Vol. 42:3 (2018) ► pp.734–753
On the diminutive morpheme -gama in Ikema, a Ryukyuan language
Ikema is defined as ‘definitely endangered’ by UNESCO (2009). The study examines an evaluative morpheme -gama used by old Ikema speakers aged 64 to 86 when speaking between Ikema speakers and when speaking Standard Japanese with outsiders. Descriptive grammar of Ikema (Hayashi 2010; Hayashi 2013 inter alia) has treated -gama as diminutive morpheme, representing smallness such as tui-gama ‘small bird’ or showing the affections to the base noun. The observations on naturally occurring data, however, revealed that the Ikema speakers barely used -gama by means of describing smallness: the most frequent use of -gama was found to be non-supplementary (Shetter 1959) and carries various socio-pragmatic functions. The related meanings/functions of -gama are presented in radial category (Lakoff 1987).
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background
- 2.1Descriptive grammar of Ikema
- 2.2Diminutive
- 3.The study
- 3.1The participants and speaker subgroups
- 3.2Methodology
- 3.3Data
- 4.Meaning/function of -gama
- 4.1Smallness and affection
- 4.2Non-supplementary -gama
- 4.2.1Lexicalized items
- 4.2.2Female talk
- 4.3-gama indicating “Low on a scale”
- 4.4Deteriorative -gama
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
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References
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.18022.fuj