Article published in:
Studies in Language
Vol. 44:3 (2020) ► pp. 659–699

The expression of vulgarity, force, severity and size

Phonaesthemic alternations in Reta and in other languages

| Aarhus Universitet
| Aarhus Universitet
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
  • References
Published online: 21 August 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.19073.wil
References
Abelin, Åsa
1999 Studies in sound symbolism. Göteborg: Department of Linguistics, Göteborg University.Google Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.
2007 Typological distinctions in word-formation. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, vol. III: Grammatical categories and the lexicon, 1–65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Stephen. R.
1992 A-morphous morphology. New York: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard
1933 Language. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Blust, Robert. A.
1988 Austronesian root theory: An essay on the limits of morphology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bogoras, Waldemar
1922 Chuckchee. In Franz Boas (ed.), Handbook of American Indian languages, 631–903. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Böhmerová, Ada
2011 Suffixal diminutives and augmentatives in Slovak. A systemic view with some cross-linguistic considerations. Lexis 61. 1–29.Google Scholar
Bond, Oliver
2019 Canonical typology. In Jenny Audring & Francesca Masini (eds.), The Oxford handbook of morphological theory, 409–431. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight
1950 Rime, assonance, and morpheme analysis. Word 61. 117–36. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Burridge, Kate. & Tonya Stebbins
2016 For the love of language: An introduction to linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Carlson, Barry F., John H. Esling & Katie Fraser
2001 Nuuchahnulth. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 31(2). 275–279. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Corbett, Greville. G.
2007 Canonical typology, suppletion, and possible words. Language 83(8). 8–42. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2010 Canonical derivational morphology. Word Structure 3(2). 141–155. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dingemanse, Mark
2011 The meaning and use of ideophones in Siwu. Nijmegen: Radboud University PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
2012 Advances in the cross-linguistic study of ideophones. Language and Linguistics Compass 6(10). 654–672. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015 Ideophones and reduplication. Depiction, description, and the interpretation of repeated talk in discourse. Studies in Language 39(4). 946–970. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Elsen, Hilke
2017 The two meanings of sound symbolism. Open Linguistics 31. 491–9. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Firth, John. R.
1930 Speech. London: Benn’s Sixpenny Library.Google Scholar
1951 Modes of meaning. Papers in Linguistics 1934–1951 190–215.Google Scholar
1964 The tongues of men & speech. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fónagy, Iván
1963 Die Metaphern in der Phonetik. Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des wissenschaftlichen Denkens. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele. E.
1995 Constructions. A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
2006 Constructions at work. The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haiman, John
2006 Iconicity. In Keith Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of language & linguistics, 2nd edn, 457–461. Oxford: Elsevier. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hammarström, H., Robert Forkel & Martin Haspelmath
2019 Glottolog 3.4. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. Available at: https://​glottolog​.org/ (last access 15 July 2020).
Hinton, Leanne, Johanna Nichols & John J. Ohala
1994 Introduction: sound-symbolic processes. In Leanna Hinton, Johanna Nichols & John J. Ohala (eds.), Sound symbolism, 1–12. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holton, Gary, Marian Klamer, František Kratochvíl, Laura C. Robinson, & Antoinette Schapper
2012 The historical relations of the Papuan languages of Alor and Pantar. Oceanic Linguistics 51(1). 86–122. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Holton, Gary & Laura C. Robinson
2017 The linguistic position of the Timor-Alor-Pantar languages. In Marian Klamer (ed.), The Alor-Pantar languages: History and typology, 2nd edn, 147–191. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Imai, Mutsumi, Sotaro Kita, Miho Nagumo, & Hiroyuki Okada
2008 Sound symbolism facilitates early verb learning. Cognition 1091. 54–65. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Jacobsen, William H.
1969 Origins of the Nootka pharyngeals. International Journal of American Linguistics 351. 125–53. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Kong-on
1977 Sound symbolism in Korean. Korean Linguistics 131. 67–75.Google Scholar
Klamer, Marian
2002 Semantically motivated lexical patterns: A study of Dutch and Kambera expressives. Language 78(2). 258–86. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2016 Field notes on Blagar-Pura. In Gereon A. Kaiping, Owen Edwards & Marian Klamer (eds.), LexiRumah 2.1.2. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Available at: https://​lexirumah​.model​-ling​.eu/ (last access 15 July 2020).
Kratochvíl, František
2007 A grammar of Abui. A Papuan language of Alor. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Kuehnl, Christina. & Alexandra Mantau
2013 Same sound, same preferences? Investigating sound symbolism effects in international brand names. International Journal of Research in Marketing 30(4). 417–20. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kula, Nancy C.
