is to prove that it is possible to give a comprehensive analysis of the linguistic category of causality on the basis of the functional approach only after thorough studying its distinctive features in philosophy, logics and linguistics.

This aim dictates the following tasks:

to find out the specific features of causality in philosophy and logics;

to describe the ways in which causative-consecutive relations are realised in thinking and are implemented in the laws of thinking;

to show interrelation of causality as logical and linguistic category and its influence on forming utterances;

to characterise the peculiarities of linguistic realisation of causative-consecutive relations depending on the nuances of causative semantics;

to give the definition of the linguistic category of causality as the object of study of functional grammar.

The category of causality has been an object of study of many researchers in philosophy, logics, and other sciences. This commonality makes it possible to transfer the ideas of one science to characterize this category in other sciences. Therefore, without denying close ties in describing this category in different sciences, it is necessary to avoid mixing its specific features, inherent in each of the sciences, to avoid one-sided understanding. Each science interprets causality in accordance with its subject and the tasks of its study.

In philosophy, causality is regarded as one of the forms of general interconnection of the objective world. «Causation is intuitively a relation of dependence between events. The event that is caused, the effect, depends for its occurrence on the cause. It wouldn't have happened without it. The occurrence of the cause explains the effect. Once we see that the cause happened, we understand why the effect did» [15]. This means that any object or phenomenon is connected with all other things or phenomena in one way or another. Hence, any effect is determined by a definite reason or a number of reasons. From the philosophical point of view, causality is universal, because there are no causeless phenomena in the world, just as there are no phenomena that do not give rise to an effect [7, p. 64]. causality logic thinking

Causality as a philosophical category, which has an objective character, universality, and hence the diversity of the cause and effect, undoubtedly finds its place in the laws of thinking, which are the subject of logics, and in the language that shapes and expresses thinking. However, such a definition of the interdependence of causality as a philosophical, logical and linguistic category should not lead to the wrong path of its identification in each of these sciences. Suffice it to say that in philosophy, causative-consecutive relations are considered as those that actually exist in reality.

Meanwhile, in logics, these causative-consecutive relations are their reflections in thinking, embodied in the laws of thinking. Being based on real situations, they do not reflect realities directly, but reflect the objective world in concepts, judgments, inferences in accordance with the specific features of logical laws. These are logical causality peculiarities.

As far as language is concerned it expresses causative-consecutive relations with the help of a special system of lexical and grammatical forms, worked out at different stages of development of native speakers' thinking and embodied in their speech practice. Under the system of lexical and grammatical units of language we understand primarily grammatical forms of words, syntactic structures, as well as lexical elements that play an important role in the implementation of the corresponding semantic relations.

The availability of different linguistic means allows to render the same idea or content in different ways, for example: I am happy about stricter smoking policies. I am happy because stricter smoking policies were introduced. This is the specificity of language. At the same time, it should be kept in mind that namely thanks to the diversity of the language system it is possible to convey the causality semantic shades, such as real causality, categorical causality, etc.

It would be a mistake to think that peculiarities of logical and linguistic causality lead to a loss of its interconnection with philosophy. For all the specificity of causative- consecutive dependence in logical and linguistic manifestations (in the laws of thinking and in the structure of language) philosophical universality and objectivity of causality are presented in them. It cannot be otherwise, because the invariance of causality as a semantic category is determined namely by its universality. This is reflected in the definitions of cause and effect in both logics and linguistics. In works on logics we read: «Cause means a phenomenon that is so related to another, called an effect, that its occurrence inevitably leads to an effect, its loss leads to a loss of an effect» [8, p. 85]. This definition provides an understanding not only of the complexity of the causative-consecutive situation, but also of the obligatory existence of a consequence in case of presence of a cause, and absence of a consequence in case of absence of a cause. This is how the components of causative-consecutive relations are interpreted in logics, that is, the science about the laws of thinking [10, p. 80-89].

In linguistics, the concepts of cause and effect are realized in accordance with the nature of the linguistic presentation of causality. Since it is based in language on the semantic relations of cause and effect (provided that the cause can be explicit and implicit [5, p. 110-116]), these two components of causality are qualified as motivating and motivated, which adequately represents their functions as semantic units of language. And yet, despite the peculiarities of understanding cause and effect by logics and linguistics, the interconnection between causality as logical and linguistic category is unquestionable.

