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Frozen locutions – frozen dimensionsleft and right in English, German and Russian

Doris SchönefeldRuhr-Universität Bochum

. Introduction

It is the aim of this paper to test a hypothesis regarding the way in which the left-right axis of human beings is mirrored iconically in linguistic expressions of spatialorientation. Landsberg (1995b: 70) claims that speakers of English imitate in syn-tax a natural egocentric perceptual serialization of up before down, front beforeback and right before left. On the basis of a corpus analysis the last part of thishypothesis is put to the test: I will analyse the distribution of left and right inEnglish authentic texts, extend the analysis to Russian and German and then weighthe results against Landsberg’s assumption.

. Deixis

As the title already suggests, my topic encompasses two broad aspects: one beingindisputably linguistic, namely the syntactic arrangement of words, and one hav-ing more of an extra-linguistic nature, related to people’s spatial orientation in theworld. What brings both of them together is the way in which people talk aboutspatial orientation or – more generally – employ spatial information as an integralpart of establishing mental contact in acts of conversation with things and eventsaround them. The investigation will focus on one particular aspect, namely expres-sions involving left and right as linguistic forms. Such expressions reflect that wetake our own location as the orientational starting point and use the sides of ourbodies to attract the addressee’s attention to the object/thing or event we have se-lected for further discussion and specification. This means that the expressions atissue (i.e. both the words and the structures in which they are used) do not specify a

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location in absolute terms, but render it only relative to some other place. If some-thing is said to be placed to the right of something else, for example, the decoderhas to additionally evoke situational/contextual knowledge: Only knowledge of thespeaker’s location will enable him/her to understand which side of the referenceobject is the right one. From this it follows that an analysis of such expressionswill have to consider lexico-grammatical as well as pragmatic aspects.

I will, therefore, begin with a few remarks on the linguistic phenomenon of‘deixis’, since this is where all these aspects meet and merge. Deixis, the Greek wordfor ‘pointing’ (Gr deiktikos ‘apt for pointing with finger’) “refers to the encodingof the spatio-temporal context and the subjective experience of the encoder of anutterance” (Green 1995:11). Since the encoder constructs his message from hisperspective, spatially, temporally and also mentally, this will also be reflected in theway of encoding, namely in the use of particular expressions whose meanings makeexplicit and/or implicit reference to this perspective. The latter type of expressionscan be understood to ‘point’ at the objects being referred to and have therefore be-come known as deictic expressions. They stand out against other (i.e. non-deictic)expressions in that they depend for their meaning on the situation of the speaker.Thus, they can actually be considered to be ‘true’ interfacial components. As Rauh(1983:10) puts it, “[t]he dependence of deictic expressions on the situation of theencoder, . . . , suggests that the description of deixis belongs to the pragmatic com-ponent of a grammar”. In Green’s (1995:11) words, “deictics ‘jump the system’ inas much as they are grammaticalizations or lexicalizations of context which mustbe pragmatically processed”.

. Spatial orientation

. Relative vs. absolute

As Weissenborn and Klein (1982:2) have found, deixis is most salient in the inte-gration of contextual information, but it plays an important part not only in theverbal reference to space and time, but also in human cognitive orientation in spaceand time in general. Space needs to be structured in a way that allows for orienta-tion, and this is done through setting reference points, from which orientation canbegin. Possibly due to their omnipresence, our egos seem to be effective and con-venient reference points, so that, following widely accepted views, an egocentric setof coordinates (left, right, front, back etc.) is assumed to be universal in spatial ori-entation. However, as Levinson (1997:30ff.) – on the basis of fieldwork – has cometo recognize, the known languages of the world can be classified into three dis-tinct, abstract types of spatial coordinate systems: those that differentiate betweenabsolute, relative and intrinsic systems of coordinates, whereby the exploitation of

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one system in a language, firstly, does not have to be total, and secondly, does notpreclude the other systems from being used as well, though secondarily.

Absolute coordinates, based on something like cardinal directions (east, west,north, south) are found in a number of Australian languages and in Belhari, aTibeto-Burman language spoken in Eastern Nepal (cf. Bickel 2000:161). Tzeltal,a Mayan language spoken in Mexico, utilizes absolute coordinates, together witha rich system of intrinsic distinctions (cf. Levinson 1997:34). For speakers of anIndo-European language, the relative system, based on anthropo-centric coordi-nates like left and right, is the central and typical one, though there is alsoconsiderable use of intrinsic coordinates. The latter are based on the ‘inherent fea-tures’ of objects, as in ‘at the rear of the truck’, or ‘in front of the house’. At a closerlook, these intrinsic coordinates, too, turn out to be related to anthropo-centriccoordinates for they result from the projection of our own bodily orientation (up-down, front-back, left-right) onto such concrete objects around us, which –due to their outward appearance – invite us to this very projection. This is thereason why such intrinsic coordinates (as found in verbal expressions of English,Russian and German, for example) can more exactly be qualified as metaphor-ical projections of the anthropo-centric perspective onto inanimate objects andartefacts. They are motivated by the various experiences which we have with ourbodies: the experience of gravity gives us the reason to assign an up and a down toobjects; the experience of the directionality of our vision motivates the distinctionof front and back; the experience of laterality leads to the distinction betweenleft and right (cf. also Ehrich 1992:2).

In a discussion of how spatial orientation is expressed in language, Bickel(2000) discusses the ‘grammar of space’ – i.e. the grammatical categories involvedin spatial deixis – for two languages that belong to different genealogical groups,Belhare and Alemannic (a dialect of German spoken in Switzerland). In Belhare,he finds what he calls the category of ‘environmental space’1 and he shows that“[r]ather than relying on body-centred notions like front, back, left and right, Bel-hare is geared towards locating things and persons by reference to their positionup, down, and across the hill on which people live, following a pattern that has re-cently been noted in an increasing number of languages around the globe” (Bickel2000:166). In other words, spatial orientation in Belhari mainly relies on a systemof absolute coordinates.

In contrast, many European languages do not grammaticize these distinctions,but instead prefer body-based notions for orientation in space (ibid.:172). In Ale-mannic, for example, spatial deixis is based on what Bickel calls ‘corporeal space’,comprising the dimensions: front/back, up/down, in/out, and left/right. The termsused exhibit the phenomenon of relative deixis in that they “shift their referencewith the speaker’s orientation if the ‘body’ is coextensive with the speaker’s own

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body” (ibid.:174). The same situation is also found in the languages consideredhere: English, German and Russian.

