Ideophones (Mimetics, Expressives)
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Lessons from Research on Ideophones Mark Dingemanse Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6500 AH Nijmegen, NL [email protected]
a journal of Dingemanse, Mark. 2018. Redrawing the margins of language: Lessons from general linguistics Glossa research on ideophones. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3(1): 4. 1–30, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.444 OVERVIEW ARTICLE Redrawing the margins of language: Lessons from research on ideophones Mark Dingemanse Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6500 AH Nijmegen, NL [email protected] Ideophones (also known as expressives or mimetics, and including onomatopoeia) have been systematically studied in linguistics since the 1850s, when they were first described as a lexical class of vivid sensory words in West-African languages. This paper surveys the research history of ideophones, from its roots in African linguistics to its fruits in general linguistics and typology around the globe. It shows that despite a recurrent narrative of marginalisation, work on ideophones has made an impact in many areas of linguistics, from theories of phonological features to typologies of manner and motion, and from sound symbolism to sensory language. Due to their hybrid nature as gradient vocal gestures that grow roots in discrete linguistic systems, ideophones provide opportunities to reframe typological questions, reconsider the role of language ideology in linguistic scholarship, and rethink the margins of language. With ideophones increasingly being brought into the fold of the language sciences, this review synthesises past theoretical insights and empirical findings in order to enable future work to build on them. Keywords: ideophones; iconicity; linguistic theory; language ideology “Words go on living despite the efforts of scholars to manage them.” — Taro Gomi (1989) 1 Introduction Ideophones are marked words that depict sensory scenes like c’onc’on ‘woven tightly’, ulakpulak ‘unbalanced, scary appearance’ and colcol ‘flowing liquid’ in Korean, or muku- muku ‘mumbling mouth movements’, gelegele ‘glittery appearance’ and gbadara-gbadara ‘a drunkard’s wobbling gait’ in Siwu, a Kwa language spoken in Ghana (Dingemanse 2012). -
Studies in the Linguistic Sciences
i u 5i 1 MAR 1 1998 99b Spr- ODV 2 lences VOLUME 25, NUMBER 1 (SPRING 1995) [Published February 1997] DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS JNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN THELieR/yWOFTHE C9 19S8 Of )Limo\s STUDIES IN THE LINGUISTIC SCIENCES PUBLICATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS IN THE COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN General Editor: Elmer H. Antonsen EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Mark Honegger Editorial board: Elabbas Benmamoun, Eyamba G. Bokamba, Chin-Chuan Cheng, Jennifer S. Cole, Georgia M. Green, Hans Henrich Hock, Braj B. Kachru, Yamuna Kachru, Chin-W. Kim, Charles W. Kisseberth, Peter Lasersohn, Howard Maclay, Jerry L. Morgan, Rajeshwari Pandharipande, James H. Yoon, and Ladislav Zgusta. AIM: SLS is intended as a forum for the presentation of the latest original re- search by the faculty and students of the Department of Linguistics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Scholars outside the Department and from other institutions are also cordially invited to submit original linguistic research for consideration. In all cases, articles submitted for publication will be reviewed by a panel of at least two experts in the appropriate field to determine suitability for publication. Copyright remains with the individual authors. Authors will receive one copy of the particular issue and 10 offprints of their individual contributions. SLS appears twice a year, and one issue is traditionally devoted to restricted, specialized topics. A complete list of available back issues is given inside the back cover. BOOKS FOR REVIEW: Review copies of books may be sent to: Editor, Studies in the Linguistic Sciences Department of Linguistics, 4088 For. -
Part III: the Typology of Motion Events
Jean-Michel Fortis - Space in Language - Leipzig Summer School 2010 –PART III PART III — THE TYPOLOGY OF MOTION EVENTS 1. TALMY’S TYPOLOGY The initial version of Talmy’s typology of motion events and its evolution are presented in the following sections. One motivation for this lengthy presentation is that Talmy’s typology is sometimes misunderstood and described erroneously (for ex. Croft et al., to appear), with the consequence that some of the objections raised against it miss their target. Another motivation, opposed to the first, is that Talmy’s theory harbors difficulties that are seldom recognized. III.1. TALMY’S FIRST THEORY (1972) Talmy’s first theory aims at comparing the structure of English with a polysynthetic language of California. Perhaps because deep syntactic structures in the generative style were not well-suited for this purpose, Talmy goes to a deeper, semantic, level (like Wallace Chafe, who was facing the same problem with Onondaga, another polysynthetic language ; cf. Chafe 1970). Talmy’s point of departure is the notion of translatory situation. A translatory situation (an event in which a Figure moves along a path) is decomposed into a fixed structure (translatory structure) of 4 components : Figure : “the object which is considered as moving or located with respect to another object.” (F) Ground : “the object with respect to which a 1st is considered as moving or located.” (G) Directional : “the respect with which one object is considered as moving or located to another object.” (D) Motive : “the moving or located state which one object is considered to be in with respect to another object” (M). -
Onomatopoeia, Gestures, Actions and Words: How Do Caregivers Use Multimodal Cues in Their Communication to Children?
