JULY 31 — Part 3: The semantics of “or” -- or, what “or” means
Is there some clear and compelling basis — a basic rule or reason of language — for holding that, when used as a formal and technical legal term as in the currently controversial instance, the expression “ibu atau bapa” must always be read as denoting both parents, and not just one of them to the exclusion of the other?
This is the central question at stake in the recently produced and then withdrawn federal “conversion of minors” bill.
1. A fraught matter
The problem has arisen because, with powerful extra-legal backing, one side to the dispute not only holds that it can be read in that restrictive, oppositional and excluding way. More than that, it must be.
That claim or assertion is, in fact, the core and substance, the very heart, of their case.
The issue, for those on that side of the dispute, is simply a matter of language.
A simple matter of language and a matter of simple language, they say.
And the language, they insist, is clear and unequivocal. After all, what we are dealing with here is not a difficult or sophisticated concept, not any fancy and specialized “term of art” or piece of arcane professional jargon.
The focus of contestation is a very simple and basic item of language. It involves the meaning of one humble, little, unpretentious, everyday word, “atau”.
The language is clear, those on this side of the question say. It is an open and shut matter. The meaning of “or” and “atau” is clear. It means “one or the other, not both”.
This is not just the core but also — whatever other extra-legal or technically “extraneous” religious, cultural and political considerations may also concern and motivate them — pretty much the sum total of their formal legal case.
If “or/atau”, as they maintain, means “one or the other, but not both”, then “that is it”. They are right. That would clinch the matter. End of story. There is and might be nothing more to argue.
If they are right that this “atau” here must be read in that differentiating and exclusionary way, then the consent of just one parent to a child’s religious conversion must suffice. The consent — or initiative, as is often in practical terms the case — of one parent, without the knowledge (or even craftily sheltered behind the back) of the other, would then be all that is required. The law might ask for no more. The consent, or the action, of one parent alone would meet the legal requirements.
But are they right? Is that claim about the meaning of the key word “atau” correct?
It is a fraught matter. And also one of some subtle complexity. A far from obvious complexity. It is a matter that is in no way as deceptively simple as it may at first seem.
But it is one that can be resolved clearly and definitively.
One side in this argument is right, and the other wrong.
Which?
Since the problem at hand is a matter of language, to find out who is right (and who wrong) we must conduct an examination of language.
Of a problem that perhaps starts as a question of grammar — including the so-called “parts of speech”, their functions and proper use — but which soon becomes also a matter of semantics.
Of very practical semantics. Of everyday but legally germane, and crucially relevant, semantics.
Of the semantics of “or” and “atau”. Of what “or” and atau” mean.
2. “Or” is a conjunction
Let us begin at the beginning.
“Or” is a conjunction. And, in Malay, so too, is its equivalent “atau”. It is a “kata hubung”, a joining word, a conjunction.
A conjunction is, as its name indicates, a linking and bridging word, one that creates connections and relationships.
But connections and relationships of not just one single kind.
The conjunctions “or” and “atau” create connections and define relationships between the entities that they bridge in more than one simple way.
In fact, primarily in two distinct, different and even contradictory or opposed ways.
And, since they do, we must be aware of those two “modalities”, or ways, of its operation if we are to understand the meaning of things, including such expressions as “ibu atau bapa” and their proper interpretation or “construction”, correctly.
One way that “or” and “atau” work, we shall see, is combinatory, by adding: their effect is inclusive and impartial and connecting. The other is differentiating and separating; the word works by discriminating (in the technical, non-prejudicial sense of noting and asserting differences) between different things. Its effect is exclusionary, oppositional and dividing.
The fact that “or” and “atau” work, routinely — and people ordinarily have no trouble at all with this difference — in these two different, even contrasting, ways is a matter that remains largely unrecognized in everyday life.
It happens beneath the level of ordinary everyday awareness. It passes “under the radar” of everyday consciousness. It remains generally unrecognized outside the small community of professional linguists — and at times, among others, even by many lawyers, who, as in this present case, often seem to think that “or” and “atau” have just one simple, obvious, fixed and unchanging meaning that can always be simply construed and directly, unequivocally applied.