. Relative orientation: Right vs. left in Indo-European languages

Once we are aware of the different systems of spatial orientation, we need to makestill further distinctions, before we can actually turn to the analysis of the linguis-tic reflections of left and right in the three languages at issue. With respect tothe orientational terms front/back and left/right, further complication mayarise. Hill (1982:24–27) reports on the use of these orientational terms (up/down,front/back, left/right) in Hausa, a Chadic language, and English, and finds thatlanguages variably employ different strategies in spatial orientation: the referencepoint in which spatial orientation is rooted may be the speaker, or it may be a sec-ond object, with or without its own intrinsic orientation. In the latter case, thefront/back and left/right axes may be variably allocated to the reference object andmay thus give rise to conflict. Firstly, the front/back axis allows for two projec-tions: the reference object may be construed in a way parallel to that of the speaker,so that its front lies away from the speaker, or it may be construed as facing thespeaker. That means we can produce a translation image, constructing a spatialscenario that is termed an ‘aligned field’, or we can produce a mirror or a rotationimage, constructing a ‘facing field’. These scenarios can be schematized as shownin Figures (1a) and (1b):

a. Aligned field b. Facing field

Figure 1.

Secondly, when the reference object is understood to face the speaker, there isfurther variation regarding the left/right axis: the speaker’s body may be projectedonto the reference object either by rotation of 180◦ around a vertical axis or as amirror image. The resulting scenarios of the aligned field (1a) and the two types offacing field (1b) are illustrated in Figures (2a), (2b) and (2c) respectively:

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S

left

left

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RP

front

S

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RPfront

S

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RPfront

a. Translation image b. Rotation image c. Mirror imageLegend: S = Speaker RP = Reference Point

Figure 2.

In other words, we have ‘corporeal space’ varying in two of the three dimen-sions: front/back and left/right. This may be related to the fact that apparently theseorientational axes show different degrees of stability: Due to gravitational pull, theup/down axis is fixed and most prominent in people’s bodily experience, which iswhy it is experienced in the same way throughout the world. The front/back axiscoming next is less fixed in that it is experienced by projecting our own front/backdistinction (in form and function) onto other objects, and this can be done in twodifferent ways, as has just been shown (cf. Figure (1a) vs (1b)). The left/right axisis least pronounced, and its projection onto objects is additionally dependent onthat of the front/back axis (cf. also Landsberg 1995b:69ff.; Hill 1982:14).

From this variability, it follows that, if orientation does not start out fromthe speaker’s location, but from another reference object in front of the speaker,misunderstandings in the form of orientational conflicts may arise as in

(1) The keys are to the right of the bag

(2) That’s my sister to the left of John (cf. Hill 1982:27)

The indeterminate aspect in (1) is the actual position of the keys – they are close tothe bag, but we do not know on which side of the bag. (2) is ambiguous in that it isnot clear whether the girl talked about is the one to the left of John as seen by thespeaker or as seen by John.

In order to make sense of such phrases, we have to decide on how we willproject our body schema – through a translation, rotation or mirror image. Hill(1982:20) finds that

[t]he facing field is constructed by the great majority of native speakers ofStandard English in interpreting locative phrases that involve ‘front’ and ‘back’.

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It appears, however, that in a wide number of languages speakers construct analigned field for phrases involving ‘front’ and ‘back’, just as they do for phrasesinvolving ‘up’ or ‘down’ and ‘left’ or ‘ right’.

He further shows with respect to the potential use of these two fields that the shiftof scene between an aligned and a facing field (when reference to an object is made)is effective only with regard to the front/back axis, “for the exclusive use of analigned field is apparently stable for speakers of all languages with respect to theother two axes [i.e. also the left/right axis]” (ibid.:24). However, Hill qualifies thisclaim by saying that speakers of non-standard dialects of English occasionally ex-ploit a facing field when they understand locative phrases involving left and right,as in example (1). He assumes this behaviour to be a kind of overgeneralization inthat the field constructed for the front/back axis is extended to the left/right axis.

Rolfe’s elaboration (1995:124) on the gestural basis of deixis, can also be un-derstood in the sense of the prevalence for an aligned field in people’s lateral ori-entation: “As laterality lacks the focusing provided by ostension it is always locatedfrom the speaker’s (or hearer’s) viewpoint, such that rightness/leftness changes asthe viewpoint changes, and absolute orientation does not arise”. However, as far as Ican see, the shift or rather indeterminacy between aligned and facing field does notonly emerge as a result of overgeneralizing a facing field in non-standard dialectaluse (in English). On the contrary, there is another factor at work, namely the na-ture of the reference object. If the reference point for lateral orientation is not thespeaker himself (which is the default case) but another ‘object’/‘thing’ with inher-ent orientational properties facing the speaker, orientational conflicts are boundto emerge since it is not clear whether the speaker uses a non-deictic or a deicticstrategy of orientation.2 What brings about this conflict is the reference object’sown intrinsic left/right axis, whereas reference points without inherent lateral ori-entation canonically call for a deictic strategy, that means the projection of thespeaker’s body by translation (i.e. the aligned-field orientation). In other words,these strategies lead to conflicting interpretations in lateral orientation as soon asthe reference object (providing its own orientational properties) faces the speaker(cf. Hill 1982:24–27). It seems plausible to assume that this conflict in the construc-tion of an orientational field (facing or aligned) is present in lateral orientation ingeneral, so that the same kind of indeterminacy can be expected to exist also inother languages making use of ‘corporeal space’.

Now that the complicated nature of spatial orientation has been made explicitand its problematic reflection in language has been briefly indicated, I will turn to asystematic analysis of a particular subtype of verbal expressions that make referenceto lateral spatial orientation. I have selected English, Russian and German phrasescontaining both forms left and right, which thus imply lateral orientation and

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simultaneously enforce some sequential arrangement or other. In my analysis, I willbe specifically concerned with the sequential arrangement of the two forms at issue.

