Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilNuméros18II. Fault lines at the syntax/sem...The “volcano theory”. The case of...

II. Fault lines at the syntax/semantics interface

The “volcano theory”. The case of collective nouns involving animal groupings

Jean Albrespit

Résumés

Le but de cet article est d’étudier les noms dits « collectifs » (c’est-à-dire du type a gaggle of geese) en anglais afin de rendre compte de la création remarquable de nouvelles expressions que ce type génère. Notre hypothèse est qu’il constitue un modèle d’innovation lexicale car il semble y avoir une imagination sans limite dans la création bouillonnante de nouvelles appellations. Dans un premier temps, nous abordons la distinction entre « classifieurs » et « quantifieurs » ainsi que la différence entre un quantifieur « strict » (a pound of) et « approximatif » (a drove of pigs), construit sur une métaphore.
Dans un second temps, nous examinons plus particulièrement les noms désignant des groupes d’animaux. La dimension diachronique est prise en compte, en nous intéressant à la genèse de ces formes au XVe siècle et notamment à l’ouvrage de Dame Juliana Berners, The Boke of St Albans (1486).
Une brève comparaison avec le français montre que même si une certaine productivité existe, ce principe de formation ne s’est pas autant développé en français.
Notre hypothèse est qu’à partir d’un modèle générique (dans ce cas « a N1 of N2 »/ « un(e) N1 de N2 »), l’innovation lexicale est sans limite. Des analyses syntactiques et sémantiques ne sont pas suffisantes : des paramètres sociaux, historiques et anthropologiques doivent être pris en considération pour expliquer les choix et les contraintes sur la productivité.

Haut de page

Texte intégral

Introduction1

  • 1 I am extremely grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of my paper and th (...)

1The aim of this paper is to examine a particular noun phrase of the type [determiner + N1coll. of N2count] where N2 refers to an animal grouping (a pack of wolves). The first noun (N1) is a “collective” count noun used as a “classifier” or “quantifier” (the question of the choice of terminology will be dealt with in a subsequent section) and indicates the quantity of items referred to by N2, which is a count noun in the plural (morphologically marked or not). The focus here will be on count nouns only, leaving aside mass nouns which would require another study.

2The volcano is a metaphor for productivity: new material constantly pushes its way replacing older material, co-existing with it or displacing its meaning. Furthermore, there appears in the N1 of N2 family of constructions a fault line between N2s referring to groups of animals and other N2s. As this article purports to show, the pack of wolves type of phrase is strikingly semantically productive.

3There are two types of quantification: an objective quantification, when the exact number of items is specified (a pair, a couple) and a subjective quantification when a set of items is defined but no indication is given as to the exact number of items (a crowd of onlookers). The set is finite and its members are defined predicatively (i.e. “the set of all members such that each member has the properties of an onlooker”).

4The list of “objective” quantifiers is rather limited to words indicating a small number (usually two) a couple, a dozen, a brace, a leash (a set of three hounds, hawks, foxes, hares, deer – O.E.D.) and quantitative words (Quirk, 1985:308): a pound, a kilo, a ton. This is not surprising as these quantifiers – being highly formatted – form a closed class.

5“Subjective” quantifiers form an open list and express a cultural practice: for instance, the way chocolates are sold (a box of chocolates), cotton is packed (a reel of cotton), chips are served (a scoop of chips), flowers are grouped (a bunch of flowers). One anonymous reviewer suggested that there were different types and subtypes of quantifying expressions (the examples above are hers/his). An in-depth study of these expressions would be very interesting but falls out of the scope of this paper. The focus here will be placed on the rather intriguing phenomenon of animal groupings, with comparisons to other kinds of groupings (mostly human). Let us consider the following observations: (i) apart from quantitative words, there seems to be no need for collective nouns used as quantifiers when plural marking is available and cardinal numbers (two wolves vs a couple of wolves) can fulfil the same function – count nouns can combine directly with quantifiers. (ii) The use of collectives reduplicates the plural marking: it is marked semantically in the collective noun and morphologically in the second noun. (iii) There is a proliferation of collectives and a remarkable inventiveness in the novel N1 of N2 formations. In this article, a particular attention is given to expressions such as a shrewdness of apes, a quiver of cobras, a swarm of bees, many of which seem to be used more in fun than seriously. As is written in an online grammar for learners:

“Whether it is a group of mammals, birds or even insects, there is a unique collective noun to identify the specific group, although some of these names are rarely used. (…) It’s good to know the correct collective noun, even if it’s just to wow your friends.”
(https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/​word-lists/​list-of-names-for-groups-of-animals.html)

6Catherine Soanes, head of online dictionaries at Oxford University Press, calls them “linguistic curiosities”. For Michael Quinion, editor of World Wide Words until 2017, “dictionaries avoid including these sorts of collective nouns because they are mostly fanciful”2.

