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In:Motivation in Language: A cognitive perspective
Edited by Grzegorz Drożdż and Barbara Taraszka-Drożdż
[Human Cognitive Processing 83] 2027
► pp. 184–211

Chapter 8
On motivation for semantic extensions of body part terms in Tok Pisin

 | University of Lodz
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
The cognitive-oriented pluri-causal and trans-causal model of creole genesis (Corum, 2021: 198–199) accounts for the process in terms of the following three elements: (1) embodied universal patterns of human imaginative reasoning; (2) contact with diverse but typologically similar indigenous languages; (3) contact with diverse but typologically similar European languages. Building on this basis, the chapter analyzes forms of language-external motivation for semantic extensions of body part terms in Tok Pisin, a creole used in Papua New Guinea. It argues that the motivation for the extensions involves (1) the imaginative processes of metonymy, metaphor, and metaphor-metonymy interaction; (2) universal and culture-specific concepts present in the creole’s Melanesian substrate, the English superstrate, or the joint influence of both these inputs.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The theoretical framework
    • 2.1Universal embodied patterns of human imaginative reasoning
    • 2.2Contact with the substrate and the superstrate languages
    • 2.3The data and the analytic method
  • 3.BPTs as sources of semantic extensions
    • 3.1Ai ‘eye’
    • 3.2As ‘ass, buttocks’
    • 3.3Baksait ‘back’
    • 3.4Bel ‘abdomen, insides’
    • 3.5Bun ‘bones, skeleton’
    • 3.6Han ‘hand’
    • 3.7Het ‘head’
    • 3.8Ia or yau ‘ear’
    • 3.9Lek ‘leg, foot’
    • 3.10Lewa ‘liver, insides’
    • 3.11Maus ‘mouth’
    • 3.12Nek ‘neck’
    • 3.13Nus ‘nose’
    • 3.14Pes ‘face’
    • 3.15Poret ‘forehead’
    • 3.16Skin ‘skin, body’
    • 3.17Sol ‘shoulder’
    • 3.18Tang ‘tongue’
  • 4.Summary and the universalist-relativistic perspective
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
  • Fonts and abbreviations
References (39)
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