. The central problem

In a study on the sequential arrangement of constituents in idiomatic and non-idiomatic phrasal expressions of a (more or less) fixed nature, so-called ‘freezes’,Landsberg (1995b) claims that there are principles in English syntax determiningthe sequence of lexical items in such constructions. Birdsong (1995:31) approachesthe same issue from the perspective of linearization in language in general: “Linearform in languages is often attributed to three categories of determinants: marked-ness considerations, information-processing constraints and iconic mechanisms”.On the basis of English and French performance data and experimentally elicitedevidence he concludes that these factors interact in the determination of linear or-der in that “transient information-processing demands are ideally served by iconicrepresentations of hierarchical relationships which, at the same time, instantiatesemantically- and (morpho)phonologically-unmarked word order” (ibid.).

Van Langendonck (1995) focuses on iconic mechanisms in verbal linearizationand presents evidence for an overall ‘principle of closeness’.3 For Landsberg’s andmy analyses the principle of closeness (to the speaker) is of special importance. VanLangendonck elaborates on this closeness in a literal (i.e. closeness to the speakerin terms of space and time) and metaphorical sense (i.e. non-literal closeness to thespeaker) and links it – via the concept of prototypicality – to markedness: prototyp-ical features (of the speaker him-/herself and of phenomena conceptually relatedto him/her) “appear to coincide with unmarked feature-values ... in more or lessfixed coordinations ... the prototypical [i.e. unmarked] element is put first, be-cause it is the item which is nearest to the prototypical speaker in a metaphoricalsense”. (ibid.:81) Thus, we have such ‘unmarked’ linearizations (in coordinates)as human < non-human, definite < indefinite, positive < negative etc.4 Drawingon various sources, Landsberg (1995b:71f.) provides us with a list of ten typical‘semantic constraints’ on word order reflecting these features of closeness and pro-totypicality. One of those is of particular concern to my discussion: egocentricity –including preferential dexterity (i.e. right < left). The egocentric, or ‘me-first’ prin-ciple5 is assumed to be a very strong, if not dominant, constraint on word order (cf.Cooper & Ross 1975:67; Landsberg 1995b:72; Birdsong 1995:36). The resulting se-quential arrangements can be said to iconically reflect a left-to-right hierarchy ofsalience patterns. Linearizations observing these principles are unmarked and de-viations from them can be considered marked, signalling the expression of someaspect of meaning going beyond the more usual form. Thus, markedness comes in

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in a two-fold way: firstly, of two conjoined items, the first is usually the unmarkedor prototypical item (a consequence also following from its greater accessibility),and secondly, deviations from any type of observable constraint result in a markedform of expression.

A phonologically unmarked word order is one following phonological con-straints on the linearization process. Such constraints are, for example, that firstitems have shorter vowels, or fewer syllables than second items (cf. Birdsong1995:33). These are also often iconic in nature as onomatopoeia: reduplicativeswith vowel gradation (e.g. ding-dong), where usually the first vowel is higher thanthe second one (cf. Reay 1994:4064), and as phonesthemes (cf., for example, Fis-cher 1999 on associative iconicity). Grew (1998) groups such forms as spick andspan, flip-flop etc. under (apophonic) phonaesthesia, a particularly interesting ex-ample of ‘combinatory phonaesthesia of the reduplicative type’. Iconicity is herelinked with sound images and semantic values associated with vowel alternations.6

Moreover, phonological constraints have been shown to be correlated with theconceptual constraints on linearization, in particular with the principle of egocen-tricity and prototypicality respectively: Birdsong (1995:41) specifies in this respect(referring to an unpublished paper by Ross (1976) and to Jakobson (1971)) that“[d]erivativeness and distance from “Me” are signalled by extra phonetic materialin place two terms, relative to that in place one terms”. This is in line with a moregeneral principle of iconic coding, the quantity principle, which says that less pre-dictable information (the marked item) will be given more coding material (cf.Givón 1995:49).

English freezes have been found to conform to (phonesthetic) phonologicalconstraints to a variable extent. Landsberg (1995b:75) claims for English freezesthat phonological constraints seem to be weaker than semantic ones, i.e. they ap-pear to be overridden for semantic, narrative, prosodic and other reasons. Thismeans that the motivations at work do not always mutually reinforce, but can alsocompete with one another.

In her discussion of the concept of ‘semantic (or rather conceptual) con-straints’ on the fixed ordering of certain conjoined elements, Landsberg (1995b:70)reports that speakers of English imitate in syntax our natural egocentric perceptualserialization of up before down, front before back and right before left.

Hill (1982:38), in a footnote, also comments on the sequential arrangement ofleft and right when they co-occur in one phrase:

In English we can say left and right or right and left, although in many lan-guages such as Hausa ‘right’ necessarily precedes ‘left’... It appears that inwestern cultures the left-to-right order in information processing has con-tributed to the possibility of reversing what was once, according to certain

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historical evidence, a relatively fixed order (notice that ‘right’ precedes ‘left’ inthis article’s epigraph taken from the Parmenides).7

Hill’s observations are compatible with Landsberg’s only in part, since he claimsthat – although from a diachronic perspective the right before left arrangement ispredominant – a left before right arrangement has gained ground as a reflectionof writing habits. As regards the motivation for the original right-first preference,Hill considers this to be a consequence of a predominantly functional asymme-try, namely of people’s greater dexterity in using their right-hand side extremities(cf. ibid.:14), a motivation that Landsberg (1995b:69ff.) takes to be mirrored alsoin Modern English usage. It should be noted here that the association of a right-before-left sequence with our functional asymmetry gives it an iconic motivation,just as well as a left-first sequence – via its association with our writing habits –can be considered to be iconically motivated. Rolfe (1995:122) notes the sameright-first preference at the conceptual level, which he, however, does not relate tothe linguistic expression of these two concepts. Stating that ostension is the start-ing point for deixis, he elaborates on the lateral axis: “Another opposition, left vs.right, is achieved by the use of two hands; whether or not for ostension. Since theright hand is the more important (due to neurological laterality), there is a furtheropposition of superior vs. subordinate”.

In order to determine what the actual syntactic arrangement of co-occurringleft and right in English is and what principles it follows, various methods can beused, from enquiries into the competence of native speakers, via eliciting data bymeans of experiments, to analysing actual language use. As far as introspection andlisting the intuitions of native speakers of English are concerned, these will mostprobably not suffice to settle the problem, since both types of information reflectindividual preferences rather than general usage. For the extraction of informationon the latter, corpus analyses have shown to be effective. These commonly adopt astrategy of examining a representative corpus with respect to the phenomenon atissue and subsequently extracting the potential regularities in usage, a strategy thatBarlow (2000:316) calls ‘data-driven pattern extraction’. From my point of view,such a corpus analysis is the thing to do to put Landsberg’s hypothesis to the test.For the discovery of possible underlying motivations for the sequential arrange-ments found, I thought a contrastive analysis to be helpful, since data from otherlanguages may further promote the recognition of regularities and – by showingsimilar and/or different arrangements – reveal more about their causes.