7In this article, I will begin by examining the notions “collective” vs “classifier” and argue that N1s exhibit many features of a classifier. I will then move on to consider the different types of collective nouns involving animals (animal classifiers and metaphors), tackle the issue of freedom v. constraint in the formation of N1 of N2 expressions, in order to show that they provide specialized terms for referring to groupings and to give a model for creativity. I will then give a brief overview of the history of the form, make a comparison with French which has the equivalent pattern N1 de N2 and end with the issue of lexical innovation and the motivation behind it.

8The corpus used in this investigation is compiled from attested examples culled from various corpora (BNC, COCA and blogs on the Internet in English) and Frantext in French.

Definitions: collective nouns and classifiers

  • 3 The following quotation from Jespersen is taken from Arigne (2011:4): “Such words [a couple of glov (...)

9There are two definitions for the term “collective noun”. The first one is rather restrictive. For Quirk et al. (1985:316), collective nouns “differ from other nouns in taking as pronouns co-referents either singular it and relative which or plural they and relative who without change of number in the noun”. “Collective” also means group terms such as flock or herd (Jespersen, 1924:195)3. The latter category only will be taken into account here. The terms involved can have the intrinsic meaning of a collection, a group of animate or inanimate entities: assembly, band, battery, bunch, bundle, clan, class, cluster, colony, company, congregation, family, fleet, flock, gang, herd, line, mob, pack, panel, party, pool, row, school, set, shoal, stack, team, throng, tribe, troop.

10Sometimes, they bear no relation to an explicit “group” meaning: a pod (of whales, dolphins), a pride, a leash, a watch (of nightingales), a bed (of oysters), a flare (of symptoms). In this case, the meaning of N1 is not predictable and can only be inferred when the two words (N1 and N2) are brought together.

11The words occurring in N1 position are sometimes called “classifiers” (Allan 1977, Lehrer 1986, Xu Zhang 2008), and in this case “collective classifiers”, by analogy with languages having specialized classifiers (Chinese, Vietnamese among others). The English group classifiers that can compare with the classifiers of classifier languages are all mensural (i.e. expressing measure). The difference between a quantifier (indicating an objectively assessed quantity and which from now will be called a “strict quantifier”) and a classifier is that the latter has the particularity of having an independent meaning, sometimes without any connection to size or quantity or the relation container/contained for instance the word bike in a bike of wasps/hornets, meaning a nest of wasps or hornets). The semantic weight is therefore greater than with a strict quantifier. It should be stressed that “classifier” seems an apt term for the semantic description of a collective noun occurring within the construction under study. However, “classifiers” in English do not display all the properties of real classifiers. In particular, the following combination is licensed: “classifier” + numeral + N-plural marking (a team of six students) but non-existent in classifier languages according to Rijkhoff (2002).

  • 4 This ability has long been recognized as central in prototype and cognitive theories. For instance, (...)
  • 5 Jespersen (1924: 194) “It is often necessary or at any rate convenient to have a linguistic express (...)

12A classifier in English – in the restricted sense stated before – may have some of the salient features of the item which is collectivized: a pride of lions, which is a group of lions forming a social unit. In that case, there is no reference to size and the collective sense is not inherent in the first meaning given of pride by the O.E.D. (“The quality of being proud”), though it has acquired one in the lion-related polyseme of pride as we will see later. Size is implicit and must be deduced from prior knowledge of the way lions congregate. This means that a special relationship semantically links the two nouns. Let us take another example: the expression a herd of cows entails that a certain number of cows are grouped and hence form a unit, the size and the homogeneity of which we know by experience. It is not just a random collection of items. Grouping, delimiting classes seems to be a fundamental cognitive ability4 and might explain the wealth of possibilities in the choice and creation of classifiers5.

13The features human/animal/object also belong to the information conveyed by the classifier: a herd is used for animals, a crowd for humans, a stack for things, although there are frequent cases of re-categorization as we will see.

14There have been many debates over the definition of what a “classifier language” is. Classifiers are mostly used to count individual entities or to categorize entities in function of their sort and are not optional. They have a meaning of their own, i.e.: “something flat”, “animate”, “round object”, “three-dimensional object”, “rope-like shape”, etc. (Allan, 1977:290). For instance, in Vietnamese, the numeral classifier often occurs between the numeral and the noun: “ba (three) + con (classifier) + choù (dog), ‘three dogs’ (Sim Sook Hui, 2003:9).

15There are no such compulsory classifiers in English. Some of their semantic characteristics, however, can be found in the collective nouns occurring in the N1 of N2 structure.