Onomatopoeia, gestures, actions and words: How do caregivers use multimodal cues in their communication to children? Gabriella Vigliocco ([email protected]) Yasamin Motamedi, Margherita Murgiano, Elizabeth Wonnacott, Chloe Marshall, Iris Milan Maillo, Pamela Perniss Abstract However, in addition to being arbitrary, language presents also other types of form-meaning mapping characterized by Most research on how children learn the mapping between words and world has assumed that language is arbitrary, and a more transparent and motivated link (Dingemanse et al. has investigated language learning in contexts in which objects 2015). For example, iconicity, across languages, can be found referred to are present in the environment. Here, we report in the phonology of words, e.g. in onomatopoeia such analyses of a semi-naturalistic corpus of caregivers talking to as meow or drip. This expressive richness is particularly their 2-3 year-old. We focus on caregivers’ use of non-arbitrary prominent once we look at the multimodal communicative cues across different expressive channels: both iconic context in which language is learnt: prosodic (onomatopoeia and representational gestures) and indexical (points and actions with objects). We ask if these cues are used modulations (e.g. prolonging a vowel to indicate prolonged differently when talking about objects known or unknown to extension, loooong), iconic, representational gestures (e.g., the child, and when the referred objects are present or absent. tracing an up and down movement with the index finger We hypothesize that caregivers would use these cues more while talking about a bouncing object), points and hand often with objects novel to the child. -
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Ideophones, Gestures and Code-Switching Among Young Zulu Speakers in South Africa
Language Contact and Expressiveness: Ideophones, gestures and code-switching among young Zulu speakers in South Africa by Anna Miri Speyer Mertner 1 Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 4 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 5 1. Ideophones ............................................................................................................................ 6 1.1 Why are ideophones considered expressive? ................................................................... 7 1.2 Iconicity in ideophones .................................................................................................... 8 1.3 A social perspective on ideophones ............................................................................... 10 2. Gestures .............................................................................................................................. 12 2.1 Defining iconic gestures ................................................................................................ 12 2.2 The link between gestures and ideophones .................................................................... 12 3. A descriptive overview of Zulu ........................................................................................ -
A Demonstration-Based Account of (Pluractional) Ideophones *
Proceedings of SALT 26: 664–683, 2016 A demonstration-based account of (pluractional) ideophones * Robert Henderson University of Arizona Abstract This paper develops a novel formal semantics of ideophones that can account for their meaning and compositional properties. The proposal extends recent work on iconicity in sign languages in Davidson 2015, whose demonstration- based framework provides a formal foundation for the semantics of ideophones that captures the difference between descriptive meaning and depictive meaning, the kind of meaning ideophones traffic in. After providing a demonstration-based account of the basic ideophone construction in the Mayan language Tseltal, the paper then shows how the demonstration-based account can be used to analyze pluractionality in the ideophone domain. In particular, through case studies on Tseltal and Upper Necaxa Totonanc (Totonacan), I show that there are two previously unrecognized types of ideophonic pluractionality, and that their properties support the demonstration-based account. Keywords: ideophones, pluractionality, iconicity, demonstrations, Mayan, Totonacan 1 Introduction The term ideophone is used to pick out a distinguished class of words in a language that specialize in depicting sensory imagery (Dingemanse 2011: p. 25; 2012). While the expressions considered in this work fit the definition, ideophones are often easier to point at than define. For this reason, consider the following example of the ideophone tsok’ in Tseltal (Mayan). (1) pura ch’il-bil-Ø, tsok’ x-chi-Ø ta mantekat just fried-PERF-B3 IDF:sound.start.to.fry NT-say-B3 P lard ‘it just gets fried, it goes «tsok’» in the lard’(Pérez González 2012: p. 162) The literature on the formal semantics of ideophones is scarce. -