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. Corpus analysis – the database

English, German and Russian corpora have been analysed for co-occurrences ofleft and right.8 The following corpora were used. English was analysed on thebasis of the English corpus of the Collins WordBanks Online, a corpus contain-ing roughly 56 million words of running text of both written and spoken language(roughly 10 million words). For the analysis of the use of links and rechts in Ger-man, I used part of the corpora of the IDS (Mannheim) available on the Internet.Due to limited options, I had to chose a complete subcorpus, which was the publiccorpus (i.e. all the written corpora publicly accessible) consisting of roughly 900million words of running text. The adverbial usage was analysed on the basis of anewspaper subcorpus, the Mannheimer Morgen of 1989, 1991, and 1994 to 2001,comprising almost 106 million words of running text. This corpus, therefore, is notreally comparable to the English corpus, which is tailored to be representative ofthe English language as a whole, with texts from books (fiction and non-fiction),magazines, newspapers, radio programmes etc. and is considerably smaller. Theonly corpora of Russian accessible on the Internet were those provided by Tübin-gen University, namely the Uppsala corpus (1 million words, 600 texts (prose textsfrom 1960–1988; and ‘informative’ texts from 25 different fields such as politics,economics etc. from 1985–1989)), and interviews and literary texts of the nine-teenth and twentieth centuries, with hardly any information with regard to theirsizes available. Thus, the Russian corpus seems to be a better match for the CollinsWordBanks Online, except for its size.

In the next section, the generalizations extracted from large amounts of datawill be presented for each language individually, and suggestions will be made asto what the motivations for the findings may be. In the discussion, the results willbe compared and similarities and differences between the English, German andRussian data will be noted. Because of the differences in the corpus material used,the comparisons made between the three languages must be handled with care andcan only be understood as tentative suggestions.

Before presenting the findings of my analyses, I will briefly comment onthe analytical procedures and strategies applied, which were identical for allthree corpora searched. The query was to search the corpora for occurrences ofleft/link*/links/lev* in the context of right/recht*/rechts/prav* within a span of 6words. That means that all occurrences of both words within a span of 6 wordshave been extracted, no matter in which sequence they occur. The concordancelines containing the search words were then sorted and tagged for the domainsto which they are conceptually linked. This allowed for the extraction of infor-mation on sequence and frequency, which could then be correlated with domainassociation.

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. Corpus analysis – findings and explanations

The overall finding of the study at hand is that contrary to what can be expectedfrom the hypotheses found in the respective literature, left seems to precederight in a surprisingly high number of phrases in all three languages under anal-ysis. Why is that and what are the details of this phenomenon?

. Left and right in English usage

As regards the use of orientational terms discussed above, the results confirm thegeneral problems already topicalized: In order to understand expressions such as(3), the hearer can construct either an aligned or a facing field.

(3) The longest runs come down left and right of the lift

In the default case – as Hill has found – native speakers of English will construct analigned field for phrases involving left and right, but a facing field is not excluded,though it is actually ‘used’ less frequently. If one looks for hints at the way thehearer understands or the speaker constructs such an utterance, there is nothingto draw on. In order to check the intended orientation and relate it to linguisticexpression, we would need a visual presentation of the scenario talked about, whereostensive gestures, for example, may give additional information. However, sincein quite a few examples, the same things are said to be to the left and/or right ofsome reference point, it does not really matter whether we construct an aligned ora facing field (as in (4) and (5)):

(4) Castles to the left and castles to the right, ...

(5) ... a section of south-facing fence under a birch tree. To the left and rightthe fence is screened with laurel and escallonia.

(6) When you got onto the railway track did you go left or right?

(7) But Arsenal face competition for Seedorf, who can play on the left or rightof midfield or in defence

(8) debutants were going safely down the mini-mountain, turning from leftto right and skiing through ski-pole gates with ease.

As also becomes obvious, most examples looking ambiguous at first sight turn outto have an implicit orientation indicated by the context: (4) suggests an alignedfield, the reference point being the standing/moving speaker; (6) illustrates thesame point in a directional setting: the orientation is implicitly given from thepoint of view of the subject/agent/mover associated with the verb used; in (7), wefind that the orientation does not start out from the speaker’s location, but from

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Table 1. Left and right in English corpora

Sequence Number of occurrences Per cent

Left – right 577 63.48Right – left 332 36.52Sum total 909 100.00

another reference object, namely a football ground, the exact reference point be-ing the players facing the opposing team. Without any contextual clues, as in (8),conflicting interpretations may arise.

In order to minimize such misunderstandings, speakers of English disam-biguate their expressions by adding either a possessive form (pronoun or possessiveNP) (as in (9)), or an of -genitive (as in (10)) making the reference point explicit:

(9) He had support to his left and right.

(10) There were German shouts from left and right of Toni

Thus, it turns out that orientation is clear and unambiguous in the majority ofthe examples. In a few cases it is not relevant – because symmetrical – while insome other cases it actually remains ambiguous between a left-right orientation ina speaker-aligned field or a field facing the speaker.

The overall quantitative results of the analysis are given in Table 1.As is obvious, the results obtained indicate a preference of left first. This is not

in full agreement with the egocentricity principles assumed to constrain word or-der (especially in co-ordinates, such as left and right/ right and left (cf. Section4 above)), Landsberg’s claim that “there may be by dint of our dexterity somepreference for ‘right’ first” (Landsberg 1995b:69) cannot be corroborated.