It is situations and disputes like the present one that suddenly force people to recognize those different, contrasting uses and to come to terms with the ever-present complexities that lurk behind the apparent but deceptive simplicity of “or” and “atau”.
3. “Or”: what the dictionaries say
Let us begin by considering the English word “or”.
On might go to the full “New English Oxford Dictionary” in 13 volumes, but something more modest will here suffice.
Take the “Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English”, prepared by A.S. Hornby, fourth edition by A.P. Cowie, OUP, 1989, at page 869.
There we find “or” identified as a conjunction, and a number of its uses and modes are then specified and outlined.
Among them are:
“1. introducing an alternative. E.g., is it green or blue? are you coming or not? is the baby a boy or a girl?”
This use or mode, we can see, is disjunctive, separating, differentiating, discriminating, oppositional, restrictive, excluding, exclusionary.
Further down we find:
“5. (a). introducing a word or phase that explains, or means the same as, another: e.g., an increase of 50p or ten shillings in old money.” Here its meaning, mode and effect are combinatory, conjoining and inclusive. They assert an identity or formal equivalence of two or more items or entities.
For further confirmation one might also turn at this point, for a definitive view both of the single word “or” itself and then of its import in such expressions as “rain or shine” or “for better or for worse”, to such venerable authorities as Fowler’s “Modern English Usage” and “The Kings’ English”.
But not now. We must hasten forward.
It suffices to note that the co-existence of these two quite divergent meanings of “or” is not just a peculiarity of English.
It is a matter of deeper logic, of the relation between the contrastive and combinatory modes of binary thought, that also appears in various other languages.
In Malay, for example. 4. “ Atau”: what the dictionaries say
Can one find in Malay linguistic expertise some strong authority, or a locus classicus, for the two senses of "or", the combinatory and the disjunctive? Is any similar recognition to be had from them?
Let us turn to the definitive Malay dictionaries for their discussion and explications of "atau". Here I cite the "Kamus Dewan", edisi tiga [3rd edition] of 1994, the latest which I have here now. (Later editions have appeared, but they are unlikely to differ greatly, if at all, on this basic word). There, on page 71, we find: "atau":
“1. kata hubung [connecting/joining word: conjunction]: yg bermaksud serupa (sama) dgn [which means/denotes "the same as"], disebut juga [or "in other words"]: e.g., (the expression/locution) ‘askar atau tentera’ (soldiers or military).” This is here a "combinatory" function and meaning, the staying of a formal equivalence or identity, two ways of saying the same thing or two aspects of one and the same thing.
And then also:
“2. Kata hubug yg bermaksud salah satu antara beberapa hal (barang, perbuatan, dll) E.g., ‘air limau atau air tomato’, lime juice or tomato juice [a conjunction meaning one and only one of several (things, actions etc.) e.g., lime juice or tomato juice].
Here again, like the English “or”, the Malay “atau” also has a differentiating and exclusionary function and meaning. If that is not enough, we may, in addition, and for confirmation, test the matter and seek further verification by "coming back the other way", from English to Malay. Here we may consult the excellent Kamus Inggeris/Melayu Dewan: An English-Malay Dictionary, DBP,1992.
There, on page 1077, in addition to various uses and instances of "atau" as a conjunction introducing or offering an alternative, disjunctively, one also finds such examples or usages as: "Jesselton atau Kota Kinabalu, sebagaimana yg di sebut sekarang" [= Jesselton or Kota Kinabalu, as it is now known"].
What is offered or suggested here is not an "atau" choice between two distinct places or even between two mutually exclusive names but the idea and fact that the one place has, or has had, two names which together, historically or "over time", have shared in the denoting of the one place. One also finds there — and most ironically and appositely here for us here now! — the example: "semantics, the study of the meaning of words”, a definition which is then immediately followed by the Malay rendering or translation of the same, of that proffered definition, as "semantik, ataupun kajian ttg makna kata".