  • 6 Allan, 1977:297 identifies 7 categories of classification: (i) material, (ii) shape, (iii) consiste (...)

16Objects are usually collectively referred to with regard to quantity: a pound of potatoes and to “arrangement”6 (Allan, 1977:297): a stack of books, hay, gramophone records, letters, forms, newspapers, blueberry pancakes, plates, files; a bunch of flowers, roses, violets, keys; a row of trees, Christmas cards, six washbasins. Objects and animals can also be classified according to the container they are placed in: a box of chocolates, matches, index cards; a pen of pigs; a coop of chickens.

17Nouns in N1 position derived with the suffix –ful also provide a large number of collectives: a handful of cashews, strawberries, nuts. It is a very productive means of creation. The same process can be found in French with N-ée: assiettée, bouchée, brouettée but is less productive: bucketful (un plein seau), houseful (une pleine maison/une maisonnée), a carful of people (?une voiturée de gens), a treeful of apples (*une arbrée de pommes). The last two formations are very strange in French. There is only one occurrence recorded with “voiturée” and none with “arbrée” in this sense in Frantext. From our data, it appears that derivational paradigms cannot be extended as freely in French as in English, but this is a broad claim that will need further research.

18There is a much less productive derivation in –ery: for instance rookery, derived from rook (a crow), and whose meaning has generalized to mean “a place where rooks or other animals live. A rookery of herons, penguins, seals.” (O.E.D.)

A creative process

19When used with a non-standard, creative referent, classifiers are used as evaluative expressions and convey an added meaning (humour, irony, witticism, depreciation, a poetic or biblical overtone):

(1) In another, he appeared as a visionary teacher indoctrinating a flock of eager young students with slogans like ‘Banality As Savior’ and ‘Exploit The Masses’. (BNC- The Face. Nick Logan, 1990)

20A playful tone can be felt in the alliterations displayed by some of the fanciful classifiers: a giggle of girls: a zeal of zebras, a pod of pelicans or a “poetic” lexicon: an aurora of polar bears.

21Some of the classifiers are mostly used in their literal sense (pile, stack) while others (bunch, handful) are essentially used metaphorically (a bunch of friends, a handful of fishermen). With “stack”, the idea of a rather large quantity (derived from the fact that objects are in contact, thrown on top of each other) is usually implied and can be used metaphorically:

(2) ‘There’s a stack of cinemas in Leicester Square,’ he said, ‘Jake says nowhere else like it in the world.’ (Esquire. London, 1991-BNC)

Types of collective nouns

Animal classifiers

22The majority of collective nouns found in the corpus are animal classifiers. The reason might be that animals used to be of paramount importance for a population that was essentially rural. The Book of St Albans (1486) (see section 3) certainly popularized a large number of collectives linked to the field of venery. The pattern N1 of N2 proved productive and motivated by the necessity for a technical term for accurate description and not just a generic term such as “group”. It is unsurprising that activities such as beekeeping which require technical skills should generate several terms to describe a group of domestic bees: hive, skep, nest, swarm.

23There is necessarily a semantic link between N1 and N2, otherwise it would not be possible to understand the expression N1 of N2. A list of possible semantic links is by nature debatable and incomplete. The list below simply aims at giving some tendencies in the formation of collective nouns:

  • N1 is the container of N2 (and corresponds to an approximate gauge): a basket of crabs

    • 7 “number of beasts, as oxen, sheep, etc., driven in a body; a herd, flock” (O.E.D.)
    • 8 “The root in Sanskrit meant “tumult”, but the sense of “agitated, confused, or deflected movement” (...)

    N1 indicates the movement or mode of travel of N2: a crush of dogs; a drove of pigs7, A rhumba of rattlesnakes, a swarm of bees8.

  • N1 exhibits a particularity of N2:

  • noise/sound: a crash/ thunder of hippopotami; a crash of rhinoceroses; a gaggle of geese (gaggle means cackle)

  • attitude: a float of crocodiles

  • character: a pride of lion

    • 9 Quoted by Arigne (2011).

    N1 symbolizes the way the group referred to by N2 moves: a crocodile of children9, a centipede of children; a string of racehorses.

Metaphors

24Some of the classifiers are mostly used in their literal sense (a herd of deer) while others can be used literally (a handful of worms) or metaphorically (a bunch of rabbits, a handful of tigers). The classifier gives an approximate quantity (that can be held in your hand with a handful of worms and a small quantity with tigers).