Generally, I would like to attribute the left-first preference to phonestheticphonological constraints (close vowel before less close vowel), which would simul-taneously imply that phonological constraints seem to be stronger than conceptualones, or, from the converse perspective, phonological constraints are not generallyoverridden by semantic/conceptual constraints. As a consequence, the findings doalso not corroborate the correlation having been found to exist between unmarkedform and less material (cf. Section 4 above). In order to find out whether other fac-tors may have played a role, I analysed the sequential arrangement of the words leftand right with regard to conceptual domains in which the expressions are used. Atthe most general level, the conceptual (spatial) domains of direction and locationcan be distinguished. At a more fine-grained level, more specific domains can berecognized, such as politics – which can be understood as a metonymical projec-tion of location (the vehicle for accessing the target being the side in parliamentoccupied by political groups), or non-literal movement (or subjective motion) –which is a metaphorical projection of literal movement found in the description of

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Table 2. Domains of left-right and right-left expressions

Domains left – right right – left

Direction 233 = 25.6% 89 = 9.8%Literal direction 130 = 14.3% 62 = 6.8%Non-literal movement 66 = 7.3% (photo: 52) 6 = 0.7% (photo: 0)Way description 32 = 3.5% 16 = 1.8%Traffic 5 = 0.6% 5 = 0.6 %Location 215 = 23.6% 112 = 12.3%Literal location 115 = 12.6% (photo: 20) 67 = 7.4% (photo: 10)Politics 100 = 11.0% 44 = 4.8%Spatial Orientation 124 = 13.6% 126 = 13.9%General orientation 76 = 8.4% 75 = 8.3%Handedness 42 = 4.6% 32 = 3.5%Sports (boxing/golf) 6 = 0.7% 19 = 2.1%Idioms 4 = 0.4% 3 = 0.3%Unclassified 1 = 0.1% 2 = 0.2%

photos, for example (as in (11)). In addition to these, the data contained a numberof examples which could not really be associated with either direction or location,as for example (12):

(11) Christopher Drake PHOTO Previous page, from left to right: Paintedwooden baskets pound; 65 for set of three, ...

(12) The range also includes ears, left and right eyes, feet and hands

Such cases, I categorized into the domain of spatial orientation. Very few examplesrepresent idiomatic expressions, such as

(13) the trouble with you, said Edwin, was your right hand never knew whatyour left hand was doing

The data are given in Table 2.There are a few noticeable differences in the distribution of the two words

under analysis. A left-right sequence is favoured in the expression of (literal) direc-tions (see (14)), whereas a right-left sequence is favoured in expressions of spatialorientation, often in connection with actions being performed (as in (15)). Non-literal movement (subjective motion), especially in the description of pictures andphotographs, is again given in a left-right arrangement rather than a right-left ((16)and (17)). In the few idiomatic expressions, we find an almost balanced occurrenceof both orders (as in (18)); actually, this idiom has the arrangement both ways (see(19)). In the field of politics, we find a left-first preference (as in (20)) as well.

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(14) and the centre air-conditioning vents swivel left and right automatically toensure air is distributed throughout ...

(15) our weight evenly balanced between the right and left foot

(16) have draw cords in the fabric and will drape from left to right.

(17) the picture shows (from left to right) former Deputy Mayor, L...

(18) And I think they don’t what you know the left don’t know what the right’sdoing

(19) the trouble with you, said Edwin, was your right hand never knew whatyour left hand was doing

(20) the collapse of the Weimar Republic, the battle between left and right, sorecently lost are laid out in a brilliant programme

All this is contrary to what has been claimed elsewhere. In a discussion about apotential positive-negative polarity in the right-left dimension, Landsberg (1995b)lists idiomatic and non-idiomatic examples of frozen expressions from Hornby etal. (1973:557; 850), to argue against “Lyons’ thesis of ‘evenhandedness’... he lookedneither right nor left; he owes money right and left; the crowd divided right and left”,and comments:

No counter-examples could be detected here either. Hence the dexterity crite-rion mentioned by Lyons (1979:691) as ‘rather weak’ appears, in fact, to be sostrong, as to govern right-left linear choice ubiquitously and relentlessly and,indeed, more often than not to overrule forceful phonological considerations!

(ibid.:74)

The data extracted from the corpus clearly contradict this rather strong conclusion.

. Links and rechts in German usage

In order to keep the analysis to a manageable size, I first decided to only searchfor the uninflected forms of links and rechts, which means that – as a first stage –only the adverbial use was analysed. However, to better allow for the intended in-terlanguage comparison, all those expressions in which the two terms occur inattributive position in German were analysed in a second step (which is why theGerman results can be presented separately for adverbial and attributive use).

As for spatial orientation in general, also the German data contain clear ex-amples reflecting the potential conflict between a speaker-aligned field and a fieldfacing the speaker (see (21)). To make the intended orientation explicit, Germanusage is found to exploit a postposed genitive NP (as in (22)), whereas not a sin-gle example could be detected in which a possessive pronoun helps to identifyorientation from a given reference point. Although German allows for the latter

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Table 3. Links and rechts in German corpora

Sequence Occurrences (adv) Occurrences (adj) subtotal per cent

Links – rechts 885 888 1773 58.7Rechts – links 491 754 1245 41.3Sum total 1376 1642 3018 100.0

possibility as well, this does not appear to be used, probably because it is stylisti-cally marked as representing a rather high level of formality. Another structure tohelp orientation is von + NP (as in (24)). In examples of right–first arrangements,other prepositions can occasionally be detected as well: in, im, neben, vor (see (25)and (26)):

(21) . . . ein Heiligenschein über der Halbglatze – links und rechts kräuseln sichLocken – . . .. . . a halo above the bald head – hair curling to the left and right

(22) Das heißt: links des Flusslaufes Pest, rechts BudaThat means: to the left of the river Pest, to the right Puda

(23) Freude bei den zahlreichen Zuschauern links und rechts der Zugstrecke nu-merous happy on-lookers left and right of the parade’s route

(24) . . . die beiden großen Rasenflächen rechts und links vom Eingang the twobig lawns right and left of the entry

(25) auf den Sitzen rechts und links neben der Bühneon the seats right and left besides the stage

(26) Messdienerinnen sitzen rechts und links vor dem Altar(female) servers sit right and left in front of the altar

As the examples show, the information given by the additions to links and rechtsis not always helpful either: (24) and (26) allow for both an aligned and a facingfield reading, though the default reading will probably be that of a facing field –buildings (and the altar as a ‘construction’ facing the parish in a church) are usu-ally described with ‘their fronts’ being turned to the persons looking at them. In(22) we should know about the default interpretation of links and rechts of a river –this goes with the direction into which it flows. (23) is usually interpreted in par-allel with the direction of the movement. Thus, use reflects ‘usual’ ways of seeingand perspectivizing things, and – as the data show – these ‘uses’ are quite specificdepending on what in particular is referred to. Ergo, it makes sense to look again atboth the overall distribution and that of links and rechts with respect to individualconceptual domains.