Not a choice between "semantics" and "the study of the meaning of words" — one or the other, and you have to pick, choose one way or the other — but both equally, conjoined, together. That pretty much "closes the deal", completes the case for Malay. But, for good measure, let us turn to the Kamus Umum Bahasa Indonesia of W.J.S. Poewardaminta, revised by the Language Development Agency, Department of Education and Culture, Balai Pustaka, Jakarta, 1987.
There at page 64 we find “atau” as conveying, according to context and properly construed, both: 1. [menyatakan bahawa] yg satu sama dengan yg lain, mis. hewan [haiwan] atau binatang [= affirms/establishes that something is the same as/the equivalent of something else: e.g., hewan/haiwan and/or binatang]. And also:
2. salah satu di antara beberapa hal (barang dsb) mis. yg. terbakar rumah si Amin atau si Amat [= one, and only one, of several entities (things etc.): e.g., Amin's house or Amat's house was burnt down.]
5. “Parent”: the singular
We must now take the next step of probing what happens when one needs to say, or convey the idea of, “parent”.
This is a step that must be taken carefully. One has to pay close attention, while taking it, to exactly what one is doing.
In English there is no great problem.
There is a word available.
One says “parent”.
But what happens in the Malay case?
Here there is no single, inclusive and comprehensive term for parent. In its absence, one has recourse to a combinatory phrase: one that works by citing the constituent members the category, in an expansionary, “additive” or inclusively summarizing fashion.
One says “ibu atau bapa”.
No problem so far.
But then it is crucial to ask one question, to make essential one point.
Which sense of “atau” is involved and employed here when one renders or “glosses” the word or idea of “parent” as “ibu atau bapa”?
What is suggested by “atau” in the combinatory term “ibu atau bapa” is not a choice, an enforced choice or an enforceable act of discretion, an available option to select or “opt for” one parent at the expense and to the exclusion of the other.
The “atau” here is combinatory. It does not separate. It is inclusive. It is non-differentiating, it makes no distinction or discrimination between one and the other of the two.
6. “Parent”: the plural
Extreme care is now required as we move from the singular to the plural.
When “ibu atau bapa” is used to denote “parent” in the singular, there is no ambiguity. No problem arises.
None arises because, in the singular instance, there is necessarily only one person there who is denoted, one person being spoken about. A parent. One parent. In the practical or “real-life” situation it will be clear who that person is, whether it is the father or the mother. You have only to look or ask.
No element, possibility or option to exercise choice is available. Not to any third party.
Two parents might together decide which one of them should go to meet a headmaster about a child’s problem. But that is something else, a practical decision, not a semantic issue or confusion or dispute. It is not a matter requiring or allowing “third parties” to come in and exercise their own choices.
The problem or ambiguity arises, or can begin to do so — and this is where the root of the current legal controversy lies — when we wish to use those words in the plural.
On this part of the road, we must heed the sign that urges us to “Be careful!”
In English one can say “parent” in just one word.
No such single word is available in Malay.
So we say, and the expression is generally quite unproblematic, “ibu atau bapa”.
We can use that expression to denote either one both of them, inclusively and in a “combinatory” manner, in the singular.
But when we proceed to do exactly the same in the plural, when the expression “ibu atau bapa” is drawn upon to refer to and denote not one but the two of them, some special and extra care — a heightened attention to the meaning of words — is now needed.
Something new, or the possibility of something new, being semantically “smuggled” into our language and understanding (or misunderstanding) now begins to appear.
When we see the expression “ibu atau bapa” employed to designate “the parents”, we may think, or be tempted to think, that this “atau” now opens up the possibility of choice: of our, or somebody else, exercising a choice between the two of them, of choosing one to the exclusion of the other.
And this, of course, is the possibility that those who argue for the legal permissibility of the unilateral, non-consensual and pre-emptive conversion of minor children, once it opens up before them (or seems to), seize upon.