2000 The phonology/morphology interface: Consonant mutations in Bemba. In Helen de Hoop & Ton van der Wouden (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 2000, 171–183. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Kwon, Nahyun
2016 The empirically observed iconicity levels of English phonaesthemes. Public Journal of Semiotics 7(2). 73–93. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2019 Cross-linguistic variation in phonaesthemic canonicity, with special reference to Korean and English. In Kimi Akita & Prashant Pardeshi (eds.), Ideophones, mimetics and expressives, 77–99. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kwon, Nahyun & Erich R. Round
2015 Phonaesthemes in morphological theory. Morphology 25(1). 1–27. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Köhler, Wolfgang
1947 Gestalt psychology. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
Lafitte, Pierre
1944 Grammaire basque (navarro-labourdin littéraire). Bayonne: Librairie ‘Le Livre’.Google Scholar
Langdon, Margaret
1970 A grammar of Diegueño. The Mesa Grande Dialect. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
1971 Sound-symbolism in Yuman languages. In Jesse Sawyer (ed.), Studies in American Indian languages, 149–174. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lo, Lap-Yan, Ho M. Luk & Nigel Thompson
2017 An investigation of sound-symbolism in the context of tactile feeling. The Journal of General Psychology 144(2). 157–67. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lockwood, Gwilym, Mark Dingemanse & Peter Hagoort
2016 Sound-symbolism boosts novel word learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 42(8). 1274–81.Google Scholar
Magnus, Margaret
2001 What’s in a word? Studies in phonosemantics. Trondheim: Norwegian University of Science and Technology.Google Scholar
Mannheim, Bruce
1991 The language of the Inka since the European invasion. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Marchand, Hans
1969 The categories and types of present-day English word-formation: a synchronic-diachronic approach. München: Beck.Google Scholar
Martin, Samuel E.
1962 Phonetic symbolism in Korean. In Nicholas Poppe (ed.), American studies in Altaic linguistics, 177–89. Bloomington: Indiana University Publications.Google Scholar
McCune, Keith M.
1985 The internal structure of Indonesian roots. Jakarta: NUSA.Google Scholar
McGregor, William B.
1990 A functional grammar of Gooniyandi. (Studies in Language: Companion Series 22). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1996 Sound symbolism in Gooniyandi, a language of Western Australia. WORD 47(3). 339–364. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Merrill, John T. M.
2018 The Historical Origin of Consonant Mutation in the Atlantic Languages. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Moran, Steven & Daniel McCloy
(eds.) 2019 PHOIBLE 2.0. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. Available at: https://​phoible​.org/ (last access 15 July 2020).
Mutz, Karin
2015 Evaluative morphology in a diachronic perspective. In Nicola Grandi & Livia Körtvélyessy (eds.), Edinburgh handbook of evaluative morphology, 142–154. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Neisser, Friedrich K.
1953 Studien zur georgischen Wortbildung. Wiesbaden: Steiner.Google Scholar
Ngo, Mary K., Reeva Misra & Charles Spence
2011 Assessing the shapes and speech sounds that people associate with chocolate samples varying in cocoa content. Food Quality and Preference 221. 567–72. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Johanna
1971 Diminutive consonant symbolism in Western North America. Language 47(4). 826–848. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nuckolls, Janis B.
1999 The Case for Sound Symbolism. Annual Review of Anthropology 281. 225–52. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rießler, Michael
2007 Grammatical borrowing in Kildin Saami. In Yaron Matras & Jeanette Sakel (eds.), Grammatical borrowing in cross-linguistic perspective, 229–244. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Oswalt, Robert L.
1994 Introduction: sound-symbolic processes. In Leanna Hinton, Johanna Nichols & John J. Ohala (eds.), Sound symbolism, 293–306. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, Laura C.
2010a Field notes on Reta. In Gereon A. Kaiping, Owen Edwards & Marian Klamer (eds.), LexiRumah 2.1.2. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Available at: https://​lexirumah​.model​-ling​.eu/ (last access 15 July 2020).
2010b Field notes on Blagar-Bakalang. In Gereon A. Kaiping, Owen Edwards & Marian Klamer (eds.), LexiRumah 2.1.2. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Available at: https://​lexirumah​.model​-ling​.eu/ (last access 15 July 2020).
2010c Field notes on Blagar-Bama. In Gereon A. Kaiping, Owen Edwards & Marian Klamer (eds.), LexiRumah 2.1.2. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Available at: https://​lexirumah​.model​-ling​.eu/ (last access 15 July 2020).
2010d Field notes on Blagar-Kulijahi. In Gereon A. Kaiping, Owen Edwards & Marian Klamer (eds.), LexiRumah 2.1.2. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Available at: https://​lexirumah​.model​-ling​.eu/ (last access 15 July 2020).