25The meaning of the [det. N1class/quant of N2count] construction is not always easily deducible from the association of N1 and N2. In some cases, the speaker has to provide keys to ensure comprehension. For instance, an unexpected expression such as a flotilla of cats (example 3 below) hardly makes sense out of context. The speaker must provide the co-speaker/reader a facilitation process, or frayage in French (Culioli 1992:7), i.e. a text that “breaks a path” to the form considered. The word flotilla is used metaphorically and the co-text indicates that flotilla is to be understood as meaning a large number. The metaphorical use gives further leeway to creativity and playful inventions:

(3) After signing the lease on our new apartment (the basement of a house), the owner commented that if we liked cats (we had a 15 year old cat that was mentioned in the lease), there were homeless cats that came around that the owner occasionally fed. I gasped in horror because my first thought was, “OH MY GOD! I am going to want to save and adopt every single one of those cats!” None of the cats had really seemed to care much that we were there and I was relieved that it looked like I’d “escaped” from having to personally save a flotilla of cats.
(www.mommakatandherbearcat.com/2015/03/the-good-news-is-your-cat-is-not.html)

Freedom vs constraint

26The association between the two nouns is not totally free and is not based solely on perception and individual evaluation: there are restrictions in the possibilities of formation. Most classifiers are polysemous, like flock (a flock of sheep, ewes, birds, geese, wild turkeys, partridges, hawks, crows, gulls, starlings, sparrows, lapwings, goats, bats), herd: a herd of buffalo(es), (elephants, whales, wild boars, zebra, sheep, deer, yak). Some N1s show a degree of specialization: flock is used mainly with sheep and bird nouns; herd is specialized for large animals, very often ruminants; pack usually collocates with wolves, drove with pigs. Thus, some of the classifiers have acquired a technical use (tower in the context of a safari: a tower of giraffe); others (gaggle) do not have a technical sense despite their only possible use with geese.

27The construction can generate an almost infinite number of occurrences. The limitation is coherence: there has to be some semantic link between the two nouns or else the expression will remain idiosyncratic.

28The question is obviously: do we need such a choice of terms, and why not simply have a list of terms referring to size? The so-called principle of economy, or least effort (Zipf 1949, Martinet, 1955, 94) does not seem to hold.

29One answer is that these collectives do not really serve only one purpose, quantifying by defining a set. They enrich the meaning of the word which is classified. The cognitive cost seems rather high if one N1 – and sometimes several nouns – must be memorized for each group of N2s. In fact, outside specialized lexicons, it is always possible to use a more generic term. But the novelty (even if the nouns are centuries old and have fallen into disuse) and the strangeness of some of the words captivate many speakers. The number of blogs and discussion groups on the internet is evidence of the circulation of the terms discussed here, thus possibly re-activating them10.

30Another question is whether the association of a collective noun and a noun in the plural tends to turn into a mass noun the noun in N2 position. By being brought together, the different occurrences would become a kind of ontological entity and not merely a collection. This means that the phrase two dogs is not strictly equivalent to a couple of dogs. In the latter case, there is a pre-formatted pattern, which implies that there is a certain amount of shared knowledge between speaker and co-speaker: the co-speaker understands that a couple of dogs in example (4) is used in the description of the typical scene of a quiet village at night and that the actual number is not relevant:

(4). The time is midnight. The whole village is fast asleep. The soiled lanes are vacant, save a couple of dogs lying under some standing bullock carts. (Pennsylvania Literary Journal, 2019-COCA)

31As is shown in (4), the quantitative marker is not used in its original function, but as a marker of approximation and vagueness: two dogs might mean two, or maybe three or more, there is only an indication of a small number.

Diachronic overview: the invention of nouns referring to animal groupings

32The development of the [det. N1coll. of N2count] structure and its extraordinary productivity can be traced back to the 15th century and particularly to The Boke of St Albans (1486), by Dame Juliana Berners (although a single authorship for the whole of the book is debated). The book was published in Saint Albans, in Hertfordshire, on one of the first printing presses in England. It is composed of different chapters (or “treatises”) giving advice on hawking, hunting and heraldry (a chapter on fishing was added in a subsequent edition). It is a kind of guide giving advice as to etiquette and terminology in those fields. The prologue to the Book of Hunting explains the aim of the chapter:

“Likewise (…) are written and noted the terms of pleasure belonging to gentlemen having delight therein, in the same manner this book following showeth to such gentle persons the manner of Hunting for all manner of beasts, whether they be beasts of Venery, or of Chace, or Rascal. And also it showeth all the terms convenient as well to the hounds as to the beasts aforesaid.” [from The Boke of St Albans. The text has been slightly modernized].

  • 11 Exaltation: “A fanciful name for: A flight (of larks). Obsolete.” (O.E.D.). The O.E.D. mentions tha (...)