Literal directions and locations favour a left-right arrangement, as is the casein the English data. Non-literal direction and location also favour a left-right se-

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Table 4. Domains of links-rechts and rechts-links expressions

Domains links – rechts rechts – linksAdverbial attributive total adverbial attributive total

Direction 274 71 345 = 11.4% 132 59 191 = 6.3%Literal direction 79 35 114 = 3.8% 66 31 97 = 3.2%Non-lit.movement 169 4 173 = 5.7% 17 3 20 = 0.7%

(Photos 159 0 15 0)Way description 8 0 8 = 0.3% 6 0 6 = 0.2%Traffic 18 32 50 = 1.6% 43 25 68 = 2.2%Location 568 423 991 = 32.8% 324 325 649 = 21.5%Literal location 516 154 670 = 22.2% 273 104 377 = 12.5%

(Photo 285 8 66 5)Politics 52 269 321 = 10.6% 51 221 272 = 9.0%Spatial Orientation 18 352 370 = 12.2% 20 327 347 = 11.5%General 6 335 341 = 11.3% 12 285 297 = 9.8%Handedness 5 12 17 = 0.6% 1 34 35 = 1.2%Sports (football) 7 5 12 = 0.4% 7 8 15 = 0.4%Idioms 21 42 63 = 2.1% 11 43 54 = 1.8%Unclassified 4 0 4 = 0.1% 4 0 4 = 0.1%

quence, with both domains showing large numbers of examples that relate tophotos and picture descriptions (cf. examples (27) and (28)). The field of politicsalso attracts a considerable number of examples (cf. (29)).

(27) Unser Bild zeigt von links nach rechts: Großmarkt-Chef Manfred . . .the photo shows from left to right: the manager of the hypermarketManfred. . .

(28) . . . in Cannes begann für Helmut Kohl (links) und Jacques Chirac (rechts)in Cannes, there began . . . for Helmut Kohl (left) and Jacques Chirac(right)

(29) . . .derer Parteien vor Radikalismus von links und rechts gewarnt.. . . of those parties have warned against radicalism from left and right.

Traffic favours a right-left orientation, especially in adverbial usage. This may bedue to the German traffic code: traffic moves on the right-hand side of the roadand the right of way is right before left. That is why the right-hand side is obviouslymore important and salient and therefore (iconically) named first. Some examplestopicalize ‘unlawful’ behaviour, where drivers make use of the ‘wrong’ side of theroad (see (30)):

(30) Wer rechts überholt und links drängelt, verliert. . .Whoever overtakes on the right-hand side and tailgates on the left, loses. . .

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Attributive usage shows a slightly more frequent usage of left-first, the most typicalexpression being a variation of vom linken auf den rechten Fahrstreifen wechseln(‘change lanes from left to right/ right to left’).

Handedness, also subsuming expressions of hemispheric distinction in hu-man functioning, is less frequently expressed by right-left/left-right sequences inthe German data than in English. This is mainly a reflection of English spellingconventions, which allow for such forms as (31) and (32) to be listed in my data:

(31) Reversible doors for left- or right-handed opening. . .

(32) . . . in a slightly different way if you’ve left-handed and right-handed scis-sors do you?

In German, such expressions represent nominal or adjectival compounds, suchas Links-/Rechtshänder (‘left-/right-hander’) or links-/rechtshändig (left-/right-handed), which is why they do not occur in the data. In English texts, speakers arefound to perspectivize expressions of this type from both the ‘unusual’/’unnatural’and the ‘usual’/’natural’ handedness, i.e. from left and right handedness (left-right29 vs. right-left 21). In the German data, expressions with regard to handedness arerare (left-right 6 vs. right-left 8). Instead, people refer more often to other aspectsof hemispheric distinctions, as in (33):

(33) . . . stimulierte dies andere Bereiche in der linken und der rechten Gehirn-hälfte,. . . it stimulated other areas in the left and right hemisphere,

The use of links and rechts in politics is almost evenly spread in adverbial use,and there is a slight left-first preference in attributive use, whereas in English (ne-glecting the adverbial/attributive distinction) we have a more pronounced left-firstpreference.

The German corpus data differ slightly from the English data with regard to theidiomatic use of rechts and links in that they provide us with many more examplesand a greater variety of forms:

(34) hat er schon links und rechts ein paar hinter den Ohrenhe was slapped in his face left and right

(35) Aber weil auch in Brüssel die rechte Hand nicht weiß, was die linke tut, . . .But, since in Brussels, the right hand does not know what the left hand isdoing. . .

Still, the comparatively large number of examples in German is mainly due to thefrequent usage of very few idioms (e.g. (35)), occasionally in a creative variation,as shown in (36),

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(36) Darauf González: “Erzähl’ mir nicht alle. Es ist nicht gut, dass die linke Handweiss, was die rechte tut.”González replied: Don’t tell me all. It is not good that (when) the left handknows what the right one is doing.

All in all, just as the English data, the German data do not support the assumptionof a slight preference of right-first either. Also here (and in all major conceptualdomains with no exception) we find more examples with a left-right arrangement,which in all probability can be attributed to phonological constraints.

. Lev* and prav* in Russian usage

In spite of the highly inflectional character of Russian (as compared with Englishand German) and the higher number of forms the terms at issue may take, I nev-ertheless decided to incorporate all the inflectional forms into my analysis for amerely pragmatic reason. As a test analysis showed, the number of occurrenceswould have been very small otherwise. With all the forms included, the total ofoccurrences still does not exceed 300.

As for the general problems discussed above with respect to spatial orienta-tion, the Russian data confirm what has been found for English and German: thereare cases which leave it open whether an aligned field or a facing field is to beconstructed:

(37) V levom – ehlektricheskie shnury , v pravom – ballonchikAt the left, there were electric wires, at the right – a small balloon

To make orientation unambiguous, also Russian allows for, though does not alwaysresort to, the modification of the respective phrases by postposed genitive NPs:

(38) – Net, net, net, Petr Ivanovich, segodnja levaja storona goroda moja, apravaja vasha, . . .No, no Petr Ivanovich, today the left side of the town is mine, and the rightside is yours...

