Article published in:
Ideophones: Between Grammar and Poetry
Edited by Katherine Lahti, Rusty Barrett and Anthony K. Webster
[Pragmatics and Society 5:3] 2014
► pp. 341–354

Constraints on violating constraints

How languages reconcile the twin dicta of “Be different” and “Be recognizably language”

| Portland State University
This paper examines the contradictory demands of using language expressively and still qualifying as language, proposing a functional explanation for the form of words in a linguistic word category. Being expressive requires expending more energy, emitting a more robust signal to convey additional information about the speaker, the perception of an event, etc. Doing so requires violating the common linguistic constraints of everyday language, yet to be recognized as language requires that one’s speech obey these same rules. How speakers satisfy these demands tells us about language in both its function and form. The resolution of this dilemma requires the use of suprasegmental rather than segmental features, e.g., a wider range of and more varied use of F0. Because prosodic features are more susceptible to manipulation, they provide the resources for expressivity. Segmental parameters cannot be so easily violated, though manipulating phonotactics remains fair game. Thus we see that there are constraints on violating constraints.
Keywords: prosody, constraints, ideophones, lexicon, African languages, expressiveness
Published online: 14 November 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.5.3.02chi
Cited by

Cited by other publications

Dingemanse, Mark
2015. Ideophones and reduplication. Studies in Language 39:4 ► pp. 946 ff. Crossref logo
Dingemanse, Mark, Damián E. Blasi, Gary Lupyan, Morten H. Christiansen & Padraic Monaghan
2015. Arbitrariness, Iconicity, and Systematicity in Language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 19:10 ► pp. 603 ff. Crossref logo
Kwon, Nahyun
2018. Iconicity correlated with vowel harmony in Korean ideophones. Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology 9:1 ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Kwon, Nahyun & Keiko Masuda
2019. On the ordering of elements in ideophonic echo-words versus prosaic dvandva compounds, with special reference to Korean and Japanese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 28:1 ► pp. 29 ff. Crossref logo
Lahti, Katherine
2014. Ideophones in Vladimir Mayakovsky’s work. Pragmatics and Society 5:3 ► pp. 419 ff. Crossref logo
Nuckolls, Janis B., Tod D. Swanson, Diana Shelton, Alexander Rice & Sarah Hatton
2017. Lexicography in-your-face: The active semantics of Pastaza Quichua ideophones. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 62:2 ► pp. 154 ff. Crossref logo
Styles, Suzy J. & Lauren Gawne
2017. When Does Maluma/Takete Fail? Two Key Failures and a Meta-Analysis Suggest That Phonology and Phonotactics Matter. i-Perception 8:4 ► pp. 204166951772480 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 january 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

