The expression of vulgarity, force, severity and size
Phonaesthemic alternations in Reta and in other languages
Phonaesthemes are a common phenomenon, but they are generally not in paradigmatic opposition like morphemes are
(Svantesson 2017: 6). Reta, however, has a phonaesthemic contrast /l/~/r/, where
/r/-colouring of neutral base words signifies an increase in vulgarity, intensity, size or severity (e.g. ɓela
‘bad’ vs. ɓera ‘terrible’, -ool ‘penis’ vs. -oor ‘cock’). This paper describes
this phenomenon in detail, and provides a discussion as to whether it is best classified as morphological, phonaesthemic, or
otherwise. We argue that, although some of the cross-linguistic criteria for phonaesthesia exclude phonaesthemic /r/ from being
classified as such, it is not straightforwardly classified as either phonological or morphological. Using Kwon & Round’s (2015) criteria for phonaesthesia and derivational morphology, we compare Reta
phonaesthemic alternations to similar phenomena in other languages. We argue that such alternations differ fundamentally from both non-alternating phonaesthemes and morphology, and are best construed as a distinct cross-linguistic category.
Keywords: phonaesthemes, sound symbolism, alternation, consonant mutation, Timor-Alor-Pantar languages, Reta, Blagar, derivational morphology, augmentative, foreigner speech, markedness
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.A brief overview of Reta
- 3.Phonaesthemic alternations in Reta
- 3.1Form and function
- 3.2Phonaesthemic /r/ outside of alternations
- 4.A tentative explanation for phonaesthemic alternations in Reta
- 5.Is it phonology, morphology, both, or neither?
- 5.1Morphology
- 5.2Phonaesthesia
- 5.3Phonology
- 6.Phonaesthemic alternations are not just phonaesthemes
- 6.1A cross-linguistic overview of phonaesthemic consonant alternations
- 6.2A proposal for the classification of phonaesthemic alternations
- 7.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
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