Just as for the German data, the corpus did not contain any example where disam-biguation operates by means of personal pronouns. The results obtained from theRussian data are given in Table 5.

Thus, also the Russian data corroborate the general finding that there is a clearpreference for left-first. The distribution of lev*-prav*/prav*-lev* with regard toconceptual domains is given in Table 6.

The data for literal direction show a slight left-first preference (as in (39)),which is in line with the English and German data; literal location shows a slightright-first preference in Russian (as in (40)), which is in contrast with English

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Table 5. lev* and prav* in Russian corpora

Sequence Number of occurrences Per cent

lev*-prav* 185 62.0prav*-lev* 109 38.0Sum total 294 100.00

Table 6. Domains of lev*-prav* and prav*-lev* expressions

Domains lev* – prav* prav*t – lev*

Direction 15 = 5.1% 11 = 3.7%Literal direction 13 = 4.4% 9 = 3.0%Non-literal movement 2 = 0.7% (photo: 0) 1 = 0.3% (photo: 0)Way description 0 1 = 0.3%Traffic 0 0Location 46 = 15.6% 41 = 13.9 %Literal location 15 = 5.1% (photo: 0) 18 = 6.1% (photo: 0)Politics 31 = 10.5% 23 = 7.8%Spatial Orientation 118 = 40.1% 55 = 18.7 %General orientation 105 = 35.7% 52 = 17.1%Handedness 13 = 4.4% 3 = 1.0%Idioms 1 = 0.3% 0Unclassified 5 = 1.7% 2 = 0.7%

and German. The data in the field of orientation show a pronounced left-firstpreference (as in (41)), which is especially worth considering in the light of thecontrasting findings in the English and German data (see above). We find hardlyany example of non-literal direction (where German and English prefer left-rightorientation), possibly because no picture descriptions are found in the Russiandata. In the field of politics (i.e. non-literal location), the Russian data, too, containmore examples of a left-right arrangement than right-left (as in (42). The only id-iom found has left- first (see (43)). Interesting as these observations may be, we arenot (yet) in position, from the relatively small number of examples from a corpusof doubtful statistical representativeness, to really conclude this to be a reflectionof general Russian usage; a more comprehensive analysis needs to be carried out.

(39) uzhe sviwet ... konnica i zaxodjat s levogo flanga na pravyj ...the cavalry makes a dash and they turn from the left flank to the right

(40) Rechki byli raznye: s uzkimi i shirokimi dolinami, s otkrytymi i zalesennymiberegami, kazhdaja so svoim risunkom pravogo i levogo berega...There were various rivulets: with narrow and broad valleys, with open andascenting banks, each with its own pattern of the right and the left bank

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(41) Kogda ja priexala, papa byl ochenq plox levaja storona paralizovana polnos-tqju , pravaja – chastichnoWhen I arrived, dad was in a very bad position, the left side was totallyparalysed, the right – in parts.

(42) Analitiki – kak “levye”, tak i “pravye” – zagovorili o roste klassovogo soz-nanija rabochix, (o perexode ego na sledujuwij ehtap i t. d. )Analysts – both left and right ones – were talking about the growth of theworkers’ ‘class consciousness’

(43) (chem polgoda nazad) bolqshinstvo soldat ne znali, gde u nix levo, a gdepravothe majority of the soldiers did not know where was left and where right

. Discussion and summary of results

I will now summarize what the corpus study reveals, also taking into consider-ation the rather tentative findings from Russian usage. The sequential arrange-ment of constituents in idiomatic and non-idiomatic phrasal expressions, so-called‘frozen locutions’, has been found to be determined by a number of factors, suchas markedness considerations, information-processing constraints, iconic mecha-nisms, and – for the less fixed of such expressions – also the thematic status of theelements involved (cf. Section 4).

The study at hand focused on iconic ordering principles, in particular on se-mantic/conceptual ones that affect the syntactic arrangement of left and right.I began with Landsberg’s claim that the “right-left linear choice” in English syn-tax is determined by the dexterity criterion (cf. Landsberg 1995b:74). This impliesa predominance of right-first usage, something which I intuitively thought to bedoubtful. To see what the actual usage data are, I carried out a corpus analysis,not only studying the syntactic arrangement as such, but also looking for potentialcriteria motivating the sequential arrangement of co-occurring left and right inEnglish, German and Russian. To this end, I correlated the two potential sequenceswith the conceptual domains with which the respective expressions can be asso-ciated. The findings – presented more or less separately for the three languages atissue in the previous chapter – can be summed up as follows in Table 7.

As has become obvious, different strategies can be detected to be operativein different conceptual fields, though the three languages do not always applythe same strategies in the same fields, and the preferences are more often weakthan strong.

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Table 7. Left/right and right/left preferences in English, German and Russian

Domain left-preference right-preference

Literal direction En 130:62 G 114:97 Ru 13:9Non-literal movement En 66:6 G 173:20 Ru: no dataLiteral location En 115:67 G 670:377 Ru 15:18Politics En 100:44 G 321:272 Ru 31:23Idioms En 4:3 G 63:54 Ru: no dataSpatial orientation G 370:347 Ru 118:55 En 124:126Traffic (En 5:5) Ru: no data G 50:68

The results seem to show that language (and language use) is influenced by theculture of the people speaking the language: There are obvious differences whenthe terms for right and left are used, i.e. the expressions found in the individuallanguages do not show up a proportioned and comparable coverage of the do-mains isolated. However, most of these imbalances can be assumed to follow fromthe corpora used (for example, missing data in the fields of traffic, way description,descriptions of photos and sports in Russian). Only in a few cases, comparativelylarger numbers of left-right and right-left expressions in one language seem to re-flect cultural traits, namely this people’s inclination to talk about particular subjectsrather than others. Thus, the English texts show a noticeable interest of its speakersin talking about ‘handedness’. This may be due to the fact that almost a third ofits speakers is left-handed. Traffic is oriented to the left, water taps and windowcatches are operated in the ‘reverse’ direction as seen from a continental point ofview. Nevertheless, as regards the sequential arrangement, we find a balanced dis-tribution of left-right and right-left and, in the field of spatial orientation (includingexpressions of which hand does what), we even find a right-first preference in theEnglish data. However, this preference – perhaps reflecting the predominance ofthe right-hand side in more than two thirds of the people – is not pronounced:right-left is in the lead by just two examples. And, as a more fine-grained catego-rization reveals, it results from a right-first preference in texts about boxing, whereright-handed boxers are clearly in the majority, whose dominant hand is definitelythe right one. In contrast, the German and the Russian data in the domain of spa-tial orientation show a left-first preference (370 (vs. 342) examples and 118 (vs. 55)examples respectively), a fact that needs explaining, since it contradicts the dexter-ity criterion postulated by Landsberg in a domain where people’s right hands andsides seem to be very natural starting points for orientation.