33This chapter comprises “The compaynys of beestys and fowlys”, a list of collective terms, many of them invented, e.g. “an Exaltyng of Larkis” (an Exaltation of Larks11). Here is an extract from the edition used here (William Blades, 1881, 1901). The list is copied below for easier reading:

Fig. 1: “The compaynys of beestys and fowlys”

Fig. 1: “The compaynys of beestys and fowlys”

an Herde of Hertis
a herde of all man dere
an Herde of Swannys
an Herde of Cranys
an Herde of Corlewys
an Herde of wrennys
an Herde of harlottys
a Nye of Fesaunttys
a Bevy of Ladies
a Bevy of Roos
a Bevy of Quaylis
a Sege of heronnys
a Sege of betouris
a Sorde or a sute of malardis
a Mustre of Pecockys
a Walke of Snytis
a Congregation of peple
an Exaltyng of Larkis
a Wache of Nyghtingalis
an hoost of men
a Felishippyng of yomen
a Cherme of Goldfynches
a Cast of Brede
a Couple or a payer of botillis
a Flight of Doves
an unkyndenes of Ravenes
a Clateryng of choughes
a Dissimulation of breddis
a Route of knyghtis
a Pride of lionys
a Sleuth of Beeris
a Cete of Graies
a Bery of Conyis
a Riches of Matronys
a Besynes of ferettis
a Brace of grehoundis of ii
a Lece of Grehoundis of iii
a Coupult of spaynellis
a Couple of rennyng houndis
a Litter of Welpis
a Kyndill of yong Cattis
a Synguler of Boris
a Dryft of tame Swyne
an Harrasse of horse
a Ragge of coltis or a Rake
a Baren of Mulis
a Trippe of Gete
a Trippe of haaus
a Gagle of gees
a Brode of hennys
a badelyng of Dokis
a Noonpatiens of wyves
a State of Prynces
a Thongh of barons
a Prudens of vikeris
a Superfluyte of Nunnys
a Scole of clerkes
a Doctryne of doctoris

34From then on, there was a sustained interest, as can be seen in the following extract of The Monthly Mirror:

  • 12 “An alleged name for a ‘company’ of leopards. Obs.1486 Bk. St. Albans A Lepe of Lebardis”. (O.E.D.)

“In the middle ages when beasts went together in companies, it was observed by sportsmen that there was a pride of lions; a lepe12 of leopards, &c. &c. It is well worthy notice that this sort of phraseology was not confined to the brute creation, but was extended to the various ranks and professions of men, and often very expressively, viz. A state of Princes; a skulk of friars; a lying of pardoners, a multiplying of husbands; an incredibility of cuckholds, a safeguard of porters; a blast of hunters; a draught of butlers; a melody of harpers (…) Birds assembled in companies were frequently denominated with equal aptness – as, for instance – a murmuration of starlings; an exaltation of larks (…). (The Monthly Mirror: reflecting men and manners, p 91, 1802, vol. XIII, February. https://archive.org/​details/​monthlymirrorre00unkngoog)

35Many of the words included in the above lists were “artificial terms as distinctive collectives referring to particular animals or classes of persons” (OED – entry for gaggle13). Only a few of these terms have survived and have become normal usage; others, though they are not forgotten and can always be reactivated, are unused. Many others still have disappeared altogether according to the O.E.D., for example a pace of asses (recorded between 1450 and 1688). The word trip, meaning “a small flock” (of goats, sheep, hares) became obsolete but survived for a longer period of time locally with a narrower meaning (a small flock of wild-fowl). As can be expected, there is a large spectrum of dialectal variation, with names for groups of indigenous animals (birds in New Zealand for instance: a tussock of takahē, a hoon of kākā14) or words such as a tower of giraffe in Namibia and Kenya, a raft of regulations (strategies, measures, etc.) in the U.S. (although raft in the sense of a large amount of something has spread to other varieties), a swag of suggestions in Australian English.

36Some words came into disuse before finding a new life. This is the case for a pride of lions, which was “adopted as the ordinary term apparently during the first quarter of the 20th century, having been an archaism revived in the late 19th cent.” (O.E.D.) The same goes for a murmuration of starlings, which is “one of many alleged group terms found in late Middle English glossarial sources, but not otherwise substantiated. Revived and popularized in the 20th century”. (O.E.D.)

37From its origins in Middle English, when the system of prepositions influenced by French came into force, the [det. N1coll. of N2count] structure has been a powerful generator of new collectives used as classifiers.

Comparison with a romance language: French

38The same construction can be found in French, although its productivity is much lower and numerous constraints curb creativity. Many constructions enter collocations where little variation is possible: un banc de poissons (a school/shoal of fish); une volée de moineaux (a flock/host of sparrows); un essaim d’abeilles (a swarm of bees); une couvée de poussins (a brood of chicks); une compagnie de sangliers (a herd of boars). Even if N2 does not refer to an animal, collocations are set: une assiette de légumes (a plate of vegetables); une foule de gens (a crowd of people); une bande de jeunes (a gang of youths); une flottille de camions (a fleet of trucks); un jeu de clés (a bunch of keys), une volée d’escaliers (a flight of stairs).