Herent Complement Verbs in Ibibio Viktoria Apel
Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................... 1 Schedule ..................................................................................... 2 Abstracts .................................................................................... 10 Conference Venue ........................................................................... 50 Nearby Dining and Attractions ............................................................. 51 Notes ........................................................................................ 54 Invited Speakers Firmin Ahoua,Akin Akinlabi, and Gildas Gondo ....................................12 When a five-way opposition does not represent a five-tone language: The case of Dan Jeff Good .............................................................................10 Stability under contact as a guide to reconstruction: Noun classes, argument alignment, and the Macro-Sudan belt Tom G¨uldemann .....................................................................14 A shared pronominal canon in the Macro-Sudan belt: typological, areal and geneological aspects Claire Halpert .......................................................................11 Surmountable Barriers Sharon Rose .........................................................................13 Areal vowel harmony patterns in the Nuba Mountains and Beyond Papers and Posters Hasiyatu Abubakari ..................................................................28 Contrastive focus particles in Kusaal -
Kejom (Babanki) Ideophones1
Pius W. Akumbu University of Buea, Cameroon Kejom (Babanki) Ideophones1 This study identifies and describes ideophones used in Babanki (henceforth Kejom as the people prefer to call themselves and their language), a Centre Ring Grassfields Bantu language of Northwest Cameroon. The study of ideophones or marked words that depict sensory imagery (Dingemanse 2011) in Africa has expanded in recent years (Blench 2010) but our knowledge of this class of words in Grassfields Bantu languages is restricted with only a limited reference to ideophones in the literature on these languages (Blench (2010) on Yamba and Limbum, Tamanji (2009) on Bafut and Akumbu & Fogwe (2012) on Babanki). The properties of Kejom ideophones are examined in this paper and it is concluded that they are marked due to their divergent phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. It is realized that the ideophones vividly depict one or more sensory events, ranging from sight to emotion. Keywords: Ideophone, Kejom, Reduplication, Sensory, Vowel Lengthening 1. Identification of Kejom Kejom is spoken in Kejom Keku (Big Babanki) and Kejom Ketinguh (Babanki Tungo) in Tubah Subdivision, Mezam Division, Northwest Region of Cameroon. The two villages have a total population of 39.000 people (Ethnologue 2015). Víʔə́ kə̀ jɔ̀ m ‘the people of Kejom’ speak gáʔə́ kə̀ jɔ̀ m ‘the language of Kejom’. Others call them “Babanki”, a designation the people themselves recognize and accept. When speaking with English speakers, they refer to themselves as “Babanki” which is actually the administrative and linguistic name given to them. Ethnologue (2015) lists Babanki with the code ISO 693-3 [bbk] and classifies it as a central Ring language of the wide Grassfields subgroup of Bantoid within Benue-Congo. -
'To Give an Imagination to the Listeners': the Neglected