Thinking, and, hence, its laws, finding its material embodiment in language, affects the statements formation. This is revealed, for example, in a complex sentence, in the place of the causative predicative part and in the choice of the subordinating conjunction; in a simple sentence, in the selection of words of prepositional-nominal combinations, as well as in their place in the sentence. This shows the influence of logics on the linguistic presentation of the cause. However, the logical content does not determine the grammatical function of the subordinate clause in relation to the main clause, and in a simple sentence the function of preposition.

The grammatical expression of dependence does not always coincide with the situations of logical dependence / independence. Thus, the logics of interconnected situations in speech interpretation can be conveyed by grammatical structure, that doesn't possess causative relations. This is illustrated by the sentence: It started raining, and children went home. It clearly expresses the dependence of one event on the other one. These two clauses reproduce the logical cause and effect, which represent the causative-consecutive semantic relation. However, this dependence is not expressed formally, i.e., grammatically. The conjunction and connects grammatically independent predicative parts. Thus, the logics, that underlies the semantic expression of thought, has not been adequately embodied in the language presentation. From the semantic point of view, this sentence has a causative-consecutive relation, from the syntactic point of view it is a compound one, containing two independent clauses.

Another example shows that from a logical point of view, the sentence Mrs. Gerhardt trembled for fear should be considered as the one having causative-consecutive relation. According to I. R. Vyhovanetz [3, p. 44] this simple extended sentence can be divided into components: Mrs. Gerhardt trembled why? because she feared. However, in terms of syntactic structure of the sentence and the syntactic role of each member of the sentence, the word fear is not the name of the cause, it is not an adverbial modifier of cause.

It is known that the utterance is formed by a speaker consciously. He is able to formulate both objectively existing causative relations and relations given in senses. This means that the speaker or doer can convey both the real nature of causative relations and the subjective understanding of such relations, which causes a simplified, approximate reflection of the objective relation of the natural phenomena on the basis of his personal feelings.

Thus, the speech expression of causality has its own characteristics. As the examples have shown, causality can be rendered by a structure without any specific formal indicators. Meanwhile, causality can reproduce the real causative-consecutive relation, as well as it is able to express the justification of the action. It is especially important to emphasize the latter, because the two types of semantic relations are possible only in the linguistic expression of cause and effect.

The distinction between the real cause and the causative grounding is the identification of two categories of causality, established on the basis of causative-consecutive relations, depending on the lexical content. Each of these categories is characterized by the presence of causality semantic shades, rendered by different language units. This forces us to emphasize that the observed variety of forms of cause expression is due to the multicolor content of the cause, its numerous semantic nuances.

All this makes us disagree with those researchers who give the following definition of causality as a linguistic category: «The linguistic category of cause can be defined as a set of linguistic units (lexical and grammatical), which establish causative relations of subjective and objective reality» [2, p. 13]. This definition lacks an indication of the semantic nature of causality. According to it, the category of causality is nothing but a set of linguistic units, while causality is a meaning, semantics, which is established on the basis of semantic- syntactic relations of linguistic units.

A. Zolotova defines causation as «an expression of causal relations in which the action of a subject or event causes an action, condition, change in the quality of another subject» [7 c. 49]. As we can see, the main emphasis in this definition is on the nature of the interaction of the two units participating in the causative process, resulted in a connection between the action of one subject and the state of the other. Again, this definition doesn't take into account some very important factors mentioned above: causation is not simply an expression of some semantic relations. Causality is a meaning (semantics) that is established on the basis of semantic-syntactic relations of language units. It is clear that these relations are based on certain means developed in the language. Therefore, causality as a linguistic category can be defined only taking into account its semantics and lingual modes of expression.

Thus, causality as a linguistic category is a meaning determined by objective reality and the laws of thinking, based on the semantic-syntactic relation of lingual modes of expression, among which the motivating component names the cause of action of the motivated component or gives it a causative grounding.

This definition of the linguistic category of causality reflects its philosophical and logical understanding. Namely, this gives all the grounds for understanding linguistic category of causality as a phenomenon that reflects reality, the existing and imaginary (in our thinking) world around us. In turn, this aims at an intensive search for linguistic expressions that represent this category in the language.

Further researches should be aimed at finding, classifying and explaining lingual modes of expression of causality in a functional aspect. Such explorations can be implemented both on the material of separate languages and in the comparative aspect in the study of related and non-related languages.

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