39There are more restrictions on the choice of N1s. Some linguists studying collective nouns in French consider that a noun such as pluie (une pluie de balles/a shower of bullets), which has a collective sense by extension or derivation, should be excluded from the list of collective nouns, as it requires an extra step to move from denomination to quantification (Borillo 1997, Flaux 1999, Benninger 2001). It is true that such formations are somewhat problematic as it is difficult to decide whether pluie is really a quantifier or if it is a metaphor that could be glossed in this manner: “there are so many bullets that they can be compared to rain”. However, the notion of quantity is underlying. With such a pattern, we can go so far as saying that N1 are emphasizers. Aside from lexicalized metaphors (un déluge de louanges, an outpouring of praise), there is a number of colloquial expressions to refer to a great number of something: une palanquée, une nuée, une ribambelle, floppée, une kyrielle une tripotée de N2. There are also amplifiers, such as words indicating length or modalizing adjectives (sacré), for instance:

Ça fait un bout de temps que je ne l’ai pas vu.
J’ai pris un sacré paquet de pluie sur la tête en sortant.

40I claim that the association between the two nouns, given the physical properties of N2 (e.g. bullets, or anything that falls: leaves, acorns, etc.), changes N1 into a special quantifier which retains some of its semantic characteristics, hence the notion of classifier that has been developed here and that can also apply to French.

Lexical innovation

41Some structures provide a particularly efficient model for lexical creation. The reasons are always difficult to determine. In the case of [det. N1coll of N2count], a conjunction of factors can provide an explanation: the necessity to have tools to quantify, a fascination for the animal world, a versatility specific to English, the pleasure of playing with words, the appeal of erudition, the feeling of becoming familiar with unfamiliar domains through a specialized lexicon.

42A number of “linguistic curiosities” appear in the corpus. The unusual, quaint or obsolete character of some of the collectives/classifiers make them candidates for puns and play on words, as can be seen in the following headlines, intended to catch the reader’s attention:

(5) CW Awards Oman: Atkins bags a brace of trophies
<http://www.constructionweekonline.com/​article-21481-cw-awards-oman-atkins-bags-a-brace-of-trophies/​>

(6) A brace of book launches.
I’ve been to two very well attended book launches in Seattle this week – both them within walking distance of my home.
<http://johndberry.com/​blog/​2013/​11/​17/​a-brace-of-book-launches/​>

43The word brace (from Old French brace, the two arms – O.E.D.) is rarely used, and most of the time, its quantitative meaning is not the most salient feature: 48 hits in the BNC/72 hits in the COCA, 8 occurrences in the BNC/18 in the COCA with animal words, and even among those, some of them are used to give the text a “quaint” flavour. In the COCA there are also 9 occurrences of brace with weapons. In (7) the word brace is used only in the headline and explicated by “two book launches” in the text.

44Many classifiers occur in a metaphorical context, which is further evidence for the extra meaning they convey, especially when a mismatch occurs between N1 and N2, when an animal or object classifier is used for human beings. Allan (1977:296) makes the same observation for classifier-languages when a speaker uses an unusual classification:

“Classifiers are occasionally vehicles for verbal play (including verbal abuse) and figures of speech.”

45It is therefore possible to enter just any word in the construction, even if it does not refer to the notion “group”. Its interaction with the second noun will warrant an interpretation in terms of “group”. It is thus possible to create any combination to make a play on words. The following book title illustrates this possibility: “A Brace of Orthodontists”: The Story of the Australian Society of Orthodontists” (David Thornton Taylor).

46Lastly, the creative process can be seen at work – even if the results are not always outstanding – in many blogs which post lists of collective nouns, many containing puns (a number of statisticians; an intolerance of rednecks; a bribe of politicians; a clutch of mechanics; a shuffle of bureaucrats, a lounge of lizards) or even quizzes like the one below:

(7) Which brings me to my question... what would you call a group of bloggers?
Answers received: a boodle of bloggers; a blender of bloggers; a qwerty of bloggers
http://itsarealjungleoutthere.blogspot.fr/​2009/​10/​keyboard-of-bloggers.html

47Other playful inventions include: a condescension of literati; a confederacy of racists; an index of urologists; a snotgobble of toddlers; a whomsoever of grammarians; a slouch of teenage boys; a brood of Sartre scholars; a clique of phishing scammers. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/​lifestyle/​magazine/​from-a-giggle-of-girls-to-an-infirmary-of-punchlines/​2014/​06/​12/​1cf26cc6-e5ac-11e3-afc6-a1dd9407abcf_story.html)

48Words in N1 position acquire a new meaning when a connexion is made with N2; there seems to be no limits to the possibilities of creation, even if the new forms are usually short-lived and few become lexicalized.

