Means of expressing approximating quantities in English and Armenian

The paper gives a cross-linguistic analysis of approximations in English and Armenian, particularly in the sphere of numerical quantities. The study is carried out on two levels: semantic and structural. The comparative study shows that the three types of approximators: non-specified, specified with the two subtypes as well as quasi-specified approximators singled out in the paper as a third semantic type are widely represented both in English and Armenian. Semantically they are in most cases identical. The differences concern English approximators under, odd, the suffix–ish which have no counterparts in Armenian. Likewise, Armenian approximator haziv is not functionally analogous with the English semantic counterparts (hardly, barely) which are normally not used to express approximating quantities in English. Some synonymous approximators both in English and Armenian exhibit stylistic differences in their usage. The structural analysis shows that out of ten basic patterns that approximators are constituents of four are identical in the related languages, the rest six patterns equally divided between the compared languages exhibit specificity that is intrinsic to each of them.


Introduction
The world surrounding us is too versatile, too complicated and complex to be thoroughly and completely perceived by our brain and senses.It is natural that our language is unable to reflect the objective reality with all its diversity in full scope and size.As Stubbs says, "When we speak or write, we are rarely clear, precise or explicit about what we mean -and perhaps could not be" (Stubbs, 1987, p.738)."This inevitably", writes Channel, "leads to vagueness which is in some ways regrettable, but it is the price we have to pay for having a means of social communication flexible enough to cope with the infinite variety of our experiences" (Channel, 1994, p. 6).One of manifestations of vagueness is approximation, a linguistic category applied by language users when they fail or tend to avoid giving an exact and precise description of things, phenomena and properties.Linguistic means that actualize this category are called approximators.Lakoff relates approximators to the sphere of 'fuzzy semantics' (Lakoff, 1973).Quirk and Greenbaum refer this class of lexemes to downtoners alongside with comprisers which serve to express an approximation (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1978).
These linguistic units make up a specific semantic group "which enable speakers to give approximations rather than being absolutely precise and perhaps being heard as pedantic" (Carter and McCarthy, 2006. p.203).The category of linguistic approximation is a universal category existing in almost all languages and on all levels.
The aim of this paper is to present a comparative analysis of approximators in English and Armenian, which belong to languages of different morphological and syntactic structure.We must mention that this kind of cross-linguistic study is complicated by the fact that this class of Armenian lexemes has not been a special object of study in Armenian linguistics.Armenian linguists give only general characteristics of these lexical units, referring them to the class of quantity adverbs (Abeghyan, 1963;Asatryan, 1983;Papoyan and Badikyan, 2003).Our task to include the Armenian approximators in the present research may be regarded as a sort of pioneering work we are greatly encouraged to carry out.The analysis is made on two levels: semantic and structural.

Semantic analysis
Approximation is a relative category which implies estimating a number or amount with some element of imprecision predetermined by various extralinguistic factors.There are different types of semantic classifications of these lexemes suggested by different linguists.We will adhere to the classification of approximating quantities proposed by J. Channel (1994) according to which they may be classified into two basic types: 1) Approximations based on numerical expression (about five books) 2) Approximations based on non-numerical expression (heaps of books) We will concentrate on the first type and find out how the approximating quantities of this type are expressed linguistically in both languages.
Linguists distinguish a set of lexical units which specify upper and lower limits for quantities on the number continuum.They are so-called partial specifiers which include at least, at most, under, over, etc. (Wachtel, 1981).Alluding to this taxonymy we propose somewhat a different classification of approximators which will include both specified and non-specified approximators as well as a new type that we suggest: quasi-specified.The classification includes both English and Armenian approximators.
There is a similarity between English pair about and around and that of Armenian mot and shurj: the members of the first pair stand in the same relation with each other as those of the second one: they have the same lexical meaning, with some difference concerning the stylistics of their usage: the first member of the pair (about, mot) occurs more often in oral speech, while the second (around, shurj) is more common in writing.
As far as approximately and its Armenian counterpart motavorapes are concerned, they are used in more formal speech.In Armenian, however, this regularity may be violated and the English about may be rendered in Armenian by motavorapes.
There is one more point identical in the two languages.It is the use of the English indefinite pronoun some and the Armenian numeral mi, which is the stylistic variant of the numeral mek (one) meaning approximately.


Some sixty people attended the conference.
Na gutse kkhmi mi erku gram.(He may drink one two hundred grams) (Petrosyan,1983) Speaking of differences we must mention in the first place English approximator (App-) under which has no counterpart in Armenian (in the sense of approximating quantity).On the contrary, its antonym over is identical to Armenian anc.


He is under 40 meaning He is not yet 40.
He is over 40 = Na 40 anc e meaning He is more than 40.
The meaning of English under may be rendered in Armenian descriptively: The young man is under twenty = Eritasardy der ksan tarekan chka (The young man is not yet twenty years old.
There is another difference concerning Armenian approximator haziv, which is semantically close in meaning to English hardly/barely but functioning somewhat differently: the English lexemes are not usually used with numbers to express approximation.
There is also similarity in the use of specified approximators, both increasing (App+) and decreasing (App-): at most, at least, over, more than, under, etc. and their Armenian counterparts: amenashaty, amenakichy, aveli kan, antc, etc.
English nearly and almost correspond to two Armenian approximators respectively: grete and hamarya with no visible semantic difference.
Of special interest are such expressions as like and a sort of, which are usually not included in the list of English lexemes expressing numerical approximation.The following example is taken from Cambridge Grammar of English by R. Carter and M. McCarthy, 2006).