2010e Field notes on Blagar-Nule. In Gereon A. Kaiping, Owen Edwards & Marian Klamer (eds.), LexiRumah 2.1.2. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Available at: https://​lexirumah​.model​-ling​.eu/ (last access 15 July 2020).
2010f Field notes on Blagar-Tuntuli. In Gereon A. Kaiping, Owen Edwards & Marian Klamer (eds.), LexiRumah 2.1.2. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Available at: https://​lexirumah​.model​-ling​.eu/ (last access 15 July 2020).
2010g Field notes on Blagar-Warsalelang. In Gereon A. Kaiping, Owen Edwards & Marian Klamer (eds.), LexiRumah 2.1.2. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Available at: https://​lexirumah​.model​-ling​.eu/ (last access 15 July 2020).
Sapir, Edward
1911 Diminutive and augmentative consonantism in Wishram. In Franz Boas (ed.), Handbook of American Indian languages (Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 40, part 1), 638–45. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
1958 [1915] Abnormal types of speech in Nootka. In David G. Mandelbaum (ed.), Selected writings of Edward Sapir in language, culture and personality, 179–196. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Schapper, Antoinette
2017 Introduction. In Antoinette Schapper (ed.), Papuan languages of Timor, Alor and Pantar: Sketch grammars, vol. 21, 1–54. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Shrum, L. J., Tina M. Lowrey, David Luna, Dawn B. Lerman, & Min Liu
2012 Sound symbolism effects across languages: Implications for global brand names. International Journal of Research in Marketing 29(3). 275–279.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael
1994 Relative motivation in denotational and indexical sound symbolism of Wasco-Wishram Chinookan. In Leanna Hinton, Johanna Nichols & John J. Ohala (eds.), Sound symbolism, 40–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sohn, Ho-min
1994 Korean. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
1999 The Korean language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Spence, Charles & Alberto Gallace
2011 Tasting shapes and words. Food Quality and Preference 221. 290–5. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Steinhauer, Hein
2010 Pura when we were younger than today. In Artem Fedorchuk & Svetlana Chlenova (eds.), Studia antropologica. A festschrift in honour of Michael Chlenov, 261–283. Jerusalem: Mosty Kul’tury Gesharim.Google Scholar
Steinhauer, Hein. & Hendrik D. R. Gomang
2016 Kamus Blagar-Indonesia-Inggris / Blagar-Indonesian-English dictionary. Jakarta: Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia.Google Scholar
Stokhof, Wim A. L.
1975 Preliminary notes on the Alor and Pantar languages. Canberra: Research School of Pacific & Asian Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Stutts, Cassie & Aurora Torres
2012 Taste interacts with sound symbolism. North American Journal of Psychology 14(1). 174–84.Google Scholar
Svantesson, Jan-Olof
2017 Sound-symbolism: The role of word sound in meaning. WIREs Cognitive Science 8(5). 1–12. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tarte, Robert D. & Loren S. Barritt
1971 Phonetic symbolism in adult native speakers of English: Three studies. Language and Speech 14(2). 158–68. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Whissel, Cynthia
1999 Phonosymbolism and the emotional nature of sounds: Evidence of the preferential use of particular phonemes in texts of different emotional tone. Perceptual and Motor Skills 891. 19–48. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2000 Phonoemotional profiling: A description of the emotional flavour of English texts on the basis of the phonemes employed in them. Perceptual and Motor Skills 911. 617–48. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wichmann, Søren, Erik W. Holman & Cecile H. Brown
2010 Sound symbolism in basic vocabulary. Entropy 121. 844–58. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Willemsen, Jeroen
2016 Field notes on Reta. In Gereon A. Kaiping, Owen Edwards & Marian Klamer (eds.), LexiRumah 2.1.2. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Available at: https://​lexirumah​.model​-ling​.eu/ (last access 15 July 2020).
2018 Field notes on Reta-Hula. In Gereon A. Kaiping, Owen Edwards & Marian Klamer (eds.), LexiRumah 2.1.2. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Available at: https://​lexirumah​.model​-ling​.eu/ (last access 15 July 2020).
In press. Reta. To appear in Antoinette Schapper ed. The Papuan languages of Timor, Alor and Pantar: Sketch grammars vol. 31 Berlin De Gruyter Mouton
Submitted. The sloped world(s) of the Reta language: Grammaticalised expressions of elevation on a micro, meso and macro level. In Carsten Levisen & Susana Fernández eds. Language and popular geopolitics Special issue Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics 4
Yu Cho, Young-mee
2006 Sound symbolism in Korean. In Ho-min Sohn (ed.), Korean language in culture and society, 64–73. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

No author info given
2020. Erreseina. Advances in Proto-Basque Reconstruction with Evidence for the Proto-Indo- uropean-Euskarian Hypothesis. Fontes Linguae Vasconum :130 Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 april 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.