49The final question is the reason for the creation of “fantasy collectives” (thanks to one of the reviewers for suggesting this term). How can we account for the motivation behind the construct? In some cases, its meaning can be easily understood, as in the case of parliament (of owls): “Often used of a noisy gathering of birds, esp. rooks, probably after Chaucer” (O.E.D.). In other cases, the origin of the older terms is obscure. For the word murder (a murder of crows), the O.E.D. gives the following indication: “Origin uncertain; probably the same word as murder n.1 (perhaps alluding to the crow’s traditional association with violent death, or (…) to its harsh and raucous cry)”. It is hard to explain this fascination for animal groupings. As noted before, the pleasure of playing with words and inventing new words is certainly one of the motivations. Another one maybe the illusion that each group of animals (or humans) should be named even though giving a group a name does not always serve a purpose – for example having a name for a group of owls that no scientist uses and that has very little chance of ever being used in ordinary conversation (seeing a group of owls would be exceptional as they mostly live alone).

Conclusion

50English has some particularly productive models, such as the structure studied here, but also other semantic possibilities with N1 of N2: N2 as a mass noun (a pinch of powder); N2 compared to N1 (a battleship of a car); the structure have V; suffixation in –able and -ish. Hence my “volcano theory” (a term coined by the French linguist Jacques Boulle, in connexion with aspect, in Bernard 134-135), to put a name on an overflowing creativity.

51French has equivalent structures but they do not give rise to so many novel possibilities. With [N1coll of N2count], I have claimed that N1 had many features of a classifier, especially since it usually possesses some of the semantic characteristics of N2. The structure has two functions: to provide specialized terms for referring to groupings and to give a model for creativity. Some collectives are also used as emphasizers. The fact that humans or animals are involved in the creation of classifiers is a powerful incentive for invention. A word entering this pattern thus becomes a new lexical unit with a different sense which is construed relationally. A process of lexicalization and therefore referential stabilization takes place, with a degree of specialization which is greater when lexicalization has reached its end-point.

Haut de page

Bibliographie

ALLAN, Keith. 1977. “Classifiers”. Language 53, 281-31 ALLAN, Keith. 1980. “Nouns and countability”. Language 56, 54-67.

ARIGNE, Viviane. 2011. « La figure du tout intégré et les noms discrets collectifs », Anglophonia n°30, 59-99. https://journals.openedition.org/anglophonia/389, accessed 17 October 2022

BENNINGER, Céline. 2001. « Une meute de loups, une brassée de questions : collection, quantification et métaphore ». Langue française n°129, Les figures entre langue et discours. pp. 21-34. https://www.persee.fr/doc/lfr_0023-8368_2001_num_129_1_1015, accessed 25 January 2023

Bernard, Gilles. 2014. Le groupe Relpred, in Histoire Épistémologie Langage, tome 36, fascicule 2, 133-134.

BORILLO, Andrée. 1997. « Statut et mode d’interprétation des noms collectifs », in C. Guimier (dir.), Cotexte et calcul de sens, Caen : Presses Universitaires de Caen, 105-121.

BERNERS, Juliana. 1901 [1486] [1881]. The Boke of St Albans. Containing Treatises on Hawking, Hunting, and Cote Armour. Printed at Saint Albans by the Schoolmaster-Printer in 1486. Reproduced in facsimile with an introduction by William Blades. London Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row, E.C.

CULIOLI, Antoine. « Un si gentil jeune homme ! et autres énoncés », in L’Information Grammaticale, n° 55, 3-7.

FLAUX, Nelly. 1999. « A propos des noms collectifs ». Revue de linguistique romane, 63, 471-502.

GEERAERTS, Dirk. 2006. “Prototype theory”.1992 In Geeraerts, Dirk, Dirven, Rene & Taylor, John R. (eds) Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 141-165.

JESPERSEN, Otto. 1924. The Philosophy of Grammar. London: George Allen & Unwin.

LEHRER, Adrienne. 1986. “English classifier constructions”. Lingua 66, 109-148.

MARTINET, André. 1955. Economie des changements phonétiques. Traité de phonologie diachronique. Berne : A. Francke.

QUIRK, Randolph, GREENBAUM, Sydney, LEECH, Geoffrey & SVARTVIK, Jan. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London & New York: Longman.

RIJKHOFF, Jan. 2002. The Noun Phrase. Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

SIM SOOK, Hui. 2003. The Semantics and Grammar of Vietnamese Classifiers. MA Dissertation. National University of Singapore.

