A r t i c l e s

THE TREE AS A COGNITIVE MODEL IN SPEECH AND LITERATURE

Viktor KRUPA
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences,
Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

In several recent papers I tried to highlight the importance of the human (and to some extent also the animal) body as an auxiliary cognitive model (e.g. Krupa 1993 and 1995) in the vocabulary of widely divergent languages. The body (especially its outer and visible parts) incessantly enters into interaction with its surroundings, and is a major source of our elementary and fundamental knowledge. It is therefore not surprising that the body, with its complex internal design, often serves as a hypothetical blueprint or model for the interpretation and structuration of other conceptual domains, especially in those instances where functionally different and yet complementary (more important versus less important, central versus peripheral, superordinate versus subordinate) components ought to be distinguished and labelled.

ENGLISH-TUVALUANISCHE INTERFERENZ UND SPRACH(EN)POLITIK IN TUVALU

Emanuel M. FUCHS
English-Tuvaluan Interference and Language Policy in Tuvalu
Seilerstätte 17/6, Vienna, Austria

In this paper evidence of English influence on Tuvaluan (Part 1) as well as some aspects of language policy in the Pacific atoll nation of Tuvalu (Part 2) will be examined. Section 1.1. treats the historical impact of English as the language of traders and colonialists in the former Ellice-Islands, including borrowing, the phonological adaptation of English borrowings, the creation of literary Tuvaluan and Tuvaluan orthography; section 1.2. deals with the present status of English as an official and international language in modern Tuvalu; section 1.3. looks into the phenomenon of Tuvaluan-English bilingualism and 1.4. summarizes the first part of the paper. Part 2 contains section 2.1. on government sponsoring - 2.1.1. of the Southern Tuvaluan dialects and 2.1.2. of English, section 2.2. on the standardization of Tuvaluan and 2.3. summarizing the second part of the paper.

FUNCTIONAL VARIATIONS OF THE SO-CALLED FEMININE MARKER IN ARABIC

Ladislav DROZDÍK
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences,
Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

The linguistic category of gender has been extensively studied from both the synchronic and diachronic points of view. The present article can only touch on some of the most provocative issues of these studies. Its proper aim is to propose a short synchronic survey of the most outstanding functional variations of the suffix -a /-at in a number of linguistic systems of Modern Written Arabic and some of its colloquial varieties.

WORTLÄNGENHÄUFIGKEITEN IN CHINESISCHEN KURZGESCHICHTEN

Jinyang ZHU
Universität Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg
Karl-Heinz Best, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany

Frequency of Word Lengths in Chinese Short Stories

Chinese short stories are used in this paper with the aim of testing once again the theory of word length distribution in texts as proposed by Wimmer et al. (1994) and Wimmer/Altmann (1996). The theory assumes that the word lengths in texts are not distributed randomly but have to correspond to quite specific, theoretically justifiable distributions. The paper is another step in the investigation of Chinese as well as another 36 languages covered by the quantitative linguistic project carried out in Göttingen and introduced to the readers of this journal in Best/Song (1996).

METAMORPHOSES OF FAMILY-RELATED MOTIFS IN HINDI SHORT STORY

Dagmar MARKOVÁ
Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic,
Pod vodárenskou věží 4, 182 00 Prague 8, Czech Republic

All that is stated here is based on reading and on confrontation of the reading (1) with the results of sociological research and (2) with the empirical knowledge of Indian reality. No statistical methods were used. In Hindi short stories, we find a number of recurrent family motifs through the whole 20th century, modified according to the time and view-point of the respective writer. Hindi short story is reflective of social realities but it can be regarded as a document of its time only up to some extent. The natural fascination of the writers by the novelty of certain problems is rather misleading.

THE NATION STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL: ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES OF CONSENT 'FROM BELOW'

Helga Rittersberger-TILIç & Sibel KALAYCIOGLU
Department of Sociology, Middle East Technical University,
06531 Ankara, Turkey

The Turkish nation state project introduced itself with drastic reforms which had without doubt great influence on the institutional levels of society as well as on the private life of the people. However, a Western type of state-subject relationship did not develop. The nation state model and the introduction of a Western type modernity was introduced "from above" and remained to a large part at the legislative and administrative level alien to the individuals' experiences. Thus, in Turkey we can witness an articulation of a relatively modernized institutional body together with strong traditional family/kin networks which act as alternative means of social control and organization. These alternatives are perceived by the members of society as more efficient mechanisms to gain access to their goals. How do the individuals or better family/kin networks develop strategies to overcome the inefficiencies regarding the state institutions in responding to the needs of the individuals? It was seen that mainly through such individual strategies access was gained to resources concerning for example housing, employment, social security, education and health. We argue that these individual strategies constitute an alternative social organization "from below" which does not necessarily contradict the state's modernization goals, and in effect it completes the inefficiencies of the state institutions.

MODERN TRADITIONALIST YAHYA KEMAL BEYATLI

Xénia CELNAROVÁ
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences,
Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

Yahya Kemal Beyatli (1884-1958) is presented in dictionaries and encyclopedias as a neoclassicist, but also as the last representative of classical Ottoman poetry (Divan şiiri).The poet did not give up the traditional metre (aruz) and rhyme even in the period when the syllabic metre and free verse completely dominated Turkish poetry. However, Yahya Kemal did not use the classical metre and rhyme, or the traditional forms of Arabic and Persian poetry (gazel, kaside, rubaî and others) as ends in themselves. He subordinated them to his own conception of poetry, which was connected with the cultural and aesthetic trends of Western Europe and especially France in the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twen-tieth century.

FEATURES OF THE ETHIOPIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND THE CLERGY

Getnet TAMENE
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19,
813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has significantly declined since the disruption of her ally the so-called "Solomonic Line" in 1974, when the last monarch was overthrown; nevertheless, she still exerts strong influence on the lives of millions even without the support of her ally, the State. Neither the divorce of Church-State relations, which culminated with the end of the monarchy and introduction of Communist ideology in the 1970s, nor the trends of pluralistic democracy-based currently flourishing Independent Churches, could remove away her influence in the country. In fact, these events have threatened the position of this archaic Church and made questionable the possiblity of her perpetuation, as can be well observed at the turn of the century.