‘To give an imagination to the listeners’: The neglected poetics of Navajo ideophony* ANTHONY K. WEBSTER Abstract Ideophony is a neglected aspect of investigations of world poetic traditions. This article looks at the use of ideophony in a variety of Navajo poetic genres. Examples are given from Navajo place-names, narratives, and songs. A final example involves the use of ideophony in contemporary written Navajo poetry. Using the work of Woodbury, Friedrich, and Becker it is argued that ideophones are an example of form-dependent expression, poetic indeterminacy, and the inherent exuberances and deficiencies of translation and thus strongly resists translation. This fact becomes more relevant when understood in light of the current language shift from Navajo to English. Keywords: Navajo; ideophones; translation; poetics; language shift; poetry. 1. Introduction: On ideophones In this article, I wish to describe an underappreciated poetic feature found in both Navajo oral tradition and the emerging genre of written Navajo poetry (see Webster 2004). That feature is the use of sound symbolism, onomatopoeia, and ideophony. In particular, I am concerned with the use of ‘sound imitative’ expressions (Hinton et al. 1994: 3). This class of sound symbolism attempts to ‘simulate’ some non-linguistic activity or image in a linguistic form (Nuckolls 2000: 235). These are, following the terminology of Clement Doke (1935) and Janis Nuckolls (2006), ‘ideo- phones’ (see also Tedlock 1999). Doke defines ideophones as follows: A vivid representation of an idea in sound. A word, often onomatopoeic, which describes a predicate, qualificative or adverb in respect to manner, color, sound, smell, action, state or intensity. -
Sound Symbolism, Speech Identity, and Size Andrew Shibata May, 2017 Phonlab, UC Berkeley Advisors
UC Berkeley Phonetics and Phonology Lab Annual Report (2017) Sound symbolism, speech identity, and size Andrew Shibata May, 2017 PhonLab, UC Berkeley Advisors: Keith Johnson, Alice Shen Second Reader: Susan Lin 141 UC Berkeley Phonetics and Phonology Lab Annual Report (2017) Abstract Sound symbolism is the hypothesized property for sounds to convey semantic meaning. Shinohara and Kawahara (2010) proposed that features of vowels (frontness, height) and obstruents (voicing) cause listeners to perceive words as either larger or smaller. Study 1 firstly replicates the original experiment then repeats the experiment using a speech perception paradigm. The speech perception experiment assesses whether listeners perceive sizes differently between spoken language and visual reading. The results from Study 1 were consistent with Shinohara and Kawahara (2010) except that words with /u/ were perceived as smaller in our results. We hypothesized that this result may be due to u-fronting which is an iconic feature of Californian English so we repeated both the written word and speech perception experiments in Study 2 with non-Californian English speakers. Our results support Shinohara and Kawahara’s claims and suggest that speakers perceive dialect-specific phonetic properties from written word. 1. Introduction 1.1 Traditional perspective on form and meaning One long-held assumption in linguistics is that the physical form of a linguistic signal is independent of its meaning. This idea is attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure who stated in his Course in General Linguistics that “the bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary” (De Saussure & Baskin, 2011). Saussure argues that the idea conveyed by a word is not linked to the ordered set of sounds that make up the word. -
Where Do Ideophones Come From?
Portland State University PDXScholar Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations Applied Linguistics Fall 1989 Where Do Ideophones Come From? George Tucker Childs Portland State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/ling_fac Part of the African Languages and Societies Commons, and the Linguistics Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Citation Details Childs, George Tucker (1989). Where do ideophones come from. Studies in the linguistic sciences, 19(2), 55-76. This Article is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences Volume 19, Number 2, Fall 1989 WHERE DO IDEOPHONES COME FROM?* G. Tucker Childs Temple University This paper begins with an analysis of ideophones in Kisi (West Atlantic, Guinea). This examination leads to consideration of the diachrony of ideophones, but because of the lack of data with any real time depth, we are limited to finding clues in the synchronic data. This study looks first at verbs, the class of words which Kisi ideophones resemble most closely. Such is also the case in other African languages, where ideophones can often be analyzed as verbs, as has been done for several Southern Bantu languages. I then demonstrate how Kisi ideophones can be derived from verbs, illustrating several possible scenarios for such a process. I then look at possible derivational relationships with other word categories, finding that with other word categories the direction of derivation is the opposite.