SMITHSON, Heidi Jill. 2004. By fryth or by fell”: The Boke of Hawkyng and The Boke of Huntyng in The Boke of St Albans. MA thesis, University of Regina, Canada. https://ourspace.uregina.ca/handle/10294/13151, accessed 17 October 2022

XU, Zhang. 2008. “Shape categories revealed by English quasi-classifiers-A case study of sheet”. Papers from LAEL. PG Vol. 3. https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/events/laelpgconference/papers/v03/Zhang.pdf, accessed 17 October 2022

Zipf, George Kingsley. 1949. Human behavior and the principle of least effort: an introduction to human ecology. Cambridge: Addison-Wesley Press.

Oxford English Dictionary Online: www.oed.com, accessed 17 October 2022

Haut de page

Notes

1 I am extremely grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of my paper and their insightful comments and suggestions.

2 Cited from The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2011/jun/06/mind-your-language-collective-nouns

3 The following quotation from Jespersen is taken from Arigne (2011:4): “Such words [a couple of gloves, a set of tools] are rightly termed collectives, and I think this term should not be used in the loose way often found in grammatical works, but only in the strict sense of words which denote a unit made up of several things or beings which may be counted separately; a collective, then, is logically from one point of view ‘one’ and from another point of view ‘more than one’ ”.

4 This ability has long been recognized as central in prototype and cognitive theories. For instance, Geeraerts (2006): “What is interesting from a cognitive point of view, however, is the way people spontaneously categorize and classify things (…)”.

5 Jespersen (1924: 194) “It is often necessary or at any rate convenient to have a linguistic expression in which several things are comprehended into a unit of a higher order”.

6 Allan, 1977:297 identifies 7 categories of classification: (i) material, (ii) shape, (iii) consistency, (iv) size, (v) location, (vi) arrangement, (vii) quanta.

7 “number of beasts, as oxen, sheep, etc., driven in a body; a herd, flock” (O.E.D.)

8 “The root in Sanskrit meant “tumult”, but the sense of “agitated, confused, or deflected movement” prevailed”. (O.E.D.)

9 Quoted by Arigne (2011).

10 Among many examples: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_collective_nouns_by_subject; https://arapahoelibraries.org/blogs/post/names-for-groups-of-animals/; https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/word-lists/list-of-names-for-groups-of-animals.html; https://www.infoplease.com/math-science/biology/plants-animals/animal-group-terminology
https://www.almanac.com/kids/animal-group-names
https://www.farmersalmanac.com/25-strangest-names-animal-groups-25760

11 Exaltation: “A fanciful name for: A flight (of larks). Obsolete.” (O.E.D.). The O.E.D. mentions that “exalting” was a synonym of “exaltation” with a last recorded example in 1688.

12 “An alleged name for a ‘company’ of leopards. Obs.1486 Bk. St. Albans A Lepe of Lebardis”. (O.E.D.)

13 gaggle: “a flock (of geese); also derisively, a company (of women). One of the many artificial terms invented in the 15th cent. as distinctive collectives referring to particular animals or classes of persons; but unlike most of the others, it seems to have been actually adopted in use. Transferred: a group of people or things, esp. a disorderly assemblage; spec. (slang) a group of aircraft.” (O.E.D.)

14 https://www.nzbirds.com/more/nounsk.html

Haut de page

Table des illustrations

Titre Fig. 1: “The compaynys of beestys and fowlys”
URL http://journals.openedition.org/esa/docannexe/image/5210/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 368k
Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence électronique

Jean Albrespit, « The “volcano theory”. The case of collective nouns involving animal groupings »Études de stylistique anglaise [En ligne], 18 | 2023, mis en ligne le 11 mai 2023, consulté le 13 novembre 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/esa/5210 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/esa.5210

Haut de page

Auteur

Jean Albrespit

Université Bordeaux Montaigne

Jean Albrespit is Emeritus Professor of English linguistics at Université Bordeaux Montaigne. His field is cognitive and “enunciative” (utterer-centred) linguistics. He takes an interest in stylistics viewed from a linguistics standpoint. He has written papers on grammatical and lexical markers as markers of style (and more specifically discourse markers and the anteposition of prepositional phrases and adverbial particles).

Jean Albrespit est Professeur émérite à l’université Bordeaux Montaigne, spécialiste de linguistique anglaise énonciative et cognitive. Il s’intéresse à la stylistique par le prisme de la linguistique en étudiant certains marqueurs grammaticaux et lexicaux comme marqueurs de style (particulièrement les marqueurs de discours et l’antéposition de groupes prépositionnels et de particules adverbiales).

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

Le texte et les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés), sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

Haut de page
Rechercher dans OpenEdition Search

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search