The Scarcity of Speech Errors in Hindi
Abstract
Although there has been scientific interest in speech errors for nearly a century, it is only in the past few decades that there has been a virtual explosion of studies by linguists interested in showing how such errors shed light on issues in linguistic theory (Boomer and Laver 1968; Fromkin 1971, 1973, 1980; MacKay 1972; Fry 1973; Nooteboom 1973; Baars and Motley 1974, 1976; Baars, Motley and MacKay 1975; Baars and MacKay 1978; Cutler 1982; Stemberger 1983; Shattuck-Hufnagel 1983, 1986; Stemberger and Lewis 1986). There seems to be an implicit claim in much of this literature that speech errors should be found in all languages; Fromkin has made this claim explicitly (personal communication). To date, errors have been reported and catalogued primarily for Western Indo-European languages, e.g. German (Meringer and Mayer 1895), Dutch (Nooteboom 1973), English (Fromkin 1971). We are aware of a collection of Japanese speech errors (S. Hiki, personal communication). This still leaves the vast majority of the languages of the world — even language types — unaccounted for, however. Relevant to this is the impression of the first author of this paper, a native speaker of Hindi, that she has never encountered a phonological speech error in Hindi, in her own speech or that of others, that is, a speech error of the type that breaks up parts of words, e.g. spoonerisms of the sort ‘it is kistomary to cuss the bride’ (for ‘… customary to kiss…’).