How does this happen?
Because, unlike in the singular instance, two people are now designated by the term, two people “standing there”, either notionally or in reality, in front of us. Perhaps, even, two individuals who are in dispute with each other.
And, when there are two there, we are, or may be, tempted to think that we, or somebody, may distinguish between and separate them, make a choice on the basis of that “atau” for one and against the other of them.
But this, if you give it a moment’s thought, is clearly wrong.
It is wrong because, when one makes this shift in one’s thinking, one is changing from one sense of the word “atau”/”or” to the other.
One is making an illicit substitution.
Without realising it — and things would be far worse if one did! — one is here setting aside the original “inclusive” and “combinatory” sense of the word “atau” as it occurred in the simple, defining and “paradigmatic” singular case; and substituting for it, unaware at best or otherwise surreptitiously, that other, different, contrasting and contradictory sense of the same word.
If one “makes that move”, if one “smuggles in” that other sense of the term midway through one’s chain of reasoning (while expelling the original one) and if you let it stand and do its work there, it is clear what you will have enabled yourself to do.
You will have enabled, yourself, either innocently and in confusion or else knowingly and deviously, to claim the right to exclude one of two people from the scope and force of an expression that was intended to apply equally — and originally did apply equally — without differentiation or discrimination, to the both of them.
7. From singular to plural
To do so is, as it was characterised above, an “illicit substitution”.
Why is it illicit?
It is illicit because one cannot simply, or legitimately, change the meaning of a term, or allow its meaning to be fundamentally altered and even to “morph” into its opposite, in the middle of an argument, midway through a sustained chain of tight reasoning.
This is the "nub of the matter". In this area of discourse or “world of meaning”, that where the proposed legislation has been formed and taken shape, the term "ibu atau bapa" for “parent” first appears and acquires its meaning in the singular sense where it means "parent": either and both mother and father, designated equally, without any distinction against or disability upon either of them.
Here that “atau” operates with a conjoining meaning, intention and force.
But, as one moves to the plural situations, where the contested the expression “ibu at atau bapak” has a dual or plural referent — and in circumstances where interpersonal dispute between husband and wife may have arisen, and where other, technically “extraneous” cultural, political and legal-religious considerations may help drive the actions of some of the parties involved — those on one side of the “unilateral conversion of minor children” dispute then want and try, as the argument proceeds, to read that same “atau” with a different meaning: with a disjunctive and mutually excluding meaning, with a differentiating and oppositional effect. To import and substitute a different and contrary “atau” for the original one.
They may be doing so without even being clear themselves that they are making this shift in meaning or referent or denotation in the middle of the argument.
If that is the case, they are innocent of any charge of deception. But being innocent in this way cannot save their argument from its vitiating and disabling defect.
One simply cannot reason properly and clearly in such a "sloppy", confused and arbitrary way.
To permit a key term to change its meaning in the middle of an argument, and to allow that improper substitution to continue to stand once it has been identified, is surely a wanton abuse of language and logic, a scandal against good sense.
It must lead to the beclouding and seduction of sound reason, not advance its diligent exercise. To do so, or to contrive or to be complicit in that kind of conceptual or terminological “fancy footwork”, is to encourage confusion and to be a party, even unwittingly, to unreason.
If the meaning of a term is to change, or be modified, during the course of an argument, then people who wish to see that change made must argue for it. They must make the case.
If they have not, if they cannot, or it they simply have not yet done so, the original meaning must still apply, and the subsequent meaning that they wish to import and substitute must not be admitted.
That is to say, the same inclusive, impartial and non-discriminating meaning of "ibu atau bapa" that obtained in the singular should continue to hold for the dual or plural instance.