Between then and like nineteen eighty four I just spent the whole time, I mean for that whole sort of twelve year period or whatever… The meanings of like and a sort of are rendered in Armenian by means of mot (about).

Structural analysis
This section examines approximators on the structural level.It shows in which sequence the approximators (app), numbers (num) and nouns (n) follow each other.Various configurations that are formed this way will serve as basis for introducing the following basic structural patterns characteristic both of the English and Armenian languages.The analysis points out similarities and differences that both languages display in this regard.Special attention is focused on those patterns which manifest some kind of specificity not observed in the other language and an attempt is made to show how these cases can be rendered in the respective languages.

Pattern 1 app + num + n
English and Armenian exhibit a close similarity in regard to this pattern.Here belong English about, around, round, approximately, some, at most, at least, less/more than, nearly, almost; Armenian amenashaty, amenakichy, mot, motavorapes, mi, shurj, grete,

num1-num2 +n
The pattern is used exclusively in Armenian.Two numbers are joined together asyndetically: by a hyphen or a comma.

Pattern 4 num + n + or so/something/whatever
The pattern with its structural synonyms is in common use in English; Armenian has no direct analogue.


He may stay for a week or something?(Ahern)  I mean the whole sort of twelve year period or whatever… (R. Carter and McCarthy) The pattern may occur without the conjunction.It was the forty something you had to look out for.(COCA) Close to the English pattern is the Armenian structure with qoghmery.Armenian approximator qoghmery may be considered identical to the English expression in the region of, but unlike the latter is normally found in the colloquial while the English counterpart is strongly limited to formal style.


Na qga zhamy uti qoghmery.(He will come in the region of 8 o'clock)  He earns somewhere in the region of $20000.(OALD)

Pattern 5
English: more/less than + num + n

Armenian: aveli kan + num + n
The pattern is in common use both in English and Armenian.The Armenian pattern functions with a certain constraint: the structure with less is not widely spread in Armenian.

Pattern 6 num + app (odd) + n
This pattern is represented by the approximator odd and is characteristic of only English.It is used to show that the figure is slightly higher than the actual number.Semantically odd is close to more than.The pattern can be rendered in Armenian with the help of aveli kan, which is close in meaning to the synonymous version of the English pattern, i.e. more than.

Pattern 7 num(abl) +n + app
This pattern is in wide use in Armenian and corresponds to English Pattern 1.


Na tasnerqu hazar dolaric aveli pogh uner.(Fitzgerald) (He had over twelve thousand dollars) (Fitzgerald) The specificity of Patterns 7 is conditioned by the morphological factor: being a synthetic language, Armenian requires the noun (dolar) in the ablative case before the approximator.

Pattern 8 n +num(gen) + app
Like Pattern7, this one has no counterpart in English either.It is represented in most cases by the noun qoghmery and the numeral in the genitive case, which is predetermined by the synthetic nature of the Armenian language.

num+ ish
The suffix -ish meaning 'approximately' finds no morphological analogue in Armenian.Its meaning is rendered in Armenian by the approximator mot (about).

Pattern 10 Double approximation
Double approximation which is inherent in both languages implies a combination of at least two patterns: We suggest the following patterns:1) Pattern 1+ Pattern 5{ He was offering him nearly three thousand more than he was currently earning at Harvard (Segal )};2) Pattern 1 +Pattern 3{Hastat hamozvats er, vor qgan shat-shat vec-yot hogi.(Petrosyan)};3) Pattern 1 +Pattern 1{Giovanni stayed at large nearly a week (Baldwin)}.
As double approximation we can also view a combination of approximators and hedges, notably those expressing uncertainty (perhaps, maybe /երևի,գուցե):{That perhaps may be about 1% of the truth but coupled with the fact that I wanted to be a part of Theo and Bethany's life (Ahern)};{Tktkacoghy gramekenan er, vori arjev nstats mardy kliner erevi eresunerek-eresunchors tareqan.(Petrosyan)}.The man working at the typewriter could perhaps be thirty-forty years old.

Conclusion
The comparative study shows that the three types of approximators: non-specified, specified with the two subtypes as well as quasi-specified are widely represented both in English and Armenian.Semantically they are in most cases identical.The differences concern English approximators under, odd, the suffix-ish, which have no counterparts in Armenian.Likewise, Armenian approximators ants (past) and qoghmery (within a certain time period) have no direct equivalents in English.Armenian haziv is not functionally analogous with the English semantic counterpart (hardly) which is normally not used to express approximating quantities in English.Some synonymous approximators both in English and Armenian exhibit stylistic differences in their usage.The structural study also shows that out of the ten basic patterns outlined in the research Patterns 1, 2, 5 and 10 are almost identical in both languages; the rest show non-equivalence: Patterns 4, 6, 9 are in common use in English, whereas Patterns 3, 7, 8 are found only in Armenian.
English num1 or num 2 + n Armenian a) num1 kan num2 + n b) num1 + te + num2 + n This pattern contains the English disjunctive conjunction or, which corresponds to two Armenian synonymous disjunctive conjunctions qam and te. Six or seven men were sitting easily round a table.(Christie)  Bob Straudy hachakh er linum Geayi tany: Shabaty chors qam hing angam.(Zeytuntsyan) (Bob Straud often goes to Gaya's house: four or five times a week)  Two or three weeks passed.(Maugham) (Erqu te ereq shabat ancav.)Pattern 3