audio

References

References

Aardema, Verna
1975 Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears. New York: Dial Press.Google Scholar
Awoyale, Yiwola
1988 “On the Non-concatenative Morphology of Yoruba Ideophones.” Paper delivered at the 19th African Linguistics Conference, Boston University.
Bentley, Mayrene
2001 Ideophones and Expressives in Kiswahili and Kinyakyusa. Berkeley: ACAL 32, University of California.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight L.
1950 “Rime, Assonance, and Morpheme Analysis.” Word 6: 117–136. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1965 “The Atomization of Meaning.” Language 41: 555–573. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Roger
1958 Words and Things: An Introduction to Language. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L.
2006 Frequency of Use and the Organization of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Byrne, Theresa E.
1993 “A Description of Mende Ideophones.” B.A. Ed. thesis, Language Education Department, Njala University, Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Childs, G. Tucker
1988 “The Phonology of Kisi Ideophones.” Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 10: 165–190.Google Scholar
1989 “Where do Ideophones Come From?” Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 19: 57–78.Google Scholar
1994a “African Ideophones.” In Sound Symbolism, ed. by Leanne Hinton, Johanna Nichols, and John J. Ohala, 247–279. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1994b “Expressiveness in Contact Situations: The Fate of African Ideophones.” Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 9: 257–282. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1996 “Where Have all the Ideophones Gone? The Death of a Word Category in Zulu.” Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 15 (2): 81–103.Google Scholar
1997 “The Status of Isicamtho, an Nguni-based Urban Variety of Soweto.” In Pidgins and Creoles: Structure and Status, ed. by Arthur K. Spears, and Donald Winford, 341–370. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1998 “Ideophone Variation is Tied to Local Identity.” In The Sociolinguistics of Language and Society: Selected Papers from SS IX, ed. by Mahendra K. Verma, 36–46. Thousand Oaks, Calif., London, and New Delhi: Sage Publishers.Google Scholar
2001 “Research on Ideophones, Whither Hence? The Need for a Social Theory of Ideophones.” In Ideophones, ed. by F.K. Erhard Voeltz, and Christa Kilian-Hatz, 63–73. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 “Sound Symbolism.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Word, ed. by John R. Taylor, In press. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
DeCamp, David
1974 “Neutralizations, Iteratives, and Ideophones: The Locus of Language in Jamaica.” In Pidgins and Creoles: Current Trends and Prospects, ed. by David DeCamp and Ian F. Hancock, 46–60. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Dingemanse, Mark
2011 The Meaning and Use of Ideophones in Siwu. Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.Google Scholar
Doke, Clement M.
1971 Zulu-English Vocabulary. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Feld, Steven
1982 Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Finlayson, Rosalie
1995 “Women’s Language of Respect: Isihlonipho Sabafazi.” In Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics, ed. by Rajend Mesthrie, 140–153. Cape Town and Johannesburg: David Philip.Google Scholar
Gordon, Matthew
2007 “Functionalism in Phonology.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology, ed. by Paul V. De Lacy, 61–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Herbert, Robert K.
1990a “Hlonipha and the Ambiguous Woman.” Anthropos 85: 455–473.Google Scholar
1990b “The Sociohistory of Clicks in Southern Bantu.” Anthropological Linguistics 32 (3–4): 295–315.Google Scholar
Hinton, Leanne, Johanna Nichols, and John J. Ohala
1994 “Introduction: Sound-symbolic Processes.” In Sound Symbolism, ed. by Leanne Hinton, Johanna Nichols, and John J. 
Ohala, 1–12. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kraut, Robert E., and Robert E. Johnston
1979 “Social and Emotional Messages of Smiling: An Ethological Approach.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37 (9): 1539–1553. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kunene, Daniel P.
1965 “The Ideophone in Southern Sotho.” Journal of African Languages 4: 19–39.Google Scholar
Lehiste, Ilse
1970 Suprasegmentals. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Louw, J.A.
1974 “The Influence of Khoe on the Xhosa Language.” Limi 2 (2): 45–62.Google Scholar
Maduka, Omen N.
1988 “The Km Critical Psychomorph in Igbo.” Paper presented at the Ninth Annual Conference of the Linguistic Association of Nigeria (Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, 31 July–4 August 1988).
McGregor, William B.
2001 “Ideophones as the Source of Verbs in Northern Australian Languages.” In Ideophones, ed. by F.K. Erhard Voeltz and Christa Kilian-Hatz, 205–222. 
Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Newman, Paul
1968 “Ideophones From a Syntactic Point of View.” Journal of West African Languages 5: 107–118.Google Scholar
Nuckolls, Janis B.
1996 Sounds Like Life: Sound-Symbolic Grammar, Performance and Cognition in Pastaza Quechua. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J.
1984 “An Ethological Perspective on Common Cross-language Utilization of F0 of Voice.” Phonetica 41: 1–16. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schultze-Berndt, Eva
2001 “Ideophone-like Characteristics of Uninflected Predicates in Jaminjung (Australia).” In Ideophones, ed. by F.K. Erhard Voeltz, and Christa Kilian-Hatz, 355–373. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, Potter
1964 US Supreme Court decision. Jacobellis vs. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (https://​supreme​.justia​.com​/cases​/federal​/US​/378​/184​/case​.html, accessed 5 Oct. 2014).
Tsur, Reuven
1992 What Makes Sound Patterns Expressive? The Poetic Mode of Speech Expression. Durham, N.C. and London: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Ultan, Russell
1978 “Size-sound Symbolism.” In Universals of Human Language, ed. by Joseph 
H. Greenberg, Charles A. Ferguson, and Edith A. Moravcsik, 525–568. Stanford, Calif.:
 Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Voeltz, F.K. Erhard, and Christa Kilian-Hatz
(eds) 2001 Ideophones. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
von Staden, Paul M.S.
1977 “Some Remarks on Ideophones in Zulu.” African Studies 36: 195–224. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Woodbury, Anthony C.
1987 “Meaningful Phonological Processes: A Consideration of Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo Prosody.” Language 63 (4): 685–740. CrossrefGoogle Scholar