Further interlingual differences show in other domains at a more fine-grainedlevel. In the Russian data, the higher frequency of right-first in phrases expressingliteral location could be understood as reflecting the dexterity criterion, but it isnot very pronounced and – due to the limited corpus material – cannot be taken to

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be representative. For the German data, it is not surprising that the field of trafficshows a right-first preference, since here rechts is clearly the prototypical and un-marked concept as compared with links. German and English data are also specialin that they reflect a high percentage of left and right being used for the descrip-tion of people in photos, heavily exploiting the idea of ‘subjective motion’ (fromleft to right or right to left).

The usage of the respective words and phrases as metaphor and metonymy iscommon in the field of politics in all three languages under analysis. This is notsurprising either, since such “terms of the corporeal space system ‘inside/outside’,‘front/back’, and ‘left/right’ are heavily fraught with social and cultural symbol-ism in European traditions... [For example], the decision who walks in front or atthe back of a group is often an important mark of superiority; left and right areboth political labels and ritual realities in the seating arrangements of parliaments(. . .)” (Bickel 2000:179). In our data, English, German and Russian show a left-firstpreference, a result for which conceptual constraints are difficult to identify.

Last, but not least, let me come to the main focus of this study and its majorand clearest result. The clearest finding is with regard to the hypothesized slightright-first preference in Modern English assumed to follow from our predominantrighthandedness: the results do not corroborate this claim, but rather speak for a(general) left-first preference (English and Russian 2/3 vs 1/3; German 3/5 vs 2/5).These results probably allow for several explanations: Following Hill’s assumption,they may be an (iconic) effect of the left-right order of information processing inwestern cultures (i.e. the writing and reading practices from left to right), counter-acting the original, more natural right-left arrangement, or they may be an effectof (iconic) phonological constraints, or both. If we follow the first explanation, thesmaller number of right-first phrases may be a relic of older practices of expres-sions in domains in which the right hand dominance is still felt especially strong,which would be plausible for German expressions related to traffic. However, inanother domain that seems most susceptible to the dexterity criterion, the domainof spatial orientation, people’s right handedness does not seem to exert an influ-ence strong enough to more generally determine the sequential arrangement of therespective terms.

Adhering to the second explanation, we must conclude that phonological con-straints on the sequential arrangement of co-occurring expressions appear to over-ride those of a semantic/conceptual nature in the majority of situations: Even whenwe talk about what is or happens on our (lateral) sides, or what we do with one ofthose parts of our body that exist in pairs, sound-symbolic iconicity turns out tobe a stronger constraint on the arrangement of left and right than diagrammati-cally iconic reflections of people’s more natural right-handedness, or of the greatersemantic or conceptual closeness of one of the two concepts to the speaker, thesubjective primacy of one concept over the other (as Birdsong 1995:39 puts it more

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generally). A cautious explanation of the phenomenon analysed and discussed willprobably acknowledge both factors.

In conclusion, no matter what factors may actually apply, it is obvious thatLandsberg’s dexterity criterion cannot be corroborated for Modern English usage.In addition, the results of this data-based study also suggest that claims made on thebasis of either native speakers’ intuitions or dictionary information do not alwaysand completely reflect proper usage. The actual facts of language use can only bediscovered by analysing data from representative corpora, which – as the Russiandata suggest – must also be large enough.

Notes

. I am very grateful to Olga Fischer and William Herlofsky for their critical comments onearlier versions of this paper. The errors and misinterpretations of this valuable advice itcontains are entirely my own.

. This is a term that Bickel uses for a highly elaborate and strongly grammaticized category:It defines a coordinate system with quadrants UP, DOWN, and ACROSS distinguished bya series of morphemes including verbs, Aktionsart modifiers, nouns, case desinences [sic],demonstratives and even interjections.

. A typical situation in which the orientational field is indeterminate is, for example, in ashop when a customer faces the shop assistant and wants to determine which product hewould like to have. A common way of doing so is by simply saying der/die/das linke X, bitte(the left X, please; the X to the left, please), leaving it unspecified whether it is his own orthe shop assistant’s left.

. This phenomenon has regularly been topicalized in discussions of iconicity, as e.g. byGivón (1995:51), who uses the term ‘proximity principle’, and Haiman (1994:1630), whoapproaches the phenomenon from the inverse perspective of ‘alienation’.

. Such unmarked linearizations can also be recognised with respect to the thematic statusof the items involved: themes/topics come first, not only in fixed phrases, but also in largerfreely combined verbal constructions. This, however, is not a universal principle, there arealso languages for which it is typical that focused elements are put first. English reflects both(competing) motivations, though the topic-first order seems to be predominant (cf. alsoHaiman 1994:1633).

. The ‘me-first’ principle is another way of putting the phenomenon of closeness, say-ing that serialization is strongly influenced by the ‘canonical situation of utterance’ and‘egocentrism’ (cf. Landsberg 1995b:68).

. For a comprehensive survey of the role of vowels in phonetic symbolism see Marchand(1959).

. For reasons of clarity, the epigraph is given here: “When he wanted to show that wasmany, he would say that I have a right and a left side, and a front and a back, and an upper

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Doris Schönefeld

and a lower half, for I cannot deny that I partake of multitudes. [my emphasis D.S.]” Plato,Parmenides (quoted in Hill 1982:13)

. I am very much indebted to Silke Höche, Klaus Heimeroth and Ingbert Edenhofer forhelping me to cope with the huge amounts of data extracted from the corpora.

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Grew, P. (1998). http://fc.retecivica.milano.it/∼philip.grew/9-1106.html (12/10/2003)Haiman, J. (1994). Iconicity. In Asher & Simpson (Eds.), 1629–1637.Hill, C. (1982). Up/down, front/back, left/right: A contrastive study of Hausa and English.

In J. Weissenborn & W. Klein (Eds.), Here and There: Cross-Linguistic Studies on Deixisand Demonstration (pp. 13–42). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

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