Unless .. .. Unless what? Unless an explicit and specific case is made to the contrary, that the primary meaning of the term must here change 180 degrees into its opposite. Otherwise, the same "combinatory" meaning of "ibu atau bapa" that held in the primary, original instance must continue to hold — rather than to be mysteriously or furtively reversed — in the secondary or derivative, the subsequent and dependent, instance. The onus or burden is upon the person who wishes to see the meaning of “ibu atau bapa" suddenly change to its opposite — as one proceeds from the singular to the plural instance — to make the semantic (not a sharia'h-based or doctrinal or cultural) case why this must now happen here. It is a matter of language, not of correct religious doctrine or practice or of any favoured cultural preference. Continuity needs no special justification. It is the persistence simply of the "default mode". It is discontinuity, a radical overturning and reversal of accepted meaning and usage, for which a special case and explicit exemption must be made.
This is something that we all know and recognize in everyday life.
Take the following example of two people sorting out whether they are talking about one, some, many or all. Q1: Can you ride a bicycle? A1: Yes. i.e., “yes” meaning not one specific bicycle but all bicycles, bicycles in general. If then, there comes a follow-up question Q2: You mean Victorian "penny farthing" bicycles too, including them as well? and the response A2: No, not penny farthings. I mean all normal, regular, standard bicycles.
And then Q3: And how about high-tech state-of-the-art Tour de France racing bicycles?
A3: Er, I am not sure that I could manage one of them either.
And so on.
For how long we do not know. But the process could still go on for some time. However, the point is already clear. The process of clarification and limitation proceeds by stating specific and explicit exclusions.
The general case, here the original meaning of “bicycle” holds, subject only to the specific exceptions, limitations and variations that are specified and negotiated.
It is, or should be, the same with “ibu atau bapa”.
8. “Case closed”
Our conceptual exploration of Malay parentage has involved some detailed investigative work of a linguistic kind.
A journey through dictionaries and some fine points of semantics. But it has been an interesting journey.
Now, as in the old detective stories, the dogged investigator may stand back, and his exhausted listeners relax and begin to rest.
All that now remains is to consider briefly the implications of his forensic investigation, what more it says and what needs to be done next.
9. The inescapable implication
The case made by those who wish to interpret the relevant legal language as upholding a parent’s (generally the father’s) exclusive right to effect the unilateral, non-consensual and pre-emptive conversion of his child or children to another faith and faith-community rests crucially, as has been noted, on this one point of language: that “atau” in “ibu atau bapa” must be read in the differentiating, separating and excluding mode, not in a combinatory and inclusive sense.
“Or,” they simply assert, means just that — “or”, one or the other. Either but not both.
In doing so, they have placed all their eggs, so to speak, in the one basket — and, we can now say, it is the wrong basket. The wrong logical, idiomatic and argumentative basket.
Why?
Because, as this discussion has conclusively demonstrated, “atau” in the phrase “ibu atau bapa” — and hence that expression as a whole — when they are properly understood do not support the differentiating meaning that the proponents of that case wish here to attribute to them. They do not support the exclusionary purpose that they wish to make this “atau” serve.
They have misread the import and effect of “atau”, and their ensuing view of the phrase “ibu atau bapa” is a misconceived appropriation of its meaning.
The meaning of those words is indeed the core of the matter, the heart of the case.
The “exclusionists” hold that “atau” here conveys, and must mean, one thing and one thing only. That it has but one meaning, a differentiating and separating meaning, one that can be unequivocally conscripted for their purposes and, with the court’s endorsement, directly applied.
But those words do not carry the preferred but misconceived meaning that the “exclusionists” assert and conscript “atau” and the phrase “ibu atau bapa” to mean. The opposite, in fact.
So argument on this semantic point is in fact, as they would have it, the decider here, the “game-breaker”.
But, properly understood, that word and that phrase support precisely the opposite position to that which the “exclusionists” seek to promote and now wish to have the courts endorse and uphold for them.
Their whole case centres upon language — to whose subtle nuances they remain insensitive — and on the plain sense of plain words, which they totally confuse and misconstrue.
They have simply “got it wrong”. The case now rests.
* Clive Kessler is Emeritus Professor of Sociology & Anthropology at The University of New South Wales, Sydney.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.
